CRHA Regular Meeting   11/23/2020

Hi.

Sometimes she has a hard time logging in.

And the meeting will be live in about one minute.

Hey, Brian.

This is John.

We actually will need you all's assistance on the 10th as well for our board work session.

10th and the 17th.

Yep, we'll do it.

Does anyone see Commissioner Slaughter is texting that, whoops, hold on, I just lost the text.

Oh, okay, thank you, thank you.

Yep.

I don't see any phone numbers at this time.

Now I see one.

And it just disappeared.

Unless

I'll check.

601, we'll take maybe two more minutes to see if we can get help Miss Slaughter connect.

See if she writes back.

Betsy, could you send me her number via chat?

Yes.

Good idea.

And as an attendee, what I can do is enable her telephone connection.

Hello?

Hey, can you hear us?

Hi, how's everyone?

Pretty good.

Not feeling too well, but I guess well expected.

All right, why don't we go ahead and get started?

Maybe we'll have more people to join us.

Hi, Lisa.

Okay, I call to order this meeting of the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority Board of Commissioners virtual board meeting Monday, November 23rd, 2020 at 6 p.m. And let me read.

And we are able to meet due to Governor Northam's executive order EO 53, restricting public gatherings of greater than 10 persons.

Accordingly, code 2.2-3708.2a3 permits public bodies to meet electronically to discuss business required or necessary to operation of the public body

in discharge of its lawful purposes, duties and responsibilities in times of emergencies and to address COVID-19.

Therefore, this meeting is being held electronically pursuant to Virginia law because the COVID-19 pandemic makes it impractical and unsafe to assemble a quorum physically in a single location.

All right.

Oh, you changed her name straight.

Is Leslie on here?

I think she's having audio issues.

Commissioner Dr. Henry.

Commissioner Mayor Walker.

Here.

Thank you.

So we have a quorum.

Let's have a moment of silence to prepare for the work.

Okay, and now, I'm sorry, I was hearing something.

And now just announcements, meeting dates, reminders while people are still with us in case the meeting goes late.

We have safety meetings every other Tuesday.

The next one is tomorrow at 6 p.m.

Redevelopment meetings are every Thursday at 2-3 p.m., although this week that won't be happening for the Thanksgiving holiday.

And then we are not going to have our regular December board meeting.

I believe it would have been for 28th, which is

probably not great for everyone.

Instead, we're gonna do two work sessions in December.

The first one is Thursday, December 10th at 5 p.m. talking about a board finance training, I think with some focus on LIHTC financing.

Okay, and then Thursday, December 7th, we'll do the public hearing for the annual.

Does anyone else have any just general announcements they want to share at this time?

OK.

So let's move to.

I hear someone.

OK, let's move to public comments.

Good evening, authority board of commissioners.

This is Brandon Collins.

I'm a staff member of the public housing association residents, PHAR.

PHAR is the resident council and resident advisory board for public housing in Charlottesville.

and I just actually wanted to take a brief moment to explain the difference.

Resident council is governed under regulation 964 and it regards tenant participation and activities to the housing authority.

It's a really great policy and establishes that residents can form resident councils and housing authorities

and should provide a meager amount of funding for their activities.

Resident Advisory Board, the reason I wanted to bring this up is Resident Advisory Board actually is a little broader, a body that relates to a housing authority and it's under a separate regulation, particularly as it relates to the annual plan, which you are in the middle of working on and we really appreciate the connection you've had with us

working through that and I think we're going to have even more conversations with residents and PHAR and housing authority on the annual plan but that is kind of what gives PHAR the ability to represent somewhat section 8 basically and other matters of the housing authority so just that out there we are

is increased attention to safety and security in public housing neighborhoods.

We appreciate the hard meeting that was had the other day and just want to reiterate our support for a collaboration between PHAR residents and the housing authority to address what is true crisis.

I think it's in everyone's vision that we don't

established a police state in public housing.

And I think it's really important to recognize when Mr.

Sales presents the recommendations to the safety committee tomorrow, that was a collaborative effort.

And I think you will find that there's a whole host of things in there that aren't related to cops, that aren't related to evicting people.

although there is a very clear distinct cry from residents for greater lease enforcement, greater attention from the police.

There is a reason why the Greenbrier neighborhood, you don't see people in crowds of 100 people in the streets gambling and potentially brandishing firearms.

because if that behavior was going on in the Greenbrier neighborhood there would be a response.

It is housing responsibility to enforce its lease and keep its residents safe.

I think residents have been very clear on what it is they expect in the short term and I think we're all ready to work towards a better solution to these issues of crime and safety given that we live in a society that is unjust and unfair

and we can all work towards making a more just society and work towards community building and sense of community and having eviction prevention and having community responses to crime and safety in the community.

Thank you, Brandon.

The others?

I think as most of Mr. Collins' comments or Pharr's comments were about safety, we will, just so everyone knows, we will be following up with a safety committee update.

So that might be the best place to talk about recent meeting and what's coming up tomorrow.

if that's okay with everyone.

Okay.

Next we have any updates from commissioners and then we have the approval of minutes.

Okay.

And I guess we could do updates from work sessions and last our work session was mainly going over

the new admin plan and the annual plan.

And so I think we'll hear a little bit about those or at least an update maybe with Mr.

Sales or Ms. Glenn-Matthews report just to hear how the public comment period has been going for the annual plan.

Okay, so let's do approval of minutes.

We have two months we have to go through.

We have a Monday, September 28th meeting and Monday, October 26th meeting.

Oh, and there's Dr. Henry, yay.

I believe we can do both.

Mr. Oberg's on here.

All right, all those in favor, we have to do, sorry, we have to do the roll call vote again.

because we're in the online meeting.

Wonderful.

All right, our next on our agenda is Board of Commissioners election.

And this is something that I think typically is done in July, probably because we were getting used to living in virtual meetings

It didn't happen.

We didn't have same kind of transition for the new board members as you know, seeing them in person.

So we we need to name, I guess they call it officers of the board.

My

I haven't noticed that these titles definitely define what people are doing.

We could do more of that, but honestly, there seems to be a bit of just having titles, one that seems to be

most I would say important or I don't mean to say important but that actually has some kind of meaning be probably the vice chair there's a chair vice chair and treasurer

And in the past, the vice chair just steps in for meetings or to help with meetings, help run meetings, and potentially might be interested in being chair in the future.

you know, getting some practice running the meetings.

The Treasurer obviously sounds like it should have more impact on the finances.

But I don't think we don't actually officially do sign up on anything with these titles really.

It's, I don't know, Mr.

Sales, do you want to say anything else?

I feel like we've

These titles and I guess I'm running the meeting as chair so that one is a little more coordination with the agenda and signing off on some documents.

I think the treasurer will probably be entrenched with the finance committee.

So I think that's the only difference.

A lot of housing authorities don't have a finance committee.

Yeah.

OK.

So does anyone want to nominate themselves or others?

And by the way, we tried to co-chair with Miss Oliver, who I see on whenever the last round was.

and it eventually turned into chair and vice chair.

Oh, yes.

Our current officers have left the board except for myself being chair.

Could I clarify with some questions?

Because while

There may not be a lot of, I don't know, prestige in the titles.

I think that it does, those titles do help us run a smooth meeting and get through the process.

And do we have some bylaws that talk about, like anytime I've been on a board, we've had a nominating committee and things like that, and they've met and then they set forth a candidate list.

I'll just, in my relatively short experience, there hasn't been for this particular group because it's only seven and it was kind of more of a discussion and a consensus kind of a thing.

But we could work on that for next time.

Oh, no, it's not about that.

I do know it is an annual, typically July the first, I believe it's the first meeting in July or the July board meeting is when new commissioners would be coming on and we would do this.

And we've postponed it both by just forgetting to do it.

But also I think in the midst of all the figuring out how to be online, it didn't happen.

Yeah, I'm happy to continue.

I believe I would, so it would be till July.

So I'm happy to continue.

I don't necessarily want to continue forever because I feel like I wish I had more time to give to it.

So I, but I'm happy to stay on till July.

Are there term limits associated

Again, a good question.

I don't know the answer to that, but we each have a three-year term.

So that would be- Mr.

Give me a second.

Oh, so there are bylaws.

There are bylaws.

Perfect.

While I am flattered, I feel like I'm too new on this board.

Thank you.

and then she left the room.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

I think Miss Slaughter and I are on the same cycle where our three year term is up this July.

Oh good, thank you.

I second.

Should we go ahead and do all of them?

See if there's other nominations.

I don't have any particular thoughts about it.

It would be difficult for me.

I'm living away and I'm probably more nervous about COVID than some people and I'm just keeping a very low profile.

I know you've had trouble and all sorts of things.

Betsy, I would serve with you as co-chair.

I mean, just so that we can move this along.

I mean, is there any other nominations?

That'd be great.

and Treasurer.

Whoever is already interested in the Finance Committee might want to hold.

I mean, if you're already on the or starting in on the Finance Committee, it might be a good fit.

You did say that they really don't have much to do, right?

Right.

I mean,

I think you would join the finance committee, but I mean, it's not like you're adding, you're not coming in to be the financial director or something.

This is on a board level, if that makes sense.

Okay, well, I'm on that one, so I would do that.

All right, second that.

Okay, any other nominations or volunteers?

If not, you can wait till July and jump in.

Mr.

Yeah, I'll call.

And should I clarify?

I'm sorry.

She said yes.

Commissioner Osteen?

We hear you now.

Before I say, I'm going to say yes, but I think that especially the chair and co-chair position, there should definitely be a resident in one of those seats and

I will not take that position at all.

Well, no, I think that's not what I'm saying at all.

I'm just saying no one spoke up.

I agree with you.

But just like figuring out how

How not just to get people to join the board, but how to make sure that they feel comfortable and have the space to take on those leadership roles should be a goal of ours too.

I agree.

Are you okay?

Well, that's it, yes.

Ms. Green.

I totally agree.

We have the ability to amend the bylaws.

I just sent the bylaws to all the commissioners.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

But I'll go first and then she'll talk about the annual plan.

As of last week, we have new office space for the central office.

Special thank you to the mayor and the city council for allowing us to occupy some city space for the next couple of years during redevelopment of South First Street.

I would also like to draw the attention of the commissioners to the TARS report, which is the tenant accounts receivable.

It is like probably the first time in probably 15 or 20 years that the account balances are at zero.

That's also a special thank you to the mayor and the city council allocating $80,000 of CARES funding to the housing authority to pay back rent.

134 families were directly affected by the assistance.

out of comp balances from old rent from March to present.

So we have currently have two families that still owe money.

We've gotten one of those, one of the families in a payment plan that they can afford.

And the second family we'll work with to get in a payment plan.

And those will be the first two families in the eviction diversion program.

We have, so all of my updates is going to be about reports that are in, that are in your board package.

There are 40 new lease vouchers since August of the new vouchers that were forced out on the street.

We anticipate another 13 of them being leased by the end of the month.

I'm jumping on a little bit.

We do have two new employees on the call tonight.

Yes, I am.

Sorry, I don't have my video showing, but good evening, everyone.

I am Ayanna Poynter, as Mrs.

Sales said.

I am the new relocation coordinator.

I just joined the team on November 2nd.

I look forward to working with and interacting with everyone.

The new finance, I recommend Mary Lou Hoffman has not started yet.

She's expected to start December 14th.

She is also on here, but I think she was having some video issues earlier.

I don't know if she's going to be available to introduce herself, but you'll see her at the 17th meeting.

So that would be an opportunity.

An update on the security firm.

At a previous meeting, you all voted to award security firm to Century Force Security LLC.

We had a meeting with them last week to talk about implementation of the contract.

They did let us know that they plan to award the contract to a subsidiary of theirs in CenturyCom.

Security.

We were all a little concerned about that, but their justification is reasonable.

They have two businesses.

The insurance on housing is different from the insurance on all the other contracts they administer.

So they have all of their housing going under one to try to lower the cost

of the services they provide to other individuals through the other company.

So it was a cost savings reason, but it's the same principle and the same employees for both firms.

The new security firm does plan to attend the December 8th Safety Committee meeting.

They will also be at the January Board of Commissioners meeting.

We're working, actually next week, they'll be in Charlottesville to meet with the asset managers and do a site walk.

So they have a better understanding of what the sites look like and some of the challenges they may have.

They are also planning to meet with the Charlottesville Police Department.

That meeting has not been scheduled, but we talked about that being a high button item and it needed to be a priority on their list.

They do anticipate hiring two to three section three residents.

So it will be a job training opportunity for some residents in our community to get employment with the firm.

They're also open to hiring some of the current employees from Millennium, if that's an opportunity there, or if there's some staff members who would like to see continue working on the sites.

Can I ask a question?

Of course.

No, it was a grant.

Okay.

I have one question.

The new security firm is open to hiring residents.

Obviously, we would love every employment opportunity.

I don't know.

It all looks like it's working on this end.

I'm a little concerned about the idea that residents would be employed by the security firm.

Love the opportunity for employment.

I wonder if there are any issues that we need to address

where somebody might be a secure person in their neighborhood.

Well, I think based upon the conversation that the previous meeting, there is some synergy around having the community police themselves, having individuals in a community being able

oversee their own community.

So I think this may be one step, but the security firm also has a responsibility of making sure those individuals are qualified for the position.

And I don't know how likely it is that someone that lives in one site is actually going to be security on that site.

Thank you to the city.

I don't know if I can hold this up.

It's all the zeros.

I looked at those and I was like, what am I looking at here?

So that's amazing.

And I really think that is very helpful.

Well, obviously very helpful for our families.

Sure.

Hello, everyone.

We've already had two of the public meetings on the annual plan.

Let me pull something up really quick so I can share it.

Some of the items that have been brought up at the meetings, top of the list has been safety concerns,

I've got a lot of questions about when the safety committee will start working on camera and loitering policies.

And there's also been a lot of conversations as Mr.

Sales had talked about, about increasing lease enforcement.

Lighting continues to be a concern as I heard at the meetings.

And there was also some residents who talked about having

seeing the maintenance staff fix lights and lights go out again.

So they wanted to have some more conversations about possible protections for the lighting.

And I think some of this will also be helped once we start having maintenance committees again and we can go into that in more depth.

There were some concerns just as were mentioned just now about who the safety company will hire.

And, you know, a lot of residents were expressing a hope that it would be people from their own community.

So I think there's definitely some more conversations to be had there as well.

We had a resident who had asked for more crime and safety information to be

you know, brought up during the annual plan and attached and that's something that we could also talk about on a safety committee level, you know, just the best way to present that information.

We talked a bit about the Housing Authority new goal that we were introducing to add to the plan this year of setting up a nonprofit arm and just some of the opportunities for this to possibly raise

Some funding to have programs on all sites for youth of all ages, especially teenagers.

There's a desire to see.

I had a really great conversation at the six o'clock meeting last week about

Audrey was such a great leader on this too about setting up programs in the neighborhoods where residents would be trained to be peers and work in their neighborhoods and help with neighborhood crisis intervention.

And I'm really looking forward to continuing that conversation and, you know, grants that we could pursue to do this, especially once we had a nonprofit status.

There was a lot of conversations just about having people from the neighborhoods who have a lot of talents and skills and how they could bring resources in, if we could bring resources in and provide some funding that they could provide a really solid resource for residents who are living there.

A lot of it had to do with community building.

There are still concerns, you know, about us not having regular meetings with the police department.

And that's something I'm hoping we can talk more about.

I don't know if there's another meeting planned yet with the police department.

If there is, I'd like to add that to the notes.

We're going to, we added an extra meeting to take a deeper dive into the goals with the resident advisory board, and that's going to be on December

the second at 4 p.m. And if any board members are interested in being part of that, please reach out to me and I can make sure and connect you to that meeting.

Challenges around the dumpsters.

I thought, you know, just people don't seem to be finding the right place to put debris into the dumpsters and what we can do about that.

Also occasionally we have people dumping who don't live in our neighborhoods.

and then we talked some about the capital fund plan.

Overall, the thing I heard about the most were places for kids and teenagers to be, the parks needing to be updated, the basketball courts and just spaces that were safe in the neighborhood with more lighting.

I heard a couple of times people wanted us to buy and I know we have some too, some more wall light units and hang them up.

We're also, we did a little bit of pre-planning too about the resident advisory board's gonna help when we have our capital fund meetings this winter so we can really get more feedback from residents about that.

There's a need to improve more curb appeal in the neighborhoods and I think there's a great opportunity to talk to residents during those capital fund meetings about what they would like that to look like.

We also talked about

access to lawn mowers and weed whackers and how we can improve that which was another topic for the maintenance committee once that's up and running.

We had a resident ask if we would consider taking RAD out of the annual or five-year plan and I said that I would make sure and put that in the notes.

And then we just talked about

The need to have tools and standards in place for addressing language and reading barriers.

And we've been talking about this a bit more.

I know I'm really excited.

Ayana Poynter is doing some research as well with us using and partnering with PHAR, with Catch a Fire to see if there's ways we can develop tools with that grant funding.

As far as redevelopment, there's

A real desire to see resident-led redevelopment continue and some of the leaders that have evolved over at South First Street be able to become peers in other neighborhoods.

That was another thing that also could have come under the 501c3 status if we're able to achieve that because we could get more funding to be able to help some of the leaders at South First Street be able to carry on in that position.

We want to make sure the Resident Advisory Board is part of the sustainability plan conversations.

And there's still a lot of concerns about form-based code.

It's been quiet, but a lot of residents are saying that they haven't heard about it, but they still know it's going to come back on the table as one of the biggest property owners in town.

They're hoping that we'll be vigilant about that.

I had

Had a couple of people ask for paper copies of the annual plan and I've delivered those and if anyone else needs those please let me know and I'm glad to help with that.

So all that's really left is I'm going to be

I'm going to be inserting in the notes from the meetings that I had with residents into the annual plan, as well as I'll have a sheet that will talk about the edits that are going to be made.

And we'll be getting the signed pages as well from Mr.

Sales and the board chair that will be part of the plan as well.

And I'll be getting, after the meeting with the RAB on the 2nd, I'll be updating all that and sending it out to the whole mailing list.

So everyone will have a chance to see it long before the meeting on the 17th.

Sorry, I rambled a bit.

I don't have a question, but I will say this is the second time that I've heard like

The peer to peer, which is, you know, what I have been attempting to secure funding for some program, but it sounds like this one is on the way.

And I, the statement that was made, even the last time was that, at the meeting that we had with the officers was that this is something that I should have known some way that was occurring because I wouldn't have spent my time.

trying to secure funding for it.

So I just wanna just publicly state that I'm gonna step back from what I have been doing on my end to attempting to get something like that funded.

And I haven't been able to connect with April Oliver yet, but if they need any assistance or want any assistance from me, then they can just reach out for that.

And if there is something, and if it's only-

I would really welcome the opportunity to talk to you because there's so many moving parts and different groups looking at different ideas.

Thank you, Kathleen.

And I know, I read in one of the, I can't remember which report, it's probably this report, and looking at setting up the nonprofit arm.

Oh, I know, I think it was around,

maybe it wasn't yours or Mr.

Sales about the rent as we continue and I know a lot of the CARES funding ends December 31st and one of these reports that talked about the rental forgiveness program or the rental assistance program

Anyway, so I was thinking, oh yeah, the Rental Assistance Fund, yeah.

I mean, I don't, how long does it take to get that set up?

I will say,

So we were working on two different things, a rental assistance fund and a eviction diversion program that we were gonna, the goal was to combine the two.

and for being able to provide education along the lines of finance and budgeting while also setting individuals up that fall behind in rent on free payment agreements that they can afford.

And then having an incentive there where we have a pot of funds that we can use every time they make three current payments, we forgive one and we use the funding that's in that pool for that forgiveness.

because we wanted to balance it where we're providing some incentives while also asking them to provide some time to go through budgets and financing.

Great.

I mean, that sounds really good.

I guess I'm wondering, I think that sounds great.

I'm wondering for the nonprofit arm to be developed, is that something that will take, what I'm getting at is can the board members help in any way?

You know, I know we probably haven't done this before, but it's holiday and I know, you know, I work at UVA and get all sorts of

You know, give to this UVA fund that is then giving to someone else in the community.

You know, they try to kind of consolidate or match funds or have their employees donating to things.

You can certainly do that without having a nonprofit.

We won't have a nonprofit within a few months.

Gotcha, okay.

The board has to approve it and the city council has to approve it before we can even create one.

And then it takes a while to write the bylaws and the structure and organization itself.

So we're looking probably six months to a year from now of having one standing.

Individuals and organizations can gift a housing authority now.

It's just, you won't receive a tax break on it.

But we certainly have individuals doing that.

And we recently struck up a partnership with another organization, a nonprofit, to provide gift cards for residents that are living in public housing.

And we pretty much figured that out last week and got the first round of gift cards this morning.

So they're going to do four more rounds after this initial round to January.

So ordinate or donate.

Okay.

Could I ask one question about the nonprofit?

I know when I was helped setting up a nonprofit, there's an opportunity for you to go, and I'm trying to think of the name of it, kind of have a work with a nonprofit.

A fiscal agent.

Yeah, that's a fiscal agent.

Yeah.

So, I mean, that is an option, but we haven't stood up the program yet in order to do something like that.

We've been focusing on taking care of the individuals we have in house and the back accounts.

And then we were,

nominated by the CBD task force for funding for rental diversion program with the housing stabilization coordinator and some funding for rental assistance.

But for that model of incentivizing individuals that are paying based upon the repayment agreement.

So in order to set it up the way you're talking about Ms. Green to get rent payments

We just need to talk with an outside firm and start making those asks.

But we have done that before.

Before I went to the city council, I asked multiple different organizations about donating to take care of the back rent.

Just thinking that a short-term gap, a solution, not to keep moving forward with that, but something

And then I'm happy to help.

I mean, I know that you said there are other CRHAs in the state that have set up a nonprofit.

And so maybe

Yes, that's certainly the case.

I will say some are set up differently though.

Some are set up as more of a development and some of them are set up as more of a resident back providing services, using it, using the nonprofit to provide services.

So based upon how the mission of the organization will determine how it's set up.

Miss Carnes, our council set up

Quite a few of them.

And she is used to the mission service model.

So she may be a good point person to help us with the bylaws.

Thank you.

All right, should we move on to the safety committee update?

More questions?

Sure.

So since our past our past board meeting, we had a public rate emergency meeting last week about safety concerns in public housing.

And what we've heard from residents

is that some of the concerns that Miss Glenn-Matthews had addressed, concerns about lighting is persistently a problem, but also residents feeling as though they don't feel safe and that they also feel as though services that other city residents have, they don't always have access to.

and so at the meeting that we had at the emergency meeting for people who weren't there we talked a lot about we heard from residents and what they're concerned about and we talked about thinking about strategies that would lead to more safety that wouldn't necessarily be only over-policing or only punitive strategies that might actually compound some of the problems.

So we'll be hearing at tomorrow's meeting at 6 p.m

we'll be hearing from Mr.

Sales and PHAR about a joint proposal they put together so I haven't seen that yet I don't know what it looks like and I'm also not aware of any future meetings planned with the police chief or with police in general although those will be on the calendar that's something that I haven't been looped in on but they might be happening.

I think one thing that as we look to thinking about some of the policies that residents want

to have written up is a question about cameras and then loitering.

I think it would be great for us as an agency to start to think too about ways to build in job creation and economic mobility.

When Mr. Collins was talking he said you don't hear about this stuff happening in Greenbrier

because there would be consequences.

I think we also have to think too about where there's economic opportunity in the city.

And I think the section three program, sorry.

I think the section three program is a really good opportunity for us to start to think about ways to provide job training and job skills wherever possible.

And so I'm hoping we can have as many residents as are able to join the calls.

You don't have to come to all of them.

You can come for any of them.

You can stay as long as you want.

But I think it's really important

Any comments, questions?

Okay, let's move on to Mr. Norris.

Yes, so you all have the redevelopment report in front of you or in your packet.

The good news is since that report was submitted, we have now finally received our building permit for South First Street phase one.

We had already received the building permit for Crescent Halls.

So in terms of the city building permitting process, we are now

We've cleared those hurdles, which are, which is huge.

And so once we have closed on the projects we'll be able to get started on the construction side.

So I want to thank the city staff and thank our mayor and others for getting us to this point with the building permits.

I think the last time I spoke to the board, we were aiming to close on these projects by now, by middle of November and

get construction underway by the end of December.

That's now been bumped back another month.

So we're now aiming to close by middle of December with construction hopefully to start by end of January.

And that's mostly due to sort of a last minute delay caused by some bureaucratic issues with HUD, but we're working through them.

I'm happy to go into the weeds on that if anybody likes, but essentially it has to do with the way our disposition applications are being categorized in the final stage of the HUD approvals.

And we just have to jump through a couple extra hoops to get the most favorable disposition approval.

So that has bumped things back by about a month, but we're making progress.

Give a lot of credit to Jeff Meyer from VCDC and our whole development team for working hard to get us to where we are now.

But hopefully by January, by the time of the board meeting in January, construction will be underway on both phase one projects.

Phase two of South First Street, we are hoping to,

We've had to work through some technology issues and getting virtual meetings set up with resident planners, but those are all hopefully now resolved and so that we can start getting those meetings starting again to

finalized phase two of South First Street.

And that's exciting to see that come together as well.

So we have already started laying the groundwork for the disposition application for phase two of South First Street with HUD, seeing how long it took to get phase one approved.

We wanted to just get a headstart on phase two.

So that's underway now.

And yeah, and

We are in the final stages of negotiations with our general contractor to finalize the general contractor agreements and the pricing.

And part of that conversation involves getting a little bit more specific on their section three hiring commitments so that our section three coordinator, Joy Johnson has a clear idea of exactly how many, or at least roughly how many

Positions and what kinds of skills and trades that they're looking to hire from among the, I guess over 80 people now that she has in the pipeline for section three employment.

So the goal is to get as many of them hired as possible trained and hired phase one projects.

That's a great question.

So we did have four residents complete the first training program that we did with the city of Charlottesville.

And we're hoping that several of them will get hired on phase one.

In addition, starting in January, we'll have the second round of city training that they call it the Trade Builders Academy.

So that by the time those, we're going to be looking to place 10 Section 3 residents in that training program, hopefully most of them will graduate.

And by the time they graduate, things will be well enough underway that they can immediately hopefully go right onto the job site.

There are, Miss Johnson has also identified some residents who already have training, already have trades and certifications.

And so they won't have to go through the training program necessarily to get hired.

They might be able to go right onto the job site.

And so that's part of the conversation we're having with the general, we will be soon having with the general contractors is what kind of training, what kind of certifications are they going to be requiring?

Could you remind us what was, but not maybe the exact date, but roughly what was the date of the disposition application for Crescent Halls and South First Street?

Yeah.

Right.

So we started inputting that information in fall of 2019.

We completed all the information by January, February of this year.

I guess February is when we pushed the

the send button on everything.

We were promised a 60 day review and approval.

It's now been a little bit longer than 60 days, but we're finally getting to the light at the end of the tunnel.

So it's taken since February, I guess, for that review.

We've learned a lot though in this first round.

And so that's gonna help us get through it quicker next time now that we know

all the hoops we have to jump through and everything they're looking for and how to frame things in a way that meets with their approval.

Awesome.

Thank you, Mr. Norris.

Thank you.

Yes.

Any other questions or comments for Mr. Norris?

It's getting real.

I do have one question, but this might be a silly thing to ask, but I've been thinking about it.

I'm sure you've been talking about it, but I don't know if you can give us a glimpse if we remain with virtual and social distancing mechanisms in place through the planning process for other sites.

It's not a silly question at all.

I mean, I think we have to be prepared for that

possibility.

What we've been working on on phase two is to acquire, we have some unused grant funds that we're acquiring, 15 laptops and getting the right software loaded onto them that we can use for the resident planners.

These will belong to the housing authority, but they'll be loaned out to residents.

and then the staff from Bruce Wardell and Associates who's the architect working on phase two will each week kind of upload new materials to the laptops and check in with the residents and make sure they're able to access those materials.

We're also buying little hotspots, portable hotspots so that everybody who's participating will have internet access.

So I think our thought is that that same model could be applied in future developments to get to your question, Commissioner Goldblatt, that in future developments, we could, if need be, we'll have refined the art of doing virtual resident engagement on redevelopment planning.

It's not ideal, but we think, you know, we've had a series of meetings to sort of think through what that will look like and how that will work.

Great.

And maybe we'll have both at some point.

I mean, theoretically moving into the summer, it'd be nice to have both really available for people.

That's awesome.

Okay.

Anything else?

And another, just saying it because it's in my brain, another fundraising opportunity would be definitely internet service for people who

can't pay the monthly bill or don't have it.

I think there's also CARES funding and grants for that right now since we've got kids in school specifically for that and I'm going to have to think about that and I had had a conversation about in the TJPDC about that and I'm not sure if that's where it is or not but I'm pretty certain I know that there's a huge

pushing out to extend broadband everywhere since especially in the rural areas that there are folks that desperately need that for kids to be in school.

And the school is offering the Comcast package to any city school student family.

And so they sent that communication out.

Okay, good to know.

All right, other questions or comments?

All right, moving on.

We're ready for another round of public comments.

Let's see, we're on our list here.

And by the way, Commissioner Osteen said his internet went out and he's somewhere on the phone with us.

Hi, good evening.

I got some children in the background.

My apologies.

Just a quick couple of comments on some things discussed tonight.

I just want to put out a plug for the annual plan meeting with the RAB that's going to be on December 2nd, I believe.

I think it'd be great if commissioners could attend that.

I think

You know, these sessions can be really helpful for setting a long-term strategy, but those long-term strategies aren't really any good unless we all kind of know where everybody's coming from.

And I think it'd be a lot easier to use the plan as a strategic plan throughout the year.

So feel free to hop in on those meetings.

I did wanna also say with the peer,

the peer folks in public housing.

I really hope there's not a desire to pull away from that.

I think the mayor's probably done more work on this than anybody to this point.

It would seem like a mistake to pull back because I'm not sure a whole lot is in place.

And if anything, it's a great opportunity for collaboration.

Certainly if there's already a push for funding for some of this stuff,

There's definitely not a need to pull back.

The idea of the nonprofit is a really interesting idea and I wonder if we could one-up you and say, you know, that might be an opportunity to have residents on a nonprofit board along with commissioners.

I know it might take some doing.

sorry, to make it you know not have interest to make sure housing authorities are represented but that'd be a really cool idea and then I think it might be worth also just sort of considering how does that relate to the other non-profit associated with redevelopment to receive the big donations

and just make sure there's not like any conflict there.

I haven't had a lot of time to think about it, but it's worth thinking about.

And then lastly, I just wanted to clarify.

So PHAR's efforts on community-based strategies for safety really is in its sort of infancy.

We have had conversations

with helpers and as a group about what our approach needs to be.

And basically we're currently just trying to reach those folks site by site who really have an interest and are showing that they wanna do the work to have a community-based approach and identify what those approaches might be because it's gonna be different for each site.

We have some ideas of

and some examples of successes in other communities that have really taken years to pan out.

We don't have a specific proposal right now beyond, we're committed to community-based, resident-based approach to improving safety.

And that starts with working with the community and seeing who's gonna do the work.

and making sure we're a resource for making that all come together.

So I don't have a specific proposal for that.

We have included some proposals in Mr.

Sales' safety action plan that will be reviewed on Tuesday.

Thank you, Mr. Collins.

I'm trying to see if anyone else, would anyone else like to speak this evening?

Good evening, everyone.

Don't really have much of anything.

Brandon pretty much covered everything just now.

Just want to wish everyone happy holidays.

Everyone, please be safe.

Still a little concerned and then a little on edge about the new security team coming in.

But I guess we'll just have to wait and see how that all fleshes out.

Thank you, Mr. Gathers.

I'm wondering, and maybe in the safety committee, it might be worth the, well, or maybe even an anonymous way for residents to express Millennium staff that they've been very happy with if there's that ability for the new security company who might want to be recruiting from Millennium.

Just throwing that out there.

Okay, other comments from anyone really?

All right, then we have reached the end of our agenda for this evening.

It sounds like many of us may see each other tomorrow at six o'clock.

Yeah, it's on the website.

It's also on PHAR's website.

So there's lots of places you can find it.

And in fact, Mr.

Sales, would you mind?

I don't know who can do it.

Can it be posted to Facebook?

I'm sorry about the passcode.

I have no way of getting the passcode removed.

but it's an automatic thing.

But yeah, so it should be, but it's always the same passcode.

Once you have it once, it's always the same for every single meeting.

But someone please send that to my email.

Not a Facebook person.

Thanks.

Yeah, I can't copy the Zoom link while in a Zoom meeting, but I will.

Okay, thank you everyone very much.

Oh, and I also wanted to mention we had discussed various committees.

I'll send that list back out so we can talk, you know, we can start to coordinate with CRHA staff and maybe we can get those

You know, like the goal could be to have an actual consistent date and time starting in January.

You know, give us a little time to iron it out, but if we could start the new year with some kind of, you know, consistency to all of these other committees as well.

Hey, Miss Johnson.

Mr.

Sales, could you do the roll call?

Commissioner Slaughter?

Aye.

Yes.

Okay.

Meeting adjourned.

Thank you all very much.

Hi, Joy.

You turned your camera on.

All right.

Happy holidays.