City Council Strategic Plan Update (Pt.1), 11AM-5PM   9/29/2020

to approve anything.

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's what makes a board strong.

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

you still admit, but you still give support.

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

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

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

It comes with the territory.

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

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

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

Thank you.

you

Thanks for watching

All right, so I call this meeting back to order.

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

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

And Ms.

Attack, it will be presenting, I think.

Yeah, is she here?

Hi, Erin.

Good afternoon.

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

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

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

So this is for next year.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

compared to the overall goal of 19 for the region.

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

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

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

And 56% of the home beneficiaries were minorities.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For public service projects, these funds remain citywide in that nonprofit partners as they're going through the CDBG application for next year.

They're made aware of which priority neighborhood council has selected and encouraged and they are encouraged to recruit beneficiaries from that target area.

For admin and planning funds, this is typically funded at 20% at the 20% HUD cap to cover all the grant requirements for running CDBG and home.

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

part of the CDBG and home requirements.

And then council will also set a funding proposal for housing and economic development activities at $61,249.28, have the remaining estimated CDBG budget, so that leaves about $150,000 go towards the priority neighborhood funding.

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

This was approved previously by city council and per the discussion that was held last September, the three-year blocked priority neighborhood cycle ensures plenty of time for community engagement to occur and coordination between the Ray Street Task Force and city committees to identify a potential project for that target area for council to approve.

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

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

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

All the priorities that I just listed are also consistent with the

2018-2023 consolidated plan.

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

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

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

So this is for the CDBG program still.

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

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

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

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

This is a local match.

And in previous years, this portion of the funding came through the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund, leaving no impact on the general fund regarding CDBG.

Overall, these are the recommendations and program updates.

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

I don't have any questions at this time.

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

Is it possible for us to

Move this to the consent.

agenda next time just in case I have any questions.

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

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

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

And Erin, do you have any thoughts on that?

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

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

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

Yeah.

We can.

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

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

have staff address your questions.

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

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

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

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

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

That works?

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

Attak.

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

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

Nonprofit partners are made of the strategic investment area.

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

Should it be saying priority neighborhood at that point?

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

for both economic development activities and housing activities.

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

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

Similarly, housing was or is $78,550.12.

It is now going to be $61,294.28.

Why that number?

No, there's no formula.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not really.

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

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

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

Okay.

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

Yes.

So that's on Ridge street homeowner rehabs.

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

It's a reasonable figure.

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

that was a micro enterprise and business scholarship program.

For CIC.

And did we get any other applications?

Yeah.

So I would be a bit concerned not having read the entire report I'll say, but about us, you know, making that allocation when

unless we have reason to believe that something would change, and especially the situation that we're in regarding the community, the pandemic, and housing needs to divvy up the funding in that way.

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

It sounds like from what the questions Lloyd was asking of Erin is that these are just kind of like placeholders for now waiting to see what the applications are because then it all goes through a true allocation process and it's just kind of to have like buckets there available and so I agree in the CAIA too like we could just say that it's all going to go in one place the other but at the end of the day we don't we're not going to make any final decisions on these allocations until after we see what applications have been received and then the monies within both buckets just get dispersed

Okay all right well I think without having that conversation that the request would probably come in larger but

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

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

Well, is it accurate that that?

specific housing bucket is for homeowner rehab.

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

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

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

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

That was one concern that was brought up.

I think it was in the CDBG task force meeting.

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

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

OK.

All right.

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

All right.

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

The first person is Brandon Collins.

Brandon, you're on the city council.

You've got three minutes.

Thank you.

I had an internet problem there.

Good evening, council.

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

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

So I just really hope that that comes into play.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You all know how deep the problem runs.

and every little bit helps.

So I think that's about all I'm going to say except to say I'm also thrilled that Section 3 was mentioned and CDBG certainly does trigger Section 3 and welcome the city's giant warm embrace of Section 3 as we move forward.

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

Okay.

Thank you.

So we'll close the public hearing.

Just one quick question for Erin.

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

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

They are allowed to apply for funding.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It really depends on the activity.

And I guess final question is,

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

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

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

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

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

Okay.

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

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

Cause there's also the allocations.

Yeah.

This one resolution has, I think everything bulleted out.

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

Yes.

Okay.

Any further discussion?

Ms.

Thomas.

Ms.

Walker.

Do you want to abstain?

Ms.

Magill?

Yes.

Ms.

Yes.

All right.

And thank you for your report.

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

OK.

OK.

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

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

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

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

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

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

both tonight and some other questions.

And the first being about the marches.

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

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

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

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

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

The city has reenacted its ordinance last week.

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

And again, just to go over the main, the three main aspects of this ordinance are first, there is the limit on food establishment and their capacity at 50% of their occupant, of their certificate of occupancy.

Second, the 50 or more people gathering.

and third, there is the face covering requirement.

It's found in section six.

Those were the three substantive provisions that you enacted back in July.

And again, nothing has changed since then.

I do wanna also point out that the penalty section has agreed upon back in July.

And I know Mayor Walker wasn't at that meeting, but before this came before you, she and I had talked and the council

agreed with the idea that the penalties in the city's ordinance are class three and class four misdemeanors.

And if you recall the discussion we had on July 27th, that was to avoid jail time, the possibility of jail time.

And so just wanted to point that out again.

Happy to answer any questions.

And again, this would, if you enacted tonight, it has an expiration date of November 30th.

Obviously, you could make it longer if you wish tonight, or you could just say we want to reevaluate it again, like you did with your first ordinance in 60 days.

And I guess that was my main question was, why isn't it enough until we make another decision otherwise type of language?

Because then it would save us from having to revisit this.

Great question.

And I think the first time that this occurred, I think there was, as with any new ordinance that was

you know, that's this fire hose of information and executive orders and guidance that everybody's receiving.

I think it was sort of the idea, let's enact this for 60 days, see how it goes.

And you know, a 60 day review period would allow you at this time, if you had heard any major concerns to this point about the COVID ordinance, you could make changes.

Now, again, it's set for an expiration of November 30th,

You know we could change the expiration date to the end of the declaration of emergency.

Yeah, I think I like the end of the declaration of state of emergency because it will, because we talked about this before, like if we needed to counsel this before the expiration day, we would just bring it back.

Let me check that.

I think it is, but let me check that to be sure.

But there were some differences between ours too.

They had a higher

Like was it a misdemeanor, was it a class five?

I think a class one.

One, yeah.

Yeah, the one.

when we were talking, which way.

But when we were discussing it, that's one of the things that we brought up was just making sure that people weren't, you know, sitting threatened with jail time or felt like they were being threatened with jail time as a result of this.

And so that's different in our ordinances.

Let me take a look here.

The county does have a class one misdemeanor, that's one, and they actually, their ordinance, it says the ordinance succeeds and supersedes their prior ordinance on and after September 16th, 2020, and continues until it is amended, superseded, or repealed.

So they had, it's like open-ended language from what's available on their website.

So again, we can,

Happy to change the language in section nine to read.

The ordinance reenactment is effective 12 a.m.

Okay.

Anyone in agreement with that?

All right.

I mean, we've already discussed it, and I think it's probably given the pandemic we're in,

still the approach to move forward with when we're thinking about compliance of restaurants, bars, parties, community events that may happen.

But the thing that definitely gives me the most concern is even at that lower misdemeanor level that it's introducing some level of criminalization into it, which I know we discussed originally at the time is definitely the thing that makes me most uncomfortable.

But given the situation we're in, again, thinking about an ability to enforce compliance among bars, restaurants, and the such, I think unfortunately it may be the most prudent thing.

Again, as I'm sure everyone has seen, we've passed 200,000 deaths.

I think right now locally it feels like we're in perhaps the most dangerous moment since the beginning just because we have UVA students returning.

We've already seen outbreaks in dorms and it could take one thing for that to become

We go from few cases to a ton very quickly and unpredictably and we think about our students not being in elementary schools, the sacrifices, restaurants and the business community made.

Nothing here is easy trade-offs, but when we think about the fact that we've been able to avoid the kind of major community spread we've seen in the Virginia Beach area, localities in Northern Virginia, and the risk that we have with UVA students returning

I think to do what we can to prevent that kind of community spread and recognizing the devastating impact that would have economically, but much more importantly on people's lives.

I think it makes sense to be cautious here.

Yeah, while we've been able to avoid it, we have had local citizens who have contracted the virus, not thinking that they were participating in safe activities, and then shared on Facebook Lives that they thought their life was over, right?

And so I think it's a duty, as you're saying, to make sure that we are

kind of taking the heat from how people perceive these ordinance with knowing that our primary focus is to keep the community safe.

And so it's really challenging.

And part of the conversation I had Friday was about, we're talking about dorms.

I've had friends, family members work in those dorms

My cousin's daughter's grandmother is one of the, you know, maintenance staff, janitorial staff.

I don't know what they title that.

They are at the dorms now and well, you know at UVA now and so that was one of my you know, my concerns is

you know, how are they doing?

Like they are in these buildings unless they're not.

And they're coming in contact with students.

And then we have our local stores.

I mean, the grocery stores are packed with students, you know, when you go to them.

So this isn't just like the community is separated and the staff that's, the picture of what the dining hall, like all of those,

to have former staff members say, oh, I'm glad I wasn't there.

There are a lot of things that we're doing now that's very concerning in terms of whether we think our numbers are low or not.

They're not low.

And we're going into probably the hardest time period of this pandemic

Well and again the final thing I'll say is

Again, I think this is definitely a dangerous moment in terms of the potential for community spread because everyone knows cases spread exponentially and something that seems small one day, three weeks later is not so small, especially as was mentioned, as we enter the fall and the winter and you have the normal flu season, people are returning indoors more, coinciding with more

And that's something I think that we may want to consider too.

but the same hard conversations that we're having about the ability to protest and the restrictions that people feel like we placed on them.

There was an article last week about restaurants and dining in restaurants and the spread of COVID as a result of that.

If that's another letter we send to Richmond to say, hey, this is what

We think about this.

I know I previously had conversations with administration at UVA about bars and how late they were serving and whether that is something we could petition together to request for an earlier cutoff time.

So those are things that in the near future that we will have to probably

Mayor Walker, if I may, I just received an email from the county attorney, Greg Campner,

and he stated that at their meeting the materials that I quoted were on the county's website in their agenda packet but he stated that at their meeting he asked and their board of supervisors agreed that they actually will have an end date of November 18th

2020 for their ordinance.

And just wanted to clear that out.

That doesn't mean that you all will change yours, but I just want to clear that up.

As I had stated earlier, I was reading from the materials posted on their website, but he sent me an email just now that stated he's watching the meeting and wanted to let me know that at the board's meeting at his request, the board of supervisors did set an end date of November 18th of 2020.

Counselor, are there any further comments?

No?

I move we adopt an ordinance to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus and the disease it causes, commonly referred to as COVID-19.

And this is an extension or reenactment of an ordinance that exists and the only edit to what's presented is section nine under duration.

The ordinance reenactment is effective at 12 a.m.

September 30th, 2020 and it expires upon the rescission of

Thank you.

Is there a seconder?

Second.

Ms.

Mr. Payne.

Ms.

Walker.

Yes.

Ms.

Magill.

Yes.

Ms.

Hill.

Yes.

All right, that carries 5-0.

So next, we have the public comment period for the strategic plan update.

Couldn't get that out, my brain.

And Mr. Wheeler, are there any members of the public, if you could check in just

Second, and I just will update just because we did move the start date of the strategic plan back two weeks and then just based on attempting to change the date and scheduling conflicts with the

you know, facilitator.

We'll have a two week break between the first meeting and before the second and third meeting at this time.

And if we didn't do it that way, we would not have probably ever been able to schedule this meeting this fall.

We also want to acknowledge that we understand

that since we're going through

a leadership change that we may have to, certain that we'll have to reconvene after the new city manager is hired and have this discussion as a team.

And so we wanna make the public aware that we acknowledge that and we'll know closer to the date whether this is something that we can wrap up as,

or not or wrap up as much as possible.

So right now the dates moving forward will be September 29th, 11 to five and October 20th, 11 to five, October 27th, 11 to five.

And there'll be additional comment periods at our meetings in between those dates and

and during the strategic plan at the beginning and end of those meetings.

So if you'd like to speak to council about the strategic plan during this public comment period, you can click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

We've got one hand raised right now, two hands.

First up is Joy Johnson.

Joy, you're back on with council.

Yeah, on mute.

Good evening.

I think I'm up.

I think you all have received some comments from FAR, and I just want to reiterate what we sent to you earlier.

FAR and the community have worked hard to make sure the city makes resident-led public housing redevelopment, affordable housing for extremely low families a priority.

Please keep these as the number one priority.

Number next, racial equity is intertwined with public housing redevelopment and addressing the affordable housing crisis and require better strategic for public engagement.

Number next, the planning work being done by residents with housing authority should be a model for the all planning effort by the city and is a step towards community self-determination.

The last next is, the city should continue to provide significant financial and technical resources for CRHA to carry out redevelopment and contribute to construction of additional new affordable housing for extremely low income families.

Mayor Walker, next up is Brandon Collins, followed by Don Gathers.

Brandon, you're back on the city council.

Good evening again, council.

I too am speaking on behalf of FAR, Public Housing Association, and residents.

We are the duly recognized, federally recognized resident council and resident advisory board for public housing residents in Charlottesville.

Hope you got our comments from our board of directors.

I think you can see where we were trying to go with that, public housing redevelopment, affordable housing, and that involved in all of that.

is racial equity.

And what we didn't spell out in the letter I think is something that sometimes needs to be restated, but Charlottesville does owe the people, going all the way back to even before Jefferson

with the removal of native peoples, the institution of slavery, the establishment of the plantation system by a brand new president after a revolution in the United States, a new economy based on human slavery, and civil war, Reconstruction and Jim Crow, and the deliberate taking of

Blackland and Black life through urban renewal at Venner Hill, at Hartman's Mill, at Garrett, into the drug war and mass incarceration, all of those things that happened in Charlottesville

are a piece of the public housing history in Charlottesville and we've sought to change that history and we see public housing redevelopment as a way to change that history

and we think by your significant attention to investment in and support of resident direction in these efforts, you can redevelop your public housing, you can provide additional affordable housing to address the affordable housing crisis, but also change the way you do business in this town and give residents

A seat of power and a way to determine their own futures, and I think the entire community is going to benefit from that.

So we really hope you look at those priorities, and we've all done a lot of work making those priorities for you in the past few years.

Please don't let that slip from your strategic planning and your strategic thinking.

Next up is Don Gathers.

Don, you're on with the city council.

Thank you.

Good evening again.

I too wanted to reiterate the wonderful words from Sister Joy and from Brother Brandon.

And I speak also on behalf of FAR.

And just in as much as it is indeed our prayer that whoever is brought in to replace Mr. Richardson

indeed is made aware and has the forward thinking to continue the work that is being done towards redevelopment of public housing and that there are the mindset that this is of the utmost importance along with and coupled with the need for affordable housing in our community.

So I just hope that during the vetting process and throughout the interview process that that is kept in the forefront.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think it's just one.

Right, Mr. Blair?

And she just lowered her hand.

Oh, she just lowered.

Right.

So we will, oh, was in a public hearing, so okay.

Well, we'll have this opportunity for the public to participate and chime in at future council meetings and also at, you know, during the retreat.

Thank you.

Now we're moving on to the,

Good evening, everybody.

This is Kaki Demick, Director of Human Services.

And I'm before you at your request to do some follow up after the presentation of the report results and recommendations from MGT Consultants on the study of disproportionate minority contact in the adult criminal justice system using data from both Charlottesville and Albemarle.

The process for doing this study began in 2015.

when the city council received a comprehensive report on disproportionality and disparities in the general justice system and work began to try to secure funds to do a study of the adult system.

You all received that report and a presentation from the consultants in February of this year

The findings broadly speaking demonstrated that there was disproportionality at all points in the adult criminal justice system and disparity at five specific points in the adult criminal justice system including seriousness of charges brought, number of companion charges brought, bail bond release decisions, length of stay awaiting trial, and guilty outcomes at trial.

notable that there were a number of points along with adult criminal justice system in which data wasn't available.

And so the lack of results related to those things obviously shouldn't have any of us drawing any conclusions.

We received recommendations from the People's Coalition on September of this year.

And Mayor Walker, as she mentioned earlier and I met with representatives of the People's Coalition to discuss their recommendations on September 9th.

When looking at sort of providing some background and guidance for city council about how to move forward, it's important to note that there are a number of places, well, the vast majority of places along the adult criminal justice system in which council does not have technical authority over those operating systems.

And so it's just important contextual sort of piece to note as you're moving forward, how much of this work will be advocacy work

from council using community groups or staff.

There are also three categories of activity for you all to consider where you want to focus your energies, whether and how many resources will be required.

to focus on solutions identified to respond to repair and prevent existing inequities in the adult criminal justice system and or whether and how many resources will be required to continue to focus on the examination of disproportionality and disparities, so how much data do we want to collect and analyze, and then how to engage the community in these processes.

I think that knowing what your priorities are would certainly impact the next steps for you all.

that seven of them were designed to mitigate the system's impact on African Americans.

And so they were not focused on preventing entry into the criminal justice system.

The conversation both locally and nationally has certainly been around that kind of prevention activity with focus on emergency response systems from 911 using community members.

That is not part of the recommendation that MGT was asked to make.

or volunteers.

We looked at the recommendations that the pre-existing research and planning committee had identified, some wish lists about what to do next, overlay those with the consultant's recommendations and the recommendations from the People's Coalition.

There's certainly no place in which there's any opposition among those three groups.

In fact, there's a great deal of alignment about what this community wishes we would do next.

And so the recommendation from staff is as a starting point for a conversation that staff recommends that as a process consideration, council identify ways to intentionally engage the Charlottesville community in the direction, evaluation, and monitoring of action steps regarding disproportionality and disparity.

ensuring that community participation is central and primary by authorizing community members with the power to meaningfully influence the process and appointing a sufficient number of community members to exercise that influence.

Formally convene a task force to follow up on council's interest and report out to council on a regular basis and invest in and encourage all adult criminal justice components to identify quality of data collection activities, to improve quality of data collection activities and ensure ready access to local data to evaluate progress.

Earlier in the meeting, Mayor Walker announced her desire to create such a task force and identified some potential members that certainly would meet some of those process considerations.

And then I think it's important to make a comment or two about the

data collection needs.

Each one of the components of the adult criminal justice system collects data differently and some of them actually report, don't even keep that data locally, it gets reported into a sort of a state system and we don't actually have ready access to it.

They're not easily comparable across each one of those sort of data collection buckets.

and these are areas where we don't actually have authority to dictate how data gets collected or evaluated.

And so I think it's important to note while we may have great desire for an improved comprehensive data collection system, it is highly unlikely.

It would be a massive lift, certainly not a lift that any of Charlottesville can make on its own and would cost a tremendous amount.

I think it would also require lots of multi-cross jurisdictional

information sharing and political agreements.

So there's multiple places where it seems like the chasm between what we wish existed and what we're able to influence is bigger and bigger in each one of those places.

And so given that, given the fact that we are unlikely, at least in the city of Charlottesville, to create a new data collection system for the adult criminal justice system, where can we have the biggest bang for our buck?

What information would really change the way we understand the way the adult criminal justice system works?

or help us understand how we might take steps to either prevent or mitigate disproportionality and disparity.

So those are the broad questions I would ask you to consider.

We do think it's pretty critical that we go ahead and make a formal request to the Virginia Department of Corrections to access probation data to understand the impact

of Probation Discretion and Decision Making on Disproportionality and Disparity.

Invest in the evaluation and analysis of that data that is likely.

I'm really grateful to have Neil Goodloe, a criminal local criminal justice planner on the call on the council meeting this evening.

He knows a lot more about how to manage this kind of data and what we can do with it internally versus what we would need outside consultants or outside support for and so that some of that is practical like do we have the actual skills to manage that data or don't we and some of it is also a little bit around sort of politics and perception that

if we did the analysis internally, would we have the credibility to hold up the data and the analysis and have it be accepted by the community?

And I think that's a very fair question when we're going into it.

We certainly, there was a lot of data available to both Mr. Goodlow and others in the system prior to consulting with MGT consultants, but we felt it was very important in order for the study to have any kind of validity to hire outside consultants.

So that may be part of your decision-making as well.

Make a formal request of Virginia Supreme Court to access magistrate decision-making.

This is going to be particularly tricky because the magistrate's data is designed to not actually be accessible by almost anybody and so it may take some additional sort of political influence as well to get that data.

Evaluate available data from the Charlottesville Police Department to understand the presence and extent of disproportionality and existence of severity and arrests.

Arrest data should be separated by calls for service versus officer initiated actions to discover any differences in outcome.

An arrest for alleged criminal activity should be distinct from arrest for probation or show cause matters.

Invest in evaluation of the impact of equality and type of legal representation on disproportionality and disparity in the adult criminal justice system.

And then conduct a file review to understand the impact of judicial decision making on bail and sentencing on disproportionality and disparity.

It's pretty critical, I think, that if we're looking at the experience of people in the whole system as a whole, that we understand the impact of representation on people's experience and outcomes in the criminal justice system.

That would be an entirely new kind of study.

We would likely need external support in order to make that happen.

We estimate that cost at somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000.

These are estimates and drafts.

draft amounts based on some pretty smart people who have sort of had a look at this but we would need to go out to people who do this kind of work and ask and look at the quality of the data that we have and what we already have, what already exists and what we would need to go get in order to understand the true costs.

One of the things that we continue to hear sort of to the sort of

The end of the last presentation in February, I talked about the fact that this study is missing information from the front end and at the back end of the adult criminal justice system.

The front end being really a fine analysis of arrest data and police contact data.

And then at the end, this impact around probation.

I don't know that we could decide which is more important.

It feels to me like we might want to proceed with both.

Probation violations drive the jail population like no single other activity.

And so if we're interested in impacting the jail population, that's an important area for us to understand.

We continue to also hear from the community that is really critical to understand arrest data in a way that we haven't been able to understand today.

So Neil is with us and his camera is on.

If you wish to ask him specifically any questions, I may also toss him the ball on a couple of occasions if I can't get there myself.

What I think

probably works best.

I think Kathy just did a great job of summing up about three years worth of work.

I will say that MGT's findings are very consistent with the internal analyses that I've done of DMC

Has Albemarle County been engaged in this process in any way?

The county was a partner in the MGT study.

Yeah.

But there's more work to be done there.

And so I think doing our joint session with them, this is one of the topics that we need to have on our agenda to talk about where the alignment

if any we have here and what does that investment look like from the county also.

The only thing I would add mayor is that much of the work that I've been doing reinforces the notion that

that there is a blurring, at least in a criminal justice sense, between the city and the county.

It's an invidious line between an offense that takes place 30 feet within the county or 25 feet within the city.

There's a lot of crossing over of jurisdictional lines.

Even when you talk about, you know, just individuals traveling to visit, you know, what used to be a home where they may be county residents at this moment, but, you know, their family lives, you know, in the city.

And so, and if something happens while they are in the city, which they may technically say, I mean, everyone pretty much says, I live in Charlottesville, even if they're seeing the county.

So it's just,

Yeah, this keeps coming up.

So many of the next steps are based on political will and advocacy.

And we are certainly going to be much more powerful together with Albemarle.

to ask for joint data or to ask for changes.

It's also just more powerful data when you do encompass both jurisdictions.

I think us on our own in a silo is not really addressing the deep concerns.

I mean, it's just, it can only do so much.

And I think that without that partnership

collaboration and just having it looked at as if it's just one jurisdiction in many ways.

I mean, I realize there's separate parts, but so many parts of the system are overlapping.

But I also hope that we don't do again is that we figure the financials out because it's important to make that contribution to not only say that you will participate in meetings or share, but that you'll share the expense and then continue to come to the table for future discussions about what the solutions look like.

or the solutions are and we have to be very mindful that if, for whatever reason, that we're not on the same page, that we don't kind of scale back the solutions that we put in place if other, if the county isn't ready either.

So that's something that I hope that we, you know, that we are mindful about.

I saw Chief Brackney pop in.

So, yes, I would actually just echo what your ideas around politics and how they're going to be really important.

But I think before we even start all of the process and where we might be getting the money, Kaki has made an extremely important point in that

the type of data that we collect in Charlottesville is probably much more robust and available than the data they collect in Albemarle.

So if we don't start this process with an agreed upon and shared understanding of the exact type of data that we're going to have access to and that it can be looked at through the same lens, we're going to have the same problem that we had with the first study

in which there were entire segments of data that could not be considered from Charlottesville because our counterparts do not collect the data or they don't collect it in the same way that we collect our data.

One of the saving graces that we do have if there isn't necessarily the type of funding, and hopefully I can be brought in sooner than

even in today's conversation for one of the first times in a while is seeing what we're already doing with the Center for Policing Equity and what data they're collecting from us from John Jay University so that we aren't being redundant and having to try and scrape this all up together again that we may marry our consulting firms with the agreements and understandings that we have with them.

So I think we have some abilities to do some great things here and really dig deep into our data to see exactly those pinch points or pressure points for disproportionality or even disparity.

You know, not being part of the original, setting the original parameters, I think as, and Kathy has said, if we're not intentional about how we collect and where our advocacy and our political will lies, we're going to find ourselves back having another two or three year conversation about these kinds of studies and what they mean to the community.

And I don't know if the community can afford to wait any longer to start seeing some changes

But some of those conversations may have to be what can we do even if the county doesn't agree to do.

And so I hope that we don't, you know,

get kind of stifled in that while we all agree that this should be a collaborative process, if that is not the case, then I would like for us to discuss what is possible within the information, our boundaries, and versus saying that until we get them on board,

And I think we will work very hard to get everybody to the table.

But if we are at a different place, then we'll just have to acknowledge that and figure out how we can move on.

And I know that's not what any of us wants to necessarily hear.

And not only data from the county, but from magistrates, both commonwealth's attorney's offices, the state, the jail system.

Yeah, and it's important that we had this discussion, I believe when we had the meeting with the People's Coalition, there was a question about judges.

Didn't that come up, Kaki?

I just want to make sure that I'm referencing the right meeting.

And part of what we'll have to consider, and I talked to Lloyd earlier today, too, when we were discussing this, is if we look at how judges are making decisions in the courtroom.

And I agree it's important.

have you know in the discussion earlier today had conversations about you know the community knowing you know based on which judge they went before what their outcome probably would be already and having those discussions for years but if

Those are the hard discussions that we'll have to have.

Is that the best use of money?

Because even once we get that information, what can we do with it?

So I think that's part of the process.

It's not like if we study certain things, and I'm not saying not to study this, I'm just sharing with you because it came up in the conversation, then if we can't enforce anything or make any decisions as a result of that, is that our starting point?

And it may benefit us.

I know Kaki and I have had some offline conversations when the report first came out is

your starting point is where you should start.

The first introduction into the criminal justice system is when there's that first encounter with a police officer.

That's normally 90% of the time is where you're going to find that first introduction.

So studying right from the beginning where this disproportionality may start occurring is at its first pinch point.

really does benefit you when you don't necessarily need additional partners in your jurisdiction to say, all right, let's look at the very first contact and start really breaking that first contact down and seeing where there may be disproportionality or disparity there.

and then you almost do it like a decision tree.

Once we know this, if this, then that, and then go to the next point where we might have the opportunity to disrupt trajectories, right, or the statistical data that's been put in front of us.

So I think we have ...

the ability and the capacity regardless of the conversations to at least move forward like Kaki and I don't know who else recommended that we start at that very first point pulling out the data from that first contact and where it may be officer initiated where they do have discretion but are choosing to exercise that discretion to see how that might then follow it through a system for the Charlottesville Police Department.

And I think we've done some of that work with the investigative detentions that we post every month, which is due tomorrow.

So I'm sure some person will be tweeting that I have not put it out by tomorrow, the 15th business day.

And some of the conversations that we have in the community is centered around that already being done, and that's not the case, right?

And so that's an important part.

I don't know how that decision was made, wasn't at the table there, but I think it's good just for people to hear that that willingness

is already something that we know has to be done and that we are not trying to avoid.

And that may fuel some of our initial, well, not may fuel, but that will fuel some of the initial conversations of how we move forward.

And I think the request that we hopefully

being optimistic, if we can get back in front of council for the initial maybe request for budget requests by the second meeting in November, that may hopefully give us at least time to meet two or three times to come up with what that initial

I think

today thinking about just what the smaller groups look like and understanding that we'll have to branch out at times and that we can talk about what that needs to look like and whether it's additional members or whether we are just inviting people for these discussions to get that information and start a process of even whether it's just writing, sending a request,

to, you know, written requests to the magistrate office and asking counsel to, you know, the task force submitting it after asking counsel to send it, you know, if those are the type of things that we're doing for like the state level probation data and the,

That timing for the second meeting in November is good as well, since the joint meeting with UVA and

Albemarle is on October 28th, I think.

Yeah.

And I think not just lining up specific investments that could be made, whether it'll be staff positions,

policy changes, et cetera, that come with a specific dollar amount in time for the next budget cycle, but as well to time with our legislative packet in terms of the potential next General Assembly session, if the things we see, even a barrier in data collection or some policy, whether we might have that opportunity to get some changes there.

A lot of these recommendations involve the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office, obviously, even our discussion earlier tonight around the drug courts, it sounds like that ultimate decision point, at least in part, is the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office.

Is there a line of communication where either in Charlottesville or both in Charlottesville and Albemarle, those Commonwealth's Attorney's Offices are

Well, certainly the line of communication with Mr. Plutania has been open and communication flowing both directions very readily.

He was a part of both the research team and the task force or advisory group and was very amenable to this process and feels that the work is really critical.

for us to improve the system of care and also figure out ways to avoid people entering it.

So I think, you know, he was also representing the Commonwealth's office with data that didn't represent the time in which he was there.

And so I think that there's some, there's just some tension between those things.

It's a healthy tension, not a bad one.

And I know Mr. Hingely has been engaged in some early conversations as well, but he hasn't been in that position as long as Mr.

Sena has been involved in the research.

And most of the work had already been done by the time that Mr. Hengele came in.

And so should we move forward with a collaborative process?

I think it's really critical for the both to be involved.

Certainly, as Mr. Hengele was running, he ran on a number of these system improvement issues.

And so I don't think it'll be a surprise to have him be

I will point out that we have two challenges.

One of them is easier than the other, at least from a data standpoint, and I'm here to talk data.

There is the hard data, which there is plenty of.

The challenge is assembling it in one place and being able to make some sense of it that will guide the decision making of counsel and perhaps supportive supervisors.

The second area of data, which is a lot more difficult to wrap our heads around or get our hands on, are data that is related to discretionary decision

at many, many different points of contact in the criminal justice.

Much of that discretionary decision making is made without being recorded.

And we don't even have a way to capture it, much less analyze it.

So until we can actually find ways to get at some of those discretionary choices that are made,

Often on the fly, either in a courtroom or on the street or in a probation office or wherever they're made, we can, I think, only get so far in understanding the why.

And I think at least with the police department and some of the requests that have come in, even about the officers' narratives on particular arrest and things like that, that may

Be an option there where it may not be in a courtroom with deciding how a judge is making their decisions or the magistrate level, who is given a bond and how much, why they made that decision.

And those are some of the conversations

you know that we'll have and if it doesn't exist you know we understand that and even if it exists because we're requesting it that'll probably change the outcome because people will know that we are now looking at it and so that'll be part of the decisions that we'll have to

you know make moving forward is it an attempt to capture some of that information or know that you know if you went into the neighborhoods and asked you know black members of the community what the issues what they think the issues are they're going to tell you what their experience

And so when this information came out with this report too, people said, oh, we already knew that.

So even the need to prove that this is happening is not coming from the individuals who are affected by the system.

Part of the mindset change, I think, is just going to have to be where we can find out

And some of the stuff is very valid.

Like if there are players who need to be removed from a system and we have control of that, how do we do that?

But a lot of this will have to be a moving forward, what are we attempting to put in place to?

And so we will have to have those conversations and make those difficult decisions.

also about what are we putting in place to help heal a system we know is broken and no one who has been affected by the system needed MGT to do a report and they don't need for us to do another study either.

Oh yeah, and I understand that.

But I think there's also a way to capture that too, but it may not be the way that people like to see that information presented.

And when we talk about narratives, you hear the storyline changing in communities that people, even if, first of all, they're not arrested or charged or,

you know convicted of crimes they didn't commit so that's one you'll stop hearing things like that where people never even make it to court they're playing out because they feel like I'm gonna get less time doing this even though I don't this is something that I want to fight.

One of the recommendations and I talked to

Public Defender's Office earlier in the budget season and has started that conversation with Diana, a Board of Supervisors member, about if we could, because it's one of those areas that we need to support at the same time, increase the funding to the Public Defender's Office.

and so if we are talking about access to the justice system and justice truly for all, the disparities between the amount of support that we provide to the Commonwealth Attorney's Office and even those, the Public Defender's Office, they receive state dollars, our supplement for both the city and county needs to be considerably more.

if we are saying that we want people who have to go before the judges and prosecutors to have a fair trial.

So those are things that are within our control that we can change.

And then figuring out what we're comparing as a result of that, we know those are conversations that we would have to have.

with the public defender's office to say, what data can you provide us now and what can you provide us and what can we look at in the future to see if this is helping?

But I think just people talking about, hey, my attorney knew my name.

because I've been in court and the attorney did not know the client that they were representing and it wasn't for a small matter and this happened, you know, the incident that I'm thinking of now but it was, you know, a murder case and it was a difference between the person who actually committed the murder versus someone who was

in the area.

And the person, because of how things were presented, ended up with more time.

So I know from a community level, they just want those type of things to not occur.

And while that may not be traditionally what we're looking for in terms of data collection, for someone who's affected by the system, that's a good starting point for them.

But I understand what you're saying, and we understand that we're going to have to figure out what we're comparing to to know that we're moving in the right direction.

I guess for us as a council next steps is maybe through the task force as it comes together.

Maybe just for us as a council trying to identify these recommendations that we have direct control over and figure out the budgetary impacts if there are any.

Try to line them up for action if possible in this upcoming budget cycle.

Maybe figure out recommendations for changes from the state legislature in time for the state legislative packet and these recommendations that involve institutions that we don't have direct control over that think about a longer term strategy of advocacy.

to try to change some of what's happening in the Commonwealth Attorney Office or obviously the state, et cetera.

I think that's what they'll be.

I hope and I would recommend that we not tie this to budget season, that we're going to have to figure out

where the resources are to pay for some of this stuff, you know, upfront and not, and even if, you know, Chief Brackney sent a email, which I don't have in front of me, and I'm tired, so, but you know, you sent, you can share, but she sent an email with a change, you know, kind of system change,

when talking about possibilities of reducing her budget to fund.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, there are going to be, even if there's,

Even slight legislative changes, there's always going to be a financial impact.

An example of that is the state passed a statute that we now have to collect ethnicity as part of our traffic stops and that it has to be done digitally.

That went into effect July 1st.

Charlottesville, we've been collecting ethnicity since I've arrived here.

Prior to that, we only collected race.

With that,

came costs.

Like there's software changes to make a very small change that can run you into the hundreds of thousands of dollars to start trying to collect even something as simple as the additional change in ethnicity and what those software packages would look like.

It was so cumbersome that the state police had asked for an extension not to collect that until later and that extension was denied.

So

quickly we had to look at our e-ticket software.

Albemarle had to do the exact same thing.

And there were costs associated with those things that can cost you quickly, $150,000, $200,000 that you hadn't planned for.

So as Kathy has put some numbers in here about what certain things may cost, I would

those are probably just the labor costs and not necessarily the software costs that may have to come behind those in order to be able to mine the data in the way that you're looking for.

We just, for instance, released our annual security report.

Our numbers are significantly higher than what's on the state police website.

It's because the software does not talk to each other.

Reporting does not make it fully through.

So to even make those kinds of changes,

We've had discussions that may be a $1.52 million change to software packages in order to collect and mine data the way that you would want to in a more modern system.

So there are a lot of back implications to what we're asking.

Not that we can't do certain things, but understand that it's not always going to be as simple as saying, hey, let's just make this change or let's advocate for a legislative package and it is not going to have a budget implication.

If you're completely right, the numbers that we have as holding spots in there are labor for analysis only.

They're not about creating new data collection systems for any individual component or for the system as a whole.

We really

You guys wouldn't be able to breathe if we put those numbers in there because it's just so big.

And so it is worth some conversation.

It particularly stings to have the conversation in the middle of a pandemic in which people are struggling with basic needs.

about what it would mean to collect this data in a meaningful way to be able to track changes whether they're changes around sort of individual acts of mitigation on each one of these components or changes at the front end of the system.

to see whether we're having any impact on people's experience and certainly people's qualitative experience and narratives will influence how we understand that.

But if we want to collect this data and have it be like a running point over time, at some point the data collection conversation has to happen.

It's probably not right now or next year, but it is important for us to sort of have that awareness in the back of our mind that we're always going to be doing a little bit of a piecemeal job without that kind of comprehensive data system.

It's not going to happen for the rest of my career.

It could be 10 years, 20 years off.

The problem being,

We have local systems, we have regional systems, we have state-level systems.

They all have different data governance rules.

They're all on different platforms.

Some of them are modern, some of them are creaky and antiquated.

And we'd have to find a way to create interfaces between all of them into a central depository.

And as Chief Brackney was saying, the cost of those one-way interfaces

There are costs assumed on both sides of that interface that you have to get together with all these software companies to each have them build their end of that software push and it is phenomenally expensive.

That's kind of actually how we found ourselves here is everybody started creating their own systems and then that's where we find ourselves.

We find ourselves with this very unique system that no one else can access our data and we can't access theirs, right?

So that's become part of it and then understanding that all of our data is regional, that we do it with UVA, we do it with Albemarle and ourselves,

And there's a component from the jail as well, which they all dump into these systems, but they're all functioning very differently.

And, you know, as Neil, when he was minding the data will tell you, even though we're all dumping into these same systems, the way it was being inputted in

has lots of problems with even trying to get this data for the DMC.

So I think there's some things that we could gather.

You're exactly right with our private partnerships if we're saying, hey, this is what we're looking for to the exclusion of our other partners.

I think that can get you something very differently.

But as you just said at the very beginning, we are so fluid between Charlottesville and Albemarle and what is impacting each other around the way that we engage in the criminal justice system, we may miss some really important stuff.

But I think there can be usefulness in a private partnership.

Again, if we clearly define exactly what we're trying to data mine,

and we have to be very specific about that versus those higher loftier things that we might want to get in a qualitative analysis.

And I think this is something that we can explore within the working group task force, right?

Because at every point that you, like if we're talking about if the jail has a different system, the police department has a different system, the court system, the Commonwealth Attorney, we give money to each of those entities.

So if we are now saying that we are creating X,

And we would like for you to participate in it because of the funding.

Unless we are told that that's something that legally we can't do, then we should be able to

We're not going to change the system if we're waiting for it to be changed on another end.

So if we can start that alignment and maybe make that investment in trying to build something that doesn't exist with having all the partners at the table, then maybe then the county looks at that and say, hey, this is something

that we want to participate in and create too.

And Mr. Blair, this may be helpful into council,

Our agreement with the current records management system expires in March of 2021.

That means we're going to have to enter into some agreement for somebody to be able to collect data in all of our records management systems, right?

The three entities that are involved.

And we sit on those boards.

We have three representatives from each of those about how that money is spent and what systems we can use.

and I've been a huge proponent of leveraging that we have the ability to collect the type of data that someone like us who are heavy consumers of that information and heavy consumers of that data that we push very hard to do that because our contributions are typically from the city of Charlottesville for these systems close to $500,000, $600,000

will be our contribution on top of whatever the other ones are going to be.

And it's based on usage, population, and things of that nature.

So I think you do have absolutely some agency and cachet to be able to move your agenda forward.

And I would just add to Chief Brackney's point, Mayor Walker, when you put this task force together, considering the discussion that's gone on in the past few minutes, you may not typically think of procurement

but it may be based on Mr. Goodlow and Chief Brackney's comments, it may not be a bad idea to have some aspect of this focused on your procurement process so that looking at cooperative procurement with the county and into other entities to see how can we, if part of the issue is software or hardware, how can we going forward

used the procurement process to try to have congruency between systems.

Again, not a huge addition to this conversation, but still it's something that based on what Mr. Goodlow said earlier, it may not be a bad idea to have procurement folks from the county and city work together and just see if they have any recommendations on how to decrease the

the disparate or different systems that seem to be in both jurisdictions and then you talk about the Commonwealth's Attorney and as Chief Brackney said also the regional E911 I mean there are a lot of moving parts here

And that's not something that I had thought of because I just thought of if we can create this system.

But in this case, we know that we're going to have to invite people to present and to walk through us some of the ideas from the task force so we can add that to the list for when we are creating the agenda.

So what I would recommend, because we could probably talk about this all night long, is that I'll be working on tomorrow some following up with everybody.

trying to schedule with, I haven't even met with, Kaki and Chief Brackney.

And so we'll have to do that.

And so Council, if it's okay with you, that the October 5th Council meeting that we discuss the

you know makeup of this group and if we've had a meeting any updates there with the understanding that I guess the second meeting in November that we will come back with our initial you know proposal or if we haven't developed a proposal there then at least an update.

about next steps and when we think we'll be back.

Definitely.

Is this considered like a working group?

What's the formal nature?

Well, it's just similar to what Lloyd talked about with the group that he's been talking about with Myra.

For now, we just want to get started.

And then we have the ability to convene a group.

And we talked earlier about whether you wanted to participate as the other council member.

But if that's not the case or I'm hearing a lot of feedback from Michael that that may work too.

And then

We will not be able to do this without bringing in a lot of other community members and people from organizations, just like I asked Ross to be on tonight.

So in terms of preparation for October 5th,

So the council memo needs to just hold a spot for discussion.

It doesn't have to include a formalization or approval of the task force itself.

No, I think because what I'm saying is that membership on this task force because everyone has not agreed.

OK.

Yeah.

And that update would be from you?

Yeah.

Great.

Thank you.

And I'm happy to participate.

It seems reasonable to me.

Obviously, it's a fast timeline, especially at the October meeting.

No, the only thing I'm planning on doing on October 5th is saying here are the initial members that are working to pull everyone else from the community that needs to be a part of this together and setting those agendas.

I guess first formal either what we've done since the September 21st meeting will be that second meeting in November and then part of our

Part of our job as a council between now and then will also be setting the agenda and having this make sure that this topic is one for our joint session with the county and UVA will be there too.

So this March 21st or March 2021 discussion about ECC, if that's a conversation that we need to

Mayor Walker, just for clarification on the October 5th agenda,

Would you like this as a separate action item?

I don't know if this is something that we need to vote on.

Yeah, but we, in terms of not

And if it's not, then we will update you all and we'll do something different.

Okay, well, thank you, staff, Chief Brackney,

and Mr. Gulo for having this conversation with us.

And we are ending before 11 with this part, so enjoy the rest of your evening.

Thank you.

All right, thanks.

All right, so next we have

the discussion of the honorary street designation process.

Thanks for watching

you

All right, call this meeting back to order.

All right, and next up, we have the discussion on honorary street designation process and some of the requests that were submitted

on the September 5th, 6th, the last meeting.

The 8th.

8th.

I keep guessing I get there.

All right, so I think we've had this discussion today and over the past week.

And I think there are three parts to this that we need to decide on.

was we needed to decide on whether we were moving forward with any of the requests that have previously been submitted or that was submitted by that August 31 deadline.

Part B, I guess, to that is if we were not considering all the requests, what

point what will we tell the public about whether we are going to consider those requests at a later date and what is that date.

And then the third part of this is the discussion around policy change regarding this process and what moving forward there looks like for us.

Madam Mayor, I would like to renew my suggestion that we, actually I renewed a suggestion previously made privately, I'll make it publicly, that we ask the Historic Resource Committee to take over this task.

The fact that we keep getting to it after 11 o'clock at night when we've already had a full agenda

We've already had four and a half hours, not to mention the meeting, the closed meeting we had before that.

There are a lot of requests that we've gotten, a lot of requests more that we're going to get.

And it seems to me that the Historic Resource Committee, which is, I've looked at the membership and a lot of people there on that committee that I have a lot of respect for and their ability to weigh these issues both in terms of the

the emotion and in terms of the historic value that they would be better off, that we would be better off delegating this to them.

I would also add that there are some other issues, for example, the renaming of actual streets where we had talked, has been mentioned in particular about, for example, Rosser Lane, which is named after a major general in the Confederate Army.

being one that might be renamed, not just an honorary name change, but an actual name change.

I think that's the kind of issue that the Historic Resource Committee would be a good place to let them figure this out and make some recommendations to us.

and let's delegate it to the people.

We've already constituted this body to do essentially this kind of thing is to evaluate what Charlottesville's response to our history should be in names and in parks and in monuments and other things like that.

We've got them there, let's use them.

So I have the further advantage of getting some things off of our agenda.

so that our meetings perhaps don't have to go till midnight or beyond and we can get to some of the other issues that are facing us.

The police discussion is going to be a discussion that we're going to be having probably pretty much every meeting or at least every month for many months now.

That's something we've sort of delegated in a sense in that we're going to be having these two task forces

that will be coming up with some ideas.

And other people can chime in on their thoughts, but my thoughts with this is that we ask for submissions by a deadline, and in this case, the fact that what

the execution of George Floyd and what happened after that was what started this particular process that we are in now, that I think that even if we change something moving forward, that we should at least consider

the request that came in regarding Fourth Street, the either Black History Pathway, and if that doesn't fit the, now I forgot what the request was, but it was Wyatt J. Johnson.

Johnson, Wyatt Park, Wyatt Johnson Way, Wyatt Johnson Way.

Okay.

And, um, so we were at the decision point of whether we were going with either one of those, um, and then the vinegar heal way for that section.

And I'll just say from, I understand that, and I've heard the pleas.

I do want to say that when we're talking about what has come up, staff time, and that this is led by the black community, I don't remember anyone that has, and this is something, again,

Our last meeting though we did make decisions on two of the proposals that were brought forward.

I thought that at that point those were the ones we considered the priority that were the most time sensitive and that we would be looking at other ways of these other things and moving forward being vetted.

I think that we set that expectation when we first brought this up that we recognize that with what's coming in

that just receiving these and dealing with them every time they come in is not going to be feasible for council.

I thought we'd kind of set the expectation.

And I agree that having another group at least helped to kind of shepherd these requests through and then make a recommendation to council, even if we ended up, you know, doing something slightly different or whatever.

But it's just, I feel like right now it's gotten too personal.

Like I want to kind of remove my, like remove this body from,

from that process and took one layer at least.

And so that a group like the Historic Resources Committee, which I mean, I do sit on and I don't have to be part of that, part of the conversation at all, it could be a subcommittee, but I do feel that its composition has really, and what it's achieving has really shifted during the time that I've been on there.

And I really think that they have the capacity and they have the lens from which to look at this in a way that I think can be really impactful for us.

and to make a recommendation so that we aren't finding ourselves responding to these things every month.

I think we have to have a more holistic process.

And I do feel that it was important that we made some of those decisions immediately, and we did so last meeting.

But I feel like it's a little of a slippery slope to just consider some and not others at this point.

I just

And I think what I remember us saying to the community was that acknowledging that we had kind of hit, like we were just at the end of our rope that last meeting, but that we will continue the discussion today.

Which is what we're doing.

And again,

based on when Myra and Don and Tanisha submitted request, it was to honor the black lives, the black community, and that is what we were saying, submit your applications, even if we did not say that.

That's what we thought would be coming in.

And so some of these other,

requests that have come in like honoring Tony Bennett.

This is not the time for us to spend our time, I think, honoring

another person that's associated with UVA because again people are saying to us that UVA has been honored and has been controlling the community and has led to a lot of the issues that we're trying to resolve at this point.

Some of them don't still follow the policy.

Like as you've said before, like we would like to have things that are honoring people.

And obviously our last decision with the Black Lives Matter Boulevard, there was broad council agreement that that was an exception that we would make.

But I think that, you know, I really honestly don't have an issue with a black history pathway.

And it seems like that's really the preference of the submitters request to go with that and then have it to be a robust, like,

you know, history around that instead of the Jefferson School.

I get that, I just, I know that that doesn't comply with our current policy and I just think this is really worth a group being tasked with really looking at these requests in the broader scheme and making recommendations to us and that's just kind of where I am.

But I think the last meeting there wasn't interest in necessarily making that policy change.

If I'm remembering correctly, Michael may have been the only one who was saying in terms of whether you were going to look at this in terms of based on what we have now,

and if that was the conversation I guess we were going to have with Alexander about whether if you want to wait to see if this is even a policy change council would consider because based on what we said today that is not something that we were willing to consider so if we're going to make an exception that's one thing

and if we're not gonna make the exception, then going with the alternative name and that's still whether we were going even with the alternative name or the Vinegar Hill way.

Well, in thinking about it, I thought

Brian Wheeler sent an email that had what I found to be valuable context of at the time counselor Wes Bellamy had explored an initiative to look across the city at renaming streets in public places and viewing it as part of like a city-wide effort and so I know Brian just forwarded us all some of the context to that which

Council term ended before it fully developed.

But I was just thinking it seems we might be able to have the biggest impact by building on that process rather than just trying to do something totally separate here.

And I know we've gotten complaints from community members that this process so far has been

Ad Hock, that there hasn't been a lot of community input.

It's been kind of ambiguous.

And I think all that's true.

And I'm fine for us as a council to acknowledge we've never gotten this many street naming requests all at once.

We initially got a couple specifically around

Renaming our honorary street names related to the Black Lives Matter movement.

And because there were multiple requests of the same name but at different locations, we paused that and got tons of other additional requests that

We haven't seen this before.

In the process we've been using so far, it hasn't worked.

And I feel like any decision we're making, it just feels very ad hoc.

It doesn't feel like I don't feel comfortable.

Even if we're not going to change the policy with Black History's pathways, I wouldn't feel comfortable

trying to change it with a specific name without engaging with the applicant and the many people who signed the petition for it to see how they feel about it fitting differently.

I did that.

Well, again, I'm not doubting that.

I would just like to have that direct back and forth with counsel about it.

I feel like there's an opportunity to tie this into changes that may be happening in public places in our city and really think of it in a more holistic way that's tying in.

I know at least in the work that began last council that

Brian Wheeler sent us, there was a goal to try to incorporate Dr. Andrea Douglas and folks like Dr. Jolene Schmidt into the work and to view it as kind of building off the work of the Blue Ribbon Commission.

And I just feel like with the amount of requests we've received, many of which I support and want to see happen, but thinking about where, you know, how to locate them, how to tie them into local history and how to tie it into

you know public spaces throughout the city is it feels like our biggest impact in the way to have the clearest process with the most community engagement that's not ad hoc is to whether it be a subcommittee or it doesn't even have to be the you know the

historic resources committee, although I think that seems like an avenue that seems like an easy one to use.

But just any group or task force of people who are thinking about this at a deeper historical level,

in terms of the history of the black community in Charlottesville, the history of equity, the kind of work that's been going on at the Jefferson School.

I just feel like that's how we're going to be able to have the biggest impact in a holistic way across the city in these renamings in a way that's deeper, that's really tied into specific local history and creates things that are tied into public spaces and creates that kind of

name change where people walk along it and have the opportunity to see and learn about more local history.

And I just feel like this process, and I'd be happy as well to tie in for them to review our policy as well and tie that in to what they're looking at.

But especially if we're not changing the policy, I just think this process isn't

It hasn't worked to meet, I think, what the community wants to see.

And I'm fine to admit that as a council that we just haven't gotten a ton of street naming requests all at once.

But I also think that that's also

anticipating something we don't know if it's gonna be the case either.

Dr. Atkins and I have been having this conversation on and off for over a year about the schools that need to be renamed.

And we just haven't been able, because of everything that happened, to kind of sit down with that and see what the changes, how to start that process.

but had the conversation and that was based on some work that Jordie Yeager and another citizen, which I can't recall the name at this moment, did.

I think my point is whether this process right now seems kind of ad hoc, did request that

We did request that they submit and I sent an email and I just want to read what I sent to council and Heather just chimed in and that is also the case.

Alexander, say, hey, your street naming request, which I shared before, is very similar to one that we said did not fit the current policy, which was the Black Excellence Way.

And since that is the case,

What would you amend your application to if council ends up telling you at this meeting, the last meeting, the same thing?

And that email that I just sent says, hello, Mayor Walker.

I've been given permission by Wyatt Johnson's daughter, Kathy Johnson Harris, to submit her father's name to Wyatt Johnson Way.

And then, of course, the Black History Pathway was a part of that.

And then he goes on to list some of the facts about Mr. Johnson and his contribution to the community.

And so that conversation, I only had it to help us not end up where we've ended up with the same space that we was before.

So if there's consistent, I think there are three of you that's saying that you all want to send this to the Encina.

Yes, Heather, what I'm saying at this moment is they are going to send us recommendations back, right, based on something we've already requested from citizens.

And I think for this process, in terms of what we requested, we can just say

If we don't agree with Black History Pathway, Wyatt Johnson Way, or Vinegar Hill Way, we could say that.

If we agree with any of those things, we're still going to have to ultimately answer to the individuals who submitted those requests.

I just think there's a, as Michael was saying, there's an opportunity to engage further with these

with the applicants or the people who are submitting these requests.

And I think the Historic Resources Committee can do just that because there clearly is still a lot of churn even around Mr. Zandz and what his preference would be even for my conversation with him this morning.

And so I just don't want to get in the business of like he said, she said, no, like let's give a chance for a group of people to meet with anyone who's submitting this and to reach out proactively and hear their perspectives.

So that can be part of the recommendation process versus

I guess where I see the opportunity is, and as I said last meeting, I support the renaming of Black History Pathway.

And the concern last council meeting was that it didn't fit the policy.

So then when we changed the policy and there was an agreement to change the policy,

And so where I see the opportunity is giving them the direction to not only look at these requests, but to look at the policy and think about it in the context of the work that really just

Brian Wheeler sent us about the brainstorming and the starting of the work of Councilor Wes Bellamy started around renaming throughout the city and just take this as an opportunity to do something that's bigger and deeper and really rooted in local history.

And I think there are multiple requests we've already received, which I hope can be a part of that.

I mean, we've also received street renaming requests related to local indigenous history, which I think is another really important piece.

of recontextualizing our public spaces and local history.

Oh, I'm Councilman Gill.

I was just going to say, I would

I would vote to rename the 4th Street Wyatt Johnson pathway.

Don't want to confuse the two.

What did I say?

There's a Human Rights Commission and a Historic Resources Committee and you kind of combine them.

So I'm just making sure that we're- And HRCs.

They're both HRCs, yes.

And I'm not comfortable with us making a final decision with that one applicant because I just feel like I got mixed messages and I just think that they're open to having the conversation.

So I'm- What Mr. Alexander said to you was that he ultimately desires the Black History Pathway.

pretty passionate about it.

And so I don't wanna like take away from that opportunity to have his voice heard on that.

But Heather, we just had agreement.

I at least don't wanna leave this meeting, even if we're gonna vote to move this to the HRC, to set it up to where that is gonna be a possibility without us making an exception.

Because only one council member, even if that is an advisory board recommendation, which it probably won't be,

Honestly, right, that we already are saying that we didn't support the change.

I am open to a group of people thinking about this in a deeper way than we are right now and making that recommendation.

I'm not opposed to that.

Well no, the Black Lives Matter, Mr. Blair said that wasn't an exception.

So we did not make an exception for that one.

But it seems there are three people who support moving it to the Human Historic Resource Committee and so we can move on.

Is there a motion?

I move that we transition this process and I'm not even sure what

Okay, so moved.

And do we get feedback from anyone other than the one member who made that suggestion?

We haven't engaged them in conversation in the past.

Was there a second?

There was already a second.

Ms.

Ms.

Walker?

No.

Ms.

Magill?

Yes.

Ms.

Hill?

All right.

That carries for the one.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the council, the public.

What you had before you is the second financial report that we are providing the council.

This covers the month of August for the general fund revenues as well as expenditures.

And then as well as our CARES Act allocations.

These are all three budget items that we talked about and busted by the council to show in terms of where we are at with our financials at this point.

Sure.

Thanks.

As Dr. Richardson said, we're going to continue to provide counsel with a snapshot of the general fund and utilities revenues and expenditures, as well as the progress of the approved CARES fund expenditures.

Brian, if you could go to the next slide.

These slides are just going to hit a few of the highlights.

A more detailed spreadsheet was provided to you as part of the counsel packet for all of these.

But again,

Looking at our general fund revenues to date, we are looking at about 98% of our year-to-date target that we've hit.

As I explained last month, for the revenues, we're going to focus on how we perform compared to our projections as opposed to the percentage total of the total budget because of the irregularities of the collection dates of many of these

Revenues.

All the figures you see are our year-to-date projections and our year-to-date actuals from July 1st through August 31st on these.

And in looking at the revenues, the projections are based on our adopted budget that was revised to account for the changes due to COVID.

We have a revenue team that meets monthly, meets twice a month to review all revenues and update the projections.

We feel that right now all these projections are still holding as to our original projections.

The team kind of felt that it would be best to wait until after we have a full first quarter figures before we really make any changes to the budgets and the projections on our revenues.

And looking at kind of some of the larger revenues and the revenues at work more affected by the

COVID situation, our meals tax is just slightly below our projections.

It was at 99% last month, it's about 98% this month, so it's still tracking fairly well with the projections we, the revised projections we've made.

Sales continues to outperform our projections.

Lodging, we're still coming in slightly below what our original revised projections were on this in the adopted budget, what our adopted budget projections are.

But again, this is up from last month, which was around 57%, and it's continuing to show increases as our occupancy rate for August was around 50%, which is up from the previous month and the previous month before that.

Our accuracy rate is continuing to climb, so this is continuing to perform better while it's not hitting what we thought, the marks we thought it is improving.

So we're kind of sitting back and looking and gonna get another month's worth of data before we come back to you next month with potentially some revised projections on some of these larger revenues.

Real estate and personal property, those are collected twice a year.

So while there's just a little bit that has come in so far to date, the big project,

big collections are in December and June.

Next slide please, Brian.

On the expenditure side

If you look at it, two months' worth of expenditures is approximately 16.6% of the year if we were to look at it if everything was spread evenly.

Again, a lot of these have some one-time costs, fixed costs and one-time costs that come up up front.

So while they may look a little bit higher right now, speaking specifically of public safety and the Public Works Parks and Rec combination, a lot of that is due to some one-time costs have come out and some fixed costs have come out at the beginning.

And as you go through the years, those projections

start to mirror more closely what you would see as far as the percentages go.

To date, we're at about 14% of our total general fund budgets.

And this is, so far we're right in line with what we were anticipating.

And if you have any questions, please feel free to stop.

I'm just trying to get this quickly.

The non-departmental activities, I did want to say that's mainly our transfers to other funds, debt service transfers, some of the larger payments there.

And those are normally done as one-time payments about mid-year in a lot of the cases.

So that's why you don't see many expenditures in those areas yet.

So come mid-year, they'll start to be closer to that 50% range or above, depending on that.

and Healthy Families and Communities is slightly low.

But next month, you should see a larger jump because that's where we have our payments to the outside agencies and those come out on a quarterly basis.

So when the next quarter comes out, they'll be a little bit high at the beginning of that quarter until we can start to normalize as we move through.

But that's just a few of those.

And again, these are broken out in a little bit more detail in the sheets that were in your council packet.

Finally, as far as the CARES goes, on the last slide, Brian, this is our allocations for the first round of funding.

I know there's going to be some discussions coming up on the second round of funding.

But for our first $4.1 million, this is where we were with those.

And this shows you the major categories.

And overall, we're at about 76% expended of the first round totals.

and technology is one that hasn't had a lot of expenditures yet, but there has been several of the multiple requests that are awaiting the final approval to cut the checks and make those purchases that will expend the majority of those funds.

So we're moving through these funds as we expected and getting ready to start up on the second round of funding that you guys will discuss here in the next few weeks.

At this point,

What's the deadline again for when CARES Act allocations need to be spent?

And that is both the first round and the second round of funding.

They all have to be spent by the 31st.

There was talk of extending the deadline, but nothing happened on that.

OK, thank you.

So I, yeah, I know that question came up last month as well.

And I had spoken with Mr. Divers about that and asked, we can, it doesn't provide whether it's a brick and mortar versus online.

It just gives kind of the, those are the reports submitted by the state.

It doesn't break it out into that much detail.

We would have to, he'd have to send a request to the state to get more breakouts of that.

That's why it's hard for us to say exactly what's driving all of that.

He has some detail that we can provide to you, but it's not a large breakdown of this much on the corner and this much in downtown.

And is Chris Ewell following?

with his work, is he following where it's coming in at?

Because I think it's very important in terms of the money that's being allocated to businesses if we need more certain segments of the business population, if they are struggling more than others and there are other people, other businesses that are doing well, then we can be more strategic and the doctors that we are allocating

and if it's all online and it's not being driven by establishment within the city limits, then that's something that would be worth noting.

Yeah, and I do know there is some tracking that is happening.

I'd have to check with Chris Engel and Todd to see exactly.

Chris does more of that breakout and so I'd have to check with

Thank you.

Maybe this isn't for Ryan, but I'm not sure who can answer.

But because the CARES was supposed to be on our agenda today, what is our plan for when we'll have it in front of us?

Because we do have to have a public hearing on it.

So are we going to do our next council meeting, but maybe do a first reading prior to that?

And then a second reading.

I think the public, it's important.

The only thing I would offer that I'm aware of, and maybe Ms.

Shelton, I don't know if there's been any follow up, but there is a request for some cameras for polling places.

You should have them in time though with them voting on the 5th of October.

The first October meeting.

Yes.

Thoughts?

We will have made the decision that we are presenting what we have agreed upon, right?

And so I think that then we would be doing the public hearing just because it's required versus if there are any changes that are recommended.

The allocations for the second round are pretty much mimicking the allocations we presented to you guys on the first round.

So we really don't expect too much discussion on the new allocation, because it's pretty much the same that we submitted before.

Yeah.

But there were a couple of conversations today about if IT is still using the resources that they

had from the first round of funding, is that where that dollars need to go?

And so I had conversations with Chris Collins, who's been in conversation with Sunny, the IT director, and we'll continue those again tomorrow to finalize his numbers.

Because like you just mentioned, I don't want him to be requesting more money than he needs to so that we can have some put aside in contingency

All right.

Yes.

I will be meeting with IT, Public Works, and Human Services on tomorrow to finalize the numbers so that we can get them to you guys in time for you to review before the Tuesday meeting.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Any other questions?

No.

All right.

Well, thank you all for the report.

No other business?

Okay.

If you'd like to speak to council under other matters from the public, click the raise hand icon on the Zoom webinar.

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

Mayor Walker, we do have four hands up at the moment.

And first up is Harold Foley.

What time is it?

Good morning or good afternoon or whatever.

I want to say two things.

I really appreciate the efforts of doing something in regards to the DMC report.

I really am excited to see council taking forward

But one thing I want to make sure that we don't forget, folks do get arrested at UVA.

And so we might want to think about UVA arrest records also.

Another thing is the General Assembly.

If y'all talking about putting something together,

A task force about the DMC report, you got to have your stuff ready to go with the General Assembly about right now, between now and October, to really present to the General Assembly.

So I think if you can get staff to look at what

is the legislative needs going forward.

It'll be great, because if you don't, you just have to wait till next year if you're going to put a task force together to try to make that happen.

That's it.

Hey, good night.

I hope y'all have wonderful rest.

And don't let the bug bites, bug bite, bug, whatever, you know, the old saying.

Well, I understand what Mr. Foley was stating.

What would typically happen is either the second meeting in October or your first meeting in November, the council adopts its legislative agenda for that year.

And then there's communication of legislators after the adoption on

the council's priorities as well as any specific bills.

So I think if there was something, if legislative proposals were in, and I do want to remind that the legislative committee this year is Vice Mayor Magill and Councilor Snook, if you could get those to them, they can

ultimately work with Ms.

Robertson and myself on finalizing this legislative agenda.

Mayor Walker, next up is Tanisha Hudson.

I want to go back to the earlier portion of the meeting where you all was kind of like pointing the finger who was to blame or whatever.

So first off Chief Brackney had a lot to say but we've yet to get an answer on who gave the keys for the state troopers to be driving the city vehicle.

Did you guys ever find a solution to that, the answer?

Did we resolve that mystery?

Did we call in the mystery vein to resolve that?

I don't think so.

I don't recall y'all saying it at council anyway.

Oh, y'all can't hear me?

Can y'all hear me?

Okay.

Also,

I also want to bring up the honorary street thing.

It's mighty funny that charges completely went with Alexander's request when he was informed by Mr. Wheeler that he submitted after me.

So I resubmitted, went back, redid my entire application.

with the help of other community members because you said it didn't fit the policy.

Now, neither of you didn't fit the policy because you said that it had to be a current event, a past historic event, and I just literally tried to cater to the individuals of Vinegar Hill not singling anyone out because a lot of you may not know, but Nikuyah definitely knows this, black people love to bring up

that certain people you know like it's just a person when vinegar hill happened to a large number of black people not just specific black people so

I tried to be fair and just didn't want to single anybody out by naming it Vinegar Hill Way.

So, like, y'all got to do better with that one at the end of the day, too, because I'm not going to rest with mine just being tossed to the side.

I don't care who don't like me sitting on council, you can get your eyebrows or do whatever you want to do.

I don't care.

I'm definitely not going to sit on it.

I will keep putting in requests.

because I feel like y'all doing this being intentional the same way I felt like y'all were being intentional trying to micromanage the city manager.

And I called it out in May.

I'ma still call it out.

And even when he gone and moved on with his life and went to a different city, I'ma still call it out.

because y'all being intentional with A. Y'all being so petty and so unprofessional.

And as a mayor, you lack a lot of professionalism.

I won't even put you on the spot or put your text messages out there, but you definitely lack professionalism.

And I'm not the only one that knows that.

I'm not the only one that's been noticing that, and I'm not the only one that's been putting you on the spot with that.

You just been very unprofessional in a lot of things that you're doing because you have personal issues with individuals.

If you focus on your work, then I think that Charlottesville probably could be a much better place.

So, thank you, Ms.

Hudson.

Two things that I did bring up to council that we need to make a decision about, Venerger Hill Way or Wyatt Johnson Way or Black History Pathway.

And I also stated that I had the same conversation with Mr. Alexander that we had with you, so there was no separation there and did not rule out your street and referenced it.

and I think that was the only point that mattered.

Mayor Walker, next up is Carol Thorpe, who joins via telephone.

Yes, I can.

I just unmuted.

We can.

Thank you, Brian.

First, I wanted to call the follow up on my earlier call this evening.

Counselor Hill, just to verify, I went back on Facebook and looked up the podcast that I had viewed.

There was no attachment of any sort of announcement to that broadcast.

So unless Brian took it off for some reason, I think it would have stayed there had it been posted.

I had no reason at the time to look anywhere else on the web, meaning the city

website or elsewhere.

So I would recommend in the future that at least that such a thing be posted where people would be viewing.

There were also 40 comments left to that broadcast and people were asking the same question.

So if I missed it, I wasn't the only one.

So I just wanted to clarify that.

Another thing I'd like to mention with regard to the honorary street name, there seems to be a lot of confusion, at least I thought so during your conversations about

What was said to the public in regards to filing suggestions for the street names?

As I recall it, there wasn't any sort of qualification put on there or restrictions that street names had to have a certain qualification to them that they had to say, you know, have a racial justice slant to them or anything.

So whoever put in, for example, the Tony Bennett suggestion,

I don't think that person should be disqualified just on that alone.

What I'd recommend is since there was a podcast of that meeting too, perhaps that you go back and listen to what the public was told.

I just took it at the time and I didn't submit a street name so I don't have a dog in this fight.

But at least what I heard at the time was that anybody who wanted to submit a street name suggesting that now was the time and do it by that deadline.

So if there weren't any parameters put, you know, I think it's fair to consider all the people equally that put in suggestions.

and lastly, to Dr. Richardson, I too would like to thank you very much for your service.

As former chair of the Jefferson Area Tea Party, I will say on the one hand, I'm none too happy as a person who is very strict with the taxpayer's dollar to see you leave with $205,000 in salary that you're not technically earning because you're not here to work for it.

On the other hand, my history of viewing city council and I will say this particular

iteration of City Council.

I can only imagine that this has been a very trying experience for you.

So I will say that if somebody has to walk away with $205,000 as sort of a consolation prize or at least a wonderful parting gift, you probably, sir, have earned that.

And so I'd like to thank you for what I've seen as your professionalism in this.

And I hope that City Council will, I don't know what you're going to do in terms of another city manager,

but please I hope you'll do at least as well as this gentleman that you are letting slip through your fingers.

I just want to clarify I'm not sure where folks look for this information from our past meetings but I did go to council meetings and agendas and I pulled up the special meeting from September 11th and it has a notice of the special meeting followed by the resolution and the amendment so that

Yep, and I just did the same.

You can go to charlesville.gov slash agenda, go down to the past meetings and it's available under the September 11th event.

That said, it was posted right as the meeting was started and any viewers on Facebook or one of the live streams

wouldn't have been able to readily see a link to that.

So that does make sense.

Our next speaker and the last hand that's up is Don Gathers.

Good evening once again.

And again, I want to say thank you, Dr. Richardson, before you leave.

Just want to suggest that we stop with the narrative and the conversations about

how long the meetings go, how late they go, as that's really not what the public wants to hear.

So many of us, at least some of us stay up with you throughout these meetings.

This is what you signed up for.

This is what you ran for.

So let's, if we can quell that particular conversation.

And also in that same vein, we elected you all to do the work.

not to punt the ball, not to pass it along.

So in that vein, I would really like to see you all take control of the city street names as opposed to passing it on to someone else because what we've done now has created another level of bureaucracy.

You all had to vote on passing it to the historic commission.

They then need to vote to bring it back to you for another vote.

It's just a layer upon a layer of bureaucracy that's really not necessary.

If you've got that many that you're just completely inundated with it, then just have a special session just to deal with it, where the public can come in and actually interact with you all and explain why they brought forth this particular recommendation.

But to pass it on to another committee to only bring it back to you to have to vote on it subsequently anyway is just adding too much minutia to the mix.

So I appreciate what you all do, appreciate the work that you put in and the time that you put in.

But let's just focus.

That's all that I'm asking for.

Thank you.

Yes, Mayor Walker, Troy Johnson.

Joy, you're on the city council, go ahead.

Joy, can you hear us?

It looks like you've unmuted your microphone.

Now it's muted again.

There you go.

Can you say a few words?

Ms.

Johnson, in the email that you received about the registration link, there is a phone number.

And you would call that number and enter your webinar ID, which is also in the email.

Mayor Walker, that could take several minutes.

If anyone else wants to address council at this time, you can click the raise hand icon.

Ms.

Her current connection, we're not hearing her.

I don't see that she has dialed in at this time.

All right.

I sent her a text to see if she was calling.

So maybe she's calling in since she's all.

OK.

I don't think she's going to call in.

All right.

Enjoy your morning and meeting adjourned.

Three months ago, actually, my last day of working here in the shipyard was March the 31st.

I woke up April the 1st on a Wednesday morning telling my wife I felt tired.

And she said, well, you've been working a lot of overtime.

Maybe you need to get some rest.

And I said, OK.

So I stayed home, called in for vacation.

And the next day, Thursday, April the 2nd,

It was no better.

I was already feeling achy.

Throat was a little scratchy.

And I, being the person that I am, I didn't want to cause anyone to get sick.

So I stayed home.

Then I said, well, I'm not going to go to work on Friday.

I'll just go back on Monday.

So little did I know, Saturday, my temperature went up.

So my wife started giving me ibuprofen.

to make it come down or where it's manageable.

Apparently that didn't help.

So later on, it went up, spiked up to 103.2.

So then she called the doctors on call for the weekend and they said, well, keep giving him the ibuprofen and if he get any worse, take him to the emergency room.

So I made it through the weekend and Monday morning, April the 6th, I had a doctor's appointment.

So when I pulled up, I had to call them, and they said, well, you in the lot?

I said, yes.

They said, do you have a mask?

I said, I do.

So they come out with their shield on, their mask on.

They have on their gloves and a robe or a cape or whatever.

And they say, well, roll your window down, open your door, and just turn around like you're going to get out, but don't get out.

So they took a swab, and they swabbed my throat.

and they said, well, put the mask back on, go back home.

Do not go back to work until you hear from us in three to four days.

So I went back home.

I'm kind of worried.

So Friday, April the 10th is when everything happened.

I received a phone call from my doctor around 9 37.

and she said, Mr. Ferebee, how are you feeling?

I said, well, not that good.

She said, well, you did test positive.

You have COVID-19.

And I said, wow.

She said, just take it easy.

Stay in and quarantine for 14 days, you and your wife.

And I said, okay.

And she said, if anything you need,

Give me a call.

Hung the phone up.

I would say about 15 to 30 minutes later, all of a sudden my wife was cooking breakfast.

I couldn't smell the bacon.

Then I was coughing a little, so I figured I'd take a cough drop.

I couldn't even taste that.

And I'm like, wow, something ain't right.

So she was sitting in the other room doing bills.

So I walks over and I say, well, Kathy, I said, would you call the shipyard, my boss, and let him know what's going on with me?

And she said, Wilson, you can do that.

And I'm like, all of a sudden, can you call my boss for me?

I couldn't breathe.

I taste, smell, and breathe it.

It was just like this.

So I said, well, I'll do it later.

So I walk across the room, back to my bedroom, sit in my recliner, trying to get myself together.

But it got worse.

So finally she got up and she came over and she said, well, how you feeling?

I said, I can't breathe.

Then I was in the floor.

That made her nervous.

She said, should I call 911 now?

I said, no, I'm going to try to get myself together.

And then it didn't get any better.

So she said, I'm calling.

So she called 911.

When the dispatcher got on the phone, she explained what was going on, that I had COVID-19.

She said, OK.

So they sent their ambulance or rescue squad to my house.

And she said, what is he doing now?

She said, well, he's on the floor and he has brown eyes, but I only see the white.

She said, we're losing him.

Tap him on his hand and talk to him.

As a matter of fact, put me on the speaker.

I can talk to him.

Mr. Ferbie, she said, I wasn't responsive.

And she said, Mr. Ferbie, stay with us.

I can hear the siren in the background.

They're close.

So finally they came.

My wife opened the door and let them come in.

I'm in the floor, like, can't breathe, frightened.

So they tried to give me tubes that go up my nose, and they went up, came out this side, and they poured it out.

Then they stuck it in again, and it came in in my throat, and it was choking me.

So they took it out again.

My heart started beating crazy.

and they said, well, we gotta get him to the truck.

So they took me down the steps.

But once I got outside, they worked on me in the back of that ambulance for 30 minutes.

First of all, they was trying to get blood and they couldn't find the veins because if you don't have oxygen to your blood, the veins will collapse.

So they said, this is not good.

I'm hearing this and I'm like, none of this sound good.

So they tried both arms.

They couldn't get no blood.

They couldn't get me to breathe properly.

And I said, well, you know what?

I'm not going to make it.

So I said, well, God, I know I'm saved.

You did that 29 years ago.

But if I've done anybody wrong, please forgive me.

I don't want to die like this.

But if I got to, I'm ready.

Then the rescue worker said, well, we got one other place we could go.

But we got to be extremely careful, because if we puncture it, he'll bleed out.

And we won't get him to the hospital in time.

It's a main artery in your neck that supplies our body.

And he was just touching and feeling.

He said, right there.

And they pushed it in.

And he hit it.

He said, now take him to the hospital now.

Upon arriving to the hospital at Centella Careplex in Hampton, they took me in, they worked on me in ICU from 12-15 to around 3-35.

So they all had to incubate me because I couldn't breathe and they can't put that ventilator in you with your conscience.