City Council Meeting   12/21/2015

Ms. Smith?

Here.

Yes.

Ms. Szakos?

Ms. Galvin?

Here.

Great.

There were some pretty, I was able to be at the award ceremony, and that was the same, it was the 15th, it was the same night as the blade sling.

But these are very clever, ingenious creations to talk about what it would be like without water.

and as you can see, they range from first and second grade to all the way up to seventh and eighth grade.

So very, very proud, particularly about the Jackson Via and then there was a Venable student, so we had good representation from city schools.

So the details, the City of Charlottesville, Evelyn County Service Authority and Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority are participating in Imagine a Day Without Water, a national campaign to educate and inspire people

about the essential value and importance of water.

As part of the campaign, we hosted an art contest where students from the city and county were asked to creatively convey a day without water.

The contest was a great success.

Over 570 poster entries and with representation from all city schools, grades one through eight.

The four winners for each grade category and a fan favorite was voted on by the community with close to 1,200 votes.

That's a great response.

The winners were 1st and 2nd grade.

Harper Jewel Ulrich from Jackson Via Elementary, 2nd grade.

3rd and 4th grade category.

Reese Cogshell, Virginia L. Murray Elementary School, 3rd grade.

5th and 6th grade category.

Phoebe Rebhorn from Paul Kale Elementary, 5th grade.

7th, 8th grade category, Esther Wan Lee, Jack Jewett Middle School, 7th grade.

The fan favorite was Khrushba Bond at Venable School in 2nd grade.

So student artwork can be viewed on the screen above, and it will be displayed around Charlottesville, including the main library on Marcus Street, City Hall, Public Works Administration Building, the ACSA Building, and the RWSA Building.

You can also see them on the website www.Charlottesville.org slash water conservation, all one word, to view the winners and find out more information.

And it was well attended.

All the parents were there, very proud.

Thank you.

I have an announcement I want to make before we proceed with the announcements.

It relates to agenda tonight.

Second item on agenda, West Main Street makes use of Coronado Remembrance.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

As members of this council are very well aware, the proposed rezoning of West Main Street and the change of some of the regulations up there has

generated a tremendous amount of interest in the public.

I think the past few years you've seen a lot of development activity on that corridor, and it's anticipated that there will be more, and I think that's in part the reason that there's been such a high level of public interest.

Late Friday afternoon we did receive, and we meaning me and the mayor, a communication questioning whether the city had adequately given notice to individual property owners of the joint public hearing that was scheduled before city council and the planning commission.

That's something I know council takes very seriously.

You have evidenced a very strong commitment to transparency, not only in what is being considered, but the process by which it is considered.

You have put a very high priority on public involvement.

and there certainly has been a great deal of public involvement in this particular matter.

But given that there has been a communication that the notice to individual property owners was inadequate,

Notice for the Joint Public Hearing.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

Sort of bad news, good news.

I'd just like to caution the community over the holidays to be very careful of internet scams.

In the last week, I've gotten three internet scams on my email.

Two of them were from a name I was very familiar with, and I should have known better, but I clicked on it.

And when I did, I couldn't get rid of it.

The other one came to earthlink.net and that looked good, but there was just something about it and I could cross-check against the EarthLink website.

So you never know what's gonna come through.

If it doesn't look right, you can put it in a box somewhere or something or ask somebody, but particularly the older folks, the seniors around town and the excitement of the holidays,

Just be very careful about what's coming across the internet.

Alright, the announcement.

Christmas tree collection.

Charlottesville curbside pickup for live Christmas trees will be the week of January 11, 2016.

Trees need to be at the curbside by 7 a.m. on Monday, the 11th of January.

Decorations, stands, and nails must be removed.

This collection is for Christmas trees only.

Please, no yard waste.

Shortly after the curbside pickup, the city and Albemarle County Parks crews will join forces and chip the estimated 2,500 trees at Darden Tow Park.

Free mulch from the recycled trees will be available starting February 1st, 2016 at Darden Tow Park.

I have an announcement, although this seems kind of strange because it's about closing for New Year's Day, but it doesn't mention the Christmas holiday.

Did someone else have that?

The city offices will be closed for Christmas.

City offices will be closed on Thursday, December 24th, and Friday, December 25th for Christmas.

Charlottesville Area Transportation, CAT, will operate as usual on Thursday, December 24th, with route service ending early.

More details on the holiday schedule are online at www.catchthecat.org and there will be no CAT service on Christmas itself on December 25th.

Curbside trash and recycling will be collected as usual on Thursday, December 24th.

And that's exactly the same thing except for New Year's Day.

The city offices will be closed on Friday, January 1st, 2016.

For New Year's Day, CAT will provide Sunday-level service on Friday.

That means it's only the free trolley in Route 7.

And as with the Christmas holidays, curbside trash and recycling will not be collected on Friday, January 1st, but rather those

So Mr. Fenwick, I noticed that you have something wrapped in front of you and I wondered if you'd like to do something with that.

I brought my reindeer antlers.

Do I have anything to read with this?

Before I open the last bit, I really will miss Dede.

She's been my right arm even though she's on my left.

I've known her for many years.

She is a very strong advocate for children, for diversity, for openness and transparency.

I don't know how many times I have heard her say in meetings when we're discussing how to do something

This is not democratic.

So I will miss Dede tremendously.

Thank you.

It's the Earliesville tree.

I'm gonna tell you, I know I need a microphone.

I went to the ICS, it was called the Craft, it had a beautiful name, but it was the Holiday Craft Fair at the ICS Art Park, and I got this beautiful necklace, which is a tree, that was locally made.

Somebody, I can't remember who made it, but does illustrate my love of trees.

Thank you, this is just beautiful.

I will hang it proudly.

And along the same line,

Oh, thank you.

Yeah.

He's right there.

There he is.

It's the Earliest Oak, right?

Yes.

And so as you're going to the airport, right?

By where that beautiful Pleasant Grove Church was destroyed.

We lost the historic church that was right next, but they did, to give them credit, protect the Earliest Oak, which is the second largest white oak in the state of Virginia.

And we have another person who will not be here at our next, well he might be in the public, but will not be sitting up in the dais next time, but who has been here for eight years, and with the city for many, many years longer than that.

Mayor Huja has his last meeting tonight, and we also got a present for him.

And this is something that, well first I'll show you what it is.

and I don't know if you all recognize this, I know you do, Keith.

This is a picture of the rendering of what the market building will look like when it's done.

And this is particularly appropriate because a couple years ago as we were talking about what to do with the market, we got some recommendations that it might go down near ACAC, that it might go, you know, lots of different places that it could go up in McIntyre Park and we were really committed to keeping it downtown and the vendors were really concerned it was gonna end up far away and that people wouldn't be able to get to it

and Mr. Huja came to us with this idea that someone had mentioned to him of what would happen if we had a building and developed that site as a building but also had space for a market.

So we thought, well, let's see what happens.

We put out a request for proposals to people who might wanna be able to build something.

Mr. Woodard here came up with the winning design and so this is what it's gonna look like.

We're pretty darn close and so this is largely your doing, Mr. Huja, so thank you.

and also... That's a big door.

I will remember three minutes.

I want to make some comments today.

I want to thank my colleagues, the city council, supporting me from there for two terms.

I enjoyed working with you.

I also want to thank city manager and the city staff for their wonderful support.

I owe a great deal of debt to citizens of the city.

Ilrit.

I have a great deal of debt to the citizens of this community for letting me see the council and supporting me.

Every day I feel the love of this community.

It says a great deal about our community as someone like me can become a mayor.

Our community is appreciative of diversity.

We are a welcoming community.

I was honored to represent the great city of Charlottesville.

enjoyed the opportunity to meet some wonderful and interesting people, wireless planner, counselor, and mayor.

I try to listen to and act for ideas and concerns for citizens, residents, institutions, and businesses.

I try my very best to enhance the quality of life and environment so that Charlottesville can be a great community for all of its residents.

Since I am retiring from this castle, I'm still available to assist in any way I can.

I'm honoured to have the privilege to serve as the mayor of the world-class city of Charlottesville.

And just to lighten with one slight other announcement, down here are Swedish wedding cakes and gingerbread, which are my great-grandmother's recipes.

Next, any other announcements?

No, I was going to say just a few words.

I didn't really want to follow that, Mayor Huja.

But just wanted to thank everybody for being here and for being here over and over and over again

I know what it feels like out there and it's really a lot of fun to be up here.

It's a lot of work but I've enjoyed every minute of it and I just really appreciate everything, all the support that people have given even in times of real adversity.

I'm very proud of this city and very proud of some of the things we've done.

I'm also very disappointed in a lot of the things we've done.

I think you know that about me.

Lost some pretty big battles but have also been able to bring some, I think, real positive changes to this city.

So we all love it so much and we will always disagree over things.

There will always be two sides to everything.

But like Mayor Huja, I will continue to be involved and be alert and be vocal, just like I always am.

Next item on the agenda is comments from public.

We have Ruth's participation, which you already know, on the back of the agenda.

Good evening and thank you for letting me come before you.

I'm Nancy Carpenter and I live in the Rose Hill neighborhood.

And I just wanted to share a little bit of information that tonight, December 21st, this is the day that has the most number of hours in darkness and how that affects our homeless community.

This is the one night that they spend the most number of hours in darkness.

And of course, we had our sixth annual Homeless Memorial Day service at the Haven.

But I wanted to come before you and just share a little bit that

I feel like a lot of the public policy that I've seen over the last four years, which incorporate my time as a homeless advocate, I've seen a change in what we've been able to do as a city and as a region with a lot of your support.

And I hope that we can continue to get your support as we advocate for more housing, whether we get grants from the state or whether

There are some public policies locally that you can adopt.

This is a season, I guess for a lot of people, that's about faith, hope and restoration.

And I can say that with your decisions that you've made in the last few years, I can have testimony to the effect of what supportive housing can do for individuals here in this city.

I had a friend who recently passed away this month and

If it wasn't for the support that you adopted years ago for a place called The Crossings, I know that he would not have had a second chance to do the things that he did to live three and a half years alcohol-free, reconnect with family, which a lot of people in the homeless community lose,

be able to be there as a support for people who were still dealing with a lot of the same struggles that he did.

And I really want to acknowledge that and appreciate that and just to let everybody know that you can effect change in our communities with good effective public policy and that hopefully we'll see more of this in Charlottesville, maybe in some of the outlying counties, which is what I would like to see.

Lena Seville, 808 Alta Vista Avenue.

I had originally signed up to speak about West Main, and now that that's been pulled from the agenda, I'm still gonna lay the groundwork for what is going to be coming up with the new council.

So, specifically here to talk about the setbacks, which is how close a building can be to the public right of way, which generally means the sidewalk.

The consultants recommended a minimum of 10 feet setback.

The Tree Commission has recommended a minimum of 10 foot setback and so has the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee.

And Planning Commission has gone back and forth on this and they couldn't quite figure out a way to word it.

So I would ask you to look at this particular piece of it before it goes through.

So I don't mind some of the buildings being at zero setback, but when you get all of the buildings at a zero setback, it can start to feel sort of cold.

If you are new to town or visiting or on a bus and you're trying to figure out your location, when you get a street wall of everything at zero setback, it can be difficult to identify where you are.

And some of that variability is what makes things interesting.

The other reason I think it's important is because a lot of what we're getting is residential uses, hotels and apartment buildings.

So they are not building their street wall to draw somebody in.

When you have businesses like on the downtown mall, people say that's a zero setback.

But every 15, 20, 25 feet, there's a change in the look of the building.

It's not what we're getting today.

and so you know a business is trying to draw people in it changes you know through through the seasons it changes through the years there's something interesting changing and happening whereas residential uses they buy some furniture and that's pretty much what you get for 20 some years it doesn't create the same kind of vibrancy that a business does and so that's why those setbacks leave room for

sculptures or artwork or just something to give a three-dimensional quality to the street instead of the repetitive windows.

I'll be sending you an email in the future, so I don't need to go into any more detail about that.

I will finish up by saying, Mayor Huja, it's been an honor to see you on council and some of the things that you've done for the city over the years.

You and Counselor Smith will both be very much missed.

I've appreciated a lot of the things that you've brought up also.

I'll take this as an opportunity to invite both of you to a new group.

called Local Issue Awareness in Action.

We get together the week before city council.

It's a small group of us and we go over the agenda and we share information about the things that are happening and we'd love to have either one of you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm Pat Edwards.

I live at 212 6th Street Northwest, just two blocks off of West Main Street.

I come to you tonight to talk about West Main Street, and I simply wanted to urge you to do whatever you could to lower the heights and make no exceptions.

And I realize this will be a different council voting on this, but no exceptions can be justified.

I know it's private property.

but that view from the bridge to the church is actually a public treasure as the daily progress mentioned and there are public treasures along there.

So anything you can do to protect that, to protect the Charlottesville I grew up in 67 years ago, I just urge you to do that.

In fact, I wish you could make Mr. Atwood do something in retrospect with the Atlantic, which is a really

Good evening.

My name is Jeffrey Fogel.

I reside on Spruce Street here in the city.

What I'd like to do tonight is to give what I perceive as the state of the city.

It's the state of the city that you will not hear from the mayor or probably anybody else on the council.

Nearly 50 years ago, the Kerner Commission concluded that our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white, separate and unequal.

Well, this is a tale of two cities here in Charlottesville, one white, one black, and separate and unequal.

According to the analysis of the Orange Dot Project in 2015, while median income in Charlottesville is nearly $64,000, 25% of the families who live here struggle on a daily basis to pay for the essentials of life.

In 2014, the Orange Dot Project reported that in order for these families to achieve self-sufficiency, the city needs to implement an economic development strategy that will generate

$20 to $35 million annually, which represents only 2 to 3% of the total annual income in Charlottesville in total.

Yet the city lacks such a strategy, no less an implementation.

The city needs thousands of units of affordable housing for those on the lowest rung of the economic ladder.

Yet the city has been able to generate only a paltry number of such units, while thousands of high income and hotel units have come on the market and more are planned.

This year, Charlottesville was identified in a nationwide study to be one of the worst places in the country for upward economic mobility.

The city has hidden its head in the sand over this report of Harvard economists.

The report concluded that, quote, social mobility should be tackled at the local level.

Something that the Orange Dot Project endorsed in its latest report.

The city refuses to provide any housing for low-income families, leaving it entirely to the private sector, which has yet to provide any significant results in that regard.

The police chief reported in 2013 that 70% of the people being stopped and frisked on the street were African-American.

But no action was taken and only one member of this council, as I recall, even raised a concern about that number.

And then in 2014, based on statistics I got from the police department, 78% of the people stopped and frisked in Charlottesville were African American.

And again, a tiny percentage of those stopped and frisked reveal any criminal activity.

The city refuses without explanation to provide the information necessary in its possession to allow us to analyze this.

The police department and the city refuses to even give an explanation to the population as to why this is happening.

Nearly 60% of all arrests were of African Americans and yet we have yet to receive an explanation or an effort to end this process.

the DMC has not fulfilled its mandate and I quote from the first DMC report that its mandate was to examine and explain racial disproportion and disparities associated with the local juvenile justice system we can't even have a discussion on that question because the leadership of that committee appointed by the city including the assistant manager refuses to allow us to have such a discussion although there's significant evidence of racial disproportion disparity in the local criminal justice system

The city refuses to do anything about it saying, oh, well, we might study it if somebody in the outside gives us a grant.

But there was no trouble getting $350,000 to study how many trees and parking spaces should be on West Main Street and to rehire the project that was rejected.

We were found guilty in federal court of violating the rights of beggars and their First Amendment rights.

Nobody on this council or in the city has taken responsibility for that or the cost that was involved in the city.

So let me just conclude by saying what we need is empathetic, compassionate people who believe in justice, of which there are many in our community, to stand with the black community and make the changes that have been necessary in this community for decades.

The truth is we are two societies and this council and this city has done little to change that fact.

Bill Emery, 1604 East Market Street.

And this is a show and tell device.

It's not like an implement to strike out or anything.

It's hard to hold it up long enough.

But this is 10 pages of very short summaries of interactions.

Well, let me read it.

I'm not prepared to say much.

I want a better idea.

Ms. Smith and Mr. Huja, thank you very much.

You'll be missed.

I totally second Preservation Piedmont's award to you guys the other night and really appreciate all your work for the environment here in the city.

I'm here about the yet-to-be-built Franklin Street sidewalk.

My show and tell, the list captures 27 years of neighborhood interaction

with city policy and supporting regulation, with planning commissions and city councils, with staff and hired consultants.

All this in an attempt to create acceptably safe condition on Market Street for all of its users.

In the past six years, counselors, Mr. Huja being one of them, have done

or than any of their predecessors to advance Franklin to the desired safer condition.

In 2010, Franklin was added to the five-year priority sidewalk list.

In October of 2014, you voted unanimously to move ahead with the sidewalk construction while retaining the historic Harlow Wall, which abuts Franklin on its western edge.

This past June, you approved fund transfers for construction of the Franklin sidewalk

and sidewalks on six other streets.

The section of sidewalk desire for Franklin Street is 365 feet long.

It is on flat ground.

Council has legislated on this matter.

Council has appropriated funds.

There appears to be an implementation problem.

It should not be necessary for you to be involved with getting this work done.

Is something broken in the chain of

Thank you Mr. Mayor.

Valerie Long.

My address is 321 East Main Street on the downtown mall.

I want to just echo the comments made by others and thank you Mr. Mayor and Ms. Smith for your years of service to the city and we'll look forward to having your active engagement in the city for years to come.

Just want to thank you.

We represent the owners of the Midway Manor property, as I know you know.

I want to just thank you for the opportunity to talk about that property in the context of the West Main zoning.

I know it's been put off for some time.

I just want to express our appreciation for the time that you've all spent in considering our request and say that we very much look forward to continuing to work with the Neighborhood Development Services staff, the Planning Commission, Council and others

Good evening Mayor Huja and members of City Council.

I'm Maynard Sipe.

I'm a land use attorney here in Charlottesville and I did come tonight to speak about West Main Street and the proposed zoning changes.

I will just say a few words quickly.

The changes under consideration are likely one of the most significant steps the city has considered in down zoning property in many years.

And I've pointed out to you already, but I'll note that your own economic development director for the city

has stated in the memo to you that the changes proposed could stifle investment along West Main Street for years to come.

I don't believe this is actually what the city wants to see happen, and for this reason I think it is essential that real care be given in crafting the details of the proposed ordinance and the language itself in the ordinance.

While the matter was deferred from tonight's agenda, which I understand,

I would like to ask you all to take a pause, a step back, and perhaps provide another opportunity for input from all of the stakeholders who have been raising concerns.

One idea may be to have the planning staff here at the city hold a roundtable with landowners, nearby residents, and developers to get input on the detailed language of the ordinance so that you do indeed get it right when you pass it.

Also, I'd like to provide this opportunity to provide room for the incoming council members to participate, hear concerns directly, and perhaps become more fully informed on the concerns.

And I think with a more inclusive process like this in the next month, it is possible to move this ordinance forward in a manner that will actually be satisfactory to everyone.

And I'll take my personal note to say thank you to Mayor Huja and Ms. Smith for your

Service and accessibility and I'd like to thank all the council members for being accessible to the public and for anyone to speak with.

Good evening, Brandon Collins.

I live at 418 Fairway Avenue.

I've lived in Charlottesville my entire life.

I have a daughter who's lived here her entire life.

She's an adult.

She's of voting age.

and I believe she voted in the last city election.

And I also have two very young children who are growing up here and hope to see Charlottesville be their home for a very long time to come.

When we talk about children and one reason why I always bring this up when I speak is really the decisions you make now are really affecting their lives and it's been a disappointment to my daughter and when my children are old enough to understand hopefully they won't have to be disappointed in this startling statistic that even four years after information was put out that

White children are four times more likely to be diverted from the juvenile justice system than their black counterparts.

that things haven't changed that much.

I'm a member of the DMC task force and you'll be hearing a report from them tonight.

What you'll be hearing from in the report is how the task force has gone about meeting their recommendations and implementing the recommendations of which they have finally made some serious headway.

As you go through that report you'll see most of the major recommendations have really taken

place in the last few months really fall into winter of this year despite this being a years-long effort to look at these disparities in the juvenile justice system.

And in fact there's some things on that report that point to things that have yet to happen but should be happening in January.

Now those things I think most on the task force would agree are things that affect all children.

in this city and how they relate to the juvenile criminal justice system and not necessarily address the problem of racial disparity which we can see from the data that this disparity still exists.

So we have updated data.

and what it shows I think is more important than what you're going to hear from tonight in the recommendations.

So I advise you all to really look at that data and see what it says because what it says is yes, the number of children overall has dropped, the amount of children entering into the system or having contact with the system has dropped, but the percentage is exactly the same as it was in 2011 when the first report came out about this that showed that

White children are four times more likely to be diverted from that system.

2011 was the time that Ms. Smith, Mr. Huja, and Ms. Galvin ran for city council along with myself and that's a long period of time.

to discuss a very serious matter.

Now, with such small numbers, I think there's some on the task force who would say there are individual circumstances and not necessarily systemic discrimination going on.

But when you look at that data and it says the exact same thing for four years in a row, even though all the data is not quite in yet, you have to say to yourself, there is something going on.

And the task force has yet to actually ask the question, why is this happening?

There's still a ton of work that needs to be done, a ton of recommendations that need to be explored.

The work of the task force must continue.

And I really hope the City Council moving forward will take this issue much more serious.

As Mr. Fogel mentioned, it really is a city.

There's two cities here in Charlottesville.

This needs to be a priority.

These are children we're talking about.

Rebecca Quinn, 1044th Street here in the city.

Not to make light, but following some of those serious comments, it almost feels like.

But I do want to add my thanks to Mayor Huja for your service over the last eight years.

But I especially want to say I think I am joined by many when I acknowledge Councilor Dede Smith for her service, her commitment, her friendship

Keith Woodard.

Good evening.

I'm Keith Woodard.

Our office is on 100 West South Street now.

I had intended to speak a little bit about pertinences, but I'll save those comments for the public hearing when that comes up.

And I too want to add my appreciation to

Ms. Smith for her work on councils, pleasure working with you on Market Plaza, and Mr. Huja, wow, from those days before I was here when you planned the mall and days working with you when you were director of planning and strategic planner and more recently

Council, Housing Authority and Mayor, it's been a pleasure and this community wouldn't be the same without you and we'll miss you on serving on these boards, but I'm sure we'll see you around.

Thank you for thank you again.

Thank you.

Anybody else would like to speak?

Who's gonna say that?

Anybody else would like to speak?

I'll just mention Nancy Carpenter.

And he was a living example of somebody who could only get their stuff together after they had housing.

So I think he was a real confirmation of the policy that we instituted

and I was sorry to see him go, but he really did have an effect while he was here, so thanks for remembering him publicly.

I guess we'll be talking about the disproportionate minority contact work at the end of this meeting, but I do want to respond especially to Mr. Fogel.

I ran for office for many of the same reasons that you stay engaged.

Those are issues that are always first in my heart as we're kind of looking at policy and

and I share your frustration with the fact that our city continues to be disparate, disproportionate in many ways, in opportunity, in education, in housing, in lots of other places.

I, however, want to say that I have seen great progress in the past four, five years and I am optimistic that we will continue to make progress, but we won't continue to make progress if people don't keep pushing us.

Nancy Carpenter, I appreciate your coming.

You got to come more than once a year.

on the longest night of the year, but thank you for this.

Sure, yes, thanks everybody as usual for bringing up really important, important, important points.

Nancy, you're amazing.

and because we won't talk about West Main and I won't have an opportunity to do it, I'd just make a couple comments because I think some important things have been said and what I would hope that maybe council would explore is an idea that actually Mr. Sipe had last meeting which is to try to find some tool that could be used on West Main that would

provide the opportunity to get not just one kind of building, one setback, one height, one kind of look, but to introduce some diversity of architectural style and just look.

And the idea that Mr. Sipe had was to give incentives for saving historic structures by giving a little, some allowance perhaps behind the building.

or to state up front what kind of setbacks you'd like, but if you want something a little bit less, then you're gonna have to give up something else.

And that would just enable just what we have today, which is a lot of variety on that street, and it's what makes it interesting.

So I just would hope that council might explore

whatever options, whatever tools might be out there to do something like that particularly as it relates to our historic structures.

I also wanted to thank, I really wanted to thank Mr. Fogel.

I think probably all of us would come up with a different state of the city if we were creating it and I certainly would have my own list of things that didn't work so well.

in the city this last year or over whatever period of time.

In terms of disproportionality, I also think a big contributor is literacy.

We also see it there.

And we need to keep the pressure on to be sure that all of our children have the same opportunity because these all feed each other.

We can't separate one from another.

So there's so much work to be done.

There's a lot of residential segregation that we all know.

We see it all the time on council, and I brought this up last council meeting, that different parts of the city are treated different ways.

And it might be zoning, it might be, it's certainly you see it in development.

So

It's a very complex problem and you've just got to keep fighting and thank you.

There's a number of people in this room right now who are always, always keeping counsel on their toes and I hope that you'll continue, I know I plan to continue to do that.

I think that's probably all I'll say.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Quinn.

Yes, I'll just say really only one comment because we will be talking about other issues later on, if not tonight, then in January sometime, and that's with regards to West Main Street.

I do apologize.

I think we're all sorry in some way that we're not talking about it tonight.

We'll get through the technicality issues and we will be

making sure we have a robust discussion about West Main Street next month.

But to the points that Mr. Fogel made, yeah, there is a lot that we have on our plate and that we've started, but we need to implement.

And not the least of which has to deal with the redevelopment of public housing.

And that's going to have to start with a very excellent executive director.

We're in a search for a new executive director.

We need someone who's going to be aggressive about finding parcels in our city, act like a real redevelopment authority, find those parcels, land bank them so that we can build more affordable housing all over the city, not just relegated to the low lands and the already areas that have been highly concentrated with very low income housing.

That's one aspect.

We're going to be getting updates from Mr. Jones in the near future about the housing authority and what we're going to be doing next.

The other big thing is going to be in implementing things like vision plans that we've had in place now for two years.

The strategic investment area is one of them.

We're going to get an update in February.

That has a lot to do with building infrastructure.

It does give a big overview of how

The redevelopment of the Piedmont Housing Alliance project and the public housing developments can be done in a way so that everyone stays in their neighborhood.

We're not displacing, but we're also creating more opportunity and access.

Over the last three years, we've created quite a robust approach to workforce development

We've got apprenticeship programs.

We've got alternative certification programs.

The key there is that we now have the structure in place to get our low-income residents competitive for the kinds of construction jobs that will be coming down the pike when we do the redevelopment.

That has been my personal goal ever since I got on council.

and we've had great conversations with the Reentry Steering Committee about how do we get the driver's license back in the hands of returning people, people returning from prison because that again is a job inhibitor, it's an obstacle.

We've got to do a better job about daycare.

We've got to make sure the daycare is affordable, high quality and extremely convenient.

We know that.

Those are things that are on our agenda.

It's going to be a very busy,

next couple of years.

But we are dedicated to making a change.

And it's not only with the criminal justice system.

As Martin Luther King once said, something to the effect, I certainly don't have the poetry of his mind or his ability to speak, but that at some point, you've got to change that road to Jericho.

And it was with regards to the story of the Good Samaritan.

You can keep giving and giving.

Other comments?

I listen to Jeff and he talks about racial profiling and he's asked and has asked for some time a discussion.

Now if you guys don't discuss racial profiling, if you guys don't discuss racial profiling and the percentage of African American men and young boys who have been stopped and the police

won't adequately discuss it.

Who's gonna discuss it?

All he's asking for and all we are asking for, many people are asking for, is a discussion.

We know that it's a major issue to eradicate racial profiling in any city, but most cities, most earnest cities, have a discussion.

You are the city councilors.

Why won't you discuss it?

That's all we're asking for.

I'd actually like to respond to that just briefly.

Our police chief was either the first or the second police chief in Virginia to be willing to open up the records of racial profiling so that we could even get that data.

that is the first step toward discussing it.

And a lot of cities haven't done that, haven't been willing to do that.

And he has agreed to travel around the state urging other police chiefs to do the same.

So I think that you're right, we have not solved the problem.

But I don't think that we can say that we're not talking about it.

I think that he's talking about it more than any other police chief in Virginia.

Can I ask you a question?

Body cameras, we've gone through the RFP process.

Item A, minutes for December 7th.

Item B, an appropriation year in adjustments FY 2015 and general fund balance transfer, second of two readings.

Item C, an appropriation grant elimination sponsorship, $3,500, second of two readings.

Item D, an appropriation Virginia Commission of the Arts Challenge Grant, $5,000, second of two readings.

Item E, an appropriation funds from CATEC to the CATEC IT Networking Academy Project, $1,000, second of two readings.

Item F in appropriation, Helen Williams loan pay off to the Charlottesville affordable housing fund, $13,528.80, second of two readings.

Item G in appropriation, grant for construction of 250 bypass trail.

$461,323, second of two readings.

Item H, an appropriation, donation from City Market to Toy Lift, $460, first of one reading.

Item I, an ordinance, adding Veterans Day as a legal city holiday, second of two readings.

I'd like to pull B, the adjustment, the year-end adjustment.

Well if anybody's here that can answer, well I might just save them the trouble of coming down.

My concern with the year-end adjustment is we represented a briefing, I was, the day before we had a work session briefing.

and the publicity for the year-end adjustment was we had a surplus of $4.2 million.

Over that next day, I realized that was not really correct.

That was misleading because I have fought for two years to put money in the budget for bridge repair and it was $200,000 a year.

unless I've missed something none of the bridges in our city have been repaired in the last two or three years.

So what happens is that money has not been spent and it goes into the, not to the expense column, it lowers the expenses in the expense column which widens the difference between the revenues and the expenses and gives the appearance that we're in really good shape by saving money.

but it is not saving money when we do not repair our infrastructure.

So that's, I don't see Ryan here.

That's my concern is this continues year after year and we never get these bridges repaired until we have to replace them.

And that is major money as we will see in the Belmont Bridge business is gonna be coming back to us.

and I'd also like to know $200,000 was allocated and appropriated and somebody had to give the order or the directive not to spend that money.

So I guess that's a question to the city manager.

I'm not sure, Mr. Fenwick, what you're talking about.

There was no directive.

Well, why was that money never spent?

Although I have a question because, Mr. Fenwick, you were saying that you thought that was part of what this amount, the $4 million, was partly because that wasn't spent, and I'm pretty sure that

CIP things.

It's still in there.

I mean, where is the cash money?

Is it in the bank somewhere?

The revenues we get are cash money that taxpayers pay into the city.

It's either taxes or fees or interest or something.

It's cash money.

And it's put into the budget as something that we're going to spend.

And the staff announces it.

And how much?

We have it as part of our ongoing CIP budget.

Well, my fear is that we will have this money, and it's like a contingency fund.

It will go into a fund from which we will pull money because we have a lot of expenses, major expenses, coming up in the next three, four, five years, capital expenses.

So, I mean, to this day, the bridges have been short-changed, and it's really showing around the city.

That's my concern.

Any other questions or comments on the consent agenda?

So, are you still taking it off, or was that your question?

Put it back on.

I second.

Second.

Discussion?

I'll call the vote.

Thank you.

5-0.

Next item in the State of the City, I'll be making a brief presentation.

If you would go in for the presentation.

Can I use this?

Every year, at the end of the year, we try to present to our citizens what is the status of the state of the city in Charlottesville.

State of the city is strong.

We have a population of 45,000, 46,000.

Plan A has not changed.

School enrollment is 4,100.

Employment is 37,000 jobs.

Building permits is 1,800 building permits in this year.

As the data shows, our unemployment rate is 3.8, which is quite low.

Our private sector growth has been about 1,400 jobs.

Retail sales have gone up by almost 10% in 2014.

We can see 3.6 compared to 4.6 previously Hotel rates of 75% occupancy is better than the national average We have got a lot of recommendations from all over the country Top 5 destination for every American to visit

One of the best college towns in the USA, and many other regulations of that nature.

It's all done by a group of people sitting on this podium, five of us, and now there are two new members, Ms. Welby and Michael Signer, who will be here for next month.

And each one of us makes effort to do the very best we can.

Council has a turbulent bonding which is the best financial rating you can have.

Say something about our financial management, the quality services, excellent reputation, doing opportunities for our citizens.

Council has satisfied 10 different vision statements.

I'll make my comments on those, each one of those.

In economics, sustainability, Market Street Plaza has been approved.

It will be added to a great deal of a new farmers market and also a new development in our community and raise a fair amount of taxes for us.

Leger Hotel has been renovated, closed, opened, won a crown, and Marriott Hotel is almost complete.

ads to our programming base.

Coca Cola building has been renovated last year and King building also.

Last year we also had a number of workforce development opportunities, go driver, go electric, go office.

The difference in this is that usually we used to do training for people and then

hoping that we'll find a job.

In this case, we have jobs lined up and then we train people and they're short of a job.

We have more than 50 jobs, new people, new jobs created this year.

It's a very successful program, helping people who are doing jobs.

We're still the center of a life-long learning series, supported education, especially in

City Schools, High Quality Schools.

There's quality housing opportunities in our community.

We spent almost one and a half million hours in affordable housing.

And we have produced many affordable housing units, but not as many as we would like to see.

City also received a block by block program for housing rehab for homeowners, and Governor has recognized that

and the successful program, So the Habitat for Humanity.

Art has been a very important part of our community.

The New York Festival, Film Festival, this year, very invigorated Tom Tom Festival and Art in Place.

There are many other activities going on.

We are having a healthier city.

YMCA has been groundbreaking for health facilities.

New integrated pest control program has been started.

And the training site for recycling was here.

We're a connected community.

John Warren Parkway opened this year after 40 plus years of planning.

We have better access to downtown.

This rail drive is now ready to get going.

The CAT rules have been modified to provide better service to transit in our community, like the pedestrian plan that is being implemented.

Community of mutual respect, office of human rights, and police forums have been held, due to the issue of regulations, there has been dialogue on race,

to help with these concerns and in the welcoming community in Charlottesville.

Charlottesville is a focused government, still having town hall meetings.

We had a meeting of former mayors and vice-versa to advise us.

The Governor's Technology Award for CAT applications and many other awards have been received.

I also take a few moments to mention some other things which I've been involved in the last 42 years.

The new utilization of downtown, neighborhood revitalization, middlemanner, crossings, homeless people, New Orleans Greenbelt, preservation districts, Montgomery Art Center, many similar programs, especially in the area of social

I think the city is strong, is doing better, and it can be doing more for our community, but I think full confidence in our council, you will do things to make it a better community.

Yes, Mayor Huja, and probably Mr. Jones as well.

And thank you for pulling this together for us.

Over the past few years, I've asked Mr. Engle to provide information about the unemployment rate for the African American community, and

We haven't received that and I'm wondering is this something that should be a council discussion that we wanted?

Because a couple of years ago I asked for it and then when we had a meeting to talk about the jobs summit I asked for it.

So is there any reason why that's been a difficult challenge to get that information?

Sure.

No, I don't think there's any reason why we can't get that information for you.

I mean, it's not information that we generate.

But it's an important metric so that we understand just how much we are tackling that difference in our community.

Sure.

And I think as you can see with the GO programs, a number of you, if not all of you, have been to those graduations.

A great majority of the people who graduated from the GO programs are

African American.

And it would be great to, almost as the city schools do start taking account of the racial makeup of the children in the schools and by achievement, I think it would be really important for us to start understanding what the racial mix is of our programs and then so we can start with a baseline information of what that unemployment rate is

two years ago and how that trend is improving.

It cannot be divorced from the school academic achievement.

What really struck me in the GO graduations and watching the GO programs is a very important component of success is literacy.

because the folks who are training for these jobs, they have manuals, they have to read, they have tests they have to take, particularly with the Go Driver is a really, it's a rigorous, a very rigorous training and I've had this conversation with the economic development folks and those who struggle often struggle over literacy.

And so we've really, you cannot divorce the two, the two issues, so let's get them all

Any other comments, any other questions?

If not, we move to the next item.

This is item number four.

Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor Smith, Members of Council, I'm here tonight to provide an update on the work of the DMC Task Force, and that's for Disproportionate Minority Contact and Racial Disparities in the Juvenile Justice System.

I want to start by acknowledging we have nine members of the group, contributors to our work here tonight, two on the dais,

and seven in the audience.

I want to say that our work over this last year has really been focused on the implementation of the recommendations that you all saw last summer in June of 2014 and that significant progress has been made toward implementing each of those recommendations.

That's not to say that our work is done and as the update indicates I would expect that we'll be back before you in the late spring sometime in the next six months talking about where we are with the remainder of the recommendations.

We've given a pretty detailed explanation of where each of those recommendations stands with the

Council packet, a couple things that I would mention outside of that that were not available at the time.

We will be distributing electronically and have received our first printing of the guide to the juvenile court system.

We have had, I believe, 46 officers from Charlottesville

trained on strategies for youth and working with young people specifically in policing.

And there is another training planned in just a couple weeks for January 6th and 7th.

I've confirmed with the Chief and Lieutenant Sanders that it's our belief that all of the officers can be trained before the end of this fiscal year.

Part of the good news, as has been mentioned during public comment, is we are dealing with exceedingly low numbers of kids who are becoming involved with the juvenile justice system.

I point out that in all of 2014, only 16 youth from the city of Charlottesville were arrested by the police department for a total of 29 charges.

And for the first half of the year that we're in 2015,

just nine youth for a total of 17 charges.

We've made great partnerships, not only here locally in order to get this work done, but with the State Department of Juvenile Justice and they've agreed to provide us every six months with data.

Well, Mike, how many were stopped?

And of those eight?

Seven.

Seven were arrested?

So of the ones that were stopped,

Seven of the eight, yes.

Seven of the eight was an 87 point factor.

Over an 18 month period.

So we have a new partnership with the Department of Juvenile Justice.

It is usually quite an effort to get data out of state systems, but they've agreed to provide us with all the data we'll need over the next several years in six month intervals.

We still have work to do with some of our recommendations, but I think that by working on policy change and training,

continuing to look at the investments that this council has made in prevention that we can continue to make real progress.

I do want to point out to council, as I've done in the report, that we do spend a lot of time engaging with community members on this topic, and it is most common

when we have community meetings and discussions on DMC that the community concerns are not specifically about juvenile justice and we often get comments on other areas and we do have partners come to be a part of any of those community meetings.

But there is some need for us to address issues in the adult system, child welfare, schools,

and it remains to counsel for resources and the structure for some of that investigation and work.

I would point out that you've seen in the memo that our school system has been applauded even on a national level with the Alliance for Black Male Achievement for the work that they've done to change their discipline.

But I'm sure

that there's more work that can continue to be done in that implementation.

Our Office on Human Rights is looking at the child welfare system.

and I'm certain that Ms. Green will be here with you all in January or February to start to talk about what that preliminary investigation looks like.

Our partners in the adult criminal justice system have made this priority in their goals and we've sought funding two or three times now in order to do the appropriate research for a complicated system.

We just haven't landed those grants yet, so.

Well, I have a question.

I mean, there seems to be a huge disconnect here.

Disproportionate minority contact, and yet you say it's seven, eight that are being stopped and arrested.

That's stopped.

Stopped.

Well, clearly those are two different numbers.

Because the math doesn't work.

They are exceedingly low.

I mean our number of arrests and interaction with the juvenile justice system

are at least 80% lower than they were 10 or 12 years ago.

So is the disproportionate part white versus black?

The lack of proportion is about race.

The top of page three of your of the memo

It says review gaps analysis of unmet needs of youth in the areas of mentoring, mental health and substance abuse.

And then there's review completed by CPMT and there are five items here.

Medication follow up, crisis intervention, stabilization, multicultural services, after school recreation, social services and parenting.

Are those the gaps?

Is that why those?

That's exactly right.

Yes.

So CPMT, for those looking for the acronym, Community Policy and Management Team, which is the group that governs the policy and expenditures of children in the Comp, or the Children's Services Act system, foster care, foster care prevention,

child abuse and neglect and certain expenses for special education.

And mandated by the state each year to identify the areas where we lack resources in our community and could use help.

And of these, I would say that the first three are repeats for the CPMT.

We've noted those in successive years.

and that four and five are new for this year that we're in.

I would say that not only does that frame us looking for attracting resources to this area so that we can meet the needs of the kids more locally, we want to serve kids in the least restrictive environment possible and that means closest to home.

but also the work that we're doing, the study that we've done of kids in the juvenile justice system you see in the report that right now students from community psychology from Dr. Rapucci's program headed up by Tammy Walker are looking through case files as we've done many times in the past and that

I guess the other is more an observation from sitting through this process and from just frankly from living in Charlottesville that when kids, or anywhere, when kids

come into the criminal justice system, which is who you're studying here specifically.

As a community, we've already failed them.

I'm glad there are fewer of them because what we're seeing is that by the time kids get to there, there's a whole host of needs with those gaps that you're talking about.

I'm glad to say that the state juvenile detention

processes moving more toward having people housed locally but kids a bit separated from their families, sent off.

Kids are in major crisis by the time they hit the juvenile justice system.

So I know that we're looking specifically at those kids and we have to figure out where those decision points are and make sure that we're eliminating any possible discrimination of how those kids are treated.

But the other piece that we need to look at is the social discrimination that happens when kids end up in disproportionate numbers in that position.

So I would encourage this work to continue, to not think that it's ever probably over.

I think as long as we have the history that we have in the United States, especially in the South, it's going to be a challenge.

And I think it's something that we need to constantly keep our eye on.

and not be satisfied until the disproportionality, whether it's because of individual racism or institutional racism or just because of social inequality and disproportionality in poverty and in other areas, until we come to terms with those and start addressing those.

Yeah, I will say that I'm hopeful that with regard to this particular set of recommendations at some point we will come to you and say we did those things.

And then we'll have to take stock about whether those were all of the right things and how we can make further progress.

So I will say that I can no longer say I know what done looks like, right?

I know what making

Yeah, I'll make a few.

You know, I'm on this Governor's Committee

for disproportionate minority contact.

And it's a really, really interesting group.

Statewide, you can see what's happening statewide.

And the real focus right now is on cross-system analysis, is who's in the foster care system and how do they interact with the juvenile justice system.

Schools are very important.

There's a real focus on attendance at this point and how much risk that puts on a child.

for all of these commensurate impacts and problems.

So I don't know how much that is being done.

Yeah, I think that that's the importance of the particular type of research that I was just talking about, where we have seen in the past, and we'll be able to look at very soon, what the current population of kids' characteristics are, but in the past, you'd be correct in saying that those kids were far more likely to be one or more grades behind their counterparts in school, much more likely than their counterparts to be identified as special education.

to have a mental health diagnosis, to have a family member with a substance abuse issue, to have a family member who'd been in jail or prison.

And so there are a host of other risk factors that are in these kids' lives.

Right, which I think is, again, really, really important that we keep our focus on that very beginning.

Attendance in kindergarten is a fascinating number to look at, because it's one of the worst.

And it's very easy to say, oh, those kids get sick.

But they don't get sick more often than other kids.

It's a real indicator that there is a disconnect in the family.

And I know we deal with this at the middle school level, Check and Connect.

is very much about that.

It's been a rigorously tested program.

That's great.

But it happens much earlier.

The new Check and Connect actually is kindergarten through sixth grade, so that's what they're doing.

We were doing it in middle school.

We were.

Have we expanded it to elementary?

That's good if we have.

But those kinds of things.

And to focus only on the, or to say that what we're really

kind of beaming in on is this late point in the game is important, but we're never going to address it if we don't really have a hard line on those early points of the risk factors.

I know I feel like I sound like a broken record, but schools, schools, schools.

So I get, and again, I've mentioned it before, when I see that we're going to support the schools in there as opposed to monitor or to be the ones to say, we wanna see that this problem is being addressed.

I mean, we still,

bus kids out of their neighborhood, bus low income minority children out of their neighborhood, they miss the bus, they can't get to school.

We know attendance is a huge risk factor, or the lack of attendance.

So if we continue to ignore these real fundamental problems we have that have to do with disproportionality, and we heard it at the beginning of the meeting, we're just gonna spin our wheels at this point, but that's my,

Thank you.

I think that obviously we've done a lot of work, a lot of research to look at what is disproportionate and where actual disparity exists

and probation violations was the one area of the report where that outcome looked like a disparity.

Again, thank you for your summary.

The chart's very clear, but it almost is like a kind of wetting the appetite because it says that

Things that there have been recommendations made and accepted by the police department.

For example, there have been, that's under recommendation one.

Recommendation two, you've got inventories of parent support programs.

Lots of really sounds like great content.

Recommendation three, data was received and has

as analysis underway.

On number four, you've got a lot of different strategies for youth completed and have been submitted in a report.

And then recommendation five, just as you were talking about, a Check and Connect Truancy Prevention Program has been implemented.

So is all of this stuff available as a real tangible report that we can look at to see what these

Because this is, like I said, this is just telling us what's been done, but I think there's some appetite for actually seeing those results and either just put links on these or is there a compendium of some kind?

Because it does seem like there's an awful lot of good information here.

It just needs to then be processed and

Well, taking just one of those examples, so Strategies for Youth did some analysis of the police department's policies in working with young people.

I think that there were three major policies that they looked at, one which is I believe called Juvenile Matters, kind of the overarching policy, and I could provide you with a

We have something on interacting with unlicensed drivers where I don't think that SFY recommended any changes.

And then the third, which is an area where there are, again, there's a document with highlighted changes, has to do with sort of school-based

Resource Officers and how they operate and so forth.

Can I just say one other thing because I do think that, Mr. Murphy, again a lot of what we see at this level in the juvenile system we see ten hundred times whatever more in the adult system and so we've got to figure out how we're going to

Well, Mayor Huja, again, there seems to be in this staff memo lots of

I would like to know what it would cost us to do our own adult study Just so we have a number The data this there is a lot of data and a and part of it is going to at least at a preliminary level to get regular reports as

Mr. Fogel had asked and he got some data.

I know that it's a lot more complex and that adults tend to be in a lot more different systems and

I see Dave Chapman.

Didn't you give us that figure last time you were here?

For those who couldn't hear, Mr. Mayor, let me repeat that for the people who might listen to this on a podcast.

It was $300,000.

That's the high.

And the other thing is we've got to get the body cameras out there.

It's been 18 months since we appropriated that money, and it has clearly been shown across the country to impact behavior at both levels, at both the police level and at the

Can we just one more thing related to this?

I just want to underline, if I may, Mayor Huja, that as we enter into the next kind of budget work session, that this be part of the budget discussion.

That this funding for this...

I first filed for the people here and for the people either watching or listening.

The Belmont Bridge is coming back.

We have an RFP, which is a Request for Proposal, out now.

And for anybody who wants information or maybe didn't hear what went on tonight, you can go to charlottesville.org.

And the agendas are there with supporting documents.

It is June 16, 2014 is the date that we voted on the enhanced bridge.

And if you go to the city website, you can search for the RFP

up in the search box.

Just type in Belmont Bridge RFP and that will come up.

So with that as a base, the RFP that's out there now, which I think is due January 22nd or something like that, calls the bridge the gateway into the city downtown, the southern gateway.

And yet there are only two lanes on that proposed bridge.

One lane in,

and one lane out.

And if we leave that RFP out there like that, we are asking for changes and additions right off the bat, because I don't believe that's gonna stand one lane in, one lane out.

So I'd like to know what the council thinks about that.

It's almost certainly gonna be two lanes in and two lanes out, just like it is now.

In the discussions that we had about the design of the bridge that we sent to authorize the releasing of this RFP,

I think that we talked about not having such a wide bridge, that we didn't need a freeway across there, that we just needed a street, and that two lanes or possibly two lanes with a turning lane were adequate.

Mayor Huja may I please because I had looked up the minutes and it was confirmed the minutes of the meeting that we approved this the full council all five of us voted for a two-lane road it was supposed to be designed to accommodate wider sidewalks to accommodate safe bike lanes and it was also given to us by it was born out of a public process so I think at this point

We've already included the discussions have been had by Belmont Steering Committee that this body appointed to see this bridge be executed.

And I think we would be really undermining public process on multiple levels.

And we would be really kind of not seeing the reality of the road that it's hooking up into two lanes once the bridge touches down.

There are no four lane highways going to the bridge.

or coming off the bridge.

We make a lot of comments.

The registry bridge, the two lanes,

It's built so you can have four lanes in the future.

You can have two lanes with the idea of future expansion.

Well this was not an agenda item and there should be no vote taken tonight.

Yeah this council, that vote really was for enhanced bridge, tunnel or an arched bridge.

That's what we were deciding that night.

I would submit we made a mistake when we said one lane in and one lane out.

And if we make a mistake, we should correct it.

Mayor Huja, then I request that we ask Page to call up the minutes of that meeting and that we have it on the next meeting agenda in January.

Do you have any other comments?

Lena Seville, 808 Alta Vista Avenue.

I was inspired to make a second comment by some things that I've heard earlier here tonight.

You know, I'm concerned that we may, oh, there's my pen.

There was a reason you came back.

I had to borrow a pen to write down my notes.

So this comment is about low income housing.

We're putting in a lot of high income housing and I keep hearing that it will take the pressure off and so that way that other housing will become low income housing.

But from what I've heard from experts in the field that the demand is so high that it can actually do the exact opposite.

That it can raise the prices of everything and

and push out people that, you know, it's a combination of things that we find.

Ethnicity, income and education all put certain groups at a disadvantage.

And I would hate to see them pushed out of the city because we don't continue to build low-income housing.

I'm in favor of a lot of these projects that we do that support our tax base, that

increased density so that we can support pedestrians and bicycles and transit.

But we have to think about when we increase our tax base, where's that money going to?

When we just put the money back into that area, then are we going to end up with a city that's all retirees and tourists?

Are we going to have

Nancy Carpenter, just a couple of last comments.

There's been a lot of publicity lately about how rent burdened Americans are.

There are over half of us who are paying beyond 30%, which is the bellwether figure of our incomes for shelter.

and that is certainly exacerbated in certain communities here.

I agree with Lena Seville that there are not the units being built that we need.

There is a shortage of rental housing.

We still haven't, families and individuals have still not come through the 2008 financial crisis when a lot of homeowners lost their homes and had to turn to renting and then took

you know took the available units for that and we still haven't gotten those units back on available for other people because the homeowners who want to be homeowners again are still renters because

You know, the things are getting a little bit better, but they're not like they were.

They're not as robust as they were.

So I do agree with Lena that if we do continue to build, which for a lot of good reasons, it's good to have those types of units, but if we don't modify that with units for our workforce housing, and that doesn't mean a career wage.

I'm talking about the people that are making minimum wage in this city that do the jobs that make these buildings clean

that feed us when we want to have a quick bite before a meeting, that check us out when we're running home and want to stop in and get a quart of milk before we get to our own homes, that there has to be a broad range of availability.

And if we take those out, you're right.

Where are people going to go?

Because they're not going to have cars.

They're going to rely on our transit system, which is still

Again, Jeffrey Fogel, 215 Spruce Street.

I want to speak in response to what Mike Murphy said on the DMC task force of which I've been a member since it started and the six months before that when I was haranguing the council to even set up such a task force.

Mike's a good guy.

Mike cares about children.

And many of the people on that staff I admire in community attention and through the juvenile justice system.

But Mike is afraid of talking about race.

And Mike has either been told or is afraid to talk about the police department.

Now we know that disproportionality here exists in the juvenile justice system on the street.

It's not so much happening within the confines of the courthouse.

And on the street means the disproportionality that you're seeing in the statistics on stop and frisk and on a race.

We have yet to get any explanation from the police department or even a discussion as to why is that happening.

What is it the characteristics that the police departments see in black kids that would result in them arresting 13 out of 16 people being black, stopping 8 out of 9 people being black.

Those are no low numbers, but you know those numbers are reflective of what we saw for adults as well.

And the notion that we can praise the police department for keeping good statistics, but doing nothing about it.

and this is a gross analogy, but you know the Nazis kept very detailed statistics on what they did.

It is a gross analogy.

How many did they remove?

How much gold they got out?

Did you praise them for keeping those statistics?

No, the issue isn't keeping statistics, the issue is doing something about the problem.

You suggested, Ms. Szakos, that we will see an improvement in the subsequent year after the council heard from Chief Longo.

but in fact what happened in the next year was 78%, not 70%.

What does it take?

A rule that says we will not stop white people for you to move on that?

Doesn't 78% of the stops that result in almost no incidents of criminal activity suggest to you that there's a problem with institutional racism in the police department and yet when we had the opportunity to look at it,

You all refuse to let us look at it.

Those narratives which we agreed to receive without names on them so that nobody's rights or privacy would be violated would reveal exactly what's going on on the street.

But you don't wanna know it.

Because if you wanted to know it, you wouldn't have defended that lawsuit, you would have instructed the police chief, make that information available to the public.

Let's see if we can put the best minds together who have a background in this area and find out why this is happening.

This is the same problem we have with the DMC.

They refuse to discuss why we have a racial disparity.

They say, oh it's too complicated, it may involve social issues, it may involve economic issues, and we're just not competent.

Well if they're not competent to do that, they're not competent to do this job.

I think you have to get a totally different approach and make sure that when you issue a mandate to examine and explain racial disproportionately and disparities associated that what you get back is an explanation of the racial disparities.

Good evening, my name is Emily Dreyfus and I'm here on behalf of the Legal Aid Justice Center, 1000 Preston Avenue.

I agree very much with what has been said by the prior speakers and want to focus on some of the things that are very tangible and easier than what was just discussed, but I do agree that we need to grapple with the really challenging underlying questions.

A couple of meetings ago, Mr. Murphy had the DMC task force walk through an exercise where we went around the room and answered several questions.

And one of the most overwhelming responses was clearly stating that people think there is much more work to be done on DMC in juvenile justice.

So I'm glad that there are not discussions of how to dismantle it, but I also feel like we need to really reinvigorate

the discussions about what we now do.

One of the issues that got brought up in the responses was about prevention services and I think we have many, many miles to go on that.

I have personally tried to find mentors for some kids that are in the youth leadership group that we work with and have hit a brick wall.

We haven't talked much about mentorship at the DMC task force.

I think that's something we should be talking more about.

I know the pilot program that's modeled around My Brother's Keeper has a very, very small cohort, and there is not any discussion at this point about expanding that significantly.

So we need to find another avenue.

If that's not working, if we don't have the resources to find adult mentors, then we should be looking at other options.

I've also, well the kids actually came quite a while back and talked about needing their basketball courts resurfaced in the public housing neighborhoods and I hope that will be done in the upcoming budget because it's not something the housing authority has the money to do and that's one of the few positive resources that the city is providing for kids in their neighborhoods.

The other thing I wanted to mention is the Check and Connect program is only in place, as I understand it, in the City of Promise footprint.

So there are a lot of other low-income kids in our city schools who are not going to Burnley-Maran, or I think it's Clark, it's the other school, and they need those services.

The truancy prevention, the connection to school, all of those things are really, really important and should be a lot more common.

I think the school system also needs some additional more comprehensive approach to professional development related to trauma-informed practices, which are more common among the foster care system than they are in schools at this point, and it's a really important concept for any

Thank you.

Yeah, I'd just like to thank Emily for coming and talking.

You have so much experience and such a long history.

You're just an incredible gift to the children of Charlottesville.

Something that you mentioned sort of brought to mind a conversation at the last DMC.

meeting that I attended, and that was actually with Mr. Chapman, where we were both really, really concerned about kids who fall through the cracks, that we have mega programs in this community, and we choose who gets them, in many cases, and in most cases, and who you don't see getting any services sometimes are those kids who don't have the resources to, or they don't live in the right place, or whatever, and I would love to know,

What's happening to those kids?

Are those the kids that we're seeing?

I'm kind of going backwards.

It just drives me absolutely crazy to think that we are looking at absenteeism and truancy in the neighborhood where we're busing kids out of there, away from their school.

That they are not being given the same choices that people who look like us have.

I guarantee you that parents who look like me think they have a choice as to which school they go to.

I know a lot of them do because I talk to them and it's just horrifying to me that the children in that same City of Promise footprint don't have that choice to go to the school nearest to them that they could walk to.

I want to thank you all for your support and I want to acknowledge

Ms. Rice, for her service.

She's really kind to me and a whole council.

We greatly appreciate her service to me.

Thank you.

I'll just say one thing.