City Council Meeting   9/21/2015

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Please have a seat, please.

It's a call to order, our city council meeting for August 21st.

We have a few awards and announcements and I will start the announcements today.

We're having Belmont Bash on Saturday, October 3rd, 1-6pm in Belmont Park.

Free music, kids activities, a lot of fun.

Please attend.

I'll go ahead and start.

Yes, I have just a few here.

I'd like to announce that

Our IT Department, Informational Technology, Information Technology Department won a Governor's Technology Award for our Charlottesville area transit mobile app, which was made in-house by our Charlottesville staff.

We're so proud.

We have such amazing IT staff.

So the City of Charlottesville Information Technology Department received the 2015 Governor's Technology Award for their work on the CAT mobile app.

presented at the COVID, that's an acronym for something, Conference Enrichment.

The award recognized successful public sector information technology projects from around the Commonwealth.

The city of Charlottesville won the Governor's Award in the IT as efficiency driver government to citizen category.

The CAT app gives citizens the capability to get real-time transit information on their smartphone.

The IT department, Charlottesville, leveraged smartphone global positioning system, that's GPS capabilities, CAT's automatic vehicle location system, otherwise known as AVL,

and the city's geographic information system, otherwise known as GIS, to make an intuitive user interface.

Since the launch of the mobile app on March 1st, 2014, the app has been downloaded more than 15,000 times and has a user rating of four plus out of five.

CAT has seen an annual cost savings of $2,400, a direct result of reduced demand for printed rider's guide.

Yay, yes.

And community members may download the free award-winning mobile app by visiting Google Play, store for Android phones, or the iTunes store for Apple products.

It's a very cool app, so I encourage you to try it out.

Just one other announcement about the Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards.

This is a wonderful volunteer group in town who does a lot of stuff with our Parks and Rec and other

things for the community.

They will be having a fall tree sale on Saturday, October 10th from 7 a.m. to noon at our own Charlottesville City Market.

And if you're interested in becoming a tree steward, they do have a training class coming up starting on October 6th, so on Tuesday mornings, and it meets at the Department of Forestry right off Fontaine there.

So it's very convenient.

It's loads of fun.

I've done it, so it's really cool.

and they also have a tree basics for homeowners guide.

So you can go to Charlottesville area tree stewards.

It also has kind of a CAT acronym.

It's like our mobile app.

Police Community Forum.

The Office of Human Rights and Charlottesville Police Department will have a follow-up meeting to the May 2nd Police Community Forum to discuss an action plan to improve community and police relations

on Saturday, September 26th.

That's this coming Saturday at Carver Recreation Center from 10 to 1.

This forum is open to the public.

The new police interaction information card will also be distributed.

The card outlines your rights as a citizen if you are stopped by the police and provides a guideline for these encounters.

For questions, please contact Charlene Green.

She's here tonight.

970-3115, Office of Human Rights, or Sergeant Brian O'Donnell, 970-3600, Charlottesville Police Department.

And this is Charlene right here.

I just wanted to say about the Police Community Forum, the card you have is just a mock-up printed off of my

printer, a desktop printer, but they're being printed as we speak.

It's going to look like this.

And it outlines, as Mr. Fenwick said, your rights as a citizen.

The Chief Longo and several people, in addition to several community groups, had input on this.

And so it's

All of the appropriate stakeholders have had an opportunity to weigh in on the language and its content.

Thank you.

Citizens rights when they're being stopped by the police On Friday October 2nd and Saturday October 3rd, we're gonna have a Rivanna River Renaissance Conference and that's going to be a community gathering Not just community, but people are coming from EPA from Richmond DEQ Department of Environmental Quality and it's going to focus on the Rivanna River

We're about to embark on a generational effort to make to turn our face to the river is how we describe it It'll be at the Albemarle County building 401 McIntyre Road Friday October 2nd from 830 to 5 the registration is $25 and on Saturday there are free events That's going to be from 10 to noon so the public has invited We're going to have a UVA professor

who specializes in river architecture.

So it should be very interesting and I'd really like to see a big turnout.

If you want to learn how to fly fish, and trust me, it's hard to catch a fly with a fish in it.

I couldn't help.

Yes, I'm still pondering what Mr. Fenwick just said.

The city wins an award.

The Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness, VCEH, recently presented the 2015 Housing First Award to the City of Charlottesville for their significant contributions in ending homelessness in the region.

The Housing First Awards recognize Virginia's housing homelessness assistance providers who have demonstrated a strong commitment to the Housing First approach to ending homelessness through successful implementation of best practice programs.

To be considered for selection, a nominee must have incorporated housing first practices in their homelessness assistance programs, worked collaboratively with other community partners in implementing best practice housing crisis response programs, and participated fully in the continuum of care local planning group in their area of service.

Achieved positive outcomes in helping to ensure that homelessness is rare, brief, and non-recurring in their community.

Good evening.

I wanted to say that I was here in January of this year asking for funding, and the City of Charlottesville has been generous to the cause of homelessness in our community, certainly with funding, funding coordination for the coalition, but also for funding direct rental assistance.

also funding multiple components of the homelessness system of care through the agency budget review team process but perhaps more importantly and the reason why I nominated the city was that the city has been generous with its time and so the city has allowed and encouraged city staff to attend

monthly meetings of our Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless Governance Board, our service provider council, and our bi-weekly community case review meetings, which has been really critical, both in terms of bringing expertise and information to the table, but also as an indicator to everyone else that this is an important issue.

And so I can't speak to how important it is to have city staff at the table when we're talking about these things.

The city has also been able to convene multi-system tables and discussions

about homelessness and how it overlaps with the reentry population or with other kinds of populations in need, which has been really critical to us moving the issue.

So I'm grateful for the city's generosity and it's not just about money.

Thank you.

Just a couple more announcements about worker sessions.

Oh, sorry.

Sorry.

I am Mike Murphy.

I'm the Assistant City Manager, formerly the Director of Human Services.

Our Assistant Director of Department of Social Services, Sue Moffett,

and our housing specialist Kathy McHugh are also TJAC board members and leaders in the work that we've done in homelessness and as we talk to colleagues around the state not just about homelessness but about other ways we deliver human services we hear about how lucky we are here in Charlottesville because of the way we emphasize collaboration between public

not-for-profit and private enterprise and this is a perfect example of that and it's a real honor for us to be recognized.

A little ironic that we're competing against Miss Dimmick who probably should have won the award instead of us but an honor nonetheless so thank you.

Thank you.

This is very brief.

A couple of work sessions, council work sessions that the public is more than welcome to come and observe.

And there's usually a moment when the public can weigh in on what they've heard.

So the first one is this Thursday, September 24th, from 5 to 7.

It'll be about the West Main Street Improvement Plan and that's going to be at City Space.

And then a week later, October 1st from 5 to 7 at the City Space will be another work session on parking and a parking strategy.

So we welcome the public to come to both of those events, stay informed, and then ask questions.

Alright, I get the fun one.

I have a proclamation for a birthday party.

recognizing Live Arts on its 25th anniversary.

Whereas Live Arts, founded in 1990 in the old Mickey Company building as a place for our community to create theater and other performing arts, helped to spark the social and cultural revitalization of downtown Charlottesville.

And whereas over the subsequent 25 years, Live Arts has drawn from the collective passion, dedication, and creativity of thousands of volunteers

who have contributed over a million hours of their lives to create bold artistic work, build a vital community, and provide transformational experiences for performers, designers, and audiences.

And, whereas this community effort has brought nearly 250 theatrical productions with more than 5,000 individual performances, along with dance, music, comedy, and storytelling to the stages of the Old Mickey Building and, since 2003, the City Center for Contemporary Arts,

the cultural anchor of the downtown mall and whereas the scope of live arts work has extended well beyond the stage through innovative educational programs for children, teens and adults, support for local playwrights and outreach and collaboration locally and as far off as the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in all of this fulfilling its mission of forging theater and community and whereas a quarter of a century since its founding

Live Arts continues to thrive with a full programming schedule, an ever bustling facility, more than 700 active volunteer company members supported by a talented and dedicated staff, nearly 20,000 people annually attending its productions and events, and scores of passionate supporters, donors, and seasoned subscribers.

Now, therefore, be it resolved, by the Council of the City of Charlottesville, Virginia, that Live Arts is hereby recognized for its many artistic achievements of the past 25 years,

and for its signature contribution to the cultural, social, and economic fabric of downtown Charlottesville and the broader Central Virginia community, and that Live Arts has wished many more years of success in forging theater and community, signed and sealed this 21st day of September 2015, and I believe that Matt Joslin is here to accept this award.

And, okay, Will Kerner?

Good.

Thank you, Council, Live Arts, the Board, the staff, and especially our over a thousand active company members greatly appreciate the recognition.

We want to wholeheartedly invite Council, everyone here, and everyone in the city and Albemarle County to join us this Saturday, 7 p.m. for an incredible birthday party.

No tickets required.

No charges.

It's all free.

It's all fun.

Thank you.

Yes, this is the season for festivals.

I don't know how many of you went to both the Pride Festival and the Seville Sabroso this past weekend, but we are on a two-festival chain because this coming Saturday we have the Vegetarian Festival in Lee Park and the TomTom Fall Festival at ICS.

So it is another weekend of festivals.

I trust the weather will be just as lovely next week.

and the following Saturday after that, the 3rd of October will be the 150th anniversary of Jefferson School, the anniversary gala.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

It's my honor to introduce the new fire chief for the city of Charlottesville, Andrew Baxter.

Andrew started with us last week.

He's been with us for seven days now.

Thank you, yes.

And I spent the first four days in a strategic planning session, so I dove into the deep end right away.

But it was a very good experience and a great way to learn about the department.

I said to someone just yesterday that Chief Werner left me two things.

He left me a simply outstanding fire department filled with incredible dedicated firefighters, officers and civilian staff.

The other thing he left me was a very big set of shoes to fill.

So I'm going to do my best to do that and we're off to a good start.

And before I step away, I'd like to acknowledge

Battalion Chief W.A.

Hogston.

Firefighters never do anything by ourselves.

We always work in teams, so I brought my wingman with me and Quaker the arson dog is outside guarding his vehicle.

Thank you for your time this evening.

That's right, that's right.

Any other announcements?

If not, we'll go to matters of the public.

The very important part of our meeting is public comments.

We value those comments.

There are rules and guidelines for participation and I hope you'll follow those rules and you'll limit yourself to three minutes and identify yourself.

So the first person to sign up is

Good evening.

It's lovely to see all of you.

This is V. Osvalds.

I'm Nancy Galloway, and we are from McGuffey Art Center.

We're having our 40th birthday.

Everybody's having a birthday.

And V. is showing you one of the events that we're celebrating with.

We have made, the hundred or so Mugaffi artists, have made all these tiny little pieces of art and on September 30, we will be hiding them all over the city.

And anybody finds them, it's finders keepers.

And this is our gift to you all.

And we are having a silent auction for other works of art, we've also done

18 by 18 pieces of art that are hanging, will be hanging at McGuffey.

We also will be having a big show in the main gallery of the work of the people who started McGuffey.

So that will be very exciting.

And then upstairs, V and a couple colleagues have put together giant photographs that are very old, all the way back to day one of McGuffey.

and all of this is possible only because of our wonderful relationship with City Council.

We like to build community from McGuffey and you all have helped us immeasurably.

and we thank you kindly and hope you will come to our silent auction on October the 1st.

Big reception, silent auction.

And then on Friday, October 2nd, we will have our usual first Friday gathering when the whole public is invited to come and celebrate our birthday with us.

Yeah.

Makes such a beautiful quilt.

Wonderful.

Good evening, again I am Kathy Brown and I am here in regards to a special regional fundraiser on behalf of Karen and Tim Chambers.

On May 9th, the day before Mother's Day, Tim was in a bad motorcycle accident in which he sustained major spinal cord injuries.

A vehicle hit him and left the scene and he was traveling on Route 20 south of Charlottesville.

And on that day, of course, their family's life was changed forever.

Tim went from doing any and everything to now he can't even raise his hand.

So on behalf of that family, I am here to ask for contributions to support this family.

His wife has had to quit her job in order to take care of him.

Since May until today, Tim has been in his home for one and a half weeks.

He is currently in HealthSouth and we would like to ask for donations to support this family, to help them with medical bills, to help them with any type of bills that they're going to incur and have incurred.

He has been approved for disability.

However, that doesn't kick in right away.

So again, that's why we're asking for your support.

Tim is only 48 years old.

And to me, he should have had a longer life where he could do for himself.

But since he can't, that's why we're asking for your support.

We're also proposing a walk to support this family.

on October the 17th, which is going to begin at Tonsler Park and end at Tonsler Park, providing the City of Charlottesville give us the okay tomorrow.

We're asking if anybody in this room would like to participate in this walk or just make a donation.

Any donations are accepted at any BB&T bank.

You don't have to give it to me, I don't even have to know how much you give, but you can go to BB&T bank.

And on behalf of Tim and Karen Chambers,

We thank you in advance for your contributions.

And by the way, our gold is $5,000, which I don't think is a lot of money.

We wanted to work towards something that would be more achievable.

Thank you for listening, and we hope to get your support.

Good evening, my name is Lena Saville, I live at 808 Alta Vista Avenue, and I'm here to talk with you about a situation at Parks and Rec.

Last month, two management employees, Bernie Garrison and Erica Goode, both left their jobs.

They'd both been there for more than 10 years, neither one of them was close to retirement, and neither one of them had a new job lined up.

They both loved their job, but in one month's time, both of them left.

This raises some questions about what's happening over in Parks and Rec.

These were two employees who held a lot of responsibility.

They organized group athletics such as softball, basketball, soccer, football, and volleyball for youth and adults.

The other handled camps and classes such as dance, fitness, gymnastics, arts and crafts, playgroups, outdoor adventure, and martial arts.

Together they did special events such as Safe Halloween and the Easter Egg Hunt.

Yet in one month's time, both of them left without having a new job lined up,

Just out of the blue.

Like I said, each of them had more than 10 years experience.

They both loved their jobs and they were clearly in responsible positions.

It raises a lot of questions about what might be happening over in Parks and Rec.

When you add that to some of the other things that have been happening in Parks and Rec over the last few years, such as the renovations to Smith Pool, brand new facility put in, apparently they were warned by people who were employed by them at the time that the ventilation wasn't adequate.

yet they went ahead with a technical decision and we had to come back and spend half a million dollars five years later not just money did we spend but all those employees that spent five years breathing in that poor ventilation.

It's a health hazard.

We also had Forest Hills Spray Park.

They put in brand new flooring that was low grade quality and within I think a week a child had fallen.

They had to tear it out and place it with better quality flooring.

We have Carver Recreation where the income estimates were way off and we have Reeves Park where there were massive cost overruns.

I have some concerns about this level of technical decision making, especially given the fact that the McIntire Park changes are planned.

I think this Parks and Rec administration is out of touch with the community needs and they have poor technical decision making.

This major project that I heard talked about as a

The feature at the mayor's conference that you held recently.

Good afternoon, mayor, council, manager, and Mr. Brown attorney.

It is great to stand before you.

I know that you have a lot of difficult work, and everything that you consider is a matter of life and death.

To some, I'm standing because I have become friends with Mr. Hare.

Mr. Hare is here.

His son been here, lost his life in a tragic car accident, and Mr. Hare has now given his life

to honor his son through swimming.

So many children, about 60, I think that's right, he's paid for, about 60 at our church have learned to swim.

He's also done a lot of work to research the need for swimming in Charlottesville and beyond.

In Charlottesville, 79% of African Americans don't know how to swim.

So that brings us to the YMCA.

The YMCA has needs, and they have an opportunity for a new location.

And it's a wonderful, auspicious, providential, and just gracious partnership.

And Mr. Hare has committed to make sure that not only will there be regular activities there, but there will be swimming for all in the community.

So I stand to ask you to partner with Mr. Hare, the YMCA, and our community to make sure that all

Learn to Swim.

It's not a sport only.

It's a life skill.

Michelle Ryan.

I would first like to start by asking all the YMCA supporters in the audience to please stand so you can be recognized.

I appreciate you all for being here.

I'm in support of the YMCA.

Building for the McIntire Park.

I worked for the Rappahannock Area YMCA for five years before coming here.

And in that space and time, we built three different buildings.

Wanna Caroline, Spasylvania, and King George.

They were all filled up.

Once the community has it, everyone loves it and they all want their own.

I've been a YMCA supporter due to its non-profit nature and all the good that it does.

My children have participated in everything it has to offer, swimming, basketball, soccer, t-ball, karate, dance classes, girl empowerment, a lot of community services.

those that would not have been afforded on my early childhood education salary and also my son who was diagnosed with high functioning autism at five I don't think would have been accepted anywhere else.

Currently I'm the director of the YMCA preschool in the Jefferson City School Building.

To give you a snapshot, this summer we were at full capacity with 81 children from six weeks to five years old.

We gave out $3,000 a week in YMCA scholarships alone.

Over 50% of our children qualify for free or reduced lunches.

We participate very closely with Social Services, United Way, Bright Stars and MACA.

We have 36 of their families currently being serviced by us.

We had 20 children that were accepted into our Kinder Care program and we had to turn many families away.

We had 11 kayak high school volunteers this summer and two we employed after school because we believe in youth development.

We give students that attend PVCC discount rates and we participate in a grant program that provides almost full tuition so that those students can get a higher education and not have childcare as their barrier.

I've got to see many students, families that come in non-English speaking that leave to help their families.

They come back from kindergarten and tell us how successful they were because of their experience with us.

and we have many families that wanted to be here tonight that are on our scholarship, but they're taking care of their families.

I'm gonna quickly read one to you.

As a single mother of two, it is a true struggle financially, emotionally defined and sustained quality of daycare preschool for my children.

I learned about the YAMC intergenerational program through my employment as a social worker.

I was immensely impressed by their program and the love and dedication of the staff

So, to clarify.

Good evening.

Yeah.

Good evening.

My name is Graham DeVito.

I live at 5144 Browns Gap Turnpike.

I am here tonight representing 240 competitive swimmers that are currently in the water at either Crow Pool or the Crow's AYMCA Pool.

There is simply not enough pool space currently to allow us to practice during convenient hours and swim recreationally with our families.

We travel all over the East Coast for meets and almost all communities except Charlottesville have a YMCA facility and pool.

On behalf of 240 CATEC swimmers and their families, we'd love to have a YMCA home pool.

The Brooks Family YMCA at McIntyre Park will enable kids like me to swim.

Swimming has made me lifelong friends, has helped me be a better student, and has made me stronger.

It has also taught me about endurance.

We have, as a community, shown endurance to continue our fight for a YMCA in our great city.

I wear a quote on one of my suit that states, endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one that endures the final victory comes.

I would love for your vote tonight to be our final victory.

Please give us a home.

Good evening.

My name is Maren Weathersme.

I'm a 10th grader at Albemarle High School and a seven-year member of the YMCA's Kayak Around Competitive Swing program.

Tonight, like Graham, I'm speaking to you on behalf of our 240 teammates to ask you to support the final stages of the dream of a new YMCA in our community that we've all shared for many years.

When I was nine years old, after three years of summer swimming, I decided to become a year-round swimmer and join the YMCA.

One of the reasons we chose the YMCA-CAT program was because of the Y-Corps values.

Caring, honesty, respect, and responsibility.

Another reason I chose to swim at the YMCA was because at the time there was an expectation that a new YMCA was being built.

and I would get an opportunity to swim year round in a new state of the art pool.

Now after several years of hard work at age 15, I'm the youngest member of the CATEC National swim team and the Y still has not been built.

Unfortunately, when the new Y becomes available as planned in the summer of 2017, I'll be the only one of our 12 member national team that's able to compete in the new pool.

In closing, I want to share with you a phrase I saw written on another Y Team shirt at the national championships.

Everything you've ever wanted is on the other side of fear.

As a YMCA member, swimmer, and member of this great community, I implore you to take responsibility seriously and approve the ground lease amendments and remove the final remaining roadblocks to this well-funded and highly supported community project.

Make the dream all local swimmers share a reality.

Thank you.

Tom Wuzelbeck.

While Tom is coming, let me again remind you what Ms. Smith said.

There is item number 5, Amendment to Ground Lease of IFCA, and there will be public hearings.

Thank you.

My name is Tom Guderbach.

I'm a resident of Albemarle County at 951 Fairwinds Lane in Crozet, but I was a city resident for some years and a regular swimmer at the Smith pool.

and I learned to swim at the YMCA in Hyde Park in Chicago and there's actually a commemorative marker there, not for the YMCA but it happens to be the spot where later on the young Barack Obama took Michelle on his first date and there's actually a plaque for that.

I'm a professor at UVA, I'm director of the Center for Survey Research and I'm here today to speak about the YMCA and to urge your support for actions that will approve that new facility.

I'm here because that will save lives

and it will do something to end the shocking racial disparity in the ability to swim.

Now I know about this shocking disparity because of a survey that we did.

The YMCA will have a program to waterproof our children and this is something that we sorely need.

I'm sorry.

I don't think I'll need three minutes.

The survey was done in Charlottesville, Albemarle, Flovanna, Green, Nelson, and Louisa as one of our series of Jefferson area community surveys.

It's a survey done by telephone, cell phones, and landlines, a completely random scientific sample.

We completed 904 telephone interviews, and thanks to the Ben Hare Foundation,

We asked, included questions on whether people could swim.

So we asked every adult, can you swim?

And then we took the answers and we organized them into four categories.

56% of adults in our area say that they could swim more than a 25-yard length of a pool.

They could swim multiple lamps.

About 20% say they could make it one length of the pool.

And we say, okay, you know how to swim.

Then there are about 10% who said that they can swim a little in deep water.

and there are 15% who say they can't swim at all.

And these are the people we'll say who can't swim well.

So overall, there are 24% of adults in our area who cannot swim well.

But here's the thing that's really, well, I also want to mention that if we break it down by Charlottesville alone, I know we're here at Charlottesville City Council, it's a little higher.

About 29% of adults in Charlottesville are not able to swim well by their own report.

But if you break it down by race, the results are really amazing.

72%,

of African American adults in our area are not able to swim well by this definition compared to 19% of other adults.

Now we also asked people about their kids.

There were 279 households that had a child between the age of four and 17.

And we found that overall, looking at these kids, about 35% of children age four to 17 cannot swim well.

Now once again, you break this down by the race of the household, that is the race of the adult we talked to

and 82% of African American children cannot swim well compared to 29% of other children.

And let me add one other statistic.

Remember one category was can you really swim several lengths of the pool?

Can you go out there and really do it?

51% of the non-African American kids could do this and only 2% of African American kids could do this.

Now this disparity in swimming is remarkable.

It's one of the largest I've ever seen in any survey on any topic.

We talk about racial disparities in learning, you know there's a few points, but this is really dramatic.

And it's a matter of life and death.

It means that these kids are at risk of death by drowning if they're subject to a water accident.

Thank you.

Brooks Sims, Advanced Meals in Earl's, Virginia.

I'm here in support of the Piedmont Family YMCA and soon to be Brooks Family YMCA.

Some people refer to the Y as a gem and to me is far more than that.

and I'm going to read you a couple quotes from children that has participated in our program.

My favorite thing about summer camp is being able to come here and to know that I'm welcome and know that I have something to do.

I'm having a lot of fun at camp, like always.

And this is from an 11-year-old sixth-grade girl.

She's been participating in the YMCA program since the age of four, supported by her grandfather while her mother serves a 20-year sentence in prison.

I like flag football because my daddy is my coach and mom, she's the water girl.

This is a seven year old, second grade boy.

This is first year playing flag football with us and he's also a YMCA scholarship recipient.

Thank you YMCA for providing me with my first real job experience.

I enjoyed being a CIT this summer because working with kids is the most fun job there is.

I've always wanted to be a role model for the kids and give them someone great to look up to.

And this is a 16 year old first year

YMCACIT volunteer in collaboration with the CATEC program.

We were impressed at how professionally the camp was run from preliminary interactions through our campus experience.

He said it was one of the best things he had ever done, and not only does he plan to attend next year, he wants to be a counselor when he's older.

He said, if the FBI doesn't work out, I want to be a Y camp director.

Mr. Andre and Ms. Brooks should be retired by then.

Clearly it was a fabulous experience on this child.

First time summer camp attendee and parent.

The Y is so much more.

We're more than a place, we are a cause.

So what about the Y makes me stand here in front of you today?

The Y supports opportunities that empower the people and communities to learn, grow and strive.

With a focus on youth development, healthy living, and social responsibility, the Y nurtures the potential of every youth and teen, improves the nation's health and wellbeing, and provides opportunity to give back and support neighbors.

That's how we do it in all of our programs.

Today, more than ever, we all need a Y in Charlottesville.

Kids and teens need academic support, positive role models, and a safe place to build a healthy foundation for the future.

And also, adults need support and guidance to live healthier.

The Y is and always will be dedicated to building healthy and confident children, adults, families, and communities.

Every day our impact is felt when an individual makes a healthy choice, when a coach inspires a child, and when a community comes together for a common good.

And I want to leave with this quote.

Upon working for the Y, I realized what incredible support it had from the rest of the staff.

I started to get invested into a Y team and help out with all the activities that they were doing for the community.

This is when I found an unexpected gift.

I really enjoyed getting involved in the community and helping support the Y outside of the summer camp.

Throughout the school year I was able to help with other events and I felt extremely rewarded by my place at the Y.

Good evening, City Council.

My name is Michelle Yowell and I am the Pre-K teacher at the Y. I have been with them since February of 2014.

I live at 252 Stripling Avenue, Apartment B, Charlottesville, Virginia 22903.

Here at the center, we are more than a childcare center.

We are a learning center for all children, which means we never turn a child down, regardless of being able to pay or not.

That is why we go through DSS and our very own scholarship program.

We want to give every child a quality education because children learn the most between the ages of three and five.

We also build bonds not only with our children but families as well.

I continue to see my pre-K children from last year who have gone on to kindergarten.

I have one in particular who comes to see me at least once a month.

Over the summer he went back to Mexico where he would send me postcards every other day and actually brought me gifts back at the end of the summer from Mexico.

Another one of my children, who was also Hispanic, came back in after she left.

Her mother said how much she appreciated everything that we did for her and taught her while she was there.

Both of these children were Spanish speaking, and had it not been for the English that we taught them, neither one of them would be excelling in their current schools.

Some centers require that the parents bring their child's food in with them every day.

However, here at the Y, we provide all of our children, regardless of the ability to pay, with two healthy and nutritious snacks, as well as a healthy and nutritious lunch.

All of these are government approved.

This is why the Y is so important in the community.

My name is Lewis Schultz.

I live at 1809 East Market Street.

By law, council is required to meet on the first and third Mondays of every month except in the case of a holiday when the meeting must be on the Tuesday after.

The section of Charlottesville's code that requires these meetings does not allow cancellation of meetings for any reason.

They must be held on the appointed day.

The code makes that obligation explicitly clear and makes failure to do so a class one misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

Yet, on August 3rd of this year, all five counselors knowingly chose to violate the law and the oaths they swore to faithfully and impartially discharge all the duties incumbent upon them.

On that day they simply walked away from their duty to meet as though election to this council has made them and their whims superior to the law.

That is not the way democracy is supposed to work, but disregard for the law and contempt for the rights of citizens are defining characteristics of our city government.

This is the 45th time since October 3rd, 2013 that I have come to Kathy Galvin and the rest of council

to say that I have evidence that City Manager Maurice Jones, Director of Public Works Judith Mueller, and Utilities Director Lauren Hildebrand, by unlawfully taking my private property for a public use, and by denying me my lawful rights to it, have violated Charlottesville Code, the city's charter, and the Code of Virginia, and in doing so, have violated federal civil rights statutes.

That property is on Steep Hill Street, a private street in the Woolen Mills neighborhood.

For 23 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've made serious, credible accusations of wrongdoing on the part of three and possibly more high-ranking city officials.

I have named those involved, the time, the place, and the laws which were broken.

I have provided counsel documentary evidence to prove my assertions and I have repeatedly asked for a hearing into the matter where I might give sworn testimony and present any additional evidence counsel might request of me so that justice may be served and those who have broken the law might be held accountable.

A few weeks ago, Kathy Galvin responded to a citizen's comment by saying it was frightening that someone would call her integrity into question.

As a citizen, I find it frightening that Ms. Galvin apparently feels free to break the law, knowing that the Commonwealth's Attorney, who should prosecute her and the rest of council, is a member of her political party, has worked on her campaign, and will look the other way, just as she has when confronted with evidence that the city manager and others have violated the law.

I find it frightening that a city that once closed its schools to avoid integration

and which intentionally destroyed two vibrant African-American neighborhoods still doesn't allow us African-American citizens to walk down the street free of the fear of being stopped and frisked for no reason at all.

I find it frightening that counselor Szakos would threaten to charge me with slander for coming here and speaking the truth about corruption and incompetence in City Hall

and then Ms. Galvin would say nothing about the egregious assault on a basic American freedom.

I find it frightening as well that Mayor Huja routinely abuses his position by calling on the police to strictly limit his critics here to three minutes when those who sing his praises or whom it's politically expedient allowed to go on don't suffer the same restrictions on their speech.

Anybody else who would like to speak?

Particularly, I like it when the youth come out, the youngsters come out.

And I'm going to recognize both of them.

If I have messed the name up, please yell out.

I want everybody to know what your name is.

And I love your bow tie, by the way.

All right.

And that was Graham DeVito.

I'll go next, thank you all for coming.

It was great to hear, I just love this

We'll have lots more opportunity to talk about the why and to hear more.

That is why we have a separate public hearing so that everybody does get a chance.

It doesn't, we don't have the time limits in terms of overall time, three minute time limit for everybody.

But those we did hear from, thank you for coming.

And Reverend Hamilton, I cannot agree with you more about the need for swimming as a life skill for the contributions that Mr. Hare has made.

to this cause.

And I think what's really shocking too is to hear the statistics from the survey, thank you very much for the survey results, which much of the adult swimming problem we have is due to segregation when we did not allow people of color to swim in our swimming pools.

And I think we have to realize that not only is that

and how impactful that is, and you told us the numbers for the folks who were subjected to that, but then it generationally goes on.

If your parents don't swim, then you're not as likely to teach your children to swim.

And so I think we've got to really have a concerted effort that we basically get everybody swimming so that we don't have this just repeated survival

lack skill, because it is a survival skill.

It seems like most of the speakers tonight were all about the why, so we'll talk about that later on, but thank you everybody for coming.

If you can't hang in there until the fifth agenda item, that's certainly understandable, but thank you for coming out.

I want to thank our members from McGuffey, Ms. Gilbert.

Those look like wonderful treasure hunt items.

I guess they've gone, but thank you for that information.

And Ms. Brown, I feel bad for the pain and suffering of your friends.

And you picked a good forum to get the word out.

Ms. Seville, we've just taken notes of what has been said.

Thank you.

It's our turn now, but I would also just like to add my enjoyment to the McGuffey presentation and my looking forward to looking for art.

And Ms. Brown, the Chambers are lucky to have a friend like you, so thanks for what you're doing.

And Ms. Seville, where did you go?

There you are.

You know, the things that you brought to us are personnel matters, and so you may never hear back, but we will look into that, thanks.

And the YMCA we'll talk about later.

Oh, actually I did have one other quick one.

Graham, who said your quote?

My email is on the city website, so when you find out who said it, can you send it to me?

Well, I agree with the comments from my colleagues, especially

I encourage the two young people who spoke and also the first time they're speaking for the meeting.

You did a great job and I hope you come back again.

Any other comments?

Okay.

Mayor, are we going to do the boards and commission?

Just wait for me, please.

I would like to announce the appointment of Justin A. Ritter to the Charlotte City Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee, CHART.

Second?

Are you moving it?

I'm going to move it.

Is that what you're moving?

Yeah.

You're counting on your memory, it's up to you.

At the end of the meeting.

Consent agenda.

Minutes for September 3rd, September 8th and September 10th.

Appropriation enhanced police coverage donation $84,194.

Appropriation fire programs aid to localities $137,789.

Mayor Huja, I don't want to remove this, but is the

They're going to put a new line up there?

Yes.

Yes, the franchise agreement itself recognizes that that's the preference, but also recognizes that there are circumstances where overhead is appropriate.

I'd like to just make one other comment about the franchise agreement.

This is just in reference to our last agenda item.

I'm very impressed that the language is, it's not gender neutral, but it's gender inclusive.

And actually, I'm gonna bring that back up at the end of the meeting, because we have an ordinance before us that isn't.

And I'm happy to make the motion, but as I do, I'd like to also just alert people to one of the items that is in this consent agenda.

This was its second reading, so it will go into effect soon.

which is lowering the speed limit on Emmett Street from Barracks Road to Hydraulic Road to 35 from 40 during the construction along there.

So be careful, drive slow, watch out for workers.

Is there a second to the motion?

I'll second.

Any discussion from that vote?

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Huja, Councillors.

I'm Melissa Thackston, the Grants Coordinator for the City of Charlottesville.

I'd also like to point out Sarah Howard, sitting in the back.

She'll be the new Grants Coordinator for the City of Charlottesville, effective October 8th.

Welcome back.

We will still miss you.

This public hearing tonight is intended to aid Council and staff in gathering information about the City's needs.

The goals and priorities that are determined as a result of this public hearing will be the framework for funding recommendations made by the CDBG Task Force.

Based on current projections, unfortunately they're a little bit grim, grimmer than usual at least, the city can expect similar or more likely less funding than received in fiscal year 15-16.

For CDBG, that would be about 375,000.

And for the home program, it's actually facing drastic cuts right now, so that's likely gonna be zero dollars for our region.

Priorities set by council for this last fiscal year were workforce development, neighborhood stabilization, economic development, and access to quality childcare.

The results of projects that have been completed to date this last fiscal year benefited 334 people, 15 existing micro enterprises, 24 entrepreneurs, one early learning center, nine homes were rehabbed, and one streetscape, Cherry Avenue, received some pedestrian safety and accessibility improvements.

Fiscal year 2016-17 marks the fourth of five years of our current consolidated plan.

This document provides information, encourages communities to look at housing and community development comprehensively.

Following the public hearing, staff is asking council to make the following decisions.

And bear with me, there's a few.

First, to set priorities for the CVBG and if there's any home funds available for the home program.

Council is asked to determine what the priorities are.

Having specific priorities really helps the task forces ensure that the diminishing funds are targeted towards projects that meet the goals of council.

the consolidated plan and also the growing opportunities report.

An emphasis on workforce development and access to educational childcare helps meet these goals.

Determine if a priority neighborhood should be designated.

10th and Page has been the priority neighborhood for the past two fiscal years.

Historically, priority neighborhoods receive three fiscal years of funding, so fiscal year 16-17 would be 10th and Page's third year.

In the past, priority neighborhoods funds were set at 200,000, however, again, with diminishing funds, this is well over 50% of our current entitlement,

Last year, the priority neighborhood was budgeted at 32.5% of the total.

This fiscal year, we received a lot less funding than what we were promised from HUD.

As a result, we've had to scale back our budget for the 10th and Page neighborhood.

So staff would recommend, and I'll talk about this again in the recommendation section, that 10th and Page actually be named for four fiscal years only because the funding that we budgeted for them and that we had projects lined up for received a lot less.

Normally council only names one priority neighborhood at a time, but we're finding that in order to ensure plenty of time for citizen engagement and coordination with the various city committees that we have, that it's very helpful to begin planning the next priority neighborhood well in advance.

We typically cycle through the different eligible neighborhoods, and so the next neighborhood in the rotation would be the Belmont neighborhood.

So we would ask that council make a recommendation for the next one in our cycle.

so that we can begin planning those processes so that when funds become available, we have great projects lined up.

Third, council needs to make a decision regarding if any funds should be set for economic development.

Last year, the budget was set at 32.5% of our total entitlement.

This was about $130,000.

However, only about $62,000 in eligible project was recommended for funding.

These funds are being used to help qualified entrepreneurs and microenterprise businesses

to improve their capacity and stay in business in our city.

Fourth, council needs to make a decision regarding the public service project cap.

HUD sets a hard maximum of only 15% of our current entitlement.

A smaller amount could be used.

Same with administration and planning, HUD sets a firm cap at 20% of the total CDBG entitlement budget.

For this year, that's roughly 75,000.

And then any other additional guidelines or directions that council may wish to give to help us in determining the best use of these funds.

The CDBG task force meets over the course of the winter and they review the public service and if any funds available for housing, the housing projects.

The city's strategic action team will review the economic development applications and a 10th and Page priority neighborhood task force was formed and they made recommendations that could use all funding available to them.

Vegetary impacts, if there are home funds that do become available to our community, they do require a 25% local match.

In previous years, this match comes from the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund.

there is no impact to the general fund regarding the CDBG funds.

Okay, so in summary, staff recommends that city council approve the 15% allocation for the public service projects and the 20% maximum allocation for the admin and planning budgets.

For the public service funds, staff recommends that they remain city-wide but that non-profit partners are made aware of the priority neighborhood and encouraged to recruit beneficiaries from there.

The doctor recommends that $45,000 be set aside for economic development activities.

The remaining estimated CDBG budget of roughly $200,000 should go towards the priority neighborhood funding.

Staff recommends that 10th and Page be named a priority neighborhood for fiscal year 16-17, and again, you can't commit for 17-18, but staff would recommend that that's the next one in line and that the priority neighborhood would move to Belmont.

Staff recommends that any public service, housing, or economic development activity meet the goals of the growing opportunities report in addition to the consolidated plan.

I have three questions for clarification.

The first is just a quickie, which is the

You said that it's likely that there will be no home funds this year.

When will we know for sure?

I believe it went to the House and they gutted it at zero.

And the Senate gutted it, too.

I think the Senate gutted it, but then there was talk about putting it back.

There's talk about funding the National Housing Trust instead, and so it seems like they shifted all of that home money into that program.

So the second question is also a simple one.

It's a placeholder so that we can begin thinking of projects, working with the community, going through the different projects.

And the other is on the economic development funding, you said last year was allocated $130,000 in U-62.7.

Because we have to have everything budgeted, it just rolled over into the priority neighborhood.

so we didn't have enough quality economic development activities come in and so because we had projects ready to go.

So the $45,000 you're recommending this year would be all?

All new.

Yes, Barrett Early Learning Center made some improvements.

And under what category was that money from?

They made that one, I'm trying to think, that was from prior years, it just got completed this year, which is why we're reporting it.

Part of it came in under the economic development money.

Again, we had money left over from the number of applications that came in.

I know it's about capital, but we need to grow this stuff.

You all have a chance to talk about this later after the public hearing.

Can we have a public hearing?

Have a seat, please.

Anybody here to speak?

Even if you had not signed up.

I just want to make sure the community understands priority neighborhood was cut 25% and correct me if I'm wrong please economic development was cut 30% housing was cut 85% home entitlement was cut 100%

Program income and reprogramming was cut 75%.

I mean, these are major cuts in this program.

Thank you, Congress.

Does anything come through the state or is this all fed?

Because we're a direct federal entitlement, we're actually not able to apply for any of the state funding.

I just have one question about the priority neighborhoods.

There tend to be five.

It's done by qualified census block.

We try to rotate through because it takes three years normally.

It's a very long rotation process, but we have done them all.

We've done them all.

I actually have a question as well.

Well actually it's more discussion and actually I do support these priorities because I think you know in an era of scarcity you've cut what you can and been responsive to what's been spent before but I really do think that especially the home funds have been a really critical piece of our city's response to our need for affordable housing and we have these goals that we've set and we set our affordable housing fund

by the goals that we had assuming home funds.

And so I think that as we're looking at our next budget next year, we're going to really have to take seriously how we fund that.

If the federal government isn't providing funding for it the way they have been, we need to either make it up or acknowledge that we're not going to be meeting our goals.

Second.

Oh yes, Melissa, thank you so much for all your service to the city.

Thank you so much.

Good evening Mr. Mayor and members of City Council.

The item before you this evening is the renewal of the Art in Place license agreement that provides for the placement of an annual public sculpture show in locations throughout the city.

For many years the Art in Place Foundation has managed this signature program providing sculpture for the enjoyment of the community and the exposure of the work of artists across the nation.

The city is very thankful for the contributions of the Art in Place Foundation for their many years of administration of this really wonderful program.

The current lease agreement expires at the end of this month and is due for renewal.

After negotiations between the Art in Place Foundation and the Piedmont Council of the Arts, the PCA has agreed to assume the management and administration of the annual sculpture show in the next three-year lease period.

PCA is requesting that the annual lease payment be increased by $5,000 to cover the cost of administration of the program.

For reference, the lease amount had increased on the average $3,000 in each of the

and two previous lease periods respectively.

And funding is available currently in the FY16 budget to cover the proposed increase in the annual cost.

Members of the Art and Place Foundation and the Piedmont Council of the Arts are here this evening if you have any questions or comments.

This is a public hearing, so I'll open the public hearing first.

Would you like to speak on this public hearing?

I'd just like to thank Elizabeth Breeden and the other folks who've been on the Art in Place Foundation for all of the work that they have done over the course of the years that they've been doing this.

One of the things I think that makes Charlottesville really fun is the new arts bringing up around and the art that we've been able to secure.

Long term after some of it is done with its year, the polar bear and the butterfly and a couple of others.

One quick one.

I do love the polar bear, but who puts the tie on that polar bear?

Okay, and if somebody who's watching in or listening to this or reads these minutes, whatever, wants to be involved in this, would they Google what?

People's Council of the Arts.

And it still will be called Art in Place.

And is the $5,000 increase enough to cover both the transfer of responsibilities and the annual increase in furniture?

Okay, is there a motion?

I move to approve.

Let me say I've had some paternal interest in this and I'm very happy that the Council is supporting it.

Let's vote.

Thank you very much.

Hello, I'm Jeanette Janicek, UCI Program Manager for the City of Charlottesville.

And as you know, the City of Charlottesville entered into First Cities, or the Urban Construction Initiative with the state, Virginia Department of Transportation, so that we could administer our own projects.

And the state and the federal government is still providing funding, however we're able to move the projects forward from preliminary engineering right of way and into construction.

The funding is set up so that it's mainly on a reimbursement basis.

We submit quarterly.

For Hillsdale Drive, we've been in the preliminary engineering phase.

We're moving into right-of-way.

We should be acquiring property in the month coming up.

So we're looking for an appropriation of $15,309,596.

This would get us all the way through right-of-way, and then we'd be moving into construction in roughly, let's see, summer of 2016 when we'll be coming back for another appropriation of 11.2 million.

Summer of 2016.

Any questions?

Anybody like to speak on this topic?

Okay, nobody speaking, close the public hearing.

It's very perceptive not to sit down.

I have one question.

Sure.

We collect all the expenses for a 90-day period.

I will make a motion that we adopt this allocation, what is it, let's see, appropriation.

Oh, okay, yes.

I'll second.

Next is a public hearing on YMCA ground lease.

Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, this is the first of two items on your agenda tonight related to the proposed YMCA facility in McIntyre Park.

This item is a proposed amendment of the ground lease between the YMCA and the City of Charlottesville.

An ordinance was introduced and moved and seconded on first reading at your last meeting which would authorize the city manager to execute what's titled amendment number one to ground lease which has been provided with your agenda materials.

Briefly, that amendment would include

changes to five sections in the ground lease.

Four, I think, are pretty straightforward.

The fifth is a bit more complicated.

Just briefly, since we did discuss these last time, the amendment to section one incorporates a map with the leased boundaries that were approved by city council in May of 2008.

An amendment to section 4 deletes two sentences which have with the passage of time become obsolete because they talked about establishing a default location for the leased property if the city did not approve a master plan for McIntyre Park by a certain date and when in fact that plan was approved prior to that date.

There are two sections, 29 and 33, that are amended to clarify that in the event the YMCA defaults under its lease, abandons the premises or fails to construct the building, the building will come back to the city without any payment by the city to the YMCA.

The last amendment, which I think is a little more substantive, is to Section 14.

Currently, the YMCA cannot grant a deed of trust on its leasehold interest on the facility under the terms of the ground lease as it is currently written.

The proposed change would allow the YMCA to give its lender, the bank that is providing the funding for the construction of the facility, a leasehold lien deed of trust against the building and the lease.

Not the property that is owned by the city, but on the lease.

So those are the changes given that there are

Very strong feelings about this.

A lot of people that are very supportive of it.

There are other members of the community that question whether it should be placed in the park.

I have a very quick clarification question.

The only function of this map is to show the location of the least boundaries.

When this map was put before council in May of 2008, if you look back at the agenda memo, there's a note that says,

The improvements within the leased boundaries and the footprint of the building will change as a product goes through the site plan process.

I understand.

D was the default location.

Yes, it's after this map and I'm just wondering if we couldn't update the map or have a more updated map as part of the...

The part that has to do with the YMCA I have no problem with.

The best diagram that describes what is under discussion right now is actually on the city's website at Charlottesville.org slash McIntyre Park.

It shows the master plan amendment that was approved in 2011.

And that's what you sent us recently?

So I'm just saying that this, that there is a map that will accompany the ground lease and I just want to make sure that the map that accompanies the ground lease is the new map.

It doesn't matter for our vote tonight, I just

And I'm just asking if it's possible, and this isn't part of the discussion, it's just a question,

Is it possible to replace the map sooner than that with the most up-to-date map that we have now showing the park itself?

That's fine.

Can I ask a similar clarifying question because the map that you sent us that's apparently on the website as well has the parameters of the lease versus the

limits of construction.

Two different things.

And one is a little under five acres, but the whole is somewhere around seven acres.

So it belongs to the Y.

The parking.

I'm just talking about the new parking within the five acres, because this came up last time.

There's language in the use agreement, I believe, that indicates that parking will be that users of the Y would be able to use parking in the park.

Well, that would be important to clarify, but I thought you said that actually the city owned all the parking for some reason.

No, no, any of the new plus existing parking, except for some handicapped spots.

Do you remember when we talked about this, Mr. Krueger?

Can I help you?

There are actually two pieces relatively of parking being constructed with YMCA funds.

A portion of that is in the ground lease immediately adjacent to the building and a portion of that is within the limits of construction but outside the ground lease which really extends the softball field parking and we're paying for that.

We're building that but it's outside of our ground lease.

The understanding is that anybody who comes to use the park, whether it be for the Y or the softball fields, will end up parking wherever they want.

Okay, so in the user agreement it actually makes it tacitly, you know, said that the users of the Y can use park parking.

Well, we are going to,

Brian and I will be entering into a joint maintenance agreement, which would probably be the vehicle for that because we're going to help each other maintain the various areas.

There is equipment that we'll have to get for our permeable pavers, perhaps that we will want to also help out with his permeable pavers that we're installing.

and tree work that he might do that would help us and that could easily be clarified in that.

And I did have one other clarifying question again for the user agreement and I don't know if Mr. Brown if you'd have any chance to

deal with that parking thing, but we can talk about it after the public hearing.

When we talk in the amendment for the title and lien, and it specifically refers to the ground lease, I should know the answer to this, but is there anything then in the ground lease that ties it to the user agreement?

The user agreement is incorporated by reference into the ground lease.

Okay, and I have a clarifying question.

and either Mr. Krueger or Mr. Brown.

Is that correct?

Okay.

I thought I read somewhere in these documents about a security facility.

Did I misread that?

Is that correct?

It was written and I thought it said security facility.

It doesn't ring a bell?

We have rights to the building under the ground lease.

I don't know if this helps, but right now the ground lease says that the YMCA owns the building once it's built and the city continues to own the ground upon which the building is built.

Right, right, right.

The bank, the way Deeds of Trust work in Virginia, there were a non-judicial foreclosure state.

So the bank has to have a foreclosure sale.

If it bids its own debt in, then it would own it.

If a third party bids it in, it would own it.

In response to Ms. Smith's question, the bank could accept the deed in lieu of foreclosures.

Can I ask actually one other question of Mr. Krueger?

Before the public hearing, because we heard some lovely

testimonials to the preschool.

We intend to maintain our actual childcare operation at Jefferson School.

Oh, I'm sorry, I meant the childcare.

OK, actual child care will continue at the Jefferson School.

We will have a program called Child Watch, which is child care on a temporary basis for those who are using the facility.

OK, let's open the public hearing.

Anybody would like to speak on this topic?

Good evening.

My name is Downing Smith.

I live at 810 Locust Avenue.

Can we have the floor for just three minutes, please?

Please come forward.

They have some very emotional testimony for you before.

I'm sympathetic.

I agree with them that the YMCA is an excellent organization.

I used to swim in the YMCA pool in downtown San Francisco when I lived in the Bay Area.

But really, it doesn't have anything to do with the item agenda, which is talking about the lease.

Back, oh, seven and a half years ago,

I expressed concerns about the financial ability of the YMCA to be able to build this place.

Since that time, the city has agreed to contribute one and a quarter million dollars plus the site.

The counties agreed to contribute over two million dollars.

But still here, seven and a half years later, even though they agreed in the lease that they wouldn't

get a mortgage to build this thing.

Now all of a sudden they're saying, oh, we need to have a mortgage and borrow $12 million.

If they want to build their place, if y'all think building a health club in McIntyre Park is the right thing to do, that's fine.

But why doesn't the city build it?

I mean, find an organization that has the financial strength

and the experience to build a thing.

In the YMCA, they can get some land over at PVCC and they can build it there.

I don't even know who this lender is that they've been talking about.

I tried, I just found out about this.

Usually I miss out on things completely.

I only missed out on half of this one, it looks like.

I didn't have time to go through the 60 pages that I found on your website, but I just have a lot of concerns about their ability to financially perform,

I can see a mess down the road that if they are unable to service their debt, all sorts of lawsuits coming through, it just isn't worth it to get into it.

And I ask you individually, would you be willing to lend this YMCA $12 million?

And I would not feel comfortable doing it.

So that's it, I guess.

Yes, my name's on the list somewhere.

Good evening, my name's Audrey Dannenberg.

I live on Minor Road in the city.

I'm speaking as a representative of the Piedmont group of the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club, which has 1,125 members in central Virginia.

An important goal of the Sierra Club is to preserve natural areas and encourage people to enjoy outdoor recreation.

Our executive committee does not support the construction of

Excuse me, construction of buildings, roads, or parking lots on public parkland.

In 2008, we urged the city council to reject the proposal for a YMCA in McIntire Park and asked the Y to seek another location for their facility, which would not require the destruction of public green space.

Now we are asking council to vote against the proposed amendment that would allow the YMCA to make its leasehold interest subject to a deed of trust granted to the lender that provides financing for the building.

Under this arrangement, a completely different organization or business could take control of the fitness center and run it for the next 40 years if the Y doesn't raise its money.

Paul Goodlow McIntyre donated this land to be enjoyed by the public as a park and playground in perpetuity.

We do not believe he ever envisioned the construction of a 70,000 square foot building that could be occupied by a business.

The existing picnic area with a large grassy area and beautiful trees is a more appropriate use of this space.

The Piedmont Group supports the establishment of a YMCA Fitness and Aquatic Center.

Let me repeat that.

We do support the establishment of a YMCA Fitness and Aquatic Center at a central location in Charlottesville, convenient to our neighborhoods that has a bus route, a bus to it, that does not require the disturbance of green space.

Please preserve what little is left of McIntire Park for future generations.

Good evening, Council.

My name is Randy Page.

I live at 1401 Walford Street in the city.

And I'm asking you tonight to please don't enter this blinded or bound by previous councils.

We're not talking about the same park that was approved in 07.

Kevin Lynch, after consideration, said he would not approve of the ground lease today.

And Dave Brown came to you with grave concerns about the parking a couple years ago.

Eastern McIntyre is no longer a sand green golf course or a wading pool, but a planned world-class botanical garden

and a skate park with no parking off of 250.

The Y received no satisfaction from local banks.

The consortium of banks put together to spread the risk decided it was too risky.

Now to obtain a loan, the Y wants to allow the building to be put up as collateral.

We can't let the signals flash through in vain.

Repeatedly they've tried to put the money together and have failed.

But we must not confuse the good works of the Y with the facts that you are charged tonight with considering.

Your control of the new tenant will be limited by the ground lease.

And will their philosophies be the same as the Y's?

What happens to annual membership fees at insolvency?

And I doubt that the public will rally to their support if the Y goes insolvent and a lot of money is lost.

And questions on the financial plan.

Is the Aquatics Center fully staffed and is that reflected in the plan?

Are they paying a living wage?

How does our market compare to the Y's that were used in the Piedmont Family YMCA financial plan?

How does the parking compare?

These are all problems that

I don't think have been sufficiently studied and I'd appreciate your contemplation on them tonight.

Good evening members of City Council.

My name is Rip Cathcart.

I live on Red Hill Road just south of town in Albemarle County.

I urge sitting counsel this evening to approve the amendment to the ground lease for the YMCA that is before you.

By the way, based on something I read the other day and what this gentleman just said, there seems to be some misinformation out there regarding bank loans.

Local banks were interested in doing this loan.

It turns out that Sonabank,

which has local branches but is not based locally, happen to give us the best terms.

So that's misinformation that local banks are not interested in this loan.

They very much were interested in this loan.

Several banks were interested.

Sona won the bidding, basically.

I urge you to approve this amendment.

I believe that any risk in doing so is extremely low compared to the amazing benefits we're going to get from this facility.

I'm on the YMCA Board of Directors, I co-chair the Capital Campaign Committee, and I'm also the lead guarantor on the

$5.6 million guarantee required for the $12 million loan.

I'm guaranteeing $2 million to that loan.

So if there is concern about the financial feasibility of this loan, I guess I'm here to say that I'm making a pretty big bet that it's going to be very successful.

And I just want to briefly review with you my reasons for that optimism.

Obviously, I have a supreme level of confidence.

First of all, we are building a first-class, 77,000 square foot fitness facility with a two-pool medatorium.

Not just fitness facility, but recreation, community center.

As others have said tonight, a YMCA is a whole lot more than a gym.

We're in the best possible location.

This Brooks Family YMCA is going to be a tremendous asset and landmark to our community, and our community is going to flock to it, believe me.

My second reason is that with this first-class facility, our membership rates at $52 for an individual and $77 for a family are about half what local health clubs charge.

We have very good reason to believe that people are going to come to us.

We are only projecting, let's see, sorry for losing track of my notes here.

Our membership rates are about one-third what health clubs charge.

Yes, sir?

Your time is up, sir.

Your time is up.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Council.

My name is Brian Campbell.

I'm a Keswick resident.

and I co-chair the YMCA finance committee.

I'm here tonight to encourage the council to approve the amendment to the YMCA ground lease.

I believe that the risk of default under the ground lease is very minimal.

A little about my background.

For the past 47 years, I've been a business consultant and an entrepreneur.

My particular expertise is financial analysis and forecasting.

I've been a co-founder and chief financial officer of two new startup airlines, where I prepared all the financial forecasts.

In my consulting practice, I've assisted other startup airlines with their initial forecasts and business plans.

As a consultant, I've served many cities or their airport authorities, from Portland, San Jose, and Ontario, California on the West Coast, to Kansas City and Milwaukee in the Midwest,

and Hartford, New York, Washington, Baltimore, Raleigh-Durham in the east.

Today I serve with Chris Engle on the Charlottesville Albemarle Airport Authority Commission.

And finally, I was an initial investor in the local startup biotech company called Hemashir.

I served as a board member and chief financial officer for six years, and during that period

I prepared the company's financial forecast to support five rounds of equity funding.

When I joined the YMCA Finance Committee, the first thing I did was to review the forecast and the financial plan.

I understand the benchmarking that supports the membership and revenue forecasts, and I believe great care has been taken to be thorough and conservative.

I also considered the success of the Y in Crozet,

and the Y's pricing schedule is well below local fitness clubs.

So I'm very confident forecasts of operating revenues will be achieved.

In developing the operating expense forecast, the staff examined other similar sized Y's along with some consultant reports made available through the National YMCA Organization.

The initial expense forecasts were then modified based on our local experience in Crozet.

So I became very comfortable with the projection of operating expenses.

At that point, I concluded that the cash flow projections are prudent and reasonable.

In fact, I believe they will prove to be conservative, especially in the years 2020 and beyond.

I've also worked on the capital requirements

And they are locked down now, and we will soon be ready to start construction.

However, we will continue our capital campaign in order to accelerate the repayment of the bank note.

Thank you.

Does anybody else would like to speak?

Does anyone else would like to speak?

I'm Jim Moore.

I live at 1213 Hazel Street.

I'm a lifelong resident and have a degree in architecture and a master's in business.

And for what it's worth, was a Red Cross certified water safety instructor.

I have great respect for the YMCA and the principles on which it was founded.

But the issue tonight is not whether to dispose of it or to restrict it from providing services.

and no one has ever suggested such a thing.

Although it's unfortunate that some of the wise principles were not apparent in some of the methods used to secure this site location, tonight I have two relevant points to bring to your attention.

First, you're about to materially, excuse me, materially, that's a hard one, change the lease for a second time.

an agreement that should not be changed according to the spirit of the Public Procurement Act after a contract award.

It requires that all these procedures be conducted with avoidance of impropriety or even the appearance of impropriety and that specifications reflect the needs of the purchasing body rather than drawn to favor a particular vendor.

The actions tonight really continue the pattern of stretching the integrity of the project

which was a stretch to begin with.

Secondly, in an attempt to remedy the issue that the site's simply too small to fit a building that's gonna be wider than the John Paul Jones Arena, the city provides the leaseholder, by my interpretation at least, I'm not an attorney, but it says full control, it doesn't say full control, but full use of all of the parking spaces on the west side, even those outside of the leased area.

and that are maintained by the city.

This is a messy arrangement that the Y has tried to fix by previously pledging to schedule swim meets not to conflict with softball or baseball tournaments.

Somehow that pledge now is not being mentioned.

It's being substituted by a statement on a text, just a familiar understanding.

But the point I'm trying to make is in the

unfortunate event that there would be an unlikely event that there would be a default, although it has happened before.

As far as I can tell, the new leaseholder would be under no legal obligation

to favor any of the parking for any particularly other function.

The lease simply says that the leaseholder has use of all of that parking.

It doesn't imply any other responsibility and certainly doesn't have a legal obligation.

Now it's unfortunate our student, oh, I didn't catch the yellow light.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. Mayor, I need to address something Mr. Moore said.

As part of the site plan process that we went through, we are required to sit down with the city and negotiate an agreement about the use of that parking.

and we fully intend to do so.

It's to our benefit, we're building parking outside of our leased area and we want our Y patrons at high use times to be able to use that.

We also recognize that there's going to be softball tournaments and 4th of July events where the folks that are using the park and not the Y will want to use our spaces.

I realize that Mr. Morris said there's no legal obligation to do it, but there is.

The site plan requires us to enter in an agreement, negotiated with Parks and Recs primarily, to jointly maintain those parking spaces and the use of those parking spaces.

Parking is not an issue.

The reason we built more parking is not because there wasn't enough for the softball players, it's because there was nothing left for the Y.

Is there anybody else who would like to speak on this topic?

Is there anybody else who would like to speak on this topic or not?

That's fine.

Let me say there is a motion on the floor.

We'll try to discuss that, and then we'll take the vote.

Well yeah, I can start with my comments.

There's no question the Y is a great organization.

I've told the community before, my wife and I were members when it was located in the Macca property.

There's no question about that.

And the community is very fortunate to have engaged citizens like Mr. Cathcart who are willing to risk their own money.

And you were right, it is a big bet.

and it's a big bet for the taxpayers as well.

So a few facts.

Our community has six indoor pools already.

Two at UVA, two owned by ACAC and two city-owned pools plus a number of outdoor pools and sprinklers.

The need study this proposal rests on was done over nine years ago before the pool at Buford was built.

As of September 9th, according to the loan commitment document from Sonabank, quote, additional guarantees of three million must be provided before loan closing occurs, end of quote.

And as of just a couple days ago on the capital financial plan, the YMCA does not have sufficient funds, guarantees or pledges, quote, Sonabank requires personal guarantees in the aggregate amount of six million dollars.

As of the date of this plan, the YMCA has secured $4,100,000 of these guarantees, leaving a balance due of $1,900,000.

On page 5, the confirmed capital campaign payment forecast shows pledges not yet paid of $4,020,493 to be collected in 2015 through 2020.

and which are now being shown as revenue in those years.

No Citibank will touch this at a payable rate.

Despite the project being right down the road in the prettiest park in central Virginia, despite being backed by some of the most generous foundations and individuals, no Citibank will touch it.

The specter of failure is not far-fetched.

twice before the YMCA has tried to establish a presence and despite being backed and promoted by men such as Paul Goodlow McIntyre twice it has bankrupted.

If it does, a small strip mall bank in the county will own the property and we are told that the bank probably will look to sell to another nonprofit or not-for-profit recreation outfit.

What not-for-profit outfit would have better credentials

or deeper pockets than the YMCA.

So it would finally be sold to anyone who could pay the price and a judge would not let the building sit empty until it fell down.

Page 1 of the executive summary states, quote, portions of existing program-based activities such as youth sports, senior aerobics and family programs would be operated at the new facility, end of quote.

What this means is that the probability of the city having to take over the Jefferson School will jump from the lost business and lost revenue.

Charlottesville already has on its plate huge capital expenses or potential takeovers.

The City County court co-location, building a new Belmont Bridge, repairing the six other structurally deficient bridges, Jefferson School

Lewis and Clark Museum, redevelopment of public housing, at least one parking garage, taking down the landmark botanical garden.

We can't afford these, let alone another one.

So what we have is a gamble.

And if this moves forward, I hope they are successful, because no one wins if this doesn't succeed.

But it is a gamble.

That is why no Citibank will touch it.

and if they lose, the citizens of Charlottesville will pay.

The guarantees and pledges are no good to us.

They are pledged to the YMCA and Sona Bank, not Charlottesville.

Now I rarely gamble, but when I do it's with my money, not yours.

I will not gamble with taxpayer money on this project.

Yeah, actually I have a couple questions for Mr. Brown that have to do with the bank, Sonna Bank, and timing that Mr. Jones and I discussed it.

Neither of us knew the answer.

So if, say, after five years, it's just financially not working out and the Y defaults,

Okay, so that's the differentiation.

The YMCA will have obligations to the city under the Grammys.

They're obligated to provide certain services and scholarships and that sort of thing, as you well know.

Okay.

So, in your hypothetical

Let's say they're performing under their ground lease, but they're not able to make their lease payments.

You know, I think Mr. Krueger spoke at your last meeting about the leasehold deed of trust being a means of leverage, which the bank

can use to modify how the YMCA is operating, how they're accounting for revenues, that sort of thing.

But let's say it just doesn't work.

And the bank will send the YMCA a notice that they are in default for nonpayment.

We, the city, will get a copy of that notice so we'll know what is going on.

At that point, if the YMCA does not cure their default, if they cannot go out

and generate enough revenue or funds to pay off the bank or borrow more money or whatever it is that needs to get the money, then at that point the bank can foreclose, which means they can kick the Y out and take possession of the premises and

basically have a foreclosure sale to see if anyone else is interested in acquiring the building.

And they then have to abide by the terms that under our default of the ground lease.

So as soon, if the Y is either voluntarily or is forced to abandon the building,

And they can't find anyone else to operate it.

They hold a foreclosure sale and there's nobody that offers to do it and it sits there for six months.

In my opinion, at that point, it belongs to the city without any financial obligation to anyone.

The only little tweak or caveat is if the YMCA is in default to the city under the ground lease.

if the YMCA says, you know, if we're gonna make our payments to the bank, we can't keep giving all these scholarships like they're required to under the ground lease.

And at that point, we give them notice of default.

And they have 60 days to remedy it.

And they are obligated to tell their bank that they're in default to the city.

The bank has the right, but not the obligation, to come in and cure the default.

The city can't say, all right, bank, you have to perform now.

But the bank can cure it to keep the YMCA in there.

Yeah.

If they don't, if the lease is very clear right now that says no one will be turned away because of inability to pay.

if the Y says, we can't do that anymore, we're gonna have to require everybody to pay.

If they did that, we would give them notice that they were in default and they would have 60 days under the lease to cure that default.

Under the leasehold deed of trust, the bank actually has an additional 15 days on top of what the YMCA is.

So if after 75 days,

Okay, so there's two actually possibilities of default in what you just said.

One's default to the ground lease and one is default to the bank for the financial.

So that's why he basically has two risks of default, two avenues of risk of default, which I didn't actually realize coming into this.

Anytime you have a tenant-landlord relationship, there are reciprocal obligations to each other, and either party can be in breach.

and either party can fail to cure a breach and end up in default.

Under your typical landlord-tenant relationship that most often occurs with the payment of rent.

which will not be an issue here.

So there's not really that risk of default.

The risk of default, as I say, is present now in terms of the ground lease, but it's not with respect to, well they have a risk of default if they borrow money and don't pay it, but

under this amendment, the repercussions of that change.

Okay, thank you.

No, I do.

And actually, this is a follow-up question to the next phase.

If in fact the Y defaulted to the bank and the bank went, you know, went into foreclosure and was attempted to find another entity to assume the ground lease under all of the non-discrimination, et cetera, et cetera, and did, and that entity

was of a more religious nature than the Y is.

Could that entity, say, have at Christmas a creche on the front lawn, knowing this is the main drive into the park?

Could an entity fly a Confederate flag?

Yes.

I say yes.

out of deference to our limitations on regulating someone's rights of free speech.

However, if that action or any particular action has a discriminatory effect,

If people look at a flag, whether it's a Confederate flag or even a more or equally egregious example of a swastika, and say, I'm not going in there, I don't feel comfortable joining that, then I think we would have grounds to move against that lessee because of the discriminatory effect that that

Okay.

So if in fact a, going back to the first example, if you, when you walked into Swipe End, like I assume most health clubs do, you had just like a big portrait of Jesus Christ.

Would that be

and people took offense to that if they were not of a Christian religion.

Would that, do you think that would also fall under the grounds for

for discrimination.

It's difficult to know exactly where to draw the line.

We're getting into

you know kind of a very nuanced analysis of a very complex area of the law and you certainly cite a relevant example with the Confederate flag because that's been in the news frequently and historically I've cited another symbol that has

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

That's fair enough.

And then my question to Mr. Jones is, and I'm going to reference something, Mr. Brown, that you

wrote to us in council in response to my questions probably.

You said my suggestion, I just cut and pasted it here, my suggestion would be that you focus on the financial and operational plan for the YMCA if you are comfortable with those documents and projections.

I think that should inform your response to the request for an amendment.

authorizing a leasehold deed of trust.

Our staff has looked very closely at this financial plan.

We've had a couple of opportunities to do that.

We've asked a lot of questions of the YMCA.

They've provided responses back to those questions.

At this point, we've exhausted our questions to the why.

At this point, we recognize, as the why recognizes, that there are risks and challenges to this project.

They've worked very hard to line up their financing for this project.

And I believe that they understand that they have work to do when it comes to fundraising for the future.

for operating costs.

Those are questions that we've asked about.

Our Parks and Recreation folks have asked about that.

Really?

That's interesting.

I have four pages of actually questions and answers that never actually did get answered.

I guess I will jump in.

I do support this.

I plan to vote for it this evening.

I think I won't give a whole statement because I

made my position very clear over the years, but I will say that when we look at the risk of failure, and I think we all acknowledge what Mr. Brown said and what Mr. Jones said, is that there is a risk.

I would call it minuscule, but any risk is a risk, and I think that we have some risk involved, and I think that this ground lease protects us from almost all of that risk.

Could the sky fall?

Theoretically, yes, but what I look at instead is

is looking at what is the risk of not doing it.

And the risk of not doing it is that the city would have to either renovate Crow Pool, which is in bad shape, or build another facility, which would cost significantly more than what we would be on the hook for if this defaulted.

So I think that when we look at our commensurate risks, this is the least risky option to me.

And when we look at

facilities like this.

One of the reasons that in Charlottesville that we do have public facilities like Smith Pool and we had Crow is because public health is too important to leave only to corporations.

It is something that I'm glad that we have health clubs in town, I'm glad that people have lots of options.

Some things are closer, some things have services that you like, but it's a core service of our city to make sure that people have access to health, to being able to learn to swim so that they don't drown

to be able to be physically fit and healthy from ages of birth through very old age to have places where they can exercise and stay healthy.

And this sort of public-private partnership is a way that we can do that without, as Mr. Fenwick said, we have a lot of financial obligations right now.

We always do, this is what the city is.

And this is a way that we can leverage the generous donors, the members, the people who support YMCA in principle

and this particular YMCA in particular to help us with that process of providing affordable, accessible health facilities for our people.

Yes, again, thank you for everyone's testimony tonight, both for and against this project.

I actually think that the fact that it's co-located with another educational facility of ours within a large park, close to a lot of trails, a lot of other amenities, means that we're using

a space extremely well and extremely efficiently and that it will become a central park to our entire region.

The fact that it's got such strong support from Albemarle County as well as the city of Charlottesville has been one of those dreamed for kinds of partnerships that we didn't even have to wrestle about.

It just came and that's because it's a major testimony I think to the

the highest team that the YMCA has held by everyone across the state and across the country.

So I see that level of interjurisdictional commitment as being really profound.

I appreciate the testimony Mr. Cathcart and Mr. Campbell that just reinforced

our own staff's assessment about the validity of these expenditure projections as well as revenue projections.

I think that that expertise is much appreciated and it shows, again, the level of responsibility that this board, this organization takes upon itself in order to do the job right.

Like Consulate Szakos said, it's a way for us to have these public-private partnerships, it's a way for us to expand our resources

and expand the reach of our resources.

And then finally, just the information that we've received about the racial disparities and the ability to swim, it's another one of those challenges thrown out to us.

Can we knock that down?

The only way we're going to do that is by having more pools and having people dedicated to teaching people how to swim as a life skill.

It is not only recreation.

I am in support of this project.

I think that the layers of information that we've received, the ground lease, the financial plan, and then this next layer, the leasehold deed of trust, I think all is giving us the assurances that this is tightly wrapped.

It will not unravel.

And if people were afraid about risk, we would not have had a downtown pedestrian mall.

and this is less risk than that decision was.

Let me make a few comments.

First of all, I think the service, the facility which will benefit our citizens in our community, as Kristin said, if it was not this one, we would have built it our own.

It would cost even more than what we are putting up.

We're putting up about a million and a half, and so we will end up putting 20 million.

No?

Yeah, I just want to move.

I'll take back.

Oh, do you want to make a motion on your motion?

I just want to make a motion, yeah.

Well, there's a motion on the floor already.

I misspoke.

But I moved.

This is clarification, please.

This is a motion to amend unfriendly.

Since the friendly amendment was rejected, it's just a motion.

I move that we add on.

Yes, could you repeat?

And I second that.

And then can I make, I'd like to make another motion that we, I think the best way to handle this would be to remove the reference in the user agreement to reciprocity, to the use of parking by white patrons

such that it can be part of the negotiations in the yet to be negotiated.

We're not discussing the user agreement tonight.

Is there a second?

For clarification, the use agreement provisions are incorporated by reference into the ground lease.

So how do I approach the reciprocity of parking?

Can you advise me?

Well, you can do it.

Would you have a better suggestion because our director of our Parks and Rec said he'd be interested in clarifying the fact that this is a reciprocity, that both sides have use of each other's parking, yet at this point the only

But I didn't get my answer from Mr. Brown as to whether there would be some other way of...

But that's about a different matter, which is... No, it's not.

That's true.

It is true.

There has been a second on the last meeting.

You did and it was defeated, defeated too.

Any more discussion on the motion, original motion?

Thank you very much.

Can I actually, I'd just like to say something because, and I should have said it before the vote because I didn't really get a statement, but I do admire the Y a lot.

I think it's not lost on a lot of city folks that it was primarily county folks who were here to support the Y and it was all city folks here to say, be careful, this is risky.

But I want to particularly thank Ms. Dannenberg for coming to speak for public land.

I think it's really important to recognize that one of the conditions for building in this particular location is as free land and public land isn't free.

It serves an incredibly high purpose in our community.

It's green space and it's green fields we often talk about

construction on green fields versus gray fields when Albemarle County has enormous empty parking lots would have been a really great place to build a new building not in our public parks and we have lost

Don't interrupt me.

We need a break.

Yeah, it is break time.

We'll take five minutes break, then we'll come back.

Maybe the Art in Place people can get us a clock.

Wait, wait, wait.

Is there going to be a long discussion on it?

Well, we've already discussed it, and it's just a matter of... We just accept the report.

Wait, on what?

What are we talking about?

The financial report.

I would like to hear from our folks.

But maybe Mr. Cullinan and Mr. Daley would stick around a little longer.

Dr. Robert F. Kennedy

you

Music playing...

Dede

We're going to have a brief presentation of the YMCA financial plan by the YMCA and a comment by our staff.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I'll try to keep this very brief.

We are presenting the financial plan to you pursuant to paragraph 15 of the ground lease.

We have submitted it to you on September 10.

Our construction price remains the same, although there still is one bidder out, and so our construction price actually may be more favorable in the next week or so when we get that extra bidder in.

But the bottom line is that we have satisfied all the requirements for the loan.

Our loan commitment required $6 million of guarantees.

It sometimes pays for me to go to Montana and go fly fishing, Mr. Fenwick, because when I'm gone, good things happen.

While I was gone, we raised the remaining guarantees up to $5.6 million, and this afternoon, Sonabank confirmed in writing that they will accept the $5.6 million.

So we have no conditions left to satisfy our loan commitment because we've got the ground lease amendment, we've got the guarantor satisfied.

I think it's important for council to know that there are a number of citizens, eight to be exact, who have posted guarantees to add up to this $5.6 million.

And you heard from one of them tonight, Mr. Cathcart.

Ms. Brooks, for whom this Brooks Family Y is going to be named, is here with us tonight.

I want to acknowledge her as one of the guarantors and contributors as well.

Another one is Larry Gimple, Dr. Larry Gimple, who is with us, and five other people.

So if anything goes wrong with this, why?

Those are going to be the people that are going to be paying an awful lot of attention and will be first tapped by Sonabank, because that's where the easiest recovery of money is from.

That said, our financial plan is based on 10 years worth of studying the data from market and expense.

And we have compared ourselves to other communities in Virginia, otherwise on a national level, Alaima, Ohio Y, and others.

We have access from data from YUSA that tells us an immense amount of information.

And so we have put together a financial plan that we think is very conservative on the revenue side.

We think we'll do much better than our revenues say we're going to do in the plan.

and is very conservative on the expense side.

We also, because of our construction price, are probably not going to have to borrow the full amount of the 12 million loan.

Our highest borrowing, because of the way pledges come in over timing, will pull us up to about 11 million 8, but ultimately it will drop to 11.3.

We are doing a capital campaign, and I think Ms. Smith said that it was illegal for us to do this, but it's not.

We are doing a capital campaign and expect to raise and will raise, we hope, another $3 million to retire debt, so our debt service is even more comfortable.

But even if we did not raise one additional dollar under our financial plan, we can make this work and maintain debt service coverage ratios that are, in essence, about 1.8 to 1.

That's a very good debt service coverage ratio.

The bank is agreeing to actually release our guarantors if we can maintain that debt service coverage for 12 months at 1.5 or higher.

Thank you.

Actually, there are a couple of questions Ms. Smith raised a moment ago that I believe that Mr. Daley had sent along last week to Mr. Krueger about the comparisons, some of the benchmarking that had been done.

Sure.

We did compare ourselves to both the Lynchburg and Danville YMCAs.

They're relatively recent facilities.

Lynchburg actually has two YMCAs, an old one downtown and the Jamerson family Y, which is on the outer edges of Lynchburg.

I think Mr. Daley's point from his email was that to his knowledge there didn't seem to be much in the way of municipal facilities in Lynchburg or private health clubs in Lynchburg or in Danville and therefore

were we being overly optimistic by comparing ourselves to those two?

Well, one, we compared ourselves to an awful lot of otherwise as well, but with respect to Lynchburg, for instance, it has the following, it has eight recreation centers, Miller Center, Templeton Senior Center, Fairview Center, the Art Studio at Jackson Heights, College Hill Center, Daniels Hill Center, Diamond Hill Center, Jefferson Park Center, and the Yoder Center.

One of those, the Yoder Center, has an outdoor pool, so those are all municipal facilities,

Its offerings from the city are yoga, Zumba classes, kickboxing, pilates, cardio, fit and tone exercises, volleyball, bubble soccer, softball, pickleball, basketball, heart health classes.

In terms of private fitness clubs, it has I think 11.

Snap Fitness, Kinetics Fitness, Planet Fitness, Lifestyle Fitness, Classica Sport and Fitness, American Fitness for Women, CrossFit, Lynchburg, Curves, Gold's Gym,

group called Iron and Grace.

So I think actually Lynchburg has a fairly wealthy offering of both municipal facilities and private health clubs.

Danville is in the same boat.

It's got the Baloo Recreation Center, the City Auditorium, Coates, Glenwood, Squire and Stonewall.

In terms of private fitness clubs, it's got Danville Athletic Club, Mission Fitness Center, Extreme Fitness Gym,

Southside Power and Endurance, Planet Fitness, Acceleration Virginia, Perfect Body Fitness, Curves, Ultimate Fitness, Jungle Works and Urban Fitness.

But the most important point of all is the YMCA is not a gym.

We don't compete, we will compete with private gyms in the sense that there will be people who will join our Y for the simple reason that our rates might be cheaper than a private health club.

But the Y is an experience so much broader than what a private health club would ever undertake, tackle.