City Council   3/19/2018

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Music Playing

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So I call this meeting to order.

Good evening.

Here.

Ms. Hill?

Here.

Ms. Walker?

Here.

Mr. Signer?

OK. For the women on our city council, as well as who have been supporting us, I'd like to, sorry I should have warned you all before, but kind of wanted to surprise you.

I want to officially give you all this proclamation celebrating Women in Public Office Day as a part of Women's History Month.

So officially I'd like to declare that whereas the month of March is Women's History Month and celebrates the significant contributions women of all races, ethnicities, and backgrounds have made to the world, and whereas women play a critical role in the vitality and diversity of our communities,

and are essential to ensuring Charlottesville is well represented and whereas the 20th century was a pivotal time of growth for women entering politics, women remain underrepresented in male dominated fields and thus providing opportunities to support women in public office is imperative.

And whereas for the first time in history, Charlottesville City Council has a female mayor and a female vice mayor and all three of the women representing the community on council

make us better collectively.

And whereas recognizing women in public office will bring awareness to the fundamental necessity of their work and will inspire other young people to serve their communities,

Now therefore, be it resolved by the Charlottesville City Council, I hope with your permission, that we do hereby proclaim March 19th to be celebrated as Women in Public Office Day and call upon the people of Charlottesville, Virginia to unite as we support the success of Women in Public Office, signed and sealed on this 19th day of March 2018 by Wes Bellamy.

If we can, can we give the women up here a round of applause, please?

I know I was supposed to warn you all, but in light of everything and we all may not agree on every single thing all of the time, I really do appreciate your collective work that you all give to the city.

and I think every word that we put up there, we meant.

You women do make us a lot better.

We have one as well for you, Ms. Robertson, as well for you, Ms. Rice.

I didn't tell you that.

But we really appreciate you all and all of the women who are here as well as who work for the city.

You appreciate it.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

At the last city council meeting, Ms. Emily Gorzynski raised concerns that she had about information that she had discovered online, some threats, that type of thing, and we have met with Ms. Gorzynski to collect that information and have discussions with the police department and with the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office.

I just wanted to provide an update on the Civilian Review Board process.

We have set a date for the forum for the Civilian Review Board.

That will be April 24th from 5.30 to 8.45.

We're still working on a site for that.

We'll have more information about that within the next day or so.

We do have 17 candidates who will be part of that process on the 24th, and then we'll have follow-up from that with the City Council shortly thereafter.

But we will have a press release going out within the next 24 to 48 hours on that.

Thank you.

All right.

Good evening.

My name is Jim Hingely.

I'm a city resident.

I'm here tonight to ask city council to

rename Emancipation Park as Swanson Legacy Park.

I know you are familiar with the story of Gregory Swanson who in 1950 as an African American applied for admission to the University of Virginia Law School.

The law school faculty denied Mr. Swanson admission, rather excuse me, let me get that straight, the law school faculty

agreed to admit Mr. Swanson to the law school.

It was the Board of Visitors that denied his application to the law school.

Because the Board of Visitors denied his application, Mr. Swanson went to court to compel the Board of Visitors to admit him to the University of Virginia.

His court proceeding took place here in Charlottesville.

And the courthouse at that time was in the Jefferson Madison Regional Library, downtown branch.

on East Market Street, which as you all know is immediately adjacent to what was in 1950 named Lee Park.

Following the court proceeding, the lawyers and Mr. Swanson, who had won a monumental civil rights victory compelling the University of Virginia to admit Mr. Swanson, left the courtroom and walked across the street to Lee Park.

and they celebrated their victory in court in Lee Park.

I have a picture which is circulating on counsel's dais.

This is a picture of Mr. Swanson and

his lawyers and other civil rights activists who were there at the time gathered on the low wall which is on the second street side of Lee Park.

Among those who represented Mr. Swanson in court were Thurgood Marshall who was pictured here, Oliver Hill, Mr. Swanson next to him and Spotswood Robinson.

These are all nationally acclaimed lawyers

They were all working with the NAACP in a coordinated strategy at that time to open up opportunities for African Americans in transportation, voting, housing, and education.

This case was a monumental case.

It was a case that led directly to the Brown versus Board of Education case.

This is a case that occurred in Charlottesville.

It occurred in the courtroom in Charlottesville, the federal courtroom.

and it occurred actually on the space that was then known in 1950 as Lee Park.

Please honor these connections to Charlottesville and have Emancipation Park renamed as Swanson Legacy Park.

Thank you.

Good evening, my name is Emily Dreyfus and I'm a community organizer with the Legal Aid Justice Center and on the Advisory Council for the Public Housing Association of Residents.

Our offices are at 1000 Preston Avenue.

I can't help but comment on the prior

Speaker's suggestions for just a moment that I would really hope the name for the parks comes from the community that is most unrepresented in this community at this point.

I think that there are good reasons to do different things, but whether it might be Mary Carey Park that a colleague of mine recently suggested or another name, I really think that the people who are most affected by the injustice that's happened in this community are the ones who need to be

making those decisions.

And I hope that outreach from the city is happening in a way that involves people who are least likely to be before you in this type of format.

So I'm here to talk with you about affordable housing and community involvement.

Two days ago, Legal Aid Justice Center, FAR, and others provided a conference in collaboration with UVA.

A total of over 200 people attended.

I wish more of you had been able to make it.

It was a really interesting and helpful day.

Most of the day, we had a standing room only crowd.

Speakers ranged from people promoting jobs programs to a low income leader from right to the city.

which is the author of the recently released report called Communities Over Commodities.

We wish that our community will take a page out of that report or many pages and start making more progress on affordable housing.

As you've heard many times before, the city is bleeding.

Maybe some of our wounds from the past summer have lessened with time, but we are far from healthy.

We are in a growing crisis as more and more people are forced out of our community.

Yet the city continues to allow the real estate market to freely determine low income people's fate.

That is not only unjust, but irresponsible.

I was very disturbed to hear the proposed budget's lack of focus on the unmet needs of low income, predominantly African-American residents.

In particular, the tax relief program for homeowners is slated for only a very small increase, $75 to $100 per year per household.

I'm not an expert on the specifics of this program.

But it seems to me that this is one of the few tools that you have in your toolbox.

And such a small increase is inadequate to address the needs, especially when homeowners are facing significant tax increases due to the city's rapidly rising assessments.

I've been told in some neighborhoods that the assessments of the land have doubled in Rose Hill area.

and that is going to result in true hardship and we need to do much more than a slight increase.

Over a year ago NDS gave a report about displacement in the SAA and data was not included for the past five years but in the several years prior to 2012 almost 200 African-American families had been displaced from that neighborhood alone.

I'm sorry.

I want to thank you.

My name is Ronnie Harry, and I needed this time.

I am the victim of the rape and the crime for three years.

I mean, two years ago, in Charlottesville.

I don't want to go first.

OK. My name is Ronnie Harry.

I was a victim of a crime in Charlottesville a year and a half ago.

The verdict was laid down a couple weeks ago.

I did not want to put my name in the pool for persecution.

I'm sorry, I'm very emotional.

This was a cop that sexually assaulted the girl.

I am the girl.

It took a lot for me to come here and face you guys, face Charlottesville.

After the trial, I ran and I hid.

I will not hide anymore.

I was never given a fair trial, but that's not why I'm here.

I stand with you.

No.

The train strips are out.

My grave is with the city.

And I came to you.

I didn't even come to you.

I didn't want this trial.

I didn't want any of what I had.

But a couple of weeks ago, you let the citizens know it was OK to let

I'm a uniformed cop.

Come to your home and do whatever he wanted to do.

The transcribes read with the transcribes read.

He confessed to it.

Whether I was an informant with Jade, which is illegal to announce.

And if anybody wants to hear about Jade, look me up.

But the point was,

I was a concerned citizen.

And I called 911.

I didn't ask for any of this.

And my life was torn apart.

It took me so long to come forward.

And if anyone's offended, I'm sorry.

I'm not an advocate for women.

No, you are.

Excellent.

Look what you're doing.

I would never come forward again if I didn't come forward.

But you did.

Bell, and the strength to ask for the resignation of Brian O'Donnell.

And I'm not going to lie, Joe did what he could in 70 days.

Murtaugh had a year and a half.

Sandridge had a year and a half.

I just have a woman to come forward.

It's not okay for a common uniform to come to your house.

I have here in the hard drive what I asked for a year and a half ago, which was safety.

I never wanted to come forward.

I would have gone to the grave with this.

and Lucas I got.

A cop can come to your home, your daughter's home, and be victimized.

I don't care who I was, and I'll say it just so I can think about it.

Am I sassy?

Yes.

Bull bosoms?

Yes.

I called in an accident at 9-1-1.

9-1-1!

Everybody can read the transcripts.

I didn't ask for this.

and I'll be showing media to say if I'm one cop, I'll ask for it.

I am confident in my sexuality.

I never want my sexuality and who I am to be questioned.

I am who I am.

I didn't know this person.

I don't care how the media covers this.

I have two daughters.

I'm so sorry.

I just never would have come forward if I knew that I would have gotten this.

He confessed three times.

He confessed three times in transcript.

How did he get away with it?

Am I that big of a whore that I did this?

I got ripped in half.

I have sisters who won't look me in the eye because

Let's talk about Jane.

Let's not talk about Jane.

We'll talk about that later.

But anybody who wants a hard drive and a disk, I begged for my freedom a year and a half ago.

I begged for it.

I didn't want any of this.

How could you?

Okay, look at this.

This is what I got a week and a half ago.

Look at my face.

I can't even tell and I got beat down for being in employment.

I'm going to take a quick break.

We'll take a five minute recess.

Five minute recess.

Joe had 70 days.

My dog had a year to have.

I was never given a fantasy problem.

Look at my face.

I got beat down.

I'm not a whore.

I just want to say, I don't want to interrupt anything.

I was on trial for two days and you know trial is different in real life.

Have I been a good person all my life?

No.

When I came to Charlottesville, I was a good person.

You gonna escort me out?

No, listen, I don't want to.

I just want to say thank you for the opportunity and at least I got to say what I wanted to say.

I didn't get to say it in trial because you don't get to stand up for yourself.

And I want to stand up for myself now.

All right, we're going to continue with the community matters.

Good evening.

My name is Jessica Maslany.

I'm the executive director at the YMCA, and I thank you for allowing us to go right now.

We have a lot of child care families here that we want to allow to go home and get their children in bed, so thank you for allowing us to go.

I would like if all the child care families would be able to stand up.

And this is Ms. L'Oreal.

She's one of our teachers.

She's been with us for 10 years.

All right, we'd like to thank the Lloyd's for coming out tonight.

Milam, Van Churn, right?

OK. We have Miss Alyssa Bradshaw in the back.

She's one of our teachers.

We have Rory and Miss Ivy with us as well.

We have Miss Missy with us, our CFO.

We have Miss Tiffany.

She is one of our parents, but she's also on our parents board.

We have Miss India Watkins.

She's back there.

She's our administrative assistant.

We have Miss Brianna Gould in the back with her child, Azaria and Azir.

We have Adam here, and we have Megan, and we have Waylon, which are some of our students as well.

Oh, and Ms. Jackson in the back with her boys, and Ms. Amaya.

Oh, and also we have Stracker.

We just wanted to let some of these families go so they don't have to stay too long.

Thank you.

There's so many things that I need or want to say tonight.

okay first of all that back row that back row and there's beautiful babies there which also I think should be allowed to sit there with their mamas that back row needs to be for handicapped people you want to know why people from Crescent Halls don't come and there's no accessibility you try to sit in one of these seats and get up and get around and in fact this should not be my time because this is saving you all

from a lawsuit because just like when Miss Peggy tried to talk, she came down, almost rolled into the air.

I had to jump up and help her.

This is ridiculous, okay?

I am disabled myself and I'm not going to do this.

This is wrong.

I asked you, Heather, to look into it.

I got no response.

That's not okay.

Disabled and elderly people matter.

Thank you.

Number two.

There's a note that was going around the downtown mall.

I'd like to know who sent it.

In fact, there have been numerous phone calls in the downtown business association to, oh yes ma'am.

Numerous phone calls to find out who did this.

It's rude if you don't like people celebrating that someone who was hurt and head bashed in with staples

because he was taking care of our community.

And you don't like that people are chanting or going down celebrating, pick my guy and bring the racist back.

See if you like that.

See if that's good for the downtown mall.

$60,000 for a chiller, for crested halls.

And how much do you give in 15 minutes?

Chain on you.

You and Mike Signer.

15 minutes, you give them $75,000.

$60,000 for a tiller and it takes months.

Who knows?

Who knows if it's even gonna start?

Who knows?

Summertime is coming.

Do any of you care?

Wes cares.

He goes down there.

They might be asleep or tired, whatever.

He tries.

Nikuyah goes down there.

Ms. Galvin, you email me.

about two years ago asking if you could meet with me.

Have you ever been down there?

You have.

Well, they don't even know you.

They don't know your name.

They didn't know Kristen's name.

They didn't know Mike's name.

This is ridiculous.

$75,000.

Oh, one more thing.

One more thing.

Human Rights Commission.

You want people of color to keep getting discriminated against?

I'm going to put on my side caring for the Seaville people.

because it will take me a very long time to tell you about three of my African-American friends, one that's called the N-word over and over, told she's going to be hung from a tree.

I take her to Charlene Green.

Nothing happens.

That's your Charlottesville.

And I am so upset for that young lady that came up here that I need to leave.

This is not OK. What is wrong with us?

I'm tired of it.

I'm tired of being nice.

Jojo, thank you.

I had followed up on her request around the seating.

I was just going to comment that I had followed up and Mr. Murphy is following up with an investigation into understanding the use of the back row and how our law enforcement interacts with folks in the back row.

Good evening.

I'm Earl Foley, 1407 Miller Street.

Good evening, Nancy Carpenter.

I'm going to be doing some remarks about the Civilian Review Board.

This is in reference to a petition that's been going around the city.

OK. And it's going to tell me that I don't have it.

OK.

Basically, there are some issues that we have with the Civilian Review Board.

In December of 2017, the then City Council, in response to loud and persistent public demands, passed a resolution establishing a Civilian Review Board for the Charlottesville Police Department.

That resolution included a commitment to host a public forum,

where community members could, in the presence of city council, ask questions of CRB applicants.

Because the resolution leaves most of the issues about the composition, purpose and process of the CRB to the initial appointees, the process of selection of its members is a crucial step in its formation.

We understand that an applicant form has been scheduled for April 24th from 5pm to 9pm.

However, the community remains largely in the dark regarding how City Council plans to select the initial CRB members, as no other information about the process has been made public.

In fact, the community has learned that City Council made the closed door decision to throw out seven of the 24 applications to serve on the CRB because the applicants do not live within city limits.

While we agree that those most directly impacted by institutions and their policies should govern them, this residency restriction was not

included in the resolution and was not announced publicly and the city still has not made public with the names of the candidates that are no longer being considered.

Perhaps even worse, the city's website currently states, quote, council is scheduled to consider applicants at their February 20th, 2018 closed session meeting, end quote.

Mr. Wheeler, maybe you could change that, please.

The public has received no information about this.

This lack of transparency and communication regarding the creation of a body whose very purpose is civilian oversight of our government is completely unacceptable.

From here forward, City Council must conduct the process for selecting and appointing CRB members in an open and transparent manner.

Akin to the process recently employed to select the city's mayor, there are the following demands to city council.

One, make public the seven names of the applicants that are no longer under consideration.

Hold the applicant form in city council chambers.

where it can be televised and recorded and live, was it Facebook Live it?

And publicly announce the process City Council will follow from applicant form through final appointment.

The process must include Council holding an open public discussion of who will be appointed to the CRBNY.

We want to start healing.

This is part of the process to start healing.

So during our meeting for the Civilian Review Board, there were 25 applicants on the city's website.

It states that city residents will be given preference for boards.

And I'm assuming that that was the day that we did the selection, February 20th, for the other boards and commissions.

And I suggested that since there are seven seats,

and 17 city residents that it would be very difficult to choose from those 17 to make up the board, and it's the Charlottesville Police Department, that it would make the most sense for us to consider city residents.

The seven county residents received a letter that Ms. Rice mailed to them.

to let them know that they weren't being considered.

And I hope that the individuals who brought this up as a lack of transparency had maybe talked to some of them, because by the time this was a factor, they should have received their letters by that time.

We were in the process of waiting for the space for the Civilian Review Board

We wanted a larger space than city council chambers not to not be televised, but so that a larger number of people could attend the meeting.

And so this was just one of those things.

I had several conversations with community members last week just personal because I put it out there in the first email chain that we received that I was the one that

suggested to the rest of council that we consider the seven, you know, that we consider city residents only.

This was a real interesting process for this whole, for this to be called lack of transparency.

It was definitely something interesting for me sitting on the other side.

I don't do a lot of group.

You all know I show up, I do my work and I leave, but this was a really interesting process.

So hopefully

through the form that you'll see that there's always a call still from my world for transparency.

And I hope through the rest of the process that you all are happy with.

There is one point on that that I am very uncomfortable with.

If you are suggesting that we speak

Publicly about applicants and why we are selecting them, I would like for you all to tell me how that's going to work.

We did it because we are elected officials and I recommended that, but if they are because we should be able to take it.

You all saw the process that we went through.

A lot of people commented on how I should have been offended.

I am not offended often by things that are said to me.

I'm able to have conversations with individuals that some of you thought I should be offended by, even though they made statements and I'm not.

We were able to move on and have conversations.

But if we are sitting up here, even if we don't say anything negative about any of the other 10 applicants that we don't select, how are people going to feel?

even if we praise just the seven in public.

So that is a process that I'm not comfortable with because for most people it's not going to be simply that this is how you made the decision.

There are 17 very qualified applicants for the Civilian Review Board and it's not a process and I'm, you know, only 70 something days in.

in this conversation about how we choose and select committee members anyway.

Good evening.

Mary Curry, city resident.

Very upset, trying to calm down.

Got a little motion in.

emotional there for a minute, but the last meeting in here, I guess it was a meeting.

It was a meeting in the beginning, but when y'all start giving out money and stuff, I don't know what it turned into because y'all never answered the mayor's question, Ms. Galvin, or Ms. Hill.

Mr. Signer is not here.

Mr. Bellamy, you weren't here.

But it was terrible.

It was a mess.

I've been coming to city council meetings since 1978.

I never seen a meeting like that in here.

Ms. Gavin, I never seen a meeting like that.

Y'all gave away that money without even talking about it, without even asking the mayor, even answering her questions.

Mr. Jones tried.

He gave her a little window to climb through.

But you knocked it down, Miss Gaddy.

You kept saying, I'm ready to vote.

But Signer said, I seconded.

Mayor Walker said, well, hold on.

I'd like to know how's this money going to be distributed.

What is it?

Y'all wouldn't give her no answers.

I never seen y'all give that much money away to nobody in that little amount of time.

You use the weed until the full council gets together, you table it, you discuss it, and you come back with it.

And Miss Hill, your rich friends, they always down on the mall.

They own those shops down there.

And you talking about they come down there to eat?

How many times do they come down there to eat?

and you got to slow down because I don't understand what you're saying sometimes.

And you got to speak into that, into the smartphone like a seal because I can't hear you either.

But I'm going to tell you something.

Those votes, those three votes were bogus because Mr. Signer sit there just like he do all the time when he was the mayor.

Every time he get ready to vote, he had a little speech already written up.

He didn't have that when he came.

He had that when he came in here.

He didn't write that.

Y'all planned that mess.

Y'all planned to get those people that $75,000.

And then when a black man found not guilty for something that a group of crazy white people said he did, it had never happened in this town before.

That was history.

Y'all should have gave him a parade.

You should have gave him a party.

Should have been on those cheap sheets floating around talking about y'all disturbing the customers on the mall.

You lucky you've got any customers down there after that.

And with Woodard trying to dig holes in the city, you may not get none then.

Hi everybody, Luis Oyola of Old Lynchburg Road.

For those unaware, there are still survivors of James Alexfield's car attack who haven't seen a dime of all of the fundraisers and money that came into the city.

There is too much red tape around the various disbursement processes and this city is in a position to establish direct and consistent help for all survivors, those who live in town and those who live outside of town.

It's a shame they're being left to fight their own trauma and on top of that having to fight the bureaucracy around the money that was raised in their name.

There is enough money to address the systemic issues and pay those who are doing that work on the ground, mainly in the local black and poor neighborhoods.

Free up the money for all of this work that is leading us to not have to deal with another August 12th.

Also, last council I called on the city to respect the black student unions and young liberals walk out on their terms.

Instead, last week the students walked out to CPD officers facing them with assault rifles.

These officers prevented any press or parents from going down to the field to join in solidarity.

There is video and photo evidence of this in social media.

We put the city on notice and we observed who they see as a threat.

Students, mostly black students, showing up for their own lives, literally.

This is notable because these are decisions that are made by the city manager in link with the Charlottesville Police Department.

They might claim this is for their safety, but these cops are facing them.

They didn't let their parents join.

And what does this say when they're showing up against gun violence and they're met with guns?

This decision has been noted by residents.

Thank you.

So very briefly, just an update in regards to the funding for the victims from A-12.

There was a meeting just this past Thursday, if I'm not mistaken, with a member from the city, Ms. Gretchen Ellis, as well as the State Department in regards to expediting the process for dispersing the funds from the state.

So if you and I can maybe get together afterwards and we can get a report from Ms. Ellis and we can make that public if need be.

In regards to the update, also Unity Seaville is still more than willing to provide funding.

So the main part though as many individuals have come to find out is the state not releasing the funding for a variety of different reasons and it's my understanding that that conversation did go well.

If I may, Mayor Walker, Councilor Bellamy, I would really like to see a report or whatever you find out.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Don Gathers, City of Charlottesville.

And I rise in support of what Brother Luis had to say.

I also rise in support of what Sister Carrie had to say.

It was horrific, the response of a CPD at Charlottesville High School that day.

The only thing missing was the gas.

For them to be standing facing the students with assault weapons

and their large tactical vehicles up and down Melbourne Street, it was just completely unnecessary.

It led credence to the very reason why that action was necessary.

Now, in support of what Ms. Kerry had to say, there is no reason why the vote two weeks ago had to be taken in absence of one of our council members.

Absolutely not.

that could have waited until the full council was present.

$75,000 to the Downtown Business Association which does not in any way form or fashion support black businesses, minority businesses, and people of color.

So this thing was done under the cover of night apparently.

It was pre-planned.

It should have been tabled, and I don't know why $75,000 had to go running out of these doors two weeks ago just immediately.

Even on a three to one vote, if Mr. Bellamy had been here, in all likelihood, I can't speak for him, but it would have been three to two, but we would have had the opportunity for discussion.

There's got to be a formula, a way, a vehicle so that this sort of thing just doesn't happen Developers and big businesses are not that important that they can't wait two weeks to get money If that's the case, close the doors What we've seen and heard tonight gives more credence and necessity to why we need a civilian review board It also begs to honor

the transparency that Mayor Walker has already begun here on this council.

I plead with you to continue that and in keeping with that I think the citizens of the city of Charlottesville deserve to know how the process was or processes were put in place to whittle down the 70 plus applicants to those who actually will be interviewed.

We don't know who took on that massive work

how it was done and how we arrived at the number of people that we actually will be interviewing throughout that process.

I think that the people of Charlottesville deserve to know that.

Are you talking about for the police chief?

Yes, ma'am.

No, no, no.

Michael Payne, I just want to speak briefly about the conference that was held this weekend hosted by the Charlottesville Income Housing Coalition, Legal Aid Justice Center, and the Public Housing Association of Residents on Affordable Housing and Gentrification.

I thought it was a really incredible, informative conference.

If anyone wasn't able to be there, I believe there is a recording that will be posted publicly to watch.

But I actually, you know, after a

I wasn't able to see the whole thing but after being there for most of it I left hopeful and positive.

There are a lot of proactive solutions put forward.

I think there is a path forward and I think it helps sort of get us, you know, get the conversation to what the root of this issue is, which I think is the matter of limited land and after Charlottesville making its way to the number one on all these lists,

Land became very valuable.

And we have a situation now where developers, particularly wealthy developers who aren't that connected to the community, view land as an investment.

So they're coming in and purchasing it and flipping it to make a quick profit.

And the process of doing that, it's skyrocketing property values, driving out long-term residents, making property taxes unaffordable, and driving land speculation.

And I think one of the things that became clear to me at the conference was that

The problem is one of limited land, not limited revenue.

Revenue matters, but we can't grow ourselves out of this crisis because there's so much limited land.

What we have to try and do is take land off the market so people aren't using it to speculate as an investment, but we can have our land be geared towards giving people a place to live.

And I think the only way around that is community land trusts and starting to take land off the market

and having it be in public control and for people to live.

Charlottesville has the first community land trust of any city in Virginia.

There is an infrastructure already there.

It's something we can grow.

In Durham, they have a land trust which is very active.

And in Durham, they actually had their land trust hire a full-time community organizer whose job was to go out into the community and have the land trust be proactively part of the community.

and they realize that what the land trust buys now is what determines 30, 40, 50 years what affordable housing looks like.

So we need to do everything we can to get land into land trust because every property that is not in the land trust is going to be, the reality is it will be used for investment to make a lot of money for developers and it cannot be used for affordable housing.

And I think the other thing was to not be afraid to take a movement approach to these policies, to be thinking about building a movement that has big goals where we have a platform in place when the state legislature flips, we know what we want when they can repeal the Dylann Rule.

We know how to proactively go out into the community.

and to not limit ourselves to what we can only do just now.

Every city is facing this crisis.

No city has cracked the code.

So, thank you.

Thank you.

Mayor Walker, may I make some comments?

Thank you for that, Mr. Payne.

I just want to make it clear that the Council wasn't informed of that conference until last Tuesday.

I would have been there if I had known and I had already made plans.

It was a Saturday.

I was out of town.

I will definitely like to know how to get that video clip or the recording.

That's number one.

And number two, I believe we're gonna be getting our housing plan by May, Mr. Jones?

Yeah, there are a couple of moving parts there.

So there's a housing report, the update, that's gonna be coming to council in April, along with the discussion over land bank.

And then there's going to be a discussion with the city council

We're planning a discussion with the City Council and the HAC to discuss the Housing Advisory Committee to discuss a work plan for affordable housing moving forward.

That's going to be coming up, I believe, in May.

And I would like to remind my council that

We do have these memorandum of understanding between ourselves and Albemarle County, and there is a housing memorandum of understanding that I believe there is on the list to entertain a regional housing authority.

Land is an issue.

We do need to be expanding the area where we could be actually building more affordable housing using actively tools like the land trust.

So I would like to make sure that we get that on as a priority at our next summit with Almonte County and the city of Charlottesville.

And it makes sense because we are in full swing with a regional transit partnership because once we get a regional transit orientation and a strategy, making a regional housing strategy is that much more doable and sensible because transportation and housing go hand in glove in terms of making sure that people have an affordable way to live and an affordable way to get to their jobs

and to shop into their child care.

So I just wanted to kind of put that context out there.

I would like to see that housing conference video clip.

Just as a follow-up, Ms. Galvin, is Emily driving still?

Oh, Ms. Dreyfuss told me outside that there's a recording from Saturday, so she possibly can get that to us.

Thank you very much.

Oh, absolutely.

I do think, though, the need is so great and the land is limited and even a land trust, you have to have a willing seller.

If people aren't going to sell you the land, there is no land to be gotten.

We don't we cannot use eminent domain to purchase to secure land for a land trust.

it has to be based on.

And when you look at our land use pattern, and that came out in the housing summit back in February, 60 to 70 percent of our land is residential, private residential.

And 60 percent of that is rental.

So we're talking about another strategy would be to make sure that we're in a position to acquire apartment buildings as they come online.

I did spend like the better part of, I was attending the better part of the conference on Saturday and I really commend the folks that pulled it together but I think one of the themes that came across, especially because some of the folks that were there on a panel were representing, coming from the state of Illinois where we are under some different guidelines and I just, I really ask the community to come and work and partner with us so that we can take this fight to the state because a lot of these things unfortunately have to be handled at the state level for us to gain the control back of how we put regulations in place so that we can

do things such as inclusionary zoning and the like.

And so I just really ask us all to work together in taking that fight to Richmond, as well as the federal level, as we really have a lot we're up against in terms of lack of funding coming from the federal government.

So that was a theme that I could hear again and again on Saturday.

And if I may, Mayor Walker, one more thing.

One serious consequence of the recent tax bill that was passed at the national level is that it has made it less desirable for investors to purchase and invest in low-income housing tax credits, which is the major vehicle by which we build affordable housing and has been that way for the last 50 years.

That means that they've lost value by about 12%.

that gap in funding is going to have to come up from the local level and with partnership with the state.

So again, we're aware that the consequences of this recent tax bill are slowly revealing themselves.

But I think one of the tools that I know we're looking at within the housing strategy is a tool that was used in Columbia Pike, Arlington County, where there was a way to capture

the increment of increased value and turn it back into investments in low-income housing tax credits.

Good afternoon.

I ain't going to take too much of your time.

But now I only need three minutes.

I'm very upset and very appalled.

Why is Mike Signer not here?

Is he still accepting words on the dependency of democracy?

I love how he continues to lie in receiving these things.

I love how on his tweets he also reads that he loves when you're isolated.

That way things can get passed in a way that it needs to be passed.

Kathy and I wouldn't be good near liberals if we didn't serve the downtown business while letting public housing slide further into despair.

So is that why that $75,000 or however came across last week?

Also, to whomever the letter came from in the business, downtown business, as a black woman,

I am very, very ashamed of who would even have the audacity to type that letter up.

For the simple fact there was a black man that was harmed.

Now if it hadn't been one of your children,

in that parking garage, you would have felt the same way too if you had had people out there supporting your child.

But because that land got stolen when Vinegar Hill was stolen, that's our land.

That's black people's land.

And every time I come through there, I'm going to holler and I'm going to shout Black Lives Matter.

And I'm going to continue to get louder and louder.

For the simple fact, y'all felt that it was a need to take our black people to court, even though it wasn't just black people, but majority of it was black homeless people, and they still won the case.

So therefore, we still gonna win the case, because I'm still gonna come through there, and I'm still gonna shout.

Thank you for having me, City Council.

As we speak, the environment continues to become more and more polluted with plastic.

In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, for those who aren't familiar, we have a giant pile of trash floating in the middle of the ocean called the Great Garbage Pacific Patch.

You can look it up on the internet.

There's plenty of pictures of it.

Charlottesville is a medium-sized city.

It's not the size of New York or Los Angeles, but it's growing.

And there are many people who are coming into this city and leaving through UVA.

So on top of that, this city has made history multiple times, being a huge, making a huge impact on history.

and LGBTQ rights and civil rights, but we could do more in environmental policies.

We could be that city that is symbolic in that area as well.

I shop at Trader Joe's and I notice that their produce, now they have these bags that are biodegradable.

Not only do they not last forever, but you could probably toss it into your garden and it will biodegrade there too.

I know there are already cities in the United States who create tax incentives that encourage industry to

to buy plastic bags that are biodegradable and other disposable plastics.

I understand that everything is made out of plastic nowadays, even this furniture here is probably made out of plastic, even though it looks like wood.

We have phones made out of plastic computers.

Plastic is everywhere.

I know it's not going to leave, but what is making the majority of the plastic that's floating in our rivers and streams and the ocean, eventually that's where it all leads,

The plastic that we throw away every single day, the plastic bag that we get from the grocery store that we only use for 15 seconds, the plastic plates we use at our birthday parties, we only use them for two minutes and then we throw in the trash and it ends up in the ocean for hundreds of years.

This city could be a symbolic city in ushering in an age of plastic that doesn't have to sit around in the environment forever.

And not only would the world thank you, but the local environment would thank you, too.

Just take a look around you.

If you walk down any street or if you go down the Rivanna River, you will see that there's plastic everywhere.

Thank you.

Mark Heisey.

Is Mark here?

No.

Evan Brown?

No?

Okay.

Okay.

Molly Converse, city resident.

Based on the looks on some of your faces, I'm concerned that maybe you don't know what some of these speakers tonight up here were referencing when they talked about the letter that was handed out on Friday outside the courthouse.

I got it right here.

So outside the courthouse, we were all gathered to support DeAndre on Friday.

And someone was handing out these little slips of paper that were asking us to be quiet, to be polite.

That they respect our right to free speech, but our loud chanting, singing, and occasional shrieking makes it impossible for us to do our work nearby.

I mean that breaks my heart, truly.

But it's interesting, these pieces of paper, they were obviously pre-printed beforehand.

They were on third sheets of paper, so somebody typed them up, printed them out, and cut them up with a paper cutter, and had them all nice and ready to hand out that morning, which means they did it the day before.

And it just has me wondering, is that what they're using that debug money for?

Do they buy a new paper cutter?

Do they buy a new toner?

Do they use your money to ask us to be more polite in supporting someone who's being railroaded?

I mean, DeAndre got acquitted, thank God, but at what cost?

The charge should have been dropped beforehand in the first place.

People are using our legal system as a retaliatory measure against people defending this community, and you want us to be polite?

You want us to be quiet?

We walked down that mall after that trial, we chanted Black Lives Matter and dropped the charges because Cory Long and Donald Blakeney are still facing charges related to defending this community on August 12th.

And they want us to be quiet because they have client meetings and they are providing opportunities for the community.

Opportunities to whom?

For whom?

And at what cost?

It's not opportunities for people like Donald Blakeney.

And so I would like to know who printed these.

I would like to know where they came from.

Maybe we need to have a little conversation about that because this was not appropriate.

And I certainly hope they're not using the money that you gave them that you should not have voted to give them to insult us like this.

I've seen it.

Mayor Walker, Members of Council, City Manager Jones, the budget's being finalized and my question is will you fix the identified problems of the incomplete and ineffective Human Rights Commission?

I saw the comments that were made at the previous budget session about the Human Rights Commission.

There was a lot of misinformation and misdirection indicating a supreme lack of will on this issue.

I really wish some of you would stop misdirecting the public on this issue.

The Human Rights Commission was created because there was discrimination in Charlottesville and there still is.

Stop debating whether there is a problem or not.

We all know there's a problem.

Stop confusing the conversation about its original intentions.

It was meant to address individual complaints of discrimination and to resolve them, period.

It was meant to conduct major studies of discrimination and to recommend actionable changes to U.S. counsel, period.

Neither of those things are happening in the way that they were intended.

I agree the Human Rights Commission in the office is broken.

and you all know exactly why.

It's your responsibility to fix it now.

You are accountable.

My mother always told me, the minute you realize you made a mistake, you fix it rather than throwing up your hands and ignoring it.

If you don't, what confidence will the public have in your ability to create a citizens review board for the police?

By that argument, the same thing will happen as you have allowed with the Human Rights Commission to undermine and deflect that board.

Rather than throwing up your hands, you can choose to fix the Human Rights Commission now with three simple steps if you have the political will.

One, put the funds in this budget to hire another civil rights attorney director to spearhead the discrimination complaint investigation process and to conduct major discrimination studies.

You already have 38K in the budget for the Human Rights Commission and a little more won't break the bank as Mr. Jones said the other day.

Mandate by clear and specific resolution that the director enter into a work share agreement with the EEOC in Richmond to conduct local investigations of complaints in companies of any size.

Don't let your staff put you off.

It can be done and the director of the Richmond EEOC recently welcomed that move.

Three, mandate by resolution that the Human Rights Commission engage in one major study of systemic

Tell the HRC what you expect like they do in Austin.

Fourth, change the reporting structure of the Office of Human Rights to report directly to the mayor and city council.

It's clear that the current reporting structure is not leading to effective outcomes.

There's your systematic problem.

You can fix it right now.

Please stop wasting our time with all the reasons we can't make the Human Rights Commission effective.

We don't need more studies.

The Human Rights Commission, as it is structured, can't get itself out of its own hole that's been dug.

You need to fix it.

Remember, there are real people, real live people in this town suffering from actual discrimination.

You promised relief.

All it will take is to add 50K to this budget to accomplish this and a couple of simple resolutions that can happen thereafter.

I beg you, I was one of the few people that stood in that park and with other people that did a little thing this summer to protect us from outside people who are racist and discriminatory.

Thank you.

If I may, council if you'll indulge me for a second.

Mr. Heineckes, excuse me, Dr. Heineckes, emailed earlier today in all seriousness in regards to looking at the Austin, Texas model in which they had an individual who was hired to

It clearly stated, while they don't believe that Austin is racist, there's clearly institutional issues.

And they looked at the educational system, if I'm not mistaken, police, housing, and banking or loans, something of that nature.

I do think there's merit to what Mr. Honeke has been sending us, and others have been sending us, in regards to how we go about that.

I would like to explore the conversation

I do also agree that the original charge for the HRC is not, Human Rights Commission for those not aware, is not currently where they are right now.

So exploring that I would definitely be open to and if we originally hired an attorney

to be able to review some of these things.

Again, I think that point needs to be explored.

And I think a former budget work session, I don't know that you may not have been there.

We did.

We really want to explore and understand what are ways that even if we can't have all the information we need in the next few weeks, we're getting short on time, how can we set aside funds to allow us to go in this direction before waiting another budget cycle?

So that was the discussion I recall having, because we are going to be relying on input from other sources.

If I might add, Mayor Walker.

When this was first instituted, it was my understanding that the Human Rights Commission chair was going to be reporting to us directly with an annual report, at least.

And so I did not think that the process had deviated from that original charge.

And if it has, that is a concern.

Because when you think about the Places Design Task Force, the chair reports directly to us

I know with the Housing Advisory Committee there's been some tension about the Chair wanting to report, but then staff reporting and then trying to resolve the confusion there.

So I think we might do well, as Councillor Bellamy says, that we revisit this whole structure and look at it and see how well it's working, because it has been a while since we've gotten a report from the Chair

We had an annual report last year.

But this is a little bit different from just a report.

The Human Rights Commission would report to council in terms of duties.

Okay, that's fair.

But from my perspective, I'm more so interested in the position that looks at and breaks down the data, analyzes the institutional issues, and then either creates strategies and or has the discussion with members of the community about certain things that are taking place.

And I would like for us to expound on that conversation if I could get some support or

Right, right.

But I would be remiss if I didn't say that.

Yeah.

No.

Thank you, Van Walker.

But yeah, we can just

At our next budget meeting, I just would like for us to continue that conversation to see how we can merge the two or how we can actually get to that part.

I know Councilor Galvin and I have even talked about an equity office of sorts.

Yeah, and that is what my concern has been.

So it's needed, but we need to make sure that when we are putting things like the HRC in place, the Human Rights Commission, that we are allowing them to do its work.

And whether it's uncomfortable and whether we don't really want to see the data,

and know the truth that it exposes that we need to create a system where we welcome that and work on changing it and that's what, you know, we had a very public, you know, our Facebook discussion about that and that's Walt I'm talking to.

Right, so the question, I don't know if this question would be for you, Mayor Walker, or even the rest of council, but maybe for Mr. Jones, what would be possible next steps for us to explore such?

And if you don't have the answer tonight, maybe we can answer at the next council meeting,

No, I think there are a couple of steps that could be taken.

One, we are anticipating having an annual report, I think it's the second meeting in April, from the Human Rights Commission, so that makes perfect sense, so that the Council would have a discussion with the Commission, one, about what they're doing, and then two, about any

I think Vice Mayor Hill has mentioned possibly putting some money aside as part of the discussion over the budget.

I've been considering over the course of the last couple of weeks or so and see how that fits into that.

You could also utilize other funding sources if we don't find the funds right now.

We have reserve funds that you could tap into as you go through this process and decide if you want to expand the Office of Human Rights and the Human Rights Commissions

So I'm less concerned about making sure that we have the exact amount of money over the course of the next couple of weeks as I am making sure that we get it right as part of a larger conversation with the public.

Well, may I make a request, Mr. Jones and Madam Mayor?

And one more request, Mr. Jones, that it would be great to be able to have some real clear understanding as to why the original attorney's position was not funded again.

and in my understanding, what are the qualifications that we need?

I think that will be largely dependent on what the council decides they want the charge to be if they want to change it significantly.

We had this conversation with council a couple of years ago during the budget process when we made some changes to the office based on the lack of

Thank you, Mr. Honeke, as well as everyone else who's been emailing us in regards to this.

I also want you all to know when you send us emails, we do read them.

All right.

you

Ehh Ehh

Olivia, Bla Bla Bla...

The End

you

Music playing...

Music Playing

Calling the meeting to order.

So Ms. Rice, can you read the consent agenda?

Item A, minutes for March 5th, 2018.

Item B, an appropriation disproportionate minority contact in the Charlottesville Albemarle Criminal Justice System Research Project, $100,000, second of two readings.

Item C, an appropriation Charlottesville Fire Department Legacy Lending Machine Funds, $4,314.94, first of two readings.

Item D, a resolution residence on the job program funding request for FY18, $39,211, first of one reading.

Item E, a resolution safe routes to schools non-infrastructure grant application, $102,000, first of one reading.

Mayor Walker, just wanted to provide some background information on item D, which is the resident on the job program funding request

fiscal year 18, gets a request of $39,211.

This program is a joint effort between the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority, the Public Housing

Association of Residents, the Department of Social Services and PVCC and Habitat for Humanity to provide on-the-job training for public housing residents as they're working on a number of units over in our public housing sites, various different sites, to upgrade those units to put them back online to be used.

There's a two-part request for this.

There's a request for $39,211 for the program to run from March 26 through June 30.

And then there's a second discussion that we need to have, not tonight, but as part of the budget process for an additional request of $106,400 to help run the program from July 1st of 2018 to March 25th of 2019.

So the request tonight is very specifically

for the allocation of $39,211 from the City Council's strategic initiatives account for fiscal year 18.

And the resolution reads residents on the job program funding request for fiscal year 2018, $39,211, now therefore be it resolved by the City Council of the City of Charlottesville, Virginia, the sum of $39,211 is hereby paid from currently appropriated funds

and the council's strategic initiatives account and the general fund to CRHA for the residents on the job program.

And that's fund 105, cost center 10110010000.

Thank you very much, Mr. Jones.

And just want to point out that it's because council loosened up a little bit of its standards on its own disbursement of funds and they were able to get this.

So I think everyone's really appreciative.

And I think it's an excellent, excellent combination of partners and ingenuity about how to use the resources of the city with the resources of nonprofits to train residents to be good construction carpenters and

and laborers, but also position them for jobs later on.

But it's also a way to get more units online.

So it's, again, I'm looking forward to hearing more details about part two of this and how we can support it moving forward.

But I'm looking at this as a pilot, which they can use to kind of work out all the kinks.

Someone's smiling over there.

Thank you.

Oh, she really tells a lot of jokes.

Are there any questions?

And Mayor Walker, I think Ms. Rice should go ahead and announce those Board and Commission members.

This evening, City Council approved the following to fill three vacancies at large on our Planning Commission.

To fill an immediate vacancy, Lyle Sola-Yates, and for two vacancies effective on June 1st, Hosea Mitchell and Hunter Smith.

I need a second and a vote.

Now we have our first public hearing on the fiscal year 2019 tax rate.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

So a couple of things I'll be presenting on this evening.

The tax rate for all of our taxes at this point, real estate, our lodging, our meals tax, personal property, those are all remaining the same as last year.

So we're not proposing any changes at this point to any of those tax rates.

Folks can speak on that tonight as part of the public hearing.

I'm also presenting on the budget.

I am doing a PowerPoint presentation.

If council would like to find your positions elsewhere, if you want to move, and we'll go ahead and start that PowerPoint right now.

So good evening everyone, it's my pleasure to present once again the proposed budget for fiscal year 19.

Major themes for this year, strong support once again for our city schools, preserving and enhancing quality services, affordable housing investment, focus on organizational efficiencies, aligning with our strategic plan and council priorities, maintaining the real estate tax rate at 95 cents per $100 of assessed value.

So you can see here, you see where we've gone up incrementally over the course of the last six or seven years coming out of the recession.

And our budget for fiscal year 19 as it stands at the moment is $179 million, $342,119.

That's a 4.48% increase from fiscal year 18.

So just a quick look at where our revenues are derived from.

Our local taxes make up nearly 70% of the revenues, followed by our intergovernmental revenue at 8.5%, charges for services at 7.1%, the city county revenue sharing at 6%.

On the expenditure side, our largest expenditure is to our schools.

Nearly 33% goes to schools.

25% to public safety and justice, 17 almost 18% to healthy families and community, 8.7% to infrastructure and transportation, and 3.4% to management, 5.2% to our debt service payment that we make every year to help pay for our bonds.

Council priorities, affordable housing is going up to $3.4 million in the CIP for next fiscal year.

We also have a half a million dollars in the CIP for public housing redevelopment and currently $70,000 in new funding to help with the CHAP program.

and we did take a look at, we had a discussion with the council at the last work session to look at it from an inflationary standpoint, from an assessment standpoint.

We went back, we looked at that and in fact what we are proposing is greater than what would have been derived from an increase from a

an assessment equating with the assessments going up so that doesn't mean that council couldn't increase this more it's just that was a request that we had from council to take a look at that and it's actually lower than what we are proposing in our in our budget right now and I know that we'll have some more discussion with City Council about possibly increasing that over the course of the next couple of weeks.

Another council priority is race and equity.

We have $500,000 included in the City Council's Strategic Initiatives Fund for the African American Heritage Center at the Jefferson School.

That's the second year of that funding.

Last year, or this current fiscal year that we're in right now, we had a grant of $450,000 to the Heritage Center.

and this completes the two-year commitment at another half million dollars.

As we've mentioned before, $38,000 is budgeted for the Office of Human Rights to convert an existing community outreach position to full-time status and this is in addition to a million dollars that the City Council set aside as part of an equity package as part of the year-end discussion back in December.

So a significant amount of money is going towards race and equity issues here in the city.

Workforce development and economic development, we have $72,000 in this budget for a new minority business coordinator's position to help with folks who are interested in starting businesses here in the city or growing their businesses.

We also have a close to $90,000 for the downtown job center and over $120,000 for the summer youth community attention internship program.

Safety and Security is another issue.

We have $94,000 in our CIP for downtown pedestrian intersection lighting.

And then, of course, we have the money that's been set aside for EMS vehicle transport services this year.

It is, in its first year, first fiscal year, full fiscal year would be 19 at a little over a million dollars on the expenditure side, and we expect to generate about $1.4 million in revenue.

Funding for our schools, total operating contribution of $54 million in fiscal year 19.

That's an increase of $2.7 million, 5.2% increase, which is the largest single increase in our general fund budget.

And then we're providing, in addition to the small cap capital improvement program that they have, we're also providing an additional million dollars per year for the next five years for school strategic improvements.

Compensation and benefits, we are proposing a 3% salary increase to begin on July 1st.

That equates to about $1.4 million in our budget and new money.

Health care costs at 3.5% per employee, it's a $270,000 increase in our contribution.

This fully funds the city's requirement towards its retirement fund of $9.4 million.

and then we have compression adjustments as part of this fiscal year 18 budget as a result of the fiscal year 18 living wage increases.

We have about $160,000 in here to help offset that.

And in addition to that, we've been having some discussions about the living wage and increasing that.

And it looks like in order to do what we had talked about at last week's work session to get to 1440 for our living wage, it would cost us about $115,000 to do that.

And that'll be part of the discussions we have over the course of the next couple of weeks as well.

City Council's strategic initiatives, we've set aside $100,000 in the City Council's strategic initiatives fund to be used for a pilot participatory budgeting initiative.

$225,000 to fund two new positions and to reclassify two positions within the City Council's office.

and then on our capital improvement side, I mentioned earlier the affordable housing fund and the public housing redevelopment.

All together for a school's capital improvements, it's $2.9 million.

West Main Street improvements project, another $3.5 million to that project.

$1.3 million towards undergrounding of utilities.

We're increasing our new sidewalk and sidewalk repair fund.

That's $804,000.

Tonsil Park Master Plan implementation, $750,000 towards that.

$50,000 to the Cultural Landscape Study, another $250,000 to assist us with the SIA implementation.

$150,000 towards economic development, $1.3 million to help purchase new fire replacement apparatus.

And then as I mentioned before, $94,000 for the downtown pedestrian light, intersection lighting.

So here are some of the amendments since we originally had discussions with city council about this.

We're decreasing the revenues by $79,000 and this is part of the strategic initiatives fund or arts coordination.

There was some discussion about that on Thursday night.

I'm sure that will come up again with the city council over the course of the next two weeks.

We believe that we'll be pulling in a little over $300,000 more on the sales tax that we'd anticipated a couple of months ago and another $23,000 or so on the meals tax.

And then we have a transfer on the debt service to the good of $5,700.

So the total revenue of amendments equal about $252,000.

On the expenditure side, there was a discussion the other day about decreasing the expenditures on the arts coordination and planning.

There was a movement to look for other sources to help fund that.

That would be $200,000.

We, as I mentioned before, the living wage, if we were to implement that and go to $1440 per hour,

That would be close to $115,000.

And then there's some departmental utility increases that we've learned of in the last couple of weeks that equate to about $100,000.

These are some of the issues we spoke to the City Council about.

The KHIP stipend increase, that was a discussion we had.

There was support from the Council to increase that to close to $44,000 in new spending for the stipends.

And then the KHIP capacity increase, that's still yet to be determined.

We said we'd continue to have that discussion with the Council to add a number of positions there.

There's a slight adjustment to the Public Defender's Office of $517

and then meals tax, as I mentioned before, there's a transfer to the debt service fund.

So the expenditure amendment is about $64,000.

So all together right now, the budget surplus factoring in those increases would be about $187,590.

and so there was one expenditure change on the CIP that was the Meadow Creek Valley Trail Railroad Tunnel Design.

We talked about that on Thursday night and council voted to support that at $50,000 and so we're decreasing expenditures from the Citywide IT Strategic Infrastructure Fund as well and that gets us even there by offsetting that.

So budget calendar, we have a meeting coming up on the 28th, our community budget forum at 6 p.m. at City Space.

It's an opportunity for the public to come and talk about any of these budget items or new budget items that they want to bring up for council to consider.

And then the very next night, work session at city space from five to seven.

It will focus primarily on the outside and nonprofit agencies, but I'm sure there'll be other issues that council will want to address that evening.

Then on April 2nd, here in the city council chambers, we'll have the second public hearing on the budget.

This is, at that point, the city council's budget for consideration.

And then we will

have a work session if necessary on April 5th to wrap things up from 5 to 7 at City Space and then the Council will approve the budget on April 10th at 5.30 in the Second Floor Conference Room here in City Hall.

And if folks want more information on our budget, they can go to our website at charlottesville.org slash budget.

We also have copies of the proposed budget in the City Manager's Office here in City Hall and also at the libraries, Central Library and the Gordon Avenue Libraries as well.

Mr. Jones, if I may, I just want to make a correction for the public because I had raised the issue of how much the budget had increased from 2011 to 2019.

And I realized that I had just recently realized that there was an error that

The increase is not as great as I had thought it was, which is very good news to me.

And so instead of a 42% differential between 2011 to 2019, it's actually 27% differential.

What was interesting, though, is to see that the first year I looked at the city manager's letter, it highlighted the operating budget and then the subsequent years highlighted the general fund budget.

And I was confused about that.

And I'm wondering if you could distinguish between the two so the public knows the difference as well.

But as I understand it, in 2011, there was

some economic downturn money that was not included in the operating budget that was included in the general fund budget.

Sure.

Well, with the operating budget is the non-capital budget and general fund covers both the capital budget and the operating.

Okay, it's combined.

And then what you're referring to back in

2011-2012, during that time period, we did, in a couple of years, we used some one-time money to help, especially with the schools, who were going through difficult times because of the state budget.

Okay.

I have a question.

So, Mr. Jones, thank you for the thorough report.

I also was very happy to see

Many of the items from the equity package last year in the budget this year, as well as some of the things we expounded on.

I did have a question about the CHAP program and the grants.

For those who don't know, it's essentially the assistance for tax relief, some for the elderly and other individuals who fall below certain income levels.

No, we can go higher.

If council wants to go higher, you can do that.

That's our local program.

There's a state program where we do have some limits that we operate under.

But our local program, you can increase the grants if you choose to do so.

And there was a discussion on Thursday night about whether or not we should tie it to assessments or inflation, that type of thing.

And we went back and looked at, going back to 2006 and then again in 2009, we saw that the increase was actually

What we're proposing is actually larger than the increase would have been if we were relying exclusively on the assessment.

Over time.

But if council, and this is part of the discussion on Thursday night, if council is interested in increasing those grants, you certainly could do that.

Right.

One of the things I'm just looking at, if I'm not mistaken, there was a chart that Mayor Walker

sent out that had somewhat of a breakdown and then I saw Ms. Bogart's email earlier today but when we look at the income level specifically from zero thousand, zero thousand, from zero to ten thousand and then even when you look at the twenty thousand dollar threshold we see that that seemed to be the bulk of the individuals who were taking advantage of the program and how we can provide them

with additional help in the event that's needed because I'm anticipating we will have more people take advantage of this because I know our new communications director is doing a phenomenal job of getting the words out about some of these programs and whatnot and just want to make sure not only that we're prepared for the influx of individuals who will be taking advantage of the program

but also if there is a way for us to, I would like to see us explore going higher because I do think, specifically again, if an individual is between the zero and twenty thousand dollar threshold, more than likely you're thinking about an elderly person who may just be utilizing

I think

And there's also a clause that if individuals are delinquent on taxes, I'm interested in exploring how we can, one, remove that and assist.

Because those individuals who can't pay them would need the help the most.

So did you all?

If you're delinquent on your taxes, you don't qualify.

And I know there was some conversation about that some individuals may have been helped in the past.

So if I can ask, that would be like a rule change of the policy and I guess we'd need to know if that's something that is against the state.

So that was our local program.

Yes, okay.

Would this by any chance be part of the housing needs assessment study?

And again, that would be great when we get the results of that study, and then we could tee up

and on an agenda doing the amendment to the policies, but we, Mayor Walker, you're absolutely right.

We need to know the information to know to what extent we need to change the policy.

It may be more than just changing that one rule.

Nice to see that we've got a surplus.

I know, but it's nice to see it now.

Don't be a Debbie Downer, Ms. Hill.

I'm there.

Debbie Downer.

Thank you.

Well, I'm with you, Ms. Galvin.

And Ms. Grasius.

Sorry, we're new.

Take the air right out of the- Eternal optimist.

All right, so where's my list?

All right, so questions?

All right, so the public hearing on the tax rate.

We're going to start that.

Michael Payne.

I just wanted to interject something into the tax debate.

I think it's a conversation Mayor Walker started the other week with the issue of Brandon Avenue.

And that is the role UVA plays in our revenue.

And I think that's really important to get into the conversation about tax revenue.

The University of Virginia at the summit this weekend has brought up that the University of Virginia

doesn't pay property taxes to the city, it's exempt, and that comes out to about 4.3 million dollars of lost revenue for the city each year.

And this is of course when UVA

Demands things from the city like with Brandon Avenue, demanding land for free from the city, not paying its employees a living wage, not paying its contracted employees a living wage.

And I think we as the public have some claim of ownership over some of what the EPA produces because

UVA only exists because of substantial public investment in addition of course to UVA's original sin of being built by 5,000 slaves.

I think this gives the public an entitlement to claim some of UVA's almost 9 billion dollar endowment.

UVA is a significant contributor to rising property values.

It's not building student housing.

There's luxury student housing that's being built that's removing land that could be used for affordable housing, displacing longtime local residents.

And again, all we're asking for is $4.3 million, or maybe $4 to $6 million, when we're already supporting the university with infrastructure projects it doesn't contribute to,

public transit projects it's not contributing to out of an almost 9 billion dollar endowment.

This is a rounding error in their endowment.

And yet, to even, when Mayor Walker just asks a simple question of how much does Brandon Avenue work, all of a sudden that's a conversation they don't want to have.

$4 million out of their $9 billion endowment.

And I just think it's really important for us to start to put the pressure on UVA.

This isn't OK.

They have to pay their fair share when they're benefiting from our public investments into the city.

Hi, I'm Travis Wilburn, 13 year resident of Ridge Street.

I was going to speak to you guys on the lodging tax and clearly that's changed since then.

First I want to say thank you for your service because it is truly a service to this community.

I am in the unique position of being able to represent interests throughout the city and the county, both in tourism and hospitality, meaning jobs of all different individuals, big and small.

and I have had to be in the position since August essentially of interviewing various businesses that have been impacted by the August events in which we have seen a severe economic impact that has affected almost everybody across the board.

And so what I would like to say is thank you for not raising that tax.

I do think that there is a time and place to do that and that it could actually be drastically impactful to affordable housing.

But we're not quite there yet.

There are numerous businesses that have suffered.

We have forecasted still for the future of 2018 some more suffering.

And so what I would like to do is make myself available and also help provide other resources to individual counselors where you could have that information so you could decide in the future when and if to raise that lodging tax.

I'm Joan Fenton.

I live at 3705 Country Lane.

Before I talk, I'd like to say that I was totally unaware till this evening when I opened an email about that handout that was given at the courthouse.

And I think it was not a good thing for anybody to do.

I, for one, was thrilled when DeAndre Harris was found not guilty.

I thought it was appropriate for people to be celebrating and marching on the mall.

And I don't think that 95% of the businesses would support that notice being handed out to people.

And so perhaps to condemn everybody because of what one person did, I don't think is appropriate.

On the issue of the tax going up on hotels, I think that there hasn't been adequate time for people to respond that are deeply affected by this.

and I would hope you would bring in some of the people that do run hotels and see what they think that impact would be.

And on what would be probably fairly unpopular to say is if you had approved the Dewberry Hotel, that amount of income would be probably triple what that hotel tax is going to be and would have a simpler way of providing far more funding that could go into affordable housing

Good evening, Councillors, Colette Hall, 101 Robertson Lane in the city.

It has been rumored in the daily newspaper and TV and radio news that the council will most likely not vote to vote an increase in the tax rate for the fiscal year budget of 2019.

And then I heard the city manager say you would not increase that.

However, this does not mean that city residents will not be paying increased real estate taxes.

This article in the Daily Progress on February 1, 2018, headlined Average Property Assessments Up 5.5%.

However, as usual, my house goes up more than the average residential assessment.

This year, it's going up 6.5%.

My assessment has gone up 15 years out of the past 20 years.

My husband and I bought our current home in 1997, and in 1998, the real estate assessment was $94,100.

Now, 20 years later, it is assessed at $487,300, just under half a million.

This is a $393,200 increase or a 418% increase in our real estate taxes.

Where is this just?

Where is the equality and equity in this?

New and ugly buildings are going up continually.

Several more will be functional this year and next.

In many areas of the city, townhouses and PUDs are spreading like wild onions.

And yet the longtime residential owner is paying out of proportion to the amount of increased revenue from this new growth.

My husband and I would move out of the city except that we have made our house handicap accessible for his wheelchair.

Unfortunately, our next move will be to an assisted care facility.

Whatever is decided, the taxpayers of this city should not be burdened with a raise in real estate taxes or, for that matter, assessments.

or an increase in the tax rate, especially not when the city collects millions of dollars in surplus, which it has now managed to turn into a deficit.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else that would like to speak on the tax rate?

OK, so that's next.

Increase the lodging rate tax.

Just do it.

These hotels are mainly here for people from out of town.

They're going to be super wealthy.

They're going to be staying at all these new boutique hotels that you all love, or at least some of you love.

Just increase it.

This is more of a progressive tax.

It's going to impact the wealthy more than the people who actually live here, as was just mentioned.

So please, yeah, increase the lodging tax.

Oh, you know what?

I'm going to add.

Mr. Jones, I don't know if this is correct or not, but I think you've said in the past when it has increased, it didn't significantly affect lodging rates in the city.

Anyone else wish to speak on the tax rate?

Discussion?

Oh, sorry.

Tax rate comments.

All right.

Question before you close.

I got it before you close.

How much additional revenue would we net for a one cent increase in the lodging tax?

750,000.

750,000?

Where are we in regards to rankings throughout the Commonwealth?

If we went up, we'd be in the upper third.

What are the other cities in the upper third?

We provided that information to counsel on it.

I'll get it.

Okay, thank you.

All right, so we're going to close the public hearing on the tax rate.

and now open the public hearing on the fiscal year 2019 budget.

Hey, good evening.

My name is Brooks Wellman and I'm here on behalf of Lighthouse Studio.

We're located at 220

West Market Street in the old Vinegar Hill Theater.

Lighthouse is grateful that the city's fiscal year 17 budget includes just over $8,000 to fund our free and reduced cost filmmaking workshops for underserved students ages 8 to 18 in Charlottesville.

Tonight we're asking you to consider initial funding for our community programming at Vinegar Hill Theater based on ABRT's recommendation for funding at the solid level.

We requested $30,000 for fiscal year 19, and there's no money in the budget for our programming at Vinegar Hill.

Lighthouse Studios' Vinegar Hill Theater community programs offer residents of Charlottesville and Albemarle unique film screenings and events, support local artists and nonprofits, and increase tax revenues by drawing more than 4,500 people to the downtown mall each year.

Our community programming addresses Charlottesville's strategic objectives to promote tourism,

and to intentionally address issues of race and equity in two major ways.

First, we successfully draw people to the downtown mall where they stay to shop and eat before and after our events.

Second, our screenings intentionally address race and equity in both the content of the films we show and the audiences we draw to them.

So we primarily ensure diversity by first screening professional films created nationally and internationally that explore race and ethnicity and immigration

and we bring the film's creators to the theater to discuss them.

So an example of this was the Freedom Writers documentary where we brought Freedom Writers to come and talk about their experience.

And then the second is by screening youth created films that are made by Lighthouse students in our community programs that directly explore, again, race, ethnicity, immigration,

An example of this is a couple of internationally award-winning documentary shorts our students made about the statues both in the summer of 2015, so a year ahead of last summer's violence, and then coming back with a 360-degree virtual reality film they made, featuring Tanisha Hudson, about the events as well.

When Lighthouse purchased Vinegar Hill Theater in 2015, it sat empty for two years.

and the owner wanted to sell to someone who would retain the cinema theater for the community by purchasing and renovating the space at the very entrance to the downtown mall.

We've not only made a formerly disused space, a busy destination for film events, but have also given it new life as a home to our workshops for more than 1200 students from the community each year.

Now more than ever, our community needs these spaces to come together and discuss issues around race and equity in terms of the arts.

Thank you.

Dana Monroe?

I know that.

Dana Monroe?

No.

Good evening.

I'm Katie Hanson.

I live in the Woolen Mills neighborhood of Charlottesville and I'm the development manager at the Music Resource Center located on Ridge Street in the historic Mount Zion Baptist Church.

The Music Resource Center, oh I have more packets, I didn't pick them all up.

The Music Resource Center is in its 23rd year providing after school supervision and music education to the middle and high school students of the Charlottesville area.

We received funding from the city of Charlottesville until fiscal year 13, then again in fiscal year 17.

This year we requested $29,678 for general operations, but we were not included in the city budget for 2019.

Our program works to use the universal language of music to foster positive relationships with our members and teach them skills like creative self-expression and goal setting.

On average, we serve approximately 186 through 12th graders per year, 90 to 100 of which are from the city of Charlottesville.

Approximately 75 of these members from the city come from low income families.

46% live in a one parent household with grandparents or in foster care.

And our membership base shows greater racial diversity than the city of Charlottesville itself according to census data.

Additionally, according to our most recent positive youth development survey of our members, 76% feel strongly that they are safe at our center as opposed to only 18% who said they feel strongly that they are safe at their school.

Please see your packets for more information about these statistics as well as an email from the mother of one of our members.

I believe she sent it to you directly, but we were so moved by it we wanted to print it out and make sure.

The MRC aligns with the city of Charlottesville's strategic objectives C1 and C2, prepare students for academic and vocational success, and prepare students for the workforce.

To this end, 100% of our city 12th graders last year graduated on time.

compared to 89.6% of Charlottesville 12th graders overall.

In addition to our graduation rates, we also work hard to ensure that our members are ready for the workforce.

We have in place a new formal goal setting program wherein our members actively set short or long term goals related to their development as musicians, dancers, or audio engineers, then work to achieve them in a timely manner with the support of a staff or volunteer mentor.

These goals not only build their skills for jobs in the music industry itself, but build important transferable skills like time management, creativity, and follow through, and give our members a sense of self-efficacy.

To respond briefly to one of the comments on the FY19 budget recommendation from the AVRT,

The 50 city youth we anticipate serving in fiscal year 19 refers to members who come from multiple hours, multiple times per week for an extended period of time.

Due to the drop-in nature of our facility, these numbers do not reflect the full extent of our membership nor the full extent of adolescents who truly benefit from our services.

Thank you.

I promise it's the last time.

I think there are a lot of good things in the budget.

New investments in affordable housing, more money to the Jefferson School, increasing the wage for summer internships to $8 an hour from $5 an hour.

So I think we are moving in a positive direction, but I think we're just not quite there yet.

I don't think there's enough

We have a vision to the budget in terms of where the investments we're making, where are they going to take us in 20, 30, 40 years?

With the job internship program, could we guarantee an internship to every student?

Who wants one locally?

Could we tie job internship programs into local worker cooperatives for rehabbing properties?

Look at taking the pilot project for rehabbing homes to ways to use economic development money in the CIP to have that become a permanent worker co-op.

To have these internships tied to worker local recycling co-ops.

Local co-ops for green retrofitting of homes.

in order to give students internships, experience in what it means to manage a local co-op, what a local economic development model looks like for them to get direct experience in that, to have the community land trust looking at having full-time community organizers to make it a permanent, proactive part of the community.

To have economic development money and the capital improvement projects money, go to co-ops, go to developing minority owned local businesses.

To change procurement policies to favor local worker co-ops and locally owned minority owned businesses.

To explore investing in local community gardens and give students in elementary and middle school direct experience in managing community gardens.

to invest in creating a community development corporation owned and controlled by local residents, particularly residents from low wealth and historically marginalized communities, to put them in the driver's seat of local development so they have control over what development projects there are.

to expand the Human Rights Commission to a place where it can do equity impact studies on all major policies.

So we know if a major development project is happening, what's the history of that area?

What are the population trends?

What are the trends in terms of the area mean income there?

Who's being displaced?

To pay for service on local boards and commissions, to get new residents involved who historically have not been involved,

to expand participatory budgeting to have community organizers to proactively bring new people into the political process, recognizing that participatory budgeting can train new people to give them the skills and experience to serve on the Planning Commission, to serve on local boards and commissions.

Knowing that in 20, 30, 40 years, there's going to be climate change.

There's going to be accelerating the affordable housing crisis.

The economic model of the Trump administration is going to cause recession.

Award right here.

So good evening.

My name is Jessica Maslany.

I'm here tonight wearing two hats.

I'm the executive director at the Piedmont Family YMCA, here representing the YMCA Child Care Center at the Jefferson School City Center.

And I'm also here as a parent with two children who've gone through the YMCA Child Care Program.

As the executive director, the YMCA has submitted an application through the ABRT, which included a $30,000 request to Albemarle County and a $40,000 request to the city of Charlottesville for the YMCA Child Care Program, which is a full day licensed child care program

that offer for six weeks through pre-K. We offer high quality early childhood education and school readiness program with a mixed delivery model of subsidy assistance and self-paid participants.

We are licensed for 105 children and serve on average 200 children each year.

Seventy-five percent of the children in our care receive a subsidy to attend and 61 percent are on free and reduced lunch.

The Y believes that all children, not just those who can afford it, should have access to quality early childhood education and we support parents by allowing them to work.

knowing that their children are in a safe and stimulating environment.

As identified by the agency budget review team, the YMCA child care program is strongly aligned with the city's priorities to prepare students for academic and vocational success and improve community health and safety outcomes by connecting residents with effective resources.

We submitted an application through the agency budget review team and they gave us a solid rating stating that the applicant makes a strong case for need and indicates good outreach and engagement activities.

The team further recommended initial funding at a solid level.

We urge you to consider including the YMCA child care program in the ABRT funding for fiscal year 19.

As a parent, my son Andrew is over here.

He's age seven.

He attended the YMCA program, graduating in 2016, and is currently at Brownsville Elementary School, absolutely thriving.

My daughter here, age Megan, is age five.

She's currently in the pre-K classroom at the child care center, and she's been there since she was 10 weeks old.

She was ready to start kindergarten next fall because of the preparation at the Y.

So as a mom, I would have struggled to work outside of the home if it wasn't for the Y's child care program.

The Y is a very family-friendly organization and is truly a support network that comes alongside us as parents, oftentimes spending more waking hours than we do with our kids.

We nurture all children to reach their full potential.

As a parent, I also urge you to consider including the YMCA child care program in the ABRT funding, which will give financial stability and

Thank you for your time.

Eleanor Von Aitchen?

Aiken.

Hi, thank you.

My name is Eleanor Von Aiken, and my family has been part of the YMCA child care program for almost two years, but we felt that they have been part of our lives for much longer.

Our son Waylon calls his teacher, Mr. Jonathan, his school daddy, and Miss Alyssa, his school mommy.

He has sisters and brothers and cousins and aunts from all walks of life, and we are super proud of him, and it's all because of the Y.

Our family is way beyond our home.

The staff and other members have become part of our family.

We wouldn't have childcare if it wasn't for the Y.

My husband and I have struggled unbelievably in the last few years.

Not even the public school system could help us.

But the Y stood up and they gave us a chance.

They gave us a chance to survive.

They gave us a chance to succeed.

And they gave us a chance to give our children something better than what we could.

All at a time where we had lost all hope.

The YMCA childcare program isn't just a daycare.

It's a place of trust and love and community.

In a city that wants to thrive on diversity and love, a city that says it prides itself on community and holding and helping every citizen, how can we be in a place where we have to come here tonight and ask for you to support this program?

The Y is a partner in the goals not only in its members but all of the city.

We want diversity.

We want equal opportunity.

We want to be seen as a place of love and acceptance.

The Y says everyone is equal.

It teaches our children love and respect of everyone.

It teaches them that there is no difference in any of us.

After everything that has happened and yet to come, don't we want more of this?

Don't we want to be able to show that this is who we are?

That programs like this are why we work so hard because everyone in our community deserves a better opportunity no matter what and no one child or family should be left behind.

There are more than 100 full-time students at the Y Child Care Center.

Unless you vote to support this program, you will be voting to leave all of us behind.

We ask you to support the children, the families, and our community by voting to support the child care program at the YMCA.

Thank you.

I submitted a letter, an email to all of you, and I'm not going to reread it, but I'm here.

My name is Erin Tucker, and I'm here representing On Our Own, located at 123 4th Street Northwest.

And I have been at On Our Own for about nine years, and we've been in operation for 28 years providing free services to persons with

Mental Health and Addiction.

And I wanted to ask, well first of all I'd like to say that we appreciate the city funding us for general operating expenses the last three years for about $14,000, a little over.

And we're asking for you all to consider funding our RAP.

Program, which stands for Wellness Recovery Action Plan.

And RAP is an evidence-based practice.

And I want to say that coincidentally, I came in tonight and Ms. Cherry Henley, who's right back here, came up to me and said, hey, are you doing that or doing RAP?

She was a participant.

And I was wondering, Cherry, would you like to come up and just talk about it a little bit?

Anyway, Miss Henley would like to start doing some groups out in the community and it is co-facilitation and so we talked about possibly doing that together and so I just thought it was really great to walk in and have somebody who's been through

The WRAP training, the facilitators training say this is really amazing and I'd like to start doing it more in the community.

And we see between 30 and 50 people a day and on our own and we'd like to train more facilitators so that we can get this out in the community.

Walt Heinecky, Amherst Street.

I wanted to provide a little bit more detail about the Human Rights Commission.

Before I do that, I'm not sure if you've seen the New York Times today, but there's a massive study that was done by Harvard and Stanford researchers that came out today.

And it's about the impact of racism on black boys.

It's called Extensive Data Shows Punishing Reach of Racism for Black Boys.

And it says black boys raised in America even in the wealthiest families and living in some of the most well-to-do neighborhoods still earn less in adulthood than white boys with similar backgrounds, according to a sweeping new study that traced the lives of millions of children.

White boys who grow up rich are likely to remain that way.

Black boys raised at the top, however, are more likely to become poor than to stay wealthy in their own adult households.

I'll send you the article.

It's fascinating data.

It's probably the most extensive study done in quite a while about this topic.

And I think we should start having a discussion about what this means for our budget.

What does this mean for the budget here in town?

Because it's a national study, but it has implications for the way that we allocate money.

For instance, are we talking about giving more money to the Black Male Achievement Program in town?

Are we figuring out other ways to funnel money?

into solving this particular problem.

So I just wanted to throw that out there first.

Back to the Human Rights Commission, I really appreciate your willingness to entertain thinking about the change.

I do feel a little bit like when I was 15 years old and on my first date.

I'd rather see that money committed in this budget because it basically says that it's a commitment to fix this problem.

So remember what I'm talking about is there's already $38,000 in the budget for an additional outreach person.

I don't think we need another outreach person as much as we need somebody to direct

Major studies of racial and other forms of discrimination in town and also to lead the charge for figuring out how to solve individuals' problems with complaints of discrimination in our town.

So I'm asking that you think about $38,000 plus another $50,000 or so to hire a director who's also a civil rights director who's also an investigator at the same time so we kill two birds with one stone.

What do you get for that additional $50,000 if you put that into the budget?

You get a civil rights director who can effectively lead large-scale equity and discrimination studies in this town and do it effectively.

You get an investigator, somebody who can enter into a FEPPA agreement or a workshare agreement with the EEOC in Richmond.

and can do the EEOC's investigations for us here in town locally.

You get $550 a case for each one of those and you get quicker turnaround times on individual resolutions of cases.

Basically you build public trust in a

in a program and in a system that has failed to build public trust.

If you build it, they will come with this trust, but you have to make a commitment actually by putting that money into the budget this time and then fixing those other problems that I raised in the next couple of months.

So, first things first.

Thanks.

Just a quick reply.

May we reply?

Sorry.

Hi, first I'd like to just say that I strongly support everything that Walt just talked about and also Michael Payne's great recommendations.

I think there's some wonderful brains at work here.

And one thing I wanted to point out about the homeowner assistance, homeowner relief program is I believe the average amount of assistance is something like $417 a year.

That is a pretty small amount when you look at how much it costs to live in Charlottesville and the deals that are being made that are almost too sweet to resist for a lot of people and they leave town and sell their house thinking that that's really going to set them up for life when in fact they've probably just really disrupted their path for security for their

Future generations by having to move out of town where they're one paycheck away from being really on a terrible economic spiral down or one car repair away.

But I wanted to advocate for an idea that was one of the things that Michael talked about because we really need a robust and comprehensive program to support low-income individuals

to serve on city boards and committees.

The lack of representation on these bodies is alarming, especially given the current state of the city and the demographics of the majority of people who are at the decision-making tables.

This is the time to initiate a program that can turn the tide and ensure low-income people's voices are heard so that policies will reflect their needs.

The Neighborhood Leadership Institute could be tailored to this purpose provided the goal is clear and eligibility is restricted to underrepresented people.

Legal Aid Justice Center stands ready to assist.

OK.

This is about the budget, actually.

The second page that Maurice shared, the page where you said the expenditures, you give 25% to public safety and justice, yet employee compensation and training is 0.7%.

That's a true reflect of August the 12th, and the police basically just not doing nothing for the citizens in this city on August the 12th.

If training is only .7% of your budget, how are we to feel about the Charlottesville Police Department?

How are we to feel about anybody that's in a position to offer public safety, that they're going to do their job properly and according to the Constitution and the oath that they take when they swear in to these positions?

How are we to feel as citizens?

And quiet minds want to know.

Do anybody want to comment?

I mean like that is disturbing.

25% to public safety and justice.

That explains stop and frisk, why we have all these stop and frisks happening, why the court system is seeing so much footwork, foot traffic, in and out of the court system.

The waste of time for DeAndre being falsely accused of assault and battery, that was a complete waste of time.

And I told you guys months ago, he better not be convicted.

He wasn't convicted, thankfully.

But he could, I mean, just look at what we are doing.

We're a world-class city.

Yet we give .7% of training to our staff.

Is that not disturbing to anybody sitting on this panel?

Because that's disturbing as hell to me.

0.7% of funding is going to training.

And look at the cops that's sitting in here.

We mad at them, but really, when it's them, black and white, we got to be mad at the government.

And I can't even say the government, I'm going to excuse city council because y'all really don't call no shots.

We know how it's formatted.

The city manager actually called the shots.

Maurice, that is disturbing as ever.

0.7%.

And then we got people like Pleasant saying, God damn right I tear gassed him and I'll do it again.

That's why.

0.7% of training.

This man had no authority whatsoever to say that.

He had no authority whatsoever to order tear gas.

He had no authority whatsoever to do what he did over Chief Thomas at the time.

And here this man is without his job and he's still working.

This is disturbing, and I really hope Chief Thomas is somewhere watching the city council meeting and sues the hell out of y'all for this.

Seriously, I don't care what severance you gave him, I don't care what you offered him, you could pay him for five years past the time he was due to be paid.

to speak.

I'm not going to talk about social issues.

I'm going to talk about something really simple.

Water bills.

I had an instance in a property that I own here in Charlottesville in which I had a leaking toilet.

The toilet was leaking for two days.

My water bill was $2,200.

That's equal to my entire property assessment, property taxes for the year.

I appealed to the city for relief.

I was granted $300.

And the reason that I was only granted $300 was because the city has a policy that is little known, which is the toilet leak policy, believe it or not.

If your toilet is leaking, no relief is granted.

If you leak outside your house in the supply line, you're eligible for relief.

This is inconsistent with policies of other water authorities around the state.

I know it's different than Albemarle County.

I know it's different than Fairfax County, where I recently moved from.

And I just ask the council to please take a look at that toilet leak policy and consider its fairness and its equity when the city receives revenues from water

It only has to pay about $2, I believe for 1,000 cubic feet from the Rivanna River Authority.

It bills $120 per 1,000 gallons.

There's a giant profit margin on those billings.

Now a lot of that money goes to cover fixed costs.

I understand that, but when you have a toilet leak, it's unanticipated.

So all of that money becomes a game.

It's a windfall profit for the city.

When I spoke to the billing folks, they told me that this happens about 20 to 30 times a week.

I'm sure that many of the people cannot afford to pay these bills.

Fortunately, I'm able to, and I have paid the bill.

but I think we really need to look at the fairness of this policy and I ask that the City Council look into this and make a decision.

Andrew Vest.

Thank you.

My name is Zoe Krelova.

Since the last council meeting, I found myself thinking about the $75,000 marketing fund for the downtown mall.

And I found myself increasingly incensed by it.

Wasn't there an attempt at rebranding immediately after the summer of hate?

How did that go?

We need to market the truth.

And right now, the truth isn't pretty.

So instead of marketing a false image, we need to fix things.

Our downtown mall is a great resource, but how many people in this town can truly call it ours?

It has not been welcoming or useful to a great number of our own community members, predominantly people of color and people of limited income.

Our pedestrian mall is a natural gathering place.

There is a culture of artisans and buskers.

There is free music.

Yet so many of our core citizens do not spend time there.

Every time I go to Fridays after five, I can count the number of black people on one or two hands.

This is not okay.

We destroyed a thriving city center once already when we raised Vinegar Hill.

So how are we going to make right what we have now?

A system of white supremacy built the downtown mall and pushed its closest clientele to the fringes.

Those are the citizens to whom the mall should also cater.

Million dollar condos and a marketing fund are not going to fix this.

Businesses won't continue to thrive at the cost of our citizens.

and Karma is a Bitch as we are experiencing now.

Why don't we see more local hip hop at Fridays After Five?

Instead of a tourist welcoming center infested with false hearts, how about we have a gallery on the mall that tells the truth

The true history of a town built on the backs of slaves tells the Jim Crow context of our monuments of supremacy and honors an emerging history, one of community members that rose up in the face of a Nazi invasion, voted in their first African American mayor, demanded affordable housing, and hopefully made their city center inclusive.

Once our downtown is made welcoming, inclusive, and representative of our black community, we will be able to promote a truth and catch phrases like Seaville Strong, Virginia Love, Capital of the Resistance.

You do know that the Nazis will win if we continue to oppress our people of color and remain a segregated token of the Confederacy.

Whose side are you on?

Anyone else?

All right.

So we'll close the public hearing.

So just a couple.

I can't remember if it was Mr. Payne.

I can't read my own handwriting, but it was either Mr. Payne or Mr. Honecky that talked about

BMA, Black Male Achievement.

So not many of you have seen the article that was in Sunday's paper about Daniel Fairley, who is indeed the new coordinator for BMA, for the Youth Opportunity Coordinator.

His job is essentially leading the efforts for BMA.

He's been doing a phenomenal job thus far.

I serve as the co-chair for our local BMA and you can look up the article but we can also provide updates for such as need be and then also the last point that was just made thank you for your comments specifically about having more hip-hop acts on the mall so Miss Hudson was actually on a panel with Mr. Kirby Hutu, Mr. General

Manager of the Pavilion in Quentin Harrell after we did a movie premiere for Black Panther at the Whiskey Jar and then went to the movies afterwards and we had a panel discussion that actually talked about that so there is indeed a larger effort and a strategic effort to get more acts to come to Charlottesville.

One of the issues that we find and a lot of people may not be aware but we've had some rather big names who were scheduled to come

They canceled because they didn't want to come.

I've spoken to some artists and other places about them coming.

And right now is just not a time in which they want to be here.

So we're working on it.

But I do know that this summer there'll be a couple of acts that we can't name now, but there'll be some acts that people really will like.

that are scheduled to come and we're working on it literally day by day.

When I say we, it means like the pavilion, people from the city, and then there's also John Kluge from Unity Seaville.

He's also a member of the Human Rights Commission.

He's starting this curation council with some local hip hop artists here and they're working with the pavilion folks to figure out how we can make more inclusive spaces, not only on the mall,

but in the pavilion.

So those issues are definitely being addressed and I promise you I'm working on them every day.

Mayor Walker, I have some comments.

So I did read the article, Councillor Bellamy, and I

I smiled because you were quoted as saying that one of the things you appreciate about Mr. Farrelly was that he collected data.

And you have often teased me about that tendency on my part to want data.

So I feel really at home with you lately.

You probably don't like data, Ms. Galvin.

Thank you.

And may I say that what I read about Mr. Farrelly, and I saw this great opportunity that

When we look at things like K-YIP, when we look at the Music Resource Center, and everybody has got their own kind of youth programming going on, and they all have their own strategies and metrics to measure success.

It reminds me of where we were about five years ago before we did the

the work session on ending poverty through employment, which gave rise to the growing opportunity report.

That report then generated a policy change to have a job center downtown.

It gave rise to our growing opportunity programs, which we now have about seven or eight.

And they all provide local training and apprenticeships for our local residents.

that story isn't told and it's something that I've been bringing up repeatedly about how we need the performance metrics attached to our strategic plan goals and objectives because when I went on the website, when I went on the strategic plan website, clicked on economic diversity, clicked on resiliency, I could not find any data

about those job centers, those jobs programs.

There were individual reports from the Economic Development Office, but there is no way for us to convey to the public and the public to see what we have succeeded in doing because we did to the hard work of assessing the challenge, where the obstacles work, coming up with a vision,

putting money into it.

Before that, we were throwing money ad hoc at various work training programs, left and right.

It wasn't adding up.

It was just money down the drain.

We now have a track record.

We have people that have benefited from it.

We need to do a better job of collecting that data, packaging that data, and communicating it.

And I hope that Mr. Fairley

can do the same with all of our youth programs.

That's my biggest challenge with the K-IP request right now.

I want to see and hear where it's making a difference.

Everyone likes it.

It feels good.

But is it actually making the kind of change that we all want?

quantifying it, but also knowing that it's effective.

And if it's not, then we change it.

But we don't just keep putting money into things because it feels good.

So that's kind of the main point I'd like to make relative to the very good article about Mr. Fairley.

Yeah, over the last eight years our budget has grown 27%, so it's $38 million, not as bad as it was before.

We need to know what that did for us.

We need to know what we're getting out of that efficiency study still.

I still don't know how much we spent for that and how much we've gotten in terms of benefits and direction.

As I said, and Vice Mayor Hill and I are both eager to have the conversation with Novak about the NDS deeper dive, because what struck me about that piece is that the recommendations which were adding staff were not addressing the findings.

We need to be good stewards of the money that we have.

So I think that it's also important to remember that at the end of last year, we had a $9 million surplus.

Let's see, where do I start?

Can we talk about individual requests?

There was a lot of applause just now for the YMCA and I think, and I'm gonna talk about that to speak to what I think needs to happen overall in the budget.

So there's two asks from that organization, this $40,000 request that came in

through ABRT, and then there's a bigger ask with rental assistance maybe later in the year, what happened and what happens to the Jefferson School, how it's rented out, what the lease agreements look like there.

What just happened based on, like, if I had to vote tonight based on the information that I have, I still have questions, so I wouldn't have been, I wouldn't have said yes.

We need to look at, I think, the overall, I mean, there are tons, I've been a mom who's needed daycare, right?

So it's,

Most people are not going to come into a room and say we're not, and be comfortable with saying we're not going to fund a daycare program, right?

Because we know how valuable, anyone who has parent knows how valuable that is.

But we have daycare

Daycare throughout the city and I'm sure a lot of them need support.

The questions that for me and just using this as an example that were unanswered was that the YMCA knew when they filled out the ABRT report

that they would need more money at some point.

There was also a five year grant from the Blue Moon Fund that has been funding a rental subsidy for the YMCA and that Blue Moon Fund is no longer funding that.

and the request that I think is gonna come up along with this $40,000 request is for the city to fund that.

For me, the bigger picture there is overall what is gonna happen to any organization that's at the Jefferson School and what does fiscal management of each of those organizations look like and what does the data look like about effectiveness and who they're serving.

So when you made the comment just now about the feel good, you know, it feels just right based on the presentation that for for any of us to, you know, deny that funding, that wouldn't have felt great, of course.

Right.

And you all were clapping.

So you all would start booing.

But I think that, you know, we haven't asked the questions like overall child care in the city.

What what does that look like?

Every organization, and this is coming from someone who's worked either in the organizations or needed to partner with the organizations for the work.

The effectiveness that Counselor Galvin is talking about, I don't think we do a very good job of that.

Everyone comes in, they ask for resources, we give it to them because what they read,

Sounds good, but are they making a dent in any of the disparities that we are Experiencing and that is something I think that we have to start asking we also have to start asking I'm looking at the bigger picture.

We get some very aggressive emails You know

for funding, which I thought they would come in a little bit nicer normally when you're asking, you know, you kind of smooth people, they do not come in like that, which is also, I think, how things have been set up.

in the city and the expectation that individuals have.

So I hope that this budget process started last summer.

We came in, I mean Heather and I at least, Counselor Hill and myself, we came in at the end of the budget cycle, I mean the middle of it.

And we really, I mean I would recommend that any

person running for council in the future start attending and paying very close attention to the budget in the summer.

But I hope you all are paying attention to the entire process.

What's the entire ask?

So that it doesn't look like if something's not funded that we're not funding it because we don't have a heart.

This is going to be a real challenge.

for me because I am going to, I look at any dollar spent the way I would spend my own or give my own and I asked a lot of questions surrounding that.

So with an organization like the Y, I would want to know like what is your contribution?

What have you been planning for the past five years when you knew that the subsidy from Blue Moon was going to end?

What is your overall operating budget?

I mean, those are the same questions I think we have to ask everyone.

And how is it aligned?

What contributions are you asking outside organizations?

What does your fundraising, your development department, what are they going to do moving forward?

And I just hope that we start, one, I think council has to set a priority for

Hal funding, what's the focal point, and we definitely have to get some of those performance metrics in place so that we can start evaluating.

And also because there's such a great need, there's so many disparities, it can't just be an ask, in my opinion, from the city just to fun, fun, fun because there's so many

you know things to fund, there has to be a collaboration with each partner that they're doing the best on their end to make sure that you know annually they are getting those you know developments.

And I know I was told a lot in nonprofit starting with my first nonprofit ASG that if I wanted to do something I had to raise the money to do it.

And one of the first things that aid services group that I did was put on

Theater show at Live Arts with dessert and theater, right?

And that was a fundraising.

I would have loved to just have been able to come here and just ask for the money, but sometimes you got to work, work a little harder.

And some of these requests that we are getting, I'm seeing people

sitting around a table making a decision like there's the request from John.

You made a decision with your board members at the table to pay your employees a living wage and the only

it seems next step for them was to ask the city versus what when you make that decision there also has to be some action on your part of how you're going to bring the money and I think the growth that you're talking about in the budget that's part of it we have to start making sure that if it's been

this handout type of relationship that we understand more of a collaboration and building and not putting a strain on any one area.

I just have one more comment because it's something we talked about at the work session.

And when we get the housing needs assessment, when we get the first pass of a housing production strategy, that says to me, that's the time that, as we were way back before we had the growing opportunity report, that's the information we need that then will tell us, OK, we have a work session, a budget work session in the summer so that we can start asking the hard questions

Given this policy statement, given this research, what do we need to do by way of resources?

How much capital will we need to raise in order to implement these things?

We don't have that information yet, but it gets at what has been talked about tonight in terms of the vision.

We're lining things up with getting the data we need, the assessment we need.

We're getting research on strategies to expand our housing supply, expand our strategies.

That's when we have the opportunity to create that vision for affordable housing that we've needed, just like we did with Workforce.

But I just want to say that we've talked about that we've got to get that on the calendar in sometime early summer, because we don't want to be left like in December trying to figure out what capital needs we have.

Well, I know that when I approached Leslie last week before the last budget work session just about how some of these capital decisions are made because there was one that was of interest to me, and I just think that she agreed.

we have to relook at that process as well in terms of how we're prioritizing and what voice we have in it.

And so I think what's been difficult for Mayor Walker and I is this kind of coming in the middle despite the fact that we both were at every budget work session last year until you're actually sitting at the table.

It is a different perspective, but the process person in me certainly wants to get behind us really hitting the ground running as soon as this budget is done to really have a chance at really getting to that vision point.

Counselor, can I talk a little bit about the performance measures?

Not to the same, not when I'm looking at the numbers of residents, and I remember vividly our work session a couple summers ago.

We wanted it broken down by race, we wanted to make sure we knew where the residency was,

and all the different growing opportunity programs.

And that kind of level of detail, that kind of fine grain information just simply isn't there.

I could find it somewhat by going into each individual booklet on each growing opportunity driver program.

It's not compiled in a way that you can really see readily the impact that it's having.

I'm sorry.

Well, the information that, in my mind, shows the performance metric is one thing.

It's the difference between outcomes and outputs, as they say.

There are outputs, but we need the outcome.

Yeah.

I mean, I think with, for instance, the GO program, it's only three years into that program.

So you wouldn't see a big move specifically for that program.

You could compare it with other things that we're doing on top of that to see what's going on with, for instance, African-American unemployment in the community, that type of thing, which has gone down over the course of the last three to five years.

We need more conversations about how this information is compiled and put together because it is not clear what our programs are doing unless you go through multiple documents.