City Council Meeting   4/4/2016

Michael Kochis

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I'm

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Everyone ready?

Calling this meeting to order.

Pledge of Allegiance.

Welcome, everyone.

Thanks for coming tonight.

Ms. Rice, will you call the roll?

Ms. Ziggus?

Yes.

Ms. Galvin?

OK, awards and recognitions.

Everyone could read the one, maybe Mr. Fenwick down.

Appointments?

No, let's do that.

After announcements, yeah.

Okay.

Okay, all right.

So let's, let's, well let's just do the awards then.

Mr. Bellamy, I forgot who I had in the notes.

So good evening everyone.

Good evening, Wes.

This is a tough crowd tonight, man.

So we have something very special for Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

In the city of Charlottesville, we have a proclamation, and we will state it like this.

Whereas Sexual Assault Awareness Month is intended to draw attention to widespread sexual violence that impacts every community member of Charlottesville and the surrounding area and whereas the effect of rape

sexual assault and sexual harassment on our community is shown by statistics indicating that one in five women and one in 71 men will be raped at some point in their lives and whereas child sexual abuse prevention must be a priority to confront the reality that one in six boys and one in four girls will experience a sexual assault

before the age 18 and whereas we must work together to educate our community about sexual violence prevention, supporting survivors and speaking out against harmful attitudes and actions and whereas our community strongly supports the efforts of national, state and local partners and of every citizen to actively engage in public and private efforts to prevent sexual violence and create a safer environment for all

Now, therefore, it be resolved that we join the Sexual Assault Resource Agency, also known as SARA, and communities across the country in playing an active role to prevent sexual violence.

Along with the United States government and the Commonwealth of Virginia, we do hereby proclaim April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and this was signed and sealed this fourth day of April by our mayor, Mr. Mayor Signer, Michael Signer,

And I think we have a representative from Sarah that we'd like to present this to.

Thank you all.

I really appreciate you all doing this.

We're having a Day of Action event tomorrow morning.

8 to 10 a.m.

If you'd like to come join us, we'd be happy to have you there.

Thank you.

I have that proclamation.

Whereas since the colonial period, the Commonwealth of Virginia has closely held the institutions of local government, and whereas local governments throughout the Commonwealth provide valuable services to the citizens of communities they serve, and whereas citizen services such as law enforcement, public health, and safety,

recreational opportunities and educating young children are most often delivered at the local level and whereas in recognition of the work performed by local governments, the Virginia General Assembly on February 29, 2012 designated the first week in April as Local Government Education Week in Virginia and whereas April 2, 1908 marked the creation of the council manager form of government in the nearby city of Stanton.

A little bit of local history.

thereby making the first week in April appropriate for this designation now therefore be it proclaimed by the Charlottesville City Council that April 4th through 8th, 2016 is hereby designated as Local Government Education Week.

And be it further proclaimed that the City Council will work to promote civic education and engagement in an effort to educate citizens about their local government, strengthen the sense of community, and engage the next generation of local government managers.

Signed and sealed this day, April 4th.

And there's no one here, I believe, except us to accept it.

Thank you.

We're going to do announcements.

Yes, of course, yes.

Yes, of course.

Sorry.

I'm just so doggedly logical, so.

Anyway.

This actually was a proclamation that was given to the Cena restaurant yesterday, but just wanted to share it with the public.

recognizing the 40th anniversary of the founding of the C&O restaurant.

Whereas on March 22nd of 1976, Sandy McAdams and Phillip Stafford opened the C&O restaurant on 515 East Water Street, commencing a new era in standard and fine dining in downtown Charlottesville.

And whereas over the past four decades, the C&O has been a cornerstone in the culinary and cultural lives of downtown denizens,

and a home to many bright young people who became leaders in the arts, politics, business, and nonprofits here in Shostel and all over the country.

And whereas under the stewardship of owners Dave Simpson and Dean Maupin and a legendary cast of chefs, servers, and sommeliers, including Barry and Dara Umberger, Elaine Futhi, Thomas Bowles, and many, many more, the CNO provided an anchor for much of the downtown's vitality over the years.

Now therefore be it resolved that we, the Shostel City Council,

I have Go Driver now.

This announcement, okay.

Okay, let's move on to, oh, and I have annual National Service Day.

Proclamation, whereas service to others is a hallmark of the American character and central to how we meet our challenges and the nation's cities are increasingly turning to national service and volunteerism as a cost-effective strategy to meet needs and whereas participants in AmeriCorps and Senior Corps address the most pressing challenges facing our cities and nation,

from educating students for jobs of the 21st century and supporting veterans and military families to providing health services and helping communities recover from natural disasters and whereas national service expands economic opportunity by creating more sustainable resilient communities and providing education career skills and leadership abilities for those who serve and whereas national service participants of all ages and backgrounds serve in Charlottesville

providing vital support to residents and improving quality of life in our city and whereas the Corporation for National and Community Service shares a priority with city and county officials nationwide to engage citizens, improve lives and strengthen communities and is joining with the National League of Cities and mayors and county officials across the country for the mayor and county recognition day for national service on April 5th, 2016.

Therefore be it resolved that I, Mike Signer, mayor of Charlottesville,

Do hereby proclaim April 5, 2016 as National Service Recognition Day and encourage residents to recognize the positive impact of national service in our community and thank those who serve.

The City of Charlottesville's Office of Economic Development has been recognized with an award of excellence from the Virginia Economic Developers Association, VITA, for its job-driven workforce development program, Go Driver.

The initiative was recognized for its innovative approach to aligning economic and workforce development and moving people towards self-sufficiency through specific training and job placement.

A departure from traditional training programs, GO Driver, and GO stands for Growing Opportunity, leads the way with its job-driven approach by offering workplace and technical skills training that tie directly to a job upon program completion.

The 2016 Community Economic Development Awards were presented in March at the Association's Spring Conference in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Thank you.

Is anyone here?

Well, I'll say it's always nice to be recognized in this part of the meeting.

when you're doing awards.

So seriously, to our staff, they've really done a great job with this program.

And it's nice to be recognized by our colleagues around the state.

Thanks.

We're proud of you.

Thanks.

I have two announcements.

The first regards City Market, which returned if you were there on Saturday, April 2.

City Market kicked off its 2016 Saturday.

City Market is held from 7 a.m. until noon Saturday mornings from April to October and is located downtown at 100 Water Street.

The market features over a hundred local vendors who sell a variety of fresh produce, herbs, plants, meats, crafts, baked goods, and much, much more.

City Market is managed by the City of Charlottesville's Department of Parks and Recreation and is a fun, safe, and family-friendly environment

for local vendors to display and sell their homegrown or handmade products.

Continuing in 2016, market customers who receive SNAP benefits, which is the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, will be able to use their benefit cards at the market to buy fresh produce and meats.

Debit cards are also accepted.

This program is managed by Market Central, a nonprofit organization that supports the city market.

Residents will also be able to drop off their compostable materials at City Market this year, as I do every Saturday.

Launched as a pilot program in 2015, the Charlottesville Composts Program will continue this year and uses the City Market as a drop-off location.

For more information regarding the composting program, you can contact charlottesville.org slash composting.

And for more information about City Market, please contact Lucy Lamb at 434-970-3371

or you can write to her at citymarketatcharlottesville.org.

And the other one is letting folks know that on this next Saturday after you've gone to the market at 11 o'clock till four will be the Day Soiree at the Jefferson School City Center.

It will be an opportunity to explore and celebrate nonprofits in our community.

There will be food, fun, games, music, art, and vendors.

Thank you.

So we have a, excuse me, a resource, excuse me, re-entry resource fair that'll be coming up on Saturday, April 30th from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Carver Rec Center.

Now this event is sponsored by the City of Charlottesville as well as the Charlottesville Downtown Job Center, the Community Job Fair as well as Hype.

and what we want to place a major emphasis on is anyone who may have been a felon, who may have made a mistake in their past life and they want to get back on the right track.

We want to make sure that you have the opportunity to do so.

So there will be over 20 service providers at Carver Rec.

Again, this is April 30th, Saturday,

April 30th from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Lunch will be provided and all you have to do is register online.

You can do that at www.Charlottesville.org backslash jobcenter.

If you don't have access to the internet you can go to the downtown jobcenter which is located at the library if you cannot make it there.

Feel free to call City Hall.

You can call Ms. Holly Lee at 434-970-3117 and we'll get you signed up.

This is free and open to the public, man, woman, boy, girl, whomever.

If you need help, we want to make sure that Charlottesville is truly being a city for second chances.

Thank you.

An announcement on the Citywide Bagged Leaf Collection week of April 11, 2016.

There will be a one-time citywide collection of bagged leaves only during the week of April 11, 2016.

Bagged leaves must be at the curb by 7 a.m. on Monday, April 11 to qualify for free collection sometime that week.

Other than this scheduled special collection of bagged leaves, city code dictates leaves are to be treated as dry trash until next fall and must be placed in bags with the appropriate trash sticker to be collected by the city.

Residents must provide bags for the free collection.

Only leaves will be collected.

Please, no trash, sticks, or other yard waste.

Please direct questions to the Public Service Division at 970-3830.

So that's a citywide bagged leaf collection.

I have a couple.

First of all, I want to let folks know that I'll be doing my monthly open office hours this Thursday from 12 to 1 p.m. in City Hall here and anybody who's interested in signing up for a slide.

You can also come

If you're available without signing up, it's a little easier if you call or email beforehand.

So you just email Paige Rice at RiceP at Charlottesville.org or you call the clerk's office at 434-970-3113.

And I'm also, they asked me to announce I'm doing a community forum on Wednesday at 630 at Ebenezer Baptist Church to hear community sentiment about a wide range of issues from Confederate statues to

parking to anything that is on people's minds.

So if anybody's interested in coming, that'll be 6.30 p.m. this Wednesday at Ebenezer Baptist Church off of West Main Street.

And finally, this is about our water challenge.

The City of Charlottesville is once again joining other cities across the country in asking our residents to take part in the National Wyland Mayors Challenge for Water Conservation.

As the mayor who signed up for this challenge, I encourage Charlottesville residents to conserve water, save energy and reduce pollution on behalf of the city and pledge their commitment at www.mywaterpledge.com throughout the month of April.

Last year, Charlottesville placed 10th in our population category and pledged to conserve over 7 million gallons of water.

This year, I challenge you to participate, maintain your commitment to water conservation and increase our rankings.

By pledging your water conservation actions for this year, you will receive water conservation tips, as well as be entered to win various eco-friendly prizes, including the Toyota Prius.

I want us to do better than ever.

To find out more information on the competition and Charlottesville's involvement, you can go to the City of Charlottesville water conservation website, which is www.charlesville.org forward slash water conservation.

So everyone please take part in this important challenge for us.

Let me back up, Mr. Mayor, if I could.

Sure.

The proclamation about SARA, S-A-R-A, is so important.

I wanted to make sure everybody knew how to get information on that.

And that's the Sexual Assault Resource Agency.

You can go to info at saracville.org.

Usually the easiest thing is to go to Sarah Charlottesville on Google.

But they do do tremendous work, so thank you.

Now, Mr. Mayor, I can do it two ways.

Why don't we do that?

And just so everybody knows, we want to take a step to let everybody know all the boards of commissions that have openings in this time.

announced these.

There are a lot of good openings all across the city and if you have any interest at all on any part of the city or any kind of a hobby, say with trees or whatever, we do have openings and we will have openings, we do have openings.

Historic Resources Committee, we will have two places open.

We have an announcement on that in just a minute.

Charlottesville Albemarle Airport Authority,

the Charlottesville Albemarle Airport Commission, the Charlottesville Economic Development Authority, CEDA, the Citizens Advisory Panel, which acts as a liaison between the citizens and the police department, Community Development Block Grant, at-large position for Belmont, 10th and Page, Ridge Street neighborhoods.

The Historic Resources Committee, as I said, has two after tonight's action.

the Housing Advisory Committee, the Human Rights Commission, Jaunt, which is transportation, the Monticello Area Community Action Agency Board, Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee, the Place Design Task Force has an opening for an architect slash landscape architect, Region 10 Community Services Board, the Tree Commission, and the Vendor Appeals Board.

and we're gonna try to post this right up front on the city website.

Now you ready for the nominations?

Sure.

Okay.

To the, I'd like to nominate for the Historic Resources Committee, Ms. Dee Dee Smith.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion?

All in favor?

Motion carries five to zero.

Thank you.

Congratulations everyone.

Mr. Jones, response to matters in public from last time?

There were no direct responses to issues that were raised last time.

Okay.

Matters by the public.

So we're in the third meeting under the new procedures we're doing with the selection process that concludes at 9 o'clock in the morning of the day of.

Today we had 12 people submit for the comments and we have 12 slots.

and there were a few people who were interested in speaking on budget matters and they were requested to speak during the budget, open hearing, public hearing we're doing when we get to budget.

So everyone who wanted to speak this time got a slot.

So the guidelines, I'm just going to read the standard ones that we read every time.

This device here gives three minutes and when you, again it's green, it's like a traffic light, when you're getting close to the end it's yellow and when you finish with three minutes it's red and a chime will time.

We welcome public comment.

It's an important part of our meeting.

Time is reserved near the beginning and at the end of each regular council meeting for matters by the public.

Please follow these guidelines.

If you're here to speak for a public hearing, please wait to speak on that matter until the report for that item has been presented and the public hearing has been open and those sign-up sheets are right here for the public hearings we're doing.

Each speaker has three minutes to speak.

Please give your name and address before beginning.

Please do not interrupt speakers.

Whether or not you agree with them, please refrain from using obscenities.

And if you cannot follow these guidelines, you'll be escorted from city council chambers and not permitted to reenter.

My name is Louis Schultz.

I live at 1809 East Market Street.

Wes Bellamy, it is well known that you're a teacher and a mentor to many children.

When you spoke in support of Council's new rules on public comment, you said you were concerned about what those kids see when they watch these meetings on TV.

I'm concerned about that as well.

I've repeatedly asked you some very important questions about the legality of things you and the rest of Council have done.

For months now, you have refused to say anything in response and instead just sat there looking embarrassed, confused, and very uncomfortable.

In my mind, that's not at all the conduct of a proper role model.

It has been made explicitly clear that no rules of any sort prohibit you from answering my questions.

If you're going to continue to refuse to answer, you at least owe those kids and the rest of us an explanation for doing so.

Question number one.

Section 9 of Charlottesville's charter and section 238 of Charlottesville code say that the terms of the mayor and vice mayor begin in July.

The charter says that a vacancy in either office can be filled only for the remainder of the original term.

Wes, you were elected Vice Mayor on January 4th of this year to a two-year term.

Do you believe that to be lawful?

If so, what law authorizes that two-year term if it began in January?

Question number two.

Section 35 of the city's charter says very plainly, the council shall fix by ordinance the time for holding their stated meetings.

Chapter 2, Section 41 of the city's code is that ordinance.

By law, it can only be amended by another ordinance.

On January 4th, you voted in favor of a resolution purporting to establish a meeting schedule that differs from what the ordinance requires.

Do you believe that to have been a lawful action on your part?

If so, what law authorized council to pass that resolution and how could it amend an ordinance?

Question 3.

Virginia Code Section 15.2-1503 says very plainly, all appointments of officers and hiring of other employees by locality shall be without definite term.

On July 6, 2015, City Council passed a resolution allowing the Mayor to sign a document entitled City Manager's Employment Agreement.

That agreement explicitly states that, quote, in the event that Council decides not to renew, the agreement shall expire as of December 7, 2018.

Mr. Jones would no longer be employed by the City at that time.

The unambiguous purpose of that clause is to establish a definite term of employment in violation of the law just cited.

That contract clearly states that its purpose is to extend Mr. Jones' employment, which would not have been necessary if it weren't for a definite term that the city attorney described in the backroom material as scheduled to end on December 6, 2015.

Section 7A of the contract specifies what the city manager must do if he, quote, desires his employment to extend beyond the end of the term established herein.

Section 7B is headlined early termination, meaning termination of Mr. Jones' employment by counsel before the contractually agreed upon end of the term on December 7, 2018.

That contract is clearly not allowed by Virginia law.

State Code Section 1248 says any resolution of any governing body shall not be inconsistent with the constitutional laws of the Commonwealth.

No resolution allowing the mayor to sign any of Mr. Jones's employment contracts has been legal, so he has never actually had a contract with the city.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Thank you.

I'm Marta Kane with the Jefferson Area Board for Aging.

And I wanted to take this time to thank you for your support in helping us serve seniors in the community.

Page, I think, has handed you some sheets.

So I wanted to just remind you that the seniors are increasing as a percent of the total population of Charlottesville.

By 2020, about 5,400 will be over the age of 65.

and 528 will be over 85.

Today, there are 184 in this range.

So you can see this is an area that people really enjoy living and want to age in place and will continue to age.

But that tells us that they will have more needs.

From 2014 to 2040, there's expected to be a growth of 237% in seniors.

A few weeks ago, I sent you an email with some wonderful stories about the impact we make.

And so now I wanted to give you some numbers.

I think the stories are more fun, but they take more than three minutes.

Last year, we served 2,588 residents of Charlottesville.

And you can see on there some of the statistics.

But I think the most significant one is that of those we serve, 54% live alone.

And that's well above the city average of 9% of people.

So clearly, we are

serving those most at risk.

In 2016, we expect to serve 2,800, and in 2017, 2,854.

So you can see those numbers are continuing to go up.

On the back side, there are a couple of satisfaction survey points that I just want to point out.

You can look at them later.

But most of those run in the 90% range, which I'm very proud of, and I think it speaks to us continuing to meet the needs of our seniors.

Care Transitions is a new program for helping people transition from hospital to home.

The average national rate is 25% of seniors have a readmission within 30 days.

With that program, we have reduced that to 10%.

That's huge if you think about the impact that has on people's lives.

And we're working with both hospitals to try and introduce this program and have them help cover the cost of it.

We also, you'll see 78% of the people have said they felt they made progress toward their health goals.

Another program that I think is really worth noting is the insurance counseling.

99% of the people said we met their needs.

About a third of them have saved something as a result of our counseling.

Part D is the prescription plan.

I often say you can be a PhD in biophysics and not figure out how to do that program.

Last year we saved nearly half a million dollars for people who came and worked with us, so I think that it shows the impact of what we do.

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, members of council, I'm Naomi Roberts, 1140 St. Clair Avenue.

After 60 plus years, St. Clair Avenue extended has become an important neighborhood to the city and look what's happening to us.

On December 7th, I approached council and obtained and explained the problems we had when two storey houses were approved on two 25 feet lots.

I have included pictures of the hideous houses which are going to be added to the addition to the already three rentals on our street and you can see

that they do not conform with the rest of the one store houses on St. Clair Avenue extended.

All of these houses are split built on two lots.

I explained how density building, which you can see from the photos, can cause problems.

You pride yourself with open space, yet support this type of building.

We already have a parking problem and this type of continuous building on our street will bring more and greater parking problems.

Family members visiting already have problems finding parking on our street.

In addition, with the three additional

New houses on Locust Lane, that too is a big problem with traffic moving down that street and I can see more congestion coming to St. Clair.

In addition to the parking, density building can cause problems with water running off onto the adjoining property owners.

Our land assessments went up, not our homes, so I ask, is this the future style of houses to be built in this neighborhood?

And is it the future for living in Charlottesville to have more rental property instead of homeowners?

Renters are not invested in our neighborhoods.

I and those who have signed a petition do not wish our street to be ruined any further.

I can see why our land assessments went up.

More houses mean more tax.

and more rainwater fees.

And as Mrs. Szakos indicated to me, the city is running out of land, so that means ruining our neighborhood.

I met with the new director of neighborhood development about changing the zoning of our two lots from 25 feet to 50 feet lots, to whom I was referred December the 7th.

And he referred me back to you with his change as council has to approve zoning.

So I'm here again

for just this purpose and asking council to adhere to our petition and rezone our lots to 50 feet and save our neighborhood and allow one storey houses only to coincide with the rest of the houses.

We do not want sidewalks on our street.

That too will affect parking and not all houses on this block have driveways.

Some residents have more than one car as well and I'm sure that will be the case with the new renters that will be moving into these two rentals.

In addition, some of us are senior citizens and some have health problems and can hardly shovel snow anymore and I'm one of them.

Sidewalks take away the country field that our neighborhood has and beautiful trees were destroyed to accommodate this dense building style on our street.

We have now begun to lose that open space view and two neighbors have already been affected by blocking of the sun because of these two, I call them stacked trailers.

And those pictures will show you what I'm talking about.

There's the two houses and there's only 10 feet between Paula Deen's house and one of the houses.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Fenwick, I called you out on your hypocrisy before, so I think it's only right I give you your due on your vote on the rules change.

These rules seek to silence critics and those who have legitimate grievances with the council and the city.

It is clear that you seek to silence critics like Mr. Fogel, Mr. Schultz, myself, and others.

However, Mr. Bellamy, I respectfully have to call you out as a hypocrite.

Back in December of 2014, when you were part of the Black Lives Matter protest that interrupted me and took over city council chambers, you wanted your grievances to be heard, yet now you voted to allow other voices to be silenced.

And during your press conference on unity in the community, only one side was represented.

Just because some of you decided they are racist symbols doesn't make it so.

We have been deemed racist and white supremacist, along with many other vile names.

So let me ask you this.

We've heard your grievances, but where is the gratitude?

It is the same people who your side demonizes, who pay for the homeless shelters, subsidized housing, free utilities, and all the other social agenda programs.

We don't necessarily expect a thank you,

but we're getting tired of getting spit in the face.

You would do well to remember the old saying, don't bite the hand that feeds you.

If being offended is the measure by which we use to determine whether something is demolished, then please tell me when the wrecking ball is set to tear down City Hall.

Can we use the measure of being offended to opt out of that portion of our taxes that go to funding things we find offensive

You've said to me on more than one occasion, let's sit down and talk.

Well tonight, I'd like to invite you, me, Dr. Turner, and members of the public who are interested in any subject matter to sit down around the table like ladies and gentlemen, and let's have a frank and honest discussion about a variety of issues.

If you're the man I think you are, you'll take me up on this.

I have heard you on many occasions

speak on wanting to bring the community together for healing.

Well, here is your opportunity.

Mr. Hayden.

Thank you.

For the third time.

Peter Castiglione.

Good evening.

I'm Peter Klayman.

I live at 407 Head Street in the city.

I'm here to talk tonight about pedestrian infrastructure in the city.

I am a pedestrian.

I love to walk around the city.

And it gets ever more disappointing when I cross at crosswalks that have huge divots or up

Difficult opportunities to cross for pedestrians.

I'm an able-bodied person, but I know there are many people in our city who are not, and some of these challenges are great.

We hear often about the discussions to make West Main Street more pedestrian friendly, to improve bicycle and pedestrian access, and these are all capital expenditures.

I would like to encourage council to do some kind of balancing between

capital expenditures and maintenance of existing pedestrian infrastructure.

It's one thing to spend $250,000 putting in new sidewalks but allowing those that are already in place to deteriorate and to become actually hazardous and I live just two or three blocks from here and I can take any route to down to City Hall and I can cross at a crosswalk that has

Missing bricks that mean there's about a three inch place you could stick your foot in as you're crossing the sidewalk.

Listen to the bricks rattle right in front of the city circuit courthouse or see the crumbling infrastructure in the crosswalk at High Street.

and Park.

And so there are many identifiable, easily identifiable places that require maintenance that has not been done.

So I would encourage as the city makes commitments, which I think are worthwhile, capital investment commitments to provide improved pedestrian access and pedestrian infrastructure to balance and perhaps prioritize

as I think would be necessary the maintenance of existing infrastructure.

Thank you.

So my name is Gus Helt, and I live at 210 6th Street Northwest.

I'm speaking on behalf of residents and friends of Starr Hill who would like to see the city ensure that development in this area

respect the historic heart of Charlottesville's African American community.

While one of the smallest neighborhoods in Charlottesville, Starr Hill, possesses an unusually high concentration of historically significant buildings straddling both sides of West Main and Commerce.

These include the Ebenezer and First Baptist churches, as well as the oldest African American funeral home in the city,

and the African American Heritage Center at the Jefferson School.

New businesses have also occupied a renovated auto shop complex between Commerce and West Main, illustrating how preservation and development can go hand in hand.

Just one block from the bustle of West Main, moreover, Starr Hill becomes a quiet residential neighborhood, many of whose houses were once occupied by historically prominent members of the African American community.

It is still home to families who have lived here for generations

even as new residents are drawn to its quiet charm.

This architectural and historical legacy is all the more precious given the city's demolition of the Vinegar Hill neighborhood just a few short yards away from us in the 1960s.

Starr Hill is thus all that remains to represent this vibrant community and provide concrete connections to its past for city residents of all generations, including high school students who visit the neighborhood on field trips.

New high impact development proposals, in addition to the recently completed Marriott Hotel, have the potential to alter this setting adversely and irrevocably by being out of scale and out of sync with their surroundings.

Making matters worse, the area is divided into two architectural design control districts, which hampers the Board of Architectural Review's ability to evaluate new developments vis-a-vis the entire neighborhood.

We believe it is in the best interest of the city to ensure that any future developments in this area maintain the current low-rise, pedestrian-friendly streetscape and harmonize with the style and scale of the neighboring buildings in order to ensure a legacy we can all be proud of.

Doing so would provide an opportunity to honor the city's African-American heritage while also contributing to the West Main corridor and Charlottesville as a whole, including the many citizens who now use the new city center in Jefferson School.

Those granted the exciting opportunity to develop in a historically significant and central area such as this should therefore be obliged to respect its complex past rather than obstruct, obscure, or overshadow it.

While Starr Hill may have its own particular characteristics, the larger question of how new buildings can mesh with and enhance their surroundings

Thank you.

Good evening.

I just want to say, Mr. Bellamy, I know you've been kind of bum-rushed here by some people, but I just want to say I respect you for what you've been doing lately with the human rights, you and Ms. Szakos, especially with the Lee Park controversy.

I really appreciate that.

So I'm here to talk today about the metered parking, the parking management implication plan that you guys have on the table tonight.

So I work at The Haven, I'm a proud employee there, and I'm used to the two hour song and dance with moving my car with the free parking space.

But I'm kind of concerned about this meter parking that you guys want to implement.

My understanding is that it's going to be two hours.

that, yeah, I believe it's two hours, or an hour for $2, I believe, they're proposing.

So that's $4,000 a year.

And I know that there's a push to have us employees go into the parking garages.

Well, that's about $135 a month, which for me, that's a student loan payment or a car payment or food or whatnot.

Now, I make a decent wage working at The Haven, but there are people

who work downtown that only make minimum wage, $8 an hour.

And that's a huge chunk out of their monthly bill to be able to survive.

So my concern is that for folks that don't make much money, how are they going to be able to park and work downtown?

Also, the garage, to my understanding, has a waiting list right now.

And I know there's a lot of us that work downtown, so I don't know how we're all going to fit in two garages.

But I was wondering maybe there's an alternative.

Maybe if you're an employee downtown you can get a discount for parking maybe half the price because it's going to add up.

And sometimes we stay later than eight hours.

And also I'm under the impression that there's going to be an app.

where you can punch in your credit card information.

Well, my concern is that if I'm with a client and a lot of my clients are in a crisis, so if I have a client who's, say, suicidal and my two hours is up, I can't really, you know, go, sorry, hold that thought because I've got to feed my meter.

It's bad enough trying to figure out how to schedule my appointments around the two hour space.

But my colleague Nancy Carpenter is here too.

She's going to talk a little bit about her concerns.

But I just wanted you guys to consider the concerns of us employees who work downtown and especially those who make way less than I do.

And every dollar will count towards whatever basic needs that need to be met.

I mean, our parking can be a huge toll on not just employees, but also people who want to come to the downtown mall and may not want to pay.

Thank you.

Oh, but instead I will just ask... Can you say your name and address?

Okay, sorry.

Antonia Loloardo, 233 4th Street, SW.

So I'm here to ask that the city think about designing a small area plan for Cherry Avenue as sort of a high priority.

So Cherry Avenue, it connects UVA and downtown, it's going to be affected by any changes in West Main, it's also going to be affected by the new hotel coming in at the corner of Ridge and Cherry.

And right now Cherry Avenue has these huge lots, a lot of empty space and zoning that really doesn't seem to fit with the city's comprehensive plan.

I'm not sure how this came about, but as far as we can tell the zoning doesn't fit at all with the comprehensive plan.

Hi.

Good evening.

My name is Nancy Carpenter, and I'm a renter in the Rose Hill neighborhood.

And I'm here tonight to comment a little bit on your parking implementation plan and how that's going to affect certain people that work in the downtown area.

Recent history demonstrates the vision that city councils have had towards higher density development in the city limits and also the policies that helped to implement that vision.

My question, well one of the things I found out historically, is that during Maurice Koch's time on the city council, he certainly advocated for robust bike and public transit options.

And also I think he could have cared less if people had personal vehicles to come downtown.

Some of you may recall that, some may not, but that was his vision.

Sadly to say, that infrastructure, you know, has not kept pace with the increased densities that we are seeing now.

and one of the questions I had to myself is what did the recent housing study and the parking analysis show?

It showed that a lot of people that work inside the city, whether they are city of Charlottesville employees, county government employees, or employees of local businesses live within 10 miles of the city limits.

So they also did that survey and they had 357 responses.

The consultant got back 357

We have a lot of work to be done.

if they were, in the report, it said, quote, convenient and compelling.

But what did the city decide to do but to take away or go with taking away one of the Route 7 buses?

How is that going to give someone a compelling reason to park and ride, to work?

The other

problem that I see that Nelson Nygaard did this study.

And I find that kind of funny because just a few years ago, and they're talking about alternatives to personal vehicles, Nelson Nygaard did the consultation study for public transit and at that time recommended cutting service.

So I find it funny that a few years ago their cutting service, now they're giving you alternatives

to use of personal vehicles to get downtown for work and or play, whatever you're doing.

The other thing I wanted to urge you is to not balance a parking fee on the backs of people who work downtown at city businesses or for local governments.

that do not receive a living wage.

Like my colleague Samantha Woods said, you're putting them in a position when you're talking about that kind of time to decide whether they're going to pay rent, put food on the table or go to work.

So please be mindful of that as you do your deliberations on your parking implementation plan this evening.

Thank you.

Good evening, thank you.

As I told you last time I don't usually win lotteries and I guess this time since there are only 12 of us it was a fait accompli.

In fact we, so I'm Brad Worrell from 213 6th Street and I'm here also to talk about the Starr Hill neighborhood.

and I spoke at the last meeting and Gus spoke earlier so many points have already been covered but I think it's worth mentioning that we as a neighborhood believe deeply that various sites available for development in Starr Hill should be treated as sensitive sites and developed with an eye towards capitalizing on the investments that have already been made in the African American Heritage Center

and leveraging the architecturally sensitive assets that are available in the Starr Hill neighborhood.

In order to mark the degree to which our concerns are shared, Gus and others in the neighborhood collected over 200 signatures in the three-day campaign from friends, residents, and visitors to the Starr Hill neighborhood.

Many, many people recognize and cherish Starr Hill as the last remnant of the historic heart of Charlottesville's African American community.

But Starr Hill is not particularly well represented in any of the city literature, and that is probably because we have not done a great job of advocating for ourselves.

Due to Starr Hill's historical and cultural importance and the opportunity available to honor its history, cultural and social context, we suggest that the Starr Hill section of West Main be considered in a way distinct from the rest of the West Main corridor.

Indeed, due to its central location on the corridor connecting UVA to downtown, development of the Starr Hill section of West Main will have a significant effect on the impression that both residents and visitors to our city have.

The decisions made in this regard will therefore become a long lasting comment on how we view our city as a whole and how we wish to be viewed by others.

We believe that the city should embrace development on this sensitive site that does us all proud in both respecting and renewing its rich history.

We believe that there is an obligation to create a legacy that honors our city's complex past and welcomes a vibrant future for Starr Hill and Charlottesville as a whole.

Thank you.

Eugene Snowden?

Okay, thank you all very much for sharing your thoughts and ideas with us.

For those that pertain directly to city staff concerns, Mr. Jones will respond back to them next time in our next meeting, and there were several of those.

The rest of you were really grateful that you took the time to show up and speak to us and share your concerns.

We've got many other emails and other direct concerns to all council.

It's also on video from the last council meeting, which is online, and it's one hour and two minutes.

members of the public also would like to thank everyone for coming out tonight in response to Mr. Hayden.

I'm looking forward to sitting down and chatting with you.

I know we've tried to do so on several different occasions.

You have my contact information once again, so I'm looking forward to sitting down and having a chat.

There has been a great deal of discussion in regards to the press conference and why there were only certain individuals allowed to speak.

I think it is important for us to let the public know that that press conference was called by members of the community who would like to have seen the statue removed.

If other individuals in the community would like to have their own press conference, they have every right and liberty to do so.

At that point in time, last Tuesday was not the case.

In addition to the comments to Mr. Schultz, your

Questions and concerns were indeed addressed last week and I think it is important for the young people who I'm sure watching tonight to understand, just as I often say to you, just because someone says something you do not like, you always conduct yourself in excellence.

Thank you.

He is not.

All right, we are moving on for the benefit of the rest of the public who's here for this meeting.

Consent Agenda.

Item A, minutes for March 21st.

Item D, B, appropriation from CATEC to the CATEC IT Networking Academy Project, $201,500, second of two readings.

Item C, an appropriation for the Edward Byron Memorial Justice Assistant Grant, $24,950, second of two readings.

Item D, an appropriation for the Community Mental Health and Wellness Coalition donation from Charlottesville Albemarle Community Foundation, $10,000, second of two readings.

Item E, an appropriation for the Department of Criminal Justice Fire and Special Fund Grant, $9,991, first of two readings.

Item F, an appropriation for the Housing Opportunities Made Equal, $40,000 program income, first of two readings.

Item G, an appropriation for the University of Virginia contribution to the reward and transfer from Citywide Reserve, $20,000, first of two readings.

I do have one question for staff about item H. The Light Hour Fiber Optics Network Telecommunications franchise includes undergrounding of fiber optic cable and it's at the hydraulic 29-250 area in which we have a plan funded by the 29 Solutions Project to do

to look at that area for future construction of the extension of hydraulic road and of, well, the road that goes in between Hillsdale Road.

Okay, this is the first of two readings.

Will we know by the second one?

Yes, ma'am.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Do you want to say anything more about that?

No, I don't need it to next.

This is the first of two meetings.

OK. All right, now.

OK. Duly noted.

Any other questions, comments?

OK. Did we have a second?

Second.

We have a second.

We have to vote on all these.

OK. All in favor?

Okay vote carries 5-0.

Now I just wanted, so we're also now in the third meeting for the public to understand where we were putting time allotments on each agenda item.

This is per the new procedures to try and tighten up our meeting some and move them.

So we have about the

We have about an hour and a half of formal discussion tonight on agenda items.

And then we'll take a break at 9 o'clock, and we can move to extend for more time.

But we're going to try to move through these pretty readily.

And we've got a lot on the agenda tonight, but we also have defined periods.

So just wanted everybody to know.

And those time allotments are on the agenda.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Leslie Bogart, one of our assistant city managers, is going to provide an update to you on where we are with the budget.

There will be a PowerPoint presentation.

Thank you and good evening But we're gonna do a quick presentation these are This is now to the point of City Council's proposed budget.

They've had several work sessions and now we're getting to the point where We're going to okay page, I'm sorry

Where we're going to talk about the budget amendments that have been made since city council started deliberating the budget about a month ago.

So I'm going to walk through those really quickly.

So this shows the beginning of fiscal year 17 manager's proposed budget at $161.8 million.

We've had several revenue amendments that we're bringing forward, some decreases

and taxes on wheels and deeds and the Virginia communication sales and use tax.

We do go back and periodically look at our revenues to make sure that the estimates are where they need to be and so we felt like we should bring these down.

Under designated revenue, we have two contracts, one for people transportation, another for school building maintenance.

This is directly related to an expenditure item which reduced the fuel cost which I'll talk about a little bit later in the presentation.

Under increase in revenues, we increased licenses and permits.

We looked again at the data behind these, and we were able to push these up slightly.

Under intergovernmental revenue, the state passed a budget.

We received a little bit more from the state compensation board, which pays for the constitutional officers, so we included that as well.

Under charges for services, City Council at this point has decided that they would like to go ahead and restore the Smith Aquatic and Fitness Center AM hours.

Staff also included putting the Washington Park Pool PM hours back and in addition raising the monthly access pass by a dollar, which helped generate the revenue.

The two revenue items next to the pools, the pool and the fitness center reflect the revenue that we would gain back because we had to reduce that back when we took the hours away, realizing that we might lose some revenue by doing that.

So those fully restore the hours at those two facilities on July 1st, keeping the hours the way they are right now, not changing them at all.

And then waste disposal fees, we also revised those upwards a tad based on some trend data that we'd seen.

and then at the work session on Thursday City Council expressed a desire to fund the Jefferson School Foundation and Big Brothers Big Sisters Young Lions Mentoring Program.

Both of those together are $40,000 and the use of their strategic initiatives funds to cover that cost so that would be considered carry over revenue.

That adjusted the revenue by $154,226 for a new total general fund budget of $162 million.

On the expense side, we did go back and look at our fuel costs.

We budgeted at a rate of $3.10.

We went back and felt comfortable with revising that rate to $2.50.

We don't know where fuel is going to be.

We already are paying more than we were last week.

were just a few days ago and so it's very volatile but we did feel comfortable taking it down to 250 so this is the savings you see in each division that utilizes the fuel at the city yard.

Overall we saved a couple hundred thousand dollars citywide by taking this approach.

The transfer to CAT is the same thing that basically reflects the fuel cost for the CAT system.

Here's the designated expenditures I was speaking of earlier.

This is, again, reflects the fuel costs.

The schools were able to save approximately $41,000 by us reducing that cost for them.

The next lines are outside of nonprofit agencies.

We made a slight adjustment to the Albemarle Regional Jail.

And this 237,000 number is the remaining funds that we've

we're able to identify from all these other adjustments that were made and on the seventh council will discuss these remaining funds.

This is in addition to the current pool of 237,000, it just happens to be the same number, it's totally a coincidence, of the current balance of the strategic initiatives funds after we took out the 40,000 for Jefferson School and the Big Brothers Big Sisters program.

Under Departmental, City Departments, these are the two items that restore the hours at Smith Aquatics Center and Fitness Center and the Washington Park Pool.

This is the expenditure side of that item.

And then there are several other adjustments made to non-profit and outside agencies that were made at the last work session.

This is also more outside agencies.

This restores the 5% cut in funding that agencies receiving a solid score.

Had we had instituted a 5% cut initially in the manager's proposed budget, this will be reinstated as part of the amendments.

So the total changes are $154,226 for a $162 million budget, which matches the revenues.

So that's the general fund side.

On the capital side, we've got a few amendments as well.

There's some projects that we cost share with Albemarle County that we know will not be happening in fiscal year 17.

So we had to remove that revenue and account for that, which we did with a little bit of extra bond revenue money.

Those are bonded projects.

and on the expenditure side we increased several projects including the affordable housing fund, we increased urban tree preservation and planning, we added some design work for the high school track and the field house and there's 169,720 remaining yet to be allocated by city council when we meet on Thursday at the work session.

In turn, parkland acquisition was reduced by 25,000 and parks plans implementation was reduced by 500.

250 of that is for the skate park.

The remainder is between the McIntire Park Master Plan and the Meadow Creek Valley Master Plan.

So overall, the CIP did not change.

It's still 20.4 million.

On the transit side, the only really important thing to note here is the revenue from Albemarle County to 73,000.

which pays for their share of the route that will go out to 5th Street Station which is the Wegmans route.

They included that in their budget after their budget was presented so we are now amending our budget to reflect that accordingly.

And then they also, here's the fuel savings as well and the expense side to the Wegmans route that they are now funding.

In addition, I mentioned the fuel cost savings.

Every department that uses a vehicle and fills up at the city yard achieve these savings.

And this is just a list of those other departments around other funds and what they saved.

So when we meet on April 7th, these are the list of issues that staff captured that city council will continue to discuss.

We have several city department issues, including the living wage, weeding, de-bagging, presidential election costs, the assistance of the city manager position, and a redevelopment specialist for the SIA.

For non-profit and outside agencies, council will continue to talk about the OIR Plan or Ready Kids and the new WABRT programs that rated solid.

and on the capital budget side, we have small area plans, the Terry Avenue corridor, Milling and Paving, the skate park, new sidewalk bicycle projects that are related to larger projects and Daughters Without Science Cemetery.

And if I missed anything, I'm sure we'll hear about that.

So that's the list we have, but it may not be exclusive right now.

So tonight is the second public hearing on the budget.

It's also the first reading of the budget.

On April 7th, I mentioned before, we have a work session from 5 to 7 p.m.

It starts at 5, not 4.30 like the other ones, and that'll be at City Space.

And that is our presentation.

Thank you very much.

Is it?

Excuse me, Ms. Borger, is this available on a website now?

Your presentation just now?

We'll put it up.

Thank you.

I just had a question about the Wegmans bus route funding, and I know that when we had to put that in the budget, we paid for it by eliminating a Route 7.

That was one way that we helped to balance the budget.

No, we haven't asked them to.

Was that?

Yes, it was.

It was on the slide.

No, no, no, it's fine.

And the Gulf Fund did as well.

CIP is $20.4 million and I think we're gonna sell $15 million of bonds, is that correct?

I think that's right.

Ballpark, okay.

No, that means that we're funding the CIP with about $5 million in cash.

Okay.

Alright.

If I can find my...

When we worked our way through this, one of the first things I noticed was there were three things and I asked for explanations.

I got an explanation.

I didn't understand them.

The first was $500,000 for a social something.

I think so.

And the second was

ABRT, the Agency Budget Review Team, which had a cut of about 170,000, that was about 9%, I believe.

Some of that has been put back.

I'm sorry, I was combining the two.

30 for Jefferson School and the 10 for Young Lions.

I believe that's all that's been put in right now, and the rest will be decided at the work session on Thursday.

Children's Services Act.

You're talking about the reduction of 175,000?

Right.

That's still a reduction.

Okay.

Alright, that's it.

Thanks.

For the public's knowledge, can you kind of go over what the layout will be at the meeting on Thursday?

So, at the meeting we will guide council to make your final decisions on the budget to get ready for your final reading on the 12th.

That usually doesn't take two hours.

We usually are able to wrap that up pretty

It's a reduction in need.

Correct.

Well, and the cases don't cost as much because we're doing the community wrap around services.

You're right.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, we're not cutting services.

And Mayor Signer, I have just a question, a clarification.

So we have about $237,000 in discretionary fund, council discretionary fund.

Yeah.

Remember last week you had a 288 plus a 277.

So after all the adjustments is now 237 and 237.

It's just totally a coincidence.

And that's what we have going into Thursday.

And one last question, Mr. Mayor and Mr. Bios.

We don't budget for bonuses.

No, I understand.

They're not in the budget document.

There's nothing budgeted for bonuses.

But for past years it would be an expense.

Bonuses are paid out of any sort of vacancy savings from salaries and benefits.

I think what Ms. Bogart was talking about was if a bonus is presented to the entire, all of our employees, which we've done in the past in lieu of pay increases, a COLA increase, we would have that under a bonus.

Right, I understand that part of it, but there was

This was not when everybody gets the bonus.

This was when specific people got bonuses.

For recognition, for instance.

Yeah, whatever.

And I did a search, a word search, in the PDF file for last year's budget.

You couldn't find bonuses anywhere.

You wouldn't find it in the budget.

I think we're having a mismatch between what appears in a budget and what appears in an agency's budget.

Sure.

So you're approving a plan of spending, but obviously during the year plans are altered and can change and things happen where different things are spent for different reasons at times.

Now, the way we appropriate the dollars, the departments are permitted to authorize funding.

They're authorized funding to spend in any way they choose, pretty much.

I mean, they're not, we don't allocate, we don't appropriate by line item, necessarily, at all, actually.

Now, if they, so during, so at the end of the year, they might have a zero, there's nothing that shows up, for instance, in a bonus line item, but if they provide a bonus to an employee for

recognition on some project they worked on, for instance, that will show up in an actual, as an actual.

So when you compare a budget to actuals, you might see something show up in that line item that wasn't budgeted and that's totally normal.

We don't necessarily, book departments don't have to stay in budget in line items, they just have to stay in budget in the total.

And is the actual a public document that's available?

Absolutely.

It's actually already on our website.

Any other questions?

Okay, so we're going to open a public hearing now on the

fiscal year 2017 budget.

We have four folks signed up right now.

But if anybody else wants to speak, just raise your hand after the four folks have spoken.

You may only sign up yourself.

Comments are limited to three minutes.

And again, it'll be with this device.

Bernadette Whitsitt-Hammond, 1440 Plymouth Road.

The Daughters of Zion Cemetery, located on the corner of Oak and First Street South, across from Oakwood Cemetery, was established in 1873 by members of the Daughters of Zion, a women's charitable organization supporting the needs of African Americans following Reconstruction.

One of their important efforts was to provide a place of dignified burial.

As such, the Daughters of Zion Cemetery is the final resting place of several Charlottesville African-American trailblazers who contributed to the growth and development of the city, and it is one of the few remaining testaments to those contributions.

Although the Daughters of Zion Cemetery remained an active burial ground until 1995,

there was no longer an organization available to maintain the land after 1933.

In the early 1970s, the city declared the city abandoned and assumed the responsibility for its upkeep.

Today, the cemetery is at risk of being degraded beyond repair.

Because of its threatened condition, the Daughters of Zion Cemetery was recently nominated for inclusion on Virginia's 2016

Most Endangered Historic Places List, a program administered by Preservation Virginia.

Of paramount concern is the need to repair grave markers and familiar surrounds.

Another significant apprehension is the possible loss of this historic cemetery to redevelopment in the area.

Members of the Preservers of the Daughters of Zion Cemetery, a group formed in 2015, are here this evening to bring the urgent restoration and preservation of this city-administered property to your attention.

We are committed to unifying the effort and guiding the care and improvement of this burial ground.

Efforts taken to date are outlined in your informational packets.

You can learn more about our organization from our Facebook page

Thank you.

And I'm Maxine Holland, 6705 Huckerberry Lane, Keswick, Virginia.

I am a member of the Preservers of the Daughters of Zion.

We want to extend a personal invitation to you and the members of the public to attend the rededication of the Daughters of Zion cemetery on

May 29th at 2 p.m. during which time a historic marker from the city will be unveiled and we will outline our vision to restore and preserve this important African American landmark.

We also appeal to the city to allocate funding for the cemetery's urgent reservation and preservation needs and establish a perpetual fund for the Daughters of Zion

Cemetery, similar to that established for the Oakwood and Mabelwood cemeteries.

OK. Well, we look forward to the opportunity to discuss our work and vision with you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you both.

Thank you.

Good evening, my name is Tanishka Cruz and I'm an attorney at the Legal Aid Justice Center.

I coordinate the center's immigrant youth project.

This project addresses the legal needs of child refugees and immigrant youth in our community.

This project was being considered for funding, but ultimately the funding was not approved.

Bessie and Carla are two children currently benefiting from this project and they're here tonight to bravely share their stories with you.

They speak Spanish, so I'll be interpreting, so bear with me.

Her name is Bessie.

I grew up in Honduras with her grandparents.

When she was one years old, her mother abandoned her.

They're often targeted

and raped, assaulted, harassed, and her grandfather's elderly and not in a position to protect her from that violence.

Carla?

OK. My name is Carla Tengo.

I'm 13 years old.

Her name is Carla.

OK. My mom, my mother, because I lived there,

In her country there's a lot of violence, a lot of drugs, gangs that target young women and she was living with her grandmother but her grandmother passed away as well so she was left with an elderly grandfather who was just not able to care for her.

When they were with their grandfather, there wasn't a support system for them.

There was no family that was in the position to care for them, so their father, who was here, sent for them, and now they're here, and they live with a stepmother that has filled that void for them of needing a mom, and they are very appreciative of that.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for coming.

Hi, my name is Susan Cruz with the Legal Aid Justice Center, and I just want to say thank you to the counselors for working so hard to understand and resolve the Legal Aid's budgetary request for restored funding.

It's nice to see it up on the big screen for now, at least.

Since this process began, you've heard from several of our clients about the quality of the services we provide.

We handle housing cases, education cases, public benefits, employments, and tonight you heard

from some people who have benefited from our newest project, our Central American Refugee Children's Project.

Whether or not you choose to fund this project, I know we haven't been pushing for it, but we want you to know that it exists and that it's a resource for this community.

It can be particularly critical for these children.

The stakes couldn't be higher.

Without legal aid, they will face deportation.

We know of at least five children who were deported and subsequently murdered in their home countries.

This is as high stakes as you can get in a legal case.

The bottom line is that the Legal Aid Justice Center provides critical services and we take cases like the cases of the young women you heard from tonight all the time, whether or not

We have specific funding for these projects.

If we see a need in our community, we rush to address it as quickly as we can.

Restoration of our legal-aids funding will allow us to continue to provide exceptional service to city residents.

And I sincerely hope that we can figure out a better process for next year so that we're not here again.

But it has been wonderful to be able to bring our cases to you and inform you more about our work.

Thank you.

Colette Hall.

Good evening, counselors.

Colette Hall, 101 Robertson Lane, and the city.

Over the past 25 years, I have spoken in front of 11 different mayors and many, many counselors.

I have heard every argument, pro and con, about the annual city budget, including my own.

One of the better things that has happened is the current ABRT process.

It is structured to follow an objective set of criteria.

Legal Aid, for example, wants to become a permanent line item in the general fund, even though the ABRT rated two of their programs weak and fair and therefore funding not recommended.

What non-profit does not want to become a permanent line item?

To whom do you say no to honor and to validate the process?

Your behavior disregards the process, so scrap ABRT and stop the charade.

My second point, why were in our past and present counselors so afraid of the school board, formally appointed and now elected?

The electorate value education.

I value education.

However, in the past 25 years, the school budget has ballooned, yet it has been frequently pointed out that this ballooning is a false padding of needs versus wants.

One of the real reasons that the overall city budget has ballooned is directly attributed to the school budget.

The school portion is now one third of the city budget.

It's one third.

The school budget wants a new track.

Not a cost of thousands of dollars, but hundreds of thousands.

Originally you said no.

Now yes, politics.

Abraham Lincoln said, you can't please all of the people all of the time.

Nevertheless, whom you should please are the resident taxpayers and businesses who keep the city vital.

These constituents are your bosses.

You work for us.

Unfortunately, when men and women are elected counselors, they seem to forget this.

I'm not only speaking of this council sitting in front of me, but of every council I've encountered while living here.

Indeed, some more fiscally restrained than others were.

Remember, the money you are spending is not yours.

Okay, those are all the folks that I have, so I'm going to close that public hearing.

Now moving on to...

We need a motion and a second.

So we need a motion and a second and we're going to go through each of the three.

Second.

Okay, so we need a motion to approve.

Is that a motion?

For the fiscal year of 2017?

Thank you.

That's fine.

There are no other presentations.

Oh, no votes, right.

So that was a motion about the proposed budget.

We have a second.

OK, great.

So we need a motion to maintain the annual tax levy.

And we have a second.

Second.

Okay.

And then we need a motion for an amendment to the city code for the transient occupancy lodging tax ordinance change, which is going from six to seven, 6% to 7%.

We have a motion.

Motion.

Does that affect and a second?

Second.

Second.

Okay.

Uh, well I should have,

I believe those are the public hearings for the utility right-of-way, the YMCA?

So I'm opening the public hearing on the tax rate.

Anybody interested in speaking?

Now closed.

And then opening the hearing on the lodging tax.

Anybody interested in speaking?

The hearing is closed.

OK.

So a little messy, but we've moved it.

OK.

Very good.

Moving on now to the next item on the agenda, which is the YMCA utility right-of-way agreement.

Lisa Robertson is presenting this.

Alright, so this is another item.

The YMCA building that's under construction is in need of a special type of electric service and in order to provide that Dominion needs to run a line all the way from city property over to across the school property to close to Grove Avenue.

So what you have in front of you is a proposed right of way agreement with Dominion for just the 500 feet of city property that the line would need to cross.

It will be an undergrounded line, although they will run it where it crosses the stream underneath the pedestrian bridge structure over to the school property.

Separately, the city, the school system would need to consider the proposed easement

Okay.

I read it a couple of days ago and I'm trying to remember.

Any members of the public want to speak to this?

Okay, I'm opening a public hearing.

Does anybody want to speak to sort of a chicken and egg problem?

Okay, nobody does, so I'm closing a public hearing.

Second?

Second.

Moving on to the next item on the agenda, public hearing ordinance on underground utility right of way agreement across city yard.

Dominion has also asked the city to approve a right of way agreement to allow for electric utilities across a corner of the city yard property.

There are currently some existing overhead lines in place.

We haven't been able to find any documentation

of an easement for that.

So the proposed easement that's in front of you would not only authorize the lines that are currently there, but would also grant an additional undergrounded easement to allow Dominion to upgrade electrical service to the King Lumber Building site.

and no matter how Dominion lays it out, it's an expensive undertaking for King Lumber.

And as noted in the staff materials, public works staff is concerned about the burden on city property.

However, at this time, unless and until there's a specific plan for development, we're not able to say specifically

that the proposed easement would necessarily interfere with city plans nor can we rule out that possibility.

Yes, I came with lots of questions today.

That is not clear to me.

It's my understanding that the proposed undergrounded lines will be new lines

and that the undergrounding of the lines that are there are not necessitated by the upgrade in service that needs to happen at the King Lumber site.

So the issue may be a matter of funding.

So King Lumber has to pay Dominion for whatever undergrounding or upgrades they need, but I'm not sure that at the present time

Sure.

Quick question on the location of this.

Correct.

So on the document that's titled Platt to a Company Right-of-Way Agreement, the dotted lines show the outline of the underground easement.

If you are turning into the city yard site, the crossings is on your right and the underground easement will start a little bit further back into the city yard site.

Any other questions?

OK, open a public hearing on this matter.

You can just come up one at a time.

Good evening.

I'm Mark Green.

Good evening.

I'm a developer of the King Lumber Project.

I live at 1208 Preston Avenue in the city.

Maps here.

I'm just here to give you a brief explanation of why Dominion has asked for this easement, answer any questions you have, and ask for your support of it.

You would think that right in the middle of the city it might be easy to get power, but we've been working at this for eight months and have had no luck.

We've been down multiple roads with Dominion that have all ended in dead ends.

We need the power to complete the historic renovations of the building that's almost done.

and just service the buildings that are there.

We do have additional phases planned.

It's not a very highly improved site, so there's the opportunity to do some mixed use development there in the future, which we're planning to do once we have completed our renovation to the historic property.

Don't have enough power for what's there today, don't have enough power for anything in the future.

Reid's Market has been very neighborly with us and has given us a lot of help and encouragement as well as granted us some easements to accomplish this.

I just wanted to point out, you were asking, Councillor Fenwick, about where this is located.

So if you see on this map here, it's just this very odd little corner of the city yards over behind the crossings.

The crossings is the building there that's labeled 401.

There's about six or eight parking spaces in that little corner right now.

This wouldn't affect any of that.

It's underneath existing overhead lines.

Staff did point out that you couldn't build a building on it in the future and that's true.

I don't think you could build a building on it today because of the overhead lines that are there.

I think that them putting it underground would give the opportunity in the future to see the REACH market power and perhaps Brown's cleaners go underground at some time.

if those sites were redeveloped.

And there was a comment in the staff report about this potentially supporting the economic sustainability mission of the city and the council and we think that by redeveloping the site we're helping to do that and by granting this disease you'd be helping us do that also.

Any questions?

Okay.

Anyone else want to speak to this?

Okay.

I'll close the public hearing.

We're ready.

Second.

Second.

Any discussion?

Questions?

All in favor?

Mr. Mayor, this was the first.

This was the first.

We just had a second.

On the first readings, we just do a second on the motion.

Okay, great.

Okay, very good.

We're moving on to the

Okay, we'll take a five minute break right now.

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Fifeville

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There are four cookies left.

We timed it almost just right.

Good evening again.

So, some of you will remember last fall we had a work session, council had a work session to hear the results of a parking study that was conducted by Nelson Nygaard last, about this time last year is when it got started.

And so I'm going to refresh and remind folks about that and bring you up to speed on the implementation plan which is the second phase of that plan.

So about this time last year a utilization study was done by Nelson Nygaard where they actually counted cars in places for a week and gathered information about parking around the corner and around the downtown area.

As an aside, Nelson Nygaard, the same consultant, did a study on West Main Street as part of the West Main Street study that was specific to that stretch of road.

So now we have a comprehensive look within the last year and a half of all the critical areas where parking is critical.

So some of the key takeaways from the 2015 study include an increase in the overall occupancy of public spaces from 63 percent

in 2008, which was the last time the city officially had a study done, to 74% in 2015.

So that's an increase in people looking for spaces and people using spaces, a considerable increase over that period of time.

Just the on-street spaces by themselves are now 86% occupancy.

which is very little vacancy which means when you go down a block face you don't see an opening and you get distracted or disturbed and you maybe don't stop and you go somewhere else.

So we're at that kind of critical point where the consultants will say at this point you really need to better manage your resources and I think we were probably likely there in the city of Charlottesville at the moment.

Also as part of the process last year, there was a considerable stakeholder engagement.

There was two phases to that.

There was surveys that were done, general public surveys.

Almost 700 of those were completed.

Employers also completed over 350 surveys.

Business owners had their own survey.

Over 50 business owners completed as well.

There were focus groups that were made up of residents, business owners,

office employees and then a separate one on large employers in the area that had specific needs that we wanted to gauge.

So a series of public outreach opportunities occurred as part of the original study that was done last year.

Some of the key takeaways, availability of spaces seems to be most important to the general public.

By a two to one margin, people prefer to pay a fee versus a fine.

47% would pay a dollar or more per hour, 32% would pay 50 cents per hour or would prefer to pay 50 cents per hour.

So just a couple of highlights from the study last year.

This was presented, as I mentioned, in October to the council and there was general support in two areas, one to move forward with the overall recommendations

of the analysis and then specifically to prepare an implementation plan for a pilot on-street metering system or program.

So, fast-forwarding from October of last year, our consultant worked on that with us and towards the beginning of March completed that and that is in your hands and is posted online on the city's website as well as the 2015 study for folks to look at.

I'm going to move forward into what that looks like at the moment.

And we are fortunate tonight to have Ian Banks here from Nelson Nygaard.

He's been part of the study team from the beginning, was part of the West Main Street study, and is actually the reason that he was in town today.

There was an internal meeting with city staff on that project.

So he was gracious enough to stay along to help answer any specific questions that you might have of him while he's here.

In a nutshell, the pilot is a 15 block area surrounding the pedestrian mall.

It's 157 parking spaces, not all of which would actually have a meter because some of them are loading, some of them are ADA spaces.

But 157, so to give you some kind of perspective, it's not a gigantic area.

It's an area that is roughly bounded by Second Street on the west, Sixth Street on the east, Market Street on the north, and South Street on the south.

and completely surrounding what you would consider the commercial core of the city.

So that's the geographic area that is recommended.

The preliminary pricing is recommended at $2 per hour, payable in 15 minute increments.

And they do recommend a 30 minute grace period for the first 30 minutes for quick type convenience needs.

And they recommend that the meters be in operation from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

And that's a bit of a change.

of course we don't have meters at all right now but our parking enforcement as it stands now

is really a weekday activity and does not extend until 8 p.m.

So that would be a slight change.

They recommend a six-month trial period that would include a warmer month and a colder month.

The equipment, depending on which type of equipment you get, tends to react differently in different seasons and different areas.

A lot of these things are wireless or solar-based, so these are things that you work out during a six-month pilot period or trial period.

Of course, they're recommending smart single-space or multi-space meters and smart meters accommodate credit card transactions, mobile payment options.

As I mentioned, they're often solar powered, so you're not running lots of power or infrastructure to the actual meter.

They can still take coins, so that's typically an option all within the same unit.

They also do have some feedback mechanisms that can tell you about occupancy of the spaces.

without actually having somebody go by and do that physical count that I referenced before.

They also recommend focused enforcement area across the entire pilot area and the continuation of the courtesy ticket for the first time violators.

That's a policy the city has in place now and they would not recommend changing that during the pilot.

and there would certainly be significant kind of public information and education with respect to how to interact with meters, what they look like, how they work, but thinking that that courtesy ticket would still be a good thing to have in place.

So in a nutshell, that's what the pilot area looks like and how it would potentially operate as proposed.

They've also recommended that we proceed with an RFP that would request a no-cost pilot

and this is apparently commonplace in the parking world now where a vendor will allow their equipment to be used for no cost for a period of time in the chance that they will ultimately get the business to provide the equipment to a municipality in the long term.

It doesn't mean it's a no cost to the city, it means we would request a no cost through a proposal and there may be some costs that are provided in kind by the city such as

putting holes in the sidewalks or putting the posts in on behalf that the meters sit on.

So I don't want to present it as absolutely a no-cost, but the way that it would be positioned would be to request proposals from vendor manufacturers that would be interested in doing this.

And as I mentioned, this is commonplace, and a number of municipalities are taking this approach as they're getting into this.

So that's the general recommendation with respect to how to proceed with an RFP.

You know, I would suggest that while it's turned to pilot, a firm commitment from the city, from the council would be appropriate.

There's a fair amount of work that goes into punching holes in sidewalks.

The purpose of the pilot is to test the equipment to see if it works, to make sure the back office operations work, the signage is appropriate.

It's not to see if people like meters or don't like meters because I'll just tell you right now, people generally don't like meters.

I think that's the general reaction that the average citizen would have is that this is something I'm currently not paying for but now you're asking me to pay for it.

I think the results, and I'll ask our consultant to speak to this perhaps, but cities that have implemented these systems have found that people in the long run do benefit from them, particularly the businesses, the retail businesses, entertainment folks that are coming downtown, in a destination oriented downtown like ours, tend to believe that they are in their best interest.

You all are probably familiar with the term the two hour shuffle and that has been happening in Charlottesville and continues to happen in Charlottesville when parking is free folks will use it for those purposes and really the highest and best use of your parking that is close to your commercial core is not for an eight hour stay.

So, in addition to the RFP, there's a series of recommendations that were made by the consultant.

One of them is to actually create a function within the city government that has parking in its name.

Mr. Engle, I just want to keep an eye on the time here.

So to actually create a parking function, and that means a city staff person, most likely.

It could be a consultant engagement, it could be something that we outsource, but it would most likely be an internal person to the city that would have the oversight of parking on street, off street, whatever future parking arrangements we would get into, whether they be shared agreements with developers.

to add to capacity, what have you.

So establishing that position, establishing a parking enterprise fund, which is simply a mechanism to account for revenues and expenditures.

We have a series of enterprise funds throughout the city and it is recommended that we go ahead and go through the brain damage to make that happen so that we have everything kind of

coming into the same place and going out from the same place.

So we can track that a little more easily.

The final recommendation that's included in the resolution that's prepared for you deals with capacity, which we also recognize as an issue in that additional capacity, whether it's a new city municipal garage or some kind of partnership with the development community.

is likely going to be needed at some point.

Many municipalities have adopted what's called PPEA, and that stands for Public Private Education Infrastructure Act, and it was an act of the General Assembly in 2002.

It essentially allows the private sector, private development to either present unsolicited or solicited responses to a public body's needs, and that can be for a school, it can be for a parking garage, it can be for a swimming pool.

By the title of the the act you can you can tell that education was certainly significant But infrastructure is also there.

It's been used for a number of different things throughout the state Several municipalities including our neighbors in Fredericksburg have used it for the purpose of a parking garage So we do not have guidelines in place currently that allow Somebody to come to us and say I'd like to present you this project for your consideration

As I mentioned, about three quarters of the municipalities in the state do have those guidelines.

Part of this resolution would suggest that we move towards getting that in place so that we can receive those responses should we wish.

Simply having the guidelines does not obligate the city to respond or accept anything that would be presented.

So there's no obligation there.

It's just a procurement tool that allows things to move a little more quickly with the assistance of the private sector.

I think I've covered the basics there.

So the resolution that you have for your consideration has those four key components moving forward with the RFP, working to set up the necessary resources, setting up the Parking Enterprise Fund,

and moving to put the PPEA ordinance in place.

Mr. Banks, are we going to have, how are you all, did you have anything you wanted to say, I mean this is the presentation period but we'll do questions with both of you all?

Thank you Maverick.

I have a couple of questions.

So in regards to revenue, is there a projection in regards to how much this may potentially make for the city and is there a specific need in regards to us generating this revenue?

Well, I should say that there were some basic projections looking at the pilot area of the 157 spaces that's included in the report.

What's not included with that, that's just the revenue, that's not really the expenses of

what you would typically associate with that to do the enforcement and pay for the equipment and all.

It's just if somebody parked at the meter at the average occupancy rate, what do we generate in a year?

So we do have that.

There's not a specific need other than, and Ian can support this if he likes, but

The reason to do meters is not as a revenue generating source for the city.

It's as a management tool to encourage people to make better decisions about when and where they park.

Having said that, it should be revenue neutral to the city.

It shouldn't cost the city a huge amount of money to put these meters in place.

The meters will pay for themselves over time.

There will be an initial upfront investment.

I think it's important for the public to be cognizant and understand that.

I had another question, if we were, I know the suggested amount was two dollars, if we were to look at a modifier rate of a dollar an hour or for whatever extenuating circumstance, we've heard in public comment tonight individuals who may not be able to afford paying a dollar an hour

Would we be able to provide passes or sponsorships or scholarships or is there any modification?

I think I'll ask Ian to address because he was part of the team that put together the initial thoughts behind the rate.

Okay.

Would you mind if I add a couple details to the same question, which is if you could

I want to just affiliate myself with that question and also ask, in the stakeholder survey it said that 30% of people would have supported a dollar and then it went up to another 50%, had a 15% and then $2 was 12% or something like that.

So if you could help us defend why this would be

The premise of the off-street garage is obviously it's for longer stays.

Perhaps people who are working downtown are going to be down there for a much longer period of time, greater than the two hours that the on-street spaces would provide you.

So in terms of a pricing tool, typically you want to price your on-street parking at or higher than the off-street garages.

And so people on a per hour basis

And so it encourages those people who are going to stay longer than two hours to park in the garage or an off-street facility because it works out cheaper in the long term.

So if you were going to park for four hours on street it's going to cost you $8.

If you're going to park in the garage, perhaps it will cost you $6.

and so that's really where we started and that's really an industry practice.

Obviously the Water Street garage is currently $2 an hour, the Market Street garage is $2.50 an hour.

So our initial starting level and

and again it's up for discussion like we are now or as we go further into the process is that the on-street spaces would be two dollars an hour with the potential for perhaps we now have either reduced cost of parking in the garages or we have like you said there's basically passes for downtown employees to park in the garage for their eight hour shift or whatever that may be at a reduced cost

and that's typically seen around the nation.

Go ahead.

Well first, Ms. Robertson, process, I guess, question.

Why is this a resolution and not an ordinance?

So you're using a resolution because you're just sort of authorizing staff to do some things, to develop a plan, to set up some things.

And it's sort of a resolution.

It's a written form of emotion.

The ordinance that would need to come back to you, as Chris pointed out, is an ordinance to adopt the guidelines for the Public Private Education Act projects.

Potentially, so one of the items is to issue an RFP

to implement an on-street metering program.

Chris has indicated that that may be a no-cost program, but we don't know at this time.

So the first step is to issue the RFP and then see what type of agreement comes out of that.

The startup resources for the parking strategy can be various things.

But for this process, this discussion tonight, we are talking about money.

No?

Then you're comfortable with the resolution part of it?

Yes.

Sure.

And we had a couple of speakers at the beginning of the meeting talking about low wage workers.

And I know technically we have two hour parking downtown, which was specifically not for people to park in all day.

And having once worked downtown, I know I participated in the two hour shuffle and that was not its intent.

It was really designed so that people who come downtown for a particular period of time would be able to find parking.

And it has not worked well.

that way.

And I think that's why we're looking at this.

And we really do need to provide incentives for people to park somewhere else if they're going to stay for longer.

So in the report that was linked to this agenda item, it talks about remote parking for employees should be developed and encouraged.

And you could also provide employees with either free or low cost all day parking.

And I'm just, this is probably a question more for

Chris, if we're looking at a pilot period during which people can't park, it feels like we need to kind of build that in now rather than later or else we'll just crowd out the free parking with two-hour shufflers.

So I'm just trying to figure out how we can make sure as a council, if it's our collective will to do so, that we either come up with some lots that are on the shuttle line or

Yeah I mean I wish I had a ready solution.

We've explored a couple of things including looking at

Charlottesville Area Transit adjusting the trolley route to incorporate potentially an empty lot that people could park at, but the city generally doesn't own those lots that we've talked to.

So there's not an easy ready solution unfortunately.

We've had conversations about it.

It would cost some money to reroute the trolley.

It would cost some money to lease the lot from the individual.

So they could happen, and if you all aren't comfortable moving this forward without that happening, we could spend more time on that.

I would suggest that the area at the commercial core, you know, it's a pretty tight area, so there are, and I don't remember the exact number, but within a walking distance,

There are still a large number, several hundred free spaces, Monticello and Garrett.

294.

So those aren't going away, those aren't intended to go away immediately.

I am very supportive of this and I think that we, you know,

we need to be able to manage our parking in a way that I think when we talk about fiscal responsibility we're certainly it's a lot cheaper to manage what we have than to you know create more and parking is really expensive and so we want to make sure we're getting the best use out of what we have but I would hope that maybe as a council that we can if we do approve this tonight this resolution that perhaps we could think about adding a fourth to vigorously explore options so that

that those sort of employee parking could be made available during the pilot.

Mayor Signer, I have a question, and it's related to the same issue pretty much, although I want to get a clarification on the issue about the monthly parking permit passes.

The monthly parking permits.

Well, what you saw in the 2015 study was a one-week snapshot and

You know, it's possible that was an odd week and not quite everybody or enough people weren't there to make it look like it wasn't.

It was at 50%, but it is certainly on a weekday, which is when the peak is Monday through Friday.

So again, the Water Street Garage, according to the study, was at 60% capacity.

This is independent of the

monthly permits.

Okay.

And the Market Street was always around 80 percent.

Okay, so I am going to be very much in favor of adding language to this resolution to make sure that we exhaust all possibilities to find affordable ways for our employees to park downtown.

especially, or not park downtown, but find some place for them to park, either remotely and to get them back into downtown where they can work.

Especially, it looks like when I looked at the survey, close to something like 16% of the commuters that come into town are non-professional service workers.

Can we look at, or maybe you already have, at churches?

Because churches tend not to be really busy during the nine to five week day time.

We can certainly look at it.

We've not had any of those just kind of pop up yet.

And they're not on the trolley line, the ones I'm thinking of.

But we could, yes, we can direct staff to prepare, if not the full strategy, at least the components of the strategies along with this.

Yeah, one more, one and a half actually.

What kind of public outreach or notification did you all do for this meeting tonight with the community?

For the council meeting?

Yes, for this discussion we're having.

No, it was noticed just the way any other agenda on the council meeting would be.

Mr. Mayor?

I wanted to make sure that we had a motion teed up, because we have only a minute and a half left in our period.

In a way,

because I did call Chamber of Commerce and ask them if they knew this was coming and they didn't.

So let me read part of the email and this would be about two or three sentences.

A public official addressed parking at the end of a long meeting earlier this year.

Mr. Hulbert asked for a brief discussion about overall parking issues in the city.

He remarked that at the last EGAC, I don't know what that stands for, meeting, there is agreement that without additional capacity, parking matters cannot be resolved.

The city official opined that the Charlottesville Parking Center model was a terrible model and further offered his view that a city parking authority would be preferable.

Several committee members disagreed.

Outside of this, several members have expressed their general opposition to metering.

and they say our EGAC and Chamber Board have not expressed a consensus view at this time.

I would like to make a motion that we adopt a resolution for a parking management implementation plan

It doesn't even have to be amended.

So I would say include all the four points, but also add that staff will plan and implement a public process to provide information about the proposed pilot on-street metering program and

and also develop a strategy to accommodate downtown employee parking.

I will entertain any friendly amendments to those two items.

First of all, I'd like to have a time frame in regards to 30 days, 45 days in regards to us getting that information back.

And I would also like to ask that we

to guide staff to look at a more cost effective, or excuse me, more cost considerate method, specifically if this isn't to gain additional revenue.

So if we could, I really would like to see the meters be one dollar an hour.

Well, I think that we could have a little bit, I think I would allow a little bit of discussion about that before you make a decision about whether to accept it as a friendly amendment.

I'm just wondering, does it need to be an amendment at all, or can it just be sort of

I mean, if there were a vote, or if Ms. Galvin wanted that, wanted there to be a limit to a dollar an hour, for instance.

I will say that, Mr. Bellamy, that this was something that I was very interested in and concerned about, and since I've heard the question, the answers here, and done a little more close look at the

how narrow the pilot project area is and the competition and the reasoning.

I'm not enthusiastic about the $2, but I see the reasoning for it, so I'm comfortable with supporting it in terms of the other sport that there would be here for, lowering it to a dollar.

I would be sympathetic to further exploring the option of a dollar, but again the goal is to make sure that we are getting the

The change in use of the street, the street cannot continue to be the site for long range parking.

Should we ask these gentlemen that question about whether if we did set the rate to a dollar instead because some of us were

I think to a certain extent it's a two-fold answer.

One, I think you will get some change in usage because there would be people that say well I'm not going to park there because it's not free and so

Why do I want to move my car every two hours if I'm still going to pay?

I may as well park in the garage and not have to move it.

There's also the enforcement management of this issue that currently enforcement is relatively lax.

It's not particularly robust.

As part of this plan, we would envision that enforcement would be probably a bit more robust.

And so people who do continue to feed the meat to pass that two hours

may be more likely to get a ticket than they currently are.

Right.

So in regards to enforcement, I think that is to a certain degree the caveat that we'll be able to kind of help guide this in regards to the price point.

So if it is indeed a dollar, I think you made a point earlier that stated people prefer to pay meters over fines.

So I think that point is very well taken.

But furthermore, while looking at the price, if it's only a dollar or even a dollar twenty five an hour,

If we were to then provide some kind of amended price for workers and people of that nature in the garage, I think it would also help.

But I think a combination of those things have to be thoroughly explained and written out.

before we move forward.

I think that directive also needs to be clearly defined before we move forward because if we don't provide that guidance that there is a certain price point that we're looking at and or in regards to making sure that kind of I'm not gonna say our most vulnerable citizens but the individuals who may not be able to afford being there

I'm going to ask for a motion for more time on this.

I'll make a motion for 10 more minutes.

Second?

Second.

One concern I would have, and maybe you can address this as well, is I think that

I'm not quite sure I heard the answer in the question would it still, would it be as effective as a pilot at one as two, so I'd still like to hear that answer.

To answer the last portion first, that's something we need to look into in terms of the economic and fiscal impacts of the various different options.

In terms of change in use, would you get as much change in use at $1 per hour compared to $2?

I think the short answer is no.

But so what I'm hearing from you now in this response is that this isn't an outrageous idea.

It doesn't completely capsize the project.

Like I was looking, we were looking at the budget of it and talking about this before and it looked as if it would

No, I mean obviously, and Chris can answer this too, but in terms of the potential fiscal impact by having a dollar per hour, does that mean you can't have as many enforcement officers or the same amount of time of enforcement officers throughout the day?

I would add just one item that the equipment, the technology doesn't require.

You can change the rates.

on a dime, so to speak.

So you don't have to decide that tonight.

There's a fair amount of process that would happen to get to a vendor selection.

Part of the resolution puts together an internal team that would include somebody from Enforcement, somebody from NDS, somebody from our office, and some others that would make a selection.

I'd like to suggest that we

not exactly table but task staff with looking further into that rather than making a decision tonight.

But I'd just also like to say that I believe, depending on what you all come back with if we do that, that what we're looking at ultimately beyond the pilot, if we go ahead with this, is to have tiered levels so that the closest in parking is the most expensive, the next layer out is maybe a little less, the next layer out is less, and then there's free.

And so

what we would ultimately possibly be looking at is maybe $2 in the inner core, then $1, then $50, whatever it is going out.

And so if we do a pilot at $2 for the inner core, the next level is free.

So it's actually not particularly, I mean, it's a tiny area that is paid.

And I think that when we're talking about the burden on people, I don't think that we're actually, during the pilot, providing much of a burden because the whole rest of the city is still free.

For the sake of trying to gather this debate, it sounds to me like one question for us to decide is just whether we want to go forward as staff has advised us with this irrespective of how much the pricing is set at.

So maybe may I offer a slight revision of my earlier memo?

amendment or motion.

And I would look at the first item, which is assemble that first item number one.

So it seems like we're adding different elements now.

So under item one, assemble an internal action team of key staff to a plan and implement a public process to provide information about the proposed pilot on street metering program.

B,

develop a strategy to accommodate downtown employee parking, C, investigate the pros and cons of different tiers of parking price per hour, including $1 and $2 per hour, and then B, begin the process of implementing a pilot on-street metering program and generally recommended by the city's consultant, as generally recommended by the city's consultant.

So I just embedded three conditions in your first

Do we have, Ms. Rice, do we have this, or is this recorded accurately?

Does everybody have any questions?

That's right.

Which will be for a resolution, which directs staff to do these.

Thanks.

Okay, so do we have a second on that motion?

Okay, any discussion or questions on that motion?

OK, all in favor?

Thank you.

Thank you for your hard work on this.

Thank you.