City Council Meeting   4/20/2009

Thank you very much.

I'm going to start with a few announcements.

First of all, many of you have noticed that the progress on the downtown mall restoration project is, we're very pleased with the progress of that project.

Four of the seven blocks have all their new bricks and the rest are due to be finished in the coming week or two.

We are pleased to announce that we will have a grand celebration to unveil the brand new downtown mall on May the 29th

at 4.45pm Central Place.

Please do come and join us for that very special event.

Also, community hazardous and bulk waste days in May.

This is a way to safely dispose of large items you have stored in and around your house.

The following three salaries will serve as bulk waste amnesty days for our community at the IV, Rivanna Solid Waste Authority location in the county.

On May 9th is a day for furniture.

On May 16th is a day for appliances.

On May 23rd is a day for tires.

And for more information just go to Rivanna.org.

As you'll hear in a moment, May 3rd through 9th, 2009 in Charlottesville is Building Safety Week, and any of you at home or in the audience here who has a wooden deck on your house who lives in the city, the city staff for that week are actually providing courtesy wood deck inspections.

to make sure that they are safe and able to withstand the crowding that tends to happen on our wooden decks in the summertime.

So please, if you're interested in having a courtesy wood deck inspection, safety inspection from city staff, just go to our website and click on community slash community resources to register.

Or you can always just call City Hall 9703113.

Also, I mentioned about a month or two ago that Charlottesville now has its own page on Facebook.

I'm very pleased to announce we're up to 166 friends on Facebook.

And, even better, Charlottesville is now on Twitter.

So, yeah, I know.

And we now have 36 followers on Twitter, so you can get all the latest updates from Cebill City on Twitter.

I have an announcement.

I'd like to remind everyone about the Community Job Fair.

This was the announcement I made at the last counseling.

Join us for the 2009 Charlottesville Community Job Fair, which will be held on Monday, April 27th from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Omni Hotel in downtown Charlottesville.

With over 70 employers from a wide variety of industries such as technology,

Healthcare, Garland vs. Hospitality, Retail, Food Service, Education, and Government Participating.

Thank you, Ms. Edwards.

Any other announcements?

I'm very pleased tonight to present three separate proclamations.

First of all,

Fair Housing Month, whereas April is Fair Housing Month and marks the 41st anniversary of the passage of the Federal Fair Housing Act, Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, whereas the Fair Housing Act provides that no person shall be subjected to discrimination because of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, or familial status in the rental sale, finance, or advertising of housing.

Hi, I'm Karen Reifenberger with Piedmont Housing Alliance, and I'd simply like to thank the Charlottesville City Council for its support of fair housing, not just during April Fair Housing Month, but throughout the year.

April is a time of year when we commemorate the passage of the Fair Housing Act, a law that provides us as individuals the rights to equal housing opportunity, but also encourages the diversity that enriches all of our communities.

Piedmont Housing Alliance's fair housing program provides information, education and advocacy on fair housing rights and responsibilities so whether it's the family who's denied a rental because they're told they have too many people or the person with a disability who's denied housing because they need a service animal

or the person who's questioned about their race or accent.

We're here to help make equal housing opportunity a reality for the other partners in the community and to help make Charlottesville a great place to live for all our citizens.

Yes.

So for information about fair housing, please call Piedmont Housing Alliance at 817-2436.

This is Ryan from Birmingham.

Next.

Excuse me.

Whereas the city of Charlottesville has always honored the sacrifice of the men and women in the armed forces and whereas the Silver Star Families of America was formed to make sure we remember the blood sacrifice of our wounded and ill by designing and manufacturing a Silver Star banner and flag and whereas to date the Silver Star Families of America has freely given thousands of Silver Star banners to the wounded and their families

and whereas the members of the Silver Star Families of America have worked tirelessly to provide the wounded of this city and country with Silver Star banners, flags and care packages and whereas the Silver Star Families of America's sole mission is that every time someone sees a Silver Star banner in a window or a Silver Star flag flying that people remember the sacrifice made for the city, state and nation and whereas the people of Charlottesville wish that the sacrifice of so many in our armed forces never be forgotten.

Now therefore I, Dave Norris, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, do hereby proclaim May 1, 2009 as Silver Star Banner Day as the permanent and official day to honor the wounded and ill soldiers of the City of Charlottesville and on behalf of the City of Charlottesville, express appreciation for the Silver Star families of America and honor their commitment to our wounded armed forces members.

And here to receive this proclamation are two wounded veterans from World War II

We have with us tonight, I'm very honored to have with us tonight, C.D.

I'd like to welcome you to see three couple of hours, I guess, along with many other presentations.

You did it very well.

I didn't know that, but this one was helpful.

I'd like to welcome you on the ride, actually.

Thank you so much.

And finally, as I mentioned earlier, May 3rd through 9th is Building Safety Week 2009.

Whereas through our continued efforts to address critical safety issues in the built environment that affect our citizens, regardless of age or occupation, both in everyday life and in times of natural disaster, we are confident that our structures are safe and sound.

Whereas Vigilant Guardians, Building Safety and Fire Prevention Officials, Architects, Engineers, Builders and others in the construction industry work year round to ensure the safe construction of buildings.

Whereas Building Safety Week, sponsored by the International Code Council and International Code Council Foundation, reminds the public about the critical role of our community's largely unknown guardians of public safety, our local code officials, who help prevent countless deaths and injuries from fires and accidents.

Whereas this year, as we observe Building Safety Week, we ask everyone to consider projects to improve building safety at home and in the community and to acknowledge the essential service provided to all of us by local and state building departments and federal agencies in protecting lives and property.

Now, therefore, it is hereby proclaimed that May 3rd through May 9th, 2009,

as Building Safety Week in the City of Charlottesville.

Accordingly, our citizens are encouraged to join communities across America to participate in Building Safety Week activities and here to receive the proclamation is Jim Tolbert, Director of our Department of Neighborhood Development Services.

Mr. Tolbert.

I brought Rumi tonight, Tom Ehret and Francis Vineyard, who are two of our inspectors.

Tom is our building official, and they are two of our four man team, four person team, and Denise will be offended.

They work hand in hand with the fire department, the fire marshal, and his folks, and I think

I've been doing this a long time.

They are the best team at doing this I've ever worked around with.

Working in an old community, having to recognize that you can't take a building care of it.

You're looking for new construction in Greenfields and working in a community like ours.

They do a great job with it.

Y'all never get to see them and you don't get to tell them thank you.

As the mayor mentioned, they're doing the deck inspection.

and that's something that they thought up and wanted to offer for free to our citizens and Tom has a special passion for that and has been actively involved in improving standards for decks around the country so we thank you.

We will now open the meeting to matters by the public.

We have a number of citizens who have signed up to speak.

And as always, when you come forward, please keep your comments to three minutes and state your name and address.

Good evening, Mayor Morris and Members of Council.

My name is Gina's Chase, my husband Philando D. Chase and I reside at 223 Old Lynchburg Road.

We are here tonight to seek the assistance of the City Council in reversing a recent determination of the Department of Public Works.

Our desire is that this matter be resolved professionally and with integrity.

We have faith in the city of Charlottesville, our city council, and the city's employees to do the right thing.

The specific lots affected are Lots 20 through 34 of Block B in the Jefferson Woods Subdivision.

Like almost all homeowners in the city, we felt that the sewer lateral from our house connected into a city maintained sewer.

The Department of Public Works sent us a letter dated April 6, 2009 indicating that the city has no ownership or maintenance responsibility for the collector sewer line that serves the 15 homes in Jefferson Woods.

This letter was an unpleasant surprise and a shock after living in our house for nearly 32 years and paying full city taxes and full water and sewer rates during all of that time.

The obvious follow-on question is, if the city is not responsible for maintaining the collected sewer that serves these 15 homes, who is responsible for maintaining the collector's sewer?

The homeowners don't have any organization with either that authority or responsibility.

So if it can't be the homeowners or other private organization.

Each homeowner owns only a piece of the line, so no single homeowner is responsible for maintaining the entire line.

The homeowners in Jefferson Woods have to turn to the city council for a solution to this problem.

The city's letter leaves several questions unanswered.

Why wasn't this issue addressed before the preliminary plat for the subdivision was approved by the city?

Dr. Charles Hurt, the developer of Jefferson Woods, told us in a telephone conversation April 16, 2009, that he had the sanitary sewer line installed.

Therefore, we wonder why the city did not require him to show it on the subdivision plat before approving it.

Number two.

Why wasn't this issue addressed before the city issued building permits for these 15 houses?

Further, plumbing permit number 861 was issued by the city on July 27, 1972, authorizing the installation of plumbing in our residence along with a connection to the sanitary sewer.

It appears to us that the sewer line was put in this location because it was the only feasible way to furnish adequate sewage to these 15 houses and the permit history indicates that the city intended the collector sewer line to be a publicly maintained line.

3.

There is a resolution in the council's minutes for June 19, 1972, authorizing the city attorney to secure an easement for a new sewer line on State Route 780, that is, Old Blitchburg Road.

Thank you, I'm Phil Chase, I live at 223 Winfolk Road, and I'll just wrap this up quickly.

Number four, why has the city maintained the sewer and even replaced portions of it over a period of more than 35 years?

The city's actions indicate to us that the city believed that it was responsible for maintaining the sewer line.

Number five, why has the city's mark on public utilities for many years shown this line to be a, quote, city line live, unquote.

In summary, the department's letter of April 6, 2009 leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

It's also put to Jackson Woods, homeowners in an untenable situation.

It appears that we are then willing victims of a string of errors and oversights that were made by other responsible parties.

However, the homeowners are not interested in blame.

We simply want the same services that the department provides to other homes in the city.

The homeowners are willing to cooperate with the city to find a win-win solution

to this problem.

We are requesting that the City Council bring our dilemma to the attention of the staff and assess that the staff return to council within the next 30 days with a proposal for continued public maintenance responsibility for these lives.

Good evening, Mayor Morse and city council members.

My voice is gone because I live with the poor and the homeless at night and we've been out a lot recently at night serving those needs.

I'm the director of the Hope Community Center on 341 11th Street, Northwest.

I am very excited to tell you about a program we have going on this summer called Mutual Labor.

It will be in 10 different city parks across the city of Charlottesville, addressing just simple

Fun issues of dance and culture and art and the idea is that people get to know who lives next door to them and who also lives across town from them.

because we are all neighbors of the same city.

That program has already begun with cleaning up more than 5,000 pounds of trash out of the city of Charlottesville from the Rivanna Trail to the 10th and Page neighborhood.

We have distributed over 350 Easter bags and baskets to children in four different neighborhoods.

across Charlottesville.

We piloted a city garden last weekend for the city and we're very excited about that.

Tonight at HOPE we have programs going on for the ESL representing refugees representing 15 different nationalities teaching the ESL and acclamations into American culture.

We are volunteers who come from all walks of life, from the neighborhood, from the rich, from the poor, from the university who help us accommodate these programs.

We give food and clothing city-wide.

In December, we gave out more than 800 people bag fulls of clothing for Christmas and toys

more than 400 brand new toys.

We have that program going on again on May 23rd for refugees and July 25th called Christmas in July for children across our city which we're very excited about.

Our after school program at HOPE has been recognized by the governor's office for reforming and helping children from the 10th and Page neighborhood receive discipline

Tonight, I'd like to talk to you specifically about that concern, an imminent concern that I have regarding the homeless in our community.

I've received seven phone calls this afternoon regarding the police going into the woods and pulling our homeless out and telling them that they have to find a new place to go.

I recognize the law and I understand that squatting is squatting in its public property or somewhere on private property where people have no place to go.

Hope is falling into a position with TJAC providing tents to house and provide shelter for people across our community.

We represent about 30-some individuals who have no place to go.

11 of them will have to find a place by tomorrow.

If I check my voicemails, it might be more.

The police officers might have gone to other communities where people are sleeping in the woods.

My question for you is where should I tell them to go if they're abandoned cars or they're abandoned buildings or houses that you could help me with?

Or if you know that there might be a plot of land or someplace, they will be coming to us for help and I'm simply asking for you to give us wisdom not to be good community servants and

just simply that.

Thank you for your time and we look forward to continuing our work within the community across Charlottesville with our program this summer.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miller.

Do you want to give a phone number in case Hannah wants to reach you?

www.hopecommunitycenter.org and 882 825-1404 is our phone number.

Thank you very much, Harold Berg.

I am the president of Hope Foundation, operating as Hope Community Center, members of council, officers of the city, and fellow citizens.

I speak specifically, and I'm here tonight, in regards to your thoughts that I am not sure that I am scholarly inclined about your emotions about the resigning that is impending or in discussion for an SRO.

I think I really dialogue with some of the city officials and my understanding is that the only zoning that is appropriate for a shelter, an emergency shelter for the homeless is B zoning.

I have suggested to some of the city officials that means we could buy a building on Main Street and put in an emergency shelter and all we have to do is be the emergency, not emergency, what we have to do is to fire and bulk a coat.

and I have suggested that is, that is something that I would appeal to you to think through clearly.

According to city code, we could purchase the dialysis building near Martha Jefferson and only have to do local code for it to be an overnight shelter.

You would not be needed as a city council.

It would only have to go through your inspection's departments.

And I'm saying that is not a good position for the city to be in.

and I invite you to discussion.

I am very excited to share with you.

We have been members of TJAC for about a year and a half.

We are cooperative members.

We are doing everything we can do.

We work with anyone and everyone we can work with and we are having an enlarging number of people that are participating with us as Josh has indicated.

We are supported for the First Street Project.

But I would call to your attention that the First Street Project actually mandates that the homeless be gone at 7 o'clock at night.

And so where are they going to go between 7 at night and 7 in the morning when it's breakfast time?

And so the SROs, we have been in support of SROs.

However, SROs, what we're talking about is perhaps 60 units at whatever cost we're talking about.

And I still am not clear as to what would cost to maintain those on a yearly basis.

But I'm in support of that.

But if you do 60 SROs and 60 a salvation army, we've still got 180 homeless left in the city.

And we clearly have a situation that is an emergency situation in our city.

One that is embarrassing to us, it's one that's heartbreaking to us.

And I would share with you that many of these people work.

They're trying to get their feet on the ground.

and our position in working with the homeless has been categorical.

Last year we think we only gave $75 total to all the homeless who came to us in a whole year.

Cash.

They say, can you help me?

We say, we sell hope.

That's what we sell.

We sell hope.

We are here to help you get to a new future.

And so what I would ask you to do is to understand that what we're proposing here is only half of a circle.

We're two-thirds of a circle.

With First Street and with the SROs, you've only got a part of a circle.

you must have

and me at residency.

And we said, please take them today.

They said we can't.

It would take two weeks, at least two weeks to process the paperwork.

That would be true in less RO.

We have to have a shelter.

I'm asking you, please, Mayor, to engage the council.

I'm happy to be a part of that and all of our team in any way possible to enlarge this discussion to where the zoning issue is accommodating to a full circle.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Dr. Barron.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council.

My name is Martha Leffing.

I live at 712 Broad Avenue.

I'm here to read a letter that was written by Margaret Kochs, who is the President of the League of Women Voters.

She was called out of town.

The League of Women Voters of Charlottesville and Albemarle County have been advocates for watershed protection for more than 25 years.

Based on our accumulated knowledge, we remain steadfast in our support

of the implementation of the 50 year water supply plan.

After reviewing over 32 alternatives and allowing extensive public participation, the water supply plan that meets community demand for water and also protects our environment for generations to come has been developed.

This sustainable plan should improve the health of our watershed by protecting flows in two major rivers.

The size of the New River Mountain Reservoir will meet estimated human demand in the year 2055, while moving eastward flow requirements of the South Fork Rivanna River below the South Fork Rivanna Dam.

The plan also recognizes the inadequate water transfer capacity of the Mormon's River water intake, thereby requiring that the Sugar Hollow pipeline be decommissioned.

A new pipeline from the South Roper-Rana Reservoir to Rabbit Mountain Reservoir will be built, taking advantage of the abundant flow in the South Roper-Rana.

This important design change will end the decades-long competition between the urban demand for water and the environmental needs of the Mormon's River, and the financial burden placed on ratepayers will be less than any other viable alternative presented.

The plan leaves the community with stronger tree canopy and streams that we have today.

Although it necessitates the removal of trees at Ragon Mountain Reservoir, the plan provides in compensation 200 acres of young native trees and miles of protected and rebuilt stream size.

Another advantage is that the plan deals creatively with the sediment flowing into the south side of the Red River.

It facilitates the settling out of sediment before sending the clear water to Wagon Mountain Reservoir, a reservoir not subject to sediment accumulation because of its topography.

Finally, an important goal was to keep our pipe of water as a local source.

In keeping with this goal,

Now I have a quick public service announcement.

On April 28th, the League of Women Voters and the Miller Center of UVA will sponsor a forum on the Chesapeake Bay, and I fight to save it.

The guest speaker will be Will Baker, the president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

It will be held at the Miller Center from 5.30 to 6.30pm and should be a fantastic forum.

It's free and open to the public, and I hope you all will be able to attend.

Please do.

Thank you.

Good evening members of council.

I'm James King.

I live at 2607 Jefferson Park Circle.

I'm speaking only for myself, but I want to speak about the old Lynchburg Road sewer connector or easement that Mr. and Ms. Chase had brought up.

And because I believe that what has happened in this case affects the whole city, when

The citizens in our neighborhood receive a letter that amounts to a policy change taking care of some obligations that the city has had since it began for years and decades.

The rest of us have to worry.

I live up in

Not directly affected by these sewers, but on a road that has lots of little strange things that are inherited too.

And it is clear from all that I have heard, I have not seen the records, but I believe that the city has accepted this obligation for decades.

to take care of these sewer lines and the predecessor, the person who wrote the letter that is in effect making the policy change, either did not check back to find out that those obligations had always been taken care of the city or has decided to do something new.

And I'm hoping that you will reverse that decision and show that nothing new is being done.

We're not overturning the

acceptance of the obligations that we've had for many decades to take care of these things which all good planning say should be handled in this way.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Deedee Smith.

I live at 2652 Jefferson Park Circle, and I'm here tonight to talk about your conservation study.

Ashley, which you're reading tonight, and which I was very happy to see, and I began to read it, and I was sort of stopped at my tracks, because one of the very first things they talk about is their water usage for the city and county last year, 2008, 2009.

It's in the second paragraph.

And it goes on to say that the average water usage for city residents is 64 gallons per capita per day, and for the county it's 56.

which being a numbers person I recognized right away is a very different number than has been used to create the water plan.

So I went back, downloaded off the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority the demand analysis as well as the permitting document.

Those are the two documents I'll cite.

They used two numbers to determine what our future demand would be and therefore what the safe yield would be necessary in the year 2055 in 50 years.

And for the city, they used 108.5 gallons per capita per day.

Let me remind you, it's 64 last year.

For the county, they used 93.

It was 56 last year.

In both cases, that is 40% and more lower than what was used to develop this plan.

during the demand analysis came up with a future need of 18.7 million gallons per day, calculating into that 5% conservation, which I think is not famous.

If you apply the 40%, below that to that, it comes to 11.2 million gallons per day.

When Granite Farming did their study of dredging, the three indices from the

Permian document from three years ago, they estimated we had 12.8 million gallons per day.

Remember, 40% less of 18.7 is 11.2.

We have more today than we would need in theory in 50 years.

If we judge, according to Janet Flannings,

on estimates we would be up to 14.3 million gallons per day.

And I say this because I think it is absolutely imperative and I think, you know, hopefully they agree with me that we get this dredging feasibility study.

And I asked you, were you asked to approve the RFP for the dam design?

Were you asked to approve the RFP for the pipeline design?

Why are the four boards being asked to approve the RFP for the dredging survey?

and so I'm, please, I hope that you will ask your representatives on the Vanna to get that judging survey done.

Counselors, my name is Kevin Lynch, 609 Locust Avenue.

I want to thank you for your action that you took last week in

moving forward with the dredging RFP and asking your representatives on the Rivanna board to make sure that that dredging RFP is implemented.

That same subject came up this past week in front of the Albemarle Service Authority and as was quite predictable, they stalled.

They got through their agenda.

This was one of the last items in their agenda and before

discussing if they decided it would be a good time to end their meeting without discussing the subject of the dredging RFP.

So maybe it will come up in another month, maybe not.

I will remind you that when we first began this discussion of the maintenance of the reservoir, it was over a year ago,

because of the leadership the council showed in early June of last year, almost a year ago, the council supported a resolution or had its own resolution asking the

Water and Sewer Authority to look at dredging.

That was in June.

By the end of June, the Water and Sewer Authority executive Tom Frederick said, yes, we're going to have an RFP out by July.

And then as you all know, it stalled.

It stalled for

almost a year now.

While the dredging task force looked at the reservoir and with all due respect to Counselor Edwards who was on that task force, I think while certain individuals on the task force may have learned a lot, really the community didn't learn anything.

They learned certainly nothing that advanced the cause of getting that work done.

The cost of not doing the dredging will be substantial.

We already know that the dam cost has more than doubled in its estimated cost.

There is no

I should say there were estimated costs years ago of what the pipeline would cost, but now Rivanna has admitted that that pipeline is just a concept.

So I'm not sure that there really are any real costs for that pipeline unless you want to put numbers on concepts.

But the cost of not doing this is going to fall on people who pay a water bill.

Some of those people will be wealthy enough to see their water bill go from $75 a month to $150 a month.

Others will not.

As you look around and look at who the leading proponents of this current plan, this pipeline and dam plan is, you need to ask yourself, do they pay a water bill?

Are they going to be the ones paying for this?

Because your constituents will pay for this.

You have two representatives from the council who are on Rivanna and I asked you to send those two representatives to the Water and Sewer Authority meeting which is next week.

Tell them we want the RFP now.

It would be great to get the input of the Albemarle Service Authority if they were willing to do something about it.

They have not shown that.

They are the go-to team if you want to stall.

I don't think you want to stall.

Good evening Mr. Mayor and Councillors, Follard Hall, R1 Robertson Lane, Verger and Lavanna Lawrence, who are authority rate payers.

Councillor Edwards, in deference to you, I will not talk about the proposed permanent destruction of the McIntyre Park or Centre Park.

If possible, I would like answered tonight.

The city councilors and the board of supervisors are, in a sense, equal partners regarding the water and sewer board.

RWSA has five members.

The two chief executors were from the city and one from the county.

the Director of Public Works from the City, Julian Mueller, and the Director of the Albemarle Service Authority from the County, Mr. Gary Fern.

In addition, a fifth person or chair accurately appointed by one jurisdiction and approved by the other, so that you might say that's three boards.

However, at recent public meetings, the Albemarle Service Authority is treated as a fourth board.

Why?

Mr. Fearne represents them.

It's like stacking the deck when it comes to voting on a critical issue regarding our water supply.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Hall.

Good evening.

My name is M. Rick Turner.

I live in the city of Charlottesville.

I come here tonight representing the Charlottesville-Albemarle NAACP, of which I am the president.

The recently published Drop Our Rate, 15.4% for black students at Charlottesville High School, higher than both Albemarle and the state, has become an epidemic.

Although this is not new news, it is still alarming and shameful that this continued tragedy comes to our attention on the eve of the city's proposed dialogue on race.

We as a community and you as community leaders must address this epidemic immediately.

commenting on this epidemic, one public school official recently stated, we certainly have moved to address this dropout rate, and we more than double our programs to support high school graduation.

We have things in motion to address what we know, but that don't show up for years to come.

Well, with all due respect,

That's not how you handle an epidemic.

You don't wait for years to come.

You assemble a team to address it right now.

Public schools throughout the nation are responding to this crisis in various creative and effective ways.

For instance,

Los Angeles schools have instituted a policy requiring that by the first grading period, ninth grade teachers have to report on failing students and provide an immediate remediation plan.

Unfortunately, black students have been dropping out of Charlottesville school at increasing rates since integration.

There is no big mystery to why kids drop out.

They fall behind the studies.

to the point where catching up seems hopeless, they feel defeated, and dropping out seems better than being reminded daily that they are failing.

They fall into a habit of truancy that no one helps them break.

They are lured by drugs or gangs or overwhelmed by personal problems.

We're certainly aware that there are a multitude of reasons why any student drops out, but the fact remains, when students use hope,

schools lose students, and we as a community lose out in the long run on many different levels.

What do we do in America when we assemble a team and they continue to lose?

To use a sport metaphor, we change what we're doing.

We look at our game strategy, we look at our culture stat, and we make tough choices.

That gives our team the support and the stress they need to succeed, to win.

For too many years, the Charlottesville schools have been moving in black children to the streets to do their jobs to disappointment and despair.

The Chancellor of Albemarle, NAACP, is demanding that City Council do its part to give the community a better understanding of this terrible problem and of the solutions that are being undertaken.

We also suggest that public forums be held to hear the voices of young people from the community, black, white and others, who have dropped out of high school to hear what they have to say about why they've decided to quit school.

Until dramatic progress is made in increasing the percentage of students, particularly black students, who graduate from high school, this issue should remain front and center on the community's agenda.

We urge the NAACP, urge city council to make this urgent matter a top priority.

Thank you Dr. Turner.

Good evening members.

Council.

My name is James Craig.

I live at 101 Indian Spring Road.

I'm a board member of Habitat for Humanity.

And on behalf of Habitat, I want to thank the city for the cooperation and the funding that has allowed Habitat to provide home ownership for over 50 Charlottesville families, earning 25 to 60 percent of area median income, which is a niche which

Habitat is serving.

We also appreciate your continuing support as we develop the Peyton Street Paperhead and as we plan for the development of the Sunrise Trailer Court.

In addition, we're grateful for current partnership with the city in building a duplex residential unit on North Brookshaw Road.

and the appropriation of $80,000 from home funds which was on this evening's consent agenda.

These funds will be used for deferred interest-free loans to Habitat families.

Like all city funds that Habitat receives, the city will get the funds back with appreciation sharing the first time the homes are resold.

We hope that you will look on these and other grants to Habitat as a long term investment in affordable housing.

We understand that council is dealing with a shortfall as our

all organizations and individuals at this time.

We hope that you will consider increasing the size of the Charlottesville Housing Fund when the economy improves.

One of the major reasons for failure of families to qualify for the habitat program has been excessive debt.

In order to serve as many families as possible, Habitat is beefing up our credit counseling efforts and will offer those services to any family that is disqualified from joining the Habitat program because of debt.

We are also inviting families who were previously disqualified by debt to reapply if their circumstances have improved.

Mr. John Falls Members of Council, I'm John Falls.

I live at 1503 Redby Road.

If for a change, I will not talk about the budget, which I'm sure relieves you as much as me.

Instead, I'd like to speak in support of Resolution A on the Consent Agenda.

This is a letter, this is an effort that's being spearheaded by Ann Mallock on the Board of Supervisors to get commuted real service between Crozet and the city, namely particularly UVA, the hospital, and then the downtown part of the city.

It's very exciting.

The railroad even wants to do it, which is more than exciting.

The letter you're asking for is simply going to Senator Warner to ask for money to do a good survey and make a good proposal to the VDOT and the Department of Rail and Public Transportation.

The vision I have is that our city is an urban hub for the region.

When you're in people on trains, that would be about 200 probably a day, feeds our transit system.

It takes cars off Route 250 West and off I-64.

It's a wonderful possibility.

Now, Camino de Fosé by itself is not going to do it, but it's a very positive step towards a transit oriented community that I think we all want.

I guess I would like for staff to take a look at the old Lynchburg Road situation and I don't, I guess I have a little problem understanding if we've been doing, and it's been a past practice, that perhaps we ought to take a close look at it and really determine what all has transpired.

I guess myself, I kind of feel like if it's something we've been doing for a long time,

while all of a sudden we decided to cease doing it.

And I guess also on the water supply issue as far as dredging goes, and I guess I would ask Mr. Watts to convey to the city manager

the need to try to get that study moving along because it does seem like it's been delayed for a long time and it is an important component of the water supply plan in addition to I guess one of the questions I continue to have about the water supply plan is to really get a firm handle on what's the total cost of this

Can I go ahead to somebody else?

for their efforts in the community and I would also be very interested in pursuing the zone changes for homeless in our community and I think we are going to be talking about that, asking if we can do that.

Secondly, I would also like to follow up on a number of questions raised by George yesterday and I hope that our representatives will be able to

I'd like to thank John Faltz for not talking about the budget.

Also the comments made about resources for our homeless

constituents.

I know a couple of weeks ago I called Salvation Army to try to get a bed for a woman and they had a bed but because it was on the upper bank and because she was disabled she couldn't use the bed.

So I called back to see if there was a way they could shuffle people around to see if she could get the volume bunk.

And they said because they had so many disabled people that particular night, there was, there was, there was no room in the end.

Kind of a funny story, isn't it?

but nevertheless I think that in addition to our zoning practices in the history of how we've outlined the comprehensive plan we also have an opportunity to be holistic about how we provide services and that was part of the inspiration in having the work session on poverty and the subsequent work session on workforce development to really put our resources together so that instead of making

piecemeal changes, but really making systemic changes, because it really benefits the entire city when we're all doing well.

And the comments that Dr. Truman made about our school system, we did have a productive School Board City Council launch, but I also would like to explore the possibility of having the opportunity for someone from the school board or the administration to have

and Tonya C. Council to give an update with some kind of feedback about what's going on because even though those readings are open to the public the same Friday and the middle of the day not many people get a chance to attend and we do get a lot of good information during those readings but I think that by having the opportunity for the school to present here to give some information it also

shows the link between counseling and school board because I do think we do have a good working relationship but the accountability question I'm hearing quite a bit and I think it's only fair that we provide them the opportunity to address those issues.

I'm intrigued with the idea of having forums to hear more from our young people and we don't hear from them often enough and I'd even like to hear from them to find out what kind of opportunities that

that they would like to have.

I'll just make a couple of comments.

I would like to find out more about the old Lynchburg Road issues.

I'd like to find out, are there reasons why they weren't accepted into the city system?

Did the developer build them to the same standards that we expect to be built in the city?

Or is there a reason they're not accepted and they were built more in the front yards instead of close to the street because the developer was saving money or some other reason?

I don't know, but I think we should make sure we get all the facts on that.

But I think we should look at it carefully.

And I'd like to thank Dr. Turner for bringing to our attention an issue which had constantly brought to our attention.

Until we can meaningfully improve the graduation rate, or not even just graduation rate, the dropout rate, we're going to have trouble solving a lot of the problems we have in our community.

Dr. Turner hits a nail on the head when he points out that for some children they get to high school and they just fall behind.

They really lose faith in why they should continue, but I'll point out

That happens when they get to school.

It happens at the very earliest stages of education and I think that hopefully the city schools initiating a three-year-old program having more

attention at the national level to the importance of early childhood education.

But I do believe it's a city responsibility.

It's not just a school responsibility.

I think it's a burden that the schools can't, they can only do so much in the limited amount of time the schools have.

And I like to think that council is getting that message.

I think one of the successes we've had, and we're expanding it every year, we're expanding it this year, is the summer jobs program for at-risk youth.

I think that's been a success to give some of our kids a reason to stay in school because they have a sense of the future.

And I think that Counselor Edwards really pushed us to have some

poverty related work sessions and out of that came some new initiatives that were starting this year that directly involved schools and city support of some things the schools can't do by themselves.

I agree with comments made by Ms. Edwards and Dr. Brown just now about the dropout rate and I too thank you Dr. Turner for bringing you forward.

We are doing more now than we were a couple years ago in terms of providing more community support for our youth, but it's not enough.

It's not enough and it is a crisis and I like Ms. Edwards' idea of inviting the schools here to talk about, we did have a productive discussion last Friday about this very subject, what are the schools doing to try to reduce the dropout rate.

It would be very good to have some of that information more publicly available and I love the idea of having public forums go to the source and find out what's going on.

So thank you again for bringing those concerns forward.

I agree with the comments made about the sewer easement.

I had a good meeting a week ago or so with some of the residents of Lynchburg Road who made a very compelling case, I have to say, as to, you know, it's not at all clear that this has been a private line all along, the way it's been treated.

So, thank you for coming forward tonight and we'll try to get more clarity on that.

I'm very troubled by the data that Ms. Smith brought forward, which I'm hoping can be chalked up to an innocent error, but a 40% discrepancy in usage between this record and what we're basing on our entire water supply plant is very troubling, so I'm hoping there's a simple explanation for that and I look forward to asking that question later on when we discuss the conservation plan.

And, oh, in terms of the dredging study, this council has been clear to say that we're not going to proceed with any work on the Ragamone Dam until the dredging study is complete.

So if anybody in this community or this region thinks that they can delay the dredging study to the point where it's not going to be possible to do the study before we work on the dam, I think is

Not really understanding where this council is.

We want to see that driving study completed so we do the best possible information to move forward with the plan.

Lastly, Mr. Craig, thank you very much for the work that you and Habitat do for our community.

I'm very pleased to be supporting the work that you're doing.

I agree with you.

In fact, four of us who were at the Impact meeting a few weeks ago all agreed with you that if revenues don't continue to decline, if we have a healthier revenue situation that we will revisit,

funding for the housing fund.

It was a commitment that four of us made.

And I really appreciate their new initiative in terms of trying to reach out to residents that haven't been able to qualify for the Habitat for Humanity program and work with them on their credit issues, their debt issues, so that they can potentially qualify in the future.

So thank you.

Thank you to all of you for coming forward.

We are now going to move on to the regular business portion of our agenda.

We have a lengthy consent agenda tonight.

Item A is an appropriation of $80,000 for the summer lunch program grant, seconded to two readings.

Item C is an appropriation of $641,289.20 community development background for FY 2010, second of two meetings.

Item D is an appropriation of $155,323.00 home funds for FY 2010, second of two meetings.

Item E is an appropriation of $110,000 in insurance proceeds for juvenile and domestic court, wall collapse, first of two readings.

Item F is an appropriation of $11,667 teens give program grant, first of two readings.

Item G, resolution amending to BAR design guidelines, RE, CAFE, and mineral signs and earnings, first of one reading.

Item H is a resolution written in 2007 Comprehensive Plan, first of one reading.

Item I is a resolution establishing policy regarding identity theft, first of one reading.

Item J, a resolution approving applications for economic stimulus funds for water infrastructure projects, first of one reading.

Item K, a resolution authorizing $500 from the council reserved for the Martin Luther King Jr. celebration, first of one reading.

Item L, a resolution authorizing letting the support of commuter rail service to Crozet, first of one reading.

Item M, an ordinance rescinding street closing of Portion of Grove Road extended and located off Valley Road extended, second of two readings.

Item N, an ordinance zoning ordinance amendments, second of two readings.

Item L, an ordinance revision to fees guiding for building permits reduction, second of two readings.

Item P has been removed from our consent agenda.

It was an ordinance of meeting requirements for accepting of streets that needs further work, so we're going to take one off the consent agenda for tonight.

Item Q, an ordinance amendment regarding BAR appeals to City Council, first of two readings.

And last, item R, an ordinance amendment regarding CAFEs and vendors, first of two readings.

Second.

Any discussion?

If not, please interfere your vote.

Thank you very much.

The next item of business before us tonight is a public hearing and resolution regarding bond issuance, a maximum of a $19 million bond issue and a maximum of $5 million, $500,000 refunding bond issue, the first of one reading.

Good evening Mr. Mayor, members of City Council, Mr. Acting City Manager.

The resolution before you authorizes City Council to sell up to $24.5 million in general obligation bonds and $5,500,000 is a 2001 issue that we're refunding.

We hope to save a little bit in excess of $200,000 by doing that refunding because we think we get a much better interest rate than we're paying right now.

All of these bonds are from the 2009 approved CIP, not from the CIP that we just adopted.

A summary of the projects is part of your memo to Council and you can find it on Page 3.

Also, we'll be meeting with the rating agencies next week and they will rate us hopefully again, AAA, that's certainly our intention, but everyone should be aware that in the last month Moody's Industrial Service actually gave some

It's very bad news to local governments because they get a negative outlook on all US local governments and some of the things they'll be looking at particularly is do localities have businesses like financial services,

Real estate development business, oil manufacturing that's in your community that of course are having difficult times in this economy.

Do they have sales tax revenues declining?

Do they have real estate revenues declining?

They'll be looking at fees probably harder than they had in the past.

Also, do they have a large amount of fixed costs in their budget, i.e.

state mandates, for example.

Some of the mitigating circumstances, which I think Charlottesville has positioned themselves well for,

is we have above average reserve levels.

That's one of the things to be looking at.

The Economic Downturn Fund is a good example.

We've been able to tell them we did in anticipation of our sales tax revenue decline, for example.

It is demonstrating willingness on the part of management to make budget adjustments as they see it coming, which by the disclosure of passing the 2010 budget, we've done that.

they're looking for consistently conservative budget estimates which we have done.

So we have no reason to believe at this point that we're going to be anything other than triple A and based on the market today we'll probably be selling bonds better than we did last year at a rate of about 3.5%.

Last year we sold them for 3.7%.

I have Morgan Keegan, our financial advisor.

If you have any questions, I know there's been some issues about building America bonds.

and we are continuing to look at that, but if we sell it today, we'll be better off selling bank-qualified bonds, we'd have a better rate, we'd probably be able to sell it today at about 3.5%, UDA for example sold a couple weeks ago for 4% using Bank of America, build America bonds.

I think Mr. Wright, any questions before we open the public hearing?

Okay, thank you much.

Good evening Mr. Mayor and Councilors.

Colette Hall, 101 Robinson Lane.

I think everything I say is always fiscal responsibility and because bonds and financial ratings and

Finances in general are not my expertise.

I usually go to Mr. Watts.

And Mr. Watts is always kind enough to explain in simple terms, and I went to him before the meeting.

He explained it.

I have no questions.

Thank you, Ms. Haaland.

Thank you, Mr. Watts.

Any other endos that would like to speak on this issue?

We will close the public hearing.

I just want to make a comment.

This is a really essential for our continued improvement of our infrastructure.

Any further discussion?

Please indicate your vote.

Thank you very much and thank you Mr. Wright.

Appreciate all your efforts.

Next we have a public hearing and ordinance revision to neighborhood development fee schedule for outdoor cafes and window spaces.

First the two meetings.

Thank you Mr. Mayor and Council.

Every couple of years we come to you with an adjustment in the feeds that we charge our vendors and our cafes and it's that time we're doing it again.

We're trying to come to you early in this time to give them an opportunity to deal with this.

The proposal we have is that these will take effect January 1, 2010.

As you know we've waived the fees for this year for all our cafes and so they're not paying anything this year Currently cafes pay $3 a square foot plus they pay $125 in an annual fee They only pay it every two years for $125 and $3 a square foot per year We're proposing that for a number of reasons we go to an annual registration and that $125 be every year

and then let the fee be $5.00 a square foot for the basic rent and if they desire to use our electricity as we now will have available as soon as we are complete May 1st for the mall that they would pay $7.00 a square foot which will cover and include the cost of the electricity that they will be using.

Our vendors, we haven't adjusted those fees in about three years and we're proposing basically we go to a system that is for the large assigned spaces that go from on the average $800 to a flat fee of $1200 that for the unassigned spaces they go from $600 to $800 and then for the, those are the smaller assigned, I'm sorry

and unsound go from 500 to 600.

Food vendors who are all assigned would pay $800.

Those are adjustments that we would propose to be making effective, as I said, January 1, 2010.

We have provided this information to all of our vendors and cafes for several weeks now.

We believe this is more in bringing them in line with what, again, getting to what the property's worth and trying to equalize some of the cost with something more appropriate for what they pay for indoor space.

Questions for Mr. Tolbert.

Can you discuss the ways that you've gone about informing vendors and cafe owners?

You know, for a good while we wish we wouldn't, but that's not too bad considering what we pay elsewhere.

I think most people are excited about getting the power.

They like that.

In fact, they got to pay for it.

They understand they're also going to have free Wi-Fi to run all their points of sale if they want to do that.

So I think they realize there's some payouts.

Let me ask one other question.

Those vendors would be, if they were in assigned space and they had the 10x10, they pay $800 now, we're proposing they go to $1200.

If they had the smaller space, it would go from $600 to $800.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

I would say we did some study of this about the last time we did it three or four years ago and compared it to say what a vendor would pay if they were in a fashion square.

And we were about still less than probably a third of what those rates are there, so our rates are still a bargain for folks that want to do business in the mall.

Let me ask one other question.

The average permit, or the annual permit fee, rather, was 125, was it one time?

It was average every two years.

Every two years.

And now it goes annually?

Thank you, Mr. Talbert.

We will now open the public hearing.

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

All right, we will close the public hearing.

I have one comment.

First of all, I think this is a reason why we were due into this whole holiness system.

I have one question about the wind speeds we've assigned going from 0 to 100.

90% of our spaces are assigned and they're in the prime locations.

They're basically around central place and within half a block of central place.

And that's where everybody wants to be.

Even when we had lower fees for other places, they would rather be unassigned and be there and take their chances than pay the fees and be down in the 200 block, let's say, or the 100 block.

So it's a little more, but it's also recognizing that that's where the vast majority are.

I understood your logic.

Mr. Huja, I would tell you that I have yet to hear a vendor come in and complain when they can get that assigned space about the fee they pay.

They all know that it's a

I'll add my two cents, which is, I do think I tend to agree with Mr. Huja that I think these increases are too steep in one year.

It's an average increase on vendors of anywhere from 20 to 50%, it looks like, in one year, a fee increase in one year in a shaky economy.

Actually, for both.

I understand the concept of charging more for access to city electric service.

I have no problem with that.

but I'm not you know we're going from right now three dollars square foot to five or in some cases seven dollars a square foot which again is a substantial increase in one year

I'm a little surprised that we haven't heard from any of the vendors or cafes and I'm not sure why.

I think some of it they also know that they've been way undervalued for a number of years and even though we've been increasing, when we first did this over 50 cents a foot

I would feel more comfortable if we set up some graduated system where we can gradually raise it, really.

I understand the need to raise it and people should pay a fair market value but

Given the current economic conditions, I just wonder too if it's the right time to make the increase at large.

And I don't know what you could come up with another fee schedule.

and I don't know if it makes sense to base it maybe on a percentage increase because all of these are not the same percentage increases, are they or not?

That's the only thing that I question.

It seems to me like that it might be fair if you applied the same percentage increase to all the fee adjustments now that there may be good reason for not doing that and I understand

Any other thoughts?

I'd like to see us do something a little more incremental.

I don't know if you can have part of it take effect now and part of it take effect in another year.

I just don't want to do anything to discourage the vendors on the mall because I think they add a lot to the character of the mall.

I would say the electricity part, absolutely.

Yeah, but everybody already said it.

But just to echo the concern that I don't want this to be a dampening morale of our vendors.

So if it could be, I'd prefer it.

I'll be glad you can get it back on your agenda in a month or so.

Okay, thank you Mr. Cohen.

I was going to present the staff in perspective.

Mr. Mayor and members of the council, this is an ordinance, proposed ordinance, offered tonight for first reading that authorizes the sale of approximately 1,222 square feet of city property to the current owner of 400 West High Street.

This request has been reviewed by city staff, including the Director of Neighborhood Development Services and the city's Public Utility Director and they have no objection to the sale.

There is no future city use of this property identified.

The original request to the city was for a larger parcel of land, but because the larger parcel does contain some city gas utilities,

The area of the property has been reduced down to a little over 1,200 square feet.

The assessor has placed a value of $2 per square foot on this property, which means if it's authorized by council, the proposed sale will be for $2,444.

Thank you, Mr. Brown.

Yes.

It is a recent value placed on it by the city assessor.

Is the assessment not based in large part though on the feasibility of any kind of work that can be done?

I think the assessor takes that into account.

Realistically speaking, this is not a parcel of land that can be built on.

That's true.

Other questions before we have the public hearing?

We'll now open the public hearing.

Anybody from the public like to speak?

Hi Mayor, members of council, my name is Cass Kawecki, I live at 705 Graves Street in the city and I'm here on behalf of my mom, Dr. Kathleen Free, who lives at 400 West High Street and has made this request.

I thought maybe I could just mention a little bit of background on the nature of her request and why she's requesting it.

This land sort of forms a buffer between her property and the city property which houses the gas utilities and it's been

for a long time since she purchased the property in 1998 and renovated it.

She spent about two and a half years renovating this property and invested quite a bit for her and her husband's doctor's practices and for their primary residence.

and over the years it's really has not been very well maintained there's a lot of low sort of shrubs and ground cover where there's been vagrants that sleep in there quite a bit and hang out there I guess you could say and leave their trash behind and about

Once a week she's typically had her maintenance person go out there and just clean up the trash and it's just been a little bit of a maintenance headache and she'd like to have control over the property and clear the understory out and just make it generally cleaner and more presentable and do something a little nicer there.

So that's the nature of her request.

That's all.

Thank you, Mr. Quinn.

Thank you.

Collette Hall, Ronald W. Robertson, I am president of NDRA, which is the neighborhood association for North downtown.

Kochis enough to have one of his staff sending information on this, I immediately sent it to the board and I made sure that the man who lives closest to his property was aware of this, just in case he had an objection or whatever.

No one from my neighborhood came forward regarding this, but then I really didn't have enough time to disseminate it to the whole neighborhood.

My question is this, I have no problem with selling the land.

That's an issue.

But Mr. Brown said that the public utilities department and also he said another department had no problem with selling this.

My concern is, I don't know if you know, it is at the end of High Street and when High Street goes downhill it makes that curve.

If you keep curving to the right you find yourself in McIntyre Road and if she

I thought the information that Mr. Brown certainly said that she actually wanted as a buffer so she could plant trees to make her property a little bit more, what should I say, private?

I don't think that's the word, but so I want to be sure that the site, the traffic site, will not be abstracted in a way if large trees are planted there as we go along the curved American Tower Road to the zoo intersection.

Thank you, Ms. Hall.

Anybody else like to speak to this matter?

We'll close the public hearing.

Mr. Brown, I don't know if you're in position to...

And Mr. Kawecki may be better positioned to answer that than I am but there is a plaque on the back of the ordinance that's in your notebook and it identifies the property that's proposed for sale as parcel Y and I think if you look at that there's still a significant

and the concrete walkway and curve that Ms. Hall describes.

Parcel Y is landscape.

I don't believe it would interfere with site distance while you're going around that curve.

Thank you, Mr. Brown.

at the community college.

Welcome.

Thank you, and thank you for the opportunity to bring you this annual report.

Let me start by saying all four of the city appointees to the PVCC board are here, and I really appreciate them being here.

Walt Loveline is our board chair this year.

Suzanne Morris is our vice chair.

Mary Lou Stabili

and our most recent city appointment, Peter Klayman.

And I just want to thank them for being here, for all the work they do all year, and I want to thank each of you for appointing them.

You've hit four home runs with those four, so thank you.

I'll give you a brief update and mixed in will be the answers to the questions that Councillor Edwards sent me on Friday.

I hope those have been distributed to you.

Thank you.

I'll address those briefly and obviously you can ask away with questions related to that.

Basically, what's going on at PVCC can be summed up in a sentence or two.

Enrollment up, state funding down.

That's about it.

Our enrollment from the past two years is up a little over 10%, which means we're up over 400 students per semester from two years ago.

And coincidentally, our state funding is down almost precisely 10%.

Fortunately for the next year, the year starting July 1, we were in line for another 5% increase, a decrease in state funding, so it was a cumulative 15%, but the federal stimulus money balanced that out.

So we will not experience another funding decrease next year, but we still carry a 10% deficit as we start the year, unfortunately.

As the data shows that you have in the response to Counselor Edwards, unfortunately,

The enrollment increase is not true of Charlottesville residents.

No matter how you slice and dice that enrollment, whether you compare fall with fall or whether you compare annual enrollment with annual enrollment, the enrollment of Charlottesville residents at PVCC has declined every year for the past five years.

and that's despite the fact that our enrollment over that five-year period is up between 15 and 20 percent total.

That's obviously a concern of ours.

I know it's a concern of yours.

I brought it to your attention each of the last two or three years that I've reported here and I wish I could tell you why it's occurring.

I really don't.

but I would certainly welcome your involvement in any partnership we can do together to try to find out why that is occurring and figure out what we can do together to reverse that trend and again I'd invite any thoughts you would have on that matter because this troubles us just as much as it troubles you.

Let me talk a little bit about workforce development because I know that's very much on your minds and in the questions that I've been receiving.

First a piece of good news, everything is on track for the visitor center at the base of the hill to become a part of Piedmont Virginia Community College and to become

our dedicated workforce development center.

Everything's on track.

The last word we had from state government is that we're looking at about mid-May when we will be able to take possession.

They're doing their due diligence now and it's going through that process.

There's nothing to hold it up.

and we expect to take possession around mid-May.

We have about half a million dollars worth of renovation that will begin immediately and we're hoping that we'll begin offering classes in there by fall.

And all of that will be devoted to workforce development oriented courses and programs.

When I say workforce development courses and programs on the sheet again that references the questions

All of those programs, the degree, the certificate, the short-term certificate programs, and the non-credit programs, they are all listed on that sheet for you.

I thought I would just give you those all in one place.

And most of the non-credit workforce programs will be housed at that workforce development center.

That's really a growing part of what we do, but it has no space in which to grow, and that's going to be primary target down at the visitor center.

In terms of the question we've received about employment, are these folks finding jobs when they complete these workforce programs?

The data I've presented goes back to right after graduation last May.

So I can't tell you what are those people doing today, but I can tell you what they were doing about a month after graduation.

So that would have been end of May or early June last year.

And as you can see here, of the 143 graduates who were seeking work,

117 had work in their field and another 8 had work in this region but not in their field.

So we feel it is being successful.

Those programs are preparing people for jobs that exist here and they are getting those jobs.

Now, what will happen in this economy today as we graduate people in May?

I'm as concerned as you are.

Obviously I'm hopeful that we will have just as good a track record, but we can't guarantee it.

Our job placement office is working diligently to try to get all of this Mays graduates placed.

Big area for workforce development obviously is still in healthcare and had a couple of questions there that you wanted me to answer.

If you look at the sheet, you will see what's happening with our associate degree program.

That's the program that leads one to be a registered nurse.

I'll just take this year's data.

We had 347 applications for that program.

This is a selective admission program, one of the fewer we have.

That's because we're limited to how many students we can take.

Of that 347, 210 met our qualifications, we accepted 90 and that's because that's all we can

Good news on the other front, the LPN program, licensed practical nurse that we've talked about many times will definitely be launched in January.

We will be advertising shortly.

That will also be selective admission.

We'll be taking 20 students in the first class and that process will go on in the fall.

We'll have applications

Review of the applicants and we'll accept 20.

It would be our intention, our expectation, although we'd like to graduate all 20 a year later, statistics suggest probably 16 of the 20 will make it through the one year program.

So we expect to be bringing about 16 licensed practical nurses into our economy each year starting, it would be a year after the program begins.

Let me just conclude with one other thing about workforce development.

We've had many conversations about the Charlottesville Workforce Center, known as the One Stop Center, which is located on Hydraulic Road.

And as I think you're aware, PVCC is under contract to run that facility.

We're under contract from the Workforce Investment Board.

We began that contract last July 1.

Let me just give you some data.

From last year I won, when we took over, till the end of March, the walk-in traffic to the one-stop center at Hydraulic Road was 15,219 individuals.

That represents 5,415 different people, so they're averaging coming in about three times a piece.

5,400 different individuals served in, what's that, eight or nine months.

Of that, 36% were city residents.

That's a little over 1,400.

The city is the largest, the percentage is the largest for the city of any of the jurisdictions.

City is 36% of those walking in.

Albemarle County is 29%, despite the population difference.

That's good news and bad news.

That means more city residents are either unemployed, underemployed, or looking for work, which is why you come into that facility.

And therefore, the 36% indicates there are more city residents who need those services.

The good news of that is they're coming in and they're seeking the services and hopefully getting helped.

The hopefully getting helped part, I don't have that data for you yet.

We will.

As the economy has worsened, those numbers have increased.

The data for just the past week, just to give you an idea of what's happening, 80 people a day walking into that facility, 15 of those are first timers.

meaning they've just been either laid off or realized they need to do something to get a new job, 15 a day or walking in.

When we first took over last July, that was maybe five or six a day and now we're up to 15 a day in that situation.

Last piece on the One Stop Center, we've had discussions about can we bring a satellite center into downtown Charlottesville since it has moved out to Hydraulic Road and the answer to that is yes and we're working on that and I'm pleased that there have been what I'm told are very promising discussions about locating that satellite as part of the First Street Church project.

I don't have details, you probably know more about it than I do, the actual discussions, but I am told that everything is moving along well and that looks like it would be a reality when that project gets off the ground.

I have one question and thank you for a great report and thank you for taking the time to meet with some of us from time to time to discuss the issues.

That's what I'm here for.

I understand.

The email we got today talks about Charlottesville enrollment data.

Can you explain to me, it says head count and annual head count.

I'm sorry about the jargon.

The first one where it talks about the head count, that's just looking at a fall semester.

So how many Charlottesville residents were with us in that given fall semester?

And you can see it was at a high of 733, now it's down to 548.

The annual takes a look at the whole year, fall, spring, summer.

And don't count a person twice, just count them once.

How many individuals showed up on our doorstep for credit courses from Charlottesville at any time during that year?

And you can see that was at a high of over 1,200, now we're down to 900.

So, either way you count it, it's not good.

At least from our perspective, I know from your perspective, that's not a promising statistic.

I'd like to thank our counselor, Edwards, for kind of teeing up the issues for us so that you can be prepared and brought some good data for us.

I guess my question is with regard to the declining city enrollment, do you have

any data to indicate whether this is fewer individuals deciding to give the community college a try to begin with or does it consist of students who have gone for a semester or two and then for some reason chosen not to continue.

No, I'm sorry I don't have that data and I can't answer that.

One observation, a small part of this decline is made up of the right out of high school students.

but it is a very small part.

The largest part of this decline is in the age 25 and over group where we used to have much more of those part-time students taking a course or two a semester while working.

Since other localities obviously have had an increase, do you have any feeling for, have their numbers relative to those two groups?

I don't want to go too far without the data.

Let me work on a little bit more.

When we did this first pass, remember, I just got this Friday, so doing this first pass clearly showed us this is an issue we need better information on, deeper information.

One final question, I'd be curious to know if there's any methods used in community colleges to gather sort of exit interviews in a way.

Except it wouldn't be exactly exit interviews, it would be like trying to contact people who

were registered, hadn't completed the degree program, were registered, and then have chosen, and then you're not seeing them.

Is there any way of gathering some data so we have some sense?

Is it money?

Are there any identifiable issues that the city could look at?

that we might be able to address.

We do collect that.

Let me pull that together and bring that to you.

And by the way, the answer is going to be all of the above.

When you deal with students who either start their education, well, let's say start their education and they'll continue, you generally get this potpourri of answers, everything from financial to family to moving out of the area.

Very few will ever tell you it's due to academic difficulties, but oftentimes it is, and we can look that up in their grade point average.

But it's generally an all of the above.

There's not one

thing you can generally put your thumb on and say, that's it.

It's a cumulative factor of a lot of things.

One more question.

Do you have an idea of the number of returning veterans that are enrolled?

I was sitting here thinking that

When PBOT started in 72, it wasn't there but I had been told, and I don't know the numbers then, but a significant percentage of our population were returning vets.

That dropped dramatically

But now with the enhanced educational benefits for those returning from Iraq, we're anticipating an increase.

Now, it won't be back to those days, but it will be an increase over what we've had the last decade or so.

Thank you.

I have a couple of comments and a couple of questions.

Thank you for

getting the information so quickly.

That was really impressive.

I'd like to explore some opportunities for some outreach and to see if there are some other organizations and some neighborhood based organizations that you could partner with and also to think about how we can be creative about the activities that are already taking place that the city sponsors.

That if you have an outreach person or if there's a student that wants to intern to do that, to get experience in doing that,

to be a part of the Fridays After Five and to have PVCC be a normal part of the Dogwood Parade activities so that you're already out and about in the community and some way become more visible.

We would love to partner in ways that you can recommend to do a better job of outreach.

That is something that is difficult for us to arrange on our own.

When you just announce open houses or things of that sort,

It is difficult to draw large numbers, but if we can piggyback, as you suggest, on things that already exist and work with you in that way, I think that would be a way to improve outreach.

The other message that I think is so critical to get out, there is clearly a public perception

in some areas, in some circles that they can't afford a college education.

And that is just not true.

I mean first our tuition compared to other places of course is quite low.

Now it doesn't mean it's low for everybody, but compared to other places it is.

But also the availability of financial aid is quite significant.

and there is a large number of folks who say, oh I won't be eligible, but they will be if they would come in and file the application.

That's why we partner with University of Virginia to do each February what's called Super Saturday which draws hundreds of parents and kids

to learn about the financial aid application process.

But that's still not reaching as many as we'd like to reach.

And notice, most who come to that are parents and their high school kids.

What we need to do is reach that adult population of folks who are working part-time.

They'd have to dig pretty deep in their pockets to take courses.

But money could be available for them through financial aid, but they don't realize it because they're out there working.

Yeah, we're very pleased with that program.

Obviously, it's been a great program.

We get some of the students and they go to other places and that's fine.

It's a great city-sponsored program.

It's been very effective.

All right.

The departments that does outreach, I think our parks and rec is the best example of being in just about every neighborhood within the city.

So keep that in mind.

I went to Hampton University and we went to every hospital within the Tidewater area.

We traveled everywhere from Williamsburg to Virginia Beach for our clinical experience in addition to Hampton, Newport News, and we were at Langley Air Force Base.

The user limitation is really just one of practicality and logistics.

We try to do almost all of our clinicals at UVA Health System and Martha Jefferson Hospital and some of the clinical experiences can only happen there due to the kinds of acute patient care that they do.

But some of the clinical experiences we are now working with Augusta, I believe, and one or two others because basically UVA and Martha Jeff are just running out of clinical spaces.

They're in such demand.

That's one of the factors holding back the number that we accept.

The other factor is just having enough money to fund faculty positions.

The faculty position we won't have next year is a position that actually has been funded by the University of Virginia Health System.

We have received, we receive funding from both UVA and Martha Jeff to help support our nursing program because they hire most of the graduates and two years, not two years ago, about six years ago, we doubled the size of the program.

We did it with their assistance.

We couldn't do it with our own funding.

I just want my last comment to be that I've worked at EVA and Martha Jefferson and I've always been impressed with the PVCC nurses.

Thank you.

Absolutely, yes.

Work-study is a form of federal program.

I'm going to do this off the top of my head.

I just wonder, I think I brought this up last year when you were here, one of the reasons I think in the not too distant past that you were more successful in getting city participation in your programs was you had a staff person who made it her mission in life to go door to door in city neighborhoods and recruit people for PVCC.

I wonder if there might be an opportunity, and she's from the neighborhood so she already had a connection, if there might be an opportunity for some peer outreach through either current or recent students to help get the word out among other residents of the city.

I think that's a good idea.

And I think, isn't it also true that some of the decline can be chalked up to the fact that it wasn't that long ago that you had more of an active presence in town at the college neighborhood center?

It is hard to determine whether that's the case, but there is certainly reason to believe.

As Mr. Watts knows, we were very active in the Connected Community Technology Center down on Grove Street.

That project ended two or three years ago.

So, you know, was that a cause?

Is lack of convenience an issue?

Possibly.

Yes, we are very anxious to do just that.

And in fact, you know, the preliminary plans would be for a much larger presence than we've ever had before in downtown.

I certainly expect that would result in a significant increase.

I think so too, yes.

Still no comments.

More on this for Philip and like Mr Edwards' comment about outreach in the city, I think I'm sure he has some ideas to explore in the coming years.

Second, I also want to bring in the workforce development centre.

It should.

One of the things holding back what we do in primarily what I would call short-term workforce training has been lack of space.

So, thanks to the generosity of the city and the county and your foresight, that's going to give us about a 10,000 square foot facility that will be wholly dedicated to that.

Thank you very much Dr. Freeman and thank you to all the city representatives and the board for your continued service.

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, last December you outlined some issues that you wanted to have addressed in a major weather conservation study.

This study was jointly prepared by the city and the Albemarle County Service Authority and I will briefly go through the items that are in it and the

recommendations.

Determining how customers use water is difficult.

The national averages are residential usage.

The EPA, which you heard earlier this evening, uses 100 gallons per capita per day as the average household use.

In the 2008-2009 utility rate study, it was determined that for a city residence, the average was 204 gallons per day, which works out to 64 gallons per capita.

During the same time period for the Albemarle County Service Authority, the residential customer use was 56 gallons per capita.

So for both these agencies, this is approximately 40% below the national average.

Within every community, usage will vary widely.

A lot of it has to do with the efficiency of the existing fixtures and the

in the home, household income, occupancy, age, outdoor usage, citizens' awareness of conservation and the need to conserve.

Next in the report we outline the current water conservation activities of both the city and the Albemarle County Service Authority.

I hope you will note that our latest edition

as our rainwater harvesting system that has been installed on our city fleet shop and warehouse.

We're almost ready to hook everything together and get this going, and this will supply water to our street sweepers and our asphalt rollers.

We also listed some of the new programs that we will be undertaking, including the Conservation Leader Program, a business outreach program to assist businesses in incorporating water conservation,

practices, and a number of monitoring and research efforts.

Next, as you requested, we reviewed the best management practices.

These were created by the American Water Works Authority, and that's the National Professional Association, and we presented a summary of the results of the city and the service authority in a benchmarking exercise against 13 other municipalities across the United States.

Although there's certainly room to expand their local conservation efforts, I think you can see that our utilities, both in the city and the county, compare very favorably to other municipalities around the country.

However, in reviewing what we've been doing in relation to these other communities, there are a number of things that we're not doing that we'd like to talk to you about.

One of the key things in looking at indoor use of water is that 61% of the average water is used with toilets, faucets, and bathing.

So if there's something, if we really want to make a difference in our water consumption, it's getting into all these homes with our toilet rebate.

While both of these are offered, and I think they're probably the most cost-effective long-term thing that we can do, there are some other ideas.

sponsoring rainwater harvesting workshops.

We've been helping participants assemble rain barrels for their home or business use.

We've worked very closely with the Thomas Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation District.

They provided the educational parts of the program, and Pepsi very generously provided a number of the barrels, and the people come to the workshop and actually make their rain barrel there.

We now have a full-time water conservation person

who is in a position to now do these educational programs.

In addition to the rainwater harvesting system that I talked about at the flea shop and the warehouse at the city yard, as part of our CTS maintenance and operations,

Center that's being built out on Avon Street.

We will be having a 567,000 gallon hopefully saving in potable water by the rainwater harvesting system that we'll be putting there and that we'll be using for rushing the buses.

In addition, a 40,000 gallon harvesting system is scheduled to be installed at the Martin Luther King Jr.

Performing Arts

Center this summer and that will supply irrigation for the battlefield.

And again, these are just the first, we're hoping to do a couple of things.

First of all, hoping to show commercial customers in the city and the service authority area that this can be done, that it can be done at a reasonable cost and that there are options for that.

And of course, this will reduce our internal city weather there also.

Finally, the report outlines some potential ordinance changes.

These are some things that other municipalities have built into their community's normal non-drought periods.

These are things that we only put in during the various stages of drought, but other ones that can be done.

One is an irrigation runoff restriction.

This allows no water to run off from a property onto the street or into the city storm sewers.

Another is restricting the time of day that outdoor watering can be done.

In most communities, these restrictions are

somewhere between the hours of you can only irrigate during the hours of you cannot from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. so you can water after 9 o'clock at night or before 10 o'clock in the morning and obviously this is so you don't have as much water loss to evaporation

Probably the most restrictive idea that we found in the other communities were mandated retrofits.

This is where some communities are actually requiring that all toilets and showers be retrofitted at the time that a home is sold.

One of the things that we're hoping, as you know, will be coming back to you with some of our energy efficiency programs that we're looking at and we're looking at trying to incorporate some of these water conservation retrofit ideas into those energy efficiency and I think we may be able to do both things together rather than going with something mandated.

At the last page of the report is a potential implementation plan

that we have recommended.

It calls for continuing to do our toilet rebate program, continuing to distribute our conservation kits, expand the rainwater harvesting initiatives both residential and

We're on city buildings and also hopefully we'd like to work with some commercial customers and try to do some demonstration projects with them.

We did put in the four potential ordinances if that's something you may want to look at over the next year and also to look at next year's rate study.

at our rate structure and evaluating the potential of a permanent inverted block rate structure.

This would charge people more the more water that they use.

So this is our information.

Thank you, Ms. Miller.

Before we move into council comments, I don't know if you were here earlier.

Ms. Smith raised a question about the discrepancy in water usage rates.

I want to go back and check.

These numbers came from the rate study and that was done by Mr. Ray's

Finance Department.

I have a question.

In the beginning here it says that we

have replaced 1,200 fewer toilets than the service authority.

But then it talks about the toilet rebate program expansion that we're expecting it to cost more for the city than the service authority.

Is that because we haven't been revising as many?

We have more potential still sitting out there than the county does.

We estimate we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 84 to 8,500 buildings that we don't believe there has been any replacement in.

Some of these ideas you had in here

make me wonder what the state would think about us trying to do them.

We've had a lot of big days into gray water, and

The health department is really the determining factor in what they allow us to do.

Just in the past several months, and Ms. Hildebrand is more involved in this than I was, we actually had a potential

Yeah, when you refer to greywater, I want to make sure it's really the reuse of effluent.

I'm asking you... Yeah, because a lot of people confuse the terms between reusing effluent from wastewater treatment plants or really back out of their households to also just reusing rainwater.

But when we use the term really greywater, it's reusing effluent from wastewater treatment plants or using it, really reusing it from their homes.

and unfortunately the Department of Health has come a long way in the state of Virginia as far as specifying how we can reuse gray water, but it's still in its infancy and there really aren't a lot of

Well, it wouldn't really be treating water on site.

It would be reusing the water that they've actually used to fill their toilets back up.

Some would even use it, you know, it would be water just to fill the toilets back up, pretty much.

Not really irrigate, you can't really irrigate with it because it's got soapiness in it and you don't want that going into the storm drain system.

And then there's also, where we're further along in the, really the,

I guess my point is I obviously don't know that much about this topic but I know we've had people contact the city interested in trying to do things is if there are safe and effective ways that other communities effectively

And if the Commonwealth of Virginia's policies are a hindrance, then I think we should look at are there anything we can ask of our state legislators to allow us to have more progressive statewide regulations that would allow this.

So that's kind of where I'm going with that.

You know, I guess a part of this would be if we can identify overall places where other states, they're doing something where we can't because we're in Virginia and it's a vulnerable state and we haven't been enabled for it.

I think there are a couple others that I thought that obviously would be mandating replacing

Toilets or something when you sell a house.

I'm not saying we should do that or not but I bet we couldn't if we wanted to right now and the city attorney's nodding his head.

I might want to add the one project that Ms. Newell mentioned, it was actually reusing rainwater harvesting and the state is much further along with actually effluent greywater reuse than they are with rainwater harvesting and the project that Ms. Newell referred to was they wanted to put a cistern on top of the building and then reuse it to fill toilets, laundry,

I think that's it.

Department of Health is not very far along.

I guess my other overall comment is I'd like to see if we could distribute this report to other organizations who might look at it with a careful eye to let us know if there's anything out there that we've missed.

I mean, a lot of this is coming from, at least appears to be coming from the national organizations of water authorities or whatever.

So for example,

I see some people sitting in the audience that might be interested in looking through this and letting us know how other communities are progressively, you know, conserving, or Sierra Club, League of Women Voters.

I think just, if we could think of places, groups,

to send this to who might be able to look at it, contact us back and say well there's some things that aren't in this report that other communities are doing that are valuable.

Other questions or comments?

I agree fully with what Dr. Brown just suggested on sharing, you know, shopping this report around and getting feedback and input.

There was a vendor, and I'm blanking on the company's name, but there was a vendor at the Eco Fair this Saturday that said that the

Claims of state resistance to greywater have been grossly over-exaggerated and that in fact there's a lot more that we can be doing today under existing authority to promote greywater.

I'll find the brochure that I got and I'll give it to you and you can follow up and see if there's any truth to that claim.

Can you address, obviously, one of the best

ways, as we all know, that we can conserve water is by stopping so much of it from leaking out of our pipes and I think we found that up to 19% of the water that we pumped on the reservoir doesn't make it to the consumer.

The number is actually based on, we've been trending this information for many years and it's actually the

they turned it on a rolling kind of average so that you don't see the peaks and valleys in the numbers and it's actually less than 10% right now for the city.

What we attribute it to is we do leak surveys annually and our last annual leak survey that was done at the end of 2007 indicated that we had 21 leaks of which just a handful were residential but we fixed them all very quickly in-house

and then we've got the residents because they have an incentive because they're using too much water to fix, to also address their situation as well.

We have currently a proposal out to take bids for another leak survey that will happen in the next few months.

But the leak surveys we do over the years indicate fewer and fewer actual leaks that we're finding, which is a good thing.

It actually was,

It was after the full board meeting I researched it because I thought, I don't know if I've seen this number and it was over 18% and it was 18% up until three or four years ago, but it has dropped consistently.

You're so polite.

Well I think it's a good idea if you haven't heard from me.

Okay.

Is there any information on what level of rebate for rain barrels?

So it's not an institutional change that's going to stay in our system.

Yes, and they're very expensive.

I mean, I kind of have some interest in seeing, you know, if we were to put some money into a rebate for those, whether it would be worthwhile, you know, maybe it would be even the kind of thing we would market towards

Do you have more, Dr. Brown?

No.

Alright, and so you have, one is an irrigation runoff restriction.

Irrigation in any form shall not be allowed to run off into the street or storm sewers.

That's your decision.

What's the deal with it after the election?

At this point, I'm just saying, if you want us to look into this as a potential, we would look into it further.

We would really talk to the communities that have this.

We didn't go in depth.

We just wanted to put the couple out here and say, are you interested in us looking further into it?

I'm just not even clear just off the top how that reduces water usage.

Okay.

Well, that helps.

Thank you.

and then I think Dr. Brown hit the nail on the head with the mandated retrofits that I'm guessing we don't have the authority to do anything like that right now.

I'd like to see more.

I mean, for example, and we just want it on here, that we already, we have little check marks saying we do, which is to encourage water-wise landscaping.

Well, I'm not exactly sure how we do that.

We do it in a couple of ways.

We do have some literature that when we're handing out at public events it talks about that.

We also work with the Virginia Tech Master Gardener program and try and do in the educational programs that they're doing there talk more about conserving water and the type of landscaping.

One of the things that we found in some communities

It used to be worse.

I remember when I first came here, we used to pay cheaper, not a lot cheaper if you bought more work.

Yes.

But now I think hopefully it is changing.

I have to address the 800-pound gorilla that's in the room, which I know you have dutifully avoided, and I understand why, which is you don't want to get this immersed in the whole water supply debate.

However, the motivation for pursuing this study came out of trying to get better data

on long-term water usage in our community.

We can't find data on that.

It starts out where so much of it has to do with where you start from.

I think that we could look at some numbers.

We weren't able to find good hard data to give you.

I think, particularly to this point, that there's some

For example, if you have an estimate that there's 8,500 dwellings that have not taken advantage of retrofitting their toilets, if we were to penetrate all 8,500 in pretty much every single toilet in 100% penetration, what would that mean?

How much water would be saved annually in the city?

I think there's some data that could be gleaned I think is a point.

I also think that I think when we

Pass us around, I think if we can just really encourage comment with the idea, we'll bring this back again.

Where is data attached to a number of your proposals in here?

You say that so-and-so is going to save X number of gallons per day, a restaurant low-flow spray or retrofit, estimate savings 200 gallons per unit per day.

So there is some data and I think it's trying to get, you know, it's rough numbers.

And I'm going to be very clear, I'm not asking you or your staff to

to take a stand on whether it means we should fix the numbers in the water supply plan.

That's a political decision, but I'm just trying to get a better sense of that.

And I think for me, I mean, information on if there's some parts of this that would take a lot of work, I think you could come back and say, does it take a lot of work?

And one other thing I really appreciate the fact that you mentioned the possibility of linking this with the energy conservation effort because you're talking here that one of the things that we're not looking to do that other communities have done are water audits.

There's nothing else if we can get the toilets and showers done.

I just want to just emphasize the importance as you're passing it around to get feedback that we are really doing good outreach and taking advantage of educational opportunities.

so that a diverse audience has an opportunity to understand what is grey water.

So we can really expand the number of people that have the knowledge base so they can make good decisions about how water conservation can really be done by individuals and households.

And I did also support the idea of the rain barrel.

I'm sorry, just to clarify, because the initial proposal is for the city to actually buy green burrows.

Yes.

I am proposing it, yes.

I am waiting.

So tonight, I just want the council to be clear in what we're giving you the green light to do.

I personally,

I am not in favor of the city getting into the rain barrel business because they may be competing with other organizations that are doing rain barrel distribution and sales.

And from my perspective, a flat $30 rebate to residents wherever they get their rain barrel, whether it's from the Environmental Conservation Society or my neighbor, Brian Buckley, 15 Oint Green Street.

The other people that are selling marine barrels, that would be my preference.

And that's cool.

This very clearly, the water is a major issue around the world.

I was in the church yesterday.

and I learned something new about the war.

Only 1% of this earth's water is drinkable, other 99% is not.

At least it's a salt water bottle or an iceberg.

That's for you.

Thank you very much, Ms. Miller, Ms. Hildebrand, thank you all for all of your efforts and we look forward to getting more information in the future.

Hello again.

We've been talking for the last several months with a couple of groups that are looking at hospital building

SRO, single resident occupancy or single room occupancy depending on whether you're a planner or an attorney it seems.

And what we've come to realize is we have no classification in our zoning ordinance that truly addresses SROs.

An SRO is essentially an apartment or a hotel if you want to look at it that way.

and an SRO could go in any zoning classification that allows one of those things.

However, they're probably not appropriate for the way an SRO operates.

In an apartment complex, with the densities that we have, if you wanted to do one that looks like it could probably make money, you would need two acres or more in an R3 district.

space for every room, which is a little excessive for an SRO with people homeless.

Most of them don't have vehicles.

We've been looking around the state in particular and other places looking for how communities deal with SROs in the zone ordinance.

And what we found is that most of them create a definition, they create a new use category, and they

allow them as a special use permit, not as a buy-right development in most cases.

And when the special use permits deal with things such as the densities, the operational issues, the number of vehicles or parking places,

Security, those sorts of things.

Seems to be the way that it's done around the state.

What we're proposing tonight is that you simply initiate a study by the Planning Commission to address

NSRO and where it might be located and specifically to look at things such as definition, the zoning districts where it might be allowed and if it might be allowed and some is by right or especially useful more than others, the density standards, a minimum and maximum number of units, parking standards, operational concerns, and any other items relevant to an SRO.

Again, we're not proposing tonight to allow them anywhere or to tell you how we would propose.

We've got some great guidance, particularly the city of Portsmouth has just adopted a really good ordinance that we would probably take as a model to start looking at.

These are different than, just to clarify the issue that was raised earlier, a homeless shelter.

It's a completely different animal than a homeless shelter.

And contrary to what you heard tonight, we allow homeless shelters in B1, B2 and B3 by right and 10 out of 11 of our mixed use districts by special use permit and in R3 by special use permit.

and almost every district in the city a homeless shelter.

We only allow the SRO in the apartment and multi-family districts in the mixed use and again those are probably not appropriate so there are two separate things and we need to make sure that we're

We're addressing them in the ordinance correctly.

So, what's before you tonight is simply a resolution to initiate and give the Planning Commission an opportunity for a hundred days to stay and come back with a recommendation.

They have scheduled this at their next work session as a topic to take up.

I think you're all invited for a presentation by the Virginia Superior Housing folks and to participate in that, and we hope you would initiate this tonight.

Oh absolutely, we looked at other places, I'll just say they have just adopted it.

I'll move the resolution.

Second.

Any further discussion?

Please indicate your vote.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Tolbert.

Any other business before council tonight?

We'll now open up to matters by the public.

Anybody from the public like to speak?

Thank you.

Dede Smith, and I haven't moved in the last two hours.

Thank you, first of all, very much for doing this conservation study.

It's got some very interesting information in it.

I would like to comment on the 40 percent.

You notice there's a 40 percent number in this study as well.

I was trying to be very careful about the per capita, gallons per capita per day number, and if it's not 40 percent, it's still high.

I can guarantee you that.

We have seen our water use go down.

And since the Granite founding did not use any data past 2001 because they did not want to bias it with the drought.

So just that I would particularly like to thank Dr. Brown.

Your comments were really insightful and exactly what I've been thinking, particularly on issues such as Virginia legislation, which as we heard tonight, they are getting there with grey water, but they haven't even begun with rainwater.

And rainwater is huge.

And I'm not talking rainbales.

I'm talking cisterns.

In 50 years, everything's going to look different.

We will not be flushing toilets with drinking water.

Nor will we be irrigating our lawns with drinking water, which is what we're doing today.

So I don't think we've even begun to see the revolution in conservation.

And that, of course, will have a huge impact on what our projected need is.

Anyway, thank you.

I had one other thing to say, and I can't remember what it was, but thank you.

My name is Betty Mooney and I live in the city of Charlottesville and I'd also like to thank you very much for pursuing this conservation study.

I think this is a huge step for our community and I think the city is a leader in this.

Clearly, if you look at it, we're doing much more than the county.

We are leading, probably not only in our community but in the state.

and I think we should all be proud of that.

I also would like to say and emphasize what Ms. Smith has said that I recently met a woman in a neighborhood association in the county who had her plumber divert all of the water coming from her sink to her toilet.

This was done in her house by her plumber.

She said it was not expensive.

She no longer uses her drinking water to flush her toilets.

This is going to be done everywhere, as we said.

We have a huge responsibility to our community.

A lot of us are excited about this.

We are a community of conservers, I believe, and people that believe in sustainability.

I would like to see this conservation study put before a public hearing because I think

It'll bring out the imagination of this community.

It'll be a way to educate the community.

As you said, Dr. Brown, how can we educate?

I think this is a way to do it.

It will promote many of the things you're doing that you'll be able to talk about that a lot of people don't even know about, that you should be proud of.

So I would encourage you to put this wonderful report and this wonderful effort before the community and let people who have been working very hard on this come before you and give you some ideas and speak to you and make this a very transparent process and let's question the water plan and let's question the data because that's what we're about.

We're about in this community being part of our community.

I'm proud to live here because we get a chance

To know who you are, to speak to you all, you're open to us, you answer our emails, you answer our phone calls, I appreciate this.

I know you have a hard job.

So I am very excited about this conservation study and I hope you'll give us a chance as a community to comment on it.

Thank you Ms. Marine.

Anybody else like to speak?

I think the idea of having a public hearing on the conservation plan would be very helpful.

So we can get our ideas from community.

I fully agree.

Any other comments?

No?

Meeting's adjourned.

P.S.