City Council Meeting   1/7/2013

Through the trees comes autumn withers serenade Yellow teas, the sweetest music ever played Autumn kisses me, our beautiful sunnies As I pause to recall

I'm called to move over to the meeting of the City Council of January 7th and welcome.

We've been doing Pledge of Allegiance and we are very fortunate today to have Boy Scout Troop number 36 here to help us out.

Good.

Ms. Dikas?

Here.

Ms. Galvin?

Yes, thank you, Mayor Huja.

Comprehensive plan update is available for review.

The recent draft of our comprehensive plan is posted on the city website for review.

This draft encompasses all public comments received to date, including those obtained at the public workshops in October through November 2012.

We encourage you to review the document and provide any additional comments you have online by mail, by phone, though attendance at a public meeting at another means that works for you.

Those without internet access should contact Neighborhood Development Services at 434-970-3182.

The document may be reviewed at www.shawsville.org slash plan Seville.

I have another announcement and it is on behalf of the Adult Learning Center and Susan Erno.

The requirements for the GED are going to be increasing substantially

January 2014.

The important information for anybody that's been in process of taking the five exams to complete their GED is that if they do not complete all of those series of tests before next year at this time, it will not count.

The fees will almost double from what they are today, and it is a much more difficult exam.

So we on council urge everyone to please get in touch with Ms. Urno at the Adult Learning Center.

I don't have the contact information.

Perhaps we can go through the city clerk of council, Ms. Barfield, to see if there's more information that you can get from that.

And it is extremely, extremely important that this matter be taken seriously because it's a fundamental step

and any sort of job-track growth journey that any individual will take, moving themselves out of poverty especially.

And I think that's all I have to say at this point.

I have three announcements.

Two are related to the Martin Luther King holiday.

The first is that City Hall will be closed.

There'll be a long weekend.

It'll be closed Friday, January 18th.

because the Lee Jackson Day is a state holiday and it will be closed on Monday, January 21st in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

And also, well actually let me finish that.

All other services will operate normally so they'll still, I assume that means garbage service and things like that will still happen.

But due to City Hall's closure on January 21st, the next council meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 22nd.

So if you want to go to the presidential inauguration, you won't miss our meeting.

Also on the 13th of January at Mount Zion First African Baptist Church there will be a community celebration for Martin Luther King.

There will be a mass choir singing in which I have been singing for I think 16 or 17 years and this year I'm being joined by another counselor, Ms. Galvin will also be singing.

She's singing Alto, so it's really fun.

It's a wonderful community gathering.

There's always good speeches and awards and good music, and it's just a really good thing to come to.

So 5 o'clock on Sunday the 13th.

I urge everyone to come.

Then also the Our Town, Charlottesville meetings are kicking up again this year, beginning Thursday, January 10th, that's this coming Thursday.

This is where we have city council coming to you, where we have council meetings out in the community every month.

and the first one will be at Tonsler Park in the community center there.

Thursday at 6 o'clock we'll have a free meal and free childcare available so bring your kids hungry and we'll eat together and then we'll have at least an hour to an hour and a half of all public comment.

There may be a little bit of presentation but maybe five minutes and the rest is for us to hear from you.

We'll bring a lot of our department heads with us

so that often problems can be dealt with on the spot and also so that all of the department heads and the counselors can really get a sense of what the issues are in each neighborhood.

So this is for the neighborhood of Fifeville and Starr Hill particularly and we will be moving around the city all year.

Oh, if you want more information, 970-3333.

I have a couple of announcements regarding appointments to boards and commissions, actually two separate motions.

Second?

I'll take it.

Yes, I'd like to announce, I think my mic is like really loud, Christmas tree collection.

The city will begin collecting a curbside collection for your Christmas tree as long as it's a natural Christmas tree.

on January 14th until January 18th.

So it's a pretty small window.

It's just that one week.

Trees must be at the curb no later than 7 a.m. on January 14th to be collected sometime that week.

Trees, you should take your lights off of them and your tinsel and your tree stands.

Just the tree.

After collection the trees will be taken to Darden Tow Park and turned into mulch and that free mulch from the recycled trees will be available starting on February 1st at Darden Tow Park.

That's the only announcement I have other than it's Jefferson School Open House.

Can I announce that?

I didn't know if you were planning on it.

The Jefferson School City Center is opening and the grand opening, it's actually all this month, some have already opened their doors, but January 19th, Saturday, January 19th, there will be an open house

I apologize.

I believe it's from 12 to 2, but double check that.

It's a really exciting building.

It's beautiful.

It's just been renovated.

It's got lots of really valuable tenants in it, including the African American Heritage Center as one anchor.

And on the opposite side of the building, the Carver Recreation Center will be reopening.

So come Saturday, January 19th, 10 to 1.

I'm pleased to announce that Charlotte Solaria Transit Operations Center has been awarded LEED Gold Certification from the U.S. Green Council.

The LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and it has five different areas of consideration.

Sustainable site, water saving, energy efficiency, material selection, indoor environmental quality.

Our project, which has been received a goal

This is the third building in the city of Charlottesville that has been certified by LEED.

Just to give you some examples of some things this building does which helps the project.

There is a 35% energy reduction and there is a geothermal heating and cooling.

There is a natural ventilation, washing of buses with harvested water from the roof,

Water conservation fixtures save 17,500 gallons of water annually.

93% of all construction waste was diverted from land fall.

Wall insulation used 100% recycled discarded blow jeans.

Extensive use of regent materials.

So it is really a special honor and it reflects the city of Charlottesville green philosophy and environmental stewardship.

I want to invite Scott Hendricks for this award.

Let me say this.

This is the only part of the council but also the staff who has worked very hard in this effort and we appreciate that.

Here are some handouts on the facility.

Thank you.

It's a pleasure to work on a project like this for a council and an executive staff who recognizes the benefits of lead construction.

Thank you.

Are there any more announcements?

Okay.

Next topic on this agenda item is Mayors of our Republic.

John Hayden.

Please limit yourself to three minutes.

John Hayden, Westwood Road.

Regarding the proposed Human Rights Commission, frankly as a taxpayer I'm insulted.

As a taxpayer in this town I'm required to pay taxes, a great deal of which goes to paying for housing in the various complexes

around the city predominantly for minorities.

Not only are my taxes used for free rent, free electricity, heat, water and sewer, along with that

There are a whole host of other social programs.

I don't necessarily expect to thank you for the money I provide for these programs, but I do resent being called a racist in spite of what I do.

This is exactly what you're calling the taxpayers who think this is a solution in search of a problem and a bad idea.

There is no chapter of the KKK located here.

There's no rampant discrimination by citizens and businesses here.

We got rid of the colored water fountains 50 years ago.

Before you vote to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for another social agenda program that is not needed, you need to provide examples of verified discrimination, not just rhetoric.

You cannot have an honest discussion about race without having an honest discussion about personal responsibility.

No one wants to have that discussion and when it's brought up I'm called an interloper among other things.

I went to several of the meetings and heard nothing that couldn't be written off to personal conduct.

Then when caught, the race card is played.

I've talked to a few of the members of the committee and they seem to be decent people with honorable intentions.

If you want to have an honest discussion about race, it needs to be a two-way conversation.

I'm tired of being lectured to.

How, for example, will landlords who decide not to rent to a minority because maybe they have bad credit or other reasons have to defend themselves against the full force and resources of the city

because this person decides to file a complaint.

Will that landlord be answerable to some type of commission like a court of law?

I envision landlords now requiring a substantial application fee to cover the cost of checking people's backgrounds.

How does a landlord or employer prove they didn't commit a crime?

This office would go out of its way to justify its existence by finding problems where there are none and dragging landlords and employers through the system at their own expense.

If I were a landlord or employer and dragged through the system only to be found not guilty, the first thing I would do is sue the city.

Justify the needs and expenses of this position and show us complaints and cases and statistics, not just rhetoric.

I'm Jim Snead.

I'm representing First Respiratory Church on Park Street.

And the issue has to do with the storm water utility.

And it's just to state our position from the property management committee and through the session that we think because of the constitutional issues of taxation of a nonprofit, we question whether or not a utility is not just a surrogate for that, but rather than tax dollars, it's taxpayers' dollars.

and would constitute a slippery slope of avoiding taxes by a church, recognizing that only 3% of the impervious surface in the city is from churches and nonprofits and feeling that if historically we paid for infrastructure with tax dollars, I think it's more appropriate to charge it as a property tax.

I'll mention as an aside that First Presbyterian Church has property that is not solely used for church use and we are paying property taxes on that.

We would gladly pay our fair share on the stormwater as well.

Hello City Council members, my name is Michael Brown.

Before I speak I want to discuss the issue about the panhandling ordinance.

Let me just show you all my signs in which I hold up every day.

And I'm going to show the audience too as well.

You know, I've been homeless for about

Here and a half, two years.

My issues with this panhandle ordinance is a lot of the less fortunate feel as though it is against, you know, a violation against our constitutional rights.

And if it is starting to be discussed or passed, we just mainly want it to be fair, you know.

We have a lot of issues.

Some of us,

fighting for Social Security income, which myself is as well.

And I also suffered a reconstruction of ACL injury.

And, you know, the resources we have in place, they're doing their part, you know, especially like patch them in the Haven and places like that.

But it's only so much they can do, you know, and even by us having to go through our trials every day, it's like, you know, we still have to humble ourselves for me.

See people looking at us and discuss whether it be kids walking with parents.

It's maybe because they don't understand.

And yet, it's like, I'm not pointing the finger at no one, but everybody has to take responsibility for what they did.

Me myself, I take responsibility for it.

you know myself being put in this position of being less fortunate but at the same time you know I've done a lot in order to overcome you know certain stresses dealing with depression and things like that but you know if anybody was to blame themselves the city had to blame themselves, the churches, our neighbors, the citizens, everybody

You know, my main thing is, you know, I'm tired of being sick and tired.

I'm tired of being in this position.

But yet, you know, I came to terms with the, you know, I just, you know, live and let everybody live and just try to, you know, come up from where I'm at.

You know, maybe, you know, we need to come up with a community to oversee the resources that's already in place or I don't know, you know, I'm just one voice speaking for those who, you know,

Maybe not able to attend these meetings or just intimidated because of the fact they know how it may turn out.

And I just want to, even though it's not on the agenda, I just want to bring it up again that, you know, you know, we all

Even by being less fortunate, we all still have feelings.

We have emotions that we go through.

And I have to humble myself sometimes, regardless of whatever I go through.

You know, when I'm out here holding my signs up, I have to, you know, put that to the side because, you know, maybe this is a cry for help.

but even with it being a cry out for help.

We are more or less judged by each other.

The homeless is judging each other whether it be musicians judging us because they feel that they have certain ownership to certain spots around town or whatever the case is.

And yet I just want everything to be fair.

I want it to be done and over with and help each other out.

It's like this is a world class city but yet

You know, where it is to help come in at.

Thank you, sir.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, City Council.

My name is Kenneth Jackson.

I'm of Rice, Virginia.

I stand before you again, and I've just handed a piece of paper up there.

I may not have enough for all of you.

Please forgive me for that.

But I come before you for DeShad Smith.

As you can see, his grandmother and his father are not here because they are a little under the weather.

The stress is really getting to the whole family.

But I think what gets to us most is this joke that I keep hearing about Charlottesville, my city, the city my family was born and raised in, a world-class city.

and I heard a gentleman up here who was just as far off from the truth as we possibly can be.

There is still discrimination.

It's alive and well.

Just because you don't see it, don't say it's not there.

When I hear about gay bashings, when I hear about people

There are five names on here of unsolved murders.

James Jenkins, there's a gentleman who was a cook at the white spot who got hit in the head and killed.

Tobin Deon Ross, Morgan Harrington, Faye Tinsley.

Four of those are blacks.

Three missing persons, Quinn Woodfolk, DeShad Sage Smith, and another young gentleman we found out went missing the same time as DeShad.

If it's not discrimination, we've got some serious issues.

Because to me, and to many of us, it looks like that if you're black, gay, poor, or just not one of the in-crowd, who's supposed to frequent downtown, we don't count.

I watch this city as neighborhoods got torn apart, and mainly minority neighborhoods.

and contrary to people's popular belief, we aren't all on welfare or social programs.

Where we get this from is beyond me.

Actually we got it from a little thing called the national per capita rate.

But when you take that per capita rate away and you do actual numbers, whites are the majority on welfare.

Whites are the majority of race.

Not until you lump us all together do we become a majority.

I'm talking about the minorities, your Asians, your Hispanics.

That's when we become a majority, but not until then, so let's get those facts straight.

When it comes to human rights, yes, the Human Rights Task Force did fall on its sword because it fell short.

When you cannot sit there and take care of the rights of everyone,

We're talking about King Holiday.

How can you have a holiday and you don't even really know the meaning of the King Dream?

Which was for everybody.

Man, woman, child, black, white, Latino.

Everyone to come together and be treated as equal.

I kind of got off my little subject here, but it's not a little subject because we have not heard from you.

as a city manager, as the mayor, as city council.

We have not heard from you when it comes to things like this.

We have missing people.

We haven't heard from the chief of police, his own family.

The boy's father cannot get an answer.

Do you not care?

Are you hoping this will go away so we can save and get another award?

Is this city all about awards and making ourselves look good?

Are we really about community?

Because in my community and the community I grew up in, if one hurts, we all hurt.

We never thought about throwing homeless off the mall.

We thought about reaching out and helping them.

That's what made Charlottesville great.

That's what built Charlottesville.

From Cole Hendricks on up.

I remember these people.

They built this city.

They helped with us.

They helped build this city.

But it was always because we were a community.

I ask y'all don't let this just die.

Don't just let this fade because we will not.

We will be here every week.

We will protest.

We will do whatever we have to do.

But you need to assure the citizens of this city that you're taking this serious because I can assure you they will be.

Hi y'all, my name is James Prichard.

I'm here tonight to speak on the Panhandle situation.

I hear every day downtown about how dangerous it is.

Things have become...

Unfortunately, I have been pain landing by holding a sign for almost two years.

I can't find a job.

The sign I hold is my only source of income.

Without my sign, my survival would cease to exist.

I'm a survivor, and that's what I've been my whole life.

But there's only so few things someone can do.

If you stop the panhandling, there are two big problems downtown, and one of them is the already against the law, aggressive panhandling.

And the other is people judging all of us.

But how can they judge me if they have never been in my situation?

No, I'm not proud of what I do, but it has helped me survive the past two years.

Yes, I've had my share of trouble with the law,

but I have been trying to do right for two years, for the past two years.

People say all the time that downtown is bad.

Well my question to you is how bad do you think it's going to get if this law gets passed?

So sorry to say but it's going to get worse.

The biggest issue is I can't find a job.

If I could, I sure wouldn't be holding a sign.

So please think about what I have said tonight.

Hi, Nick Whisperway, first time here, kind of learning experience.

And I wanted to speak on two issues.

One was a public safety issue, somewhat related to Mr. Jackson's comments, and another one tending towards what Mr. Brown and Mr. Pritchett spoke regarding the panhandling issue.

Last Friday night, my wife and I were just falling asleep.

started by the sound of smashing glass in my house.

Friday after Christmas, sure, there was, you know, ample notice of possible break-ins.

I just never expected that to be the case in Charlottesville, Virginia.

My wife and I relocated here.

We were fortunate enough to be able to choose where we could live once we got married and we decided on Charlottesville thinking it was

Safe place, good place to raise kids.

I went to UVA.

I have an aunt and uncle who've lived here since the mid-'80s.

Strong ties.

And I enjoy that this is a real community full of diverse interests, diverse opinions, and diverse economic racial status.

To me, it's a real city.

It's not Disneyland.

And it's not supposed to be.

But that said...

This incident which happened to me while I was home in my own house is very unsettling.

And I don't know that I would be here if it was just an isolated incident, but the fact of the matter is the incidences anecdotally in the neighborhood are on the rise.

Which neighborhood?

I live at Northwood Avenue, so it's the north downtown neighborhood.

So my neighbor down the alleyway, who you probably know pretty well, Collette Hall, also had her home broken into about three months ago.

Other neighbors have called me asking if I borrowed a chainsaw.

Their chainsaw is missing, a lawnmower missing, things like that.

You know, other than the unsettling fact that someone tried to break into my house by breaking a window right near the deadbolt of a door, you know, I'm not so worried that they didn't get in, but I'm unsettled by the fact that now I have to put in an alarm system to appease my wife, make her feel safe, because she enjoys living in downtown Charlottesville.

She enjoys walking to work, walking to the mall.

It was her

compromised between my rural and her New York City marriage.

So that said, I also would like to speak regarding Mr. Brown, Mr. Pritchett's comments on the panhandling.

I, for one, walk the mall alone with my son.

I do not have a problem with people panhandling per se.

I do not have a problem with the signs that they have.

However, I'd appreciate a few more minutes if you would allow.

All right.

But I want to say that just because I don't feel unsafe doesn't mean that other people don't.

And if they feel unsafe and they take the time to write a 35, 36-page report and provide solutions, not just complain with providing solutions,

I think that warrants a second look.

Good evening.

My name is Nancy Carpenter and I reside in the Charlottesville area.

I'm kind of conflicted on what I wanted to comment about.

I, too, have tried to have some discourse.

It sounds kind of funny, but I'll share this.

I decided to join a Facebook page called Charlottesville Downtown Reclamation Project because I was interested in trying to see what kind of conversations they were having and solutions they wanted to some of the problems that particular group

noticed.

And of course I have some differing opinions I think from that group a little bit.

And trying to have a conversation and nine times out of ten it was a little bit rancorous.

I was trying to be civil, ask questions, get information, get educated, post some articles that had some ideas that I thought might be important perhaps for them to consider.

But apparently I didn't

I wasn't of the same mindset of that and I got kicked off the page.

So it's kind of hard to have even a social media conversation with some people who are just apparently so dead set against civil discourse that they're willing to entertain someone that

who doesn't know a whole lot of what they're coming from and wants to find out.

But that being said, the other time that I was here I was talking about affordable rental units and subsequent to being here I read an article that had a really good question that I couldn't answer and that was how does someone save enough money to purchase a house if they can't afford the rent of where they're living at or trying to live?

and I think that the business community and local community and local government want to market Charlottesville as a world-class city.

There's a lot here that it offers, but let's accomplish that by having enough housing options so that all members of the population, all parts of the population, whether you're a student, whether you're low income, high income, middle income, elderly,

middle-aged with children without children that you all have an affordable safe appealing place to live in this city and that's whether home ownership is your option or whether it's rental opportunities and on page 58 of the chapter on housing from the current the city's current comprehensive plan it does state that quote opportunities for renters must also be provided as there will be residents for whom ownership is not presently an option

due to a financial situation or a lack of desire to purchase a home.

And also in that same report under goal three, which is offering a range of housing options, there's objective C that's regarding financial and programmatic supports.

There's a strategy that says expand the range of transitional and supportive housing

So I'm just here tonight urging the council to continue to make a reality

of public policies, goals, objectives and strategies that you have adopted.

Each new development that is built without actual affordable units to me is another missed opportunity in pursuit of world-class city status.

Eric Thomas.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Council members.

I'm here this evening on behalf of the Virginia Cooperative Extension and our Master Gardener program to thank you for your funding and to update you on upcoming events in 2013.

As we do each spring, we'll soon be training 22 new volunteer educators to serve Charlottesville.

These Master Gardener volunteers will participate in 30 different projects that protect our water quality and natural resources, provide lifelong learning opportunities about gardening and horticulture, and promote a healthy lifestyle in our community.

Every year Master Gardener volunteers answer hundreds of gardening calls and emails through our horticulture help desk at the Extension office.

We also take this service into the community at farmers markets and other major events.

This year we have plans to serve the Charlottesville city market to help the public be environmental stewards through gardening, as well as continue our outreach at Meade Park Farmers Market.

We do lots of things.

We teach classes and workshops to children and adults, including at-risk populations.

This year we'll host a spring lecture series on gardening that's open to the public.

We're also starting a new after school gardening program at Jackson Via Elementary School for third and fourth graders and we're really excited about that new project.

In 2013, we'll also reach out to the growing Latino population in Charlottesville and we are ultimately serving over 6,000 people a year through our diverse horticulture education projects.

Thank you again for your funding support.

We look forward to a successful and busy year ahead

And if you have any questions, the I and the Extension Office are always available to talk with you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor Huja and other members of City Council.

There have been several segues here tonight, Mr. Jackson and Mr. Whisperway about what I'm going to speak about.

I'm a resident of 724 Northwood Avenue which is across the street from the Whisperways and Mr. Whisperways is a very gentle soul and I admire him for that.

If I was in my house with my wife and had two small children and heard someone breaking in, I would be far more irate than he has displayed to you.

and public safety I think is an important issue facing this community right now and others have addressed other aspects of public safety.

But I was reminded when I came down the street to come into this building that Mr. Huja will remember this, many years ago I sat up here as a member of city council and I attended many work sessions down here in city hall

None of these doors were locked.

I'm very happy to see one of Charlottesville's finest back here.

But we didn't have one of Charlottesville's finest back here in this room when we were meeting.

And people would wander in and sit for a while and leave and they'd come in and they'd go and leave and we would all leave happily and walk down the street without any concern.

Now what has changed?

I don't think that we're being under fear of attack from somebody in, you name the state, XYZ, ABCC, somewhere a thousand miles from here.

I don't think we're under fear of attack from that person.

I think we've got the public safety problem right here over something that's happening that is within our control.

Mr.

Whisper is correct that our neighborhood seems to be having an increased incidence of these kinds of events and I don't see how you can

turn a blind eye to that.

It may be other places in the city too, but I don't see you can turn a blind eye to the public safety issues.

It was ranked number three in the survey, I understand, that you all send out with the utility boards as being of concern to citizens, but I don't think it gets anywhere near number three funding of what the city has to do.

Of course it's silly to talk about not doing capital improvements, but why spend money on capital improvements, education or anything else if people are not going to be safe and feel safe enjoying them and be safe enjoying them?

The pyramid is upside down.

I'm simply going to close by saying how would you individuals feel if you were in a residence with a spouse and two small children and somebody broke in.

We can't

There are other instances of, Mr. Jackson's address, he's left, but there are other instances of unsafe activity around here and that's simply not, it's not getting the attention that it deserves and the fault that it deserves to solve these problems.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else in the audience who would like to speak on any topic?

My name is Robert Smith and I live in Belmont.

I'm glad I got an opportunity to speak tonight.

I want to second what John Hayden said earlier on and I'm concerned about every week I talk to people who've been attacked by gangs of kids or groups or individuals on the streets later on in the evening right very close into downtown

and I wanted to comment on a number, and I don't think it's getting the attention it warrants.

I think a few years ago we had police officers on bike patrol on a regular basis and somebody, I think it was, I'm going to argue it was a political decision to discontinue police patrols downtown in the downtown area.

and I attribute this to 30 years of Democratic Party control of this city which I'm put to the Democrats and their left and liberal allies that you've had it your way for a long time and the place is not a safe place to live.

and we had bike patrols that dealt with most of the problems on the mall and police officers.

Most of us knew the names of the officers and for various reasons they were transferred and I think for myself

I'm aware, I've been going myself to Soup Kitchen Salvation Army for years and I know a lot of the people that show up are panhandling on the mall and I also know that there's a problem with the rhetoric or the labels people use that a lot of people who are panhandling are not homeless.

They have places to live.

In some cases, subsidized.

There are people panhandling on them all regularly who get regular checks.

A lot of people have criminal records.

I have very low regard for most of the people panhandling.

I'll be out front about it, okay?

Not everybody.

And I want to butt quite a few people.

Another issue I think has been smothered, covered up, and people aren't reporting is, from what I can tell, a lot of people panhandling

who were also pimping or doing, pushing drugs are intimidating, threatening musicians who play on the wall and getting away with it, okay?

So there's a lot of what, it's gang action and it's on your watch, all of you.

Everybody here that's standing here in front of me.

I can't tell you how often

I hear somebody that I talk to.

I hang out in the bars.

I don't drink anymore.

I haven't drunk in nearly 30 years.

But people have told me how they've been attacked on Water Street or Fourth Street.

And recently.

And it's a lot of people.

It all adds up.

And most of the violence, quite frankly,

is black on white people that I'm talking about.

Straight up.

No, I'm not kidding.

I think your time is up, sir.

Sir?

Sir?

Well, it's a case of the emperor's new clothes, my dear.

And one more thing.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

My name is Bailey Hampton.

I live at 505 Elliott.

I came tonight and I wasn't really planning on speaking, but I'm so angry right now that I felt like I had to.

I'm sick of hearing, like, blatantly racist things be said, and that's straight up racist.

I would like to say that

I frequent the downtown mall a lot and if it weren't for the homeless population in this town I wouldn't feel safe being downtown.

I was robbed at gunpoint at 4th and Water less than a month ago and I didn't report it because I don't want more brown men walking down the street to be harassed by the police.

I know the reality of what this town is and the underlying liberal racism that exists here.

From Vinegar Hill, which happened 40 years ago, to how it exists day to day, every single day with comments like that.

And I just want to say that, I'm sorry I'm not speaking very well right now, but

I think that what's going to happen if the downtown mall improvements or whatever you want to call them to gloss it over to make it comfortable for people, I think what it does is it caters to people that have money over people that don't.

and I just think that that's totally uncalled for and not fair and like these people have a right to exist and if you do away with the ability for people to sit or lay on the mall as is one of the provisions and what you guys were proposing in that that not only affects the homeless population but anybody else you said yourself that you like to sit on the mall and use your laptop and that's why you're against it

but think about the people that don't have another place to go to do that.

I am like

This close to being homeless right now, I'm underemployed.

I have a job, but like I'm not working as much as I need to to be able to pay my rent.

And it's through no fault of my own.

I've been putting out applications every single day, like at least eight resumes a day going out.

And I've been doing that for over a month and a half and I'm still having a hard time finding work and I'm highly employable.

So.

You have to take into consideration the places of privilege that you all come from and recognize where you would be if you didn't have the privilege that you have.

And I don't know what else to say, but I don't know if I can live in Charlottesville very much longer if it's going to continue to be this way.

One more opportunity for somebody to speak if they want to speak.

If not, we'll close this part of the agenda.

Next item is council responses to the public comments.

I'll start.

Thank you all for coming.

It was absolutely fascinating as it often is.

Really appreciate everybody's perspective because clearly I think you can see that everybody's coming from a different perspective.

And we all need to hear each other's.

I'm just going to make one comment on a relatively positive note here.

Thank you for coming from Extension.

I always appreciate the work that you do.

I talked a lot about Virginia Master Naturalist, also Virginia Master

Master Gardeners, Virginia Master Naturalist is also a Virginia Cooperative Extension program that is having a training coming up and there is an information session actually at Mount Zion First African Baptist Church on January 14th at 7 p.m. and I encourage you really want to get

I guess I'd like to address a little bit about the law and order questions that we had this evening.

To Mr. Wisquoy and Mr. Gracie, are you both still here?

It's a horrifying feeling to have somebody trying to come into your house and I'm sorry that happened and I hope that

the police are able to find out who's doing this in your neighborhood.

In my neighborhood, which is not north downtown, we had a rash of burglaries this summer and it was frightening.

A lot of people, especially older women who were home when the burglars came and it was kind of scary.

And we were able to

through I think enough people paying attention and watching out for each other eventually the folks who were doing it were identified.

I don't know that it has anything to do with the north downtown particularly.

I think this does happen in neighborhoods and often is either kids in the neighborhood or somebody in the neighborhood who's

doing criminal activity and needing to fund that, but I do hope that that gets solved.

I would be interested, and we do get reports periodically, and you can actually go on the website of the city to the police department and see kind of where crimes are happening, and I think that my assumption is that you'll find that this is not

a real crime wave in the city or particularly targeted at North Downtown but I know that it's happening in North Downtown now and I'm sorry that it is.

I'm sorry, exactly and I think that that does happen by neighborhood.

But I also just wanted to address some concerns about the two gentlemen who came here who do panhandle on the mall that we are not talking about eliminating panhandling on the mall.

I don't want to, but even if we wanted to, we wouldn't be able to.

It is something that is protected by our US Constitution, for which I am grateful.

There are some things that I think you should stay vigilant about that we are going to be considering, and we appreciate hearing from you about that.

Let's see, there was one other thing I wanted to mention.

We'll talk about the storm water fee later.

Yes, we've been hearing from both sides of the issue of the downtown mall tonight and I personally do think that it is enough of an issue for enough of our citizens that we do need to take it extremely seriously and I know that

There was a report that was done and I also know that there's been a lot of good exchanges between people that have written that report as well as, say for example, the director of The Haven.

And I am increasingly feeling that it would be valuable for us to have a work session on this again.

We can talk about it further but I think it's time for us to get

another round of input from the public as well as get some examples of how other communities have looked at this in a very fair and even way.

Mr. Jones has provided us with a proposal.

It still is something that I've heard from the community that they would really very much like to have a very well-crafted, constructed work session.

I'm willing to work on that.

So I

Mr. Mayor and Mr. Huja and the Council, if we want to think about that at another later date.

I don't think this issue is going to go away.

And with regards to Mr. Jaunce, which was it?

Mr. Jackson's Unsolved and Missing Crimes.

Is there a way that we could get data from the police chief that gives us the full list of people that are missing and the full list of people that are unsolved?

And look at it along racial groups and ethnic groups.

just so that we can see really what the pattern is.

Because this clearly was a very small list and it was very biased, but I would like to get that information.

Not any, certainly no names, but just numbers and demographics if you will.

And I think that was really the main things for me tonight.

May I just respond to one of the things that Councilor Galvin said?

Just, you know, rather than add it to an agenda for a future meeting to just respond, I just wanted to respond directly to the call for a work session.

I feel, I guess, to me, work sessions are things we come together to work on things that aren't getting attention or that need more direction from Council.

And I feel like this is something that we have given ample direction

to staff and I think we have staff who are working on it.

I think that we, you know, the North Downtown Neighborhood Association is certainly one of our better represented at these meetings.

I think we do hear from them and read the report.

Let me indicate that we are not here to discuss work sessions, but let us talk about the response to the comments that have been made today.

I'm going to start by talking about work sessions.

Just to say that I agree with Ms. Galvin.

I think there continues to be a lot of discussion and I think the key is going to be how it's structured.

So it's not one of our traditional work sessions where we get reports and have our own little dialogue.

I think it needs to be a broader community conversation and I think if it's structured well, it can really help bring people together.

It's actually, you didn't see it tonight, you didn't hear it tonight, but in talking to various parties, I find that a lot of people are actually in agreement on some core principles, you know, the fact that

We can't have women feeling harassed and threatened when they're going downtown.

Pretty much everybody agrees with that.

There are other core principles that we want to treat people with dignity.

We want to treat people with respect.

I think if we work from our core principles, we'll find that there's some positive opportunities here.

I wanted to thank Bailey for your comments tonight and sort of naming what was happening because even though I don't always agree, we don't always see eye to eye,

You spoke from your heart tonight and I really appreciated what you had to say because it's important when things are said in a way that casts aspersions on people along lines of race.

I think it needs to be called out and so I appreciate you calling that out.

Ms. Carpenter,

I continue to appreciate the fact that you bring forward the importance of investing in affordable rental housing for local residents.

We've done a lot in the last 5, 6, 7 years, but unfortunately

Most of what we've done in terms, and we've invested millions of dollars in it, but unfortunately most of what we've done has been simply to preserve what we have now and to keep it in decent conditions.

So like Dogwood Housing, which was our first biggest investment from our housing fund, didn't add a single new unit of affordable rental housing, but it kept 70 units from flipping and becoming market housing.

Vernita Court, Monticello Vista,

Just to let council know that the issue of downtown workstation has not disappeared the staff is discussing it and we'll have a chance to talk about it a little later.

Later in the week.

Dede Smith?

I would actually like to, we'll talk about housing later, but we have spent actually more money, according to these lists, to add housing than to... You'll have a chance to talk about that also later in the agenda.

Let me get to next item in the agenda, consent agenda.

Item A minutes for December 17th.

Item B, an appropriation reimbursement for expenses related to His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama's visit to the city, $4,538.13, second of two readings.

Item C, an appropriation reimbursement for attendance to the International Code Conference, $1,927.01, first of two readings.

Item D, an appropriation reimbursement to City for American Planning Association Web Training Sessions, $960, first of two readings.

Item E, an appropriation Bank on Greater Charlottesville funding from the Coalition of Economic Opportunity, Care of the Legal Aid Justice Center, $20,500, first of two readings.

Item F, a resolution 715 Now Street Infill Special Use Permit Amendment, first of one reading.

Item G, a resolution, transfer of funds for stormwater camera system, $38,508, first of one reading.

Item H, a resolution, transfer of capital budget funds, construction of a stormwater retrofit project in Azalea Park, $100,000, first of one reading.

Item I, a resolution, authorization for Region 10 to apply for line of credit, first of one reading.

Item J, an ordinance, amendment to definition of energy efficient buildings, second of two readings.

Is there anybody in the council who would like to remove any items from the agenda?

Any discussion?

If not, we'll move.

Thank you.

Next item is a report which I'll be presenting to you called Mayor's State of the City Address.

can you hear me

First of all I want to share with the citizens who are listening as well as in the audience here.

I decided that maybe we have to have some annual report in the state of the city.

and it is a two-part presentation.

The first part relates to what we have done in 2012 and second relates to what could happen in 2013.

And all these things which have happened have not happened because of me personally.

This is because of a joint effort by the members of the planning committee, city council, as well as the city staff.

So it is an effort, a community-wide effort on this, many things have happened.

But I thought it would be useful to review what the year has been.

As many cities grow, I think Charlottesville is a great place to live, work and enjoy.

There's a highly recognized community in many ways.

Some of them are in the most walkable cities, most I don't contribute anything to 10 beer cities.

I don't contribute anything to that one, I must say.

We have signed financial basis, temporary rating, which is very few cities have in this country.

As you will note, there is a population of cities that is $44,000, 44,000 people.

It is about 10% increase in the last three or four years.

And that is important, which shows that we are growing now and things are improving.

There are more people, more diverse people in our community.

and you can see the five beautiful people on this picture and they make an interesting crew.

We started the year 2012 with two new kinds of people, Kathy Galvin and Dede Smith.

Two good additions to our body.

Also, I am Kristin's selected mayor and vice-mayor.

As you know, in 2000 years there was no tax rate increases despite no impressions.

There is a high quality of services in Charlottesville which we, our citizens, enjoy.

We also had a fairly exciting year.

We had visitors, we had President Obama come visit with us, and Delilah and Emma also come visit with us.

And it brought to our city a lot of excitement.

We also have a visit from the Ambassador from India and many other delegations.

We have delegations from all sister cities, from Persia,

Puleba and Bessuson in Italy, Ghana and France.

We also had two delegations, one from Mongolia and one from Afghanistan.

I didn't realize that when I became mayor I would become a diplomat, but it was an interesting role, an interesting front to enjoy these meeting new people.

What I'll do is I'll raise my presentation based on cities

Vision, there are nine vision statements and I'd like to go by that outline and you can read it all yourself when I move to first one, the economic sustainability.

This year in 2012, targeted industry study was completed.

A strategic investment area was designated, which will produce fruits in coming years.

Strategic Action Team was formed to address job creation and poverty.

The focus of the Council has been in 2012 is to see how we can create jobs and deal with issues of poverty.

We are still a Bank Home Coordinator who was hired to provide financial resources to people who do not get otherwise.

We also have a new Section 3 policy to make sure that all people are able to take part in economic activities.

There were some new major developments in Charlottesville in 2012.

Siri approved Plaza on West Main Street and Marriott Hotel on West Main Street.

Jefferson's school and center was always complete.

We had a groundbreaking CFA Institute on all of the parts of the Jefferson Hospital site, which can produce 450 new jobs for our citizens.

We did study in Market District to see how we can do in the south part of the city.

We also have a marketing plan for visitors in our community.

As we've just been discussing the issue of downtown mall, the council adopted mall ambassadors which we think will be a great positive asset to downtown visitors.

We also supported Community Investment Collaborative to provide loans for small businesses.

We have increased support for re-entry people who are coming out of jail to provide opportunities for employment.

We also had more job fairs and soft skill training programs.

There are many different programs which are not listed here, but this gives you a flair of economic activities which you have been involved in in 2012.

Next vision relates to lifelong learning.

and more city schools.

We have great city schools in our community.

As you know, the graduation rate has gone up, dropout rate has gone down, and test scores have gone up.

They can go even more, but it doesn't move in the right direction.

City Council has also established a youth council to involve young people in our community.

We also are supporting City of Promise initiative in Central City.

We have housing, city of Memphis strikes in 2012 As you can see the picture of crossings development which is 60 years low income housing development and 30 of those are for homeless and many of the problems we just discussed today and so the city is making some attempts to deal with those concerns

who continue to promote housing rehabilitation and create construction of new affordable housing on Elliot Avenue.

In last meeting, we discussed block by block program for housing rehabs to promote housing rehabilitation for existing homeowners.

We have a very banner here in our architectural facilities.

As you know, this was 2012's 250th anniversary of city of Charlottesville.

We had a lot of celebrations, and we should be proud of all his heritage.

City supported cultural art planning process, also African American Heritage Center at Jefferson School.

We had a number of festivals which add richness to our community.

Some of them are both film and photograph.

There are at least two dozen festivals going on every year in the city of Charlottesville

Next, Green City, as you know today, the seal represents one of those accomplishments.

Besides that, the city adopted the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Implementation Plan.

So we continue to, we also are restoring Meadow Creek streams.

And it is going to be a very interesting project once it is finished.

We will also be discussing stormwater utilities, idea of stormwater management, which will be in agenda today.

Early in part of the year, city also adopted a 50 year water supply plan so we could have a good quality and quality of water for foreseeable future in our community.

We also are doing in 2012, 250 energy audits to conserve energy.

There is a healthy debate in our community to use granular activated carbon instead of chlorine.

There is again the process of decision making in City Council and what our supervisor did based on the input from the community.

In this last year we also purchased a fair amount of open space in Parkland.

Next area is the healthiest city.

City of McIntyre Park master plan with design council was approved.

We are named one of the most walkable cities in America.

We support bike, plane, JPA event to promote bicycle and pedestrian use.

We always continue to support safe routes to school programs and new programs for Tonsil Park and new master plan being developed for Tonsil Park.

Next topic area is connected community.

We did a transit study which hopefully will improve the transit system in our community in coming years.

We also reviewed and updated our bicycle and pedestrian plans.

Finally, the military parkway is under construction.

Expansion of trains in the city has been happening.

Next area is community of mutual respect.

We had a very successful dialogue on race and we can do more.

We had numerous events that will highlight our cultural diversity.

We established the Human Rights Task Force and the recommendations we will be considering in coming months.

We also did a small program called Honorary Street Sign Program to honor so far our citizens.

We have done three of them this year.

Next topic is Smart Citizen Focused Government.

We established a page design task force to improve the quality of design, quality of infrastructure.

And I think this task force will help us in that way.

The city council also appointed a touring advisory board to deal with those issues.

We celebrated a number of activities.

The city also increased the low wage

New Forest Station is under construction.

This gives you some idea of what has happened in the year 2012.

So you can see we have been doing all things which have improved our community.

Yes, I will take another minute or two to talk to you about some future possibilities.

Next year, in this coming year, 2013, we'll be adopting our comprehensive plan update, which will guide us for the future.

We'll be working, hopefully, on corridor improvements, West Main, Cherry and Preston.

We'll also be working on workforce development programs.

We're also, hopefully, to get greater track to retain skilled jobs in our community, because there are people in this community who need skilled jobs.

We are still working on improved race relations and we are hoping to have a more improved transit system.

We will also have a new storm water utility in coming year.

We also hope to improve school labs, science labs and schools so the students get better opportunities.

We'll also have Ms. Szakos and us starting all meetings again to visit to our citizens and listen to their concerns so we can deal with those concerns.

We'll be hopefully doing a McIntyre landscape plan in the coming year.

A new development in coal tower site needs to be redeveloped and we hope that a landmark hotel renovation will start happening.

We are expecting that we will be designing and starting construction of Belmont Bridge in the coming year.

We also want to have a comprehensive economic action plan to improve our jobs and economy.

We will roll out of performance measurement program and last but not least strategic investment area plan.

You can see that we have a variety of things that you have done in 2012 and we are hoping to do more things in future years.

We will look forward to hearing from citizens to see what else we can be doing in the coming years, what are your concerns, if you heard some of them today.

Next item in the public hearing, a resolution authorizing the lease agreement for 608 Ridge Street.

If you're listening or not.

Sorry.

Sherry Etcherda, please come forward.

As you know, in 2012, the Carver Recreation Center in Jefferson School were under renovation, and that's one of our polling places, so we had to temporarily move our polling place for actually one election in 2011 and all of 2012.

And now that it's done, and I'm very excited about it, we're asking to move our polling place from the Virginia Institute of Autism, which we were temporarily in 2012.

It was wonderful, and they were absolutely wonderful.

but we'd like to go back to Carver Recreation Center.

We've talked with Parks and Recreation obviously have their complete support in that and it's up to council obviously to do an ordinance change and if anybody has anything to say about it but that's all we would like to do.

We are going to have to do a Justice Department submission and

I would be delighted to second it.

I've been so impressed with the work that you all have done to inform people and make sure people had a way to get to the other location and put maps up and I was really concerned that we would have low voter turnout because of this and it wasn't true.

People found it.

I appreciate the work of all the residents of that precinct to find where they had to vote because it's been confusing the last couple of years.

You're home now, so thank you.

First reading?

Okay.

Here's the first reading.

Let's move to the next item.

Authorizing Lees Agreement for 608 Ridge Street.

Good evening.

For the past couple of years, the city has been leasing the property at 608 Ridge Street to the upper two floors to LEAP, our local energy alliance program, and the basement apartment to Heather Higgins.

We had a UVA visiting professor from China there originally, but Heather had moved in and has been with us about a year now.

LEAP has used this space to provide library and resource center for energy efficiency information as well as a place to operate while showcasing the house as an energy efficiency example of how to

to do a retrofit in a historic home.

Given the slow return of the housing market and the continuation of use of this facility as a showcase or model for the city, staff is recommending that we hold the asset and continue to rent both properties.

The basement tenant has indicated

that her continued occupancy is tentative due to some family and job situations, circumstances, and would like to go to month to month.

But in a little bit, we're proposing to allow Ms. Higgins to assign her lease to LEAP, which is willing to assume the lease if she so desires.

However, their rent would then

would increase up to $1,000 from their existing $600, but all other conditions would remain the same.

I have one.

If the tenant downstairs moves out and leaps

starts renting that space.

It would be for office.

We have required them or asked them to keep that front room open, which they have done, to hold community meetings and that sort of thing.

Of course, that is a large space.

I'm not sure how many square feet.

But while they've been there and been really showing the house on our behalf and using it as this resource center, you know, they have grown in staff and they're very cramped in what space they do have.

I mean, when I go there routinely, they're working in the kitchen and that sort of thing.

Any other questions?

I'll open the public hearing.

Anybody who would like to speak on this topic?

The public hearing is closed.

Mr. Mayor, just for clarification, the motion, there are two resolutions in your package, is the motion.

They're identical except for the identity of the last two.

I presume it's for together.

Right, right.

I can move to approve both.

Thank you.

So moved.

So a second.

Any discussion?

If not, I'll ask for all those vote, please.

Thank you.

I'm going to change the agenda slightly if you don't object to it.

I'll put Region 10 community service board update now as the first time after this public hearing.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much Mayor Huja.

I wanted to say this is our third year presenting before the council and I want to thank you for your ongoing support.

I'll give you a quick update on our accomplishments and highlight important legislative issues for the year.

So I want to say on behalf of Region 10,

With our thanks, a couple of things that we've accomplished in the past year include healthy transitions.

The city and the county voted to fund that program and it's now in its second year doing very well helping incarcerated individuals when they're discharged to integrate back into the community.

I want to make you aware of two other grants that we were able to work with the Coalition for Mental Health and Wellness to get and those are the Integrated Care and Coalition grant.

We're really starting to combine physical or medical services along with behavioral health services to reach populations that we haven't been able to reach before.

And so those grants are in their infancy.

They started this past summer.

and they're doing very well.

I also wanted to say thank you to the council for Nunnally House.

The mayor was there at the opening last spring.

I hope you remember that as well as the city manager, Ms. Maurice Jones and

and some other folks were here as well.

You were there, Kristin, Jim Tolbert was there, and Dan Rosenwick was there and you were there.

So the Nunnally House has eight beds there filled.

It's helped us to have the lowest census we've had at Western State Hospital in some time.

and so it's a real resource for us.

I can't overstress how important it is to have housing and it's a big discharge barrier for individuals in state and state hospitals and the local hospitals so the not only house is already paid off.

I want to go fast but not miss a couple of points.

The return on investment, we like to say, as I go around to all the counties in the city, each dollar of appropriations that we get returns $27 to the city.

We continue to blend and braid our funds.

And in fiscal year 2012, we served 1,960 Charlottesville residents.

Our challenge continues to be that 33 of our 63 programs cannot independently cover their costs and so that requires that we use not just Medicaid dollars which is 60% of our budget but also the appropriated local dollars as well as the state general fund dollars to cover our programs.

So, we come before the council tonight and I have to also say that Mary Frances Porter is our board member who was supposed to present.

She's sick tonight so I'm covering her role as well as my normal role.

I'm trying to combine and condense those and be brief.

Quite a challenge.

Our top priorities, legislative priorities, we're only asking for advocacy and support from the city this year.

We would, of course, ask for level funding, but no additional dollars we're asking for this year.

Part C, which helps prevent learning and adjustment disabilities for infants and toddlers.

Please continue to support us for that.

We're very heartened

that the governor appropriated three million dollars and this year's budget is a caboose bill so it's just going to be added on and for FY14 an additional three million dollars.

That is great, but the, for the state.

and the reality is that the Part C program actually needs 8.8 million dollars to be compliant with federal regulations.

So we're going to put in a, the VACSB will be putting in a bill to supplement what the governor has added, has put in his budget request.

Regent 10 served 439 babies through that program in FY12.

We had to lay off staff for this year.

We've only served 220, and we have a waiting list.

So we're not in compliance, and I would like to say that that's a common problem across the Commonwealth because of lack of funding.

So we ask for your support on Part C.

We additionally are heartened that the Governor appropriated $750,000 in his budget request for the Discharge Assistance Program.

That's the program that is connected with what we are doing with the Nunley House to get folks out of

the Western State Hospital and other hospitals where housing can be a barrier and it allows us to also provide wraparound services to keep them in the community.

So we ask your support on discharge assistance programs.

Lastly, Medicaid expansion.

We truly see Medicaid expansion as a game changer.

And for the stats in Region 10, you know, the five counties and the city of Charlottesville,

The stats show that there are 30,000 uninsured adults who currently in Region 10.

10,000 of them would actually be eligible to be covered by Medicaid if it was expanded to 138% of the federal poverty level.

Of that 10,000, 4,000 would have, estimated to have behavioral health disorders and would be eligible for services.

One out of four individuals coming into Region 10 right now are uninsured.

Mostly all of them would be eligible for Medicaid expansion if it goes forward.

We are very hopeful that the state of Virginia decides to expand Medicaid, and we'd like your support on that as well.

It would be a big game changer.

It would provide funding that is not currently in any of our budgets.

It takes some of the stress off the localities as well.

So we can see that as a win-win.

And I did a snapshot on October 1st to see how many uninsured people came into our board that particular day.

347 people came in with no insurance.

And our surveys show that practically all of them would be eligible for Medicaid expansion if it goes forward.

Okay, I'm rushing, but I want to thank you again for your support and advocacy for Region 10.

I have one consumer tonight, Mr. Eddie Banks, who would like a minute just to talk a little bit about, and I think he's right here.

So, Eddie, if you would be brief, it's been a long, long evening.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thank you, everybody.

I'm blessed to be here today, Ms. Norris, Ms. Smith, and Mr. Jones.

You don't got a name tag.

To be long story short, I'm here, Eddie Banks, here.

Those that are familiar with me, this time I'm here for Region 10.

I'm not here for GTI, I'm here for Region 10.

and I'm going to keep it short and simple.

The true story is when I first came to town seven years ago and got stuck here and became homeless and wound up living in my automobiles along with this demon that I carried with me.

Region 10 saved my life.

for the Step Up program gave me the opportunity to have my own TV program on public access TV now and to be elected chair of the CAC.

I want to thank Mr. Oh.

Now, the CAC Consumer Advisors Committee

plays a major role in region 10 and recovery and mental illness and such and such.

We had a ceremony this morning and it was a tearjerker because I've come so far, 50 years of abuse of most, you name it, and I've been there and just about did that.

However, I've been blessed.

January 17th, I'll be 70 years old.

Yes, and move right along.

The work that I've been accomplishing while taking my GED at the clubhouse has really given me

A second chance, and I understand the gentleman this morning, earlier, he was talking about being homeless.

I remember the days when we were homeless together, but to have a chance, such as Region 10, to reach out for someone that has an idea, that they can be, how you say, reborn, are a chance.

And this one I got with Region 10.

And I'm here today to support Region 10, wholeheartedly.

and anniversary day.

Happy anniversary to myself.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming.

Thank you, Mr. Clay Huja.

And that's it.

Are there any questions for Ms. Johnson?

I would actually, I'm just going to say that I appreciate both of you and what you brought here tonight.

One of the things you mentioned about Medicaid expansion is not a sure thing.

It is a case where the state can decide whether to let the federal government pay for 100% of expansion of Medicare or Medicaid services in Virginia.

After a few years it goes down to I think 95%.

It's an incredible opportunity for us to bring our federal tax dollars home instead of supporting, you know, I'm sure deserving people in Wisconsin or someplace else who might need

Medical Care, we could actually help Virginians.

Thank you.

Next item on the agenda is the report considering reallocation of Charlottesville housing funds.

I wanted to make sure you were going to call me this time so I didn't want to get hurried down here.

Thank you, mayor and council.

This is an item just to give you a little brief bit of background.

Over the, since January of 11 until the current time, you've appropriated approximately $800,000 to the Charlottesville Redevelopment Housing Authority for redevelopment purposes.

Of that, you took $150,000 and allocated it for the strategic investment area study.

That leaves $650,000.

as you know we're not where we thought when we allocated that we would be with redevelopment we're moving towards it slowly and the housing authority is but we're not there yet and so rather than have that money all that money just sit and be unused till the first of the fiscal year we had we have a couple of

what we think are legitimate needs that further the purposes of the housing policy and so we'd like to ask you to do a couple of things with that $650,000.

The first is 250 of that that we would not

technically do anything with that would remain under the purview of the Housing Authority.

Right now that money is restricted for nothing but engineering and architectural services for redevelopment.

When we came to you and asked for that, we thought that the first thing we were going to do was run out and hire architects, engineers to do crescent halls and the levy lot.

And we've realized that that

taking that on and doing it in that manner is not the best way to proceed.

And so rather than rush into that, which we've not done, what we'd like to do is say we'd like to ask you to repurpose that money to allow the housing authority and the development corporation when it's up and running to use that money as they see fit

for redevelopment purposes.

That may be to get them some more professional guidance.

It may be to do some architectural engineering work.

But whatever they see fit as part of redevelopment, rather than have it strictly restricted to engineering architectural services when we're not necessarily ready for them, we'd like to ask you in this resolution that's attached, that's one thing that would do.

The second is that we've got

Two areas that we'd like to ask you to take the remaining $400,000 and reallocate that money, $100,000 to AHIP for emergency repair.

The reports that you've heard the last couple of meetings from AHIP, they've talked about many of the things they're doing.

One of the biggest needs, and I think one of the best things we've done lately, is create the emergency repair fund.

It's the small repairs, under $10,000.

Most of them are significantly smaller than that, but it's like putting a ramp in

to a recently disabled person or a disabled person's home.

It's like putting a roof repair when the roof is leaking or if there's a failure of an HVAC system to be able to help with something like that.

Those are, and AHIP does a great job in partnering and trying to reduce the cost as much as they can, but they really fill a niche, and every time we've gone through all the money,

that we had allocated.

And so if we don't do something now, we basically have the rest of the winter and spring that they would not have any money to do emergency repair.

So we'd like to take 100,000 of that money and use it for that.

Then we'd like to take 300,000 and allocate it towards

to Habitat towards the Belmont Cottages project.

When we, just a little more background, when we got into the project that became the Region 10 Habitat partnership for the properties on Nunley Street, one of the things we talked about then was when we sold those Nunley Street townhouses would be to take that money and allocate it for this project.

And that would require coming to you, but we talked about that in the meeting where it was discussed.

and that's kind of the conversation we had with Habitat that got them to take on this project and do it on Nunnally Street because they didn't make any money out of it.

They basically did it for us.

Well, those houses are, the two townhouses are for sale.

We are actually negotiating and may actually, the person handling it may have a contract on one.

If you remember, we ended up giving those two properties to the land trust and they are working through it.

It may be their first land trust sale if they get everything worked out.

But because we're not ready with that yet and because this Bill and Mike Kochis project is ready to go, we'd like to take that $300,000 and reallocate it to Habitat

as part of the Belmont Cottages Project.

Belmont Cottages Project is 15 homes.

Eight would be affordable and seven would be market rate homes.

They're on the middle range of market rate.

They're not the highest end, but they're designed for somebody that, in these price ranges, basically would be less than 120% of AMI, although they're not held to that, but that's where they're gonna, they will try to work with their partner that actually would bill those to be.

That project is a roughly $3.25 million project when it's said and done.

So looking at our desire to leverage those funds at 9 to 1, we would be exceeding that 9 to 1 ratio.

So we feel like it meets the policies that we've adopted.

It is furthering home ownership and that is the number one priority that council has adopted on recommendation of the HAC.

and so it does that.

The $100,000 to AHIP is also meeting your adopted policies for furthering or preserving home ownership and by doing rehab, enabling people to stay in their houses.

A couple of questions just to address real quickly that I've been asked in the last few days if I could.

One was about the involvement of the HAC in this decision process and

Some of you were here when we set it up, but we've been very careful that we don't take funding decisions to the Housing Advisory Committee and the reason for that is because the Housing Advisory Committee, other than a few members, is mainly made up of the people that receive those funds and so rather than have them making recommendations on how they get funded, which would be a

significant conflict of interest, we said let them recommend the policies, council adopts the policies and then the funding decisions are left to council to make.

And so we've, that's the way we've been handling it.

We, for a couple of years we did a request for proposals to see how we wanted to spend our money, but then last year we got together with the HAC and we recommended to you that

We really need to be more strategic because what happened was we were spending a lot of money for housing on things that weren't housing and this way we're trying to focus more on housing and then when we have a project where we can leverage we're trying to use the money to leverage those dollars and be more strategic and

and it also I think gives the opportunity for people to come and talk to us about their ideas without being set on a schedule that says every March let's say we're sending out an RFP and they've got to fit their life to that schedule.

It gives us a lot of flexibility and on the service provider end it's been very well received as being something that works.

If you remember we did it, we were able to work with Java for Timberlake and some others by doing that.

So that's the

what we're doing in the way of public involvement, we're trying to follow our adopted policy that went through a lot of discussion and a lot of process and make sure that we're meeting that.

So I'll be happy to answer any questions, but bottom line we're asking you to do three things.

One is to repurpose the money, $250,000 for CRHA that simply allows them to use it for any redevelopment purpose.

The other is to allocate $100,000 to

AHIP for emergency repair, and the other is 300,000 Habitat to help fund the Belmont Cottages project.

And then the final piece would say pending appropriation, subject to appropriation, would be to take out of next year's housing fund

for that $400,000 and redirect it back to CRHA.

So we're not taking anything away from redevelopment.

We're just borrowing it from them for a period of about six months so that then we could give it back, if that's what is appropriate at that time.

But that would, of course, be subject to appropriation.

I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Before I open for questions for other chancellors, I want to make a few comments.

First of all, I'm pleased that you've seen the light.

This is spending from an architect for $140,000.

You're going to give more flexibility.

I think that is the right thing to do.

I also think that it will be helpful to do emergency repairs if needed.

And Habitat will be building some new housing units for affordable housing units.

Actually, I have a question.

I don't really quite understand how the $300,000 leverages.

Right.

The Habitat project is roughly $3.25 million.

I get that, yeah.

And so they have raised or are raising $2.9 million.

and so our 300 matches their 2.925 million.

Their other money comes from private investors.

It comes from foundations.

And for the seven market rate lots, those lots will be sold to a builder who will build those homes

a market price, so that will go into funding the overall project.

Habitat's investment will be roughly $3.25 million.

That's the roads, the utilities, all the site work that has to happen, and the seven affordable units that are being built.

Eight affordable units.

No, they've,

They have been putting it together and they have a gap.

They've been looking for financing, they've been looking for assistance.

Right.

And I appreciate you.

I clearly had a lot of questions about this before the meeting.

And is there a reason that you came up with 300,000 of the 400 as opposed to 200,000 each?

And before you answer that, actually, because that's probably a rhetorical question.

And I have some problems.

I love Habitat.

I think what Habitat does is amazing.

And they do it without regard to boundaries, without regard to whether it's city or county or another county.

And that's what they do.

That's what they should do.

But this is city taxpayer money.

And my concern all along has been

If we're going to give city taxpayer money to Habitat, we should know that it's benefiting city residents.

And this is $40,000 per household.

If it's 8 affordable, not quite 40, 38 something, that we're basically giving as what you might

to families that are not necessarily city

you know last meeting whenever it was that there's 157 people on households in the city on their list and that's just who has applied for their money 101 of children in those homes this is substandard housing

We have a real problem in our city with housing and with the health of our citizens already.

I know we did and it went toward a part of the effort to try to crack this big health thing and this speaks to the data that Dave acknowledged a really good report and Dr.

Peek from the health department gave us even more information about

a fairly serious health issue with children and that's lead.

And 22903, that's the city, has been recognized statewide as one of the highest risks for lead for children because of the age of our housing stock and the substandard quality of our housing stock.

And I just think this is a much bigger problem than building

more housing, which I think is important, but whether city dollars should be used for this purpose is a big concern.

We have spent, according to what we've just given today, two and a half million dollars, or almost two and a half million dollars, given to Habitat over the last five years to build more housing of city dollars, and that's not including land.

that we've given to Habitat.

I love Habitat.

Habitat's great.

This is just a question of whether we should be putting our city taxpayer dollars to use

that would benefit our city residents and therefore our schools and therefore the whole domino effect of putting.

I'd like to offer a different perspective on how to look at that, which is that if we're paying for 10% of this project, certainly more than 10% of the people in these houses are going to be city residents.

I think that you can frame it in different ways, but regardless of where these folks live now, when they live here, they will be city residents.

And I think that

If they have children in our local schools, that's a good thing.

If they're moving into Charlottesville so that they're not driving back and forth to affordable housing elsewhere, that's a good thing.

If they are trying to move into Charlottesville, chances are they work in Charlottesville.

And I assume that most of the folks that we're talking about probably do live in Charlottesville because there's been a really strong outreach to

neighborhoods in Charlottesville to fill these houses by habitat.

Yeah, I'm saying, but that's one of the reasons we should consider whether we should use city dollars for this purpose.

That's a very good point about the 10%.

But if we're not offering our city residents $40,000 to buy a house within the city,

We'd actually asked all of our providers to give us residence information last January, and we'd gotten it from Habitat.

At that time,

of 17 units that had been assisted that were sold that had been assisted with city dollars.

Twelve of them were city residents and five were non-city residents.

Where is that?

This habitat.

Yes, ma'am.

where we've provided assistance.

I don't know, but there's, right now I think there's 11 occupied, 11 or 12.

I don't know, but on seven of them, but I know, I mean, but those seven are all were formerly city residents when they got those properties.

their numbers with the projects where they're getting city assistance have gone up and the ones of the five that were not city residents, four of those were employed in the city at the time they were hired and one was employed at the university hospital so that's technically not in the city but it's essentially in the city so I think

I appreciate that.

I think these councils have repeatedly said that

eight new affordable houses and lose 20.

At some point you have to look at the math and we need to just keep our eyes on the fact that we have a lot of affordable housing that's not in government control and we will lose it if we do not attend to its

preservation in some capacity.

They have a lot of capacity.

I think they are in my mind to their capacity.

Right.

I did have a few comments.

So thank you for explaining a lot of the detail

and I actually would like to know when the CDC and the CRHA have sorted out the future of the CDC that I would like to see a plan of how that $250,000 will be used.

That's where I have some concerns about giving a carte blanche at this point without any definition

to the CRHA slash CDC, which hasn't even been kind of established.

And that's not of your doing, Mr. Tolbert.

It's just that I'm asking that we get clarification of what this money will be used for as it moves forward, because this is city money.

It is taxpayers' money.

And I totally support the redevelopment project, and I want to see it move forward, but I do think we need to understand what

You know what that might mean in terms of getting, because you mentioned it could be possible, possibly getting consultant to assist in how to assemble parcels.

Certainly if it winds up adding staffing and city monies are going to be used for staffing at any level, we need to understand why and where and how.

So that is a big question mark and a concern of mine that we keep track of that and know what happens.

If you can come back to us with a report on the $250,000, that would be much appreciated.

And just one minor detail about Habitat.

I just feel that, and as was mentioned earlier tonight in our housing section of the comprehensive plan, we are very strong about having a desire for transitional housing.

It's not all one kind of housing.

We're not all one kind of people.

And I do see what Habitat provides.

It is that step out of very, very high assisted product going into the workforce.

And it's a very important transitional piece.

As we keep moving towards building jobs, building income levels, that is going to be very important to make sure we keep that strong.

I think Ms. Smith raised a very good point and it's come up, as you said Mr. Huja, it's come up frequently about our desire to see city resources assist city families and I would just once again reiterate as Ms. Szakos says we can't

Legally, we can't mandate it, but I hope Habitat has gotten a very clear message that that's a very firm desire on the part of the city.

I am a big fan of Habitat.

They've done great work in the city and in the region.

It does provide, as Ms. Galvin said, that critical link for working families who want to become homeowners that can't quite make

I'll second.

Any other discussion or motion?

Thank you.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council.

I'm here presenting on behalf of a broader team of city staff that include public works department staff, some

Lauren Hildebrand in the audience and Public Works Department, Neighborhood Development Services, Parks and Recreation, City Manager's Office.

So this is definitely the delivery of work from an integrated group.

Since we gave you a 70-page packet, I thought I'd spare you the PowerPoint and leave as much time as possible for questions and comments at the end of this.

As you're aware, the city has for many years been evaluating strategies to meet a range of water resources goals and challenges including funding program elements, key program elements.

Those include regulatory compliance, stormwater infrastructure maintenance and rehabilitation, drainage system improvements, and Chesapeake Bay related water quality protection requirements.

We came to you in July of 2012 and we gave you an update on these challenges and an update on the ongoing funding gap.

And at that time, you gave staff direction to revisit the option of funding a stormwater program through the implementation of a stormwater utility fee.

So a stormwater utility fee, which is authorized under Virginia law, is a funding mechanism that's already been adopted by over a dozen localities in Virginia to date.

So the option that the stormwater utility proposal had previously been brought to Council in late 2008, but it was tabled at that time with a directive to revisit it two or three years later, and so here we are.

In the meanwhile, over the course of those years, recognizing the need to address the deteriorating infrastructure, Council did approve $1.35 million of funding for the repair and rehabilitation of the existing system,

and that's a strategy that's paid off very well and has helped us to address some of the flooding and drainage problems.

In response to council's direction to reevaluate the stormwater utility fee funding option, AMEC Environment and Infrastructure was contracted to help us update the work that was done in 2008.

Over the past six months, the option of funding stormwater services through a stormwater fee has been discussed both with internal staff

and reviewed with the support from a reconvened citizens advisory committee and we've got a couple folks here today, Mr. Joe Kopp, Robbie Savage from the Rivanna Conservation Society and Leslie Middleton from the Rivanna River Basin Commission and there are a number of other folks who represented very important community stakeholder groups in this process and it has been an extremely helpful process for staff to vet ideas and proposals with them.

In overall, I just want to share a couple of agreement that was reached on a couple of key stormwater issues.

The first is that investing in stormwater infrastructure rehabilitation and integrating stormwater system improvements with water quality protection are priorities for a more comprehensive stormwater program.

The program of services that we're bringing to you today would begin to address these priorities in a phased five to ten year period to address the known infrastructure system problems while simultaneously developing and implementing plans to meet the longer term regulatory requirements associated with the Chesapeake Bay water quality requirements and the city's own storm water system municipal storm water permit.

Funding the program through an impervious user-based service fee instead of a property value-based approach is a more equitable approach for distributing costs and it ensures that the funds are specifically dedicated to stormwater management and that they're not competing with other general fund dollars.

The program fees, we have the opportunity to consider program fees that can be set at a relatively low rate by phasing in various program elements

and by taking advantage of current bond rates.

There's also an element of the program addressing credits that can be implemented to allow recognition and fee reduction for onsite controls that address either and or water quality and water quantity and the role that private properties can play in managing and reducing stormwater impacts.

I would submit on behalf of the team that having a reliable drainage system and having clean water are an important part of a safe and healthy community and these are programs that over the long term can work towards those goals.

We've worked hard to come up with a very efficient and a very effective program proposal with respect to both the scope of the program and the program budgeting and staffing.

issues what we know that council and the community is very sensitive to.

Our timeline is strongly influenced by the fact that we need a decision on this item in order to inform the FY14 budget, which is one of the decision points we're looking for guidance from you on today.

So I'd like to turn the presentation over to Jean Haggerty, project manager with AMEC,

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone.

I am Jean Haggerty from AMIC, and please be back here again.

We are going to be relatively brief.

You do have lots and lots of pages of documents, 70 pages plus.

If you go to the website, there are another

70 pages of documents you can look at.

So we try to make this process as transparent as we possibly can.

We are changing public policy.

This is Public Policy 101 as far as I'm concerned.

It's about funding.

that's asking the public what the best way to deal with stormwater funding is.

So we set a very deliberate process and what I'm going to do is just briefly kind of go through the process and some of the highlights and again, as Crystal said, I'll give you a chance to kind of ask questions about where we are.

So in July, we went back and looked at what your existing stormwater program consists of.

We interviewed staff, looked at where you're spending your money, did a pretty comprehensive look at where you are now and where you need to go.

Talked through the priorities of what the program needs to look like.

It's a combination of investment in your existing infrastructure, and you have hundreds of millions of dollars of infrastructure on the ground, maintenance for that infrastructure.

You have the challenge of the Ches Bay TMDL, URS for compliance issues, and some long-term stormwater drainage problems as your community develops that need to be integrated together.

How do we then get that program and do it in a reasonable manner?

So when we ask, with the stormwater utility,

The first question we have to answer is what is it we're going to fund?

What kind of money do we need?

So when you say you want a utility in place, well, for what?

So we spend a fair amount of time talking about for what.

And the program of services that we put together really is a pretty, I think, balanced approach with operations maintenance, capital improvements, and regulatory compliance.

We're talking about now that you spend on your operating budget annually about $965,000 a year in your existing program.

We're talking about potentially raising the program services an additional $1.6 million to $3 million over the next five years.

It's substantial investment in the community.

So we had the privilege, as Crystal said, to work with an advisory committee.

And what that allowed us to do is take the information and the internal discussions we were having

and go to the public and say, what do you think?

Are we on the right page?

Are we going in the right directions?

Let them play devil's advocate with us.

Ground truth the numbers we were using.

Make sure that we were doing the right thing.

The advisory committee was great.

They more than dedicated.

We tried to move this very quickly.

in three months time and folks read all the data we sent them and all those reports that you have.

They've gone through all that.

They went through the fine tooth comb.

And so I'd like to kind of skip to what were the final four or five things that came out of that committee and then how we got there.

We call it a compelling case.

Why is there a need for change?

Why would you think about changing your public policy?

Is this the need for funding for storm water?

This is not going to go away.

The city needs to find a way to fund this.

So

staff and the advisory committee came to agree that this was certainly a priority and that it was a compelling case for change.

And that the program of services as we developed, and that 1.6 million I referred to that's in your report, was the right level of funding to get started.

Everybody felt pretty comfortable that we were in the right direction.

And that the way to go about that was instead of using taxes and a value-based

approach for funding this to distribute the cost in a way that reflects more how people are influenced on water management.

So if you're going to spend 1.6 million dollars on public services, how do you distribute those costs back?

You do it by trying to estimate the impact that different properties have on that total public system.

So it's a distribution of cost on impervious cover and demand on the system versus the value of your property.

and as Crystal again said, most communities are going in this direction, not all that different from water and waste water 20 or 25 years ago when we all paid that out of our taxes that now is a service and this is a similar idea.

We spent a lot of time on

what's a fair distribution of cost, including things like credit.

So if you're doing something unique on your property that other people aren't, how do you recognize that?

So we drafted up a credit policy that the committee helped us put together and also talked about an incentive program.

An incentive would be something a little bit different from credits, but kind of recognizes people that are going above and beyond and trying to environmentally right things and either controlling volume or water quality improvements on their sites.

The committee basically said that the fee that we came up with needs to be kept as low as reasonably possible.

And so one of the ways we looked at that was instead of paying cash for everything that we talked about in the program was to look at bonds.

So the park, the rates we're going to talk about here have bonds involved.

We would bond a lot of the capital improvements in these rates to keep the rate down.

That was really a big point with the advisory committee is that the bond rates now are pretty low.

This is a great time to take advantage.

It's a great time to get more construction and projects going in Charlottesville and this gives you a chance to take advantage of all that.

The committee also suggested that we have some kind of citizens based oversight committee that this user fee

be active like utility and then you have some kind of board of citizens that kind of oversee what's going on.

You can do a report card annually, you can look at the rates, you can make sure that your programs are reflecting the needs going forward.

And I think that's an important concept to bring forward.

And then finally, one of the things we talked a lot about is that stormwater doesn't end at the boundaries.

Water comes in from outside the county and water leaves the city and goes to other counties.

How do we take a more regional approach to stormwater management long-term?

So as we're looking at a master planning and long-term involvement and solutions that we also engage with other regional authorities and communities to get the best solutions that we can for the region.

I think as we come out of the committee meeting, we decided to take this kind of information and go to a broader audience.

So we talked to the target groups, we talked to environmental groups, the largest potential rate payers, tax exempt properties, and some open houses, and I think Kristin's gonna give you a little more information on that, but we tried to really take it beyond folks that had spent a lot of time talking about this.

When we spent a lot of time talking about it, I do this for a living, the advisory committee

was steeped in it for a long time.

What would the general public think?

What information do they need?

How do we get a point across?

So we did spend quite a bit of time talking to lots of folks and getting feedback and tweaking the program to get there.

So this is all said and done at the end.

We've run some rate models.

and what is the cost that we've projected to pay for the program.

And we're using a billing unit based on the GIS data that you have in the city, you have excellent GIS data, kept up to date pretty well with the new flight planned in spring 2013, that says that you can actually get down and look at your parcels pretty clearly and look at impervious, you don't have to use estimates that a lot of other communities have to do, you can go in and look at impervious per parcel.

So we're recommending a thousand square foot billing unit, so if you think again of your water bill,

If you're a utility user, every hundred cubic feet of water is a billing unit or every thousand, where I live, every thousand gallons of a billing unit.

Same kind of idea here.

Every thousand square feet of impervious would be a billing unit.

So think in that term.

Most homes, single family homes here in Charlottesville, would be one or two billing units.

Okay, I think about 52%, one or two billing units.

So just keep that in mind as we're talking about rates.

So the rate that we talked about is $2.30 per month for the first couple of years of the program.

all right, per billing unit.

So we look at, if the average home is two billing units, I have to do all the math in my head, but about $55 a year under the first rate scenario.

And that rate scenario is just funding the new program pieces, not the 945 that's in the general fund, just the new piece, and using bonds for about three or four million dollars of the capital over the first five years.

And we ran a second model to see the impact of shifting money out of the general fund.

So if you take the general fund out and you have the program

I'll use it if you pay for everything that's stormwater, then that fee would go up with the number, make sure I don't say it wrong, so $3.25 per billion.

So we're talking about that same single family home from about $55 to about $78 a year if everything was in that category.

The feedback we've got in general is that lower approach.

The advisory committee liked it.

I think the open houses we mostly heard lower is better.

We also heard that it may be positive to have the city continue to put some money in through general taxes and things like that.

There's lots of good arguments out there for both ways.

But we wanted to give council an opportunity to think about those two options

and to let us know from moving forward which would make more sense because our next piece down after we talk to you guys tonight is putting an ordinance together and actually codifying this and bringing that for public hearing and so in the ordinance we need a specific rate approved and so we're down to those two options and we'd like a little bit of feedback on that.

tonight so that we can work with your lawyers to get the ordinance done and we're hoping to have that done in the next couple of weeks.

Okay, so very quickly, in addition to the advisory committee, which again included a number of valuable, a lot of valuable insight from a variety of sectors, so for those who weren't here today, I want to thank them publicly as well.

We reactivated a dedicated web page for this topic and for the effort, and all the materials from the 2008 effort were up there.

Those are all the meeting notes, the original committee report, along with the new materials that were generated through this effort, and that includes

all the meeting minutes, the updated committee report, additional supporting documents that inform the discussions at the advisory committee, a whole series of frequently asked questions, and then what I think is a very unique tool that we were able to pull together was a web GIS tool for those folks who have been able to go online.

I think many of you have been able to look a couple of properties up, but it's a pretty slick user-friendly way to get a lot of information, practical relevant information,

about what the fee range might look like for any parcel in the city.

And we specifically put a range out there so that we wouldn't be tying anyone's hands on a specific number, but the range was the $2 per billing unit per month up to $4.

So the two rates that we bring to you today are in that range.

So none of the numbers that anyone would be calculating are going to come as a big surprise.

In November, as Jean mentioned, we did have a couple of focus group meetings.

We had a couple of environmental groups that expressed support and interest in this topic and groups who said they would like to help promote this and would like to help educate and inform the public about what this looks and feels like as we move forward.

We sent letters and invited those top 50 fee payers who had been identified through the data set that we have.

several of those folks actually sat on the advisory committee so they didn't attend the meeting because they'd been to all the previous meetings and then we sent out over 150 letters to representatives from the tax-exempt parcels we had a very small number of folks attend that meeting but I would say in addition we had very few

We have two drop-in informational open house sessions on November 28th in City Space and we had 40 or 50 people show up and I think in general

It seemed like people left understanding the challenges and the approach and the topic better than when they came in.

We certainly heard folks who explained strategies on their own properties of really going over and above on a voluntary basis and wanting somehow for that to be acknowledged through this program, so I think we need to be creative on how to make that work.

We had, you know, the Chamber of Commerce came, we had some developers who came, certainly residents who came, so again it was a good spectrum of folks.

Your packet includes all the graphics that were presented at that open house so you can see the range of topics.

We wanted people to understand what the program does first and then think about the fee and we had those workstations set up where folks could access a laptop

and use the online tool to check out their own property.

So I think that sequence helped people leave feeling like they got some information.

We had a couple of articles in a couple of the news, e-newsletters, the Office of Economic Development and then the most recent edition of the Chamber of Commerce newsletter.

We had links to the webpage on all of those.

There was some local media coverage and then we understand that subsequently

there have been a couple of groups like the Rivanna River Basin Commission, the Soil and Water Conservation District and then most recently the Blue Ridge Apartment Council have been talking about this subject and I imagine you may have heard from them but in general we've heard more support than opposition to the proposal to date.

So, you know, the next main piece of community engagement is going to be the public hearing for the ordinance and

based on where we land today, a public notice for that public hearing will be put in the paper expeditiously.

Let me add a general comment.

I think it's a very important policy decision and it is something that you've done very systematically in presenting to us.

At least I would prefer that there be a work session ourselves.

and the council before we come to a decision.

I'm generally really in favor of this.

I recognize how important it is.

A couple questions

Yeah, it won't affect this.

It is a local Accatink TMDL in Fairfax County that's about water being a pollutant.

and they have decided that the EPA cannot regulate stormwater as a pollutant that's beyond their jurisdiction.

Okay, thanks.

If we were to pay for some of this with bonds, does that impact our ceiling?

You know how we sort of are butting up against how much we can borrow the debt service limit.

I guess that's what it's called.

We certainly have talked about that with your finance folks and the reason we're not trying to bond every single thing is we're taking kind of a medium approach.

The million dollars a year in maintenance money that's to rehab would not be bonded.

It would be the other capital work.

It's kind of a middle ground so that you are bringing enough revenue to pay your debt service.

It doesn't seem to save us that much money per month.

but, well, so I guess that's a decision.

Prior to contemplating a utility to bring in revenue,

Stormwater has been funded through the general fund and some portion through the gas fund and you had expressed concern about that so the rates that we've brought forward

actually addressed that component that was covered by the gas fund.

Everything else is covered by the utility rate.

I have number 830,000 dollars.

I actually have a related question to that.

It means that it would just cover gas stuff.

I have a couple other questions, but go ahead in front of chairs.

Okay, I actually just had a couple others.

And then the tech, those properties that are exempted by law, I understand are sort of governmental things.

Well, it's a very good question.

Virginia state law specifies that state, local, or federal government that has a Virginia stormwater management permit or a VSMP permit, the fee needs to be waived.

So that covers City of Charlottesville properties, Albemarle County,

University of Virginia, and then a couple of straggler pieces.

So three would be not so exempted.

Charlottesville High School, the campus proper is titled in the school board.

acknowledges those properties to be covered under their permit.

Oh, those are covered under their permit?

Yes.

And sorry, I guess I think I just have one more explain how much is currently.

Okay.

Yeah, great.

Thank you.

First of all, I'd just like to say that I did early on, and then I did it again today just to kind of have it fresh in my mind, went to charlesville.org slash stormwater.

You can, there's a place where you can click to look at GIS mapping.

You can plug in your address or your neighbor's address or your church's address.

And it tells, there's a place where you can see at the bottom of that display exactly how much you would pay in this fee.

So I think that that's really useful if people are kind of looking at this and trying to wonder how it would affect people.

A lot of people have already done this, but I think it was really helpful.

In my case, it was $48 a year was the low end and up to I think 96 or something.

and I have a relatively small house.

It's one of those little brick boxes on the north side of town.

So a lot of people have houses that size.

But it was really interesting because I just thought, you know, that was a really creative way of making this an accessible decision to people.

So I just want to offer some notes for that.

And to be honest, there are a number of ways that that can be refined.

So if we do move forward with it, I think that tool needs to be further improved.

Actually, that is my question, which was in a case where somebody, you know, all the GIS stuff and you look at your property and you say, wait a second, I don't think they know that my driveway is not paved.

Would there be a mechanism for people to appeal that assessment?

The intention is for that system to be constantly updated and the fee would be based on the

And I think we're in that unique opportunity that there is this flyover early this year that data will be delivered to the city and we can do a very careful sort of re-digitizing and QAQC of that

increased the length of time that we have

Yeah, you would only want capitalized assets that the rating agencies see the value for doing.

So the rating agencies will come in and tell you whether they will bond those kind of things.

One other thing that has been asked of me and I know we talked about it and I looked for it but not again after I didn't find it the first time.

We have a system in the city where people who can't afford their property tax

can get help with that.

The statute which enables localities to adopt this type of fee is very specific in terms of the properties that are exempt from the fee and references been made to localities that already have an MS-4 permit or certain other types of properties and types of properties that may be eligible for a waiver.

And I might add to that, since

Keep in mind that the bill is going to the property owner, not the occupant of the house.

A lot of people who get these other waivers are people who are often elderly on a fixed income.

They own their house, but they have no income.

And, you know, they're barely holding on.

And I just want to make sure that if we're going to add to that burden that we're just cognizant of what that might be.

Forty eight dollars for me.

is something I can do with relatively little pain over the course of a year, but for some families that, and I don't anticipate it's a huge number, but I think it's worth looking at.

Yes, again, I'm just really impressed with the process.

From the public process you've done and the analysis you've done, I really appreciate the investigation, both in terms of the

how many miles of piper in disrepair to looking into the bond system.

So it gives us really sound information to make some good policy decisions.

So I really appreciate the effort of staff and consultant and the advisory committee.

It's an excellent model.

Now, again, I've gotten questions from the public and one of which was a question about whether this utility could ever be sunsetted.

and on some level it does seem to make some sense, you know, when that 13 miles of pipe is replaced, when we've reached the TMDL benchmarks.

I think one of the challenges is you do always have to maintain your system.

Maintenance piece of this is not going to go away.

So the rates could go down maybe.

So it certainly can go down.

And I think the TMDL, being one of your big challenges and one of our unknowns, we've made some big assumptions about where that's going to go.

Once you've spent that first 10 million really rehabbing your system, that's only 25% of your system that you've got done.

That was the most areas of concern.

you still have a very aging system that's going to need some work.

And maybe in addition to just maintenance of the pipes and structures

some of the projects or the approaches to meet the regulatory requirements themselves will have some ongoing maintenance.

By the same token, they could lessen the need for more hard pipe.

Right.

And we know that this Chesapeake Bay requirements are over sort of

three five-year phases, but I think it's kind of crazy to think what's going to happen in year 16.

And then how did the committee propose to scale up to a regional level?

Did they have any examples of regions that did this?

I think what we came out of that discussion with was that if the city does provide the leadership, I think people, I don't know if they had a model in mind specifically,

if the city stepped up and led and had Albemarle County and got the Rivanna groups together and you got some watershed groups together, is there a way to start thinking about this and sharing costs across the region?

I don't know if they had a model, but it just makes some sense that if you're going to do monitoring, that you would share costs for monitoring.

If you're going to do watershed studies, you would share the costs for those.

is to say the water goes across boundaries.

What makes some sense?

If you're going to buy a new street sweeper, maybe you share the costs.

So there are certainly models in North Carolina and Charlotte, Mecklenburg County.

I think it's probably one of the best ones that I'd recommend where they started small and has expanded to now, I think there's probably 42 communities that are part of the utility.

In Charlotte Mecklenburg it started with the city being the leader, the city of Charlotte, and then Mecklenburg County joined them and they became a united district.

So I think it is, I don't know the answer, but I think that if you step up and look at what your options are that the city could lead that and see how that you could complement each other.

I know the Northeast Ohio sewer district is doing something similar to 62 communities and the sewer district is leading that opportunity to bring communities in to see where it makes sense to share costs.

So they're not going to have a new regional group that's all stormwater, but to have a group that will share some costs across the region.

One last quick question.

The committee itself, was every decision reached by consensus?

or were there votes?

I would say that the consensus may reflect a range of strong opinions about a point, but we put the draft out, we put the final out, even late last week we got a very strong recommendation that we highlight this need for a citizens oversight committee.

It was not

I would say unanimous in every one.

There was not a big giant group hug, but there's a really strong understanding from everybody who participated that there's a need, that we don't get to opt into this, that there are examples out there that have worked well for communities to have dedicated funds that they can build long-term strategic plans on.

And some of those same committee members wanted to put

Pause and wait until we can do this with the county.

And I would say from my personal perspective, I came to council in 2003 for the first time with a presentation about a stormwater utility.

So 10 years later, I'm afraid, and I think the general understanding was, a regional approach is a good idea.

Can we afford several more years of trying to get there?

I think too we've had this kind of economic train coming at us for a while and we're in its headlights.

This isn't going to happen without pain so even if we didn't do this we'd be raising taxes, we'd be doing something.

to pay for this.

All my main concern is basically is that we haven't had opportunity to discuss financing.

How will we finance?

And I have not discussed that ourselves yet.

There are many options.

And you are asking us to decide not only to agree to utility, but also we are funding it.

And in my mind, it's too rushed.

even though it has been two, three years that we've been talking about.

But at least we are not part of the council.

We do have a budget schedule coming forward.

But keep in mind you're doing it completely in this utility.

We have a single public hearing on this issue so far.

We have not discussed alternatives for funding ourselves.

I'm not saying they're bad alternatives, they're good alternatives probably, but I think

It's an important decision to come in and decide this plan.

Well, I think at least, correct me if I'm wrong, but today we're not looking for a vote.

We're looking for a rate.

that we could put into a proposed ordinance that then will be open to a public hearing.

And in the interim we can provide you additional details about the funding strategy, the basis of it.

I think there's the potential of putting in the higher of the two options and council could then select the lower one when a final vote on the rate is done.

And again, there's two readings on that item.

Once we decide, put a public hearing, put a ordinance out, it's basically a done deal.

Basically, we decided what the rate is, what the units are,

Mr. Huja, I have a couple questions I'd like to ask.

So you've given us sort of the range for the single-family homeowner $50 and up per year for a small Kristin Szakos house is $48 a year.

Can you give us some examples of, for instance, some of the larger property owners in town?

We heard earlier from First Presbyterian Church

I'd like to say that's the only church I looked up just by coincidence and it was like a thousand a year.

First Presbyterian Church?

I want you to say it for the public.

Six to thirteen.

I just looked it up today.

Six to thirteen.

6,000 to 13,000 a year.

So there's one church that's going to be paying, let's cut it in the middle, let's say $10,000 a year right now.

They're not paying any taxes to the city and they'd be paying $10,000 a year in taxes.

I don't mind sharing with you Barracks Road Shopping Center.

That's probably an outlier because they're so large.

One way you could do it is a commercial property that has 50 billing units, so that's 49,000 XYZ square feet of impervious surface, rooftop, parking lot, walkways, the whole gamut.

would be paying at the low end $1,380 and at the high end $1,950.

For 50 billing units.

For 50 billing units.

So again, the billing unit is a thousand square feet and that's per month.

So it's, you know, you can, you can put, we put together a little simple table and you can put the low rate $2.30 and the higher rate $3.25 and go on and either, or you can use the online GIS tool and look up any church property

And that's because we have to fund structure to carry the water off of those properties.

And one of the benefits of taking the utility approach versus a value-based approach is that all properties are being treated exactly the same.

So whether it's residential, commercial or other, whether it's tax-exempt or taxed, whether it's

for a for-profit purpose or for services.

They're all treated the same and I will say one comment that we heard back is the rain falls everywhere.

The system is in place to deal with all of the developed properties.

There's a road and a right-of-way network that folks rely on to get from point A to point B and they don't want nuisance flooding.

There's an infrastructure that the community as a whole has invested in and so it becomes

Except for the fact that we've already acknowledged that UVA is exempted.

The city of Charlottesville, every city street is exempted.

That's a lot of runoff right there.

Seven or six of the, however many of the schools are exempted.

Right, and those are very specified

I'm just saying it runs kind of the argument that...

Right.

Right.

implementing the requirements

you know present to them a cheap fly-by-night program.

It's a rigorous program and that's the same program that UVA would have to defend, the county would have to defend.

We actually heard all those presentations at the last PAC meeting from UVA and the county.

It's incredibly expensive.

I have another question actually for Mr. Brown.

I don't think so.

I'm not aware of any court cases.

There's an attorney general opinion from 2010 that I've looked at and I think it reaches the correct

Conclusion, it was questions submitted by the city attorney in Chesapeake about whether this type of fee could be imposed against the United States Navy which obviously is exempt from local taxation and the attorney general opined, and again I think correctly, that this was a service fee

that could be imposed against organizations or entities such as religious organizations that under our Constitution are exempt from real property tax.

But this is not a tax.

It falls into the category of a service fee.

Okay.

I just wondered.

A couple things is when we were at the National League of Cities conference, this was a hot topic.

There were lots of sessions on this.

This is happening all over the nation.

And they paid for it in a lot of different ways, actually.

A couple issues that I have just in thinking about it, again, very supportive of it, but just wondering how to pay for it, is the partial billing unit, whether we should do that rounding thing, because it's not an insignificant chunk when you're at the low end of just but over the edge.

to have another, like we do with real estate, we actually just do it by the value of the house.

And I know that probably adds some administrative hurdles, but I just wonder how possible that is.

Also, if we're really talking about fair and equitable, and I do agree that a service fee is more fair and more equitable than just

charging taxpayers and way, way more than charging the gas fund.

But it seems a little odd to do part of it with something that's fair and equitable, which is basically doing the other part with something that you've already now defined as not fair and inequitable.

That said, you could argue that the portion of the stormwater that's being dealt, that deals with municipal non

eligible should be paid with tax dollars and the other part.

So I mean there's lots of ways to look at it but it goes to Mr. Huja's point which is that the financing of it probably is a little more complex than we've gotten into it overall though.

Oh and the other thing I think would be a really interesting thing to look at in terms of financing

Penny and a half is what we're currently using for stormwater.

I have a question for Mr. Jones.

Within our existing framework of budget session work sessions, would it be possible to work in a work session on this particular topic

I think that there is some flexibility on the part of council in terms of when we do it.

We traditionally do our work sessions on Thursdays.

We do have several events that are coming up during the month of January, however.

This Thursday we have a town hall meeting.

It doesn't matter to Thursday.

What was that?

That's what I'm saying.

As long as there's flexibility there, we can find a time in which

Well, the 24th, that's after the, I mean, if you're trying to do it before the next

Council meeting, that's going to be difficult, not impossible, but difficult.

I mean, I think if we had very, very precise questions ahead of time that we had researched so that we understood what the funding options might be, again, this group has been doing that pretty exhaustively.

I'm not sure how many much more

And our process this time was fast-tracked largely because we were directed to take a proposal that council in general had support for in 2008 where some of that

options of funding was discussed and discussed and discussed in much greater detail and this committee spent little if any time debating a fee versus tax increase versus other things because the general understanding was that work had been done, that work had been acknowledged and seemed an appropriate approach and so it really was a matter of implementation and timeline and a rate that truly met the program needs

I'm wondering though if in general I'm hearing that

The majority of councils at least agrees that we need to do this and now we're fussing over how to pay for it.

Mr. Huja, I haven't really had a chance to share my comments yet.

I don't know if this is an appropriate time.

So I realize I'm probably in the minority here, but I do, you know, I don't know, but I think, you know, there's a little bit of wordplay here, but it's a few years at a tax.

I think most people will perceive it as a tax.

It'll seem like a tax to the average homeowner or the average business owner or church.

And

You know I'm very concerned, this is my eighth year on city council, we've never once raised taxes in eight years other than the cigarette tax once about five years ago and this would be the first and certainly by far the largest tax increase in many years in the city of Charlottesville and we just have to acknowledge that whether we want to call it a fee increase or a tax increase, again I think for most people we're perceived as a tax increase and

I don't doubt for a second the quality of the work that went into this proposal, the sincerity of the commitment on the part of the committee members, the desirability of improving our stormwater system, I don't doubt any of that, but in terms of priorities,

If we're going to be pulling another million dollars or so or less or more out of our taxpayers' pockets, does this really rise to the top?

We have a mandate to raise taxes.

We are not mandated to do X, Y, or Z.

We are mandated to accomplish certain outcomes over a certain time period, right?

They haven't told us you have to do it this way or that way.

We've been a lot more aggressive and ambitious in the last few years on storm water than we had been.

We've increased the amount of funding in our general budget substantially.

So we're not neglecting the problem.

My

preference would be let's continue along those lines and continue to as resources allow to increase funding in our general fund budget to get you know to get to continue to improve our system

to put more incentives in place.

I would much rather see us take the kind of approach to stormwater that we took with renewable energy with the LEAP program where we, again, it was all about incentives, it was about being very proactive and encouraging homeowners and business owners to adopt more, to adopt the kind of practices that are going to minimize runoff, retain more water on site, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

I haven't been convinced and I know

Again, I realize I may be the minority here.

I have been convinced that we can't accomplish the goals that are likely to be set for us

through a more incentive-based approach and a more aggressive repair scheme through our existing budget.

You know, I think about, for instance, a lot of the churches in this town who are operating on very slim margins for whom this new tax is going to hurt.

It's going to cause them to cut back on other things that they do.

It's going to hurt many of the property owners that are offering rental housing to our families.

It's going to hurt businesses.

It's going to put our businesses at an economic disadvantage to businesses over the line in Albemarle County.

May I make a couple of comments?

I still can't get around the problem at hand which is 13 miles of old corrugated metal pipe or vitrified clay that is disintegrating.

that is causing havoc in our community whenever it floods.

It's going to get worse.

We've been very blessed, actually, by mild winters.

I was just reading an article in the newspaper in the Post a couple days ago.

Granted, it was their water mains, but any pipe system that's going to be subjected to extremes in cold or heat that's going to have to be containing water is going to be subject to bursts and breaks, and that's going to get worse.

I see that one, this could actually be the very incentive that we're talking about to get people to improve their properties, to redevelop in a way that is much more conscious about the kind of environmental needs, but also to go more vertical, more

mixed use, redevelop our corridors.

This could actually be the very incentive we've been needing to get that kind of development even accelerated.

So I see this as almost kind of both an incentive program as well as an environmental program as well as a very basic function of government, which is taking care of your infrastructure.

It's not the stuff anybody sees, but it's the stuff people complain about when it blows up on you.

So I really think it's time.