City Council - Community Budget Forum   3/23/2022

Good afternoon, everybody.

Folks are staying dry.

I guess we needed the rain, but, you know.

We haven't gotten enough rain so that we can say we've satisfied the need, but, yeah.

I was going out to get something to eat for dinner and it just, it seemed cold and raw and wet enough that I just decided I'd go next door to get a sandwich instead of going down the mall for something.

So it looks like we've got most of the players here.

We're still

So, Lloyd, for this, are we mainly listening to people tonight?

Well, we've decided to spare the world another one of Ms.

Hamill's PowerPoints.

And I'll start off with some comments.

The thought is that this is primarily an opportunity to hear again from the public.

And then at the end, if there's time left at the end, the staff has said that they'd like to spend a few minutes getting some feedback from us so that we can tell them what

what we'd like to have them do.

We've got a couple more of these public hearings scheduled, but it's time that I hope that the five of us will have started to get some ideas coalescing so that we could be ready to talk and to give them some guidance.

And Mayor Snook, should we assume that we will definitely go forward with the April 7th work session?

I had suggested that a couple of weeks ago because when we were talking about the official public hearing being April 4th and then the next meeting was going to be April 12th when we were going to adopt it, we wouldn't have had any time to sort of refine our thoughts.

Thank you.

Okay, so it looks like we've got everybody here.

They're both part of the gallery here.

Yes.

We can get started.

Okay.

We're ready to go and get away from Ms.

Robertson.

Okay.

So let's call to order tonight's work session, the community budget forum.

We're not going to be taking any votes on anything tonight.

So

I'll just note for the record that all five of us are here and we're ready to go.

As I said, this is a community budget forum.

It is intended primarily for public input to us.

Speakers are welcome to speak on any matter that relates to the budget.

and we've had some presentations on capital spending and non-profit spending and revenues and tax rates and so on.

Whatever you want to talk about the budget tonight will be your opportunity.

There is no real agenda other than to hear from the public.

If there is time left at the end, the staff would like to spend a few minutes getting some general budget feedback from council about next steps or whatever additional information council may feel is needed.

Before we get started on it, I wanted to highlight a few points on the budget itself.

The city manager's budget proposal totals about $216 million, which represents an increase of 12.46%

over last year's budget of roughly $192 million.

There are a few things that are driving this budget increase.

The first to note is that it includes the idea of a 10 cent real estate tax increase.

We had authorized the city manager to advertise that rate.

As folks know, that doesn't mean we are saying we want to raise taxes by 10 cents per $100 evaluation.

but we have the flexibility to if we wish to.

That adds $9.2 million to the budget.

The city manager's proposal did not use that $9.2 million, left that money unallocated

and available for council to decide how those funds should be used.

Again, doesn't mean we're going to raise taxes to that extent, but if we do, the point is it's not already promised in some way in this budget.

The second point is that the real estate tax assessments themselves went up 10.77% even without the tax rate increase.

And so

tax assessments went up in overall over the city as a whole, almost 12% on residential properties and up about 2% on commercial properties.

That's just based on what everybody is living through right now, recognition that housing prices and real estate prices are rising sharply.

The third point that to make here about what's driving the budget increase is as we continue to move beyond COVID trends for several of the city's larger tax revenues, the meals tax, the lodging tax, sales tax continue to show growth and they're contributing to about $5 million of additional revenue for fiscal year 23.

Now, while the revenue increases seem like a lot,

The needs, of course, are also increasing.

And on the expenditure side, there are several items this budget is trying to address.

The first most important one is employee compensation.

As we're continuing to try to focus on retaining and recruiting our workforce, we need to keep up with the market and our regional competitors.

And we know both in terms of the number of folks who have left us and just hearing what other localities are promising in their wages and salaries

We know that we are below the market in an awful lot of places, an awful lot of jobs.

That's something that we absolutely have to fix.

And so with that in mind, a couple of months ago, we adopted a 6% mid-year increase in the current year, which added $3.1 million to the base level of expenses for fiscal year 23.

In addition, this budget suggests an additional 3% cost of living adjustment as of July 1st.

That would add another $789,000 to the budget.

It also calls for a 2% cost of living adjustment for retirees, and that's at a cost of a little over a million dollars.

The budget fully funds the school board's request for operating expenses for fiscal year 2023, an increase of about $4.2 million over, well actually it's really over the amount that they would get simply from the formula that we use where we give them 40% of all additional property tax revenues.

We're gonna give them that 40% and another $4 million.

An increase of $1 million has been added for the rent and tax relief programs.

$1.7 million has been added for various departmental service enhancements and efficiencies, including seven new full-time equivalent positions in various departments to enhance customer service efforts, to be able to comply with FOIA demands,

the labor relations analyst to be able to get us up and running on collective bargaining and also to hasten the process of development review in the neighborhood development services department.

This budget also includes a very robust five-year capital improvement plan with a total cost of $157.2 million

This budget includes $75 million for the reconfiguration project.

Now, we've also heard a recommendation that perhaps we adjust that, at least the timing of it somewhat.

Right now, we're talking basically working from the budget as it has been presented.

No decision has been made on the city manager's recommendation from last night.

nor has any decision been made, or two nights ago, nor has any decision been made to not do that.

So that's still very much up in the air.

So far, we've had three budget work sessions.

We have two more scheduled.

This past Monday, we had the public hearing on the real estate tax rate.

On April 4th, there will be an official public hearing on the budget itself and the meals tax rate.

After the public hearing on the 4th,

Council will be able to make recommendations for changes to the proposed budget, and we expect to have a meeting on April 7th, a Thursday of that week, where hopefully we will be able to bring some of these ideas to a decision point.

As council, we have a number of big decisions we have to make as we move forward on the budget.

First, decisions on what the next steps are with the school reconfiguration project.

How big?

$75 million, something less than $75 million.

What are the next steps for that?

Right now, we've got $2.5 million included in the CIP for this coming fiscal year, the one whose budget we're passing right now, FY23.

And I apologize, my printer has decided it needs to cycle itself.

So it's going to be buzzing at us for the next 10 seconds.

and then the other decision related to that is how will a project be funded?

The next issue is tax increases, the advertised 10 cent real estate tax increase for $9.2 million.

I had also asked the city manager to put in an advertisement

for the meals tax increase going from 6% to 6.5%.

That's roughly $1.2 million.

And the third issue that we need to at least think about is the question of the personal property tax because the initial budget assumes that some kind of accommodation is gonna be made on the personal property tax.

so as to not embrace the full value of the appreciation in used car prices.

Mr. Diver has told us a couple nights ago and has told us a couple times over the last few months that if we retain the personal property tax rate at $4.20,

per $100 valuation that we could well expect another $2 million in personal property tax revenues.

The budget, as initially suggested here, assumes, does not assume that, assumes that there is some lesser figure than that.

So that's another decision we'll have to make concerning property tax, concerning tax increases.

I would note that I don't think anybody is suggesting, I certainly have not heard anyone suggest that we would do all three of those tax increases, but rather we might, or two tax increases and one holding something steady.

So it's not like we're trying to say, gee, we're going to come up with another $13 million here.

Other upcoming big budget issues and initiatives.

We have the collective bargaining.

Of course, that has two ramifications.

First is that we need to hire a labor relations, I guess, analyst is the way we're calling it.

but also we should reasonably expect that the consequence will be that there will be some increases to some wages and salaries.

Climate action planning is something we've been talking about for a long time and we need to get something done there.

Affordable housing initiatives, this plan, this budget does not include any funding for the MACA project, the MACA site project.

If we were going to fund that, we would have to do something additional as well.

There is a grant called the SAFER grant that the fire department has received that has allowed them to hire paramedics and to really get up to speed on that.

That grant is running out and we're going to have to figure out what we do about that.

And then finally, there are decisions to be made on transit.

There is an effort, a hope that we will be able to increase the frequency or increase the frequency, decrease the time lags on bus runs.

That means more buses and that means more money could be as much as another $3 million.

So those are some of the issues that we as council will grapple with

But first, the first item of business is to hear from the public.

And so if there is anything that you would like to tell us about your views on any aspect of the budget, we'll take you in three minute increments.

And we don't have any pre-established signups.

Thank you, Mayor Snook.

Our first raised hand is Claire Cronmiller.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I'd like to urge City Council to fund and schedule the completion of the Meadow Creek Multi-Use Trail to connect Brandywine Drive to Mickey Drive, a project that fits squarely in the City's 2021 comprehensive plan.

For example, the extended trail will provide biking, walking access to schools and playgrounds for residents of Mickey Drive.

The Stream Valley of Meadow Creek Trail provides affordable, i.e.

free to all users, exercise opportunities, even for those whose fitness levels preclude such activities through hilly neighborhoods of Charlottesville.

And connected greenways like the proposed Meadow Creek Trail offer outdoor areas for people from different communities and from all walks of life to meet and socialize in a relaxed environment.

Charlottesville aspires to be a green city

yet no connected greenways have been completed.

For 50 years, the city has planned, approved, and prioritized the Meadow Creek multi-use path, but only a small portion in Greenbrier Park has actually been built.

The Parks and Rec Department requested $750,000 for funding to complete a critical section that leads from Mickey Drive downstream to the closest planned bridge.

In addition, I understand that the city has applied for VDOT funding through its Transportation Alternative Program to finish the two bridges and path that are required to connect to Brandywine Drive.

Without the city's commitment to finish the Mickey Drive Path segment, VDOT is unlikely to give the city money to complete the remaining segment.

Both sections of the path are needed to create a functional connected greenway.

This year, perhaps more than any other, the city has an opportunity to fulfill its long overdue plan to realize this greenway's project.

First, the city anticipates a greater than usual budget surplus this year.

which should be able to accommodate at least partial funding of this project.

In addition, the city is expecting significant funds from the ARPA program of the federal government.

The final federal rules for use of this money make it clear that one proper use for the funds is for the creation and enhancement of green space, parks, and exercise options for underprivileged communities.

The request for funding for the Meadow Creek Trail from Parks and Rec and from our Greenbrier neighborhood directly address this use because the specifically targeted greenway leads from Mickey Drive where 500 low-income residents live.

This includes 150 children who live on a dead end with only a small playground and parking lots for playing and no safe biking walking route to reach other play opportunities or to get to school.

For 50 years, the city has committed its intention to complete this trail.

It's now time to commit the dollars to get it done.

Thank you, Ms.

Our next speaker will be Elizabeth Stark.

Hi, counselors.

Thank you for holding this forum, and I appreciate the chance to just ask you about the budget.

You have given us a lot to think about, and I know that there are no easy decisions.

that you're facing right now.

So I will be coming back with other ideas and ways that we can fund our priorities here as a city.

But tonight I want to ask you, you know, really specifically about the police budget.

It's something that's been referenced, you know, for a few years now.

And, you know, I've looked through the detailed school budget.

They provide metrics showing us the efficacy of their investments and

you know how they're able to use the funds to educate our children and the police budget doesn't give us any kind of insight yet we're spending so much money and in fact we're spending more money than other localities near us or similar to us.

So I just think that I'd really like to see

you get the police to release a detailed budget and hold the police accountable for the money that they're spending.

You know, we're talking about all these tight budget situations and we know that the police have unfilled staff positions.

And to me as a citizen, it seems like this might be a great time to look at that and look at the money that we're spending there, what we're getting for that money

and make some decisions.

I don't understand why the school is held to one standard and the police are held to this very different standard.

And as we know, it's incredibly opaque and it's hard to make sense of it.

And I know we're spending millions and millions of dollars on

our police force, but we're not allowed to know what we're getting for it.

And to me, that's really frustrating.

So that's what I want to leave you with tonight.

And I just appreciate the time and thoughtfulness you're putting into this project process.

And I know it isn't easy.

Thank you, Ms.

Next up, we have Nancy Carpenter.

Thank you for this opportunity to address the council.

I didn't realize I'd be so early in the queue, but I wanted to reiterate again the recommendations that you've heard several times from the National Low Income Housing Coalition here in reference to budget issues.

the depth of an appropriation into the affordable housing plan of $10 million to talk about having a very strong plan to use the $10 million in ARPA money to assist those who are the most marginalized and most challenged here in our community that are still struggling with the effects of COVID.

The pairing of robust tax increases, which don't have to be limited to real estate,

and net relief for our very low income people, which are those who have incomes under 50% of area median income.

And for me, as part of CLIC, the most important one is the provision to increase your Charlottesville Supplemental Rental Assistance Program payment standard to 150% of fair market value.

You just talked about how rents have been going up.

and how that affects renters.

Well, it also affects those who have your vouchers trying to find housing because those amounts are no longer indicative of what the fair market rents are.

So I'm hoping that you will certainly look at that so that more individuals and families

can have safe, secure, stable housing, which in turn helps our children to be able to focus better in school and do better in school and perhaps break a school to prison pipeline.

And also, you know, it also is healthcare because if you are not in, if you're in your own housing, even though we're coming supposedly out of the effects of this virus, it's still here and people are still having to lose work and not be paid.

So there's a lot still going on with the virus.

but for me as personally I wanted to talk about rent relief and especially the city's rent relief program and to see if you can look at ways of making that a larger amount than $1,500.

We know that for most people $1,500 doesn't even pay for one month's worth of rent.

So if we could look at that.

A question I had because I just was at the National Low Income Housing Coalition summit the last two days on achieving housing justice.

Do we ever use state and local

fiscal recovery funds for any purpose.

I really haven't heard that term in the budget discussions and I don't know if that's something that the city of Charlottesville can receive because that's also a way of using that money for affordable housing to mitigate some of this housing crisis.

So I want us to move forward.

We have historical times that we can

use funding and some of you I've heard some great creative ideas from council, some great creative ideas from people speaking to you and I hope that we can be bold and do what we need to do to move forward.

Ms.

Carpenter, before you hang up, that last thing you said, state and local, and I didn't get the rest of it, what you were saying.

Yeah, the representative from the Department of the Treasury today was talking about state and local fiscal recovery funds, and that part of that can be used to actually provide monies for affordable housing.

ideas.

Absolutely.

I am pretty sure that's ARPA.

Yes, it is.

Okay.

Next.

Thank you, Ms.

Next up is Emily Dooley.

Good evening.

My name is Emily Dooley, and I'm a member of the Charlottesville City School Board and a resident of the Woolen Mills neighborhood.

I'm speaking to you tonight to implore you to make the difficult decisions that we elected you to do.

As elected officials, we make countless choices that are more minor in nature, but are periodically provided with opportunities to make decisions that truly reflect our values.

The budget and whether to fund a long overdue reckoning with our city's past and current racial inequities in the school division is one such opportunity.

Deciding where to allocate limited resources is hard, but that is what we signed up for and what we were elected to do.

It's easy to say that you support teachers.

It's harder to choose to raise taxes to make sure that we create conditions that enable them to engage with students in ways that are in keeping with 21st century pedagogy.

It's easy to say that you support working towards climate goals.

It's harder to make investments in antiquated infrastructure to make meaningful impacts.

It's easy to say that you support expanded access to preschool and early intervention, but it's harder to commit to the funds to close achievement and opportunity gaps before they even begin.

it's easy to say that you support all students especially those coming from disadvantaged and under-resourced backgrounds but it's seemingly harder to make the choice to raise revenue to ensure that these same students can attend a school that has classrooms with windows that has an HVAC system that doesn't run at decibels that make it nearly impossible to hear that has a gym floor that doesn't flood that has functional plumbing without sewage backups that has bathrooms in proximity to classrooms that has connectivity between buildings to create a safe campus

that is ADA compliant and accessible to all students.

We are not asking for bells and whistles and pretty shiny things.

We are asking for conditions that would not be confused with those that the superintendent of our local jail system described to you earlier this month.

We are asking for you to support an investment in our community's greatest resource, its kids.

Our youngest citizens are left footing the bill for our city's continued delay.

I recognize that there are countless community needs to be addressed, but it seems to me that one of the best ways to ensure that we have a limited need for housing, for policing, for food security measures, and countless other public services is to invest in a world-class public education system.

Thank you for your consideration and willingness to make these hard decisions.

The 4,366 students enrolled in our schools are counting on you.

Thank you, Ms.

Our next speaker is Dom Morse.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak.

As a school board member, I would like you to know that there have been three distinctly different conversations addressing different issues regarding school reconfiguration.

The first was due, excuse me, the first was a recommendation from Independent Efficiency Review starting in 2008.

Mind you, I was still in high school in the Charlottesville public system, so this is how far it goes back.

Second, the studies for how to best address growth and capacity originating in 2017 and the most recent work focused on equity and improved outcomes for students have all brought us here.

Beyond efficiency, capacity, and equity, there are more

There are many other supporting whys for this project to reduce student transitions, address ADA accessibility, enhance safety, improve learning environment, and make meaningful progress on climate goals.

But why now?

Why is the time of the essence?

It's more than frustration about potential additional delays for a much needed and broadly highly impactful project that is long overdue.

Inflation is a big concern.

Using what seems to be a conservative inflation estimate of 4%, we are looking at a potential cost increase between $2 to $3 million if we delay for even one year.

And again, this seems to be a conservative estimate, especially the way that the country is going right now.

Now, more than ever, time is money.

and we're already facing significant challenges finding the money needed for this important project.

Thank you for your service to our community and I look forward to working with you to advance this project as effectively and efficiently as possible for the benefit of our students and the community at large.

I just ask you not to continue to delay this.

As I mentioned earlier before, this has been going on since I even left high school.

Next up, we have Cecilia Barber.

Good evening, and thank you for this opportunity to speak tonight.

My name is Cecilia Barber, and I live on Madison Avenue.

I'd like to speak to you about an organization near and dear to my heart, the Public Housing Association of Residents, also known as FAR.

I've worked at FAR since June of 2021 and started there immediately after graduating from UVA.

In my nine months here, I've had the incredible privilege of working not only with the phenomenal women on FAR staff, but most importantly, with residents of public housing to fulfill FAR's mission and work to dismantle the horrific and longstanding legacies of racism in our city.

The services provided by FAR to residents of public housing and other low wealth community members are far reaching and long lasting.

For over 20 years, this Black-led organization has continued to educate and empower the most vulnerable members of our community to protect their own communities through the power of collective action.

More than 75 low-income residents have graduated from PAR's internship program, which involves a rigorous curriculum prioritizing leadership and civic engagement opportunities.

It has repeatedly and successfully equipped graduates with the tools and support they need

to navigate systems that were not designed to serve them in the first place, allowing them to advocate for necessary changes and participate meaningfully in the democratic process.

FAR's internship program is one of many examples of how FAR does not speak for residents, but instead works to amplify the voices that some would gladly see silenced.

We host voter registration drives and community workshops to raise awareness surrounding important issues affecting the city government and housing authority.

and support the efforts of the West Haven Nursing Clinic, which provides critical health services to increase access to medical care, such as sports physicals and COVID-19 vaccinations.

We consistently distribute supplies such as face coverings and hand sanitizer to protect public health.

Our close relationships with CRHA and other organizations have allowed us to ensure that residents are truly included and prioritized in the decisions that affect their communities.

The incredible capacity of this organization, despite having only four full-time staff members,

is unparalleled and unprecedented.

Every day, I am shown what it means to serve, learn from, and protect this vibrant community that has welcomed me with open arms.

FAR serves not only as an advocate and amplifier of resident voices, but also as a connector to valuable resources available to the larger community and a bridge across the visible and invisible barriers that deeply divide our city.

I would argue that there are no other organizations in the city or even beyond that serve low-income residents with the same dedication and commitment as FAR.

I would like to call upon you now city councilors to continue funding FAR and our close partner the Legal Aid Justice Center to the fullest extent possible so that we can continue providing these critical services for the city's most underserved residents.

For us to truly address the challenges facing low-income residents 48% less than already scarce funding isn't enough.

Maybe next time isn't an option.

I'm asking you to step up and be a part of the movement against the systemic racism that plagues our city and I'm asking you to do it now.

Thank you, Ms.

Our next speaker is a phone call listener at 434-227-6961.

We ask that you please state your name when you come on.

And you will need to unmute.

Hi, my name is Barbara Meyer.

I live in Charlottesville, and I'm calling on behalf of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Museum.

When last we were in a budget forum, you were talking about what you don't know from 2017, and I would like to suggest that that's an exceedingly shallow view of the situation.

About 20 years ago, the Jefferson School housed a consolidated preschool

My child attended the penultimate year before it was closed down.

The school board meeting where an outgoing superintendent, I forget his name, might have been Symes, disbanded that preschool.

I was literally the only person in the audience when he tried to hand over the deed to the city of Charlottesville.

City of Charlottesville went, oh, I don't know what's going on, and they handed the deed back.

And then citizens started getting together, and I met the most phenomenal people.

I came to this as a parent of a preschool, knowing nothing about the history of the Jefferson School.

And I met incredible, patriotic, civil rights activists here, like Mr. Eugene Williams, like Mary Reeves, like Teresa and Kenneth, and so many others.

and we kept that school from being sold for condos.

Now I'd like you to look back 60 years and remember the raising of Vinegar Hill.

The Jefferson School is the last surviving remembrance of that vibrant community.

We raised that community so we could have that monstrosity of Ridge McIntyre so we could cut a road

through Charlottesville that was convenient for the white population.

Now let's look back 240 years and look up on a hill, a guy named Thomas Jefferson and the legacy of racism and slavery acceptance that he gave to us.

And you can go back to 1619 and absolutely the city of Charlottesville has an obligation, a moral obligation

to support that museum as the last remaining icon of a devastated community, devastated by white people for the convenience of white people.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Good evening, council.

Chris Meyer, 124 Oak Long Court.

No relation to the previous Meyer that spoke, but happy to see another Meyer in the community.

A couple of things.

One, I'd like to start out by I had a recent interaction with city staff in the budget office, and it was a very simple question, and they responded back to me very quickly, and I want to recognize that, and I appreciate that.

Very excellent customer service by them.

In my regards, I will start with, I do not want to see us delay with reconfiguration.

I think a lot of people have spoken to that for a lot of different reasons.

I do not think the interim city manager's recommendation is the correct one.

I was just also amazed to hear that a current school board member was attending Charlottesville High School when this actually conversation started.

He is not that young either.

He's not that old either.

But again, this kind of dates when we started this.

It's time to get moving on.

I also note and if I understood the city manager's interim city manager's comments correctly on Monday that you know it is time to sit back and replan the CIP we've been talking about the organization and structure and scenarios of the CIP for the last 12 months in regards to these reconfiguration so we've been talking enough we don't need to sit back and re-engineer it again it's time to make some decisions

Based on that, though, and I appreciate the scenarios that, again, your budget office put together.

That first scenario that was presented where there's a gradual property tax increase of two cents over four years seems to be the one that would work to not only fund reconfiguration, but achieve a lot of the other...

The Council's goals.

I noted there's an additional $150 million of CIP bondable funding that included in there that I think addresses a lot of the concerns many of you had previously mentioned with not being able to have additional funding for

affordable housing, firehouses, fire trucks, et cetera, other necessary investments in infrastructure communities.

So additionally, I like to recognize and support the amount of money that was being appropriated for either through the CIP and or operations to affordable housing.

It does seem like you're meeting your $10 million goal there and you should continue to support that.

Finally, I've heard a lot of you speak about the need to find money to pay for climate mitigation activities.

I would highly suggest you look at the Charlottesville gas, the natural gas utility that you own and control as city councilors and as citizens we own.

You should specifically look at potentially adding a carbon tax or fee associated with natural gas consumption.

That would not only generate revenue, but also

provide incentives to folks through price transparency to reduce their consumption.

And you'd get what we call the lucid twofer.

You'd be achieving two things at once, mitigating your climate change while raising funds to pay for climate mitigation activities.

Related to that, I would highly suggest, and while not my budget impactful

Stop giving away natural gas hookups for free.

Next up, we have Matthew Gillican.

Good evening, councilors.

Thank you for the time to speak.

I'm speaking on behalf of my three children who have all expressed that they would like to go to a nice middle school.

I'm disappointed with Michael Rogers' suggestion to delay this project.

I was concerned that having a temporary city manager would result in

these sorts of bizarre thought processes.

It's the sort of thing that someone who has no skin in the game would say.

We've already trimmed down the CIP significantly over the last few years, as many of us pushed you all to get rid of the West Main streetscape.

and the parking garage.

This reconfiguration proposal has been incredibly well thought out.

We've already spent millions of dollars on the plan and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of hard work by VMDO, the school board, the school division, and many, many community members coming up with a design plan that's really excellent.

This design will provide a much better space that will benefit thousands of children over the next 50 years.

What I keep hearing from you all is what are we going to do to raise or what I keep hearing from you all is can we raise funds to pay for reconfiguration?

And what I want to hear from you all is what do we do to raise funds to pay for reconfiguration?

We can raise the funds to pay for us.

I'm not sure why this is being left as an open question as to whether or not we can make this happen.

The question is, what are we going to do?

What steps are we going to take to get the money to pay for this?

I also want to mention and advocate that you all fully fund the Public Housing Association of Residents request as well as the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center's rental assistance.

Both of these organizations are backbones of our community and deserve our full support.

One suggestion to open up some revenue is to reduce the funding for the police department and proposing about a $1.3 million increase.

We're unlikely to fill all the empty positions they have and

They basically threw an effective coup this last year to force out their leadership.

I'm questioning whether or not it's a good idea to further expand the spending on a department like that.

Remind you that nearly two years ago, many of us and many of you marched for police accountability and shifting funding to other priorities.

We still literally have no idea why we spend nearly $20 million a year on a police department.

There's literally not a document that exists that justifies that spending.

and yet we're raking the school division over the coals trying to make them justify every jot and tittle of their budget.

It's an embarrassment.

It's a disgrace that we're still in this situation nearly two years after a tremendous outpouring of support from our community to rethink how we do policing.

So I encourage you to reduce spending in that area and shift it to other priorities.

Thank you for your time.

Next up is Eric Irizarry.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Just coming to you all, and I know you all have some difficult decisions.

I'm coming to you as a father and an educator.

We serve an incredible and diverse group of students here in Charlottesville City Schools, and we have excellent educators.

Charlottesville itself is a community of educators, and as a community, we know how important the city schools are for our children.

I'm going to echo some of the comments and just being disappointed in the interim city manager's recommendation.

If we believe that our children are the city's future, and I believe we all do, and if we feel they deserve adequate and modern buildings, then we just can't afford to delay this decision any further, nor do we need to underfund or undercut this project.

The city has discussed reconfiguration for over two decades.

The more we delay, the more expensive this project will get, and there are other schools that need help, maintenance, and modernization as well.

This project will just snowball and become more expensive down the road.

We know how important quality pre-K centers are for our students' development, especially for our families with limited resources, and that's a large majority of the students and families we serve here in Charlottesville.

And our students also deserve a modern 6-8 middle school.

So again, I just urge city council to take that into consideration.

And, you know, we also support the Jefferson Heritage Center as well.

They're an important community partner for Charlottesville city schools and do just great work in our community.

So I know you all have a lot on your plate, but I don't think there's anything more important than our city's kids.

A reminder to those joining us that you may press the raise hand icon in Zoom to join the discussion.

If you're joining us by phone, star nine.

Next up, we have Greg Weaver.

Hey, again, City Council.

Good evening.

Thanks for being here a couple nights after the last long session.

This is Greg Weaver in Frye Spring.

First, I just want to second Ms.

Carpenter's comments supporting CLIC's recommendations as well as Ms.

Stark's comments on the police budget.

I don't want to be a broken record.

I think a lot of the statements I give to you all are similar themes, and I sent an extensive email on my thoughts recently to you all.

Mr. Rogers, I didn't send it to you, but it's coming.

I'll send that to you tonight.

The only thing that I will kind of rehash

from these statements is that the greenhouse gas in transit in the city, it used to be 26.6% of our emissions, but I just saw a report yesterday that came out, or maybe this morning, now it's 28.5%.

And that's not just because other areas went down between the years of study, but transit did go up.

So we know it's even more of a problem than we previously thought.

So, you know, in the budget, current budget right now, you know, you're looking to fund the labor analysts.

We've, you know, you've voiced support for the study of battery electric buses and versus like the compressed natural gas.

I saw a survey sent out for like, what kind of bus stop design would we like to see?

You also had Mr.

Mr. Williams present on 15 minute service and his recommendations.

So I know the interest for transit is there and collective bargaining, which, you know, ties in because of potential utilization of cap drivers.

You know, the problem is, is that none of this is actually accounted for in the budget.

So as, you know, Mayor Snook pointed out earlier tonight, which I appreciated.

So, you know, I talk about being on Earth's time often, which is the most critical watch we have to be wary of.

But we also know that our government climate can change seemingly on a dime.

So it's really important to get this through now for climate and also not to leave millions of federal and state funding on the table for these initiatives.

The last thing I'll say tonight is that as far as taxes are concerned, personally, I'm not going to be super impacted by like a lot of raised taxes.

Like I I'm totally down for that.

I know that, you know, some of these taxes are regressive.

Thank you Mr. Weaver I would note by the way what I said was that the collective bargaining analyst is in the budget

So that much is there and we are expecting as it's reflected in the budget, we're expecting likely to be some pay increases coming.

So that is in the budget.

Yes, Emily Yen just raised her hand.

Hi, thank you.

My name is Dr. Emily Yen.

I'm a Charlottesville resident.

I spoke about collective bargaining on Monday evening, and I just want to just impress the importance of keeping this line item in the budget.

I know that there's competing priorities for the public, for the

Collective Bargaining Analyst position.

I also, I know that previously City Council allocated up to $625,000 to do a study and would really urge you to try to go well under that amount of money and use those

unallocated funding to go to put towards the salary and benefits of workers.

And it would be more efficient to use far less of the $625,000.

Thank you very much.

One option would be we just go ahead and we've allocated two hours.

We'd be used up about 45, 50 minutes of it.

One option would be to say let's cut off public comment at this point and go ahead and talk amongst ourselves.

The other option, I suppose, would be to say, well, okay, let's start talking amongst ourselves, but come back and take a look to see at 730 or something to see if anybody else has any other comments.

Any thoughts?

Want to just get down to our discussion?

Sure.

Okay.

Let's just figure we will go ahead and

and take up the rest of the time tonight.

If there are other folks who want to comment, there will be other opportunities, including next week on the 31st and beyond that on April 4th.

So we can close the public comment period at this point.

And let's talk about a few things.

If I could, I'd just like to go through some of the comments that people made and offer some thoughts.

One, to start off with Claire Kronmiller's concern about the Meadow Creek Trail, if in fact there is going to be an additional housing development at Seminole Square, as has been proposed,

folks who are living there would also benefit from the Meta Creek Trail if and when it can be built.

And any students who would be living there, and apparently some of the units were intended to be as affordable units and presumably would have some children in them, those kids would benefit from having that trail also.

Has there been any further thought about using ARPA funds for that trail?

Is there any way we can make that happen?

or do we have any other thoughts since we talked about it a couple nights ago?

Correct.

Hi, Mr. Mayor, emergency counsel.

This is Chris Cullinan, Director of Finance.

Okay.

I had a question and Ms.

Carpenter had

raised the question about raising, she used two numbers.

I want to be clear about them.

One was the C-SRAP, or however we're pronouncing the acronym, raising that limit from 125 to 150%.

And then she also made a reference to a $1,500 figure that I didn't really understand.

Can somebody help me with those two?

I can address the $1,500.

That's the rental relief for elderly and disabled program that runs out of my office.

The maximum benefit on that is $1,500.

And is that by statute, by ordinance?

It's by ordinance.

That was the max.

When it was adjusted a year or two ago, it was set at $1,500.

But is there any external constraint on how we deal with that?

We can do it however you want.

And I can comment on the $1,500 threshold.

That's the amount that callers are eligible up to when they call the community resource hotline for rental assistance or utility bill assistance.

So we set that

as a program, as an operational number so that we can meet the most need and make those dollar amounts last as long as we could.

So folks are eligible for that per month and I believe they can get three months worth in one year.

Correct.

Okay.

And the raising that, there's a, I can't articulate exactly what it is, but the 125% to 150% increase

in the CSRAP, or whatever the acronym is, program.

What are we talking about there?

Yeah, I can answer that, Mr. Mayor.

Essentially what it is, it's trying to raise it from what it is right now, 125% to 150.

The last time the city renewed

the CISRAP agreement with CRHA.

CRHA requested and the city council approved to raise it from 110%, I believe, to 125.

That 125, it's to enable folks to be able to find units and actually was approved by HUD because housing authority follows HUD guidelines.

And in terms of

the statement from Nancy regarding a resident from 125 to 150 staff consultant with CRHA, the executive director of CRHA regarding whether they would like to do that at the next agreement renewal and they indicated that

It's going to help folks to lease up.

In other words, they will be able to find units to lease because once it's increased to 150%, it will be pretty similar or close to a prevailing market rate in terms of rental.

So it's going to be much, much easy for the beneficiaries to rent a place to live.

However,

is gonna create a problem for them because after one year, they're not gonna be able to transition to housing authorities and HUD voucher program because that 150% exceeds the threshold that HUD will approve.

So in reality, it will help temporarily, but in terms of sustainability,

for the beneficiaries.

One of the complaints we've heard a number of times recently is that people just don't, that this program doesn't give them enough to be able to actually go out and rent a unit.

Yeah, that is true because

The voucher sometimes it's probably at 50% AMI or 60%.

So it doesn't provide them enough voucher value to be able to do it.

However, if the city is going to bridge the gap between the phase value of current voucher

and the fair market rates.

Then the city council will have to invest a lot of money.

It's going to be a long time investment in order to be able to do what you call subsidy layer.

No.

Okay.

Those are the questions that I had raised by what the speakers had discussed.

Do other counselors have other issues that were raised this evening?

Thank you, Mr. McFoon.

Yeah, I had a couple of thoughts, Mr. Mayor wanted to use this opportunity to engage with fellow counselors.

And I'm still my own mind thinking through these things.

We have a few more weeks, fortunately, but there's a lot that's got to be forced through a really narrow point here.

And

I'm trying to be as responsive to as many people as possible as I know we all are to say that we have difficult choices is certainly an understatement and I'm grateful for the four of y'all as well as the staff I feel like that we've gotten good information and that we're working to really try to do the best we can I just had a couple of things I wanted to

sort of put out there based off comments tonight and your very excellent recap at the top.

One thought I had about the personal property tax, you know, my original inclination with that was this is a windfall for us and we should be grateful for that.

But Mr. Divers, I think, has made some good points about it really will be an affordability issue for many people.

The taxes that they pay on their vehicles really could hurt folks in a very significant way.

And if it's not built into the budget yet, I don't think it is.

And this is kind of a crude measure, I suppose.

But if we were to say he was working on equalizing the numbers, but if we were instead to say, as opposed to getting $2 million,

and a windfall.

What if we were to just say 1 million and have him equalized to that?

That's still another million dollars that we weren't expecting.

It speaks to somewhat of a desire to be fair for those who are suffering with this.

So that's something I'd like to throw out as an option, an idea.

The other piece about property taxes or real estate taxes rather,

I think it's you know we all get we all get the emails and the phone calls I got a phone call from a lady recently who I don't think qualified for any of the things and I really appreciate Mr. Divers being proactive and putting another million dollars in there for rent relief and other things that was very thoughtful and you get these phone calls from folks who's

whose housing has appreciated by 10, 11, 12, 15% their housing assessments.

And it is hard to put on top of that a real estate tax on top of that.

Just getting a phone call from someone who's really at the edge of being able to stay in the city

And so that's what's informing my thoughts.

One of the things that's informing my thoughts and why of the plans put forward the other night by Ms.

Hamill, which I appreciate, the notion of a graduated two cent tax increase over the next three or four years is sort of where my mind is.

A two cent a year over the next three or four years in trying to figure out the intersection where we can fund

what I would call a right-sized Buford renovation.

So that's just where my mind is on that.

In terms of the police and the comments that were made about the police, I realize these speak to very large issues and philosophical issues that people disagree about.

I can only say in my conversations with Mr. Tito or Chief Tito that

The needs of the police remain in terms of our being able to pay adequately so that we have staffing in the city to protect us.

And so I don't know what that means in terms of how we could be more transparent.

I think those concerns are always valid.

But I do want to speak to the fact that our police are doing a good job, the ones that are here, and that we need to be thoughtful about retaining those, particularly

when we have the University and County increasing pay.

I really liked the suggestion that Mr. Meyer, Mr. Meyer's brought up about basically a carbon tax on gas, natural gas, that I guess would be considered regressive, could be considered regressive, but it's something that I don't know that we'll get it figured out for this budget cycle, but I would appreciate it if staff could think about that as a future

not only for me, the main focus would not be raising money, but as a way to signal that climate change is real and we need to price that into these transactions.

Another point I'd like to make is one thing I really appreciate about this budget is I feel like it's robust in terms of funding people.

We're adding a number of FTEs

Specifically, you know, we've been responsive to the notion of wanting to do collective bargaining.

So we're planning to hire a person to help us with that.

There have been many complaints over the years about NDS being unresponsive.

This budget speaks to that.

So I'm grateful for that.

And then also in terms of the increases of pay to our folks, we have a lot of staff who've really stuck in there, stuck with us over the last

a few turbulent years, and I'm grateful for that.

And I think that paying our people well is important.

Not only is it the right thing to do, it's the right thing for the city to maintain the services that we need to provide.

And I guess the last point I'd like to make is about housing.

I hope that I've not had the time yet to really dive into all of the

individual projects on the CIP that's planned.

But I do hope we'll keep in mind that when we talk about affordable housing, the commitment that was made a year ago by the prior council of $10 million a year,

Seven million of that was for direct sort of projects.

A million was to be set aside to help run that operation.

And then two million was in rent subsidy or something like that.

And we're, I think, getting close on a number of those targets.

And so I just hope we'll keep that sort of that overall strata of funding as we think about this so that

When we say $10 million, that may not necessarily mean $10 million invested in direct funding.

And then I guess the last thing, just returning to the schools, you know, I know that on council, we have some different philosophical beliefs about some of these things, which I respect.

I've said this, campaigned on it, I'll still maintain that I think we need to move forward with this.

I think that there are ways to

get going, continue to go in terms of funding the design effort through the end of this year and then setting us up to begin construction.

I think that we've got some reasonable plausible scenarios that Ms.

Hamill has laid out that we can find the one that fits for us.

I don't think everyone's going to get everything that they want, but I do feel like we can have the sort of school project that we need and that it seems to me the community wants.

So those are just some overall comments.

I guess I would offer two thoughts sort of in response.

One is recognizing, of course, when we talk about

a natural gas tax, which all we're doing is we're just raising the price because we're not taxing revenues received by somebody else.

The question that I don't know the answer to is whether we would have to do anything in particular to say, basically to turn it into, basically what we would be doing is turning it into a profit center.

I don't know what that would do to us administratively.

Perhaps, I'm not sure.

The one thing I am curious about, and maybe Mr. Rogers or somebody else from the staff can help me out here.

Our $10 million for housing, the recommendation from the consultant

was that we look at it as $7 million in projects and $2 million in tax relief and rent relief and $1 million for sort of the in-house infrastructure that we need to be able to implement all of this stuff.

Where are we with that?

There's a...

There's a recruitment for the housing coordinator that's going on now between Mr. Saunders and his lead staff.

Yes, sir.

So the work session that's coming up is going to go into more detail on this particular matter, but the infrastructure

is a question of how you count it.

We have a number of staff across the city that are working in various aspects of housing that are not directly tied to the core team of three that have been working in the housing space.

If we were to take everyone, including Todd Diver's team who works on tax relief programming, we're over a million dollars.

But if we were to back out those individuals for them being in what we would say maybe an auxiliary role in the affordable housing space and want to expand the team, there's about a half a million dollars that is still needed to build out the team for additional capacity.

There is a need for additional capacity.

We're giving out a lot of money.

We are not doing a good job on the compliance management.

We are not doing a good job of making sure

that the city is getting a return on its investment and we need to correct both of those.

And that'll be part of what I'll be sharing with you in the conversation on the fourth.

But when it comes to are we hitting our $10 million goal, we only have from last year's endorsement one year of activity to consider have we done that

We're proposing a budget this year for FY23.

The question is, are we going to be exceeding that?

The answer is yes, we're actually going to be meeting and exceeding.

I shouldn't say we're going to do both.

We're going to exceed $10 million for FY23 based on what's in the CIP, what is going out in assistance, and what is also available through the Vibrant Communities Fund and CAF and home and CDBG.

The question is, are we going to be able to get to that number being 10 million or more in each of the next eight years, because we count last year and this year to reach the 10-year conversation that we have embarked on with the Affordable Housing Plan endorsement.

We're a significant ways there with the commitments that have been made to CRHA and Friendship Court that are in the CIP.

We know there are a number of additional projects forthcoming.

The CSRAP program is a part of that calculation.

It is multi-year funded.

So we're going to be trying to reconcile all of that and looking at how do you balance it.

But if you all remember the question that I brought to your attention as well is there is a real difference of opinion as to whether or not your act last year to endorse the affordable housing plan was a goal or a commitment.

I know from conversations that I've had, internal and external, we're not all on the same page.

And we've got to reconcile where we are on that matter.

Because if we are trying to hit a goal, we're doing well.

If we are trying to reach a $10 million over 10 year commitment, we still have a little work to do.

So if we were, I mean, one of the things that I've been talking about during this budget season is the need to get city halls capacity up to where it needs to be.

And if that means spending more money on more staff, then so be it.

One of the things we identified, one of the areas we identified was the question of housing and how we're dealing with

measuring affordable housing and whether the units that are supposedly affordable are in fact being maintained as affordable, et cetera.

I had admittedly, I had hoped that we would hear more about that Monday night from the housing consultants, but for whatever reason, we didn't.

And I still don't have a sense of

At this moment, I can tell you that we are not doing a good enough job.

There is definitely more that we can be doing.

I desire for us to be doing more and we are beginning to work towards moving in that direction.

Well, I know we have not had a housing coordinator for more than a year at this point.

Yeah, I think that what we're going to have to figure out is, are we going to have more money coming?

That's the reason why I'm pointing out to you that the question of whether it's a goal or a commitment, which is going to dictate more money or no more money, then there could very well be a need for additional hands to further manage that, because we may look at how we deploy that differently with different program parameters.

Therefore, it's going to cause more work to be done.

So, yes, there's definitely opportunities to add more staff.

If we're not going to be adding a lot more money to the mix, we may not need a whole lot more staff.

Okay.

Only because we have money dedicated in the CIP, but it only goes so far.

We're going to have further considerations to make down the road for adding more projects.

So that's the reason why I say that at this time.

Well, for this year, it would be 7.325 million for proposed for affordable housing, between 3 million for CRHA,

$4.3 million, most of that, I mean, not all of it, but much of that is for Friendship Court, also for the Rental Assistance Program, the $925,000 for the CAF.

I don't know, I've heard it said, but I'm not sure I could look at the line item in the budget to tell you that we've got another $2 million in tax relief

I don't know whether that's intended to include or tax and rental relief.

Maybe that includes the $900,000 that's already in the capital budget.

I know there's $900,000 in the CIP, but when we've talked about or the consultant has talked about spending $2 million on tax relief, rent relief, whatever, does that include the $900,000 that is in the CIP?

No, that's in addition to.

Okay, are we in fact going to be doing that this year?

Yes.

Getting that 2 million.

Okay, so we're now at 9.3 million before we look at the question of how much infrastructure is costing us.

Right.

So if we're doing that same basic analysis,

I mean, every year that's in the CIP, we're talking about more than $4 million in projects, or probably more than $7 million in projects.

I beg your pardon, your fiscal year 27 does not, but everything else gets us out over 7 million.

Right.

And my point is, that's not the 10-year commitment.

The 10-year period for the affordable housing plan goes beyond 27.

Okay.

Yes, that is correct.

But I would agree with that, Mr. Mayor.

That's sort of been my perspective on housing in terms of

what we, what y'all agreed to.

And, you know, I see it as a commitment.

I mean, that's what I ran on, that we would meet what was endorsed by y'all last March.

And I think we're within spitting distance this year and over the next couple of years of meeting that.

Now, if you speak to folks in that space, they'll tell you that they would like to $10 million to be directly focused on projects, which I can appreciate.

But, you know, we spend a lot of money on a consultant.

We really invested a lot.

And they've told us even this past Monday that, you know, we're in the upper sort of ranks, particularly in the southeast of with our housing goals.

Now, please don't misunderstand me.

I'd like to spend more on housing if we can.

Yeah, I'd just like to chime in and say that I really would like to see that we need to be able to measure to see that there's some form of accountability to see if we're doing what we're supposed to do, you know, our partners and

Developers are doing what they're supposed to do.

It's just we need to kind of get a hold of what we're doing if we just keep pouring money into it.

And we have heard it from every resident pretty much saying that it doesn't seem like we're making an impact and we're pouring money in if we're not seeing we're having an impact.

I just don't think that's a good policy, a good direction for the city.

I think that we either need to have some type of mechanism.

We need a mechanism where we need to make sure that if we're putting $10 million towards housing, that that money is going towards that and we're getting the impact that we're supposed to get.

And that's why the questions that I'm asking like last Monday and this from this point on is that if they said that they're going to do A, B, and C, that they're going to do it and not coming back to us and asking us to what are you

Are you doing your part?

So I just need to, you know, as someone new into this, if we're not measuring what we're doing, then we're not going to get the impact and there's no way we're going to be able to come back later and say how we did.

So I'm glad that we are, quote, you know, we're punching above our weight, I think is what weight class is what we were told and that's great, but we always can do better.

We need to make sure that we are using our funds as they are directed.

So those are kind of, and part of that, and we may not have this, Sam, by Monday, but I would like to see, you know, for future budget implications, what would be the cost of that?

I think it was 100 and the gap between 125 and 150%.

I didn't get right all of that down, but see what that gap would be so we would

We can get that for you.

Okay.

And that may be something where we put it in the budget, but obviously we have a lot of program amendments that have to get enacted.

We don't have to enact the program amendments by April 15th.

I just wanted to clarify one of your questions or comments about the CIP and in 27.

So the reason there's no money in 27 in particular on the bonding side was because when we first started the CIP process and we were meeting with the planning commission, we were talking about a situation where first the real estate assessment had not come in.

So we were assuming a much smaller general fund growth.

and therefore we were talking about debt capacity issues.

And so year 27 was sort of, if we did the 75 million, we weren't gonna have additional debt capacity to issue more bonds.

So that's why you'll notice in 27, there's no bond issue actually in the CIP budget.

We now know that capacity is not so much the problem, but depending on whatever decision is made on the funding,

affordability could still be an issue.

Certainly my experience after looking at the city's capital improvement program for a very long time is that the last year of the program is always fictional anyway.

Mr. Mayor, before we end, I just wanted to touch base on a couple of things that were said.

First, kind of on the schools, it really was good to hear from school board members, Emily and Dom.

They really succinctly said, you know, where we are with this, in particular hearing from Dr. I on this issue.

This is something that we have been, you know, trying to deal with since I've been on the school board and I've been on

was on it in 2006.

And each time it, you know, we have been putting it off.

And so I definitely will be in the camp of that we need to, you know, start on this now because one of the big issues is the inflation costs.

And so I think that we were, you know, looking at some of the options and alternatives that we looked at on Monday, we within a rock's throw of, you know, working this out.

And I think that we will

as a community and as a council, you know, over the next few weeks as we finalize the budget.

And, you know, every week we get new initiatives and, you know, concerns that we want to pay, you know, that they want the city to fund.

And I think that many of these things, this is what people expect of their local government.

That is why we're here.

And just a couple other thoughts on the budget in general.

I just have some questions on funding of some of the nonprofits and we'll be working through that.

I'll be commenting on that.

And as far as the police budget, that is something that, you know,

Our police department, they're 25% down of their staff and we're going to be using some of those funds for those staff.

We know that we need to fill the ranks and all of that can't be done in one year.

So we're taking that into consideration.

I have made an effort over the last couple of weeks to talk to a wide range of people in the community about the police department.

and his support from a wide range of community members.

And we want to support our police officers because they do a very dangerous job.

It's a very vital job.

It's one of those duties that I think people expect of a local government is to provide that protection.

And I understand that we want that 21st police model.

And I believe that we're heading in that direction.

I already talked about some of my concerns about the housing.

I'm glad that we are doing the things that we're doing, that we're innovative, that we are working with our community partners to address this critical issue.

I'm glad that we have a role and it's this Saturday I'm going to speak at a groundbreaking for Habitat for Humanity for new homeowners in the city.

That is the type of things that

we need to be involved in and want to have a connection with.

And the innovative things that the Housing Authority and Piedmont Housing is doing, we value those community partners and we couldn't have the impact and reach that we have without those community partners.

And I hope that we can work out a way that we can use those op fundings for the Metacrete Parkway Trail.

I went, Brian and I went to that path with some community members and it just will make a big difference.

We were out there when some of the kids were playing by Mickey and they don't have a lot of options to play and so this will just really open up a lot of opportunities.

So it also will connect, I think I just saw where there's a proposal for some new apartments that could be in similar short

Trail, and it could connect to that.

So it's a lot of opportunities where prevent people from maybe driving as much.

And so we have some really difficult decisions to make.

Many of the emails that we receive saying, you know, they want us to do it all.

But, you know, we can't, we can't, we're going to have to make some difficult decisions.

And that's why they place us here.

And

and I know that I'm certainly prepared with all of the community input that we've received to help guide me and to give me understanding of what we need to do.

So thank you for this opportunity.

Mr. Payne, Ms.

I was, I mean, I was excited that we got so close on Monday.

I know people got concerned.

One of the things I did not, one of the things I was hearing the city manager's proposed budget was that we take this 2%, we raise the property tax 2 cents,

and putting it into a designated fund straight up for the schools that is not going anywhere else.

The 100% of that increase and of that increase alone is going straight to the schools.

I don't think he was I wasn't hearing that he was proposing the 40% be removed from the rest of the taxes, but only for that particular area.

Also that that didn't mean that we couldn't be moving forward with the designing piece that would only be happening.

We wouldn't be actually looking at groundbreaking until 2024 anyways.

So this idea that it's delaying it.

I just I I don't think it's delaying it as much as people are fearing it's being delayed.

and as we found with West Main, even if it's in the CIP doesn't mean it's gonna stay.

So, I mean, West Main had been allocated out and we as a new council took it out.

So I just wanna bring those pieces forward that

I mean, I was excited by that because for the first, I really felt like we got very close to the base 68 million, which is without the auditorium piece.

And again, my kids in orchestra at Beaufort, and I know the auditorium small, I know the bathrooms in there are no fun.

But I'm also having to look at this at a holistic level.

And how can we make this happen?

and I was excited by that presentation because it felt like we could actually get there without putting the city in too much of a financial hardship if an emergency came up and that it gave us the capacity that I was afraid we were going to be losing.

I know it's not the perfect solution.

So I just want to, and again, if we get, then we just have to keep balancing all of it.

More practical question and then some thoughts is just, do we know, I know that, you know, Mr. Williams with CAT, you know, I think the proposals for fixed 30 minute routes would be roughly 3 million

fixed 15 minute routes would be six to seven million in terms of the city's commitment.

That's obviously gonna leverage, I think tens of millions of dollars of federal funds.

But I guess the question is basically, is there a period by which our ability to access that federal money would end?

And therefore, if we wanted to take advantage of that, is there a deadline by which we need to make that commitment as a city?

Because I know that is another one of the things that's not currently in our budget.

And if there's not an answer now, that's totally expected and fine.

But, you know, Williams is on the call.

Mr. Williams, are you available?

Sure, Mayor.

I assume the question is, is there a deadline for us to make a commitment?

So part of my vision of getting us to a 15 minute model is we're going to have to get to like the first step of being a 30 minute model.

We're going to have to make investments and get

all parties on board.

We've got to get approval from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation.

We've got to get approval from FTA to make all those commitments to buy more vehicles, expand our fleet.

So that's going to take time.

And as we are ramping up

will be making commitments to add more staff.

And hopefully, as we plan this out, it will be succinct and work with the state's model of improving our system.

In this budget, it appears that we are short on drivers.

So I've appealed to part of, you know, we need more drivers.

I think our request initially was 10 as we continue to ramp up.

So that is hopefully step one.

that would help us alleviate some of the pressure this year on putting a reliable system in, but we would have to make more commitments over the next few years.

But I think the long-term effect is the general fund of the city will not be able to support a 15-minute model all by itself.

I think what makes sense operationally is the region take this on and the

And that makes sense.

And I know we have the RTP meeting tomorrow.

I do recall, though, in your presentation a few weeks ago, or a few months ago now, I guess, you were needing some funds for some studies or something to like the very first.

Yeah.

So the council just approved Monday night the adoption of additional $980,000 that came from the state this year.

We are earmarking $300,000 to get the studies done.

We're hopefully being able next week to pull the trigger finally and get those studies started with a timeline of being December, January-ish for completion for the feasibility study.

Then we roll from there into the integration study in anticipation of being in a position to have a document that allows us to articulate where we are and our future commitments.

So when I go to the state and the feds for additional funding for capital outlay,

whether it is infrastructure improvements at our facilities or more buses that we have the documents to support it.

And that's what's being asked of us by FTA.

So that's good news.

Great.

Thank you.

Mr. Williams, I wonder if you could comment somebody a couple of nights ago, I believe I remember said maybe what we should be doing with if we're getting more buses in the short term.

rather than converting or trying to bring in CNG buses, buy up some of the used diesel buses that other companies are getting rid of or other bus outlets getting rid of or actually maybe even new diesel buses, I don't know.

But diesel buses are substantially cheaper on the current market than, for example, electric buses.

and maybe cheaper in the long run than trying to convert to CNG with all of the infrastructure expenses and so on.

And at least some experts have said that there is no real difference in the greenhouse gas emissions on a CNG bus versus a diesel bus, or at least on a CNG system versus a diesel system.

A few.

So comparatively, we do know that there is less carbon emissions from a CNG vehicle than a diesel.

I think the question always is the spillage that happens from the CNG filling stations.

That happens periodically, but as you have a maintenance program that is put in place, you can find that and correct those when they happen.

Now, for CAT, what potentially makes sense is, yes, continue to buy the diesel.

They are very reliable.

We have issues right now with some of our alternative fuel vehicles.

Ms.

Mr. Sanders was over Sam and the city manager over this today and we had a robust conversation about how do we get from A to Z with CAT and I think operationally

The bridge that you're talking about to allow us to be reliable may benefit us by having a built out diesel model, because if you look at how we're funded and a 12 year model for replacement at a minimum, we would replace our whole entire system twice.

by the timelines of 2050.

So if we do an incremental change now, we're going to change that whole model over in 12 more years anyway.

So there's potential that we get reliable and as the new technology EVs get much more reliable in the span

on the batteries get better, then we, and the second tranche of when we turn over the system, we use EVs at that point in time.

But I do think we should dip our toe.

I guess the one other question I have, and maybe it's unknown, is would our ability to do this rely on money from

the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law or ARPA or CARES that will go away at some point.

Potentially, that's...

If we had a crystal ball, which I wish I did, I would be able to say definitively whether we're going to need to pony up more money.

What I see is the feds are making a substantial approach to putting dollars available right now.

They've also put some provisions on transit agencies that we have to do this study.

We're going to get our study done so we will be in position to take advantage of the additional dollars.

Let's say two years from now, the House and Senate turns over and that commitment is no longer there.

Thank you.

That's all very helpful.

I just wanted to, Mr. Williams, when

We were up at DC recently, I met with some transit people, and they just wanted to emphasize that in developing these plans, we need to make sure we have community engagement and significant community engagement, I believe was one of the words they used specifically, as well as that we are making sure to include equity in the plan.

I'm sorry, I'm just trying to look through my notes right now.

Duly noted.

Part of what we are, we're trying to make sure that we check off all of the requirements that are have been pushed down to us by FTA.

So that will be as a part of the study.

There will be time for us to have a conversation about the potential findings of the study with the community.

and there will be decision points and we will have that we will come to council and then we'll have that conversation with the general public.

So this will not be the last time you hear from me.

And

You know, I suppose some other thoughts I have, which, you know, we've talked about before, but I'll reiterate and just try to think through some of the decision points in front of us as I see them.

Some of the smaller ones to start or whether we want to change anything with the Vibrant Communities Fund.

You know, I definitely

I'm interested in prioritizing the request for FAR, which fully meaning it would be $19,000.

I think given the commitment that we've already made to redevelopment of public housing and their role in that,

You know, cutting it in half by $19,000 would be a short-sighted decision, given that commitment in their role and everything going on there.

The other one is the Jefferson School, which is $200,000.

I likewise think it would be important for us to figure out how to maintain that commitment, just because of the importance of that organization and how important that is for them to being able to stay in that building.

Those are smaller ones, but decision points we have to get to.

The other is Stripling Avenue.

obviously that two plus million dollars if it goes into our CIP is going to be adding another thing to strain the situation we've already been discussing and so should we factor that in or not as I said you know I'm finding it hard to see how it would be a smart decision for us to do that given that it's going to put pressures on these other short-term commitments which is unfortunate but that's the budget situation we're in

And bigger picture, you know, the concern I have is there's a question of how do we balance our budget right now, but also what is not currently in our budget.

And the main concerns I have about that are like,

We just through discussing the cap proposal for, I guess, at first fixed 30 minute routes.

I'm particularly concerned about that.

If it does turn out to be the case that there is tens of millions of dollars of federal money that we will miss out on getting from a local commitment of $3 million, that would be extremely short sighted in my mind.

And I want to be sure that we don't put ourselves inadvertently into that position.

The second is the Park Street project, you know, with our cap allocations, maybe if we saved up for a few years, it would get us there, but that is not currently in our budget.

In the Marcus Alert system and implementing that, just where are we in terms of setting aside money and planning?

to have that happen, which we are legally required to do still, I believe, and I'm not really sure what our budget planning is going to be to implement that, which I think is important.

On the non-policy end, operation side of what's not in our budget that I'm concerned about is the SAFER grant.

We're going to be picking that up in full next fiscal year.

How are we going to position ourselves to be able to pick that up?

Otherwise, we'll be looking at laying off 15 firefighters in one year and cost of living adjustments with inflation for employees.

You know, what should we expect that to be?

What should we expect that to need to be in order to be competitive for hiring anyone and not losing people?

and connected to that, you know, the wage and benefit increases that, you know, we're likely going to see from collective bargaining and our wage and compensation study.

And if we have, again, if we haven't positioned ourselves to be able to cover those things in two or three years, I think

there will be enormous implications for the ability of the city to run well.

So those are the concerns I have when looking at what's not in the budget and how do we get there.

And if we can get to a place where those things are covered, I would be a lot more comfortable that we're in a sustainable place in terms of our budget.

Perhaps some of the scenarios we were presented with on Monday get us closer there, but I don't know if we're all the way there yet.

And as long as we don't have those things, I don't think we can say that we have a sustainable or balanced budget over the next five years.

And final thoughts is, you know, I think obviously we're going to have to get to a decision point about school reconfiguration in both what the timeline and scope looks like.

And to me, it still seems like what we're looking at right now, it seems to me our decision points are, um,

raising taxes by 8 to 10 cents, real estate taxes, going...

quickly in with $75 million for the reconfiguration plan.

And I think if we do that, we just have to acknowledge that the trade-off will be all those things not in our budget, are not going to get funded unless we have an extremely large unexpected surplus or we raise taxes above even 10 cents on the real estate tax or some equivalent to that.

We could, as Councillor Pigston has suggested, try to get that cost down to 50 million or so and look at, you know, taking money from other funding sources and still raise taxes by eight or nine cents.

I still don't think that quite gets us to that point that I would consider balanced and sustainable, but we're certainly closer and I could see a path forward maybe there.

And the other I would see is

investing around that $33 million for full renovation and modernization of Buford right now, and then doing the planning that was suggested on Monday for the additional aspects of reconfiguration over the next several years to make that additional investment for reconfiguring the grades, which I would fully, and I'm not saying which of those is the right one for us, but those are the options I see, and they certainly are all complicated by the fact that the

because we've maxed out our budget, we could increase costs in the long term more than they are now.

It would still be more sustainable for us just because of the budget situation we put ourselves in.

And the final thought I have is, you know, people said, look at creative funding sources.

And I've mentioned some of these, but some I could potentially see are looking at our enterprise funds, the parking fund, the golf fund.

I don't know how much flexibility we have to change anything with it, but the Visitors Bureau Fund, which is, you know, 700,000 to 1.2 million annually.

Yeah.

Stored up capital budgets within departments that they've been allocated in years past that are unspent.

How much of that exists across our departments?

How much of that exists that we can shift around to get to a place where our budget's working?

ARPA and the bipartisan infrastructure law, which I think we will be able to use really flexibly, but obviously we're just not going to have clarity on what we can do over the next one to two months, particularly on the infrastructure law.

And then as others have mentioned, not just with CPD, but I think across the entire organization, unfilled positions and how much money theoretically exists to shift around there.

And is there anything that wouldn't have significant operational impacts that we can move around?

But anyway, that's sort of how I'm thinking about it.

So before we get on some other things, I note that our acting police chief is now with us and there were a number of comments that were specifically directed towards the police department and police budgeting and why aren't we cutting the police budget and all that.

I got Captain Mick here who's our CFO.

Well, there are a number of people who had called in to say the city police department is down on its staffing anyway.

Wouldn't this be a great time to cut the police department budget?

We know that 82% roughly of the police budget is salaries.

and if you're down basically a quarter of your number, there ought to be some money there that could be realized.

And so the question is, why aren't we cutting the police budget and then using that money someplace else?

One of the criticisms was that, well, Charlottesville is spending more on policing per capita than other comparable cities and

Richmond, Lynchburg, I don't remember the other cities that were mentioned.

How do we respond?

So, Mr. Mayor, before he responds, also as part of that, residents were asking about the detail of the budget, and there is a fair amount of detail to their budget, it's on the city website, and if that's something that we can make available in the chat for the public, as well as, you know, make it prominent on this city's website for the public to view, because I think it's a lot more information than it's been in the past.

All right, good evening, everybody.

Captain Steve Nick here.

So I'm going to go ahead and jump in on this one, but Councillor Wade, just to kind of echo your point, we do include a very detailed list when it comes to our budget.

It has been on our website for the past couple of years.

I think when it comes to some of the respective city budgets, we do have probably a much more robust and intricate system when it comes to breaking down the various line items and our expenses.

We have provided and have tried to provide as much description as we can on these line items, even really breaking it down as to each and every vendor of these line items to create that transparency.

As you all know, moving forward, we are trying to build a budget that really focuses on the importance of the six pillars of 21st century policing

and building our budget in a way that supports each of these pillars and that it can tell a story to the public as to what direction each piece of our funding puzzle is going to when it comes to our expenses.

It is a work in progress, our FY23, this is the first year that we're trying to morph it in that to where it tells a little bit more of a story, but for the past couple of years,

We've included the details on all the intricacies.

When it comes to staffing and having to make cuts, we're already dealing with the difficulties of being short 27 positions.

As many of you all may know, and I'm sure some of you all received feedback from the community about probably about a month ago,

We had to put out there on social media and through press releases that there are certain services that we just cannot provide right now.

We cannot respond to every single call we receive.

Unfortunately, certain things have to be forwarded to our online reporting or there is a backup in the time that our officers are able to respond and get to that person.

I can recall several mornings here, even just this past week, people hanging out in the lobby is waiting for an officer to come by.

And that's the problems that we're facing by having a reduced number of staffing and that it hurts the service model and what we are able to provide to the city.

We don't want to go any lower.

We need to get our numbers back up to a workable figure so that we can provide the service that we need to.

We need to have viable numbers so that we can send these officers to career building and community enhancing training opportunities so that they can be a better liaison between our department, between the city and to the communities.

If you look at our numbers really over about the past five years, I want to say it around 2017, we were close to 132 authorized sworn officers.

Right now we're down to 117.

We have had discussions about what does it look like if we need to potentially freeze or unfund more positions, but that's getting low, it's getting difficult.

I know some have mentioned as well, well, the FBI national statistics states that it should be, I think it's around 2.4, 2.5 officers per thousand in the population.

That puts us at about, I believe, 108 if we're going off of a population of 46,000.

What that number doesn't take into consideration though is Charlottesville's working population.

The amount of people that UVA brings in, the students that are living here during the school years and really even during summer school.

So I think that needs to be taken into consideration when we're talking about cutting positions.

I know that when we look at numbers of cases that come to court, we have to look at the fact that there are an awful lot of them that involve, for example, UVA students who get into fights on the corner.

Both participants may be county residents, but their fight occurs in the city, and it just happens to be right across the border.

Or we look at the number of cases that

and either because of the students or because of the faculty or, as you say, the working population, not simply the resident population, we have more activity plus tourists, more activity as well.

So at various points in the past, I've looked at this

trying to draw comparisons among different departments.

And the one thing that became clear as I tried to do it was that there's so many differences among departments and among the cities that they serve that it is very difficult to get any real sense from those kinds of numbers.

The numbers themselves can be rather misleading.

The issue that I'm concerned about, and I've said this

over the last couple of years is that we have to decide, it seems to me, not that there is an abstract number that we're willing to say instead of 117, we want it to be 60 or pick a number, whatever it's going to be.

It's not an abstract number.

It is a number that reflects how the department will do its job thereafter.

And for example, Charlottesville, in my experience, has

a somewhat larger and more sophisticated investigations division than most cities, counties in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

That's expensive.

But it also means that we get really top quality investigations.

And that is a value that's important, that we should be recognizing and valuing ourselves.

We could decide as the city and the judges and the prosecutors and the police and everybody has kind of decided to de-emphasize certain aspects of law enforcement.

For example, the fact that we no longer

have marijuana crimes that are getting prosecuted, except under very rare circumstances, means that the caseloads will be down and some of the activity for patrol officers may be down.

There are probably other policy decisions that the department makes to say, let's de-emphasize this,

either as a matter of policy that we don't want to be devoting our energies and money on that, or simply we don't have the energy, we don't have the people to do that.

But the decisions that get made, if they're going to be made the right way, it seems to me, need to be made around this is a kind of service that we are simply not choosing to fund anymore.

not we're going to cut the numbers down to a point where we are just really inefficient and can't can't do our jobs.

So it becomes a matter of how you choose to make the cuts.

And I've often asked people who have said we should be defunding the police.

Tell me what it is you want the police to stop doing.

And what we the one thing that's fairly consistent is

which unfortunately under Virginia law isn't an answer but the answer what's consistent is we want the police to stop going for basically dealing with mental health problems for dealing with things that aren't really police problems and Virginia law as you all know means that I mean we kind of have to respond with a police response

unless we've got a system figured out to do something different, which gets to the Marcus Alert issue, which gets also, I think, to some of the alternatives to other police activities that we've talked about, but we haven't really talked about what they would look like in practice.

Actually, in part because of the great degrees of Virginia law that don't give us much flexibility in that respect.

The other thing that I wanted to comment on, in addition to the Marcus Alert issue, is that, again, that's not going to affect Charlottesville for probably a couple more years.

But one of the things that we do still have to be ready to implement effective July 1 is the 988 phone number, the Suicide Prevention

We are working on the 998 number.

We have a Lieutenant currently working on that for mental health teams.

And that goes along with the Marcus Alert.

He's on both of those tasks to take care of both of those fronts and run a shift.

And just to be mindful, you know, last year alone, we went to 36,000 calls for services.

I think as we come out of the COVID restriction world, I think our numbers are going to increase for calls for service.

We spent two days over in Augusta County on a

Mental Health.

That is correct.

He was a county, he was a Augusta County resident, but he received services in the city of Charlottesville.

and that's required by state law.

Yeah, sorry.

When I am fortunate enough to meet with the deputy city managers and the gentleman here from the police department a few weeks ago, it was very revealing.

I don't know how we

There's clearly a disconnect between, you know, some members' view of what the police do and their funding and so forth.

And I'm not at all criticizing members in the community who feel like we need to shift in policing the model.

I agree with that.

I personally would like to see more money go to Region 10 and that sort of approach.

But

As I met with these gentlemen, and particularly with Ms.

Marshall as well, who has agreement over that department, I just feel like there's part of the story that they have to tell, which seemed to me very valid, particularly around retaining our police officers when we have surrounding jurisdictions that money doesn't seem to be an issue.

I think that this is a real safety issue if we're not thinking about this carefully I don't know how we have these conversations to where members of the public feel like they have gotten enough information to feel like the budget is transparent the documents that I reviewed with them certainly seemed clear enough but I do think that there's more work that needs to be done in terms of communication

I was very impressed to see that they had integrated the six pillars into their various line items and were able to tell a coherent story about what they're trying to do to transform.

So, yeah, I just think as we move towards a future and where policing looks different than it used to, we need to help our police along the way, hold them accountable.

but also fund them when they need funding and I am concerned at the loss at the reduced numbers and also retaining compared to other jurisdictions.

The other thing I want to say is to go back to what Councillor Payne said earlier relative to other sources in the budget that might have money stashed away

for lack of a better metaphor.

I am interested in the enterprise funds in various parts of the city that may have funds that they were hoping for a rainy day or whatever.

I'm not going to assume that that's the case, but I would be interested in as much sort of light shed on those things.

And if there are ways we could utilize that capital more responsibly to the public right now,

I would just note I sent along an email with a list of localities.

Charlottesville ranks 15th of 38 cities, so somewhat in the middle, but top 40%.

And I think it's just helpful for me in terms of clarity and getting a sense of, you know, the scale of any conversation.

You know, I think, you know, we're talking in the scale of

if we were to even go that direction, some unfilled full-time staff positions that would make up maybe some percentage of the SAFER grant, which is 15 full-time positions if we're looking at unfilled positions throughout the city and those cost savings.

So just for expectation, I mean, I think it would seem like realistically we're talking about a dollar amount of up to $1 million, which would help us with a plan for the SAFER grant, but

And it certainly, you know, could get us there for looking at unfilled positions throughout the organization, but I don't see it as a magic button that we hit and all of a sudden there's a windfall of tens of millions of dollars that solves everything for us.

Although it's certainly something that's not a reason not to look at it, but it's not going to be a singular solution in and of itself.

I wonder if it would be useful for us and Michael you did this to a certain extent for folks if there are things that are not in the present budget that you would like to see at least considered to be added if we could make a list of those and see where we come up to and then we can try to figure out what the revenue side basically how we're going to balance out the revenue side

with what we think we want to be doing on the spending side.

Right.

For example, I think, and while I believe it's going to require a more extended discussion than what we're going to have right now, what we're going to do about the Jefferson School is something that I think there's probably a fair amount of consensus on, that we ought to do something to

The question, just so people will understand, was back in 2017, 2018, a total of $950,000 was allocated for the purpose of helping the Jefferson School with the rent on their facility.

And it was parceled out at the rate of roughly $200,000 a year.

And

There was nothing like that in the budget here because it hadn't been in last year's budget.

It would have been in a budget five years earlier.

And so when we started getting these emails saying, why are you cutting $200,000 from the Jefferson School?

I'm sitting there thinking, we haven't been giving $200,000 because it was done years ago.

But that doesn't mean we don't need to address the issue now.

Whether we address it in a comprehensive way that deals with, as I said, there are a number of other issues that could be discussed in terms of the Jefferson School, in terms of both the African American Heritage Center and the building itself, there are some issues there that maybe ought to be the subject for a broader discussion, but don't have to be the subject of a broader discussion between now and April 15th.

Mr. Mayer, is this sort of like a homework assignment then that we could go and sort of To be able to give the budget staff a homework assignment, I think they would like to have some guidance from us on what we're thinking about.

I will tell you that I would be thinking about the Jefferson School.

I would be thinking about trying to figure out how

whether we can afford to subsidize with some other money, the Park Street project, because that's something that's going to the LIHTC application stage.

I mean, if that gets funded, they need the money and they need it basically this year.

And I don't

I think we're in a sort of an odd position there that we approved this project.

And Mr. Payne was very candid in pointing this out to us at the time that we approved the project without having agreed on what was likely to be the ask for a subsidy for it.

Is that something that people are interested in doing?

If so, that would certainly take care of the $10 million for affordable housing right there.

We'd be up around $12 million.

What do we want to do about stripling?

That's a whole different problem.

But that's potentially $3 million.

So there are a number of other things that people have listed as possible reasons to be spending more money that are not presently in the budget.

One other thing

Consideration is the issue that was suggested.

And perhaps we don't cut $2 million from the personal property tax.

Maybe we tell Mr. Divers, figure it out so that it's a $1 million cut instead of a $2 million cut.

And that's not a cut relative to last year.

It's relative to what it would be if we did nothing, if we kept the tax rate exactly as is.

I personally still think that it is a viable option to increase the meals tax by a half a percent.

As I've said before, that still keeps us very much in the middle statewide of cities that have meals taxes, and it raises $1.2 million for us.

But that's also something where if we look at real estate property tax, personal property tax, and also

the meals tax, we have, well, let's say we did the two cent increase that was being discussed.

That's $1.8 million, $1.2 million from meals tax, another $1 million, let's say, from personal property tax increase simply because the assessments are rising.

that's a roughly $4 million sum of money that we could then use for some of these purposes.

I think at some point we need to agree on what purposes we'd like to try to fund and then we can try to fit the taxes to meet those expenditures.

Other folks have some guidance for

I'll say that the real estate taxes, any increase for that, I would hope goes directly towards paying for the design for the project to move forward.

Right.

I guess my point is that the only reason I'm even in the ballpark of real estate tax increases is that those funds go to help pay the bonds or whatever

You know, you all have to do on your side.

I don't see that money going for anything else.

Yeah, I think that if I recall the VMDO, they said that, you know, that based on a current alternative, the current

budget that ideally they would want to we want to break ground next summer.

And and if that's delayed is going to be

You know, additional money that, you know, right now we're even in the future, we're going to be struggling to find funding for it.

And as far as some of the Jefferson School, that is something that I think that, you know, for this year, we definitely need to try to find a way to to assist the the the center.

And and also, like Michael said, come up with a long term plan

whether it's a combination of working with them and their board for fundraising and the city assisting because I know that when I was on the school board the programs that they provided was invaluable and what they do no one else can do they the way they bring the community together to really kind of

have those really courageous conversations.

They're there to do that.

So we have a lot of priorities that we want to try to fund.

We certainly can't do it all.

And when we're finished, there are going to be a lot of people with the budget upset with us.

There's going to be some people that's going to like what we do.

But I think that with that said, we probably will

probably do it about right if we have after people have a half of the people upset with us.

But, you know, these are just some difficult decisions.

And and I was telling someone recently that, you know, my days on the school board by now, you know, our difficult work as far as budgeting would have been over by now.

We would have been what we're doing now advocating to the city council.

And now, I guess I'm city council, so we need to continue to work.

But the input that we've received, the emails, it's been very helpful.

It's been some insight that I hadn't thought of, that some ideas that, you know, I don't think we had thought of as a board.

Back to your question, Mr. Mayor about incremental things we would do.

I, you know, I'm looking forward to the conversation next week on the CIP in particular.

And what happens if we go with a 50 million

And again, to be clear, the overall project at Beaufort would still be, you know, what I'm saying or what BMDO is quoting as option two is still a $68 million project.

It's just, you know, if we use some money sort of as a down payment towards that from the money that the school can provide and perhaps other surpluses and that we're only bonding $50 million, that's how I'm thinking about it in terms of like a down payment.

But

So I'll be interested to see the CIP, but Mr. Mayor, to your point in terms of other things that maybe we're missing into Councilor Payne's point as well.

I don't know.

I feel like what the city manager has provided us in the budget is pretty solid.

I've been pretty happy with things.

I'm still going through the details.

I do feel like that the specific requests for the Jefferson School and for FAR, I think we should do that.

We should figure out a way to make those happen.

But I'm struggling with trying to find some other

Anybody else have any wisdom for Ms.

Yeah, I mean, I too would like to, you know, the funding for FAR, it's in the big picture of things.

It's not a lot, and the impact that they, and the work that they do is really incredible.

I've spoken and worked with the interns on several occasions, and I'm going to be speaking with them in the near future.

And, you know, as we were talking about police and other type of reforms, I also would like, you know, us to look at funding some of the mentoring nonprofits because I've been a strong advocate for mentoring programs my entire career.

I think that we work with young people early that, you know, that it will pay off in bountiful foes in the future.

Yeah.

And so, you know, we'll work through it.

It'll be difficult, but I think that this council is committed.

Mr. Mayor, Council, this conversation has been very helpful.

and very instructive.

And we will work with the budget staff and department heads in the city to address what you have identified as priorities of sincere interest and see how we can come back and

fulfill your aspirations in addressing these issues.

You know, keeping an eye on affordability.

Our approach here has been to look at what's required, but to keep before you what's affordable and what the consequences are

of the various decisions you have before you.

I think that the proposal on Monday night for the larger project in 24 when the funds would be required, but we will, I think Ms.

Hamill provided a

a number of scenarios that clearly lay out what your options are for getting the school project done.

And there are some hard choices, whether to raise taxes or not.

And if so, how much?

Do it all at once or on a phased approach.

But also keeping an eye on what that would do

to the availability of funds for some of these other priorities that you've identified.

And we are tracking right with you.

You know, the issues of transportation, issues of transportation for CAT and its future is very, very important.

Affordable housing,

We have tried to meet the mark there, and there's more work to do to clarify that.

Employee compensation, assuring competitiveness of our salaries so that we can have a higher retention rate, particularly in the public safety area where we all have a grave concern.

These are issues that we've got to bear down on.

to secure the future of the city.

So we'll come back, you know, having heard your priorities and your reiteration of your priorities and dig deeper and see what we can come back and provide you some assistance in this path that you're on.

and I think that will take place.

Chrissy and our next round of meetings will be April, April 4th.