City Council Meeting   3/17/2014

Ms. Smith?

Here.

Mr. Huja?

Here.

Ms. Szakos?

Here.

Ms. Galvin?

I want to start the meeting today

Wishing you all happy St. Patrick's Day.

So finish the Irish theme.

We have some awards and reconditions and announcements and a variety of them.

It is Poison Prevention Month.

And Kristin Wenger, the Education Coordinator for the Blue Ridge Poison Center, is she present?

Great.

Welcome.

I guess you're going to accept the proclamation.

So, whereas the Blue Ridge Poison Center has been instrumental in saving lives and saving money by providing individuals and health professionals with free and confidential treatment information and advice in a poisoning emergency, and whereas last year the Blue Ridge Poison Center responded to nearly 27,000 calls for assistance in its 54 county service region, including 2,142 in the Charlottesville-Albemarle area,

and whereas poisoning is the second leading cause of injury hospitalization and the second leading cause of injury death in Virginia and whereas poison prevention education including the use of child resistant packaging, safe storage of poisons in the home, reading and understanding drug facts labels and keeping the poison control number available is an important mission of the Blue Ridge Poison Center and whereas it is fitting to recognize the annual observance of National Poison Prevention Week in order to highlight

Thank you everyone.

Most people are aware that poisoning is a big problem for small children and it's true that half of our calls are about little kids under the age of six.

But many people don't realize that nine out of every ten poisoning deaths

happens to an adult, not a child.

So it is a multi-generational problem and the most common reason for those poisoning deaths would be a mistake of some sort related to your prescription medications.

So taking the wrong thing by mistake, taking too much.

accidentally overdosing or taking the wrong combination of drugs can be quite harmful.

And the Poison Center provides a 24 hour free hotline where you can talk to a nurse or a doctor who is especially trained to treat those kinds of poisoning issues and any other kind of poisoning issue.

And so you don't want to wait for an emergency to have to hunt down the number.

We like for you to have it handy.

So I brought some things.

to share.

These are wallet cards with a little breakaway keychain part that have our number on it.

And we also want everyone to program the number into their cell phones so that you can quickly get the help that you need 24 hours a day.

It's always free and it's always private.

So if people want to take their cell phones out right now.

Yeah.

Do that right now.

Maybe you can give them a second then say the number out loud.

Yes.

Ready?

Party games.

Here it comes.

And I'll leave these on the back table so you can help yourself on your way out.

I do.

My first is Family Services Staff Appreciation Month, whereas the Charlottesville Department of Social Services is required by law to provide protective services to vulnerable children and aged or disabled adults

foster care for children or placement services for adults who are unable to remain in their own homes and adoption services for children and whereas the department's family services staff have provided protective services to 136 families in 2013 including the most vulnerable in the city and whereas the Charlottesville's child welfare workers have served 81 families to reduce the risk of neglect, abuse or dissolution

and have served 140 foster children and 107 adopted children and whereas the department's family support staff have provided outreach social work services to 71 families to address risk factors that can affect learning and whereas Charlottesville's adult services workers have served 294 elderly and disabled persons

and investigated 286 reports of abuse and neglect of vulnerable adults.

And whereas the Family Services staff of the Charlottesville Department of Social Services practice in the context of frequent changes in law, policy, regulation, procedures and technologies while holding to professional ethics and values.

Now therefore be it resolved that I, Satyendra Huja, Mayor of City of Charlottesville, to hereby commend the family services staff of City of Charlottesville for their diligence, compassion, resourcefulness with which they have served the citizens of Charlottesville.

City of Charlottesville.

And before you give that up, I have the twin proclamation for benefit services, which goes to the same person.

So she doesn't have to come up twice, will she?

This is announcing Benefit Program Staff Appreciation Month.

There are two different parts of social services and so this is the folks who actually do the benefits.

whereas the implementation of the Affordable Care Act has significantly changed the manner in which local social service staff interact and manage the services they provide and whereas Virginia continues to experience unprecedented implementation of complex policies and procedures in all major benefit and employment services program areas and whereas Charlottesville's benefit program specialists, self-sufficiency case specialists, and program support staff have implemented new policies and procedures

to meet the requirements of the ACA while consistently maintaining a high rate of application processing, ongoing case management, employment and supportive services, and program support to ensure that those in need of social services receive them.

And, whereas Charlottesville's benefits staff served more than 13,000 individuals and families in fiscal year 2013, providing benefits totaling more than $61 million, depending on the dedication and commitment of staff who handle their cases in an accurate, timely, and caring manner,

Now, therefore, I, Satyendra Singh Huja, mayor of city of Charlottesville, do hereby commend social service benefits staff of the city of Charlottesville for a job well done.

I call upon citizens of the city of Charlottesville in joining me in acknowledging their good service.

I must say that these people provide service to the neediest of our community, and really we appreciate that very much.

I just want to say thank you all for the recognition of all the work that our staff does.

We do serve thousands of people in the community every year and we are working with families that are having difficulties financially and we're working towards self-sufficiency for them and we also work with families

that are having problems within their own families and we're working towards health in their families and sustainability.

Our staff, our social work staff, are on call 24-7.

They're often out in the middle of the night for emergency calls.

and our benefit worker staff have been dealing with not only the Affordable Care Act but new technology, new systems, new policies all at once and they're often in the office weekends, nights, evenings trying to still provide the same level of customer service that they're used to providing.

and both divisions have been recognized this year especially for how well they're performing.

We had a quality service review for our social workers and we were told by the reviewers who are reviewers from all over the state that we were, if not the top, one of the two top performing divisions of social work in the state and local agencies and our benefit workers who are struggling with the new policies, new procedures, new technology,

are doing much, much better as far as efficiency effectiveness and accuracy than the state average.

They are doing an amazing job also.

So I just, again, thank you.

These will be hung in the hallways for all staff to see.

And it's great that they've gotten your recognition.

Appreciate it.

This coming week is Fix a Leak Week and Fix a Leak 5K.

March 17th to 23rd.

Surprised by your water bill?

Leaks may be to blame.

Common leaks found in homes include worn toilet flappers, dripping faucets, and leaking shower heads.

All are easily correctable and don't require a major investment.

For more information on water conservation and fixing leaks, visit Charlottesville.org forward slash water conservation or you can Google

Charlottesville Water Conservation.

Fix-A-Leak week will wrap up with the second annual Fix-A-Leak 5K, a timed trail race through Penn Park on March 22nd.

The race is family-friendly, so bring the whole gang.

And I announced this two weeks ago as well, and I asked the utilities department if they had those little packets in.

and they said they now do.

They're easy to use.

They're for shower heads, faucets.

There's a bladder that goes into the tank on the toilet and Charlottesville really is one of the leaders in the country about saving water and these things really do work.

And it does really make a difference.

It leaks every day, every hour.

They really do make a difference.

Charlotte, one more, Mayor Huja.

Charlottesville snow removal reminder.

I think we've been having four or five of these.

Charlottesville city code requires that property owners remove snow from sidewalks within 24 hours of the end of snowfall.

Per city code, the city manager has declared 1 p.m. today on March 17th as the end of the most recent snowfall.

Snow must be removed from sidewalks by 1 p.m. on March 18th, tomorrow.

The City of Charlottesville reminds the community to be safe and healthy when shoveling snow and to assist neighbors who may have difficulty removing snow from their property.

The main city number.

What is the main city number?

Page?

For seniors and maybe disabled citizens who it really is a problem removing snow.

I believe this is with Boy Scouts and other volunteers.

So we've had a lot of snow this year and it's

It really has been great to see how the community has responded, not just neighborhood associations, volunteer organizations, but our city workers as well.

I do have another one.

This is the fun one of the year, and this actually will be read again on Saturday, March 22nd, right after the Fix-A-Leak 5K.

At 930, you can go over to the Paramount to see some of our favorite Sesame Street characters.

This is in recognition of WVPT's Children's Book Festival event.

Whereas our favorite big bird with bright yellow feathers, big bird sings, and I'm not going to sing, sunny day, sweeping the clouds away, on my way to where the air is sweet.

I should have coordinated this with Kristin and Kathy.

Whereas Bert said he wants to go where the air is sweet too, and Cookie Monster said he just wants to go where the cookies are sweet.

Ernie wants to know how to get there, how to get to Sesame Street Bert said he would tweak the street whereas the Count said he wants to go where the kids

count with Es and can say they're ABCs and Oscar the Grouch growled and said he doesn't want to go to Sesame Street, he doesn't want to go anywhere.

He's a real tease and hard to please.

Whereas Prairie Dawn said she knows a town where everything's A-OK with friendly neighbors to meet.

It's a town with its own special street, Main Street, and it's and is celebrating the 45th anniversary of Sesame Street.

How does that make you feel old?

Whereas Big Bird asked, where is this town with this special street, Main Street?

And Prairie Dawn said, it's a special place called Charlottesville, where the kids that are smarter than most and read books with their morning toast.

So off went Big Bird, Bert, Ernie, Cookie Monster, the Count, Grover, Oscar the Grouch, and Prairie Dawn to Charlottesville.

Oh, wonders they even found Main Street.

On Main Street, they saw the Paramount Theater with big letters on the marquee that said, Happy 45th Anniversary, Sesame Street.

Bert, Ernie, Oscar, Grover, the Count, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, and Prairie Dawn felt so happy and welcomed.

As the children clapped and cheered, they all went into the Paramount and spent the rest of the day celebrating Sesame Street's 45th anniversary with the very, very smart and the very, very well-read children of Charlottesville.

So whereas WVPT promotes literacy in children and joy in reading,

Now therefore, I, Satyendra Singh Huja, Mayor of City of Charlottesville, Virginia, do hereby proclaim downtown Mall, Main Street, and Sesame Street for the morning of Saturday, March 22, 2014, in honor of Sesame Street's 45th anniversary.

I encourage all girls and boys to participate fully in this celebration of literacy and special anniversary.

This is a really, really fun event.

Saturday, March 22nd at 930 at the Paramount Theater.

It is free and open to the public and there's always a book to take home.

And often characters in costume.

Thank you.

I have one more announcement.

I announced last meeting the national mayor's challenge for water conservation.

Every year it is held and this year I'm encouraging our city residents to participate in this by calling www.mywaterpledge.com.

Starts April 1, whole month of April.

You can go to this website starting April 1 and pledge water conservation or energy conservation.

I think we can have a competition with other communities and I hope that you would

Take a chance, but do wait through April 1st.

I have an announcement from the Office of Human Rights, actually two announcements.

One is that the Office of Human Rights has moved.

It was in the communications office here kind of crammed into a tiny space and now they have their own office and it's right next to city space on the second level of the downtown parking garage on Market Street.

So feel free to go in and welcome them to their new digs.

and they're also having three information sessions for the public.

What is the Office of Human Rights?

How will this office help Charlottesville with issues of discrimination?

What responsibilities does the Human Rights Commission have?

These questions and many more can be answered by attending the presentation, The Office of Human Rights and You.

The Office of Human Rights was created by city council to provide assistance with individual and institutional concerns of discrimination as described in the city's new human rights ordinance.

This information session will be conducted by Charlene Green, the Community Outreach Specialist for Human Rights Office.

To learn more about the Office of Human Rights, attend the next session scheduled for March 19th at Tonsler Park Recreation Center from 6 to 730.

March 24th at City Space from 630 to 8 PM.

and April 8th at Carver Recreation Center from 6 p.m. to 730.

Additional presentations have been scheduled for more sites.

I have one more.

May I?

Yes, ma'am.

And I apologize.

I was asked to announce a really cool symposium coming up.

It's the Historic Tree Symposium.

It's Sunday, April 6 from 1 to 5 at St. Anne's, Bellefield.

The Charlottesville area tree stewards, many of our tree commissioners are tree stewards, will present three Virginia, actually there's four dynamic speakers, three on Virginia presidents and their trees, one on the importance of mature or old growth force around the country.

I don't have the names of the speakers, I know all

who they all are and they're really amazing.

So I think it cost $10 for entrance which is a bargain.

I have one more proclamation which I'm not going to read today but I'll be making this proclamation on April 1st.

This is month of April being Child Abuse Prevention Month.

It is an important concern to our community and I hope you'll

Acknowledged that function.

Any other announcements?

Thank you very much.

Next item on the agenda is matters by the public.

Please come forward.

Identify your name and address and take three minutes to express your ideas and suggestions.

Good evening, Mayor Huja and Council.

My name is Wendy Brown.

I'm at 1505 Dairy Road, Charlottesville, Virginia.

And so I'd like to share some recent results with you.

To date, we have had three sessions of 17 week sessions to educate wannabe entrepreneurs or existing businesses

that feel that they can

19 wannabe startups, 10 have actually started business, 7 of whom are Charlottesville businesses.

Of our 51 graduates, 28 are Charlottesville residents.

You made a special

stepped forward in providing a loan fund for the Community Investment Collaborative last year.

And I am really thrilled to tell you that of the 10 loans that have been given by the Community Investment Collaborative, seven have gone to Charlottesville residents.

We have $43,000 of loans out.

Two of our loans were made in conjunction with Kiva Zip, which is a national crowdfunding source, and one of our Charlottesville loans was made with that facility.

In addition, we have created 15 and a half full time equivalent jobs since launching our program.

We have 32 mentors have been placed with businesses and still retain their ongoing relationship.

We have, let's see,

Sorry, I get nervous.

We have served 78% of our individuals are from low to moderate income households as defined by HUD.

71% are non-Caucasian individuals.

We feel that we have already demonstrated that we can make connections across this community and that we can help people step out to meet their own dreams.

It is hard.

There are glitches.

Nothing is perfect and we are the first ones to say that.

But what's really, really extraordinary and I hope sometime you will come to one of our classes on any Tuesday evening at 6 p.m. in city space and

One of our graduations where you will see a cross section of our community like you probably have never seen before.

Rebecca Quinn, 104 4th Street here in the city.

This council knows what sunshine is.

I've heard some of you speak about it quite eloquently, but simply holding a public hearing on an important issue that could affect Charlottesville for decades without telling the public the impact doesn't rise to what I consider all of you committed to.

I consider that you committed when you ran and were elected

to standing up for our community, to telling the public all the facts and to really listening.

Council is privy to lots of details that the public doesn't get.

You have meetings with staff.

You have meetings, closed meetings, lots of closed meetings.

You have meetings with other entities.

We're not part of those.

And then what happens?

What do we get?

We get a press release with a long legal attachment and someone thinks that's enough

to put an important matter in the clear sunshine of the public.

I don't know anyone in this town on this side of your desk who would agree that that is government and sunshine.

It appears to me that some of our council members may not want to tell citizens the details of important matters, maybe because we'd be really distressed if we knew the facts behind some of what you are dealing with.

We might be distressed to hear

that you are under great pressure from interests outside the city.

You may think giving into that pressure is a way to build partnerships.

But what kind of foundation does that build if it's based on pressure and comes at a huge cost?

All because it appears some of you may not have the courage to stand up to outside pressure.

It's not a partnership if you're bullied into an agreement.

to me seems like what's happened.

Remember, citizens want to be your allies.

Many of us worked for you.

We voted for you.

We wanted you there.

Why?

Because we want to help you make this a better city.

But you need to tell us.

You need to let us know when you need support.

I think a lot of people will heed that call.

But so far, we haven't gotten much on an issue.

And hiding behind what appears from this side to be clouded

shadowed situation.

You can paint it as rosy as you want, but I think a lot of people will see that you've not lived up to your commitment to sunshine.

How can we tell you how we feel if you rush important matters and hide facts from us?

So let's take a deep breath and open the curtains.

Remember, part of the city vision, the council vision, is a community of mutual respect.

Where is the respect for us?

Hello, Lina Seville, 808 Alta Vista Avenue.

I'm here because I was recently elected to the Belmont-Carlton Neighborhood Association's Board, I guess you would call it.

I'm now the Vice President, and as such, we would like to have representation on the Belmont Bridge Steering Committee.

I don't know if you remember, but the Place Design Task Force was, I believe, appointed to be the steering committee for this particular project.

And while that group has some really interesting ideas, I mean, individual members really come up with some out of the box thinking.

There have been some difficulties with the public knowing about when meetings are and that type of thing.

and so I have asked that a member of our neighborhood association could be on the Belmont Bridge subcommittee which is the steering committee for this and unfortunately I have met a lot of resistance.

at one point I brought it up and they said well we do outreach to the public but we discuss these things at our meetings and less than a week after being elected I was approached by one of our members saying what happened at the Belmont Bridge meeting yesterday what's going to be happening next and I can't give them that answer because I have to you know search the the city calendar to find out too.

I'm not getting any kind of notification.

I went to the

the subcommittee meeting prior to it being talked about at the main meeting and as a member of the public I can observe but I'm not allowed to participate.

And there are things that were left off.

The current access that we have right now from the Pavilion, from Avon Street, the Belmont Bridge to the Pavilion wasn't included.

And none of the people there noticed it.

And that's what happens when things are designed by people who don't use them.

All we're asking is to be part of the process.

I mean, I was able to bring it up at the end of the meeting and it was partially shown at the next meeting to the full group the next week, but had I not been there, this is how we waste money and we go back and forth with these projects.

And we, you know, if it's designed,

completely by people who aren't using it and it moves completely forward and and we get to the end of the process before we include the people who who are using it then you see what we get we have to go back and redo the whole process over again and I think they've come up with something really good I mean what I saw presented at that last meeting was actually really nice but it would be it would be less frustrating if we could be part of the process all through so that we can let people know what's going on and we can collect ideas from some of the

My name is Lewis Schultz.

I live at 1809 East Market Street.

This is the 12th time since October 3rd that I've come to Council to say that I have evidence that City Manager Maurice Jones, Director of Public Works Judith Mueller, and Utilities Director Lauren Hildebrand have violated Charlottesville Code and the Code of Virginia, and in doing so, have violated federal civil rights statutes.

A letter entitled, Notes Regarding Steep Hill Street, which was given to every member of this Council on October 3rd, which lays out those accusations in detail, is available to read on the Schilling Show's website.

Additional information is available on Seville Weekly's website.

At the February 18th City Council meeting, I made the accusations I've just repeated.

I made it clear as I've been doing for more than five months that I have evidence beyond any yet seen by Council, which I believe will prove that what I have said is true.

Finally, I asked, as I have many times now, for Council to open an investigation and hold a hearing where I might present that evidence.

At that same February 18th meeting,

Before matters by the public were heard, Kristin Szakos read a proclamation that said in part, whereas in February in particular, we remember the stories of those who have helped build our nation and advance the cause of freedom and civil rights.

Later, she made a remark obviously meant to intimidate me into silence, suggesting that I was slandering city employees by coming to council to ask that my civil rights be respected.

That same evening, pretty much every counselor spoke to say that they felt that there's a need for more openness in our local government, while very conspicuously ignoring the fact that I had just spoken to say that I have evidence which I believe proves serious misconduct on the part of city officials.

I said that I would like to have that investigated by city council under the authority given by the city charter in a way that leaves the facts they find open to public scrutiny.

On March 5th, I returned to speak to counsel.

I addressed Ms. Szakos' intimidating remarks and pointed out that counsel's understanding of the situation has been severely limited due to willful ignorance of any facts which might challenge the position presented to counsel in a secret document prepared by the city attorney's office.

I also mentioned that counsel insults the intelligence of their audience by acting as though the disconnect between their words and their actions is not obvious to all in attendance when they so conspicuously pretend not to hear what I have said.

The response to my statement was much the same as it has been for more than five months.

When I went on council, we would acknowledge my presence in the room with the exception of our local champion of community organizing, Ms. Szakos, who said, I don't know why you keep coming back.

We've already said we're not going to have a hearing.

Ms. Szakos, I keep coming back precisely because you refused to hold a hearing and let the truth be known.

I think the public needs to know who represents them on council and what those people really believe as demonstrated by their actions.

I keep coming back because this city in particular has a very long history of ignoring the civil rights of its citizens and because the struggle to have those rights respected is ongoing.

I keep coming back because I agree wholeheartedly with a statement made by then city council candidate Bob Fenwick who said, quote, they have a beautiful plaque right outside city council chambers which lists about ten things and at least five of them they couldn't care less about.

They talk the talk, but they do not walk the walk.

I come back to point out that Mr. Fenwick is now himself merely talking the talk.

Is there anyone else in the audience who would like to speak on any topic at this time?

I'm Edith Goode, 305 Second Street.

Thank you for this opportunity.

As a member of the FAR Advisory Council, Public Housing Association of Residents, I'm asking for consideration of FAR.

in the city budget.

FAR is a path to active citizenship.

It has accomplished a great deal in terms of community education, leadership development, and organizing in order to improve the quality of life for close to 1,000 of Charlottesville's most vulnerable residents.

Highlights of FAR's 2013 accomplishments include the following two areas, preparation of redevelopment and involvement in national and local public housing initiatives,

The first one, in preparation for redevelopment, FAR worked at improving facilities and ensuring residents are informed about their rights and responsibilities.

FAR has done some things.

It has won a fair process for consideration of rental assistance demonstration program.

One changes to CRHA's proposed admissions.

and continued occupancy plan, was a plaintiff in the successful utility overcharge lawsuit, conducted resident education and recruitment.

And the second one, Farr's involvement in several national and local initiatives related to public housing residents, civic participation and remedies to poverty include the following.

four things.

FAR collaborated and shared information with national advocates.

The FAR internship program is an intensive civic engagement impacting all residents of public housing in Charlottesville.

The HUD-ROS program is a service coordination program and in racial disparities in juvenile justice and education.

Spenser needed to be dedicated to funding education, outreach, and leadership development for public housing residents.

With redevelopment coming down the pike, the city should support programs to involve residents as far as a path to active citizenship for public housing residents.

Does anyone else would like to speak?

Wendy Brown, it's a terrific program.

Y'all are doing great work but I have to say the most important thing and the best thing I heard you say is nothing is perfect and there are glitches in the program.

When the community tries to help a very intractable problem, these things happen and we have to expect that sometimes they won't go smoothly.

So your candor is refreshing and many times we have people come before us and they say everything's coming up roses when we know better.

So the best of luck to you.

If there's anything I can do to help, I'd be more than happy to.

So thank you very much.

Rebecca Quinn, I too have serious concerns about the negotiations and we're going to have that public hearing shortly.

Many of the points you made are very important, not just for that issue, but for city governance as well.

Lena Seville, I admire the fact that you keep coming back.

This is a young woman who is very much interested in being involved in city government.

And I'm sure the city manager is taking notes.

And if you don't get on that steering committee, you know, the normal way, then I will make a formal motion from up here.

Somebody who who has that much stick-to-itiveness to come back deserves to be involved.

And are you on that email list yet?

It only works sometimes.

Well, keep me advised on that.

Edith, good.

FAR does terrific work.

And I appreciate the fact that you keep those statistics in front of us.

I'll go next.

I particularly appreciate the statistics, particularly as it relates to CIC's involvement with city residents.

And we ask that question a lot up here and we very often don't get the answer or just, you know, it hasn't been kept track of or some, you know, it's not really on top of everyone's minds and I really appreciate that.

We've given you city dollars and that you are very cognizant of

of how many city residents and that our dollars serve our city residents.

I can't thank you enough for that.

And Rebecca Quinn, I absolutely agree as well, as you know.

I've said it up here last time.

And I'm going to quote Mr. Schultz as saying that's not the way a democracy should work.

So I'm very concerned that what we're going to discuss tonight with the cost share is

been out for a week and it's got a huge impact so I'm hoping we'll table it tonight but in terms of or not table it but not vote on it because it doesn't require a vote tonight.

Ms. Good, thank you.

Well I will say that actually the agreement has been out for almost two weeks but I also

I don't think that we had too many closed sessions on it.

I was ready to move forward on it months ago, but we have had disagreements within the council and not everyone was ready to move it into the public sphere.

So I'm sorry that we have relatively little time.

Eager to move forward on it because we have to work on our budget and make sure we get our rates set for next year.

And so we've kind of pushed it pretty far back.

But it has been out for two weeks.

The information has been available.

So I hope that people have been paying attention and will participate in tonight's public hearing.

I would also recommend that a resident of the Belmont neighborhood be on the steering committee for the Belmont Bridge.

And that's it.

Yes, thank you, Ms. Brown, about giving us the data on the CIC.

It's an excellent program and it's so great that you now have amassed enough data to show these trends.

So, appreciate that and I look forward to hearing more about it in the years to come.

And you're right, it's wonderful to see the diversity and everyone is working together.

It's a wonderful thing.

Ms. Quinn, about the

I think when we get into the public hearing section, I would like to get perhaps Mr. Jones or Mr. Brown to really clarify for the public what it means to have a mediated negotiation.

and how that is different than a closed meeting that has been requested by a counselor because they are two very different things.

And so, yes, I agree with my colleague Ms. Szakos that

I was ready to have this come out in public in January and so there were numerous questions asked by counselors and and so there was one closed meeting after another.

So again the difference getting the clarity on the difference between the mediated negotiations through that we we all had to swear to a condition of

of not divulging what was being discussed because it was cost sensitive information.

But I'm going to defer to the our attorney and Mr. Jones to get a more clear definition of a mediated negotiation.

So and with regards to Mr. Ville's comments at the time that Mr. Ville brought this up at the places on task force, the task force chair said that the places on task force was appointed by city council.

and it had formed subcommittees to handle all the different projects that the City Council had given it.

And we just simply can't name.

We aren't, that body can't name.

It's members.

It's the council that names the members.

And so that was made pretty clear.

And so that is a choice for the council to make.

So perhaps that is and that choice has to be about expanding the size of the place assigned task force.

Or do we need to move towards an ad hoc arrangement for some projects?

That's fine, too.

But I just want to make it clear.

That's the role of the council.

It wasn't the role of the place to pick and choose who was on it.

And I just want a clarification about who is this Belmont Bridge Committee?

All of place is the Belmont Bridge Steering Committee, but place had

designated two or three other people to be on call, so to speak, for staff to get technical assistance.

But it's the steering committee, as is the whole Place Design Task Force that looks at the designs and the Place Design Task Force is not doing the design.

It's another consultant working with the city of Charlottesville that is doing the design.

The Place Design Task Force simply gives feedback.

So just want to clarify that as well.

No, but I think if Council, with all respect for place, if Council were appointing a Belmont Bridge task force, I think we would have been very cognizant more of the geography of where the Belmont Bridge is and making sure there was representation.

We'll wait until the end of the meeting.

I'd like to make a few comments.

I appreciate Wendy Brown's report and I think the Council is supportive of this and continues to be supportive and I'm happy to see new jobs for people who need jobs.

And I hope you continue this program and will continue to support it.

And I sympathize with Ms. Quinn's comments as to

Timing, how much time is required.

We're going to be discussing this tonight, and then we'll see when we make a decision today or next meeting.

But at least we're going to talk about that.

As to Nina Seville, we'll discuss at the end of the meeting, just goes.

And those are the only comments I have.

I would like to move the following appointments to the following boards and commissions.

To the Charlottesville Economic Development Authority, otherwise known as CEDA, Tony Lucadamo, the Jefferson Area Board of Aging Advisory Council, Joe Sakas and Amy Leiter, to the Jefferson Area Board of Aging

Board of Directors, Sue Lewis and Elaine Phillips, to the Regional Disability Service Board, Jim Herndon, to the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority Citizens Advisory Committee, Leo Malik, to the Tree Commission, Mike Henrietta, Lina Seville, Dorothy Smith, Maynard Sipe and Elizabeth Waters, and to the Youth Council, Kamiya Dennis, hope I pronounced that correctly.

All those in favor?

Thank you very much.

Item A, minutes for March 5th.

Item B, appropriation special event sponsorship, $2,869 versus two readings.

Item C, an appropriation of best-grown bond funds from the Landmark Hotel, $111,006.39, and transfer of $102,506.39.

First of two readings.

Item D, a resolution reallocation of Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation, FY 2014 mid-year funding, $565,105, first of one reading.

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, you see the appropriation of escrowed bond funds.

That's money coming to the city.

And I have actually just a couple comments.

One, I just don't think it can pass without giving a real shout out and thank you to Bama Works for their sponsorship of our Parks and Recs programs.

Those Sunday sundowns are amazing.

They are

just basically a recreation of a tradition in the African American community and have just been incredible as well as that really, really fun Halloween event.

So I was ashamed that was on the consent agenda to let it go.

But the number E, I believe it is the attendance requirements.

I'm just concerned that

that it's only about CRHA.

I understand there are some legal, I mean Mr. Huja you explain this to me, there's some legal requirements concerning that but I wonder if as we discuss it we really shouldn't be broadening our discussion to all our boards and commissions as well as I was a little concerned about that there be enough public input as we're doing it.

This is the first of two readings

but that we should seek out because we might not fully understand what some of the issues are as to why there isn't

attendance, well there's attendance issues.

And I think some of our boards and commissions do have attendance requirements and some don't and it probably is a good idea to review them all.

This request came from CRHA to do this and they did have a public meeting about it, but I think you're right that it's good that it's two readings so people can get a heads up.

Thank you.

Next is the public hearing on fiscal year 2015 tax rate.

Mr. Mayor, we have a PowerPoint presentation.

Members of Council, we believe this budget that we proposed to the City Council two weeks ago reflects responsible budgeting during very difficult economic times.

It highlights our support for our schools.

insurers who are living within our means is in many respects meeting the needs of our community and we believe it reflects the City Council's priorities and vision.

I think an important highlight is that we are recommending that we keep our real estate tax rate at 95 cents per $100 of assessed value.

Let's take a look at the changes in the general fund over the course of the last 10 years or so.

As you can see, things have changed quite a bit since fiscal year 2008.

We've settled into a new era of fiscal restraint.

is being proposed with a 1.65 percent increase over fiscal year 14.

Overall, the revenue projections are heading, we believe, in the right direction.

We've witnessed some similar trends in areas like the meals tax and lodging tax.

And this year we experienced a rise in our real estate assessments spurred by commercial increases, new construction and a slight uptick in our real estate, our residential properties.

This, we believe, demonstrates that the residential market is once again growing in the city of Charlottesville, albeit a little more slowly than it was a number of years ago.

Overall, we believe we have a diverse economic foundation that has served us well over the last few years.

This graph gives you a good sense of where our general fund revenue is coming from.

Of course, local taxes are the largest piece of the pie, accounting for 66% of our revenues.

We've seen the personal property sales and meals taxes all trend upwards in recent years.

Overall, our total real estate assessments in fiscal year 14 are projected to increase by 3.4%, which is very good news compared to the last couple of years.

And this budget keeps, as I mentioned before, the real estate tax at 95 cents per $100 of assessed value, the same as our current year, fiscal year 14.

And it also shows that people continue to invest in the city of Charlottesville.

And that's kept our overall assessments from falling even more dramatically over the last few years.

Personal property is up 6.4%.

This is another positive indicator that the economy is starting to head in the right direction.

Another important indicator is the sales and use tax.

This revenue stream has started to see some improvement as consumer confidence improves and as we bring more business into the city.

And we hope to see it continue in the right direction over the course of the next couple of years.

The meals tax is up once again, 6.72%, continuing a steady climb.

This revenue continues to be another strong indicator that things are going well or improving from an economic standpoint in Charlottesville.

The transient room tax, also known as the lodging tax, is expected to be level this year.

We believe this will change when a couple of new hotels come on to the market in the next year or so.

This budget does include an increase in the cigarette tax.

The Council, as you may remember, we were approached last year by a group that encouraged us to raise the cigarette tax in an effort to curb teenage smoking here in the city, so I am proposing an increase from 35 cents per pack to 55 cents per pack.

We expect this could bring in an additional $265,000 in revenue as well.

and false alarm fees.

The city currently has in place a fee structure for false alarms.

This budget proposes putting in place better and more efficient ways to track those false alarms and pursue those who do not pay the fee after several attempts to collect it.

Let's take a look at our expenditures.

We're going to explain now how our money is spent.

The schools are the largest slice of our expenditure pie coming in at 33%, a little over 33%.

City Council has traditionally strongly supported our schools and continues to do so.

both on the operational side and on the capital side.

I believe our budget continues to do that.

Public safety and justice is also another big piece of the pie, making up nearly 26% of the operating budget, followed by healthy families and community at nearly 19%, and infrastructure and transportation at 9%.

So here's an interesting chart that really demonstrates how things have changed in recent years when it comes to how we're supporting our schools.

We have always been a strong supporter of our school system, but we've had to pick up the slack in recent years because of the fact that the state was pulling back on their support for K through 12.

As you'll see here, the city has increased the percentage of the school's budget to 76% of the budget.

are being derived now from local taxes from the city compared to where it was in fiscal year 08 when we were at 71%.

And we don't expect this to change a whole lot in the near future.

We've proposed providing the schools with $45.6 million

In fiscal year 15, this represents an increase of $1.5 million, which is above the 40% formula that we have had in place to support our schools with new money from the real estate and personal property taxes.

We had a discussion last week on our work session about helping to close the gap.

The schools in the city are about $276,000 apart right now.

and we're having another discussion that we're trying to work on scheduling with the schools over the course of the next week or so to further examine that deficit and try to close it if we can.

compensation and benefits for our city employees.

We're proposing a 2% salary increase on July 1st for eligible employees.

We are trying to stay competitive in the market to retain our employees but also to attract new employees and that 2% is right around where the market is right now.

and our MSA.

We are proposing to absorb the healthcare increases with our healthcare fund, which has a healthy reserve right now.

And we're also fully funding the city's requirement towards our retirement fund.

balancing the budget.

We've spent a lot of time over the course of the last couple of years actually finding ways to be more efficient, finding ways to cut services that we felt had a minimal to little impact on our citizens.

We have identified over $400,000 in this budget and recurring budget reductions.

Many of those reductions were identified by carefully reviewing

Past year's actuals and spending trends or in some cases recognizing that an expense could be delayed a year without significant impact.

Citywide we looked at how we can better manage computer and server space and we're able to save $18,000 in the future purchase of additional servers for our technology needs and the fuel markup has been reduced back for several years now

in order to save the department's money and to also better align our markup policies with other fleet management services around the state.

We've added some additional funding for the city council priorities.

We've added two new expenditures to this budget that we believe are directly tied to the city council priorities.

The first is an urban designer who will be housed in neighborhood development services and provide in-house expertise on design elements for major infrastructure projects and to help assist us with our complete streets and small area planning projects.

We've also proposed a downtown workforce development center which will be housed in the central library and which will provide assistance and training to folks who are searching for employment in the city.

We believe that the one-on-one assistance or case management will go a long way in helping these residents who've had a difficult time finding a job or beginning a career.

We believe this is in keeping with the city's commitment to helping provide a path to self-sufficiency for those who are struggling economically.

Moving on to our capital improvement program, we once again have a wide variety of projects that we are proposing.

If you take a look at the list, we have our schools' capital improvements at $2.5 million, public safety and justice $3.5 million, $685,000 for new sidewalks and sidewalk repair,

We're proposing $750,000 for the Tonsil Park renovation, $750,000 for the West Main Street project, $200,000 for bicycle infrastructure, $300,000 for small area plans, and then $1.56 million in the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund for next year.

So as we look ahead, the biggest issue that we have to tackle, we believe at this point, is our schools funding.

We do have a series of major capital needs that are also looming on the horizon.

We recognize that for the foreseeable future, one to two percent increases in the budget, it's become the new normal as we continue to see a timid

real estate market and other local taxes that remain a little sluggish that will not be enough to fund our needs here in Charlottesville.

We also have the issue of the use of one-time funds

that we need to address long term.

We've seen a significant reduction in the use of that one-time money, dropping for $4 million just a few years ago, down to about $750,000 in this budget that we proposed.

We have very healthy funds that we've been able to tap into in order to cover those deficits that we've faced.

However, we're concerned that we are adding new funding for our new spending as part of our budget for recurring positions and services and still utilizing some one-time money to pay for that.

So we hope we'll be able to reverse that in the next year or so.

And on the schools, we do want to, over the course of the next six months or so, really dig down and take a good look at the Blue Ribbon Commission on Sustainable Schools funding and some of the recommendations that they have.

They did have some short-term solutions and long-term solutions to look at as well.

So we believe that we'll take a closer look at that with city council very soon.

So also looking ahead, there are some positive trends.

I've mentioned some of those.

Regional unemployment is down to about 4%.

Commercial and residential permit requests continue to climb.

Retail vacancy rates remain steady at 3.28% across the city.

and we have several major projects that are under construction or will be completed soon here in the city or on the drawing board to be under construction in the next year or so with West 1000 West Main Street, the flats at West Village, the Marriott Resident Inn and Homewood Suites, CityWalk, Burnett Commons 2 and 3.

So a lot of great projects that are out there here in the city which once again as I mentioned before demonstrates that people are interested in investing in our city and for good reason.

So next steps, we have our first public hearing tonight.

We'll have our second public hearing in a couple of weeks.

We do have on Wednesday night a community budget forum at 7 o'clock at City Space and that is open to the public.

We invite the public to come.

It really is the opportunity, it's a great opportunity for the public to weigh in.

We'll have a short presentation on our budget and then we open it up for public comment.

And so that's what we spend most of the night doing.

We'll have a work session on Thursday, March 27th at 5 o'clock from 5 to 7 at City Space where we will focus our attention on the outside of agencies and non-profits as well.

And we do reserve the last 15 minutes of each one of our work sessions for public comment.

We'll have on April 7th, we'll have the second public hearing here in city council chambers at seven o'clock.

On April 10th, we'll have a, if necessary, we'll have a budget wrap up from five to seven, another work session at city space.

And on April 11th, we will have before the council the final budget for their approval at 1 p.m. in the second floor conference room.

This is a sign-up sheet for public hearing.

Just one clarification which is very minor but somebody asked me about it and I just want to make sure that people are clear.

The false alarm fee that's going up, I just want to make sure that people understand that's not if you're trying to teach your children how to dial 911 and your child dials it by accident, you don't get a charge for that.

This is for buildings that have alarm systems that aren't repaired

so that they keep kind of doing false alarms.

And there's a second and a third chance.

So don't not teach your children to dial 911.

Mr. Mayor, just a point of clarification.

There are two separate public hearings.

The first, even though the PowerPoint was on both issues, the first is on the tax cut for next year.

And then the second separate public hearing will be on the budget.

For clarification, Mr. Mayor, the school budget over the past five years has, what has happened to it?

The trend?

I mean it's been about the same slight increases over the last couple of years.

Several years ago, seven years ago, there was a significant increase in the school's budget to tackle some important issues like the achievement gap and graduation rates.

But their request, has their request been about the same with small increases?

Okay, and the city's budget basically has gone down.

No, it's gone up.

Speaking of schools, because actually Huja and I were just talking about this, the $400,000 more than our formula,

for giving to the schools, going from 1.1 to 1.5.

OK. And actually, I mean, I do have a comment.

But do you want me to wait till after the public hearing?

The first public hearing is on tax rate.

Maurice, you make any comments before you open?

No, sir.

I open the public hearing.

Anybody would like to speak on the tax rate?

Does that mean that everybody wants to have some more text, right?

Nobody's a smoker, I take it.

Okay.

If not, I'll close the poll for you.

No, no, no.

It was mentioned, oh, first let me introduce myself.

Scott Bandy, 1639 Cherry Avenue.

It was mentioned earlier tonight concerning the sunshine on a different item, but I think it applies to this as well.

I like the way that this has been languaged.

I mean, it seems good for council, but for the citizenry, I have to question that.

There were four thousand worth of cuts in city departments this year, both.

Anybody else has a, like to talk about tax rate?

Okay, because we're hearing tax rate.

I do have a question, and it's with regards to the cigarette tax.

The only reason I say that is because what we try to do is also take into consideration that you might lose some folks when you raise it.

So you could have some loss there as well.

So we've tried to factor that in.

Mike can try to get that information to you.

Yeah, I'm just curious.

And I'll just say what I say every year, which is that several years ago we had a tax rate of $1.14 per $1,000 valuation.

And when property values were skyrocketing, the council before I guess any of us were on,

elected to drop the rate to 95 cents because the property values were so high that people were being unduly burdened by their property taxes.

Then 2007 happened, property values plummeted and they have kind of bumped along the bottom ever since and yet we have never raised the taxes again.

I think that the council in dropping prices at that point would have assumed that we would raise them again and instead we've been in this period that Mr. Jones calls the new era of fiscal restraint.

Although we don't have before us a plan to raise the taxes, I think that it's really important that people know that we have cut things.

We've cut things that are very important to people.

We've tried to maintain basic city services, so I think we still are a good value for citizens and we still want to be the best city we can be.

But we have cut things, we've made things more difficult for our staff, we've made things more difficult for our citizens.

And I think that we have to realize that that comes at a cost, that we are saving money, but I think that austerity is not always the answer when, if the status quo

is okay for everyone, then you leave things as they are.

But I think that for many people in this community, for whom the status quo is not okay, people who are not getting what they need, we can't respond to those needs because we don't have the funds.

Thank you.

I'll open the public hearing on City Manager's budget, 2015.

There are some people who have signed up.

I'm Marta Kane.

I live at 2040 Earliesville Road, Earliesville, but I'm here tonight as the CEO for JAVA, the Jefferson Area Board for Aging.

I just want to thank all of you for your consistent support for seniors and their families and their caregivers.

JAVA provides a continuum of caring in our programs to support the continuum of living.

This year's recommended budget reflects a reallocation of some funds

from Mountainside Senior Living, keeping with our agreement to become self-sufficient.

And that's been reallocated to two programs that are growing in demand, the information and assistance, which is basically our resource center that fields the first level of calls.

And that's gone up.

And the ombudsman program, which is now expected to take care of home health,

and Pace and the new dual eligible program that's coming in as well as its typical skilled nursing and assisted living.

We try to find efficiencies in other funding so that we can increase our overall services.

We're projecting almost a 14 percent increase in the number of individuals that we will serve in fiscal year 15 and we were given two-tenths of a percent increase in funding.

and again we appreciate and know and understand the need for responsible budgeting and our costs continue to go up much as the city employees do so we are looking for ways that we can be more efficient so that we can live within the means of what the city has to share because we know there's a lot of pressure for a lot of programs.

So combine that with the fact that Java leverages Charlottesville's funds

so that your share is about 25% of the total required.

It's really a pretty good deal to invest in Java.

I do want to point out just for a second though that as we look to the future, in only 10 years by the year 2024, one out of every four residents in the area will be at or over the age of 65.

I think that's a pretty significant number and one that we will need to take into account as we move forward.

We need to continue to support and plan for these changing demographics so that we can continue to strengthen the fabric of the community, because it is about having the whole community grow together.

And just one last comment.

Dick Gibson, who is the city resident and the board of Java, sends his regrets for not being here tonight.

I think it's the very first time he's ever missed one of these hearings since he's been with Java.

So we thank you again.

Thank you.

Rebecca Quinn, 1044th Street here in the city.

First, the public, the press release for the, wait a minute, the budget, excuse me.

I got three things going on here.

Yes, there were two things I wanted to talk about on the budget.

One is I see five million in revenue in the budget related to utilities.

It's called payment in lieu of taxes.

For those at home and perhaps here in the room, what that means is because our utilities are run by the city,

We don't pay a sales tax or some other kind of tax, but we do pay an equivalent amount.

So, you know, a tax by any other name is still sort of a tax.

That generates, as I said, about five million in revenue.

With water and sewer rates about to go up yet again, that income to the city will also go up.

The amount, when I try to run the numbers, it looks like it's about 6% of what's paid by property owners and renters who use gas.

And for those of us who consume water and flush toilets, which is all of us, I want to know about why is it 6%?

Is that something y'all could change?

You notice your budget went up 1.65%, which is about 2.2 million, which is half of the pilot.

I actually think there may be a better way to go.

Rather than just add it to the general budget, and it's not real clear to me exactly how it's used, because it comes out of the pockets of our ratepayers, I think at least some of it or all of it should be used to offset future water and sewer rate increases.

You've done that before.

Why don't you do it again?

When I hear about the number of low-income homes that have their utilities shut off and children who are taken out of homes, I find that very distressing.

My second item is the budget has funding for housing affordability and there's a description of past uses including funds for Habitat for Humanity.

We have a lot of low-income families in this town.

and what I can only imagine is a huge backlog of housing issues.

What with utility rates set to go up again and knowing a lot of low-income families are in older homes that aren't water efficient and aren't energy efficient, I want to know whether the city conditions the use of our tax funds that go to outside groups for housing affordability.

Do you make sure

that existing city residents are helped first.

And if you don't, why not?

Surely that money is conveyed with some kind of condition.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Brandon Collins, 418 Fairway Avenue.

I've lived in Charlottesville my entire life.

I have three children who have lived here their entire lives as well.

I speak tonight on behalf of FAR, Public Housing Association of Residents, one of the few groups in Charlottesville that represents and speaks for and organizes with and commiserates with low-income people in our community.

I think our organization is extremely vital for improving the lives of residents of public housing in Charlottesville And we also do all kinds of other things one of those things is being involved in the the DMC task force recently We have folks who have been through our intern program participating all kinds of other public boards And that's why I'm here tonight is to ask that you consider FAR and our internship program when you are looking at

for outside agencies at your work session on the 27th.

I would very much appreciate the opportunity to speak with any and all of you about any concerns you might have about our application or about what our internship does and what it is.

We were recommended to not receive funding for the coming year and I think that's a very, very big mistake.

Our internship program focuses on two kind of aspects that I think are of great interest to the city.

One is improving the lives of the participants, enabling them to go out and then help their neighbors improve their lives and work towards self-sufficiency.

And then the other part is engaging residents and making sure residents are engaged in matters of big decisions that affect them and affect their lives in public housing.

This coming year, a whole lot of very big decisions will be made regarding the future of public housing in Charlottesville.

We have the city manager working on his stretch objectives and how that relates to improving public housing.

That is not something that can be done without the input of residents and so far I think we've had a very good working relationship to make sure that resident input is included and I look forward to our intern program being able to mobilize and communicate with residents on this very, very big topic.

Without our internship program, we are not going to be able to mobilize and reach the large numbers of residents that need to be able to communicate with the city and housing authority about redevelopment of public housing.

Now I know you're all about data and if you look at ABRT, there were kind of two priorities.

One was peer networking and the other was job readiness.

And I think our intern program has a very clear track record on these things.

Now in our application, it really only points to 2012, but we just graduated a recent class.

I would love to share that information with you.

And looking towards the past, a very high number of our graduates have gone on to, who are eligible to work,

have gained full-time employment and a great deal of those have full-time employment with benefits and I think that speaks very highly for the effectiveness of this program.

Very much would love to hear from you all.

Email me, whatever you gotta do.

Would love to talk about what we can do to make this program work in the coming year.

Hi, my name is Barbara Miller.

I'm the Executive Director of Community Action, MACA, Monticello Area Community Action Agency.

My address is 3105 District Avenue here in the city.

I'm here to talk about the CARES program, but first I want to talk a little bit about Community Action.

Community Action is the only

program in the United States that is federally mandated to address the issues of poverty in our community.

Now that is not to say that other agencies don't do this, but we certainly are in a unique position to have some programming that is funded federally and through the state and locally that addresses those issues.

CARES is one of those, and I'm addressing CARES this evening because the ABRT

had some questions and some concerns about CARES.

CARES is an emergency program that helps people with their rent and with their utilities.

The program has been at MACA for 10 years.

In those 10 years, we have been able to establish a very good relationship with AIM, Alliance for Interfaith Ministries.

We get some of our funding from AIM.

I think some of the decisions that were made during the ABRT were made because of some misunderstandings.

One of which was that they highlighted that we had given out $81,000 of funding

in the past year.

The truth is that we gave out $257,000 in funding.

$81,000 of that was from AIM.

Some of the monies were from Dominion Energy Share and also they were monies that Community Action has done fundraising for to increase our ability to fund as many people as possible.

One of the benefits of having CARES at MACA is that we are able then to funnel people into other programming, whether it be Head Start, whether it be Project Discovery, whether it be some of our outreach

things that we do on other programming, we are able to do that and we are expanding our programming all the time.

One of the things that we are working on right now is making sure that all our case workers are certified through Temple University so that they can work with the families individually and make sure that we are working towards self-reliance.

So in wrapping up, I just think that one of the reasons that

There are three really good reasons to keep MACA and CARES and AIM together.

And they are that, first of all, we are a poverty agency and we care very much about the people in our community who live, the most vulnerable people who live at 100% below poverty guidelines.

Secondly, we can funnel them into other programming that helps them

and thirdly is that the community is used to coming to us for this program and they get some individualized care that possibly they wouldn't be able to receive at another agency.

We make sure that they are seen in a timely manner and we make sure that they're seen as individuals.

Anybody else would like to speak on the budget?

Barbara Miller, glad to meet you.

I've been meaning to come over to meet you.

And I wanted to say that because you're about to have one of the most beautiful terraced gardens in the city pop over there.

So my question is,

When we're faced with budget decisions, some people would say raise taxes.

I personally favor raising revenue from additional sources.

So when I come over and see you, I'm going to ask you if you have the authority to rent out those terrace gardens for weddings or concerts or something like that.

So think about it, please.

You're getting into trouble now, I would say.

Actually, and thank you all for coming out.

A lot of it's ABRT stuff and we will have a whole work session on it.

Those were a lot of the ones that I wondered about.

But I continue to have concerns about the cuts to our transit, our public transit, which I know were in response to extra monies that transit got, but those extra monies were not meant to offset local funds.

It was said at the state meeting

they were meant to improve local transit and a number of communities have done this such that actually the state's going, oh, I don't know if the state affects, but that's not what this was meant for.

And so I think we're jeopardizing actually future funding.

It's supposed to go through 2019 if we take advantage of the fact that they've gotten more money and offset it.

So I would like council to really

seriously consider whether that's a wise choice.

That's also, you know, I mean there's so many areas that have been identified that we've heard about.

We've just now had one meeting of the advisory board.

We're about to have another one next week where we'll be talking about just a little glitches in the transition, some things that have come to light about where more service is needed immediately and as the other real big

sort of elephant in the room is the student housing going up on West Main Street almost surely will produce a need for a seven in the trolley expanded service.

Any other comments, members of the council?

The forum is this Wednesday, March 19th at 7 p.m. at City Space.

Next item in public hearing is cost allocation agreement for our water and sewer authority waste water project.

Mayor and Councilors, Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority owns and operates the wastewater treatment facilities and interceptor lines that serve the City of Charlottesville, the urban growth area of Albemarle County,

and the Crozet area in Albemarle County.

A number of RWSA's wastewater facilities have and will require replacement or improvements whether it is for additional capacity or an upgrade to meet more stringent regulations.

The cost for the RWSA capital improvements are paid by the City and Albemarle County Service Authority.

Almost two years ago, the city and ACSA began discussions on the allocation of cost for the new Rivanna pump station.

This new pump station is located at Rivanna's Moores Creek wastewater treatment plant and replaces an undersized pumping station.

Over the course of many discussions between the city and ACSA, it was decided to develop a cost share proposal for all capital wastewater projects

indicating those completed in the recent past where the debt is still being paid and those planned in the future.

This proposed agreement, which was in the council's agenda package, explains how the debt service for capacity and non-capacity projects, which are wastewater-related, will be allocated between the city and ACSA.

For the capacity-related wastewater projects like the Rivanna pump station,

The cost will be derived by the city and ACSA's respective usage of the wastewater facility as projected over the next 60 years.

The usage will be determined based on metering the wet weather flows which are based on a two-year storm event and dry weather flows in the project's wastewater sewer basin area every five years.

A table based on the metered, dry, and wet weather flows projected for a 60-year period

will be prepared by an independent engineer taking into account the anticipated growth.

Every 10 years, land development and population updates will be incorporated into the projections.

This usage is averaged into segments and applied to the annual debt for each project.

Initially, the wastewater flow data will be from the RWSA Comprehensive Sanitary Sewer Interceptor Study Report prepared by Grillian Hansen in July 2010.

If this agreement is approved by all three agencies, RWSA will begin the process of installing flow meters to update the wet and dry weather flows.

For existing capacity projects, debt service costs already collected by RWSA will not be allocated prior, will not be reallocated prior to July 1, 2014.

Folks commonly refer to this as a true-up of cost, so there will be no true-up of these previous costs.

The proposed agreement also addresses non-capacity wastewater projects.

Examples of these projects are those that improve the quality of wastewater treatment

or for repair or maintenance of existing wastewater facilities.

The cost for these projects will be based on the annual projection of system-wide wastewater flows with the allocation based on the percentage of metered retail water sales adjusted for exclusions reported to RWSA by the city and ACSA.

This methodology reflects RWSA

current practice of allocating debt service costs as well as operational costs.

In addition, the proposed agreement also specifies if an upgrade or replacement is necessary for a facility before its useful life is exhausted due to the flows exceeding the amount projected, and this can be either due to INI or infiltration inflow not being curtailed or unanticipated growth.

The agency responsible for these additional flows will be responsible for the entire cost

of providing the additional capacity.

At the request of the city and ACSA, RWSA had an outside consulting firm look at the proposed methodology in the agreement.

The review concluded the proposed methodology is consistent with industry standards and practices.

How this aligns with Council's priority areas and vision is by RWSA constructing wastewater treatment projects, capacity related sanitary sewer overflows will be eliminated.

And this aligns with Council's priority of cultivating streams and rivers through effective storm water management practices.

And these practices include eliminating listed discharges such as sanitary sewer overflows.

One of the council's visions is a green city which promotes healthy rivers and streams and sanitary sewer overflows can harmfully impact streams and rivers.

The budgetary impact is that the allocation of cost

will affect the debt service component for the wholesale rate RWSA provides to the city in ACSA.

This wholesale rate is then incorporated in the city's wastewater utility rate.

It is anticipated that initially the city's share of the wastewater debt service will increase.

For the long term, budgetary impacts will depend on future flow monitoring and the extent that flows change or the usage

of the facility for the city and ACSA due to the reduction of INI or infiltration inflow and increased growth.

Therefore, staff recommends approval of the attached resolution authorizing execution of the wastewater project's cost allocation between the city, ACSA and RWSA.

If the proposed agreement is not approved by City Council, negotiations could continue with ACSA or debt service costs could continue to be allocated using the methodology RWSA currently uses.

Just procedure-wise, I'll ask if you have any questions or clarifications.

We have spent, for rehabilitation and rehabilitation on just the sanitary sewer lines in the city, about $12 million, and then for replacement, an additional $10 million.

So 22 million altogether.

Right.

The replacement was really for additional capacity for dry weather flow, but inherently you get a reduction in infiltration and inflow by doing that.

Right.

And what is the, so where is that debt service being paid?

Is it embedded in our sewer bills or is it a CIT?

The 22 million dollars.

How is it the debt?

I assume we bonded that.

And how is that debt service being financed?

It's in the city's utility budget.

Okay, so it's in our rates.

And what would the debt service on that be?

Maybe that's enough.

Actually, Bernard may be able to use that.

Just approximately per year.

I just wonder what the—I do have other questions.

So as Bernard comes up here, and I don't want to keep everybody too long, for Mr. Brown, actually, because there's just been a lot of different

conflicting information out there.

I have a couple questions.

Well, actually, you answered one, Ms. Hildebrand.

If we do not accept this agreement, one of our options is just to do what's been happening for 15 years, Rivanna allocating debt service by water flow, an extrapolation of water flow.

Is that right, Mr. Frederick?

My opinion is they don't.

You may get a different answer if you ask their attorney, but that's premised on the argument that they

They didn't request that project.

I don't think that is, in my opinion, I don't think that's a compelling argument given that it is a project that serves both jurisdictions and it is a project mandated by consent orders entered into the State Department of Environmental Quality.

Now, in all fairness, those orders don't dictate the location of that project, which is where the

And again I think we have to say $11 million is not a precise figure.

It started out at 13 when the difference between the two locations was $40 million and $27 million.

We know that it's less, the construction cost is less than the $40 million.

So that was just a negotiating position.

I just want to clarify things that were put out in the public before the public speaks.

Do the federal and state regulatory bodies

Is the four-party agreement considered a legally binding contract?

Yes.

And then I have actually, Mr. Frederick, I have a couple questions about the contract itself.

And I asked this actually in one of our executive sessions and I don't think I ever got an answer as to whether

In the contract it says Crozet is part of the urban waste water system.

Is that always been true or is that new?

And does it have any implications for, because in the water it's separate.

The question you're asking is obviously some things that happened long before I came to Charlottesville.

Okay, so it's not new.

But my understanding is when the

when Rivanna was organized in 1972 Crozet at that time was not connected to urban wastewater but during the 1980s the interceptor was built and it was contemplated at the time the four-party agreement was done but it wasn't yet built but there was a project that connected that to urban wastewater and the best understanding anybody has given me is

because Crozet was a growth area the county wanted to pursue, but it was also in the South Rivanna watershed, water supply watershed area.

Okay, so this isn't a change.

I was just concerned that somehow it was a change in the contract

This is not a recent change.

And so, actually before you go, so in understanding these, so that everybody who has, if you're here and you've actually read the cost share agreement, just for an understanding point of view, I'm wondering whether the current way that you allocate costs, which for us is 54%,

Is that comparable to the dry flow column?

If it's determined by water, and I guess that doesn't really matter, but it's a waste water flow.

The question is how close is close to you or how close is it to me, we might be two different things.

Can I ask actually, Mr. Frederick, recently we learned that in July this was going to cost the city an additional $200,000 in debt.

Was that calculated the same way

as we just heard Ms. Hildebrand explain about the segments.

I'm sorry, when you referred to the $200,000?

Oh, it's $197,000.

Okay, the city asked for Lonnie Wood, who I apologize, I thought he would be here, Lonnie Wood to calculate what our

This is what this whole thing that you weren't sure we should release, that how much money it was going to cost the city if we approve this for the next fiscal year.

And it came out to $197,000.

Was that calculated in the same way that it will be calculated in the future for

Mr. Frederick, could you come to the mic, please, so the folks on TV can hear?

What was requested, what was recently requested of Mr. Wood was to take fiscal year 2015, which is the year that begins July 1st of this year, just for that year.

What would the wholesale rates be if this agreement is adopted?

And that's what he did and he took.

For fiscal year 15, there are

a list of capacity related projects that are actually listed in exhibit A of the agreement that's in front of you.

All of those projects either are 100, two of them are 100% projects, one of them is in Crozet, the county pays for all of.

one of them, Schenck's Branch, which the city pays all of them.

There's a provision in the agreement that says if only, if there's a system that Rivanna's operating that only serves one of the two entities, then the entity that's using the system pays 100% of Rivanna's costs.

Okay, so that's applied.

The other projects that are on the list, all of them but the Rivanna Pump Station, already have bonds sold.

For the Rivanna Pump Station, Rivanna is proposing to sell bonds this year.

In fact, there's a bond resolution on the agenda for the Rivanna board meeting next Tuesday evening, a week from tomorrow.

Since all of those have bonds issued or will have bonds issued before fiscal year 2015, the agreement states that the 10-year segments are used

for the bond debt once the bonds are issued.

Let me add one information.

Just for public information, each city and county had a discussion for some time.

We appointed a committee to do our discussions.

And I want to get back to my original question from some of the earlier matters of the public.

Mediation is a process about which two or more parties come together and usually with an independent neutral person to try to resolve some dispute.

It may be a dispute that's in pending litigation.

It may be a dispute over such as this over the terms of an agreement.

It is

Not the same as arbitration where you have a third party neutral who renders a decision, the mediator in a mediation.

is there to facilitate the discussion and to attempt to find common ground between the two parties.

Now, in response to your question, Ms. Galvin, there are state code provisions that govern mediation and those provide that the work product and the discussions and whatever offers or

I think the reason for that is fairly self evident.

It's especially important if the mediation doesn't work.

You don't want the fact that you've made some offer or taken some position in

in an attempt to compromise a dispute to come back to haunt you.

And you, I believe, alluded to this earlier that all the participants in the mediation, you, Councillor Smith, Mr. Jones, Ms. Mueller, me, Ms. Hildebrand, we all signed a statement agreeing to the confidentiality

as did representatives of ACSA.

I believe Rivanna signed it as well, although I don't think they were technically a party to the mediation in the same sense as the city and ACSA.

They were there to provide technical support and assistance as needed as requested by the parties or the mediators.

Yes, it did.

Thank you.

When we use the term closed meeting, that's in the context of a public bodies meeting, whereas mediation can involve public bodies, private entities, corporations, whatever.

I'll add one other thing about mediation.

Typically, one of the first things the mediator will tell the parties is that he wants someone at the mediation who's empowered to bind the parties.

That makes it a little tricky with public bodies because you can't have city council at the mediation and it's only city council that can bind the city.

Closed sessions, and in this case this is where we have advised council of our negotiations and I've used that to provide my legal advice.

Closed sessions are meetings of a public body, in this case city council,

that are an exception to the requirement that the public can be present and that the meeting can be photographed or video recorded or audio recorded.

It requires a motion wherein you state the specific reason that you're going into closed session and then

That meeting is only for Council and the appropriate staff members or any other parties that Council feels necessary to have there for the discussion.

As you know, there is a process by which Council comes out of closed sessions and then

passes a motion which says that certifies that you only talked about things that were eligible to be talked about in closed session.

And those things that are eligible are specified in the state code.

That's not something that's a local option.

You could only go into a closed session to discuss those matters which are specifically authorized by state law.

For this city council and just for general information, I think most often those are personnel matters such as appointments or legal advice or the acquisition or sale of city property.

I'd like to give some clarifications now.

I'd like to hold a public hearing and then come back with questions and discussions.

Hello, my name is Martha Levering.

I live at 712 Grove Avenue.

I'm here tonight to support the proposed cost allocation agreement between the city

and the county for the Rivanna Pump Station.

We have a long history of allocation agreements with the county, most of which are based on the principle of user pays.

This is a fair way to allocate costs.

The pump station is being enlarged now.

because too much rain water is getting into our sewer lines.

This overwhelms the present pump station during high rain events.

Sewer overflows result and pollute our streams.

We have an older system so it's not surprising

Even after all the work that's been done on our sewers in the last several years, we still contribute more of this rain and sewage mixture to the system.

The county is predicted to grow more than us, so it is not surprising that they will use more of the capacity in the future.

So, allocating the debt service over time according to how much capacity each entity uses is reasonable.

The sewage doesn't know when it crosses the city limits, but we will with proper monitoring.

Rebecca Quinn, 1044th Street here in the city.

So here we are.

All those past council meetings I've asked what's going on with the water cost share agreement and now we know, well, now we know something about it, but a very important part still hasn't been made public and that's what the increased cost is going to be on us.

So I will start out by saying unless you're ready to accept the staff, one of the staff options staff put before you, and that is to do nothing, I want you to postpone this decision until you are straight with us on that matter.

It has not been two weeks.

The press release is dated March 11.

The PDF itself is dated March 10, which is a week.

I'm not frustrated that you took a long time on this agreement.

I had hoped it meant you were fighting hard for a good deal for the city.

No, I'm frustrated because we only got a week.

I didn't question the matter of confidentiality during negotiations.

I appreciate that.

And I fully understand mediation, but unless you started on the wrong foot, just because you enter mediation doesn't mean you have to accept the end product.

So a couple of points.

What will happen to our wastewater rates if this agreement is signed?

Have you even considered, I mean, how can you consider signing it when you haven't told us that fact?

Obviously, Rivanna knows because they use that number to calculate the number Ms. Smith asked about.

So why are you rushing an important decision while hiding that fact from us?

It feels like a fast one's being pulled.

Have you told UVA?

Not just us, but have you told UVA what the rates will be?

Remember, it affects them.

Surely, they are an important enough partner, even if we aren't, that you wouldn't pull a fast one on them.

You know, I'm a water resources professional, so I understand infiltration and inflow.

It happens in all water systems.

Everywhere has that problem.

But there was a time that it made sense for the city to pay

a larger share of the capital projects because we produced a larger share of the wastewater.

You know, it is related to your water use.

You use water, it goes down the drain.

That becomes wastewater.

You will see on the graph that I just asked you to take a look at, our water use has gone down.

We used to be a large percentage of this system.

Our percentage as our use goes down and ACSA's use goes up, our percentage is getting smaller and smaller.

Now to the agreement.

I don't think anyone would fault me for being suspicious now that I know the RWSA attorney was involved.

Remember, that's the same attorney who was willing to write a bond agreement that would have illegally pledged the city's assets.

Yes, to the four-party agreement.

If you are changing the four-party agreement, then change the four-party agreement.

It has specific provisions for making that change, and you have not followed those provisions.

Lena Seville, 808 Alta Vista Avenue.

Um, I would ask you to also wait on this decision for a few reasons.

Um, I know it was announced either one weeks ago, but if you're not getting that press release, you don't really know about it until you get the, the council book.

Um, and even that I looked at the agenda and I saw public hearing, uh, public hearing for the city manager proposed budget.

There's nothing being voted on,

for the tax rate there's nothing being voted on.

I didn't realize that there was even an option for voting because it just says public hearing.

It doesn't say ordinance or resolution or appropriation.

You have to read through the entire council book to realize that there's something that might be voted on today.

And for something that's been talked about for a couple of years, I do feel like it's a bit of short notice, especially given that there isn't consensus among the city councilors that were involved in the process.

So I personally would like a little more time to try to understand what's happening here just because that's the kind of person I am.

but I heard that there's sort of a time frame because the budget's coming up and I think I heard that we need to budget more money which means that this agreement may not be a good financial decision for us.

I'm sure we could find other uses for that money.

Maybe we don't agree to it till next budget cycle.

Mayor Huja, Councillors, I'm James Nix, 2402 Kerry Lane in the city.

I've come here tonight to express my strong support for the agreement you've reached with Albemarle County for sharing the cost of current and future wastewater projects.

You are to be congratulated for a job well done.

This agreement is fair and equitable.

It is so because it divides the cost based on the actual measured wastewater flows and will be updated at regular intervals.

Growth in the county population coupled with improvements in the city system to reduce inflow should over time reduce the share of costs paid by the city.

And I can tell you that there are some people who think that the county has actually been subsidizing the leaky pipes in the city because we're the ones that cause more leaks, more inflow because we have an older system.

Their system is more modern because they built it more recently.

Now, as new things are added, new system enhancements and these adjustments in the flows are recognized over time, the changes in the allocation of costs will be automatic.

That's the beauty of the system.

There will be no more time wasted on lengthy negotiations.

I mean, this one has gone on for two years on a single element that we're discussing.

and we'll avoid, perhaps even more importantly, those costly legal disputes that really can poison relations between city and county.

And Lord knows we've had a lot of problems in city-county relations and this is a way to avoid some of those in the future.

Furthermore, it's important, as was already mentioned, that there are built-in incentives that reduce the infiltration and inflow into the system, thereby curtailing overflows into the rivers

during storm events, and that's very important.

In fact, it's so important we're under a consent decree to fix it.

Including the full cost of the Rivanna pump station relocation in the agreement was a singular achievement for which the citizens of the entire city, and in particular those of the Woollen Mills neighborhood, should be very grateful.

I commend you for your efforts and urge you to vote tonight to approve this agreement

and send it to the county so they can approve it at the regular Thursday meeting of the Albemarle County Service Authority Board.

Now let me amplify that final point.

This is a mediated agreement.

You can accept it or you can reject it.

If you reject it, the option is there to get the mediator back and go back to the drawing board and continue on with this.

But keep in mind, you know, I think we've driven a very hard bargain with the county.

I think the county has yielded about as much as we can reasonably expect them to.

It's a fair agreement for all concerned.

And the last thing we want to do is end up in court over this.

That will really cost us.

And again, we'll poison relations with the county.

So I ask you bring this to a vote tonight and vote to approve it.

It's an excellent agreement.

My name is Chris Hayes.

I live at 1900 Chesapeake Street.

I actually live closer to the existing pump station than anyone else.

So we do have a vested interest.

We've actually worked on green development right along there that's called River's Edge.

But over the years, we spent a couple of years attending RWSA board meetings for this very issue.

There was a lot of frustration.

There were questions about what the solution should be.

In fact, there were four solutions brought forward by RWSA.

and none of them are what we're talking about today.

Actually my wife and partner came up with the suggestion of a tunnel that is the one that is being pursued and it actually was the first one that both the city and the county could resonate on and had some agreement on.

So there was a good bit of frustration in this

Antagonism between the city and the county, I would like to speak in support of the agreement that was mediated.

It does seem like from everything I understand that it's a fair agreement and

make a huge difference, particularly the Willow Mills has suffered for years and years with the existing pump station unfortunately placed in a neighborhood.

Now we're talking about removing that.

That will have a huge impact on that neighborhood, on the park and the trail system.

And we see it as a huge benefit and definitely recommend proceeding.

Joanna Salidas, 129 Goodman Street.

So the part of the plan that I understand is that costs will be based on how much storm and waste water flow into the system during a two year storm.

I know that in the city we have many sewer pipes filled with holes such that when it rains a lot of storm water flows into them.

The rest of the time, of course, presumably sewage leaks out of the pipes.

Apparently the situation is so bad that the water sewage volume swells about five times in a storm.

I like about the agreement that it appears to accurately target costs.

If you don't have adequate, distributed, green infrastructure in place to slow, spread, sink, and clean water at its source, rather than rush into your holy pipes with great force and volume, you will pay for it.

I think the real cost of stormwater treatment should be reflected in the rates because it will incentivize better infrastructure rather than push the cost downstream and into the future.

But I think the agreement is grossly unfair to city ratepayers.

Seville Tomorrow says that already under the agreement, the city would owe the county a few million dollars, and I'm sure that that is the tip of the iceberg.

The city has much older infrastructure.

It has not benefited from modern technology, new ideas, or less aging like the county has.

Some might say that Charlottesville still should have invested adequate money to maintain its infrastructure.

But Charlottesville has spent its money instead the same way thousands of other cities around the country with similarly decaying infrastructure has and that is subsidizing growth in its suburbs through the extension of infrastructure.

This agreement would be fair only if the county adequately and accurately accounted for the millions of dollars the city has spent for no purpose other than subsidizing growth in the county.

As is, the agreement essentially makes some of the poorest people pay for growing big pieces of the pie bigger because it zeroes in on only one part of infrastructure, the part in disrepair that the city owns.

How much is the city spending on the McIntyre Interchange, for example?

Developers are the big winners on that project.

Another example is the grossly oversized water supply plan with its very poor accounting of current city assets and the cost share

and its inflated population and water usage projections.

A final example is the new pumping station.

If it wasn't being sized to accommodate which ends up promoting growth, would it cost so much?

I want to say that I understand that the easiest way to improve an economy is to get more customers.

And I know that in our debt-based economy, businesses and individuals are forced to earn more and more, and this is a real problem.

The way I see it, though, is that for nothing less than the continued survival of our species, we need to figure out a new way forward, an economy based on the values of people care, earth care, and fair share

not on expansion.

People feel overwhelmed and helpless in the face of problems like climate change and biodiversity loss with its attendant loss of the ecosystem services we need to survive.

Thank you.

Peggy Vanyaris, I live at 1700 Chesapeake Street in the Willam Mills, and I've lived there for 35 years, a little bit longer than Chris has, and we're very thankful that we hope that this pump station is now going to move out of our neighborhood.

So I want to thank you first, City Council, for supporting that idea, and I particularly want to thank Mr. Huja when I read in the paper on another issue that he said he would

Over his dead body, would he allow one of the Albemarle County officials to build a bridge across the Rivanna and bring all the traffic right down Market Street through our neighborhood.

I support this agreement because I think it's fair.

Reading the paper today, it seems like there was give and take, which usually means there's a fair agreement.

Mr. O'Connell said that basically the county seemed to agree that they would stop complaining about the extra money to have to move the pump station out of our neighborhood as long as the city would look at a reallocation of how the cost would be divided.

So that's a good example of a give and take and it seems to be a fair one.

and I can't believe if this agreement doesn't go forward, we might still have the tunnel, but I think you'll be fighting for a long time with the county about who's going to pay for what.

So it seems to be a good model and a good way to make good relations with the county going forward.

So I hope you will support it.

Is there anybody else in the audience who would like to speak and has not signed up?

I would like Mr. Jones to inform the public while you're here.

and discussing public hearing.

The information we received over the weekend and we sent along to city council today would indicate that we would see for the average single family household, which uses about 3,400 gallons of water each month, it would equate to a 46 cent increase per month in their wastewater rates.

That would be factored.

Could you guys close for a second, please?

Let me close the hearing, then we can have discussion.

Questions, comments?

Your first question you asked was how much money did the city have in debt service?

Right, that's the annual debt service on basically $26 million total debt.

The $22 million was from 2006.

That's the time they did the actual initial measurement.

And there was like $3 million for that for the prior three years.

I think I have an answer to your question on another sheet.

Basically this is the difference between the old method and the new method.

The 46 cents per month is additional cost to the city based on using the proposed method you're looking at tonight versus the flow method where they use the sales calculation.

46 cents for fiscal year 15.

Well, it's actually the difference between the old method and the new method for each fiscal year.

But if you look at fiscal year 19 under the old method, our debt to Rivanna will be $4.3 million.

Under the new method, our debt to Rivanna will be $4.7 million.

Right, we attempt to take any profit we make at the end of the year and also we have something called a facility fee where when new people come in they pay a fee to the city.

So it's unlikely that one year it would be 46 cents more and the next year it would be 96 cents more.

Yeah, we'll try to equalize, but it's based on the amount of the, you know, that's in the fund.

Okay, we have years like we had back in 2010 where we had to pay Rivanna like a million and a half dollars because of the wet weather.

So the fund could be gone tomorrow if that occurs.

I do have a question about the age of the data as well, since we were talking about that the Grillion Handsets Study was based on data from 2006.

Mr. Frederick, you might get brought into this as well.

So it almost begs the question, why aren't we doing this as soon as possible?

Because if we have been reducing our INI because of all the $22 million of investment that we've been making in repairing and replacing the line, then it suggests to me that we need to start getting those measurements

sooner versus later.

So you're giving us this projection for fiscal year 19 of 72 cents.

It may not be that at all.

Correct?

Mr. Frederick, could you address that?

If we assume first that the draft agreement that's before you is adopted, that's the first step.

Then it calls for updating the flow projections based on metered data every five years starting with 2015.

What that would mean to us if the agreement is adopted is that we would need to ask our board to allow us to amend our CIP to proceed

in the very near term with getting that update.

To answer your question about the data, when's the best time to get the data, that's somewhat a decision on trying to predict the weather, which is hard to do, but the law of averages would suggest if you are metering in the winter months, December through March, that's

where the odds are best that you're going to get data that you can use to forecast a two year wet weather event.

It can happen during the summer months if you get a unusual storm.

Can I ask a question?

So what's the definition of a two-year storm?

In this region, it varies by region.

Engineers, if they get data that's reasonably close to the target,

because you're never going to get exactly 3.68 inches in exactly 24 hours.

It's not going to happen.

But if you get data that's reasonably close, then they can use statistical analysis and other things to predict what the equivalent two-year storm is.

Right.

So when all these graphs that everybody got in there, and we got a whole bunch of different versions, that wet weather number, which is about five times what the regular daily flow is, so where the growth in conservation will be reflected in the dry flow, right?

That's where the growth in, is there any reason why growth would be reflected in the wet flow?

No.

I assume that.

So the wet weather, which is 80 percent of the number that goes into the formula, that is just a one-day event.

So whatever happens on that day that the two-year storm

But isn't that the size that the pipe has to be to handle that?

But the formula treats it, gives it the equal weight with the daily flow.

So you put the wet weather, which is five times what the dry is.

It's 80% of the number all the time.

Not even 60 years, it's still 80% of the number.

You treat, you give it equal weight to the dry.

So it's as if the wet weather, that wet weather to your event is happening every day of the year.

If you had permanent wastewater meters, would you calculate it differently?

So in other words, if you pay as you use, wouldn't you just pay according to

If it's a small rain, you get a small amount of infiltration.

If it's a big rain, you get a big amount.

But just in layperson's terms, the cost for building is what we're paying for.

So it's only predicated on this two-year event.

So why have dry flow at all if it's drowned out by the wet flow?

So what you're doing is you're saying you are paying for a two-year event.

Could we please have Mr. Frederick please answer your question?

When you're talking about a sewer pipeline, you start with the goal.

The goal is to minimize the risk of sanitary sewer overflows because that's what can be damaging to the environment.

So that predicates that for the storm interval,

that your goal is set to eliminate sanitary sewer overflows, you build the pipeline with enough capacity for that one day, even though you don't experience that flow every day.

The alternative is you size the pipe for average daily flow, and when it rains, you have sanitary sewer overflows, which is unacceptable.

So it's not pay as you go.

Because you're paying for one day out of every five years that you've measured as a two-year storm.

You're not designed for peak load risk.

I think what you're getting, so then describe the metering.

Metering is to look at the wastewater collection system which looks a lot like a tree trunk with a lot of branches on it that usually comes to one large point at the wastewater treatment plant and determine where are the points where metering is needed to accomplish whatever your objective is.

We've got 12 permanent meters in our system now which do a good job of giving us data over time

as to how the entire system is responding to inflow and infiltration.

And it gives us a check against the 25% goal for 2020 that the city and the county agreed to.

But when you ask a different question, which this agreement asks the question, well, how much of that inflow and infiltration or wet weather flow is city and how much of it's ACSA?

The 12 meters do a good job at looking at the entire system as one, but more meters are needed

in order to distinguish, okay, how much of this is city and how much of this is county.

And it was estimated that an additional 20 meters is needed for that.

But since the study's only done once every five years, the meter, those additional 20 meters only need to be activated when you're doing the once every five year update.

So they don't have to be running all the time.

But you could run them all the time and then you would have a pay as you go.

you could have a pay as you go because you could then measure what actually each entity does use.

So on dry days it would be the dry flow difference which is grossly changes to benefit the city but then you'd have wet flow for

Yeah, because I think of pays you go as a financial term and not as a... Well, it was referred to tonight.

Yeah, user pays.

One of the interesting issues about utility business and almost anywhere else in life

is to get higher and higher and higher and higher levels of accuracy you pay more and more and more.

And sometimes the question is what is the optimum because you've got to weigh both accuracy and price and they usually work against each other.

But it's going to cost us a lot of money to

But that's what's used to size the facility, that the flows are going to be measured daily as long as the meters are running.

And that's how you can figure out when the

There's an impact of wet weather conditions with the increase in I and I.

But not over the five years.

If you look at the wet weather flows, it's only that two-year storm.

That's the only piece of information that's used for wet weather.

I think it's unreasonable to assume that we would have a smaller pipe on a drier day and a bigger pipe on a wetter day.

So the pipe has to be the same size.

The system has to be the same size no matter how much

stuff is going through it on any given day.

And so the dry weather flow is to determine what the baseline is, how much we put in and how much they put in.

But you have this extreme event plus

The average daily.

And that peaking event is 80% of the whole flow, so it's five times more than the dry flow, so why even bother with the dry flow?

You've completely obliterated.

And we'll know how much.

One thing to keep in mind is that it's not that different from other infrastructures.

Well, I think what's important to realize is that it is charging city customers every day of the year for a peak event that happens one day in every two years.

That is the bottom line is that is how this method works and we have a legal right today to have our wastewater charges

to be determined by water meter readings, extrapolated from water meter readings.

That's what's in our legally binding contract.

And we would have to choose to say, we are going to have our citizens pay every day for what happens at a peak of a two-year storm.

That's really the decision point.

We have to voluntarily make that change.

But that's required by law.

We have to have a system that handles peak flow.

We don't have to have a system that handles it.

We would not be allowed to have sewer running through the street.

It's not allowed.

But that's different than a cost share allocation.

And it is.

There's a difference between what we have to do, and we've spent $22 million to make our pipes tighter.

And the prediction is, what, 25%?

Oh, that's the goal.

That's the way the pump station has been sized with that understanding that that was going to be achieved.

If we go over that, if we don't make that 25% reduction, then we have undersized our pump station.

But we only fix our pipes now under this new formula if it's cost effective.

That says that in the contract.

We had a little email exchange about this.

And it is assumed that it will not be cost effective for Albemarle County to fix their pipes.

That's what it says.

They have much newer pipes and we are the ones that have the aging infrastructure so we do have more I and I.

They have newer pipes and it's not a big issue for them.

It's not.

It goes up and up.

It does address some of the issues.

There's an assumption that this will incentivize rehabilitation, but the incentive is no longer cost effective if we have an alternative mechanism, a much cheaper one, to address our new obligation.

In fact,

We've made some rough estimates on, you're talking about the additional metering for the, every five years, under the draft agreement.

I put something in an email today to answer that question, and I don't remember the exact figure, but I think it was in the $130,000 once every five years for the metering.

Don't hold me to the exact number.

I don't have it in front of me.

And about $100,000 for the engineering evaluation.

Has there been any consideration of putting permanent meters in?

We haven't designed this yet.

I mean this is all at the very preliminary level because we're just talking about putting an agreement together.

And we're looking at whether it's temporary or permanent metering, whether it's purchase meters,

Can you explain the, it was in our materials and you repeated it, I think, it's number nine in the contract where it talks about if we go over capacity, the entity responsible for going over capacity pays 100%.

And I just wondered how you know that.

How you know who is responsible for going over capacity?

And who owns what?

The way you would know is you're doing projections every five years.

So if the projections go up later because the assumptions about I&I reduction over time have not held true because for whatever reason the money wasn't spent on the rehabilitation or whatever, then it would show up over time.

So it's by target.

So if we're paying, I mean, that doesn't sound good for Albemarle County, actually, but so if we're paying, if our projection in, say, in 2038 is that our INI is, you know,

The Rivanna pump station that's being constructed now has been set at 53 million gallons per day equivalent to reach a peak flow.

That's not 53 million gallons over the course of a day.

That's a specific rate at the moment of peak flow during a rainstorm.

that's based on the years of projection, actually it wasn't 60 years, it was through the year 2060 that Greely and Hansen did showing the growth predominantly county of dry weather flow and showing the reduction of INI, which both parties are contributing, the city contributing more than the county because the city has more.

And it shows that over that timeframe between now and 2060,

a 53 million gallon per day pump station will provide for the two-year storm with no sanitary sewer overflows.

Let's say these projections are updated every five years, and let's say in the year 2030, I'm just making something up now, okay?

Let's say in the year 2030, suddenly the projections say by the year 2035, we're gonna need a 70 MGD pump station there because I and I has just gone crazy.

Well, then we've gotta look at, well,

How much of that city?

How much of that projected county?

Who's responsible for that increase from 53 to 70?

Because now, Rivanna within five years has got to build an additional 17 million gallons per day of capacity to avoid those overflows.

And so that the paragraph talks about who's going to pay for that is based on

If, let me, I'm sitting here talking to you so let me give you the friendlier projection.

Let's say the reason that in those flow projections it went up to 70 was because of what Albemarle County did.

So the base before the rain was higher.

So the baseline though to say who's, because the baseline is only at one point in time ever going to probably be 50-50.

So

Doesn't the metering just measure dry weather flow?

They're measuring dry weather a good portion of the time, but when there's a heavy rain,

Okay, so if we have reduced our INI by 20% by the next metering, because we've spent $22 million since the last metering, and so we're doing pretty well, but we can't afford to put another $20 million in, and our INI starts going up again, so that's

Do you understand that?

Do you understand this sole responsibility thing?

Well, it's just as Tom said, the system's designed like Rivanna Pump Station.

When you're talking about that project, just that project, is designed for 53 MGD.

And so if at any point during the future flow metering,

exceeds the 53 MGD, the party responsible will be expected to pay for whenever Rivanna decides to upgrade it, you know, it all has to come together, you know, because if at that time it's due to INI, then it probably would need an immediate upgrade.

But if it's due to growth, you may be able to, you know, it's projected growth, you may be able to wait a little bit.

But aren't we at a disadvantage because we have more I&I of going over?

The city with this older system inherently has more infiltration and inflow right now.

And we're working very hard to reduce that.

And if we didn't spend any money, it would get exponentially worse if we weren't spending any dollars on the rehab or rehabilitation.

We would have increased maintenance costs because we'd have collapsed pipes within the system and we would be in a reactive mode rather than a proactive mode and that's the reason we have to spend it.

In prior years before I was hired, we spent very, very little money on our very old system and we were way behind the eight ball to get our system up to speed.

and where priority areas were established based on flow metering we did in cooperation with Rivanna in 2006.

So when I was hired, I knew immediately where our push points were and we have concentrated on those.

We've done post-metering in those areas and it has

It indicates some successes in our rehabilitation plan.

Repairs.

any facility is the design like the 53 MGD of the pump station that will hit those targets.

I mean, it would get so exponentially worse.

It's seen over history that if people don't, if cities and localities don't pay attention to their infrastructure,

It takes forever to catch up.

So contrary to this being a disincentive, it's not in a way neither an incentive nor a disincentive, but it does reward what we're doing anyway.

That's right.

It does reward.

And to me what it also does is it helps to assess the cost of county growth because that's what's being measured for them.

If they grow faster,

So it only rewards our efforts because we've entered into a system that punishes us for our eye and eye.

If we just keep the same system we have now, we would still do it.

But we would have more money to rehabilitate our pipes because we wouldn't be adding these extra costs.

We are having a partner share in paying for the cost of our infrastructure.

and we are figuring out how to apportion those costs fairly based on wet and dry weather conditions.

So that's what I don't understand why this has been decoupled from the Rivanna pump station and the tunnel itself.

Because the whole point of these negotiations began with trying to figure out how to pay

for that extra piece of infrastructure to relocate that station out of the Woolen Mills neighborhood.

But it is not dependent.

The Rivanna pump station project is in no way dependent on

any new cost share allocation.

Let's just be really clear.