City Council Meeting   2/2/2015

We have a number of announcements that we would like to share with you.

Who would like to start?

Ms. Cameron, would you like to start?

Me?

Sure.

We have a proclamation for Mr. Tolbert, who is leaving us

Mr. Tolbert has taken a job as the Assistant City Manager in a town twice our size in Georgia.

Whereas James E. Tolbert was hired as the Director of Neighborhood Development Services in July 1999 and has served tirelessly and with distinction in that role for over 15 years.

And whereas during his time with the City of Charlottesville,

The city was honored with the award for outstanding planning process from the Virginia Citizen Planning Association for its 2001 comprehensive planning process.

The 2001 comprehensive plan won plan of the year by the American Planning Association in 2002.

And whereas the new zoning ordinance in 2003, which led to the increased development in the city's business, won American Planning Association Virginia Chapter's implementation award.

in 2005, and whereas Mr. Tolbert assisted in the planning and management of the renovation of Charlottesville's historic downtown mall in 2008, and whereas during his time as director, Neighborhood Development Services assisted in strengthening our city's neighborhoods through the matching grants program and the Neighborhood Leadership Institute, and whereas Mr. Tolbert and his staff have assisted in the management of several critical construction projects, including the John Warner Parkway and Route 250 interchange projects,

and whereas in 2013 Mr. Tolbert was instrumental in the development of Charlottesville's strategic investment area resulting in two innovation awards from the American Planning Association Virginia chapter and whereas in 2014 the city received outstanding plan award from the American Planning Association Virginia chapter for its 2013 comprehensive plan now therefore be it resolved the Charlottesville City Council hereby thanks Mr. Tolbert for his 15 years of dedicated service to the city

and for his many accomplishments in improving the quality of life for all our residents and wishes him all the best as he embarks on his new life journey signed and sealed this second day of February 2015.

Thank you, Huja.

Sandy Springs.

I'll do very, very quickly because I know you've got a long agenda and I'm at the end of it.

Thank you, Council, for this.

It's been an honor and a pleasure to serve this city for 15 and a half years.

I've never had any idea when I moved to Charlottesville.

People think I'm nuts.

I'd never come to Charlottesville when I came up here to interview.

I had to ask Gary to bring me back for a second one so I could bring my wife because she said, I'm not moving anywhere I've never seen.

And she had never seen Charlottesville.

So, you know, to know that we would fall in love with this community, I just had no idea and know that I'd be here this long.

But it's been a pleasure.

It's been a great ride.

Parkway opening.

The city of Charlottesville will hold a ribbon-cutting to celebrate the opening of the John W. Warner Parkway

between the Route 250 bypass and Melbourne Road and the bridge on the Route 250 bypass over McIntyre Road and the John W. Warner Parkway.

The ribbon cutting will be held on the John W. Warner Parkway near the interchange at 1.30 p.m. on Thursday, February 5, 2015.

A formal dedication of the Parkway will be scheduled for spring.

So if you can't make it, keep your ears open for that.

The parkway will open to traffic immediately after the ribbon cutting event concludes.

Charlottesville police officers will be directing traffic in the area of the new traffic pattern.

Variable message signs will be in place beginning Tuesday, February 3rd, to alert motorists of the upcoming changes.

Construction on the interchange project began in March of 2012.

The project addresses roadway and operational issues at the intersection of the Route 250 Bypass and McIntire Road.

Additionally, the interchange design includes elements to improve community mobility with accommodations for pedestrians and cyclists.

In all, over 1.5 miles of sidewalk and shared use path and bike lanes have been designed.

All signalized intersections have been designed to include pedestrian countdown and walk buttons.

In addition to the parkway and the bridge, traffic signals on Park Street at the ramp serving the Route 250 bypass will become operational on February 5th.

This is all really important information for everyone to know concerning your driving patterns.

While the interchange signals and parkway will be functionally operational, construction will continue on the interchange project into the spring.

during the remainder of the project.

Ramps that were widened to accommodate additional traffic during construction will be narrowed for the final configuration.

We will also continue on, work will also continue on shared use paths, landscaping, the Dogwood Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which is a beautiful wall, if any of you've noticed so far.

staining the bridge and laying a final layer of asphalt.

The plan calls for the planting of 596 trees in the project area.

Yes, I have an announcement from City Market Arts.

Artists from the popular City Market along with other local artisans will be displaying and selling their creations at the 2015 City Market Arts

February 14, Valentine's Day, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Carver Recreation Center.

The art show features over 30 vendors with a variety of jewelry, paintings, pottery, and more, all made locally.

Select agricultural products will also be available from city market vendors.

The event is free and open to the public.

Customers may purchase items directly from vendors at the show.

Carver Recreation Center is located at the Jefferson School City Center, 233 4th Street NW.

And I went last year, it was fun.

Yes, I have several here.

Now this one, the first one I'm going to announce is a little complicated, but it's actually really important.

It's about garden plots and leasing them, which is really important to people around here.

So the renewal registration for the rental of garden plots by 2014, so if you rent it in 2014, you can begin to register today.

February 2nd until Friday, February 13th.

Plots are not automatically renewed and you must re-register each year.

If there are then unallocated plots left, registration for new renters in the neighborhoods that surround the garden plot locations, that's tier two, will begin on Tuesday, February 17th and run until February 20th.

It's a period of one week.

You must live within a quarter of a mile of the garden plots to be able to rent during this time.

So first if you rented last year and then if you live within a quarter mile of the garden plots you get the next opportunity.

This approach has been requested by members of the gardening community in order to allow those who live in close proximity to have access.

If after that there are unallocated plots, registration for other city residents

will begin on February 23rd and run until March 2nd.

Rates are the same as last year with full plot rentals being $50 for city residents and $70 for non-city residents.

There are half plots available at $30 for residents and $40 for non-residents, and Mickey Drive plots are $20 and $30 for non-residents.

The rental period starts from March 1st and goes through December 31st.

Now here's an important piece.

To rent a plot, you must appear in person at the main office of the Department of Parks and Recreation.

That's at 501 East Main Street, which is on the mall directly below Market Street.

Garage, right there by the elevators.

Between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., telephone and email registrations are not permitted.

Plots may or may not be available depending upon the level of renewals and prior rentals.

There may be a limited number of half-plots available.

So I would recommend, if you can't remember all that, to go to Charlottesville.org slash Parks and Rec.

Two other announcements.

It is February, Black History Month, Black History Program for Preschoolers.

Mr. Alexander, Charles Alexander is his born name, a native of Charlottesville, an early trailblazer being one of a dozen African American students known as the Charlottesville 12 who desegregated our local schools in 1959, is coordinating the first black

History event for preschoolers.

The event is entitled I'm Thinking All People Matter on Monday, February 16th at 10 a.m. at the historic Carver Recreation Center that's in the Jefferson School City Center.

Highlights will be Alexander's

JT, Just Think, Character Display, Black Inventors and local African American historic names and places and the joy of juggling, the voice contest, prizes and more.

Lots going on.

Teachers will receive the following learning tools, Think posters and activities, All People Matter posters, activities and a list of black inventions and inventors.

This free event

is designed for preschoolers and hosted by the Piedmont Family YMCA Intergenerational Learning Center.

Sponsors also include Mr. Dave Chapman, Sheriff James Brown, and the City of Promise.

So that is again on February 16th.

That's a Monday at 10 a.m. at Carver.

One other announcement.

for this month, Created Equal, America's Civil Rights Struggle.

This is an initiative developed by the National Endowment for the Humanity as part of Bridging Cultures Initiative to use powerful documentary films to help spark community discussions about the civil rights movement in America.

The James Madison Regional Library, that's our main library on Market Street there, is hosting a series of programs available at the Central Library to promote this initiative.

There are two dates remaining.

Freedom Riders will be on February 12th at 6 p.m. in the McIntyre Room.

Discussion leaders will include L.D.

Perry from the NAACP and Professor Grace Hale from UVA.

Freedom Riders tells the terrifying, moving, and suspenseful story of a time when white and black volunteers riding a bus into the deep south risked being jailed, beaten, or killed.

as white local and state authorities ignored or encouraged violent attacks.

It was previously seen as an amateur eight millimeter footage.

Watch the film in full for free online and check it out from the library.

The second film will be The Loving Story, February 26 at 6 p.m., same room, McIntyre Room at the Main Library.

again, Aldi Perry from the NAACP, and Charlene Green from our own Charlottesville Office of Human Rights, and her partner, Becca Saxon from Virginia Education Association, as well as Sarah, Charlottesville Office of Human Rights, and Erin, I'm gonna, I apologize, Krinaraj, Krishna, Krishna Raj, Krishna Raj, Krishna Raj, I apologize, you may be here, I apologize, from UVA Hospital.

When Mildred and Richard Loving were arrested in July 1958 in Virginia for violating a state law that banned marriage between people of different races, such laws had been on the books in most states since the 17th century.

This documentary brings to life the Lovings' marriage and the legal battle that followed through little known filmed interviews and photographs.

So that's all at the main library.

I'd like to start by commending the Charlottesville Wheelchair Basketball League, the Charlottesville Cardinals.

They have moved up in national ranking of the National Wheelchair Basketball League from number 13 to number 12.

So they have improved remarkably over last year.

DMV to go.

Can't get to the Division of Motor Vehicles?

Well, the Division of Motor Vehicles is coming to us.

Friday, February 6th, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the 6th Street Alley between City Hall and Market Street Parking Garage.

Yes.

And this next one is very, very special.

The Charlottesville Fire Department receives ISO, the Insurance Services Office Fire Protection Class 1 rating.

After an extensive ISO review, the Charlottesville Fire Department has become one of only 60 fire departments in the country to receive an ISO 1 and only one of two in Virginia.

In addition to being an ISO Class 1, Charlottesville was also recognized as one of the highest scoring ISO Class 1 fire departments in the country.

According to the National Fire Protection Association, NFPA, there are slightly over 30,000 fire departments in the United States.

This places the Charlottesville Fire Department in the top 0.2% nationwide.

From a community perspective and value, the ISO rating is the most important rating that a community receives and reflects the city's overall fire protection effectiveness.

The city's ISO 1 rating translates to the lowest possible insurance premiums for city residents and businesses.

This also serves as an economic driver for businesses interested in locating in Charlottesville.

And I see Chief Warner coming up.

I'd just like to say thanks, first of all, to City Council present.

and City Council's past for their support of the fire department and getting the resources that we need to deliver the services and to our community who supported us as well.

But what I really want to say is this is a true reflection on the men and women of the Charlottesville Fire Department.

Over the past 10 years we've worked really hard to bring this to culmination and it's also a collaboration between multiple city departments.

The fire protection rating means not only what the fire department can do, but what the water department can do.

Both the fire department and water department have ISO Class 1 ratings.

Without that Class 1 rating with the water department, we wouldn't have been able to achieve this rating.

It also looks at our emergency communications center and our dispatching, which is our regional center, which is a model in the country, on top of everything else that's done, and that collaboration collectively is what got us where we are today.

So our goal has been to deliver the highest level of service that will reduce the insurance premiums of our citizens and our businesses in the city of Charlottesville.

Thank you.

I also, there were a couple of other things that were on my calendar that didn't get announced and I just want to make sure people know about them that are happening before the next council meeting.

One is that on Thursday the 12th, which is next Thursday, we're going to have a town hall for the Martha Jefferson and Woollen Mills neighborhoods at Christ Community Church on Riverside.

Thank you.

Next item on the agenda is members of the public.

I'd like to read the procedures and rules for this participation.

Public will have two chances to speak, one at the beginning of the meeting now and one at the end of the meeting.

Members of the public,

is for topics that are scheduled for public hearing.

If there is a public hearing already scheduled, you cannot speak on that topic.

You wait till the public hearing item.

For example, today there is a public hearing on designating two trees.

So if you want to speak on that topic, wait till that item comes up in front of you.

Each speaker has three minutes to speak.

Please identify your name and address as you speak.

Please do not interrupt

Speakers, whether or not you agree with them.

If you cannot follow these guidelines, you'll be excluded from city council chambers and not permitted to reenter.

I hope that's not necessary.

We welcome public comments, and it is an important function of our meetings.

Eberhardt-Yela, 1402 Hazel and I'd like to speak in response to some of the remarks that were made by council January 20th regarding the design to rework the West Main right-of-way.

It's been approximately a year, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, Kathy, that the city adopted a complete streets resolution.

Complete streets means that every important corridor be made safe and attractive for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Safe for the motorists going through too, but attractive for us as a community.

The question is, some of the remarks two weeks ago caused a lot of us to think whether City Council again wishes to simply pay lip service to complete streets.

West Main is the, capital T-H-E, only flat and direct connection between downtown and therefore Belmont.

of the Jefferson neighborhood, all eastern parts of the city and the university, the hospital, central grounds, all the commercial area there.

Any of the alternative routes are not only more difficult to traverse as a pedestrian or as a bicyclist, they're considerably longer.

Many have described it as the backbone of any pedestrian and bicycle

Network for the city to continue to delay improving West Main Street safety for pedestrians.

Its attractiveness for pedestrians and bicyclists is essentially committing the city to continue to be somewhat of a quadriplegia.

Break the backbone, right?

You're going to fix the backbone or you're going to break the backbone?

So I how you stand on some of the particulars

of the consultant's rework design for West Main Street may vary.

But whatever you do, unless you wish to simply pay lip service to complete streets, you need to make West Main safe for pedestrians and for bicyclists.

Alternatives.

It was brought up, doesn't fit on West Main.

Well, the alternatives are Preston and Cherry.

They're longer.

They're hilly.

They're flawed because they have heavy traffic.

Yes, go ahead and put the needed infrastructure on those places.

That infrastructure is needed in any case.

Go ahead and accelerate the resources that will be put to that.

And then measure whether, in fact, any of the bicycle traffic on West Main gets diverted to those places.

It won't.

It's much, much longer.

It's much chillier and much more difficult.

And West Main should remain

Am I now already on three minutes with the red?

Well, I had a whole lot more to say.

You can come back at the end of the meeting if you like.

I'll leave now.

Thank you.

And it's not a parochial sort of issue.

I should have come and given each of you a t-shirt that says, shows a bicyclist on a bicycle.

It says, one less car.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm Brandon Collins.

I live at 418 Fairway Avenue.

I've lived in Charlottesville my entire life.

I have three children who also live here their entire lives.

I'm also a member of the DMC Task Force as Representative Farr, and you're going to hear about the task force this evening.

The 2011 Commission of Youth and Families report showed a clear racial bias in the juvenile justice system, the child welfare system,

and in mental and physical health outcomes for African American children.

This information and subsequent data says terrible things about our community and shows that our children are victims of institutional racism and Charlottesville's participation in mass incarceration and the new Jim Crow.

We are right to demand more action from the task force.

However, many of us feel that meaningful action has been too slow in coming and that some of the participants, Chief Longo in particular, have failed to fully embrace the mission of the task force.

The police and other agencies on the task force seem too concerned with defending their departments rather than taking bold and significant steps to change the system.

This is why, as a task force member, I support fully the changing of leadership of the task force towards community leadership and away from entrenched bureaucrats.

Community leadership can invigorate the task force, give the ability to say yes to seeking new information, and demanding accountability.

The burden of leadership and providing focus needs to come from the community, and the task force should also be expanded to include more community members, especially young people, and hold meetings at times accessible to all members of the community.

The task force should also be expanded to explore the relationships between juvenile disparities, adult disparities, and within other systems that play a role in the racial bias of those systems.

So much of the data and possible recommendations for one another affect one another.

The task force should not have its hands tied when looking into adult matters or into other agencies.

And there's numerous examples, but I don't have time to offer those.

The task force should have access to the stop and frisk data showing that 70% of all stop and frisks in Charlottesville are of African Americans and the ability to make recommendations that will address the systemic profiling of black men in the community for which the police have offered no explanation nor have they offered any solutions.

This needs to be explored by a body other than the police department or the citizens advisory panel, both of which seem incapable

or unwilling to look within and admit what the issue is, which is systemic oppression.

Similarly, the task force should be investigating connections with the Department of Social Services and other agencies to identify their impacts on racial bias in the juvenile justice system and seek to make recommendations.

Finally, the police department is about to institute a new data collection system.

The community as a whole must have a process for being able to inform this data collection

and get their needs met.

The police cannot be the only ones in charge of determining what kinds of data needs to be collected and a process needs to be begun very soon before they purchase this new software.

Charlottesville has recently seen all parts of our community demand action on institutional racism.

More needs to be done and what gets done must be meaningful with an eye not just towards reducing racial disparities but towards totally and permanently eliminating racism and oppression in our community.

Thank you.

Sherry Henley.

My name is Sherry Henley.

I live at 463 Rile Road.

Sorry.

463.

I'm a little short guys.

463 Rile Road in Albemarle County.

Um, and first, uh,

I want to talk about the task force being expanded as well.

And as far as what Brandon was saying when it was started in 2011, that started out, I guess, looking at the juveniles.

So now we're at a different point.

So it could have went from juveniles to adults and just that fast, because we can turn from 17 to 18 pretty quick.

And also OER did a report in 2014 for the fiscal year

2012, saying that 68% of African Americans that were being arrested, that was that Democratic profile.

I'm sorry.

Sorry about that.

And I just want to go back even further because I myself as an ex-offender, so I feel like I got a little bit more of different information.

We can even go back to the war on drugs as to where blacks were getting higher sentencing

as far as what they call difference in crack and cocaine.

And one of the reasons I'm bringing that up is because I deal with some guys in Buckingham and they have this petition that's going around where they are trying to file a petition on disparities in their sentencing.

And this is about 15 guys already in Buckingham and they are doing it all in many prisons.

And some of their sentences started when they was like 18, so I don't know.

For me at my age, I still think of them as children.

So they started at 18 and now they're like 35 years old.

So they're still incarcerated.

And also along with that, even City Council's 2010 proclamation for ex-offenders said that the vast majority were African Americans.

This is the proclamation that you guys put out in 2010 showed that it was

a high ratio of African Americans who were coming back into Charlottesville.

And you said that returning to Charlottesville for successful re-entry are often exacerbated by negative social and racial attitudes in the community.

From this existed the breakdown of the family.

structure, leaving single moms to have to take care of their children.

And I see this a lot in Friendship Court where I work.

A lot of mothers, they tell me all the time, they say, Ms. Henley, we don't mind getting a job, but when we get a job, social services take a dollar for every dollar that we make.

So this is how the family is affected, especially children.

and the DMC keeps talking about arrest rates are going down.

I'm finished.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I'm Nelson Cain of 1200 West Main Street in Charlottesville.

I don't live in the city, but I've worked in the city for 29 years.

That's all.

The answer is yes.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Doug Owens.

I'm from in Fife, Cantwell Court, Palmyra, Virginia.

I run a free vocational program here in Charlottesville for people that are in vocational crisis and homeless.

And I'm a little concerned about the Workforce Center and I'm seeking funding for my program for about $15,000 for what I do so I can maintain it and expand it.

So, dear Charlottesville City Council and Charlottesville City Manager,

In September of 2014, I distributed a document to the Charlottesville City Council informing them that the Workforce Center is inadequate to successfully assist or disenfranchise citizens find work, specifically the Haven Pocham guests.

I distributed the same document and did a presentation at the Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for Homeless concerning my belief that the structure of the Workforce Center was missing critical educational and empowering components.

In short, the downtown Charlottesville and hydraulic centers are in desperate need of cultural awareness and educational transformation.

Now five years later, complaints about the Workforce Center's services and outcomes from Haven Potsham guests and support agencies have become too prevalent to ignore, and those concerned with employment issues with this population are questioning what is going on there.

To explore the situation, I concentrated on the downtown center and conducted two surveys last month

to see the impact of the $115,000 investment the city is making.

I was able to contact 25 guests with the Workforce Center and also ask primary service providers to these guests their opinion.

The results were surprising.

No guests I interviewed from the Haven Pacham location had been helped in getting a job, nor had they heard of anyone getting work through the efforts of the center.

Only 12% were happy with the service, and only 3% would recommend the facility to a friend.

Further, many reported that the atmosphere was alienating and they felt rejected and hopeless.

Most reported they would not return unless they needed a go ride pass.

These findings are supported by staff of the various organizations that assist the guests with services.

They report that they have second thoughts about sending the clients to the Workforce Center because guests come back more disillusioned than before they left.

Now, upper tier of the state government has questions.

Please examine

the December 12, 2014 editorial in the original finance dispatch titled Training Workforce to see how the media and state government views the organization.

The budget of $340 million is pretty large and we're wondering what we're getting for our tax money.

I also conducted a survey on my Let's Grow Now program and

where I served 103 individuals in 2013-14.

Utilizing the Let's Grow Now framework that I developed over 25 years ago.

Sorry.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Huja.

City Council, Mr. Brown, Mr. Jones.

I'm Mike Basile with the Jefferson Area Tea Party.

I live in Albemarle County.

I request the present members of the Metropolitan Planning Organization, City Council Kristin Szakos and Mayor Huja, and the City Council call for a halt to the grade separated intersection at Rio and 29 until studies are completed showing it is the best value for our dollars being spent and the other Route 29 improvements are completed.

The need for alternative roadways being available while RYO and 29 is under construction is obvious.

At a time when multiple construction projects are occurring on Route 29, all of us are going to want alternative routes to travel during construction so that we may avoid the construction.

The GSI at 29 and RYO will frustrate all of the drivers and property owners along the route.

For instance, as the Park Street congestion eases and adjusts to the opening of the new Parkway, it will again encounter more construction frustration for the next couple of years at Rhode Island 29.

City residents traveling to the county to work, say at Engic or shop or go to the airport or to Washington, D.C., are going to encounter new unwarranted frustration.

County residents working and shopping in the city are going to experience the same frustration.

Now imagine

when it is complete, leaving the city to go to Lowes or Chick-fil-A at Hollymeade.

After turning right from Rio onto 29 North, halfway to the Hollymeade intersection, now you've got to yield through two high-speed lanes with big trucks to get into the left two lanes to turn there at the Hollymeade shopping center.

And that intersection is going to have more congestion due to the turnarounds there after that intersection is completed.

It's going to be much more dangerous and difficult to get across that transit.

after the construction is complete.

So the point is clear.

The Rio in 29 GSI is being rushed through at a detriment to Albemarle County and the city of Charlottesville.

This will detrimentally impact citizens of Charlottesville.

The other issue, it is tax money.

Federal, state, wherever they suggest the $84 million is coming from, our Fed is $18 trillion in debt.

And our state, according to our governor, is near a $2 billion deficit.

So why spend $84 million on an intersection that doesn't need to be fixed?

New data brought forward last week or brought to our attention last week from VDOT shows that traffic and accidents at Rio 29 are decreasing the past couple of years.

There is nothing to fix there at this time.

So don't do it.

Use your voices and call on the governor to halt this GSI project at this time.

Rebecca Quinn, 1044th Street here in the city.

I'd like to let people know your yellow light isn't working, so they're not getting the warning.

Okay.

Most of the time, the city makes good efforts to reach out and involve the public.

Indeed, every item on every council agenda identifies community engagement.

I'm often impressed by how much engagement goes on, and that's a good thing.

A recent editorial in the Richmond Times dispatched opined, it is impossible to support or oppose a given governmental action if you don't know about it in the first place.

I have a concern with the process for noticing or not noticing tonight's public hearing on Lee Jackson Day.

I asked the clerk why notices were not published in local newspapers

and was told the city attorney said it's not legally required to hold this public hearing and therefore it's not legally required to publish notice.

Well, that's disappointing.

The city is committed to community engagement, if we are, to community engagement and open government.

Why not publish notices of all public hearings?

Well, the notice wasn't published as was done for the other

public hearings, and in my opinion this is not a good thing.

Good evening, I'm Mary Carey, I live at 100 Reed Street, and I'm here also to talk about

Task Force.

I think it should be a community organized thing, too, because when you start appointing people, they start saying what you want them to say and thinking the way you want them to think, and they don't bring you back the news what the people are thinking about or saying.

With that said, I'm looking around Charlottesville, and I don't see no black history.

I don't know where it at.

Where it at?

I'm going to say it like it is.

But anyway, I grew up in the time of Venica Hill where my friends lived down here.

And they put them all up there and hard to drive in different places.

But some of the black people privileged had a choice to move out on the inner ridge street.

Still put them together.

But everywhere I look, they're taking up neighborhoods and putting down hotels.

What's this?

Where I used to live when I first got married was on the corner of Ridge and Cherry.

You got people around here that don't have anywhere to live and you're putting out brochures that don't even show that you have housing in this town.

You don't show any black areas in your brochures.

You show a lot of hotel, motels, holiday inns, service stations, banks, places to eat, places to go play tennis and golf.

This is not what Charlottesville is all about.

When I was growing up, what it was about is what it's about now, racism.

That needs to stop.

And whether you like it or not, we are still going to fight.

I'm 68 years old.

I went through this one time before.

I don't want to go through it again.

But if I have to, with every breath that God gives me, I'm going to fight for it.

I'm so sick of hotels going up.

Why are these hotels going up?

You got people out here with nowhere to live.

You got empty buildings out here that you're not filling up.

I see buildings all the time.

The Staples years ago used to be a grocery store.

City Council said they had to move because the water was there.

Then you store the building stuff underneath it.

But Staples still there only because it was in a black neighborhood.

I know half of y'all leaving, God forbid, to y'all, but to me,

It's too late coming for a long time.

Everybody needs to know when you out there fighting for a reason, you got to have somebody behind you.

City Council ain't behind nobody.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Raymond Mason.

I live at 717 Cynthia Avenue here in the city.

I want to personally thank Bob Fenwick for having his meeting last week.

I learned quite a few things there.

One thing that was really noticed was that people were saying that the city is doing things and not notifying business people or residents.

Maybe you can come up with some kind of plan to correct that problem.

The lady from Fellini said she didn't find out about the closing of 2nd Street until she actually went to work.

That's, you know, a pretty bad situation there.

around Charlottesville for years.

But anyway, something else that I brought up was the lack of

minority teachers in Charlottesville.

And some people might think this is a school board issue, but after investigating the situation a little further, what I found out is that it might be a little more in-depth than just the school system, not hiring minority teachers.

I'm going to give you some numbers real quick, and then I'll talk a little bit after.

Lugo McGinnis has two black teachers, one white teacher.

Buford Middle School has 10 black teachers, 40 non-black teachers.

Brell Moran has five black teachers, 28, 29

non-black teachers.

CHS has 13 black teachers, 95 non-black teachers.

Clark has one black teacher, 38 non-black teachers.

Greenbrier has five black teachers, 26 non-black teachers.

Jackson Vow has three black teachers, 27 non-black teachers.

Johnson has two black teachers, 32 non-black teachers.

Venable has four black teachers, 27 non-black teachers.

And Walk has six black teachers versus 47 non-white teachers.

After talking to a few people, I talked to one principal at one of these schools, and they said they had the opportunity to hire a person of color part-time, but the people seemed to respond that because Charlottesville was set the way it is, that it wasn't suitable for them to teach here.

And Charlottesville has one of the highest pay salary scales

in the state.

I think it's number three if I'm right.

But black educators, they can be good, they can be great.

I've known plenty of them over my life and they've done great jobs and big things.

But when you only have one black teacher in an elementary school that's phenomenally black,

you're sending a real message to these young black children.

It's like blacks cannot be educators.

And that's not the case at all.

I mean, we just named alternative education school, Lugo McGinnis, which to me, those names should be at a major elementary or high school rather than a substandard school.

I thought that was a smack in the face in my personal opinion.

And back to where I was, it's like, you know, the reason I say it's not just a city board problem is because this is a direct reflection of the city of Charlottesville.

And this is a place that says it's one of the best places in America to live.

but obviously for black educators it is not and we need to address this situation not yesterday but the day before yesterday.

Thank you.

Lewis Schultz.

My name is Lewis Schultz.

I live at 1809 East Market Street.

This is the 32nd time since October 3, 2013 that I have come to Council to say that I have evidence that City Manager Maurice Jones, Director of Public Works Judith Mueller, and Utilities Director Lauren Hildebrand have, by unlawfully taking private property for a public use, violated Charlottesville Code, the City's Charter, and the Code of Virginia, and in doing so, have violated federal civil rights statutes.

For 16 months now, I have repeatedly told council that my rights as a U.S. citizen were illegally taken from me by force with no due process and no compensation by people acting in their official capacities as employees of the city of Charlottesville and under the direct supervision of the city manager.

I have provided council documentary evidence to prove my assertions, and I have asked numerous times that council hold a hearing where I may give sworn testimony and present any additional evidence they might request of me

so that justice may be served and those who have broken the law might be held accountable.

Despite the seriousness of my accusations, their very public nature, and the important role of the city manager whose duties include enforcing the laws of the city, no councilor has ever contacted me in any way to seek more information.

On the contrary, Kristin Szakos has gone so far as to threaten me with prosecution for speaking the truth at council meetings.

Other councilors have refused to speak to me, my neighbors, or representatives from my neighborhood association when we have reached out to them for help.

No one has ever questioned the veracity of anything I have said about the law, the facts I presented, or the conduct of the officials I've named, and a report which was prepared for council in July by the city attorney proves beyond any reasonable doubt that the accusations I have made are true.

Still, no councilor, not even the supposedly outspoken Bob Fenwick or Dede Smith,

will say a word or lift a finger to see that anyone is held accountable and counsel as a whole refuses to hold a hearing apparently based on the advice of the city attorney.

City Attorney Craig Brown's own conduct as well as that of Barbara Ronan, his paralegal, would be placed under scrutiny in any hearing.

Also, by law, the city attorney is the city manager's legal advisor and defender.

Mr. Brown, acting under those and other conflicts of interest, has predictably advised counsel not to hold a hearing.

For 16 months, council has followed his advice and pretended like I'm not here and that the uncomfortable facts I've exposed don't have to be dealt with.

Because Mr. Brown and others have been embarrassed by what I have been saying and because he is under pressure to make me go away, he secretly and illegally hired an outside firm to research property records.

Unfortunately for him, that firm's report, which has been hidden from the public, proved beyond any doubt that the property the city seized from me and my neighbors was in fact private and that the city has no lawful interest of any sort in it.

The same thing is true of as many as hundreds of other properties the city claims rights to.

Council has been aware of all of this for months but still refuses to hold Mr. Jones or any other city officials accountable for violating numerous laws.

For more than a year now, as an inept city management fumbles around trying to avoid the consequences of the mess they have made for me and my neighbors, not to mention themselves, their negligence has threatened the safety of several small children and may yet result in the uncontrolled release of raw sewage into an otherwise perfectly healthy stream that feeds directly into the Rivanna River.

Allow me to introduce myself.

My name is Phineas T. McGillicuddy.

And I'm here tonight because matters of the gravest concern and utmost importance have been brought to my attention having to do with certain maladies that are afflicting the city government of Charlottesville, Virginia.

Now these range in depth and severity from simple foolishness and incompetence to grave malfeasance and skullduggery and moral turpitude.

But I'm here to tell you, dear council members, never fear, because Phineas T. McGillicuddy's magical healing elixir is good for what ails you.

One drop of this formula will act as a truth serum, and it will drive out the lies and hypocrisy from amongst you.

For those of you so unfortunate as to have been born without a backbone, this will offer you the courage of your convictions.

but I digress because the problems afflicting the city of Charlottesville are very, very serious indeed.

Why did you know that when your very own Department of Social Services kidnaps a child from a family for placement in social services that 57% of the time that child is from a black family when black families only make up 20% of the population?

It's enough to make my blood boil, I tell you.

This is significantly worse than the state average, and for those of you who are familiar with old Virginia, as in you've actually lived here, you understand that that is a fact that's nothing to be proud of, not for a city that wishes to claim the title of friendliest city in the USA.

Is that really a city for wealthy white families only?

and I assure you these problems neither begin nor end with the racist Department of Social Services.

Two years ago you appointed a commission to study the very simple question of why do black children come into contact with every aspect of the juvenile justice system much more frequently than their white counterparts.

Now I could have saved you much trouble if you had simply asked me from the get-go but two years later we have a lot of bureaucratic doublespeak, we have a lot of well-paid public officials congratulating themselves on a job well done and not any change at all.

Same goes for why is Chief Longo yet to account for the fact that 70% of stop and frisk are on black people in this city?

The answer is very simple.

The city of Charlottesville is as racist as the day is long.

Now can we dispense with the commissions and the task forces, with the hand wringing and the study and the statistics, and figure out just what in the hell are we going to do about it now?

Now finally, I would like to offer on a final point

My sincere thanks, Ms. Smith, for your invitation for me to attend this fine meeting tonight and offer a resolution for your consideration.

Whereas the city of Charlottesville is founded on the ideals of Thomas Jefferson, a scoundrel of the most unsavory variety.

indeed a slave rapist.

And in so much as the evils of racism begun during his time continue unabated to afflict the city of Charlottesville to this day, be it so resolved that from this day henceforth

No longer shall the city of Charlottesville celebrate racist Confederate war criminals, but shall instead honor the memories of Nat Turner and John Brown in hopes that someday we shall be rid of the foul legacy of Thomas Jefferson.

Frye-Hooja, you may have overlooked on the list prior to my appointed time to speak was Rosia Parker.

If she has not already come, please do be so kind as to offer her the opportunity.

I've spoken to

yourself and Jones.

I need to get some assistance on emergency service, dealing with outside needs as a general leave.

I'm not getting response from social service who had a court reward and they never served emergency services to me.

So I've spoken to you, I was just wondering if we could set up a private meeting during the week or in the future, or if I could get some emergency services, just even dealing with money, under the state code, or I noticed that at the local level we're kind of lacking.

So...

Here's your ad.

Anything else you want to add?

Oh, I have a problem with the state code not being addressed at the social level, like at the police department and dealing with emergency services and monetary payments being put into the public for emergencies.

I was wondering if that's

Something that should be the norm or is it just something that you have to go through the courts for?

And if it's through the courts, I've had a decision I've spoken with you with.

And if it's state code, why isn't the local level acknowledging it?

Okay, well, if we can address that, then is it possible to also have a- I'll do a follow up next week for information, but I'd like to hear some input this evening if you could help immediately with the homeless

Shelters, they're in need of overhaul.

The whole security needs overhaul in Charlottesville, and they're not acknowledging code outside of the court.

So if you can acknowledge that.

Let us see, please.

Other comments from the Council members?

I don't know the list.

I signed the wrong slip, but I just want to echo some of the sentiments of some of the people this evening.

But I wanted to

to forewarn the council in regards to becoming a South Africa before Mandela, before apartheid.

You know, when you stop and frisk people and 70 percent of African Americans and not explain to the public

Why you are doing this, that is very, very dangerous.

Why would you allow a police department who the Supreme Court have given them license to kill already to do anything they want to do?

Why would you allow a police chief to

Get all these statistics together and it shows, again, 70% of African Americans are stopped.

Now, Mr. Jones, you have an African American son.

He might, you got four of them.

And so you should be concerned.

And I don't, Maurice, I don't really want to point you out, but you do.

You have four sons.

And so if the police stop them, they're stopping them because they're black for the most part.

So we need to be very, very careful.

All we want, the citizens of Charlottesville want, the African American citizens and some white citizens to want to know, why are you stopping?

70% of African American folks.

There's a reason.

And the property of the reason is because they're black.

Not the total reason.

But part of that reason is because they're black.

And we have to put a stop to that.

This is not rocket science and stuff.

Thank you all for coming.

It was an interesting evening.

Not over yet, that's for sure.

We'll talk about some of these issues tonight and I'll reserve my comments for the items on our agenda for that time.

It's interesting.

The tenor tonight was one of... Well, how do I put it?

Well, I'll just say that some of that tooth serum might have benefited some of y'all's speakers.

Mr. Schultz, I've spoken to you.

I've emailed with you.

That's disappointing.

Your issue, to pull back, it was a public health issue, a broken sewer pipe.

The city had to come out.

So, you know, that was disappointing, you know.

You had your turn.

And Mr. Finneas, that's disappointing too since you spliced my picture into a video that I wasn't even there.

Would you please stop interrupting?

I'm not lying.

You need to keep quiet please.

I'd be happy to talk to you about it afterwards.

The issues are very real.

We deal with them all the time.

It just doesn't help to come and

speak untruths.

I'm sorry.

It doesn't help.

I wasn't in that.

You can leave.

You can leave.

Would you please just?

You had your turn, ma'am.

I was not there on Tuesday.

Mr. G, anything else to add?

I don't understand how TV works.

I know how tooth works.

That was the opening sequence, it was a montage that introduced the program.

Would you please stop interrupting her?

Please.

She was conversing.

She did.

Okay.

That's how TV is.

Well, we're going to be talking about a couple of these things later on.

Rebecca Quinn, I think that's a great idea to have the agenda published in the newspaper.

Not everybody has access to computers.

And that way we can get a

a real sense of how the community feels about these issues.

And some of them are very difficult, some of them we've been dealing with for a long, long time.

And I am a little distressed at the nature of the atmosphere.

I understand what's going on.

I have for a long time.

And I agree with

Mary Carey when she said she fought this thing once she does not want to fight it again.

So there is a great deal of uncertainty in the community and I would hope that as a community we can deal with these things in a straightforward way and I'm not saying in a way that covers things up or that tells you one thing and you know for a fact another thing happens.

the ABC situation up on West Main Street.

We had the community basically divided and I would consider that as an opportunity for all sides in the community to come together to solve a problem and I would hope that that's the way we can solve other difficulties in our community.

So I respect Dede Smith a great deal.

She's devoted her life

to helping the citizens of Charlottesville.

And when she says something, I listen very closely to her.

You have something?

Yes.

Mr. Yalley, are you still here?

No, I'm good.

Okay.

Then I won't necessarily do that.

We'll be talking about the DMC later, so all of the

things that were about that we'll have a full conversation about later.

To Mr. Owens, there was a period during which, did he leave as well?

There you are, I'm sorry.

There was a period during which the city was actually soliciting applications for financial support.

And I understand you didn't apply, but that will come around again next year.

So that's the place to do that.

It's the ABRT, and what it stands for has nothing to do with what it is, but it's how we give away grant money in the city.

There is a height limit on West Main Street, and it's different in different places.

It's, what, six to nine stories high, and Department of Neighborhood Development Services can get that information.

The MPO actually was unanimous in its support for the whole project, including the 29 Rio intersection.

So even if the two city members were to change their votes, it wouldn't change the outcome.

And we're not inclined to, partly because it is in the county and it's something that the County Board of Supervisors supports overwhelmingly.

So I appreciate your bringing that to us.

And I understand that your concerns, but

We are in support of that at this moment.

I'm actually, Ms. Quinn, your idea of noticing the public hearings and the public agendas, there is a certain cost to that, and I think that we should look at it.

We do an awful lot more public notice now than we did even five years ago, so this is a work in progress.

I'm always for getting the most people out as possible.

Sometimes it makes our, you know,

public process a little chaotic because people do disagree and they do have things to say and I think that's a good thing so I'm interested in looking at that.

Let's see, just a piece of Ms. Carey's thing, the hotel actually has not been approved at the corner of Ridge and Cherry as far as I know but that would be part of a development that includes housing so they are looking at housing in that area as well and the housing has already been approved, the hotel has not been

And it may be expensive housing, but what we hope is that it will take some of the pressure off of housing costs in the city so that it won't drive up housing costs.

Mr. Mason, I agree as the parent of children of color who came through the city schools that

We need more minority teachers.

We actually have more than we used to.

It's still not enough.

And I think you've really nailed a lot of the issue.

And it's really hard to keep my thoughts together when people are talking, so I appreciate it.

Just let me finish and then we can have a real conversation later.

But I think that a lot of what we really do struggle with in this community is having a community where young black professionals feel supported and feel welcome.

and I think that that's the Young Black Professional Network has been working really hard on that.

There's a teacher's organization that's been working hard and I know we have the African American Teaching Fellows, but I think that none of those is enough and that we really need to create a community that is supportive of everybody in it and that's something that I have dedicated my council career to and I know I don't always get it right, but I think you're absolutely right.

I think Mr. Schultz, what he was saying shows that we really do have free speech in America, some freedom to speak untruths as well as speak the truth.

We have indeed declined to have a hearing.

We're not planning to have a hearing.

He continues to come.

It's his right to come.

So I guess he'll continue to come.

The gentleman who spoke about emergency relief, all I can suggest to you is that you talk with the folks at Social Services and also with the folks at AIM, which is the Association of Interfaith Ministries, who often do have emergency funding for people who fall through the cracks.

of eligibility for social services programs.

This is not because it's a police issue, but I assume that Mr. Finkel in the back, our police officer, probably has information about how to contact them that I don't have.

Do you have that?

Well, somebody in that back row has it, I'm sure.

And to Mr. Turner, I think the 77%, and I think this was just a way of saying it, but the 70, I'm quite sure that it's not that 77% of African American men in Charlottesville are stopped and frisked.

It's that 77% of the people who are stopped and frisked are African American.

It's still really disproportionate, and it's still a big problem, but it's, yes, but it's not the same.

Thank you.

Yeah, and we'll talk about those issues later.

And thank you.

I'll be very quick with regards to what Eberhard was saying as well as Mr. Russell Kane concerning West Main Street.

There's actually going to be a work session on February 19th from 3.30 to 5.30 where we're going to have a very in-depth discussion and review

of the plan for West Main Street.

One of the key parts of that plan is to revisit our zoning ordinance because it has become very clear to a lot of us in this community and made very clear to the council that the buildings are quite big and they're very tall, very bulky.

That's just one of the many things that will be discussed as well as what Everhard was talking about, the idea of trying to make this a street where all people, whether they're walking, biking, driving a car, or riding a bus can actually

commute and enjoy.

So the other item I'd like to touch upon actually is regarding something that Mr. Mason talked about and it's the African American teachers.

There's also a lot of similarities between that and African American teachers.

police officers, and we are doing a fairly good job, I think, with African American employees, city employees.

I understand there's about 37% of our city staff payroll is African American, which is not too bad, given that we're 19% African American in the city.

A big key to that, when I was on the school board, and I talked at length to teachers, is that they really can't afford to live in the city because of the housing costs.

We have programs that provide subsidized housing for very low income and the rest is market.

That in between, which is called the workforce, really is something that we're really not doing a good job on.

There's been ideas about, offered in some of the studies that we've done, everything from buying land in a land trust so that we could actually build in affordability because the land prices are going sky high in the city.

and the Housing Advisory Council is also researching how we're going to approach workforce housing.

I agree with the comments of my colleagues.

I want to point out the work session on West Main Street and I made some comments last meeting about West Main Street and I stand by them and I'll see if we can improve and I'm very much supportive of bicycle lanes on West Main Street and wait for the work session.

Item A minutes for January 20th.

Item B an appropriation Charlottesville affordable housing fund $215,913.33 and Tonsler Park capital project account $156,391.02 first of two readings.

I would like to pull out D. Okay.

Okay.

Any other items?

Is there a motion?

Discussion?

So we'll bring item D at the end.

Good evening, Mayor Huja, members of council.

I'm Bitsy Waters and I'm here on behalf of the Charlottesville Tree Commission to ask you to designate

and the first two trees under the city's tree conservation ordinance.

You have a memorandum providing information on this in your packet, so I will only offer a few highlights.

Charlottesville's tree conservation ordinance allows designation of four types of trees.

Heritage trees, memorial trees, specimen trees, and street trees.

Both public and private trees are eligible for nomination under this ordinance.

Public trees must be nominated by the Tree Commission and private trees must be nominated by the owners of land they are located on.

The Tree Commission makes the final determination of which trees will be brought forward to city council.

Once designated, trees receive special protection.

Owners must take reasonable efforts to preserve and protect these trees.

Trees can't be removed or intentionally damaged unless city council determines there is an overriding need for public improvements which would require removal, or in the case of private trees, if not allowing removal, would cause hardship for a private owner.

In all cases, emergency work can be done on these trees to protect public health and safety.

I would like to say a few brief things about the two trees being nominated tonight, our first two.

The first tree is a publicly owned

is publicly owned and is being nominated as a specimen tree.

It's an American sycamore located in Quarry Park.

At 130 feet tall, this is the third largest tree of this kind recorded in the Virginia Big Tree Register and its spread is the largest and recorded in the state.

It's been recognized as a landmark tree by our local tree stewards organization.

The second tree is a privately owned tree being nominated as a heritage tree.

I'd like to extend the Commission's thanks to Mike Bednar and Joe Larson, the owners of the historic property on East Jefferson Street, where this tree is located, for nominating this special tree.

The tree is a white oak that is over 16 feet in circumference, which, according to standard methods for estimating age of a tree, makes it between 300 and 400 years old.

It is on a property adjacent to the 1770 Nicholas Lewis House, and the owners believe it has ties to Colonel Tarleton's visit to this property

when Thomas Jefferson was Governor of Virginia.

On behalf of the Commission, I respectfully request you to designate these two trees for protection under our ordinance.

We hope these will be the first of many trees we will recognize and protect under this ordinance.

The Commission will continue to bring forward publicly owned trees we consider worthy of designation and we hope other private owners will nominate their trees as well.

Before closing,

I want to say that this is the last time I'll be coming for you as Chairman of the Tree Commission.

We stepped down as the Chair last week and the Commission has elected Maynard Sipe to serve as the new Chair.

Maynard, I think, is here this evening.

There he is.

And he will be representing the Commission before the Council moving forward.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate all the support you've given us as we work to get this new Commission up and running these past three years.

I will be staying on the commission as a regular member and look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues and with you to protect and enhance Charlottesville's urban forest.

Thank you.

Is this a time to commend somebody on a job well done?

You can always do that.

Okay.

Bitzy, I have to commend you.

It's been a tremendous road that you've traveled, and you've given the Commission guidance.

And I just learned the past week, you know, we think this tree business is new, something new.

People are worried about trees now.

Well, it turns out about a hundred years ago there was an article in the paper

about the city council recommending funding for trees.

I think it was on West Main Street because it was just too dusty.

So it's something that's been in our community.

It's an attraction to our community, which attracts businesses to our community.

And if anybody has any doubts about that, just think of what the downtown mall would be with no trees.

Thank you, Betsy.

Thank you very much.

I'll open the public hearing on tree orders.

Speak for the trees.

I just think this is great and commend you for the trees chosen and particularly for our first public tree.

I assume you have access to the wonderful database that the city has on public trees.

you can sort it by diameter and by species.

Absolutely.

I should have said that, and maybe I'll do this because it's a microphone for this.

We have for public trees to contact any tree commissioner or staff at Parks and Rec who could pass them along to us, so anyone

who wants, loves a particular public tree and would like to see it nominated, please let us know.

For private trees, we put the nomination form on the website, so it's charlesville.org slash parks and rec and tree commission and you can

get the form and nominate a tree.

And do you have any sort of plan for how to pick the next tree?

We actually haven't developed a systematic way.

We were more concerned to actually get the process working and have it in place.

And we don't even know, frankly, how many in terms of numbers we can handle in a quarter.

These are to come up on your agenda quarterly.

I don't, you know, I don't think we have to make a presentation every time, but we will be kind of

clustering them and we will move them through as quickly as we can.

And I'd just like to promote just one little idea because I see Ms. Carey here and get a chance to talk about the efforts to promote African American Heritage Trail in Charlottesville.

and in Albemarle County.

And it would be really nice as we do that to identify some of our heritage trees as witness trees where interpretation of the area can actually be tied to a tree.

And because the tree, if they're that big, they're obviously very old.

and they basically, it's just an idea around the country.

It's a great idea.

I do have one comment, please.

I just want to say that I think the production, the creation of this ordinance

and then the identification of two actual trees that would fall into this ordinance is just a perfect example of how incredibly valuable our citizen advisory groups are to this council.

The Tree Commission has been diligent, it has been very professional and has given us a lot of great insights through those three years and gave us this ordinance.

So I just want to applaud the Tree Commission in particular

But I do think it is a really excellent example of how our citizen advisory groups act as our policy analysts and our policy research arm for the council.

Anybody here to make a resolution?

I will make a motion that we adopt the ordinance designating certain trees as protected trees under the city's tree conservation ordinance.

Any discussion?

Then vote.

It carries over, Mr. Mayor.

It carries over, you don't vote on a public hearing.

Okay.

Mr. Mayor, I'm presenting for the public hearing.

I'll provide you with a little bit of history on Lee Jackson Day here in the city of Charlottesville with

councils being asked to consider.

The Commonwealth of Virginia first commemorated Robert E. Lee's birthday back in 1889.

Fifteen years later, in 1904, Stonewall Jackson was added to the holiday.

In 1983, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day became an official federal holiday to honor the life and achievements of the civil rights leader.

Here in Virginia, there was a successful movement in the legislature to combine the Dr. King holiday with Lee Jackson Day.

It remained that way until the year 2000 when Governor Jim Gilmore requested splitting the holidays apart, moving Lee Jackson Day to the Friday before Dr. King Day.

and as of today, the city of Charlottesville continues to observe both of those holidays.

Our request has been made of city council to end the city's observance of Lee Jackson Day.

There is a concern that the commemoration of the lives of two Confederate generals is offensive to many in our community, especially people of color.

Many cities around the state have elected not to observe Lee Jackson Day, including Alexandria, Danville, Fairfax, Fredericksburg, Galax, Hampton, Lynchburg, Norfolk, Richmond,

Roanoke, Stanton, Virginia Beach, Queensborough and Winchester are just some of the municipalities that have chosen not to observe Lee Jackson Day.

What we're doing tonight is having a public hearing on this issue.

Council will not be taking action this evening.

The action is scheduled for February 17th.

That's correct.

Any other clarification questions before I ask?

highlight that if the council decides to end the observance of Lee Jackson Day that our staff is recommending adding another holiday to the city's official holiday list.

Thank you.

I'll open the public hearing.

First, Mr. John Hayden.

And I think this is probably an issue that a lot of people feel very strongly about.

I'm sometimes surprised the length to which liberals will go

to impose their will on the majority of those who fundamentally do not agree with their thinking but because of their position of power seem all too willing to use that power to change history just to appease their personal sensibilities.

Ms. Szakos, you tried to have our history changed before with your suggestion to remove the statues from Lee Park.

Now you want the holiday for Lee Jackson to be done away with.

This holiday is well over 100 years old and only until recently was it subverted as a racist holiday by liberals.

When did this happen?

80, 50, 30, 20 years ago?

Why now?

Please stop interrupting him.

Why is it that one person can decide to erase history and with a few votes it's gone?

Using that rationale, why can't we eliminate Martin Luther King Day or Easter or Christmas?

Paraphrasing your own words, if people want to celebrate Martin Luther King Day, I have no objection to that, but for the city to close City Hall,

in commemoration of Martin Luther King Day, I think a lot of our residents feel that doesn't represent them.

It doesn't represent me.

Please, I will not interrupt him.

This is not just about you.

Now personally, I'm fine with both holidays.

But what I have a problem with is the overreach by those in power who feel they have the right to change history.

At this last meeting hosted by Mr. Fenwick, the pervasive sentiment that seemed to prevail in all of the complaints I heard was that city leaders were not responsive to citizens' complaints, to which I can certainly attest to personally.

But you seem to have an arrogant and dismissive attitude

towards citizens and their concerns.

And this is just one more example of that.

You don't know, I don't know who you claim to represent with your views because I would bet you've never polled the residents about this.

You've never asked me.

So clearly this is a personal view and you are certainly entitled to your opinion.

But then again, you know what they say about opinions, don't you?

and they stink.

Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Bo Travick, 1818 Lester Road, Richmond, Virginia, and I'd like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak in favor of retaining Lee Jackson Day here in Charlottesville.

I come to clarify the historical record

The sesquicentennial of the Civil War and emancipation has seemed to me to be little more than a ham-fisted morality play about slavery, southern guilt, and northern righteousness, with the North waging a noble war of liberation against the ignoble South.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

If Lincoln was waging a crusade of liberation, why did he neglect to wage war in New York and Boston?

the largest African slave trading ports in the world when he took office, or on New England and her manufacturing profits gleaned from slave picked cotton, or on Africa herself and her slave raiders, such as the Kingdom of Dahomey, the largest exporters of African slaves in the world.

And why did not the great emancipator emancipate the slaves in the north with his Emancipation Proclamation?

Why?

Because notwithstanding the relentless propaganda of a colossal power,

The war was not waged against the South to free the slaves.

So what was the war really all about?

One need only to follow the dollar to see.

The industrializing North with her large and growing sectional majorities was rapidly transforming the voluntary union of sovereign states into a coerced industrial empire under her control and that threatened to turn the southern states into her de facto agricultural colonies.

With the election of Lincoln and its strictly northern sectional party, the southern states saw their fate as being inevitable and seceded from the Union for self-preservation.

But with southern independence, the North would have lost her largest source of tariff revenues, her source of cotton for her mills, a large portion of her markets for her manufactured goods, and her control of the mouth of the Mississippi River.

The North's economy would collapse.

So Lincoln provoked the South into firing the first shot, blocked

blockaded the Confederate coasts and marched his armies across the South, burning and pillaging and raping and killing until he drove the southern states back into the Union at the point of a bayonet.

We may be deceived by the relentless propaganda of a colossal power, but General Lee and his army knew what they were fighting for.

They were fighting to defend their country against invasion, conquest, and coerced political allegiance.

the same things their fathers had fought for when the 13 slaveholding colonies seceded from the British Empire in 1776.

Thomas Carlisle said that it takes men of worth to recognize worth in men.

Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were men of unshakable honor and sterling integrity.

Those who would belittle them merely belittle themselves.

Mr. Travis, I missed your address.

Where do you live?

Ma'am?

Oh, okay.

Richmond.

I'm Karen Pupa from Richmond, Virginia.

I'm here in favor of keeping Lee Jackson Day.

You know, I'm just so sick of black people being treated special.

They are not special.

They're just like everybody else.

If they want something, work for it.

You know, if you don't have enough money to live in a nice neighborhood, then you don't live there.

I have a full-time job.

I'm the mother of three, single mother, and I would love to live in a nicer area, but I don't whine and cry like a baby because I can't live there.

I understand it's not because of my skin color.

It's because I can't afford it.

and I'm not going to beg the government to steal from white people to let me live amongst them when I can't afford it.

I'm just sick of liberals always babying black people.

They act like babies.

They will stay babies until you make them grow up.

Make them grow up and do for themselves and stop.

My daughter goes to Jane Madison University.

She got a full academic scholarship.

She did not get a dime from the government.

She worked hard for what she had.

I worked hard for what I have.

I'm not on government assistance anymore.

When I was, and of course, when I got a job, I expected to lose my government aid.

I'm not supposed to keep welfare and keep working.

You know, that is wrong.

And why, I see again, you are letting these people interrupt me just because they black.

I don't understand.

They are not special.

Why do you prefer them over yourself?

You know, the

You need to stop interrupting please.

that don't know what to do with it.

They don't know how to invest it.

They don't know how to save it.

Or you're going to go out and buy some sneakers or a car you can't afford.

And the cycle continues.

I have a sister that has three children in the project, probably going to have a fourth one.

My mother, she had nine children in the project.

The cycle repeats.

If you don't stop it, make them become responsible for themselves.

If they poor, then let them wallow in it until they are sold out, they want to get out of it and do something for their darn self.

Nobody did anything for me.

Nobody gave my husband, my ex-husband, who was white.

He never felt that he was privileged.

He worked for everything he had.

And I'm going to go over because these people was interrupting me.

Susan Hathaway.

Susan Hathaway.

Ma'am, you need to stop interrupting.

This is an official meeting of the city government of Charlottesville.

We are having a public hearing so that we can allow people to speak.

But if other people are speaking, we can't hear what they're saying.

And it's really difficult to do it this way.

So please just wait until the end.

Honorable Mayor, members of City Council and citizens, I did travel from Richmond tonight, by the way, 608 Candlewood Lane, Sandston, Virginia, and I came here to urge you not to pass the resolution that would remove the Lee Jackson holiday from the Charlottesville City Calendar.

If it were simply a matter of ignorance, I could stand before you for hours lecturing on the high moral virtue

Excellent character and unmatched patriotism and devotion to duty that is well documented as regards Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

But in many ways, I feel like this is an issue about whether or not a group of elected officials years after the fact should take it upon themselves to reverse a decision

that set aside a time to honor men who sacrificed all they could for their country.

It sets a very dangerous precedent in my mind.

What if, for instance, 20 years from now, some people decide that World War II vets shouldn't be honored because of some politically correct reason and decide to do away with Veterans Day?

What gives anyone the right to say who should or shouldn't be honored once the elected representatives of a community with due diligence set aside a day of remembrance and honor?

The division of the holidays into two separate days, which was discussed earlier with Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday and Lee Jackson Day on Friday, was a compromise that allows all of Virginia's citizens to exercise their rights to honor their heritage.

It has worked well for us.

and every Virginia governor, including Governor Terry McAuliffe, has recognized the holiday and took time to issue a proclamation.

There has been no reported trouble that I could discover in Charlottesville with the current holiday arrangement, and yet here the council is considering a proposal that will, from what I can tell, cause strife, division and disunity where none has existed before.

Finally, let me remind you that both Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were American veterans, both having served in the U.S. Army and as well as the Army of Northern Virginia.

And as such, any attempt to dishonor them by striking a holiday that recognized them and their bravery from the city council is, in my opinion and the opinion of many veterans, a direct insult to all veterans.

Is this truly the reputation that Charlottesville wants to assume?

A locality that disrespects and dishonors veterans?

I hope and pray not, and I urge you to do the right thing and leave the Lee Jackson holiday as it stands and allow all of the citizens of Charlottesville to honor their heritage without prejudice and bias.

Lee Jackson Day Proclamation.

Whereas, General Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jonathan Stonewall Jackson were native Virginians, having served our great nation in Commonwealth as educators, leaders, and military strategists.

And whereas, Lee served in the United States Army for more than three decades until he left his position to serve as Commander in Chief of Virginia's military forces and as Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia.

That was just a small portion of the Lee Jackson Proclamation issued by Governor Terry McAuliffe last year for Lee Jackson Day.

My name is Michael Yamin Bouganim.

I live in Petersburg, Virginia.

I'm just ashamed that

ways the people in this room are not giving respect to everybody that should have that.

This town is home to one of the original Sons of Liberty.

General Lee was very against slavery and he released his slaves before the war.

General Grant kept his all the way through the war and when they asked him personally why didn't you free yours he said because good help is hard to find so you tell me

who's a racist there.

I don't know if anybody's familiar with the Corwin Amendment, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution that Lincoln proposed to the South which would have kept slavery legal forever and it would not have allowed the Constitution to be amended.

It was offered to the South if we wouldn't secede and we turned it down not because we weren't fighting about slavery, we were fighting about overbearing government.

overbearing government just like King George the original Sons of Liberty King George was an overbearing tyrant the same thing with Lincoln he wanted money it wasn't about the slaves slavery was a secondary issue that had been there

since the 1700s and before it was a problem.

And nobody wanted it.

It was an awful thing.

And I would remind all of you that Martin Luther King said he wanted the descendants of slaves and slave owners to get together and be together, not do this divisive stuff.

Y'all are being divisive.

You're not being coming together.

and I will also challenge anybody to look into the Bill of Rights, please, and show me where you have the right to not be offended.

I come from Jewish heritage.

I see swastikas.

I was called a Jew boy.

I grew up in a black predominant school in the area of Petersburg.

I know what it is like to be tormented.

Officer Fakir Ribley says, take this lady over there

The last thing I would say, and I'm gonna, because that light's showing, is if you do change this, we are the Virginia Flaggers, and I would ask you, where do you want your flag?

Because it will be here, I promise you that.

Good evening again.

It's clear that Charlottesville has some race issues that you as a council and we as a people, we have to resolve this and when it over spills into city chambers,

Something is clearly wrong, and we need to address it on a major level.

Now, the reason I'm speaking against the Lee Jackson Day is I don't want to forget Lee Jackson.

As the young lady said, they were great soldiers.

That's fine.

Let that be history.

But we don't have to glorify what they represented and what they wanted to do.

Those times were dark times in American history.

They actually fought for

You know, they help separate America.

We don't need to be reminded every once a year about, you know, who they are.

We have a statue in Lee Park of Lee.

This is something that, I mean, it's a no-brainer.

I mean, what they represented in the South, regardless of what this gentleman said, was that slavery was a way of life that they enjoyed.

Well, that doesn't happen now.

Slavery has long passed.

This holiday started in 1889.

Well, it's 100 plus years old.

We have progressed away from celebrating people who were against

a quality of life that wasn't agreeable with American times.

It's terrible.

So I'm just asking that you look into your hearts and say, hey, look, we have moved on so we can grow together and be people as people rather than me being black and you being white or whatever like that.

We just roll on.

That's all we have to do.

Thank you.

Good evening mayor and council members.

I am 56 years old and it's ironic that the Civil War is the first issue that I've ever spoke to a governmental body about.

Unlike most of the other speakers, I am a member of the Charlottesville community.

Excuse me, my name is Kirk Cliet and I do live in Charlottesville, unlike most of the other speakers that have addressed the council on this issue, 208 Meade Avenue.

And I'm a son of the South.

I could easily qualify for the Sons of the Confederate Veterans.

My great grandfather was born in 1860.

He hid in a chicken coop when General Sherman's army marched to the south.

I'm proud of my southern heritage.

However, on my way home from work on Martin Luther King Day, I'm fortunate enough, even with the high housing costs, to be able to live in a very small place here in the city limits.

I tweeted out on my Twitter account, my ancestors were Confederate soldiers.

Some died in battle in Virginia, but isn't it time to give up Lee Jackson Day, hash mark MLK.

Now, you need to consider the history of the African American in

the North American continent.

Slaves came in 1619 before the Pilgrims in 1620.

The Emancipation Proclamation was 152 years ago.

However, the slaves were, African Americans were slaves for 244 years.

So for the majority of African Americans' history in North America, they were held in bondage as slaves.

I had a chance back in the early 90s to interview George Wallace in his latter days.

They were unveiling, I think, the statue of or lean on the grounds of the Capitol in Montgomery.

And I found him to be a reformed elderly man, hard of hearing, anxious to talk about his time as a working on the bombers in World War II, throwing chaff out of the airplane.

What struck me at that time was that every one of the caretakers there of George Wallace was an African American.

That was absolutely amazing.

In my lifetime, in 1964, there were 10,000 dues paying members of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina.

In my lifetime, it was a family event to go to a cross burning.

These were great generals that we're talking about here today.

They need to be honored, but that honor can be part of Veterans Day.

What they did in support the cause of the war was economic domination

not only for money for the plantation culture of the South, which my family was part of, but to the domination of one race, to be three-fifths of a human.

That's what they supported.

No place on earth are the losers of a war more venerated.

The North may have won the war, but the South won the propaganda battle.

But this holiday is one

that does not honor my forefathers, does not honor the patriots that were my relatives that died as Confederate soldiers.

This is a holiday that, like Columbus Day, needs to be history and does not need to be part of this community.

Very issued.

Very.

We lost here.

Good evening.

My name is Barry Eisenhower.

I'm from Richmond, Virginia.

The reason I'm speaking today is really about the misunderstanding about the Lee Jackson holiday versus any other holiday.

We all venerate great Americans.

As we've just heard from our last speaker, there's some history lessons that need to be had.

However, let it be known that Robert E. Lee did not own slaves before the war.

He freed them which he had inherited.

from George Washington's granddaughter, actually.

Also, Thomas Jackson taught in Sunday School black children how to read because he believed it was immoral for anyone not to be able to read the Bible and to educate themselves.

And there was a time in Virginia, in Lexington, where he taught the classroom.

I have heard such division here, not just about this,

We got other issues apparently with housing and things here.

But I did want to respond to a letter that you had asked, what did I do, what did some of us do for the holiday?

The last five years I have been in Lexington, Virginia, where we have done a memorial service to General Jackson and his grave.

We have then done a parade through the city of Lexington down to the Lee Chapel where he is buried.

and we've done another memorial because these two men, not only being U.S. veterans, but not only being great Southern Americans, but they believed in liberty and they fought for liberty.

And the reason they were venerated after the war was because of their Christian values, because of the dedication that these men had to America, period.

After the war, they stood up and they said, well, excuse me, after the war, General Lee was alive.

General Lee stood up and said, let us reconcile.

General Lee and General Jackson were studied as great military heroes, but to me as a child, reading about these men, I learned my Christian values.

I also learned the moral leadership that these men had.

And that is important to teach the future generations.

The last thing was, oh, we just need to educate folks.

There's a lot of miseducation about what the war was about, which can be remediated by reading the history.

But I do ask this council, please don't divide the city anymore.

You all got enough problems with housing and things apparently from what I've just heard.

Thank you all and have a good day.

Mr. Dick Turner.

Is there anybody else who would like to speak?

Good evening, Council.

Wes Bellamy, 1002 Linden Avenue, Charlottesville, Virginia.

As a resident here in the city of Charlottesville, I'd like to ask for a couple of things from Council.

First and foremost, that we listen to the individuals who currently live within the city limits in regards to this event.

Secondly, when we think of something such as Lee Jackson Holiday,

and the divide that I've heard other individuals speak about, we need to think about exactly who is being divisive.

When individuals, and if it's one person here in the city of Charlottesville, who feels as if they are being disrespected, and furthermore, if there are a group of individuals, a large group that is, who feel as if they are being disrespected by a day such as this one, we need to listen to their responses.

There's a great deal of history that comes with the Jackson Lee holiday.

We are aware of that.

However, there's also a great deal of disdain.

So for individuals like myself, who when they think of the Confederacy, regardless of what other individuals may feel, but when they see the Confederate flag, when they feel as if they know about the principles and the values that it represents and they look at those things as disrespectful, those issues need not to be taken lightly.

We need to, as a community, to move forward as one.

This issue is one that is being very divisive

I have a radio show in the mornings.

We filled it nearly 150 calls and responses from people who live in the city in the close proximity who are not in favor of the Lee Jackson holiday.

Are we to just act as if those individuals don't count?

When I hear people in the crowd expressing their disdain and I hear people in the crowd who don't live here,

talking about they want the date to continue, I feel like our minds should be made up to a certain degree.

Because the people who are here, and I, for one, a resident, as well as an individual who lives here in the city of Charlottesville, feel very strongly that this day should not be continued, then we need to hear and listen to the constituents here within our city.

This matter is one that we are counting on council to ensure that the citizens are heard.

This date is very divisive.

This date is one that is very disrespectful.

I would ask that you all please listen to your constituents, not the individuals who live somewhere else, but your constituents.

And just a response to someone who spoke earlier in regards to African Americans always asking for this or that.

As an individual from a HBCU, an individual who's working on my third degree, an individual who may have grown up in some of the places in which were spoken about earlier,

I feel very proud about not only where I come from but the people who we are helping to empower to get out of those situations.

That's what we do here in Charlottesville.

We help people as one.

We don't baby them to dispel that notion for those who may be watching.

We don't baby anyone.

We empower all of our citizens.

That's what we will continue to do and that's what we're asking for council to get rid of this day.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

Wayne Sullivan.

I'm a resident of Charlottesville.

I'm a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

I'm a lifelong member of the state of Virginia Sons of Confederate Veterans.

I'm appalled that we today are okay with the treating of ancestors is not worthy of recognition of their good deeds.

Lee and Jackson were noble men and deserve to be recognized as such.

Too many people today do not care about history or don't take the time

to study the truth.

We are more inclined to believe the person next to us or believe what we read in the newspapers rather than learn the truth for ourselves.

I had many relatives walk to Gettysburg by feet to fight a battle for what they believed in, many without proper food or clothing, and they walked back to Virginia afterwards if they lived through the battle.

These people were not sacrificing for slavery, but for what they believed in.

We rely too much today on what is politically correct versus what is the truth.

Do not do away with Lee Jackson Day in Charlottesville.

General Grant walked up to a young man who was a Confederate POW and asked him, son, why are you fighting this war?

The young Confederate soldier replied, I am fighting because you are down here, not because of slavery.

That's not his answer.

We have nothing to be ashamed of for having Confederate relatives, and I adhere the City Council to keep this holiday for the veterans, for our ancestors, and those who we are proud of.

It is not a race thing.

I don't know.

The soldiers, the Confederates lost over 300,000 soldiers.

I dare say only a minuscule amount of them had slaves.

They walked from here to here from Antietam.

They walked from here to Gettysburg by feet.

They weren't walking up there because they owned slaves back home.

They were walking because they want to fight a war and win a war that they believed in.

Scott Bandy, 1639 Cherry Avenue in the city of Charlottesville.

This is just my own view.

And, well, after tonight or tonight, before it ends, you could do the easy and politically correct thing

and relabel the Lee Jackson Day holiday as Confederacy Internment Day.

And no, Lee Jackson Day should be discontinued as a holiday for paid government workers.

And yes, I did hear your program, Ms. Smith, on the Coy Bearfoot show.

Good evening, Brandon Collins, 418 Fairway Avenue.

I don't have anything prepared, but a lot has been said this evening about history and different interpretations of history and different interpretations of the Civil War, but I think we all have to recognize, as the one gentleman said, that for the majority of their time in the New World, Africans were enslaved, and these so-called noble men

of the Confederacy, these great generals who led hundreds of thousands to their death so that a bunch of other supposedly noble rich white guys who owned human property could get even richer.

The reason why those things happened

Sorry, I'm losing my train of thought because I'm a little perplexed.

Here's the deal.

History can be interpreted in different ways.

The end result of the Civil War was that the slaves were freed and it was a battle of economics.

There was a battle between a system of labor that enslaved people as one way to make a whole lot of money and another system that found a different way through industrialization

to make money as well, and that was a battle, but it ultimately was a battle of ideals, and the ideals shared by Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee were to protect their land, to protect their people in the South, and to protect the institution of slavery, and I think that's fundamentally wrong, and I don't think the city of Charlottesville should endorse that.

I think it's extremely insulting to the people in this city to celebrate Lee Jackson Day, and it's extremely insulting to the legacy of Dr. King to celebrate in such close proximity,

King, who was not a war criminal, who did not lead hundreds of thousands to their death, but led hundreds of thousands to their emancipation and liberty and hopefully victory one day somewhere farther down the road.

King also was opposed to war.

So there's no nobility in being a general and leading people to their deaths in mass.

There's no nobility in honor or any kind of moral code that stands up by encouraging this slaughter in defense of slavery on the American continent.

It's absolutely ridiculous.

And further, I'd like to say through the 50s, 60s, 70s, and even into the 80s as the Dr. King celebration,

and commemoration was being discussed.

The Confederacy, the Confederate flags that we see on these guys' jackets with their German crosses which invoke all kinds of terror in the minds of a whole lot of other folks in our community.

Confederate flags, the memory of Robert E. Lee, the memory of the Confederacy, the memory of the Ku Klux Klan was very much in play as Charlottesville was attempting to desegregate schools as its black community was being demolished through urban renewal and

and all these things.

These are terrible memories that have no place in the history of Charlottesville and I urge you to not celebrate Lee Jackson Day and to furthermore to turn your attention towards even more concrete issues when you've got hundreds of people coming to the City Council demanding action on issues of racial equality such as the DMC task force, such as the crisis within the Department of Social Services.

My name is on the list.

I believe you may have overlooked me, Mr. Mayor.

I would like to agree with one of the speakers earlier, three or four speakers back, who said that we could eliminate a lot of misunderstandings if we just study the history of the Civil War.

And I agree 100%.

For example, if we look at the document

that list the reasons for secession for the state of South Carolina which became the model for other states such as Mississippi who followed suit.

Among their reasons were listed the refusal of northern states to return runaway slaves.

The refusal of some northern states to allow slave transit with the slave trade.

They objected that some New England states allowed black men to vote.

They even said that states should not have the rights to allow their citizens to assemble and give public speeches

if they were anti-slavery speeches.

So the argument that this was a war of states' rights and against big government is quite frankly laughable.

And this war is still very much being fought today.

The descendants of these slaves that Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson fought to keep enslaved are still fighting the war.

and I wish we could turn the conversation back to the way that war is playing out in Charlottesville today.

See the Constitution was written as a blueprint for a slave-based economy.

The founder of this city was very active in the process of developing that slave-based economy, of putting together mathematical formulas for how people could be guaranteed to succeed in business.

if they conducted their slave-based operations in a certain way.

So I wonder, since much is made of the fact that our chief of police is a constitutional scholar and the Constitution of the United States is a blueprint for a slave-based economy,

and we have a prison industrial complex, a school to prison pipeline, very much a problem in Charlottesville as the DMC is failing to address.

I wonder, how much has this war really ended?

How much is it still going on?

Same as it ever did, same as it ever was.

When Miss Mary Carey fights valiantly for a crosswalk for elderly people of color to be able to safely cross the street and she has refused that while privileged, wealthy,

Students from other states have a crosswalk every 50 feet at the University of Virginia.

The war is still being fought.

Mr. Fenwick, when you hold a forum right here in this chamber for people to come together and talk about city planning, the city planning that a past editor of a newspaper said is going to cause the city's historically black population to melt away,

When people can come and talk about gentrification and the effects of how their communities are being destroyed and you schedule that meeting on the same night as black folks from the West Haven community are asked to come and talk about ways that the city can be more kinder and gentler and how they lock up black children and send them to the school to prison pipeline, then that war is being fought right here in Charlottesville.

So please people,

Anyone else would like to speak on this topic?

Patrick C., Richmond, Virginia.

The last speaker, Phineas, said that we need to speak of something relevant.

Meanwhile, he brings up the secession ordinance in South Carolina, not Virginia.

Virginia seceded on April 17, 1861, only after Lincoln called for 75,000 troops to invade the South.

Lee and Jackson are honorable men, and they deserve to be honored in the city of Charlottesville.

One of the previous speakers said that it was offensive because Lee Jackson Day was close to the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

The only reason that is is because Lee's birthday is right before it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

My name is Brenda Morton Jewett, 761 Reed Street.

I'm just wondering why what we want to keep a day that humiliates or tear down a race.

I just don't understand why we have to have it and why it hasn't been taken away already.

I just continue to hear Martin Luther King say, before I be a slave, I be buried in my grave and go home with the Lord and be free.

We fighting for freedom here.

Why do we want to uphold men that held us slaves or didn't see no harm in us being slaves, being abused, being taken advantage of?

This holiday offends me, and I'm sure other of my nationality, so I say it should be taken away.

God is not pleased with this evil that has been brought against us.

God is going to handle those who uphold it.

It's wrong for the oppressed

a race.

God made us black because he wanted us to be this color.

So why is it offensive to you if God made us this color?

I'm proud to be a black woman, but I still say that before I be a slave, I will be buried in my grave and go home with the Lord and be free.

So I say y'all need to get rid of this day.

I know that they have nice things that they

have obtained from it because of their white skin.

But because of my black skin and my people's black skin, we have not obtained anything good from it.

It's offensive and it needs to be taken away.

I've been living in Charlottesville all of my life.

I'm 55 years old.

Those people coming from outside this Charlottesville, they need to go back and commit with some

something of their own city.

But I say this need to be taken away.

It's offensive to the black race.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

Yes, ma'am.

My name is Gloria Bea and I'm at 1116 Page Street.

And I have just began to really come out to all these meetings that we're having around Charlottesville about justice and racism.

It breaks my heart because we are people no matter what color we are.

And you know, they brought that subject up tonight about Lee Jackson Day.

What I think it should be taken away simply because they're talking about this history of Lee Jackson, you know, Lee Jackson Day.

Anyone else would like to speak?

Is there anyone who?

My name is Mary Carey, and I would like to say that when I was going to a segregated school with all black teachers in Charlottesville, Virginia, we were not supposed to be taught black history, but our black teachers taught us everything.

They even taught us what was happening here today was going to come.

so that gives you some kind of inkling the wisdom of black people.

Now we were taught when the superintendent of schools came in that we should always be talking about the Confederates or the war between the states or Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson, Andrew Jackson, everybody that didn't have any

Black on them.

But look at me, folks.

I'm a product of the Civil War.

My grandmother was raped by black, by white men, by slave owners.

that wouldn't even let us even have the decency to eat in the big house like that little girl's family probably did.

She has a personal problem.

But see, she shouldn't have bought it to Charlottesville.

She should have gave it to the Richmond City Council, getting all upset about things like that.

Black people do not ask you and beg you for anything in this town.

When you closed out black schools and tore down Venable Hill, I survived.

I didn't starve.

They didn't have any social services.

I had to raise my kids without the Department of Social Services.

So all black people do not ask for and beg and whine and cry.

If we did Robert Lee Lee and Stonewall Jackson and all those good old boys,

They caused the problem.

They didn't free no slaves.

They didn't fight for the slaves.

They fought to keep that money in the South.

And we were free labor.

Now, it's not that they didn't.

A lot of white people who had slaves weren't all bad, from what I understand.

They just weren't good.

But I want to let you know that Robert E. Lee and Jackson whatever day, I do not care.

Keep that day.

Put those guys with the veterans where everybody else is.

Anytime you can have a veteran back there in that war, a hundred and some years old come forward, you can have Robert E. Lee and Jackson day with that Veterans Day.

Why do they have to have a special day?

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

Thank you.

This is my first meeting, never been to one.

I kind of wrestled with this thing.

It's Phillip Johnson, Free Union, Virginia.

And I kind of wrestled with this because I knew it was going to go this way.

go back to slavery.

And if you just read about Robert E. Lee and you learn about him, he's a lot more after the war and before the war.

It's not about that.

I mean, you've got Washington University.

They went there.

They had 12 students.

When they got done, they had 300 students.

Under Andrew Johnson, he was involved in the reconstruction of America.

I don't see why we need to fix something that's not broken.

Bringing up this tonight has stirred the waters when the waters were calm, from what I can feel.

I'm not racist by any means.

Half my friends are black, good people.

I think this is a historical thing and I don't think you can forget history or erase history to appease someone's feelings and I guess that's all I've got to say.

I mean I'm sure that maybe Martin Luther King Day that may offend someone and I'm not to take that away from them.

I think Stonewall and Lee and Martin Luther King were all good men.

They all had their place in history and they should all be respected and have their day to be recognized.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

Hey, my name is Gabriela Silang.

I am descended from the people of Luzon in the Philippines.

I live here in Charlottesville right now though.

First of all,

The first Filipinos to come here to the United States were brought as slaves on the Spanish galleon ships.

And they mutinied and killed their abductors.

And so my place here in this struggle is in solidarity with enslaved African people and their descendants.

I am shaking.

I am so disturbed by the number of people who would come here and try to rewrite the history of this racist-ass country and act like the Civil War was about things that, states' rights, yeah, fuck states' rights.

It was about the right of states to

uphold this capitalist economy that was built on the back of slaves and the genocide of the indigenous people.

And that does continue to this day and it continues to this day in my country too, you know, because of the colonization of European countries of places like the Americas and like the Philippine Islands, you know,

People are still trying to extract resources, raping our lands and our people to control us and our bodies.

And I for sure will not stand here and let people come into these chambers and act like they're going to school us on history.

We don't need you to tell us lies about history.

Furthermore, this notion that these people deserve to be recognized, lots and lots and lots of people have not been recognized by the history of this country.

I am sure that probably I'm the only one in this room who knows about Larry Itliong and Philip Veracruz.

They were at the forefront of the labor struggle in the grape fields of California.

They were Filipinos too, who were forced to come here because of the colonization of my people.

Name a day after them.

Name a day after the countless black folks who fought for their freedom.

Name a day after the countless black folks who were pioneers in astrophysics, who were pioneers in chemistry, who were pioneers in history, who were pioneers in anthropology.

Name a day after those people.

Why do we keep having to name days after dead white men?

There are plenty of people who've done a lot of things for this country and nobody ever recognized them.

Anyone else would like to speak?

Hello, I am Luis, resident of Charlottesville, originally from Puerto Rico.

I want to speak to the fact that, to point out that

People are so willing to drive from out of town to defend racist history and to defend this racist holiday when no one has mentioned about doing a recognition for Juneteenth, the day when the slaves were freed.

Now, we can argue about what that freedom actually meant because that struggle is still going on today.

Anyone else would like to speak?

Yes, my name is Rosia Parker, 816 Apartment F, Hardy Drive.

I'm coming to you, well we do not need to have Lee Jackson Day

We already have Lee Park, which is a place where a lot of our homeless people go and the babies get snatched from the mothers because they're out there in Lee Park.

And we are the, we're not the descendants, but yes, we are the descendants of the racial disparity of the people that Lee and Jackson brought to the plantation when the slavery first came to Charlottesville.

And I think that they need to be,

more concerned with what's going on in Charlottesville because there is a racial disparity.

We being black and a young single black mother with children that have went to college and I've graduated with my own GED, no social services help at all, allowing my kids to go into the state for 30 days and social services tell me they lose the paperwork and tell me I cannot have my kids back, but thank God I had the

It's common sense of being a smart young black mother to get copies of my own paperwork to receive my own children back.

So there is more of a problem here in Charlottesville dealing with our black children than it is worrying about Jackson Lee Day.

MLK fought for his day and his day haven't been very long.

But the day is, we do have a dream that one day all of us will be able to be together in one room

but out of darkness there do come light but when that light shines I'm gonna let mine shine mighty bright because I am a black beautiful queen and I bear queens and princesses and kings and that not only comes from my children but that comes from the children of y'all's mixed breeds where the whites and the black children come together as well

Is there anyone else before we close this public hearing?

Okay, we're closing.

.

Dede

We just had a public hearing.

And as you know, we are not going to make any decision on that issue in this meeting.

The next meeting will be deciding this issue.

Well, Mr. Mayor, I'd like to wade into this.

and I would ask for your indulgence because I have notes all over the place.

You better not go married before I start saying stuff.

First of all, even the people that have left, there's nobody in this room denies the abhorrence of slavery.

That is basic.

When I talk to people out in the hallway and when I see them come up to the microphone, a couple of them had so much energy and passion about what they were talking about.

They were shaking.

And I appreciate the fact that even though they were nervous and shaking, that they came up and spoke because this goes out across the community.

Another fellow said he didn't

He didn't know what to say, and in a way I'm struggling with this as well.

It's a serious subject.

And some of the things I'm gonna say, if you'll indulge me, it's just random sentences, because I will be all over the place.

One of the speakers said, at the end of the war, the slaves were freed.

Were they?

That's 150 years ago, 160 years ago, plus.

And the sentiment in this community is that they were not free.

In a way, Robert E. Lee and Martin Luther King were both conciliators.

Martin Luther King because he wanted people to be judged on the basis of their character and not the color of their skin.

He wanted slaves and slave owners to be able to sit in a room and figure things out.

At the end of the Civil War, Robert E. Lee told his men to lay down their arms and be good citizens.

And that's pretty unusual for a military commander.

When I look at, well, I know little about Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

I don't know.

I'm sure they were married.

I'm not certain about that.

I don't know about their children.

I know nothing about them.

I know they were combat commanders.

And I know a little bit about leading men in combat.

I know the chaos, and I know the fear, and I know the uncertainty.

When I look at those statues, that's what I think of.

There is something to be admired in all of us.

Like I said, I'm all over the place here.

One of the speakers said the people from Richmond are not welcome in our community.

I couldn't disagree more.

Another speaker said, they're sorry that the energy and the enthusiasm and the anger spilled over into this chamber.

Where is a better place in our community for this to spill over than in this chamber?

Where people can stand up if they're shaking and nervous and they can say what they want to say.

And if they're being drowned out by hissing and booing and whatever else, no matter what side you're on, that is political.

that is political bullying.

I would like to invite that open dialogue.

I learned a lot tonight.

And I am struggling with this.

And I suspect that some of the sentiment in this room is to take down that statue in Lee Park of Robert E. Lee.

That's in a way how all this started.

that Paul Goodlow McIntyre is a racist and the statue has to come down.

Well, if that statue has to come down, how about George Washington's statue?

How about the statue on City Hall here, Jefferson Madison Monroe?

Why not take them down?

They were slave owners, all of them.

So what do we do from this point on?

Well, Raymond, I hope Raymond is still here.

Raymond, are you still here?

Raymond Mason?

Okay.

I like what Raymond says because we have to figure this problem out.

160 years after we fought a war, some people say it was for slavery, others people say it wasn't.

When I was growing up,

I remember reading stories about Martin Luther King.

People said he was treasonous.

People said Martin Luther King was a traitor to the country because he had the nerve to speak out against the Vietnam War.

And I admired him for that.

Both my boys have served in Afghanistan and

I admire the sentiment.

If we're going to have a discussion that's about war, let's have a discussion about war as well and talk about the young people that come back crushed and broken.

So we have a lot of problems in this city.

We can solve all of these problems, but I would hope that when people come into this chamber and have an opinion

and I'm not, even if this was not where Thomas Jefferson spent a lot of his life, but anywhere in this country that they would be treated with dignity and respect from a practical matter, a practical standpoint if nothing else.

If somebody gets up here and says something that you don't agree with and you start hissing and booing and yelling and screaming, who's gonna get all the attention?

What side of the argument

will receive more attention.

I see this in a little bit more practical way.

When we, as my fellow counselors know, we got a lot of emails, dozens and dozens of emails from all over the country.

Somebody put this up on a blog.

It was unfortunately conflated with the question of statues and parks and things, which is not what we're about tonight.

But I decided to engage some of these folks.

Everybody, what I was actually really impressed with is when you often get masses of emails, it's often a form letter.

Somebody says, send this to, and they give you something, and you, you know, send it off.

Every one of these was different.

Every single one of them was personal.

Every single one of them told a story.

and the way I engaged them was to say you know here once we sort of established what this was all about in terms of observing this observing thing I said you know in Charlottesville we don't actually observe it and so it's a day but there is not a any kind of community-wide observation of it it's a day off it's you know it's a paid holiday I said

How do you observe it?

Does your community observe it?

And so I was just really curious as to whether these folks thought we should observe it, but do they observe it?

But actually, there were some really interesting ways that people observe this, particularly this four-day holiday.

And my very favorite one was two people, actually, who said that they, in their community, the way they observe this four-day holiday is for the community to come together and to clean up and

and to repair headstones in cemeteries.

They focus on cemeteries, which I thought was a really interesting idea.

But that said, I'm sort of back to my original stand on this, which is that it just seems it's a practical thing.

We do not observe this holiday.

We observe other holidays.

We observe actually our heritage, whether it's

Southern or Northern or whatever part, over the course of the year in many ways, we have festivals, we have parades, we have various things, but we do not observe this holiday.

And for our paid, of our 12 paid holidays, they tend to be concentrated, there's four of them actually in January.

I support taking this one off of our calendar as a city-observed holiday.

We have no power to take it off the state's holiday list.

It's a state holiday.

That doesn't mean we have to have it inclusive in our scope of holidays.

And to offer to the staff

to give us ideas about how best to replace it.

I do think we should replace it.

I think we should honor our obligation to staff.

And a lot of cool ideas have come out, and we have a few in our packet.

Others have said, let each staff take their birthday, or take another day that they want to celebrate, something that's special to them that is part of their heritage, and let them

choose what their celebration will be.

I like all those ideas, but I think it's really important to hear from staff since it's their holiday, since they're paid day off what they think.

I really appreciate everybody who came and spoke today, especially the people who live in Charlottesville.

I think that it's important to note that we've also received emails and several of us also Facebook commentary.

Of course, we got more than 100 emails as a response to the Confederate Heritage websites that sent out our email addresses and phone numbers.

I've actually had several conversations today and yesterday with folks from all over the country.

It was very interesting.

And they were very courteous, and I appreciated that they called.

But I think that this is a local holiday.

It's a local commemoration that we need to talk about locally.

And of the emails that we've received from Charlottesville residents since December that were to all of Council,

all but two supported the proposal to end the observance of Lee Jackson Day.

I've also received dozens and dozens more on Facebook.

And among those, six have suggested keeping the holiday and everybody else would like to eliminate it.

And I would like to second Councillor Smith's suggestion of giving the alternative day back to staff and say, come back.

I don't know if they'd even need to come back to us, but

work with the city manager to decide what day seems appropriate to take a day off during the year, whether it's a rolling holiday of birthday or whether it's a particular holiday in some long month like August when there's no holiday.

But I just have a quick kind of statement that I thought I might wait till next time.

But I think just in respect to all the people who came out and spoke, I'd like to give it now.

And I adjusted a little bit from what people said tonight.

But if that's all right, if I could just do that.

So at first I will say that to all the people who called me a Yankee outsider, I come from Mississippi.

Only a handful of cities in the United States celebrate Lee Jackson Day as a local holiday.

Most Virginia cities, even Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, have either publicly or quietly removed the holiday from their calendars.

And their offices remain open on the third Friday in January.

After many years of inaction, Charlottesville is considering doing the same.

The two Confederate generals are memorialized in our city parks, in the names of our highways, in state counties, and in a state holiday.

Neither ever fought a battle in Charlottesville, or from what I can tell, ever visited Charlottesville.

I can see no reason why we should continue to single them out for recognition with a local holiday.

Our decision has been generating a lot of interest from across the country, and why Confederate descendants and enthusiasts in Indiana, South Dakota, Arkansas, Alabama, Texas, and many other states would consider our local observations worthy of their attention, I really cannot imagine.

And yet the rebel flaggers and the Confederate heritage members from across the country have seen fit to weigh in on the need to honor General Lee and General Jackson in Charlottesville, Virginia.

I would suggest that if they support local celebrations of Lee Jackson Day that they write to their own city councils where they live and instead their websites have issued a national call to action to stop us from making what they feel is a bad local decision.

And meanwhile, the majority of people who we've actually heard from in Charlottesville have been clear on their readiness to put this local commemoration to rest.

On Facebook and in emails during the past month, Charlottesville residents have expressed their dismay that we publicly honor in their name two men who bravely fought for the cause that would have kept the ancestors of one in five of our neighbors in bondage.

Say what you like about their personal attributes and courage.

If Generals Lee and Jackson had won the Civil War, those neighbors might still be enslaved today.

As it is, many sympathizers of the Confederate cause did everything they could, from lynchings to vagrancy laws to Jim Crow to disenfranchisement to massive resistance to keep African Americans from enjoying full citizenship and freedom in the American South.

Generals Lee and Jackson fought a war against the United States of America and lost.

Thank you everyone for these heartfelt comments.

We did get an awful lot of emails in the last few days and most of them were very courteous and there were

accusations of being called a Yankee or other things.

But yes, I am from north of the Mason-Dixon line.

I grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts.

And that is the city that actually manufactured 50% of the shoes to the Union Army.

And that was the kind of story I grew up with.

All my grandparents worked in the shoe factories.

They were immigrants from other parts of the world.

they were quite proud that they were part of that industry.

So growing up listening about, from my parents, about Grant and Lincoln, also about the 54th Massachusetts, which was the first all black regiment in the Civil War.

And I do remember going to see that monument in the Boston,

Commons for the first time as a young child and just blown away by the beauty of it.

And there was a movie made out of it, made sure we saw it.

And so learning that Frederick Douglass was actually the first supporter of that mustering of the 54th Massachusetts.

So again, my perspective of the Civil War is very different than a lot of the perspectives that were shared today.

I also am very sensitive to culture.

and I have been in Charlottesville for 32 years.

I've worked very hard to create, as much as I can, a fair system, an open system, both in education, with jobs.

And at the same time, I know that a culture has to change when it's ready.

My initiating something like this I felt would have been imprudent, would have been not appropriate.

It had to come from the people of Charlottesville.

I am not from here.

But something like a holiday is very, very spiritual almost to many people.

And this, what I've been hearing and reading suggests to me very strongly that the time has come for this community

to really look at this issue and change this holiday.

I am agreeing with a lot of the voices I heard tonight that it is time to change that holiday.

And personally, again, as the daughter of two veterans from the Great War, World War II,

I do believe that they should be honored as veterans, but as veterans is part of the Veterans Day celebration, in which case every American can celebrate and honor any veteran from any war as they see fit.

So it's out of respect.

I would like to initiate the commemoration and the observance of Veterans Day.

I would like to close with a quote from Ulysses S. Grant,

on the day that Lee surrendered in Appomattox on April 9, 1865, because I could not express it any better than this.

So, from General Grant, quote, what General Lee's feelings were, I do not know.

As he was a man of much dignity with an impassable face, it was impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad

that the end had finally come or felt sad over the result and was too manly to show it.

Whatever his feelings, they were entirely concealed from my observation, but my own feelings, which had been quite jubilant at the receipt of his letter proposing negotiations, were sad and depressed.

I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall

of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought and one for which there was the least excuse.

I do not question, however, the sincerity of the great mass of those who were opposed to us.

So I make this recommendation to celebrate Veterans Day

with respect for the heritage of many people that were here tonight.

But I do think that commemorating those two Confederate generals does not further us along that arc towards justice.

I just wanted to make a few comments.

History can teach us many lessons we are willing to learn.

I have mixed feelings about this issue.

Discussion of this issue has fragmented our community.

We need thoughtful dialogue besides public hearing.

Some of our citizens feel that anyone who supports slavery is not worthy of having a day named after them.

Some of our citizens feel Lee and Jackson were outstanding public servants.

They should be honored.

I don't know as much about Lee and Jackson, so I today went to Historical Society.

I thought maybe I'll learn something.

I talked to a few people.

And to learn what these two people, I was pleasantly surprised with their lives.

Life and Contribution to Virginia and the Nation.

Both were born in Virginia.

Both were outstanding generals.

Both fought for the state rights.

Both had ambivalent feelings about slavery.

It was interesting to hear what they believed.

I'm not sure whether we can judge past by current standards.

Many of our founders had slaves, as is well mentioned,

Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, all of them are slaves.

Slavery cannot be the only criteria for judging whether we should honor someone who are past.

I hope you will think about these and many comments made by the public.

We will make a decision next meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council.

This is an item that the Planning Commission held a public hearing on last month.

610 Ridge Street is a property, and Page, do we have it or not?

Okay.

Is a property that we've been dealing with for a number of years.

While Page gets this up, I've just got a very brief number of slides.

If you haven't been able to go out, you can see the house and understand where it is.

Hopefully it'll be up in a second.

I had Patricia bring the files because I thought when she showed them to me it was pretty indicative of the issues we've had.

These are the files that we've been dealing with on this piece of property for a number of years with good enforcement issues.

In 2006, the Planning Commission recommended that the property be declared a blighted property and

The City Council conducted a public hearing and at that time City Council held off on declaring it blighted because the property owner came in and said they were going to make improvements to it.

The property owner did make a little bit of improvements.

They painted it on the outside.

They did a couple of things, but then they quit making any improvements and it's been boarded for a number of years.

We've been getting a lot of complaints from the

neighborhood about it and started again working on the issues.

Finally.

Alright, just to show you where it is, this property is just off of Fifth Street, Fifth Street Extended.

It's on Old Ridge Street.

If you're familiar with the house that we own, the city owns, it's 608.

It's just next door to it.

This shows you 608.

608 was actually

a house that we purchased, the council condemned it under the drug blight section of the code which is a sister part of the code to the spot blight and the city rehabilitated it and put LEAP in there temporarily until we could sell it.

The 610 is the yellow house here and this is looking past 608 but I think you can see the quality of 608.

You can see it doesn't give you the full effect from the outside to see

all the issues, but it's just been a history of deterioration, water getting into the house.

The accessory structure, of course, is in disrepair.

The cornices are severely deteriorating, allowing water to get in.

The roof training system has failed.

The downspouts are disconnected.

Water's getting into the foundation.

And the concern is that if we don't do, if the city doesn't step in and take some action now,

The only solution to this is going to be a demolition in the future.

And the house is just, it's another one that's probably too good to let that happen to.

But as you can see, it's got some serious, serious issues with it.

Concern about the safety of the chimney.

And those again, those were just very quick slides to give you an orientation of the problem.

The Planning Commission made the following findings

that the property is a blighted property, that the owner had failed to cure the blight, that the property is not occupied for any residential purposes or otherwise.

The property has been condemned for human habitation for much more than a year, and they found that the directors planned for

how to deal with this was satisfactory and they recommended it.

We did take this item to the Board of Architectural Review to ask because it is in the Ridge Street Historic District and ask them their recommendations on it.

They felt like the plan that we had presented was appropriate.

What we've proposed to do in the resolution that you've got before you tonight would

would allow the city to move forward on trying to acquire the property so it could be either sold to somebody to rehabilitate for use as a house, or we could do it like we did Ridge Street possibly and find a use for it temporarily, but whatever, but to try to get control of it.

We have had a number of attempts to contact the property owner.

The property owner pays their taxes.

They pay any liens on the property, but they will not pick up the certified mail that's sent.

What we'd like to do is propose to you that you have the public hearing tonight and give us one more chance because we just got the letter back Friday as they didn't sign for it.

They attempted delivery, but they didn't sign again.

But to give the staff a chance to try to make contact one more time just to make sure that before you take that action,

that the property owner is aware of it and has the opportunity, if they want to come speak to you, that they have that.

We do know that the property owner is elderly, but again, they are getting tax notices because they do pay the tax bill on time.

But they, for whatever reason, according to Ms. Carrington, have never picked up notices of this sort.

And this again, these are the files, these are where every citation that's gone out

Before I open a public hearing, is there any questions or clarification?

If not, I'll open the public hearing.

Hi, I'm Jean Hyatt and I live on 1534 Rugby Avenue.

20 years ago, a group of Charlottesville citizens, Preservation Piedmont members and current and past residents of Ridge Street neighborhood were able to come together to complete the Ridge Street Oral History Project.

This led to the city designation of this important street as a local architectural design control district.

This area was already part of a national historic district.

The house on 610 Ridge Street, known as the Gleason Roads House, is a significant part of the fabric of this street.

It contributes to the architectural and cultural history of the area and situated on a prominent ridge point along with the

recently restored Leap House.

It provides an important visual link between the two sections of Ridge Street, which were separated by the demolition of 11 historic buildings that stood in the path of the construction of the Cherry Ridge intersection.

I've spoken with several neighbors who live near 610 Ridge.

Eugene Williams, who lives two doors down, and his wife Lorraine have been concerned about the gradual decline of the building over the years.

and have voiced their concerns.

Mr. Williams reminded me that Rich Street is one of the most important historic districts in Charlottesville.

Not only is the architecture irreplaceable, and those were his words, but the social and cultural histories interwoven through the neighborhood are highly important.

I am here really to thank the Neighborhood Development Services for taking action in moving forward with the goal of protecting and restoring 610 Ridge Street.

We would like to see the homeowners restore the house or if that is not feasible, then we would like to see the city purchase the property and either restore the building or seek out an individual that might purchase this house and then preserve and restore it according to the city's stated guidelines.

for protection and restoration of buildings in our architectural design control districts.

Is there anybody else who would like to speak on this topic?

So I'll close from the hearing.

Yeah, I have a couple, Mr. Mayor.

I was in that house about 15 years ago because I used to buy all houses, fix them up, and flip them.

15 years ago it was a mess and Jim Tolbert's pictures didn't show anything about the crawl space.

So I support a change in ownership.

I'll put it that way.

Something has to be done or it will just fall in on itself quickly.

And you know a thought just occurred to me

as the presentation was being made.

We have some young men in the city who are trying to learn trades.

And wouldn't it be great if we could have some kind of a program where these young guys could practice on a historical structure and learn under the supervision of a skilled foreman almost.

So I mean I'm just getting this idea.

I'm gonna try to follow that up and I think some of the people in this room probably know one or two of the fellows that I'm talking about because it would be a family home.

I live in a house that's 208 years old and when I bought it, it was close to being torn down.

They take a lot of work.