City Council Meeting   1/20/2009

I'd like to call this meeting to order.

Mr. Kochis, will you call the roll, please?

Here.

Yes.

Here.

Here.

and we will note we are missing one of our colleagues, Holly Edwards, but very good reason for doing so.

We're all quite envious of Holly for having a chance to witness history and I wish her safe travels coming back to Charlottesville.

Any announcements or items to be added to the agenda?

I have a couple of announcements.

First of all, on Saturday, January 31st, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., we are participating in an electronics recycling drive.

In anticipation of the switch to digital TV signals on February 17th, the city, along with the Charlottesville Community Design Center and Rivanna Solid Waste Authority, UVA and Crutchfield, are partnering to host a free television and electronics waste event.

Again, Saturday, January 31st from 9am to 3pm, no early birds please, at the Royal Hills Shopping Center in front of Crutchfield.

You can bring televisions, computers, computer screens, all electronics, recycled free of charge, normally that costs about $20 per screen.

No size, no number limitation, bring all you have.

You will not accept refrigerators, air conditioners, or anything that contains gasoline or motor oil and no hazardous waste.

We want to thank the partners who came together to make that drive happen.

Secondly, I'm very pleased to announce that this Friday, January 23rd, the City of Charlottesville is going to be giving away up to 2,000 water conservation kits out in front of City Hall available on a first come, first serve basis.

These are kits that are available through our Public Works Department.

through our water conservation initiative and includes a number of items that will help any resident of our community to save water.

Please do come down and get your free water conservation kit.

Any other announcements?

Some of you were here or may have watched at home when we had a presentation not too long ago about the work of our police department and about the accreditation work that they have gone through.

And we're very pleased tonight to be joined by

Mr. Tim Paul and Mr. Gary Dillon from the Department of Criminal Justice Services who are here to recognize our Charlottesville Police Department for having gone through a very rigorous standardization process, a certification process and I'm very pleased to say they passed with flying colors.

Mayor Norris, City Manager O'Connor, good evening.

I am Tim Paul from the Law Enforcement Services section of the Department of Criminal Justice Services.

I bring you greetings from our director, Len Cook, and from the Secretary of Public Safety, John Marshall.

DCJS is pleased to celebrate this special occasion with the Charlottesville Police Department and the City of Charlottesville.

Our accreditation center is managed by Gillie Dillon,

who is with me this evening.

Gary provides the administrative and logistical support for this program serving our partners, the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police and the Virginia Sheriff's Association.

Together these two associations operate the Virginia Law Enforcement Accreditation Program and enable the ongoing important work of the Commission.

We'll meet today also, and we'll bring him up shortly, is Sheriff F.W.

Howard and also Sheriff Gerald Holt from the Executive Board of the Virginia Law Enforcement Professional Standards Commission.

We are here to recognize the Charlottesville Police Department for its commitment to law enforcement excellence, as evidenced by another successful completion of the recertification process.

All accreditation programs are designed to measure and confirm compliance of participating agencies with the professional standards in whatever discipline or profession they are involved.

It is one of the only means by which citizens and government leaders can be assured that an agency is maintaining the high performance marks to which the community has a right.

In Virginia, law enforcement agencies can seek and achieve accredited status, but they are not required to.

Accreditation in Virginia is completely voluntary.

This fact further distinguishes your police department and your city for their commitment to professionalism and their willingness to be measured by and compared to the best in the profession.

The Virginia Law Enforcement Professional Standards Commission, or LEPSI, was formed in the early 1990s to provide law enforcement agencies in the commonwealth

with an avenue for demonstrating that they meet the current 180 accepted standards for efficient and effective agency operation.

Since then, 72 law enforcement agencies have become accredited under this program.

In February, we expect this prestigious designation to be held by 78 agencies.

In September of 2008, a team of Vlepsie certified assessors assessed the Charlottesville Police Department.

They issued a report to the executive board advising that they had found this agency to be in compliance with all applicable standards as required by the accreditation program.

In October, the executive board met and almost unanimously approved your police department for Vlepsie accreditation.

re-accreditation.

I say almost because you should know that one member who recused himself from that vote was your very own chief, Tim Lango, a valued and respected member of the executive board.

We didn't let him have a voice in there.

What is important about re-accreditation is not just what it proves in the way of standards compliance, but what it demonstrates about the agency, its leadership, and the community that stands behind them.

Accreditation standards change over time with changing law, new court decisions, and developing technology and philosophy.

Becoming reaccredited is a matter of keeping current and adjusting to the society and the community that you serve, always with the goal of providing unparalleled excellence and unquestioned competency on behalf of those who depend on you.

On behalf of the Department of Criminal Justice Services and Secretary Marshall, I congratulate the entire Charlottesville Police Department, Chief Tim Landau, Accreditation Manager Sergeant David Jones and his assistant, Officer Harvey Finkel, and all the men and women sworn and civilian for their hard work, perseverance, and dedication to excellence in completing this process.

At this time I would like to introduce Sheriff Howard

Before I make this presentation, I want to thank you for your service on the Commission

Chief Longo is a valued member.

His integrity has benefited at commission.

He's active and at many times he'll admit that it's not an easy job.

But he's a hardworking member.

We really appreciate all that he's contributed.

And it gives me great pleasure

to read to you the Certificate of Accreditation.

This document certifies that the Charlottesville Police Department came before the Virginia Law Enforcement Professional Standards Commission on October 16, 2008 and is met to requirement set forth by the said commission and is therefore accredited, certified as an accredited agency for a period of 40 years.

Third award.

Mr. Mayor, would you like to say anything?

Believe it or not, I have no prepared remarks, but I am honored to receive this on behalf of the men and women of the Charlottesville Police Department.

As you know, we do our very best to serve this community in a way that exemplifies competence and professionalism.

I think this award this evening just evidences

that commitment.

So we thank you for your time this evening.

Chief, Chief, thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Appreciate it.

Congratulations.

Thank you very much.

We are now going to open our meeting to matters by the public.

As always, we ask you when you come forward to state your name and address and keep your remarks to three minutes.

I live at 74 Grave Street, and I come and talk to you all about the parkway quite a bit.

So I imagine this is no surprise.

But today I wanted to go back to the beginning.

And I've been thinking, you know, how did this whole idea get started anyway?

And when did it really get started?

And I think in order to answer that question, we have to go back to Vinegar Hill.

Because if you think about it, just a couple of years after Vinegar Hill was demolished and the African American business community and residential community was moved off of that land, it only took a couple of years until McIntire Road was built after that.

And the urban renewal, all the redevelopment that they wanted to happen, well that didn't happen for quite a bit longer.

15 years most of those areas sat pretty vacant.

And then just a couple of years after McIntyre Road was built, well then McIntyre Road extended was drawn up for the first time in 1967.

Well, I'd like to move a little bit forward and people ask, you know, this road's been around for 40 years and why hasn't it been built yet?

Why have people been fighting it so hard?

And I think a better question is, is why has it been around for 40 years?

Who keeps bringing it up and who keeps wanting it to be built?

And I think for

For yourselves and people out there in the TV viewing land, a quick answer to that question will be found if you just Google the Free Enterprise Forum and look at the board of directors.

The Free Enterprise Forum has put out several studies

indicating the need for the parkway with fairly bogus material I'd say.

And in addition, people associated with that group have given quite a bit of money to campaigns both in the county and in the city.

If you look at the board of directors, you'll notice that there is a great deal of

overlap between these people who are very much from the Meadow Creek Parkway and people who often also happen to own a lot of land in the area right adjacent to the parkway and are hoping to develop it and to sprawl.

So I would hope that instead of taking that we could as a city move towards the Meadow Creek Bikeway and Nature Preserve that land has been bought already.

I think we could have a lot of buy-in on both sides of the political fence for this project

who could possibly be against a bikeway and nature preserve.

And this would help connect the city and the county in a way that would not add to Sproul Grove and increase demand on our transportation system in general as the parkway would.

So, thank you very much.

I'm sorry, one more thing, which is the interchange money.

If we act quickly, I think we can get that to get pedestrian and bike access across 250 and maybe rework that interchange a bit without the parkway.

Thank you, Mr. Salinas.

Good evening.

I'm Carolyn Micklen, 1608 and a half, Oxford Road.

I'm a city resident and outgoing director of the African American Teaching Fellows Program.

I am speaking in favor of the dialogue on race resolution that is on the calendar this

This is an initiative that should rightly be at the top of your priority list for community-wide initiatives in 2009 and 2010.

and for however many months and years it takes to bring about a significant change in Charlottesville.

Why is change needed in Charlottesville and what does race have to do with it?

While the city can rightly boast of all the times it has been designated at the top of the best relocation and retirement communities in the U.S., I wonder how many of those who compile those lists were aware of the level of poverty in Charlottesville and the attendant social cost.

Were they ever informed that almost 25% of the population lives below the poverty level and that 42% of the African American elementary school children qualify for free lunch?

Did they know that Charlottesville has a high level of single parent families and a high birth rate to teen mothers among African Americans?

So while it is a fine place for people with means to retire to, it isn't such a great place for our citizens who are caught in the cycle of poverty.

What would having a dialogue on race do to improve that situation?

For one thing, it would raise the awareness of white citizens because many of us live in a bubble of comfort, unaware of the realities of other citizens.

For another, it would create a place where people of many backgrounds could meet on common ground, something that doesn't happen very often in Charlottesville.

It would provide an atmosphere where we can listen to and learn from each other.

I would like to share an experience that I had last year that speaks to this point.

Dr. Bernard Hairston, chair of AATF and I went to hear Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum speak at Lynchburg College.

The president of Spelman College and a psychologist, Dr. Tatum is best known as the author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria and Other Conversations About Race.

She was brought to Lynchburg to further the city wide discussions that were based on her book, Why Are All the Black Kids

It was chosen as the Lynchburg Reads Book of the Year.

The community dialogues on race and racism were started as part of Lynchburg Reads.

And if the audience that packed the auditorium that night is an accurate reflection of the discussion groups, a very diverse group of people participated in them.

There were black people, white people, well-to-do people, and some not so well-to-do.

There were elderly people and young people.

Dr. Tyrum is a very good speaker, an Obama-like speaker to my mind.

After her remarks, she initiated a give-and-take with the audience.

She asked how many had participated in the groups.

Many hands went up.

When she asked, did things get hot sometimes?

There was vocal assent.

And when she said, did you come back next time and talk about that?

Again, people agreed.

Therefore, I'm sure you can imagine my excitement at reading.

Well, I came back hoping that AATF would take on the opportunity to bring Dr. Till into town.

And they thought it was too big for such a small, young organization.

But when I wrote in the paper that you were considering dialogues on race, I have to say to you that I hope you will follow the Lynchburg model.

because I saw it in such a kind of intensity and engagement in the room that night.

And those people had worked very hard.

And if we started now for the Charlottesville Reads in 2010, it could go forward.

I was very impressed about what Burlington-Fermont said because they talked about things that had actually been accomplished.

That's what we need in Charlottesville.

Thank you.

Good evening Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, Mr. O'Connell and Mr. Brown.

My name is Morgan Butler and I'm speaking on behalf of the Southern Environmental Law Center tonight.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

I wanted to offer a few words about item number five on your agenda, the stormwater utility program.

Because stormwater runoff is the main cause of local water impairments, we have been following the development of this proposal with much interest.

The condition of the city's stormwater parks is a growing problem and one that gets worse and more expensive to remedy with each passing day.

We commend staff for coming up with the framework for a creative and equitable approach that approaches the fee that property owners would be charged according to their individual impact on the watershed.

It's also worth noting that this fee approach doesn't require money to be taken away from other city priorities.

As a result, we were disappointed to read tonight's staff report and find that staff is now recommending against proceeding further at this time.

We certainly recognize that a new fee, which is always tough to swallow, is particularly unpalatable during these economically challenging times.

As I believe Counselor Brown pointed out during a discussion of this proposal last fall, the fact that this problem is buried underground and out of sight makes it an easy one to ignore.

But the list of broken and defective pipes only gets longer and more expensive to fix every time we pump this issue to some future date.

With construction costs lower now than they've been in recent memory, this may actually be the most cost-effective time to finally tackle this problem.

In addition to real cost, the administrative costs of delay are also worth considering.

Even if we wait just two or three years, much of the research and the cost estimates on which this proposal is built could become stale and may need to be redone.

It will also be a challenge to recreate the momentum that has helped to get the proposal even to this point.

Finally, every time we decide to delay, we lose credibility when we must again attempt to explain the urgency of the situation.

Therefore, we urge you not to table this proposal, but rather to direct staff to continue to develop it and to begin planning for its implementation.

Perhaps there is a lower fee level that could be pursued in the short term that would get the program off the ground and generate some funding without putting too heavy a burden on residents right now.

If you do decide to tailor it, we encourage you at the very least to revisit it much sooner than the two to three years recommended in the staff report.

We're already playing catch up in maintaining our stormwater infrastructure and any additional delay only compounds the problem and the price tag.

Thank you, Mr. Ballmer.

Good evening Mr. Mayor and members of council.

My name is Joe Johnson and I reside at 823-D, Howard and John.

As a resident of the city of Charlottesville, I am concerned about the social

economic, political and environmental health of our city.

As a city of national acclaim, we must make certain that all aspects of human interaction are positive and productive.

It is this latter issue that I rise to speak tonight.

Race relations in our city have been varied and pervasive.

We are blessed to still have with us a champion of school desegregation whose actions improve educational opportunity for all children, African American and white.

We are fortunate to have experienced the university transition from an all-white male institution to a multicultural and multiracial institution of higher learning that is a force in our city.

We are all grateful for the hard work by the poor, marginalized, courageous women and brave men who have given so much to make Charlottesville a living environment that is attractive to many throughout the nation.

However, there will be much work to be done to ensure greater fairness, equity, opportunity, and justice for all citizens of our city, especially

Does this apply to African American community?

Sadly, racism remains as a scar on our city records.

Such a novel or social disease only serves to diminish the quality of life for many in our city, simply because of the color of their skin.

Racism weakens all, white and black.

Racism is costly and ineffective in decision making.

Racism is every and irresponsive to the positive development of our children and parents, city staff, public policy decision maker, and the general welfare of the environment.

Councilwoman Edwards has proposed a series of educational programs that are targeted to address in a major way

the issue of racism that confronts our city.

It is so very critical that her proposal be adopted in support of Philly for implementation.

Racism will not disappear of its own record.

Racism must be eradicated through forceful, intelligent efforts on the part of all of us.

Councilwoman Edwards' proposal is an excellent step towards the goal of moving our city towards more responsible hiring practices, fair and through recognition of service towards promotion.

improve human relation with customer service and expansion of programming activity to successfully address the legacy of racial discrimination in our city.

I call upon you to join in the financial and moral support of Councilwoman Edward's proposal.

Look upon this as an opportunity to do the right thing for all the right reason.

Thank you, Ms. Johnson.

Is there anybody else in the audience who would like to speak?

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

Is there anybody that would like to comment?

Okay, I think partly because most of the issues that were raised during matters by the public are on our agenda for discussion momentarily.

So we will move forward.

Thank you all who came to speak tonight.

The next item on our agenda is the consent agenda.

We have a number of items for our consideration tonight.

Item A, approving minutes of November 25th, December 15th and January 5th.

Item B is an appropriation of $93,411.86, skate park reimbursement from Albemarle County, second of two meetings.

Item C is an appropriation of $160,000 Homeland Security Grant for the power plant, first of two readings.

Item D is an appropriation of $3,000 Gold Green Challenge Award from the Virginia Municipal League, first of two readings.

Item E, an appropriation of $23,000 reimbursement from Piedmont Housing Alliance for sale in John Street Lots, first of two meetings.

Item F, an appropriation of $13,500 reallocation of housing opportunities made equal, home funds for CityMatch, first of two meetings.

Item G, an appropriation of $13,382 a grant for circuit court records preservation, first of two meetings.

Item H is a resolution in the Home Energy Conservation Grant Program, first of one meeting.

Item I is a resolution reallocation of funds for energy conservation program, first of one reading.

Item J is an ordinance conveyance of visitor center on route 20 south to commonwealth of Virginia, second of two readings.

Item K is an ordinance development review process, second of two readings.

And item L is an ordinance increase in fees for site plan approvals, second of two readings.

Okay, so it's been amended to reflect potential use of funds for solar energy improvements?

Yes.

Is that the only amendment?

That's correct.

Okay.

Second.

Any discussion?

Please indicate your vote.

Motion carries.

Thank you very much mayor and council.

Very quickly, City and County both own Ivy Creek as well as the tenant house and the County takes the lead in terms of leasing this house, doing the advertising for bids and so on and so forth.

Steve and Debbie McVeigh have been long time tenants there and have

have recently been going month to month.

The county recently has taken action to update their lease and have already taken action at their January 7th meeting.

Basically, under the responsibilities, the new lease will

We have the tenants pay $150 a month to the county, very similar to the Ragged Mountain lease that we used to have, as well as similar to the Darden Tow lease.

They are responsible for a multitude of duties, including opening and closing gates, some custodial services, customer care, emergency repair, as well as some landscaping and bowing responsibilities.

Basically, we're recommending that the lease go forward,

Any questions?

Thank you, Mr. Stutz.

We will now open the public hearing.

Is there anybody from the public that would like to speak on this matter?

We will close the public hearing.

Any questions or comments or a motion to approve?

I'll move the ordinance.

Wonderful leadership on behalf of our Parks and Recreation Department.

You've really taken our Parks and Recreation Department to a whole new level.

So thank you and best wishes to you and your family in your next adventure out west.

And welcome Mr. Daley, at least on an interim basis, he'll be trying to fill your shoes, and thank you both.

Let's give him a round of applause.

Next item on our agenda is a report on our Green City vision.

Good evening, Councillors and City Manager, Mr. Mayor.

I'm very glad to be here and we have a couple of items that we have tried to cram into this report and so, just as a road map, there's some background, there are, it's an overview of programs that we have been doing, how we see that moving forward, and we have a specific topic about climate protection and some ideas related to that program.

and then some recommendations and actions coming out of our Citizens Committee.

There are some specific actions we're looking, or direction we're looking on those and then overall endorsement or discussion and input on the proposal in general.

Again, for the benefit of the listeners, I'd like to provide a little bit of background on the city established

and Environmental Division in 2002 within the Department of Public Works and very shortly thereafter issued a environmental sustainability policy and that policy focused on stewardship principles of conservation, cooperation, compliance and restoration.

We began many of those efforts in a fairly inward looking approach using an environmental management system which is

a process based on an international standard to look program by program and in a phased manner at what improvements were available within our own operations and we have very much seen both improvements on the compliance side as well as on the performance side in various of those operations and with Mike Svetz and Brian Daley's commitment and support we've done quite a bit specifically in the Parks and Rec Division or Department.

Parallel efforts that we've been successfully implemented over the past years include efforts related to energy conservation heard quite a bit from Lance Stewart recently.

Greener fleet practices, whether that is anti-idling policies or specific decisions about the types of vehicles, the number of vehicles and the type of fuel we use.

Specific commitments about green building practices and actually achieving green building certifications.

Many years of waste management and recycling programs, curbside program and then street protection.

We've also done a number of demonstration projects, specifically a green leaf park with a rain garden, the green roof on city hall, always to say that there's a lot that we're bringing forward that what we are hoping to do now is take some of the next steps.

A very important decision in 2006 was for the city to become signatory to the US Mayor Climate Protection Agreement.

Promptly thereafter, city council appointed a sustainability committee who was tasked with examining potential sustainability issues

and proposing actionable recommendations to council to help move us forward in this sustainability goal.

A summary of those recommendations has been provided in your packet and we'll talk about a few specific items tonight.

2007, city council issued the vision statement for 2025 and there's a very clear environmental sustainability goal spelled out in that and more specifically a vision of a green city and I'll speak to that again in a few minutes.

2007, we published a comprehensive plan

which really expanded on goals and objectives and strategies on a whole range of environmental initiatives including climate protection, including stream protection, including green buildings.

And then in 2008, again, a fairly significant accomplishment of completing a community emissions baseline report looking at

where all the emissions throughout the community of Charlottesville are coming from both the municipal side, the residential side, and the commercial side.

Again, doing that has put us in a position to start considering and acting on some of the big next steps.

So one of the things I'd like to point you at in your packet, attachment B has a fairly colorful matrix and I'd like to say from the get-go this is not intended to be a prescriptive work plan and it's not supposed to be a new proposal but we're trying to do both for our own benefit and for the benefit of the community and folks that we're trying to speak to on a whole range of issues is to set a clear context

about why we're doing some of these things and why we're talking about some of these initiatives, that it isn't the flavor of the month, but that we continue to try to supplement steps and actions and efforts to move this community forward on this Green City vision.

So given the experience and the background that we've presented and that we are happy to expand on, we see this as an opportunity to further the city's sustainability vision

both within the municipal organization and within the broader community.

And we see that this would be a strategy that builds on strategy that you all have issued and that was published that links both existing and new initiatives in this more comprehensive context.

So the proposed Green City strategy in this format is intended to build on the effective programs and practices

in a manner that's consistent with the strategic plan and consistent with the comprehensive plan.

It incorporates resource conservation both on the energy and water side.

It incorporates climate and water protection efforts.

So if you look at the matrix and you look on the left hand side, essentially the point we're trying to demonstrate here is that your Green City vision can be used as the overarching directive for both our internal and our community sustainability efforts.

And we feel like a comprehensive directive like this will really help bring more stakeholders together, more abilities, more interests, and more expertise in many of these areas.

As we talk about our internal efforts, we see the opportunity to use a city green team.

We had started a group like that to talk very specifically about energy and fuel savings, but we recognize that there are many topics that are broad reaching throughout city organization that the input and the insight of our colleagues on these issues will be beneficial.

It's critical that these not be seen even within our own organization as discreetly environmental proposals or

proposals out of a specific department, but these are city-wide goals and efforts to move forward.

So as I said, this matrix essentially tries to organize various programs, various themes such as climate protection and sustainability, the entire and very critical theme of compliance issues, water protection issues, and then both the internal and the community education

and outreach issues.

Again, this is a working document.

It's supposed to show the interrelatedness and the connections between many initiatives, many of which are met whose leadership and responsibility falls either to other departments and even other agencies.

but again if we're talking about a community vision we need to recognize that there's a lot of folks who play a very critical role in moving us forward and you'll see there are quite a number of blanks in the matrix and that's by design because we don't want to claim that we have it all figured out today but that as we move forward working towards a 20-25 vision is a dynamic process so as I mentioned we're intending to portray the green city vision as the overall strategy

and we would look forward to certainly thoughts from any of you and from the community on how to fill in some of the blanks.

As many of you have known, really good ideas have come up out of our own staff or out of the community.

We want to be able to organize that and harness that momentum and the energy and the interest in a way that helps us really push our general goals forward rather than having to shift things aside in order to take advantage of a very time opportunity.

Moving on to the critical piece at the top here, which is the climate protection program.

This is a very key element to strategy.

As I mentioned, we completed the baseline report, and I have said in a previous presentation, that was almost the easy part because there are no hard decisions to make about what has been done.

It's a bean counting exercise, but now that we know the beans, it's the time to take the next steps

of a process which includes setting reduction goals and then working through and establishing a local action plan to actually pursue those goals.

And we have been referring to that local action plan as a climate and sustainability action plan because we recognize we've been talking about sustainability goals even before we were talking about climate protection goals.

We have been exploring opportunities to do this action planning process with our neighbors, university and the county and at a staff level we've been having that coordination and collaboration for years and we're looking to actually look at formalizing that on a broader scale.

All three entities have a strong interest in energy efficiency and in working together on identifying strategies for climate protection.

The planning process that we envision will engage a range of city programs as well as community sectors and stakeholders.

A few points to bring up is that each of the three entities either has or will soon complete their greenhouse gas emissions baseline report.

Each of the three entities has expressed publicly a willingness to evaluate strategies

that can result in emissions reductions.

The proposal which we have spoken about with staff and with a number of you

It includes both a local and a regional approach to cooperate and collaborate on both efforts and commitments with regards to climate protection.

We all recognize that we have things we can do within our own jurisdiction, but there are many things that if we look at them from the regional perspective, we may look at some issues from that different perspective.

And a good example are some current efforts between the city and the county and the university

to put together a joint grant application very specific to address gaps and needs of energy efficiency in our community.

We'd like to point out that staff feels very strongly and it's been discussed at some length with our management that a regional steering committee would be very critical to this process.

Many planning processes require a steering committee and it brings both the credibility, the insight, the expertise, lines of communication to this process.

So we'd like to have that continue.

Staff has been and will continue to work on a straw man for this action plan.

We have been spending a fair bit of time looking at best practices from other communities, trying to see which

which of those practices make good sense for Charlottesville.

We have the good fortune of having Cynthia Adams on our staff now and she will be helping facilitate this process and as we move forward we envision various working groups being brought together to really bring their expertise on these various approaches and those groups will draw from both the interest and the knowledge in this community.

Staff can wrap ourselves up in an office and publish an action plan, but it's unlikely that that will be effective or well received.

So as I said, we're working with the city and the county, or we're working with the county and UVA on a joint grant application.

Last week, the board of supervisors actually passed two related resolutions on this topic, and I've brought copies of those.

These are their verbatim resolutions.

One specifically speaks to the collaboration on this joint grant proposal and other strategies related to climate protection.

And the other pertains to a request to the General Assembly for Albemarle County to join the city in receiving the authority to set up a clean energy financing program.

And I believe you can speak to that a bit more.

and we can, I guess, talk about this afterwards.

Specifically, the Citizens Committee on Environmental Sustainability, which has now finished out its two years of existence, has been very important in setting that stage for the city for the next critical steps for climate protection.

The committee was broken up into four groups and one was very specifically focusing on climate protection and over the last two years, we have seen many of the recommendations and many of the discussions

Circling back to the topic of climate protection, we had a meeting with them in December and the group in attendance recognized the opportunity and the need to dissolve the committee in its current configuration in order to help support the climate action planning process and many of them we see being very active and involved in that process.

There were three specific items that I'd like to bring up from that committee at this time.

One is a formal proposal as we had in the past.

The committee would like to see the city adopt a policy similar to the policy that Albemarle County passed called the Safe Chemical Management Program.

And it essentially is an inward looking commitment on the use of a whole range of chemicals, whether it's custodial, maintenance,

Land Turf Management, etc.

And the discussion is essentially, staff agrees that these are good ideas.

There are already quite a number of practices in place and our Parks Department already uses an Integrated Pest Management Program for its land management.

I know that the city schools have also incorporated quite a number of these practices in their own operations.

So the step that's missing is that comprehensive review across all of the uses of chemicals and then a form of policy.

So staff's recommendation is to use this city green team that I mentioned earlier to really do that review and not issue it out of context.

The point being, if we set this broader context, we can use this team to really evaluate across the board what components of the Albemarle County proposal make good sense for us to put in a formal proposal as well.

I think just go ahead and go through them.

The second one is not necessarily a proposal but the folks in attendance at the last meeting wanted to state for the record their opposition to the installation of artificial turf on any public properties including school properties.

And again, we understand that there are

jurisdiction issues between the city and the school system but they wanted that on the record.

And the final topic was a topic which has come up since summer of 2007 in the sustainability committee and it pertains to solar energy collection from municipal buildings and municipal property.

In January of last year that was a recommendation that came forward and council approved tasking staff essentially to research

the Red Earth and the logistics and where do we go next.

By my own admittance we were short staffed to really focus on this topic but the topic has continued to move forward and now with Lance Stewart's input and with Cynthia Adams' research we've had a chance to do quite a bit more discussing and consulting with professionals both locally and across the nation on

What would be the best practical next step for a city?

Is it to do a demonstration project which can be quite expensive or do you look at what the possibility and the potentials are and evaluate those in the context of the existing legislation or the legislation that could be coming?

in order to make well-informed decisions at such time when more funds are available.

The potential costs for this study were reported to be in the $25,000 to $50,000 range, and there were recommendations to consider using green city funds to pursue this.

An alternative to that proposal, of course, would be not to do this, and another alternative would be to roll it into the climate and sustainability action planning process

and to look for some funding mechanisms or possibilities in the future.

Those are the range of issues that I wanted to bring forward to you is essentially the summary and overview of where we are in terms of a green city vision, some specific thoughts and recommendations on the climate protection program and then these three items from the sustainability committee.

I'd like to thank council for the commitment and the input and involvement you all have had on a lot of these things to date.

Thank you very much Ms. Rittervold and both for your report tonight and for your dynamic leadership on this whole range of issues and your staff, Mr. Frisbee, Ms. Adams.

Thank you.

Questions, comments?

Yeah, I'd just like to certainly commend you all for what you've done on this and I think creating this regional partnership is really great because that obviously

Any other questions or comments before we get an individual?

And I also want to thank Dr. Brown for his work on the Sustainability Committee and your leadership on these issues as well.

I had a question about the Sustainability Committee.

Your recommendation, and I understand their recommendation as well, as you said, is to fold that into this regional climate action planning effort, which makes a whole lot of sense.

I certainly want to take this time to acknowledge and recognize all the members of the Sustainability Committee, and then we have a letter going out to them individually.

I publicly thank them for their work in bringing forward critical issues for our consideration in the last couple of years.

We've had informal discussions and I've had follow-up discussions with Mr. Tolbert about the one aspect of the sustainability committee that doesn't neatly fold into a regional climate action planning process which has more to do with issues of urban ecology, whether that's streams, trees, whatever, that making sure that we maintain some

effort initiative on those issues so it doesn't get derailed by our interest in a regional climate action plan.

I wonder if you could address it.

I haven't had any further conversations, but certainly my thoughts would be folks with really good ideas that we can't fit neatly into this planning process

by all means don't need to be put on hold if they're good ideas then I think it behooves all of us to take the time to work on them I think what we need to be able to do is acknowledge a priority for a year's effort on the climate issue but not couch a number of other important issues and I think one of our discussions was that many of the urban ecology issues if that's what they're appropriately called have to do with development and redevelopment and many times

Well, and I think everyone knows that

If you have a lot of time to talk about any topic, you can tie it to a climate, even if the perspective is that certain critical species are indicators of things changing.

Just on that topic, I think it's a good point.

If you really look at the recommendations that came out of the committee to us tonight, two of the three recommendations are really not exactly climate recommendations for safe chemical management program and opposition to artificial turf.

I look at some of the accomplishments of the committee in the last year have been things such as

creating an environmental checklist to use in the development process.

Thank you.

So we have before us tonight three or two, I guess two

I have two recommendations, policy recommendations, the first of which is adoption or consideration of a safe chemical management program and the staff recommendation is simply that we task staff with the City Green Team to pursue evaluation of a safe chemical management program mirrored on Albemarle Counties.

Is there any

Good idea.

Good idea.

Okay, so you've got the green light on that one.

No pun intended.

No pun intended.

The artificial turf, that's just a statement for the record.

Could we learn more about the schools also?

I think actually as a matter of fact, the school board has already taken a position in favor of artificial turf field at Charlottesville High School, similar to what the county has done.

They're available match funds.

So I think it's an issue which

and certainly needs to be brought up again.

We'll follow up with the school board on that one.

And thirdly, the staff proposal regarding the solar feasibility study, can you give us a sense of what the current balance is in the Green City account?

It is about $45,000.

As confident as I can be on January 20th, 2009.

We have had informal conversations with folks that do these types of studies, and those were the numbers.

No, I'm just wondering, will the staff do so with no poverty or no?

The staff has not done a solar feasibility study per se, I mean we know rooftop space, we know certain facts but we don't necessarily have the capacity or expertise internally to say in the big picture of the utility realm and the legislation and what's being discussed in these next couple weeks of the legislation and how do you

Would it be fair to say that you all have a lot of information that could be used by someone doing a study that they wouldn't have to gather?

And we would definitely have to work with the... And you already have done, you've gathered some information anyway.

And I don't know, Cynthia, if you want anything to add or... Well, I mean, we have the GIS information, which would help a lot with respect to that.

And we have all of the information from the STIRs and advocacy initiatives.

and our new performance contract.

One of the items that we put at the very end of Inattachment C, there's a little summary.

I think the timeliness and what we've learned about the usefulness of going through a study has only become more clear as we move forward towards potential stimulus dollars, potential interest in alternative renewable energies.

In the climate change recommendations of the Governor's Committee, there are a couple of recommendations that are going to come forward, hopefully come forward in this session that would address this issue.

Yes, there are a couple of things coming forward that might be useful.

So it's not just a voice from the audience.

Excuse me.

Jim Brown, who has sat on our sustainability committee, recently forwarded an email to us letting us know about some legislation that David Toscano was going to be presenting

on solar and there are a couple very important things in that piece of legislation that would remove barriers currently in place now.

For example, increasing the allowance to two megawatts for aggregate

My client or customer would allow something like a municipal utility to actually take shape, allowing aggregate sourcing, so say for example if you're one client but you have several different buildings and you'd like to be able to pool your energy and say this building doesn't take very much energy but it's got a great rooftop and we want to be able to use the energy from this building over here on the one that's got

allows a solar option that uses a lot of energy.

So there's a couple of different things in that one bill, if it were passed, that would be very useful to a larger scale and more inclusive outlook for solar for the city.

There's also some national initiatives.

Obama has said in his stimulus package he's hoping to have $150 billion put forward to energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Our governor is also seeking to increase the renewable portfolio standard for the state of Virginia to 15% by, I think it's 2025, which again means that our utility companies have to find a way to make their 15% in renewable energy, which

is to our benefit if we're seeking to pursue that as a community.

What you're seeing is that people are thinking in broader terms.

It's not just, although it is very important, it's not just about residential solar energy projects.

I think what we are hoping to see is a range of options, that if you had x amount of dollars, here is one road that you might take as a city.

If you are thinking more in terms of let's say a municipal utility, here is another road that you might take.

We're hoping to get feedback on the latest technologies that are out there currently as well as ones that are coming down the pike that might be of benefit or use to us.

We're also hoping to seek some good suggestions and guidance on partnerships that we might form.

that we might form between the utility, whether that's a dominion or ways that we might use state or federal monies in order to develop a program maybe akin to what the Department of Energy is doing with its Solar Cities program.

Well, aren't we also, just on a very practical level, looking for guidance on which sites would make the best places to situate, solar panels, etc., and what we were told from Jim Brown is that none of the solar panel operating companies that might partner with the city are going to be interested in partnering with us if they aren't

Right.

Yes, you're absolutely right.

And to that end as well, I think we're also hoping to get more information on how that affects warranties, how that might affect maintenance, just with the structures and the buildings themselves.

So it's... To your point, it's a range of information we're hoping to get, both from the very discrete, what buildings could we use, what the return on investment would be, what we can expect from the technologies, all the way to

I would be very interested in very specific locations that would be usable because you can do something about it.

The general ideas would be fine too.

I would be more interested in where you could use the solar.

I guess in some internal discussion with staff, we thought that $25,000 to $50,000 really isn't that much money if you're talking about a PV installation, but you could glean a lot of very useful information from that amount of money for a feasibility study.

One of my interests would be, if we did a study, would be a way of not limiting it to municipal buildings.

But because, you know, just like in every other area, what we can do as a city is small compared to what the community as a whole can do.

I agree with Dr. Drell's approach.

Okay.

Well, I think one of the things that we can certainly look into doing that makes good sense is what sorts of barriers are currently in place that we might help our citizens to overcome?

What kind of information or outreach can we provide them to make the process smoother?

What are our assets that already exist in the community who are doing the installations, who are the consultants that we can speak to and

Okay, I think the timing on this is excellent.

It's positioning us well for the changes that are occurring on the state and federal levels, and I commend you for moving this forward.

I do support it very much.

And in the meantime, there may be other funds that come down to help cover these costs, but at least we're prepared to proceed with an allocation once you've got one outlined for us in more detail.

So, Mr. Ray, the other issue that was brought up is cooperation between the city and the county and the university.

And the county at their last meeting issued a resolution supporting us working together.

I think there were a few actions the Board of Supervisors specifically wanted to do in that one was

agreement to participate in this joint grant application as an initial discrete commitment and then see where that leads us regionally in terms of broader energy efficiency and climate protection strategy discussions.

If everyone here is in agreement that the regional approach makes good sense, I'm not sure we need a resolution.

I think if we simply endorse or

I would suggest we go ahead and do a resolution.

The one that was endorsed by the county supervisors is pretty straightforward.

I'll go ahead and read it and see if there is interest in signing on.

Whereas addressing energy efficiency and climate change will promote a cleaner environment, a more prosperous economy, and a higher quality of life.

And whereas the county of Albemarle, the city of Charlottesville, and the University of Virginia have committed to promoting energy efficiency and climate change,

programs within their respective organizations and whereas the county, city and university desire to work collaboratively to promote energy efficiency and address climate change goals for the community, now therefore be it resolved that the Charlottesville City Council supports the county, city and university working cooperatively to discuss energy and climate change opportunities including collaborating on developing a joint proposal for the Southeastern Energy Efficiency Alliance grant

So moved.

It's been moved and seconded.

Any further discussion?

You're talking about the solar?

We haven't had any conversations with them to work on this.

We can inquire.

Before we leave this, I'd like to also point out the other resolution that the county passed, which is not appropriate for us to consider as a resolution, but I think it's very interesting, is that they passed a resolution requesting the same enabling legislation that we have already asked

the Virginia to give us involving sort of the clean energy financing program that we've been discussing.

And I think it's another good area of showing cooperation.

And so I think it's a very positive area where I think we can work well together.

And then you're just looking for a general blessing on your Green City strategy.

Yeah, we met with PACTEC last week and just the Planning and Coordination Council Technical Committee.

So it's city, county, and university staff and elected representatives who talk about planning and coordination.

We essentially provided them a similar summary of the approach,

on the steering committee, working groups, there was some discussion about whether it's a plan or a strategy, you know, what the outcomes are and I think we still feel in any case because we signed the Mayor's Climate Agreement after we finish our baseline, we have to come up with an action plan and whether a regional strategy helps get us there, great.

I think some of the logistics about who and how that steering committee is finally appointed is yet to be worked out between the three entities.

I think it's a point well taken that ultimately our representatives will want to give them our blessing and official support.

Absolutely.

He's expressed his willingness to pursue that idea and to see that forward.

Thank you.

Good evening Mr. Mayor and members of City Council.

During your retreat last fall, you identified race relations as one of your top priorities.

I believe that was based on a concern that you had that beneath the surface of our everyday activities here in the Charlottesville area, there remains a level of distrust and unease concerning the issues of race and discrimination.

and based on experience and history of folks here in Charlottesville.

Unfortunately, we tend to revisit some of those issues during times of controversy and without the proper context and deliberation that's necessary to get to the root cause of

Obviously the problem of strange race relations is not exclusive to Charlottesville.

Many communities around the country have engaged in thoughtful discussions on the issues of race and racism, and we've spent the last few months taking a look at their experiences, talking to them, and learning how those experiences may or may not work here in Charlottesville.

I'd also like to stress to you that there have been attempts to address the issue of race in our community in the past but they've either been short lived or very specific in scope.

What we are hoping to accomplish now is a certain level of sustainability in our approach.

Our issues with race did not develop overnight and they certainly will not be solved or changed overnight.

It will take many months of discussion and ultimately action to truly address the tensions that exist in our community.

Our research led us to cities like Dayton, Ohio, Little Rock, Arkansas, Burlington, Vermont, Richmond, Virginia, and Lynchburg, Virginia.

And ultimately what we recognized as a key to success in many of those cases was the need for residents to sit down with one another and begin a conversation.

To begin to understand their different backgrounds and experiences.

And to understand why many in their communities felt disenfranchised.

whether through the lens of reality or perception.

So we are proposing to you tonight the development of a community-wide dialogue on race using the study circle model of discussion.

This model utilizes small group discussion, usually 10 to 15 people in a group, to discuss their personal experiences, identify concerns in their community, and generate ideas for community consideration.

The discussions would focus on race, racism, and diversity here in Charlottesville.

Each study circle session would be moderated by a trained facilitator who would guide these discussion groups.

Each discussion group would last from one to two hours and they would take on an agreed number of visits to complete their discussion assignment.

This initiative would involve the hiring of a facilitation team with experience in this type of work that would come to Charlottesville and help train local volunteers to serve as facilitators.

This team will also help us set realistic goals for this discussion.

Setting these objectives with the help of our residents and working towards their achievement will be critical to our eventual success.

We have spoken to several of these types of organizations and believe there will be great interest in working with our residents here in Charlottesville.

Another important key to success would be the involvement of folks from every segment of our community.

Engagement should include representatives from every walk of life.

Residents, businesses, churches, schools, non-profit groups like the NAACP, FAR, and VAP, and of course the University of Virginia.

Those are just a few that come to mind.

If we fail to attract a wide range of people with different perspectives, we risk simply preaching to the choir and will limit our level of success.

We have had many discussions with some of those representatives and the response thus far has been very encouraging.

Many of the residents and community leaders we have spoken with believe Charlottesville is overdue for an honest, open, and sustained discussion on the issue of race.

Despite our well-earned rankings as a top city to live, work, and play, there are many in our community who either still carry the wounds of past injustices or continue to be affected by discrimination or the perception of discrimination today.

While others in our community aren't aware of the deep distrust that exists in certain segments of our city, it's a distrust that unfortunately keeps many minorities from becoming involved in issues of critical importance to their future and the future of our city.

We see this proposed dialogue as one step in that process of bringing people together and back into the public discussion in an inclusive manner that produces positive results.

I'd also like to highlight that although this initiative would be initially driven by the city government, it must ultimately be driven by our community.

The city can only do so much in healing the wounds of the past and address the issues of our present and our future.

Our residents and businesses must play a critical role as we move forward.

From a budgetary perspective, the cost of hiring a facilitation team for training varies, but the average is somewhere between $1,000 to $2,000 per day, including food and lodging.

Travel expenses are not included in those costs.

There will be additional costs including a proposed part-time coordinator who would assist with administrative and logistical support for one year.

Additional costs include

in some cases food and refreshments for participants, for instance a major kickoff that we would hold in the fall, printing and supplies, rental of meeting spaces, and marketing.

We do not expect our costs to exceed $10,000 in fiscal year 2009, and they could range from $30,000 to $50,000 in fiscal year 2010.

We are also developing a plan to approach local foundations and corporate groups to serve as project partners with the city.

Many of the cities that we researched were very successful in helping to raise private funds for their efforts.

So tonight we ask the council to consider the following actions.

If we were to have a concept of a community dialogue on race, the authorization of a request for proposal for facilitation services,

The approval of a request for funding in the fiscal year 2010 budget, or the proposed budget, for training expenses and a one-year part-time contract employee, and the approval of a fall 2009 community dialogue kickoff.

I really like the looks of what you've done with this.

I think what you point out is we do have an issue and race is a very difficult issue for people to talk about and people are uncomfortable with.

I'm guessing or I'm hoping what this will do will create a dialogue within the community whereby we can get people together and people will lay all the cards on the table and say what they think and try to create an atmosphere where people are comfortable and will share their concerns is what I would hope from that.

I also just want to mention that I realize that

that some of these issues within the city organization are being addressed by I guess human resources.

But I would hope in this process that we could have some city employees involved in this because I think it's important because

within the city workforce there's sometimes perceptions and I think we need to address that and I think so the other two issues are that with the city workforce because they touch everyone in the community you have the issue of you know the

Internal issues, how employees treat one another, which causes issues sometimes.

And then of course the other side of the coin is the external issues, whereby our employees who serve people from the community, how they treat them.

I'll start with the internal discussions.

Galloway Beck is leading our diversity efforts.

He's our human resources director.

At the same time, Gary O'Connell, our city manager, is engaging in a discussion with our lead team concerning issues of workplace, of what it's like to be in our workplace, and that includes the discussion of diversity and race as well.

But it's not exclusive about that.

There are other issues.

I think that is definitely a part of what we're considering as we move forward, not only with the dialogue but with our own internal discussions on issues of diversity.

an important issue for the city of Charlottesville and it continues to be an important issue for the city of Charlottesville as well.

And we just need to work on communication both internally and externally on those issues.

As for your concerns about the

about the external dialogue.

I think you're right.

I think there are times in which discussions on race are very uncomfortable, but the message that we need to send and the message that was sent in previous discussions in other cities is that it's not going to be comfortable, and there may be some hurt feelings, at least initially in this process, but that's part of the healing process as well.

And so I hope that people will come into this knowing that that may occur.

Yeah, it's very important who we employ to do that.

That's true.

About two decades ago, I was involved with the city staff in the association discussions, which resulted in employment, schools, and some other issues.

And it took some time and effort.

I think there must be some reports of that nature somewhere in the library.

But I would hope that you would look at them also.

I also support the ideas dialogue.

I think it would be

Well, in our discussions with other cities, one of the things that they talked about, Mr. Huja, was the concern about the logistical and administrative support for this type of endeavor.

In Lynchburg, they have over 700 people who've been a part of this, upwards of a thousand by the time it's all said and done, and so you're talking about 50 or so plus groups to try to arrange meeting times for and spaces and that type of thing.

Mr. Taliaferro has mentioned that we hope that we will include our own organization also in this tunnel.

I'd like to thank you for the way you put this together.

In particular, I appreciate the fact that you included links to the city so we could kind of

look around a little bit for ourselves as to what the different places have done.

I have a few comments and concerns, and one comment I want to make just to bring it out publicly is the big advocate on city council has been Holly Edwards, and she's not here tonight, but it's my understanding that she wanted us to go ahead and have this discussion in her absence.

But I think if we get bogged down, I think we should wait until we have her input if we need it.

The main thing that concerns me about this is the cost.

I think if we're looking at $40,000 to $60,000 over the next couple of years, I think we need to be careful about the things we spend $40,000 to $60,000 on in the next couple of years.

kind of Mr. Huja brought up on the last issue.

So I'm pleased to hear that you have had some discussions about trying to get widespread community support through foundations or the private sector to help with this.

I do think it's an important initiative.

I guess I have a couple of questions.

One is the $30,000 to $60,000 figure that includes the staff assistance.

Yes.

Okay.

And I can think of a number of organizations whose mission kind of overlaps with this initiative.

The Quality Community Council, the Virginia Organizing Project Impact.

We didn't want to take the discussion too far without having direction from council.

But we have had primary discussions with them and some folks at the University of Virginia as well.

Kind of like in the way in which it's often an important development proposal to get the neighborhood involved, I like to make sure before we go too far down the path of exactly what this is going to look like, that we consult those organizations and make sure everyone is kind of comfortable with what's being proposed and sees it as a good plan and perhaps has some input that makes it a better plan.

We've talked a lot lately about outsourcing, the importance of trying to hire local and employ local.

Another concern I have, looking through these materials, it seems like the people who are experts on this,

But it seems like they're often out of city, out of state.

Well Hope in the Cities is a Richmond based company and they worked with the city of Richmond and they've worked with a number of cities across the country.

It would be exciting if we could have it be something where we supported the local talent, the people who have been working on this issue locally.

I don't know if that's feasible.

I mean, it may be that we really want a specific type of expertise to come in here.

But when I read this and I thought about hiring, you know, spending $60,000 on someone who spends that money in another part of the country, it would be nice to be paying someone locally who's paying

local rent and local restaurants and supporting the city.

So I generally support it.

I kind of guess I'd like to make sure we get some input from other organizations.

I'd like to set it up so that we approve this with the idea we are going to get financial support from other entities.

I'd be willing, for example, to

to make a commitment that we would pay up to $5,000 of the $10,000 you proposed for 2009 and that we would pay up to $15,000 of the $40,000 to $60,000 that you proposed of the

The only concern that I have about

adding a matching portion to this is having an understanding that we are in slow economic times.

So it may be harder to get, for instance, corporate support or a lot of corporate support.

Would you be open to, at least for the first year, go ahead and approve 10,000 and hold off on a discussion on next year's funds until we have

If it's a decision, if it's a process, if we're building a sidewalk and you ask me if I would spend half of it now and then talk about paying for the rest of it, I would say no, it's not really a good idea, let's figure out how we're going to pay for it.

Yeah, I think that we could certainly phase it in if that's the concern and we could address the facilitation services up front because I think that's going to be a cost there and then council can come back and reconsider during the budget.

We're going to be talking about other specific things that we can do that cost money

that in this economic climate are going to be important initiatives and we're not going to be able to do them all.

I mean, there are going to be some things that we all agree are important that we're going to decide, you know, we can't take all the money away from storm water and fund our own social programs this year and so my concern is committing ourselves to this tonight before the budget

It kind of takes some flexibility away from us.

My concern is that we go ahead and move forward with this.

I know it's an important initiative, but I worry about the money.

I mean, it's $60,000.

It's an excellent point.

What we're really asking for is that we could include it within the budget for next year, and then during the budget season, the council could certainly reconsider the issue and the funding.

We're not asking for the money right now necessarily.

It's to ask to put it into the proposed budget for council to consider during the budget process.

Well, like I said, we are developing that plan.

We're beginning to have some of those discussions with businesses in the community and we've actually had some folks who are affiliated with foundations demonstrate some interest.

Well, I generally agree with that.

I just don't want to do anything to hamstring this thing and I want to make sure we do it right when we do it and I don't want to do it halfway because I think everyone wants it to be successful.

If you can find some money, so be it.

What we're saying is we're not ready to commit to a dollar figure yet on year two.

You're not asking us to commit to a dollar figure yet on year two.

You're looking for general approval of this concept and at least approval of some funding to get it started out of this year's budget.

I'd like to make a motion that we can help you discuss further.

Yes.

I do, I just want to just want to clarify that it would be okay for us to include this as a line item in the proposed budget.

Is that okay?

Your direction to the panel?

I don't think we'd be putting that on the table if we didn't think we could address some of the other council priorities, including a couple you just suggested as a way to keep it moving forward.

and the budget will be presented in a month or so, so we're not that far off.

Okay.

Alright, so we have a motion on the table that's been seconded.

Any further discussion on the motion?

Please indicate your vote.

And I actually had, thank you, I actually had a couple of just general comments in the room.

First of all, I agree with the comments that were made about the city needing to lead the way and lead by example.

And I know we're going to have a public event, I don't know, we schedule it yet in terms of talking about our own efforts to promote a more diverse workforce, a workforce that's more representative and responsive to our community.

I also think it's important that as we move forward that we look to, we don't look to whatever staff support, whether it's the facilitators or part-time coordinators, the ones leading this initiative.

This really is an initiative that needs leadership from the top down, from the city.

from yourself, from the city manager, from the city council and the mayor that we're not looking to these paid staff to leave this thing.

They're helping us on the mechanics of it, but really this needs to be a top-down buy-in for this thing to truly succeed.

I agree with Dr. Brown.

If there's a group locally that would submit a proposal for the RFP, you know, all the best to them.

I think there's no reason why we'd necessarily have to go out of the community to find the skills to do that.

Just a general question for you, which you sort of addressed early on, but how do we move beyond

the usual suspects, the kind of people that would normally come to these kind of conversations.

People are already bought in the idea that we need improved race relations.

Well, we're working right now, or at least I've had a chance to engage in conversations with a number of groups that work with the folks who may be disenfranchised.

And they have said that they'd love to work with us on this.

They just need more details on how we're going to move forward and they're waiting for direction tonight from city council.

So I think we're going to try to be creative in the way that we encourage folks to be a part of the process and take, for instance, any public events that we do, community dialogue, take it outside of downtown, maybe try to do it in the community and other places.

We would work, I've committed to go wherever they need me to go to talk to groups of people about how important this issue really can be to them.

and how it can impact their future.

If they have had concerns about race and discrimination or racism here in Charlottesville, that now is the time to voice those concerns.

And that if they remain silent, those concerns may not be properly addressed.

And then lastly is I want to just second the comment that Mr. Huja made about sort of acknowledging and referencing other dialogues that have gone on in our community over the years and sort of building on those.

I know there's an additional one Mr. Huja mentioned

Martin Luther King Community Committee did a two or three year long, sort of a dialogue, maybe one or two year long dialogue on race that came forward with some specific policy proposals.

There was an informal dialogue on race going on for many years which resulted in the creation of the African American Teaching Fellows.

Quality Community Council has had a number of dialogues on race and poverty in our community.

You mentioned UVA is doing some really good research now about race in our community.

Well, sure, we are certainly not reinventing the wheel.

I think what we are hoping to do is not only build on that foundation, but also learn why their level of success was capped, you know, and why do we continue to have these issues of race and racism and discrimination.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

From the last item on our regular business tonight is a report on our stone water and utility program and here, back with us, is Ms.

Hello again.

I've been asked to come back this evening and to bring some additional information forward for council consideration on the topic of a stormwater utility to fund a water resources protection program.

The proposal presented a level of service that was well informed by a very helpful advisory committee to address program gaps and needs.

A copy of that executive committee report has been put in your packet and the full report is available online.

The funding for the recommended program, which essentially introduced a number of expanded and new program components or elements

would be a user-based fee, so essentially a fee that would be calculated on the impervious surface of every property in the city of Charlottesville.

It would be a dedicated funding source and it would help ensure long-term funding for a program.

The implementation process and timeline was aimed towards a first half real estate bill.

There was a very, very tight time schedule and we heard concerns regarding the need to conduct more public education, a desire for more community input and involvement, and some concerns about that timing.

We actually revised a timeline and stretched out that implementation process to go towards the second half real estate bill, which would be October.

Subsequently and very mindful of some of the dramatic economic downturns and changes in our local economy that we're seeing over the past several months, we have some additional thoughts for you to consider tonight.

We generated a report about some specific fee impacts on some example properties.

Certainly the daily news about the economy has brought us forward to present two points.

One is specifically that the adoption of the stormwater utility designed to generate this dedicated revenue

not be implemented until a future time when the local economic conditions improve.

However, compliance requirements that we need to continue, the limited operation and maintenance of the existing drainage system, limited neighborhood drainage program, and the public education efforts can continue with the current funding with a possible supplement to be considered in this upcoming budget.

and later capital budgets.

I think out of all of the program components that we talked about, the one that's probably the most tangible for folks to recognize the urgency or the importance of,

is the need to inspect and rehabilitate our existing stormwater infrastructure.

That's about 50 miles of underground pipes made of a variety of materials that is the city's responsibility to maintain.

At this time, we've identified over seven miles of that piping that needs replacement, but we don't know what we don't know.

Of the 50 miles, there's significantly more that's made of that same material.

and the current funding to tackle that is limited to $100,000 annually and our proposal had included approximately $600,000 annually to tackle that need over a five-year program.

At this time it's our recommendation if the utility is not implemented that we identify any available funding to essentially address the crumbling, deteriorating infrastructure as these expenses will compound over time and they may require an increase in that utility rate at some future time when it's considered.

It's also important to note that if we do not implement the stormwater utility fee to fund this broader program that the current program components, roles, responsibilities, and limitations pertaining to our current stormwater management will not change.

And it's also important that in the absence of this utility funded program that we see the need and value of addressing that major component which is essentially a project based approach of tackling rehabilitation needs.

One of the points we included in the memo and that I think is worth bringing up is the program that we run, City of Charlottesville, owns and operates this separate storm sewer system and there is a permit that is associated with that.

There was a new permit, new regulations that came out in summer of 2008.

Per the direction of the regulatory agency, the Department of Conservation and Recreation, we submitted modifications to that permit application last week.

That should keep our current program running in terms of the basic requirements, but it's noteworthy that one of the general requirements in that permit is proper operation and maintenance of a system, and that will continue to be a challenge as time goes on.

Alternatives for you to consider include the full delay of a utility

to support the proposed program and to continue the status quo level of service and funding.

Second alternative is to delay the implementation of the utility and search for other sources of funding to tackle some of the rehabilitation needs and that could be done through the CIP.

I know it was listed as one of the city's top priorities in the economic stimulus package request and there may be others.

And then the third alternative not being recommended at this time is

to proceed as we originally proposed in November with some adjustments to that timeline.

Obviously the budget impacts are going to be dependent on the decision that you make, but staff would recommend that we establish consensus that the utility based water resources protection program

is council's long term strategy and that the implementation of that be directed and dependent on the future economy and the context in which those decisions would be made.

The recommendation is to delay the implementation of the stormwater utility.

A time frame which was proposed is the two to three year time frame.

we would suggest sooner is better to capitalize on the work done to this point and to prevent significant deferred maintenance costs as the speaker earlier today mentioned and to identify any sources of funding to tackle the deteriorating infrastructure to put it kind of informally to buy down the capital cost of this very large program can be a good interim strategy.

Just a clarifying question for Mr. O'Connell.

Obviously it depends on the guidance from the United, but our thinking was we were doing some budget reviews today that we still think we can meet the $600,000 a year proposed funding for the infrastructure.

Not sure beyond that.

With the notion that we would do that for two or three years with the idea to come back with the stormwater utility when hopefully the economy's better.

So that's where our thinking is, is we're putting the budget together, and we're kind of at a critical point.

Do we need to go it that way, and what impacts does that have, or do we need to move forward with the utility?

One of the issues that came up is we were looking at the whole approach for a utility.

If we stay to the same schedule that we talked to council about in the fall,

would actually be having public hearings and great discussions on the utility at the same time that you're taking up the city budget.

So they really do get very much merged together.

And part of his proposal to not is to separate them to some extent, at least in terms of a special fee that's dedicated to it.

Crystal mentioned that it's in the report that the details of semi-individual properties, I think another issue that came up

Most of the residential properties are smaller.

It's not a very big increase, but it is an increase.

Similar properties like churches, like schools, like public housing that have no payments right now, there would be significant increases that the fee would put into place.

So that's another piece of at least bringing it to you tonight to think about doing it differently.

There are pros and cons to that, obviously.

I agree with the approach that we put more money in CIP for drainage improvements.

I'm not really a supporter of utility at this stage.

It sounds like a good idea and well done maybe.

But it is an additional tax, that's what it is.

And I think an additional tax is not a bad thing always.

But since this economy I'm not sure is

One thing that I'd just like to suggest in here under the recommendations

before we talk about council revisiting the proposal in the next two to three years.

I think as Mr. Butler pointed out about, I think he talked maybe something annually or whatever, but I think it would be the prudent thing to do would be to review this thing annually.

Of course, things do change.

I'm pleased to hear that there's agreement with, you know, if we're not going to move forward with implementing a new program, and I think that's the consensus of the council, that we are going to address this sort of critical issue of our infrastructure by putting significantly more money than we have been in the capital budget.

And I urge us all to stick to our guns on that as we get into the budget,

There'll be a lot of different competing needs.

The problem, there's two issues.

If we put, say we fully fund this at $600,000, that means it's coming from real estate tax as opposed to coming proportional to

how much a property or a homeowner generates stormwater.

So there's some fairness to doing it proportionally as opposed to just doing it based on the value of your property.

This way it's based on how much pervious and impervious surfaces you have.

The other problem with doing it this way and the reason why I think it's very important that in the long run we have a program

which is fee based, which is based on usage, is because it creates incentives for people to create less storm water.

It helps solve the problem.

You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's any incentive built into this system, financial incentive, for someone to actually invest in

pervious paving or rain barrels or some other way of sustainably diverting their storm water.

So we don't really deal with the source of the problem.

We just deal with replacing our pipes and trying to manage it better.

And I think we need to have incentives for everybody.

And I would perhaps add to that that although we fully support

The importance of putting money in the existing infrastructure, what we were talking about in the Water Resources Protection Program, was a broader program.

And there were many other components to it that did bring some additional capacity to the city's stormwater program.

Whether that be engineering expertise, whether that be folks who are fluent in the more innovative current

approaches of evaluating and considering drainage projects in a watershed context and there is a planning component to it that we will be deferring and postponing to a later date.

I agree with the sentiments of Dr. Brown.

Well, I'm glad to see that we're going to be able to increase our investment in repairing the critical infrastructure.

Ultimately, I think a program, whether it's exactly this program or some modified version of it that provides stronger financial incentives for property owners to minimize runoff is the way to go.

I think what it came down to for me in terms of moving forward with the fee this year was looking at the amount of increase

And I would also just

I was asked that as it becomes clear when we would revisit this, there's a lot of pretty critical timing to all of this.

It isn't that we can make a decision at one meeting and implement the program and the fee and the billing system.

I certainly think one thing, I think what you're hearing tonight is that there is general consensus that the proposed strategy is the right long term strategy.

And you can, in your public education efforts, working in terms of informing property owners, you can say this is coming, this is very likely coming.

And so now is the time to invest in some of these mediation measures that are going to reduce your financial impact when this comes.

I think you got support for the recommendations you brought forward tonight and appreciate your ongoing efforts and your patience.

This is the last item on our regular business agenda tonight.

Is there any other business

Hearing none, we will now open it up again to matters by the public.

Is there anybody from the public that would like to speak?

There being none, the meeting is adjourned.

Thank you all.