City Council Meeting   4/18/2016

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I'm

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Fifeville

Music playing.

Everyone, it's great to see so many people here to discuss our customer service system RFP report.

I'm just, I'm teasing.

All right, can we, let's all do the Pledge of Allegiance.

Before we do that, I just want to tell everybody, Mr. Fenwick, our fifth colleague, has an illness right now, so he's not able to be here for the meeting, but we still have quorum, we still have four votes, so we just found that out just a couple hours ago.

We begin the meetings with awards and recognitions and announcements.

So we're going to begin with Ms. Galvin.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I'm very happy to make this announcement and it's with regards to Mr. Tom Frederick, who is still our Acting Director, Executive Director of the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority and the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority.

So it is with deep appreciation and gratitude that the Charlottesville City Council would like to honor and recognize Mr. Tom Frederick for his 12 years of outstanding service as Executive Director of the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority and the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority.

We owe Mr. Frederick a lot, not the least of which is an abundant, safe water supply.

Charlottesville is a better place to live thanks to Mr. Frederick's tireless dedication to the community.

During his tenure at Rivanna, Mr. Frederick successfully led the development of a long-range water supply plan to secure this community's water supply future while incorporating future environmental protection for our rivers and streams and the entire watershed upon which we depend.

He has also worked to improve our community's drinking water quality, modernization of our wastewater treatment system, and implementation of an effective corrective action plan for the closed ivy landfill.

Mr. Frederick's successes were the result of his ability to meet and exceed the highest professional standards, his unquestioned integrity, and in his human ability to respect all points of view among the citizenry and government officials.

Thank you, Mr. Frederick, for your remarkable service.

We wish you the very best in your endeavors.

Would you please come down?

Thank you for the very kind words.

Several years ago

Mike Gaffney told me that he wanted the Rivanna water and sewer thought he'd be the best.

And so if you want to be the best, you go benchmark against who you think is the best.

So I benchmarked Rivanna against Louden Water, having no idea they would once offer me a job.

I'm very blessed.

I'm very fortunate.

It would take us terrific opportunity to pry me away from Charlottesville.

But I have been blessed with that opportunity.

But not before a lot of good memories, a lot of warm people, a lot of experience, knowledge.

I've learned patience like you wouldn't believe in Charlottesville.

I'm very proud of the things we've accomplished.

I don't really need to repeat them because I think Kathy said them very well.

But I do look back with great pride at what we've accomplished together and the relationships that have been built.

And I do hope this is not farewell, but this is the next opportunity.

Rivanna has been called by someone, I remember this phrase, been called a 50-50 cooperative.

And if you know what a co-op is with two partners, it works very well when the two partners get along, but not so well when the two partners disagree.

And that's kind of the challenges that we face and the challenges that we work at times to overcome.

I'm very grateful to see the recent efforts by our mayor to improve relations with Albemarle County and make a sincere effort, and I want to

I wish you the very best in making that happen because that's what's going to be the best for the citizens of this community.

I want to thank Mike Gaffney.

He was the broker in many situations where without his leadership and guidance I could not have done what we've accomplished and I owe a lot to Mike for his service as well.

Again, I wish you well, good health,

and Environmental Sustainability.

That's what we represent.

I'd also like to tell everybody before we keep on going down, we have set up an overflow room for folks who might be more comfortable sitting in the Neighbor Development Services Conference, which is just right down the hall here with a TV and a live feed.

So if you'd like to even take a break and go sit over there, we do have that capacity that we've set up.

All right, I have two.

The first is very short.

The staff will be holding the next public meeting for the Ragged Mountain on April 27th at 6 p.m. at Trinity Presbyterian Church on Fontaine Avenue.

This replaces the April 14th meeting that was previously scheduled and I assume canceled.

This is if you want to give information about how you think that the trails and the bike trails and the rules should work up at Ragged Mountain.

Again, that's on April 27th at 6pm at Trinity Church on Fontaine.

And my second announcement, I believe there are some of these down here on the table if you want one.

Remembering Drury Brown, Community Bridge Builder.

The City of Charlottesville is reviving the Community Bridge Builder Award after a 10-year hiatus.

Join us on April 25th at 630 at Carver Recreation Center to remember the namesake of the West Main Street Bridge, Jewelry Brown.

Mr. Brown, one of the founding members of the Monticello Area Community Action Agency, MACA, is remembered especially for his commitment to the cause of equal opportunity for low-income citizens of all backgrounds and their right to decent jobs.

It is in his spirit that the city honors those who work to reduce barriers and build bridges across differences to make a better community in Charlottesville.

We will also talk about the nomination process for the 2016 Community Bridge Builder Award.

I have two to read.

The first one is a reminder that the City of Charlottesville is once again joining other cities around the country in asking our residents to take place in the National Weiland Mayors Challenge for water conservation.

This is in all caps.

There is still time

people.

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 of Charlottesville 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 to this year, you will receive water conservation tips as well as be entered to win various eco-friendly prizes, including a Toyota Prius.

I want us to do better than ever.

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

A second proclamation is for Arbor Day.

Whereas Arbor Day, first established in 1872, is a special day observed for the nation and the world, set aside for the planting of trees, and was first observed with the planting of more than a million trees in Nebraska, and whereas trees can reduce the erosion,

Of topsoil by wind and water, cut heating and cooling costs, moderate the temperature, clean the air, produce life-giving oxygen, and provide habitat for wildlife.

And whereas trees are a renewable resource, beautify our community, increase property values, enhance the economic vitality of business areas, and beautify

whereas trees, wherever they are planted, are a source of joy and spiritual renewal.

Now, therefore, I, Michael Signer, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, do hereby proclaim April 29, 2016 as Arbor Day in the City of Charlottesville and urge all citizens to celebrate Arbor Day and support efforts to protect our trees and woodlands.

And further, I urge all citizens to plant trees to gladden the heart and promote the well-being of this and future generations.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

That's how I like to think about it.

Before we get started, I'd like for us to all have a moment of silence for Charlottesville educator, Mr. T. Lewis, who is a pillar of the community.

Before I ask for the moment of silence, I would like to read something very briefly about his life and all of the great things he's done for our city.

For those who don't know, Wilbert Thomas Lewis Jr., affectionately was known as Mr. T. Lewis, the loving husband of Joyce Turner Lewis, peacefully departed the earthly life on Wednesday, April 6, 2016, in the presence of his devoted and adoring family.

Born on November 4, 1935, we share the same birthday, in Lynchburg, Virginia, he was the only son of two children born to the late

Wilbert Sr. and Nanny Jackson Lewis.

For those who do not know Mr. T. Lewis, he was a believer in and pursuer of an advocate of education upon graduation from Lynchburg's Dunbar High School in 1953.

He earned a BA degree in chemistry with a minor in math from Virginia Union University.

And it was in 1960 that he began his extensive 43 years in education.

First is a 6th grade teacher at Lynchburg's Carl B. Hutcherson Elementary School and then he was at Dunbar High School but affectionately most of us know him from being here at CHS at Charlottesville High School serving as the assistant principal as well as the principal.

Now Mr. Lewis, he was the principal of CHS from 1989 to 1994 and then after leaving CHS he returned

to the central office serving as assistant superintendent for personnel for Charlottesville City Schools until his retirement in 2003.

Throughout the course of his life, T. Lewis often received while demonstrating his belief in the Emily Dickinson quote, behavior is what a man

does not what he thinks, feels, or believes.

And he walked this talk during his far reached labors of community service throughout Virginia.

He taught several classes to adults in the community, enabling them to pass high school equivalency examinations.

He served on several boards, the YMCA, Legal Aid, Voluntary Youth Borough, and he was a Selective Service System board.

He's done tons of different things.

He's served in several different capacities, but I think what most of us know him for was being a valued educator within this community.

So if we could, let's take a short moment of silence for Mr. T. Lewis, please.

Thank you.

With that being said, on a happier note, we have two different, one announcement and one proclamation.

Earth Day and the 2016 Eco Fair are coming.

Now this Friday, April 22nd, is the 46th Earth Day, a day that aims to inspire awareness of the appreciation of the Earth's environment.

The Charlottesville Eco Fair will take place on Sunday, April 24th, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the pavilion on the downtown mall.

The annual Eco Fair is an Earth Week celebration and exploration of Charlottesville's movement towards a sustainable future.

There will be live music, skill-share demonstrations and workshops, yoga classes, which the mayor said he'll be out there in his yoga outfit.

Food trucks, raffles, earth conscious vendors and organizations, kids activities, and much more.

We hope to see you there.

Now, this month is also Fair Housing Month.

So, Ms. Charlene Green, where you at?

Ms. Green?

Is she here to accept the proclamation?

Okay, we'll get her.

That's all right.

She was here.

That's all right.

We'll get her.

Let's read it and then maybe she'll magically appear.

So this proclamation reads, Fair Housing Month 2016, whereas April is Fair Housing Month and marks the 48th anniversary of the passage of the Federal Fair Housing Act, and whereas the Fair Housing Act provides that no person shall be subjected to discrimination because of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, or familial status in the rental sale, financial, or advertising of housing, and the Virginia Fair Housing Law also prohibits housing discrimination

based on elderliness and whereas fair housing creates healthy communities and housing discrimination harms us all.

Now, therefore, we, the Charlottesville City Council, do hereby support equal housing opportunity and seek to affirmatively further fair housing, not only during fair housing month in April, but throughout the year.

And this was signed on the 18th day of April of 2016 by our wonderful mayor, Ms. Green.

Yes, sir.

Told you y'all she would magically appear.

Oh, certainly.

Please.

It was our last budget work session last Thursday, a week ago Thursday, that we got word that Mr. William H. Lucey passed away.

And Mr. Lucey was a well-respected, much beloved planning professor at the University of Virginia.

And he was also a very active citizen in this community, had served on the planning commission, had served on the urban design task force, was the chair of that task force,

and that was the precursor to the Place Design Task Force.

He was a very staunch supporter of the downtown mall and he was an avid walker.

He understood the importance of creating a city that was walkable, that was comfortable and kind of was ahead of his time in the way he talked about it and the way he planned for it.

One other important study that he came upon or that he became famous for

It was I guess about 20 years ago, and it was a time when people were thinking that cities were the most dangerous parts of the community, the country to live in.

And he demonstrated it was actually, Albemarle County had a higher fatality rate.

than the city of Charlottesville because of automobile accidents.

And it was starting to change people's perspective of cities because there's other ways of getting killed and there's other ways of staying alive.

And being in a city that really values street trees and connected sidewalks, great places and destinations to get to actually winds up being a very safe place to live.

So I think that's kind of the legacy of Mr. Lucy

He was a mentor for me.

He taught me how to vision big, plan long, but implement bit by bit.

So he had a lot of patience.

He counted everybody and everything.

He was a numbers guy.

And at this point in time, it's probably good to just have another moment of silence for a major great man who

That's right.

He was recently elected to the Soil and Water Conservation Authority, actually got sworn in at the same time as Mr. Bellamy, Mr. Signer, and myself.

And as his wife, Sherry Kraft, who is still alive, thankfully, but she is a member of the school board.

So again, very active people, very committed people to our local government, the quality of our life in this city.

Thank you very much.

OK, we have one other announcement.

Kristin Rittervold could come forward.

That's right.

This is going to actually be projected on the screen, because in the interest of time and no seats, if you just want to do your owl swivel,

I'm going to basically do a really quick show and tell here.

Good evening.

My name is Crystal Rittervold.

I'm the city's environmental sustainability manager, and I'm excited to be here to show you a project we've been working on and we're finally ready to launch.

As you mentioned, we're entering Earth Week, so it's timely to roll this out.

As you are well aware, there have been increasing discussions and activity around the topics of green infrastructure, complete streets, sustainability, et cetera, et cetera.

and we've been wanting to increase the awareness of and the access to information about projects and resources that support Charlottesville's Green City vision and we recently identified what we think is a pretty cool way to do that.

So here before you today you see a tool that we're calling City Green and most of you are familiar with the city's GIS Viewer and the Capital Projects Viewer so using this should be fairly intuitive.

If I can get this mouse to work.

Essentially City Green is what we call a story map or a library of sorts designed to allow the user to take a self-guided tour and delve into further details on projects that they're interested in.

The intent is to leverage the wealth of information and resources that are already out there to convey the variety and distribution of green projects in our city and to establish a single go-to place to help inform, educate, and excite folks about sustainability and what it looks like here in Charlottesville.

So, quick tour.

We have six main themes.

You see them on the left in those light green bars.

Each of them has a short description about what that theme is about and also has links to additional resources.

At the top, as you see, it basically links this tool to our larger green city vision, but green stormwater infrastructure is a high priority, so we have it here at the top.

I'm going to go through the themes very quickly.

As you see on the left, we have green stormwater infrastructure.

And on the right, we have a legend.

You can zoom in and start to see the distribution of a wide variety of green infrastructure projects around the city.

I'll give you an example here.

I happen to know that this little pin is the building.

I lied.

This little pin.

Nope.

I might have to zoom in, I'm sorry.

This is the building that we're in right now.

This building happens to have a green roof.

So as you select each of these bullets, you can either choose quickly to say what on earth is a green roof and you can see a picture of it.

or you can go to the other link and for several of the projects we either have dedicated web pages with information about the project or a case study about the project.

In this case you can see it being constructed.

The idea, again, is to let folks get into the level of detail that they're interested in.

For green infrastructure, because we have so many in the city, which is part of the message we want to convey, we've organized it by facilities that are on public property.

And you can see this wide range from rainwater harvesting, infiltration, permeable pavement, stormwater wetlands.

Did you know there was a stormwater wetland in Azalea Park?

Again, driving and talking is a hard thing to do.

We also have, as an example, a link to this

Stream Restoration Project, which is up here in the northern part of the city.

So again, I invite you to kind of give yourself a tour.

We're going to move on to the category Sustainable Buildings and Energy.

And this is a very relevant theme since we want to show how common these building strategies are in our community.

And it's also particularly relevant given our current participation in the Georgetown University Energy Prize Competition.

There's my house.

There's your house.

So what you see here are icons that represent LEED certified buildings.

All of the LEED certified buildings that are on UVA property and then private LEED certified buildings.

So these are typically foundations or some other entities that have chosen to do that.

The stars are Energy Star certified projects.

And again, I just suggest that you take a look at how widely this is distributed around our city.

The large suns are

Solar projects that are owned by the city or by another public entity and the small ones are all the privately owned systems.

So here as you go in, for example, to our recently LEED certified Fontaine Fire Station, when you click on the little sun,

You get to see what type of a project it is, and I can show you very quickly.

That's the solar system on top of the building.

And then, again, if you were interested in other sustainability features about this project, you would click on the little building icon, and it will take you both to a photo and a link to a fact sheet.

Moving right along, natural resources.

Natural resources are clearly the building blocks of our green city.

We are showing you all of the parks around the city and the parks department already has a very robust data layer for each of the parks so you can in fact select a park and then it will take you to the website for that park and you can access the trail maps or the other amenities that are there.

We also have all of our waterways now shown and named so if you happen to wonder what this thing behind your house is,

You can click on it and see it's called Lodge Creek.

This is a dynamic tool so we can keep building on it as we get more information.

There's also smaller features that I just want to point out.

You know, not everybody knows that City Council designates protected trees, so we have all the protected trees mapped out, such as, not the waterway.

Again, some of this takes a little practice, but at your home it's a lot easier than here in front of Council.

So again, we have this fantastic tree in Corey Park.

Did you know?

What does it look like?

It's a giant, gorgeous, beautiful tree.

So we want to just, again, make this really accessible and easy to find out about, and even quirky little projects like a bog garden in Washington Park.

And then on this layer, in fact, as you zoom out, you will see some amenities further out, natural areas.

There's also functionality to select a different base map.

So this right now is just the city streets.

You can also choose to turn on the aerials.

So again, a lot of people will recognize features near their home based on other characteristics.

And then what we've also done here is uploaded the most recently released urban tree canopy

Data.

So again, the darker greens are the higher density, and then as you get lighter and towards white, you're into the less tree areas.

Sustainable agriculture.

There's not huge farms around the city, but there are quite a few schoolyard gardens which are shown, all of these linked to those particular project pages and cute pictures.

Community gardens, community plots that people can rent and access on how to get to that in our city markets.

Sustainable Getting Around was a really cool layer that I think a lot of folks are interested in.

We had the opportunity to integrate the recently released bike ped information, so these colored lines are your various types of bike lanes.

Again, the legend gives you all kinds of information.

This happens to be a theme that has lots of external resources that you want to check out.

We also wanted to highlight some cool infrastructure such as EV charging stations.

Some of these were actually funded by the city's electric vehicle mini grant program.

A couple of these other resources are other ways to get around or out of town without using your personal car.

If you need to fix your bike but you don't know what might be there, you can click on here and we'll show you where our bike fix-it stations are.

If you don't know what that is, a picture is worth a thousand words.

This is a bike fix-it station.

All your tools are attached.

And then, actually, a pretty cool feature on this map, too, is as you zoom in, some additional elements will start to show up, such as bike racks and all of the CAT bus stops.

And when you click on them, IT helped us link it to the CAT app.

So you can get the actual arrival times.

So clearly, you're not going to be carrying around your laptop with you, but this works on a mobile device.

And if you press on this little button, a little dot will show up, and you can find out what cool green something is anywhere near me and how do I get there.

And then finally, we have sustainable waste management.

And as you know, we have currently two places where compost is being collected and then our designated McIntyre recycling.

And all of that, again, as you delve in, you get more information.

So we have linked this tool via this icon and via this hyperlink to our dedicated Green City page.

And that's also a work in progress that we'll keep building and it'll point back to this tool.

And then we have a feedback link.

If you know of other projects or you have a better picture or you have a question, send it to us.

And finally, I just want to thank a couple of folks from my team, Dan Frisbee and Susan Elliott.

There's a ton of detail that had to get pulled together.

and some awesome folks from IT, especially Mark Simpson and Conyoun Bay.

This was a template that we were able to access through Esri, but there's a humongous amount of customization that was done on our end.

So go team.

Nothing was outsourced.

The tool can be accessed via www.charlottesville.org forward slash city green map, and I will send you the links and then we're rolling it out this week.

Thank you so much.

Wonderful work.

Thank you.

I want to remind everybody what I said before.

We have an overflow room at the NDS conference room, which is just about 50 feet down this hall with a live TV feed and audio.

And there are also a few seats available in here.

Or you can move into, well if anybody needs spots that are on the outside.

Okay, I'm gonna give a couple of points about, and then we're gonna go to motion for boards and commissions.

I just want everybody to know what's about to happen with the two hearings.

So we always have public comments at the beginning of the meeting.

We have 12 slots.

Those have been, we had a wait list originally of 14 people, and I believe the two have dropped off.

So it looks like we're gonna have everybody be able to speak there.

And that's a three minutes, and I'll read the guidelines for that.

We also have a

Public hearing, the third agenda item on our agenda tonight is the Blue Ribbon Commission on Confederate Memorials.

We have a sign up sheet here for the public hearing on that.

We are asking everybody to speak to the, when city councils do public hearings on a particular agenda item, you can have people speak to the agenda item rather than anything that's on their mind.

So we would like for people who sign up to speak here to talk

about the idea of the Blue Ribbon Commission specifically.

I'm expecting that people may disregard that and they may just decide to talk about Robert E. Lee, which is fine, but we're trying to focus this on the action item that is before us, which is ways that this Blue Ribbon Commission can be set up and the charge that's been in the public materials for several days is to talk about the mission and charge of the Blue Ribbon Commission.

So we are asking you to speak about that in the

in the sign-up sheet here.

I think we have about 25 people here.

That's going to be, this is kind of in the interest of everybody because currently that'll be, at three minutes each, that'll be an hour and a quarter at least.

So if the sign-up sheet is here for that public hearing, that'll be probably an hour, hour and a half when we get to that item agenda, or agenda on the item.

I just wanted to say that to everybody.

Sure.

Do we want to do public?

I'd like to nominate two people for boards and commissions for our consideration.

One is for the retirement commission.

We had an empty seat for retiree and I'd like to nominate Al Elias

Any discussion?

All in favor?

Motion carries four to zero.

All right, we're now going to do the city manager response to the matters of the public.

So everybody knows we've been doing this for several meetings in a row now.

When you raise matters and matters by the public that pertain to city staff's response, city manager responds the next meeting.

Just a couple follow-up responses from our last meeting on April 4th.

I just wanted to provide some background on that.

Every two years in the spring, our staff surveys all the city sidewalks, curbs,

and others.

before the end of this week.

So just an update on sidewalks.

There are also several questions that were raised about the parking meter pilot.

As part of the next steps, staff will continue to review the options for City Council to consider to address the issue of long-term parking for folks who work downtown.

I'll read the standard guidelines that we do at the beginning of every meeting.

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 city council meeting for matters by the public, so that everybody knows there's also an open-ended matters by the public at the end of this meeting, which you can also speak at.

And there's no limit on the number of spaces then.

If you are here to speak for a public hearing, please wait to speak on the matter until the report for that item has been presented and the public hearing has been opened.

Each speaker has three minutes to speak.

Please give your name and address before beginning your remarks.

Please do not interrupt speakers whether or not you agree with them.

Please refrain from using obscenities.

If you cannot follow these guidelines, you will be escorted from city council chambers and not permitted to re-enter.

We read these every time.

And if you could pay attention to this device here, the green means you have plenty of time left, the yellow means you're getting close to the end, and the red means that your time is up.

And a chime will chime when you're up with your time.

And because we do have so much on the agenda tonight, I'm going to be pretty firm when you're finished with your three minutes.

I'm going to ask you to, it's not being impolite, it's just meaning that we need to get going.

And she made, these are my favorite ones tonight, so this was a, we might be in for a long meeting tonight, so have some cookies.

Excuse me, that's a long time back there.

Oh, I'm sorry.

No problem.

Yeah, my name is Jojo Robertson and I'm with Stand for the Silent Albemarle and that's the way I'd like to leave it.

We're an anti-bullying group, so thank you.

And you can find us anywhere on Facebook or

The Web, Revisiting America, Readings in Race, Culture, and Conflict.

And because of what has occurred in our city, I actually went through this book and pointed out for you all and for myself definitely that there's a lot of conflict

Yeah, I didn't have enough ink to print one off, so for everyone.

When I first heard about a young African-American girl in Charlottesville expressing her thoughts about how she felt at the Lee statue, I felt ashamed that I didn't know much history about Lee to even have an immediate thought.

But because of her movement, I looked into history for myself and came upon the facts in reading and came upon the following.

There's actually an author that lived in Richmond, Virginia, Elizabeth Brown Cryer, who wrote about Robert E. Lee's private letters.

They were in two sturdy trunks that Lee's daughter stored in the Virginia bank about a century ago.

So what do we know from history?

Lee's wife inherited 196 slaves upon her father's death.

The will stated that the slaves were to be freed within five years.

and at the same time large legacies raised from selling the property should be given to the Lee children.

However, Lee decided instead of freeing the slaves right away because he was executive of the will, he could continue to own and work them for five years.

Lee not only believed in slavery, he was capable of treating his own slaves quite cruelly.

He also started hiring out his slaves to other families, sending them away, breaking up families that had been together on the estate for generations.

The slaves resented it, they were terrified they would never be freed.

There were many runaways and at one point the papers show that Lee captured them, ordered them to be severely whipped.

He petitioned the court to extend their servitude, but the court ruled against him and Lee did grant them their freedom on January 1st, 1863.

Ben, think upon these names.

Ella Baker, Rosa Parks, Patricia Hill Collins, Nikki Duovanni, Bell Hooks, and now, Ziona Bryant.

Ziona couldn't be here tonight.

I can't talk about her.

Well, I would like to leave this, because I did talk with her.

Thank you.

We'll read it.

And we will read your emails.

We will read your email.

OK.

Judith C. I live at 1206 Mowgli Place here in the city.

You are all familiar with Senator Lewis.

He was one of the protesters who crossed the bridge in Selma, Alabama.

This bridge was named after a grand wizard of the KKK.

When he was asked if the name of the bridge should be changed, he said no, definitely no.

The name of the bridge is an important part of history.

It should be remembered, even revered.

When we forget history, it can be repeated.

Slavery has certainly not been isolated to the Confederate States of America.

The Union States also had slaves.

From 1200 to the 1700s, Magnus, later known as Morocco, kept from 60,000 to 80,000 white slaves that they captured from the Mediterranean.

The pyramids were built by slaves.

As horrible as we all know slavery is, the very expensive and ridiculous removal of the Lee statue will not remove this very human blemish that still exists.

A counselor said that Lee and Jackson never came to Charlottesville.

However, Stonewall Jackson definitely spent time in the valley.

And there was a battle in Charlottesville, the Battle of Rio Hill.

So there is a very good chance that he came to Charlottesville.

Mr. McIntyre gave our city another park named Booker T. Washington.

Has he been to Charlottesville?

Or do we need to change the name of that part?

We have a wonderful auditorium named after a famous civil rights leader.

I lived in Charlottesville during the civil rights movement and the integration of our schools.

I don't remember Dr. King visiting.

Do we have to change that name too?

Did he?

Great, I'm glad.

I'm sorry I missed it.

That makes me very sad.

But when is enough enough?

Charlottesville history is a good thing.

I'm sad that I was just interrupted.

I would never do that to anyone.

City Councilors, please raise your hands if you have lived here for 20 years.

Kristin, Kathy.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Members of Council.

I'm Valerie Long, here with the law firm of Williams Mullen.

I'm here to talk about a different topic tonight.

On your consent agenda is a proposed resolution to amend the zoning ordinance to update your regulations for wireless telecommunications facilities, otherwise known as cell phone tower antennas.

I've been involved with the technology around wireless antennas since 1999, when I first started practicing

As many of you all know, the technology has changed and improved dramatically since the city's ordinance was updated.

Really, it was the first time it was enacted in 2003.

I was involved in that process, but I'll tell you it was an extremely quick process.

There were a number of applications that were being proposed.

The city determined they did not have an ordinance.

There was no way to prevent

the carriers from doing absolutely anything.

So an emergency ordinance was put into effect and it was stated that they would convene a roundtable to take a more comprehensive and thorough look at the ordinance at that time.

That was in 2003 and that has never occurred.

So we very much welcome and support

The wireless providers in this community very much want to invest in their infrastructure in the city so that they can provide the type of service that their customers are demanding.

It's everyone, I look around the room, standing in the back of the room, most every single person has a cell phone in their hand, whether they're taking notes or doing research or videotaping tonight's meeting or just checking their email and their Facebook.

Students use it for research, certainly small businesses use it as many times their only means of communication.

People like me work with their children to make sure when they walk home from school to know that they get home safely.

People use it for telemedicine, everything, and I know everyone knows.

So we strongly support the initiative to update it.

Particularly, we would request that you do take a strong look at updating the 40-foot limitation.

No one can explain why that limit is there.

It has the unfortunate impact of restricting

the installation of antennas that can be the least intrusive in the community and the least visually intrusive among others.

In addition, the Federal Telecommunications Commission has implemented a number of regulations recently, so it's really way past time for the city to update its ordinance so it's in compliance with federal law.

The technology's changed dramatically.

The wireless community representatives would welcome the opportunity

to work with city NDS staff, city attorney's office, and anyone else to help provide input on the regulations in a way that's very balanced.

The city attorney's office has been very good to reach out to us.

So thank you, and I'd be happy to work with any of you all on that.

Thank you.

John Richard Wingfield.

All right.

Hi, I'm John Richard Wingfield, Albemarle County.

In regards to the Lee statue, who here owns slaves?

No one.

Who here has been slaves?

No one.

Slavery ended 156 years ago.

That is a done issue.

No one should be responsible for what happened back then.

Lee was offered the Union general's position where Grant took.

He could not take it because he didn't wish to fight against Virginia, his home state.

Robert E. Lee did own or did possess slaves, but he never bought a slave.

He inherited them, unwillingly.

You have eight presidents who owned 1,700 plus from George Washington to Grant.

Yes, Grant owned slaves.

It's in the history books.

During the war, Robert E. Lee did have a servant, a black servant.

He did not own him, he was a slave, he was a servant.

He kept them even, well they stayed together after the war until upon his death.

They both had mutual respect for one another.

If you go back to Facebook, there's a gentleman named Albert Lee Gilroy who is saying not to destroy history, but to preserve it.

To destroy history you know better than the Nazis or ISIS.

You must preserve history to remember history.

Some of the Union generals who owned it was Ulysses S. Grant, George Thomas, William Tecunseum, and Sherman.

They owned slaves.

I would appreciate if the heckling in the back would stop.

Do you know who started the Jim Crow law?

The Red Shirts or the White League or the KKK?

There was the Democrat parties from the North.

They started it.

It's in the history books.

There also have been black Confederate soldiers.

They did fight for the South willingly.

That's also in the history books whether they tried to hide it or not.

and yes, there was a battle in Albemarle County.

Custer, for the Union, raided Albemarle County at Rile Mill and he was chased out by the Confederacy.

Please know your history before saying something.

Thank you.

Teresa Woods, 29 Woodlake Drive, thank you for the opportunity to address the council.

Writing of Thomas Jefferson's legacy, current UVA President Teresa Sullivan stated, quote, we will not flinch from what Mr. Jefferson and others in the university's history got wrong, but neither will we fail to recognize what they got right.

We will not seek to erase history, we will seek a full and candid understanding of our history.

Instead of seeking an understanding of our history, comments and actions by community activists over the last three weeks have indicated that they are dedicated to just the opposite.

In their eyes, Robert E. Lee has no historical ties to the city, did nothing right, and his statue can and should be removed at their discretion.

Robert E. Lee does have historical ties to this city, as from the time Virginia seceded to the time city representatives rode out to raise the white flag of surrender,

Charlottesville was a Confederate city.

The city supplied men both from the local and university communities, produced textiles for the Confederacy, and was the site of a Confederate hospital that served over 22,000 during its existence.

So while not the site of a major Civil War battle and for the most part spared the Union torch, Charlottesville contributed to and was greatly impacted by the war.

Robert E. Lee is a complex, fascinating, and ultimately tragic figure.

Descended from a prominent Virginia family, he distinguished himself at West Point, excelled during his time with the Army Corps of Engineers, served admirably during the Mexican-American War, and when Virginia seceded, he was left with an agonizing decision.

Take up arms against his fellow Virginians, sit out the war, or defend his family, his friends, his state.

After the war, he became president of Washington College because he believed, quote, it is the duty of every citizen in the present condition of the country to do all in his power to aid in the restoration of peace and harmony.

He did not fuel the fire of Confederate resentment, but chose to spend the remainder of his life as an educator.

To pursue the removal of the Lee statue is to bog our city down in legalities and division.

It is a protected war monument.

The governor's veto of House Bill 587 did not alter the original language of the statute.

The current language still affords protection.

The Lee statue is a registered historic landmark.

Is this designation meaningless to the Council?

Is having historic landmarks not important to the City of Charlottesville?

Are you prepared to render Charlottesville city codes governing architectural design control districts, of which Lee Park is one, meaningless?

Those codes seek to quote promote local historic preservation efforts through the identification and protection of historic resources throughout the city.

How does the removal of the Lee statue preserve and protect historic resources?

We ask that you leave existing monuments where they stand.

Thank you.

My name is Lewis Schultz.

I live at 1809 East Market Street.

Both houses of Virginia's legislature passed Senate Bill 43 in this year's session, and on March 11, it was approved by Governor McAuliffe.

The purpose of Senate Bill 43 was to amend and reenact Section 24.2-222.1 of the Code of Virginia to include the words, notwithstanding any contrary provisions of a city or town charter,

and the portion of the statute that allows a locality to pass an ordinance to hold its council elections in November.

The new addition to the text of that statute means that even though Section 5D of Charlottesville's charter explicitly states that council elections are to take place in May of even-numbered years, it will become legal for the city council to pass an ordinance moving elections to November.

That bill will take effect on July 1st of this year, a date that is still two and a half months away.

In an official opinion known as an OAG, Virginia's Attorney General wrote that Virginia follows the Dillon Rule of strict construction, and that Virginia's Supreme Court has ruled that, quote, municipal corporations have only those powers that are expressly granted, those necessary or fairly implied from expressly granted powers, and those that are essential and indispensable, and that, quote, when an ordinance exceeds the scope of this authority, the ordinance is invalid.

That makes a very difficult problem for this city, because in 2004, City Council passed an ordinance to add Section 2-35 to Charlottesville City Code, and since 2007, Council elections have taken place in November of odd years.

That ordinance cited Virginia Code Section 24.2-222.1 as authorization for the change in the elections, long before that statute's recent amendment.

That is, prior to the addition of the words, notwithstanding any contrary provisions of a city or town charter.

That ordinance was, therefore, invalid at the time of its passage, and we should, by law, have council elections upcoming this May 3rd.

In City of South Norfolk versus Dale, Virginia Supreme Court ruled that unless there is a plain indication of an intent that the General Act shall repeal the Special Act,

The special act will continue to have effect and the general words with which it conflicts will be restrained and modified accordingly so that the two are to be deemed to stand together.

One is the general law of the land and the other is the law of the particular case.

In South and Western Railway Company versus Commonwealth,

The court wrote that, quote, where there are two statutes, the earlier special and the latter general, the terms of the general brought enough to include the matter provided for in the special, the fact that one is special and the other general creates a presumption that the special is to be considered as remaining and exception to the general and that the general will not be considered as repealing the special unless the provisions of the general are manifestly inconsistent with those of the special.

There are numerous similar OAGs in Supreme Court cases I could cite given the time.

The recent amendment to 24.2-222.1 has modified that statute to express the General Assembly's intent that from July 1st forward it will take precedence over any contrary charter provision.

It will not take effect retroactively.

It will not legalize any past election that took place at the wrong time.

not a single person acting as counselor tonight was elected as the law requires and as a consequence of that it is doubtful that any activist body carries any legal authority.

My name is Theresa K. Lamb of Elton, Virginia.

I was born and raised in Charlottesville.

I stand before you as the descendant of men who died and fought for the Civil War.

My third great-grandfather served in the Albemarle artillery living outside of Charlottesville.

My second great-grandfather, James Augustus Creswell enlisted in the 51st Virginia Infantry and at time of surrender was serving under General Lee.

The 51st Virginia Infantry fought many battles including Cold Harbor as part of the Army of Northern Virginia and then at Rile Hill, which took place approximately three miles from here.

While General Lee may not have visited Charlottesville personally, his presence was inevitably in the valor and pride he encouraged in the men he led throughout Virginia and their children.

Charlottesville was no exception.

When I heard of the petition calling to remove the statue and rename the park, I knew I had to make my voice heard and began emailing the mayor and vice mayor and so on.

I attended the press conference on March 22nd, where I decided to take action with a petition of my own that has garnered over 7,300 signatures as of 1 p.m. this afternoon.

Robert E. Lee was a man of honor.

He freed the slaves his wife inherited, and once the war was over, he became a voice of moderation

Robert E. Lee was a forward thinker.

When people were trying to keep people of color from voting, he encouraged them to go out and vote.

To quote the Virginia Historical Society, had Robert E. Lee taken command of Union forces in spring 1861, the war would probably have come to an end more quickly and slavery would most likely have survived.

Lee would have been the hero of the nation and he could easily have become the eighth president from Virginia.

This was in his grasp, but he let it go to preserve his personal honor.

and to defend his home and his family.

Those who argue that he chose to fight for slavery rather than against it and that this is all one needs to know about Lee, lose sight of the extent of his sacrifice, of the sacrifice that he made.

His decision was not about defending slavery.

It was about doing what he thought was right.

It appears many think current laws don't apply to our Confederate war memorials.

Even memorials like Robert E. Lee's, a veteran of the U.S. Army, an engineer and veteran from the Mexican-American War, which means current laws should protect this statue.

If the City Council were to change or remove this statue, it would be the first step in dividing our nation once again, erasing the work Lee did 150 years ago to reunite our country.

This statue is not romanticizing a war.

It's paying respect, honoring, and remembering the sacrifice the Sons of Virginia gave to her by giving tribute to one of the finest Virginia gentlemen and a United States veteran.

William McChesney.

And I'm going to just say for the benefit of the folks who have come in recently, we have an overflow room right down the hall there with a TV and live feed.

And we have a public hearing about the Blue Ribbon Commission itself that is going to happen in probably an hour or so when we get to that item on the agenda.

And you can sign up to speak at that hearing in the sign-up sheet right here, right at the front.

And there's some open seats down here.

Yes, my name is William T. McCheskey Jr.

Some people know me as Bill.

I moved here in 1963 and since 1988 I've been a homeowner residing at 1316 Grove Road in the city.

As a long-term resident of Charlottesville, I'm concerned by the recent developments regarding the statue of Robert E. Lee in Lee Park.

If it wishes to remove Robert E. Lee and rename the statue, rename Lee Park, this council also needs to, at the least, remove the likenesses of the three presidents on the edifice of City Hall.

Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe all were slaveholders.

To be thorough and consistent, this council should also remove Thomas Johnson Jackson's sculpture in the area next to the Albemarle County Courthouse.

Let's continue on West Main Street, the statue of Lewis and Clark and the oppressed Sacajawea should also be removed.

Lewis and Clark aided the white man's move westward and Sacajawea provided invaluable assistance to their work.

Let's remove also the less often noticed George Rogers Clark statue, the Conqueror of the Northwest near UVA.

This play includes a whole cadre of Native American subjugates, including a woman and child.

Turning north on 14th Street stands Venable Elementary School.

On the school web page, it states the school was named for Colonel Charles Scott Venable, who was a Civil War soldier.

Professor of Mathematics at the University of Virginia and author of arithmetic books for children.

He was also the owner of the home that was where Lee's Park is now.

Venable was present at the firing at Ford Sumter in April 1861.

Such an anti-union legacy is unacceptable.

We must change the name from Venable to something else.

I have searched

and studied the Code of Charlottesville and the Code of Virginia, and nowhere in those codes am I able to find any list of duties and responsibilities to describe removal of historic monuments.

To the contrary, I find instructions for the City Council to preserve and protect such sculptures.

The City Council's online vision statement begins, Charlottesville, a great place to live for all of our citizens.

Other lines in that say a leader in innovation, environmental sustainability, social and economic justice and healthy race relations.

United community that treasures diversity.

The delivery.

My request is you is to hear the spirit of our codes and your own statements.

On a historical note, Paul Goodlow McIntyre donated four monumental figures, figurative outdoor sculptures to the City of Charlottesville and the University of Virginia.

All four were listed on the National Registry of Historic Places in 1997.

Thank you.

Mr. Bellamy, I know you must think I'm picking on you, but I'm not.

I've never gotten an answer to my question, which was, please tell me who you were talking about when you said we had institutional racism here in town.

We've had a black mayor, we have a black city manager, black city counselors, and now a black police chief.

To my knowledge, the Human Rights Commission, in its two to three year existence,

has found no racial discrimination to date, yet we continue to waste hundreds of thousands of dollars on it.

The people in public housing are afforded a decent lifestyle with all the freebies that amount to thousands of dollars a month at taxpayer expense.

I don't see any institutional racism there.

I've heard complaints about stop and frisk,

disparate minority contact and other issues affecting the black community.

So this, so this council, the city manager and the new police chief are in a unique position to set the record straight.

If in this blue ribbon commission you want to talk about race and some seem to be obsessed with white on black crime from 200 years ago, let's talk about it because I want to hear what you have to say.

but can we also talk about black on white crime of today?

Let's release all the crime data so we can have an honest discussion about race and responsibility because I'm tired of all the white shaming that seems to be going on.

As far as Confederate symbols are concerned, most have been around for nearly 100 years, yet it's only till recently that some liberal has deemed them racist.

No one can change history and we have learned from it.

There is no one alive today who was directly affected by slavery.

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

We have acknowledged the sins of our fathers and have made great strides in race relations.

In talking to my black friends, and yes I have black friends, they think this issue is ridiculous.

They're not offended.

Many opponents have attached racist motives and meanings to the statues and monuments.

But in the end, it is simply their interpretation, and unless you were around in 1924,

I suggest we look to historians and documents to tell us about the man, the statue, and the soul of R.E.

Lee and not someone's uninformed interpretation.

I would like to be appointed to this Blue Ribbon Commission.

The City Council has made moves to curb free speech.

Now it seeks to erase history in an effort to pander to some in this community.

Thank you.

Steve Holmes is next.

And I would remind everybody, I think this has been a very civil discussion so far.

We have a lot more hearing coming later.

I just want to remind everybody, please, when somebody is speaking, please don't interrupt because it's fairest for everybody going forward and allows the speakers to finish.

Good evening.

My name is Steve Holmes.

I live in Orange at 11221 Monfort Road, and I thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight.

I want to address the issue of the Lee statue, and I'm in favor of keeping it right where it is.

There's several points that I would like to make in favor of that.

Critics for over 150 years have been trying to besmirch the general, but because of his character,

his reputation has remained firm.

Among his admirers were many of his former enemies in the Union Army and in the North, plus US presidents and other people of note.

The British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called Lee the most noble American who ever lived.

Golly, who in this country today could we apply the label of noble to?

You could to Lee.

Benjamin Andrews, the president of Brown University in 1880 and a former Union soldier, said any wise father, when asked who he would want his son to emulate, would answer Robert E. Lee.

US President Dwight Eisenhower promoted Lee as a role model for American youth and said a nation of men of Lee's caliber would be unconquerable in spirit and in soul.

After the war, a Northern insurance company offered Lee $50,000, a lot of money at that time, for the use of his name.

He desperately needed money, but he declined saying, my name is about all I have left and it is not for sale.

President Franklin Roosevelt,

spoke at the unveiling of the Lee Memorial statue in Dallas in June of 1936.

And he said, I am happy to take part in this unveiling of the statue of Lee.

All over the United States, we recognize him as a great general.

But also all over the United States, I believe we recognize him as something much more than that.

We recognize Robert E. Lee as one of our greatest American Christians and one of our greatest American gentlemen.

British Army Field Marshal Joseph Woolsey met Lee during the war and said, I judged Lee to be made from a different mold and of a finer and superior metal than other men.

We've talked about how Lee did have slaves.

He inherited them from our first president.

I won't comment anymore since it's already been addressed.

What I would say, though, that as a Christian,

Lee probably believed that God only created one race, not many races.

I believe, I can't affirm that for sure, but I suspect it's true.

Thank you.

Freeman Allen.

Good evening and thanks for the opportunity to speak.

Freeman Allen, Blair Park Road, Crozet.

And I'm pleased to follow

that fine tribute to General Lee.

It's my first day of school in the sixth grade classroom, Mobile, Alabama.

Ms. Engstrom pointed to a large frame portrait of a solemn bearded man in a uniform over the door.

All of us already knew who that man was.

She said, children in this classroom, I ask that you never do anything that General Lee would not be proud of.

I was raised to know

that Lee was an honorable man, that he took a hard job that he did not want.

151 years ago, Charlottesville saw the end of a horrible war.

It was Virginia that had suffered the highest number of dead and wounded.

We needed memorials to acknowledge such a sacrifice.

In this era and spirit, Mr. McIntyre gave Lee Park and its central statue to his hometown.

The Lee statue still functions as a locus of

Lost Cause Grief.

We're told that it depicts heritage in history, but the ennoblement of a Confederate leader so important to heal post-war wounds for white ancestors long ago has become a problem for us today.

Does the Lee statue memorialize a tragic war?

Does it symbolize the cruelty of slavery?

I really believe these are not the questions we're here for.

We're here to ask ourselves, what are the public values Charlottesville proclaims today?

What do we choose to place at the very center of our public space?

Fully one-fifth of our Virginian citizens are African American.

The majority are slave descended.

I believe the Lee statue unsettles black Americans as well as Americans of many other backgrounds.

General Lee's statue has served its McIntyre area role.

That was back then.

Today it stands not as a work of equestrian art, but as a large invisible public irony.

As members of this community, our responsibility is to live now.

Our Charlottesville of 2016 is not a community to imply in bronze, even imply, that we memorialize cruelty.

No one wishes to tarnish General Lee's character, only to remove him to an appropriate place, not at the symbolic heart of Charlottesville.

My personal Confederate ancestor began a tradition of adding the middle name Lee to his children.

Over a century later, it fell to me to continue that four-generation tradition, but I gave my sons different middle names.

I've always thought of Lee as I do about Lincoln.

With malice toward none and charity toward all,

For those of you who are on the floor, there's three seats up here in the front row if you want to come up.

Because it makes it hard for people to come up and down.

Maybe move to one side or the other.

I worry about if people had to get out.

Elliott Harding, Albemarle County.

I'm here this evening on behalf of the Friends of Seville Monuments, a nonpartisan charitable trust organized to protect, preserve, and promote the figures of our history.

But not just history as we know it, but also contemporary history and the history to be made in our future.

We believe history provides an invaluable tool, an asset like no other, and that is time.

It provides the time for discussion and debate, the time to expose falsehoods and fallacies, and the time to avert wrongdoing by the process of education.

In this context, we believe the remedy to be applied to any wound is not silence, but speech.

The answer is not less speech, it is more speech.

That applies to government speech as well.

And that is why the Friends of Sebo Monuments is here to advocate for the erection of new statutes, not the tearing down of others.

We want to build up the community, not tear anyone down.

and we need to recognize that in 2016, these statues aren't always here to celebrate what they meant at the time they were erected, but they can be here to erect how far we've come.

See, the criticism of Robert E. Lee is really a criticism of Virginia at that time, and we can sit here now and see how far we've come as Virginia.

We're the state with the first elected black governor in the United States.

Albemarle County is the home of the first post-Reconstruction era

Black member of the General Assembly and Paul Harris.

And as a graduate of Washington and Lee Law School this past year, my class had the first black student body leader of our law school.

And I think that's a Virginia that Robert E. Lee would have fought twice as hard for.

And so that's why we're advocating for the erection of stark contrasts and strong comparisons.

I myself have advocated for the erection of a statue to Julian Bond.

who did live here for 22 years and taught at the University of Virginia, the founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a strong civil rights leader, and someone that I think that both of these figures may have aspects that not everyone loves but they serve their respected community strongly and I think that it would be an ironic, and that's the word that was used earlier, irony, it would be an ironic thing that can really highlight how far we have come.

And so with that, the mission of our trust is twofold.

We hope to serve as a private partner if the city joins us in our goals.

We will be raising private donations, discovering viable alternatives and seeking community input.

But if the council ultimately chooses to go down a path of destruction, we will be there each step of the way, offering legitimate alternatives while contesting these measures.

We hope to work together with you and with everyone throughout the community to build us up together rather than see it torn down.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name's John Edward Mason, and I live at 211 Fifth Street, Southwest Charlottesville, Virginia.

I teach history at the University of Virginia.

And I'm here to jump the gun a little bit and talk about the Blue Ribbon Commission, which may or may not be appointed this evening.

I want to applaud Council for opening up the vision of what the Commission can look at.

I think that the focus on Robert E. Lee and his character is too narrow.

and I think that what we should be thinking about are the Confederate memorials as a whole, the potential for new memorials in Charlottesville and for how we think of our public spaces.

I'm a historian by profession and by training and I'm really in favor of more history and so I want to think about

how these Confederate memorials work.

And one of the ways that they work is to hide history rather than to make it visible.

And some of the history that's simply not visible in the Confederate memorials as they exist today is the history of slavery and is the history of what the Confederacy fought for.

Let me just very briefly

Quote Alexander Stevens, who was the vice president of the Confederacy, who in 1861 made his cornerstone speech.

And he said that the Confederacy rests upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man, that slavery, the subordination of the inferior race to the superior race, is the Negro's natural and normal condition.

This, our new government, the Confederacy, is the first in the history of the world that is based on this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

There needs to be a way to bring this history and make it visible in the city of Charlottesville.

There are other histories that are not visible.

The history of the 30,000 white Virginians who fought for the Union is nowhere visible.

The history of the 6,000 African-American Virginians who fought for the Union, including my great-great-grandfather, is not visible.

The history in the 1920s of the erection of a memorial is also not visible.

We need to know the context within which it was built.

I would argue that this was a memorial that was about, among other things, reaffirming

White supremacy and saying that it will stay here forever.

This was the era of Jim Crow.

This was three years after the KKK was reestablished in Charlottesville in a midnight ceremony at Thomas Jefferson's grave.

Three days before the unveiling of the monument, a cross was burned on Brown's Mountain and the KKK marched through Charlottesville.

ending its march in Vinegar Hill.

Thank you very much.

I want to thank all of our speakers.

I want to thank everybody for taking the time to come and share your opinions with us.

I want to say that we appreciate that and I want to thank the audience for having respectful and civil presentation and reception.

I have just one note about the wireless telecom franchise because we'll be talking about the rest and it's on our consent agenda.

Thanks.

Okay, great.

Let's go on to the consent agenda.

Is anybody else good?

Okay.

Item A, minutes for April 4th.

Item B, an appropriation Department of Criminal Justice Barnes Special Fund Grant, $9,991, second of two readings.

Item C, an appropriation Housing Opportunities Made Equal, $40,000, appropriation of program income, second of two readings.

Item D, an appropriation University of Virginia contribution to reward and transfer from Citywide Reserve, $20,000, second of two readings.

Item E in appropriation, $200,000 to the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority, Marriott, Praffer, and Vinegar Hill, and $70,000 to the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund, first of two readings.

Item F, a resolution, initiate zoning text amendment, consideration of changes to telecommunications ordinance, first of one reading.

Item G, an ordinance light tower, fiber networks, two LLC telecommunications franchise, second of two readings.

Item H, YMCA.

Utility Right-of-Way Agreement Ordinance, second of two readings.

Item I, an Ordinance Underground Utility Right-of-Way Agreement Across City Yards, second of two readings.

Item J, an Ordinance New Permit to Authorize Operation and Valet Parking Within Public Rights of Way, second of two readings.

Is there any discussion of any of the consent agenda items?

Does anybody want to move any out of the list?

I move that we adopt the consent agenda as read.

Second.

Any discussion of that motion?

Okay, all in favor?

Motion carries.

OK, Mr. Jones, next item on the agenda is a resolution regarding our new, soon to be new, police chief.

Yes, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

It is my pleasure to present to you tonight my recommendation for the appointment of our city's next police chief, Alfred Thomas.

Chief Thomas has nearly 30 years of law enforcement experience.

He began his career with the United States Air Force.

After five years, he returned home to join the Lynchburg Police Department, where he rose to the rank of captain.

In 2010, he was appointed the Chief of Police for the Lexington Police Department.

During his time in Lexington, he has directed a number of significant initiatives, including upgrades to the emergency communications infrastructure, the implementation of mobile data terminals, and digital in-car camera systems.

And he also expanded outreach to city youth with the police department with the implementation of multiple programs, including a junior police academy,

Lee Summer Camp, and a regional high school internship program.

Chief Thomas was one of 63 applicants for this position.

It was a deep and talented pool with folks from all over the country applying.

We had three rounds of interviews, a telephone interview involving 12 applicants, followed by face-to-face interviews for six applicants, and that included four panels who interviewed them.

Two community panels, one staff panel with the police department and their employees and one with our department directors here in the city.

I then narrowed the field down to three applicants to interview with the city council.

In the end, Chief Thomas was without question the top choice for this position.

I want to thank everyone who dedicated their time and energy to this search.

I especially want to thank the members of the community who served on these panels.

They dedicated significant amount of time from their busy schedules to be part of this process.

I just wanted to give you a few of the words that were used by the community panelists to describe Chief Thomas.

Passionate.

Personable.

Driven, goal oriented, teacher, caring, visionary, integrity, servant leader.

I think those are some powerful words.

So Chief Thomas, welcome to Charlottesville.

I know that you and your family, your wife Dorothy, your son Malcolm, and your daughter Megan are excited about this opportunity and we welcome them to our community as well.

It's my honor to introduce to you Alfred Thomas for your consideration as our next police chief.

So let's we also have a few minutes on the on the agenda here.

So what I would suggest we do is we have a motion in keeping with our procedures to approve the the hiring of Mr. Thomas.

And then we can have a second and we can have any if any council wants to make some comments for briefly.

We have 10 minutes here.

OK, any discussion?

I'd like to say a couple minutes.

I will say what I said earlier, which was that I was so impressed at the two citizen panels that we had and the police staff panel and the lead team of city staff panel

Every single one made Mr. Thomas their first choice and they were very enthusiastic about him.

We didn't know that when we interviewed him and he was also our first choice.

So I think it's clear that no matter where you are in the city and how you interact with the city, that this gentleman before us is going to be a very good addition to the city and kind of fulfilling a very hard seat to fill.

I would just like to say welcome.

We're very grateful that you decided to come to Charlottesville and that it was pretty much a consensus decision that came very quickly for this council.

We had very good candidates to also interview and that should be stated, but at the same time,

you rose to the top and I think it's because your integrity comes across very clearly that you strike all of us as being very fair man, a man that demands high expectations of yourself and the people that work for you and at the same time we've heard from many different sources that you're leaving a city that has great affection for you and so I know that this has been a hard change for you and your

You have a wonderful wife who also has a great job, I understand, and we're very lucky that she's here as well.

So thank you so much for taking a risk on us as well.

basically say what I said today at the press conference.

Not that many people are here or there.

This is an exciting day for the city.

Chief Longo, I think we should emphasize, leaves very big shoes to fill.

And if you've ever seen him at the gym, he leaves big shoulders to stand on.

After meeting Chief Thomas, reviewing his qualifications, interviewing him, and this afternoon watching him interact with the officers in this room in a meet and greet who will be under his command, I think I can speak for all of us when I say we know that we got the right man for the job.

Chief, you bring impeccable credentials to this job, you bring a great track record, but I think above all what you'll bring is a clear understanding of leadership.

Modern policing today is under a microscope.

That can create a challenge, but it also creates opportunities for us to showcase the quality of the men and the women in this department here, for programs like the Citizens Police Academy that the Police Foundation runs, and the increasing effort to integrate relational policing into the day-to-day police wing that we do.

In the hands of Chief Thomas, I'm confident that our police department will take great strides forward on these and other fronts, and I think that your track record, working with youth and in the community already

Ampley demonstrates that.

It's also a historic day because Chief Thomas will be Charlottesville's first African-American police chief.

In that role, he will be continuing to change the narrative in Charlottesville, which is one of the things that we are talking about now.

But I thought that Chief Thomas's answer to the question of how he felt about that achievement during our city council interviews was quite telling.

He said that he oftentimes has been the first, the first African American chief or in other capacities, but he said, I don't want to be the first, I want to be the best.

and I'll be brief because Mayor Signer stole all of my comments so I get them for that.

Why do you think I spoke first?

But I will say Chief Thomas it is absolutely a delight to have you here joining our police department and it goes without saying that you have big shoes to fill as Mayor Signer alluded to.

Chief Longo has done a phenomenal job here in our community and I think there are many individuals across the city who can well attest to the great job that he's done.

But we are looking forward to you taking our city to the next level.

I've heard from several officers already that they are very excited to have you on board.

After speaking to several people throughout the community, they are also very excited to have you on board.

and while you again have big shoes to fill and you are coming into a place with very high expectations, I have no doubt and absolutely no shadow of a doubt within my mind that you will not do a phenomenal job.

You are an outstanding man, an outstanding father, and an outstanding example of not only to the African American community,

but to our community as a whole.

I think this position, although it's historic, it's not one that is about race.

As clearly as all of my colleagues have stated, you are indeed the best candidate for the job.

Mayor Signer said this earlier, we got the best man and I believe that he is right and I am absolutely looking forward to working with you.

We, the community as a whole, will be willing to walk with you every step of the way, and if you, your wife, your children, if you all ever need anything, please do not hesitate to let us know.

You are coming into a community that is full of individuals who are looking to rally around a common cause, full of people who are looking to change the narrative, and ready, and not only ready, but eager, very eager might I add, to create change and change the narrative.

You, along with this council and all of the people in this community in the stands today, or excuse me, in the council chambers today, represent where Charlottesville can be and what we are becoming.

A new day is here and I'm looking forward to us starting our new chapter with you as police chief.

I want to say on behalf of all of council, thank you, Mr. Jones, for the immense amount of work that went into doing this carefully and rigorously.

It's a lot of work.

I think we are ready for a vote.

All in favor of that motion, please press the green button.

Motion carries four to zero.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

And if you'd like to say anything, we'd love to.

Sure.

Mr. Mayor, members of council, my wife and I are very pleased to join the Charlottesville community.

And Mr. Mayor, if you don't mind, I would like my wife to join me.

We were going to ask Dorothy.

Well, Mr. Jones, thank you again for the confidence that you've shown to me personally.

It truly means a lot to me.

You've welcomed me into your leadership team and into the community.

That really means a lot to me.

I also want to thank you for your support of the police department.

You're right.

We do have one of the finest departments in the Commonwealth.

These men and women are so committed to serving this community every single day.

And I'm proud to join the police department.

I'm proud to serve this community.

You're right, the expectations are high.

I understand that.

That is not lost on me.

But I assure you, my expectations are high as well.

And we will meet or exceed all expectations of working together with the community, working to build relationships in our community, working to regain the trust in our community.

We will work tirelessly to achieve those goals.

But again, thank you all so much for the support, for the confidence,

Okay, on the item, next item on the agenda, which is our customer service, this should actually wind up just in time for us to, we usually have a break at nine o'clock, and then that'll be five minutes, and then we will begin the Blue Ribbon Commission discussions.

So, Mike Murphy, if you could come to the front.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Members of Council.

Good evening.

I'm Mike Murphy, the assistant city manager.

I'm here to speak with you tonight about staff's intent to issue a request for proposal.

to put out a customer service system in the city.

This is something that has been referred to over time as 311.

I've been very careful in this memo not to call it that because I do want to encourage you to think about this as a customer service initiative.

It will not be a call center.

There will not be a phone number.

But there is an intent by staff to have a web portal, a mobile application, and to retrain all our staff

about input into a database to track all of our interactions with citizens and improve customer service by doing so.

You all have received my memo which details the requirements that we'll have of vendors in the system.

You know that we have really been emphasizing customer service in the city manager's office and with departments in both being responsive and closing the loop on inquiries.

And I think that we need this technology to really be able to track what we're doing.

Unfortunately, almost all of that lives right now, either in notes we take about phone calls

or meetings or in an individual person's email.

And so part of the initiative would be that no matter what the entry point is that we're able to capture the information and understand what the issues are that citizens are bringing forward regardless of what their portal is, whether they walk in on the first floor or they send you all an email at council at Charlottesville dot org.

or make a call to a department.

So that is really the quick and dirty on customer service and this initiative I'm aware

that there's an item that other folks came for tonight that was not this one.

But I am ready to answer any of your questions and certainly receive your input.

We are bringing this to you before we take this to procurement and we do have a technology team

that has helped to inform what those requirements are that you see outlined in the memo.

Questions, comments?

Two relatively straightforward quick ones, so I might start.

I think it's on the second page of the memo.

Talks about improving citizen engagement, monitor project status, collect and centralize data, and improve customer service.

Those are all wonderful, and we've talked about those a lot.

But it occurs to me that we're also trying to kind of have a, and this may be partly about the data, but we're trying to have a collective memory.

an institutional memory of what's happened so that when something comes up again we have a record of it.

And so I'd just like that to be highlighted there so it doesn't end up being this ephemeral thing that as soon as it's resolved disappears to make sure that there remains a record of everything.

And I also have just a quick question.

All of us who've ever been to a conference involving city councilors has met various vendors who have these

Apps where you can walk down the street and take a picture of a pothole and send it automatically into someplace.

And that's part of what we're talking about here, from what I understand.

But a lot of those are really small startups and smaller companies.

And I'm wondering if there's a way to allow for the use of such things as part of a responsive bid.

Okay.

Knowing as I do that you're a great grant writer, it's kind of like writing a grant, right?

Fair enough.

Thank you.

I do have a question.

It would be great to be able to generate quarterly reports so that we get a sense of trends, patterns, and that we can maybe get staff's analysis of what's going on and see how this can be fine-tuned.

Can that be built into the RFP?

Not only is it our intent for there to be the ability to glean data from this system and report out to you all on that, but you'll see expressed in there that while it may not be in the pilot or first phase,

I would say that assuming that council agrees that we generally have what we're looking for here, that I'd strive with procurement to have this go out by the first of May, that it would be

you know certainly somewhere between 30 to 60 days for people to prepare those which puts us on July 1.

There's some evaluation period probably for at least 30 days negotiation so I would hope that we would you know meet with people about a pilot implementation.

I think we've talked about this a couple weeks ago maybe on October, November timeline.

Okay, great.

I have a couple of questions.

I want to first of all thank you for all the work on this.

We've had a lot of conversations.

This was a major priority of

of the team that ran for office last year.

We talked a lot about increasing responsiveness and addressing the problem that we've heard a lot about, which was a complaint or a question going into sort of a black box with some staff.

And then even from staff, we've heard the complaint that the

way to track the complaint is sort of through an endless email chain and you have to sort of search your inbox and this this will resolve all those problems for staff and for citizens I think it's will be really wonderful to sort of have a trackable even like you know you call Verizon you get an account a case number or something like that I think that it'll provide it'll be a really really really good and popular service for our citizens so I know that a lot of work has gone into it two questions just about the

We've been doing a lot over the first three months.

One of the things that I would like to do and that we're all going to talk about is open data.

There's been a lot of interest raised in their policies, but it's complicated and we haven't quite gotten to it yet.

But it's very exciting for transparency to have data made available to the public in a way that they can use it as opposed to in PDFs.

So if they wanted to crunch the numbers and hack the numbers on our parks and rec or whatever.

So I just would want us to make what

the system that we have if council did adopt an open data period in years to come that this would be compatible with it.

That would be one thing that I would like to add to it.

And then the second one is FOIAs.

Virginia has our own FOIA regime.

Right, so if somebody requested, filed a FOIA request about all

all consumer, you know, all citizen complaints about X and we were to respond right to it.

Is there a way of making this as efficient as possible rather than in having a vendor make it talk to our FOIA statute really efficiently?

There may be that there is a vendor out there that has a product where you could just immediately remove you know if there is a confidential information like somebody's

I don't know the exemptions we'd be operating under, but instead of having somebody go one by one through and white out the person's name from the reports, it may be that it's designed to do that on the front end.

I just want to clarify that I know that there is a group that has taken the company name of OpenGov.

I don't mean to refer to them specifically.

I'm talking about the general initiative of open government transparency in data.

and we do agree that we're trying to make more data available.

The city has been working on outcome measures for a period of time and does have many outcome measures available on the website now.

It's not necessarily in a way where folks can easily manipulate the data.

It's very true that when Mr. Bellamy, Mr. Signer and myself were running together, this became a big issue.

But I would like to acknowledge that Councillor Szakos and I both worked very hard on getting it to this point.

I know you didn't, but just wanted to get it straight to the record that there were two other voices looking at this long and hard in previous years.

noted an empty list.

I'm delighted and I've been fussing for several years, but when are we going to get this done?

Would there be any use, I assume not, but because this is meant to be a much meaner option than a full-blown 311 system, would we want to have a cost range in this?

No, because we're aiming to get back

I'm aware that the previous assistant city manager and the communications director presented the council with some options for kind of more full blown.

I think you saw Mankato, Minnesota and some others.

I think that

our preliminary look at this has a pretty different price tag on that because it doesn't really include people at this time of course you all have had debates recently in council budget work session

about whether an assistant to the city manager that might work closely with us on this project would be a necessary expense and as I understood where we stood at the end of your deliberations that's a for future consideration item.

Do we know whether

Is it worth including in the RFP whether there will be a full-time staff member attached to this or, I mean, we'd want to, our whole point with discussing that position.

Yeah, if I remember correctly, counsel at our last work session said that you'd wanted to see how this is going to play out first and have a better understanding of how the system's going to work.

We've already had that discussion.

Thank you so much.

All right, we're going to take a five-minute break.

It's 5 to 9 by that clock.

I'm

I don't know.

I don't know.

Drums

The End

I don't know, I don't know

Thanks for watching

That means that we're going to be here for an hour and a half.

I would like to keep that at a clip, so when I call your name please get moving right after.

We're going to ask everybody to hold their applause until after people speak.

That's meant to keep this moving for the good of everybody because otherwise that will add

So please hold your applause everyone until after the person has spoken and I will call the next person's name right after the first person is done and please start moving down here quickly.

Please state your name and your address and you have three minutes again.

When it's green, you've got plenty of time.

When it's yellow, you're getting close to the end of time.

When it's red, the chime will sound.

And I will stop you when the time starts sounding for the interest of everyone and expediency and fairness.

Mayor Signer and councilors, hello.

I'm Jean Hyatt, 1534 Rugby Avenue, and I'm president of Preservation Piedmont.

Preservation Piedmont is dedicated to protecting the historic resources of Charlottesville, Albemarle, and the broader area of Piedmont, Virginia.

We have followed the current discussion with great interest and dedicated a large portion of our meeting last week discussing this issue and the council's resolution.

We offer these comments.

First, we recommend the characteristics you have established for the commission membership, commitment to the mission, open-mindedness, principled and collegial, respected in their areas of expertise, and diverse and reflective of the community.

To the latter point, we suggest you include individuals who have broad experience and accomplishments in history, historic preservation, business and education.

Members of the African-American community who have these backgrounds would be especially welcome to inform the Commission's discussions and deliberations.

Second, we urge you to inventory the existing work of the city, non-profits, and private sector in the area of commemorative spaces and activities.

We are delighted you mentioned Daughters of Zion Cemetery.

but hope you will look at other efforts underway by the city's historic resource committee, including reconsideration of Vinegar Hill Park at the west end of the downtown mall.

That was part of landscape architect Lawrence Halprin's original vision of the mall.

or them all, and the ongoing effort to complete and install the work of a nationally recognized African-American sculpture as a key component of a Vinegar Hill monument at the Jefferson School City Center.

Third, we urge that you assign or hire staff to research the local history of race relations, the legacy of slavery, and the post-Civil War period in Charlottesville, as well as the role of other national civic

movements such as the City Beautiful movement of the early 20th century that was focused in Charlottesville on creating parks, monuments, and redeveloping projects in Court Square vicinity.

Drawing on the bridge builder projects, we hope you will further explore Charlottesville's own civil rights history with consideration on memorialization beyond the Druey Brown Bridge.

Contact with UVA's Commission on Slavery and the University and with other cities such as Richmond about their work on monuments and commemorations would be helpful.

Attached to our statement is a longer list of items discussed at our meeting for your interest.

Preservation Piedmont is happy to help in any way that we can to ensure that we have a full, respectful conversation about this important topic.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm Ann McKeithan.

I live at 233 East Jefferson Street in Charlottesville.

I represent a group of citizens who began before the current controversy to consider how our public history is represented in sculpture, art, plaques, and signage in Charlottesville.

Our group is diverse.

We come from different professional, ethnic, racial, and regional backgrounds.

We have been committed to deep listening and to broader issues of justice and equality.

Our deep listening to one another has led us to think much more broadly about the issues of history, race, and memorialization in Charlottesville public spaces.

As you move to define the process for a Blue Ribbon Commission, we urge you to consider the following.

The process must encourage people to listen and learn from one another and allow all of us to stretch toward greater unity.

The process will take time and should not be rushed.

Listening sessions should occur in small settings where people are comfortable rather than in large public hearings.

Time is necessary for thorough research.

We need to know more about the history commemorated, the context of the times memorials were installed, the value of sculptures under consideration, and creative solutions found in other cities.

we need to find outside resources available to assist us.

Charlottesville could be a national leader in a conversation that is gripping so many communities.

Adopting a broad approach to our public spaces could include art installations, reframing current statues with better signage, and bringing greater attention to long suppressed and often misunderstood stories.

Thank you very much.

Okay, thank you.

My name is Eric Middleford.

I live at 233 East Jefferson Street.

I speak as a historian who spent my whole career with the University of Virginia History Department starting in 1970.

We've heard this evening and other times before that you cannot change the past.

I agree, but

The Civil War monuments prominently displayed in Charlottesville do not simply constitute or embody the past.

Instead, they are statements about the past, and anyone can tell that our statements about the past do change all the time.

Learning about history should always involve understanding that past events do not speak for themselves.

that historians and interested observers engage with the past in a constantly evolving series of interpretations.

Statues and monuments are themselves interpretations of the past.

And at any given time, there are many more than one interpretation alive in any community.

Of course, in moments of revolution, societies do tear down the monuments of previous regimes and tyrants.

Even during our own American Revolution, the statue of George III was torn down in New York City.

And we all know that the monuments to Lenin, Hitler, and Saddam Hussein are mostly gone, victims of what we sometimes call regime change.

Are we now in such a moment of revolution?

I don't think so.

I actually hope not, because revolutions have a bad habit of spinning out of control and of creating refugees.

It has been said that we could improve the monumental architecture of Charlottesville by adding sculptures.

And I agree.

But at the very least, we could dramatically improve the signage and explanations attached to the monuments we already have.

One could try to balance the claims that General Lee, for example, was an honorable man who had not eagerly joined the secessionist cause,

with other claims that the fundamental cause of the Civil War after all was slavery.

If the Confederacy had prevailed, slavery would have survived for who knows how long.

A fuller explanation of the Lee monument might point out that by the 1920s, when it was installed, Robert E. Lee had come to symbolize for many the honor and integrity of the South.

While for others, he represented slavery, Jim Crow, and the oppression of African-Americans in the 20th century.

Surely we can learn from one another if we can learn to listen to what others are saying.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My name's Jim Hingely.

I live in downtown on Grave Street.

I also work in downtown at 403 East Market Street.

So I spent a lot of time downtown, a lot of time going by Lee Park.

I've already communicated with counsel my position, which is I think the statute is offensive and should be removed.

And I appreciate the council's consideration in my email, but I'm not going to cover the same ground tonight.

I'm going to move in a different direction.

And that is, in my business, sometimes it's helpful to see what courts think about issues like this.

So I have found something that I think might be helpful in this debate from a circuit court judge in Virginia County, Patrick County.

His name is Judge Martin F. Clark Jr.

and he has a long statement and I'm not going to read from the statement in detail.

It's too long for the time that's available but I have copies for counsel which I will leave here for counsel to look at.

The statement begins on August 19, 2015, I personally removed General J.E.B.

Stewart's portrait from the Patrick County Circuit Courtroom.

And I might add that the Patrick County Circuit Courtroom is located in Stuart, Virginia.

And Stuart, Virginia is named for the aforementioned General Jeb Stuart.

Judge Clark lays out his reasoning.

And there is one part of his conclusion that I want to emphasize without going through all of the reasons which

are going to be exhaustively discussed tonight.

But this is about the reaction that he experienced when he did this removal of the portrait.

And he says, and I'm quoting from his opinion on this matter,

Additionally, in the context of the Confederacy, I'm weary of the argument that we shouldn't remove certain intrusive Civil War symbols because everybody's too sensitive and or everybody is offended by something.

Black men and women have a bona fide, objective, fact-based, historically grounded reason to find Confederate glorification offensive.

and almost all of them do in fact take offense.

Me, I'd for sure take issue with the symbols of a nation that believed

Slavery's subordination to the superior race was my natural and normal condition, which, by the way, was referred to earlier in comments tonight as the cornerstone statement of Alexander Stevenson, the Alexander Stevens, excuse me, the vice president of the Confederacy.

African-Americans' distaste for Confederate symbols can hardly be described as an overreaction contrived or in any way hypersensitive.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is David Silver.

I live on Great Flex Trail in the Ivy area.

I came certain that I would speak strongly for the removal of the lease statue.

I've been impressed by people that have spoken to

somehow exhibiting our history more fully.

But one individual said we should have statues to some honorable African American men who have done great things with their life.

Excuse the expression, but to some degree that would be a whitewash if all we do is

have more statues of more great men.

Terrible things happened in our country with slavery and the period of Jim Crow.

And somehow we have to make that information available.

We don't learn from the past by simply saying everything's better now and let's put up a statue of Julian Bond.

We have to make the past, the truth about the past, available to people.

I sense that that's the charge of the commission and hopefully they will think of creative ways to do that.

The way a city like Berlin has done in terms of how it educates people about what went on during World War II, there's a lot that we could learn from that and do within Charlottesville.

to make the truth about the history of slavery and the Jim Crow period following it available for people to inform themselves with, inform themselves by.

Thank you.

How's it going?

Good.

How's it going?

What?

How's it going?

How's it going?

I'm Emerson Stern of 1310 Florence Road and I'm here to talk about the Lee Park statue thing.

Well, a lot of people say that the statue should be removed or the plaque should be changed, I guess.

Right?

People want it, something like that.

I think that instead of removing the statue or changing the plaque, you should just like maybe put a statue in front of it or something, like a little smaller something that just says like, oh, like racism is bad or something like that.

And people could see that and maybe think, huh, interesting.

My name is Alice Gore and I live at 115 Altamont Circle.

I am here to express my support for the removal of the statues of Lee and Jackson from our public parks.

Some people have said that this amounts to erasing the past, but I think most people can agree that we cannot erase the past.

I think that if we put these monuments in a museum where they belong, we can better discuss our past, our present, and our future.

These symbols of fear and intimidation

should not be in our public parks.

Connie Rosenbaum.

Connie Rosenbaum, 802 Hardy Drive, and I'm here to say I had a little talk with one of the members of your board this week.

and I disapprove of the removal of the statue.

It is part of our history.

I have seven generations that have been veterans that have fallen all the wars and they're there for a reason.

They're there to teach the kids right from wrong.

And if we start taking the statues down, what are you going to do?

Start taking another statue down?

And then eventually, we're going to take, just close Monticello down?

When this money that y'all want to raise to take these statues down, public housing's going to hell in a handbasket.

You could use that money for public housing.

You could use that money for homeless people that doesn't have a place to sleep or lay.

Because they lay in Lee Park.

but this man could be used for something else and just leave the monuments alone as it is.

They were there way before we even thought about being born and they'll be there when we die.

Good evening, mayor and councilmen.

My name is Susan Hathaway and I'm from Sandston, Virginia.

I could easily stand before you tonight and spend my three minutes talking about the honor of Robert E. Lee or the valor and sacrifice of the Confederate soldiers who served under him, or the fact that the war between the states was not fought to keep anyone enslaved, or the fact that this onslaught of PC revisionism has absolutely nothing to do with the perceived racism or white supremacy.

But I believe you all know this, but choose to ignore it for whatever reason.

What I hope does get your attention is money and the fact that you and the citizens of Charlottesville will need to be prepared to spend a lot of it to defend the lawsuits that will be filed if you insist on continuing with plans to tear down or alter any Confederate memorials.

Thankfully, the law in Virginia still prevents

War Memorials from being removed, even with the governor's veto of a bill.

There is little doubt that the Virginia Supreme Court will affirm this in a pending lawsuit.

It is good to know that our legislators have put measures into place so that our Vietnam veterans, of which there are several here with us tonight, will not have to face having their memorials removed if and when the winds of political correctness shift against them in a town such as this one and the elected officials decide that they are no longer worthy of respect.

I noted with great interest the comments of one of your councilmen as reported in the local press.

In response to the overwhelming pushback against the call to tear down the memorial, it appears that you all are grasping for straws in attempts to rationalize your attempts to cleanse all things confederate from the city.

It is reported by this councilman stated that Lee and Jackson were not from Charlottesville, suggesting that the statues are not relevant to the community.

Now this is true, Robert E. Lee was not from Charlottesville, but neither are most of you who sit on the city council and claim to speak for her citizens.

To say that a community should only honor those who are from there is ludicrous.

Certainly Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln were not from South Dakota either.

Are you suggesting that Mount Rushmore needs to be sandblasted since it has no relevance to that community?

Charlottesville sent her sons, brothers, and fathers off to defend the Commonwealth, and those boys and men served and died under the leadership of Robert E. Lee.

If you ever needed any local relevance, it is there in abundance.

There's been a lot of talk lately about us that come from other areas of the state being outsiders and that we should have no say in what is happening in other localities other than the one in which we reside.

Some of you are quick to dismiss us and sadly even some who should be standing with us have taken that stand.

The fact is that I'm a ninth generation Virginian and four of my great great grandfathers served under Robert E. Lee in the Army of Northern Virginia.

My ancestors earned in the Constitution guarantees me the right to speak up and speak out against the tyrannical and illegal attempts to remove any Confederate memorial.

And I certainly will do so when one day dedicated to the memory of Robert E. Lee is less than an hour from my home is under attack.

I will close with one last suggestion.

If you are determined, as it appears, to rid your community of all things offensive, I hope you plan to rename Charlottesville and secede from Virginia.

As it is well known, Queen Charlotte herself was a white supremacist, owned millions of slaves, and was a close friend of Marie

Thank you.

Michael Lucas.

Good evening.

My name is Michael Lucas and I'm from Farmville, Virginia and what I'd like to address basically is that we are considering removing a teachable moment

that's necessary to maintain an understanding of where we have come from so that we can continue to move forward.

If this body, this council, decides that it's to remove that monument, then it is basically destroying history, much like ISIS and Al-Qaeda have, in the same sense, to sustain some kind of utopian ideology.

As I have witnessed what's been going on here between the different views and the different people and members of the council who, for whatever personal reasons they may have, whether they are African American or have African American children, and understanding how this has a meaning to them, it's very important to listen to and to hear them and to understand that.

Africans or African Americans have gone through trials like every other human being on this earth.

There are no individuals here when it comes to violence or treachery or issues of harm and inhumanity that any human being has not suffered from at some point in some time.

Presently you have members within your council who see fit to run through the park and actually run through the garden of the park and slap the monument in the face of other people that are standing there just to inflame them and to cause a problem.

And as a member of your council who is seated with you right now.

There are witnesses here to validate that.

He did it on March 24, 2016 and he did it today.

I do not see that as a teachable moment, except in the sense about how unethical that can be.

And this man is also now considered a member of the Board of Education.

State born.

Yeah, state born.

And understanding that.

So indirectly, there he goes.

There he is.

He has identified himself.

And I just want to make that point clear.

How can this person turn around and be a public representative of our ethics and what we're supposed to do as people?

I just want to just close on that you know we have a teachable moment here to preserve our history and to teach the good of a man and the issues that he fought with and under within the context within the context of American history because there were slaves north and south and black and white and Indian and Chinese, Asian, etc.

okay so we have a large

Thank you.

I'm Laura Baker.

I live at 519 Lexington Avenue.

My father had a framed tintype of Robert E. Lee in my family room when I was growing up.

It was right there on the wall between the wooden sconces and the needlepoint picture saying, home sweet home.

My father was fascinated with the complex man who history tells us was personally torn by the American Civil War.

The image on our wall was such a part of our everyday life that during high school one boy picked me up for a date, didn't recognize the general, and asked if he was my grandfather.

I want my daughter to have history in her life the way I had it in mine.

I went on to get an advanced degree and history has deeply informed both my professional and personal life.

I believe that history is not an obscure field of study because it helps us understand how we arrived at today and it helps us understand what foundations we have been giving.

Understanding history not only allows us to avoid the same mistakes we made in the past, it also helps us repeat moments of action that brought us closer to our values of freedom and opportunity.

It is such a pleasure to live in a town like Charlottesville where history is truly a part of our daily lives.

I don't need tin types in my living room because my daughter sees monuments on her way to get ice cream and borrow books from the library and attend festivals.

She knows about Jefferson and Madison and Monroe.

I want to keep teaching my daughter the rich history of this place.

And the next important lesson I want to give my daughter is to see the city of Charlottesville reconsider statues like that of General Lee through the Blue Ribbon Commission.

I want her to see us as a community decide that we will not lose all of our history by changing some monuments.

Our history tells us that many, not all, but many memorials to the Confederacy were tools to exclude.

History is complicated.

We can honor people who were brave enough to give their lives in any war and refuse to whitewash the part of history that says many of our monuments and memorials were made in a racist time for racist reasons.

We can decide two things.

We can say that those who admire leaders like General Lee are not necessarily racist themselves.

and we can say that not all historic monuments should stay.

I want my daughter to know that our voices today make up the history of tomorrow.

We are fortunate enough to live in a time when we are taking a second look at the stories we tell about ourselves.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Gerald Harlow.

Harlow?

I believe that's who says Gerald Harlow.

Okay, well if you come back in, Bill, what?

Okay, sorry.

First of all, I admitted down there that I actually live in the city of Fredericksburg, even though I have access to Charlottesville addresses.

My ancestors were here when Albemarle County was founded, when the city was founded.

They were in detention service to Jefferson.

They served from the Revolutionary War here.

They served from the Civil War here, or the War of Northern Aggression, whatever you want to call it.

That's what I prefer to call it, the War of Northern Aggression.

One of my great great grandfathers was here when that monument was dedicated.

He's buried in the city of Charlottesville.

One of the others is buried right outside of Albemarle.

The third of my Confederate ancestors from here alone is buried in an unmarked grave in a battlefield known only to God.

My relatives who currently live in the city of Charlottesville aren't here because most of them have families.

Second of all, like all native Virginians, we're totally excluded from the political process now.

We have no representation whatsoever.

None of you Virginians, none of you will probably have your family stay here to any extent whatsoever.

Also given that what you're talking about with this blue ribbon commission, excuse me, is totally illegal, it's totally irrelevant.

So why have you even brought up this hoopla?

or are you just trying to fulfill on the NAACP's 1993 agenda where it said to wipe out pretty much everything American?

Thank you.

Just for me.

Good evening, my name is Jim Respis, I live at 1033 Sheridan Avenue and I wasn't planning on speaking when I came here but found that I needed to say something.

I was born and raised in Charlottesville.

I attended Albemarle High School.

and have been an active member of the McGuffey Arts Center for over 20 years.

I am deeply indebted to this community for its support of the arts and hope that I can find a way to repay some of that debt.

I participated in the Dialogue on Race from 2008 and I served on the Public Memorial Committee and have worked for the past six years to install a memorial sculpture for the Jefferson School memorializing the Vinegar Hill community.

In 2012, Council granted Dialogue on Race $18,000 to run a national

competition for the sculpture which resulted in the selection of Mel Edwards who has completed his proposal and provided a maquette which has been accepted by the community.

At this point, we are engaged in a $302,000 fundraising campaign for the installation of the sculpture.

I want to commend Council on entertaining the broadest possible dialogue around this issue, keeping an open mind and listening to as many points of view as possible.

I urge that this process be allowed to evolve at its own pace and that it not be curtailed too quickly.

to allow the conversation to expand and find its own level, including as many members of the community as possible.

This is an instance of art serving as a galvanizing force around issues of substance to a society.

something I have taught in my graduate education classes at Mary Baldwin College for over 20 years.

I am proud to be able to participate in this discussion and would be equally proud to serve on the commission if it would serve the community.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

George, what?

Otherwise, I take it you all know which side of the rope I'm on in this tug of war that's going on.

General Lee would not like this.

There's too much racism.

We're all Americans.

Let's work together to find a solution.

Has anybody done a cost study of how much it would cost to tear down the statue or to move the statue and re-erect it in some other location?

Instead of doing that, why don't you erect a new monument to role models that you all can adjust to?

Everybody knows Tubman, Mary Angelou, Sojourner Truth.

Now there's a story that you really ought to dig into, the trials that she went through.

The statue of Lee, as you heard, is well loved in this area.

Turning it down will not solve any problems.

It will just cause more.

Instead of melding the American people together, it forces them apart.

And as I said before, you know which side I'm on.

Would you care to read her letter?

She hand wrote it.

My name is Marquita Best-Hiller and my address is 154 Buckingham Circle and I will be reading for eight-year-old Gunter and Campbell.

I am in the third grade at Burnley Moran Elementary School.

I think that the Robert E. Lee statue in Lee Park should be taken down

because Robert E. Lee was a Confederate general, and he doesn't deserve a statue at a park in his honor.

As long as we have that statue up, we're honoring the estate, excuse me, very powerful from a child, enslavement of human beings, and that's wrong.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Members of the City Council, my name is Jelaine Schmidt.

I'm a resident of Charlottesville, 2314 Fontaine Avenue.

I'm an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia.

My work focuses on race, politics, and religion, and I research the memorialization of slavery in Cuba.

If you'll please indulge me being a teacher, I cannot resist handing out a teaching tool.

I brought a visual handout to illustrate what I consider to be the ongoing historic injustice of having Confederate monuments dominate our town's choice public spaces.

I want to point out demographic facts about our town, which are belied by the physical monuments that beckon us to remember a distorted version of history.

At the time of the Civil War, the population of Albemarle County, including the town of Charlottesville, numbered some 26,000 residents.

Of this number, more than half, or 14,000, were enslaved.

Pause and let that number sink in.

More than half of our neighbors were considered chattel.

their lives could be ripped apart at the whim of their masters.

These human beings were sold on an auction block which is now marked by a one foot by one foot plaque which is placed flush with the ground across from Court Square.

Yesterday I went to Court Square to look for this marker and I literally could not find it.

There are so many Confederate monuments of such large scale that one would think that the Confederates had won the war.

It was difficult to find a memento which recalled those on behalf the war was fought.

Imagine the relief and happiness of these 14,000 enslaved residents of Charlottesville and Albemarle County.

Again, the majority of the town and county's residents.

When a defeated General Lee surrendered to the victorious General Ulysses Grant of Appomattox.

Finally, Liberation Day had arrived.

This was indeed a historic day in the history of our town.

54% of its residents belatedly joined the other 46% free whites to be recognized as free citizens.

As a previous speaker said, we definitely need Civil War monuments in Charlottesville to mark this momentous occasion.

But the type of memorials we have now do not do justice to the history and struggle of over half of our town's residents during the Civil War.

The Confederate statues were erected in the early 20th century by Confederate supporters to promote a sanitized version of why the war was fought.

The pedestal for the Confederate soldier explains that they were defenders of the rights of states.

This is a historical sleight of hand.

The Confederates defended the so-called right to defy the federal government by continuing to hold human beings in bondage.

States' rights was an argument that mobilized against human rights.

According to the plaque which marks the monument for Stonewall Jackson, the benefactor commissioned this gift to Charlottesville for the pleasure of all who would pass by.

It was surely not a pleasure for Jim Crow era African Americans to approach the courthouse, the place where citizens go for legal redress under the gaze of a military leader who fought tooth and nail to keep our ancestors as slaves.

This is why it's not simply enough to say, well, let's just build more monuments.

I'll submit it.

Thank you.

Joe Drago?

Joe Drago?

I live in the Belmont-Carlton neighborhood here in Charlottesville.

Good evening Councillors, Mr. Jones and Mr. Brown.

I'm writing, I wrote this to you last evening, but I'm here today to say it out loud to you all in just about the same way, but I'm here to show my support of the removal of the Lee statue and renaming of this particular city park, but I would like to see this

Blue Ribbon Commission go a step further and remove all other Confederate symbols in our town.

And furthermore, I advocate for changes in policy to eliminate destructive practices that implicitly and explicitly carry on the legacy of slavery and white supremacy here in our city.

Last February I wrote to council urging the removal of the Lee Jackson holiday.

There was a lot of support for that and it moved forward.

As I listened to community members speak to this issue, I heard folks saying that this holiday humiliates and tears down a race and nothing good for blacks is obtained by celebrating this holiday.

I find that thoughts and concerns shared at that time are very relevant moving forward with this discussion.

Robert E. Lee, not contested, he's a part of our history, but how he was chosen to be recognized as honorable in the first place draws my concern.

And well has that we continue on with this sad legacy as a society.

As it was just noted, rich white men of privilege and white folks sought to honor Lee in the late 1800s to reinforce and continue to defend the superiority of whites over blacks.

Lee fought to keep slavery and the white way of life in place in the South.

I don't want my kids and other children in this town to honor this individual.

I don't want this image in a central place.

In this public place, I believe it continues to serve as a form of intimidation to many in our community.

Our own city's website declares that the Lee statue is heroic, dignified, and powerful.

We need to hear how these historical actions affect all in our community, not just those in power or the ones we're used to hearing from.

Many who advocate for keeping the Confederate statues in place are often individuals who have and continue to benefit as white persons in our society.

There are many white people in denial or unaware of how abusing black and brown bodies through slavery, Jim Crow, racist lending policies, lack of voting rights, and current systemic racism may affect the lives of non-white folks in our community.

White folks who say that there is nothing broken to be fixed are really not tuning in.

Those who say get over it are disregarding the suffering and engaging in a form of victim blaming.

I want to work towards positive solutions.

I attended the press release a couple of weeks ago in the park and commend those people who spoke about the many important reasons not to have the statue remain.

I really value those who have the courage to call it the racial disparities that still exist in our community.

And this is where I encourage the further steps

Many questions stay in my mind.

Why do people of color get stopped by the police more often with no arrests made?

Why do people of color who go to UVA routinely get offered less pain medication?

Do we have records of what students get certain forms of discipline and those who do not?

I want to tell my son that all lives matter, but there are so many examples around us that show him otherwise.

Thank you.

Alice?

Thorntonville?

Is that you?

Okay.

Thanks.

Hi.

Just a citizen.

Alice Dontinville.

I live in Belmont.

I just want to share that I

I feel profoundly alienated when I look at the statue of Lee.

Same with Stonewall Jackson.

I think we have very few public monuments in our community and we need to use them wisely.

And I don't see why we would not revise the decision that was made in the past to put Lee in the park.

I think it's a horrible symbol and it offends me and it offends many.

and I was sitting with my child at the Tom Tem Festival this weekend looking up at the statue of Lee and looked around me and there were no people of color in sight and I can't imagine that those two things are unrelated.

Thank you.

Yeah, my name is Nick, sorry, Nicholas Edsel.

I live at 1924 Thompson Road here in the city.

Like Professor Middleford before me, I am an historian and I taught for many years in the history department at the University of Virginia.

In fact, he unwittingly stole some of the points I wanted to make.

But let me therefore just make two, one very practical, one a much larger one.

The practical one actually comes from a trip I took last year to New Mexico in the middle of the main plaza

In Santa Fe there is a war memorial and on that war memorial there is some language which people would now find quite clearly offensive and objectionable.

They didn't take it down, in fact they have a plaque there or rather signage which explains why they didn't take it down, why they decided to leave it, why it is controversial,

but why it should therefore stay and be discussed.

I think that clearly applies to Charlottesville's situation as well.

The more general point I want to make is this.

When I lived in Europe, as both a historian and as a human being,

I wanted to come to terms with the horrors of the first half of the 20th century, and therefore I visited a number of Nazi concentration camps, the most famous being Dachau and Auschwitz.

I also wanted to go to Bergen-Belsen.

and I went to Bergen-Belsen, there is nothing there.

It is erased.

You cannot confront the past if you destroy it.

You cannot debate the past if you eliminate the symbols of the past.

We need dialogue, we need teaching moments, we need better signage, we perhaps need other monuments.

But I don't think, I think we would be terribly wrong

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Counselor, for your hard work and late work.

I have a great deal of respect for each of you and all that you do.

My understanding of diversity is the majority and the authority speaking up for the presence of the minority.

Which is to say, no change happens without authority stepping up for minority.

That's diversity.

And if we fail to step up now, we don't believe in diversity.

We believe in politics.

Diversity says that people count and even minority people count and their feelings.

There's no adequate comparison to slavery.

When people come and talk about things like, well everybody has experienced hardship, they do not understand slavery.

In fact, we don't like to consider slavery, because it was so horrific.

For 400 years, people arrived in Richmond, they took wax, they stuffed it up them so they could keep their sickness in their body, they marched them until they died, and then they sold them.

Now, when other people come and they speak, they say, you know, my ancestors, this many generations, black people don't say that.

Because black people can go about four, maybe five generations back.

There is still systemic racism.

And it is the duty of authority to step in and say, when something is offensive, when something is wrong, when something is not good, when something is not fair, that is the duty of authority, like Lyndon Johnson.

That's the duty of authority.

Lastly, in the scriptures,

Moses was asked by the daughters of Zilla Hovat.

they didn't have rights to have property.

These daughters had no brothers.

And so their property would be gone and their names would be gone.

So they go to Moses and say, hey, would you change the law?

And so Moses prays about it.

I don't know if I can change the law.

I mean, this is going to be controversial.

I don't know about this.

But he thought about what I'll call diversity.

He thought about, is it fair to treat this group of people in an unfair way?

Absolutely not.

It is the duty of authority.

to step up and speak for minority.

Ladies and gentlemen of council, my name is Scott Payton.

I discovered some time ago it's a fool's errand perhaps to try to persuade people of a different mind who are entrenched to come to my way of thinking but be that as it may it occurs to me that the period of the Civil War was a time of tremendous contradictions

and in the nature of my own family's story, everyone has a story to tell.

Everyone I've heard tonight has a story to tell and it occurs to me that everyone deserves to have their story told.

In my own family, my great grandfather, Joseph Cabell Breckinridge, attended the University of Virginia.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, he resigned from school to join the Union Army and he fought with distinction and after a long and

Storied career, he retired as the Inspector General of the United States Army.

My great-grandmother, who grew up in the northern Shenandoah Valley, had her family's farm pillaged by the Union troops under Phil Sheridan.

He undertook a crash and burn approach as William Tecumseh Sherman did in the South.

She was a young girl and she was teased by the Union troops for crying when they took her pony away from her as a little girl.

I was told that whenever she went to visit family in Kentucky, they always flew a Confederate flag.

It's a piece of story.

I think that history deserves to be told.

All sides of history.

And truthfully, one of my greatest concerns tonight, we all share history, whether

some of

I think that's important.

I have a concern for what our future is together as a community going forward.

I strongly support keeping the Lee statue in place where it is, not only for the good that it represents to some, but for the bad that it represents.

It can teach us all something.

And I encourage us to embrace that.

And I encourage this blue panel, blue ribbon panel, if it forms,

to take that into consideration.

Thank you.

Rebecca Quinn, 1044th Street here in the city.

I find it interesting that the purpose of the public hearing is to talk about the commission and whether a commission will be established.

And I believe maybe three out of 20 some members of the public so far have actually made recommendations regarding the commission.

And that's what I'd like to do today.

The word balance has become one of my favorite words.

especially I heard it a number of times in, you may be aware, I believe it was Harvard University, it's equivalent to our Board of Visitors, took up the issue of whether to remove Woodrow Wilson from a school or building or something like that at the urging of students related to similar issues because he was an acknowledged segregationist.

But the Board of Visitors basically, and I'm paraphrasing obviously, on balance

of looking at everything else that he did, decided to keep the name.

So I'm looking for the commission to have balance.

So that's what we need.

And I have a couple questions.

Your resolution before you says nothing about how many members.

It could be three.

It could be 30.

I think you should specify.

you know 12 to 15 might be good.

Too many becomes unreasonable.

But I also think that you should talk about how will you be appointing these members.

And I suggest that each member of council be allowed to have one, two, maybe three that they get to appoint without other members getting yes or no votes.

That way you can have more reasonable balance representing the whole community.

The second is, and this may be unintended, but as you have framed what the commission will be looking at, it's a limited number of options.

I don't think that's deliberate, but why appoint a blue ribbon commission, presumably of preeminent citizens of some significant intellect, and not allow them to explore other options?

So I would urge that you modify to say,

included but not limited to prior to your bulleted list because that's a start of recommendations.

And just as a procedural reminder, at least the previous council had agreed that they would not take action on public hearing unless there was an immediate urgent need

And the reason that was done is to give you and the public a chance or the public understand that you are listening to what we say and don't have a predisposed decision.

In this case, there is no decision.

There's no decision about what to happen.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Jennifer Rubenstein.

I live in Belmont.

My comments are about how the city of Charlottesville should deal with Confederate imagery, but they're not about Lee Park.

I just want to bring an issue to your attention.

I don't actually have an opinion about whether the Commission should consider this, but I want to bring it to your attention so you can think about whether it might be appropriate.

So according to its official website, the purposes of the Charlottesville Dogwood Festival include, quote, promoting goodwill within the city of Charlottesville, the county of Albemarle,

and the counties adjacent to Albemarle County.

Especially in light of these purposes, I kind of think anyway, but especially in light of these purposes, I was very distressed and offended when I went to the festival on Saturday to see that it features Confederate paraphernalia and I handed around some photos of this.

This was in the kind of concessions area and in several of the games.

and I was there on Saturday with my husband and four-year-old daughter and that's when I took these pictures.

I'm not sure whether the city contracts directly with the company that runs the carnival which appears to be called Valley Amusements Incorporated or whether the Dogwood Festival is a separate entity that contracts with Valley Amusements but either way I think that the city should refrain from funding or endorsing a carnival that uses this sort of imagery.

I'm a professor at UVA.

I work on issues of global poverty and injustice.

So I sort of feel compelled to say that, think of all the issues in the world, I don't think this is the most dire.

But I also don't think it would be that difficult to address.

There's no question here about teaching history.

Moreover, I suspect that a letter to the company stating that the city or the festival won't hire them again until the Confederate paraphernalia is removed would suffice.

I strongly doubt, I don't know this, but looking around, I strongly doubt that this would have any effect on their earnings.

There are many ambiguous or borderline cases surrounding whether government should pressure companies to change their behavior.

This is not one of them.

I hear and understand, especially

After tonight, I really do the sincere good intentions, the passions, and the deeply held commitments of people who attribute a wide range of noble meanings to the Confederate flag.