City Council Meeting   8/18/2008

I'd like to call this meeting to order.

I'm going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Dr. Brown?

Here Ms. Edwards?

Here Mr. Huja?

Yes Mr. Norris?

Here

Thank you.

In the form of announcements, I have a few announcements.

First of all, just as a reminder, September 1st is Labor Day.

City Hall will be closed and there will be no trash or recycling service and no CTS service that day.

Secondly, we'd like to announce that wireless access is now available in city council chambers if anybody would like to bring their laptops and have internet access that is available here in the chambers.

And third, for those of us who are parents, we all know this, but for the Hope community, a reminder that City Schools begin classes this Wednesday, August 20th, so please watch out for kids while driving.

There will be a lot of kids out on the streets walking to school, biking to school, and please be mindful.

and lastly I'm very pleased to announce that by resolution the City Council of Charlottesville, Virginia does hereby proclaim August 26, 2008 as Women's Equality Day in remembrance of all those women and men who have worked to develop a more equitable community

which acknowledges both the real similarities and the important differences between women and men with liberty and justice for all.

So we're proud to be part of that effort.

Oh, and we have somebody here to accept this resolution, this proclamation.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you very much.

I want to add one thing, talk about gun violence.

We're going to have a discussion on gun violence.

A couple of things I wanted to share.

We were presented a certificate of appreciation at the 19th annual Shihamba African American Cultural Arts Festival.

And I wanted to publicly say we appreciate that and present it to the mayor.

And I have the booklet from the weekend.

It was really a wonderful weekend.

and if you missed it, make sure that you're there next year for the 20th anniversary.

And I think my favorite activity was the Taste of Ghana that took place that Friday night.

And also, I just wanted to say that I didn't have to go to Beijing to see good sports because I attended the wheelchair basketball game, the Charlottesville Cardinals, and the Journey of Hope team.

And I watched them play Thursday afternoon at the Herman Key Rec.

And it was a wonderful, wonderful game.

If you have a chance to support these athletes, do so.

And my daughters and I really had a wonderful time.

We didn't have to travel across the country to do it.

And also I just wanted to say, in preparation for the meeting this evening, I missed the beautiful back to school night, so I just wanted to tell my daughters, Kristen and Shelby, I'm looking forward to a wonderful school year.

I know you'll do well.

And I'm just looking forward to everyone starting school on Wednesday.

We'll move on to matters by the public.

We'll ask speakers when they come forward to keep your remarks to three minutes each and please introduce yourself by name and address.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Councillors.

Colette Hall, 101 Robertson Lane, President of the North Downtown Residents Association.

Agenda item number 4, NDRA, the neighborhood association for north downtown has from the beginning and continues to support the 2nd street neighbors appeal regarding 509 2nd street northeast

On agenda item number two, does approving the design concept for the route 250 bypass McIntire Road extended project mean that the closing of Hillcrest Road is a done deal?

The Birdwood-Hillcrest neighborhood and the 300 families from Covenant School are waiting to have a meeting with Angela Tucker, the project manager, which is scheduled for September 16th.

On the consent agenda item Q, special permit to allow Dance Hall at 101 East Main Street.

Hundreds of North downtown residents now live on or just off the mall and in the past late night noise has been a significant problem.

Residents are concerned about the noise and the possible side effects of a dance hall venue.

I believe a more stringent noise ordinance was passed this spring and we hope that the police will not hesitate to enforce it.

and last and most important.

I was stunned at the first meeting to learn of the composition of the reservoir task force.

There is no one on the task force that I could call John or Jane Q.

Public from the city or from the county.

Be every man, so to speak, who uses water and pays the increasing water and sewer rates.

It is important that the reservoir users like fishermen, rollers and naturalists have input into maintaining the life of this reservoir.

But the very people whose lives and homes depend on potable water and will be asked to pay for an expensive future water plan are voiceless.

the city and county our community regarding our water needs.

I ask you counselors and indirectly to the supervisors to allow the public to speak at every meeting of this task force.

Whatever happened to the intent of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution for the people and by the people.

Thank you, Ms. Hall.

Good evening Mayor Norris and fellow Councillors.

I'm here to thank you.

I'm here to thank you for the support of the ban on truck traffic on Old Lynchburg Road and I'm a resident of Old Lynchburg Road at 223.

Thank you, Ms. Chase.

Richard Berman, 205 Second Street Northwest in the city.

Mr. Mayor, Councillors, I read in the paper earlier this week or last week about you being $1.3 million over budget and I just wondered, one of the ways you could save a lot of money is the hundreds of thousands of dollars you're spending on consultants to give you answers to questions you could answer yourselves if you listened to the question.

For instance,

saving money in the public schools.

Without even thinking twice about it, I would think, gee, fluorescent light bulbs, water restriction in the bathrooms.

You don't have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to a consultant to get that kind of an answer.

You pay a lot of money to a consultant to tell you to repay the downtown mall, and only 25% of the bricks need replacement.

It's going to cost the taxpayers a lot of money.

You give the YMCA a rent-free, long-term lease in McIntire Park, and then you give them $1.3 million to help them build their building, where if I want to go swimming, I have to pay them to join the YMCA.

This is wasting taxpayers' money as far as I'm concerned, and I think you can do a lot better, even if you just take a course at PVCC on financial management.

Thank you, Mr. Berman.

I'm Bill Sampson, 609, Ryan Sella Circle in Charlottesville.

Some of what I've said has already been covered by Mr. Bergman, but I was astounded after the record budget for 2009 and the

budget surplus we had for the years 2006 to 2007.

The council tells us that there will now be a $1.78 million deficit.

The council says that the deficit is due to a decrease in the funding by the state of Virginia.

However, according to data progress, the council was well aware of a possible reduction in state funding at that time.

that they approved the record budget of $141 million.

replacing the previous year's budget surplus in a rainy day fund to offset the expected budget shortfall.

The entire amount was squandered on various special projects or wasted by many departments which were allowed to keep surplus dollars rather than returning the unspent money to the general fund.

Get ready people, here comes another tax increase.

Since our city leaders appear unwilling or unable to reduce spending, I propose that a Citizens Budget Committee be formed to review the next budget before being approved by council.

The committee would be empowered to review each budget item, including the budgets of each department and the school system.

The committee should be made up of volunteers from the taxpaying public and not appointed by the council or the city manager.

Also, I would recommend that the committee consist of one former city council member who is familiar with the budget process.

Each department should be represented by one member to explain the reason for their expenditures.

I attended and participated in last spring's budget workshop.

While I enjoyed the experience, I did not feel anything said or recommended by the public was given much consideration.

This is why I'm recommending the Citizens Budget Committee.

Perhaps if expenditures were reviewed by the people providing the funding,

we the taxpayers would feel better represented and the budget would be somewhat leaner.

At this time I would like to volunteer my time to be on that committee.

I feel that it would be a it would make the budget process more transparent and have a better or give the public more trust in what was being spent.

of Very Tax Money.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of council.

I'm David Blunt.

I'm the TJPDC legislative liaison, and I wanted to speak to you just briefly this evening as I typically do this time of year about the development

of the Regional Legislative Program with input from the localities.

We're pretty much going to follow the same process and timelines that we used last year in terms of focusing the development of legislative positions

on a few high priority items and make sure that we get those two legislators in this region well in advance of the next session that begins in January.

So here in August I'm going around to the local governing bodies to talk about the process, get any input.

By the middle part of September I would propose to get a draft of the program to you.

and then hopefully come around and visit with you again in October to seek your approval of the program.

I think that several of the priority positions that we've had this past year certainly will remain near the top of the list.

You've already heard some things about budget this evening and certainly I think that state and local revenues and the interrelation of those will be one of the priorities you have

an agenda item later on this evening to talk about and take some action on an issue related to reduction in state aid to localities that the General Assembly had approved this past year.

Unfortunately, just today the governor was meeting with the money committees in Richmond to paint another bleak picture in terms of state revenues.

The sluggish national economy is having its effect on Virginia and I think ultimately the state and local governments are going to feel some of that effect once again.

The governor is going to set up meetings here in the near future with his economic advisors and change the process a little bit where he's going to come out with a revised revenue forecast a little bit, probably in about six to eight weeks and then

After that time I would expect we would see some announcements of further reductions that again likely would impact you here at the local level.

Certainly transportation is another key funding item.

Unfinished business there as you know related to the budget and the inaction of the special session and several attempts in the past that we're going to include on the priority list as well.

certainly will include as you all have been discussing a statement about the Regional Transit Authority in our transportation position as well.

Comprehensive Services Act is another ongoing funding concern and under Land Use and Growth Management we're certainly going to revise that position to take into consideration Senate Bill 768 from this past General Assembly session.

I know you all had some discussion on that back during the winter.

That's the cash proper impact fee bill.

and that's an issue that continues to be talked about here in the off season.

So I will certainly be working with your staff to get input into the draft and again would hope to get that to you sometime within the next several weeks.

Thank you.

My name is Lynn Leibert and I'm a homeless citizen of Charlottesville and I do vote.

I want to thank you.

Last time I was before city council, I requested Water Fountain and I got it.

And you put them in the plan for the new downtown mall and this is the first time I've had a chance to thank you.

The real reason I'm here is about a program that the Community Glock Grant will be funding.

I understand the money is not released.

It's a Region 10 program called Step Up, which is an excellent program and they did a trial in Richmond that worked very well.

However, I'm here to request that you not fund the program until

They do something very simple, which is accept women.

They've only accepted men so far, and I've gotten very different answers when I requested what they're going to do, which is the building the men are in is too dangerous for women, which makes me wonder, maybe it's too dangerous for men.

They aren't putting the men in individual apartments like they originally said they were going to do, or they haven't so far.

I've gotten answers like

Well, we might not ever take women because there are more men than women, which I'm sorry is not an answer to me.

Or they might take women, but maybe in October.

But the facts are they haven't taken women.

And the original grant said that it was not simply a men's only program.

It was supposed to be for citizens.

And it's kind of ironic in view of the fact that there was just this wonderful little women's equality thing here, that they aren't taking women.

and I really don't feel that this program serves the homeless women, the homeless, dual-diagnosis women of Charlottesville and Region 10 does have a history of not doing that.

They already have a dual-diagnosis program that is for men only, that started out with women and now doesn't have women.

That's a fact, it's run by some of the same people that were listed in this grant as running this program.

And in Charlottesville, if you are drunk in public and you're female, you go to jail.

If you're male, you get to sober up at the sobering up shelter at the Moore Center.

If you want to go for detox or substance abuse services, you get shipped out of this area.

And sometimes, if you're female, you sometimes have to find your own way back.

And there have been many cases of people having to hitchhike back to this area, women.

If you're male, you get to go to the Moore Center if they have room for you.

There's just a real dearth of services, and historically,

Region 10 has not always stood up for their women.

I mean, we all know about women's sterilization, the old eugenics thing that went on until 1972, and there was a Supreme Court case.

And that's documented by the historic landmark sign right in front of Region 10, which if I were a woman going there, would scare the daylights out of me.

So please, I'm asking that you withhold the money until they actually step up to the plate and do what they're supposed to do, which is take women.

You know, this is the 21st century.

Haven't we gotten it through our heads that half the population in the world is female and we have to accommodate them?

I think that's pretty simple.

And this is supposed to be a great place to live for all of our citizens, including half of them who are female.

And if Region 10 says they don't know 10 women, their criteria, I know more than that.

I can help them.

And I'm come cheap.

I do this for free.

And you know, their intentions?

We all know the road to hell and intentions.

Thank you Ms. Walmer.

Good evening.

I'm Peter Klayman.

I live at 407 H Street in the city.

Looking at your agenda today, I look at items 2, 3, 4 and 5, all are directly related to issues of historic preservation or use of historic properties or

impacts on historic neighborhoods, but items two and three in particular as separate items I would believe should be lumped together into one item.

They are both having very large footprints that will sit right inside of McIntire Park, which has recently been designated as eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

I'm proud that our city council has been outraged by some abuse of historic properties in the past and have put into effect some actions to try to protect historic properties.

But I'm disappointed that I do not see that same level of protection of the historic property that is McIntire Park.

The interchange project that's on your agenda is item 3 and the

McIntyre Road Extended Project, which was on as item number two.

Both are moving forward without any adequate consideration of that historic property.

The Interchange Project has a committee and is working with the State Department of Historic Resources and the work is still ongoing on that.

There has not been

an agreement about what the impacts that facility would have on McIntyre Park and there's never been a consideration because the registration of the park as a National Historic Register for property has occurred since most of the original work has been done on the parkway.

Hello, members of council and the public.

If I can just interject real quick.

Yes, sir.

General comments about the Parkway, fine.

Okay, well thank you.

Correct, on the temporary construction easement.

And I drew a little map actually to show the

technical situation in terms of what Charlottesville is planning on building.

And if your point was initially that, well hey, these projects don't really make any sense if you talk about them out of context of one another, then I would agree with you wholeheartedly.

And I would go further and say that the reason that this artificial separation

has persisted so long is as a means of evading federal parkland historical and environmental protections.

And what we have in the Interchange No Build

as the 17 lane parkway, pardon me, just intersection, is clearly not the case.

It's supposed to be what the existing conditions are.

Well, I guess council could be forgiven for saying, well, it's not the existing condition, but that's what we're planning on building.

But in fact, that's not the case at all.

This is closer to the case.

There's going to be a gap between the projects that is going to be paid for by the federal government relative to that no-build scenario.

And I also wanted to mention

that in the Virginia Constitution it says that it takes a super majority to transfer city land in the case of the void here that is a temporary but in the case of the Meadow Creek Parkway

The softball field which CHS is using that belongs to the city, that is a permanent easement and that easement requires a supermajority or four counselors.

And I've spoken to Mr. Brown about that and I don't believe when I say Mr. Brown I mean Craig Brown.

The answer I got made more sense to me as to why a permanent easement is not subject to that constitutional requirement.

So if you'd like to comment on that, that'd be great.

But if you read the Constitution, I think it's pretty clear.

Thank you very much, Mr. Snadis.

What do you need?

My name is M. Rick Turner.

I live at 1663 Brandywine Drive in the city.

I am president of the Albemarle, Charlottesville branch of the NAACP.

I come to you tonight to remind you of the importance of understanding the direct correlation between crime and unemployment.

Recent conversations and discussions regarding the beautification of the downtown mall failed to acknowledge one of the most obvious facts, at least to me, and that is the downtown mall is very unfriendly, is a very unfriendly place to many African Americans.

When you discuss a city plan,

for spending 7.5 million for downtown mall restoration.

You bypass the fact that this project primarily beneficiaries, businesses, residents, and tourists are for the most part white.

There must be some discussion of how this renovation will benefit the black community with the staggering unemployment rates

We can't be afraid.

You can't be afraid to remind the community that these issues are not being properly addressed.

You know, walking through the downtown bar reminds me of Johannesburg, South Africa in the 50s and 60s and other places closer to home where black folks weren't even allowed.

You would think that the same thing existed today.

The merchants and businesses hired very few blacks.

Go out to dinner one night, look at the shops and restaurants.

I guarantee you, even West Main Street, I guarantee you that you will not be able to count the number of black employees out front.

on one hand, but you will be able to count the number of black employees out front on one hand.

In a recent Daily Progress editorial, July 27th, I mentioned that there are not enough jobs in Charlottesville.

The business community pays very little attention to hiring young black folks in Charlottesville, and the city has done even less to encourage affirmative action in the city.

I'm here to remind you, I'm here to remind the city council to look at your affirmative action plan and make it active.

There's a need for some form of large scale public intervention to ensure access to basic social needs, housing, food, health care, education, child care and jobs.

The business community and all of us

who have no privilege, will serve our community better.

Thank you, Dr. Harris.

Is there anybody else that would like to speak?

Good evening.

My name is Patricia Wilkinson and I am in a small business right nearby called Washington

and the only problem with it, it's a great business, it should be thriving, but it's invisible because of the sign evidences, it can't be seen.

The address is 200 Avon Street, which is below the Beaumont Bridge and people looking for it have trouble finding it and people who don't know it's there, won't know it's there, it can't be seen.

and I'm asking for an exception to the sign ordinance to put up a sign that makes me visible.

Thank you very much.

Anybody else like to speak?

I'm Chad Freckman, 627 Hinton Avenue in the city.

I just want to comment quickly tonight on public transportation in the city of Charlottesville.

This coming Saturday, there's a new bus line that's going out to the high school.

and I want to thank council for having stood behind that and hopefully we'll start.

Helping young people understand about alternatives and getting around town, high school students my understanding is are going to be given a free bus pass that will allow them to

use the CTS bus service around the city.

So I think that's a great thing.

However, it gives me pause to consider and to reflect a little bit that on the agenda tonight also there's a major roads building program, and I think there's a little bit, at least in my mind, of incongruity in the way forward in our community.

On the one hand, we're all behind public transportation, but looking out into the future,

we still seem to be automobile centric and hope that we might have a little better conversation on that.

Thank you Mr. Fragman.

Anyone else?

Okay, we will close the public comment period and open it up to council responses to matters by the public.

Who would like to offer thoughts?

I would like to make a comment about Region 10 program and I would like our staff to look into that

see why women are not allowed in this program.

I'd just like to comment on the budget shortfall issue and I think if I'm correct on this.

There was some money built into the budget during the budget process last year in anticipation of a budget shortfall.

Duke, I guess, reduction in state aid, and I think it was about a half a million dollars.

Is that right, Mr. O'Connell?

So there has been some money set aside in anticipation of it.

We really didn't know, and then some other issues that have occurred.

I want to thank Dr. Turner for his comments.

I think

you know he's really right in pointing out the importance of all of our young people getting opportunities and jobs is one that's awful hard for a lot of kids these days and I think it's not simply a matter of the private sector just going about their way to normally do things but it's rather not you know we need to have a sense of responsibility

to make sure that all of our young people have an opportunity.

You know, the city started, in the absence of there being federal money, the city has started a summer job skills program to help kids from public housing, mostly African-American, low-income kids.

But it's not something the city can do by itself.

And so I think the way we're going to move forward with that is not just to have Dr. Turner come here once, but to have that community-wide dialogue that frequently reminds people

It's my first coming to Ms. Hall.

Thank you for echoing my concern about the public input because I brought it up at the end of the task force meeting and I couldn't get a handle of what I wanted it to look like because I needed public input about public input.

because I really feel as if it's important because if it hadn't been for the public input we wouldn't have gotten to that point at all in the process.

So I think that's important and I'll continue to stress the importance of that.

And also, we work hard in making the budget process as open and transparent as possible and I do think the meeting that we had this year was a good start and the feedback we got was really good

and Mr. Samson's comment, even Mr. Berman's.

Maybe it's time to look at what the next level of citizen involvement would be.

And I don't know what a citizen budget committee review would look like, but it's certainly something that we should kind of explore.

I'd be open to exploring how that could look and also combining that with

a PVCC financial management course so that everybody has the same opportunity to understand the budget process because I think that a lot of people don't get involved because it is difficult and it's boring too and if we engage as many people as we can we may open up the process because the bottom line is following the number

following the numbers.

In terms of the Region 10 program, I also agree with Mr. Huja.

We need to follow up on that.

I think it's kind of ironic that we're also recognizing women but not giving women opportunities all in the same council meeting.

So I'd like to see something done regarding that.

And the comments that Dr. Turney made also open up the issue that I brought up before of a need to have

a community conversation about race because I watched everyone while he was speaking his truth, but I could also see how that truth was making everyone feel so uncomfortable.

And we need to open up our entire community so that we can embrace, even if it is uncomfortable, but embrace that truth, acknowledge it, and move on.

We've been talking about it a lot, but maybe we're at the point where we can really put some action behind it, because we tend to have those kind of meetings, we get together, we sing Kumbaya, everybody feels better, but then nothing really changes.

And maybe when we're really at a point where we can feel comfortable enough with each other that we can really create some change.

And also with the washing wag, I must admit I'm a dog mom,

Thank you Ms. Edwards.

Just some comments of my own.

I would ask, I don't know if Angela Tucker is here or if she's watching in her office, but if she would please address the question that Ms. Hall raised about whether approving this design concept for the interchange requires us to close Hillcrest Road.

Is that a done deal?

Secondly, or maybe

Not right now.

We'll talk about it later on.

Secondly, Mr. Sampson, I agree with Ms. Edwards.

I think more citizen input is essential.

You don't need to wait for city council.

He said it shouldn't even be a city council-appointed group.

We would welcome

If you and others wanted to create a citizen budget review committee to take a hard look at the numbers, I think that can only help.

So I appreciate your willingness to do that.

And I agree on Ms. Weiber's, the comments that have been made about Ms. Weiber's statement about making sure that program is open to men and women.

And lastly, and certainly not least, I would echo the comments of Ms. Edwards and Dr. Brown in appreciation for Dr. Turner for coming and raising these issues, which are difficult issues, but they're very important issues on jobs and poverty and race and opportunities.

and I've had a series of meetings in recent months with some folks talking about how do we build a more diverse workforce in the city and in the community, trying to come up with an action plan to do that.

It's a vitally important goal that we need to make sure that all citizens of our community have a seat at the table and have economic opportunities regardless of skin color.

Just to follow up your comments, C used to have a federal election program and I think it still may have it, I am not sure.

It would be nice to see how it has worked or not worked.

We will now move on to appointments, boards and commissions.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion?

Please indicate your vote.

And I would also thank you, and thanks to all who

Thank you to all who applied for these bodies.

I would also like to announce that we are now taking applications for a number of other bodies.

The Charlottesville Albemarle Commission on Children and Families, Citizen at Large and Youth Representative, the Charlottesville Police Advisory Panel,

Jaunt is the Jaunt Board, the Jefferson Madison Regional Library Board, and the Social Services Advisory Board.

The deadline for all of these is Thursday, September 11th.

And if anybody's interested, you can see Ms. Kochis.

We're now going to move on to the consent agenda for tonight.

We have quite a number of items on our consent agenda tonight.

Item A is the minutes of July 21st.

Item B is an appropriation of $5,750, Boys and Girls Club reimbursement, second of two readings.

Item C, an appropriation of $11,000, Police Department Foundation grant, second of two readings.

Item D, an appropriation of $9,500, Fire Programs grant, second of two readings.

Item E is an appropriation of $5,000 arts challenge grant, second of two readings.

Item F is an appropriation of $88,522 donation for enhanced police coverage, second of two readings.

Item G, an appropriation of $182,500 adult drug treatment court grant, second of two readings.

Item H is an appropriation of $328,280 safe routes to school grant, second of two readings.

Item I is an appropriation of $4.5 million budget amendment for downtown mall restoration, second of two readings.

Item J in appropriation of $68,990 Albemarle County Funds for Therapeutic Recreation, first of two readings.

Item K in appropriation of $30,440 Student Violence Prevention Grant, first of two readings.

Item L in appropriation of $166,819 Victim Witness Program Grant, first of two readings.

Item M, an appropriation of $29,274, reimbursed in the February Presidential Primary Expenses, first of two meetings.

Item N, a resolution approving performance contract between Region 10 Community Services Board and Virginia Department of Mental Health, first of one meeting.

Item O is a resolution to special permit to increase retail area at 999-1001 Grove Street, first of one meeting.

Item P is a resolution special permit to increase retail area, parking and yard regulations at 910-916 Grove Street and 909-911 King Street, first to one reading.

Item Q resolution special permit to allow Dance Hall, 110 East Main Street, first to one reading.

Item R an ordinance prohibiting truck travel on Old Lynchburg Road, second to two readings.

Item S an ordinance zoning amendment regarding health clinics and highway corridors, first to two readings.

item T, ordinance zooming in by waivers of parking in public parks, first of two readings, and finally item U, an ordinance rezoning 2115 Jefferson Park Avenue from R3, the neighborhood commercial corridor, first of two readings.

Mr. Mayor, I would like to remove

is Item P. Second, Item T, if my understanding is that we don't need to remove it from the agenda but just to make a minor change, there are three criteria's in that

Correct.

So they're willing to accept that as a friendly amendment.

Any concerns about that?

Second.

Any further discussion?

Please indicate your vote.

The first item on our regular agenda tonight is a public hearing and resolution including temporary construction using for McIntyre Road extended first of one meetings

Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, this is a resolution authorizing the granting of a temporary construction easement through the Commonwealth of Virginia for the construction of McIntire Road extended through a portion of McIntire Park.

As background, I'll note that City Council previously authorized this easement in October 2007, subject to three conditions, and those three conditions are as follows.

Certification from the Virginia Department of Transportation that the Commonwealth has acquired Title II or a permanent easement over 49.1 acres of real property that will be dedicated for use by the City as replacement parkland.

Two, review and approval by City Council of the final design of the stormwater drainage plan.

And three, written confirmation from the Virginia Department of Transportation

that the temporary construction easement will not be used to construct an at-grade intersection at the intersection of U.S. Route 250 Bypass and McIntire Road extended.

Subsequent to the passage of that resolution, City Council in May of 2008 approved in concept the design of the stormwater drainage system.

The city has also received a letter from the Virginia Department of Transportation that certifies that the state has acquired title or a permanent easement over 49.1 acres of real property that will be dedicated to the city as replacement park land and also certifying that the temporary construction easement will not be used to construct an egg-ray intersection at the Route 250 bypass.

The reason that this is now attuned to City Council is because the stormwater drainage plan that Council approved in May caused the boundaries of the temporary construction easement to change slightly from what was approved in October.

The acreage of the easement is approximately 22.2 acres, and that has not changed, but the actual footprint of the easement has changed.

The resolution that has been provided in your notebook for consideration tonight reflects that DDOT has provided the certifications required by Council's October resolution and it also states that the stormwater system has been designed in accordance with a concept approved by Council in May.

I believe you've been provided with copies of the drawings and the specs for that stormwater system

Certainly staff can entertain any questions that you'd like to have about that.

The resolution also retains the list of expectations that you included in your original resolution last October.

I'll just note that the city will retain ownership of this property.

This is a temporary construction easement and once the road is constructed,

Certainly.

Be it further resolved that this resolution is enacted with the expectation that Albemarle County, in response to the granting of this temporary construction easement, will

1.

Commit to a continued and substantial increase in funding for public transit.

2.

Commit to making extensive pedestrian and bicycle improvements within the urban rain.

3.

Commit to building a transportation connector.

between Sunset Avenue and Fontaine Research Park slash 29250 Bypass that would divert traffic from Old Lynchburg Road, and four, commit to continued development of alignment and funding scenarios for the Eastern Connector.

There was also an additional concluding paragraph that states, be it further resolved that the Charlottesville City Council requests that the Virginia Department of Transportation use any means at their disposal

Thank you very much.

Any questions for Mr. Brown or staff before we open the public hearing?

Okay, we're going to open the public hearing on this item.

Again, we'd ask you to keep your remarks to three minutes, and when you come up, please identify yourself and give your address.

Good evening.

My name is John Cruikshank.

I live at 700 Spring Lake Drive in Earliesville.

I'm speaking tonight as a representative of the Piedmont Group of the Sierra Club.

Our organization urges the city council to preserve McIntire Park and abandon plans for the MediCrete Parkway.

This parkway is a 20th century solution to transportation problems that require 21st century thinking.

It is similar to building coal plants in an age of global warming and deteriorating air quality.

This City Council had the wisdom to call for a moratorium on new coal plants in Virginia earlier this year.

I hope you will now have the courage to vote against the current interchange design and the construction easement

425 local residents have signed our petition to preserve the park.

We ask you to develop a transportation plan that will create a walkable community with practical alternatives to the automobile.

Improve pedestrian crosswalks, create new bike paths, and expand the public transit system.

Use available funds to make it safe to walk and bicycle to the park and to improve the traffic flow at the 250 McIntire interchange.

Create a bike path through the park that will connect neighborhoods.

These are the types of 21st century solutions being implemented by enlightened city governments around the nation.

We recognize that it will take courage

to change course.

But this parkway has gone from being a bad idea to becoming a monstrosity.

It will bring more cars downtown, worsen air quality, contaminate streams, and destroy irreplaceable green space in the very heart of Charlottesville.

It will create another shortcut for people driving from Route 29 north to Route 64 eastbound.

Do we really want downtown Charlottesville to be used as a cut-through?

Please vote for a walkable city with less traffic, cleaner air, and more natural beauty.

Please reject the construction easement and the current interchange design.

Chad Preckman, 627 Hinton Avenue.

The McIntyre Road extended, which tonight you are looking at granting a temporary easement, formed part of the, I guess, greater Meadow Creek Parkway.

And the city has an opportunity to really look at some innovative ideas in transportation and helping citizens move around.

As I mentioned earlier, I applaud

your foresight in budgeting for bus route to the schools.

I think we need to teach young people about alternatives in transportation.

With rising fuel costs, I think planning for the future is probably gonna be predicated on less use of the automobile.

There are budgetary implications.

It's very difficult to talk about.

the Meadow Creek Parkway when it split into three parts.

Tonight there's an interchange discussion as item three which really isn't open to a public hearing.

However, there is federal money allocated for that and one concern as a taxpayer here in the city that I would have in connecting that to

McIntyre Road extended is what happens if we go over the federal budget?

Now you're asking taxpayers to fund something.

And I'm very hesitant, again I've said this before here at council months ago, as a citizen of Charlottesville, and I know we're all one big happy community, but as a taxpayer in the city of Charlottesville, I still don't get the Meadow Creek Parkway, what it's supposed to bring to me and the other citizens of the city of Charlottesville.

So I would echo the previous speaker and

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Fergie.

Good evening.

Thank you all for serving the community in the way that you are tonight.

and I want to echo the two previous speakers and honor that we're looking at a significant budget shortfall now.

The resources in this country as we know have been diverted to a huge federal budget deficit and our current use of fossil fuels is driving

genocide in the Middle East, and the loss of a number of Virginia families of family members, service members who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is what's going on with our fossil fuel driven economy.

And I'm just really happy that you all have the opportunity tonight to choose life, to choose a life-giving solution to local transportation problems, which is

Mass transit, mass transit, mass transit.

And I own a bike everywhere.

And for the folks in the county, and for the folks that need to get to 64, well first of

You know, it's just really exciting to have the best public transportation system in the country of getting people from north of Charlottesville, south of Charlottesville, east and west of Charlottesville into town because we're such a destination and we can come up with something much better for these millions of dollars than this Meadow Creek Parkway solution.

So I really ask you to reconsider the

mistaken votes in the past in support of this project and to correct yourselves tonight.

Thank you.

Good evening, Council.

I'm Mary Kelly from 760 Lexington.

I also would like to echo Mr. Cruikshanks, please, and the other two speakers as well.

The one question, if I were asked what legacy I would like to leave our great grandchildren, it would be something that's disappearing over time, and that's our green space.

In 50 years from now we will have to have alternative solutions and vehicles and I would also like to urge you all to consider the future and to consider what's going to be the highest good for the generations to come and not to think about right now.

because that's a short band-aid fix and it's not going to be addressing what's making us a world-class city.

Portland, Illinois has all kinds of mass transit, cutting-edge ideas and if we were to take a fraction of the money that we're going to put to build this Mercury Parkway into

public transportation.

We could do, you know, stopping rides from all aspects into town.

We could really make our city a world example of being a world-class city.

And so I would also urge you to reject this resolution at this time and rethink our future and not just be thinking in the present.

Thank you, Ms. Taliaferro.

I'm Zachary Sheahan from 701 East High Street.

I'm also Executive Director of the Alliance for Community Choice and Transportation.

I'm speaking today just on behalf of myself.

Of course, I'm in support of the previous speakers.

A critical point I bring up consistently is that global climate experts have agreed that we need to reduce, we in the United States, need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to 60 to 80 percent

below the 1990 level by 2050 to address global climate change to a somewhat adequate degree.

These experts have been conservative in the past and they keep having to increase their demands of what we need to do to address this issue.

At the same time, a report from the Department of Energy from 2005 stated that transportation is the leading

and fastest growing contributor to greenhouse gases in the nation.

As Mr. Cruikshank brought up, this is very comparable to banning a coal plant in our city or our area.

This is a similar if not heightened issue.

Again, this is a project that's geared to making driving

more convenient for people from one area to another.

This is, again, auto-oriented, auto-centric transportation planning.

As people are saying, I think this is a great opportunity to say it's time that we stop making little decisions and little steps to say that we're trying to reach our mayor's climate agreement, and we start making big steps, big decisions to meet those goals, which I think we are very

We're not going to meet those goals.

We're at this point in the trajectory we're going with our road planning, which I made comments recently at the Metropolitan Planning Organization meeting about the tip for the next three years.

Again, it's heavily, heavily, heavily trying to increase the convenience of driving in our area because of the concerns people are facing.

Luckily, we're out of time.

when the issue of oil availability is driving economic concern for our country, for our personal transportation decisions.

This is a great opportunity to say we are going to make transportation a different transportation in this area.

We're going to follow the lead of leading cities like Portland, Oregon, Paris, France, Bogota,

even Washington DC to try to decrease the convenience of driving while at the same time putting more money into alternative transportation that will solve these pressing issues of our day that have not been faced previously.

My name is Alexis Zivier.

I live at 912 Woodfold Drive in the city.

I've got a little piece of paper with photographs on it because I think the picture is worth a thousand words sometime.

I'm glad the previous speaker brought up the issue of oil availability as it's impacting the economy.

As an environmental activist, as people concerned about

social justice in the world.

I think we get a little overwhelmed by the number of issues and the number of things we have to deal with.

I've worked on a lot of issues.

Personally I think the oil issue is going to be the one that

gets us first and I want to go through these graphs very quickly.

The first graph is simply oil production in the world.

This contradicts all the predictions that were made but for the last three years in particular oil production has remained basically far climbing very little.

If you want to know why gas went up to four dollars a gallon and is still close to that, the second graph tells you why.

What's happening in the world today is that the oil producing nations, Russia, Venezuela, Iran, their domestic production is continuing to climb even as global production has flattened out, their domestic consumption I mean.

So what you have on the second graph is how much oil is actually being traded and that's actually going down because the oil producing nations are consuming more and more oil for political reasons.

and they've got subsidized oil and they have to keep their people happy.

So to the battery graph, this is George Bush's graph.

He was ranting about it, we need to go out and drill the continental shelf and drill in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge.

This is a graph not of global production but of production in the United States.

which you can see has been declining since the early 1970s quite steeply and that little bump you see off on the right side of the graph is what happens if we drill the continental shelf and the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge.

It's not going to have a big impact on overall production.

The last graph is the most important and it bears on the current decisions.

We're talking about Eastern Connector and Medi-Creek Parkway and all of this stuff.

The last graph is called the Mega Projects Project.

It's a bunch of oil geologists who sit up late at night and review every oil field on the face of the earth.

All the detailed information they can get their hands on, the predicted increases from the new fields, the predicted decline rates from the oil fields.

We're talking about thousands of oil fields all over the world.

and what you're looking at is starting, it's possible we're going to get another couple of years of climbing production but starting very soon and this isn't to be taken as an exact prediction of an exact date because the world's a very big place but we're getting very near the point where the decline in the major oil fields is going to overcome the increase rates from the new oil fields coming online and I think there's a lot of political pressure that comes to bear on the public information you hear in the news I think this is what's really accurate personally

We can't be building an infrastructure for what the world looked like 10 years ago, and that's what we're talking about.

And you also need to ask yourself, I mean, what does the economy, what do jobs look like, what do race relations look like in America, 2010, 2015, with a declining oil supply?

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm Peter Kleeman.

I live at 407 Hedge Street in the city.

And if a picture is worth a thousand words, maybe a big picture is worth two thousand words.

And I have one with me.

I'm here to actually address the issue of the easement directly.

In the packet of material that's been presented to you, there's discussion about granting of the temporary construction easement, and the city attorney, Mr. Brown, mentioned that at the end of the period of the granting of this easement, this landed all the return back to the city.

But that's not exactly correct.

I spoke with the engineering staff at VBOP both in Charlottesville and in Culpeper, and the current map, the current plan, which I have here,

shows that all these areas that are in orange that are marked out are either drainage easements that are proposed to be permanent easements, utility easements that are proposed to be permanent easements, and one other type of easement that's permanent that I can't recall off the top of my head.

The acreage that's being proposed as permanent easements is roughly 10 acres of the 20 plus acres that are being proposed as, at least to you, as temporary easements.

Mr. Salias earlier mentioned that there's a difference between granting temporary easements and permanent easements.

and it just appears to me that the material that's been presented to you is incorrect in not only that regard but that the issue regarding that the easement being proposed, well I guess there's confounding information.

The proposed information that you got in your packet shows that the easement runs all the way from 250 Bypass to Melbourne Road.

yet the project that's currently in the VDOT plans runs from 775 feet north of Route 250 bypass to Melbourne Road.

So the area that's being proposed to be granted as an easement for this project is not even within the project limits.

So it appears that there's a misconception about what land is really being

necessary by VDOT to construct this segment of the road.

And it's really not a road because it only has one point that attaches into the network.

It's more like a cul-de-sac in my terms.

Also, as a final conclusion, I think there's several bases for going back and looking at what is really being offered as this easement and to get the technical details correct.

and I also would encourage you not to have the idea of good faith compliance elements in your resolution saying we're going to be anticipating that our partners in transportation in our region will act in good faith to bring forward an eastern connector.

I'm not sure that my viewing of the dialogue going on is acting in good faith and I thank you very much for your consideration.

Thank you Mr. Klayman.

Stratton, Salutis.

Good evening.

Shay Stratos, 803 Hillcrest Road.

I'm speaking to you all tonight as a homeowner with a large family in a neighborhood that will be directly impacted by the Meadow Creek Parkway as well as the 250 interchange.

I'm really surprised at the short notice and timing of this hearing.

Nonetheless, my neighborhood has two entrances and exits.

One is at Birdwood, one is at Hillcrest, both onto 250 without a left turn.

The approval of the design G1 will close Hillcrest Road, the street that I currently live on.

With all due respect, how can we move forward with this interchange when it's so completely irresponsible?

You choose any aspect of the design and it is terribly flawed.

We're talking about a sizable neighborhood in downtown with a large school

the Covenant School, one that has 300 families that drop off and pick up Monday through Friday during the school year and roughly 70 year-round residences.

Reducing the flow of traffic one way in and one way out with no signal onto a highway just doesn't work.

You can't ram something like this through, cross your fingers and hope that everything will be okay.

I question the legality of this on many levels.

One thing that I've been told

is that the city could consider a gated slash barricaded at all times entrance slash exit for emergency response vehicles.

If this is a possibility, then why close the road in the first place?

Have you all done your due diligence with regards to the impact that this will have on my neighborhood?

Has anyone taken into account what will happen when people who have to leave for work during the times that covenant parents are dropping off and picking up?

Dr. Ronald Sykes, Headmaster of Covenant, told me this afternoon that if you approve the design and Hillcrest Road is closed, the school will have an enormous financial burden, possibly insurmountable with trying to build a separate entrance to quell the traffic situation.

And what about my children?

How will their city school bus be able to pick them up and drop them off without being held up by the massive amount of traffic that will occur if you decide to push this through?

These issues should be taken into consideration and designed around.

To simply dismiss them is negligent on the part of the planners and council.

I've been told on several accounts that the city is committed to actively engaging with me and my neighbors, so let's talk about it before you simply cut this neighborhood off completely.

In closing,

I know that there are designs that exist that don't have the closure of Hillcrest Road, that have less of an effect on the environment, which could be more cost effective.

Thank you, Ms. Travis.

Is there anybody else that would like to speak on this item?

Good evening.

My name is Robert Brandon, Smith III, and I live in the city.

I have to admit I don't have an address.

It seems obvious, and I'm going to point out that all the previous speakers, and I second what everybody has said, have basically spoken against this proposition, and I think

A lot of you are familiar from our school days about the fundamental definition of what leadership is in the community and that is addressing the difficult moral questions and sometimes reversing course.

In my opinion being involved fighting this process for nearly a dozen years that I've lived in Charlottesville and fighting similar roads in Richmond the past 30 years when I used to live in Richmond

We're dealing with a fundamental problem, there's a fundamental conflict between city life and four lane highways and everybody's spoken to, previously has spoken to many of the good reasons to oppose this, to realize that the 100 year reign of the automobile is simply over.

It's something we did, it probably didn't work.

There used to be 20 trains a day between Richmond and Washington D.C.

to take care of community and for people's transportation systems, which in Charlottesville had the original traffic systems in the world.

One of the things I intended to bring up when I came up here was to point out that, again, I still don't see where this program, the parkway itself, and I'm speaking dead against, put a stake through the heart of this parkway.

because it does not follow the sustainability of course the city is supposed to operate on.

It's not covered.

It doesn't fit.

It's a misfit.

But one of the things I particularly insist that I realized I needed to bring up when I came up here was two things.

One, for 30 years or 20 years there's been a one-party rule in this town

which means there's been no political opposition and this pathway by my reading in a community where there's no political opposition is a creation of

the local machine, which is special interest groups.

Now all of you sitting up here may or may not be part of the ruling elements of the Democratic Party in Charlottesville, but I guarantee you this baby is the Democratic Party's baby.

Because we know a lot of people who came to this community and ran as Democrats for change who ran against the parkway and against the notion

A dead 20th century system imposed on free people.

Now I myself ride a bicycle and walk.

I don't own a car.

I'm very pleased and proud.

I'm even smug about it.

I have one more comment that I want to emphasize.

I think it's very germane.

It just cut me a little bit of slack.

Annexation by law by the Virginia Constitution is the prerogative of cities and cities only.

I read this translation, this incursion by the county is that

that this road benefits the county and people live in gated communities in the county.

This is a taking of city land by the county.

And I really suggest that the city attorney, that all of you consider that.

I'm Stephen Bach.

I live at 1208 Maryweather Street.

I don't know for certain why this item is on your agenda this evening now.

But I have a theory.

And my theory is that you have forsaken the conditions which were placed on the construction of the Meadow Creek Parkway.

especially in then Mayor Brown's letter of 2006, which included two things.

One, the Eastern Connector and two, the Southern Parkway.

Now there is, I guess first I'd say, everybody knows this has been a controversial project from a long time ago.

maybe from the beginning I wasn't here then.

So it would seem to me you would bend over backwards to make sure that there was not equivocation over satisfying the conditions in that letter.

And I think that there has been.

I think that you have not stated publicly your intentions

which to me are different from what's stated in that letter.

Among those things is committed funding for the southern parkway.

There's not even really for the preliminary engineering for the southern parkway yet, not to mention the construction.

The eastern connector, well there's been a location study, we haven't seen the report yet, due out soon presumably.

We don't even know if there's a feasible corridor for that.

And certainly the funding is just in fantasy land.

So those are two huge, major conditions.

I think you should not slide around meeting those conditions and saying, okay, we can construct the parkway because the

Eastern Connector or studies for it are in the long-range plan.

I mean, that is not a commitment.

So it's distressing to me that we are moving ahead with this given the fact that these conditions have not been met.

And I feel as if, you know, along with the air pollution, the water pollution, the noise,

decreasing safety for bikes and pedestrians, cutting through McIntire Park.

These things that the parkway would bring to us, added to it, I think is sort of fueling skepticism, if not a real cynicism, about the public participation process.

When the council has hurt people, all the opposition to this project for so long,

and then slides over these major conditions.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Is there anybody else that would like to speak on this item before we close the public hearing?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Collette Hall, William Robertson Lane,

As president of the neighborhood in which this interchange will be built and the traffic will affect our neighborhood significantly, we have come before the city and the

the committee that was chosen to help design this interchange multiple times.

One of the driving forces behind this is not only the county, but it's the Chamber of Commerce.

And one of their rationales is that we need to get people downtown.

Well, if you're ever at Fridays After Five, people find their way downtown and Meadow Creek Parkway is not built.

or any of the large entertainment venues like the Paramount and so forth, people go to those venues and the parkway's not built.

So for me, that's kind of a deceptive reasoning.

I don't understand that.

People do go downtown and it's not built.

And the second thing is, I really feel for our neighborhood and the Ridge Street neighborhood because, as the other speakers have mentioned, we're just going to become a shortcut to 64.

Thank you, Ms. Felton.

Daniel Bluestone, 501 Park Hill.

I think that as you move ahead with this easement and I saw the next item as a resolution about the design, the design study and the designs for this are deeply flawed and I think David Brown started putting his finger on that in the work sessions when he insisted that the consultants

get them through that interchange on a bicycle.

And I thought that was a kind of design thinking that was really useful.

And it ended up changing your sense of whether G1 was better than C1.

And I think that there are other issues that came up that really need to be addressed before you do the easement, before you pass the resolution on the design.

One is that we've never explored, even, you know, unwilling to go

with Ms. Hall and accept on good faith that you really think you need this road to get people downtown.

I've tried to develop an empathy for your point of view.

And the thing is that if that's what it is, then design this in a way that it does nothing but that.

In the closing of Hillcrest Road,

and the huge sprawling interchange is all because we've decided that we're going to put a full service interchange between the Meadow Creek Parkway and 250 in our community and I think the people in the city should resent that and because the impact is huge.

You don't have to close Hill.

Crest Drive, unless you're trying to do a full service interchange.

Why are people who are driving east on 250 wanting to go north on the Meadow Creek Parkway?

A mile and a half behind them, they pass 29 North.

They should go north on 29 North.

And yet we're going to close down Hill Crest Road and create a nightmare in that neighborhood

because we want a full service interchange between the Meadow Creek Parkway and 250.

We did all the impact statements on impact on historic resources and those designs to me spell disaster for the houses on Park Hill, for the houses on Hillcrest, for most importantly I think the McIntire Park and for the Rock Hill Gardens.

And yet here we go.

I think I left my house half hour ago, so I'm going on the council.

they're not going to listen and they suggested that I stand here and say, read my lips.

Because I think you people have stopped listening.

You're not thinking any longer.

You're just committed to voting solid five votes yes and that's where we're going to go.

There's not going to be any debate about this, about the design, about whether this is a good thing or not and most importantly how it's designed.

and I think you really need to say, we need to see the county delivering on the commitments that they made that went into that letter rather than just saying, okay, we're going to proceed anyway and I'll now sit down and we'll watch.

It's a prediction.

I have a betting pool with people at home.

It's going to be 5-0 and it shouldn't be.

I hope you didn't bet too much money on this.

Thank you all so much for your comments.

And what we have on our agenda is a resolution, as you've heard, authorizing the convenience of the temporary construction easement in McIntire Park to the Commonwealth of Virginia.

We'll open it up to comments, questions on the part of counselors.

This is correct.

That's the only change from the prior resolution, right?

Okay.

Okay.

If you insist, I'll be happy to comment.

Transportation is an important part of any community and to do that transportation aspect, there are many aspects to it and part of it is the balance of transportation and as you are aware of my long commitment to bicycle transit and pedestrian and highways are also part of that balanced transportation system and I think

is one of the part of the balanced transportation system.

I think as so many people have said, it does provide access to downtown, it does provide better circulation, and so that's why I support it and I support it for a while.

I supported this the last time and I know a lot of people don't agree with it.

important issues raised here today.

And I think they're important issues that have less to do with whether the Meadow Creek Parkway is built than about the future transportation in this community.

And I think those are issues of will we successfully transition from being a car oriented community

to being a community that has genuine choices for people, not just choices for people who happen to live near a bus line or whose work is near a bus line, but whose community has choices for everyone, where you can truly leave your car at home, get into the city,

make your way around, go to DMV, and have it be frequent and often enough that it becomes a genuine choice.

I think in some ways we're going to have to make that choice.

I think the price of gas, the price of oil, and the availability of oil will voice that on us.

It's not like we have an either or decision.

It's not like we can just pull the money out

millions and millions and millions of dollars on the side dependent on buses.

It doesn't work that way.

It's money that's been allocated to roads by Richmond and Washington and it can't go to the bus system.

It's not that easy and simple a choice.

I agree with what Mr. Huja said and what Mr. Taliaferro said.

I do think for where we are now, this is an important road.

You know, we're going to continue to be car dependent, we're going to see Albemarle Place built, we're going to see 29 get more congested and we're going to need a vibrant downtown and I think the parkway will allow that vibrancy.

But I think the other factor is that the only way that we become a community that has good transit is that we work together with Albemarle County to make that transit happen.

You know, it's not something that we can do ourselves.

We have to do it as the larger community.

And working with Albemarle County, you know, we've been working with them to develop the Meadow Creek Parkway.

They've invested millions of their own dollars into their portion of the Meadow Creek Parkway.

I think lots of people have pointed out how the county has a lot of interest in seeing this road built.

I do not believe that if we were to suddenly change direction, the county would have a lot of interest in continuing to work with us

I think there's two different issues here.

One of which I believe in strongly is the issue of devoting more and more resources to transit and to bicycles and bike lanes and working with Albemarle County to do that.

Thank you, Dr. Brown.

Ms. Stratus' comments will be addressed concerning the Hillcrest Road I think that will come up in the discussion on the interchange itself in terms of how that's going to impact Hillcrest so we'll hold off on that momentarily

Do you have any other questions or thoughts you'd like to share?

I wanted to start my comments by addressing Mr. Bock who mentioned that some of the previous terms that council had sort of put forth regarding the Eastern Connector and the Southern Parkway and before that there was a whole other set of conditions regarding the Western Bypass and Great Separate Interchains on 29.

There's been a shifting series of conditions and terms under which this road would

would be approved over the years.

One of the things that I think was most important about the resolution that was passed in October of 2007 was that it once again shifted the terms.

And away from using this road and this expansive asphalt to leverage more asphalt, but instead shifting the terms of the discussion

to, as Mr. Brown, that's why I asked him to read the expectations to, if we're going to build this road, and I think most people know that I've never been a fan of this road, if we're going to build this road that it would, instead of leveraging more asphalt, it would leverage substantial investments in public transit and bicycle, pedestrian, and at least one connector road to reduce cut-through traffic in Ms. Chase's neighborhood.

I, having said that,

I don't believe there's been sufficient progress on those expectations.

And I think also a lot has happened since October 2007 regarding, as Mr. Cheyenne mentioned, our increased understanding of the science on climate change.

As Ms. Peck mentioned, and Mr. Ziegler mentioned, the increased difficulty in obtaining oil and the risks in securing oil supply.

We have an increased appreciation for green space in our community.

We're getting smarter about

making downtown more livable and attractive.

We're on the verge of making major, major investments, not just the city, but the private sector, over $100 million in private sector investments in the pipeline and creating residential activity downtown, investing in the future or downtown.

and improving our parks downtown, improving the infrastructure of our downtown mall.

There's increased sensitivity to cut through traffic from Albemarle County and an increased shift nationwide in our orientation towards away from the automobile and towards transit and bicycling and pedestrian.

Dr. Turner asked what is the $7.5 million for the downtown mall going to do for our citizens

and I think the question here now is what is tens of millions of dollars going to do for our city residents and our city's citizens, for our city as a whole.

For that reason I'll be voting, sorry Mr. Bluestone, I will be voting against the resolution.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any further discussion?

Please indicate your vote.

Motion carries.

Yes, I'll be presenting this resolution on, as you know, June 4th, 2008.

City Council held a work session involving the Route 250 Bypass Interchange Project, and staff would like official confirmation that two decisions were reached at that meeting.

One, that City Council is interested in a straight girder design, and two, that alternative G1 with modified trails

was selected as the preferred alternative.

Once that decision has been made we can move along with design and one of the issues that does need to be settled is the Hillcrest Road closure.

We have agreed to meet with the neighborhood to start that conversation.

We haven't yet got into design so we can't give specific information but we're going to hear their concerns first and then move from there.

Also contained within the resolution is a good faith

We haven't yet really got into that.

There were concepts showing that it was open.

There was nothing that was engineering and designed.

We're concerned about the safety of, you know, leaving that open for the majority of the public.

One of the ideas that was floated was that it would be open to emergency vehicles thinking this would happen occasionally, not every day.

I'd just like to suggest that you try to take a look at the emergency vehicle access.

Is there any publishing position to make comments?

Yes, please.

It may come as a surprise to many people that I am not a great fan of having Interchange at all.

But even though it has been decided some time back that we are going to have Interchange, my strategy has been basically to see how it can be the least footprint and least obtrusive Interchange we can have.

And that's why last time when it came to the city council, we changed the design because it took a lot more, much less land, a lot more visible,

much less impact, but it is going to have an impact on the neighbourhood.

So I also agree with the concept of flat bridges, fine cut takes, less land, height is less usual.

But the drawings I saw, it seems like very

We were giving you an idea of the shape and the design.

We didn't want to go into details such as landscaping or if you wanted to do like a stone stamp on it or wet materials, etc.

We were just giving you arch versus straight girder.

In case of arch, we did show a lot of... Oh, did we?

I have a stone on all kinds of things.

Sorry, you're looking harder than I am, yes.

That's not what we were trying to get across.

Because the environment is going to be a facility where it is designed as attractively as possible so that it has the least impact and it's attractive.

So I would like to make sure that that message is conveyed to you in this process.

In our work session we talked about the trail and having the trail be closer to the road as it went underneath the overpass as a way of making the footprint of the overpass smaller.

And we also talked about the idea of perhaps having the trail be on the west side of the road as opposed to being on the east side of the road.

Has there been any further review or discussion about the pedestrian bridge a little bit further north of the intersection?

I would hope that in this discussion and design, we will talk to the people in the neighborhood that there is a way to keep the road open to the neighborhood.

I would like to see that happen.

Okay.

And adding to that, I agree with that point.

I'm not enough of a traffic engineer to know if it's possible to create another exit out of that neighborhood back through Allied Street.

But that certainly should not be a financial burden that the property owners there in the neighborhood, including the school, are required to take if the city is the one that's closing down the access to that neighborhood.

Well, just to follow up on your comments, it may be that it should be part of the project cost to think of alternate access to the neighborhood, because it is the impact of the neighborhood if you try to eliminate it.

Yes.

So, I would say that you, seriously, I am aware of at least one lot at the end of the street where there are possibilities of connections.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any further discussion?

Please indicate your vote.

Motion carries.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr.

Next item on our agenda tonight is an appeal, a board architecture review regarding property at 509 2nd Street Northeast and

I honestly don't know who's supposed to be speaking first.

The appellants, Mary Joy?

Okay, thank you.

Last March, the BAR approved a certificate of appropriateness for new dwelling at 509 2nd Street Northeast.

They specifically approved the massing, the materials, and the window opening placement, and they approved it with the condition that the details would come back to them for final approval at a later date.

and then before the details came back to them for final approval, the neighbors appealed the BAR's decision to City Council and they had two concerns.

The first that they thought the house was too big, specifically they thought the massing and scale was not consistent with the other houses on 2nd Street Northeast and their second concern was that they thought that the design gave

a disproportionate importance to the accommodation of the automobile in what was a very pedestrian friendly and very urban neighborhood.

So they had those two concerns.

The appeal was heard by city council.

It came to you all May 5th.

You all did not take action on the appeal.

You referred it back to the BAR.

and you asked the applicant to meet with the BAR and with the neighbors and try to come up with a design that was more street friendly and also addressed the human scale of the project.

So then in June the architect submitted a somewhat revised plan and that went to the BAR at their regular meeting.

They did not take a vote but they did discuss it and

Not all of them agreed on it, but I think that some felt that the March approval was correct and that the size of the project wasn't necessarily the biggest issue, but that the design and details could be improved.

and I think that they felt that the design before them in June still needed improvement and in fact they thought it had slipped backwards.

So nothing was really resolved and it kind of stayed that way until recently.

The architect met with the chairman of the BAR and they tried to come up with some sort of consensus or agreement on what they thought the BAR and city council might be looking for in a design.

So the result of that meeting is this design before you this evening.

I think for the most part everyone is happy with this design that has reviewed it.

The BAR has not reviewed it.

But the city attorney has prepared a resolution for your consideration.

Basically it would issue a certificate of appropriateness for the house, condition basically on this plan.

and it lists the major differences, how this plan differs from the March approval and then it also says in the end that the BAR retains jurisdiction to approve the details that they had not yet approved last March and also any other details that have not been reviewed by them yet and which are not covered by this resolution.

So if you agree with that, I would say, you know, that would help move the process forward.

And I just also wanted to say that Fred Wolf, the chairman of the BAR, is here this evening if you have any, if you want any specifics from him on it.

Okay.

Hello again.

I will be brief.

Let me just quickly review particularly at the request of one city council member the history of this issue from our perspective.

In March, you know the BAR approved the certificate of appropriateness for the large residential building.

We appealed that decision because we did not feel that it met the guidelines that related to size and scale in relation to the neighborhood and we didn't feel that the BAR had done its job in upholding those guidelines.

You passed your motion in May that specifically addressed the street friendliness and asked for a compromise.

In revisiting the issue in June, we felt that the BAR actually showed quite a bit of ambivalence about the direction of the design, but they did not make a formal recommendation back to you.

So since then, another new design has been floated that does significantly reduce the size of the building.

Now, I think it's very important to remember that this has not been looked at by the BAR and was only seen by us late last week.

We do acknowledge that this design addresses our central concern, which is the size of the building and we applaud the efforts of the applicants in doing this.

We would be very pleased if the BAR were to take action on this design.

But that being said, to give it a fair hearing, to give this design a fair hearing,

you must take action on the certificate of appropriateness and on the appeal that has to do with the design that was presented in March.

They apply only to the larger March design.

Now we understand that this resolution has been drafted.

We saw it very late this afternoon.

We believe that passing that resolution may just contribute to what has already been a pretty muddy and sort of unorthodox process that has gone on so far.

It also puts you in a position that you have explicitly stated you didn't want to be in, which was in making design decisions.

The resolution includes a lot about design.

We feel that even though the BAR has not seen the design yet, other than the chairman, we believe they would act quickly on it once they did.

So since all of us, even the applicant, have moved beyond the March design and have really come to a much better place, we feel that procedurally, to eliminate confusion, we should just start with a fresh slate.

So that's our position at this point.

Just a couple of words about the bigger picture before I conclude.

All along, we have been primarily concerned with the precedent that the project was going to set for the future of development in downtown Charlottesville.

That has always been really our primary concern.

Both the BAR guidelines and the city's comprehensive plan make reference to buildings that are

within the size and scale of what is a very livable downtown.

But they clearly aren't specific enough to be able to manage what is pressure towards much larger buildings in the downtown area.

Many of our local residents agreed, more than 70 of them actually, and all signed a petition that not only addressed the appeal but also called upon council and the city to look at this bigger picture and we have copies of that.

We're not going to dwell on it but I just want you to know that it's an issue that people are paying attention to.

We plan to continue to press this issue about the tools that the city has in place for dealing with size in relation to neighborhoods and in relation to specific lots.

Now lastly, just let me talk about the process for addressing the specific concerns that we had or the process in general for addressing these concerns.

This is the process between council and the BAR.

It's the process of applicants submitting multiple designs.

This process has been confusing at best, and it has not really served anyone very well.

People need to be able to understand and rely on a clear and transparent process when they have grievances of this sort.

And we feel that this process has been anything but.

There's nobody that's specifically to blame, but we really feel the procedures need to be made much clearer if we're not going to run into situations like this into the future.

So to conclude, even though we feel like the process needs to be streamlined, we appreciate the effort on the part of the applicant to address the concerns about size, and they did make a very good effort.

Thank you, Ms. Smacko.

Mr. Piscona.

Fred Schneider, 506 Second Street, just wanted to give you copies of the petition that the SWAPO made reference to.

Thank you.

Good evening Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, I'm David Toscano, 628 Kavergreen Avenue.

It's nice to be back with you today and it's nice to hear that the efforts on the part of the applicant are being recognized for what they are and that is an effort and really in the end to bring forward a project that works very well in the historic neighborhood that a lot of us feel is really significant in the city.

I'm hoping that what you will do tonight is actually take the application and its revision dated August 18th, 2008 and approve that.

My concern is if you approve the certificate of appropriateness that the BAR issued back in March, you're actually approving something that both you had heartburn about and the neighbors had heartburn about

and potentially create a lot of heartburn for the applicants when they end up going back to the DAR for these supposed details which could be quite large in their scale.

I want to try to come back to the process because I think it's really important for people to understand what the applicants have been put through in this process.

We love our process in Charlottesville.

For the most part, it brings forward projects that are much better at the end than they were at the beginning.

but it is lengthy, it's time consuming, it takes a lot of energy and a lot of resources by people who want to do things in the city.

And some of these, the process has been outlined in letters that I've provided to you on the 4th of August, on the 12th of August.

But to reemphasize, this has gone before the BAR on a number of occasions.

Back in November of 2007, there was an initial

informal submission to the BAR.

In January 2008, there was a formal submission to the BAR and discussion at their meeting.

Then in March, March 18th, the BAR approved by a 6-1 vote the certificate of appropriateness as to the building.

Strong vote, 6-1.

That decision was then appealed by what are called, quote, agreed parties that can take that action under the ordinance.

to the City Council.

On May 5th of 2008, Council heard a pretty extensive discussion about this building and at that time a resolution was offered to look again at the pedestrian friendliness of the building to try to improve upon that.

and to meet with the neighborhood and the BAR to see if a different design could come up, could be developed that would address those issues.

Then in June there was a meeting at the BAR with the BAR, neighbors were present, in which the applicant came forward with a little different design.

That design was designed to get at the opening of the building to the street.

and some of you may have seen those designs.

They related to the porch, there were some changes in the roof line.

Long and short of it is, the BAR had some issues and you've heard this phrase that the design was going backward, had some issues with the changes from their March 18th approval.

And I guess that's what happens when a lot of people get in the mix, people change their minds and things change and sometimes the folks who made the original decision don't really like too much

what comes back to them.

But long and short of it is they liked a lot of the design features of the March 18th submittal.

And so when we came before and made some of those changes, they said, well, we're not sure we like this.

Maybe we like the March 18th submittal a little bit better.

What they did like was the concept of opening up the front porch.

And Alison Ewing, who's the architect is going to go through the designs in a few minutes to show you how we got to that point.

Subsequent to the BAR meeting, there were some further discussions and the decision was made to open up the front porch a lot more.

So now we're back again tonight and our hope is that you can dispose of this issue once and for all so these folks don't have to go back to the BAR with another major submission and that's what it would be, a major submission.

The council has within its purview under the ordinance the ability to put such conditions as it may impose in order to approve a certificate of appropriateness.

So you can take the design that came before you based on the March 18th submission to the BAR that you heard in June and take the changes in that design, which Alison Ewing is going to explain to you and you've been briefed upon already, and essentially say

This is what we like.

This is what we approve.

BAR maintains its jurisdiction to look at the final details, as they always do, without having to come back to council.

But the nature of that review will be of final details, not a big submission like this.

And it's our hope that that's what the council will do.

A few more comments.

Again,

If I could turn your attention to the letter that I wrote to you on the 12th, which talks about the various changes that have been made to get to how the building relates to the street.

The garden porch on the ground level was created open to the street.

That wasn't there in the March 18th submission, so if you approve the March 18th submission, you're not approving that.

The front door visibility is enhanced by a stone flanking the entrance.

That was not in the March 18th submission.

So if you approve the March 18th B.A.R.

approval, you're not approving that.

Opening the stone wall at the street, that's widened.

It wasn't as wide as in the original submission, so if you approve the March 18th, you're not approving that.

which is introduced on the upper porch was not in the March 18th submission.

So if you like that and you approve March 18th, you're not approving it.

The removal of the parking space on the south side of the building, that was not, the parking space was in the March 18th submission.

Your new design has that parking space removed.

So if you had any concerns about cars,

and you approve March 18th.

You're approving another parking space on site.

There is a resolution that I think you had before you.

I think it's gone through a number of different iterations.

and we would probably like to see it before it gets finalized because we agree that we think this ought to be as specific as we can make it and reference all the design changes that are appropriate.

I think Ms. Ewing is going to be in a position to comment, but we want to make sure that whatever you approve, you incorporate this document here, the 818-08 document by reference into the resolution

So everybody knows what's approved here.

The biggest problem that we could create here is not being clear.

And if you approve something that's not clear and then it requires to go back to the BAR or anything other than design, those design things that have to come up later, you will create a mess for the BAR and a process that may eventually get back to you again, which I don't think you want to have happen.

So I would like to reserve a further comment on the resolution after I get a chance to see it again, because I know it's gone through a couple of iterations.

To be honest, I don't know that we need a run through on all the design permutations, given the fact that we all agree that the current design is acceptable.

So unless there's anybody on council that would like to see.

So I think we're all on the same page regarding what we want, which is this.

And the question is, what's the best way procedurally to get this?

The resolution before us reads,

Well, there's a lot of whereases, but their resolution says, therefore be it resolved by the council for the city's shots that a certificate of appropriateness is hereby approved, subject to the following conditions.

The design of the building will be substantially as shown on the property owner submittal entitled City Council Certificates of Appropriateness, August 18, 2008, which is this one that everybody seems to be satisfied with, which incorporate the following specific changes from the design as originally approved by the BAR.

The design of the building will be approximately 1,300 square feet smaller than the design approved by the BAR on March 18, 2008, with the house width parallel to the street reduced by approximately 8 feet and the length reduced by approximately 12 feet, resulting in a side yard setback from the property line 11 feet adjacent to the townhouses and 19 feet from the north property line adjacent to the existing shed.

The addition of a porch at the garden apartment with the removal of the left linking stone wall, the reintroduction of outriggers at the roof eaves and livers at the windows, the use of wood clad and load metal at the front bay and approval at the entrance and porch, the removal of the gate to the off street parking area and the addition of a terracing

of the stone walls and gardens of the Royal Park and Drive in the removal of one off-street parking space and one parking space in the garage.

And again, it asks the BR to, as you mentioned, report any additional design details that they've been expecting to review all along.

We were trying to get at the issues that you just mentioned and make it very clear that we are not approving the design that was put forth on March 18th, but rather

Mr. Mayor, if I may, just make a couple little comments to clarify so that folks know exactly what we're doing here.

In number two, where it talks about approximately 12 feet, the actual, we need to ensure after that at the second and third levels

You want to explain why that is?

At the ground level, a portion of the building is a part of a terrace above, so it's partially embedded, if you like, in the ground.

And then at the end of the sentence it says in 19 feet from the north property line adjacent to the existing shed

We wanted to clarify that there's a roof canopy over the mudroom that will, however, project an additional two feet into the north side yard.

So the mass of the building does correspond to the 19 feet, but this roof over here will extend another couple of feet.

And then on number five,

Fiber cement planking?

Go ahead.

Just to clarify, I'm Jennifer McKeever, 1140 Locust Council for the Neighbors.

A couple things is the process here is I don't know about louvers or anything that they just said about cement fibers and I feel like the expertise of the BAR is kind of needed at this point to review the design that has been proposed.

There is

Application procedures for the BAI that include notice, transparency, and openness.

That is, I believe, not in this process right now for this particular design.

That we received this design on Thursday, and this resolution late this afternoon.

I don't know that this is the way that we want to be doing design work in the city.

And this is not a process that anybody can rely on.

and these processes in our code is what we should be relying on.

So I would ask that this submission have to go back to the BAR.

Thank you.

I have a quick question for Mr. Wolf.

Yes, I actually think that the resolution includes the opportunity for BAR to criticize and to take issue with the new design because the new design hasn't been seen by the board.

That was my understanding that the end of the resolution was not only do we have details that are coming back to us, but that any other issue that's taken based on the new things that have changed since the March 18 are

Open for discussion and I wanted to point out that I simply met with the applicant informally and don't express the entire board's viewpoint.

Although I did feel like the design that she had shown us and we did not work that out together.

and their architect had come up with this prior to our meeting so I simply saw what they had to present but felt like that it had moved in a very good direction in terms of coming back in line with what the board had approved and making considerable refinements based on council's suggestions that were definitely positive improvements.

The board has not seen this as a whole but I would say that one of the things that's important to keep in mind is that

The project as it stands now, this is not an entirely new design.

What I think you're looking at are refinements of the design that has already been embraced by the board at six to one and that the level of detail that we're talking about do not necessarily, to me, suggest that it's an entirely new project that would warrant going through the process again.

requested.

Knowing that the essence of this design is where the applicant, the appellant's counsel, we're all okay with this.

So I think we want to send a pretty strong signal to the BAR that while we do understand there is additional design review that you were needing to do anyway, that we're not asking you to go back to square one and retool something which we're all pretty satisfied with.

Is that, I mean, I'm hearing you,

As I said, as the chairman I can say that I feel like this represents closely what the board had originally approved with refinements that are improvements and that's my opinion.

The board having not voted on it I can't say that the board has approved it.

We are being asked to approve a certificate of appropriateness.

And I think that that's where it's at at this point.

I mean this has been taken out of the BAR's hands.

In this context, I would say yes, that there was a VAR certificate of appropriateness and that, as we all know, was appealed.

I agree with Mr. Toscano that in considering that appeal and whether to issue a certificate, you have the discretion to put whatever conditions on that certificate that you desire.

I'm also very struck by something that Mr. Wolf just said, that

Just a comment.

As I mentioned earlier also that if you look at the building that it is now, it was the same as it was before.

It is improved.

and the process has worked to make it a better project for the neighborhood as well as for the, I think for the client, I think, for the better project.

I'd like to cover one topic and then talk about this specific proposal, but I think Ms. Swachow raised an important issue as a part, one of the focus of her

presentation which is the issue of does the city have tools to regulate the size of buildings and neighborhoods and I think that in the same way that in the past year and a half we've looked at height and density downtown I think we should take the same kind of look

It's not just in this neighborhood.

I think we can all look at different parts of town and point out buildings and say, wow, that's a big house.

You know, and it probably, it obviously complies with setbacks and density and things like that.

So I'd like to suggest that, you know, Mr. Mayor, did you give some consideration, perhaps some, we did that simply through a sort of a mayor's committee and looking at involving Niswaka and some other

Stakeholders to really take a look city wide at whether our neighborhoods are protected in terms of size and look at what other cities do in terms of ratios and things like that kind of be on my head.

The McMansion task force that we're going to call?

Yes.

I was going to say, Ms. Wachow has to serve on it having raised this bill.

The second thing is, it seems to me, I sort of agree that this is the same project that we considered the last time and what we did last time, well I think we did last time, is we expressed concerns about the size in particular and we asked people to work to see if we couldn't, you know, having heard the concerns that were expressed

And it seems to me that what we've got before us now is a refinement of that proposal that exactly addresses those concerns and obviously addresses them in a way that the neighbors feel like is responsive.

I think it would be very unfair with everyone in agreement that this is a good spot to then tell the property owner it's going to be a couple more months even though it's been quite a few months before you can actually get moving and you'll have to spend more time and more money in order to make this happen.

So I'd like to see us get this done this evening.

I like the sentence in this resolution which says that the BAR may also in their discretion review any new design details as shown in the property owner's most recent submittal that have not previously been previously reviewed by the BARs.

In other words that the BAR has the ability

and I think what we were saying is we accept the overall refinements in particular, the size and sort of the setbacks but that we expect that the BAR will look at this and bring our design expertise to bear

With that in mind, I wonder if we, I'm happy with this as it's written, but it does have a fair amount of detail.

As I look through the resolution, it seems to me that the first two elements, that the design will be substantially as shown as on the 1808 submittal, and number two, that the design will be approximately 1,300 square feet smaller than it goes on to talk about the setbacks.

Those are the two key elements.

One says it's going to be pretty much what's in this package, and B, it's going to be about this much smaller.

That makes it clear to my non-legal peers.

Just to make two comments.

what Dr. Brown mentioned last year for BER is important to have I think and I would add whereas just after the first error whereas if you acknowledge that it is substantially it is not the March 18th proposal but it is a modification to that as included in the 2018 proposal so it is a it is the same proposal but it is modified so there is a connection between the two it is not just a

Is that not reflected in this... Yeah, that's how it reflects to the...

So what's the specific word now?

I would just add a word, whereas after the second word has not yet been significantly improved, like I mean now I'm home I think, because the most straightforward is doing the scale and the more finished the neighborhood.

as denoted in 1808.

Definitely we're making a connection from the...

Okay.

I do have one comment also I'd like to make.

If you do go to committee, I don't know if you know the committee personally, but if you go to have committee, one of the things other communities have done is that I was talking to the neighborhood

I would just like to say I'd like to see us go ahead and move forward with it.

I think someone mentioned it's probably not fair to keep prolonging this.

Conversely, I do agree we need to take a look at the size of buildings.

And I guess I'm sorry that this thing was

who longed so long anyway and caused a lot of conflict between people and it's a thing we certainly don't like to see.

And I also want to applaud the applicant for making some of what I think are some significant reductions in the size of the building and making some compromises.

And I certainly appreciate the spirit of the neighborhood down there and working together to achieve the final result.

Is that a motion, Mr. Taliaferro?

I will make that a motion.

I think it's good.

Any further discussion?

Now, I'm going to go through the changes that have been proposed to the resolution.

We have Mr. Huja's whereas the March 18th design has been significantly improved and more street-friendly, better in scale, friendly to the neighborhood as delayed in the 8-18-08 design.

We've added a couple of

Parenthesis in item number two, approximately 12 feet at the second and third levels, and then at the end of that item is with a roof canopy from the mudroom projecting two feet.

I think Dr. Brown's point about eliminating 337 is well taken, and those are all the suggestions.

I personally, yes?

Oh, okay.

Yes.

I mean, I'm open.

The applicant's view is that the more detail and specific we can make this the better,

the extent to which there's an addition of a porch at the garden apartment with removable left-lanking stone wall that's very specific and a whole host of other things including the removal of the gate on the off-street.

So that would be our view.

That's a bad idea.

I personally, just for the record, I'm ready to vote for this and vote in favor of this.

I don't believe the last sentence serves this process well because I think we're sending a mixed message to the BAR with that last sentence in the resolution.

But I'm trusting in the good sense of the BAR that they understand what we're all saying here, that we're not looking for a total rewrite.

I simply want to say that I think what

Okay, so the resolution has been moved and seconded and as amended.

Yes, on item 5, thank you.

The use of wood clad ore fiber cement plank, thank you very much.

It's been amended, seconded.

Any further discussion?

If not, please indicate your vote.

I'd like to make a little motion.

Motion carries.

Mr. Huja.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

What did you say?

No.

And may I add something to that?

I'd also like this to be a part of the conversation regarding redevelopment of public housing sites too.

How so?

So whichever proposals we come up with, make sure that we use that to inform the discussion.

Okay.

Thank you very much and appreciate your patience and persistence and we're now going to move on.

We have a report before us from the Jefferson School.

And is this a PowerPoint, Mr. Burke?

Yes, sir.

Come on in.

It wasn't me.

Okay, so I can see you.

The timing is wrong.

Oh, great.

Mark.

for the TV, yeah.

Okay, Mayor Norris, Members of Council, I'm Martin Burks and I'm President of the Jefferson School Partners.

We have good news to share with you today.

A little background.

Jefferson School Partners was formed to most of all continue the 2002 Task Force findings.

but what we were charged to do was to explore the financial feasibility to rehab and revitalize the building.

On August 6th, I came before city council and after I briefed them, they charged us to look at the feasibility and if it was in fact feasible that you would convey the property to the partners for the state and federal credits.

There were two things that were given.

First of all, there would be a Jefferson School Heritage Culture Center in the school.

And the second thing is, the Corporate Recreation Center in the city would continue its relationship.

These are the members of the partners.

And we have some on the front row here.

Wonderful people.

One of the first things we did was to find an architect.

We viewed a bunch of them, and we came up with Bushman Dreyfus.

As soon as we got him, we put him right to work.

We had them determine the requirements that we had in the building, explore how to make the outer side of the building pretty, you know, to sort of bridge the gap between the Starr Hill district and that western part of downtown.

and determine the true square footage.

The next thing we did was to determine the cost estimates and Frank will discuss that a little bit later during the briefing.

figured out that we in fact could do this project.

We put our show on the road.

We went out and we got a briefing in July and we had every interested party of the Jefferson School there and we briefed them and told them what we wanted to do and they were, for the most part, in agreement.

On August 2nd, I went before the Jefferson School alumni, which had their every other year meeting here, and I pitched the plan to them as well.

They were very much in agreement.

The only concern that we ran across was some members of the heritage culture group wanted to have more than the 9,700 square feet that we were going to give to them free.

But we then told them that if they want more space, they could pay for it.

Good evening, my name is Jeff Dreifus, Bushman Dreifus Architects here in Charlottesville.

We've been charged by the Jefferson Partnership to come up with a renovation plan to help determine at this point the general magnitude of cost for the work.

Everyone's aware of the project's location and its central pivotal point within the neighborhood.

very briefly to touch upon it.

Our analysis began looking at the original stages of construction beginning with the 1926 building on the left all the way to the 1959 edition on the right.

Total square footage for the building is approximately 76, 77,000 gross square feet.

That's not leaseable square feet, but that's the space that we have overall to renovate.

You are aware that to the far right is where Carver Rec is currently located and then the city's maintenance facility is in other locations toward the left.

As we began to look at the project, in terms of an historic tax credit project,

The work that is to be done to the building is fairly straightforward.

The guidelines that both the federal and the state government agencies outline in order to be eligible for the tax credits are quite stringent.

And so we don't have a whole lot of leeway in terms of design latitude, but that's not the important thing here.

What is going to be important and the real challenge here is to integrate modern systems into an historic structure.

That's where the real cost is going to come into it.

We have to come up with an entirely new heating and cooling system.

We have to refurbish the exterior of the building, but we have to refurbish the exterior of the building to the standards that the state and federal governments require, again, in order to qualify for the tax credits.

So in terms of the overall layout of the building, not going to be that much change.

One of the important things from the federal tax credit standpoint is that we honor those character defining elements

that help to describe what's important about that building.

And interestingly enough, one of the major elements on the interior of the building is the main large corridor that runs throughout the structure.

Also the courtyard, obviously.

But interestingly, as a school building, we need to honor those original corridors.

So as we get into designing for specific tenants in this process, we're going to have our challenges cut out for us, but it's certainly well within reason.

As we then look to the exterior of the building, the question was, how can we actually bring the history of the building out to the site and out into the neighborhood?

What you see here is just a preliminary concept at the moment.

If this building is going to be viable financially, we have to make certain that we can provide the parking required from the potential tenants.

We need to provide

Approximately 120 parking spaces on the site.

As you know now, all the parking spaces are located the area in the center where the turn around is located and to the left where the park area is shown.

That's all asphalt right now.

The area to the right that is now shown as parking is that lower level, the play area.

The plan here is that the central, let me see, is this an infrared?

Yeah, this central area here is going to remain at grade, turn around, pull in buses, cars, accessible parking here.

This area over here will be a two-level parking deck accessed on the lower level off of the street and on the upper level right here.

What that allows us to do is free this whole area up for a park.

A park per se is not what's important here, though it's going to be a very nice amenity for the neighborhood.

What's really important here is that we're actually going to work to show, memorialize, and bring back the history of the original graded school that stood on the site.

the school that was here before the Jefferson School was constructed.

And so the foundations of the building are in here, there's a lot of archaeological work yet to be done, but the idea here is this park becomes a part of the interpretive plan of the entire building and for the neighborhood.

So it's utilized not just by the center of

the school, the Jefferson school, but it also becomes something that's utilized by the entire neighborhood and the city as well.

It allows us to bring the interpretive story out into the world, not just contain it within the building.

Containing it within the building is also important, or providing space within the building is really important for the Heritage Cultural Center.

Now, the important thing to know here is that this has not been designed with a long process yet to go through.

The question was, is it feasible?

We need to determine how much space is available given the rest of the finances of the project, which Frank Stoner will talk about in a minute.

9,700 square feet is located here on the upper floor of the original Jefferson School, the 1926 building, including the original entrance and also overlooking the courtyard that came later.

It also includes, important to note, the original auditorium.

That's as far as we've gotten.

We have a lot of work to do.

We have, as part of the design team, an exhibit designer, a museum designer from Richmond, who has a lot of experience working with groups to take the artifacts that are available, the stories that are available, and to begin to incorporate them into exhibits both within the building and without the building.

And so as we begin to talk about the Heritage Cultural Center within the building, hopefully can also lead out into the landscape so the two begin to pull together.

Nothing much here except to point out again the Heritage Cultural Center on the upper floor and down here Carver Recreation will continue to occupy its location.

We've already begun discussions with Mike Svetz, the head of Parks and Rec.

Great guy.

He's very flexible, very amenable.

We've had really good conversations with him.

He's excited about it and we've already begun to get his input in the kinds of renovations that he'd like to see for the Carver Recreation area.

Now I may have turned it off.

Hi, my name is Frank Stoner.

I am one of the Jefferson School partners as well as the principal at Stonehouse Development.

And so, together with my cohorts on the building committee, Craig Barton and Genevieve Keller and Ray Carey, Craig was here a while ago.

Oh, okay.

We were charged with figuring out how we actually make this project work from a financial standpoint.

And so tonight I'm going to take you through some very high level numbers just to understand some of the cost structure and some of the revenue structure around the building once it's completed.

but before I do that I want to talk about some key assumptions because these I think are the most important things for council to get their arms around now because the numbers will change, the numbers that you see tonight are rough estimates

and no doubt will change but the formulas and the structure probably will not change.

So I would encourage you to consider these as we go through them.

The first one is a critical element of the overall project and that is the use of the $5.8 million that the city has allocated for the

Harrigan Cultural Center and the project in general.

And the assumption in working through the pro forma is that the $5.8 million goes into the project as equity.

And it goes into the project as equity prior to any bank debt or other subsidy that is applied to the project.

It also assumes that the tax credits that we collect both state and federal at the end of this project are sold and the values of those credits vary depending on what time of year they're sold and what year they're sold but they vary generally between 75 and 85 percent of the total value of the credit and that money comes back into the partnership again as equity at the end of the project

I think as Jeff pointed out the project assumes that we will build a parking deck on the northern end of the property and that the southern end of the property which is the site of the original school will be converted to a park and so there are costs associated with that which I'll point out to you in a minute

The heritage center costs for renovation, finishes and displays are to be absorbed within the overall cost and that's part of what the 5.8 million was allocated for.

When we worked backwards really from a lease rate to a cost structure to figure out what we could actually afford we ended up at about 9,700 square feet which is ironically close to the original footprint of the 1928 school.

The Heritage Center cost also includes the cost of creating the museum piece, the exhibit piece, which at this point is estimated at about $150 a square foot over the entire 9,700 square feet.

The assumption is that we will move forward with construction in the middle of 2009 and so there's an escalator built into the construction numbers you'll see which assumes a 3% cost escalation between now and 2009 and assumes that the construction process will take about 14 months.

Now it's obviously conceivable that at the end of that process there will be tenants whose finishes are not complete but that we would have a white box and carver rack and the heritage center would be complete and one or more tenants may also be in the mix.

What the cost estimate does not include is the amortized cost or the potentially amortized cost of the additional tenant improvements in the rest of the building.

There may be other tenants who have upfit needs which are specialized.

Those costs are not part of the numbers you'll see tonight and the expectation is that those tenants would either bring their own source of financing for those or that we would amortize those costs and they would be borrowed as part of the overall financing package.

There is some benefit to financing those and constructing those as part of the original project because some of those costs in fact qualify for historic tax credits Another assumption is that interest rates remain at about 7% which is what our pro forma was run at

and again these are very high level numbers but I'm happy to answer questions in more detail if you decide you want to dig into it.

Soft costs are estimated at about 2.8 million dollars that includes design and all the other myriad of studies and engineering costs.

and it could be legal, et cetera, et cetera.

The site work and garage, which would include the park at the south end of the property is just over $3.1 million.

The rehab itself is estimated at just under $11 million and then $596,000 in financing costs and that would include bank fees as well as bank interest during the carry period.

This is where the

the inclusion of the 5.8 million as equity becomes important because if it goes in as equity at the front end it has the ability to reduce the financing cost substantially through the construction process.

At this point we have about a one and a half million dollar contingency for both design and construction because there are a lot of details that are unknown.

I think that brings us to a total of about 19 million.

That's about two and a half million dollars less than the numbers that you looked at in 19, excuse me, in 2004, I guess, which is when I think the first city estimate was done.

And we believe that there's an opportunity perhaps to save the 1.5 million dollars in contingency

that is shown here because we think there's some cost within the building rehab that we can value engineer.

So we're getting a pretty generous estimate tonight.

In fact, our pro forma is actually run on numbers that are slightly lower than this.

Oh, sorry.

What's not included, I'm sorry it's not here, is an operating summary which shows you how we believe the revenue will flow through and what the debt service looks like and what the operating reserves are at the end.

But perhaps those slides are buried deep in the presentation in case anybody wants.

Yeah, rough.

You roughed this up a bit too.

There we go.

If I can get it back on here.

Okay.

So you asked us to look at whether we could do it or not.

We did.

You asked us, so what we're saying at this point is the following.

We want to do the project.

The project can be done.

Convey the property as you, in the August of 2007, you agreed that if we could do the project, you would convey the property.

We want you to convey the property, give us the 5.8 million dollars, and then we'll hammer out an agreement between the city and Carver Recreation Center with us so that we can see how pretty much the revenue stream would be.

What we have to do in turn is to determine the most viable tenants to go in and prepare and obtain the financing.

We do have, through the building committee, Vixie has done a wonderful job.

We have some tenants that are just dying to get it into the building and we're going to work through to see which ones are the best.

That's our briefing.

Thank you very much for your presentation.

It's very exciting to see this project moving forward.

This is an asset for our whole community and I'm so grateful to each of you for your involvement in this effort.

I think this is very exciting.

I really like the park concept.

I mean, I think one of the things that's always struck me is having just a parking lot there really didn't do justice to the school.

And I think having a park there is a really great idea.

But with the park, you know, the revenue that flows through, the park would be the responsibility of the partnership, of the partners.

I mean, it wouldn't be a city park.

I'm asking.

I think it would be a great addition to downtown to have a green space there.

I think this is a very exciting proposal.

I'm certainly prepared to convey the property.

I had the same question about the Carver Rec.

Is the expectation that there will be an ongoing city payment to Jefferson Partners for use of that space for Carver Rec?

Are there questions?

We're not being asked to take any action tonight, as I understand it.

You have to have the proper pay and you have to have the money.

The August 2007 meeting when we came before council at that time said that the property would be conveyed if we saw that we could in fact do the project so you've already pretty much voted for it you know we just want to say that we can do it so we just want to move forward

So what is the process for...

When they are ready to execute the Final D that would need to come to city council, and there would need to be a formal city council approval of that,

and also there would need to be a formal appropriation of the funds, which as I understand it now in order to take advantage of the tax credits and given the entity that's there, we would need to move the money to the Industrial Development Authority and the money would then go to the Jefferson Partnership for the project.

I think what the partnership is looking at tonight is if anybody on the council has a concern about that funding.

We'll act on it tonight, but if for some reason somebody has a question about that.

It's been appropriated in the past, been designated for Jefferson School for the improvements.

We've been using some of those funds to support the project thus far.

Previous budgets have approved it multiple times, so I think everything is led towards this money is going to be used for that purpose.

in case one of you has a concern about this tonight.

The last time we had this discussion at the partnership it's likely to be sometime in October was our belief in terms of being far enough along that the partnership is ready for a conveyance that it would be at that point where the appropriation would come forward at the same time.

So from my perspective you don't need to take any action tonight.

Well the issue for the partnership is they have to get, and this got talked about a little bit in the presentation, specific leases with specific tenants to know that the financing is there to move the project forward and when that happens that's the point at which I understand they would actually have a conveyance of the property.

That way they know they have tenants

Projectors, what are the slides, three items we need to deal with, money, title, and agreement.

I've got to look at the, oh that's the letter of agreement for the carbon rack center.

Which is another tenant, in essence

The partnership is negotiating with the city for the use of the carbon recreation center much like what the partnership will do with the other groups that are going to be involved in the project.

And we're just now to the point to begin to know how many square feet, what kinds of things will need to be in the facility to get to what the final costs are to know what the least value would be.

And they're just now getting to that.

So that's another

You know, commitment the city would have to make.

I think that one's been understood all along that the Carver Recreation Center would stay there.

I think that what the partners are looking for, and I'm a partner, is that everyone is okay with where we are.

You gave us a charge and we think we've fulfilled that to this point.

So blessed.

I would just like to say as a partner, the only thing I feel some urgency about in terms of moving forward is we have been very frugal for the last year we've been meeting.

We have had no paid staff.

If the numbers didn't add up, our apologies, but that's sort of where we are.

So that I think as soon as people are comfortable and we can get our ducks in order,

We actually need to begin to have some support because negotiating with tenants is not going to be simple and straightforward.

Many of these tenants have been recruited to fulfill a vision of Jefferson as a lifelong learning center.

They need to raise money.

We need people to help this cadre of volunteers who I think have done a lot of great work.

but so I just wanted to say I'm not sure what the timing will be and we haven't talked about it in a partnership but I know that we've kind of been waiting to this point trying to husband money.

It's very difficult for us to use any of that money until it is transferred to the Industrial Development Authority.

Am I right?

Sure, some management, some project management, I mean it takes technical expertise to negotiate leases and that kind of thing.

Okay, thank you all very much.

Appreciate your efforts.

Next item on our agenda tonight is a report and resolution regarding city budget and reduction in state aid at Lesley Boulevard.

Is this another PowerPoint?

Hi, good evening everyone, those of you that are left, breathing this like I am.

The purpose of this presentation tonight is to give counsel and the public an overview of what's been happening with the 2009 budget, the last couple of months, and also where we are regarding the state budget reductions.

Yeah, I'm really retarded.

How do I get rid of that?

Okay.

What were you going into FY2009?

Well, staff and council did know about the state budget reductions.

It was only recently, actually, that we got a final number and a final plan as to, from the state, as to how those cuts could be realized.

We did know, we actually did not know when the proposed budget was submitted to council about the state budget cuts.

It wasn't until the middle of March that the state came up with their $100 million two-year plan.

So again, like I said, over the summer we actually had a lot of discussion with the state, with the Virginia Municipal League and with other localities about the state budget cuts.

We had a million questions.

The state went back and forth for a while about answering those questions.

There was just as much confusion on their part as there was on our part.

Like I said, a couple of weeks ago we got the final number from them and the final process as to how we would realize those cuts.

And on that note, our total impact, and I'll go into more of the numbers later, is just over $509,000 for fiscal year 2009.

Those areas being cut include constitutional officers, such as sheriff's offices, treasurer's, commissioner revenue, the comprehensive services act, department of social services, courts and juvenile justice services, just to name a few.

So what has happened since the budget was adopted?

Let me go back to the point about the state.

When we realized that the cuts were imminent, we told council during the budget process that we would be able to absorb these cuts through some contingency money, which we did set aside, and that is still the plan.

And as we enter into the budget for 2010, we realize that these cuts are not going away, they will be permanent, so as we're planning that budget, we'll obviously have to reduce those revenue items and look for other ways to absorb those cuts for the long term.

So what's happened since then?

Well, a couple of things have happened.

One is we've had some revised revenue estimates, and while we've always been really conservative how we've estimated revenue in any given year, the real estate market's continuing to fluctuate and continue to decrease.

people aren't shopping, they're not staying in hotels, they're not eating out as much so all these revenue projections we've had to revise down somewhat not only that but I think everybody's feeling the pinch from the increase in utilities costs, the increase in fuel that affects us as well and I'll go over a few slides down from here and talk about some of the areas in the city operations well we're looking at entire city operations actually and how we can reduce consumption in those areas

So what does this mean for 2010 and beyond?

What this means is we're going to see little to no growth in our revenues which basically means little to no growth in our budget in the near future.

And not only that, starting in 2010 we're going to be looking at, we're going to be having departments do multi-year budgeting on the expenditure side and we'll also be doing that on the revenue side which will help us plan not only for 2010 but what we can expect to see in 2011 as we look at some tough times ahead of us.

The next few slides are just some graphs showing where the revenues are trending.

These are not new graphs.

We showed these graphs back in March.

The story really hasn't changed too much.

This of course is the real estate tax revenue, which is the largest revenue source that the city brings in.

At the time we had done the budget, when the budget was adopted actually, our estimate for residential growth in this area is 4%.

It's now trending at 1%.

So you can see just in the percentages below, while we are going to be receiving more money in real estate taxes, the percentages have gone down considerably, looking at just over 9.5% the last several years, down to 2%, down to 1.5%, so we're going to see a major decrease in this revenue.

in terms of how much it's growing in the next few years.

So based on this, we're looking at 2009 to end the year with a revised projection of $572,000 below what we had budgeted.

The next few slides really reflect what's happening in the economy, and this is happening nationwide.

This is sales tax revenue.

Again, like I said before, people just aren't shopping as much.

This is very much driven by the economy.

We revised the estimate on this also.

Again, as you can see based on the percentages, this was trending at just over 3.5%.

Now we're looking at 1% growth.

So we're looking at approximately $160,000 in a lower than anticipated revenue for this item alone.

The next items, meals and lodging, these are two taxes just combined for the purpose of this slide.

Again, same story as sales and use tax and we're looking at approximately $169,000 lower than what we had projected originally.

and as you can see also the percentages are much lower in terms of what we'll see in terms of growth.

This next slide is basically showing how our state revenue has been trending, and this shouldn't be a surprise to anybody.

Basically, back in 2005, 6.61% of our total general fund budget was state revenue.

This doesn't include the schools, though.

This is just their support for the courts, our constitutional officers, etc.

Now, for 2009, it's 5.39%.

So it's dramatically going down.

We don't expect it to trim back up anytime soon.

If you do add the schools in there, our maintenance of effort, which is what we're legally required to provide the schools any given year, we're over 110% of that.

So we do very well for the schools, and that's probably in almost every locality in the state, though.

This final graph basically shows where our major revenue sources are trending in the next couple of years.

This includes real estate, personal property, sales, use, meals, and lodging, etc.

These are the major ones, usually the six or seven.

So back in 2006, you're looking at 10% growth, and now for 2010, we're looking at two, and for 2011, it goes down even farther.

So we're really going to have to be looking, again, gives you the proof of the need to do that multi-year budgeting to really start looking out more to see, you know, as we start looking at expenditures on that side where we're really going to need to slow down and make some tough decisions.

We are taking steps, however.

It's not all doom and gloom.

Again, like I said about the state revenue reductions, and this is the table number,

As part of the adopted 2009 budget, we had told council during their work sessions that we were going to be using some contingency money to deal with this and that is the plan in place.

Energy and fuel costs, we're looking at a possible impact of $634,000 and that is the worst case scenario.

But, however, since we've learned about this and really done an analysis on it, we've had some task force form, we've had some plans put into place, action plans, that will, hopefully, our goal is to lessen our consumption by at least 20% in all city operations.

And I put a few examples up here, such as hybrid vehicles,

use of technology for meetings, capital investments that will save us money in the long and short term and we've also got teams of staff looking at ways to develop and implement policies to lessen our consumption in all areas.

Finally, the net reduction in major revenue is just over $639,000.

And again, I just want to stress that we're taking action less than two months into the fiscal year.

The fiscal year started July 1st.

We know about these issues, and we are not waiting until six months down the road or nine months down the road as we're getting close to the end of the fiscal year.

The cities I've listed here, we do all the time.

We actually do revenue trending on a regular basis.

We do a quarterly report that's actually available on the city budget's website every quarter of all the expenses and revenues with all departments reviewing their expenditure budgets.

And a lot of economic development projects going on right now actually say on the bottom they're valued at over 130 million dollars which is going to in the long run be a huge benefit for the city.

And we do things, we do actually do things, they do add up in the long run, but reviewing vacancies as they occur.

So, while the economic outlook right now is a challenge, we shouldn't look at it as doom and gloom, we should look at it as an opportunity to make some improvements, to make some decisions, and we're taking proactive steps to do that.

And thank you, and I'll take any questions if there are any.

Let me just say one thing before I take questions.

I just wanted to quickly address the resolution that was in your package.

the resolution that we're going to ask you to adopt tonight.

This is a resolution that VML had drafted and it actually came out of a conference call that occurred between VML, VACO and the localities that summer.

And basically what the resolution says is we're pretty dissatisfied with how the state balanced their budget.

and they not only did it on the backs of local governments but they didn't even specify the areas they wanted to cut and they forced local governments to do it.

How local governments have treated this has varied greatly.

Everyone is doing it in a different way.

So we're asking you just to adopt this resolution, we'll be sending it to VML and it just is one more

We don't know what kind of message it will send to the state.

I'm not sure that they care that much, but we try at least.

Thank you very much.

Well, I certainly support the resolution.

Just for discussion tonight, I'd just like to talk a little bit about the issue that is confronting local governments is the continued shifting of costs

by underfunding, reduction, elimination of programs and many service needs to localities across the state.

And one of the issues is the state really hadn't lived up to their commitment to local government.

I will say that fortunately Senator Dees and Delegate Toscano are causing a lot of the issues that local government face, but that's not the case all across Virginia.

There are a lot of things that have gradually been chipped away at the last decade and the burden falls on local government to make up the difference.

Either that, you cut services and the expenses continue to climb.

It's very difficult for local government to deal with that.

And right now there's a movie for it and the General Assembly to do away with that.

Right.

The Vice Chairman of the Appropriations Committee said that it wasn't needed anymore and it ought to go to the other programs.

And that's just one example of what's going on.

And I guess what I would like to suggest is that

Mr. Mayor, perhaps we could hold some sort of community workshop and invite our local legislators and also invite the county because they've been affected by this also because I think we really need to make people within the community aware of what the impact is on local government because

It's not only a hardship for the people that have to make the tough decisions, but it's creating hardships within the community for many people that it's really difficult for them to deal with.

Thank you, Mr. Taliaferro.

I just have a question in the last paragraph, in the last sentence.

At this time we are not reducing expenditures.

At the time we were faced with these cuts and we knew about them, the suggestion before council was to use contingency fund money and you all

We're fine with that at the time.

This is the state aid reduction.

Right.

The Voluma you have, I mean the biggest example, I don't, you gotta find the numbers, it's $330,000 for a CSA.

It's a state mandated service, we're required to provide the service and pay the cost.

So if we cut that, we're still going to be required to pay it.

If they're treating it like a deductible, if you have a health care plan that has like a $100 deductible and you have to pay that deductible first and then you start the payments pick up, that's how the state's treating CSA.

They won't pay $333,000 of our cost until that's realized, then they'll start picking it up.

But we have to pick up this cost no matter what.

And it's my concern about CSA

as to why I'd like to support the resolution because it really puts us in a catch-22 situation, but it also, as you said, provides an opportunity to explore how we can be, especially when I think about the CSA funds,

I would second that.

I think one of the concerns that I had is that I didn't see much, or maybe there was some mention, but I didn't see much mention of the efficiency study that we've agreed to undertake and I hope that doesn't reflect an assumption on the part of staff that that's not actually going to result or has a potential result in serious efficiency measures along the lines that Mr. Huja is suggesting, because I think there are

Well, I think the other issue it raises, there's room for right now, but from my perspective, our effort is to try to keep the service in place as we know them and live within the budget that you approved.

So we're trying to be very aggressive with the energy piece.

We're going to look at, Les again spent a lot of time on it, but we're going to look at every single budget again.

We're looking at all the revenues very carefully.

We're going to try to rethink are there places that we can save money, which you would call efficiency I guess, but still keep the services that are on the street.

A classic example is the bus system.

We're putting new routes into place, and on the other hand, our biggest users of gasoline are buses.

School system is about ready to open next week.

They're putting buses on the street and they're not going to make their budget.

So there are already some constraints to keeping the service and trying to make some reductions to be able to stay within budget.

Our hope is that when we come in November, which is when we'll do the budget guidelines, we'll actually be able to give you a report on where we stand and sort of one more update on the current year.

but really looking towards the future year and I think we all thought it was important to do this tonight and now while the state budget issue was there to sort of give you the bigger, fuller perspective and that the shift has occurred.

We talked in the last two budget years about a storm is coming, well let's come.

The shift has occurred.

Looks like from the state standpoint we might hear more cuts.

I won't be surprised in the next two or three weeks to read about even greater cuts at the local level as much as we don't want to see them happen.

So it's kind of an ongoing effort, but it's, I think, a piece of all those things.

We're also encouraging our employees to come up with cost savings suggestions, and we actually are reviving a program that we have had in place, but it's kind of waned in terms of encouraging the employees that if they see ways that we can save money and they can share in some of those cost savings.

During the budget cycle, I didn't mention about the idea of zero budgeting.

It's not a Paris year, but at least you have to look at what we have been doing since we need to do those things.