City Council Meeting   3/4/2025

Um,

Thomas, will you please call the roll?

Councilor Payne.

Here.

Vice Mayor Pinkston.

Here.

Councilor Snook.

Here.

Mayor Wade.

Here.

Is there a motion to approve the consent or amend the agenda?

I move for approval of the agenda.

And then we will come back about 6.30 for a regular business meeting.

And the first presentation this evening is on the solid waste program, Mr. Hicks.

Oh, in addition, council members, I do, we do have staff here that manage this holidays program too, so should there be any detailed questions or any additional questions regarding our trash collection process by all means.

Thank you.

Actually, how do I advance the?

Look below you.

Is there anything over there?

It gets to about $6.19 per month.

It's close to $4 million.

Minus about $70,000 for large item collections.

So we're in that ballpark.

Is that right?

And that's for core services.

How often do we renew our contract with the vendor?

I don't have handy the escalation that I don't know.

But this use is kind of tied into the contract that's going to go up over three or four percent of years.

And so based on, I'm not sure where I should be pointing this, for it to work.

You can also just say next slide.

If someone's going to.

I might be able to help out.

If all residents paid a monthly fee in one of those three amounts, based on that distribution, it generated a little over $2.7 million per year, so roughly equal to the cost of those core services.

For the assumed distribution, where did that assumption come from?

It was based on a combination of looking at data that you have but also looking at other communities and the distributions there.

Since we have the option of doing a decal or stickers, how does the people who purchase stickers factor into that assumption?

I'm sorry, I'm not clear on your question.

But everybody else does stickers.

Got you.

And how is that incorporated into these?

And that would be part of an implementation process.

That's total, I mean, if there's a, I think what it means is if you've got a ten unit apartment complex, it's ten units, ten households.

So it would not include apartment complexes that have more than four units.

Or like folks that are serviced by a dumpster.

I'm looking at this and thinking there's got to be a way that the folks who, like us, who just don't generate that much garbage can not have to have our cost quadrupled.

So it's certainly a possibility, but there are things in considerations there.

Do you have a sense of how much of the cost of collecting the garbage is what I would term a marginal cost as opposed to an average cost?

Right.

So part of the issue is, to what extent are we going to be relying on everybody else who isn't producing much garbage to be sort of subsidizing the folks who are producing the garbage?

And so if they don't buy a sticker that week, there's no revenue generated, but there's still a cost associated with driving by and doing, you know, true that access.

Yes, because I had some questions, too, but I wanted to delay.

and I think that's part of trying to encourage recycling by essentially having the larger container-sized customer paying a little bit more of the share than the smaller container-sized customer.

Are they not?

the end of my slides, Mr. Pinkston, did you have questions?

Yes.

a little bit better just because the industry there are a few that are literally just monopolizing the industry and then also it provides additional additional kind of service they could provide for emergency events and stuff but that would be something we'd have to carefully study and Mr. Sanders has expressed why do we want the headaches in different ways so it would be something that we would have to carefully look at but some are moving towards that direction.

Because my understanding, it's pretty close to a monopoly, which would obviously give them the ability to kind of set costs wherever they would like.

But in general, most of them are relying on the solid waste service companies to provide that service.

one contractor that does trash and one that does recycle.

Correct.

Is that what happens?

I don't know how our contract is spelled out on that one.

However, the same provider, one, both of them.

Oh, is that right?

That is correct, yeah.

and I think lots of people, the emails that we saw, lots of people saying I can get down to not much trash at all and if we went away from having that as an option, I can appreciate that it's a difficult thing to track but I think it would be a mistake to get rid of that option because it allows a lot of people to really minimize the trash they put out.

you're not incentivizing recycling.

I don't really know what the cost, you know, come out to.

I get the fact that it's difficult to track, but we know how many we sell per year, right?

I think are sold, but sold to whom you don't have.

Have you done that?

I don't know if you call or wouldn't mind looking up the number of stickers.

Those are 13 gallon or?

Well, there's 13 gallon for the small and 32 gallon for the larger two sizes.

If you wouldn't mind speaking in the microphone so people can at home can hear, thank you.

We don't know how many people that is, we just know the stickers.

But I think that's more of a policy driven decision versus a cost of service decision.

I mean do we have a line item in our budget called trash or refuse?

she's coming well we don't have just to be able to give you facts yeah there there is a line for the operations part of refuse collection there's also the landfill closure piece that I believe is in your 3.8 number or no it's not okay yeah so there are two components to that but yes it is a line item within the public works budget I guess I'd just be interested in what other people thought about it

So it sounds like we've been low and I don't think I read or missed it over where we hadn't raised prices since 2000, about 20 years.

Yeah.

The cost is 3.8 roughly.

It may sound easy to just be able to put out a bag, but you have to think about how it's being collected as part of that consideration.

I've always wondered why people bothered to have private service that I was assuming was more rather than going with the city's essentially subsidized service.

So I want to give another 15.

You're saying those are two different options for how we could do the price structure?

We're looking to recover costs associated with those additional services.

There's option A, it would be like $10 for the smallest version, or we could do $16.

And, you know, in the implementation, one consideration is to start with this and work towards the other one, phasing it in just because it is potentially a big change.

I know you did the comp set comparison for pricing.

I think it's in the range of what we would see in other places.

If this was something that we were interested in shifting to, what would happen to all of the bins of the people who already have a trash bin?

I mean, I know that some people have purchased those on their own, but you want a standardized cart from, for a page you throw system.

I would love to see what options of the sticker adjustment would look like.

You know, just creates more opportunities potentially for, not more opportunities, but more instead of, you know, to look for ways around that.

Was there any research into picking up garbage every other week?

when it's set out every other week, it's putting in the onus on somebody to know, hey, is that person supposed to have it this week or not?

A recycling is already every other week, so that's already something people consider.

Maybe it's a special cart that designates in every other week.

Maybe not for commercial enterprises, but residential.

I guess I've never seen that implemented on a city-wide basis.

Yeah, that would be interesting to look into.

You have to be very careful about when you put chicken bones in your garbage.

So Sam, will you look for direction?

And we'll come back.

Thank you.

What about you and you guys in terms of how much you feel like we should be recouping?

And you could still get to the same overall number.

It's a big deal and it is.

And maybe there's some ways we could create some incentives for people to do things that are a little less expensive for the city.

You've got to think about it.

So Natalie, I heard that you were kind of in the camp of moving a little bit towards sustainability or paying the cost.

I don't know if we need to go all the way right now, but in general I support a sticker increase.

Michael, did you have anything else you want to add to this discussion?

That was for the $10 monthly fee?

Depending on what your usage currently is, as I understand it.

So it's not, I'm not sure it's quite apples to apples, but

Thank you so much.

Okay, the next item that we have is the natural gas decarbonization NICS steps.

And then he's got 55 field tests that he's got to pass on a regular basis to demonstrate his competency.

Were these, did they start being implemented during the course of the study or before?

We don't have any plans, too.

Are those based on every house?

And so if somebody needs their service line replaced because something's been damaged, we go ahead and put an excess float valve on it.

Just the ballpark.

maybe.

I mean, it seems to me like that's an incredible safety benefit.

It is a safety benefit.

I mean, you think of all the houses, you see places, and I think the last one was in New Jersey where a whole block goes up in flames because they presumably would have been prevented if they had one of these sorts of valves.

So when somebody needs their service line replaced or some repair done, then we go ahead and install these because they're out of gas at that point.

Thank you.

and we've had that occur in recent years on NASA and some other streets, but that's also part of our regular procedures to make sure our system does not become in disrepair.

Sorry, can you go back real quick?

Yes.

What is the unit?

within the community and municipal operations.

Is that illegal things by the General Assembly or just a choice?

But I know, based on my experience in utilities, to be fair to ratepayers, you only pay for what the operations of the utilities involve, like water and wastewater.

Impact on the Climate, but anyway.

Because I know across the country it's fairly common for there to be surcharges on natural gas utility bills that go towards various public benefits, usually environmental, but sometimes even non-environmental consumer programs.

This one we are quoting one of the general assemblies, which is reasonable and fair rates for I forget the code name, but it is something we've asked the city attorney's office to look at a little further.

Yes.

But if we were to offer incentives and rebates for electrification, does that count as subsidizing?

Yes, it would.

Yeah.

It was because dominion is the private utility.

So even though we're offering a subsidy for the appliance, that counts as a subsidy for the electrical provider.

and

and that's what we're still checking to see.

We're going to get further check into that.

Yeah.

What was the fourth point?

They've already occurred and they've created that permanent greenhouse gas reduction already.

Is that what British Petroleum, is that who we use?

I'm sorry?

Is that what British Petroleum?

That's where they go to.

Or do you think that's something that?

I don't have any indication of that.

Could we take that money in whatever the offsets are and invest it in climate work here instead?

Then you would not see the, well, let me get to a further side and you'll see the impact on it.

Is that, do we need a broker?

You just can't go to the registries directly.

I don't know that detail, but I can get that back to you.

Thanks.

because maybe I've been watching too many PBS specials that these things are not really doing what they're supposed to be doing.

But it is something for discussion.

Have you told us how much we're spending on offsets right now?

We're spending about $342,000 a year.

I just feel like we would see more immediate benefits investing in local efforts because a lot of these carbon offset investment vehicles, I think there's just inherently no way to evaluate exactly what happened at least on our end.

Yeah, hopefully I can provide you some more information about that.

Yeah, and just with that, it would be good to know if we could, with that $400,000, like if we were to use that for more incentives or, you know, if that would make a difference, you know, what kind of comparison of that?

I'm sorry?

That type of natural gas would be blended into the pipelines?

Yes.

Because you're not going to get enough out of the RWSA treatment plant.

We actually went and visited the Western Virginia Authority.

And just to clarify, the benefit of renewable natural gas is that the sourcing of it reduces carbon, but the burning of it still

So instead of flaring off, you produce this product that then is piped into the pipeline.

Which is then burned.

So the end user is still emitting carbon from the renewable natural gas?

I mean, I don't know how furnaces work, but... Yeah, well, it's renewable.

Yeah, it's reduced.

Right, it's reduced, but it's still not... And that's factored into our model.

Is it known if the Trump administration is going to be cutting those contracts and funds or is that TBD?

It's to be determined.

I think we should assume it will be cut.

15% blended green hydrogen and then some carbon offsets to meet your goal.

Can we run a new RNG with hydrogen?

Yes.

What is the significance to the dotted circle?

your normal bill is $360.30 and then you have to add in to meet fuel decarbonization about with green hydrogen about 27.4% on top of that are about $90.

How much is assumed to be driven by with the increase of electrification there's just going to be a smaller customer base over time?

So it's just a little early to evaluate.

And that was the adjustment to $430 or whatever.

$340? $340.

and if you guys have any additional questions.

So if we could kind of quickly have our comments and questions, I'll start with you this time, Michael.

What was the cost of this study?

Okay.

And I will reiterate, I think we would probably be better off to use that around $400,000 a year in local programs or that's the Office of Sustainability or partnerships with LEAP, I don't know, but I think we'll just see more direct, clear benefits to use that money in that way for local electrification and efficiency.

No, we're not.

I know my building on 4th Street is natural gas.

The full effort.

And I knew you could only blend up to a certain amount of the hydrogen, but I didn't know it was 15%.

and all.

So they can only base it on what they know.

Yeah, that would be interesting.

Okay.

Yeah.

Part of it was just, I know there's a lot of people in the community that are not happy with how things have turned out and I think it's with the study, I think it's just because I don't think the expectations were right from the beginning.

I'd like to see them more of that continue.

I hope somebody was taking them all.

We'll come back.

Is that it for now?

We're going into closed session soon.

Under Virginia Code, Section 2.2-3711A7, for briefing by staff members pertaining to actual litigation, where such briefing and open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or litigating posture of the public body.

Good evening.

I move that this council certify by a recorded vote that to the best of each council member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion convening the closed session or heard, discussed, or considered in the closed session.

Okay.

We are

Thank you.

Any announcements?

Please include name, address, and phone number.

Alexand is always busy, so he's always got some good things going on, so thank you.

BikePed Advisory Committee website.

But the... Is Rose Hill this week?

It's great to get out and stretch your legs and meet new people.

I hope that everyone is okay with that.

Last report that I got, no injuries, but definitely property damage and definitely something to be concerned about.

We have some proclamations.

Somebody from Carr here.

We're very proud to be part of the community and we really appreciate this.

America, Red Cross Month.

You can do the social service.

Sign and seal this fourth day of March 2025, Juan Diego Wade Mayor.

So I know we have the new director of social services here, but there's an event in a couple of weeks that I'm going to read that as well, but you can present it to Mr. Henry.

I'm privileged to be on the, come on down, privileged to be on the social services advisory board and got to meet you, sir, I guess last week and we're just really proud and happy that you're here with the city.

Thank you.

Yeah, his name is Leon Henry for anyone that has not known.

We're glad that we can use this platform to uplift them and recognize them.

Hawker.

Thank you.

All you do.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you.

Was that reduction for that one year or forever?

Just one year.

No.

I tried forever.

Are there others that want to answer?

Thank you very much.

Would anyone else like to speak at this time?

Thank you very much for your time.

It's Caroline.

Thank you so much.

Would anyone else like to speak at this time?

Okay, so we're going to now go to approve of the consent agenda items and there will be opportunity for others to speak at the end of the meeting.

Resolution for a special exception permit at 400 to 426 Garrett Street.

Can I get a motion for approval?

I move approval of the consent agenda as just read by the clerk.

Second.

Thank you, passes five to zero.

The next item on the agenda is the city manager's report, Mr. Sanders.

But I did invite the director of our Office of Economic Development, Chris Engel, to present their recent annual report.

Thank you.

The next item we're at action items now is a resolution of proving the performance agreement

And Chris, we have you here to present.

So happy to answer any questions you have about that.

And so this is specifically for the housing component?

It is specific to the housing.

With the PHA?

Yes.

This is a similar... Is this called a synthetic tip?

Is that the... It's been called that, yes.

That's a fair characterization.

And Mr. Sanders, this is separate from any consideration relative to the grocery store space.

As the Fifeville Neighborhood Association continues to do its work in identifying a potential operator and our chance to review performers.

And we, in terms of our CIP, is there 3 million or 6 million?

For this project, I believe it's 3.1 million that is allocated and set aside for this.

Okay.

Other questions or comments?

Yes.

What do they add to this mix?

Well, the state law requires that it happen in such a manner.

To do the tax?

In this case, it's likely to be a nonprofit, but the guidance is still to go through the EDA to actually make the grant.

So the EDA's participation is necessary because of the tax sharing agreement?

The previous versions that we have done both with for affordable housing purposes and business development purposes flow through the EDA as well.

Is there a line item in the budget for that?

And there is a transfer that occurs between the city every year and the EDA to write these checks when it's time to do that.

How much of that money is expected to go into this project, if any?

So we estimate what the tax is going to be, set it aside, and when it actually comes to, there's a transfer from the city to the EDA, and the EDA actually writes the check to develop.

So the appropriation being talked about is the appropriation of half of the tax supplement.

Yes.

in this more directly right away.

No, no, it all happens after the project's developed, after they pay taxes for a full year and the units are verified.

The tax money is yours, you're authorizing it to be facilitated.

Okay, I get it now, yeah.

Okay, thanks.

And is that actually how it functions, where it's paid and then given back or is it just not collected?

No, it is paid and it's given back, that's a function of Virginia law as well.

You're obligated to pay taxes, you cannot be waived.

In Virginia, there's no such thing as tax abatement.

Thank you.

We'll vote on this one tonight.

Second.

The next item on is it.

I think it just goes to show when you've got a good intent and you're willing to be creative, it's remarkable the things you can do.

Thank you.

Alex, hello, sir.

So staff recommendation is that Council consider and approve the request.

Is this a public hearing as well that we approve this tonight?

that will have to spend for the affordable housing that UVA pledged to build?

and the

but no, that's helpful to know and I think that's just important for the community to understand and this is not a criticism in any way of preservation of affordable housing or Mr. Settle and their team who I think have done a very good job but I think it's important for the community to understand that the affordable housing UVA pledge to build has to be financed by Charlottesville and the projects in Albemarle have to be financed by Albemarle so their pledge really did not amount to much of anything.

And how is this, Mr. Sanders, is this something on your sort of radar in terms of that investment needing to be made to sort of actualize this project?

And I don't have anything set aside specifically for this project.

So the intent with this particular item tonight is really a formal.

Just the designation so that they can move forward with submission of the light tech application.

Yes.

Right.

An ongoing conversation.

I think it's just important to highlight what will happen.

Well, it is.

Okay.

It's been 25 years.

Oh, yes, thanks.

So Stacey Hall itself will not be a part of what's deeded over to the foundation, but that parking lot area there.

There's a lot of, a lot of stuff in Stacey Holmes.

Now we did not get that lucky.

Yes.

Motion to approve this tonight.

Okay.

Okay.