City Council Meeting   1/18/2022

1. CALL TO ORDER

2. ROLL CALL

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:01
    So, we're all here.

3. AGENDA APPROVAL

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:03
    The January 18, 2022 Charlottesville City Council meeting will come to order.

4. REPORTS

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:08
    Ms.

5. 1. Transit presentation and work session

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:08
    Thomas, will you call the roll?

6. Closed session as provided by Sections 2.2-3711 and 2.2-3712 of the Virginia Code (Legal consultation; Personnel)

• • SPEAKER_30
  • 00:00:11
    Councilor McGill?

7. Regular Meeting

• • SPEAKER_30
  • 00:00:15
    Here.

8. MOMENT OF SILENCE

• • SPEAKER_30
  • 00:00:16
    Councilor Payne?

9. ANNOUNCEMENTS

• • SPEAKER_30
  • 00:00:18
    Here.

10. RECOGNITIONS/PROCLAMATIONS

• • SPEAKER_37
  • 00:00:19
    Councilor Pinkston?

11. CONSENT AGENDA*

• • SPEAKER_30
  • 00:00:20
    Here.

12. 2. Authorizing refund to taxpaying entity of Business License Tax paid for 2020 - $4,939.20 (1 reading)

• • SPEAKER_37
  • 00:00:22
    Mayor Snook?

13. 3. Authorizing refund to taxpaying entity of Business License Tax paid for 2020 - $10,261.20 (1 reading)

• • SPEAKER_30
  • 00:00:23
    Here.

14. 4. Amending and re-enacting the provisions of Chapter 28 (Streets and Sidewalks), Article VI (Sidewalk Cafes) of the Code of the City of Charlottesville (1990) as amended, to establish the City Treasurer as the city official responsible for collecting rents from sidewalk cafe operators; and to waive rents due and owing to the City under the provisions of City Code Section 28-214(c)(2) for 2020 and 2021 (1st of 2 readings)

• • SPEAKER_37
  • 00:00:23
    Vice Mayor Wade?

15. 5. Consideration of the Park Street Christian Church Planned Unit Development requests (2nd reading)

• • SPEAKER_37
  • 00:00:26
    Here.

16. 5.a. Rezoning of approximately seven (7) acres of land, including one lot identified within City tax records as 1200 Park Street, Tax Map and Parcel 470002120 from R-1 to PUD (Planned Unit Development) (2nd reading)

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:28
    Okay, we're all here.

17. 5.b. Park Street Christian Church PUD Critical slopes waiver (2nd reading)

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:30
    Is there a motion to approve the agenda?

18. 6. Appropriating funds for the Runaway Emergency Shelter Program Grant - $209,444 (1st of 2 readings)

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:34
    So moved.

19. CITY MANAGER RESPONSE TO COMMUNITY MATTERS and to COUNCILORS

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:36
    Second.

20. COMMUNITY MATTERS

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:37
    Motion to second.

21. ACTION ITEMS

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:38
    Ms.

22. 7. Appointment of an Interim City Manager (1 reading) 

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:39
    Thomas?

23. 8. Consideration of a rezoning request for approximately 9 acres of land, including multiple lots identified within City tax records as Tax Map and Parcel 470007100, 470011000 and 470008000 for a Planned Unit Development, also referred to as the MACAA PUD (2nd reading)

• • SPEAKER_37
  • 00:00:41
    Councilor McGill?

24. 9. Appropriation of American Rescue Plan funds (1st of 2 readings)

• • SPEAKER_37
  • 00:00:43
    Yes.

25. 10. Approving names for newly acquired and developed parklands (1 reading)

• • SPEAKER_37
  • 00:00:45
    Councilor Payne?

26. 11. Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority 6th Street site

• • SPEAKER_31
  • 00:00:46
    Yes.

27. 11.a. Designating CRHA 6th Street site as a Revitalization Area (1 reading)

• • SPEAKER_37
  • 00:00:47
    Councilor Pinkston?

28. 11.b. Financial resolution supporting 6th Street site (1 reading)

• • SPEAKER_31
  • 00:00:49
    Yes.

29. 12. Approving an FY 2018-2019 Community Development Block Grant Substantial Action Plan Amendment of the 2018-2022 Consolidated Plan  (1 reading)

• • SPEAKER_37
  • 00:00:50
    Councilor Mayor Snook?

30. 13. Consideration of endorsing a letter to the General Assembly regarding Climate and Energy Policy

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:52
    Yes.

31. GENERAL BUSINESS

• • SPEAKER_37
  • 00:00:54
    Vice Mayor Wade?

32. 14. Rivanna Authorities Quarterly Update/Annual Report

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:55
    Yes.

33. 15. Update on the zoning rewrite process

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:57
    Great motion passes five nothing.

34. OTHER BUSINESS

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:58
    We have an agenda.

35. MATTERS BY THE PUBLIC

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:01:00
    So this meeting will be divided into three sections.

36. *Action Needed

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:01:03
    First is a work session to hear and discuss the staff presentation.
  • 00:01:07
    Then we'll have a closed meeting.
  • 00:01:09
    Then we'll have the regular city council business meeting at 630.
  • 00:01:15
    And so it's all regarded basically as as one as one large, large meeting.
  • 00:01:20
    First item, then, therefore, is the report from the Transit Director Garland Williams, Mr. Williams.
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:01:31
    Good afternoon, everybody.
  • 00:01:33
    Mayor Snook, Vice Mayor Wade, members of Council, how are you doing today?
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 00:01:39
    Doing great.
  • 00:01:42
    Thank you.
  • 00:01:45
    I'm asking the host to let me pull up my presentation.
  • 00:01:54
    Perfect.
  • 00:01:55
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:01:56
    So this presentation is labeled the state of service for CAT in 2022.
  • 00:02:03
    I wanted to give you basically a general overview of what CAT is and what we can and cannot do.
  • 00:02:09
    And then I have part of the presentation we'll talk about my vision for CAT.
  • 00:02:15
    There are three big vision pieces that I really want us to focus on.
  • 00:02:20
    And there will be some policy decisions
  • 00:02:22
    I know that is not what we'll be able to kind of accomplish today, but I wanted to put it on everyone's radar.
  • 00:02:27
    So part of the introduction today is letting everybody know.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 00:02:32
    There we go.
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:02:43
    Charlottesville Area Transit is designated as a small urban transit system that provides public transportation
  • 00:02:52
    to the city of Charlottesville and the urban areas of Albemarle County.
  • 00:02:57
    We operate 364 days a year and approximately 19 hours a day.
  • 00:03:01
    The only day that CAT doesn't operate in normal times, not a pandemic, is Christmas.
  • 00:03:09
    CAT is designed around, at this point in time, the employment has 51 full-time employees, full-time operators, 10 part-time operators,
  • 00:03:20
    46 temporary operators, which have no benefits, eight supervisors, six mechanics, six bus cleaners, and 11 administrative staff.
  • 00:03:34
    CATS numbers, the general statistics have been declining, and we'll talk a little bit more about that.
  • 00:03:39
    In FY20, our ridership numbers, we are about 1.3 million, which is a decline from seven, eight years ago, we were over 2 million.
  • 00:03:50
    Riders per year.
  • 00:03:52
    We've got 327 bus stops in our system, one park and ride lot and one transit center.
  • 00:04:00
    We have 36 fixed route buses.
  • 00:04:03
    We have been approved to add four more to our fleet and the system today has 13 fixed routes with two additional there being contemplated for an expansion.
  • 00:04:16
    We've done some homework and we've
  • 00:04:18
    We can tell you exactly where our population densities are, where people are in putting our system together, where the minority populations are, where the low-income populations and individuals with no income.
  • 00:04:30
    This is an important statistic we need to know when we're designing the system.
  • 00:04:34
    We have brought on a consultant, and they helped us last year to do an optimization study.
  • 00:04:41
    That study, I believe we presented to council back in March or April of last year.
  • 00:04:47
    We're working through the final pieces right now with Title VI.
  • 00:04:52
    I know it's a long time coming, but we are almost across that finish line.
  • 00:04:56
    And when we do, we'll have the answers on whether we can make all the adjustments based on that optimization state.
  • 00:05:04
    Cat, historical trends.
  • 00:05:06
    Our annual ridership has been declining.
  • 00:05:09
    It's in a downward trajectory.
  • 00:05:12
    We've lost 22% of our total overall ridership numbers over the last six years.
  • 00:05:18
    Our annual bus hours, over 100,000 have been increasing.
  • 00:05:23
    So we've been declining in ridership, but we've been going up in bus hours.
  • 00:05:28
    That's not where we want to be, resulting in a decline in service productivity, about 36%.
  • 00:05:36
    This is through nitty gritty.
  • 00:05:39
    So this gets to where I was talking about the ridership numbers.
  • 00:05:42
    In FY14, our ridership numbers were 2.2 million riders.
  • 00:05:49
    on an annual basis.
  • 00:05:50
    FY20, we're at 1.3.
  • 00:05:53
    Our annual revenue hours, we're at 93,000, and it went up and down.
  • 00:05:59
    We've actually been able to correct a little bit of that.
  • 00:06:02
    We're back just under 100,000 annual revenue hours.
  • 00:06:08
    Our O&M costs, which is operating maintenance costs in FY17, was 7.1 million.
  • 00:06:13
    And FY20,
  • 00:06:18
    of 8.2.
  • 00:06:19
    The number I want to make sure everyone is focusing on is the riders per revenue hour.
  • 00:06:23
    In FY14, our riders per revenue hour were 24.3.
  • 00:06:30
    And now in FY20, ridership numbers are 13.3.
  • 00:06:34
    That's a decline we can't sustain.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 00:06:37
    The costs continue to go up.
  • 00:06:42
    The funding model for CAT.
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:06:44
    So CAT gets funded
  • 00:06:46
    with federal dollars and it's 5307 funding.
  • 00:06:51
    We get state operating assistance because, and it's performance based because we're a small urban.
  • 00:06:57
    We also get money from the local general fund match to match the federal and state dollars from the city and through a contract purchase agreement with the county.
  • 00:07:08
    In normal circumstances, we would get a fair box return and a small amount of money from advertising.
  • 00:07:14
    That fare box number for us has gone away because we applied for and got a zero fare grant that's going to allow us to operate fare free three years on the state's dime and then one year on the local dime.
  • 00:07:31
    And we have additional money that's coming through the coffers for CARES, ARP, and Build Back Better.
  • 00:07:36
    We have gotten all our money for CARES.
  • 00:07:39
    We are drawing down our money for ARP.
  • 00:07:43
    We have been told preliminarily what the number potentially could be on the Build Back Better, but we haven't got the sign off from the U.S.
  • 00:07:54
    Department of Transportation yet.
  • 00:07:57
    Hopefully we'll get that number codified in the next month or so.
  • 00:08:04
    This is what our budget looks like for FY23 proposed budget.
  • 00:08:08
    So in FY22 we had
  • 00:08:11
    We're proposing to go up to 11.5.
  • 00:08:16
    The biggest increase that we're asking for is because we are understaffed.
  • 00:08:20
    We need a significant increase in staffing to make part of what I'm going to talk about the vision happening.
  • 00:08:27
    We need to ramp up on the numbers, just so you're aware, the 51 full-time employees that we have and the 10 part-time hours.
  • 00:08:37
    We are so
  • 00:08:39
    have a number of those individuals, seven or six of them on loan to help out with the pupil system.
  • 00:08:47
    And there are six individuals when the Afghan uprising happened that left and have not been back since.
  • 00:08:57
    So there was tension in the world and it affected CAAT locally.
  • 00:09:07
    So
  • 00:09:07
    Building a Better Cat, what does that look like?
  • 00:09:10
    So this is where we get into the part about what I want us to potentially focus in on and some policy decisions that I hope that there were some smaller more one-on-one or two-on-two conversations that we can talk in great detail about.
  • 00:09:26
    The first one is when I'm looking at cat system, I'm focused in on four areas, reliability, frequency, ridership,
  • 00:09:37
    and quality of service.
  • 00:09:39
    So everything that we do is basically, those are my four pillars and I'm building a system that allows to meet public demand for a reliable system and we're answering basic questions.
  • 00:09:51
    Does the bus system operate on schedule?
  • 00:09:54
    Do we have the staff to meet the public demand?
  • 00:09:56
    Do we have the right vehicles and ridership?
  • 00:09:58
    What's the trend?
  • 00:09:59
    Is the system designed to increase ridership?
  • 00:10:02
    Are we prepared
  • 00:10:03
    Are we riding the correct level of service to the individuals that need our public transportation?
  • 00:10:10
    Frequency, how often do the buses arrive?
  • 00:10:12
    Is there enough frequency and service to encourage people to use public transportation?
  • 00:10:18
    And how long does service operate, the span of service?
  • 00:10:21
    And the quality of service, are the routes efficiently designed?
  • 00:10:25
    Are buses clean and safe?
  • 00:10:27
    Have we planned for growth, meaning alternative fuel vehicles and any other components that we want to integrate?
  • 00:10:35
    There are also guiding principles that govern those four pillars.
  • 00:10:40
    There's an equity issue that we always have to keep in the forefront of our mind.
  • 00:10:45
    Historically disadvantaged communities must gain access to resources and opportunities to thrive.
  • 00:10:50
    We're looking at potentially being a part of economic development.
  • 00:10:55
    A high functioning transit system can encourage economic development.
  • 00:10:59
    Access to mobility, provide greater transportation access and a broader range of mobility options for the greater Charlottesville.
  • 00:11:06
    and a high-functioning transit system can assist with lifting individuals out of poverty.
  • 00:11:12
    Additionally, the major thing that's governing us and we have to answer to FTA is we have a Title VI requirement.
  • 00:11:20
    So everything we do and route changes, adjustments we make has to be going through the Title VI lens.
  • 00:11:28
    So we are required to make adjustments to our system that are equitable.
  • 00:11:35
    We can't
  • 00:11:36
    put something into place that disenfranchises individuals in minority or low income areas.
  • 00:11:43
    And we also want to make sure that the minority and low income areas, we define the relationship to them and making sure that they have adequate service.
  • 00:11:53
    This is a requirement because we receive federal funding.
  • 00:11:55
    So this is a step we can't scoot around.
  • 00:11:58
    So we've all got to keep that in mind when we're making adjustments.
  • 00:12:05
    I tend to focus on first and foremost, because I think it answers the equity question, frequency.
  • 00:12:11
    If we have a high functioning transit system that is very frequent, a lot of the other components that we'll talk about, whether it's amenities, whether it's bus shelters, kind of takes a back seat because a very frequent system doesn't require the capital outlay to have every single bus stop have a shelter or every single bus stop have a bench.
  • 00:12:34
    If you know our bus is going to come very frequently every 15 minutes or every 10 minutes, then the most you're going to wait.
  • 00:12:44
    And if you just missed it, it's 15 minutes or something less than that.
  • 00:12:49
    So eventually, I would like for us to talk about getting to a system that is much more frequent.
  • 00:12:55
    This is what our system looked like pre-pandemic.
  • 00:12:59
    We have a number of our routes that were 30 minutes.
  • 00:13:02
    A number of routes were 60 minutes.
  • 00:13:05
    We actually had two routes that were 70 minutes.
  • 00:13:08
    No one's going to use a 70 minute system.
  • 00:13:11
    It's inefficient and it doesn't allow us to put it on a clock face headway, which means I can be able to tell a person at five past the hour, every hour the bus is going to come.
  • 00:13:22
    Because with a 70 minute, it continues to slide every 10 minutes, every 10 minutes, every hour.
  • 00:13:27
    So we want to correct a number of these things and we're working through that right now.
  • 00:13:33
    My vision, provide the region with a 15-minute fixed route bus system.
  • 00:13:40
    My interim step, though, and I've talked about this since I've been here, which is two years and four months, not that I'm counting, is that we want to get through kind of the 30-minute model first, but we are a planning organization that operates transit, first and foremost.
  • 00:13:58
    We have to plan our way to getting to 15-minute service.
  • 00:14:01
    We have to plan our way to adding VIG.
  • 00:14:03
    We have to plan our way and get the authorization from FEDS to add capital projects.
  • 00:14:09
    So we are a planning organization first and foremost.
  • 00:14:13
    So what other resources we need to get to a 15-minute system?
  • 00:14:17
    Pre-pandemic, we would need additional 22 buses added to our system to get to the pre-pandemic level.
  • 00:14:26
    That would give us 54 buses at peak, and then we would have a spare ratio of six.
  • 00:14:32
    So we need 22 buses to make this 15-minute model happen.
  • 00:14:36
    If we're adding service, that number goes up.
  • 00:14:39
    So I wanted to make sure that this is not the definitive number.
  • 00:14:43
    As we add more service, more buses will be required.
  • 00:14:47
    So adding 22 to get to the pre-pandemic level, we'll need 45 additional full-time drivers and potentially 15 more part-time drivers.
  • 00:14:57
    Because what we are experiencing right now is with our highest number,
  • 00:15:01
    our second highest number being temporaries, those individuals potentially have second jobs and if their second job asks them to stay over, they're going to stay with their primary job and therefore we can't provide the reliable public transportation that we promised the region that we would do.
  • 00:15:23
    And eventually if we're going to add that kind of level of service, we need to add six mechanics because we need to turn our
  • 00:15:29
    or mechanic shop into a 24 hour operation.
  • 00:15:34
    We're operating 19 hours a day, as I mentioned.
  • 00:15:38
    So we're only really down five hours a day.
  • 00:15:41
    That five hours would be the need for where we're gonna do a lot of the work and a lot of the preventive maintenance work in preparation for the next day.
  • 00:15:48
    And we need to improve our bus stops.
  • 00:15:50
    A lot of our system that you, a lot of what you see on the street has been grandfathered in.
  • 00:15:56
    And what that means is,
  • 00:15:59
    FTA is not really looking at the condition of those bus stops at this point in time.
  • 00:16:05
    As we start to change those and bring them up to code, we will have to make them compliant.
  • 00:16:11
    We have to bring them into ADA regulations.
  • 00:16:14
    So we've got a lot of work to do there.
  • 00:16:20
    So what will it cost us to get 22 new buses?
  • 00:16:24
    These are approximate numbers because the numbers continue to change as we
  • 00:16:29
    designate a vendor.
  • 00:16:31
    So diesel buses, if we're going to buy 22 diesel buses, it's going to cost us $8.8 million.
  • 00:16:38
    A portion of that is going to be offset by state and federal funding.
  • 00:16:47
    And the normal allocation right now, the city would be on the hook for about 4% of the diesel number.
  • 00:16:56
    If we looked at buying
  • 00:16:58
    22 CNG vehicles to add to our fleet.
  • 00:17:02
    It would cost us $9.2 million.
  • 00:17:04
    The CNG is a little more expensive than the diesel bus.
  • 00:17:08
    But if we're going to add EV buses, it's going to cost us $17.8 million.
  • 00:17:14
    At this point in time, the majority of what's being funded for EV vehicles across the Commonwealth to transit agencies has been distributed out of a
  • 00:17:28
    Volkswagen fund that the state had, reimbursement fund.
  • 00:17:34
    That fund has been exhausted.
  • 00:17:36
    There has been considerable amount of talk and discussions about replenishing that fund.
  • 00:17:42
    That has not happened yet, but I'm hopeful that that will happen and that will allow us an opportunity to potentially down the road tap into that fund ourselves to potentially add EV vehicles to our system.
  • 00:17:56
    Well,
  • 00:17:57
    We'll also need those 45 operators that we talked about.
  • 00:18:01
    That's going to cost about $2.7 million based on existing model we have today.
  • 00:18:07
    Now, we know our numbers are low because the university transit system just raised their base fare.
  • 00:18:13
    We're not matching them.
  • 00:18:14
    We need to get up.
  • 00:18:14
    So that number is going to increase higher than 2.7.
  • 00:18:18
    But in today's dollars, it would cost us 2.7.
  • 00:18:21
    The 15 additional part-timers is going to cost us $715,000.
  • 00:18:26
    six mechanics will cost us approximately $470,000.
  • 00:18:29
    And every single bus stop that we improve is going to cost us between $35,000 and $80,000 per stop.
  • 00:18:37
    This is what one potentially could look like.
  • 00:18:40
    A fully functioning up-to-date modern bus stop could have real-time signage, a shelter, trash dispenser, additional seating, and a place for people to
  • 00:18:57
    connect their bikes.
  • 00:19:00
    So there are things that we can and can't do.
  • 00:19:02
    And like I said, that range expands depending on how elaborate we want to be and how much space we have to bring us up into compliance as far as regarding the ADA components.
  • 00:19:18
    Vision two, adding alternative fuel vehicles to the fleet.
  • 00:19:22
    There's been a lot of discussion
  • 00:19:24
    since I got here.
  • 00:19:25
    I think one of my first meetings when I got here two years or four months ago was with our internal city staff about adding EV vehicles to CAT's fleet.
  • 00:19:40
    So there are requirements that CAT has to do to make sure that we are successful in our application if we want to add EV vehicles.
  • 00:19:52
    There are steps, the first step.
  • 00:19:54
    We need to complete a feasibility step.
  • 00:19:57
    This will signal to FTA and to VDRPT that CAT is serious about the contemplating and developing steps to put EV vehicles into our fleet.
  • 00:20:11
    Once that is complete, we need to develop an integration plan based on the recommendations from the feasibility step.
  • 00:20:20
    And then we are going to have to make some
  • 00:20:25
    adjustments, enhancements to our facility, some facility improvements.
  • 00:20:30
    So what is that going to cost us?
  • 00:20:32
    To complete a feasibility study, which is step number one, we are required to do is $125,000 to $155,000.
  • 00:20:38
    Once we complete that, develop the integration plan is another $20,000 to $40,000.
  • 00:20:42
    And then whatever the
  • 00:20:50
    Facility improvements cost us, we don't know yet because we don't have any idea what they are from the feasibility study, but it could be a couple hundred thousand dollars, it could be a couple million dollars, it all depends on what's needed and required to make us compliant.
  • 00:21:05
    No matter what it is, whether it's EV, whether it's CNG, there will be enhancements that will have to be made to our facilities.
  • 00:21:16
    Number three.
  • 00:21:18
    CAAT needs to become a regional transit authority, positioned itself to become a part of a regional transit authority.
  • 00:21:27
    So we need to work with the surrounding jurisdictions to secure a dedicated funding.
  • 00:21:32
    That is key to the areas that have been successful in creating a regional transit authority, HRT, GRTC, which is now a city in the Richmond region,
  • 00:21:47
    and that's the CVTA, the Central Virginia Transit Authority.
  • 00:21:52
    So we are working on with the TJPDC to look at a governance study and potentially look at how to get a dedicated funding model up and running here in this region.
  • 00:22:05
    We need to develop a dedicated funding allocation model.
  • 00:22:09
    Those discussions need to happen before the money gets here.
  • 00:22:12
    Once the money is secure, we want to make sure we understand the potential
  • 00:22:16
    Amount of money that's coming in the conference and how we plan to spend the money, whether it's all on existing service, potentially portion of it being on new service, and what's the split between the jurisdictions.
  • 00:22:30
    Is it proportion about the money that comes based on a dedicated funding source by use jurisdiction, or is there some other model that the jurisdictions are willing to potentially look at?
  • 00:22:42
    An incomplete
  • 00:22:44
    facility improvements, meaning if we're going to consolidate, CAT is not, CAT or any of the others don't have the facilities to house everything in one site.
  • 00:22:54
    That's potentially a problem because it makes operations easier if we have things in one site.
  • 00:22:59
    So we can work through that as we work through the issue of getting the funding.
  • 00:23:05
    So working with the jurisdiction, there's potentially millions of dollars in revenue that are out there for a dedicated funding source.
  • 00:23:14
    Developing the funding model, that's a discussion that needs to happen at the highest levels between lawmakers and the senior staff at the city and the counties because eventually once this is up and running, hopefully that will be up and running one day, we want to make sure that we're positioned to add service and continue to grow the system to make sure that the region has an adequate amount of public transportation.
  • 00:23:45
    and we don't know what the cost of the study will be for the facility improvements, but we believe that we can get a pretty good handle once the decision is made about what we're going to look like in the governor's study and then start to talk about consolidation efforts.
  • 00:24:02
    Conclusions.
  • 00:24:04
    CAT must plan for a 15-minute bus service model.
  • 00:24:09
    That is, if you told me as a policy
  • 00:24:13
    Board to tell, and the city council is the board in the FTA's eyes, tell me you want to move to a 15-minute service model.
  • 00:24:22
    I can't go out and buy 22 buses today.
  • 00:24:25
    So we have to tell FTA and VDRPT how many buses we plan to buy, and then it's what it's called an expansion model.
  • 00:24:35
    And then we have to get authorization and approvals to do so.
  • 00:24:40
    We can't just
  • 00:24:41
    There are other opportunities out there.
  • 00:24:44
    There are grant opportunities to add to the model to allow us to buy alternative fuel vehicles.
  • 00:24:51
    There are three or four different grants I can think about that potentially may be a funding source to allow us to buy EV or CNG vehicles.
  • 00:25:02
    But there's a number of policy decisions that need to happen first.
  • 00:25:06
    So the facility enhancements,
  • 00:25:08
    that we talk about to make the alternative fuel vehicles, because we want to be in position once we say go, that we can, one, have them up and running, and two, be in a position to take care of any maintenance issue or any safety issues that may arise from whatever fuel source we buy.
  • 00:25:28
    And CAP will need to continue expansion.
  • 00:25:33
    Systems, every system in Virginia is trying to get bigger.
  • 00:25:37
    based on the funding model that's given to us by the state.
  • 00:25:41
    If we choose not to try to get bigger, we are in essence saying that we're going to get less funding.
  • 00:25:47
    The pot is not growing as fast as individuals around us are trying to get bigger.
  • 00:25:53
    So that will put more pressure on our general funds in the region to support public transportation, going back to the 15 minimum.
  • 00:26:02
    If we get there, but we don't want to do other things, we've got to figure out what to do.
  • 00:26:07
    And with that, I will turn it over to you guys.
  • 00:26:10
    Thank you for your time.
  • 00:26:12
    Hopefully this will not be the only time that I'll have an opportunity to talk to you.
  • 00:26:17
    And I welcome each of you to come over, especially the two new council members.
  • 00:26:22
    Please come by and visit CAT.
  • 00:26:23
    I'd love to show you our facilities and we would love to get to work.
  • 00:26:29
    Thank you.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:26:30
    Thank you, Mr. Williams.
  • 00:26:32
    Counselors have questions?
• • Michael Payne
  • 00:26:35
    Yeah, I can fire away.
  • 00:26:37
    I've got a few questions.
  • 00:26:39
    I'll try to run through them.
  • 00:26:40
    And first of all, just thank you for this presentation and the vision.
  • 00:26:43
    I really appreciate the depth of expertise you have.
  • 00:26:46
    And I hope everyone in the community who cares about expanding public transit in reducing car trips in the city understands what an incredible ally they have in the work that you're doing.
  • 00:27:00
    First thing is just
  • 00:27:02
    Would you say that it's accurate that in terms of strengthening CAT, like the number one problem is increasing ridership?
  • 00:27:11
    And like, what is the number one thing, if that's the case, to increase ridership?
  • 00:27:14
    Is it really just the frequency?
  • 00:27:16
    Is it fare free?
  • 00:27:17
    Or what is like the most strategic changes and investments we could make to increase ridership?
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:27:24
    There is a direct correlation between frequency and ridership.
  • 00:27:28
    And I can give you numbers and I can shoot you a
  • 00:27:32
    The statistics that we track, our most frequent routes, the free trolley in the past, and the route seven, which has most service, carry about 60% of our total ridership on those two routes.
  • 00:27:48
    And those are the most frequent routes that we have in the system.
  • 00:27:51
    We have routes that go by housing communities and other places that have the lowest frequency.
  • 00:27:57
    If we want people to ride, we can't continue to inconvenience them.
  • 00:28:01
    The more service we put out, the more they are likely to ride our system.
  • 00:28:06
    So frequency will drive a lot of our ability to get ridership up.
• • Michael Payne
  • 00:28:12
    Thank you.
  • 00:28:13
    The second question is, what's the even just rough dollar amount in terms of the amount of revenue that CAT loses because of that 22% reduction in ridership over the past few years?
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:28:26
    So our CAT's total
  • 00:28:30
    Fairbox recovery and ticket sales was only about a half a million dollars.
  • 00:28:35
    I mean, about $522,000 a year.
  • 00:28:39
    So it made it easy for us to apply for the zero fair grant.
  • 00:28:46
    That number was approximately 8% of our total budget.
  • 00:28:53
    That is extremely low.
  • 00:28:58
    All of you, well, most of you know that
  • 00:29:01
    I came from 75 miles down the street at GRTC in Richmond.
  • 00:29:07
    Our farebox recovery number there was 20 to 22%.
  • 00:29:12
    When it dropped below 20%, our board was all over us as to why, because that's a significant portion of trying to make sure that we'd be able to maintain service.
  • 00:29:24
    I've just never seen a system that had no single digits, and there was no discussion about how to fix that.
• • Michael Payne
  • 00:29:31
    Thank you.
  • 00:29:32
    Third question and almost done.
  • 00:29:34
    But you mentioned that we would be on the hook for 4% of the expenditures for compressed natural gas or diesel new buses.
  • 00:29:43
    Is that the case for electric vehicles or does that not apply for those vehicles?
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:29:49
    So the state is working through their model.
  • 00:29:54
    So it's they're getting there.
  • 00:29:57
    They're not there yet.
  • 00:29:58
    So they have
  • 00:30:00
    a grant application pool, which is where they've been funding 100% of the dollars.
  • 00:30:06
    So they've been allocating, but that pool is gone.
  • 00:30:10
    They have not adopted the model that says it's a part of their normal allocation yet.
  • 00:30:15
    Yeah, I believe that is coming, but if we wanna, so it all depends on when we enter the market to buy.
  • 00:30:23
    So if we started buying tomorrow and we have four vehicles that we can purchase,
  • 00:30:31
    then we will probably be on the hook for the difference in Delta between a diesel bus 4% and an EV bus, the cost there.
  • 00:30:43
    So 400 and some thousand dollars more is what it would cost the city to get it.
• • Michael Payne
  • 00:30:48
    Okay.
  • 00:30:49
    And then would electric buses require other fixed infrastructure investments beyond the bus itself?
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:30:58
    Yes.
  • 00:31:00
    So the number that I provided to you, the 800, it's basically $800,000 per bus, $810,000 per bus, does not include the charging stations.
  • 00:31:13
    The charging stations to purchase and construction installation is probably another roughly $100,000.
  • 00:31:23
    So all in, we're at 910 grand per bus.
  • 00:31:30
    And we need to buy a couple additional charging stations more than we have buses.
  • 00:31:35
    We have seen scenarios where the charging station, something goes wrong.
  • 00:31:39
    We still need to be able to charge the bus.
  • 00:31:41
    So you would have more charging stations than you have buses.
• • Michael Payne
  • 00:31:44
    And then my final question is,
  • 00:31:48
    to acquire some of the investments that you mentioned that are needed to increase our frequency, move to a 15 minute model, hopefully move towards the vision for regional transit authority.
  • 00:31:58
    Is there any money that we know is potentially on the table from the federal and state government right now from the infrastructure bill or other bills?
  • 00:32:08
    And if so, sort of what that amount is and how much local match that may require in order to access that money?
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:32:15
    So I am not aware of any additional money that would help a transit authority, which is why the transit authorities themselves have gone to secure the dedicated funding model.
  • 00:32:26
    But once the models are up, now CAT can and will continue to look for grants and continue to apply.
  • 00:32:33
    We have been very successful in getting additional grants.
  • 00:32:35
    We will continue to do that.
  • 00:32:37
    It's all a matter of the policy decision that we need, that I would need from council is allow me to do the study.
  • 00:32:44
    come back and have a discussion as to when we should start to execute this model.
  • 00:32:50
    I believe there are a couple of ways to potentially, which is the policy decision, to accomplish what I think the region wants, which is they want EV vehicles.
  • 00:33:02
    I believe the technology for EV vehicle is going to be a lot better five years from now than it is today.
  • 00:33:12
    The majority of the time when we buy in any transit vehicle, they're not sitting on anybody's lot.
  • 00:33:17
    They are built to spec.
  • 00:33:18
    It takes us 18 to 24 months to get a vehicle in-house anyway.
  • 00:33:23
    So as we go through this due diligence process and we start to build out, once we make the decision and we get all of our ducks in a row and we signal to the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation and the FTA through our feasibility study,
  • 00:33:41
    that we are serious, this will be the document needed to justify the additional expense on the state and federal's part.
  • 00:33:54
    So the study will help us to get the money.
  • 00:33:59
    If we were to ask for it now, we're going to be like other transit agencies around the Commonwealth who got denied because once again, we are a planning organization and we need to show the state
  • 00:34:11
    how the additional allocation of funds from them are going to fit into their model so we can make everyone's budget work out because we're not the only people asking for the money.
• • Michael Payne
  • 00:34:24
    Thank you.
  • 00:34:24
    That was my final question.
  • 00:34:25
    And just one final comment is, from what I've heard,
  • 00:34:30
    Where I'm at is I would think it seems like from both a climate and equity perspective to provide ridership to those without vehicles as well as decrease greenhouse gas emissions through increasing use of our bus system.
  • 00:34:41
    It seems like the most important thing that should be our goal as council is moving towards the 15 minute frequency model and figuring out what investments we need to do to make that happen in
  • 00:34:53
    Reverse the trend of ridership going down 22%.
  • 00:34:55
    And if we're not accomplishing that, I don't know if we're making the biggest impact on both greenhouse gas emissions and bus availability for those who don't have enough money to afford vehicles.
  • 00:35:07
    So again, thank you.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:35:10
    Thank you, Councilor Payne.
  • 00:35:11
    Anybody want to go next?
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 00:35:14
    Yeah, Mr. Williams.
  • 00:35:16
    Hi, thank you so much.
  • 00:35:18
    I'm sorry, I didn't mean to catch you in the middle of the drink there.
  • 00:35:22
    Thank you again for your expertise and times.
  • 00:35:25
    I know you started shortly before I came on to council and I've enjoyed meeting with you before pandemic and I appreciate the everything that you and your staff have been putting into our transit system.
  • 00:35:37
    I know it might seem slow on the outside, but I know you've been really looking at things very as holistic approach and are working very hard to bring up
  • 00:35:49
    are part-time and temporary workers to full-time status to encourage your staff for growth.
  • 00:35:57
    And I've seen that and I really do.
  • 00:36:00
    I just want to know, I really appreciate that.
  • 00:36:03
    I wanted to know how much do you feel that this, do you believe that this study would cost?
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 00:36:10
    Which study?
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 00:36:11
    The one to show our due diligence
  • 00:36:17
    to justify moving to the EV buses.
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:36:19
    So that's the feasibility study.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 00:36:22
    And that's the hundred and... It's 125 to $155,000 for this study.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 00:36:46
    And do we know if Albemarle is also, have they, have we talked to Albemarle County about that as well?
  • 00:36:52
    I mean, I understand we are the overall agent, but this is a partnership.
  • 00:36:56
    So I just wanted to know if they've had any input as to how they feel about that.
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:37:02
    I have talked to staff in Albemarle County.
  • 00:37:08
    They are supportive of the concept of adding EV vehicles.
  • 00:37:15
    At this point in time,
  • 00:37:17
    You do city councilors or the city is the only one supplying that match dollars for vehicles for cap.
  • 00:37:26
    That's a capital outlet.
  • 00:37:27
    That's only a city cost.
  • 00:37:29
    It's not an Albemarle County cost at this time.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 00:37:42
    Mr. Williams, hi.
  • 00:37:45
    Yeah, Brian Pinkston here, nice to meet you and thank you for all the good work that you do.
  • 00:37:49
    A couple of questions, what is the, do you have any sense, and I know from the work that I do, I can't stand it when people ask me for cost numbers on the spot, so, but
  • 00:38:03
    any sense at all in the incremental costs between the fixed infrastructure you'd have to add to implement this vision with a CNG model versus an EV model.
  • 00:38:15
    So I'm talking about, you know, you've mentioned the electrical charging stations, presumably you'd have some electrical infrastructure you'd have to add.
  • 00:38:25
    On the other hand, if you went with a full CNG model, you'd have, you know, some pipes to add some
  • 00:38:33
    compressors to add.
  • 00:38:34
    Do you have any sense of that difference?
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:38:38
    So, yes, I have.
  • 00:38:42
    I can give you a ballpark number.
  • 00:38:45
    And you don't have to do it now.
  • 00:38:48
    So part of what we are working through right now is a proposal to the state to enhance our facility because we are
  • 00:39:03
    We've basically grown out of space here.
  • 00:39:07
    In that facility add, we're asking for additional bays to be added.
  • 00:39:14
    And we're asking for, I think it's almost $1.5 or $1.6 million that will be taken pretty much 80% taken by the feds for the CNG fueling station.
  • 00:39:29
    That is at this point an allowable expense.
  • 00:39:34
    similar to what was done when I was at GRTC.
  • 00:39:39
    We added a few fast fuel CNG station on property.
  • 00:39:45
    There, that's, you know, and that's, like I said, about 80% of that can be covered by federal dollars.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 00:39:53
    Because as I look at the type buses that you mentioned, I have a hard time we do diesel as sort of the lowest tier
  • 00:40:03
    and then CNG, I think is, I would assume is better for the environment than diesel, but still not where we want to be.
  • 00:40:11
    We want to be electrified, but I'm assuming there's some difference between the diesel sort of baseline in CNG in terms of the infrastructure.
  • 00:40:22
    and then there's sounds like an extra delta between that infrastructure and to do full electrification.
  • 00:40:31
    And I think, you know, for me, it'd be helpful to, you know, so that the comparisons are as accurate as possible.
  • 00:40:38
    And I don't have to have that.
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:40:40
    Yeah, I believe that I look forward to having a one-on-one with you and we'll be able to kind of work through those numbers.
  • 00:40:48
    And I will have a report, I believe, in a couple of months.
  • 00:40:52
    that will help me get some of those numbers.
  • 00:40:56
    So we'll be able to have a more intelligent conversation about that.
  • 00:40:59
    I'm struggling to give you kind of the hard numbers right now, and I like to do that.
  • 00:41:04
    But I wanna make a, if I can, I'm not saying that we need to do all or nothing.
  • 00:41:11
    I believe our model is a hybrid.
  • 00:41:14
    I mean, I would love for us policy decision now, let's figure out in five years, let's say we're not gonna buy another diesel bus.
  • 00:41:24
    We're only going to go the CNG model or the EV model because then that way we, as we expand, we are reducing all the diesel goes away and then we're getting cleaner.
  • 00:41:36
    I'm not in favor of having a 100% electric EV bus system.
  • 00:41:41
    I think there are potential issues with that model.
  • 00:41:46
    I want to be able to operate in any circumstances.
  • 00:41:49
    If the grid goes down,
  • 00:41:51
    for an extended period of time.
  • 00:41:53
    We can't charge, I can't run.
  • 00:41:55
    That is a problem for me.
  • 00:41:57
    I would love to be able to say half our model is going to be CNG, which means I would be able to at least put some service out on the street if we did have a grid issue with EV vehicles.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 00:42:13
    Okay, thank you.
  • 00:42:14
    And then one other piece, and this is just due to my coming up to speed, but
  • 00:42:20
    the regional transit partnership.
  • 00:42:21
    So that's something that's being our authority, I guess.
  • 00:42:25
    Michael, you might can help me with this.
  • 00:42:27
    We've got a partnership now.
  • 00:42:28
    We're hoping to get to an authority.
  • 00:42:30
    Is that right?
  • 00:42:32
    Okay.
  • 00:42:32
    And then the notion of the authority, would that include the university as well as part of that?
  • 00:42:39
    And is there anything that the university could do?
  • 00:42:42
    I mean, President Ryan has voiced the desire to be a good neighbor.
  • 00:42:46
    Is there anything
  • 00:42:48
    and this might be something to discuss separately or out of this meeting, I don't know, but are there ways that we could find synergies with that system?
  • 00:42:58
    I work at the university and it's pretty reliable in terms of frequency.
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:43:07
    Is that question for me?
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 00:43:08
    Yes, sir.
  • 00:43:08
    Sorry.
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:43:11
    So I believe that the transit authority
  • 00:43:18
    legislation is actually already codified.
  • 00:43:24
    This region has had the ability to create an authority with no funding since 2006, I believe.
  • 00:43:34
    It's called the Charlottesville Albemarle Transit Authority, C-A-T-A.
  • 00:43:39
    It actually spells out who are the members, and it also potentially, I think it also spells out
  • 00:43:48
    who would potentially could benefit.
  • 00:43:51
    So I would ask everybody to take a look at that kind of the model.
  • 00:43:57
    There's probably going to have to be some changes to the language.
  • 00:44:02
    We'll have to go back to the General Assembly for that.
  • 00:44:05
    But that gives us a great framework to start on the discussions.
  • 00:44:09
    And I believe that you work at the university.
  • 00:44:13
    I talk with
  • 00:44:15
    their director, Rebecca White, all the time.
  • 00:44:18
    Often, I can say all the time, we talk often.
  • 00:44:22
    And I am aware of the university's efforts to look at adding EV vehicles to their model.
  • 00:44:30
    And I do believe, I hope I'm not spilling the cat out of the bag, but they are potentially going to add a couple.
  • 00:44:37
    It fits their model.
  • 00:44:38
    Their model is different than our model.
  • 00:44:40
    So which is why we need to do our study to figure out what works for us.
  • 00:44:44
    They have a system.
  • 00:44:45
    They're bigger than us.
  • 00:44:46
    They have 40 buses.
  • 00:44:47
    We have 36 buses.
  • 00:44:49
    They have a model where they expand at peak and they bring some buses in in the middle of the day and then they go back at the PM peak.
  • 00:44:58
    What that allows them to do if they're going to employ EVs is they can charge in the middle of the day.
  • 00:45:04
    The EV model right now, the majority of what I have seen and then talking with colleagues across the country is the
  • 00:45:14
    The EVs run about 12 to 13 hours.
  • 00:45:20
    We run 19 hours a day, which means I need technically two EVs to make the model work.
  • 00:45:25
    That's optimal 13 hours.
  • 00:45:28
    Cold, topography, hills cause issues and drain batteries.
  • 00:45:34
    So we need to figure out it is not a one for one switch.
  • 00:45:38
    So really what we're talking about contemplating doing
  • 00:45:42
    is we are going to have to potentially ask for the expansion model to be bigger to accommodate an EV model if you want to go that route because it's almost a two for one exchange.
  • 00:45:55
    We need to work through that.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 00:45:56
    Understood.
  • 00:45:57
    I had one more question that's departed my brain.
  • 00:46:03
    Sorry.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 00:46:07
    Brian, if you remember, you're getting time in.
  • 00:46:09
    Brian, a couple of comments that I would like to add.
  • 00:46:15
    When you're talking, I've raised my premise because I did this for nearly 20 years for the county expansion of transit service in the county, working with CTS and then CATS to do this and so many factors that you have to consider.
  • 00:46:29
    So a couple of things that I want to ask.
  • 00:46:33
    One is
  • 00:46:35
    and you may have mentioned this, but would this increase to 15 every 15 minutes, what would that do to the watershed?
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:46:43
    So projection models are all over the scale and I'm not a big fan of projection models.
  • 00:46:51
    I like to keep the numbers conservative.
  • 00:46:56
    So we are hopeful that a 15 minute model pre-pandemic level
  • 00:47:04
    should get us about a 20% increase in ridership and grow from there.
  • 00:47:11
    It's not a 50%, we would love it to be, but I think the initial piece is 20 and what will happen is people will start to talk if the model is successful and you will start to see more people ride.
  • 00:47:28
    Success is contagious.
  • 00:47:32
    So once we show people that we can actually create this model, run it efficiently, I believe people will try us and allow us to provide their public transportation.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 00:47:43
    Reliability is key.
  • 00:47:47
    They have to know that it's going to be there, you know, and once they do, the word of mouth is very powerful.
  • 00:47:54
    What I was doing is a big issue that we got from the public a lot and elected officials.
  • 00:48:00
    which of course I am now is that you know that the public would see buses with riding around town it would be primarily empty and they would say well what about getting smaller buses and one of the things that I would present at the time to the board supervisors and colleagues was that you know from the information that I received from Kat was that that
  • 00:48:26
    The larger buses, because of how they built the body and chassis and things like that, that they're actually more durable than the smaller, like vans, you know, large vans and things like that.
  • 00:48:37
    And so that actually, as far as the cost of them, and I know we're not talking about the same type of
  • 00:48:44
    If we talk about EVs, it would be different, but actually the larger buses that they can go three, four hundred thousand miles, you know, at least then, but the smaller buses, they just get beat up to pieces, and you have to replace them more, and so is that still the norm, is that still what is happening, or has the technology changed?
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:49:05
    Technology has not changed, so let's give you what we have to
  • 00:49:12
    There's two pieces we have to check off when we're talking about replacement of a bus.
  • 00:49:16
    So if we buy a 35-foot bus, we are required to run that bus because of the cost of it, $400,000 for 12 years and a half a million miles, 500,000 miles, before I can replace that existing one bus.
  • 00:49:33
    If I buy a 29-foot bus, which are hybrids, which are going to discussion about reliability on hybrids,
  • 00:49:42
    They are 10-year vehicles, 350,000 miles.
  • 00:49:46
    I have to check off both.
  • 00:49:48
    I can't just get to 350 in 10 years.
  • 00:49:51
    We don't have that problem on the hybrid side.
  • 00:49:54
    Most of them are more than 10 years, and I still haven't gotten the miles, so I still can't get rid of them.
  • 00:50:00
    Most of the hybrids that we have in our model have already had one set of batteries at $60,000 per set of batteries had to be replaced.
  • 00:50:09
    coming up on another set that needs replaced, and we still don't have the mileage to be able to get rid of them.
  • 00:50:15
    So technology is continuing to evolve.
  • 00:50:21
    We are working through that.
  • 00:50:23
    So when we make a policy decision, when CAT buys something, it's not like I'm going to be able to change the model out tomorrow.
  • 00:50:31
    If it doesn't work, no, I'm expected to make it work.
  • 00:50:36
    If we
  • 00:50:37
    If we tell the state and feds that we want to spend their money, which is, you know, we're only putting 4% in this.
  • 00:50:45
    They're expecting us to meet the criteria of if it's a 35 foot bus, I got to keep that thing in operations for 12 years and it's got to be, I got to exceed 500,000 miles.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 00:50:58
    So we have to make conscious decisions about reliability.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 00:51:06
    I know we talked that that's key.
  • 00:51:08
    So is my audio okay?
  • 00:51:10
    Can you hear me okay, sir?
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:51:12
    You were in and out.
  • 00:51:14
    It's a little better now.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 00:51:15
    Okay, thank you.
  • 00:51:17
    So if we make a decision now, because I do feel like we as a council and as a community want to go as much EV as we can, if not 100%.
  • 00:51:31
    that we can make the decision, you know, here in the near future to expand, but not specific on the type of vehicle?
  • 00:51:42
    Or do we need to make that decision now so that you know what to plan?
  • 00:51:46
    I know you have to do this study.
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:51:50
    Let's do the study first.
  • 00:51:51
    So I'm asking council to allow me to do the study.
  • 00:51:54
    Let's do that first.
  • 00:51:56
    And the study will tell us where we need to be.
  • 00:52:00
    is going to point to what routes potentially we can put them on.
  • 00:52:05
    We may not be able to go to a full EV model.
  • 00:52:08
    That will tell us, you know, I'm okay with that.
  • 00:52:11
    But it also allows us to see where we are and where we need to be to make the model work.
  • 00:52:18
    Infrastructure, everything, it'll be in one nice neat package for us.
  • 00:52:24
    The policy decision, I believe there's a couple.
  • 00:52:28
    One, the council could tell me
  • 00:52:30
    Garland.
  • 00:52:32
    We don't want CAT to buy another single diesel bus in five years.
  • 00:52:36
    But when you do make that decision, remember, there are other expenses we have to get to and cover before we can move to any model that you want, whether it's CNG or EV.
  • 00:52:48
    And if I can't make, and right now, part of the discussion we're having is EV vehicles are not a 19-hour vehicle.
  • 00:53:01
    I need a vehicle that I know I can run for 19 hours.
  • 00:53:05
    Our model is not set up like the university's model where I'm bringing a number of buses in to allow us to recharge.
  • 00:53:12
    That is not the model we have.
  • 00:53:14
    If you want to do that, our model actually gets bigger because I have to buy more vehicles to allow that part of the model to happen.
  • 00:53:21
    So there are some decisions that we have to talk about.
  • 00:53:25
    I don't believe that we have enough time in this forum, but I believe that the smaller conversations
  • 00:53:30
    one-on-ones or two-on-twos, we can have more robust conversations about that.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:53:39
    So I've got a number of questions.
  • 00:53:42
    First of all, I'm just curious about a little thing.
  • 00:53:44
    You mentioned that we had lost, what, six drivers because of Afghan issues?
  • 00:53:50
    What's going on there?
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:53:52
    Their families and that they needed to go get them.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:53:55
    Families were in trouble.
  • 00:53:57
    Yeah, okay.
  • 00:53:58
    Then I'm curious, what is the definition of a temp operator as opposed to part-time, full-time?
  • 00:54:05
    How do you delineate those?
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:54:09
    HR delineates them by giving a temp.
  • 00:54:12
    That means they don't have any benefits.
  • 00:54:14
    So they come to work, they work like the regular employees do, they don't have any time off, any retirement, any healthcare, nothing.
  • 00:54:24
    They just work for the hours they get, they get paid.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:54:28
    One of the problems that we've noticed over, certainly over the couple of years that I've been on council is we have a lot of city employees, particularly Parks and Rec, but not only in Parks and Rec, where we seem to have people in this temporary category for 10 years or more and sort of belies the notion of being temporary when you're at it for 10 years.
  • 00:54:49
    Has there been any discussion of trying to
  • 00:54:54
    to make some greater sense of that because I think anytime we've got employees who are who are temps who don't have benefits who are in that capacity for more than a year or so you kind of wonder why we're still calling them temps.
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:55:10
    I'm going to I'm trying to put Sam on the spot here but I will say I have had very good conversations with Sam he
  • 00:55:23
    been wonderful to chat about that very idea of a temp employee moving them through the pipeline.
  • 00:55:31
    But there's a cost associated with that.
  • 00:55:33
    Sure.
  • 00:55:34
    We need to be cognizant of that.
  • 00:55:35
    But there's also an equity component.
  • 00:55:37
    We have folks, as we, that, I showed you my numbers earlier about, you know, I had 51 full-time.
  • 00:55:44
    That number was actually 41.
  • 00:55:45
    And we just got 10 additional full-time last budget.
  • 00:55:50
    I had, in that last budget, we can,
  • 00:55:53
    We moved one employee who was a temp employee for a city of Charlottesville bus for 17 years.
  • 00:56:03
    17 years, became a full-time employee.
  • 00:56:07
    So I am normal.
  • 00:56:08
    The systems that I've always worked in, a temp employee means you, and usually the definition is you work X number of hours and that's it.
  • 00:56:19
    That's what you can do, whether it's a thousand hours or
  • 00:56:23
    $1,500, whatever number it is, that's all you can do.
  • 00:56:26
    But that's not what we're doing here.
  • 00:56:27
    We had temp employees at CAT, and we're working 55, 60 hours every week.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:56:36
    Well, I hope we can come to some way of ending that practice, because that just strikes me as nuts.
  • 00:56:45
    and I'm not faulting you because I know it's been a pattern in other departments as well, but it's something that needs to get changed.
  • 00:56:52
    I'm curious about whether as we look at it, I mean, there are a couple of places where we're contemplating or where other people are contemplating housing developments where it would seem to me that we ought to be trying to think about additional service to those areas.
  • 00:57:14
    I look, for example, at the housing complexes going up around Rio Road and John Warner Parkway and KTAC and that vicinity.
  • 00:57:24
    And that would seem to me to be a very good way, a very good place to be encouraging folks, okay, move here and we'll give you a bus straight downtown, straight to the university, wherever.
  • 00:57:40
    That's the kind of planning that I think
  • 00:57:43
    Now that we know that that's going to be happening on the county side, I wonder if we can work out or work into your feasibility study some greater attention to that kind of merger or merger is the wrong word, a way of accommodating that kind of development on the transit side.
  • 00:58:06
    The other place that comes to mind is they're talking about on, I think it's out on Fontaine, the University of Virginia is going to be adding a bunch of housing out there.
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:58:17
    So CAT is open to expanding this model anywhere.
  • 00:58:21
    We have to get bigger.
  • 00:58:23
    So first and foremost.
  • 00:58:24
    So part of, I think I need to make sure individuals who are listening to us understand when I set my budget and it has the X number of routes in it, that's it.
  • 00:58:36
    There is no additional money to allow us to add anything else.
  • 00:58:41
    And we allocate every single dollar proportionately by how much service is in the city and the county.
  • 00:58:47
    If we want to add service, that's a conversation that we can absolutely do, but there's not more money from the state and feds to help offset that.
  • 00:58:57
    The pot is what they're going to give us, and that's it.
  • 00:59:00
    We got to figure out, someone's got to pay the additional delta.
  • 00:59:05
    And the more routes we add, and we're not getting that pot bigger because we have a declining riding system, the general funds from each one of the jurisdictions has to continue to pay more.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:59:17
    On one of your slides, you had a figure of either $89 or $87 per hour as the cost of operating.
  • 00:59:21
    Is that
  • 00:59:26
    Is that purely a marginal cost or does that include some average cost based on the cost of the vehicle and amortizing that over the number of hours and so on?
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:59:36
    That's our full cost with all the benefits, our fuel, our operating, it's our full-end cost.
  • 00:59:45
    It's 89, a little over $89.
  • 00:59:51
    I can't remember the exact figure.
  • 00:59:53
    It's on the slide.
  • 00:59:54
    Hold on one second.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:59:57
    I guess my question, though, is that does that include, for example, any portion of like the capital costs or your office overhead or anything else?
  • 01:00:07
    Or is it purely a marginal cost?
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 01:00:09
    No, it includes everything.
  • 01:00:11
    It's fully loaded.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:00:12
    Okay, so that's an average cost.
  • 01:00:13
    Yes.
  • 01:00:17
    You had mentioned that if we were, do I understand this correctly, that if we were to say today you are going to order an electric bus, that it would be 18 to 24 months before that bus would arrive?
  • 01:00:32
    Yes.
  • 01:00:32
    Okay.
  • 01:00:36
    One of the things, as I've noted before, if you look at sort of the overall transportation marketplace, 2022 is thought to be the year when the cost curves of total ownership costs will cross.
  • 01:00:55
    And now for cars, at least, electric vehicles are expected to be cheaper over the life of the vehicle.
  • 01:01:03
    The thought is that
  • 01:01:06
    in 2023, we will probably reach that point for trucks.
  • 01:01:12
    Obviously, at some point, this is kind of a hypothetical exercise, but the point is that the cost curves are all coming to a point where sometime pretty soon, maybe in a year or two, those costs will swing so that it's going to be cheaper
  • 01:01:34
    for total cost of ownership, even though you've got to pay more up front, total cost of ownership for an electric vehicle is likely to be cheaper.
  • 01:01:44
    You had mentioned the term of five years.
  • 01:01:47
    Was there some magic to mentioning five years as sort of a time horizon or?
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 01:01:53
    No, it was a hypothetical.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:01:54
    Okay.
  • 01:01:55
    Okay.
  • 01:01:58
    And the last question, I guess, is a matter of budgeting.
  • 01:02:04
    We're, of course, having to figure out how we're handling all of our capital fund budgeting, in part because of schools and other priorities.
  • 01:02:14
    But is this a situation where we can
  • 01:02:20
    Let's say we put into the capital improvement program right now that three years from now we wanted to have a certain number of buses.
  • 01:02:36
    I'm just figuring out how you're planning on this works.
  • 01:02:46
    Help me figure out how we're going to plan for this.
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 01:02:50
    So part of this study, number one, study will tell us what we can and cannot do.
  • 01:02:55
    That integration plan is what I talked about the next.
  • 01:03:00
    After that, that's the $20,000 to $40,000.
  • 01:03:02
    That's where we will plan out when we start to buy the new EV buses or CNG buses.
  • 01:03:09
    It spells out.
  • 01:03:11
    It will also show us all of the capital costs associated to make that integration happen.
  • 01:03:15
    That's the piece that ties it all together.
  • 01:03:19
    and then bringing in a nice, neat, complete package.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:03:24
    Okay.
  • 01:03:24
    So the feasibility study of $125,000 to $155,000, is that something that you have the ability to fund out of your funds, or is that something where you've got to have a check from the city in addition to your other funds?
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 01:03:42
    Cat, because we've been very fortunate to have money from the CARES, the ARC,
  • 01:03:48
    potentially the Build Back Better money.
  • 01:03:50
    We have the money.
  • 01:03:51
    We just need the authorization to do this thing.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:03:53
    Okay.
  • 01:03:54
    And I think you have mentioned before that in essence, the board of directors of CAT is city council.
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 01:04:01
    That is correct.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:04:02
    Okay.
  • 01:04:05
    So this is not the time for it, but I assume from the fact that you've made this pitch to us that sometime soon you're going to give us an official request for that money.
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 01:04:18
    That is correct.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:04:19
    Okay.
  • 01:04:21
    And how long do you expect that feasibility study to take?
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 01:04:26
    We're trying to get numbers because we have been in conversation.
  • 01:04:29
    And I think I also want to make sure everybody understand the feasibility study that CAT is going to do is a transit specific feasibility study.
  • 01:04:39
    This is not an environmental document.
  • 01:04:42
    Folks have wanted us to add things into it to make it more environmentally friendly.
  • 01:04:46
    That is not what this is about.
  • 01:04:47
    This is about justification to FTA about the expenses we need to put in place, capital expenses we need to have to make this model work.
  • 01:04:58
    The environmental piece, if we want to do that, I can't fund that.
  • 01:05:02
    We can add some more money and make that happen, but that's not an expense for CAD because it's outside of the framework about what we're supposed to be doing.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:05:13
    And the...
  • 01:05:16
    I can't remember the name you put on it, the second study, the transition or implementation or whatever.
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 01:05:23
    I called it the integration study.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:05:25
    Integration study.
  • 01:05:27
    How long is that expected to take?
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 01:05:29
    So the original study, the feasibility study, six to seven, six to eight months.
  • 01:05:36
    And then the integration study will probably be another two to three.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:05:40
    So if we're just sort of thinking about our scheduling for all of this, you're going to, assuming we say yes sometime in February, yes, go ahead.
  • 01:05:51
    You're going to have hopefully a report back from the first study by the end of the summer, six months or so away.
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 01:05:59
    Six to eight months.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:06:00
    Okay.
  • 01:06:01
    Okay.
  • 01:06:02
    Fall then.
  • 01:06:02
    And then perhaps the next study by the end of the year?
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 01:06:06
    Yes.
  • 01:06:07
    That's the goal.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:06:09
    Okay.
  • 01:06:10
    All right, just trying to figure out what we're doing.
  • 01:06:14
    Yes, sir.
  • 01:06:14
    I don't have any other questions.
  • 01:06:15
    Thank you.
  • 01:06:16
    Other counselors have other matters that we need to talk about.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 01:06:20
    I guess one thing might be good, and again, not necessarily right at this moment, this might be, again, it's a longer.
  • 01:06:33
    Looking at, I understand we're looking at wanting to have two different types of fuels in the fleet.
  • 01:06:39
    so that we can look at the number one issue being consistency under all circumstances.
  • 01:06:51
    What I'm interested in, and again, I don't know if this is really the right time, but in the future, the idea of do we keep diesel buses and go to electric or do we look at
  • 01:07:08
    Diesel, natural gas, moving to natural gas electric, what is the benefit of putting that natural gas in place versus just leaving diesel in place?
  • 01:07:27
    And that's just my overall, again, doesn't need to be answered right this moment by any means.
  • 01:07:34
    It's just that's my questions.
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 01:07:38
    If you will allow me just a couple of seconds, I believe the public wants to hear part of that answer right now.
  • 01:07:45
    The transition, one, getting rid of the diesel, the particulates associated with diesel, CNG is less.
  • 01:07:56
    Then we start to get cleaner by moving part of our fleet to CNG.
  • 01:08:02
    Then we start to back off buying diesel and then
  • 01:08:07
    the second portion, so eventually we end up with a model where we've done away with all the diesel, we have a CNG and EV model off of diesel.
  • 01:08:19
    That is a transition that we'll have to work through.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:08:32
    Councilor McGill, you got anything more?
  • 01:08:38
    Are there other other questions anybody's got who's on the call at this point?
  • 01:08:50
    So that's the only thing that is actually on our four o'clock agenda.
  • 01:08:56
    And thank you, Mr. Williams.
  • 01:08:57
    Very helpful.
  • 01:08:58
    A lot to think about.
  • 01:08:59
    And we're going to we're going to have to do our job as the board of directors of CAT to to get to get going.
  • 01:09:08
    Anything else we need to be doing right now?
  • 01:09:12
    It's 5-11.
  • 01:09:13
    We have a closed session, which I'm tempted to say maybe we should go into the closed session meeting early because we have a number of things to discuss in closed session.
  • 01:09:27
    That makes sense to people?
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 01:09:30
    And I can read us in if we're ready.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:09:33
    How do other folks feel about that?
  • 01:09:36
    Ready to go into the closed session?
  • 01:09:39
    Opened up.
  • 01:09:41
    Any comment from either of our deputy city managers on the call?
  • 01:09:46
    Are we ready to leave the transit phase for right now?
  • 01:09:50
    I think that's fair.
  • 01:09:53
    Okay.
  • 01:09:54
    So is there a motion then that we go into closed session?
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 01:09:59
    Pursuant.
  • 01:10:01
    to section 2.2-3712 of the Virginia Code, I hereby move that the City Council close this open meeting and convene within a closed meeting as authorized by Virginia Code section 2.2-3711A7 and A8 for consultation with legal counsel regarding the pending litigation filed in Charlottesville Circuit Court Doe versus City Council.
  • 01:10:27
    filed 12-15-21 and in U.S.
  • 01:10:30
    District Court, Western District of Virginia, case number 3 colon 21-CV-00045 because such consultation would
  • 01:10:47
    Adversely affect the negotiating or litigating posture of the city and for consideration of prospective candidates proposed by the Robert Bob Group to perform the duties of interim city manager and consultation with legal counsel regarding implementation of the contract with the Robert Bob Group.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:11:05
    Is there a second to this motion?
  • 01:11:07
    Second.
  • 01:11:09
    Ms.
  • 01:11:09
    Thomas?
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 01:11:12
    Councillor McGill?
  • 01:11:13
    Yes.
  • 01:11:14
    Councillor Payne?
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 01:11:16
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 01:11:17
    Councillor Pinkston?
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 01:11:18
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 01:11:20
    Mayor Snook?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:11:21
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 01:11:22
    Vice Mayor Wade?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:11:24
    Yes.
  • 01:11:25
    Okay, so the motion passes 5-0, and Ms.
  • 01:11:28
    Thomas, I think you sent us a link for the closed meeting, so we will get out of this one.
  • 01:11:34
    Will we just come back to this same link when we're done at 6-30, is that right?
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 01:11:39
    Yes.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:11:40
    Great.
  • 01:11:41
    Okay.
  • 01:11:42
    See you all on the other side.
• • 02:21:22
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 02:29:20
    Are we all in attendance?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:29:21
    I think we've got three.
  • 02:29:24
    Looking for Brian.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 02:29:26
    There we go.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:29:48
    All right, I think we're in business.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 02:29:51
    All right, so do I read us back now?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:29:58
    Yes, please.
  • 02:29:59
    That's what I thought.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 02:30:00
    I moved the city council members certified by recorded vote that, to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard
  • 02:30:16
    discussed or considered in the closed meeting.
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 02:30:18
    Is there a second?
  • 02:30:21
    Second.
  • 02:30:26
    Ms.
  • 02:30:26
    Thomas?
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 02:30:28
    Councillor McGill?
  • 02:30:29
    Yes.
  • 02:30:30
    Councillor Payne?
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 02:30:33
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 02:30:35
    Councillor Pinkston?
  • 02:30:36
    Yes.
  • 02:30:38
    Mayor Snook?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:30:39
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 02:30:40
    Vice Mayor Wade?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:30:41
    Yes.
  • 02:30:43
    Okay, so having established a quorum, we will begin the business meeting and begin it with a moment of silence.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 02:30:50
    Okay, thank you.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:31:13
    Councilors, are there any announcements?
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 02:31:17
    Mayor, I have two announcements really quickly.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:31:20
    Fire away.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 02:31:22
    The first being that the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County have been awarded a joint grant from NACO, which is the National Association of Counties.
  • 02:31:38
    It's a criminal justice and behavioral health grant to look at
  • 02:31:46
    a small group getting together and included appointed elected official from both Albemarle and appointed elected official from the county that criminal justice and behavioral health leaders in Albemarle County and the city of Charlottesville
  • 02:31:59
    will establish a strategic planning framework designed to reduce reliance on incarceration and appropriate circumstances to address local public health and safety challenges.
  • 02:32:10
    The city county team will also seek to improve jail to community transitional services with a focus on various groups that represent a large and or growing percentage of the inmate population.
  • 02:32:23
    As part of this effort, the team will support additional community based services
  • 02:32:27
    and improve community members access to appropriate mental health and substance abuse services.
  • 02:32:33
    This is designed to take a look at our regional problem and to make this a regional solution.
  • 02:32:43
    And while I am, I was verbally told by somebody that this was one of five grants across the nation, but I have not been able to find
  • 02:32:55
    data on that to verify, but I do know it wasn't a large amount of people receiving this.
  • 02:33:04
    And following up on that kind of goes hand in hand here is I do know that a lot of people have been concerned about the recent COVID outbreak in our local jail.
  • 02:33:17
    Colonel Coomer has put out a
  • 02:33:22
    Public announcement on this, and I just wanted to read a few of the items that came up when he was addressing this earlier today, that with regard to the heat in the jail, both sides are measuring, they went in and actually tested the heat on both sides today.
  • 02:33:41
    One side was 75 degrees, one side 69 degrees,
  • 02:33:46
    with the inmates on the side with 69 begging Captain Thomas to not touch the heat that they were good.
  • 02:33:55
    Cleaning supplies will be distributed twice per day versus once a day as has been happening.
  • 02:34:05
    They have not been issuing masks because this basically being a contained pod
  • 02:34:14
    People are not wearing masks when they're sleeping and people just haven't been wearing them.
  • 02:34:25
    They don't have the authority to release individuals from incarceration, but they have been using home electronic monitoring very successfully in this area.
  • 02:34:34
    We have one of the highest in the states, as far as I know, as far as HEI and safe release
  • 02:34:43
    We are, they are on, they're operating under the assumption that everybody on staff and inmate has COVID and being very careful, they're doing a lot of testing.
  • 02:34:55
    And they do have enough staff on hand to visit and monitor for symptoms.
  • 02:35:01
    Once a person tests positive, they're removed from the housing area.
  • 02:35:05
    All inmates remaining in that housing area are then clear as to when the exposure was.
  • 02:35:11
    Again, Colonel Coomer has put out a public announcement on this, and I just wanted to make sure our citizens also heard it here.
  • 02:35:20
    Thank you.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:35:23
    Thank you.
  • 02:35:24
    Are there other announcements?
  • 02:35:28
    Anybody else have any other announcements?
• • Michael Payne
  • 02:35:30
    Mayor, I have one quick announcement.
  • 02:35:32
    Sure.
  • 02:35:33
    Just to continue to spread the word that anyone can now order free at-home COVID tests, you can do so at special.usps.com slash test kits or just Google USPS test kits and just want to continue to get that word out that anyone can now order a free at-home COVID test kit.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:35:53
    Okay.
  • 02:35:57
    Anybody else on announcements about items for recognition?
  • 02:36:04
    I have three items for recognition first recognize just recognition for Councillor Payne for having gone to the Piedmont Housing Alliance groundbreaking on Saturday for phase one of friendship court.
  • 02:36:17
    It's an exciting project and it's an exciting time for Piedmont housing and for affordable housing in Charlottesville generally this has been
  • 02:36:26
    a moment that's a long time coming.
  • 02:36:27
    And Michael, I hope, represented city council well.
  • 02:36:33
    I haven't heard anybody complaining, so you must have done a good job.
  • 02:36:38
    The second recognition that I wanted to make was for Councillor McGill,
  • 02:36:44
    She's too modest to put this out there herself, but she said she wouldn't mind if I put it out there for her.
  • 02:36:50
    On Friday, Sena Magill, City Councilor in Charlottesville, Virginia, was appointed to the chair of the National League of Cities 2022 University Committees Council.
  • 02:37:02
    Magill was elected to a one-year term to develop and guide programs among locally elected officials from similar communities.
  • 02:37:09
    Announcement was made by
  • 02:37:11
    and National League of Cities President, Mayor Vince Williams of Union City, Georgia.
  • 02:37:16
    Of course, two years ago, I went with
  • 02:37:22
    Councillor McGill to the National League of Cities Conference in March in DC.
  • 02:37:29
    And it was basically the last public act any of us undertook before COVID came crashing down.
  • 02:37:36
    And the one thing that was very clear was Sena works the room very well at those kinds of places.
  • 02:37:45
    It was very clear why
  • 02:37:49
    why she would be good at this kind of thing.
  • 02:37:53
    It's a one-year gig.
  • 02:37:54
    She will help the National League of Cities work on projects and issues and so on that are of importance to university committees.
  • 02:38:03
    Sena, is there anything you want to say more about it than that?
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 02:38:09
    No, I just, you know, university communities have some very
  • 02:38:15
    on specific needs that other communities don't face.
  • 02:38:19
    Our affordable housing pressure is one of the huge ones.
  • 02:38:23
    When we have, and also it's small things too, like sharing how do our fire department and police department interact and how do we schedule road work when we can double the population of the city in one weekend because an event at the university.
  • 02:38:41
    So it's working with other cities who have these same problems and then also bringing this attention to a federal level so that we can get the needed funding.
  • 02:38:53
    And that's what I plan on doing.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:38:55
    Great.
  • 02:38:55
    Well, I think we will be well represented and National Legal Cities is in good shape with you.
  • 02:39:02
    The last announcement or last recognition that I wanted to make was an acknowledgement
  • 02:39:07
    of Ed Gatewood.
  • 02:39:09
    Ed was a city councilor from 1976 to 1980.
  • 02:39:15
    And he, although I was not paying a lot of attention to city affairs during that time, I was aware of him as he was one of the members of the last time we had a majority Republican city council.
  • 02:39:31
    I asked some of my friends who maybe have a better recollection of Ed Gatewood,
  • 02:39:37
    about Ed, and these good Democrats had very kind words to say about him.
  • 02:39:43
    One, Nancy O'Brien wrote to me that he was a steady, kind, and thoughtful force on the council.
  • 02:39:50
    He brought a more conservative voice to the council and did that well, which broadened the discussion in a good way.
  • 02:39:58
    George Gillum, also a former city councilor, wrote that Ed Gatewood understood two truths of politics.
  • 02:40:05
    First, that the good Lord gave us only one mouth but two ears for a reason.
  • 02:40:11
    And second, that a leader cannot get too far out in front of the pack so as to be invisible to those he hopes to lead.
  • 02:40:18
    Ed was a realist and about as progressive as it got at that time.
  • 02:40:23
    much more of a Bush 41 kind of a Republican.
  • 02:40:26
    I knew Ed, he was a neighbor, lived in the neighborhood here.
  • 02:40:30
    I saw him from time to time, always as Nancy wrote, kind and thoughtful.
  • 02:40:38
    And his time on council was a productive, somewhat progressive time.
  • 02:40:45
    And certainly he was a part of who we are today.
  • 02:40:52
    So Ed died December 29th, the funeral service has not been held, hasn't been announced yet, as far as I know, but we miss him.
  • 02:41:07
    Next item on the agenda is the consent agenda.
  • 02:41:10
    Ms.
  • 02:41:10
    Thomas, will you read us the consent agenda?
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 02:41:19
    Resolution, authorizing refund to taxpaying entity of business license tax paid for 2020 $4,939.20.
  • 02:41:25
    One reading.
  • 02:41:26
    Resolution, authorizing refund to taxpaying entity of business license tax paid for 2020 $10,261.20.
  • 02:41:30
    One reading.
  • 02:41:44
    ordinance amending and reenacting the provisions of chapter 28 streets and sidewalks article six sidewalk cafes of the code of the city of Charlottesville 1990
  • 02:41:57
    as amended to establish the city treasurer as the city official responsible for collecting rents from sidewalk cafe operators and to waive rents due and owing to the city under the provisions of city code section 28-21 for 2020 and 2021, first of two readings.
  • 02:42:18
    Ordinance, consideration of the Park Street Christian Church Planned Unit Development Request, second reading, A, ordinance, rezoning of approximately seven acres of land, including one lot identified within city tax records as 1200 Park Street, tax map and parcel 470002120 from R1 to PUD,
  • 02:42:43
    second reading be resolution Park Street Christian Church PUD critical slopes waiver second reading resolution appropriating funds for the runaway emergency shelter program grant two hundred nine thousand four hundred forty four dollars first of two readings.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:43:05
    Thank you.
  • 02:43:06
    We will now take public comment regarding items on the consent agenda that were just read by the clerk.
  • 02:43:12
    Each speaker will have up to three minutes in the zoom webinar, you may select the raise hand option to be placed in the speaker queue.
  • 02:43:20
    If you have joined by phone and wish to speak on the consent agenda, you may press star nine.
  • 02:43:28
    Turn on my video there.
  • 02:43:29
    Sorry.
  • 02:43:30
    The, the one thing I want to add is that if you signed up ahead of time to speak, this is not the time yet.
  • 02:43:39
    If you signed up, that moment will be when we get to Community Matters, which won't be very far from now.
  • 02:43:45
    So if you'd like to speak on any of the matters that were referred to on the consent agenda, raise your hand.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 02:43:57
    Mayor Snook, I see one hand currently raised, Ang Khan, I'm not sure if this will be for the consent agenda, but certainly it looks like the hand went down.
  • 02:44:07
    I don't see any other hands raised at the moment.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:44:10
    Okay, maybe she'll rejoin us on the next opportunity for Community Matters.
  • 02:44:16
    Anybody else to speak on the matter of the consent agenda?
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 02:44:21
    Looks like Cecilia Mills.
  • 02:44:25
    Cecilia, you're on with city council.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 02:44:29
    Thank you.
  • 02:44:30
    My name is Cecilia Mills.
  • 02:44:31
    I live in the neighborhood near both of the proposed developments for MACA and for Park Street Christian on Wilder Drive.
  • 02:44:43
    Hopefully all of you on council received a letter that I sent.
  • 02:44:47
    I've been watching and listening and
  • 02:44:52
    I know that affordable housing is important and I agree that it's important.
  • 02:44:56
    I just feel like there are lots of sacrifices being made by a lot of people for these two projects to happen at the same time.
  • 02:45:06
    As I said in my letter, we were told at neighborhood meetings by BRW that critical slope waivers would not be requested.
  • 02:45:17
    So many people took a step back and stopped paying attention.
  • 02:45:21
    So we rely on you to represent us.
  • 02:45:24
    I don't know that anybody's even come over to look at this property or to walk the neighborhood or to meet with people who you represent.
  • 02:45:33
    So that's why I'm bringing it to your attention because the head of Park Street Christian does not live in the city.
  • 02:45:40
    She lives in Waynesboro and promises get made and then they get dropped.
  • 02:45:45
    So I'm concerned.
  • 02:45:48
    that that's what could happen with this development and people have no way to give input except at this point.
  • 02:45:58
    And this Zoom meeting is very frustrating because the planning commission counted on people not watching and they didn't.
  • 02:46:06
    So it's just very frustrating to sit here in a room and know that nobody's listening and no one's paying attention.
  • 02:46:14
    So I hope that you will pay attention to the trees.
  • 02:46:18
    you just there are all these conversations about saving trees and then this project is specifically designed Park Street Christian to cut down trees.
  • 02:46:29
    So I guess I'll end on that.
  • 02:46:30
    No frustration.
  • 02:46:32
    So thank you.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:46:34
    Thank you.
  • 02:46:35
    Thank you, Ms.
  • 02:46:35
    Mills.
  • 02:46:36
    And I will tell you, I at least have been there.
  • 02:46:38
    I've walked both parcels.
  • 02:46:41
    I'm familiar with them fairly well.
  • 02:46:43
    And I did receive your letter.
  • 02:46:45
    Thank you.
  • 02:46:47
    Other speakers?
  • 02:46:48
    Do we have more?
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 02:46:50
    Mayor Snook, I see no other hands raised.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:46:53
    And I noted that we did not for Ms.
  • 02:46:56
    Mills have the three minute timer up when we get to the next phase of community matters.
  • 02:47:02
    Will that will that be there?
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:47:04
    Yes, we will have the timer.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:47:06
    Thank you.
  • 02:47:07
    Okay, so we can close this public comment on consent agenda.
  • 02:47:12
    Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 02:47:15
    I move to approve the consent agenda.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:47:17
    Do we have a second?
  • 02:47:22
    Second.
  • 02:47:26
    Any further questions or comments from Council?
  • 02:47:32
    If not, Ms.
  • 02:47:32
    Thomas, take the vote.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 02:47:35
    Councilor McGill?
  • 02:47:38
    Yes.
  • 02:47:40
    Councilor Payne?
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 02:47:41
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 02:47:42
    Councillor Pinkston?
  • 02:47:44
    Yes.
  • 02:47:45
    Mayor Snook?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:47:46
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 02:47:47
    Vice Mayor Wade?
• • 02:47:48
    Yes.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:47:49
    The motion passes 5-0 to adopt the consent agenda.
  • 02:47:55
    Is there a report from the city manager's office?
• • SPEAKER_28
  • 02:47:59
    Yes, sir.
  • 02:48:00
    Mayor Snook and Council, a few things to just bring to the public's attention.
  • 02:48:06
    The first item is just in reference to the slave auction block.
  • 02:48:10
    There is a recommendation that is forthcoming from the Historic Resources Committee.
  • 02:48:14
    It is actually on the February 7th agenda.
  • 02:48:16
    And that'll be at the time that you'll be able to hear from that committee on the work that they've done in regards to this marker and whatever additional proposals that they may have.
  • 02:48:25
    We've had considerable interest in pushing forward with making some determination before this report came in, and we just wanted to make sure that you had the ability to hear from that committee who had that purview first.
  • 02:48:38
    The second part of what I'll share with you this evening is just an update on storm operations.
  • 02:48:43
    I don't want this to become a pattern since the last meeting I gave you a storm operations report as well, but it does look like Mother Nature is testing me at the moment.
  • 02:48:52
    So just to kind of just bring everyone up to
  • 02:48:55
    It has been a trying time, I must say, in public works in that we've had these two storms back to back with very little time in between that has provided less opportunity for us to really make sure that everything is working as we need it to work because we just haven't had downtime.
  • 02:49:11
    But I want to just say that the team has done a great job of pushing through getting through the second wave.
  • 02:49:18
    We have had serious issues in regards to the impact of COVID.
  • 02:49:23
    It has definitely brought us to a point of concern in that a third of our operations team that is deployed for storm activities have been down and we have since been able to backfill them with additional staff members.
  • 02:49:38
    And in that, of course, that may lead to some things not necessarily getting addressed the way we have been accustomed to addressing in the past.
  • 02:49:44
    So we do apologize for any issues that may have come up over the course of the past day and a half.
  • 02:49:50
    But we are working feverishly to get those things resolved, as well as now preparing for the next wave that appears to be coming by the end of this week.
  • 02:49:59
    With that, we have transitioned into responding to various issues that have been brought to the attention through the hotline, as well as getting equipment prepared for the next storm that appears to be coming in on Friday evening.
  • 02:50:12
    So with that, I'll just say to you that we're a little tired, but we are ready to deal with whatever comes.
  • 02:50:19
    We'll get through this one just as we have everything in the past.
  • 02:50:22
    So I'll pass it on to Ashley, who has a little bit more in regards to an operations report on storms.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 02:50:28
    Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council.
  • 02:50:32
    Wanted to bring you some information more on the work that our Department of Social Services, Department of Human Services has done as far as storm operations.
  • 02:50:41
    We often don't think of their departments as part of storm operations, but quite frankly, they're very critical.
  • 02:50:47
    During this time, our Department of Social Services under the leadership of Sue Moffitt ensured that our neighbors and friends who happen to be unhoused
  • 02:50:57
    were housed safely and out of the elements, working along with our community partners, Pacham and The Haven to get that accomplished.
  • 02:51:05
    They also continue to monitor any needs of individuals who perhaps might have been without power or may have needed some additional housing supports, especially our neighbors and friends who happen to be on low incomes.
  • 02:51:18
    So we're really grateful for all of the work that they have done just to ensure that individuals who may be in need have the best opportunities as possible.
  • 02:51:28
    from the previous storm where individuals did lose power, DSS has also worked very hard to make sure our SNAP recipients know that they can get food replacement funds, as well as there's a small pot of funds for individuals who happen to be on TANF to get some things accomplished.
  • 02:51:45
    So they have reached out proactively to the individuals that they're working alongside to make sure that they're aware of these benefits.
  • 02:51:52
    so that their families don't go without if they don't have to.
  • 02:51:55
    So just wanted to make sure that we did share that.
  • 02:51:58
    During the past, I believe, two episodes now, our teams have worked to house roughly seven individuals who were unhoused and would not be able to stay within our current homeless shelter opportunities for various reasons.
  • 02:52:15
    Any other individual was certainly pointed towards our partners at Salvation Army and our partners at Pacham
  • 02:52:22
    and Premier Circle to see if they were able to secure warm and safe housing for the duration of the weather at this time.
  • 02:52:30
    We will continue to monitor the weather as it does not seem to be getting any warmer to make sure that all of our citizens have a safe roof over their head.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:52:42
    Thank you.
  • 02:52:43
    Is that the report?
  • 02:52:45
    I would just like to say that
  • 02:52:48
    I think that the performance of the Public Works folks over this past weekend was really impressive, that we know that roughly a third of our snowplow drivers are under COVID restrictions, they were functioning short-staffed, but they did a very good job.
  • 02:53:05
    Impressive work from the Public Works folks, so thank you all.
  • 02:53:09
    And I know that the Public Works Director, Stacey Smalls, is on the call, though not as a panelist, but as an attendee or a participant.
  • 02:53:18
    Thank you, sir.
  • 02:53:19
    Good job.
  • 02:53:21
    So let's turn to community matters.
  • 02:53:23
    There are eight pre registered speakers leaving eight slots for additional speakers on community matters.
  • 02:53:30
    If one of the first eight speakers is unavailable, a speaker on the waitlist will move into that slot.
  • 02:53:36
    Each speaker will have up to three minutes to speak.
  • 02:53:39
    And assuming we've got the three minute timer showing up, be aware that when you hit three minutes, I may interrupt you.
  • 02:53:46
    There will be an additional public comment section at the end of the meeting.
  • 02:53:51
    My check showed that all eight of our pre registered folks are here.
  • 02:53:57
    So, Mr. Bill Hunt, do you want to start us off?
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 02:54:02
    Yes, the first speaker will be Emily Little.
  • 02:54:04
    Emily, you have three minutes with counsel.
  • 02:54:07
    Go ahead.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 02:54:09
    Hi there, my name is Emily Little and I'm a city resident at 807 Moore Ave.
  • 02:54:14
    We are almost two years into a pandemic and that means it's been two years since the green grannies were in council chambers.
  • 02:54:22
    I miss them and in their honor I'm starting my comments with a song.
  • 02:54:25
    It is 2022 and we need a song.
  • 02:54:29
    The wheels on the electric bus go round and round round and round round and round the wheels on the electric bus go round and round all around Charlottesville town
  • 02:54:43
    So clearly I've been spending too much time with my kids who are in the under eight demographic category these days, but they're an imaginative set and they have been inspiring me to be more imaginative and more creative in how I think about all things and especially about climate change and solutions.
  • 02:55:00
    I hope that the city will consider climate mitigation as part of all transportation decisions going forward.
  • 02:55:06
    Cost and technology and funding are important, but we cannot ignore our impact on the climate in our decisions, especially regarding transportation.
  • 02:55:15
    Transportation is one area that we can get creative.
  • 02:55:18
    I would like to say that I support the city in moving towards electrifying their fleet of buses.
  • 02:55:23
    And I know there's a lot standing in the way, but let's develop a pilot program to introduce battery electric buses to that system.
  • 02:55:31
    Let's get one in there to see how it can be done.
  • 02:55:34
    And I don't think that's the only thing we can do.
  • 02:55:37
    I would love to see buses that are easier to have bikes attached so that people could use a combination of biking and riding a bus as part of their decreased carbon footprint.
  • 02:55:46
    I've seen these in Maine near national parks where I grew up.
  • 02:55:51
    Improving sidewalks and safety to bus stops is also important for people to combine walking and bus riding.
  • 02:55:57
    They'll be singing, oh the sidewalks near the bus make it nice and safe and nice and nice and safe and nice.
  • 02:56:05
    I would love to see an on-demand micro mobility services so that smaller vehicles can be used when possible to expand where people can get to and when people can get there since those are things that stand in the way of people using public transportation.
  • 02:56:20
    Carpooling and ride sharing is hard in a pandemic, but we could have a citywide system that made this easier for people to coordinate so that less cards are on the road overall.
  • 02:56:29
    And I think we need to support the school bus problems.
  • 02:56:32
    Pandemic ridership has been down in the city on city buses, but we have a thousand kids who couldn't get a ticket to ride on the buses this year.
  • 02:56:38
    Let's get creative.
  • 02:56:39
    Let's share resources.
  • 02:56:40
    Let's get those kids rides on our empty city buses.
  • 02:56:44
    One challenge of fully electric technology is that it needs time to charge
  • 02:56:47
    which makes school buses an ideal candidate to be turned over to electric immediately.
  • 02:56:52
    Plus developing lungs are the ones most negatively affected by tailpipe emissions.
  • 02:56:56
    Let's replace all the city school buses with electric buses immediately and use those school buses that retired as city buses until the technology can improve so we can get more charging stations around the city.
  • 02:57:08
    Climate mitigation is going to take some imagination.
  • 02:57:11
    So lastly, let's look at everything with a climate mitigation lens.
  • 02:57:17
    so that we can prioritize that in the city.
  • 02:57:20
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 02:57:21
    Thank you.
  • 02:57:23
    Our next speaker is Kate Fraley.
  • 02:57:25
    Kate, you have three minutes with city council.
• • SPEAKER_44
  • 02:57:30
    Hello, Mayor and City Council members.
  • 02:57:33
    My name is Kate Traley and I live in the city.
  • 02:57:36
    I'm very interested in making sure that as funds come down from the feds and from the state for quote unquote safety that you and we, the civilians in the community, do our best to avoid doing the same old things that either don't work or are harmful to black and brown people.
  • 02:57:59
    I don't know what's all been decided about what to do to avoid more deaths on Fifth Street.
  • 02:58:05
    It wasn't clear from the last meeting and I don't know if the public will be involved in the decision making.
  • 02:58:10
    Anyway, I recently read an article from ProBublica from January 11th.
  • 02:58:15
    I'll send it all to you as soon as I finish talking.
  • 02:58:19
    The title of the article is Chicago's, quote, race neutral, unquote, traffic cameras ticket black and Latino drivers the most.
  • 02:58:31
    So the disparity for blacks in ticketing increased during COVID in Chicago to three times that for whites.
  • 02:58:40
    And over the past 15 years, more than half a billion dollars in penalties went to people in black neighborhoods.
  • 02:58:51
    Even with that information, the current mayor of Chicago, Mayor Lightfoot and council lowered the speed limit for the tickets because of traffic.
  • 02:59:02
    The traffic fatalities were at epidemic levels.
  • 02:59:06
    Rochester, Miami, DC are all stopping their programs because of the huge financial impact on black communities while California and Virginia are thinking of implementing the program and money for the program is coming down from the feds.
  • 02:59:24
    While the cameras might improve safety, the disproportionate impact on black and brown people is unfair.
  • 02:59:32
    They suggest crosswalks, bike lanes, flashing signs with the ones that say how fast you're going, narrowing streets are all devices that will also lower speeds.
  • 02:59:47
    The goal, according to this article, is to fix the underlying road infrastructure that contributes to unsafe driving.
  • 02:59:55
    That should be the goal and the action.
  • 02:59:59
    Please don't fix the problem on Fifth Street with traffic cameras.
  • 03:00:03
    The idea of fixing the underlying problems rather than punishing the resulting behavior can be applied to many disparate situations in Charlottesville that you all would be trying to fix in the next year.
  • 03:00:19
    So please watch the money.
  • 03:00:21
    Thank you.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:00:23
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 03:00:28
    Our next speaker is Susan Cruz.
  • 03:00:30
    Susan, you have three minutes with city council.
• • SPEAKER_23
  • 03:00:33
    Susan Cruz Hi, thank you.
  • 03:00:37
    Good evening.
  • 03:00:38
    My name is Susan Cruz and I am the executive director of the Community Climate Collaborative or C3.
  • 03:00:44
    As this is the first time I'm speaking to you this year, I want to say Happy New Year and welcome to our new council members.
  • 03:00:50
    I also want to quickly applaud the response to the storm this weekend as much improved over the first one.
  • 03:00:55
    It's great to see the city
  • 03:00:58
    changing course and responding quickly when something didn't work the first time around and improving things the second time around.
  • 03:01:04
    So thank you very much for that.
  • 03:01:06
    The 2022 General Assembly is now in session and with new leadership in the House of Delegates and the governor's office.
  • 03:01:14
    For the past two years, Charlottesville City Council has joined in partnership with other localities across the Commonwealth to advance state state legislation to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions from our electrical and transportation systems, improve energy efficiency and advance wind and solar energy.
  • 03:01:32
    This year, the gains we may have made could be at risk.
  • 03:01:36
    Last week, Governor Youngkin signed an executive order to remove Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
  • 03:01:42
    While such a unilateral move is impossible, it does signal what we can expect from legislation that is to come before the General Assembly.
  • 03:01:52
    Tonight, C3 is asking you to join other municipalities once more to protect the gains we have made.
  • 03:01:59
    The final action item on your agenda tonight is a letter calling for the protection of key initiatives that make Charlottesville's climate action goals more achievable.
  • 03:02:08
    We must protect our participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, encouraging cleaner fuel sourcing for electrical grid, and the revenues generated by the program fund our low-income energy efficiency work and critical infrastructure projects for climate resiliency.
  • 03:02:24
    We must also protect the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which puts Virginia on the path to a zero emissions electrical grid, critical for reaching our city's climate goals, and the Clean Cars Act,
  • 03:02:35
    which sets higher standards for fuel efficiency from automobiles sold in Virginia.
  • 03:02:40
    Finally, the letter calls for the protection of the most recent capital assistance rule for the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation that includes funding for battery electric buses and the installation of their infrastructure.
  • 03:02:54
    This levels the playing field by eliminating perverse incentives for fossil fuel powered vehicles and enabling localities to develop modern clean transit systems.
  • 03:03:04
    I also want to quickly support our city's interest in building accessible, clean transit systems that work for our community and for climate.
  • 03:03:12
    I know that Caetano de Campos-Lopez, C3's Director of Climate Policy, will be sharing more about our campaign and his remarks.
  • 03:03:19
    Transit systems are effective when they are frequent and reliable, safe and easy to access, fare-free, developed with meaningful community input, and paired with affordable housing and transitioning to zero emission fleets.
  • 03:03:32
    Thanks for prioritizing climate action.
  • 03:03:34
    I look forward to working with you to advance these and other initiatives throughout the year.
  • 03:03:38
    Thank you.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:03:40
    Thank you, Ms.
  • 03:03:40
    Cruz.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 03:03:43
    Our next speaker is Greg Weaver.
  • 03:03:45
    Greg, you have three minutes with City Council.
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 03:03:48
    Thanks.
  • 03:03:48
    Can you all hear me?
  • 03:03:51
    Great.
  • 03:03:51
    Hi, City Council.
  • 03:03:52
    My name is Greg Weaver.
  • 03:03:53
    I live on Thomas Drive.
  • 03:03:54
    I attended the session earlier today where Mr. Williams gave his presentation on the future of CAT.
  • 03:04:00
    I first want to say that I agree with much of his vision.
  • 03:04:03
    Mr. Williams is focused on increasing frequency, and that should be our foremost concern.
  • 03:04:07
    It's something that we need to act on solving immediately from an equity and a climate standpoint.
  • 03:04:12
    Ridership decline is not only due to COVID.
  • 03:04:15
    Riders like me who have a personal vehicle and want never to use it again for local transit simply cannot justify riding regularly.
  • 03:04:23
    I won't take my bus to CVS to pick up my meds and then sit around for 45 minutes to wait for the bus to come back around.
  • 03:04:29
    I especially won't in the freezing cold, rain, or blistering summer heat.
  • 03:04:34
    In order to put a dent in our transportation emissions, that is, 28% of all greenhouse gases in the city, we have to make bus frequency our top priority.
  • 03:04:44
    Otherwise, we won't meet our climate goals, and we'll have to deal with the costs of living on an increasingly uninhabitable planet.
  • 03:04:50
    Part of Mr. Williams's presentation centered on alternative fuels.
  • 03:04:54
    While he seemed to be advocating for a mix of compressed natural gas buses and electric buses because he is unsure of electric technology, I think counsel Mr. Williams should consider an alternate approach.
  • 03:05:04
    CNG buses and its compressed natural gas cost more than diesel and require their construction of new infrastructure to support their operation.
  • 03:05:12
    Their impact on the environment versus diesel is marginal compared to electric.
  • 03:05:16
    In my opinion, if we need to purchase 22 buses to get to 15 minute service, a smart move would be to purchase a handful of diesel buses now, move forward with the study that needs to be conducted before we can start buying electric, and then convert the entire fleet to electric ASAP over the next handful of years.
  • 03:05:32
    As time goes on, electric technology will get better and cheaper, so our future purchases will improve by operating this way.
  • 03:05:39
    and I think that will assuage much of Mr. Williams' future as time goes on.
  • 03:05:44
    In the meantime, we should spend the money saved on not converting to CNG on bus stop infrastructure and accessibility features.
  • 03:05:52
    We should have bilingual route guides on every bus so that those whose first language isn't English feel comfortable writing.
  • 03:05:59
    Instead of asking first-time riders to use a frustrating webpage and an app to plot their routes, we should invest in technology that is more modern and comprehensive.
  • 03:06:06
    And perhaps most importantly, we should invest heavily in stop infrastructure in the spirit of increasing ridership.
  • 03:06:13
    According to C3's transit inequity study, many working class people who would choose to ride the bus have opted out because of stop safety concerns.
  • 03:06:23
    There is much to spend money on outside of an alternative fuel that has an impact on climate that won't actually move us completely off of fossil fuels and moving off of fossil fuels is critical to humanity's survival.
  • 03:06:38
    That money can also go towards getting CAD employees, employees who will hopefully be granted collective bargaining rights, better pay and benefits so that we can have the drivers necessary for the increased frequency.
  • 03:06:49
    Thank you so much.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:06:51
    Thank you, Mr. Weaver.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 03:06:53
    Next up is Constance Johnson.
  • 03:06:56
    Constance, you have three minutes with city council.
• • SPEAKER_43
  • 03:07:00
    Let me not start the timer yet.
  • 03:07:02
    My sister, Pat, is going to speak for me and also for our next-door neighbors.
  • 03:07:05
    So this is for three households.
  • 03:07:06
    Thank you.
  • 03:07:07
    She'll start.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 03:07:08
    Hi, my name is Patricia Johnson.
  • 03:07:11
    I also live on Davis Avenue, 632 Davis Avenue.
  • 03:07:15
    I am currently visually impaired, so that's why my email did not reach city councilors until late today, so I'm going to read portions of it to you right now, so bear with me.
  • 03:07:29
    I've seen a lot of changes in the city over the years.
  • 03:07:33
    Please know that I support affordable housing in this city.
  • 03:07:35
    I'm not opposed to affordable housing on the MACA site either per se, but I do have concerns about particulars.
  • 03:07:42
    There are many questions that have been raised, but that remain unanswered.
  • 03:07:46
    City Council should not be forced to make a quick decision because of some outside entities deadline.
  • 03:07:51
    I know firsthand that some of these concerns were raised as early as the public presentation meeting at Charlottesville High back in July and the developer or presenter's answers that night more than once was that the details would be worked out later with public input after the PUD approval.
  • 03:08:08
    I believe that it has been Council's experience that the city and the public can exert little or no control or influence later.
  • 03:08:15
    Is this proposal dead in the water if the PUD is not approved before the February funding application deadline?
  • 03:08:22
    Are there no other times to apply?
  • 03:08:24
    No other funding resources to be explored?
  • 03:08:27
    City, state monies, tax incentives, build back better money?
  • 03:08:32
    I also wonder about the funding in question since it supposedly prevents building housing with a lesser environmental impact.
  • 03:08:42
    What am I referring to?
  • 03:08:43
    When asked why the site plans do not include a stacked parking garage, say maybe on the large
  • 03:08:49
    where the large surface parking lot is intended at the north end of building one or why the townhomes don't have garages.
  • 03:08:55
    We were told that the funding source calculations don't allow for it too costly.
  • 03:08:59
    First, I find this incredulous given today's innovation and building and design.
  • 03:09:04
    And I'm disappointed that a public minded funding source one intent on helping the less advantage is not more environmentally minded.
  • 03:09:10
    Second, could additional or alternative monies be found to fund the garages?
  • 03:09:14
    And third, is the city going to continue to let outside entities and developers dictate how much concrete and asphalt is laid down on our beautiful city, dismissing any environmental concerns?
  • 03:09:25
    Council, I think, hmm, shoot.
  • 03:09:31
    Council, I'd like you to think about how many old growth trees could be saved if the garages were added and other habitats saved.
  • 03:09:38
    The Charlottesville Tree Commission recently reported to Council that the city continues to lose tree cover and especially the greatest areas of loss are in lower socioeconomic areas.
  • 03:09:51
    Cutting the trees is not in keeping with the surrounding neighborhood nor the city overall.
  • 03:09:56
    Don't the future residents deserve better?
  • 03:09:58
    Or is the city going to just approve a hot concrete asphalt desert with some new trees that if they survive might provide a little shade cover in 10 years?
  • 03:10:08
    and hopefully you visit in seeing how utterly ridiculous their proposed center garden area surrounded by parking spaces is.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:10:17
    Ms.
  • 03:10:18
    Johnson, I think your time is up.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 03:10:20
    OK, I just ask council to please do look at my email for some more comments.
  • 03:10:27
    Thank you.
  • 03:10:27
    Thanks.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 03:10:30
    Our next speaker is Marcia Geyer.
  • 03:10:32
    Marcia, you have three minutes.
  • 03:10:33
    You're on with city council.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 03:10:34
    We can raise our hand.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 03:10:38
    Good evening.
  • 03:10:39
    My name is Marcia Geyer.
  • 03:10:40
    I live on Pear Tree Lane in Charlottesville.
  • 03:10:44
    Mayor Snook, councilors, city managers, thank you for this chance to share my thoughts about transportation and transit.
  • 03:10:54
    I'm a senior retiree.
  • 03:10:57
    What I mostly care about is that by our endlessly exploitative technologies, by what we simply assume as our way of life,
  • 03:11:08
    Humanity has undermined the sustainability of Earth to support not only ourselves, but most of most other species.
  • 03:11:18
    Climate change.
  • 03:11:19
    I want to say with Greta Thunberg, how dare you that I'm part of the problem.
  • 03:11:25
    We all are.
  • 03:11:27
    I urge our city's government to elevate climate protection to a level that's equal with the other major factors and to include
  • 03:11:38
    climate health or harm in decision making across the board.
  • 03:11:44
    Specifically in the transportation sector, soon there will be decisions about new buses.
  • 03:11:50
    Will they be battery electric buses, compressed natural gas buses, or diesel?
  • 03:11:58
    Either CNG or battery electric
  • 03:12:02
    will be much healthier for both bus drivers and passengers than the emissions from diesel buses.
  • 03:12:10
    Unfortunately, though, natural gas, which is mostly methane, contributes very potently to climate change when it leaks into the air.
  • 03:12:20
    The city's natural gas distribution system has been reported to the federal government as between 1 and 1.8 percent of the methane
  • 03:12:32
    in the system.
  • 03:12:33
    These leaks are part of Charlottesville's local contribution to climate change.
  • 03:12:42
    A drawback of the batteries in electric buses is their limited amount of power between charges.
  • 03:12:51
    But battery technologies have improved a lot in recent years.
  • 03:12:58
    I was surprised to learn that America is way behind the curve in adopting battery electric buses for transit.
  • 03:13:06
    China is by far the leading user of them.
  • 03:13:09
    What if Charlottesville leased rather than purchased our first set of electric buses so that when battery technology is even more improved in eight or ten years, the first set of buses could be traded in.
  • 03:13:27
    I found a major manufacturer in Los Angeles that offers leasing of its battery electric transit buses.
  • 03:13:36
    Their newest model carries the driver plus 22 passengers.
  • 03:13:45
    Its small size and weight gives it a range of 158 miles between charges.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:13:53
    Ms.
  • 03:13:53
    Geyer, your time is up.
  • 03:13:58
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 03:13:58
    That'll be it.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 03:14:03
    Our next speaker is Caetano de Campos-Lopez.
  • 03:14:07
    You have three minutes.
  • 03:14:07
    You're on with city council.
• • SPEAKER_41
  • 03:14:11
    Hi, council members.
  • 03:14:13
    My name is Caetano de Campos-Lopez.
  • 03:14:15
    I am with the Community Calamity Collaborative.
  • 03:14:19
    Most of us wait a great turnaround turnaround
  • 03:14:24
    Lots of people out here are talking about transit due to the great presentation that Garland Williams conducted today at 4 p.m.
  • 03:14:33
    about transit vision for CAT.
  • 03:14:37
    Here's perspective.
  • 03:14:38
    I wanted to mention to you that as Susan Cruz mentioned, that C3 is going to be launching the Act on Climate campaign, which stands for accessible, clean transit.
  • 03:14:51
    a campaign that is conducting partnership with Impact Interfaith Movement promoting action by congregations together here in Charlottesville and a number of other organizations that support our campaign.
  • 03:15:07
    A few of the key recommendations we have with this campaign is we would like for Charlottesville to double transit ridership by 2024 with respect to 2019, that means pre-pandemic
  • 03:15:20
    We would like to increase accessibility and safety at and around bus stops.
  • 03:15:24
    We would like for Charlottesville, Kat in particular, to ask for more community input from the community when creating their transit planning process.
  • 03:15:35
    We would like for Charlottesville to aim for reducing emissions from transit, air and climate emissions.
  • 03:15:41
    And we would like to ensure that adjust transition also includes paying more, paying better
  • 03:15:48
    Cut staff and having a full time or part time, but having benefits for the employer employees working for cut all of that.
  • 03:15:58
    Connect a little bit with at least a little bit with Garland's presentations, which means that we are aligned in lots of topics.
  • 03:16:06
    We want Garland wants to increase transit ridership, Garland wants to better quick cut when it comes to staff.
  • 03:16:15
    But I would like to invite council to also rethink these strategies moving forward with a more open perspective.
  • 03:16:23
    For example, instead of just thinking of ridership implying higher frequency for all fixed routes and therefore more 22 more new buses, we should have our eyes open for other strategies for moving people around such as microtransit
  • 03:16:44
    and how these strategies can improve the quality of the service for the residents and also reduce emissions and reduce costs.
  • 03:16:52
    A simple way of looking at it, it's like an Uber driver today gets paid around 20
  • 03:16:59
    and has to maintain its vehicle and leave with that money.
  • 03:17:03
    And CAD operates at $80 per hour today with a bus coupons level that has sometimes three, four or five people on board.
  • 03:17:11
    So Macro Transit and other solutions should be included in this conversation.
  • 03:17:17
    And I invite also to think of all of them and not only more buses for fixed roads.
  • 03:17:22
    Thank you.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:17:23
    Thank you, Cartano.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 03:17:26
    Next up, we have Bill Emery.
  • 03:17:28
    Bill, you have three minutes with City Council.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 03:17:32
    Good evening, Councilors.
  • 03:17:34
    For the past 40 years, the City's Finance Department has been awarded the GFOA's Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting.
  • 03:17:45
    Finance people count carefully, they speak clearly.
  • 03:17:49
    It would be excellent if this ability to count and to quantify was on display in all areas that affect quality of life for city residents.
  • 03:17:59
    At your January 5 meeting, Councillor Payne asked a straightforward count and quantify question regarding the PHA MACA development on Park Street.
  • 03:18:10
    Councillor Payne asked,
  • 03:18:12
    What would be the net effect on city tree canopy?
  • 03:18:15
    A straightforward question.
  • 03:18:17
    So the applicant hopes to rezone the nine acre site.
  • 03:18:22
    Approximately 60% of the site is currently covered by tree canopy.
  • 03:18:27
    After the dust settles and the project is done, what percentage of the site will still have canopy?
  • 03:18:34
    Counselor Payne's simple question deserves a straightforward answer because trees matter.
  • 03:18:40
    Trees address climate change.
  • 03:18:43
    Trees support the health of Charlottesville's residents.
  • 03:18:46
    Our city has had a tree plan in 1975.
  • 03:18:51
    We've had an urban forestry management plan since 2009.
  • 03:18:56
    We have a tree commission, but we don't apply the simple rigor of quantification to the resource and we are losing canopy yearly.
  • 03:19:04
    We do aerial census of the trees every five years, but development project by development project, this is where the rubber meets the road.
  • 03:19:14
    Our city could benefit, would benefit from careful charting of assets in multiple arenas.
  • 03:19:21
    Keeping good records is essential for a successful city.
  • 03:19:25
    We should know how much affordable housing we have and where it is.
  • 03:19:29
    We should know where our trees are going.
  • 03:19:33
    The standard of a review for PUD calls for the preservation of cultural features, scenic assets, and natural features such as trees, streams, and topography.
  • 03:19:43
    Quantify the gains and losses of canopy when rezoning, and we have just rezoned the entire city, or we're going to in the next few months.
  • 03:19:53
    Please make it a policy to ask and answer questions like Counselor Payne's, and please consider a
  • 03:20:01
    attending a tree commission meeting to benefit from the wisdom of this hardworking and invisible group.
  • 03:20:09
    Thank you.
  • 03:20:11
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 03:20:14
    Our next speaker is Ang Khan.
  • 03:20:17
    Ang, you have three minutes.
  • 03:20:18
    You're on with city council.
• • SPEAKER_45
  • 03:20:20
    Okay, please don't start the clock.
  • 03:20:21
    I need to switch screens.
  • 03:20:24
    Okay.
  • 03:20:25
    Okay, you can start it now.
  • 03:20:27
    I first want to say great job with putting resources together for the community in anticipation for this past week's snowstorm.
  • 03:20:34
    It was a far better response than before.
  • 03:20:37
    I'm calling in now to let you know that the conditions in jails, prisons, and detention centers are inhumane by design.
  • 03:20:46
    With that being said, we can no longer downplay the seriousness of the COVID outbreak at ACRJ.
  • 03:20:54
    COVID is running rapid throughout jails, prisons, and detention centers throughout the country and Albemarle County Regional Jail is no different.
  • 03:21:02
    No matter how many press releases filled with propaganda disguised as general concern for those locked up are relayed to the public, the fact remains that human lives are at risk at this very moment.
  • 03:21:13
    There are 65 folks who are detained as of today that are positive for COVID.
  • 03:21:20
    Last week it was 29, not including 10 staff that were reported today.
  • 03:21:25
    From those inside, folks are saying they are fearful and scared for their safety.
  • 03:21:29
    Would you be okay being in a confined,
  • 03:21:32
    in a confined setting or having your loved one with up to 30 plus people who are very limited to access to items such as hygiene products, cleaning supplies, medical care, test results, heat and freezing temperatures on any given day, not to mention during a pandemic.
  • 03:21:51
    ACRJ offers cleaning supplies once a day, once, okay, once.
  • 03:22:00
    Sorry.
  • 03:22:01
    We have COVID wise to alert us when we've come in contact with a COVID positive person.
  • 03:22:07
    They're not even letting people know when they've been exposed.
  • 03:22:10
    Entire pods filled with human beings not knowing they're being exposed.
  • 03:22:15
    Y'all won't even hold in-person meetings with occupancy limits,
  • 03:22:20
    the capability of social distance and the ability to zoom simultaneously.
  • 03:22:24
    So there's that.
  • 03:22:25
    That speaks a lot.
  • 03:22:27
    If something happens to anyone in ACRG, that's blood on your hands.
  • 03:22:32
    I once again am urging counsel to speak with the decision makers and devise a plan to release those who are currently detained at ACRJ.
  • 03:22:41
    I will continue my comment during the next meeting as I don't pay attention to time.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:22:45
    Thank you, Ms.
  • 03:22:48
    Cohn.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 03:22:51
    Joy Johnson is up next.
  • 03:22:53
    Joy, you have three minutes with City Council.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 03:23:00
    I accidentally touched that, so I'll wait until the end.
  • 03:23:05
    Happy New Year, Mr. Saunders.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 03:23:10
    Our next speaker is Tanisha Hudson.
  • 03:23:13
    Tanisha, you have three minutes.
  • 03:23:14
    You're on with City Council.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:23:17
    Good evening.
  • 03:23:18
    I want to just discuss a few things.
  • 03:23:21
    Everyone on City Council basically campaigned in reference to affordable housing.
  • 03:23:28
    And while I listen to the PHA presentation on this new plan right off of Park Street, I'm hearing how people are complaining
  • 03:23:36
    about housing being built on Park Street, but we don't have that same energy when houses are being built in predominantly Black communities.
  • 03:23:45
    Now, we talk about how we want Charlottesville to grow and how we want to become this world-class city.
  • 03:23:53
    It just takes a little bit of common sense.
  • 03:23:55
    We know that we're 10.5 square miles.
  • 03:23:59
    We don't have enough land space.
  • 03:24:01
    You all continue to allow projects that
  • 03:24:07
    that don't even meet the requirement for the lack of affordable housing, the number that we know that we're short of affordable housing.
  • 03:24:16
    You have got to start thinking about dense housing.
  • 03:24:21
    It's common sense.
  • 03:24:22
    You got to go up.
  • 03:24:23
    It's one foundation.
  • 03:24:25
    It's one roof.
  • 03:24:26
    That's it.
  • 03:24:28
    We talk about the tree commission and what will be done to trees.
  • 03:24:34
    Well, they never put trees in the black community.
  • 03:24:36
    So maybe we need to start putting some trees in the black community, number one.
  • 03:24:41
    Number two, the tree commission and whoever else does the tree studies should do a much better job in finding all of these rotted trees that are continuously falling during bad thunderstorms and bad snowstorms because you had a tree right down off of
  • 03:24:59
    Worcester Street, I emailed Sam, said Agnes Street, Agnes Street and over off of Elizabeth Avenue, there was a power line.
  • 03:25:07
    It was a danger to anybody traveling on those streets.
  • 03:25:10
    And that tree on Agnes still has that power line sitting right on it.
  • 03:25:16
    Nobody's done nothing.
  • 03:25:18
    It's still there, literally.
  • 03:25:20
    If a big truck come through not paying attention, that power line, phone line, power line, I don't know what line it is, but it is a public utility.
  • 03:25:29
    The line and the tree is going to come down.
  • 03:25:31
    It's that low.
  • 03:25:33
    We got to do a better job.
  • 03:25:35
    Y'all hate people calling down here fussing at Tom.
  • 03:25:38
    Y'all don't.
  • 03:25:39
    Y'all refusing to work with people that's willing to help y'all and guide y'all in the right direction.
  • 03:25:44
    You don't respond to emails even when it jeopardizes the citizens of this city.
  • 03:25:49
    You still don't respond or certain people respond.
  • 03:25:52
    Then when I go over there, the street wasn't shut down.
  • 03:25:55
    There was signs put up and people were still driving through it.
  • 03:25:58
    And I have video footage.
  • 03:26:00
    That's unsafe for your citizens, for your taxpaying citizens.
  • 03:26:04
    That is not okay.
  • 03:26:06
    It's just not okay.
  • 03:26:08
    We got to do a better job.
  • 03:26:09
    We talk about saving the trees.
  • 03:26:12
    Well, let's find the rotted trees that's going to fall down and kill people when the weather is bad.
  • 03:26:17
    Let's find the rotted trees because, you know, years ago, a public utilities worker was working in the snow and he was over off Azalea Drive and a tree fell and killed him.
  • 03:26:27
    Did we not learn from that experience?
  • 03:26:30
    Clearly, we haven't.
  • 03:26:32
    So there's a lot of things that we bring to your attention.
  • 03:26:36
    You fail to just take in.
  • 03:26:39
    You fail to absorb.
  • 03:26:40
    Y'all are so busy listening to the delivery that you missed the whole message.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:26:45
    Thank you, Ms.
  • 03:26:45
    Hudson.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:26:46
    It's not about me.
  • 03:26:47
    It's about the people.
  • 03:26:49
    Good night.
  • 03:26:49
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 03:26:53
    Our next speaker is Nancy Carpenter.
  • 03:26:55
    Nancy, you have three minutes with city council.
• • SPEAKER_42
  • 03:26:59
    Thank you.
  • 03:26:59
    I didn't think I'd have a chance to speak this evening.
  • 03:27:02
    Good evening.
  • 03:27:02
    And yes, I do want to say that I have a better response this time.
  • 03:27:06
    Of course, the weather was a little bit better acting than it was a couple of weeks ago.
  • 03:27:10
    But what I wanted to talk about was the American Rescue Plan dollars.
  • 03:27:14
    that you'll be appropriating a little bit later for six projects, which are six very good projects.
  • 03:27:20
    But it got me to thinking, because there is money still coming, I guess May 2022 is what the background information says you'll receive the next pot of money.
  • 03:27:31
    Why can't you, and this may not be possible, but my thought is, why can't you take some of that American Rescue Plan money and put it towards a cadre
  • 03:27:41
    of individuals who may be lacking work because of the weather or whatnot and create huge teams of snow shovelers because I think all of y'all on this call and people in the
  • 03:27:57
    audience have had a lot of conversations over the last couple of weeks about whose job it is to clean the sidewalk.
  • 03:28:03
    Why do I got to do it?
  • 03:28:05
    What about all these businesses that don't clean theirs?
  • 03:28:07
    What about all these roads that, you know, there are no businesses, it's just a lot or something.
  • 03:28:13
    So why couldn't you create, I don't know if you want to call them temporary.
  • 03:28:18
    I know that's a word that sometimes, you know, human resource people don't like or part time or contract.
  • 03:28:24
    workers and get teams of 25 or 30, you know, several teams out there to help clean some of these sidewalks that normally don't get cleaned.
  • 03:28:34
    I, too, have seen people over the years walking in the roads because, you know, sidewalks haven't been cleared, seeing students, even though schools could, you know, be open, students walking in the road because a portion of the sidewalk isn't open.
  • 03:28:50
    I thought that might be an idea because I'm thinking about some of this climate information.
  • 03:28:55
    We know that there's going to be more moisture in the atmosphere because of the warming of the world.
  • 03:29:00
    And we are in the middle Atlantic.
  • 03:29:01
    So we get a lot of impact from various
  • 03:29:06
    systems throughout throughout the world and maybe being a little proactive and thinking about that or even if we can't do it through the American Rescue Plan, perhaps looking at other type of funding that could result in this type of action to make it better for residents here in the city to be able to walk as a pedestrian fairly quote unquote safely.
  • 03:29:30
    Thank you.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:29:32
    Thank you, Ms.
  • 03:29:33
    Carpenter.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 03:29:36
    Reminder to those joining us in the Zoom webinar, you may select the raise hand option to be placed in the speaker queue.
  • 03:29:42
    If you've joined by phone and wish to speak, you may press star nine.
  • 03:29:46
    Our next speaker is John Hasick.
  • 03:29:48
    John, you have three minutes.
  • 03:29:50
    You're on with City Council.
• • SPEAKER_34
  • 03:29:56
    Good evening.
  • 03:29:57
    First of all, in relation to the last item on the agenda, the public participation in the rezoning and the comp plan and the flam, I think it's absolutely essential that public representation be more representative than in the prior stage of civil plans together.
  • 03:30:09
    Specifically, owners of property scheduled for high level up zoning need to be proportionally represented, as was not the case in the prior stage.
  • 03:30:19
    Going back to MACA, the traffic analysis was based off data collected in June 2021, middle of COVID, middle of summer, and outside of school and university term time.
  • 03:30:30
    A 20% COVID correction was applied.
  • 03:30:33
    I still have questions about where this number came from, as best as I can tell it came from a VDOT document, which talks only about estimates, i.e.
  • 03:30:41
    comparing VDOT estimates for 2020 versus 2019.
  • 03:30:46
    Given how significant this development is, and how permanent the impact is, this loose 20% is not nearly adequate.
  • 03:30:54
    The traffic analysis projects level of service of D, i.e.
  • 03:30:58
    basically a fail in the PM peak.
  • 03:31:00
    And additionally,
  • 03:31:01
    If you were to use a more realistic level of higher than 20%, I'm sure the level of service would decline to E or F. This is really significant because this would potentially sink the project or at least justify a reduction in scale, which is really what the community is looking for.
  • 03:31:19
    The TIA also claims a level of service in Park Street of A, which is demonstrably wrong to anybody familiar with the street.
  • 03:31:26
    As other Davis Avenue neighbors have told you,
  • 03:31:29
    tonight.
  • 03:31:29
    These traffic analysis do not match our lived experience.
  • 03:31:33
    They also appear to conflict with what Google traffic shows in terms of traffic volumes in Park Street versus Warner.
  • 03:31:39
    In other words, there's some really substantial questions about the entire traffic orientation of the project.
  • 03:31:45
    The traffic engineers also decided to choose the barest legal minimum
  • 03:31:49
    for intersectional safety using stopping distance.
  • 03:31:52
    I hope everybody understands how misguided it is to build a new traffic public road intersection in such a way that it barely meets federal minimums, assuming 25 mile an hour traffic, whereas the lived experience of those in the neighborhood know, and especially at night in the area of darkness, you'll get higher velocity, you get higher speeds.
  • 03:32:12
    and significantly the current usage involves usage during daylight so keep that in mind.
  • 03:32:17
    The traffic impact analysis also reports a 60% injury rate on the accidents in Park Street and isn't that a rather high place to be starting from?
  • 03:32:27
    The scale of this is 100 units total.
  • 03:32:29
    It's a single entrance and exit.
  • 03:32:31
    Until there was a code change in 2019, it would be required to have two exits.
  • 03:32:36
    Has the fire chief actually signed off on this?
  • 03:32:40
    Something of a more modest scale would be more appropriate.
  • 03:32:44
    In 2017, a similarly scale project was turned down largely in the matter of scale, and I think that that argument still holds today.
  • 03:32:52
    I'd like to also conclude that the parking allocation is completely inadequate and will be at the expense of my street.
  • 03:32:58
    Thank you.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:33:00
    Thank you, Mr. Haasek.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 03:33:03
    Next up is Donna Shaughnessy.
  • 03:33:05
    Donna, you have three minutes with city council.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 03:33:10
    Hi, thanks so much and congratulations to our new mayor and vice mayor.
  • 03:33:14
    I'm delighted to have you here and everybody on council.
  • 03:33:18
    I'm speaking tonight, I'm Donna Shaughnessy, I live on Birdwood Road, but I'm speaking tonight as the chair of the Sierra Club, the local group, and just want to reiterate what other people have said, which is to say, please do fund transit feasibility study.
  • 03:33:36
    I agree with both Greg and Emily, who've also spoken on that point.
  • 03:33:42
    and I would say that I'm of course the Sierra Club is heavily in favor of going electric rather than CNG.
  • 03:33:49
    I know that there's concern that electric chargers will be very expensive and you have to put a bunch in but the same thing is true in spades for CNG that requires major infrastructure construction.
  • 03:34:03
    I'd point out that 37 American cities now have electric buses which is
  • 03:34:09
    There's no reason we shouldn't be one of those.
  • 03:34:11
    Hampton Roads Transit is the only one in Virginia right now.
  • 03:34:15
    With their zero emissions vehicle, they run the route from Norfolk to Virginia Beach very successfully.
  • 03:34:21
    They put those in a year and a half ago.
  • 03:34:24
    They were able to get grants for the entire purchase.
  • 03:34:27
    And so that made it really, they bought six buses plus seven charging stations.
  • 03:34:33
    So that was enough to make them make this successful project.
  • 03:34:39
    and I remember I've been around long enough in the transit business in Charlottesville to remember when the city did an experiment with electric buses 40 years ago or something like that and at that point the technology really wasn't there.
  • 03:34:54
    The buses couldn't get up the hills and they couldn't run long enough but now
  • 03:35:00
    that the technology is there.
  • 03:35:02
    And I think we'd be really crazy to lock ourselves into more fossil fuel infrastructure when we're trying really, really hard to have a better carbon footprint in the city.
  • 03:35:13
    Thanks so much.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:35:16
    Thank you, Ms.
  • 03:35:16
    Shaughnessy.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 03:35:17
    It looks like our last two open slots, I believe, out of the 16.
  • 03:35:24
    Right.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:35:26
    Gloria Beard looks like she's got her hand up.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 03:35:30
    Gloria, you have three minutes with city council.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 03:35:33
    Okay.
  • 03:35:34
    Hey, can y'all hear me?
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 03:35:37
    Yes, we can.
  • 03:35:38
    Yes, we can.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 03:35:40
    Well, one thing and first thing I need to ask is there are people in place to help the seniors, disabled seniors when the snow comes?
  • 03:35:49
    I talked, you know, I called there last time we had the snowstorm and
  • 03:35:55
    I'm not sure what they told me, but so far the little guy across the street has been helping me.
  • 03:36:02
    But, you know, I don't want to depend on him all the time if there's somebody in place because maybe he won't be able to do it every time.
  • 03:36:10
    So I just need to know if there is someone in place as far as the city because once they told me to call the city and they would send someone.
  • 03:36:18
    That's the way it was at first.
  • 03:36:20
    Now things change.
  • 03:36:22
    And the second question I have, and please, y'all, at one point, please answer my questions because I need to know these things.
  • 03:36:29
    I need answers.
  • 03:36:31
    You know, I had a terrible leak from my bathtub upstairs to my kitchen where it filled the ceiling with water.
  • 03:36:39
    And so then it was dripping down to my kitchen.
  • 03:36:43
    So I called the plumber because my homeowner's insurance wouldn't pay for a plumber, but they pay for the restoration people.
  • 03:36:51
    and to have it drywalled again.
  • 03:36:54
    But the thing about it, if it wasn't for AHIP, I don't know what I would have done because I called George, he's in charge of AHIP.
  • 03:37:02
    And I was very, I didn't understand.
  • 03:37:04
    They said this last year, the city didn't give them any funds.
  • 03:37:09
    Is that because y'all were low in funds or y'all just not helping them any longer?
  • 03:37:15
    Because they really help.
  • 03:37:17
    This is not the first time I called on AHIP to help me.
  • 03:37:20
    to do, it wasn't for them, the guy, George, sending the plumber from AHIP to stop that leak.
  • 03:37:27
    I don't know what I would have done.
  • 03:37:28
    And they put all new fixtures in my bathtub where the plumber that I was supposed to have paid for didn't fix it.
  • 03:37:38
    They made it worse.
  • 03:37:40
    So I just don't want y'all to cut people off.
  • 03:37:43
    And I don't know about Habitat because I know they was asking for funds from the city too, but they are good people.
  • 03:37:50
    So, but AHIP is really necessary for us older people.
  • 03:37:56
    They say they had to do fundraisers because the city wouldn't give them anything.
  • 03:38:01
    I don't know if that's true or false.
  • 03:38:04
    When you shake your head, Sena, is that true?
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 03:38:09
    I'm not sure what they're referring to, but I know that in, this is what they were, I believe this is how much we passed last year in the Vibrant Community Grant was $187,500.
  • 03:38:20
    For AHIP?
  • 03:38:20
    Yes, for AHIP, and then there was also money from the CDBG grants that also went to AHIP.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 03:38:30
    Well, I'm going to call George because he said the city wouldn't help him, didn't give him anything, they had to have fundraisers.
  • 03:38:39
    I'm going to check into that because I don't want to tell me lies because I don't like that.
  • 03:38:44
    Well, anyway, that's good to know if y'all did help, but don't y'all cut them off because they do help us older people anyway.
  • 03:38:52
    I know some people have had problems, so I hear about them, but every time I call on them, they really come to my rescue and I need people because I don't have any money.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:39:03
    Thank you, Ms.
  • 03:39:03
    Beard.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 03:39:04
    Thank you.
  • 03:39:05
    Bye-bye.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:39:06
    Bye-bye.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 03:39:09
    Our final speaker is Rory Stolzenberg.
  • 03:39:12
    Rory, you have three minutes with City Council.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 03:39:16
    Good evening, Council.
  • 03:39:17
    Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight.
  • 03:39:20
    I wanted to commend you for your action you took in the consent agenda and again in the upcoming appropriation to support our local restaurants.
  • 03:39:28
    Given that a full 10% of our locally collected tax revenue comes from restaurants, that is a prudent move.
  • 03:39:37
    And now I know that many of you know, I'm sure probably all of you, that cities across the country
  • 03:39:42
    during COVID have opened up streeteries and little parklet on-street dining to offer more safe outdoor space for restaurants to serve customers.
  • 03:39:55
    Obviously, we have not done that for the last few years, but believe it or not, it will, and it is hard to believe, will soon be warming up.
  • 03:40:05
    So the coming month is the time to plan if we'd like to implement a streetery program and not lose out on a third summer.
  • 03:40:14
    Given that we can badly use that increased meals tax revenue that previous councils have heavily relied on in raising new revenue,
  • 03:40:25
    I strongly urge you to create a streeteries program for this year in order to help our restaurants thrive and create a more vibrant, bustling streetscape.
  • 03:40:38
    Thank you and have a good evening.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:40:40
    Thank you.
  • 03:40:42
    So that was our final speaker for Community Matters.
  • 03:40:47
    Council, would you like to take a brief recess or continue perhaps for one more agenda item before we take a little recess?
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:40:56
    I would appreciate a recess of five minutes.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:40:59
    Five minutes.
  • 03:41:00
    All right.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 03:41:01
    Five minutes on the clock.
  • 03:41:02
    See you back.
  • 03:46:13
    So we got everybody back.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:46:26
    Okay, I think we've got everybody back.
  • 03:46:29
    Thank you all for the brief break.
  • 03:46:33
    Our next item as we reconvene is the appointment of an interim city manager.
  • 03:46:42
    We have a motion on that.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 03:46:47
    Yes.
  • 03:46:55
    Sorry, one second.
• • Michael Payne
  • 03:47:02
    I would move to approve a resolution approving personnel of the Robert Bob Group to perform the duties of city manager on an interim basis.
  • 03:47:11
    Be it resolved by the Council of the City of Charlottesville that the Robert Bob Group, having previously been awarded a contract to provide interim city manager services to the city government, has offered Mr. Michael C. Rogers as its key personnel to be assigned by the firm to perform the duties of city manager.
  • 03:47:27
    and this council hereby approves Michael C. Rogers to be the person who shall perform the duties of city manager during the term of the contract and who shall have all the executive and administrative authority and duties set forth in section 5.01 of the city charter, the Charlottesville city code, and the general laws of the Commonwealth.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 03:47:47
    Second.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:47:49
    We have a motion.
  • 03:47:50
    We have a second.
  • 03:47:51
    Are there further comments from council?
  • 03:47:53
    We'll have opportunity to comment
  • 03:47:55
    after the vote, if we like.
  • 03:48:00
    Ms.
  • 03:48:00
    Thomas, would you take the vote, please?
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 03:48:03
    Councilor McGill?
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 03:48:06
    Yes.
  • 03:48:08
    Councilor Payne?
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 03:48:10
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 03:48:12
    Councilor Pinkston?
  • 03:48:14
    Yes.
  • 03:48:15
    Mayor Snook?
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 03:48:16
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 03:48:18
    Vice Mayor Wade?
  • 03:48:19
    Yes.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:48:19
    Okay, so that motion passes five to nothing.
  • 03:48:26
    and I thought at this point we should introduce to the folks out there, Mr. Robert Bob.
  • 03:48:35
    Mr. Bob, would you like to introduce our interim city manager?
  • 03:48:39
    Are we making Mr. Bob a panelist or what?
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 03:48:51
    Do not see him in the panelist list.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:48:55
    Can we promote him?
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 03:48:56
    I do see Michael Rogers, who I can ask to start video, but I don't see Mr. Bob.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:49:07
    All right, so we'll just take your audio then, Mr. Bob.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 03:49:13
    Can you hear me, Mr. Mayor, members of the State Council?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:49:17
    Yes, we can.
  • 03:49:17
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 03:49:18
    Yes, thank you very much.
  • 03:49:22
    for this opportunity to present Michael Rogers, Michael C. Rogers as the interim city manager.
  • 03:49:30
    Before I introduce Mr. Rogers, I'd like to state that the process that the City Council undertook with respect to the appointment of an interim city manager was a skillful process.
  • 03:49:46
    It was well organized.
  • 03:49:48
    It was well structured.
  • 03:49:50
    City Council members drilled three potential candidates for the position of Interim City Manager and out of that field, the appointment of Michael Rogers.
  • 03:50:06
    Just before Mr. Rogers speaks, Michael Rogers has a doctorate, has a JD degree, Master's of Public Policy degree,
  • 03:50:17
    He has more than 30 years of experience in municipal government and in the private sector.
  • 03:50:23
    He has served as the city administrator of the District of Columbia and as a director of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Government, the regional planning agency.
  • 03:50:34
    He has also acted as the chief operating officer, chief financial officer for the city of Petersburg.
  • 03:50:44
    is a longtime member of the International City County Management Association, the National Forum for Black Public Administrators, and the National Academy of Public Administration.
  • 03:50:58
    Some of his key engagements include the appointment as Director of the Office of Contract and City Procurement Officer for the City of New York, appointment a National Director of the Minority Business
  • 03:51:14
    Development Agency in the U.S.
  • 03:51:16
    Department of Commerce and the Director of the Office of Contracts and City Chief Procurement Officer for the District of Columbia.
  • 03:51:26
    We are very grateful.
  • 03:51:29
    Mr. Rogers is a native of Atlanta, Georgia, and again, he received his JD
  • 03:51:38
    a jurist of doctorate degree in law from the Georgetown University National Law Center and Master of Public Policy from the School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.
  • 03:51:52
    He also received his bachelor's degree from Ford College in Atlanta.
  • 03:51:58
    And so without any further comments, I'd like to introduce Michael C. Rogers,
  • 03:52:08
    Mr Rogers, date of appointment is 31 January, start date in the city of Petersburg, he will use the Charlottesville Charlottesville, I'm sorry, he will use the next few days and weeks in seeking temporary housing in the city and
  • 03:52:37
    an opportunity for some further orientation within city government itself.
  • 03:52:42
    Michael.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 03:52:48
    Thank you, Mr. Bob, for that introduction.
  • 03:52:51
    Mr. Mayor, members of council, thank you for your confidence and your vote to make me your interim city manager.
  • 03:52:59
    I am excited about this opportunity.
  • 03:53:02
    I can tell you what I know about Charlottesville is
  • 03:53:06
    Early in my career, I met a man named Cole Hendricks, who was your longtime city manager.
  • 03:53:14
    And I kind of grew up with him, you know, in my career.
  • 03:53:20
    And I can still remember the excitement and joy in his voice when he talked about his city of Charlottesville.
  • 03:53:29
    So that impression of that city has always stuck with me.
  • 03:53:33
    Though I've been Charlottesville a couple of times, I have a lot to learn about the community, but that was one of the positive memories that I thought I would share with you.
  • 03:53:46
    I look forward to coming to town, hitting the ground running,
  • 03:53:50
    working with you, listening to you, understanding the issues that are immediately before you so that we can work on constructive solutions for addressing problems and issues for the citizens and residents of the city of Charlottesville.
  • 03:54:08
    I'm excited about this.
  • 03:54:10
    I have a great deal of experience at the
  • 03:54:13
    I'm happy to share and excited to share with you.
  • 03:54:16
    I look forward to engaging with the staff and becoming a part of the team and leading the team so that the citizens of Charlottesville are proud every day at the level of service that their government provides to them.
  • 03:54:36
    A government that will listen, be open and transparent
  • 03:54:41
    That's my style.
  • 03:54:42
    That's what I look for.
  • 03:54:44
    And I look forward to engaging with all of you.
  • 03:54:46
    Thank you very much.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:54:48
    Thank you, Mr. Rogers.
  • 03:54:50
    And let me say one of the things when we interviewed Mr. Rogers and we interviewed two other candidates, all of whom were excellent, by the way.
  • 03:55:01
    One of the things that I remember particularly about Mr. Rogers interview was that he commented that one of the things that he enjoyed doing
  • 03:55:10
    and I'll be probably grossly misquoting you, Mr. Rogers, but get used to that, is that you enjoyed mentoring and teaching younger
  • 03:55:23
    like deputy city managers, like people who are middle managers in city government.
  • 03:55:30
    You enjoyed bringing them along.
  • 03:55:32
    And that's an important skill and something that we really need.
  • 03:55:38
    And it really resonated with me in particular.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 03:55:41
    Well, thank you.
  • 03:55:42
    I can say that investment and staff development and building cohesive teams has been a staple of my career.
  • 03:55:52
    I have in fact created university-based leadership development programs at each of the jobs where I've been a leader, including the District of Columbia and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments where the participants in those programs became leaders for the future.
  • 03:56:15
    That's how you build succession planning by investment in the people
  • 03:56:20
    that you have working for you.
  • 03:56:21
    So I look forward to getting the work on that as well.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:56:25
    Thank you.
  • 03:56:27
    Are there other comments that other counselors would like to make?
  • 03:56:31
    Go ahead, Sena.
  • 03:56:31
    Vice Mayor, go for it.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 03:56:38
    I just wanted to chime in and continue with Lloyd's accolades.
  • 03:56:41
    It was a pleasure to meet Mr. Rogers and other candidates, but I was particularly impressed by Mr. Rogers' impact financially, the positive impact of
  • 03:56:53
    previous places that he has served.
  • 03:56:57
    We're going to need to be able to hit the ground running with the budget process.
  • 03:57:00
    And I believe that he'll be able to do that without skipping a beat.
  • 03:57:05
    And I'm looking forward to working with him.
  • 03:57:07
    And I just want to thank him for coming aboard.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 03:57:11
    Thank you much.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 03:57:15
    I just want to reach out and just say welcome and thank you.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 03:57:18
    Thank you.
  • 03:57:19
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 03:57:21
    I wanted to say the same, Mr. Rogers, welcome.
  • 03:57:24
    Glad you're with us.
  • 03:57:26
    I want to say that Sam and Ashley are doing a wonderful job, and I know they'll look forward to your mentoring, and yeah, we're just grateful to have you, and anything I can do to help make your term successful, please let me know.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 03:57:42
    Well, thank you.
  • 03:57:43
    I'm anxious and excited to meet all of you in person when we have that opportunity, so
• • Michael Payne
  • 03:57:50
    Likewise, thank you.
  • 03:57:51
    Look forward to working together and bouncing off Lloyd.
  • 03:57:55
    One of the things that stuck out with me that I remember from the interview is you had mentioned, you know, in meetings going around and make a mental note of the shoes people were wearing and whether everyone's just, you know, got expensive
  • 03:58:08
    luxury designer shoes.
  • 03:58:10
    In other words, the point being, how do we ensure there's real diversity in class and race and lived experience in the rooms that we're in and incorporating that into every decision we're making?
  • 03:58:21
    And just really excited to have that approach along with your breadth of local government experience to, as you said, start working on solutions to the problems that the community is facing.
  • 03:58:34
    So thank you.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 03:58:35
    Thank you.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:58:37
    And I guess we'll see more of you in a couple of weeks.
  • 03:58:40
    Yes, sir.
  • 03:58:41
    Thank you so much for joining us tonight.
  • 03:58:43
    Absolutely.
  • 03:58:44
    Okay.
  • 03:58:46
    So let's move on then to the next item on the agenda is the ordinance of the MACA PUD.
  • 03:58:57
    Dan and O'Connell, city planner, will make the presentation.
  • 03:59:00
    I note that the city traffic engineer is here and there are some traffic questions.
  • 03:59:06
    that were brought up earlier, so maybe we can get some direct answers from Brennan Duncan.
  • 03:59:11
    But Dan, you want to start us off?
• • SPEAKER_16
  • 03:59:14
    Sure.
  • 03:59:16
    So tonight is the second reading of a public hearing item, which is a rezoning request for 1021, 1023, and 1025 Park Street, tax map 47-800, 47-11, and 47-71, respectively.
  • 03:59:32
    Piedmont Housing Alliance, in partnership with the Monticello Area Community Action Agency and 1023 Park Street, LLC, has applied pursuant to city code seeking a rezoning map amendment to change the zoning
  • 03:59:45
    of their subject property from R1 single family residential to PUD planned unit development.
  • 03:59:52
    1021 and 1023 Park Street are currently developed with single family homes.
  • 03:59:57
    1025 Park Street is currently developed with the MACA school site.
  • 04:00:01
    The proposed PUD development calls for preservation of two existing single family homes, 28 new townhome or duplex units, 65 multifamily units in two buildings,
  • 04:00:13
    and a maximum of 7,500 square feet of commercial childcare space subject to a development plan and proffered development conditions.
  • 04:00:21
    The existing private MACA drive will be upgraded to a public street along with a connected road C as illustrated in their development plan.
  • 04:00:28
    The remaining roads depicted on the plan will be private.
  • 04:00:32
    Staff found the proposed rezoning is consistent with the city's 2021 future land use map for density use and housing type.
  • 04:00:39
    The development may contribute to other goals within the land use, housing, and transportation chapters of the 2021 comprehensive plan.
  • 04:00:48
    Staff also finds the type of use residential plus daycare would be consistent with the existing development pattern in this area.
  • 04:00:55
    As presented in the application, staff finds the PUD to be desirable as preserving open space, increasing housing diversity, and improving intersection design and pedestrian connectivity along Park Street.
  • 04:01:07
    have had some concerns about adequate accessibility of pedestrian infrastructure along the southern slope of the property and turnaround access for the proposed public road, but otherwise recommends approval of this residing with the included proffers.
  • 04:01:20
    The Planning Commission considered this at their December 14, 2021 regular meeting and did recommend approval by a vote of four to zero.
  • 04:01:29
    And I have one other note.
  • 04:01:31
    in that this was brought to our attention by the applicants today.
  • 04:01:35
    There is a small typo in the ordinance approving the resolution, approving the rezoning.
  • 04:01:43
    This is in the first paragraph of the ordinance, line six, when it's describing the three parcels.
  • 04:01:52
    identified as the subject property, the words a portion of should be removed as the entire parcel is going to be considered for the rezoning, not a portion of it.
  • 04:02:03
    So if you do decide to make a motion to approve, we would ask that you amend the ordinance to remove those three words.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:02:13
    Thank you.
  • 04:02:15
    And I
  • 04:02:17
    At the last meeting, we talked a lot about a number of the objections that we've heard more about this evening.
  • 04:02:24
    And the probably the major question that I had was a was sort of from the traffic side of things.
  • 04:02:32
    And I suggested that we not put it on the consent agenda so that we might have an opportunity to hear directly from our traffic engineer, Brian Duncan, who I see is
  • 04:02:44
    up and ready to go.
  • 04:02:45
    Brennan, you want to talk to us about the traffic issues that have been raised here?
  • 04:02:49
    You'd sent us a fairly detailed email a couple of weeks ago, but let's put it out on the record.
• • Brennen Duncan
  • 04:02:56
    Brennan Breedman, Yeah, no, and I think I'll probably just pretty much read that email verbatim.
  • 04:03:01
    I covered most of the stuff, but for the benefit of the public, they can kind of hear what my thoughts are and then if there are any other questions from Council.
  • 04:03:10
    I'm happy to answer those.
  • 04:03:12
    So thank you.
  • 04:03:14
    Ideally, the traffic study, one of the concerns that was the timing of the traffic study.
  • 04:03:19
    I agree with the public that ideally the traffic study would have been conducted at a kind of more appropriate time of the year when COVID wasn't going on and MACA was in session.
  • 04:03:30
    But the applicant was on a pretty strict timeline to get all of their stuff submitted.
  • 04:03:36
    And so I did say that if they were going to do it,
  • 04:03:39
    and they wanted to move forward that they would have to do the correction factor.
  • 04:03:45
    So that was, you know, what I had them do.
  • 04:03:48
    I had them compare their traffic study to the traffic study that was done with the submission back in, I believe it was 2017 for the same MACA site, as well as compare it to the VDOT traffic numbers.
  • 04:04:03
    And that was where we came up with the 20% correction factor.
  • 04:04:07
    And both of the traffic studies that have been done do fall in line with the VDOT estimates for the Park Street.
  • 04:04:19
    So I am confident in both the VDOT estimate and with the numbers that came through.
  • 04:04:26
    I did want to say, you know, I don't want to mislead council or the public in any way that this isn't going to have any effect.
  • 04:04:35
    You know, 10,000 vehicles a day, which is what Park Street holds, is a lot of vehicles.
  • 04:04:39
    You know, the theoretical maximum is around 18,000 vehicles a day.
  • 04:04:46
    So again, we do have some, I guess, some leeway before we're kind of up against a
  • 04:04:53
    you know, a very, very severe traffic backups and that kind of stuff.
  • 04:04:59
    Park Street was.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 04:05:07
    You went away on us there, Brennan.
• • Brennen Duncan
  • 04:05:18
    Increased traffic to a point that the majority of traffic
  • 04:05:21
    won't be able to tell the difference between today and if these got constructed.
  • 04:05:27
    As far as the complaints.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:05:29
    Let me stop you just a second.
  • 04:05:30
    We lost you for about 20, 30 seconds in there.
  • 04:05:33
    Can you just restate the last couple of sentences?
• • Brennen Duncan
  • 04:05:36
    Yeah, I apologize.
  • 04:05:40
    So hopefully I'm jumping back to the correct part here, but I don't want to mislead council or the public in that 10,000 vehicles, which is what is on Park Street, is a significant number of vehicles.
  • 04:05:54
    The theoretical maximum is around 18,000 vehicles per day, and that's at the point where you start seeing pretty severe traffic backups during peak hours.
  • 04:06:05
    So if you think we've got about
  • 04:06:09
    15 to 18,000 vehicles on Preston Avenue, Barracks, where those kind of come together.
  • 04:06:14
    So the kind of traffic backups that we see there during peak hours is what Park Street would see at, you know, roughly the same number of vehicles.
  • 04:06:24
    The 1,200 vehicles per day between both this project, the MACA site, and the Park Street Church is not insignificant.
  • 04:06:32
    I also do not believe that it will severely or have severely detrimental effects on the network.
  • 04:06:40
    As far as the sight distance complaints that the public has brought up by MACA, they are not wrong.
  • 04:06:46
    Currently, neither the entrance to MACA or the intersection with Davis-Meatler recommended AASHTO
  • 04:06:52
    intersection site distance requirements.
  • 04:06:55
    The minimum required distance is referred to as stopping site distance.
  • 04:07:01
    So there's intersection site distance, which is the recommended, and then the minimum is the stopping site distance.
  • 04:07:08
    This development will be able to meet the stopping site distance.
  • 04:07:12
    Jr.
  • 04:07:12
    Given the fact that by right development could be installed with little to no improvements, I have worked with the applicant to achieve what I believe to be the safest intersection that we can hope for, given the topography of the area.
  • 04:07:25
    I'll continue to push during the site plan review for the applicant to install a left turn lane.
  • 04:07:30
    They have been made aware that that is one of my priorities for this, and they've already begun, you know, looking at ways that they can work that into their project.
  • 04:07:41
    with that said, are there any additional questions or issues that council would like me to address?
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 04:07:47
    Yes, Mr. Duncan, so the left turn lane would be if you're going north on park left into the development, is that correct?
• • Brennen Duncan
  • 04:07:58
    That is correct.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 04:07:59
    Okay.
• • Brennen Duncan
  • 04:08:00
    And that would be mainly so that, you know, if traffic was backed up
  • 04:08:05
    southbound on Park Street that, you know, northbound car that wanted to turn into the development isn't going to back traffic up, you know, back towards the light.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 04:08:15
    Okay, thank you.
  • 04:08:20
    I had a question about, we've been getting a lot of comments about the impact on Davis Road, particularly the overflow parking.
  • 04:08:28
    Can you address that for us, please?
• • Brennen Duncan
  • 04:08:32
    Yeah, parking is one of those things that is very, I guess, difficult in today's day and age.
  • 04:08:40
    There's a lot of data out there that people are going away from cars, and we have a lot of data that says people are still driving cars.
  • 04:08:48
    So, you know, the development is meeting their requirements for parking.
  • 04:08:54
    If either before this project would go or after the project, if it was
  • 04:09:01
    deem that there was a parking issue on Davis or any of those neighborhood streets there.
  • 04:09:07
    We do have a neighborhood parking program that would basically prohibit anyone who's not a resident from parking there without a permit.
  • 04:09:15
    So that's kind of how we've addressed those issues in the past and we would with this project as well.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 04:09:22
    There's something that you mentioned just a few minutes ago, and that was by right.
  • 04:09:27
    If this project, I mean, if this property were developed by right, they could, you know, the improvements that you speak of, you know, we couldn't get any of those.
  • 04:09:38
    Is that correct?
  • 04:09:39
    Could you speak to that a little bit?
• • Brennen Duncan
  • 04:09:41
    Yeah, I mean, a by right development, I mean, they could maintain the existing entrance and build, you know, however many units by right by our zoning code.
  • 04:09:52
    they're allowed to build back there and they would not have to do any of the site distance improvements.
  • 04:09:57
    They wouldn't have to do anything to take down the stone wall that the applicant is offering to do or move the stone wall back to gain site distance.
  • 04:10:08
    They wouldn't have to realign the intersection with Davis, which I believe that the applicant talked about last week.
  • 04:10:15
    That's one of the safety improvements that they're doing that I had asked for.
  • 04:10:20
    that I'd asked for in the previous application as well.
  • 04:10:23
    So yeah, none of that stuff would be required.
  • 04:10:25
    The applicant, you know, if there is someone in the future who decided to do it, they could do those things.
  • 04:10:31
    I would still probably ask for them, but they are, you know, by no means required to do so.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 04:10:38
    And, Mr. Mayor, I had one more question.
  • 04:10:40
    I was concerning the sidewalk, kind of the walkability.
  • 04:10:44
    Something I wasn't clear on is that would there be sidewalks on both sides of Park Street from the bypass to, let's say, David, the entrance?
• • Brennen Duncan
  • 04:10:56
    I don't believe that there's sidewalk on both sides today, and this project would not necessarily be constructing it on both sides all the way up.
  • 04:11:06
    I'd have to look at it again.
  • 04:11:08
    I remember on the last MACA application, and again, I'll push forward on this one, would be an enhanced
  • 04:11:16
    pedestrian crossing at Davis at this new entrance where it would be the rapid flashing beacon we would have actually a sign that would if you were traveling southbound it would be on the either at the crest of the hill or a little bit beyond that that would also light up when someone pushed the the button so if the pedestrian is crossing you know someone coming up over the blind hill would be alerted to the fact that there's a pedestrian there.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 04:11:48
    Justin Fields, Mr. Duncan, someone has brought up, I guess, a code change, allegedly, that occurred in terms of the number of entrances you have to have for emergency vehicles and all of that.
  • 04:11:58
    Is there anything you could speak to in that regard?
• • Brennen Duncan
  • 04:12:02
    Yeah, so that's one.
  • 04:12:04
    The zoning code used to be required two entrances for anything over, I believe it was 100 units.
  • 04:12:14
    And that was problematic.
  • 04:12:17
    for, you know, for a lot of projects.
  • 04:12:18
    So for this project in particular, you know, you would have to, there's only, there's only one spot that they physically have access to a right of way that they can connect to.
  • 04:12:34
    And that was really why we
  • 04:12:37
    We change that, you know, if there is an ability to get multiple entrances, both myself and the fire code official would be pushing for it.
  • 04:12:47
    But in an instance like this, where there's really no way to get, you know, two entrances in and out of a development, you know, that was one of the reasons that we changed that code section was because it very strictly prohibited this type of development in an area where you can't get to.
• • Michael Payne
  • 04:13:09
    Thank you.
  • 04:13:10
    I just have one quick question.
  • 04:13:13
    My memory was that last meeting it was discussed that the traffic on the road with these two projects would still be less than the traffic that was there before the parkway.
  • 04:13:25
    Could you just go over those numbers?
• • Brennen Duncan
  • 04:13:28
    Yeah.
  • 04:13:28
    So before the parkway, we were seeing above 20,000 vehicles a day.
  • 04:13:35
    Once the parkway went in, we're down, we're seeing it.
  • 04:13:39
    At its lowest point, it was down around 9,000.
  • 04:13:41
    We're somewhere in the 10,000 to 11,000 vehicles per day right now.
  • 04:13:45
    Both this project and the other project would add 1,200 vehicles.
  • 04:13:50
    So that would put us up around 11,000 to 12,000 vehicles per day, which again, 12,000 versus 20,000.
  • 04:13:53
    So we're still roughly 60% of where we were
  • 04:14:08
    pre-John Warner Parkway.
• • Michael Payne
  • 04:14:10
    Thank you.
  • 04:14:12
    And I have one non-roadway transportation question.
  • 04:14:17
    I don't know if this would be the time for it, Mayor.
  • 04:14:19
    Sure.
  • 04:14:22
    I'll just be up front, you know, this question I'm about to ask is not enough a concern for me on its own to deny housing for 76 working families, but it is the question about tree canopy.
  • 04:14:33
    Is there any part in where staff evaluates for a project, the net impact on a tree canopy in looking at that as part of the issue of our tree canopy being reduced across the city?
• • SPEAKER_16
  • 04:14:52
    We do have some discussion of landscaping with regard to our site plan process.
  • 04:14:58
    I don't think we have anything in the PUD ordinance specifically.
  • 04:15:03
    However, in this case, the applicant did provide us with a tree survey and they might be able to comment on tree preservation for this site in particular.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 04:15:16
    Hey, I'm Jonathan Showalter with Timmons Group, engineer on the project.
  • 04:15:22
    And I know Kurt presented a little bit in the presentation on our tree preservation.
  • 04:15:28
    I don't have the exact numbers on trees removed versus trees saved, but as Dan was saying, we'll do a landscape plan that will have a lot of trees added within the site to meet tree canopy requirements, also to meet street tree requirements.
  • 04:15:46
    And with this project, we are preserving a lot of the existing trees on the slopes.
  • 04:15:52
    So we're basically there's the existing NACA building and parking lot there.
  • 04:15:57
    So we're preserving most of the trees or all the trees that are on the slopes besides utility runs.
  • 04:16:05
    And then I believe in the typically in the site plan process, we will show for the stormwater requirements are pre developed forested space and our post developed forested space.
  • 04:16:15
    So that'll also be part of our our stormwater requirements.
• • Michael Payne
  • 04:16:22
    Thank you.
  • 04:16:22
    And I'll just, you know, it is beyond this project, but I do have serious concerns about the larger systemic issue we seem to have over loss of tree canopy.
  • 04:16:30
    And at least from my perspective, I don't know if we really have an adequate assessment of the impacts of development citywide.
  • 04:16:38
    Again, not enough on its own for me to deny a request for affordable housing, but it is a larger systemic issue.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:16:49
    So I've got a few questions.
  • 04:16:51
    One, I suspect it may be for Brennan Duncan.
  • 04:16:55
    There is a lot of fuss about the 20% figure that basically, as I understood it from the last meeting, there was the origin of the 20% figure to add to increment the numbers by 20%.
  • 04:17:13
    was that there had been a recognition that the numbers were about 20% low.
  • 04:17:18
    Is that where the 20% comes from, or is there some other calculation?
• • Brennen Duncan
  • 04:17:23
    Yeah, so that was, again, based on the time of the year and the fact that we are still in some sort of reduced COVID numbers, although, you know, compared to when COVID first started and traffic was impacted by like 40, 50%,
  • 04:17:41
    Overall, traffic volumes have gone back to about 90% of what they were pre-COVID, but the distribution has changed somewhat.
  • 04:17:52
    So just because people are not necessarily commuting to work at the same hours or whatever, they're still making trips on the street.
  • 04:18:01
    They're just not necessarily all at the same times.
  • 04:18:05
    So I'd say 10% of that is just
  • 04:18:07
    still COVID, and then another 10% is redistribution of when those trips are.
  • 04:18:14
    So when we're looking at the peak hour, when we compared it to both the VDOT counts and to the previous MACA study that was done, we were about 20% lower than what was shown in the Timmins study that they did over the summer.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:18:33
    This is an area that has had the traffic on it studied repeatedly over the last year, 40 years.
  • 04:18:40
    It's not a new study.
• • Brennen Duncan
  • 04:18:45
    No, it's definitely a continued study.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:18:51
    Mr. Hasek raised the question about accidents in the area carrying a 60% injury rate.
  • 04:19:00
    what exactly is that measuring?
  • 04:19:02
    Is that a high number?
  • 04:19:03
    Is that a low number?
  • 04:19:04
    Tell me about that.
• • Brennen Duncan
  • 04:19:07
    I haven't looked into those, the crash numbers specifically, but that does sound, you know, high.
  • 04:19:16
    So the way that the VDOT measures accidents, it's either, you know, personal property damage or
  • 04:19:23
    Rob McClendon, Injury or fatality.
  • 04:19:26
    Those are kind of the three, the three levels.
  • 04:19:29
    So the fact that there are, you know, injury, personal injuries within these, you know, does suggest that, you know, there are some issues on Park Street.
  • 04:19:39
    Again,
  • 04:19:40
    hopefully correcting the site distance issues will make that go down as well as if we can put in the pedestrian enhanced feature of a rapid flashing beacon, that kind of stuff.
  • 04:19:55
    But yeah, I don't believe that this project is going to, again, dramatically increase or decrease the numbers that we are seeing out there today.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:20:07
    How many of the accidents in that area are a result of somebody making a turn into or out of MACA?
• • Brennen Duncan
  • 04:20:17
    Again, I'd have to look at the exact numbers.
  • 04:20:19
    I don't have that in front of me.
  • 04:20:21
    I can get that information for council if they want, but I don't have that in front of me.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:20:26
    I mean,
  • 04:20:30
    To say that there is a 60% injury rate, assuming for the moment that that is high, would suggest a couple of things.
  • 04:20:38
    And Mr. Hasek was suggesting that people were just driving too fast.
  • 04:20:43
    And that may be part of it.
  • 04:20:45
    I will tell you, I've been concerned since the MACA site was constructed back in the early 1990s.
  • 04:20:52
    In fact, I was actually the lawyer for MACA when that plan was approved.
  • 04:20:59
    But the sight lines, if you're coming out of MACA trying to look to the left, are just impossible between the pole there and the vegetation and the wall.
  • 04:21:10
    And it just seems to me that the changes that will be coming to eliminate a lot of those obstacles are going to make life a lot easier.
  • 04:21:21
    Whether that has anything to do with the accident rate, I don't know.
  • 04:21:25
    The last question.
• • Brennen Duncan
  • 04:21:26
    Okay.
  • 04:21:27
    PB, David Ensign, So I was just going to say without looking having it, I would agree, I believe the applicant probably has the specific numbers, but I believe we're doubling or more than doubling the existing site distance that's there.
  • 04:21:40
    PB, David Ensign, You know, to give drivers a you know more time to react to the fact that someone is coming up over the hill and they can.
  • 04:21:48
    PB, David Ensign, See them instead of you know pull out.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:21:51
    PB, David Ensign, And then the other question that somebody raised.
  • 04:21:55
    I think, again, Mr. Hasek perhaps asking, has the fire chief signed off on this only one egress and ingress?
• • Brennen Duncan
  • 04:22:06
    I would, you'd have to ask him.
  • 04:22:08
    I know that he, they get a copy of these plans.
  • 04:22:11
    The fact that we don't have any comments regarding that, I would assume that he's okay with it, but I can't speak for him.
• • SPEAKER_16
  • 04:22:22
    Yeah, I received a little bit of correspondence.
  • 04:22:27
    Someone from the fire department was provided copies of both of MACA's plan submissions and did review them.
  • 04:22:34
    They looked at the same 100 units to exit entrance thing that Brennan just mentioned, and so it passes that one.
  • 04:22:44
    Also for, I think it was waterline flow, they looked at that.
  • 04:22:50
    and the current MACA site does not have sufficient flow, but once they get into development, they can, quote, loop the water line to the main and then they will have sufficient water for fire prevention.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:23:05
    So the fire prevention or at least fire suppression aspect may actually get better.
  • 04:23:11
    Yes.
  • 04:23:14
    Those are all the questions I have without wanting to prolong things unnecessarily.
  • 04:23:18
    Is there anything that any representative of the applicant wants to add to address any of these concerns?
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 04:23:26
    Thomas Ruff, This is Thomas Ruff with the Timmins Group, the traffic engineer.
  • 04:23:35
    I just wanted to
  • 04:23:37
    briefly touch on the crash data.
  • 04:23:40
    So the crash data that was mentioned in the report looks at a section of Park Street that extends from Macca Drive and Davis Avenue all the way through to Cutler Lane.
  • 04:23:56
    The majority of accidents, and this was, we kind of gave a summary in the report but didn't get into the details, the majority of the crashes actually occur
  • 04:24:06
    at the signalized intersection of North Avenue.
  • 04:24:09
    So in this stretch, Cutler Lane has one crash over the last five years.
  • 04:24:16
    And then the Macca Drive intersection has three crashes, excuse me, two crashes, one of which was an injury and one that was just a property damage only, both of those being of the rear end variety.
  • 04:24:34
    So, you know,
  • 04:24:36
    That's something that we're working with the city traffic engineer to address.
  • 04:24:40
    But just as a discussion point that the injury crashes are on the corridor itself, not necessarily at the intersections where these projects are occurring.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:24:51
    So you had one at Cutler Lane, two at MACA.
  • 04:24:54
    How many say in the stretch down towards north?
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 04:25:00
    So there's there are two crashes between MACA and North Avenue.
  • 04:25:05
    and then at the intersection of north, there's the remaining, there's been a few, there's been some more since, so I've got the updated data, so it's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, there's been seven at North Avenue.
  • 04:25:21
    So I believe that may have skewed, you know, the exact numbers because we did the entire stretch.
  • 04:25:25
    Gotcha.
  • 04:25:26
    Okay.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:25:29
    Any other comments or questions?
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 04:25:32
    Could someone repeat to me the
  • 04:25:36
    the sentence or whatever that was incorrect, the typo, Mr. O'Connell, maybe that's irrelevant to our discussion, but.
• • SPEAKER_16
  • 04:25:44
    Sure.
  • 04:25:45
    So it's in the first page of the ordinance in the first whereas paragraph.
  • 04:25:52
    It states certain land fronting on Park Street identified as tax met 47 as parcels 47.71, 47.11, and a portion of 47.8.
  • 04:26:05
    I would ask to remove the a portion of in that sentence, since they are rezoning the whole parcel and not a portion of it.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:26:15
    It's on page 38 of the packet that I've got.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 04:26:19
    Okay, thank you, Mr. Mayor, we find that.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:26:22
    Okay.
  • 04:26:26
    Any other questions or comments?
  • 04:26:32
    The one overall comment that I would just like to make is that I think we have to recognize as we try to address issues of housing and more density and more inventory and so on, and that means more building, we have to recognize
  • 04:26:50
    that the parcels that we have available to us to do this on are highly likely to be slightly more problematic than the ones we might have been working on 20 years ago.
  • 04:27:03
    The easy projects have been done.
  • 04:27:05
    The ones that are left are the ones that take perhaps some finagling.
  • 04:27:09
    and one of the things that we've got to do as councillors and planning commissioners and city planners and so on is to recognize as is to attempt to recognize when the problem is something that is manageable versus when it is not manageable and my sense of these problems here is that they are manageable so that
  • 04:27:35
    is sort of the way I'm looking at this.
  • 04:27:37
    There may well be some situations where the problems are not manageable, but this is not one of them.
  • 04:27:44
    There may be some things that we are called upon to do as City Council and some things that we are called upon to fund, perhaps, that may be necessary to fix problems that may become manifest.
  • 04:27:56
    It's not just a, hey, we're going to put this out there and let you all fend for yourselves.
  • 04:28:01
    But I do think we have to look at it with an eye that says we've got to make it work and we have a responsibility to make it work.
• • Michael Payne
  • 04:28:13
    If I could offer a general comment as well similar to that is I have read every email.
  • 04:28:19
    I have driven to the side.
  • 04:28:20
    I walked it myself.
  • 04:28:21
    I do think there are legitimate concerns.
  • 04:28:25
    That said, likewise, a heuristic I use is just if a development is appropriate and safe is what I feel comfortable explaining to every family who could have lived there the reasons I voted no.
  • 04:28:37
    And likewise, what I feel comfortable explaining to every individual who lives in the neighborhood why I voted yes
  • 04:28:42
    And in this case, the tradeoffs to me seems clear that the benefit for at least 76 families who will have access to affordable rentals and homeownerships is worth it.
  • 04:28:54
    And without wanting to jump the gun, if there are other comments, I would move to approve the request to rezone the parcel of land located at 1200 Park Street.
  • 04:29:04
    from R1 Single Family Residential to Plan Unit Development, Park Street PUD, subject to proper development conditions along with the suggested edit on page 38.
  • 04:29:13
    Second.
• • SPEAKER_16
  • 04:29:17
    Is there more discussion of the motion?
  • 04:29:19
    I just have one, sorry, an amendment to the amendment, if you will, as the applicant just mentioned.
  • 04:29:28
    The three words are actually repeated at the very bottom of the page.
  • 04:29:32
    the description of the subject property is repeated.
  • 04:29:34
    So those three words removed in those two places on that one page.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:29:41
    I see that.
  • 04:29:41
    Okay.
  • 04:29:46
    All right.
  • 04:29:48
    With that amendment to the amendment, any other discussion?
  • 04:29:53
    Ms.
  • 04:29:54
    Thomas?
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 04:29:56
    Councillor McGill?
  • 04:29:59
    Yes.
  • 04:30:00
    Councillor Payne?
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 04:30:01
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 04:30:03
    Councilor Pinkston?
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 04:30:05
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 04:30:06
    Mayor Snook?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:30:07
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 04:30:08
    Vice Mayor Wade?
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 04:30:09
    Yes.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:30:11
    Motion passes 5-0.
  • 04:30:14
    Next up, and thank you and good luck.
  • 04:30:17
    Next up is the appropriation of American Rescue Plan funds.
  • 04:30:21
    Chris Cullinan will make the presentation.
• • Chris Cullinan
  • 04:30:24
    Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of council.
  • 04:30:26
    I'm Chris Cullinan, the city's director of finance.
  • 04:30:29
    This agenda item is the first reading of appropriating funds from the American Rescue Plan for eligible activities totaling $1,094,653.
  • 04:30:40
    This total is actually comprised of five separate requests, which I'll just touch on briefly, each one of them.
  • 04:30:49
    The first one is a request for $12,918 to fund the city's portion of bonuses for our sheriff's officers who are not funded by the compensation board.
  • 04:31:02
    The second request is CAFE rental fee waiver and revenue replacement totaling $227,735.
  • 04:31:07
    This is actually related to consent item number four, which you approved earlier this evening.
  • 04:31:17
    The third request is for sufficient funds for operation and support through the end of this fiscal year for the Pathways Fund and Community Hotline Assistance, as well as Human Services staff support costs, the total $776,000.
  • 04:31:34
    The fourth request is for an unbudgeted item in the current fiscal year.
  • 04:31:43
    which is enhanced cleaning at the juvenile domestic relations court.
  • 04:31:47
    This will be enough funds to get them to the end of the fiscal year.
  • 04:31:50
    And then finally, the fifth item is a request from our, the city's infection control team to only $20,000 for take home COVID tests for city employees.
  • 04:32:01
    And so when you total these all up, you get to the 1,094,653.
  • 04:32:07
    This is actually the third appropriation from ARP funds that the council has made.
  • 04:32:13
    If you all do approve this in this amount, this will leave an amount of approximately 5.5 million from the first tranche that we received last May.
  • 04:32:23
    And as a reminder, we are scheduled to receive a second tranche of also of 9.8 million sometime in the May timeframe.
  • 04:32:30
    So we are reviewing these requests for funds on sort of a rolling basis.
  • 04:32:36
    Also, as our
  • 04:32:37
    experience with COVID continues and changes and throws us curveballs and these funds allow us to respond accordingly to whatever the situation may require.
  • 04:32:51
    With that, I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:32:55
    Councilors, any questions?
• • Michael Payne
  • 04:33:02
    One question.
  • 04:33:04
    One comment and one question.
  • 04:33:07
    The comment is I just highlight the great work staff has done on the allocations for the Pathways Fund and those supports of over $700,000.
  • 04:33:15
    I mean, I just not
  • 04:33:18
    Doug Brown, other not every locality is making that kind of investment.
  • 04:33:21
    The question is for the Doug Doug Brown, allocation for the Doug Doug Brown, vendor fees that will go to the downtown mall renovation fund.
  • 04:33:33
    I'm forgetting the Doug Doug Brown, exact wordage.
  • 04:33:35
    I'm curious what kind of Doug Doug Brown, things that Doug Doug Brown, fund is used for Doug Doug Brown, Is that just rebricking lighting?
• • Chris Cullinan
  • 04:33:40
    It's my understanding, councilmember Payne, that it's all those Doug Doug Brown, types of Doug Doug Brown, activities for the Doug Doug Brown, physical infrastructure
  • 04:33:48
    of the downtown mall and all the different things that might include, but it's those types of activities.
  • 04:33:53
    It's within our capital fund.
• • Michael Payne
  • 04:33:56
    Okay.
  • 04:33:58
    That was pretty much it for me.
  • 04:33:59
    Thank you.
• • Chris Cullinan
  • 04:34:00
    And to give credit where credit is due, Misty Graves, our Acting Director of Human Services, was unable to be on the call this evening, but she and her team, along with Ms.
  • 04:34:12
    Marshall, in terms of their work with the
  • 04:34:16
    Pathways Fund, the hotline, and Cacodemic before her.
  • 04:34:22
    They've been on the tip of the spear, so to speak, in this fight with COVID and helping our community address the impacts of COVID.
  • 04:34:31
    And so thank you for that recognition, and I would echo those as well.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:34:37
    Thank you.
  • 04:34:40
    So, counselors, is there agreement to move this item to the February 7th consent agenda for the vote?
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 04:34:49
    Yes.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:34:50
    Okay, looks like we've got agreement on that.
  • 04:34:54
    Next item, approving resolution approving names for newly acquired and developed parklands.
  • 04:35:00
    One reading.
  • 04:35:01
    Chris Genczyk.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 04:35:02
    Good evening, Mayor Snook, members of council.
  • 04:35:05
    This is Chris Genczyk.
  • 04:35:07
    I'm the parks planner and trail planner for the city.
  • 04:35:10
    If you see in your packet, we have acquired a number of properties in the past decade or so.
  • 04:35:17
    Sorry, my video is not very good for home use, so I'm just talking right now, if that's okay.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:35:23
    That's great.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 04:35:25
    We have a number of new parkland parcels around the city.
  • 04:35:30
    Some of them are just outside the city, and they do not currently have official names.
  • 04:35:35
    And it is the policy of the Parks and Rec Advisory Board and Council that the advisory board take public input and then recommend names forward for Council to approve.
  • 04:35:46
    and we have six new parcels and properties that have names recommended by the advisory board.
  • 04:35:53
    There are 32 acres by Morris Creek near Azalea Park.
  • 04:35:56
    The recommended name is Azalea Park West.
  • 04:36:00
    20 acres along Morris Creek near Jordan Park and Avon Street.
  • 04:36:03
    The recommended name is Mill Park.
  • 04:36:06
    142 acres adjacent to Racket Mountain.
  • 04:36:09
    Recommended name is Hayward Community Forest.
  • 04:36:12
    Eight acres addition to Northeast Park that has the soccer field on it
  • 04:36:16
    recommended name is Unity Field at Northeast Park, the 42 acres of land north of McIntyre Park in Melbourne Road, which was part of the John Warner Parkway project, is the replacement land for McIntyre Park land, Butterfly Greenway, and the new Pocket Park at the corner of 8th and Albemarle near West Haven, Jenkins Park, which is the family that operated a horse livery, livery, livery, at that corner a long time ago, so
  • 04:36:43
    I think that's my presentation.
  • 04:36:45
    If there's discussion or other things, let me know.
  • 04:36:48
    I'm here to take questions.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:36:49
    Chair Greg Musil, counselors have questions?
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 04:36:59
    I read the presentation.
  • 04:37:01
    It was very interesting to see all those parcels that we now have
  • 04:37:06
    as parks, which is fantastic.
  • 04:37:09
    This is really a subjective question, I guess, but what was your sense of the process and how energized the public was in terms of coming up with different names and often renaming a street and so forth is problematic in Charlottesville, but were people really engaged in the process or was it just more perfunctory?
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 04:37:31
    We had a lot of public input, which the advisory board
  • 04:37:36
    doesn't always get a lot of public input, but on this matter, they did get some.
  • 04:37:40
    Mostly, like in the Northeast Park area, there are a lot of people who live in that area and who knew the park very well, had some suggestions.
  • 04:37:50
    Same with Hayward Forest.
  • 04:37:52
    The Advisory Board went back and forth on should we name things after people, because we all know that that could be interesting these days.
  • 04:38:01
    So they often come up with names that didn't have anything to do with people.
  • 04:38:06
    in the Hayward case, that family has donated a lot of land to the city and county over the years, and with the Jenkins name, they thought that would be a good thing for equity to have that named after someone who lived there a long time ago and ran a horse thing.
  • 04:38:19
    But yeah, there was a good amount of public input and discussion about, like you mentioned, should we name things after people these days or not, and they went back and forth on the advisory board and eventually
  • 04:38:31
    for the ones that are named after people, they thought it was worthwhile because those people were worthwhile to put these names forward.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:38:39
    Thank you.
  • 04:38:42
    I noticed there was a lot of comment from people supporting the notion of naming the park, for me, naming the field off Davis after coach Cy Weaver and
  • 04:38:58
    only one brief mention of the possibility of unity field, which is what people wound up with.
  • 04:39:06
    Any comment on how we got to that stage?
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 04:39:11
    I would say to the previous discussion that the advisory board, at least, which only makes recommendations to council, was a little hesitant to do a name of a person
  • 04:39:25
    particularly when that field's associated with the Rock Hill Academy and they were a little nervous about that so the unity field name came up at that point there are a lot that was the one that had the most family members former students of that particular coach Mr. Weaver that came out supporting that they wrote letters so that was one where the name was not advanced by the advisory board doesn't mean it can't be named that by council but that's
  • 04:39:54
    They have a lot of discussion about that.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:40:02
    You say it was not advanced by the advisory board.
  • 04:40:07
    But I don't understand how it gets on to the memo then.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 04:40:12
    That was part of the making sure council was aware of how much community input there was that the advisory board then took under consideration when they made their recommendations.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:40:22
    Uh huh.
  • 04:40:23
    There are also a couple of people commenting naming it after Jean Harding and Kathleen Harding, the residents of the area.
  • 04:40:35
    Any reaction to that?
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 04:40:39
    Not that I recall from the discussions on the advisory board.
  • 04:40:45
    More about Weaver than I remember in terms of the public input.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:40:56
    Other people have any questions or comments?
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 04:41:02
    Appreciate that.
  • 04:41:05
    Sena, we're sinking.
  • 04:41:07
    We are.
  • 04:41:09
    No, I just was going to say, I appreciate the work of the committee.
  • 04:41:13
    You know, I know that I've been on the other side before when they go through these hours of deliberating and sometimes the decision makers, which we have to, you know, I understand that role, but they, you know, take action.
  • 04:41:29
    taking in a lot of time and consideration and reaching this, and I respect that, and I will support it.
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 04:41:38
    And actually, I was going to say something very similar to what Vice Mayor Wade just spoke, so I will just second that.
• • Michael Payne
  • 04:41:46
    Yeah, and I guess my only comment would be, you know, having been involved in this process, I don't think I'm in any position to override any recommendations, but I just always
  • 04:41:59
    find it more valuable if we're able to name things that are connected to local history, rather than something that could just be anywhere in the world, if we can get it right, and we don't repeat the mistakes of the past, and we've honored people who've been actual community leaders.
  • 04:42:14
    But having said that, it doesn't compel me enough to override any of the recommendations.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:42:29
    So it sounds like we've got at least three votes for not wanting to override.
  • 04:42:34
    Is that where we stand?
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 04:42:40
    Yes.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:42:42
    Then it sounds like we're ready to have a motion.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 04:42:47
    I move that we accept the proposal as written.
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 04:42:50
    Is there a second for that?
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 04:42:57
    I second that.
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 04:42:59
    Any further discussion?
  • 04:43:00
    Ms.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 04:43:04
    Thomas?
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 04:43:07
    Councillor McGill?
  • 04:43:09
    Yes.
  • 04:43:11
    Councillor Payne?
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 04:43:12
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 04:43:13
    Councillor Pinkston?
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 04:43:15
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 04:43:17
    Mayor Snook?
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 04:43:18
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 04:43:19
    Vice Mayor Wade?
  • 04:43:19
    Yes.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:43:23
    So that passes five, nothing.
  • 04:43:25
    And let me add,
  • 04:43:28
    One of my overall premises here is that when we designate an advisory board of some sort to look into something in some depth, there's a reason we do that.
  • 04:43:42
    And part of the reason is so that we don't have to get all of these many, many, many emails and we don't have to agonize over it.
  • 04:43:50
    and I can imagine that many hours were spent by the advisory board and I really appreciate their efforts and my basic attitude is unless something that comes out of an advisory board like that just really offends me I'm going to respect the work and the talents and the energy that they've put into it and so that's that's one of the reasons why I was happy to say yes in this particular case.
  • 04:44:14
    And I think that if I think that probably summarizes what others on Council feel as well.
  • 04:44:19
    So thank you to the Parks Advisory Board.
  • 04:44:24
    Next item is, let's see, Charlottesville Redevelopment Housing Authority Sixth Street site.
  • 04:44:31
    Two action items designating the Sixth Street site as a revitalization area and then a financial resolution supporting the site.
  • 04:44:42
    Alex Sigfuna, Interim Director of Community Solutions, will make the presentation.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 04:44:47
    Alex Sigfuna, Good evening Mayor and the councillors.
  • 04:44:49
    Alex Sigfuna, This is a request from CRHA to designate a sixth street property as a revitalization area in accordance with Virginia code 36-55.30.2.
  • 04:45:09
    The property is located at 715 6th Street, Southeast.
  • 04:45:16
    It's going to be developed in phases.
  • 04:45:19
    The first phase is going to be 45 units.
  • 04:45:21
    And it's going to be four stories with a ground commercial components to the project.
  • 04:45:35
    The project, the unit is going to range from 0% AMI to 60% AMI.
  • 04:45:43
    It will include nine one-bedroom units, 20 two-bedroom units, and 16 three-bedroom units.
  • 04:45:55
    The first phase will also require the demolition of six of the current public housing power homes in order to construct the new
  • 04:46:04
    apartment buildings.
  • 04:46:08
    There are 25 total units currently on the sites and the development cost is $21 million approximately.
  • 04:46:20
    The city voted in the past to provide up to $3 million to CRHA to support the development project, which is one of the reasons why you have
  • 04:46:32
    and two resolutions.
  • 04:46:34
    One is for designation and the other one is for funding support.
  • 04:46:42
    The project complies with several aspects of city council vision statements, the 2021 comprehensive plan, as well as the strategic plan adopted by the city council.
  • 04:46:58
    There are three main reasons why this is being presented to the City Council for consideration.
  • 04:47:05
    One is designation, which will help support the scoring process for the project.
  • 04:47:14
    And the second is to demonstrate that the partnership between the city and the CRHA is reflected in terms of needs assessment.
  • 04:47:27
    and trying to address community needs by creating affordable housing, quality housing that is healthy and will help to improve the quality of life for the residents.
  • 04:47:41
    And the other benefit is this will take the property from existing use to a more productive use.
  • 04:47:50
    Currently there are 25 units.
  • 04:47:53
    And once the phases of the projects are completed,
  • 04:47:57
    We're going to have a total of 100 units on the side compared to the current 25 units on the side.
  • 04:48:05
    Staff is requesting City Council approve the two resolutions.
  • 04:48:10
    One is for designation as a revitalization area, and the other resolution is a financial resolution supporting the project, up to $3 million.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:48:22
    Thank you.
  • 04:48:24
    Any questions for Mr. Rekofuna?
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 04:48:32
    Yes, this is just because I'm new.
  • 04:48:37
    So there's a commitment we're making as a city that's part of the revitalization piece so that we get access to HUD funds.
  • 04:48:47
    Is that how that works?
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 04:48:50
    The fund, low income housing tax credit, it's a IRS program.
  • 04:49:00
    Garis provides the money.
  • 04:49:04
    There is also a hard fund that is going to be available, you know, the home fund, and then depending on the project, usually sometimes there will be a grant, but it comes in form of loan from Federal Home Loan Bank in Atlanta.
  • 04:49:23
    I haven't seen all the funding sources, but there are several funding sources, usually hard money,
  • 04:49:30
    the IRS low income housing tax credit, baby city supports, which is like a gap financing and other funding sources, you know, but we are doing this not just for hard funding, but largely for the low income housing tax credit.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 04:49:52
    And Councillor Payne, you might be able to speak to this as well.
  • 04:49:56
    So when we, when we vote to sort of
  • 04:50:01
    Say, yes, we're in support of this effort.
  • 04:50:05
    Does that encumber the $3 million or is that, okay, no?
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 04:50:11
    There are two resolutions.
  • 04:50:13
    Am I skipping ahead?
  • 04:50:17
    The first one is designation.
  • 04:50:19
    And then the other one is that council is going to provide.
  • 04:50:24
    In other words, you are supporting $3 million.
  • 04:50:28
    This is already
  • 04:50:30
    approved as a five-year funding support for CRHA that the city will provide up to $3 million every year for the next five years for their massive redevelopment initiative.
  • 04:50:46
    So by voting for this tonight, we are basically ratifying a decision that's already been made.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 04:50:56
    Michael, does that fit your understanding?
• • Michael Payne
  • 04:51:01
    Yes.
  • 04:51:02
    And again, as was stated, it will give them additional points in the application.
  • 04:51:06
    And again, as was said, ratifying a decision that's been made in the past.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 04:51:11
    Great.
  • 04:51:11
    Thank you, both of you.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:51:16
    Okay.
  • 04:51:17
    Any other questions or comments?
  • 04:51:19
    We should take them one at a time.
  • 04:51:21
    First, the motion on revitalization.
  • 04:51:24
    Is there a motion?
  • 04:51:26
    To approve revitalization.
  • 04:51:28
    Oh, sorry.
  • 04:51:28
    Got a question.
  • 04:51:29
    Okay.
  • 04:51:31
    Even better.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 04:51:32
    Yeah, I just want to make sure that our budget team, that this is already baked into our budget, that this isn't adding on top of things because that's the CIP conversation then and should be looked at as a whole.
  • 04:51:50
    And that's just what I want to verify with staff.
• • SPEAKER_28
  • 04:51:54
    I don't see Chrissy on, but I can speak to that.
  • 04:51:58
    As Alex was indicating, this is already a commitment to CRHA to transform public housing.
  • 04:52:05
    And at this moment, your vote is to encumber this $3 million for this specific aspect of that transformation plan.
  • 04:52:12
    So it is strictly tied to Sixth Street.
  • 04:52:15
    Funds are already earmarked.
  • 04:52:16
    It's just a matter of you now allowing us to make it available when they are ready to proceed.
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 04:52:22
    That's all I wanted to verify.
  • 04:52:23
    Thank you very much.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:52:26
    Okay, now are we ready for a motion?
• • Michael Payne
  • 04:52:29
    I would move to approve the revitalization area certification for CRHA 6th Street Site, 715 6th Street Southeast.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:52:39
    Is there a second?
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 04:52:40
    I'll second.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:52:42
    Any other questions or discussion?
  • 04:52:46
    Ms.
  • 04:52:46
    Thomas?
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 04:52:48
    Councillor McGill?
  • 04:52:50
    Yes.
  • 04:52:51
    Councillor Payne?
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 04:52:53
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 04:52:54
    Councillor Pinkston?
  • 04:52:55
    Yes.
  • 04:52:57
    Mayor Snook?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:52:58
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 04:52:59
    Vice Mayor Wade?
  • 04:53:00
    Yes.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:53:01
    Okay, that motion passes 5-0.
  • 04:53:05
    Next, can we have a motion on the financial commitment?
• • Michael Payne
  • 04:53:09
    Move to approve financial resolution supporting CRHA 6th Street, Phase 1.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:53:14
    Okay.
  • 04:53:15
    Second.
  • 04:53:17
    Any other questions or comments from Council?
  • 04:53:22
    Ms.
  • 04:53:23
    Thomas?
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 04:53:25
    Councilor McGill?
  • 04:53:28
    Yes.
  • 04:53:29
    Councilor Payne?
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 04:53:30
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 04:53:32
    Councilor Pinkston?
  • 04:53:33
    Yes.
  • 04:53:34
    Mayor Snook?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:53:35
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 04:53:36
    Vice Mayor Wade?
  • 04:53:38
    Yes.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:53:38
    Okay, that passes five nothing as well.
  • 04:53:43
    Next item on the agenda.
  • 04:53:46
    Also, Mr. Kifuna deals with the CDBG block grant.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 04:53:47
    Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna Kifuna K
  • 04:54:17
    As Council may be aware, staff has been having problems with the Franklin Street sidewalk projects.
  • 04:54:27
    It's a problem that is rooted in the existing system we have in terms of public participation process.
  • 04:54:34
    If you recall, I believe sometime in December, this past December, Deputy City Manager Sam Sanders had a work session with City Council.
  • 04:54:46
    also in a regular section discussion about the need to restructure the CDBG task force.
  • 04:54:54
    So this request, it's a direct result of the need to restructure the CDBG task force.
  • 04:55:05
    Now I'm not here making that request.
  • 04:55:09
    I'm here requesting the city council to approve
  • 04:55:16
    the amendment to the action plan because we couldn't in a timely manner expand the CDBG fund that was allocated for the sidewalk project on Franklin Street.
  • 04:55:30
    The reason being the current public participation process, it's one reason.
  • 04:55:37
    And the other reason it's we are unable to
  • 04:55:44
    to get approval from a couple of property owners in terms of right of way easement.
  • 04:55:51
    So we'll be able to construct the sidewalk.
  • 04:55:56
    And as a result of that, the time we have to expend the CDBG fund, it's pretty close.
  • 04:56:06
    So we've received a warning from HUD to spend the money as quickly as possible
  • 04:56:14
    and bring our spending ratio down from 2.16 to 1.5, which is the acceptable ratio.
  • 04:56:25
    So staff is asking for amendments so that we'll be able to reprogram the CDBG fund here marked for Franklin Street.
  • 04:56:35
    So we'll be able to spend it in other eligible programs in a timely manner.
  • 04:56:40
    So staff is requesting for approval.
  • 04:56:43
    of this request, so we'll be able to move to the next phase.
  • 04:56:48
    I'd be glad to answer your questions.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:56:49
    Okay.
  • 04:56:51
    Anybody have any questions?
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 04:56:54
    Could someone give me just a little bit of context about what a CDBG is?
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 04:57:02
    CDBG is an acronym for Community Development Block Grant.
  • 04:57:12
    It's an entitlement.
  • 04:57:15
    There is a threshold in terms of population that a city will reach, or if you are what they call a primate city or something like that, a primary city in a region.
  • 04:57:29
    Charlottesville meets that threshold in accordance with the HUD regulation.
  • 04:57:37
    So every year, U.S.
  • 04:57:39
    Department of Housing and Urban Development
  • 04:57:43
    provides X amount of entitlement dollars to this community.
  • 04:57:50
    And they have a timeline, you know, to spend that money.
  • 04:57:55
    And that money goes to several kinds of eligible activities from public service to economic development, to residential home ownership, home repair, and what have you, infrastructure improvement.
  • 04:58:12
    The city gets anywhere between $400,000 to $450,000 plus or minus every year and also gets a home partnership investment fund which is a consortium and that is administered through the Thomas Jefferson PDC that the city gets part of that home money.
  • 04:58:36
    So that's essentially what the CDBG is.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 04:58:44
    And so the Franklin Street, I mean, so this is sort of a specific issue that's been problematic in terms of getting the feedback that's necessary, or is this is the matter of issues with spending?
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 04:58:59
    The project has been problematic because of the obstacles to the implementation.
  • 04:59:08
    You know, the sidewalk is designed.
  • 04:59:10
    We need a right-of-way.
  • 04:59:14
    But the right of way requirements coupled with citizen participation process, citizen participation process in particular, it's a barrier, you know, to being able to spend the money in a timely manner.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 04:59:39
    And so does the money go away from this particular project to something else?
  • 04:59:44
    Exactly.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 04:59:45
    Exactly.
  • 04:59:46
    We are going to, once Council takes action, we are going to reprogram the money to eligible ready projects that is acceptable by heart.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 05:00:02
    And do you know what those projects are or you're still sorting that out?
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 05:00:06
    We have a
  • 05:00:10
    a few projects from the fire departments, one of which is providing a fire alarm, you know, to low and moderate income households.
  • 05:00:27
    And there's also a trailer, they are looking at purchasing, you know, for
  • 05:00:39
    Fire purposes.
  • 05:00:41
    That is an eligible use.
  • 05:00:44
    So we already have largely a project we have to reprogram the money to accomplish.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 05:00:55
    Okay.
  • 05:00:55
    Thank you.
  • 05:00:59
    Other questions?
  • 05:01:01
    One more thing, Mr. Mayor.
  • 05:01:03
    Sure.
  • 05:01:05
    Maybe we talk about it another time.
  • 05:01:06
    I would be interested in knowing more from Mr. Freeze or Mr. explaining at some point about what your thoughts are about how we improve that process.
  • 05:01:17
    We've got lots of needs in the city, obviously, and to be told when I was reading this packet that we've got this money, but we can't spend it.
  • 05:01:25
    I was like, well, how can we resolve that?
  • 05:01:28
    And I realized now is not the time to do that, but hopefully in further conversations afterwards, I could get
  • 05:01:35
    hear your ideas.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:01:38
    I think we also may have some ideas from Ms.
  • 05:01:40
    Marshall and Mr. Sanders on that.
• • SPEAKER_28
  • 05:01:43
    Yes, there will be more information forthcoming.
  • 05:01:45
    This is really about just trying to get this on track to spend the money and time to move the head obligation.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:01:51
    So any other questions on what we've got to do tonight?
  • 05:01:57
    Recognizing that Brian has put his finger on a long-term issue that needs attention.
• • Michael Payne
  • 05:02:02
    Yes, one
  • 05:02:03
    One comment slash question for me is one, I very much hope that this money, I know there are issues with having to program it quickly, but that it can be used to meet
  • 05:02:15
    real community needs.
  • 05:02:16
    I know in the past this has been used for issues such as homelessness, critical home repair through AHIP, and that we're able to prioritize those kind of investments because $385,000 is enough to, you know, potentially make a real impact on someone or multiple people's lives, and that we're not just making an application because something's in front of us that can be done quickly.
  • 05:02:35
    And with that in mind, sort of what
  • 05:02:38
    is the process to figure out how to prioritize where this $385,000 will ultimately go.
  • 05:02:42
    We have to look at this from
• • SPEAKER_28
  • 05:02:50
    In essence, shovel ready projects, while they're not development oriented, these are things that can quickly move because in order for us to meet that timeliness deadline by May, middle of May, I believe is the number, the date that we were working with, we've got to be able to expend the funds and have our documentation in place for having expended them appropriately.
  • 05:03:09
    There is two buckets that make up the amount that was allocated to Franklin Street.
  • 05:03:14
    So we're going to focus on spending the first one as quickly as we possibly can using the sample projects that Alex mentioned, plus others that are on a list.
  • 05:03:22
    And then we will be able to prioritize the remaining funds for more longer term impact.
  • 05:03:27
    But the goal is to reach low, moderate income households as our primary objective.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 05:03:35
    Thank you.
  • 05:03:37
    I'm sorry, Michael, you finished, sir?
  • 05:03:39
    Oh, yes, sorry.
  • 05:03:40
    Go ahead.
  • 05:03:41
    I know in the past, I have actually served on the CGBG Task Force, and at least in the past, I mean, this is probably 10 years or so ago, they focused on specific neighborhoods and areas that they wanted to have a long-term impact on, so they may be
  • 05:03:57
    They may focus on it for several years in a row so that, you know, the community could see projects.
  • 05:04:04
    Is there still such a task force?
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 05:04:07
    Yeah, that's the task force where I was talking about.
  • 05:04:13
    Yeah, there still is.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 05:04:18
    Good.
  • 05:04:19
    That's all I need to know.
  • 05:04:20
    Thank you, sir.
  • 05:04:21
    Because they can help with those prioritization.
  • 05:04:24
    Those are, as I recall, the individuals on those committees really understand the community.
  • 05:04:31
    And in the past, it's been a really good job of selecting an individual on that.
  • 05:04:35
    I was a representative from the school board.
  • 05:04:39
    So it was a very good, diverse group of individuals.
  • 05:04:43
    So
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:04:46
    So that's a longer conversation for another time.
• • Michael Payne
  • 05:04:49
    And then, sorry, just one very quick question.
  • 05:04:52
    Are these allocations that will be reallocated earmarked for specific neighborhoods still?
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 05:05:00
    No, but the activities will benefit low-income neighborhoods like
  • 05:05:14
    West Haven, SIA neighborhoods, Fiveville neighborhoods, Rose Hill area and areas like that.
  • 05:05:29
    It's gonna be earmarked largely for low and moderate income neighborhoods.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:05:36
    Thank you.
  • 05:05:40
    Any other questions or comments?
  • 05:05:43
    If not, can we have a motion?
• • Michael Payne
  • 05:05:45
    I would move to approve the FY 2018 to 2019 Community Development Block Grant Substantial Action Plan Amendment of the 2018 to 2022 Consolidated Plan.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:06:02
    Thank you.
  • 05:06:03
    Is there a second?
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 05:06:04
    Second.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:06:06
    Any questions or other comments from Council?
  • 05:06:12
    Ms.
  • 05:06:12
    Thomas?
  • 05:06:15
    Councilor McGill yes Councilor Payne yes Councilor Pinkston yes Mayor Snook yes Vice Mayor Wade yes that passes five nothing okay next motion next action item consideration of endorsing a letter to the General Assembly regarding climate and energy chain and energy policies
  • 05:06:42
    and the agenda says that I will be introducing this.
  • 05:06:44
    So this is something that Susan Cruz and Caetano de Campos Lopez both talked about in our public comment period now two hours ago.
  • 05:06:58
    And the nutshell version of this is that for the last couple of years we have been asked by a climate change activist community
  • 05:07:06
    to join in and endorse a letter being sent to members of the General Assembly supporting a policy that is basically pro alternative energy policies and fighting climate change and so on.
  • 05:07:26
    Last year, we signed on to a letter along with County of Albemarle, City of Alexandria, City of Fairfax, City of Harrisonburg, City of Richmond,
  • 05:07:35
    and somebody with a logo that I can't read.
  • 05:07:40
    So I guess City of Richmond.
  • 05:07:43
    And in this particular case, the signers of this letter will be asking members of the General Assembly to do four main things to keep Virginia in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the RGGI program,
  • 05:08:01
    which has just begun to return benefits to us, $227 million to the state and about $250,000 just in this past year for Charlottesville.
  • 05:08:17
    which we will be using for things like, I mean, it says the climate, the community flood preparedness fund and high innovation energy efficiency funds.
  • 05:08:28
    One of the things we'll be doing with the money is doing a detailed analysis of the floodplain in Moores Creek, which, as you probably are aware, is an issue that's going to be
  • 05:08:39
    of interest to us as we look at Nassau Street and that proposal in a couple of weeks.
  • 05:08:44
    We won't have the study in time for that, but the point is that it's a hot topic for us.
  • 05:08:48
    The second is to keep Virginia on the path to a 100% zero carbon electricity grid by maintaining the policy commitments of the Virginia Clean Economy Act.
  • 05:08:59
    The third is to keep Virginia's clean car standards in place and to fund the electric vehicle rebate program.
  • 05:09:06
    As we know, transportation is a leading source of carbon pollution in Virginia.
  • 05:09:09
    I think the latest figure is about 48% of our carbon pollution is coming from greenhouse gases are coming from transportation.
  • 05:09:20
    Finally, to maintain the most recent capital assistance rule of Virginia's Department of Rail and Public Transportation that includes funding for battery electric buses,
  • 05:09:31
    and the installation of their electric charging structures.
  • 05:09:34
    Just to be clear, this basically puts electric vehicles on the same level with CNG vehicles and diesel vehicles.
  • 05:09:43
    It does not establish a priority.
  • 05:09:45
    It simply makes it a level playing field as between the three technologies.
  • 05:09:50
    So we have been asked to endorse this letter and to authorize the folks who are sending it to say that we support it.
  • 05:10:00
    and that's the proposal in front of us.
  • 05:10:05
    Any questions or comments?
  • 05:10:17
    I hope that means silence signifies consent.
  • 05:10:21
    Do we have a motion?
  • 05:10:22
    Move.
• • Michael Payne
  • 05:10:26
    moved for Council to endorse the letter to the General Assembly regarding climate and energy policy.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:10:33
    Motion by Michael.
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 05:10:35
    I'll second or Brian will second.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:10:39
    Give it to Brian.
  • 05:10:40
    He raised his hand first.
  • 05:10:42
    Okay.
  • 05:10:43
    Ms.
  • 05:10:43
    Thomas.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 05:10:45
    Councillor McGill.
  • 05:10:47
    Very definitely.
  • 05:10:47
    Yes.
  • 05:10:49
    Councillor Payne.
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 05:10:50
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 05:10:52
    Councillor Pinkston.
  • 05:10:53
    Yes.
  • 05:10:54
    Mayor Snook.
  • 05:10:55
    Yes, I swear, Wade, yes.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:10:58
    Okay, motion passes 5-0.
  • 05:11:03
    So we're sneaking up on the end of things here.
  • 05:11:08
    Anybody feel they need to take a break?
  • 05:11:12
    Okay, we'll keep going.
  • 05:11:14
    Next item is a report from the Rivanna authorities and Bill Moyer has been patiently on this call since about seven o'clock today.
  • 05:11:22
    And Bill, would you like to join us?
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 05:11:27
    I'm here.
  • 05:11:28
    Yes, thank you.
  • 05:11:29
    Thank you, Mayor Snook, members of council.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:11:33
    I saw your picture earlier.
  • 05:11:34
    Are you going incognito on us?
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 05:11:37
    No, the host needs to free my picture up here.
  • 05:11:43
    Let's see.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:11:45
    There we go.
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 05:11:45
    There it is.
  • 05:11:46
    Okay, thank you.
  • 05:11:48
    Yeah, thanks for the opportunity to talk about what we're doing at the Rivanna authorities right now.
  • 05:11:53
    I do have a brief presentation that I will attempt to share with you.
  • 05:11:59
    Okay, I hope you can see that.
  • 05:12:05
    Okay, so move the screen.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 05:12:10
    Trying to move the screen here.
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 05:12:22
    Well, the Rivanna authorities provide all the drinking water and wastewater treatment for the community of Charlottesville and surrounding urbanized areas of the county as well.
  • 05:12:32
    We provide refuse disposal and recycling services for the county and somewhat for the city.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 05:12:40
    If I could get the presentation to move, it will not move.
  • 05:12:51
    So I'll just talk to you.
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 05:12:54
    So there we go.
  • 05:12:56
    So we were created in the Water and Sewer Authority created in 1972 by a joint action of city council and the Albemarle Board of Supervisors with a mission to acquire, finance, manage all of the water supply and water treatment facilities that serve the city and the county as well the wastewater facilities in both localities.
  • 05:13:20
    We are governed by a seven member board of directors, which includes three representatives from the city, the city manager.
  • 05:13:29
    Currently, Councilor Pinkston is going to be joining us.
  • 05:13:32
    And we thank Mayor Snook for being on our board last year and did a great job as well.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:13:38
    Thank you so much.
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 05:13:39
    Well, good.
  • 05:13:40
    You were very helpful.
  • 05:13:43
    Lauren Hildebrand, your director of utilities is on our board, along with the county representatives, Jeff Richardson, the city county executive.
  • 05:13:53
    Ms.
  • 05:13:53
    Malik is going to join our board this year as a new member from a new supervisor from the county as well.
  • 05:14:00
    The county appoints Gary O'Connell, who is the executive director of the Albemarle County Service Authority.
  • 05:14:07
    And lastly, we have Mike Gaffney as our chair.
  • 05:14:10
    Mike has been appointed for 10 consecutive terms jointly by the city and the county, so he is in his 20th year as chairman of both Ravana authorities.
  • 05:14:23
    The Water and Sewer Authority has about 96 full-time employees.
  • 05:14:27
    We have a $39 million operating budget and a capital improvement budget of about $174
  • 05:14:35
    million dollars over the five year CIP and I manage both authorities and I'm appointed by both boards.
  • 05:14:46
    Next slide.
  • 05:14:47
    Thank you.
  • 05:14:48
    So we essentially are a wholesaler for drinking water and wastewater treatment to the two customers, be it the city of Charlottesville's public utilities department or utilities department as well.
  • 05:15:00
    We
  • 05:15:02
    worked with the Albemarle County Service Authority as the representative group for Albemarle County.
  • 05:15:08
    So those two groups pay for our water and sewer services, and then they are the retail arms to your city residents as well the county of Albemarle public utility residents.
  • 05:15:24
    Next.
  • 05:15:26
    So we have five water supply reservoirs that provide all the drinking water for the city and the county.
  • 05:15:34
    The South Fork Rivanna Reservoir, Sugar Hollow Reservoir, and Ragged Mountain Reservoir are all owned by the city, and Rivanna manages the water and the water facilities.
  • 05:15:46
    Beaver Creek Reservoir serves Crozet, and Todia Creek serves Scottsville, and those two reservoirs are actually owned by the county.
  • 05:15:55
    but collectively we have 3.3 billion gallons in storage for our community.
  • 05:16:03
    Next.
  • 05:16:05
    We have six water treatment plants of the South Ravana out at Hilton Heights Observatory treatment plant on Observatory Mountain at the university and is actually located on university property.
  • 05:16:17
    We leased that property from the university.
  • 05:16:20
    and the North Ravana water treatment plant is out near the Camelot subdivision on 29 North.
  • 05:16:26
    They serve the city.
  • 05:16:28
    Crozet water treatment plant serves Crozet.
  • 05:16:31
    We have a small plant in the Red Hill area on Route 29 South.
  • 05:16:36
    And we have a separate water treatment plant for the Scottsville community.
  • 05:16:41
    Those last three are supported solely by the Albemarle County Service Authority.
  • 05:16:47
    Next.
  • 05:16:49
    Similarly, we have four wastewater treatment plants.
  • 05:16:53
    By far, our major plant is the Morse Creek facility located near Woolen Mills and Route I-64 where we treat about 10 million gallons of wastewater every day.
  • 05:17:05
    Glenmore subdivision has its own wastewater treatment plant supported by those residents and the Albemarle Service Authority along with Scottsville and there's a small plant at the Stone Robinson Elementary School.
  • 05:17:20
    Next.
  • 05:17:22
    So when we talk about the urban water treatment system, we have a capacity to produce about 21.7 million gallons a day.
  • 05:17:31
    And the urban system is the pink area shown on this slide.
  • 05:17:34
    So all the city and many of the adjoining areas in the developed portion of the county out 29 north as well Glenmore development.
  • 05:17:49
    Next.
  • 05:17:51
    Similarly, but different, the urban wastewater system that the city helps fund along with the service authority supports all the city, 29 North.
  • 05:18:02
    It does not support the Glenmore subdivision, but it does add in Crozet.
  • 05:18:07
    All the wastewater from Crozet is pumped back to Moores Creek and is part of our urban wastewater system.
  • 05:18:16
    Next.
  • 05:18:19
    Much of our efforts and resources are spent and are going to be spent building community water supply projects.
  • 05:18:28
    We show you on this graph and slide.
  • 05:18:32
    We currently have about $185 million in work planned.
  • 05:18:37
    We are renovating the South Urbana water treatment plant and the observatory treatment plant.
  • 05:18:44
    We have a major
  • 05:18:45
    Pipeline planned from the Ragged Mountain Reservoir to the Observatory Treatment Plant.
  • 05:18:50
    That's a pipe replacement project.
  • 05:18:54
    We have what we call the Central Water Line Project.
  • 05:18:56
    That's going to be a major pipe generally running through the center of the city.
  • 05:19:01
    Our largest project is going to be to build a water supply pipe for untreated water that's going to extend from the South Revanter Reservoir
  • 05:19:11
    all the way to the Ragged Mountain Reservoir because the Ragged Mountain Reservoir will not fill itself because of rain and surface flow.
  • 05:19:21
    It is our largest reservoir and it has to have a water supply.
  • 05:19:24
    It currently is supplied by the Sugar Hollow Reservoir, but that pipe's about 100 years old and the community water supply plan that was created by council and the supervisors in 2012
  • 05:19:40
    decided that we would build a new pipe from the Ravanna Reservoir to supply the Ragged Mountain Reservoir.
  • 05:19:46
    So that's an $80 million project that we are acquiring the easements for now and plan to get that project started around 2027.
  • 05:19:54
    And then lastly, we will raise the water level in the Ragged Mountain Reservoir 12 feet vertically
  • 05:20:04
    above the level that it is now.
  • 05:20:06
    That will add about 700 million gallons to the Ragged Mountain Reservoir and increase our community water supply.
  • 05:20:14
    The dam that was built and completed in 2014 and is there now was built for that higher level so there will not have to be any work done on the dam, only some clearing around the reservoir edge.
  • 05:20:29
    And all the trails that are at Ragged Mountain are above
  • 05:20:33
    the new water line at the 12 foot higher height.
  • 05:20:37
    Next.
  • 05:20:40
    I mentioned the central water line project.
  • 05:20:42
    This is going to be a major project of a 24 inch and 36 inch diameter finished water treated water pipe that's going to extend from the university area over near Observatory Mountain and Stadium Road.
  • 05:20:57
    We envision that it's going to go down Jefferson Park Avenue extended
  • 05:21:02
    Cleveland Avenue and then go to the east along Cherry Avenue and 6th Street until it reaches East High Street and terminates near Free Bridge at the intersection of Long Street and East High Street.
  • 05:21:18
    So that's a major project that we're coordinating with your utility department on that project.
  • 05:21:24
    We envision it will start around 2024 and over the period of about five years
  • 05:21:30
    we would get that pipe installed and it will strengthen the urban water system to benefit the city and the county.
  • 05:21:37
    That's a major project in our program.
  • 05:21:41
    One other project.
  • 05:21:45
    There's been some discussion recently about the likes of Morris Creek Fish Water Treatment Plant being too bright.
  • 05:21:51
    and there were emails around Christmas from some of the neighbors and we have determined that those light fixtures are too bright and we are ordering different fixtures to tone the light level down and really comply with the Albemarle County lighting ordinance.
  • 05:22:08
    So we're coordinating with the neighbors around the woolen mills area about the lights and we're gonna get that taken care of.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 05:22:19
    Next.
  • 05:22:22
    So if you have any questions about water and sewer, I'll answer them now.
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 05:22:28
    Otherwise, we also operate the Solid Waste Authority, which was created in 1990, again, by council and the Board of Supervisors, and our charge is to manage all of the waste disposal and recycling facilities in the area.
  • 05:22:46
    We similarly have a seven-member Board of Directors, and your council has
  • 05:22:51
    three appointed appointed members to that, including your new director of public works, Mr. Smalls.
  • 05:22:59
    And we managed the Ivy Material Utilization Center, the McIntyre Recycling Center, and the paper sort bailing facility off Meade Avenue.
  • 05:23:09
    In FY21, we transferred
  • 05:23:13
    about 83 million pounds of refuse out of the area.
  • 05:23:17
    So we do not bury any waste at the Ivy landfill anymore.
  • 05:23:22
    All of it is transferred out to the Amelia County landfill, actually.
  • 05:23:29
    And we were able to recycle about 14 million pounds of waste in FY21.
  • 05:23:34
    We have a minimal staff of 21 employees, a $5 million operating budget.
  • 05:23:43
    and I manage that authority along with the Water and Sewer Authority.
  • 05:23:48
    Next.
  • 05:23:51
    So the Solid Waste Authority, what do we do for the community?
  • 05:23:54
    We provide refuse disposal at Ivy.
  • 05:23:57
    We provide recycling services primarily at McIntyre.
  • 05:24:02
    We have a paint collection program.
  • 05:24:05
    We manage the old landfill cells that have been closed.
  • 05:24:09
    and we sponsor and manage the falls and spring bulky waste days.
  • 05:24:14
    Next slide.
  • 05:24:17
    And this is the schedule for those amnesty and spring bulky waste disposal days that we do twice a year.
  • 05:24:27
    We have e-waste collection in April.
  • 05:24:30
    We have a commercial household hazardous waste collection also in April.
  • 05:24:35
    And then residential household hazardous waste collection
  • 05:24:39
    and the spring bulky waste amnesty days.
  • 05:24:43
    And currently we are managing for the city and for the county the vegetative waste debris disposal program that is free to county residents and city residents to bring the limbs and things that came down during the snows recently.
  • 05:25:02
    And that's been a pretty popular program at the landfill with a lot of people bringing debris
  • 05:25:09
    and because of it for free, the bill will go to City Council and to Albemarle County.
  • 05:25:17
    From January the 6th through the 13th, the city had 47 customers visit us and brought over two tons of vegetative debris.
  • 05:25:28
    So that's what we're doing at the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority as well, the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority.
  • 05:25:35
    And we try to provide
  • 05:25:37
    successful service programs for the community.
  • 05:25:40
    And we're always open to any suggestions your representatives to our board have for us.
  • 05:25:46
    So we look forward to the new interim city manager joining us and as well, Mr. Pinkston and Mr. Smalls.
  • 05:25:57
    And we thank Mr. Snook and thank you all for giving me a few minutes to talk about what we're doing at Ravana.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:26:04
    Thank you, Bill.
  • 05:26:06
    Anybody have any questions for Mr. Moyer?
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 05:26:11
    Hey, Bill.
  • 05:26:11
    It's good seeing you again, sir.
  • 05:26:15
    You had mentioned the 3.3, I think, billion gallons in reserve.
  • 05:26:19
    I may be getting my terminology wrong.
  • 05:26:25
    Let us know, is that good, bad?
  • 05:26:29
    Do we need to, is that like the envy of other localities or we need to do a better job?
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 05:26:37
    Well, we do a study every 10 years of what the community water demand is versus what our community water supply is.
  • 05:26:50
    So we work with your planning department, the county planning department, Weldon Cooper, UVA, as UVA is the single largest user of drinking water in our system.
  • 05:27:03
    We coordinate with them and we project
  • 05:27:07
    usually 50 years in advance of what the community demand is.
  • 05:27:12
    We do what's called a bathymetric survey of all of our reservoirs.
  • 05:27:17
    So with an airplane and instruments, we can measure how much water we have in the reservoirs because storms bring silt and sediment into reservoirs and over time reservoirs will fill with sediment.
  • 05:27:34
    So
  • 05:27:35
    We're measuring how much water we have and how much water we need.
  • 05:27:41
    We estimate we have about 12.8 million gallons per day available to our community right now.
  • 05:27:49
    That's going to increase to about 15 million gallons per day when the renovations at the South Ravana and the observatory treatment plants are completed next calendar year.
  • 05:28:03
    and right now our water demand from the community is about 10 million gallons a day.
  • 05:28:08
    So we have a buffer of three to five million gallons a day, which is pretty good.
  • 05:28:13
    I think the really good news is we have a well-established reservoir systems.
  • 05:28:20
    And if we can get this pipeline built between Ravana Reservoir and Ragged Mountain Reservoir, we will have a super system where we can take
  • 05:28:33
    The South Ravana gets almost all the rain runoff that happens west of Route 29 from Green County to Israel's Mountain in Batesville.
  • 05:28:48
    When it rains, that rain theoretically and practically makes its way to the South Ravana Reservoir.
  • 05:28:56
    So it has the largest watershed in our region.
  • 05:29:01
    reservoir system.
  • 05:29:02
    And so that's why we need a pipeline so that when it rains and it rolls through South Ravana reservoir, rather than going over the dam and downstream to the James River, we want to capture it and pump it over to the Ragged Mountain reservoir, which is our largest reservoir.
  • 05:29:21
    It currently holds 1.4 billion gallons, and it will hold 2.1 billion gallons when we add
  • 05:29:31
    12 feet vertical equals 700 additional gallons, 700 million additional gallons.
  • 05:29:41
    So we need that pipeline.
  • 05:29:43
    And with that, we project that we will have an adequate water supply for 100 years, which I would think would be the envy of many utility systems.
  • 05:29:55
    So we're in good shape.
  • 05:29:57
    We're poised to be in great shape if we can get that pipeline built.
  • 05:30:03
    You know, it's planned by 2033.
  • 05:30:04
    But I know your councils talked about climate change.
  • 05:30:10
    And as I do my reading about it, I think it's important that we need to add that additional 700 million gallons and get that pipeline built so that we can feel ragged mounted repeatedly.
  • 05:30:25
    Because
  • 05:30:26
    The climate change says droughts are gonna be more severe with time.
  • 05:30:31
    And we need to utilize the resources that we've already invested in in building this higher dam.
  • 05:30:39
    We just need to fill the reservoir.
  • 05:30:42
    So that's an opportunity we have as a community to improve our status and our water supply.
  • 05:30:49
    Because as you know, when we say, oh, let's build the pipeline from Ravana to Ragged,
  • 05:30:56
    It takes decades to get that type of a project done.
  • 05:30:59
    It's not done in one or two years.
  • 05:31:01
    And when the drought hits, it's too late.
  • 05:31:05
    And our real concern is we would have back-to-back droughts.
  • 05:31:09
    And then that way our water supplies would be diminished and we would be struggling like the community was back in 2002 when there was a major drought and there was talk of sending all the UVA students home
  • 05:31:25
    because we didn't have enough water here to accommodate them.
  • 05:31:29
    So I think, Juan Diego, to your question, we are in good shape.
  • 05:31:35
    We have an opportunity to get into much better shape, and we need to capitalize on that.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 05:31:41
    I'm glad that you're preserving the trails around Ragged Mountain.
  • 05:31:49
    Been on it several times with Mark Lorenzoni, that's why I admit you.
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 05:31:53
    Yeah, our planners, the planners of the trails and the reservoir did a nice job back in the early 2000s when they planned the trails.
  • 05:32:00
    They put them up above where the new water level will be so that we wouldn't have to rebuild them.
  • 05:32:08
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 05:32:10
    Hal Hallstein, Yeah, Mr. Meyer, I look forward to, I guess, next week is when the board meeting is, I look forward to that.
  • 05:32:18
    Could you say just briefly, the new pipeline that's being built through the city.
  • 05:32:23
    That's quite a project to go right through an urban area.
  • 05:32:28
    What's the sort of rationale or reason?
  • 05:32:32
    I'm sure there are really good ones, but could you speak to that briefly?
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 05:32:35
    We have several major pipelines that come from the South Ravanna Reservoir, which is out, I mean, the South Ravanna water treatment plant located out at Hilton Heights.
  • 05:32:45
    They come down like Emmett Street and over by Free Bridge, but they sort of essentially dead end
  • 05:32:54
    and connect into smaller pipes, which causes the web network of piping within the city to sometimes be challenged with pressures and being, think of it almost like 29 North or
  • 05:33:10
    of the town when you're coming south on the road.
  • 05:33:14
    You have whatever, a four or five or six lane section and then it narrows it at Emmett Street and in front of Barracks Road to two lanes.
  • 05:33:22
    And we have some of that same analogy with water pipes that are coming to the south from the South Urbana Water Treatment Plant.
  • 05:33:30
    They come into the city, they dead end and they connect or they connect into smaller pipes.
  • 05:33:35
    And that tends to compromise our ability to distribute the pipe
  • 05:33:40
    the water in the pipes.
  • 05:33:42
    Similarly, from the observatory treatment plant, we're upgrading its treatment capacity
  • 05:33:47
    from seven to 10 million gallons a day, but the pipes that leave the plant and distribute the water within the city are smaller, and we need to beef up the piping network within the city that will help not only the city, but also the Albemarle Services Authority outside the city.
  • 05:34:06
    So that's the general gist.
  • 05:34:08
    I said dead ends.
  • 05:34:09
    They're not really dead ends, but they're large pipes
  • 05:34:12
    that are ending with small pipes and it just gives us congestion within the system and an inability to really distribute the volume of water that we're producing at its maximum potential.
  • 05:34:26
    Got it.
  • 05:34:26
    Thank you.
  • 05:34:27
    Okay.
  • 05:34:29
    And you'll hear more about that next week at our board meeting.
  • 05:34:32
    We're going to have a special presentation on that project.
  • 05:34:35
    And we do have a web page.
  • 05:34:38
    online now if any of the residents or counselors want to look at it.
  • 05:34:42
    And recently we completed a drone video of the proposed route and we're also going to post that on our webpage soon also.
• • Michael Payne
  • 05:34:57
    Thank you for the presentation.
  • 05:34:59
    I've got one question I've asked in the past, but for the benefit of the public, and quite frankly, because I've forgotten the number myself.
  • 05:35:07
    What would be, you know, even just a ballpark, the expected increase for rates for, you know, an average household in Charlottesville from all the upcoming capital projects?
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 05:35:23
    Councillor, you would really have to talk with Ms.
  • 05:35:25
    Hildebrand at your utility department about those rates.
  • 05:35:29
    So because Ravana being a wholesaler, we have charges to the city and we probably represent a substantial portion of the city's retail rates, but we're not 100% of the rates.
  • 05:35:43
    So the city utility department, your utility department has some of its own expenses.
  • 05:35:50
    and you set your rates that you charge your retail customers to ultimately come up with the retail rate.
  • 05:35:59
    You may know, I think your position is improved recently with the new agreement with UVA about them paying 100% of the retail rate rather than a reduced rate.
  • 05:36:11
    So Chris Cullinan and Lauren Hildebrand could really address this, but I would think that
  • 05:36:18
    Your rates would remain pretty stable on whether they would go up one or two or 3% would be my guess.
  • 05:36:26
    But we try at Ravana try to level our rates and our charges to to the city and that service authority.
  • 05:36:36
    We project that our cost increases are going to be in the five to 10% range for each year for the next 10 years.
  • 05:36:45
    And again, your city, a utility department will need to integrate that cost with its other expenses and revenues to come up with a retail strategy.
• • Michael Payne
  • 05:36:56
    Thank you.
  • 05:36:57
    And one of the questions out of curiosity, obviously we're a growing region and climate change, you know, creates new challenges.
  • 05:37:04
    And you mentioned sort of the super system that we'd get to.
  • 05:37:07
    What is the like regional population that that would allow us to be?
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 05:37:20
    I don't recall exactly, but it's a 100 year supply.
  • 05:37:25
    So it's substantially, I think it's around 20 some million gallons per day that we could provide from our reservoirs without them going dry over an extended period.
  • 05:37:40
    So it would accommodate a substantial increase in the population.
  • 05:37:45
    I'd have to get back to you on a more exact number.
• • Michael Payne
  • 05:37:48
    And that 100 years would incorporate, I guess, current population projections in terms of the increase, not just 100 years at our current population.
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 05:37:57
    Oh, no, no, that's with projected residential and business increases and demands.
  • 05:38:06
    over that whole period.
  • 05:38:07
    So yes, we're projecting a greater population, more businesses, more houses, more people, and how much water they're going to need.
  • 05:38:16
    And we feel like with the water lines from the Rivanna to the Ragged Mountain Reservoir, and raising the water level in the Ragged Mountain Reservoir, we would then have a water supply to manage our demand for about 100 years.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 05:38:36
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 05:38:37
    Sir.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:38:40
    Bill, I have one question.
  • 05:38:43
    Is there any progress on being able to recycle other grades of plastic?
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 05:38:48
    I have not heard of any markets recently that have improved that situation.
  • 05:38:57
    We call it the China effect, that when China stopped taking a lot of the recycled products and the plastics in particular,
  • 05:39:05
    a few years ago, and that cut back on where anyone could ship those products.
  • 05:39:12
    So I have not heard of any improvement in that situation, Mr. Snow.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:39:18
    Are you able to recycle any of the electronic waste, or is that you're just doing us a favor by taking it in quantity on a particular day?
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 05:39:31
    The company that takes the e-waste does recycle components of those products.
  • 05:39:39
    I'm not exactly sure all the products, but you know, there are many valuable metals in electronic products.
  • 05:39:47
    And it's my understanding, they are able to recycle some of those metals.
  • 05:39:52
    Okay.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:39:54
    And the last question I have is, how are you coming on the solar panels on the dump?
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 05:40:01
    That project was approved as a special use permit by the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors.
  • 05:40:10
    So I think the legislative hurdles have been cleared.
  • 05:40:13
    It's our understanding the company that is going to build those will start in 2023.
  • 05:40:19
    That is a project that's driven by, in effect, the General Assembly and its encouragement of utilities like Dominion Energy to diversify its portfolio.
  • 05:40:31
    and have solar and those type of projects in its portfolio.
  • 05:40:38
    So the community power group that's leasing the property from Ravana is actually trying to partner with Dominion Energy to purchase the project, if you will, and that will make it feasible.
  • 05:40:53
    So what we understand is in 2023, they will start construction on the solar arrays at the Ivy Landfill.
  • 05:41:00
    Great.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:41:02
    Anybody else have any questions for Mr. Moyer?
  • 05:41:09
    Well, and thank you, Bill.
  • 05:41:11
    Thanks for the report.
  • 05:41:12
    And thank you for being just I've been amazed the last couple of years just to see how a well run organization can really do very good work and spend an awful lot of money carefully.
  • 05:41:28
    to good result and for the benefit of all of us.
  • 05:41:30
    So thank you.
  • 05:41:31
    And I will, I would be lying a little bit if I said I will miss the meetings.
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 05:41:39
    Well, that's all right.
  • 05:41:40
    Thank you, Mayor Snook.
  • 05:41:41
    We always enjoyed having you on the council.
  • 05:41:43
    You did a great job and we look forward to continuing to talk with you in your new role.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:41:48
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 05:41:49
    Bye-bye.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:41:50
    Bye-bye.
  • 05:41:52
    Okay, last item on the agenda, report on the update, update on the zoning rewrite process.
  • 05:41:59
    James Fries hanging in there, heading towards, hopefully not towards 10 o'clock, but, well, towards 10 o'clock is okay.
• • James Freas
  • 05:42:06
    James Fries, But maybe we can stop just short.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:42:10
    James Fries, Yes.
• • James Freas
  • 05:42:11
    James Fries, Good evening, Mayor Snook, members of council.
  • 05:42:14
    I do have a presentation, if it's okay if I share my screen.
  • 05:42:17
    It is quite short.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:42:22
    David, if you can help that happen.
• • 05:42:24
    Yeah.
  • 05:42:28
    All right.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:42:41
    David, can Mr. Freeze share his screen or show his presentation?
• • James Freas
  • 05:42:47
    But it doesn't seem to be working.
  • 05:42:51
    All right, I will go without, I apologize.
  • 05:42:54
    Okay.
  • 05:42:56
    So the intent of presentation this evening is to, sorry, there we go, is to present the schedule and community engagement plan for the zoning rewrite project, which we intend to kick off formally next week.
  • 05:43:20
    As you all are aware, this is the third part of the overall Seville Plans Together program, which included our affordable housing plan, which was adopted this past spring, the comprehensive plan adopted this past November, and now the zoning ordinance project.
  • 05:43:37
    Zoning ordinance is, oh, here we go.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 05:43:40
    Thank you, David.
  • 05:43:44
    So if you can skip
  • 05:43:49
    Can I do this?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:43:56
    How many pages do you want to be advanced?
  • 05:43:58
    I think David will have to advance you.
• • James Freas
  • 05:44:07
    Here we go.
  • 05:44:07
    All right.
  • 05:44:10
    So the zoning ordinance is one of our key tools for implementing the comprehensive plan, including the land use map, small area plans and the affordable housing plan.
  • 05:44:19
    There's two things I wanted to note here.
  • 05:44:21
    One, when it comes to the land use map and the land use designations on that map, they aren't going to map one to one with the zoning districts that are proposed in this process.
  • 05:44:32
    So what I mean by that is if you take, for example, the medium intensity residential area,
  • 05:44:37
    which allowed up to 12 units.
  • 05:44:40
    There may be multiple zoning districts that implement that section that could allow for say up to six or up to eight.
  • 05:44:48
    So again, that's not a one for one match.
  • 05:44:51
    Multiple zoning districts can implement one land use designation on the map.
  • 05:44:57
    And then the other thing I wanted to note, something we've said before, that as we go into the analysis associated with this zoning project, we fully anticipate the possibility that we might then propose changes to the future land use map.
  • 05:45:09
    Essentially, this is recognizing that that comprehensive plan was adopted as a living document, and then therefore that means as we learn more, we consider changes.
  • 05:45:22
    So the zoning rewrite project itself has three parts.
  • 05:45:25
    The first part is identifying zoning ordinance changes necessary to implement the comprehensive plan and the proposed approach.
  • 05:45:33
    So essentially what that means is here's what we need to change and how we propose to change it.
  • 05:45:40
    The outcome of this first part is what we call the diagnostic and approach report.
  • 05:45:47
    So it's a diagnostic of what changes are needed and the approach.
  • 05:45:52
    This report will include modeling of potential building outcomes as well as market outcomes.
  • 05:45:57
    One of the outcomes of this zoning in terms of the housing market in particular.
  • 05:46:03
    And that report will include sections on inclusionary zoning as well as the sensitive community areas identified in the comprehensive plan and implementation of our small area plans.
  • 05:46:16
    This first part culminates in a joint work team session with the planning commission and city council where we'll
  • 05:46:21
    essentially be asking for direction on moving forward with that proposed approach.
  • 05:46:28
    Part two is actual drafting of the zoning ordinance document itself.
  • 05:46:33
    That work will be undertaken in three pieces.
  • 05:46:36
    The first part of that is the proposed districts and associated uses.
  • 05:46:40
    The second part is the standards, landscaping, lighting, things like that.
  • 05:46:45
    And then the third piece of that is the processes and procedures of the zoning ordinance.
  • 05:46:53
    NDS will be providing updates to the Planning Commission and City Council throughout that phase of the work.
  • 05:46:59
    And then finally, part three is adoption of the new zoning ordinance, including notification and public hearings, as we typically do with the Planning Commission and City Council.
  • 05:47:10
    As far as the timeline, essentially beginning now, this first diagnostic and approach report phase is anticipated to extend through the spring, hopefully wrapping up in the May timeframe.
  • 05:47:23
    then we'll be drafting the zoning ordinance document over the summer in preparation for fall review and revision of that draft zoning ordinance document which then takes us to an early 2023 adoption process.
  • 05:47:42
    So overall looking at about a year, a little over a year perhaps.
  • 05:47:50
    The objectives of our community engagement process really derive from the four goals outlined in the comprehensive plans new community engagement and collaboration chapter.
  • 05:48:01
    Those are public education and awareness,
  • 05:48:04
    ensuring that the community is aware of the project and understands what we're sharing and how to participate in the process.
  • 05:48:11
    Inclusivity, welcoming folks into the process and focusing our efforts on reaching those who might be less likely to participate.
  • 05:48:18
    Transparency, providing regular updates, clear information and responses to questions asked.
  • 05:48:24
    And then effectiveness, which is really assessing the work of our community engagement and making adjustments as necessary.
  • 05:48:34
    The types of outreach and engagement are really going to span everything from virtual engagement, such as much of what we've been doing over the past many months of COVID, as well as in-person engagements.
  • 05:48:49
    We aim to do pop-up tables, that is, engagements at events or where there are large numbers of people potentially gathered.
  • 05:48:58
    We also hope to be able to return to large or small-scale meetings in person.
  • 05:49:04
    all of that COVID permitting.
  • 05:49:07
    Also be producing a number of education materials.
  • 05:49:10
    This is a kind of a key part of this because we recognize that most people aren't terribly knowledgeable about zoning.
  • 05:49:17
    It's a kind of a niche field, if you will.
  • 05:49:20
    So for people to be able to knowledgeably interact with and engage in this process, we have to provide some background information and kind of get everybody up to speed on the issues and topics that we're going to be talking about.
  • 05:49:33
    Communications will include all of the traditional email and digital mechanisms, as well as printed flyers and signs.
  • 05:49:45
    The next several slides are kind of our detailed work plan for each part of this process.
  • 05:49:49
    I'm not going to go into this in great detail.
  • 05:49:51
    I'm just going to touch on each one.
  • 05:49:53
    But I'm happy to share this presentation and discuss any of this in the future if that would be helpful.
  • 05:50:01
    But in this first part, we're clearly getting ready to begin the process, preparing the materials that we use to get started and getting the website ready to go.
  • 05:50:13
    Then through this spring, we'll be doing a variety of meetings.
  • 05:50:22
    particularly with neighborhood groups, interest groups, really whomever we need to in order to get feedback on that diagnostic and approach report that's really what we're going to be looking for in the first part again that report is explaining how the proposed zoning ordinance would implement the comprehensive plan and that's what we need to issue that report and then get feedback on that.
  • 05:50:51
    In the next phase, the engagement work really switches gears to a more detailed review, discussion, revisions of a draft zoning ordinance document.
  • 05:51:04
    And so again, it'll feature a number of meetings, as well as an interactive website where we would have a map available that you would be able to
  • 05:51:16
    interact with and look at what the particular outcomes might be or what the particular zoning might be within your neighborhood.
  • 05:51:26
    So again, we're looking for input on the draft zoning ordinance in that phase.
  • 05:51:30
    And then finally, again, in the final phase, we move into the traditional adoption process and our engagement role becomes a lot more about awareness and promoting involvement.
  • 05:51:46
    So that is the end of my presentation.
  • 05:51:47
    I'd be happy to take any feedback or answer any questions.
  • 05:51:54
    And we're still before 10 o'clock.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 05:51:55
    Yeah.
  • 05:51:56
    So is this going to be solely in house?
• • James Freas
  • 05:52:01
    No, we are working with the same consultant team that we've been working with throughout the process.
  • 05:52:07
    RHI is our lead, but the particular zoning consultant is Code Studio, and they'll be preparing most of the materials for the zoning ordinance.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 05:52:21
    Will they be leading the market analysis?
• • James Freas
  • 05:52:24
    The market analysis is going to be led by HRA, which was our lead sub consultant on the affordable housing strategy and is also the group that's focused on the inclusionary zoning aspect of this.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 05:52:43
    Mr. Mayor, this is probably a question for you.
  • 05:52:45
    So there was a steering.
  • 05:52:46
    There were people there.
  • 05:52:51
    members of council who participated in a steering committee last year.
  • 05:52:56
    Is that correct?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:52:58
    That's true.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 05:52:59
    Okay.
  • 05:53:00
    Who were those people?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:53:03
    I think Heather Hill and I was on there as well.
  • 05:53:07
    Yeah, I thought so.
  • 05:53:08
    Okay.
  • 05:53:08
    Heather and Michael.
• • James Freas
  • 05:53:10
    And we will be looking for a new counselor to replace Councillor Hill.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:53:17
    Okay.
  • 05:53:18
    That's something we can talk about.
• • Michael Payne
  • 05:53:23
    A question, could you talk in more specificity about what kind of thing the market analyses are going to include?
  • 05:53:34
    Like what are some of the outputs we could expect from that to inform our decision making?
• • James Freas
  • 05:53:39
    Yeah.
  • 05:53:42
    One very specific aspect of that is going to be looking at the inclusionary zoning aspect and what level of affordability can be incorporated into a project and still keep it market viable.
  • 05:53:53
    That's one very specific outcome, but it's also going to try and look overall at what can we anticipate in terms of time frame and scale of neighborhood change as a result of the housing market in particular responding to the new zoning.
  • 05:54:10
    If we look at evidence from other communities that have made similar zoning changes to what we anticipate this process resulting in,
  • 05:54:17
    We see that that time frame of change is much longer term and the scale is smaller.
• • Michael Payne
  • 05:54:26
    And then it was mentioned a little bit, but
  • 05:54:30
    Likewise, in more detail, what can we expect some of the community engagement to look like?
  • 05:54:35
    I'm assuming that's going to happen as an iterative process throughout this whole thing.
  • 05:54:40
    But again, what is that going to look like more concretely?
  • 05:54:43
    And what can we as council do to help, you know, help that process to maximize engagement?
• • James Freas
  • 05:54:52
    Sure.
  • 05:54:54
    So
  • 05:54:55
    to start with the second question, I think helping us get the word out to your constituents through the various mechanisms with which you currently communicate with your constituents, get them engaged, help them understand the importance of this project and what it means to get involved.
  • 05:55:12
    The
  • 05:55:13
    And the specifics, as you know, we're going to try to be adaptive, both because we don't know what's going to happen with COVID over time, and we're going to be learning from what works and what doesn't work and kind of adapt our strategies accordingly.
  • 05:55:27
    But in this first phase, we're going to be really focused on neighborhood meetings,
  • 05:55:34
    interest group meetings, meetings with developers and design professionals and others that engage with our zoning ordinance on a regular basis so that we can get feedback on that first report.
  • 05:55:49
    So I imagine a whole range of meetings in that regard.
  • 05:55:52
    We're also hoping to be able to do some pop-ups at events beginning in the spring.
  • 05:55:58
    I should say that report, we're anticipating that report being available
  • 05:56:03
    sometime in March, maybe end of March, and so that allowing April and May to really be the focus timeframe for doing a number of meetings.
• • Michael Payne
  • 05:56:17
    Okay.
  • 05:56:18
    That's it for now.
  • 05:56:20
    The only other comment I would offer is I'm just very interested to learn in more detail about the market analyses, particularly making sure we're looking with granularity at neighborhoods like the mobile home community in the Belmont area, neighborhoods around UVA and
  • 05:56:43
    potential risks for outside capital investment, creating even more incentives for displacement, as well as much more specific data about the inclusionary zoning and affordability requirements, which are obviously integral to this.
  • 05:56:59
    And I know those have been, you know, we've pledged they're going to be part of this process, but it's for me and the community as well, you know, still big question marks to see exactly what that's going to look like and to stay on top of it.
  • 05:57:14
    And I'm very particularly interested in that piece.
• • James Freas
  • 05:57:17
    Yeah, absolutely.
  • 05:57:18
    And I'll reiterate the point.
  • 05:57:20
    Inclusionary zoning is moving forward part and parcel with this zoning project.
  • 05:57:26
    We see it as an integral piece because we recognize from the conversation around the comprehensive plan that we can't have a conversation.
  • 05:57:34
    We can't talk about increasing density without talking about the affordability component thereof.
  • 05:57:41
    So that's very much an important part of this.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:57:43
    Thank you.
  • 05:57:48
    Any other questions?
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 05:57:50
    Yeah, I just would like to get a copy of the slide deck if I could later on.
• • James Freas
  • 05:57:54
    Yeah, I'm more than happy to send that around.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:57:57
    Great.
• • James Freas
  • 05:57:57
    If I have it in PDF, it might be easier to send.
  • 05:58:00
    Sure.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:58:03
    Cool.
  • 05:58:04
    Okay.
  • 05:58:05
    Anything else?
  • 05:58:09
    Thank you, James.
  • 05:58:10
    Good night.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 05:58:11
    Good night.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 05:58:12
    10 o'clock.
  • 05:58:14
    So that's the end of our of our regular agenda.
  • 05:58:19
    Are there is there any other business that we need to be considering?
  • 05:58:25
    Any questions for city managers for a follow up?
• • Michael Payne
  • 05:58:28
    Sorry, one.
  • 05:58:35
    One quick one.
  • 05:58:35
    I am curious.
  • 05:58:36
    It was raised at public comment.
  • 05:58:37
    I believe we got an email about it as well.
  • 05:58:41
    I am curious some more information about the sidewalk clearing program and just what, if anything, exists to help individuals either because of age, disability who may be unable to do so
  • 05:58:57
    and, you know, could be in a position where, you know, they don't have a neighbor who's doing that for them.
  • 05:59:01
    I know that's a question we get every snowstorm and I just, I've never known the answer.
  • 05:59:05
    So.
• • SPEAKER_28
  • 05:59:11
    Did you want an answer now?
  • 05:59:14
    I can answer now.
• • Michael Payne
  • 05:59:14
    If you've got one, yeah.
• • SPEAKER_28
  • 05:59:16
    Okay.
  • 05:59:17
    Yeah, so the city itself does not have an assistance program for residents in need, but we have recently undertaken some additional work to be able to better respond.
  • 05:59:28
    We are aware that the Albemarle High School rowing team
  • 05:59:32
    is actually running what they're calling the snow crew and residents can actually make contact with them and they were actually building a list of individuals that have requested their assistance.
  • 05:59:44
    We do have that information that we were trying to make available to folks as they were finding themselves
  • 05:59:52
    I do have one other weather related question that may be
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 06:00:22
    just to clarify, Ms.
  • 06:00:25
    Hudson was talking about the many places around town where we've got trees leaning on, are basically being held up by power lines and phone lines and whatever all else.
  • 06:00:37
    Do we have any authority over those
• • SPEAKER_28
  • 06:00:41
    We do not when they are not our utility lines.
  • 06:00:45
    The particular utility line on Agnew Street is actually a communications line.
  • 06:00:51
    We believe it to be CenturyLink.
  • 06:00:52
    We have submitted a request for them to address it.
  • 06:00:55
    At that moment, it is on them to then respond to it because we have no purview for controlling
  • 06:01:02
    what is happening there and they're responsible for it.
  • 06:01:04
    We have actually, I put in a request to our team tonight to do an additional follow up tomorrow to find out what the status is of the request to fix that particular tree because the picture was provided to them as well.
  • 06:01:20
    Right.
  • 06:01:20
    Yeah.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 06:01:22
    So I thought the answer was, but I wasn't sure.
  • 06:01:25
    Okay.
  • 06:01:26
    Any other matters for city managers?
  • 06:01:31
    If not, then I think we're ready for the final speaking opportunity for members from the public.
  • 06:01:36
    Again, speakers, you will have three minutes and Mr. Dillahunt, will you be able to put up a three minute timer?
  • 06:01:43
    Absolutely.
  • 06:01:45
    Speakers can join the queue by selecting the raise hand option in the Zoom webinar or by pressing star nine if you're on by phone.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 06:01:55
    Our first speaker is Ang Khan and you have three minutes with Council.
• • SPEAKER_45
  • 06:02:01
    Thank you.
  • 06:02:02
    My previous comment was in my individual capacity as well as the comment I'm about to make.
  • 06:02:07
    Our community has been speaking out against the conditions and treatment of those disappeared away from society and ACRJ for a very long time, well before the pandemic.
  • 06:02:17
    We know the overseers of these institutions downplayed the severity of harm that takes place on their watch.
  • 06:02:24
    There's a very good article that was written in SIPA Weekly titled This is a Nightmare that came out just two months ago
  • 06:02:31
    in November of 2021.
  • 06:02:33
    Did anyone follow up on any of these testimonies from those who are at ACRJ or do their lives not matter?
  • 06:02:42
    I already know the answer, but I like your answer to be part of public records.
  • 06:02:46
    This is the out of sight, out of mind approach and it's harmful and deadly.
  • 06:02:51
    Coomer is basically saying that ACRJ is safe and Sena has relayed the info to the public as truth, which we all know is a flat out lie because we are hearing directly from those inside.
  • 06:03:05
    Since COVID precautions are supposedly being taken, I want to know which member of council is going to volunteer to address our community members who are at ACRJ by going to check out the conditions
  • 06:03:16
    at ACRJ and report back to the community who have loved ones at ACRJ and are hearing of these very factual reports.
  • 06:03:25
    This is a serious question and I would like a response tonight.
  • 06:03:29
    This is just terrible.
  • 06:03:32
    I'm trying to pay attention to time here.
  • 06:03:35
    On another note, so that's one, excuse me, my daughter wants to play catch.
  • 06:03:41
    That is one issue.
  • 06:03:44
    Another question that I have is, does someone have the number of housing choice vouchers that have been revoked through the timeframe allotted for HC, that's housing choice vouchers holders, due to the unavailability of accessible housing?
  • 06:04:02
    Another thing, I also noticed that you all are not addressing community concerns brought up during public comments, leaving the community in limbo going forward.
  • 06:04:13
    Is this going to be the norm?
  • 06:04:15
    Because it doesn't seem that this is a very transparent process.
  • 06:04:19
    Matters brought to council by the public do not resolve by going unaddressed.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 06:04:26
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 06:04:29
    Thank you.
  • 06:04:32
    Tanisha Hudson is our next speaker.
  • 06:04:33
    Tanisha, you have three minutes with counsel.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 06:04:37
    Thank you.
  • 06:04:38
    I just want to follow up on you all speaking on Agnes Street.
  • 06:04:42
    I get that the power lines belong to someone else.
  • 06:04:46
    I was more concerned about the one that comes off of Brown Road and cuts down Park Street.
  • 06:04:53
    A lot of people cut through that particular road.
  • 06:04:55
    That tree is actually hanging.
  • 06:04:59
    on that line.
  • 06:05:00
    And to my understanding, that part does belong to the city.
  • 06:05:05
    And it's not anybody's private or personal property at that point.
  • 06:05:10
    That city property, to my understanding, because I had somebody check on it.
  • 06:05:15
    That's the one I'm concerned about.
  • 06:05:17
    The other one that was more dangerous to if somebody would have came through and even a Ford Ranger truck, that was personal property.
  • 06:05:24
    I get that it was a power line, but being that you all own the street, you all should have done something to shut it down.
  • 06:05:31
    That was my main concern about that because if somebody would have got hurt, they wouldn't have cared about CenturyLink or anybody.
  • 06:05:37
    The city should have shut that street down because somebody should have evaluated the streets.
  • 06:05:42
    Back to what I was speaking on earlier about density and housing and what we're going to have to do because 10.5 square miles, we don't have much land left.
  • 06:05:53
    If you take $2 million in land costs and $4 million in infrastructure costs, that's $6 million.
  • 06:06:00
    Say you get $3 million in funding to complete a project and then you have to come up with an additional $3 million.
  • 06:06:07
    If you only build 125 units divided by the $3 million that you would spend out of pocket, you're going to have to charge more money per unit.
  • 06:06:20
    But if you were to build 250 units or 300 units, you're gonna be able to charge less per unit.
  • 06:06:28
    You all have got, and I know all of you are pretty smart, you know, two plus two equals four, you know math pretty well.
  • 06:06:37
    This is how we're gonna have to start thinking about how we're gonna make up these numbers for affordable housing.
  • 06:06:44
    you gotta go higher if you go higher you don't gotta go wider and you don't gotta cut down all the trees that's one foundation and one roof but more units the further up you go there were no complaints on dense housing when you built the flats or the standards or the dairy project when you went in black neighborhoods but now we talk about Park Street we want to be minimal and what we want to do
  • 06:07:11
    You either want to fight the affordable housing crisis or you don't.
  • 06:07:15
    I don't care if it's Park Street.
  • 06:07:16
    I don't care if it's Locust Avenue.
  • 06:07:18
    I don't care where it's at.
  • 06:07:19
    You got to give everybody the same attention and the same breakthrough in the foundation that you give people when you start going into these black neighborhoods because it touched UVA or it's really close to downtown.
  • 06:07:32
    Thank you.
  • 06:07:33
    Have a good night.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 06:07:35
    Thank you, Ms.
  • 06:07:35
    Hudson.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 06:07:39
    Our next speaker is Mark Cavett.
  • 06:07:40
    Mark, you have three minutes with city council.
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 06:07:43
    Mark Cavett, Anything I just wanted to comment concerning the snow crew of Albemarle Growing.
  • 06:07:51
    So on Newsplex, they did quite a bit of advertising or promotion concerning that service.
  • 06:07:58
    And I posted it also on Nextdoor.
  • 06:08:00
    And I know that they were out on my block and downtown and did two people on the block.
  • 06:08:06
    So they are out there.
  • 06:08:08
    trying to help out a bit.
  • 06:08:09
    I also want to comment that I thought the snow removal was much, much, much better this time around than it was about a week ago.
  • 06:08:18
    And so my hat's off to the crews.
  • 06:08:21
    It seems that they are getting some experience and learning what needs to be done.
  • 06:08:25
    Thank you.
  • 06:08:25
    Have a good night.
  • 06:08:28
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 06:08:31
    Next up is Nancy Carpenter.
  • 06:08:32
    Nancy, you have three minutes with city council.
• • SPEAKER_42
  • 06:08:37
    Thank you so much.
  • 06:08:38
    My comment is based on the presentation by Mr. Freeze just a few minutes ago.
  • 06:08:42
    He struck up an idea in my mind that as we go through 2022 and he's starting community engagement going to various neighborhoods, there will still be a lot of people that won't want to do in-person meetings.
  • 06:08:57
    Some may feel comfortable.
  • 06:08:58
    I don't know how that's going to look.
  • 06:09:00
    But I know that there are neighborhood associations that haven't met in 2021.
  • 06:09:06
    due to the infection rates and things and don't have the capacity to do Zoom webinars.
  • 06:09:15
    One, they don't have the capacity to do that and some people don't have internet access at home or maybe Wi-Fi on their phone or something.
  • 06:09:25
    So if the community engagement process begins, could there be some consideration of using, I know that city technology,
  • 06:09:35
    to help facilitate trying to get as robust a conversation going when it comes to zoning rewrites because it will affect a lot of the neighborhoods.
  • 06:09:47
    You know, I think we've mentioned them, Belmont, not Belmont, Tinton Page, you know, the West Haven areas, the Rose Hill areas, you know, areas like that where it would be really helpful to have some type of city technology to make for
  • 06:10:05
    as good an engagement as possible.
  • 06:10:08
    Other areas of the city, people may have the technology and there's no problem.
  • 06:10:12
    They're used to it.
  • 06:10:13
    They can run it.
  • 06:10:14
    But there's still a lot of people in these neighborhoods where it's not secondhand.
  • 06:10:21
    Even those, I mean, I've heard of young adults, the Gen Zs, who are great with the phone, you know, but you put them in front of a computer with software and they're like, I'm not sure how that works.
  • 06:10:35
    So if we could do something like that, I'd really like to see that as part of, you know, consideration for their engagement.
  • 06:10:42
    Thank you.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 06:10:44
    Thank you, Mr. Carpenter.
  • 06:10:46
    I see no other hands raised.
  • 06:10:50
    Any other speakers?
  • 06:10:51
    Last call.
  • 06:10:56
    Well, I guess we've come to the end of our agenda.
  • 06:10:59
    Any reason we shouldn't adjourn?
  • 06:11:02
    Nope.
  • 06:11:04
    Okay, we're adjourned.
  • 06:11:05
    Thank you all.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 06:11:08
    Good night.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 06:11:09
    Good night.