City Council Strategic Planning Retreat Day 2   5/20/2023

Thank you, Mayor, and good morning to all of you.

I hope you all had restful evenings.

We enjoyed a lovely drive in the sunset last night and then a beautiful morning this morning, too, which hopefully we will get a little chance to step out of the hallway and maybe even use some of the space outside today because it is such a beautiful day.

I hope that you all had good evenings and maybe had an opportunity to reflect a little bit on what you heard from each other yesterday and so as we get started today I'll just remind you a little bit about where we're going for the rest of the day we are here until two o'clock in terms of our agenda what you see on the screen is you all did a lot yesterday you spent some time hearing from each other about

a little bit about your own backgrounds and what brought you to this place, to today, not just to Charlottesville, but to the roles that you all play in this community.

You spend a little bit of time playing with stickers and understanding the different roles of a governing body that you all have the opportunity to play.

You get to flex different muscles as you work together as a body to lead the organization, to set policy.

and to reflect the community.

We talked a bit about the overall strategic planning process and then shared with you a lot of information that you already know because you live it here in this community about what is true today about Charlottesville.

We also talked about how the strategic planning process is really answering three key questions.

What do you know to be true today?

What do you hope will be true in the future?

And I think most importantly, how are you going to get there?

How are you going to put the action behind the where so that you ensure that the organization is clearly aligned with that direction and has plans in place to make that vision that you all set a reality.

And so we ended last night.

We asked you to do a little bit of visioning.

to reflect on where this community is today and where you hope it will be in 10 years.

And we'll talk about that in just a moment.

In terms of what we're going to spend really all of today on is really beginning to put more meat to the bones on a vision.

You all talked about some things, I think, that start to get into that vision territory, vision definition.

And then really focusing on your strategic outcome areas.

those key things that must go well in this community in order for that vision to be realized spoiler alert we're going to break you up into some groups in a little while and have you work in smaller groups the nice thing about having staff here is that you can phone a friend

and have staff help you in some of the work that we are going to ask each of the elected officials to do in really putting some definitions around those strategic outcome areas.

We'll explain all that in a moment, but the idea is that at the end of today, today, at the end of the day today, when we leave here by 2 o'clock, you will have a really good outline for a vision statement.

as well as those strategic outcome areas and definitions around those strategic outcome areas, those things that must go well in order for that vision to be realized.

It sounds simple when I say it like that, but I know there's a lot that will go into each of those elements of your strategic plan framework.

We will not make any final decisions today.

This is an opportunity to get a good framework, a good skeleton together for each of those elements.

But we also want to give you some time to reflect on it before you finalize it.

I always think it's great to have a good draft, but then be able to sit with it a little bit to make sure that it truly reflects your priorities as we move forward.

So again, that's a little bit of an outline.

We will, as we did yesterday, take breaks.

Ashley promises me that she will make sure that you are fully fed.

Again, I remind you of the norms that we talked about yesterday.

I think you all did a wonderful job, of course, of doing that, of listening to each other, of reflecting on what you heard from each other, and then identifying those places where you have

Some common agreement about the future of this community.

We'll spend a lot of time today focusing on that as well.

As I said, we will take breaks during our time together, but certainly, as I said, the building is ours.

Feel free to get up and move around.

We will, as I mentioned, work in groups, so you will have the opportunity.

There are refreshments out there, so please don't hesitate.

This is your time.

We want you to be comfortable.

enjoy being together in the more informal setting.

So that's our plan for today.

Any questions about that before we get started?

Okay, great.

So what I would like to do now is ask you a little bit about, you know, I think sometimes when I was telling the city manager last night, I really like the opportunity to have a few hours on day one and then a night

and then come back on day two because if you're like me all those thoughts and ideas percolate in my head overnight and it gives me an opportunity to reflect on what I've heard the previous day and I hope that's true for you all as well.

And so as we begin today I want to ask you when you think about the conversations that you all had yesterday

Are there things that resonated with you that you think could be a baseline for your future vision for this community?

One of the things that I got from everyone is that we really want to

Yeah, I would agree with that.

I really need what we say.

Mr. Rogers yesterday said that after listening to everything, it was clear to him that

who we believe Charlottesville cares.

I think this is a nod back to the current statement.

Being one community, I think the notion of some sort of unity or integration and more community itself means kind of a shared, joint, common life.

Yeah, I think everything these fellas just said,

these two fellas and one lady just mentioned for sure, but I think we also don't need to lose sight of the fact that we are one community and we are a community that has all these needs.

We're also a community that has some things that are really in our favor like

having a world-class university here, having a well-educated populace.

So I think we also need to somehow include that side of the equation because we're speaking about the entire city and everyone that lives here and folks who would look at us from the outside.

propose to put that in words?

How would you propose to make those two be the globe or be the circle because of the divide?

Yeah.

And I mean, I'm not asking you to tell us now, but I think that that's an admirable thing.

I think that's what everyone in this room would like but it's here and if we want to go like this then we need to think about what goes in the middle in order to get us there and I think that that I think that's something that I would like to see but that's something that I think we all need to hear

in addition to staff and not picking on any one particular person, but Misty and Mary Ann and Chrissy because of the work that they do.

You know, it's gonna take money, it's gonna take ingenuity to bring people here, but then the population of people that Misty and I predominantly work with do not have,

They live within the city limits because, and it may be because of social services, it may be because that's where they've been, and so it's a generational thing, it may be because that's where Section 8 housing is or the vouchers are, but they don't think well of the place that you and I work.

I completely agree with what you're saying.

I think it's part of the story that we have to tell, but it's not all of the story that we have to tell.

And I think you're right, the sort of integration piece of how we connect is important.

I very much want City Council to represent a caring, proactively caring,

thoughtful, compassionate city government.

But at the same time, I also want us to be a place that celebrates the arts, celebrates the fact that we have a high educational attainment.

We want everyone to be brought into that.

It celebrates things like TomTom or other kinds of citywide sort of things that we're going for as excellences.

So I don't

I think, I'm just simply saying that as we move forward, these things, these compassionate values that we have and the focus that we have on those who are struggling needs to be central and crucial, but it's part of a larger story about operating a city that's within a larger region.

Yeah, I think the

The thing we have to be very conscious of is depending on how you do it, I think a lot of people read, presenting that kind of narrative as paper in the book of reality.

I'm not sure that the majority of people will.

This to me is where, if you recall yesterday, I talked about one of the norms of remembering the power of and.

What I hear you saying is Charlottesville has some significant assets and, not in spite of, but and it also has a significant portion of its population that doesn't feel

engaged or isn't, not even feel, but isn't able to access some of those significant attributes or amenities or opportunities that this community has.

And I don't know how many of you remember, maybe Juan and Lloyd might, the originator of TomTom ran for city council and didn't win.

And when TomTom first came out, it was not very well received.

But I believe that this year, and I think maybe because Paul understood here what he wanted to do,

But trying to carry it out might have been a little more challenging than he and his team had anticipated.

But I think this year's TomTom Festival probably got closer to what the initial vision was in the brain.

You know, you have an idea, and you put it on paper, and you carry it out, and it's like, ah, that's not really what I meant.

This is what I meant.

And so now that he's at this point,

and said, even though this may not be your intent or your intentions may be good, this is the actual impact.

And I feel like he's listening.

I know we don't need to spend our time talking about Tom Tom.

It's just kind of a good example of this confluence or sort of adjacencies of some really amazing people coming from all over the world to come to this event.

And thought leaders, I don't ever use words.

coming to speak and say what's happening in other cities in the middle of a place that's got the issues that we have.

And so I do think that there's been, I'll call it growth with that festival, just like there's been growth with me.

I mean, a few years ago, I would have thought that everything is, I'm from a southern town, so I understand

I remember as a child driving to church across town and we'd have to row upon row of public housing, you know, so I've seen that and I was aware of it sort of at an intellectual level, but it's taken growth, it's taken people talking with me, it's taken some level of humility I guess to be able to, and so I think the end is an important part here, I don't think how we do that

The conversation with Paul Weyer when he came to the city looking for support for TomTom was, first off, you know, there was a perspective that even on some of my staff that questioned whether previous TomToms had been as inclusive as they should be.

And as I thought about it through the process,

In fact, when I called Paul and said, look, you know, we're going to, the city will sponsor the block party, but these are our terms, in terms of outreach, inclusiveness, it's got to be different.

And he took on that challenge and I think he will do more.

But that's the kind of thing where

When the government has a goal to include everybody, you just can't talk about it.

You've got to really be about it and be intentional.

So when we talk about building on the assets of a highly educated community, the question is what are we going to do as a government to build partnerships

that helps bring the rest of the population along.

You know, what are we doing in terms of internships that are provided to young people in public housing to help them learn how to enter the workforce

and therefore have a shot at changing the trajectory of their lives.

What are we doing about workforce development to help people develop skills that will lead them to higher paying jobs and therefore change their lives.

I mean it's specific things and strategies that we

we have to look at like Michael you've spoken of the wealth gap in the community and it's there I mean you know the evidence is there at 23% of our community listed as being below the poverty line what do we want to do to change that and and over what period of time are we going to try and make an impact on changing that it's about moving people

But we also have to have the patience and we have to have the education because people don't know, even us, we don't know what we don't know and when you have been

marginalized for whatever reason, regardless of the color of their skin, there is an education that goes along with bringing them along.

At one point, we were the only Upward Bound program in the country that had every ethnicity represented.

So everyone in there looked like various ones of us in this room.

One thing they had in common was the income levels that the program said you must meet.

No matter what you do with the children, you're not educating the people that they live with, whether it's the parents, the legal guardians, or whoever is identified, then all the work you do here

goes for naught because I'm going home with you all and this is what we do and I'm going to go along.

So it's not only the education of the younger people, but it's the education of the people that we want to be in the workforce, that we want to come along with us.

So it, to me, will be incremental.

We just have to

develop the strategies or the pathway to get them there because some people just feel this is my lot in life and I just deserve to be here.

Well, alright, if you think this is your lot in life and you deserve to be here, you don't have to be in a substandard job.

You don't have to be in a substandard living situation.

My grandmother lived in a neighborhood where people owned their own homes.

There were people in the neighborhood that rented the homes or rented the duplexes.

And she lived in a major metropolitan area in this country.

But everyone in that neighborhood took pride in where they lived.

and so we have to instill a sense of pride and if the individuals have pride then we need to hear them and see what that pride is and listen to them and not be afraid to go to place A, B, C, or D because we live in X, Y, and Z.

and I think that we need to do that.

We really do.

And one of the things Lloyd pointed out to me when we had a conversation, he said, you know, I said, I didn't know that was there, but you need to go there.

Oh, okay.

So I drove there and I said, oh, okay.

But we need to get out there so that we know where different places are, because I thought where Lloyd and I were talking about was

He said, no, part of it is city, part of it is county, so I got in my car one day, and I kind of drove around and said, oh, oh, and so, you know, maybe do a walking tour to some of the places, or just on your own, get in your car one day and just drive and see, but that was very helpful because he was trying to explain to me

One thing that struck me yesterday was

that there are some of the things that we were talking about, what the city might be doing, that represent extensions from what we're already doing, perhaps more of what we're already doing or maybe doing it a little bit differently.

Taking a little bit of a different turn with it.

And there's some other things that we were talking about that would represent at least a 90 degree turn from what we're currently doing.

And some of these things we've talked about among us in the last few months that's not new.

For example, we talk about a significantly greater interest in workforce development.

That's not just a 10 degree shift.

That's going to be more like a 90 degree shift.

To talk about a different kind of transit system, for example.

We know, we've talked a little bit about that.

We know we're probably five years away from realizing much of anything.

But when that comes, that's going to be

First of all, a huge investment in money, but it's also going to enable a very significant difference in the way we can organize the city physically, where people can live, how they can get to work, and that would represent, again, a fairly significant change.

And so, my thought on it all was that we can probably do quite a few things that represent

a slight shift from what we're doing.

But I think we have to be careful not to try to undertake too many 90 degree turns at the same time.

And we need to figure out which things are going to be the kinds of big changes like that, the 90 degree changes, and ration them a little bit.

I think about some of the things that you all said yesterday about prioritization and there are an infinite number of needs that you could go around and identify but to the mayor's point and some of what you all talked about yesterday you have capacity issues financial and human capacity issues and so doing a little bit on a lot of things will have a very different impact than doing

a lot on a little or fewer.

And so I think that's an important conversation for you all to have as you begin to articulate what your focus areas are going to be.

Certainly, as you talked about some of the constraints that the organization has in terms of vacancies and capacity and the high expectations that this community has.

It doesn't mean that you should put those things to the side, but it does mean that you need to, as the mayor said, really focus on those things that you think are going to have the most significant

Impact and that I think it's always important not to lose sight of the bigger picture but also to set yourself up for some successes too so that you can ensure that you see results

I agree, and I think it's our duty as counselors to get the balance, because what Lloyd just said about not taking on too much, you have to wait.

When I talk to certain populations in Charlottesville, they say that we have to wait, we've been in line, and we

have gotten shafted, we haven't gotten, and so it's our duty as counselors to understand our capacity and say we understand, and that's why we're making the changes, trying to put more affordable housing, but I can't say, we can't use the language like Lloyd did and say we have to

and I hope that this helps with us to say this is what we want to do as a city.

We understand where you are, but because of many people of color in Charlottesville, just in the example, we think about the housing, different opportunities that many of them, they got bad credit, many of them, because UVA put

What is the legal thing if you don't clean and garnishes and things like that because they couldn't pay their hospital bill

and then when they tried to get a house or a car and a decent thing, it was hot, but then they see some newcomers in the community, because they don't have a credit history or whatever, they were able to get it, you know, just almost leapfrog them ahead to get it, and man, they're all citizens of Charlottesville, love them, but someone who's been waiting in the line, grinding for years, it hurts, it hurts, and they don't want to hear, you know, you know, wait.

But we can't do it all.

We have to understand our tax.

We've been fortunate the last few years, but I know that in the future, it's going to be just the opposite.

We have to understand that.

Anyway, that's our duty.

Counselors to be able to explain that and understand where the different positions of our residents are coming from.

It's a lot going on in 10 square miles of shots.

And a lot of urgency.

Connected to that, I think it's important for us to not ever be scared to preemptively not say or outline

But be able to explain it, Michael.

you may want to do a certain thing and council may say we're going to do a certain thing but explaining to the people that may be beneficiaries of the certain thing that it doesn't happen tomorrow because we say it today like Juan said there's a process and I think many people regardless of their educational background

do not understand the process.

Just because I have a terminal degree doesn't mean I understand the process.

I think because, you know, my house is valued in a million dollars or two million dollars and I'm, you know, whoever I am, then it's going to happen.

No, it's not.

there are policies and procedures that have been put in place there are rules and regulations that have been put in place and everybody has to follow the rules and I know there are people that feel they're jumped over and overlooked but they have to

Know what the rules and regulations are, just like the people that live in the million-dollar-plus homes have to understand what the rules and regulations are and how we get there.

So at the end of yesterday, as you all left, we asked you to reflect on a couple of questions.

Specifically, what is true today about this community that you hope will still be true in 10 years?

And also, what's not true today that you hope will be true in 10 years, that you want to create

in the next 10 years, or C, and somebody said, I forget, maybe it was somebody on staff or one of you all said, what do you want the headline, I think it was Ashley who said, what do you want the headline to be, the top of the fold in 10 years.

And so what I want to do now is just share with you what those stickies were that you all wrote, because I'm not sure that you all had an opportunity to read those.

and to share with you also that after you all put those stickies up, we, our team kind of went through and read them and thank you all very much for being legible because we didn't have to make up any words.

We do have a couple of questions about a couple of them.

Yes, we got the decoder, Michael's decoderings where you're able to know how to decipher.

We put some like ideas into categories or into, we put them together.

This is our interpretation, and so this is for you to help us to make sure that these are the right categories.

Ultimately, as we group these like ideas together, you will develop what your focus areas are, to the point we were just making about where do you want to put your energy, and energy can be people and money and time, where do you want to put your energy given this conversation you've had?

around your future vision for this community.

So I'm going to share that with you, but please know that this is draft and you all can help us make the changes because you may have had something else in mind when you wrote that sticky note.

So there is a category or a group of stickies.

Some of these, if you recall, the pink are the true today, what you currently have in this community.

And then the blues were

what you don't have right now that you're going to create.

There are a number of stickies here that I think relate to the concept of equity and inclusion, creating that sense, defining equity and creating a more inclusive community.

And they are, and I'll read these off, diversity, tolerant, open-hearted populace, welcoming to different cultures, marginalized communities are integrated within the larger whole.

Residents in low-density areas will welcome more neighbors.

We've defined equity.

Charlottesville has a national reputation for a place that has and can overcome past injustices.

I'd like to have maybe a grouping here around diversity, inclusion, equity.

I'm not sure what you all would want to call it.

The next one, we'll come back to these, but I want you to hear them all first.

The next one could be something related to UVA or education, maybe even partnerships.

A good relationship with UVA.

UVA thriving.

High education attainment.

Residents still support spending for schools and affordable housing.

We have another affordable housing category.

UVA pays property tax.

Achievement gap in schools shrinks to zero.

Achievement gap is reduced.

Something about education, I would say, education or relationship with UVA.

The next category or grouping of ideas here relates to what we would call maybe something along the lines of service delivery or organizational excellence specifically related to the city organization.

dedicated staff, vacancies filled, social services and human services still great, financially stable.

The next grouping I would say is something related to open space and arts and culture, urban gardens, recreational environmental opportunities,

Cultural Enrichment Opportunities, Green Space Maintained.

This one perhaps is about sex grouping, about neighborhoods maybe, but this could go in other areas too.

Different neighborhoods, neighborhoods are more diverse and interconnected, and the corner, DTM, BRSC are thriving.

Does somebody know what we are SC?

Thank you.

And DTM is downtown.

And then this next group is about economic prosperity, individual prosperity of some sort.

Developing a middle class within our city.

Economic Development Plan Includes Community Wealth Building Strategies Wealth and Income Back Gap Reduced, African American HC Debt Free.

What is that?

I'm not sure about that.

Thank you.

Okay.

Strong Nonprofit Community

C-A-Y-I-P, which I think I learned is an internship program directed towards, is it high schoolers?

They're 14 to 24.

Another category of ideas around transportation and transit, easy access around the city, several cheap transportation options.

Efficient public transportation.

Usable, reliable transit system.

And then another category around housing.

People can afford a home, place to live, no unhoused, many housing options, decent low-income housing.

We will add at least 400 dwelling units a year for 10 years.

So those are all the ones that we kind of grew together in these categories.

We did have one outlier by itself that was strong police community relations.

I'm surprised none of us put anything down about the environment or climate.

Maybe that's just because it's sort of part of the background and context of anything we do going forward, but it seems like it's going to be something we're going to have to focus on a lot, whether we want to or not.

And maybe it's a value that transcends all of these categories in some way.

We often see that because it's more than just a thing that you do, it's how you go about your business almost.

When you look at this list and you reflect on the conversation you just had this morning about the future of this community, if these are the things that this organization

I think so, I think that for the second bullet, I think that we should include UVA, I'm not sure, you know, because that is a big part of that partnership there.

and for me I put down kind of neighborhoods because I'm thinking that we want to keep like 10th and Page and Fayetteville and Star Hill with their sense of history that they have because right now they're getting gentrified.

Some believe it's slowly other than believe it's faster but it has to be a dresser work.

It won't, it'll be, it'll still have that name, but it won't have the same sense of, you know, what made that, those, what makes that, those neighbors special.

I think it's achievable, but

is long range.

And I think for everybody in this room, long range may be a different period of time.

And they always talk about long range goals and short range goals.

And if there's some things in there that are short range

There are some in there that are, we might look at one or two of the short range ones so that the electorate can see that we're moving toward the long range ones, but they all are doable, but over time, and so the issue becomes

What is overtime?

Is it 10 years?

Well, and I would encourage you to think about these as broad categories.

This is an action yet.

You haven't gone to that action stage.

And you may have, under these broad categories, specific short-term actions that are doable within a one-year, two-year period, as well as some longer-term actions or strategies that may take

10 years.

If your goal is to shrink the wealth gap, that's not a one-year prospect.

But you may have some action steps that you can take over time to help get you there.

Excuse me.

I'm going to ask something, and if it's going to take us in too large of a

Sidetrack, just stop me, all of y'all can stop me.

But I'm looking especially back here for some help.

So equity and inclusion, they're not just buzzwords, they mean something important.

I think there's two risks with the notion of DEI.

One is that it's become just buzzwords and people want to check boxes to say, oh, we've done that.

On the other hand, there's a completely different

approach an attack on the words at least, but also on I think the underlying values that we at least in this room share, which is sad and troubles me.

But regardless, it may be equity inclusion are still the right words, but I just wonder, do those words mean anything to us now really?

And if they do, that's great.

But I wonder if there's some other

Brian, I see it as JEDI, justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.

And if you take diversity, equity, and inclusion, put it together, you're talking about justice.

And justice not only for those people that are grieved, but justice for those people that are not.

If you look at it from a justice standpoint, and what is right,

because you're trying to right a wrong.

But in righting that wrong, there may be people that have been affected that are not in that category.

People talk about slavery all the time.

People look like me on slaves.

That wasn't justice.

But when you hear people talk about slavery, they talk about people that look like you and Lloyd because they were white men.

that own slaves, but black people own slaves too.

So let's not get it twisted.

So I think if we look at it from a justice standpoint, then what is justice for the individuals that we are talking about to write whatever we're trying to write?

So Brian, what I would say with this is that I understand what you're saying, but I think that because in some sense words are cheap,

But I think that what we can do as board as we get down to it, we're going to say we're going to achieve this by assisting X amount of businesses.

We're doing it.

The New Hill development is going to help many, many

New Business, many of them business owners of color get their foot in the door.

That is how we're able to show that.

So I'm fine with the words for something like this.

I don't want to kind of just kind of think of some new fancy smancy word.

I'm fine with this, but we have to kind of put it into action, kind of maybe smart goals or whatever, but put it into action.

But for the big picture, I'm fine with that.

But for the economic prosperity, I think that if we put down

for our residents and city because if the city is not prospering with, you know, what I put down here, the corner, the downtown hall, the back of our businesses where we are getting income and we won't be able to do a lot of things we have to support our

businesses and make sure we have a healthy economy so that we have the resources of a city to help with housing, to help with maybe some innovative transit type of thing.

In my mind, I think

Yeah, I mean, I think the words are fine.

In my mind, one of the most important things is defining the high-level benchmarks of success or, like, in my mind, like,

that are connected to material reality so there's something real impacting people's lives and you can measure are we going backwards, forwards, treading water and in my mind two of the biggest ones would be the wealth and income gap as well as the achievement gap in our community and if you could have those measurable specific goals that kind of guides policy

Before we get there though, let me ask Do you feel like neighborhoods should be a separate bullet that's outbending from that?

I want to be careful because I do think this issue, I will just say, what I've heard you all talk a lot about is economic prosperity for the residents.

but that and that to Michael's point about the achievement gap and the income gap is clearly something that is that is prevalent among a lot of the conversation you have and so I don't want to I don't want to dilute that by adding too much to that that broad category that's that's I would just say that's a question that I would have for you all as you think about actionable steps that you would take in each of these areas

How do you want to communicate out to the community what your priority focus areas are?

Which leads me to two questions that I have for you now.

Back to this list, is there anything missing from this list that you think is critical for this organization and this governing body to focus on?

And the second question, are there some categories here that are very similar that could be combined to the point of, as we talked earlier about prioritization and not wanting to do too much?

This is a pretty big, long list of a lot of really hard things.

I have the same thought because we spent a lot of our resources on affordable housing.

But I think we have to ask our question.

That's not the question.

To what extent does that improve the prosperity of the beneficiaries?

Keeping them the same or are they moving ahead?

I think prosperity, when we're trying to improve prosperity of citizens,

It's about the wealth gap.

How do you create additional wealth?

And the principal way in this country has been through home ownership.

So how do you, is there a portion of our resources that should be devoted to home ownership assistance program for low-income communities?

There's a whole lot that goes with that in terms of financial literacy, improving credit, etc.

But is there a body of work on the city side?

I think we're talking about creating a middle class.

Which is, in the affordable housing plan, a lot of our investments has been home ownership.

I mean, I still feel like it should be its own bullet because it's connected, but it's almost like Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

You can't do any of that if you don't have a safe place to live.

And right now, there are a lot of people in our community who don't even have that.

And it's like until you get that baseline, how do you even start to build?

Although I agree, it has to be connected to that bigger vision of community personal wealth building and land trust and other things that allow people to build wealth and move up.

I can see it's such a big issue that it perhaps needs to be its own bullet, its own strategic outcome area.

I mean, not only do you want to improve where people live,

but you have to improve their ability to do those things.

We're talking home ownership, workforce development so they can have a decent job that pays $21 to $25 an hour if that's what it takes.

And credit management and budgeting and all of those things.

So to improve the housing situation,

so that I can have a decent place to live.

Once I have that place to live, I must be able to stay in that place.

And so when you have the housing bucket, I think we have to make sure all of the things that we have to do so that when I get the house, I can keep the house.

So let's keep it separate for now.

separate from economic prosperity, knowing that there's a strong relationship between the two.

So let me go back to the first question.

I think it's a pretty good list.

I think the way we

Let me ask a question about the bullets three and four.

Service delivery, organizational excellence, recreation and amenities, arts and culture.

Is there a correlation between those two?

I see them as different.

Five and Nine.

Neighborhoods, sense of place, history.

There was a sticky note that talked about community, excuse me, police relations, the community relation with the police department.

However, I also heard what I would argue perhaps might be missing from this list that you all talked about yesterday was that community relations piece.

There was the trust, rebuilding trust and engagement with the community.

That wasn't in any of those sticky notes other than that police one.

And I wonder if that's part of creating that sense of place and engagement

I mean, I definitely see that as different.

I see that number nine is vital.

I think that the chief conscience is really going a long way in narrowing the relationship, particularly with the community of color.

There's a big trust.

that went away after 2017 and it's going to take me some time to build that up.

So, I'm not here, I'm African American, but I'm not speaking for the entire community, I haven't spoken to every one of them, but I think that the community of color, you know, that we have crime in our community and we want the police to be there, but that trust was broken, and so

It takes time to build it back up and now it is done.

I definitely agree and I think in our community and country, police is just such a specific issue.

And that's what I wanted to hear you all articulate, just to be clear, because that could be a very broad category, but if you want to have action steps in number nine, it's going to lead with the relationship with the next one.

So I think that's just important to articulate.

And then maybe talk a little bit about number five, neighborhood, sense of place, history.

What does that look like?

that there's certain neighborhoods in the community that have a history, you know, a cultural history or a significant history, not looking at the negative things.

There's a section called Fifeville.

There's a section called Kellytown.

There's another section that probably has another name.

But because of the way gentrification is happening in the Star Hill neighborhood and the Fifeville neighborhood, pretty soon it'll

those neighborhoods will be eclipsed by other things.

and so there's a historical context and a sense of place as it relates to those particular neighborhoods and the people that live in those neighborhoods have a certain allegiance to where they live and I don't think anyone in this room, I don't care whether you are an employee or an elected or appointed official,

want to see those neighborhoods end up like Vinegar Hill.

I just don't believe that.

There's nothing in me that believes that.

And that's why I think the neighborhood's sense of place and history is important.

We don't have a choice.

Neighborhood identity.

Yep.

And the way I see that is that it may be tied into our housing plan because we just need to do what we can do to keep residents that are there now in them, whether it's tax abatement, whether it's a case where some student, I mean, some

Children are able to come back and buy a home in the neighborhood to kind of keep it, you know, the sense because someone who come in there and buy a house for $300,000 and tear it down and put up someone else and put up a much different house, you know, they're not bad people.

They have an opportunity.

They want to come to this great city and they sense, but we need to do what we can to try to

I agree with all of that.

I think the other piece of this is the fact that so many of the people living here are renters.

And so homeownership is a crucial part of this, but particularly with the zoning right that's underway, I think people are going to have to reimagine what a neighborhood is, can be, and find

Even if it's not a traditional notion of a neighborhood, it's all houses that are all one-zoned, and instead you've got a patchwork quilt of higher density spaces, duplexes, quadplexes, or whatever.

I think there's a looking to the past when it comes to neighborhoods.

That's important in terms of their history, particularly for the places that Leah just mentioned that are under a lot of displacement pressure.

But I think we're going to have to reimagine what neighborhood belonging looks like when we're talking about a zoning rewrite like what we're talking about.

If you look at the future land use map, and I think that's what

I think for many people, I think the sense of fear that they have about that is they are going to lose their sense of place.

But I'm hoping, hopeful that we can be transformed and not totally abandoned, but changed and evolving into something different that's still good.

Let me now ask you about number two.

It's a broad category right now.

Education, partnerships, achievement, UVA.

Our relationship with UVA after the city, the city government's relationship with UVA doesn't have very much to do with UVA as an educational institution.

It has to do with UVA as the largest employer and not so much education.

Well, I mean, it's also, I shouldn't say it's only as, UVA is the largest employer, UVA is the largest influence on our land use and bringing in the people who are forcing us to create new housing opportunities and that kind of thing, bringing in perhaps people who

you know high-tech spin-offs on Preston Avenue or someplace it's just a whole lot of things but what's important I put up there the fact that one of my things is true today that I hope will be true in ten years that our good relationship with UVA as being really almost an inchoic kind of thing we're actually talking to them now when we weren't actually talking to them five years ten years ago

and getting some meaningful communication about some of these things.

So I actually got an answer for the first time in 40 years.

I got an answer to the question of, do you have a plan for how much you intend to grow?

And for the first time in 40 years, I got an answer.

I can't tell you how relieving that is.

So should, and part of what I'm wondering, again, if number six, that economic prosperity is really about individual prosperity, I've also heard a lot of conversation around the role that education plays in prosperity, individual education, is, do we need to separate out two, number two, specifically call out a focus area on something like developing and maintaining partnership with UVA

And then you have something else around education.

I would say that what Mayor Snook just said, if you pulled out partnership and focused on collaboration or regional collaboration, what's missing is Albemarle County.

And others, yeah.

I mean, for instance, to resolve the regional transportation issue, it's more than the county and UVA involved.

So the last question I think I have, and Katherine will check me if there's something else that we need to talk about here, is number 11.

Brian mentioned that as a consideration.

You all talked about how that is certainly part of your conversations.

I think it has to be.

That's a lot.

Seems like though, every one of them is important.

Yeah.

So what's your assignment?

Yeah.

And we'll kind of come back after the break to do this.

What we're going to be... Sorry.

What we're going to be doing after the break is working in the small groups to actually start to draft what some of these things mean.

These words mean different things to different people and what do they mean here?

What do they mean for you?

What is it that you all specifically are committing to do in these areas?

What does success look like for you?

and so we're going to have you break into three groups.

Are those the right words?

Do we need to have other words that really reflect what it is that we're trying to achieve?

And for some, we're probably pretty close.

And so what does success look like in this area?

So we'll spend a little bit of time with you all if you're drafting that.

We do have some examples, so you can be kind of thinking through what format you might like, but one of the examples that we have is from a city.

The area, they called it historical, equitable, and just.

So the city acknowledges all elements of its history and recognizes that a better understanding of the collective past results in a more open and inclusive community.

The city is committed to intentionally acknowledging, removing, and preventing barriers created by systemic and institutional injustice.

Equity is considered as decisions are made and services are provided to the community.

This is the sort of thing that we're asking you to give some thought to so that it's very clear what it is that we're trying to achieve and what's important to us.

There's a vision statement that's overarching for everything, and then it's almost small vision statements for each of these areas.

So we're gonna divide the six of you up into pairs of two.

And this is the opportunity where you can phone a friend from staff that's here in the room to be part of your group to help you develop that mini vision statement.

As you go off to your break, we'll ask for volunteers for who's really interested in doing that first draft of a vision.

And I mentioned earlier that the staff, when we met a couple of weeks ago with the staff leadership team, they took a stab at an organizational mission statement, sort of the purpose for why the organization exists.

and values, organizational values, ways in which the behaviors that they expect the organization to behave when they're working with each other as well as with the community.

And so I am going to ask for some volunteers from staff.

to work on refining that organizational mission and values that they will present back to you all before the end of the day today too.

So that's sort of my note to staff that you all will have some work to do when we come back from break and you all may be tapped to be part of a group or one of these groups.

Okay.

And I think as we break into groups, I think I'm going to volunteer with the city manager and the mayor to work together, and I think I will volunteer the vice mayor and Michael to work together as a team, and Brian and Mr. Prair to work together as a team.

So you all can huddle, and the draft choice here, pick your categories, and if there's a group of you two that would really like to work on the vision,

Yes.

All right, so let's take, we'll take 10 minutes because you all have some time.

I'm going to write categories.

Okay.

And just to be clear, you all will have an opportunity to review all of these.

Okay.

So first stab at the division is going to be the mayor and the city manager.

All right.

So you're looking for us to... We are looking for your cares to spend some time on four of these areas.

So Michael and I, one of ours will be number 10.

Okay.

Number, you might need to chime in.

Number three, do you have any answers?

Okay, Brian, we're going to do three and five.

What?

Somehow they decided they were going to claim all their four off top.

That's all right, Brian.

We have the best team.

Whatever you say, Leah.

Yeah.

So, recreation and amenities?

Alright, pick another one, Brian.

I guess Jedi.

I love Star Wars.

Well, how would you do that?

I would've got to come up with two more, Brian.

I suppose if we have the city manager, we ought to have four.

9 and 11.

I think you guys want two.

Yes, Brian, we want two.

Okay, do we have four now?

We have three.

Do you have neighborhood identity?

We do?

No.

Okay.

Whatever happens when the stickies come up is on you.

What we're going to be doing now, I'll keep this up for the moment.

Again, the assignment is to take each of these categories and first make sure that you're comfortable with the words at the top.

Some of them, right now we've got some brainstormed ideas for what the categories can be.

We'll want you all to spend some time reflecting on what those category names should be.

We'll also give you all of the true today and true in 10 years stickies, so you will have that information to draw from as you're working to create success statements for your four areas.

So essentially what we're looking for is what does success in this area look like here for Charlottesville?

Five years from now, 10 years from now, beyond, what is it that we're trying to achieve in this particular area?

Oftentimes these are a sentence or two.

In some cases, it's easier to do bullets.

We'll work with you all to make sure that the formatting is consistent.

We'll make sure that it reads from one author, but we want to make sure that you all are able to capture the ideas that really define what success you're looking for over the next, specifically for this plan, five years and beyond.

Can you go back to the previous slide?

One of you will need to be a scribe because we'll need to collect or at least be able to type up what you come up with.

I don't know if they want to.

Where do you want to go outside?

So I think that's what we're going to do before lunch, which as Michelle said is in just a minute, is kind of go through group by group, and all we're going to do is kind of share what's been developed so far, and then as we do a working lunch, we'll start to kind of dig into what all of these look like.

So, Mayor, I think that your slides are first.

The first thing I would say is that we decided that given vision statement, mission statement, all the other different statements we could make, that a vision statement should simply be as broad as possible.

In this case,

We sort of brainstormed about a list of people who work and live and play and do business and so on should thrive.

Okay.

So the vision that you all developed was to be a place where all can thrive.

Okay.

In fact, we're going to have a conversation around each of these, but we'll go through them first.

All four of yours are together.

Well, this is mostly focused on the internal operation of government and the focus of being providing well-trained staff to provide excellent service.

And the presumption is to everyone.

playing into the vision statement.

Well, I mean, the good news is here we've already got our mission statement in a sense, or at least our mission statement, I mean, that's the 2030, 2050 benchmarks.

And so,

We really didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it.

We've already adopted it as a group.

I see no reason to change it.

We just want to be a leader in improving the environment through climate plan implementation.

We've got the plan.

So as far as what we're trying to achieve, that one is pretty well defined and you all have already spent a lot of time and effort working on that area.

All right.

Well, and this is also something where there's a much more detailed planning effort underway, which without

assuming too much we figure within the next year or so we will have a plan that will move us toward what I believe to be the proper goal for us to be a reliable regional transportation system for everyone to access by choice and one key word is transportation as opposed to simply transit

Okay, so those were your four areas.

I believe that arts and culture is next, so that was Leah who's in front.

Okay, we'll start with you all.

What we did was we looked at all of the various things that came into each one of our categories and we developed a statement accordingly.

Kind of brainstormed what we thought sort of fell out of the sticky notes and then we summed it up.

So yeah, Charlottesville encourages and supports a wide range of recreation, arts,

in cultural spaces.

I didn't know that in programming, maybe you could take that.

And by spaces, I mean the more broad metaphorical sense of places, programs, opportunities.

And then, for example, we had youth programs, African-American film festivals, and so on.

Those weren't meant to be.

I think recreation should be in there.

Yeah.

I don't think we need amenities.

No.

I think you could take out from the end maybe.

Yes.

Okay, so that title was education slash achievement.

and we left it as education.

Am I right, Brian?

I think so, yeah.

Yes.

Charlottesville provides a broad and well-integrated set of educational opportunities to children, youth, and adults ranging from early childhood and K through 12 through continuing career technical education and community college.

Okay.

Okay, and you were her identity?

Yeah, Charlottesville builds upon and towards a community of neighborhoods, each of which have distinct identities, and which provide rich opportunities for living, recreating, and I would say commerce.

And that was hard.

We worked on that one.

It was hard.

Oh.

Here for me.

Annually or every five years to discuss growth, major projects, et cetera.

Each promises to listen first and then make efforts to address negative impacts.

Realizing that public safety is paramount for all, every citizen will be treated with respect and dignity by police.

Economic development will be the engine that drives prosperity in the city.

Charlottesville will intentionally provide and create strategies for all of its citizens to benefit from economic prosperity.

Charlesville will define the right to housing as a human right and ensure that it be provided for all.

There will be housing choices for resident mobility.

So at this point, oh, do you want to do the mission and the values?

Okay.

Staff, who is your spokesperson for the mission and to the values?

So we, for the mission, this is one that we've worked on previously.

is a diverse and compassionate organization dedicated to providing excellence in public service for a resilient and sustainable community.

And keep in mind that when we talk about organizational mission, different from the vision for the full community, this is the purpose of essentially your city organization.

So that statement and the reason that your staff leadership develops it is because that is how the organization will function, the ideal for how the organization will function.

I'm not sure we totally landed, but I think for now the consensus was correct me if I'm wrong if I believe that word, but there were some discussions about that word.

Do you mind bringing it one more time?

All right, there was vigorous discussion about multiple values.

And again, as reminders, these are organizational values, not necessarily community values, although there's probably some overlap in what you value in your community.

Was there a reason that trust is not running near value?

Oh, it's a part of integrity.

So at this point you all have seen kind of where the first draft of the framework is going.

So we'll go get lunch, we'll come back, we'll probably do a working lunch to talk through each of these and make sure that the words really reflect what it is that we want them to, that it's clear and concise and folks understand what it is that we're talking about in all of these areas.

But it's a little sparse.

Thoughts on what you would change or modify?

Yeah, I mean, I'm fine with that.

So I'm glad you're fine with it, but when my kids come home from school,

and I say, how was your day?

The answer I always get, fine.

It was fine.

I don't know, okay.

Okay.

Okay, fine.

So I guess I'm 57 years old, probably between school board and various nonprofits and work that I may have done.

several hundred vision statements.

It's going to take a hell of a life to, like, wow.

You know, and so, I mean, I don't know if it's one that's going to say, yes, that's us, and if it does, it's probably going to be too long to put your hands.

How about, not to just add to anything material to it, but

He doesn't want it to sound flat.

But I think what Brian is saying is it's not that he doesn't like it, but he doesn't think it packs a punch.

Ernest Hemingway would say you don't need to add adjectives and adverbs.

This particular amendment doesn't.

What about to be a place where we all can thrive?

So we've added we, as opposed to you all.

This is a place where all of us can thrive.

I think when you add those words of we, it does personalize it.

Could be a place where all of us can thrive.

We heard that.

We're in our body.

Now it's on tape.

Mr. Sen, who's helping me?

Can we just chat GPT?

You can chat GPT.

It was something when you said something.

It was the last thing you said, and it's not up there.

But what about the folks who don't feel like they're part of the us?

Right.

It becomes exclusionary.

To be a place where we can all thrive.

That's what it just says.

To be a place where all can thrive.

I'd like to say this is part of the strategic plan.

All right, well, let's go with it for now.

Like I said, nothing's written in stone and this will all come back to you and you can sit on it, sit with it.

The idea to be Charlottesville, Charlottesville's vision is to be a place where all can thrive.

I like that, but I'm thinking that what it was where everyone thrives.

To be a place where everyone thrives.

And just, sorry, comment a little bit on how we got to where we got to.

The current vision is to be one community filled with opportunity and at least one thought of the

the rhetoric around equity is that equity is not opportunity which implies everybody has an equal chance of seeing the baseball game whether you're four feet tall or six feet tall with no defense but rather the sense that we have an equality of results where everybody gets the same results and that's not an opportunity question.

So you like that?

We don't want to get too down in the weeds with a vision statement, because if it gets too heavy, then who wants to be here?

I mean, a vision statement when you're doing your

your PR campaigns and your marketing campaigns.

If I lived in Kalamazoo, Michigan, oh, well maybe I want to give Charlottesville a try.

But if it's so, why should I go there?

And we're trying to get away from the, right?

Okay.

I just picked it.

It could have been Jabliff, Texas.

I don't care.

All right, we're going to go with it for now.

And now Katherine's going to move on to the outcome areas.

And so at this point, I think that we want to kind of go through each one and make sure that the language captures what it is that success looks like in this area.

So I think that the first one should have something in there about in addition to being well trained that they're well compensated and happy or morale is high or something like that.

Do you understand what it is that we're trying to achieve in this area?

And organizational excellence to provide a well-trained staff to provide excellent service delivery.

And do we like the title Organizational Excellence?

Part of what we also need to do is make sure that we like the categories because Julie's going to start using pen and we can typically all do later, but... Yeah, I like that, Organizational Excellence.

But that's an important piece of all of these, that there will have to be measurements and metrics that go, how do you know that you have a well-trained, thriving staff to use your word proposition?

Okay, we'll move on to the next one.

Usually the notion of resilience in this setting means our ability to cope with threats with flying.

I mean, the recent threat, or whatever it was we just had a couple nights ago, the only real problem was flying.

I think we're less in, although we're concerned about that, what our climate action plan has been directed toward

is frankly things that go beyond our borders.

Charlottesville, as Charlottesville, is not likely to be greatly adversely affected as the greenhouse gases rise, as the sea levels rise.

But we have an obligation for the rest of the world to act now or to act or should have acted 10 years ago or 20 years ago.

So I think putting the resilience kind of narrows the focus in a way that I'm not sure.

Is it responsibility?

I think the word climate needs to be in there.

Maybe just climate, just keep it climate.

I guess maybe the language like just be explicit about like addressing tackling climate change rather than just like generally improving it.

Yes, Climate Action.

All right, Nolan.

All right, anything else on climate action?

Is there anything else that needs to be included in the statement?

Is there anything that is missing that you all feel like is important to kind of call out at a high level to help people understand what it is we're trying to achieve?

All right, once, twice, sold, and on to transportation.

Yeah, I think the only thing I would add in there again is something to the effect of affordable or economical or cost effectiveness.

Because we could have a good transit service from here to call, but it could cost $50 a day

How about accessible?

Would that cover financial peace as well?

Just because something's accessible

Yeah, I guess I'll be accessible more than just like ADA type.

So, do we like affordable there?

Um, I mean, I see what you're saying.

We've got it, you know, twice access.

Access wasn't what I had in mind.

That's what I find.

Yeah, the parentheticals at this point are just for me to make sure that we go back and work with them.

And is transportation the category name?

Yeah.

Okay.

And then what key?

So Katherine's going to hit me.

On transportation, it can be reliable.

Maybe you've got this covered when you say it by choice.

It can be both.

You can have a system that's reliable and affordable.

And the general feeling is that this is taking a very broad look at transportation, so this includes kind of all of the different multimodal options, and the system is the broad system.

Yeah, I came up with, I was the one who proposed the word spaces, but I think that it might be better to say a wide range of recreation arts and cultural

We had that in our notes, remember?

But we felt we were using opportunity a lot, so we looked up different words.

Well, thus far, that was the first time we would have used the word opportunity.

So claim it.

Take it now.

I think that we had already kind of talked about the category heading, the recreation arts culture, that is the heading that you all are good with.

Okay.

I think so.

That's kind of clear to everyone what it is that we're trying to accomplish, what we're trying to do, provide lots of different opportunities in these different areas.

The next one is education.

This was Charlottesville provides a broad and well-integrated set of educational opportunities to children, teens, and adults ranging from early childhood to K-12 through CTE and community college.

Is education the title?

Is that the word?

Sure.

Okay.

I like that.

Someone who was on the school board who was on the

trustee board for the community college, who was on the foundation board for KTAC.

I have a question on this one.

I think we talked about having more regular updates by courts of court with the school board so that, you know, for me, I've only been here a year and close and a half, I guess, and

Feels like we talk with the city where they need stuff, which I can appreciate at budget time, but I think a more frequent, maybe quarterly sort of conversation with them about what's going on, what are they seeing, how might we be able to support them in the future, those kinds of things would help me so that I'm not talking to them only during budget season.

And the five million dollars that we've provided to the school who want to acquire K-TAC.

We discussed it simply just because you didn't give us a chance.

And so my question is, as a city, as the governing body of the city, what is your jurisdiction in this area?

I think it's asked a little differently.

While these may be incredibly important

areas to focus on for the community when you start to think about what you all as the governing body can do in this area.

Yeah, for me it's largely about money, funding these very large $90 million project.

Fortunately, we've got this amazing grant that just came through, but these are huge commitments for our community and we're the ones ultimately who are paying for them.

And then the same for funding a school operation.

So not at all everyone needs to sort of be in the weeds with their policies and so forth.

I just have a sense of what's going on and what we can expect during the budget season for the next year.

I think so.

And I think the distinction here is that you all are not the direct service providers of this.

You all are helping to support it.

So this exists in this community, this level of education, and your role as a governing body is to help support it.

Could be financially, could be through regular conversations and staying abreast of what the school board is doing, but you are not the people, you, and I'd say that collectively with staff, are not the people who are actually providing K-12 education.

in this area.

I think that's why we said supports because the city government historically has been a great supporter of the city schools and to that end not only do they follow the formula whatever the formula is and you think after 16 years I know but I don't so don't don't ding me on this Chrissy

but whatever the formula is they have always supported from that formula and beyond and being in the Commonwealth of Virginia knowing the number of school districts in the Commonwealth people are amazed that a city of our size takes such care and interest in

But to answer perhaps some of the background of your question, it seems to me there are two things that the city, as the city council does or should be doing.

The first is that the workforce development

discussion that is going to build off KTEC is going to involve city funds and city programs and city committees and so on in addition to KTEC and schools and

My sense of things has been that the workforce development program that I hope you will come out with, say in the next six months or so, would embrace KTEC and the schools as a part of that, but it's not really just a matter of us supporting that, it is a matter of us incorporating them and KTEC into a broader framework.

The second thing is that

As it relates to, for example, third grade reading scores or something like that, that we have to acknowledge that the kids who are taking those tests in the third grade at the schools are going back to, in many cases, homes that are not productive.

and our best answer to help them succeed in school is to do something better about the conditions at home.

And so I think you get to that when you say

when they say support, because there's a ton of those things already going on with different nonprofits in the community now.

And I do wonder if there's an opportunity in this language, because there's nothing in here, maybe career, or maybe CTE, maybe community college, but I know that's not

You aren't the providers of community college, but you are supporting it.

Is there something to say that your role is about supporting

Programming for Workforce Development.

That's not in here.

I think saying we support a broad and well-integrated

The integration piece here is important.

Set of opportunities for children.

So to me that's like saying we're doing all of these things.

We're doing it in a way that's hopefully thoughtful and coordinated.

I know I think we've said provides and you've said supports, so that's great.

She's working her way up.

I'll tell you how to speak up first.

And education for what we are doing and what the priorities appear to be from Council's action is more appropriate in my opinion of the partnerships category.

and it would then be highlighting that there needs to be a better collaboration, a better partnership between the city government and the city schools.

I can agree with that.

I see your point, but it just seems like such a crucial thing that we support.

You know, some of the language that we were just using today,

The Workforce Board that we have to sit on, we had our retreat for the strategic plan Thursday a few days ago.

Thank you, Sena.

And some of the same language that they were using here, you know, that, you know, for them it's a much region nine and ten, that those localities, you know, I was in a room with Board of Super Bowl members from Culpepper and Madison,

They're saying that we need to support education as far as workforce training, education, type of thing.

Yeah, I mean, this is one of those things, I understand what Sam is saying is that, you know, this is one of those areas where we have partnerships in the community.

We don't, you know, we don't have Charlottesville Department of Education, you know, per se, but I'm fine with, you know, putting it under, as long as we have it somewhere in the community, we know that this is a big part of, really ties into

Economic Prosperity, because education, kind of like all learning, kind of goes hand in hand.

I was going to also echo what Sam had said about moving education under partnerships because in the spaces where human services exist, education isn't just what happens in school.

A lot of research is done about school programming and how the wraparound services can support education.

So we work, those are things that we are direct service providers of, but we also partner with other nonprofits

to do the wraparound with what education is from a holistic standpoint.

Well, let's even talk about

Yeah, I mean, it used to be the case that the city council appointed the school board, right?

So it's kind of a weird thing.

In a way it is a partnership, but in another way

We fund their budget in a different way than like our partnership with PBCC community college.

But city council affords their PBCC rep.

We don't fund their budget.

No you don't.

In a way in city schools it's not a department of the city but sometimes it feels like it because when they come to us every year

We are very much involved in, to me, it does not need to be, okay, we sign off on a blank check every year of what they say they need.

It needs to be more of a discussion of why they say what they need to help us understand that more of a conversation, I think, than I've seen so far.

And when you talk about these humongous projects that are on our CIP, the city's CIPs, not on the school board's CIP,

To me, that's something the city has to really be on top of.

To me, I don't see that as just a partnership.

It is a partnership, but it's more than just like dealing with the county or with UVA.

But school districts in the Commonwealth can't carry debt service.

I understand all of that.

Right, so that's another reason

That's another reason for you making your point.

It's not like we live in New Jersey or Pennsylvania or Connecticut where there's an education fee for every resident even if you rent.

And those monies go towards maintaining

the schools and the salaries and the this, that, and the third.

Well, to me, it would be like holding the school board accountable.

We're paying.

We are the conduit between the citizens who pay their real estate tax

the money it takes to run the school board.

So for me, part of it is, OK, I'm holding accountable is not the right word because they're elected by the citizens at large.

But questioning, OK, you need this amount of money for this, this, and this, what is the return on that?

I think we have a really important role in that conversation.

I was just going to say that I actually agree with the comments that my coworkers have made.

To me, the line about education just tells me that the city can make fun and stuff for the city.

It's the measuring part.

That's where your focus has to continue to be because you're setting this as an outcome that you want to achieve.

You've got to measure how you get there.

And that's the part that feels as though.

It's not necessarily a stand-alone because you don't have control over the outcome.

For a different way to think about it, sir, is that kind of above the bold notion that I talk about often.

What could your city staff in its current configuration do to achieve those?

Other than really Missy's team

We don't have a lot with K-12, with PBCC, we don't complement or provide programming for them, nor could we necessarily tell Superintendent Gurley how to do his programming and his work.

So as far as the deliverable for you, what could we, the people who have to sit on the side for you, what could we do?

to help support that, whereas kind of all of, at least almost all of your other ones, there's something that your city staff can do to provide a medical deliverable for you.

Well, I think that you all have and do.

We've got a whole team working on Buford Middle School.

I understand that, but it's part of supporting these opportunities.

I mean, that is like

the biggest thing that we're doing in the city right now so I understand what you're saying from like an operational perspective it's hands-off and sometimes I feel like it's it's too hands-off because again we're asked to fund these things and I realize we have a different hat than they do but I for one struggle every year when I'm basically

I won't call it a fait accompli, but basically this is what we're planning to do, this is what we've decided we need you to pay for it.

To take it out of the realm of

being more or less a KPI, a performance indicator.

I was gonna suggest, I think some of the wording on here is almost too specific.

When you start talking about early childhood through K-12, because you all don't do that.

You in this room aren't responsible for that.

To your point, it's the school board's responsibility to do that.

You are not the direct service providers.

You are supporting what they do.

And so your role in this is support.

I think the question on the table is,

I think what Michael just said makes sense by supporting the Charlottesville school board come up I guess

Does that work?

If their support, they're providing financial support.

You believe in the mission and vision of public school education for the city of Charlottesville.

But as the governing body, you provide financial support.

So if you wanted it to be a standalone, could you not say something

like Charlottesville provides financial support for the continued something for the public schools and then it could be a standalone but it would talk about financial commitment or would you still think, Sam, that it should be a partnership because you are providing financial support.

I'm just asking you and Chrissy

It could be that, but if you're asking my opinion, yeah.

Okay.

No, it's because of the need for the investment and the desire for more influence on the outcome is why I lean to a partnership because there's medical work to be done to make that possible.

I see.

All I put you have is Charlottesville, the best of the broader level of the great incentive by educational opportunities by supporting the Charlottesville School Board CTE providers for EPCC.

I like that.

So let's go to partnerships for a minute.

So that was the vice mayor and Michael, I believe.

You talked about partnerships.

Yours is the city, county, UVA and other major community partners will meet annually or every five years to discuss growth, major projects, etc.

Yeah, I guess outside the specific language the point was the goal being creating more routine processes for these partners to have real meaningful discussions and that they'll be done in a way that is you can at least measure

What if any actions are changing as a result of the conversations?

And then I heard Brian talk about when the school board comes before the council to ask for funding, wanting to understand more about how that funding is going to have impact.

or State of Goals?

Presumably when you're talking to UVA, you may have some goals, or if you're talking to the county, you may have some goals.

I mean, I think we're kind of, maybe this is

to the point of splitting hairs.

One of the things that I, as a personal city council, think about a lot is education.

And for me, I need to have that in the bucket that I'm focused on.

I completely understand and respect the fact that from an operational point of view, if you're looking, if you're working within the city organization, you're going to see it in different terms.

You're going to see it as this is my counterpart, that I'm Kim Powell or whomever.

So I don't think we have to get it that tidy.

There will be partnerships that overlap.

We have partnerships for public safety, like for housing, for example.

We've got partnerships with local nonprofits.

So I think partnerships, partnering and everything that's involved in working well with others is kind of like its own thing, and we can put different partners in there, if that makes sense.

It's the activity of building and maintaining strong partnerships.

and I think it's not only the city, the county, UVA.

Yeah, I understand what you're saying.

It's hard for me to change hats after being on the school board for 16 years.

And so I understand what you're saying.

I recall a joint session several years ago when I was chair of the school board when I heard a similar conversation.

I'm making a statement.

Okay, city council, you guys stay in your lane.

And we stand out because

We were starting to get into things that was impacting us as a school board like what should we do about housing because we can't attract teachers and Rosa was like no we need to deal with education and I'm afraid that as I look at this more that as we the dust settles when we're looking at this it's going to be hard for us to measure the

our impact on education.

We let Dr. Gurley, the school board, and the teachers determine what's the best widget to use to address that.

Yeah, I'm not suggesting that at all.

I think Councilman Pinkston's point is he cares deeply about education and on any strategic plan he thinks there ought to be a category for education that exemplifies the city's commitment to that area and how we noodle with that and making sure that is accurate that's what's important here

I think we do invest in the Charlottesville School Board.

They are responsible for the operations, et cetera.

We do invest in some of the career technical education providers, the C-Tech, K-Tech investment is one.

But we don't really invest in PBCC.

We have connections too.

Yeah, you have connections to them.

Probably.

Because what you don't want to happen is what Warren is saying.

And I appreciate what everyone around the room has said.

But you don't want your

financial support or your financial commitment to end up micromanaging another unit.

You give money to police.

You give money to fire.

You give money to social services.

You give money to the schools.

I mean, I know you give money to other things, but those are big items that you give to.

But you don't micromanage any of them

Again, I'm not at all talking about micro-managing.

I'm just talking about basic sorts of accountability and conversations.

When the police come to us or the fire department come to us, we very much are overseeing what they're doing.

I feel like we're in their weeds telling them how to run their work, but there's a definite sort of accountability conversation.

I appreciate that the school board

is its own kind of beast.

I have no desire to be in their lane in terms of educational attainments or any of those things.

But when I learned at one point that 40% of all new revenue goes to the school board, well, that's a policy thing.

That's not written in stone anywhere.

And I feel like that's a huge amount of money for me to have no sort of like

conversation with, so for example, one of the things that came up this past budget season that was very helpful to me was when they laid out the percentage of students who don't speak English as their first language.

I think it's like 20%.

Well, that immediately explained to me, okay, that's one reason why we need to be making these investments.

So to me, I think we're just, for me, I think having it as a separate bucket is important.

I don't know.

I think we accept that and move on.

I think we're trying not to use the word support twice in one sentence.

With, yeah.

Okay.

The city schools, K-Tech, EBCC.

Right, right.

And then we've made some adjustments to the partnerships definition based on some of this conversation.

And as much as you would like to obligate everybody to promise to listen first,

I'm guessing that you don't have the power to make everybody listen first.

So what we've written there is Charlottesville creates avenues for meaningful interactions with partners and key stakeholders such as the county, UVA, and nonprofits to magnify positive community outcomes.

It's right here.

It's all right here for her.

She is ChatGPT.

There you go.

Yeah, so this was us.

Charlottesville built upon, so I wanted, we, Leah and I wanted to have a sense of, the word preservation has got too many sort of connotations to it or resonances, but

The notion of building upon what exists and also towards a future that we want builds upon and towards a community of neighborhoods.

So it's kind of a neighborhood of neighborhoods is what we want in the city, each of which have distinct identities and each of which provide rich opportunities for living, recreating or playing, and commerce.

I think it's important to include homeowners, renters, and businesses.

I think Michael Payne always reminds us about the fact that, is it 60% of the city's renters?

Yeah.

I have a couple of thoughts in response to this.

The first, just to be utterly nitpicky, is each is a singular noun and therefore would take a singular provides and has.

The second thought is that if we're talking about distinct identities of neighborhoods, I just look at Belmont, which has a distinctly different field now from what it had 30 years ago.

and if we start thinking about, if we put the sense of the feel of the neighborhood into this prominent a place, does it begin to feel too much like we're trying to just use

I wonder if we just take the entire category out because in discussing it I'm struggling to think what would the performance indicators or measurements ever be for

neighborhood identity, and it's kind of like classrooms and housing.

We're thinking about gentrification, displacement.

We didn't want any of the neighborhoods to end up like McGonagher Hill.

But if you look in the Star Hill neighborhood,

how all the buildings on West Main Street, whether they're restaurants or apartments or whatever they are, have impacted that neighborhood.

Now some people say it's a negative impact.

Some people say it's a positive impact.

And Belmont is different because it has a lot of smaller businesses now than it did before where it was more residential.

Yeah, I mean, I'm the one that I think initially put that down.

It's kind of, we want to preserve that.

It's one of the things that makes Charlottesville special.

But I understand how it can be difficult for staff, even us, to measure that.

Right.

But I think that one of some of the things that Michael and I were talking about in the housing was, you know, we measure, like, the number of affordable units

that we produce and that we lost and home ownership rate, I think that if we did that, that would help us, that would help with the neighborhood identity.

So anyway, I'm saying that maybe that could be something that could be under housing, you know, because it's the people in my mind.

and houses that really makes those neighborhoods.

It's a few small businesses in there, but it's primarily those homes that people live in.

So is maintaining that neighborhood identity then part of housing?

Sounds like it.

It could be.

Well, maybe we can come up with another word.

Yeah, that's where Michael was.

And we were trying to address that under the category of neighborhood identity.

as a neighborhood, as an area or neighborhood of the city grows and develops, it doesn't displace the people that live there, like Vinegar Hill was displaced.

I mean, that's what Brian and I were saying.

We don't want that to happen.

And it very easily can happen.

And it can happen in any place in the city.

I was just wondering how the current zoning rewrite works into preserving neighborhood identity with all of the proposals for new types of buildings within neighborhoods and different types of housing in the various neighborhoods you want to integrate income levels.

Does that preserve neighborhood identity?

And I don't really equate

I think that's right.

I think that's right.

I think if we assume that there will be housing choices for resident mobility then we can assume that

Neighborhoods will evolve on top of that, and some of the ones we have will change, some of them will completely evolve in different directions, but we can assume that neighborhoods would follow from housing.

I think, I guess if you've got the right to housing as a human right, maybe we don't need to say anything about clean workers versus renters.

Maybe that's okay.

Shut up.

Going from one easy topic to the next, I'm going to say.

So Leah and I, you know, we won't say stumbled.

Yeah, we stabbed it in the dark.

We struggled.

We struggled over this.

But we just

came to something we thought was simple, to focus on the justice piece, because we felt like the other parts, if we're thinking in terms of justice, the other parts would perhaps follow.

Charlottesville seeks justice for all its residents, endeavors, or seeks, or whatever word you would use, to see each person in their full humanity and crafts policies to reflect these truths or facts.

I don't know how you put a KPI on that.

How does that land?

It didn't.

under those ideals.

If you notice sort of every, I'm just going to point to the top two, you have to provide, to be, to have, and then you get to kind of fill in some of those deliverables and measurables under that.

This one is very big and it also depends on having a standardized definition of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion because justice for Bob may be very different than justice for Tom and they can be neighbors, have gone to the same school, had the same opportunities or lack thereof

If there's another place to put it in the scheme of things as an overriding value or

or something like that.

We just have to more specifically define it.

Because I'm thinking, again, just as an example, and maybe I'm off as well, but that could be an important outcome area where you have as a measurement looking at

Wealth, income gap, home ownership rates changing.

I mean, and that connects with housing and other stuff too.

I don't know what they are.

I hear Jeff Vogel's voice.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

And Justice, this is what came to my mind, how he

has dinged us a number of times about reports that African Americans were disproportionately stopped for traffic violations than whites.

And something, you know, on the justice of that, well, that shouldn't be the case, you know, that should be examined, and that's something that you can measure.

Go ahead.

That's equitable practices and not necessarily the city seeking justice for its residents.

I'm just, yeah, I think the word seeks or words seeks justice needs to be more clearly defined on how the city is going about seeking justice or whether we

Okay, so implement equitable practices and policies.

To see each person and their full humanity.

I wonder if we just say Charlottesville implements equitable practices and policies across all of its activities and leave it at that because then we can we can look at each specific we can look at like

global kinds of metrics for the city, and then also we can look at specific things that we do and say, okay, is this inequitable?

So often you may incorporate, for example, your commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, belonging, racial equity, pick your poison,

in say a vision or a mission statement because the honest answer is if we are dedicated to those principles, they must fall under each and every outcome area.

You cannot have organizational excellence if you do not do it with a mindset of equity, inclusion, belonging, if that is a dedicated perspective.

You cannot have proper climate action

Climate has historically been known as exclusionary.

All of our climate teams here will tell you that and they're working on that.

Transportation, historically exclusionary.

Systemic racism and oppression falls under each and every one of those lines.

So if the city is still dedicated to whichever combination of those principles

then it falls under absolutely each and every one and it must be an emphasis in each and every one.

But that is a decision point as my boss would say.

It is a decision point as to which one of those principles you all would like to adhere to.

It is a principle as to how we would like to define them and it is a principle and a decision point

Ashley, what do you mean by decision?

Sure, so when we think of

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice and Belonging, all of them out there.

Equity can be defined differently even within DEIJ professionals.

And so in order to be able to properly put those KPIs under, we need a rudder as to how we wish to define them.

So for example, when we think of diversity, I will use that one.

Do we only think of diversity in the span of racial equity?

or do you think of diversity in the span of neurodiversity, socioeconomic diversity, gender diversity, other diversity so that when we're thinking of the deliverables

Will people who are working on it be able to achieve them?

But you said something before that I think that we need is that we actually need, that needs every

Outcome Area needs to be looked at through the JEDI lens.

So it almost needs to be, in my mind, something that we don't have up here that, I think Michael mentioned, that communication person that lets the public know what we're doing, how we're doing.

So it's really important that we, maybe it's not an outcome area, but it's part maybe of that vision or overall kind of commitment

Creed, if you will, that that is who we are and what we strive for.

had a supervisor once said equity is everywhere and so is action.

That can be a principle that you choose to adopt or not, that one particular person, but I would share that from a

DIJ professional standpoint, I do encourage you to state it and write it, because that shows people who are looking, who are saying, as you said, I'm trying to figure out where I want to move.

So I think it goes beyond just what I've heard you all say throughout the last day and a half.

It's not just about the words, it's about the practices.

So you can plaster it all over this room, but if you aren't living it and actually doing it, then it's not worth the ink that you used.

And so one of the things, I think, to get back to the idea of an outcome area, we've seen some organizations that we work with, some communities, and we can think of another college community that has struggled with this issue, and instead of making diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice a specific stand-alone outcome area, it's a commitment.

It's part of, it kind of lives up there, it's not part of the vision statement per se,

but it lives up there as a commitment that the organization and community makes to how it goes about all of its practices and it kind of becomes that lens through which all of those activities are viewed and it has a prominent place in your strategic plan.

Not to say that all these aren't prominent but it's not just one of the eight

But how is that reflected in the strategic plan?

Is there a separate statement at the beginning and making clear that diversity, equity, and inclusion is a lens or filter through which

So I've seen equity statements at the beginning of a printed strategic plan document as well as them being listed as part of the objectives for I call it a BHAG, your big hairy audacious goals.

So you've got like we want government excellence and then objective one is embedding equity throughout the government.

So it is measurable, it is findable, and it is also, for lack of a better word, recallable, so that

So the one piece of this that I think deserves naming here though is you haven't defined it yet.

You're saying you want it, but you haven't defined it yet.

So we can help you with the structural where does it go in your strategic plan, but to your point, you haven't defined what equity means.

You have some general ideas about that I think, but I haven't heard a unanimous

consensus around what that definition is.

I was just going to add, too, I think it's somewhat subjective.

But once it's defined, it is measurable.

So I can provide actual data-driven responses to how we're implementing diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, belonging.

I'm just gonna keep saying all of them until we pick.

Yeah, I guess we'll get into it all now.

But in my mind, it's kind of like there's an internal component of the organization and there's an external component of policy that are very different and separate from their own thing.