City Council Meeting   7/1/2013

Dede Smith,

I call to order July 1st meeting of City Council.

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

Here.

Ms. Smith?

Here.

Mr. Huja?

Yes.

Ms. Szakos?

Here.

Ms. Galvin?

We have a few announcements and proclamations.

First, we should start with the proclamation.

Yes.

The proclamation is about Parks and Recreation Month.

Whereas parks and recreation programs are an integral part of communities throughout this country, including Charlottesville, and whereas our parks and recreation are vitally important to establishing and maintaining the quality of life in our community,

ensuring the health of all citizens and contributing to the economic and environmental well-being of a community and whereas parks and recreation programs build healthy active communities that aid in the prevention of chronic disease, provide therapeutic recreation services for those who are mentally or physically disabled and also improve the mental and emotional health of all citizens and whereas parks and recreation programs increase a community's economic prosperity through increased property values, expansion of the local tax base,

increased tourism, the attraction and retention of businesses and crime reduction and whereas parks and natural recreation areas improve water quality, protect groundwater, improve the quality of the air we breathe, provide vegetative buffers to development and produce habitat for wildlife and whereas our parks and natural recreation areas ensure the ecological beauty of our community and provide a place for children and adults to connect with nature and recreate outdoors

Thank you Mr. Mayor and Members of Council for this Declaration of July's Parks and Recreation Month.

We appreciate as a staff the continuous support of the council for park facilities, land and programs.

I would encourage all the members of the community to this month come out and enjoy our facilities and our park lands.

Second Resolution or Proclamation which I supported as part of US Conference of Mayors is called Peace Resolution.

Basically it calls for elimination of nuclear facilities, nuclear bombs, etc.

and using some of that money in domestic chores.

You all have a copy of it so I don't need to read four pages of it.

This is the intent of it.

I have one.

Another Parks and Rec announcement for Parks and Recreation Month.

The Great Carver Camp Inn.

Come to Carver Recreation Center for a family sleepover.

On Saturday, July 20th, Carver Recreation will be hosting the Great Carver Camp Inn.

From 8 o'clock Saturday evening until 8 o'clock Sunday morning,

Families are invited to set up a small tent or just bring sleeping bags to enjoy a fun evening.

Activities will include camping treats and a showing of the movie Yogi Bear.

Pre-registration is required.

The cost is $30 per campsite, no more than five people per site, and an adult must be present.

For more information or to register, you can call

I have one.

The Charlottesville city offices will be closed on Thursday, July 4th for Independence Day.

CAT, the transit system, will be operating on a Sunday schedule.

There will be no trash collection on Thursday and Thursday refuse will be collected on Friday.

Friday's collection will be picked up on Saturday.

Any questions on that?

If not, vote.

Thank you.

Are there any other announcements by any members of the Council?

The next item is matters to be brought to the public.

The public comments, is there a sign up list?

Page?

Each one of you have three words to speak.

Hello, Lena Seville, 808 Altavista Avenue.

I'm here to speak about the changes to the transit system.

Somebody needs to push start.

It's okay.

So I'm here to talk about the transit system changes that are on the agenda for tonight.

And I'm speaking as part of the Transit Riders Association of Charlottesville.

Two points.

One is I find it interesting that we're talking about this now because the month of July has been set aside for focus groups about the changes to the transit system.

So it seems like we should be getting the public input before we go to council to make changes.

I would think that the changes would be based on some of those focus groups.

I'm not sure why we're making the changes before we talk to the riders.

Second, as far as the specifics of one of these, the root 7.

they're suggesting changing it from three buses an hour or from four buses an hour running every 15 minutes to three buses an hour running every 20 minutes and if that can keep them better on schedule I have no problem with that what I would like to know though is where the rest of those driver hours are going if you take out one bus an hour from the seven that's 13 buses a day which is almost 70 buses per week and

If at the same time they're asking for more money, for more hours, for more buses, for say the 11, I don't understand why.

I want to make sure that if we're taking out those 70 hours worth of bus driver time on the road that those are going to other routes.

The 10, particularly, people tell me all the time.

There's a lot of shops that low income people use on the 10 and the bus only runs once an hour.

So you go somewhere, you go in, you shop, you come out, you wait a half hour for a bus.

You go to the next place, same thing.

If that bus runs every half hour, it's much more convenient to go in, shop, come back out, take the next bus.

Personally, I like the 8.

I think it should be running more often because it goes right up to Trader Joe's, Kroger.

Whole Foods, I think that could be run more frequently, especially if there's only going to be one bus on Preston Avenue.

If the 9 is no longer on Preston Avenue, all those businesses could really benefit from the 8 having more hours.

Seventy buses a week, I mean we could give everybody half hour peak service on Saturdays for that.

Good evening.

My name is Nancy Carpenter.

I'm an Albemarle County citizen.

Mr. Mayor, Councilors, thank you for this opportunity to address you.

You will have before you a report later tonight about Bus Transit Route 7 and the new 11.

I am here to note my support for the new schedule recommendations for Route 11.

I agree that this route needs to run six days per week and at the times defined in that report.

I would hope the goals of moving people

to educational opportunities, to work opportunities and to retail opportunities will persuade you to use the monies you may be saving on the route 7 changes to fully fund this expanded schedule.

Now that's the good.

There is a policy that CAT has that I would ask council to review.

In the CAT system information pamphlet it states under

passenger conduct that consecutive loop riding is prohibited.

Taken in the context of how that was written, I think it makes sense, but you have to look at unintended consequences.

It is the marginalization of a certain population in this community, the homeless, that I feel suffers the most from this because obviously if we have a destination to go, we're going to go from A to B and not go A to B to C to D, A to B to C to D.

The outcome I would like to see is some flexibility in this policy especially during extreme weather conditions and I mean like summer heat, the winter cold and heavy prolonged periods of

precipitation.

I know that Mr. Jones is here tonight to talk on, to present that report, but I would be willing to meet with Mr. Jones or Mr. Lee or any of their designated representative to further talk about this issue on this particular policy to see if there can be perhaps a more humane way of interpreting it.

Because I have heard some anecdotal evidence that this is occurring and

Hi.

I don't know what I want to say too much, Mayor, other than I left for two months and went somewhere else on my own.

I've been out here for two years homeless.

You all have seen me enough.

I come back right now.

I got no love for Virginia.

and that, why do I have to be forced back here to Charlottesville?

See, my original plan was just to take my mouth and not say nothing, but just stand here.

I come back here after two and a half months of being in another state and you'll have helped 23 single men with no children get a home.

And I'm here.

I did everything you all told me to do at the last meeting.

It's on tape, so it's not a lie.

Look at me.

My babies have asked me, Mama, Tasha, what's wrong?

I have no home for my kids.

So when I leave and go out of state for two months, and I didn't use not one of y'all resources, no church, not your food stamps, not your TANF, nothing.

And I left, and that state's better than here.

Why would I come back here?

Y'all don't even want to help me still.

I'm back and I still don't have my kids because social services took them because their father came into town from Pennsylvania.

You all gave him a bus ticket to leave town.

He owes me $12,000.

Why did y'all resources give him a bus ticket to get out of here?

Why did Pastor Bates help him?

But he won't help me.

Why did you all help him and give him food stamps saying that for Medicaid, Brian Huey is his worker and was my worker?

but you choose to take my kids when I'm a hard worker.

If I go out here and become a prostitute or a drug dealer or I can start robbing people, then y'all want to lock me up and I'm still a bad mom.

So either way, I'm stuck.

Either way, I don't win.

So I need help with my children.

I want them back.

You can check my records.

I've always worked.

I've always done what I'm supposed to do.

My record is speeding tickets if you want to call it what you want to call it.

I need help.

So why do 23 men

because they need, the excuse I'm given is because they need proper sleep, they got to get up in the morning and they got to go to work.

Well, what the hell?

I'm a mom with four kids.

Granted, I don't care if my two kids are 21 and 22, they mine and I still got to take care of them or y'all going to be on my ass again for them.

I need to know why there's no help for me.

Why am I still the only mother down there at the Haven with no home?

And y'all put these men in a home because they got to go to work and they got to eat.

So y'all don't care about me and my kids.

When I came here, I was told by a lady at Beaufort that stay in Charlottesville, Natasha, we keep families together.

Hell no you don't.

Y'all have ripped my family literally to shreds.

and I want to know why.

Why was their dad allowed to escape off of y'all resources?

Y'all in Charlottesville.

Why was he allowed to escape off of y'all resources?

And me and my kids are punished for that.

Good evening Mr. Mayor and Councillors.

Bledhall 101, Robertson Lane.

Okay, thank you.

The following were appointed by the federal government as civilian 106 consultants under NEPA, which is the National Environmental Preservation Act.

Colette Hall, North Downtown Neighborhood Association, Daniel Bluestone, Preservation Piedmont, Peter Kleeman Stamp, Mary Howard, Thomas Jefferson Branch of the APVA Preservation Virginia,

John Cruikshank, Sierra Club, Rich Collins representing himself, James Schisler, the Vietnam Dogwood Memorial, and Robert Hodes, the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce.

As far as I know, none of us were notified of these meetings.

I am not sure if Mr. Hodes or Mr. Schisler were.

Strange, since we met with VDOT, the city, the United States Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Highways Administration, Virginia Department of Historic Preservation, and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, which is our federal agency.

The North Downtown Neighborhood Association was present at meetings between the city, the Birdwood neighborhood, and Covenant School.

Peter Kleeman and I attended every design meeting of the 250 Interchange Design Committee, yet we were not invited or informed of these meetings.

We would like to know why.

Good evening.

I'm Peter Kleeman.

I live at 407 Head Street in the city, and I've just returned from an adventure overseas where I visited many cities in Europe that are truly pedestrian friendly and pedestrian oriented, in fact, and certainly transit oriented and bicycle oriented as well.

And so I've returned after eight weeks away, and it's always shocking to come back and see

how we consider ourselves to be a highly sensitive, pedestrian-friendly, transit-friendly community and we pale in comparison to many cities.

Surely I went to some that were much larger cities, but I think there's great opportunities to enhance pedestrianism, bicycle facilities, etc.

in the city.

but in particular for tonight there are two items on your agenda items three and four about sidewalk waiver requests and this gives me an opportunity to to maybe refresh a comment I made several months ago saying that if you have the opportunity to

have sidewalks provided by developers, I strongly urge you to do that.

It appears that the city's staff recommendation is to not grant those waivers, but in addition to not granting those waivers, I think this is a great opportunity to look to use some of the sidewalk fund to say not only are we going to ask you as developers to build these sidewalks, but we will participate and we will

perhaps add additional properties along that same road so that those are not an isolated piece of pavement or sidewalk that you could be extended to one of the corners across the entire block depending on what funds are available.

But I think that this is a great partnership for the city to strike with developers

People say, why should I build a 30-foot or 50-foot or 100-foot sidewalk?

And the city would say, well, not only are you going to be having that sidewalk for pedestrian use in front of you, but we are going to extend it as a city to encompass these other areas for which developments have already taken place, and that it would be the city's responsibility to put in those spaces.

Thank you very much.

My name is Adam Lees, 120 Chancellor Street in the City of Council.

I have three things I'd like to bring to your attention tonight, two concerning your agenda and one item that's not on the agenda but is an issue that's particularly been affecting my neighborhood in Charlottesville but also other

business districts in the city and this is the issue of harassment by the towing and wrecking companies in the city.

They're damn well making it unbearable to be on the corner.

They come in at all hours of the night, blaring music, blasting their lights.

You cannot sleep if you're trying to wake up early to go to church.

They have towed people out of our church's parking lot, despite there being prohibitions against that.

And I've heard several times from students, both my own former students and my friends, that when they've come and parked on the corner, and for whatever reason could not find someone to pay, they've returned with their car gone, leaving their friends for whom they were DDing stranded.

and besides having to pay the ignominy of being panicked and then finding safe ride back to their dorms or their apartments, then have to pay an egregious fine and deal with all kinds of none such from the towing companies.

I would ask you to definitely address this, especially because when it happens to tourists and visitors to our city, that's the impression they leave of Charlottesville.

We want your money and get the hell out.

The second thing I'd like to discuss are the CAT lines.

I would definitely support the new line 11 as it is, but I would urge you not to approve the line 7 as it stands without public consultation.

Not least besides the other issues that have been brought up with the line, but where the 7 lets off along JPA, none of those stretches are particularly accessible for any elderly person or those with disabilities to access the corner.

This leaves University Avenue effectively with no transit outside of UTS, which I don't find particularly

Pleasant.

The third is the waiver request.

I urge you to reject the staff's recommendations only on the grounds that to piecemeal build sidewalk systems is only more frustrating than not having sidewalks and having had to campaign all through Clark where the sidewalks have this magical ability of disappearing and reappearing sometimes on different sides of the streets.

It doesn't make it any more pedestrian friendly and actually can be more dangerous

especially if you're riding a bike to avoid, say, the tars already speeding through there.

So I would urge to approve those waivers, but to design a more comprehensive sidewalk construction system so that instead of piecemeal approaches, it's a more comprehensive approach to achieve the connectivity that I know we all want.

I just wanted to take the opportunity to say thank you for I was nominated for this CACVB and I wanted to say I'm looking forward to my appointment there to look at additional opportunities in which we can bring more tourism into Charlottesville.

I think that we have a lot of opportunity for growth and especially as being a hotelier and a business owner in this community, I'm looking for new ways and new opportunities to find ways to grow the existing festivals that we have.

and to look out for new opportunities to bring additional festivals to the city.

Again, thanks to you for being here.

Is there anybody else who would like to speak who will not sign up?

Hi, Helen Coffin with the Central Virginia Partnership.

I'm here today just to officially announce our new name.

Formerly the Thomas Jefferson Partnership, we have changed to Central Virginia Partnership for Economic Development.

We're the regional economic development group from Culpeper down to Nelson over to Flovanna, Louisa, so eight counties plus the city of Charlottesville.

and wanted to share a couple of things with you again the name change was a very deliberate long process for our board to go through but I think the new name leverages Virginia the best state for business and identifies our location within that state

and as Martin Briley, CEO of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership said at our news announcement, we need a louder voice and bigger footprint in the marketplace and this new brand helps us with that.

It's important to note too that the name changed but the word partnership stayed the same.

The other piece I'd like to point you out is the brand promises and key messages.

These are really what all of our counties and the city of Charlottesville in this region agreed that would be our main messages that we communicate to our existing businesses and to companies that we'd like to selectively recruit.

that fit with our target markets.

Regional collaboration, strategic location, these are the things that we think are real assets for us.

Great business environment, innovation and research, the connectivity with University of Virginia, entrepreneurial ecosystem, a place where start-up businesses are not only encouraged but they're really nurtured.

Always at the forefront, our new name acknowledges that we have three founding fathers in our region, not just Thomas Jefferson, and quality of life.

That's one thing everyone agreed to very emphatically.

So I really appreciate all of your support for the Central Vineyard Partnership and be glad to answer any questions if you have them.

I'm Dawn Woodford, Charlottesville.

I wasn't going to speak tonight.

The last time I spoke, y'all encouraged me to bring people with me.

Boy, I've been trying all week.

I've been talking to everyone, trying to get them in here.

I was speaking to a fellow recently and I was like, well you need to come to these meetings, you need to have your voice and say what you feel and he indicated to me that he thought it was pointless.

He said the city cares more about planting flowers than they care about the people.

And I said, you know what, we need the flowers.

to draw the tourists in to make the city look attractive.

And he said, well, there are people living under bridges.

And I was like, well, but we really need a balance that we need to have the tourists in.

It needs to look good.

But I haven't been able to sleep, not a day this week.

Every night that I've laid down to sleep, I thought about that.

And I thought to myself, there's not enough flowers that you can plant in this city.

There are people less than half a mile from where I live that live under a bridge.

So I just want to encourage you to better use the money.

The people need to come first.

I love the flowers as much as anyone else.

And I love the trees on JPA that they pull out every three years to plant new ones because they're not appropriate growth trees for that area.

But we have people living under bridges in this city.

That's just not good enough.

The second thing

Now I've lost my train of thought, but I just want to encourage you to think about that.

That the money needs to be, we can't have people living under bridges in Charlottesville.

That's just not good enough.

That's just not good enough.

Thank you.

Mark Cabot, 400 Altamont Street.

I'd like to echo what Colette Hulse had to say about the consultants of section 106 NEPA.

It appeared that there was inadequate notification about the lecturers.

I know that I was not notified.

I did receive something through, I guess it was the

Jeffers School, I kind of forget what the proper name is for now, but I didn't really put the fact that it was part of the mitigation program.

It seemed to me like it was a lecture on African American situation involving the school.

But now that I can look back at it, I think it was actually concerning the mitigation.

I'd also like to ask council that when you're out and about and you're over on McIntyre to where the skate park used to be to look towards Birdwood and initially some of us were told that the area of disturbance is going to be about three to five feet from the sidewalks and there was actually a

ribbon that was put out there to indicate where that was going to be.

And I thought it was a little strange that a ribbon would be put out.

We thought it would be stakes, but they actually put a ribbon out.

And as time has gone by, we've noticed that this ribbon has gotten, well now it's disappeared, but it got moved.

Then stakes came in and then the stakes have been moved further and further into Birdwood area.

A mature hardwood got cut down and we're not even attempting to be saved and made part of the plan.

And it just seems that it keeps moving further and further into the build right area and leaving less of what we could possibly do as a buffer to come back and plant trees at some future point.

Thank you.

Anybody else would like to speak?

Anyone else like to speak?

Thank you.

I can start.

Kind of gather myself.

Ms. Seville, I was interested to hear your ideas about the bus service and we are going to be talking about it on the agenda and I know Mr. Jones is here.

So I'm hoping you can wait because you had some really specific questions that I would like us to get answers for.

But I'd rather wait until we get to that on the agenda.

And the same with Ms. Carpenter, also a bus issue.

Ms. Jackson said she wanted answers.

She's not here.

So I would encourage her if she would like to talk to me to give me a call or if she wants to talk to somebody on Citi to come and talk to us because we would like to see what we can do about giving her answers.

I would also like to know about the committee that was supposed to meet and what happened with that and I assume that we'll get to that when we get to that agenda item as well.

Mr. Kleeman, where are you?

There you are.

It's true that when we talk about being one of the most bike friendly and pedestrian friendly cities in Virginia, that's setting the bar pretty low because around the world there are cities that make us look really bad.

And I think that it is something we should always strive to be better.

We can rest on our laurels only so far, and then we have to realize that there's still a whole pack ahead of us.

So thank you for that reminder.

To Mr. Lees, thank you for helping me remember how to pronounce the word ignominy.

I knew how to pronounce ignominious, but I wasn't quite sure when I read the other how to say it, so thank you.

But also we'll talk about the transit issues later.

The tow truck harassment is something we've tried to deal with in the past.

That'd be great.

Because I understand that that could be really annoying.

I live right by a drive-thru bank and so we end up with similar

sounds not from tow trucks but from people pulling into the drive-thru.

And I think that Ms. Woodford, you're absolutely right that people need to come first and I think it's really important and when you go back to folks who say, oh it doesn't matter, people don't listen on council, we do and we need people, if that's what they believe, they need to come here and keep telling us that because you know that we're hearing from people who think that other things come first.

And like you said, there are balances that we have to do, but we need to hear from people about all of those things.

And the folks who are being affected and needing that kind of investment need to be here too.

So I would encourage you to continue to encourage people to come to Council, but not necessarily only to Council meetings, but also to call us, to write to us.

There are lots of ways to reach city Councilors.

You can write if you're online to Council at Charlottesville.org.

You can come downtown and leave us a message at our clerk's office.

So there are ways that people can put pressure on us to remember that people are important and that investment in people is one of the key things we do as a city.

And we need to do that for all people.

Again, several of these items we will be talking about later on this evening, but thanks for the comments.

I think about Ms. Seville's comments, I do want to make sure that we're following the public process and getting the engagement, so that's a very good point that you raised.

Thank you.

We will be pulling that agenda item to talk about item F, the landscaping.

and about Mr. Kleeman's comment.

It's interesting that in 2010 we had a complete streets resolution.

Ms. Szakos offered a resolution for a healthy eating active living that we passed at that time.

I also folded in the designing walkable urban thoroughfares resolution that I will be presenting next time we meet.

But I also want to point out that in our comprehensive plan update a very important item was mentioned and that was the adopting for best practices the ITE, the Institute for Transportation Engineers manual for designing urban thoroughfares.

And what's been missing, we have our aspirational language but we don't seem to have the intermediate policy documents that then get us to the point where we're implementing the different kinds of streets because not one size fits all, you're absolutely right.

And the only way we're going to find out what street should go where however is if we do

what is required in the process which has also been adopted by the Virginia Department of Rail and Passenger Transit that we do need to get an overall feel of what the city is in terms of its streets, its context and then we find the streets and then we put them in place.

A major, major step is going to be the design and implementation of streetscape improvements on West Main Street.

We really are going to start moving away from simply having a regulation size

I think a lot of people in the city share the frustration that we have not been creating

the public streets and the kinds of public places associated with those streets that all of our aspirational language says we want.

So we've been missing some policy statements, we've been missing some tools, but I do believe we're on the verge of getting those tools in place.

Thank you.

About Ms. Cawthon's

announcement, yes it's been a long time in coming.

I also think a major innovation though in that whole process was to understand that it's not only economic development in the sense of bringing companies here, it's also workforce development.

and getting that match right.

And they're two different sets of professionals that deal with economic development and workforce development.

We are bringing them together regionally and we're trying very hard to do that locally so that we do move towards a model of upward mobility for everyone.

So thank you for bringing that to our attention.

Yeah well pretty much everybody's covered what I wanted to say but thank you all for coming and particularly talking about these agenda items that we will be talking about later.

I mean there is a reason why we're talking only about 7 and 11 because it doesn't impact the bigger changes in the transit.

but these we can get sooner and we can get some improvement sooner but we'll talk about that and get that those are good those are really good analysis and really good great questions and we will get those answered I you know I I really all of you who talked about the interchanging particularly Mr. Cabot I feel your pain I mean it's it is so disturbing to see a lot of the changes that are happening now

and I'm glad we'll have an opportunity to begin to get some answers and maybe find a way to be better on top of all this.

And thank you, Ms. Galvin.

Well, I agree with Ms. Galvin that developing

Opportunities for upward mobility does require workforce development and economic development to work hand in hand, but it also requires us to think about the kinds of jobs that we are trying to grow and attract and retain in the community.

And unfortunately, this chart right here indicates, and again, this is not news to you, I've said this previously, that we're going to be focusing our efforts on bioscience and medical devices, business and financial services, information technology, defense and security.

arts, design, sports and media, and then health services.

And with the exception of health services, there's very few jobs in these target industries that are going to help our low-income residents to climb the economic ladder.

And so I just want to make sure that we don't leave behind residents of our community who want jobs, whether it's light manufacturing, which this says light manufacturing is not a priority for the city of Charlottesville, or for Albemarle County for that matter.

We have many opportunities in the city and in the county to pursue light manufacturing, forest and wood products, chemicals and plastics, transportation and logistics, agribusiness, food processing and tech.

These are all industrial sectors that can provide jobs that help low-income residents of our community to get a well-paying job without necessarily having a college degree.

and be able to work their way into the middle class.

And so I hope we don't assume that this is all we're going to be working towards.

I'd like to make a follow-up point to that because I think it's worth underlining.

And I do want to echo what Councilor Norris has said, but I also want to say that many of us were at this summit, a leadership summit two weeks ago.

focused on the economy.

And there was a panel discussion, two of the panelists.

One was one of the vice presidents for Rolls-Royce.

They had established, I believe it was Prince George's County, a manufacturing plant for turbine engines for the aerodynamic industry.

And then the other one was, of course, Newport News Shipbuilding, but also just talked about the apprenticeship programs that were involved with that huge colossal industrial town.

Now that can't be recreated exactly, but it was a very stunning example of how manufacturing is making a comeback in the United States.

I think we were all really gratified by that and Virginia is poised to receive it.

I think the fact of the matter is it's a regional concern because of the needs for the land involved.

but I will assure you in council that we are now going to be meeting those of us that were at that summit, which includes Ms. Cawthon, Barbara Kessler, Frank Friedman, myself, we're going to be reconvening a meeting.

What can we pull out of this, that summit?

Because it was pretty dramatic.

Let me make a few comments.

So now I concur that we'll be talking about transit and landscapes later in the meeting.

I want to follow up on Mr. Kleeman's comment.

A few years back, I had a similar suggestion.

We had to use our resources to complement private development of sidewalks.

And I would like to ask staff to look into that possibility, especially when we can put a pot of money

for rehab or knee construction could be used as a conjunction.

So if you are requiring one side walk by one property owner, we can complete the side walk.

If it makes sense, it doesn't mean that everywhere it could happen.

Given the money we don't have, the limited resources we have, we ought to be able to be sure of that.

Second question of homelessness, I understand your need for

desire for working on home people's needs.

I think Syria has done a fair amount of the area of homeless, especially building new housing units and needs resources.

We can do more, but I think you need to acknowledge that we have done a fair amount of work in that area.

I'd like to remind everybody that we will be having a work session on the Comprehensive Plan.

It was brought up earlier and a lot of these issues, particularly as it relates to overall policy, will be discussed.

So, August 1st is the City Council work session on the Comprehensive Plan.

Let me also say that on the 2nd, Mr. Norris and Ms. Galvin's comments about the jobs, which is really, if we can't help our own people, we can't, charity should become at home, not outside, and we want to do everything we can.

I think

part of our staff is working on that area so we look forward to their report also.

On July 11th there is a work session on that issue and we invite you to come and join us on that.

Item A, minutes for June 3rd and June 17th.

Item B, an appropriation domestic violence services coordinator grant, $44,336, second of two readings.

Item C, an appropriation Virginia Commission of the Arts challenge grant, $5,000, second of two readings.

Item D, appropriation sidewalk construction funds appropriate $50,000 from state revenue sharing and transfer $50,000 within capital improvement program, first of two readings.

Item E, appropriation revenue sharing program for bridge rehabilitation, $155,000, first of two readings.

Item F, appropriation landscape public lecture series and final intersection configuration for McIntire extended has been pulled from the consent agenda.

Item G, appropriation Tonsilor Park basketball lighting replacement grant, $100,000, first of two readings.

Item H, a resolution, EPA agreement, first of one reading.

Item I, a resolution authorizing issuance of a revenue bond on behalf of St. Anne's, Bellefield School, first of one reading.

Item J, a resolution permit parking on 7th Street, Southwest, first of one reading.

Item K, an ordinance amendment to retire an ordinance, second of two readings.

Item L, an ordinance release of easements across 301 West Main Street, second of two readings.

Item F will go to the end of the agenda.

I have two questions.

If I can get quick answers then I don't want to pull them from the agenda.

One is the West Main Street density zoning ordinance and I think that what it is is to say that although it looked before like some places could be apartments only and other things so that each building along there had to have

some business in it.

Yeah, that doesn't change, yes ma'am.

Right, this is just fixing a glitch.

I just couldn't tell which way it went.

And as I understand it too, it was done

Our code doesn't make that definition.

No, street frontage on the first floor.

If you've got a lot that's 300 feet deep, you don't have to go all the way to the back with non-residential.

because that can be pretty meaningless if it can be one, you know, just frontage on an eight-story building.

Well, I think you're going to see us come back.

The other question I had was on the

Authorizing Issuance of a Revenue Bond on behalf of St. Ann's Belfield School.

I understand it doesn't obligate us to anything and it doesn't cost us anything, but I would like to ask, I also understand that our attorney has looked into things that we can do to require a request that businesses getting something from the city

hired locally on projects and we can't by the Constitution require that and I understand that but I would like us to urge St. Anne's to as much as they can to hire local workers to do the construction.

This is a really big project and it's a real opportunity for some of our local folks and also to offer them the chance that you know if they need help finding people who are trained to do the jobs if they're you know to talk to our section 3 coordinator we have

folks who can get people ready for jobs that they have.

Any other questions?

On the consent agenda.

The only questions, I do not want to pull them.

on D, which is about sidewalks, since we're talking sidewalks tonight.

It says we have a $500,000 revenue sharing with the state, but we're only appropriating $50,000.

Well, we've already appropriated, I think, Jeanette, $100,000

I guess that's... No, it will be quicker than that.

We adopt, council adopted a five-year sidewalk plan with no hope of getting any state money.

Then the state changed the revenue sharing rules that said you could use revenue sharing for sidewalks and not just roads.

And so we went after that, we received some of that, but we don't have enough budgeted in each fiscal year yet.

to provide the full match.

Yes ma'am, it's the state's revenue sharing program.

It's for roads and now it's other type of improvements.

When they give it is there any adjusting of it?

Well you can ask for $100,000.

Knowing we had a multi-million dollar sidewalk program we went for what we thought we could get at $500,000.

Okay, I think I had one other question about permit parking.

There's also a consent thing about permit parking and I totally got how it happens.

Is there a map anywhere of where all the permit parking is, number one?

And secondly, is it ever revisited as to whether the permit parking is still

First question, there is a map, yes ma'am, of the zones and the permit parking streets and there is a process if somebody feels like it's not necessary that they can go through and it's all in the ordinance but the ordinance

Mirror of State Code, we adopted, there has to be surveys that are done but there's a petition that they can file to have permit parking removed from a particular street or section of a street if that's desired.

Any discussion?

If not vote.

Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, City Manager Jones, good evening.

I'm John Jones, your Transit Manager.

OK, so a couple of things.

These were recommendations from our recent transit study with Nelson Nygaard.

We'll start with Route 7 discussing our current problems, our solution, some of the potential issues and some of the benefits, and then we'll go on to Route 11, which as you're all well aware is new service that was proposed by the consultant and that we think is something that we should enter into here sooner better than later.

So we'll go over that proposal, the benefits and the costs.

No, I don't.

All right.

Sorry about that.

So the issues with Route 7, of course, are timely performance.

The bus headway, that's the time that it takes to get from one end of the route to the other.

Doesn't accurately represent our traffic conditions, nor does it represent

OK, Route 7 is the route that travels from the downtown transit center through the university grounds and north on US 29 or Seminole Trail up to Fashion Square and it turns right around and comes back.

It's our main trunk line.

It's our most heavily heavy passenger line and it is also our highest cost line due to the frequencies that we travel on the line.

So currently right now that route runs most of the time three to five minutes late before it gets to the university grounds and then after it reaches the university grounds depending upon the conditions on University Boulevard where it currently travels through the area known as the corner, it can go on to be five, six, seven minutes late.

It's almost never on time.

The result of that is what we call a phenomenon called bus stacking where eventually one bus leaving the transit center catches the other bus up so you've got two number sevens running right along nose to tail.

A great part of the day.

That's an issue.

So our solution to that issue is to, and this is a recommendation supported by extensive public input from the transit study to Nelson Nygaard.

Our solution is to realign that route from University Avenue to Jefferson Park Avenue.

This will increase that service area down through Jefferson Park Avenue area just a little bit by having that route out there.

It will also allow us to have the route moving a little more freely through the area and it will

hopefully keep it on schedule.

The second issue is to increase, solution rather, is to increase the headway from 45 minutes to 50 minutes.

Again, instead of 45 minutes from downtown to Fashion Square, which is a headway we've not recently been able to meet at any time, going out another 5 minutes to 50 minutes.

That gives us a little bit extra time to negotiate the additional congestion that we encounter in the area.

and the current service hours, those being from 6 in the morning until a little after 11 at night would be maintained.

Headway is the time it takes from when we leave the station to when we get to the end point of the schedule.

So we're proposing moving it from 45 minutes to 50 minutes.

Some potential issues, yes Route 7 will no longer service the corner but the free trolley does maintain service to the corner and we also have the University Transit Center's north line covering that area from Barracks Road through the corner and while we do have an issue where elderly may not be able to walk freely through the area most of those are probably going down to UVA Hospital where the bus will be traveling anyway and students

It's three-tenths of a mile through the university grounds.

The benefits, of course, are going to be better on-time performance.

We'll be able to keep the route on schedule.

It'll be reliable.

One of the things that we heard constantly during the study was I can't depend on the bus.

I don't know when it's coming.

I don't know what time it's going to be there.

It never meets the schedule.

What can I do?

This would increase that reliability and the chances that when that customer brings his watch up to look at it to see when the bus may be coming

He's going to look down the street and the bus is going to be there.

It's going to be at the stop when we tell him it's going to be there on the schedule.

So it would be much more reliable.

It would get us through that issue and that's a major issue on this route, particularly again because the ridership is so heavy.

About 40% of our annual ridership is on this one route.

The next thing we've brought to your attention tonight is Route 11.

This is proposed new service in the study.

This is a route that will provide direct service from downtown to the Fashion Square Mall.

It will run on the Rio Road recommended alignment.

It will operate on a 60 minute pattern, 30 minutes each direction.

So 30 minutes from downtown to Fashion Square, 30 minutes from Fashion Square back to downtown.

They don't have service to CATEC.

Now, the Nelson Nygaard proposal runs from 6.10 in the morning to 6.40 each evening and five days a week.

Only Monday through Friday.

We don't feel that that will create a successful route.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

My staff's proposal for this route then would be to make a couple of tweaks to it and our suggested tweaks would be to run this route five days per week Monday through Friday from 6.10am to 9.40pm adding three hours daily to the service and then run the route from 6.10am to 6.40pm on Saturday only.

So again, weekdays, Monday through Friday, 6-10 to 9-40.

Saturday only, 6-10 to 6-40.

And just like our other routes, right now at least, no Sunday service.

That extra cost would be gained or paid for by the efficiencies we gain and the bust that we gain from modifying 7.

That's where that extra bust comes in.

We pull that extra bus in to provide these extra hours of service to get students to and from CATEC daily.

and because a lot of those classes are not over until after 9 p.m. and then to provide this additional route service on Saturdays.

That's where the bus saved from 7 would go would be to this additional service here.

Also want to mention this is the route that Albemarle County has offered to partner with us and pay about 46% of the cost of so

46% of the cost of this route, as it's proposed, of course, would be borne by Albemarle County.

Benefits, of course, CAT passengers will have access to a larger service area.

The travel time to and from downtown into Fashon Square would be reduced.

by 20 minutes.

Route 7, as we mentioned, would go to 50 minutes.

Route 11 would only be 30 minutes between downtown and Fashion Square.

The other thing that this would do would be feeding the routes that we have on the north end of the system.

The north end of 7

would gain additional ridership because once somebody got to Fashion Square on Route 11, that is the anchor point.

They may want to have employment or other shopping activities or recreational activities on that 29 business corridor.

This would allow them to transfer then to 7 or to Route 5, which goes on to Walmart.

utilize that service and either take Route 7 then back downtown or come back to Fashion Square and take the shorter ride on Route 11 back to downtown.

It would also give our county residents in the northern part of the city and out of the city limits that maybe didn't want to drive to downtown the opportunity to park around the areas in the north end of the corridor and get on Route 11, ride downtown and then, you know,

do their business, recreate, visit the downtown mall, the businesses, restaurants, etc.

and then ride back up to Fashion Square via Route 11, get on the other routes or transfer back to their cars and go back to their homes or other destinations in the area.

I just want to go over the cost breakdowns a little bit again.

Without the extended service, as proposed in the Nelson Nygaard study, $55,519 annual dollars of CAT money, city money, and $47,294 county money.

With the extended service, the same breakdown, city and county, but an additional $63,180.

to provide those extra three hours a day and to provide the Saturday all-day service.

Again, those costs borne by the efficiencies gained out of adjusting Route 7 to better be on schedule.

We got a lot of positive comment during the public process about both these changes.

People would like to see 7 not get so bogged down, and I'll be honest with you, that's been one of my pet projects since I've joined the system back in February.

I've been riding on 7 quite a bit, and I know that it doesn't seem to matter what time we leave the station, especially when the university's in session, or on a Sunday afternoon when the students are out

going about town, getting about their business, you get stopped a lot by pedestrians on University Boulevard.

It just bogs the route down to the point where you get further and further and further behind.

You're often five, six, seven minutes behind by the time you get to Emmett and on any kind of an afternoon or around lunchtime.

That's time we never recover.

In fact, we get even further behind.

as we proceed through the Seminole Trail area, the shopping centers and things like that and get to Fashion Square.

We're often as much as 10 minutes behind by the time we get there.

So, moving 7 down to JPA, allowing the UTS services and our own trolley services to take care of the corner.

and then adding 11 would take care of a lot of the issues we have with on-time performance and it would definitely increase our ridership overall moving forward.

We'd have extra ridership added by the ability of people to

Get on Route 11 and ride up north without riding through the university grounds and everything on 7 and again you'd have some feeder service from 11 to 7 and 5 once they're up north to go around to the businesses, employment opportunities, recreational activities that are in the north part of the city.

These are the proposals we're presenting tonight for you to consider.

We have the proposals in front of us.

I have just a quick couple simple questions.

One is by reducing from four to three the number of seven buses going in an hour.

I know sometimes the seven buses already crowded.

Are you worried that that's going to

I think that will be taken up by 11 because a great number of the people that get on number 7 downtown at the transfer center are through riding all the way to Fashion Square and our hope is of course that they'll you know we will market number 11 as an easier way to get up there 20 minutes faster it's an easier way to go we're also going to

There is a marketing plan on the proposal if you looked at that.

We've got some good things we're going to do with public information.

A couple little catchy things we're going to do with Route 11 potato chips.

We have some neighborhood meetings scheduled on the 8th, 15th and 29th of July this month down at city space.

Each one will be at 6pm down there for additional input not only on any of these changes but also on the rest of the plan as we'd like to see it implemented

sooner rather than later, but understanding that budgets will come into play.

We'll definitely have posters on bus advertising.

We plan to wrap a bus, you know, just keying in on the 11 theme.

We're going to wrap bus number 111 specifically for this route.

They're going to be baked though, right?

I'll defer that to my marketing coordinator.

My second question, and we'll talk about the public participation I think separately, but my second real specific question is at one point you had mentioned the real desire to have on that 11 route two an hour rather than one an hour.

and I notice that's not part of your proposal tonight.

Is that something that you've talked to the county about?

We will bring that one back later.

We've talked to the county about it briefly and our feeling on that is that we would like to have a better statistical base to present to the county with regard to what the route has done.

and could do with the second bus on there before we go back and speak with the Board of Supervisors at a later date about possible additional funding for the route.

So we'll get started.

We would like to do the extended service that my staff and I have proposed with the Saturday and the extended evenings, but as far as the second bus goes, we want to kind of hold up on that just a little bit.

We want to make sure it's a really good route and a winner before we move forward with that.

And you will keep track of the data?

I have a couple questions.

Just sort of looking out to the future.

One of the real compelling reasons that was offered up, one of the compelling justifications for Route 11 was that it could provide service to the new senior center.

I know it's one of the reasons why the county was interested in funding it.

This route as shown here, obviously the senior center doesn't exist yet, but this route here doesn't show service up into the senior center location.

It's probably too far for a lot of their clients to walk.

But can this route be easily tweaked once that center is open to accommodate

We've been speaking with Mr. Thompson about that and we believe it can be.

I'm glad to hear that.

We realize that there's a number of changes within the city that are going to take place over the next few years.

Most of these proposals focus around sort of the here and now.

Some of them lend themselves to expansion later.

In a conservative approach, we're going to kind of hold up on things like the McIntyre Park improvements, again the Senior Center up there and also the things that are happening off of 5th Street extended between Avon Street extended.

I have a question.

Does CATEC have classes on Saturdays?

And I wonder if they don't, whether there will be a need to stop at CATEC

Although it would offer an interesting opportunity, as you mentioned earlier, to park and ride downtown.

I may be making a leap here, but generally when an adult educational center has classes on a Saturday, they're usually day classes, so the service we're proposing would take care of those anyway.

Well, I'm more concerned if they don't.

You might be stopping at an empty school.

And I also wonder, just in terms of Albemarle counties, it will be getting service that

basically not proportionate to what they had originally agreed to pay for if we extend the service, which would speak to also kind of where we stop when.

I mean whether, you know, if we're using city dollars and we can make a faster route if we're not stopping.

every whatever in Albemarle County.

Right now, just like with the CATEC thing, if there's no one there to be picked up and we would have a stop where we'd be visible, if there's no one there, we're not going to stop anyway.

At the same time, if we know that there is a demand there, then that's good information for Albemarle County.

Is there a UTS to Barracks Road?

Yes.

I do have a really quick one and it is just to the point about the public participation.

The 11 was widely accepted and we had an extensive public process during the study and 11 it was widely accepted that this was one of the options and the changes that we suggest to 7 again were part of that same public process.

They were widely supported by the public at that point in time.

and it is such a small change to just that one route, we felt it would be okay to move forward with those two changes.

If not then, then the beginning of the FY15 fiscal year.

I'm still very much full of service in Greenbrier as you mentioned earlier and I look forward to this in future discussions.

But I do support both the proposals as you submitted.

I think it will be a good service, better service, more reliable service and it will be a cooperation of the city and county together.

I'm willing to give it a try.

I am concerned about the loss of the reduction in CAT service on University Avenue because a lot of our residents do work on the corner.

But I know the trolley still goes through there, so I'm willing to give it a try.

Most of the traffic in that area isn't on 7th, it's on the trolley.

The students ride 7th free but the other riders that are coming out of downtown, they know the trolley is free.

seven costs, so they ride the trolley rather than seven.

It's just that competition you get between free ridership and paid ridership.

I've seen it time and time again.

You offer a free bus on the same route as a paid bus.

Paid bus does nothing.

Yeah, I would be concerned if it didn't go to the hospital.

I just want to say that I really appreciate how you have been, you and your staff have been ground truthing the work done by Nelson Nygaard and so that I feel that there's, I have some, we all have some assurance that this is this has really been tested and so thank you for doing that kind of diligent effort.

And I also want to say that I think that the fact that this is now increasing access to CATEC might actually lead to more robust adult education curriculum development in CATEC.

Having it expanded to the evening and on Saturday, many times throughout the last year and a half, we've heard stories of how difficult it is for our adult population to get to the training programs in CATEC.

Yes, thank you for figuring out our city really quickly.

I'd like to move that we approve the recommendations to add Route 11 and change Route 7.

Any discussion on this motion?

Again, I want to comment that I'm really pleased with these changes.

I've been after the transit for a while, but I will still be after you for a while.

All in favor, vote please.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Item number three, sidewalk waiver request on 812 Druid Avenue.

Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, this is a request for waiver of the required sidewalk at 812 Druid Avenue.

The application is coming before you after being reviewed by staff.

You have our recommendation within your staff report.

Please note that our

Our recommendation is based solely on engineering our engineers looking at the site and making certain that the sidewalk can be built without any kind of undue topography that requires any sort of undue cost to the applicant as well as increased maintenance cost to the city in the form of retaining walls usually is where we're looking at or that it would create some sort of issue on the street by building the sidewalk.

The applicant sites

The right of way at this particular property extends

Beyond the edge of pavement for some distance so there would be some flexibility in terms of where that sidewalk would be located if required.

We can certainly put it at the back of the right-of-way and actually probably have room for a planning strip before you get to the edge of the pavement in this situation.

That's the traffic engineer, the assistant traffic engineer looked at that with me.

to make sure that we could respond to that concern.

So staff recommends that the council deny the request but I would note that you have broad authority in this matter.

Can we get clarification on whether

The enabling legislation that came out of the General Assembly authorized us to amend our subdivision ordinance to give the property owner or developer the option of either constructing the sidewalk or paying into a fund.

Are there any plans to put a sidewalk in anytime soon?

I'm not aware of if the section's on the sidewalk list or not.

I know that our sidewalk priorities are based on routes to school.

Yeah, it is near a park.

And the other thing it would be evaluated is which side of the street.

It does, I mean, just eyeballing it, it looks like an appropriate side to put the sidewalk.

It does lead to Belmont Park.

It's not a particularly safe looking street to walk down.

I did, as I was approaching it, a stroller.

was coming from the sidewalk on Rialto and crossing the very nice crosswalk which was just a reminder that this is a neighborhood with young children in it.

So it's a great place for a sidewalk if we were ever going to get one.

I'm frustrated by these pieces of sidewalk around.

Also in looking at the other, the next item going over to Woolen Mills and that nice sidewalk that goes all the way down Chesapeake

all in one piece, clearly done in one lay.

I mean, it could be nice if it had a buffer, but it sort of illustrates the alternative to getting these pieces.

And if we were to put a sidewalk there, would it match?

I mean, I love the idea of the buffer, that's a great model, but that's sort of assuming, and then if there's more sidewalk, that grassy buffer would, you know,

continue on down?

Well, but only if it applies.

It depends on the street.

And that street is interesting, because as it comes up towards Belmont Park, it actually gets wider, at least it appears to.

And it's a long street.

I'm frustrated by these, both by the rule, but I think we have to, until we have a better rule, be consistent.

And we've had this come before us now any number of times, and I don't see any justification for denying this, quite frankly, denying the request to waive it.

because of the situation.

I have a question that is related to one of the public comment things, which is actually a question I had anyway.

I know that part of our, and I'm sorry that you don't know where it is on the sidewalk plan.

Do you, Mr. Tolbert, know where it is on the sidewalk plan?

Because one of the things we've talked about at the sidewalk plan, in addition to Safe Routes to School, is small projects that can complete a sidewalk.

That's not the case here though.

Just to start that?

The other thing I was going to say, if we have money, and right now we're pretty much obligated with the funds on hand to do the things that are in the five year plan that we have.

No.

For instance, the one that you asked about in the next application, the neighborhood chose, we had a sidewalk program for market and they chose to put it on Chesapeake, so that one was done several years ago as one continuous sidewalk.

Well the other thing too is as we're moving hopefully towards a process where we're doing small area plans, that will help us prioritize areas that even though we don't have continuous sidewalks, if we know that we're getting a vision but also an implementation strategy for a larger area,

I'll say the same thing I said last time, we had one of these, which is if you've got a property owner who's made a commitment in writing to contribute money to our fund, which is in the spirit of the legislation we thought we were asking for, to me, I would lean towards accepting that offer.

I know it's not legally binding, but we've got it in writing.

As you may remember, last meeting in this discussion I debated that for a while.

I'll be very happy to see that also.

Is that an option to even do that?

You have a limited menu here.

And we have, remind me, we have an

in the past year required sidewalks unless there was this limiting factor.

I'm sorry.

When you say we don't have a letter, you mean from the applicant?

From the applicant.

We do have a letter.

They've pledged money.

Do we have that here?

Yeah.

It was $1800 I think.

No, but it's still the spirit of it.

Thank you.

Well, I'm very sorry that we were unable to get the enabling legislation that we hoped for.

What we have is problematic for a couple of reasons, one of which I mentioned, and that is it's applicable in the context of a subdivision.

The second is I think it was council's desire to have the authority to waive a sidewalk requirement if the applicant was willing to make a contribution in the amount of

The way it came out actually gives the landowner or the developer the option.

You don't have any say under the legislation that came out.

It says the developer can either build a sidewalk or pay into a sidewalk fund, which I don't think was what we were looking for at all.

and kind of non-contiguously hope that they would independently make a contribution of $8,200.

Well actually I'll ask a separate question.

If somebody makes a contribution to the sidewalk fund, will it be added to the amount of our sidewalk fund or will it just replace money that we would have spent on the sidewalk fund?

Mr. Mayor, we put two suggested resolutions for each of these waivers in your materials.

One approving, one denying, and citing the factors that staff had identified in their report.

And I won't vote for that, I mean it hasn't been seconded yet, but only because this now contradicts what we have done in the past.

And if it's brand new, great.

Is the second of the motion?

You already seconded it.

I just seconded it, okay.

Any more discussion if not vote?

The only thing I would mention is that this piece of sidewalk, this property sits on a corner.

So there is roughly 50 feet on East Market Street and roughly 120 feet on 18th Street Northeast, which you're being asked to waive in this situation.

So it's a little different in the situation that we're talking about.

The comments were, there were multiple comments from the public.

I think the majority of the comments were in favor of granting the waiver.

There were residents of the area.

There were several comments that we received urging you to deny the request.

The people in support of the waiver cited the Woolen Mills, the character of that neighborhood, not being a particularly

They like to refer to it as the rural quality of that neighborhood.

The street.

But they are residents of the area, and that's what they're urging.

There is, yes.

Can you speak to the obstacles that the applicant cited?

The hydrant and telephone pole, I know our engineers looked at the site and felt that you can maneuver around the hydrant and the telephone pole.

The trees

I'd have to take a closer look at it to see where it is.

I mean, the trees, where they lay between the right of way and the private property.

Ideally, the sidewalks are not going on private property.

They're going in our right of way.

So the trees would have to be in our right of way to be disruptive of them.

Right.

You know in this case Market Street has sidewalks at the top of Market Street by Carlton or Meade as it were.

Yes.

And then they kind of stop.

Again and I went to see this one today too and don't you know as I was coming I went down to Chesapeake to look at that beautiful sidewalk

and then came up Market and there was a pedestrian with a lot of bags that I had to kind of maneuver.

I mean I think it's a shame that the neighborhood doesn't want a safer way of walking along this street because it's not, it might have a rural history, but it's not a minor street.

Whereas 18th Street, which is what the corner

of this property.

That seems almost sort of ridiculous to put a sidewalk there because it's this tiny little connector street.

It's not like you're going to have a lot of traffic coming down it.

A parking street is not a minor street.

I respect, I know a whole lot of those residents here and I respect them highly.

I just think it's a shame to not have a safer way of walking along that street.

That said, I did see the obstacles in this one.

I also want to not ignore the comments of the public because perhaps what they're trying to tell us is that they don't want the regulation size five foot wide sidewalk that's just a concrete strip this is a very different kind of street section it's a very different character than most other parts of the city and I think that's what that's what I'm reading into a lot of this is that

And this is also going to be an area that will be part of a small area plan.

It's also something that we really do need to get a handle on in terms of the different kinds of street sections we have in the city and start implementing them.

It could be that this is a much more light impact development.

It could be that it's more graveled

trail along with planting strips or plants in different groupings along the street.

But I think I'm hearing from this correspondence from the public is what they are objecting to is the destruction of the character with the use of this regulation size.

Any discussion on it?

With the same assumption as the first time.

Yeah.

With the same assumption.

Just for clarification, is that on both streets?

Okay, thank you.

Appreciate it, but premature.

Just a lot easier.

What we wanted to do tonight, Council is, and I hate talking when my back turned to you, but is that Mr. Jones had asked that I put together a report for the lead team a couple of months ago to show the development that's been occurring over the last several years in the community and to give them a feel for that and what's happening right now.

We thought that it would be good just to show you some.

There's a lot going on and sometimes we don't see it and we don't realize what all is happening.

These are just several slides of several projects that are underway in various stages throughout the community.

The first is Arlington and Millamont Apartments.

These are shooting for an August opening as student apartments, 300 apartments, and if they don't get ready for the students as they come, then it doesn't do them any good and they miss a year, so they are really working hard trying to get open by the end of the year.

The university's project, the Bill and Barry Battle Building is well into construction.

If you've been down West Main, you've seen the progress that they're making there.

What we didn't talk about is, of course, I think most of you know that they've already committed to tearing down the Blake Building.

They've rented some properties in the area to move their employees and they're going to be creating the park and doing some planning for it between this building and JPA.

So it's going to be some exciting changes to that corner.

CityWalk is well under construction.

We didn't have a chance to get out and get new pictures, but if you've been down, of course, they've got several buildings.

There's three buildings that are on the old Carlton, and if you look to the right, you can see those, and then a big, larger building in the center that's right here.

The three buildings are these three.

Those are the ones that are actually under construction.

First, and you can see them coming out of the ground.

And the Water Street extension is complete to about this area.

I say complete, it's basically in.

They've got to go back and resurface and make some repairs because of their trucks.

But they'll be extending it all the way down to old Carlton and Meade when that project finishes.

850 Estes Street is one of the first projects under the old transition zone.

It was adopted back in 1999 by council.

One of the first major changes to the zoning ordinance.

CityWalk was the other project.

And this is 18 townhouse units that are built on Estes right off of Roosevelt Brown Boulevard.

Just down, this is Walker Square.

Right in here is the university's daycare center.

And these are 18 townhouses that are under construction.

well underway.

Longwood PUD is a project that was approved about two and a half years ago as a planning and development that went in and the developer went in and took out a number of what were used in dilapidated, tired duplexes and townhouses and is really going in there and increasing the density and doing a really nice development has really changed that little neighborhood in the last couple of years.

Oakhurst Inn and Apartments is under construction, the Bed and Breakfast is the Inn, and then there will be 35 units of apartments, and as you know this improvement here, teeing up JPA, that JPA-JPA intersection is being teed up and

We've got some temporary bike improvements in there, but there was a federal grant received through the Planning District Commission to allow that project to proceed, so there's some federal help there.

The PACE Center is under construction.

The actual PACE development, the residential, we haven't gotten the site plan in yet, but as you recall, you approved the special use permit for it last month.

Patton Street PUD is, Habitat is finishing it up and I'm proud to say that our two units here and here, one of them is actually under contract and should close in about 10 days and the other is in heavy negotiations so it's taken a while but with a land trust model to find people that are able to purchase under that model or banks that are able to lend under that model are not afraid to.

Sunrise PUD is still progressing.

A lot of work going over there.

There will be 67 total units when it's done.

The Timberlake PUD, we actually issued the CO for the units that are at the back, not the main house, but the certificate of occupancy was issued this week for that.

So all those units will start to be occupied.

and the the main unit is under is occupied but they're still under a temporary CO because there's a few improvements that need to be made but they've come a long long way in the last two weeks and that's exciting to get 20 plus units for our older citizens to be able to to have to live in.

Wirtland site plan is another one of our shoehorned

Enfield student housing projects, 14 units.

We seem to be getting a lot of those where they're creatively using some of the leftover parcels.

The Wirtland II is 48 units.

It's behind the project.

There's already a apartment building here and they took the land behind it and have built 48 units in there.

St. Thomas Aquinas Priory is a 31 bedroom monastery that was just completed.

Homestead Suites is one of the fastest moving projects that we've had from the day they walked in the door and started talking to us that they are really under construction.

We're working with them about the opportunity to build Hillsdale and hope to be coming to you in the next month to talk about that.

They are cooperating and going through some review of that and hopefully they'll be allowing us to come talk about getting that section of Hillsdale built as they're building their hotel.

CFO site, old Martha Jefferson property is under construction, 140,000 square feet, and they are progressing very well.

The plaza at West Main is under construction.

You approve the permit for that, 219 units and nearly 12,000 square feet of retail or non-residential on West Main Street.

Marriott Residence Inn, it's looking like they're going to start this fall.

Everything is falling into place.

You approved the easements tonight, and that was one of the last major pieces, I understand, before they were able to finish everything and start moving the BAR.

Granted, it's final approval last week, so this project is quickly progressing.

Meadowbrook Flats, this is one at the corner of Barracks Road and Evans Street.

They are probably going to come in, there's some issues, but with their phase one and not do the phase two, phase one would be by right.

It would still, it looks like, require a critical slopes waiver, but other than that, it is a by right development.

It appears that they're gonna come in with and they're gonna delay any movement on the special use permit for the additional density.

The Woods, this is a really interesting project that some of you were on council when you agreed to sell a portion of this land right in this area to Southern Development right on, excuse me, in this area to Elliott, on Elliott to Habitat, and then they partnered with Southern Development.

There will be 49 total units, seven of which at least will be affordable here, and then of course,

We sold the land across the street, council did, to Habitat and Southern to build their project there.

But this one is, they've actually started doing the site development work and you'll see houses going up very shortly.

550 East Water Street, this is the project that never dies.

This is probably the fifth iteration of this site plan that's come in.

The developers can't quite make up their mind.

Every time they think they have a model that works, they change their minds.

This is a site, if you ride by that parking lot across from the CNO, you look at it and say, how in the world are they gonna put anything in there?

It's very narrow, goes back to the railroad.

You've got Water Street on one side.

You've got a railroad on the other.

It's not very deep.

But they've got a plan that works from a building permit standpoint, but they've got to figure out the finances of it.

21 residential units and 1570 square feet of commercial in this iteration of it.

So we'll see where they go with it.

It'll have some parking on site.

Stonehenge that, as you very well know, the planning and development has submitted their site plan following that process and it's in review at this point.

The newest request we've gotten in came in this week is 925 East Market Street.

That's where the daycare is, the corner of 10th Street and Market.

The daycare, as you know, that's here on the corner of Market is moving down in this area.

They're under construction now.

And this is a development that would do a mixed-use building here.

Quite substantial.

They intend to come in and ask for a special use permit for the extra density.

I think about 13 or 14 of the units would be required to have that number of units under a special use permit.

I also thought it was good if you can't see a lot here but other than the patterns but where the developments occurred and how much this was a map we did in 2009 when we took a look at what it developed and as you can see primarily at that time the brownish colored ones and the purple and the blue and the green were either under construction in review in discussion where people would come in and they hadn't actually submitted an application but there was a lot going on at that time

there's a list here and if you go through your packets and look at that list you'll see a lot of things that were either potential sites or in discussion or in review but particularly in discussion and potential sites in 2009 have actually happened now but you'll see a lot as you go through and look at the next one which is a 2013 the maps grown some but you'll also see as you go through these sheets there's a lot of things that are still in review

or in discussion that we're in discussion then.

And part of the primary reason for that that we're hearing from the development community is just waiting on the financial picture, waiting on the market.

The first one in a lot of times gets it and so the others just wait until that happens.

But there's an awful lot of this that's happened and

Others that we know are moving and this is several months old so you can see there's several in review that are actually under construction.

The Plaza, the Pace Center, ABC Preschool, Jefferson School is of course complete now.

and several others there.

And there's several like Sycamore 10.5 that we've seen several times and they change their mind on what they want to do or the Carver at Preston.

So the developer's just trying to get the right mix for the market and something they can bring in.

We also thought it would be good to show you what does this mean in the way of construction value to the community and kind of what the level of development is.

As you can see, our permits issued were, and it's really interesting, in 96, 97 we were issuing a lot of really small permits.

We issued a lot, 2200, and that went up in the peak of things.

It didn't go up very much, but I guess the biggest number is 2007 when there was

2,552 permits issued, and then it sort of fell off the cliff for a while, but we were still reviewing some plans, we weren't reviewing a lot of them, but we were reviewing quite a few, but they were bigger plans, so when we started development again, started really picking back up

We were hitting numbers.

We dropped down to 60 million was our low in this century of development other than 2000.

But we went very quickly back up in 2011 to 94 million.

We had $211 million worth of construction last year and we're on pace right now to be somewhere between 180 and that 211 for 2013.

We don't have a lot of the numbers in yet.

But we've been putting in about,

It's really interesting.

At first when we did this, we only did 2,000 forward, and we're averaging a little over $102 million a year in development value.

And if you go back to the 96th year, which is where our data stops, it's down to $84 million, but that's still $84 million worth of value.

When you add all this up,

It comes to about $2.5 million, and Mr. Watts pointed out that that's a little over 25% of our total taxable real estate in the community.

1996 and really since 2000 the majority of that we've put nearly 25% and those are uninflated dollars so just looking at the dollars they were then a little over 25% of our total value real estate value in the city has been developed so there's a lot going on there's you know there's a lot that it's good to see that the development community is responding when the economy is turned back a little bit and we're seeing a lot of projects so be glad to answer any questions you might have about this

Can we get a copy of pages with text and the numbers?

I tried to print it off the PowerPoint that we got and it was all blurry, but that was really interesting information.

I do, and you know, it does

There's definitely a lot going on and although I kind of would like to go through some of the building projects that you've shown and use it as a way to discuss some of the comments, for example, that Mr. Kleeman raised and that are the projects that we are approving really creating the kind of environments that our comp plan

Our aspirational language of the comp plan is always striving for, namely the pedestrian orientation.

Because I think that the volume of development and redevelopment that's been going on, there's been some projects that really do strike us all as being pedestrian oriented, where the streetscapes are very safe, where they're comfortable, where the buildings are situated in a fashion that puts eyes on the streets,

and actually transitions and respects the slope of the terrain.

And then there are other projects that don't seem to be following any of the rules of the topography.

They're either creating massive retaining walls that then are kind of an aberration on the street and that actually make people feel uncomfortable.

The massing of the buildings may not be

in keeping with the context or they're lacking that transitional zone.

I think that the transitional zones that were done on Estes Street are a really good example of some of the things that we could be doing more of.

So I would like to go through some of these.

and just critique it from a qualitative level and then go back again and look at the quantitative measures that you've given us as well because I think this is a very important report and I think we should be getting reports like this every year but if you know for example if we go and we look at the city walk and I

I've gone around that building site many times.

I ride my bike in that area.

And this is independent of the issues that we've been facing because of the parking related to the businesses in that area.

But this is going to be providing certainly a lot of rooftops for the businesses in that area, which is a very positive thing.

But the massing of this is gigantic.

You can see this towering

Park and Garage from many different points around.

And then when you're on Carlton, the retaining wall is taller than I am.

It's a fortress effect.

So this has to be done purely by code and zoning.

Well, yes ma'am.

I mean, if we can write code that controls massing and all, you know, get those things in.

So I just think that this is something that we will talk at length again, I hope, as we talk about implementing the comp plan.

But this is real stuff happening on the ground.

Another point I look at is just the Longwood Drive PUD for example.

If any of you have walked down that street, it is just as much curb cut as it is sidewalk.

There was no attempt to think about how to make that street pedestrian oriented.

It was, yes, maybe the duplexes that were there were deteriorating, but what was put back there doesn't seem to be any thought put into how you design a street that's pedestrian oriented.

And yet that's forever in our comp plan.

So again,

There's a disconnect.

We have our limits with the code that we have, and we have our limits with what we can do with the code under Virginia law.

That was a situation where there was an existing street, the Planning Commission discussed it at length.

It was a PUD?

I would like to make one more.

In terms of the individual projects, because again I want to urge council to take a look at some of the sites.

and I'm looking at the Wirtland project, the Wirtland 2.

From Wirtland Avenue, it looks fine.

It's a gracious looking building as it sits four stories on that street.

But if you're coming down from 11th Street at Page Street, it looks like a 50 foot tidal wave.

And it's dwarfing the historic neighborhood.

Again, this is something we've really got to get a handle on because we're going to be developing more and more.

I think it's not good enough to say that it's just by right.

I think that's why we're seeing increased pressure from a lot of the neighborhoods to want their neighborhoods to be turned into conservation districts, to get some controls on what's happening.

I'm all for making sure that we have a clear, predictable review process.

And I would like to expedite review processes and limit discretionary review.

But the codes are not giving us what we want.

And over and over again, this development is really catch as catch can.

It's not consistently meeting the principles of good urban form, good pedestrian orientation.

Safe Streets, Complete Streets.

So that's just what I would like to say.

And these were good examples to start talking about without taking an infinite amount of time to discuss it.

But then the other thing I'd like to bring out is that I do think this development report's important.

The Planning Commission, and we were given also a copy, were given also a development report a year ago.

And I looked at that, and that's what I used to crunch some numbers.

But when I look at the quantitative measures between that report and what we got now, there are two different sets of units.

So there's no way to compare apples with apples from year to year.

So I would like us to move towards a consistency of units.

We know what numbers of units we're growing, we know what square footages are growing, we know what property tax revenue numbers we have, and we can compare from year to year.

And also bring in qualitative measures.

I think it's a very important point that when we had no reports, the continuity, I used to do that every year.

So the same structure is there to prepare.

So I think we can work on that.

This report was done in another context and I was asked to bring it to you.

To compare it to the one that was done before is not a problem.

But let me also say, let's not lose sight of the fact that we are having development in our community.

And with all due respect, the West Main Street Plaza is towering over Fifeville and we approved that.

It's an eight-story building.

Wirtland appears to be a four-story building looming over Page Street.

I agree with you, but if we're not going to vote,

But there is a distance, the distance helps.

If eight-story building on the highest point in Charlottesville is not going to be shaded by the trees or be impacted by the railroad track.

Yeah, and what those projects did was exactly what was written in code and was allowed by code.

Well, what has already been passed was passed, but I think what we're saying is that we're not getting the kind of environments that we want.

and I think it's time for us to, we are revisiting the codes along West Main Street, but I think as we go through all these small area plans, it's also going to be another opportunity for us to get this right.

Because again, getting back to the consistency in the reporting, if we don't have consistency in reporting, we can't do things like track funds that we use to give to our schools.

I have no idea how much of this growth was property tax revenue that's going to the schools.

We don't get public acceptance of development and density.

because of lack of quality insurance.

It's inconsistent.

The public environment of the street gets degraded when we don't have these rules in place.

And we can't track on how well we're meeting the demand for workforce housing again.

I think that's a huge need for us to know what units we're creating and whether we can even get our own city staff, school division staff, and work with UVA to address the workforce housing needs because that will bring down commute traffic and also CO2 emissions.

So again, the report needs to be a tool that we use for future planning.

So let me summarize, I think you made some very important comments.

Yeah, can I make a couple of comments?

I mean, we're hoping just to provide you with an update on where we are with development because I've heard questions from council just generally how things are going.

We provided this presentation to the lead team.

We also provided this presentation to the neighborhood representatives as well during my quarterly meeting with them just to give folks a sense of what's going on.

Well, and that was kind of implied a little bit.

And then secondly, you asked about the funding.

We have increased our funding to our school significantly over the last five or six years.

And a lot of that is due to the fact that we were able to

At least for the first couple of years we were able to because of development and the increase in the assessments within our community we were able to do that.

What we've run into the last couple of years when it comes to funding for schools and one of the reasons that we've had to utilize one-time money or as we've said quasi one-time money is because of the combination of the slowing down of the economy plus

the cuts on the state level.

I'm not saying that we're not, but it's not something that the public is even aware of because it's not ever documented.

That there's that 40% of additional revenues from growth that we can use for the schools.

But we have gone beyond the policy, beyond the policy of 40%.

And that way the public will understand that we're going above and beyond that policy, but as we go and move towards into this task force on creating a sustainable school funding, that's also going to be one of the things we're going to be evaluating is whether or not that formula is adequate and all that.

So that's why this is going to be increasingly an important document that's taken as a policy document, not just informational.

And it also is going to be a way for us to check and monitor whether we are really meeting our own standards that we articulate in our vision statements, which is the conference of plan.

I have a couple of questions along those lines just for future information.

I'm curious as to, and I can answer this for certain of these projects, but who is the population that is being served basically?

I mean I know for the Arlington it's targeted toward the graduate

population in that part of the university.

But like CityWalk, who's gonna live there?

And I ask this in light of the fact that our numbers of families are declining in the city and it's been stated as a priority that we would like to at least maintain or grow housing for families.

CityWalk is probably going to be singles and young professionals, young people my guess is just by the nature of the design.

I don't think that it's specifically designed for families.

The single family housing, the town houses that are being built, I think those are targeting families.

Right, so it would be interesting to take a look at, you know, you can guess by looking at a lot of these, as to, you know, the percentage that are just going to be for either students or singles, and really just not as anything other than just keeping a tap on

what the distribution of our housing is whether or not as we look at families we're meeting any of those goals.

I mean there is some housing I know of like a long hair straight over in Fry's Spring that are just single family homes that have gone in recently that are lovely and they're clearly

Just before you answer, I just want to add to her comments.

We're keeping that in the P3 reports on a regular basis and you know we don't get many of the contributions.

We've gotten the Arlington Millmont, we're coming to you August the 19th, the second meeting in August with 487,000 I believe that we've got from the plaza.

The Marriott was a rezoning and it was a proffer of $300,000 per housing to go towards West Haven and or other public housing redevelopment.

The others we're getting in the woods, we're getting seven units there.

Will Stonehenge qualify?

So you're getting the impression that we need a

and then we wanted it on a consistent basis.

you know, that's probably not something that you would know, but you know.

You guys can wait for that bell.

I don't remember what it is.

Who's going to present that?

Tell us what this is about.

Well, we did the final walkthrough for the McIntire Road Extended Project and we're cleaning up a few issues and there are three issues that we're trying to get an appropriation for in the next two readings.

One is 30,000 to design a landscape plan that would fit in with McIntire Park, with the roadway, and with the

Master Plan process that has been approved since this historic mitigation measure was approved.

The next would be $3,430 for, again, another historic mitigation, a lecture series that the plan was worked out between us and Virginia Department of Transportation and Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

to put on two talks regarding landscaping.

One has been held, Preservation Piedmont helped us with that, advertised for it, and has been completed.

Another one has yet to be announced.

So I just have a quick question.

The concern that the neighbors didn't want it to be consulted before this processor, if the $30,000 is for landscape planning, will that continue to happen?

And the lecture series, was there a problem that they weren't part of that planning?

commitment that there was anything left for them to do.

I mean, I did ask Jeanette that before the next one, let's just, in addition to the advertising, let's just send a note to all the consulting parties so they're aware specifically.

I think if people have participated in the process, it's really nice to kind of close that loop because otherwise, you know,

The requirement for it.

Can you speak to the tree issue and the line and the

Well, the area was around Birdwood and no trees have been removed from Birdwood regarding the interchange project.

There is some utility relocation that's being completed by Dominion Power and

So the fact that what we heard about trees was only as it related to the interchange and if you add Dominion Power

That's basically what happened.

Okay, that might have been good to know.

There's a substantial landscaping plan and re-treening that will go on.

Those are big trees.

So in 50 years it'll look just like that.

The interchange has its own separate landscape plan.

Well that plan is done except if you recall you had a visitor that asked about more planning in that area and we are having some additional design work and we're not ready for that yet but over on the CAT side of the car side of the

The Vietnam Memorial, that's designed, that's done.

Who was it that determined?

What you're dealing with tonight is the McIntyre Road extended.

which if you remember ends 700 feet off of the asphalt for the 250 bypass so it's back over the hill all the way to Melbourne so that's what you're dealing with tonight.

And who deals with that?

Yes ma'am.

The City Council has approved the plans for that.

We're working on a revision to the, several years ago.

We're working on a revision, some additions, not revisions, but additions to the landscape plan on that.

What side of that?

The car side.

Well I would like to make a request that we do get all of these puzzle pieces together at one point so that we can all see it in in total because it is getting confusing to me and it's very confusing to the public as to what pots of money are going to which portion of which you know improvement plan so that would be like whenever we I know because Mr. Bluestone had brought up the issue of the concealing and the parking on the opposite corner at the intersection

So again, I would like to get a complete picture of all these pieces at one point together so that we really have a better understanding of just how extensive the landscaping plan is going to be.

Because again, it gets back to what Ms. Szakos is talking about.

If you leave people out of the loop of communication, they're going to start thinking that something's not happening and they're not seeing anything tangible.

And this would be important to inform that group of people, but also keep us informed

It is very confusing.

We have a rendering that shows the landscaping for the interchange project.

That's all the landscaping that's been designed at this point.

I think we can provide that again.

We will be supplementing that as we go down the road with more, but that gives you the picture.

That's the plan, to do with it.

Any further discussion?

I would remind the community that those plans were on the website, the project website.

The rendering is there.

There are like 10 sheets of landscape plans so nobody will want to go through those but the rendering was done so people can look at it and get a picture of what it will look like when it's completed.

Thank you very much.

We are here for the time for public comments.

Mr. Huja, are we in other business now?

First reading.

First reading.

If we're in other business, I'd just like to bring up an item real quickly.

We received a letter this afternoon from the Rutherford Institute regarding the incident at Barracks Road Shopping Center with one of our residents who was

Well, I don't want to characterize it, but it was a very unfortunate incident regarding ABC.

I know Mr. Jones was going to ask Mr. Brown to look to see what options.

I asked the question privately and I'll ask it publicly.

I know you've asked the question.

What options would there be if we decide that an external investigation or review might be appropriate in that situation?

Mr. Norris, may I suggest that maybe Mr. Jones can explain what we are talking about for the public who are listening because they don't know what we have got.

We've got about 10 different emails on this topic, so would you please

Explain the context and explain your response also to that.

Well, there are a couple of different issues.

Counselor Norris has raised the specific issue of the request by the Rutherford Institute, and we'll get to that in a moment.

But obviously, there was an incident back in April involving a young lady and ABC.

And just the reason this has become a news story recently is because just last week, Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Chapman dropped the charges.

And there's an ongoing internal investigation with ABC at this point.

One of the reasons we've been receiving emails about it, I think, is obviously because it's become a news article.

It's gone viral.

Different websites around the country have taken this up.

Things that we've been responding to with the emails that have come to us is the confusion over who was involved with this.

A lot of the emails we were getting implied that our city police department was involved in this, and that it was local police that was driving it, when in fact that wasn't the case.

These were ABC agents that were not working with the police department, were not under our supervision, and so a completely separate state agency, and the city police department was not involved with this sting operation that was taking place.

So that's one side of it and that's what we've been responding to throughout most of today and over the weekend.

The other issue that's been raised is Rutherford Institute's request of the city to consider conducting some sort of investigation into this incident and what we've asked the city attorney to look into is to whether or not we even have the authority

quite frankly to do any sort of investigation of ABC.

And we just received this this afternoon.

It may be unfair of Mr. Brown to weigh in on it.

This evening we may need some time to look into it.

Another request I think that the Rutherford Institute had made was for the city council to consider condemning the actions of the ABC agents.

And I think there's some other issues.

I'm comfortable waiting to do something about it until there's some sort of investigation.

All we know is what we read in the paper and that's not always, you know, everything that there is to know.

I think somebody was saying earlier that sometimes you get on, you know, in a situation you realize it's a lot more complicated than it looks.

But I do think that on its face, you know, this is a case where

from reports that we've read, plainclothes officers came up to a couple of young women in a parking lot and wanted to see inside their grocery bags and there have been cases in other places where people impersonating officers or saying that they were police did bad things to people in situations like that and these women weren't sure what was going on and so they got in their car and they wouldn't get out and they tried to

It was not our police department that was involved in this process.

Is ABC involved?

We can clarify later on, but we have got a lot of email.

Well, I agree.

That's important to clarify.

And I think one of the initial sort of responses that our police chief made was very welcome, which was to say, at a bare minimum, we at least need to know when ABC is carrying on these kinds of operations in the city limits right now.

Coordination.

There's no coordination or communication.

And that needs to change.

And I do hope that the internal investigation

helps ABC to change their ways if indeed the incident went down as reported and we have to qualify that.

Yes, very, very even-tempered.

Mayor Huja, I do have another business, getting back to the more pedestrian scale.

and that could the city provide either alternative routes or better direction, some way to better anticipate the disruption of the pedestrian pathways as these construction activities take place.

And again, when you look at the Plaza at West Main, the entire sidewalk was taken over by the construction fencing.

We did push it back to accommodate more of the bike lane, but the pedestrians themselves are being kind of caught off guard without understanding what the alternative routes might be.

One might say, well, you just cross the street, but it's not that easy if you're not at a crosswalk, if you're not at a major intersection.

So I think if we could put a little time into that, that's my request if other councils are interested in it to anticipate what are the problems from a pedestrian viewpoint would be, will be when these projects go forth and if we can give some alternative routes and direction, detour signs, whatever.

I support your suggestion.

I think it would be very helpful to think ahead because there are a number of projects coming in West Main Street

Any other comments, other items?

If not, public comments?

Anybody would like to say anything else?

Good evening, my name is Holly Edwards, 917 6th Street Southeast.

Papa John's does not deliver pizzas.

I'm here because I just wanted to make three comments.

The first is about the recent Democratic primary.

It appears that having an endorsement from a current counselor is a blessing and a burden.

We saw that with the endorsement of Colette Blount Bond, then Mayor Dave Norris, and it seemed as if there was some concern about that.

But it seems that maybe the culture has changed because there was also an endorsement of Mr. Bellamy Bond.

Vice Miss Szakos and Sander from the last council meeting that Council Galvin also supported the nomination of Mr. Bellamy.

So I wonder if the lesson learned is that

Perhaps sitting counselors should not endorse candidates.

And maybe the larger lesson is that this is an opportunity for the African American community to endorse our own and to be more galvanized in those efforts.

And on that note, I also think that

This will be the second primary where the Democratic Party has not endorsed an African American.

So perhaps this is an opportunity.

The African American community sees this as a call to action.

And I think there are three things that are important.

Health, specifically, the African American infant mortality rate in our community is rising and the numbers really haven't improved a great deal.

Education and family strength and integrity.

And on that note, I would like to plant the seed of a possible study.

We found that there was disproportionate minority contact of youth in the law enforcement.

I would like to propose that there be a study of the disproportionate minority contact, specifically African-American children, placed in foster care.

And the purpose of the research would be to determine evidence-based solutions.

Thank you.

Anybody else would like to speak?

Mark Cabot, 400 Altima Street.

Earlier this year, Angela Tucker gave me, at my request, a copy of a landscaping plan for the McIntyre area, where the interchange is going to be at, going along down to McIntyre.

And I have that here with me.

And for the most part, it is fairly detailed.

shows quite a bit in the way of trees and everything and actually this is a earlier version of the map.

I have another one that's basically twice the size of this one.

And so it shows where the trees are supposed to go around the cause area.

It shows what's supposed to be done on the hillside by Birdwood.

The only thing that is a big concern is that the VDOT official told me was that it shows everything being done along the sidewalk.

And he basically indicated to me, well, they're going to take some of these bushes and shrubbery and move them up along the side here.

One thing I've learned is that if it's not in the plan, it doesn't really exist.

And to me, a proper landscape plan should indicate exactly where everything is supposed to be going and not left to the imagination.

I did have a question really that maybe Mr. Talbot could answer, if I might.

Could you explain to me what is actually where the woods are right over here, why that was left that way and what's being done there?