City Council Meeting   9/21/2020

Ms.

Thomas.

Ms.

Walker?

Yes.

Ms.

Magill?

Yes.

Ms.

All right.

I call this meeting to order.

We'll have a moment of silence and in honor of Close Your Mouth Day, the moment of silence will be for one minute.

I think Mr. Alexander may be on here later, but Close Your Mouth and Listen is what he, it's me and my stopwatch together.

All right, so moment of silence or one minute of silence.

All right, Ms.

Mr. Payne.

Present.

Ms.

Walker.

Present.

Ms.

Gill.

Present.

Ms.

Okay.

Madam Mayor, one announcement that I wanted to make is that I've been talking with Myra Anderson, who you will recall has made a couple of appearances before this body.

seeking the appointment of a task force on mental health crisis response.

And I spoke with you earlier today and with Councilor Magill.

And to make a long story short, we would like to establish the mental health crisis response task force.

And as Magill and I would be the council representatives,

Ms.

Anderson would be on it and we are looking, I have not yet made all the necessary phone calls so I'm not going to talk about it in particular.

Obviously we would have input from the police department and from various emergency responders, from mental health professionals and some mental health advocates as well.

and we would hope to have details on that in a couple of weeks but I just wanted to let folks know that that is an initiative that we're going to start.

Okay, thank you.

Any other announcements?

And I'll just

Reed, since it's the third annual, Alex Ampere presents Close Your Mouth and Listen.

and it says that all area citizens are encouraged to be still and quiet for one minute, take a moment to listen and think before you act, be mindful when speaking, choose words that are helpful, not hurtful.

This day and beyond allow people to share their thoughts and feelings without interruption, wide respect individual differences and expressions,

and Jess Sim, close your mouth and listen.

And you can find out more information on alexxan.com.

And there's a hyphen between Alex and Zan.

All right.

Mayor Walker, can I move to approve the agenda with an amendment?

Yes.

Ms.

Thomas.

Mr. Payne?

Mr. Payne?

Yes.

Okay.

Ms.

Walker?

Yes.

Ms.

Magill?

Yes.

Ms.

Hill?

Okay.

And thank you.

I skipped right over that and went right to announcements.

So thanks for that.

Next, we have recognitions.

We don't have any proclamation, any recognitions.

No?

All right.

I move that council appoints the following to various boards and commissions.

The CAT Advisory Board, Hanan Hamid and Ethan Hill.

The Charlottesville Albemarle Airport Commission, Adam Seed and Ray Van Dorn.

The Charlottesville Economic Development Authority, Jay Addison Barnhart.

the Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee, Patrick Healy, the Minorities Business Commission, Bellamy Brown, the Parking Advisory Panel, Jamel Bui, Joan Fenton, Kirby Hutto, Jake Mooney, Danny Yoder, and Mike Rody, the Sister Cities Commission, Nana Gardie, the Water Resources Protection Program Advisory Committee,

Chris Gierson, Harrison, and then Patrick Healy.

All right.

Ms.

Ms.

Walker.

Yes.

Ms.

Magill?

Yes.

Ms.

Hill?

All right.

Thank you.

And that carries.

5-0.

Next, we have a consent agenda.

Ms.

Thomas, would you read the consent agenda, please?

OK.

Minutes, August 17th, closed and regular meetings, August 25th, special meeting, August 27th, special meeting.

Appropriation, Charlottesville Albemarle Adult Drug Treatment Court Grant Award, $240,000, second reading.

Appropriation, Virginia Housing Solutions Program Grant Award,

$539,333, second reading.

Appropriation, Virginia Behavioral Health Docket Grant Award, $40,000, first of two readings.

Appropriation, Fiscal Year 2021, Fire Programs Aid to Locality Funding, Fire Fund, $165,628, first of two readings.

Appropriation, Urban and Community Forestry Grant

$20,000, first of two readings.

Thank you.

If you're in the audience and you'd like to speak, you can click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

If you're on via telephone, you can press star nine.

You'll have three minutes to address council.

One of the eight items that was just mentioned in the consent agenda.

And first up, Mayor Walker, we have Jeff Fogel.

Can you hear us?

Good evening.

I'm not giving up on this issue of the drug court.

I know that there's a majority of people on this council who do not agree that people should have to plead guilty in order to get help.

I don't understand why no one other than the mayor is willing to even comment on this question.

You can't even find out why it's in place.

Is it the notion that only with a stick can we help people?

Is it the punitive approach?

Is it because prosecutors like to have people go in drug court so they can wash their hands of the case?

We can't get an answer to that question from any of the prosecutors, from the woman who runs the drug court with whom I spoke, who couldn't answer the question, or from Mr. Goodloe, who I see is there tonight, who couldn't answer that question a year ago, promised to get back to the council and never did.

This is not simply, may not be the biggest issue on your agenda.

This is not simply an issue of individuals who are being forced to plead guilty in order to get help.

This is a fundamental issue of justice.

Everybody in this country has the right to challenge things under the Fourth and Fifth Amendment.

Under the regime of the drug court, if you are illegally stopped, you cannot raise that issue if you want to go to drug court.

So the question comes down to, does this council believe it's appropriate or does it not believe it's appropriate?

I haven't asked you to withhold the money.

I've only asked that you make inquiries.

And if you agree with me, try to do something about it, at least.

No, I actually, I invited the executive director, Ross Carew, from OAR on the call to

Try to answer some of those questions, and if not, tell us when we could be, you know, when we could expect an update on the city's end.

I really don't know the answer because I reached out to them and they wouldn't talk to me.

The woman who runs the drug court could not answer the question.

Our Commonwealth Attorney couldn't answer the question.

Promised he'd take it up with the drug board a year ago, never has.

So yeah, I'm interested in hearing what they say.

And I'm also interested in why they're not willing to engage in a dialogue with people who communicate with them and ask them in advance of a meeting like this, what's their reason and have a discussion about it.

But sure, I'm interested in hearing what they have to say.

Are you?

I'm waiting the rest of my time.

Okay.

So I'm going to just check and see if there are any other people who are signed up to speak on items of the consent agenda, and then I'll have them speak.

And then you have about a minute left and 52 seconds.

So if you want to share at the end of that.

Okay.

At this point, I don't see any other hands.

All right.

All right, thanks.

So council, I did reach out to

Yeah.

Ross Kerr, we'll invite you to turn on your camera and enable your microphone.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

I was having a Zoom issue.

I apologize.

Let me preface this by saying that I am not the most versed on the technicalities and procedural issues around drug court.

I wanted to remind counsel that drug court is a collaborative program between multiple agencies.

The participation and

who is participating in that program or participating in the advisory board is established by Virginia code.

When I reached out about this issue today, I was advised that there are procedural and legal considerations from the Commonwealth and the judicial perspective that Virginia provides other legal options such as first offender status for defendants who do not meet the current drug court eligibility

Currently with satisfactory completion, there is the option for participants to have felonies dismissed where appropriate.

Related to funding, there is budgetary restrictions from the Supreme Court funding related to first offender status and requiring participation of probation violators.

Related to evidence-based research, drug courts are designed for high-risk, high-need participants who meet clinical criteria.

There has been no research that supports better outcomes for those that enter either pre-plea or post-plea, and currently approximately 80% of all drug courts nationally are post-plea.

So that's the information that I have.

I also am aware of that this has been an agenda item on the Drug Court Advisory Board.

So do you know in terms of the discussion

When it was brought up for the advisory board, what were the concerns?

I don't have that.

I'm sorry.

Are you asking me or?

Report out, okay.

So that may sound, that may be counselors if you all agree what, at least to try to get answers to this question which will keep coming up as we have these conversations around DMC and

you know, related items around defund abolish all of those conversations.

This will be one that if it's going to be in the solution category when we're having those discussions as something that's already established that is preventing individuals from furthering entering the criminal

Justice System or spending time in jails or prison, then I think it's, you know, for us to at least have that information may be helpful.

Does anyone disagree with that?

Okay.

Yeah, I was just saying thank you and thanks for coming on this short notice.

Yes, ma'am.

All right.

Yeah, as a lawyer, I would normally say I arrest my case.

simply based on the response that you got, which was a non-response.

They knew what the issue was.

They've known what the issue is.

It's very frustrating to deal with these people when they don't even know why they're doing what they're doing and they can't think about it, and it takes them a year to bring it up on a subcommittee when it's been raised with them a year ago.

So, again,

It doesn't speak well of OAR.

It just doesn't speak well of OAR that you can't answer a simple question like that.

Right.

They didn't.

They never put it on their agenda.

It was discussed to be put on the agenda, but never was put on the agenda for discussion.

Or so I was told by Mr. Platania.

OK.

Madam Mayor, I may be, with the exception of Neil Goodloe, who I see is also on the call, I may be the only other person other than Neil who was around when all of this was getting started.

Although I wasn't deeply involved, I do recall that the discussion about why require a plea of guilty was, first of all, the Commonwealth's attorneys wouldn't agree to participate unless there was a requirement that the defendant plead guilty first.

And at a time when drug courts were very new, that was a concern.

We couldn't get Commonwealth to agree, so it wasn't going to happen.

They would say, hey, it's a bargain.

You're getting some advantages.

You've got to give up something.

The second thing that they noted was that if somebody flames out of drug court, that may go a year or two down the road.

In the meantime, what do we do supposing the officer has moved on to another jurisdiction?

Do we then have a trial after the person has flamed out of drug court?

Related to that, are they going to be willing to acknowledge the degree of their use when they know that they may end up in a trial later on?

Then finally, I think one of the other considerations was that the folks were saying, well, if you're not willing to admit that you're a user, as in you've got this stuff that you were arrested with, why go to drug court?

And so those were the reasons, for better or for ill, those were the reasons that were advanced

what 20 years or so ago or whenever it was that the drug court was first starting.

I will simply share this.

I have not been directly affiliated with the drug court program in there for a decade.

I'm probably not the best person to speak on the way the Drug Court operates in 2020.

At its inception, Mr. Snook is absolutely correct.

And even today, the Commonwealth holds kind of the keys to the gate of Drug Court.

They have a veto authority over anyone who is presented as an applicant.

So other than that, I can't comment other than the fact that I don't know of any other drug courts in Virginia, certainly any felony level drug courts that are pre-pleased courts.

So I guess it's just best if we wait and get more information from the advisory committee.

So I didn't want to speak for the Commonwealth.

Joe Platania is the advisory board chair, and he can probably speak more eloquently about the concerns from the Commonwealth related to this issue.

Okay.

Okay, all right.

Okay, so I'll try to, I'll connect with you before the next meeting and maybe if there's advisory board committee meeting before then maybe it's something that I can attend to try to help to prepare for the October 5th meeting.

And if not, then I'll just try to meet with them or as many people as possible to just start this conversation before we have the public discussion about it on the 5th.

I think they would welcome your participation.

I think that I'm not 100% sure if that meeting is gonna happen before the 5th.

All right.

Well, thank you.

Thank you.

Mayor Walker, we have one other hand raised at this point.

Okay.

This is Marion Votaw.

Yes, I can.

I am unclear on whether my comment is on the consent agenda.

Okay, my question is, and of course, and you feel free to not answer it till later.

Are we doing any special preparations for not so much November, but January, in case he loses and won't leave and the white supremacists rise up to defend him?

So yeah, we'll address, well, maybe we'll address, but if you could come back on during the community matter section for that question.

And that would be at what time?

It's just shortly, probably in the next 15 to 20 minutes.

Fine.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

No other hands?

OK.

And the only questions that I had on items on the consent agenda, and I intended to contact Kaki beforehand, was just the administrative fee that's waived for, I think, the Virginia Housing.

I don't have my notes open.

I think for number four and eight.

Does that mean, so are we covered in terms of the city's participation in those groups?

Because it's saying that the best use of funds is just to send it to those organizations so they can use what would be the administrative fee here.

And this is a question that just came up before, whether we needed, I think it was CDBG, whether we needed

the 20% allocation or if we could.

This administration amount is not that much.

I think it's capped at 3%, so it's nowhere near 20%.

We knew we were asking the Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless to essentially up front the cost because they don't get reimbursed from us until after we've been reimbursed from the state.

We were asking essentially for them to float a significant amount of money and it made sense for us to give them whatever the 3% was of the admin cut since our additional expenses wouldn't rise to that level.

Yeah, I know we always want, I think, or at least I will speak for myself for as much money to go into the programs as possible.

So but I just wanted to ask because it has come up in other times.

So just that wasn't clear in the end.

That was the only question I had.

Okay, thank you.

Madam Mayor, I'm curious about one thing.

The minutes of August 17th, were those stricken from the consent agenda for some reason?

They were in my draft of the agenda for today and they're in the packet that I've got, but they were not on what was read out by Ms.

I have August 17th on my notes.

I did read it.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

As long as it's clear that we're doing August 17th as well.

Right.

OK, that's the one I've got, so we're good.

And so what he's referencing is just that when we're voting number two, we're including August 17th closed and regular meetings too.

Right.

All right, any further questions?

Ms.

Ms.

Walker?

Yes.

Ms.

Magill?

Yes.

Ms.

All right.

Thank you.

At this time I have nothing to report from our September 18th meeting, I'm sorry, from our last city council meeting.

and I know that many of the members of the community had contacted me over the weekend about the SAFE-RAT grant and wanted me to set the record straight as it relates to past negative articles written by Nolan Stout about me pertaining to my proposed budgeting plan to hire more firefighters without impacting the general fund all at once in the statements made by the former police fire chief who wanted to fund all 15 firefighter positions in one fiscal year.

which would have cost the city more than a million dollars in the FY21 budget.

I was hoping that the daily progress would have provided more coverage as it relates to us being awarded with the SAFER Act grant and how it saved taxpayers' dollars by providing us with funding for 15 firefighters.

But by reporting this story in that manner would change the narrative of what Nolan Stout has continuously tried to do and that is to portray me in a negative light.

As many as you can remember, I asked the former fire chief to search for other funding options to fund all 15 positions, or if not, I will work with him to create three positions every year for the next five years, which will provide him with 15 positions.

But that never happened, and he resigned.

And it was reported in various articles that, you know, Richardson appeared to hold promotions for firefighters at the center of the budget battle.

Charlottesville Fire Chief resigned after heated disputes with city manager.

Manager's response raises questions and so on and so forth.

However, that was not the case.

It was about me not funding all 15 positions at once, which was also denied in the past by the former city manager and interim city manager.

These additional positions would have impacted the general fund by over a million dollars, which would have reduced funding for our internal operations, the school district,

CIP, and public housing.

So when we look back on it, even with the impact of COVID on our revenues, it was a good decision to search for other funding sources rather than funding all positions at once from the general fund.

So I guess being financially responsible with taxpayer dollars and asking for accountability is mismanagement, misconduct, being willfully ignorant, or better yet creating a state of mediocrity never before encountered in this caring

Dynamic Resource Rich Community, which are ongoing quotes used by Mr. Stout from two former employees that defame my character.

Even though the city, Dormiteer, has achieved a reaffirmed AAA bond rating from both bond rating agencies, S&P and Moody's, a modified Clean Audit Report, a balanced budget for FY21 before the onset of COVID, as well as a revised balanced budget for FY21 following the onset of COVID and the SAFER Act grant.

you don't achieve these things as a city manager through mismanagement being willfully ignorant or mediocre.

And lastly the misconduct was in most part for me saying no to a lot of things that came across my desk that did not make good financial or common sense.

So with that said I hope that I answered many of your questions that came to me and me making a statement pertaining to that with us getting a safer ag grant and being able to provide

15 firefighter positions for our fire department.

Okay and I think the councilors have a response but I would just like you know to add per the discussions that you and I had and that I had with you know other councilors I remember sitting and

the former deputy city manager's office with counselor Magill where she had been researching and trying to go over what similar sides fire departments were doing.

So I just want to just say from a council perspective that

At least from my memory and including the conversations that I had with you, I don't think anyone was requesting that you hire all of those individuals at one time.

From my recollection, at least I was not.

and we were open to having conversations about what reorganization needed to look like if there needed to be more medics and less firefighters and what was the composition of the crew.

So at no point

In terms of the conversations that I was a part of with council members and the conversations that I had with you, we direct you to just go along with hiring.

What we did ask for was just that information, some of the research that we were trying to do on our own.

What are similarly sized fire departments doing?

And I think even the conversation that I'm remembering with counselor Hill, it was that they were much smaller departments than our department by and how.

Yeah, I wasn't saying that about the council.

I just was saying that based upon

I just think that certainly by getting this type of a grant is very important.

And obviously it's made it through much at the federal level and not a local level.

So I think that everyone is very

Excited about the opportunities this can provide to our fire department.

All right.

That's it for tonight.

All right.

Next up, we have Community Matters.

Sounds good.

City Council will now hear from 16 people under Community Matters.

You can click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar to get in line.

We had four people sign up in advance.

I'll call on them first.

And if you're on via telephone, you can press star nine to get in line.

And our first speaker is Cameline Leon.

Yes, I can hear you.

Go ahead.

Yes, we've got three minutes.

Okay, my name is Cameline Leon and I live at 511 Half Mile Branch Road in Crozet, Virginia.

I support the street designation of Third Street Northeast in honor of historic civil rights events that took place right here in Charlottesville in 1950.

Gregory Swanson sought admission to the UVA Law School to pursue an advanced law degree and he was denied as of his race.

instead of giving up and with the help of the NAACP, he made history that laid the groundwork for future civil rights victories.

With the help of Thurgood Marshall, who later became the first African-American Supreme Court Justice and NAACP lawyers, Oliver Hill and Spotswood Robinson, Swanson prevailed.

How does naming a street after Gregory Swanson help future generations of citizens who will walk the same streets?

It does because our public spaces can inspire us to share stories of heroes, and Gregory Swanson was a hero.

Imagine that we are walking south on our beautiful downtown mall on a day just like today.

The sky is so blue that you almost have to squint to look at it.

The cool fresh air of autumn enlivens us as we head north on Third Street to take friends to see Court Square and the Market Street Park.

Just then, a friend from out of town or your child or your coworker sees a street sign that says Gregory Swanson Way and asks, who was Gregory Swanson?

And why is this street named after him?

We all could reply.

He was the first African-American student admitted at the University of Virginia.

His courage made it possible for future generations of African-Americans to attend a great public university and law school.

His case was the first step on the road to desegregation.

And it all happened right here in historic downtown Charlottesville.

It's a story I want to share.

and I hope you will support an honorary street designation of Gregory Swanson Way.

Mayor Walker, next up will be Myra Anderson.

Hello, so first of all to council I wanted to say thank you very much for being in support of creating this mental health task force to really think about how people can be served while they're in crisis.

I think as I've expressed to you in numerous emails, it's very, very, very important that we have this discussion.

And I also want to re-express to you that it's very, very important to have a diverse group of individuals at the table as part of this task force, especially those who have had lived experience of engaging with police while in crisis.

Now, the second thing that I want to talk about is actually later on the agenda.

But given how these city council meetings have gone lately, I will probably be in my second stage of sleep by the time you get to this on the agenda.

So I wanted to briefly speak on it now.

And it's the disproportionate minority contact recommendations.

I have a few concerns about these recommendations.

And I've voiced those prior to the pandemic.

and I want to say them again.

If you look at the things that are disproportionate, disproportionate as far as the charges, the seriousness of charges, charges stacked, bond being denied, et cetera, et cetera.

These things have to relate to police, prosecutors and magistrate.

but all of the recommendations, none of them in there you don't see anywhere where there's any level of trying to hold these people making these decisions accountable.

Instead, there are recommendations about continuing with programs

that already exists, and if that recommendation was the answer, why do we have this problem if all of these programs are already working?

I feel like the recommendations say let's keep putting money into programs that

Obviously, all of them aren't working because if they were, we wouldn't have this issue.

But most importantly, none of these recommendations get at, we need to take an honest look at these prosecutors who are stacking these charges on African Americans.

The seriousness of these charges, why aren't they getting bail?

None of that is in the recommendations.

It's like you're going in the back door with these recommendations instead of coming in the front and really addressing the heart of what the problem is and who the people are that are making these decisions.

As these recommendations come up, I hope you will hear these words.

And I will be following up with an email with more information as it relates to each and every one of these.

All right.

Thank you.

And probably this is probably a good time based on what that because I see someone else has signed up and we may have other

And so I haven't been able to finish flushing this out, but I plan to hopefully get to it tomorrow and have the conversations that I need to have with everyone and to talk about what the membership of this task force should look like.

And council has been having the initial discussion and we think

at this point that it will at this point and this could change because again I haven't had and some people are on this call be hearing this for the first time but that counselor Hill and I will work on

this working group task force for DMC recommendations, along with Kaki Demick from Human Services, Chief Brackney.

I plan to reach out to Joe Platania to see if he will sit on here.

I'm going to reach out to Harold Foley to see if he would like to participate in this task force.

Jeff Fogel, going to reach out and see if he would like to participate.

Neil Goodlow.

And if any of the, by the next meeting, we should be able to tell the public who is actually on the, and I was going to wait, but based on the fact that I, and I just haven't, I had a lot of going on in the past week and a half until I just, this was on my list and I didn't get to it.

My list just went.

We're going to ask a PCRV member and two to four previously incarcerated individuals.

I have reached out to Martez Tolbert,

who is at the Felton Fund.

He was one of the individuals who was a part of the initial training group with Home to Hope and he has agreed to be on it.

I reached out to Eddie Harris at this time.

He can't participate but may be able to participate in something at the beginning of the year.

I'm going to ask

One of the Home to Hope staff members, Ramonda Jackson, and then hopefully in the next week or so we'll find, I have someone else in mind.

I don't want to say her name until I speak to her.

Anyway, I'm going to reach out to Ms.

Henley and see if she would be willing to sit on this task force.

And so by the next meeting, we should have at least have the group finalized and a meeting date set to move forward.

And that should just help with comments coming up.

And I know that there are people who individuals would want to have on this task force.

If you can see, this is already a rather large group.

And the more people we add, if you remember what was happening through the disproportionate minority with the juvenile study,

We know that there will be individuals throughout the city that we'll have to bring in, that will have to maybe sit through a couple of the work groups or that may become a permanent part of trying to get this resolved.

But this is just a group to kind of start brainstorming.

starting point.

So when we end up in situations like this, who's doing the work, whether it's being done correctly, whether we can trust the data that's being compiled, whether we trust the process, hopefully these individuals will be members that people can trust and that they would be willing to use this as a starting point and moving forward.

Next up is Gray McLean, who will be followed by Jeff Fogel, and then we'll go back to Marion Votaw.

Gray, you're on with city council.

I can.

We can.

Go ahead.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, city councilors, and city managers.

My name is Gray McLean, and I live at 2711 Liberty Hall Lane in Charlottesville, Virginia.

I come before you this evening to ask you to ensure that the city swiftly develops an inclusive climate action plan tied to a biannual climate emissions inventory.

To understand why we need to prioritize climate now, a review of recent history is in order.

In June of 2017, the City of Charlottesville joined the Global Covenant of Mayors, which committed the city to conducting a climate emissions inventory

setting a climate goal and developing a climate action plan all within three years.

In March of 19, the city released its climate emissions inventory of the year 2016.

In July of 19, the city set a goal of a 45% reduction by 2030, setting a new leadership bar in the Commonwealth.

The county followed suit and has subsequently developed a phase one climate action plan.

The city, however, has not yet delivered on its commitment under the Global Covenant of Mayors to develop a climate action plan by 2020.

I understand and appreciate that the city has been managing the fallout from an unprecedented pandemic, which has disrupted traditional community engagement processes.

Nevertheless, our climate action plan cannot wait for the pandemic to pass.

We must get creative.

We now have just nine short years to deliver on our commitment to cut emissions by 45%.

If we've learned anything from the pandemic, it should be just how fragile and interdependent our community and economy are.

The impacts of climate change promise similar levels of disruption over time, but the impacts will be much longer lived.

We must start acting now to lower our emissions while protecting disadvantaged communities

who are and will disproportionately suffer from excessive heat and other health impacts.

I call upon the city to one, develop a climate action plan with diverse community feedback as soon as possible.

Two, commit to conducting climate inventories every two years.

We are already working on nearly four year old information.

And finally,

Three, prioritize climate in the city's strategic plan and comprehensive plan development processes, which will guide city priorities for years to come.

Thank you for your service and leadership.

All right, next up is Jeff Fogel.

Yep, go ahead.

I think I'm very happy to hear the mayor's comments about restarting a task force to look at this question.

I can't imagine there's anybody on this council who thinks it's right that black people are more likely to be convicted in our courts simply because they're black.

That is simply intolerable and it's going on and it's gone on.

And unfortunately, you have to understand our frustrations as well, because the findings of the MGT were a year ago.

Virtually nothing has happened in the interim that I'm aware of, except for the work that the People's Coalition has been doing in developing some additional recommendations that speak more to the issue than does the report itself, as was well pointed out by Ms.

Anderson.

So I hope you'll take it as seriously as it is because there was a promise made in this country in 1865 that all people would be treated equally.

This is 2020 and we know from scientific proof that it's not true in our city.

And so it has to be taken seriously and people have to put the resources into making it happen and make it happen soon.

One other comment I want to make apart from that, which is once again, we have seen a high ranking official in the city leave without any real truth from the council about what transpired and led to that result.

It happened with the previous city manager.

It happened with our previous police chief.

And in each instance, we learn nothing from the city about what happened.

And so we're left to make up stories about what happened.

And you might want to refute them, but the only way to refute them is to tell us the truth.

We don't know why you picked Mr. Blair to be the interim city manager.

Does he have experience as a manager?

Does he have any of the qualities that are necessary to run the city?

I like Mr. Blair, but those questions are the ones on the table to which the citizenry is entitled to know the answers.

And let me say finally, and I have nothing against Mr. Richardson, I have a daughter who worked for the city and made $35,000.

She left for personal reasons.

Nobody offered her a cent.

Mayor Walker, next we'll go back to Marion Votaw, who will be followed by Harold Foley and then Tanisha Hudson.

Thank you.

I actually believe I have already asked my question.

OK, my question was, I'm a lot more worried about January than I am about November.

This town has become an emblem for the radical neo-Nazi type of white supremacist.

If there is a call to arms by a Republican loser of the next presidential election,

I have great fear that we will become a focus again.

I was wondering if we had any particular plans for January in case, well, bad things happen.

Thank you.

And I would say that is not a conversation that we've had, but it's on, of course, everyone's radar at this time.

And I'm sure that Mr. Blair and Chief Brackney and the deputy city managers will

Mayor Walker, next up is Harold Foley.

How you doing City Council?

Mayor, Vice Mayor, Dr. Richardson, sorry to see you go, man.

but I want to say that I don't know how long I'll be watching because the DMC report is like towards the end and what I want to talk about is the DMC report.

Me, myself, I'm incarcerated and I always wondered why it was so many people that looked like me that was incarcerated that was black and brown.

but to look at the system and see that the system is really not built for fairness in the black and brown community.

You know, I had a conversation with somebody the other day and asked them, you know, what was their biggest accomplishment?

And the young lady said she lost the case but the biggest accomplishment was that the person that she was representing said, you made me feel like a human.

and I think that's the thing I want to put that in your ear, City Council.

How can we stop dehumanizing black and brown people by locking them up?

How can we figure this out without having a back and forth or argument about what we can't do or what we can't afford?

People have been locked up for years.

People have lost so much, and when they get out, I thank the mayor for putting together Hope.

But I think it's more to need to be done.

And you know, Maya Anderson had a value point.

It's at all those breaking points that this is messed up, from the police department all the way to the magistrate, all the way to the judge, all the way to the Commonwealth.

And that's all the people who need to be in the wrong.

You know, I think the mayor and Kathy,

to what they did by sitting down with the People's Coalition and looking at our recommendations.

And one of the things in the meeting, Kathy's like, hey, what is some of the things that maybe we could work on?

And to me, it's everything, all the recommendations.

Because I'm tired of being, tired of waiting for some progress when we can do

what we can do to make sure that this situation or these situations that was in this report can be fixed.

Thank you.

I agree.

Thank you.

That we need to work on these things and get them resolved quickly.

When I was talking to, I think, Counselor Snook earlier today, we were even talking about, because originally when I was coming out with the task force or working group list, I was thinking about Myra, and then I said to him that,

While, you know, Myra clearly expressed interest in a whole, there is this one part of this, which is the response to people who are having mental health crises that Myra is very passionate about.

And I think that we've probably been looking at this as like this huge

you know, this big picture with all these broken pieces and trying to figure out a starting point.

And the reality is, is that we are gonna have to break these things down and work on, you know, them and, you know, individually and then hope that what we, that, you know, we are all aware of what we are working on and that when we come together, that there's some healing that's taking place.

in the system and that there's justice that's occurring as a result of our work within the community.

Mayor Walker, next up is Tanisha Hudson, who will be followed by Katrina Turner and then a participant on via telephone.

Tanisha, you're on the city council.

So first off, I want to say thank you, Dr. Richardson, for sharing information about the SAFER grant.

Greatly appreciate that.

What I don't understand though is why council have so much to say tonight or a certain member of council has so much to say tonight about that or about your response to the public tonight when in March nobody wanted to say anything when Chief Baxter was coming for you.

So if y'all knew this and knew that this is what he was working on, that should have been an article written in the paper.

instead of the articles that was written about them going back and forth or about emails between yourself and the mayor going back and forth.

So first off, thank you for sharing that information.

I'm glad that that was accomplished.

So he looks like a dummy for not being patient now that 15 firefighters can be hired versus the nine that he wanted to hire.

Second off,

You leaving shows that this city has an issue of black people being in positions of power.

Nikuyah knows this very well because she was often challenged by Mike Signer.

So why she continues to give you such a hard time blows me because

The simple fact, she knows what it's like.

She been there.

But as everyone can see, if they go back and look at the press conference and even her live video last night, they're very happy that you're leaving.

They're excited.

They can't stop smirking on camera that you resigned because they were going to fire you anyway.

Like I would uncover that back in May, like I was trying to get everybody to understand.

So this is what they plotted.

I want Charlottesville to know.

And this is what Heather Hill and Nikuyah collectively worked together to accomplish.

I'm sorry to see you go.

I think you were doing a great job in the community.

You were out there feeding people when no other members of council was out there.

You were out there doing all types of stuff in the community that our mayor and vice mayor should be taking part in.

And I also wanted to know if anybody even stopped you when you submitted your resignation, did they even attempt to keep you?

Because obviously we like paying people.

By the way, I'm glad you secured the bed.

You deserve that for all that micromanaging that you had to deal with.

You should have secured that bed.

Lloyd, Sena, and Michael Payne, I really wish you guys would step up and stop letting them two bullies on council, because y'all let them do whatever they want to do.

Sena, you are the vice mayor, and there's times that I feel like you should have stepped in.

Maybe you did.

I don't know what goes on on the inside.

Maybe you did.

But there's a lot of times that y'all can step in when people think that they

can have the final say or the last word.

Y'all all work together, and that drug court stuff prove that y'all like throwing each other under the bus down at the city.

Y'all don't want real change, because every time somebody make a change, and it makes y'all uncomfortable, or it makes your friends uncomfortable, you want to challenge them.

Like, y'all got a lot of work to do, like, and y'all don't know y'all job.

Y'all still ask what y'all need to do.

Like, I don't get it.

So thank you, Dr. Richardson.

I think it's important, and this is some of the feedback that has been shared, and I'll just speak for myself.

There was a conversation about me micromanaging you before, and some people since

this decision has been made.

And I just want to say with you here that the topics that I may have dug a little deeper with you have been related to pandemic, securing supplies for pandemic, utilities and making sure that people have utilities during the pandemic, employees and attempting to keep

people employed during the pandemic, buildings and safety issues where employees had to work, pushing for that.

Ms.

Hudson mentioned that you were out feeding people and there has been emergency assistance and those dollars that the city has allocated that I worked hard to ensure that we had

so that we can make sure that the community was fed and had money for shelter to keep them housed during the pandemic.

And so I think that's probably the top list of the past few months of things where we may have disagreed that I may have pushed a little bit harder on, but in terms of micromanaging,

If that means that I strongly suggested that we take care of people in this community, then yes, I did push a little harder.

And I wish this, as I shared with you, hoping that this worked for us and how important it was because of even some of the things that Ms.

Hudson just suggested.

in terms of recruitment to the city, what other people, especially black and brown and other minorities, and I even hate to use the word minorities, but what they looked at when they saw Charlottesville and whether they thought this is a place that they could come and be successful at.

that conversation too.

So I think it's important just as you cleared up your thoughts around the fire department and what you were attempting to do there.

I said, I agree with you on that point.

And I agree with you all with the other points.

And we had those discussions.

Next up will be Katrina Turner, followed by a telephone participant, followed by Don.

Excuse me.

Don gathers.

Hello.

Katrina.

Last city council, I spoke about the march Ms.

Parker and I had.

And after I spoke, Mayor Walker, you questioned Dr. Richardson as if I said that he gave us permission to do that march.

I clearly stated that me and Ms.

worked with the police to ensure.

That's not what I questioned him.

Well, I didn't mention anything about him giving us permission.

I mentioned that we worked with the police.

And the way you questioned Dr. Richardson that night about what, just because I mentioned his name, you know,

We saw the way you acted that night.

It's not just me.

It's the community.

OK?

And can I continue what I was going to say, please?

I clearly stated that me and Ms.

Parker worked with the police to ensure that the people that attended our march was safe because of all the occurrences that happened at the other marches and rallies.

But you chose to try to place the blame on Dr. Richardson by the way you questioned him that night.

And I never said he told us anything.

Charlottesville has been in phase two since March.

How many marches and rallies were allowed to occur during those months while we were in phase two?

I ask again, why were Ms.

Parker and I the only ones threatened with arrest, criminal charges, and a $500 fine?

I also have been hearing that other activists came to you, Mayor Walker, complaining about our march.

Why?

If you held off putting that statement out to allow every other march and rally that was held to occur, why pinpoint our march?

We had every right to march on that day without the threat of arrest, criminal charges, and fines, just like all the other activists that were allowed to march and rally throughout phase two COVID orders.

You are supposed to be the mayor of our city, but you have shown your true colors.

The citizens of Charlottesville thought you could be trusted, but you are no better than the rest of the council.

You claim no one white or black has a right to question you.

If you think you are above being questioned, then you need not be on that dais.

There is too much of people taking things personal against members of this community, and it is really showing.

I am not just speaking for myself, because there are so many people who want to tell you, Mayor Walker, about yourself, but they are scared to speak up against you.

You can smile all you want for who we expected you to be.

Well, you need not to interfere, OK?

Well, our time is up, but I just think if I get everybody else, just like when Nikuyah always tells people, you don't have a right to question me.

I have a right to my opinion.

This is my opinion.

And that's y'all's problem.

So Ms.

Would you like for me to respond to you, or do you want to?

You can respond.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

So no other activists have complained to me about your march.

All of the counselors are here.

Dr. Richardson is here.

And Dr. Richardson, I think this is another area that you could provide some clarity to.

I was not questioning Dr. Richardson based on

the fact that I said this was, that you said that he was the one, whatever you just, I don't even remember.

No other activist group complained about you all.

If there are people who are concerned about what they say to me, I think that mainly that's been because that I'm willing to challenge

and not just take what people are demanding just based on the fact that they are demanding it.

So because people are used to kind of demanding people do something and wanting it done and I ask questions like I would do of anybody, that is presented as a challenge.

I asked Dr. Richardson the questions and Dr. Richardson, if you want to chime in here, but I did not tell Dr. Richardson or anyone else on the city to target you or Rosea and your march.

So that is false information.

That decision did not come from me.

Every council member on here will tell you that I didn't even really participate in the conversation because I didn't agree.

So if you want accurate information, there it is.

If anyone else wants to chime in, I will let them.

But I think often, because you all want to be able to share a narrative, that you all are not even open to listen.

So almost everything you just said was incorrect.

And I would just add that it was just important of all of council that we are consistent in the way that we enforce

the events that were taking place over that period of time and we had ordinances that were active and my frustration was that it was coming across that we had made some extra effort with one event over another and that wasn't the case.

Yes, there was more communications that came out at certain times but I went back at myself and looked at all the communications from the city and they were fairly consistent throughout the summer and it reinforced and explained those ordinances and what it would be to violate them and what the repercussions would be and so

I just want to push back a little bit on that.

Yes, and I am consistent through the entire pandemic to say that we need to have a public health safety standpoint in mind.

I wouldn't have cited the events ordinance because I never voted on that.

And I didn't agree when we were creating that policy and voted against it.

So that wouldn't have been the foundation of my creation, but not spreading COVID has been the conversation that I've brought to every meeting.

and I understand that people may think that there are risks that we should take.

You know, it brings me back to one of the employees doing the employee survey that we did.

One of the comments was, do you feel, to the question, do you feel that council has taken your safety seriously or whatever that question was?

And one of the responses was, yes, too much.

That they thought that we were going overboard with trying to keep people safe.

And I understand that that is some of the same response from some of the members of the community.

But I'm OK if that's going to be something that I'm faulted for.

I'm OK with that because we don't know the nature of this virus.

It's killing black people.

It's killing Hispanic people in this country.

And as I stated on a comment that I made online before, if you're competing with a ventilator

and this was in response to the students getting together at the hospital because that is what has determined whether people survive this virus or not, whether they had access to care when they need it.

That's concerning to me and we know in this country what our medical care has looked like in the past.

So I am very concerned about things like that and I've been talking about it since

March, from a public health standpoint.

So I wouldn't have said anything differently about

your march, but council and Dr. Richardson is aware of my position at that particular moment when this came up.

And for those conversations, my point had been very clear.

I had been seeing it and been consistent for months.

And so, I had some other concerns about us making the decision at that time and those concerns

have come

Like I said, in the discussions that we had that day and shared my concerns about why I thought we were having them at that time.

No other comments?

Okay.

Our next speaker comes to us via telephone.

We'll ask them to introduce themselves.

Tell us their place of residence.

Hello, can you hear us?

Good evening.

Yes.

Hi, thank you.

Thank you for taking my call.

Good evening, city council.

This is Carol Thorpe.

I'd like to thank you for this opportunity to address you tonight.

I'm calling in an effort to help clarify for a number of people I've spoken to,

the matter of Dr. Richardson's initial employment contract and also the terms of his severance benefits.

I was watching live the virtual Zoom meeting at which his resignation was discussed.

At the very beginning of the meeting, Mayor Walker had rather quickly or someone had mentioned bringing up the two terms of his employment contract.

This was Section 3, which had to do with the minimum written notice of 75 days and then Section 6.

Neither of these sections were read for the benefit of either the public or the media that was tuned into that meeting.

Just that the sections were mentioned, they were approved, and then the meeting went on.

The media was invited to ask questions.

Nolan Stout, one of the reporters for Daily Progress was on that meeting.

He had asked Mayor Walker a direct question with the amendments if the 75-day written notice was the only amendment that was voted on and she said yes without also adding that Section 6 was part of that and not a single councilor

had chimed in to say, no, this also included Section 6.

Section 6, if I'm not mistaken, is the one that said, quote, that now under the terms of his initial contract would have allowed for severance benefits with the lump sum payment equal to one year of his salary or $205,000 only in the event if the city terminated his contract without case after six months of the execution of his employment agreement.

But that was stricken to allow for him to leave us with his resignation to take that $205,000 with him.

So what's interesting is when Mr. Stout wrote his article that appeared in the Daily Progress without the mayor having qualified that, he reported, quote, per his contract,

Richardson is entitled to a lump sum payment of $205,000.

So I think this has stirred a lot of the confusion in the public who is perceiving that Dr. Richardson is going to receive that $205,000 as part of his initial employment contract.

That is not true by my understanding.

That is because of an amendment in that Section 6 that council voted on.

So I would like someone on council to confirm that this evening.

If no one will confirm that right now, I will take your silence to mean

that this is true, that that $205,000 is being paid not as part of his initial employment contract, but as part of an amendment that you voted on at that meeting.

Yeah, so since I was the one that you just commented on, yes, we did change both of those items.

And we are agreeing to

paid Dr. Richardson the $205,000 under these circumstances, which we are, because it's personnel, we are not discussing any further.

But I did, I don't remember that moment.

There was a lot going on in the moment.

So my apologies for stating that, but we did change that item too.

Mr. Blair, is there anything else that

I wasn't even aware that we didn't read what the changes are.

Yes, Madam Mayor, you've summarized that correctly.

The contract was amended at the beginning of that meeting that did in fact change the terms of the contract so that the resignation would result in severance benefits for Dr. Richardson.

But that was voted upon at the beginning of the

I thought it was posted.

I know it was posted maybe just before the meeting started, but I thought it was posted for the public to see that amended version.

Is that not true?

It was.

OK.

All right.

Dawn, go ahead.

Good evening.

I'm sorry you keep getting choked up over my name, Mr. Wheeler.

I hope that you're well.

Before I get too deep into this, Counselor Hill, I have to say that it is very much the right and the responsibility of the citizenry to speak to, to point out and to correct or to speak against its elected officials.

whenever they feel that it's appropriate.

It may not always be aesthetically pleasing, but that comes with the job and with the territory.

Dr. Richardson, I am very much unhappy that you're leaving.

I can't say that I'm at all shocked or surprised by it.

Our community has or is developing

A very bad habit of not treating black men in positions of authority very well.

But we need to recognize and remember that we're in the middle of a pandemic.

No disrespect whatsoever to you, Mr. Blair.

But this is not the time to turn over a city and a locality to someone who doesn't have the experience in running such said city and locality.

I like Mr. Blair, he's an excellent individual and I'm sure that he does very well in the legal realm, but I just don't know what experience of any that he may have in running a city or town or locality.

And this I just don't think is the proper time to be turning over the reins of the buggy or the cart or the bicycle.

to someone doing what we're facing right now.

It was just announced today that just in athletic team testing that some 22 athletes at UVA have just tested positive.

And of the numbers that they tested, that represented some 3%.

And that was just amongst the athletic community.

That's not UVA as a whole of what we found out this weekend.

There's some 14 more students on grounds that tested positive.

We need to be more forward thinking.

We need to, just as we say, treat our black women with respect.

We need to treat our black men with the same level of support and respect.

And again, Dr. Richardson, I am saddened that you're leaving.

I wish you good luck and Godspeed.

And I'm sure that you will land on your feet somewhere.

Thank you.

Mayor Walker, next up is Jay James.

Jay, you're on the city council.

You've got three minutes.

All right, thank you.

Can you all hear me?

Thank you very much.

Madam Mayor, good evening to you, Dr. Richardson, members of council.

As always, when I get to talk to you all, just grateful for the opportunity, and I'll be brief.

I really want to talk about solutions to some of the things we've heard.

I am at 169 Brookwood Drive in the city, and I'm the Assistant Director of the Bridge Ministry Substance Abuse and Reentry Program.

And given the concerns you guys expressed or that community members expressed over drug court and also disproportionate minority contact,

I just want to offer that our program is African American owned.

It has been that way with William Washington, our founder and executive director.

We are very concerned about helping individuals of color come out of the jail.

And also, we take people pre-plea, pretrial, predisposition, all of those different things.

So I just want to offer to you all, I believe that we are a solution that's right here in this community that can work in construct with the drug court and can also

help with the disproportionate minority conduct, I mean contact, excuse me, concerns that we have as part of our program.

So I did wanna share with you, we sent you all some information via email and in terms of the pandemic, which Mayor Walker, you've mentioned, and I appreciate your concern so much over this issue.

We've been the only program really that I know of in our state that has tested everyone who comes to our program for COVID-19.

before they come to the facility.

So that's asymptomatic.

It doesn't matter.

We test everyone.

And recently we received an individual from the jail that tested positive for the virus and we worked with the jail's leadership to make them aware that the virus was present.

Love Colonel Coomer did just a tremendous job with the staff, took the necessary steps to keep everyone safe.

And as a part of that communication, it was able to help to make sure that the virus didn't go undetected and prevented a larger outbreak and save lives.

And I share that with you all tonight.

It's really more so about the relationship that we have with the jail to help these men who are dealing with substance abuse and addiction to get great opportunities.

Now our jail is one of the leaders in terms of asymptomatic testing and the different things that

that they're doing to keep the inmates safe.

So since the last time that I spoke with you all, we've received eight clients from the jail.

Seven of them are from Charlottesville, six on home electronic monitoring.

Some of them are receiving, they went out in that first wave on the monitors, but needed more structure and accountability.

And now they're in our program and preparing to go to our second phase in our intern house, where they'll get a career employment of $14 to $20 an hour via tax paying citizens.

and have an opportunity to really impact this community.

And lastly, I'd say even Senator Warner told me last week, he said that our country should emulate programs like the Bridge Ministry because of the change that it is making.

So I know we're not talking about CARES Act funding tonight.

We hope to come back and do that in the near future, but I just hope you all will keep us in consideration.

Our next speaker is Gloria Beard, who will be followed by Rosia Parker and then Zaya Bryant.

Gloria, can you hear us?

You're on the city council.

We can.

Go ahead.

Okay.

Well, I'd like to address two things.

I wanted to ask you all, because I really don't know the rules about these marches.

You know, I was a participant in two of them, but I was riding in the car, because I can't do the walking, but they went fairly well.

So it was a march coming up Sunday, I think, and I heard, now, see, I didn't

I didn't hear nothing from you all about it, but they tell me it has been canceled because y'all were worried about the park being too full under over 50 people.

Is that correct?

Because that was the petition put in for the park, I mean, for the march.

The one that was supposed to come up Sunday, do y'all know about it?

Does anybody know about the march that was supposed to be coming up?

Y'all don't know about it.

Oh my God, what in the world?

Well, I was told that it was, it's off.

We can't have it.

But anyway, that was that.

So y'all don't know anything about it, but I heard it was counseling.

I mean, I'm gonna find out more about this.

I gotta do my detective work.

Okay.

And now this other thing, I heard today that the,

The delegate down in Richmond gave the, you call it a PCRB?

I call it a CRB.

Well anyway, the citizen review board, they gave him some power.

Have y'all heard about that?

Y'all did hear about that.

Well, that's a great thing.

So I want to know, because I have citizens coming to me wanting to know when can they come and talk to these people.

Is it, are they, when?

I mean, you know, it's been last year we finished doing the bylaws and now people, you know, they got excited about it.

I'm excited about it because I am a citizen.

So I might need one of those boards someday.

Beard, one thing.

See, because it was not, you know, I was part of that.

So I'm kind of concerned because if not, we're going to lose the people.

I'm going to tell you what I know.

We don't want that boy to dismantle y'all.

We need it here in Charlottesville.

Please y'all work on this.

Don't let it dismantle.

We want them to have power to help the people.

Y'all know what's going on in this town.

I've been here 60-some years, and I don't know.

If I was younger, I think I'd be trying to find a place to move to myself.

Okay?

Ms.

Beard, one thing I should point out is that nothing has passed the General Assembly yet regarding PCRBs.

There was a bill that passed the House of Delegates on pretty much a straight party line vote.

I think it was like 53 to 45.

And it has gone over to the Senate.

It has been reported out of the Senate Courts of Justice Committee, but has not yet gone to the floor of the Senate.

would have to pass the floor of the Senate and then have to be signed by the governor before it's going to be law.

But why in the world, how did this false news get out?

And fake news now, I'm going to use that term.

Thank you.

Uh, Dr. Richardson, I've been all very, I've been crying every day.

I hate to see you go, cause you had some good plans for this city, but I, but you know, God will take care of you.

So you take care of yourself.

And just to answer, does someone else have?

So part of that is that we are waiting

Ms.

Beer to see what the feedback from Richmond, what is actually passed in Richmond and signed by the governor.

And then our next steps at that point, I think what we agreed on at this point is to, we'll get feedback from the city attorney office.

And so that should be really brief.

It shouldn't take a lot of time, but then

We should be scheduling.

We'll have a work session with the PCRB members and try to work through what is coming out of Richmond and then to see where alignment is on some of the other concerns that was brought in between the draft that was voted on versus the draft that the current PCRB would like to have implemented now.

And if people have complaints at this stage, the PCRB board is taking complaints.

So if somebody feels that they need to lodge a formal complaint with the PCRB, just because we're waiting on Richmond does not mean that people cannot go forward and do that.

Our next speaker is Rosia Parker, followed by Zaya Bryant.

Good afternoon.

I live on Hardy Drive in the city.

I am speaking about my march on last month.

I feel as though that it is very personal.

Even though they're saying it is not personal and even though truth is not being told right now to the public exactly as to what happened, and then to hear that it was said that our march was the last straw for Mr. Richardson before his resignation, I feel that should have never had anything to have done with anything.

to the city council saying that they're trying to make this COVID ordinance, that you're really working on making it consistent.

It's not consistent because you're violating my first amendment right to not be able to march, speak or protest.

Two, three, you're having, even in the city council, y'all are arguing within yourself to figure out how to find these people.

One, when we put in for our permit, we didn't get the answer.

We sent the permit in July.

It took all the way up until today to get an answer that we was not gonna be able to have the permit to march.

One, another thing, we was never,

offered a $500 fine to be able to participate without counseling our situation, our march.

Mr. Gray was fined $500.

Zion O'Brien was fined $500.

But y'all have had several marches well before my march from June until August.

Y'all are still confused even about what are y'all gonna do for the August 12th in the park.

Y'all are still confused about what are y'all gonna do about the fines.

So how can y'all say that y'all are being consistent?

You're not being consistent because you didn't violate the other protesters on their events by saying that y'all's attendees would be locked up.

Owls was saying that we would be locked up or we would be fined.

That was not totally fair to myself or Ms.

Turner.

That was not fair at all.

And I don't understand how nobody knew about any of our marches that we have been planning.

Yes, it was spontaneous, but it wasn't spontaneous because it was being planned with a police officer.

So I'm not really understanding how are y'all consistent with this COVID-19 procedure, where y'all waited all the way up until August to reiterate it to make sure that myself and Ms.

Turner's march was not going as planned.

Two, y'all don't even know if we have 50 people or less like I did in my march to make it legal to make me be able to march.

But also to be arguing on Facebook if my march was to take place or not, Ms.

Walker, I don't even see as a mayor, that should have not even took place either.

But like I said, it was not fair at all.

And it shouldn't have taken this long from July till now also to get a permit for our march to be denied today.

If y'all was really in COVID from March till now, y'all should have heard that.

Thank you.

And so

I agree with some of the statements that Ms.

Parker said and I have voiced those same things.

There should have been consistency and the day that all were that robbed that group from Juneteenth received their fine

I was under the impression and even had discussions with the members who planned that march because they were frustrated and I did not know why they were frustrated because even before the march had happened, I had discussed with them that they would be receiving a fine.

So I ended up calling to say, why are you all acting surprised about this fine?

When I was asking them the question, I later had to call back and apologize because I didn't know that they were the only ones that received the fine.

And so then that is a discussion that we had, and I don't remember every counselor that chimed in,

but I said at the time to Dr. Richardson that we either need to be even consistent with that where everyone either gets a fine or no one gets a fine and that we shouldn't have people thinking that they've been singled out in some way and I think I spoke to three individuals

related to the Juneteenth march before I became aware because they didn't express with their frustration that they were the only ones who had received the fund.

And I think there was news media or something that had been put out and I hadn't seen that.

And so I agree that

when the fines were issued that it should have been clear who was receiving the fine and even before those dates that those discussions should have been had and I think with the exception of

you all and probably Zayana, I think before the events took place that I have had conversations with individuals about the potential of this fine just based on the ordinance, the ordinance that's passed.

And something else that I think it's, because I just had this conversation I think Friday,

to where I was speaking with JJ Davis at UVA and there has been dialogue between UVA and the city

and I haven't been a part of those dialogue, so I'm just saying what I feel like has happened, but where there has been the expression of like we need to ensure that our citizens, that there's a stronger message related to the pandemic and safety while we are expressing the concerns about UVA and their students.

and I think these are two different issues but I bring this up to just tell you all the kind of battles that we are facing where one, we're saying that a large number of students are coming here and we want them to be mindful of gatherings to ensure that they don't spread this virus throughout the community and then to get some feedback on that to where you need to maybe send a stronger message.

out to the community.

And Dr. Richardson, I'm not sure if you've had, if you want to share, if you've had similar

conversations I think you may have, but I know that those were my conversations with the university.

So they are watching the activities of our citizens to then be able to say, if you are asking our students to do something different, there needs to be some accountability on your end too.

And while

I stay firm in my belief that the students should have never probably returned to grounds, that when you're talking about enforcing and being consistent, there is, you know,

There is some validity in that request that I don't disagree with because, again, anyone who knows me, I've been consistent about the safety standpoint of this.

You're correct about the university.

And I think that- I just want to clarify for the public in terms of just in general events.

Generally speaking, events that have people who are applying for permits or permission to use our parks, that's not something that comes in front of council.

We have been more aware of some of the events as the summers progressed, as we were addressing these issues around consistency and how we were going to handle them.

But in general, I could set some surprise with some people that were not aware of some events.

We are not part of that vetting process because that's not our purview.

And that's, I mean, that's just kind of where we are.

It doesn't mean that we don't know what those certain things are kind of made known to us.

You will understand that, but I think during a pandemic and when we're talking about safety and when we're talking about that individuals can't express themselves the way they want to express themselves based on, you know,

things like George Floyd's execution that it should be a more collective process and we should understand what is happening so when we get these questions that we are not simply telling the public that we didn't know.

And there were events that, there were things that were posted online and things of that nature.

So on my standpoint, I can't even say that I wasn't aware.

Like I said, I've reached out to some of the individuals who have had some of the events to just say,

My thoughts around the pandemic, I mean, I remember telling them on Juneteenth, could you at least give information about testing?

Could you give information about wearing masks?

Can you make sure you all are wearing masks?

I was just referring to because there was one example of something had on the horizon, another march was planned.

You know, that process with her and Dr. Richardson, then she can speak maybe after we hear all the comments to, um, the, you know, some of the things that kind of maybe that we should know about and what we can do about that moving forward.

So I am Ziona Bryant, Charlottesville resident.

I'm a UVA student.

So, okay.

So I think my first point is, I think it's interesting that y'all are always so surprised that your meetings run until 1 a.m.

But I think I found the issue is that you guys talk in circles for 20 plus minutes each without really even saying anything.

I'd have to concur with Ms.

Katrina and Ms.

Rosia's points.

about consistency, and I know the mayor also raised concerns about that.

I had the privilege and very good time of reading over Nolan Stout's article from yesterday in the Daily Progress.

and so the issue for me is the facts.

I actually am sad again to see Dr. Richardson go because I feel like he's done a lot of community engagement work that some of our counselors haven't even done.

However, I think that the issue is y'all don't have your facts together.

You're trying to cite me for a BYAC event claiming that it took place in Washington Park and it didn't.

So I think the part that everyone's talking in circles about consistency, consistency, but who read the ordinance and read the part about city parks, right?

Like, so what grounds are y'all using this ordinance to then cite people for?

I mean, like maybe it would be good for y'all to read the ordinance during one of your meetings to the public so people know the language.

Cause in fact, when I was trying to find it, when the very first article, when the press release came out about citations, it took me about 10 plus minutes to even find the ordinance.

I actually had to ask someone else to help me find it because I just couldn't find the actual language.

So maybe it would benefit the public if whomever usually talks for very long amounts of time would like to read it.

The issue with the BYAC Black Joy Fest is that the event was never in the park.

In fact, there were about three birthday parties and a repast going on at the park that day of more than 50 people each and most of them weren't even wearing masks.

At our event, people had to wear masks and they had to socially distance.

I think that, you know, I've had conversations with Dr. Richardson and I understand Nikuyah's point about, you know, the Juneteenth people felt it was unfair, yada yada yada, but they were using a shelter, right?

So when we talk about the language in the ordinance and we talk about consistency and fairness, let's talk about the language in the ordinance, right?

So if we want to talk about other details, then that's something else.

But my issue is that y'all are talking around in circles without actually talking about the language in the ordinance and the grounds for which you're giving these citations.

So I just think that the conversation can be more pointed.

It could be more accurate.

But the back and forth is why you guys are on here until 2 AM every other week.

So I think in terms of, and maybe Mr. Blair and Chief Wackney, if you could chime in at this point to just talk about

and Dr. Richardson, this process of how it is determined, what the violation is, who will be cited and what is presented to council at that point or if anything, once we pass the ordinance and Mr. Blair, I don't have the ordinance in front of me, so is there,

and something different about the park.

And I think, Diana, I agree the talking in circles part because I'm trying to be respectful and I'm not saying a lot and it's hard to try to filter.

So I am trying to be very careful and mindful with what I am saying.

And I just want to say too, the First Amendment rights are very important and we do respect that as a city.

And could I also note that the city council does not make prosecutorial decisions.

We were never asked, who do you want to cite?

That's just not our job.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

So I can understand exactly why there's so much frustration and confusion.

And it seems because we, the city ourselves have sent mixed messages.

One of them is there's two separate ordinances.

One are on special events and the other one is the additional ordinance that you passed related strictly to COVID.

Since March, we've not been doing any special events approvals whatsoever.

and that is the ordinance by which you cannot use our parks or block our streets or have marches in the street or public right of ways without giving 60 days notice and getting that approved through the city's manager's office.

So I think when we start thinking about 50 people or less,

versus are we shutting down streets and blocking streets.

They're complaining or there is a completion of the two ordinances.

What we have been consistent on is bringing forward that

Each of these events and marches that have shut down the city streets or have utilized our parks all fall under the special events ordinance and that if there were any citations to be issued from the city manager's office it should fall under the special events ordinance possibly supporting or being supported by

the second ordinance that was put into place by council.

What I have been advocating for from the very beginning when we stopped the special events ordinances is that exactly what you're saying.

You didn't have the second ordinance in a place in July.

So any of the marches, any rallies, or any demonstrations that were occurring in the public spaces, whether it's the parks, whether it's city facilities, or whether it's in the streets,

They would fall under that special events ordinance and should still fall under the special events ordinance currently.

The reason it's so important that these ordinances, especially the special events ones, are under consideration is when you have these planned events that are not sanctioned,

and you're strutting down streets.

There's traffic issues associated with there.

There's also ambulance, fire, safety issues.

Also when you have individuals who are just basically occupying a street and then using their private vehicles to close them off, there's high risk that someone may actually come into a crowd either accidentally, inadvertently or even intentionally to make a statement.

We are always going to, and Ms.

Parker is correct, she did put in a special events application back in July in order to be in compliance with the 60 days.

I brought that before our CIMT team meeting repeatedly that we needed to address that.

And I believe that finally got addressed today.

So there has been not inconsistency on

our part at all been very consistent including in my emails that this cannot continue where we were sending conflicting messages and having these kinds of public safety issues.

You can have a rally or march if you stay on the sidewalks.

Don't block the streets and stay under the 49 persons and it would not fall under either of the ordinances as Mr. Blair can speak to.

But these events that are planned, blocking streets, taking over city properties, regardless of the number, also have to be approved through a special events application, which Chris Parker actually did as well.

So any signs or citations that went out, we have submitted and have been consistent that every one of these rallies or marches that took place from Juneteenth

forward not accounting for newsworthy events under a spontaneous march with the death of George Floyd should have been treated exactly the same if they took over streets or blocked them or obstructed traffic.

Well, thank you, Chief Brackney and Dr. Richardson and Mayor Walker.

I think it's important to note that there's a special events, what's being called the special events ordinance, but it's actually city code section 28-29.

and it also talks about that the city manager can promulgate regulations for these events.

It's important to understand, and I do, to Ms.

Bryant's point, it is important to note that it's not only an ordinance, but there are special event regulations that govern these events.

To get to some of the concerns raised by Ms.

Parker and Ms.

Turner earlier, there are thresholds that, in effect,

allow the special events permit process to take place.

And the threshold typically is 50 or more people using public property owned by the city of Charlottesville.

And it's important to note that the regulations talk about public property, which is the property owned by the city of Charlottesville.

And that does include its rights of way, as well as its parks and other

public property that the city owns.

In terms of special event permits, once the COVID declaration of emergency was issued, Dr. Richardson at that point stopped the issuance of special event permits at that point.

And that was, again, due to the COVID emergency.

And when you look at the special event regulations, like I stated, it has a threshold of 50 people.

Ordinance itself and that's a separate ordinance and you know coming attractions tonight we will be discussing the reauthorization of that ordinance.

It prohibits gatherings of 50 or more except for special events or demonstrations on city property.

So there are two separate sets of ordinances and I think it would be remiss if there wasn't talk about there's actually a third ordinance that does apply to rights of way that also is found in the city code about that right of ways cannot be obstructed.

I believe that's section 28-30 if I'm recalling about city streets.

I may be wrong on that citation, but again, it talks about blocking access I believe to cities or to the streets or occupying more than one half of the sidewalk.

or if I'm correct, I think that's what Chief Brackney was talking about that if you have an event that is 49 people or fewer and it isn't obstructing the sidewalk, you can still have your march at that point.

It wouldn't violate the COVID ordinance.

It wouldn't violate the special events permit.

Thank you Chief Bartney and City Attorney Miller for just clarifying that.

I do believe that with all those things considered that we are covered.

I don't know that we have to revisit that language.

I think that we're covered with it and so

And I will say too I think it's been clear trying to figure out one the citizens were doing whether you know have you feel about

them having marches, rallies, they were doing a really good job with the marches and rally.

And I think under, for me at least, if we were not in the middle of a pandemic, I would have had very different concerns about that because again, it was just all about ensuring that people were safe.

And so I just want to share, you know, just say that.

But since we don't know and we are talking about really anything about this virus, I think that it's, you know,

that we have to be very mindful about what that looks like you know in the past and moving forward and I agree with the and I do want to clear one thing when I said I was trying to hold some things back and be respectful and that's not to any comment that anyone from the public has made because as been mentioned you all have a right to say whatever you're thinking

Thank you for having me.

At any point that anyone is brought up today, it is just not true.

And so when you talk about fake news, it is all fake news.

And I do not appreciate that.

And so that's been the source of my frustration.

And that's what I said.

That's what I was commenting on when I said I was trying to hold some comments back and try to filter through them.

So thank you all.

Thank you all for clearing that up.

I haven't been to any other marches, but I've been on, I watched the lives that people had of them.

I do think the community did a really good job.

I think we also have to say that it's not

particularly safe could not have been.

I also made the comment that if someone had been in June and everyone's healthy, then what I would hope to have come out of any kind of ordinance has been accomplished.

People are still healthy, they're not sick.

We didn't get reports from the health department that there were a large number of people that became sick as a result of the virus.

But I also fully understand that that doesn't mean that it's not possible.

and especially, and I talked about this yesterday on my live, you know, during this season we won't know the difference between the cold, the flu, or COVID-19 and especially in this season and if it's anything like what happened in 1918, I just want you all here in a year

from now on to protest march, yell at us, whatever you need to do to be active participants.

I want you live to do that.

So that's my only motivation.

And I want your family, even if you are able to survive it, the family members that you come in contact with.

And I hope that we all have that common goal.

Two more.

Next up is Robin Hoffman.

Robin, you're on with council.

Yes.

Hi.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay.

So, first of all, my comment that I was in the March with Floyd and I needed to be there like a lot of people did, but I found that people were

distancing and they were really cautious and it was really led well.

I just felt like it was so organized and that we did the eight minutes kneeling and all of that and most cities don't have this kind of cooperation but I do see the changes in their findings of the contagion that it's now air

It's not even like droplets.

It's just like in the air and it lingers.

It's really scary.

I feel like we need to go out and yell when these things happen, but at the same time,

that's like the worst thing to do and so but also what I'm really here for is to also be supportive of Dr. Richardson was out there and he was marching with everybody as well and I was very happy to see him but also I want to say the schools that are open

like Greenbrier and County and they're saying they're reporting that they're not getting COVID.

but I worry about the teachers and then I worry that people are not doing mitigation things.

These are old buildings, all the schools are old.

The filtration is number one key to antiviral probiotics in the duct systems and things like that.

I haven't heard that and I'm hoping that actually people start really addressing that because we're gonna have another year of this.

People aren't cooperating, they're traveling.

And if they do travel, they should report it and they should quarantine themselves and that sort of thing.

But we're not all cooperating.

And that sort of task force or structure to mitigating this in the public to begin with, like beside the mask, besides the distancing now, I think we need to look at our HVAC systems

in our homes and our schools and our buildings and our city hall everywhere and see if we're actually harboring this virus and continuing it spreading.

And I just wanted to know if that was a consideration.

Are people talking about that?

And I heard that Pine Soul is really good.

So like if if people could start talking more about that.

Mayor Walker, there are no other hands raised at this time.

Oh, now we have one.

That worked.

Joy Johnson, you're on the city council.

Yes, I can.

Great.

Go ahead.

Good evening.

Dr. Rickstinson, thanks for all that you have done.

And Godspeed.

When one door closed, another one does open.

Thank you.

You and I have had some conversations.

My conversation with you is between you and I.

and with everybody.

And that's the way it's gonna stay.

But I do wanna say that I've served on some boards before and I know that it doesn't take one person to vote to get rid of a person.

And so it takes three votes on this council to approve anything.

So I'm pretty sure Nikuyah wasn't the only one that voted.

I don't know how it went because I haven't been following it.

But I do hope that you counsel the rest of you, Michael, Lloyd, Sena, and Heather.

You got one feather in my hat tonight for speaking up.

As a leader in running an organization, we're in a tough spot when things happen.

And to watch the beating that's going on right or wrong, mistakes or not, you all need to step up and support each other on this council.

That's what makes a board strong.

Even when you're wrong, even when you're dead wrong,

you still admit, but you still give support.

I just wanted to say that because as I'm watching and I'm listening and rightly so, people have the right to voice their opinion.

It just seems like, and maybe Nikuyah, maybe you need to let some of the other council answer some of these questions and not just you.

So I just wanted to point that out because I know I've been still probably going to be in some shoes tomorrow, but I really don't give a damn.

It comes with the territory.

and I just want to say I just hope that you all as a council can support each other whether you all agree because part of what happens to make a good team is you all agree to disagree and so Nikuyah wasn't the only one that voted and it's a person that mattered.

I know you can't be talking about it out there but I'm just

I feel like I needed to say that you all need to support your mayor.

Thank you.

Music playing

Music

you

you

First up, we have the public hearing on program one, program year

July 1, 19 through June 30, 2020 consolidated annual performance and evaluation report.

And Ms.

Attack, it will be presenting, I think.

Yeah, is she here?

Hi, Erin.

Good afternoon.

Okay, so today's public hearing serves two purposes.

The first is to serve as a forum for public comment for fiscal year 1920, the consolidated annual performance evaluation report, also known as the CAPER, on the community development block grant, CDBG, and home programs.

The second purpose for tonight's public hearing is to have council set priorities for CDBG and home funds for fiscal year 2021, 2022.

So this is for next year.

Goals and priorities that are determined as a result of the public hearing tonight will serve as the framework for funding recommendations made by the CDBG and Home Task Force on funding made available by HUD after July 2021.

Right now, we don't have the exact entitlement award funding on hand for next year, but we can estimate based on previous program year funding what we will get

So given this, the city can expect to receive about $419,367 in CDBG funding.

And for home, the city is estimated to receive $80,594 in home funds.

And for the overall consortium, about $644,752 in entitlement awards.

So for the program performance highlights for fiscal year 1920, so this past year that just ended, CDBG projects benefited 570 people.

These projects included technical assistance for micro enterprises and entrepreneurs, re-entry services for the homeless, and workforce development.

Of the 570 beneficiaries, 99.47 were extremely low income, so that's zero to 30% AMI.

and then almost 1% were low income, so that's 30 to 50% AMI.

And then of the 570 CDBG beneficiaries, 58% were minorities.

It's also important to note that for the economic development projects, businesses will have success and growth far after fiscal year 19, 1920.

Some infrastructure improvements have been also completed with the Belmont priority neighborhood,

project outcomes can't be reported yet until the activity is fully closed out.

So it'll get reported on another caper in the future.

It's also important to note that due to the global health pandemic, several CDBG and home projects experienced delays throughout the region.

HUD has given extensions to these projects and projects that are continuing into fiscal year 20 will have their outcomes reported in next year's caper.

For the home program, the city completed two homeowner rehab projects

compared to the overall goal of 19 for the region.

Region wide, the home consortium completed four new rental units, one first time home buyer project, and 10 homeowner rehab projects for an overall total of 15 units.

Of the 15 beneficiaries, 33% were extremely low income, so that's zero to 30% AMI.

70% were low income, so that's 30 to 80% AMI.

And 56% of the home beneficiaries were minorities.

All comments captured today during the public hearing will be included into the final submission for the city's caper for HUD.

So right now I have the draft caper as part of the council agenda materials.

But once tonight's over, I'll send you the final version with the public comments for today.

The full draft comment or draft caper is located on the city's website as well as the TJPDC commission site.

And the link has been provided in the council agenda materials.

So next we have the CDBG and home priorities for fiscal year 21-22.

Council will confirm the priority neighborhood, determine if CDBG funds should be set aside for economic development and housing projects, determine the percentage of funds that should be allocated for public service projects and administrative and planning, and add any additional guidelines that council may wish to see how these funds should be spent in the future.

Overall, staff recommends that council move forward with the following priorities.

So the first is to approve the 15% maximum allocation for public service projects and improving the 20% maximum allocation for administrative and planning.

For public service projects, these funds remain citywide in that nonprofit partners as they're going through the CDBG application for next year, they're made aware of which priority neighborhood council has selected and encouraged and they are encouraged to recruit beneficiaries from that target area.

For admin and planning funds, this is typically funded at the 20% HUD cap

to cover all the grant requirements for running CDBG and home.

So this includes staff costs, staffing, environmental review, public participation, community engagement, Davis-Bacon, section three.

These are all part of the CDBG and home requirements.

And then council will also set a funding proposal for housing and economic development activities at $61,249.28.

have the remaining estimated CDBG budget.

So that leaves about $150,000 go towards the priority neighborhood funding.

Ridge Street will be going into its second cycle from the Belmont Ridge cycle rotation.

This was approved previously by city council and per the discussion that was held last September, the three-year blocked priority neighborhood cycle ensures plenty of time for community engagement to occur

and coordination between the Ridge Street Task Force and city committees to identify a potential project for that target area for council to approve.

So once they do come up with their project, we'll come back and approve that project.

Council will also have any public service, housing or economic development activities meet the goals and recommendations of the growing opportunities report in addition to the consolidated plan

And then for home funds, if there's any leftover program income or reprogramming available, those funds be redirected towards housing activities to support down payment assistance or homeowner rehab.

All the priorities that I just listed are also consistent with the 2018-2023 consolidated plan.

As for community engagement, today's public hearing marks the first process for next year's CDBG and home cycle.

The CDBG and Home Task Force will meet virtually or in person, depending on where we are at that time, to review the public service and housing projects to make recommendations for funding for city council.

The city's Strategic Action Team will also review the economic development applications.

So this is for the CDBG program still.

And the Ridge Street Task Force that was just formed will make recommendations to use all the priority neighborhood funding for council to approve.

Notice of today's public hearing and initial recommendations and notice of the public comment period for the caper was advertised in daily progress from September 4 to September 18.

Approval of today's agenda item aligns with the economic sustainability and quality housing opportunities for all priorities.

And home funds will also require a 25% match as part of the grant requirements.

This is a local match.

And in previous years,

This portion of the funding came through the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund, leaving no impact on the general fund regarding CDBG.

Overall, these are the recommendations and program updates.

They're located on page seven of the council report.

I don't have any questions at this time.

I would like to just ask Mr. Blair one question.

Is it possible for us to move this to the consent

agenda next time just in case I have any questions.

I had a lot of personal stuff going on the last week and I did not get to read this entire report.

And so I just want to make sure that if I have questions that I can ask them at the next meeting.

I believe it's possible at this point to have a reading on the consent agenda next time.

And Erin, do you have any thoughts on that?

Yeah, the public hearing is the key factor for tonight.

We do have to submit the report by the end of the month.

So that's the other thing to keep in mind.

Yeah.

We can.

I mean, I think though, Mayor Walker, one thing that comes to mind, the council has a work session on September 29th.

And I suppose maybe if you had questions, you know, in the interim between tonight and the 29th, we could conceivably at the beginning of the meeting on the 29th,

have staff address your questions.

Okay, well I think since we need to vote tonight that we can just go do that.

I will abstain because I, and the only reason I'm abstaining is because I haven't read the full report.

I tried to skim through it, but it's not how I like to do things, so I just want to be honest about that.

And what I'll do is if I have any questions, then I'll bring that up.

Then I'll ask for that to be added on the 29th.

That works?

That works, okay.

Thank you.

Madam Mayor, I have a couple of questions for Ms.

Attak.

The first question I had, looking at the staff recommendations as they appear on page five of your report, which is page 44 of all of the agenda items.

The third item, it says, public service funds remain citywide.

Nonprofit partners are made of the strategic investment area.

Okay, I'm just thinking the strategic investment area to us here in Charlottesville has a very different meaning.

So should it be saying priority neighborhood at that point?

Next, this figure of $61,249.28 is a remarkably specific amount.

for both economic development activities and housing activities.

Yeah, that's just how the math ended up playing out as I was dividing the estimated grants for next year into the different funding categories.

I guess what I'm wondering is just look at last year's number or this current year's number for economic development is $15,000 and now we're showing $61,294.28 for economic development for next year.

Similarly, housing was or is $78,550.12.

It is now going to be $61,294.28.

Why that number?

No, there's no formula.

It's just how the math ended up playing out.

The number of funds that remain after priority neighborhood public service and admin and planning, it gets divided between economic development and housing.

And last year we had 45,000 blocked off for economic development and housing.

The reason why only 15,000 was funded was because the applicant asked for 15,000 and the remaining funding

So if I understand what you're saying, you've got $122,588.56 left over after the various other demands are satisfied.

And your recommendation is to split that evenly between economic development and housing?

Not really.

I mean, it's just keeping everything fair for all the potential applicants.

The funding can get changed depending on what the overall entitlement award is going to be.

And then the funds, if we don't get enough econ applications, can get diverted to housing or to the priority neighborhood and vice versa.

Okay.

Um, and I'm just curious, we we've, actually, let me ask you this on the housing money that we spent $78,550 and 12 cents.

Yes.

So that's on Ridge street homeowner rehabs.

Okay, and have those been, had the costs worked up?

It's a reasonable figure.

I mean, they're pairing it up with the home funds that the applicant did also receive.

Okay.

For CIC.

And did we get any other applications?

No.

Yeah.

So I would be a bit concerned.

not having read the entire report, I'll say, but about us, you know, making that allocation when, unless we have reason to believe that something would change and especially the situation that we're in regarding, you know, the community, the pandemic and housing needs to, you know,

to divvy up the funding in that way.

So I'll just share that because I think essentially what we may be saying is that if it's not more than that CIC that we could possibly, that entity could apply for more funding.

So I think if we can set the priority in some way to say,

It sounds like from the questions Lloyd was asking of Erin is that these are just kind of like placeholders for now waiting to see what the applications are because then it all goes through a true allocation process and it's just kind of to have like buckets there available.

And so I agree in the CAIA too, like we could just say that it's all going to go in one place or the other, but at the end of the day, we don't

We're not going to make any final decisions on these allocations until after we see what applications have been received.

And then the monies within both buckets just get dispersed.

Well, did the CIC request more money?

No, for the regular CDBG funds, it was 15,000.

OK.

All right.

It would seem to me that if we're saying that we've got 61,294.28 available, we may get more applicants than a different, perhaps some different applicants than if we said we only had 15,000 available, for example.

So it may be worthwhile to keep those numbers as they are, and as Heather put it, to basically see what applications come in, use them as placeholders.

Well, is it accurate that that?

specific housing bucket is for homeowner rehab.

Yeah, I think I see what you're trying to say.

So housing can fall under public service as well and into the separate housing funding pot that I have laid out here.

It just depends on the program application itself, what they're listing to accomplish for the year.

We also have to keep in mind that applicants do need to present that they are able to carry out the full grant requirements and the compliance that comes with carrying out the grant.

That was one concern that was brought up.

I think it was in the CDBG task force meeting.

Staff identified that there were some concerns with jumping from conducting four homeowner rehabs from the previous program year to 10 all of a sudden.

But given the increase in funding that they are receiving, it should be doable.

OK.

All right.

If there are no further questions, we can open it up for the public hearing.

All right.

Yes, and just click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar to get in line to speak.

The first person is Brandon Collins.

Brandon, you're on the city council.

You've got three minutes.

Thank you.

I had an internet problem there.

Good evening, council.

Just a quick reminder about CDBG and HOME, that is money that can and should be spent

on public housing, and particularly as you look at the Ridge Street neighborhood, it's an ideal place for some of that money to be focused on public housing redevelopment and the development of additional affordable homes for people.

So I just really hope that that comes into play.

And I don't know, I've always felt like the process was a little flawed.

in that the city doesn't really put out exactly what it is they're looking for and I think if you can somehow signal that to the rest of the world, you might be able to get the kind of programming and the kind of projects

that you think need to be funded instead of just floating it out there and seeing who applies for what.

I also really, really like this idea of housing first.

I think there's typically not enough money devoted towards housing and too much devoted towards economic development.

I know it all goes hand in hand and I know these are compatible items, but I think if there's any skewing of where the dollars go, it should be towards housing.

You all know how deep the problem runs.

and every little bit helps.

So I think that's about all I'm going to say except to say I'm also thrilled that section three was mentioned and CDBG certainly does trigger section three and welcome the city's giant warm embrace of section three as we move forward.

If there's anyone else who would like to speak to council during the public hearing, just click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

Okay.

Thank you.

So we'll close the public hearing.

Just one quick question for Erin.

In terms of if Brandon's comments related to public housing, will they be able to apply for funding?

Or do we need to write something specific in there for them to be able to apply in the future?

They are allowed to apply for funding.

They have to go through the same application process as everyone else.

And I believe one public housing entity did apply for CDBG CV funding in this past CV application period.

For anything related to, I mean, it depends on what activity they're looking to fund.

If it's housing related, then it would either fall under public services or in the housing category.

If we're talking about emergency housing activities, then I would suggest that they apply for the upcoming CDBG CV3 that will be advertised later within the coming month.

Question about the pool of money for priority neighborhood, that's obviously something the Ridge Street Task Force

It meets and provides us recommendations about, but are there any sort of restrictions on what priority neighborhood money can be spent on?

So the Ridge Street or the priority neighborhood funding typically goes towards funding public infrastructure improvements to better that community.

It really depends on the type of activity they're looking to fund.

There's an extensive community engagement process and multiple Ridge Street task force meetings that end up deciding what project proposal should come forth in front of council.

It really depends on the activity.

And I guess final question is,

You know, I know this is an onerous process, so it may deter some applicants.

So in the current budget that I have in the agenda packet, those are some of our regular applicants.

There were some new ones that came forth with the CDBG CV funding.

but they did not end up getting funded just because they realized that CV money isn't really for them, but the regular CDBG and home funds might be.

So I'm hoping those new applicants that came forth this past round will also come back for the new round.

Okay.

I just want to be clear on what, we're voting on the resolution for the council priorities.

Is there more than one thing we have to break it out with?

Because there's also the allocations.

Yeah, this one resolution has I think everything bulleted out.

I just want to make sure that there's one resolution.

Yes.

Okay.

Any further discussion?

Okay.

Ms.

Ms.

Walker.

Do you want to abstain?

Ms.

Magill?

Ms.

Hill?

Yes.

All right.

And thank you for your report.

And if I have any questions, I'll still reach out.

OK.

Next, we have the extension of ordinance for COVID-19 approved July 27, 2020.

Thank you Mayor Walker and Councillors as you may recall approximately two months ago you enacted the COVID-19 ordinance at the local level.

This was done and obviously as the pandemic has gone on and I think more in anticipation of as summer wound down

Students coming back to UVA as well as other possible gatherings.

And the ordinance before you is the same as the one that you adopted back in July.

But I do want to go over a couple of points that have come up.

both tonight and some other questions.

And the first being about the marches.

And I think it's important to understand that this COVID ordinance in section five, it talks about the 50 or more gatherings can be subject to this ordinance and its penalties.

However, there is an exception for expressive activity on a public street, public sidewalk, spontaneous demonstrations as defined in the regulations for special events and demonstrations on city property or other public property as permitted by a special event permit issued by the city manager.

So I do want to make clear that there is an exception in the current ordinance that

you all adopted and again when I say ordinance we're talking about the COVID ordinance because as we discussed earlier there are three moving parks and this is just one of those three.

The second thing I do want to highlight is as you probably heard Albemarle County also

I just reenacted its ordinance last week.

Again, very similar to what's proposed to you all tonight, that the city would reenact this for an additional 60 days.

And again, just to go over the main, the three main aspects of this ordinance are first, there is the limit on food establishment and their capacity at 50% of their occupant, of their certificate of occupancy.

Second, the 50 or more people gathering.

and third, there is the face covering requirement.

It's found in section six.

Those were the three substantive provisions that you enacted back in July.

And again, nothing has changed since then.

I do wanna also point out that the penalty section has agreed upon back in July.

And I know Mayor Walker wasn't at that meeting, but before this came before you, she and I had talked and the council

agreed with the idea that the penalties in the city's ordinance are class three and class four misdemeanors.

And if you recall the discussion we had on July 27th, that was to avoid jail time, the possibility of jail time.

And so just wanted to point that out again.

Happy to answer any questions.

And again, this would, if you enacted tonight, it has an expiration date of November 30th.

Obviously, you could make it longer if you wish tonight, or you could just say we want to reevaluate it again, like you did with your first ordinance in 60 days.

And I guess that was my main question was, why isn't it enough until we make another decision otherwise type of language?

Because then it would save us from having to revisit this.

Great question.

And I think the first time that this occurred, I think there was, as with any new ordinance that was

you know, that's this fire hose of information and executive orders and guidance that everybody's receiving.

I think it was sort of the idea, let's enact this for 60 days, see how it goes.

And you know, a 60 day review period would allow you at this time, if you had heard any major concerns to this point about the COVID ordinance, you could make changes.

Now, again, it's set for an expiration of November 30th,

Yeah, I think I like the end of the declaration of state of emergency, because it will, because we talked about this before, like if we needed to counsel this before the expiration date, we would just bring it back.

Let me check that.

I think it is, but let me check that to be sure.

But there were some differences between ours too.

They had a higher

I think a class one.

One, yeah.

when we were talking, which way.

But when we were discussing it, that's one of the things that we brought up was just making sure that people weren't, you know, sitting threatened with jail time or felt like they were being threatened with jail time as a result of this.

And so that's different in our ordinances.

So there are some, you know, differences.

Let me take a look here.

The county does have a class one misdemeanor, that's one, and they actually, their ordinance, it says the ordinance succeeds and supersedes their prior ordinance on and after September 16th, 2020, and continues until it is amended, superseded, or repealed.

So they had, it's like open-ended language from what's available on their website.

So again, we can,

Happy to change the language in section nine to read.

The ordinance reenactment is effective 12 a.m.

Okay.

Anyone in agreement with that?

All right.

I mean, we've already discussed it, and I think it's probably given the pandemic we're in,

still the approach to move forward with when we're thinking about compliance of restaurants, bars, parties, community events that may happen.

But the thing that definitely gives me the most concern is even at that lower misdemeanor level that it's introducing some level of criminalization into it, which I know we discussed originally at the time is definitely the thing that makes me most uncomfortable.

But given the situation we're in, again, thinking about an ability to enforce compliance among bars, restaurants, and the such, I think unfortunately it may be the most prudent thing.

Again, as I'm sure everyone has seen, we've passed 200,000 deaths.

I think right now locally it feels like we're in perhaps the most dangerous moment since the beginning just because we have UVA students returning.

We've already seen outbreaks in dorms and it could take one thing for that to become

We go from few cases to a ton very quickly and unpredictably and we think about our students not being in elementary schools, the sacrifices, restaurants and the business community made.

Nothing here is easy trade-offs, but when we think about the fact that we've been able to avoid the kind of major community spread we've seen in the Virginia Beach area, localities in Northern Virginia, and the risk that we have with UVA students returning

I think to do what we can to prevent that kind of community spread and recognizing the devastating impact that would have economically, but much more importantly on people's lives.

I think it makes sense to be cautious here.

Yeah, and while we've been able to avoid it, we have had local citizens who have contracted the virus, not thinking that they were participating in safe activities, and then shared on Facebook Lives that they thought their life was over, right?