City Council Meeting   3/2/2015

Please have a seat.

Ms. Rice, roll call.

The number of awards and announcements I'd like to start with.

First award is relating to the budget.

Government Finance Officer Association of U.S. and Canada has awarded City of Charlotte's Distinguished Budget Presentation Award.

This is the 22nd time City has won this award and 13th consecutive budget award, which is a really great honor, but also says it's a pretty heavy award.

Marlboro

Thank you Mayor Huja and members of council.

We are very proud to receive this award once again and it's a significant achievement not just for the budget office but for there's a lot of city staff that work on the budget every year but I'd like to especially recognize Ryan Davidson who's our budget management analyst of course our city manager Maurice Jones everybody in the city manager's office and all the department heads and their staff that work on the budget every year

This award

One thing that this award actually does help us do each year is to improve the budget document each year, not only as a policy document, but as a communications document, as a financial document, and as an operations guide for the city to help you make better decisions and to help guide our city on to great things for the future.

So again, I thank you so much for this award, for presenting it to the budget office, and we look forward to putting our next budget together for the 2016 fiscal year award.

Let's give them a hand.

Yes, I have two.

The Carver Flea Market.

Charlottesville Parks and Recreation will present the Carver Flea Market on Saturday, April 4, 2015 from 8 to 1 p.m. at Carver Recreation Center.

We've brought the traditional outdoor yard sale inside to Carver.

Admission is free.

Vendor applications are available at Carver Recreation Center or download one here.

I don't have a, I don't have a, I don't have the device to do so.

So anyway, I guess you could get, who would they contact that just Parks and Rec?

City Market Arts at Carver.

Artists from City Market and other local artisans will be displaying and selling their creations at the 2015 City Market Arts on March 7 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Carver Recreation Center.

The art show features over 30 vendors with a variety of jewelry, paintings, pottery, and more all made locally.

Select agricultural products will also be available from the City Market vendors.

The event is free and open to the public.

Customers may purchase items directly from vendors at the show.

Carver Recreation Center is located at the Jefferson School City Center.

That's 233 4th Street Northwest.

This I do have an email.

For more information about City Market Arts, please call 434-970-3371.

That's 970-3371.

Thank you.

The first is The Big Read.

The kickoff was Saturday and the book this year is The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri and it's about a family, or really one young person, but a family who has moved from India to the United States and kind of straddling those cultural

worlds as this young man comes of age.

I have started it.

The first few pages are great.

So I'm hoping the rest of the book will be as well.

There are copies available at the public library at all the branches.

And also if you're in a reading group and want to read this book, you can get a reading group pack of 10 books together along with the questions and some other things, some Indian things about Indian culture.

And if you want to know more about it, go to the library.

The very special arts art show, the 15th annual, has an open reception the first Friday, March 6th, from 6.30 to 8 p.m. at the Martin Luther King Jr.

Performing Arts Center at the high school.

The show features original artwork by more than 100 local artists and is sponsored by VSA Charlottesville Albemarle as a member of the VSA regional affiliate network.

VSA provides arts and education opportunities for people with disabilities and increases access to the arts for all.

The show runs from March 6th through May 8th in the lobby of the Martin Luther King Jr.

Performing Arts Center.

The show can be seen when the center is open for performances and or by arranging for an appointment.

Contact Sarah Bleach at Blechs at Charlottesville.org or call 434-970-3264 to coordinate.

This is also the beginning in March of National Nutrition Month.

Each March, the Academy of Nutrition encourages Americans to return to the basics of healthful eating through National Nutrition Month.

This year's theme encourages consumers to adopt a healthy lifestyle focused on consuming fewer calories, making informed food choices, and getting daily exercise in order to achieve and maintain a healthy weight.

reduce the risk of chronic disease and promote overall health.

This year's bite into a healthy lifestyle theme gives consumers an easy reminder that achieving optimal health is not about specific food or a time of year, but rather a lifelong commitment that leaves plenty of time for foods and activities that we love.

The Academy strives to communicate healthful eating messages that emphasize balancing food and beverages within an individualized energy needs rather than focusing on any one specific food or meal.

To the

It is their position that improving overall health requires a lifelong commitment to healthy lifestyle behaviors emphasizing sustainable and enjoyable eating practices and daily physical activity.

Initiated in 1973 as a week-long event, National Nutrition Week became a month-long observance in 1980 in response to growing public interest in nutrition.

You can follow National Nutrition Month activities and information postings on Facebook and Twitter using the hashtag NNM

10 a.m. on March 22nd at Penn Park.

The Fix-A-League Family 5K is a family-friendly event through Penn Park Natural Trail and along the Rivanna River with music, family activities, awards, and water conservation tips for all in attendance.

Registration is now open, $10 for city residents and $15 for non-city residents.

You can register at www.charlottesville.org forward slash water conservation.

The next one is household hazardous waste.

And this is pretty important for people who are cleaning out their house and just have a lot of junk down in the basement because we don't want to miss this.

The next household hazardous waste special collection event

will be held on Friday, March 6, 2015, from 2 to 6 p.m. and Saturday, March 7, 2015, from 9 to 2 p.m.

The event is held at the Material Utilization Center, located at 4576 Dickwoods Road, Charlottesville, Virginia 22903, that's out at the Old Ivy Landfill.

On this day, RSWA accepts additional hazardous substances and ensures that they are properly categorized and directed to a permitted off-site hazardous substance management location.

The materials accepted on this day include acids, gasoline, kerosene, adhesives, pesticides, household cleaners, floor and furniture polish, paint related products and solvents,

Batteries, antifreeze, motor oil, fluorescent tubes, and CFLs.

And I know many houses in town have usually dark colored bottles down in the basement.

They have no idea what's in this.

The label has long ago disappeared.

If you have those kinds of things, bring them as well, because they're very accepting in what they take.

For citizens who may not be able to make the collection on March 6th or 7th, the Household Hazardous Waste Collection is offered on two weekends per year, one in the spring and the second in the fall.

The fall event for 2015 will be held on October 2nd and October 3rd.

and tonight we are really getting into the budget in the city.

So we have a couple budget work sessions.

All of them are public events and I would encourage people to come.

I even see, I think some of the students here, maybe a class outing or something if you want to see how the money is spent and allocated throughout the city.

But I would encourage

retailers, restaurateurs, anybody who has an interest, that's everybody actually who pays taxes, to see how your money is allocated and to have a voice in what you think is important.

So the next three, March 5th, this Thursday, 5 p.m. at City Space.

March 12th, 5 p.m. at City Space.

March 16th, which I believe is the next city council meeting, 7 p.m. here in council chambers.

And at that point, I'll bring you all up to date.

But please come out.

Be part of this budget process.

One last thing, Mr. Mayor.

Last Saturday night, I saw two of the best basketball games I have ever seen.

Charlottesville High School girls team and boys team.

Both games came down to the last about 10 seconds.

The boys went into overtime and they won both of them.

The school literature says boys and girls.

These are young men and women who really have heart and talent and the coaches do a magnificent job with these kids.

The boys are going on to the, I believe, the semi-final in the North 4A Division for the state of Virginia.

So I'd really like to congratulate them.

Soon we'll have them here, I hope, and we can let the community see who they are and let them explain what they did.

Yes, thank you.

I have the pleasure to read the following proclamation because if it's March, it's time for Virginia Festival of the Book.

whereas the city of Charlottesville believes that literacy is crucial to making good citizens and whereas reading stimulates the creative and intellectual growth of individuals and whereas the Virginia Festival of the Book draws book lovers from the region, the Commonwealth, other states and indeed the world.

serving as an economically significant event for this area while providing the majority of events free of charge.

The joint venture.

Now, therefore, I, Satyendra Singh Huja, Mirostriya Sharasul, do hereby proclaim Wednesday, March 22nd through Sunday, 29th, I mean, 21st annual Virginia Festival of Book and pledge community members to take part in it and take part in all the activities signed on the second day of March, 2015.

We certainly support or we certainly appreciate the support of the city

for the 21st Annual Festival of the Book.

The festival begins on Wednesday, March 18th and runs through Sunday, March 22nd.

And as the proclamation said,

the majority of those events are free.

Now when you say majority sometimes it's 51%.

I will tell you we have 199 events scheduled and six require a paid ticket.

So that's 97% of them are free and we're very proud of the type of books that we've provided for all sorts of readers from international bestsellers

to debut authors.

And is this the first year that Nancy Damon is not doing it?

So welcome and good luck.

And I'd just like to mention one of the events that is going to be happening at Festival of the Book, another proclamation we'll be making, and that is when WVPT does its children's event, which is an annual event at the Paramount.

All children are welcome.

It is free.

And Daniel the Tiger, or Daniel Tiger, I believe it's a Mr. Rogers character, will be there this year.

Last year it was, I think, well two years ago it was Clifford the Big Red Dog and Curious George before that so now it'll be Daniel Tiger.

I go every year.

Next part of the meeting is Metisvera Public.

It is an important part of our meeting and at least one of my favorite parts myself.

Time is reserved at the beginning of the meeting and the end of the meeting for public to make comments.

Please follow basic guidelines for comments.

If you are here for public hearing which is other than already scheduled on the agenda, please wait for that.

You have three minutes to speak.

Please give your name and address before you give your remarks.

Please do not interrupt speakers, whether or not you agree with them.

Please refrain from using obscenities.

If you cannot follow these guidelines, you will be escorted from city council chambers, and I hope it will not be necessary.

And we look forward to your comments.

First person signed up is Miss Ivey, but I think you are for the budget here, am I right?

This is our, we already have your budget.

Good evening, Mayor Huja, members of council, city manager Jones and staff.

I'm Gertrude Ivory, associate superintendent with the Charlottesville City Schools, 1562 Dairy Road.

In the past several years, the state and federal governments have passed a series of devastating budget cuts that have disproportionately affected city schools.

Our school division is operating with diminished resources while implementing programs and structures,

that reflect the needs of our students and the values of our parents and community.

There are some out there who want to focus on what our children can't do and not acknowledge what they can do and their accomplishments.

Where would you be if you were constantly told what you couldn't do?

That will not lead to a more inclusive community.

In spite of the challenges, we continue to make positive growth.

Our accomplishments include

The AVID program in grades 6 through 12, a program that prepares students to enroll and succeed in college.

These students are first generation college students.

Almost 100% of the AVID students are accepted into college.

Their acceptance letters cover the walls of their classrooms.

Our 2014 on-time graduation rate was 88.8% for all students and 85% for black students.

When I came into the school division, there were neighborhoods in which no one was graduating from high school.

The dropout rate has declined from 10.2% in 2013 to 5.6% in 2014.

We are not satisfied until every student is able to graduate on time and we have no dropouts.

That is our goal for all students.

Our science club, Bacon, has not only placed second in the world in zero robotics, but they won state and national awards.

at two different science competitions this weekend.

We have a senior who will participate in the U.S. Senate's Youth Senate Program.

We have five national merit finalists, 17 others recognized for their outstanding PSAT performance.

We continue to surpass state and national averages on the SAT.

We partner with UVA and other local agencies for science programs, Chinese classes, art enrichment, and more.

At Buford Middle School, all students are participating in the UVA Lab School activities.

through their science classes.

Students and teachers are making presentations to local, national, and international audiences.

The Elite South Central Regional Orchestra, 13 of our students, more than twice as large are participants in that, twice as large a delegation as any other school.

CHS has had an amazing year in athletics, as Mr. Fenwick said.

with Jefferson District top finishes in golf, field hockey, indoor track, girls and boys basketball, and swimming.

Our golf and field hockey teams went all the way to the Virginia Final Four.

Our boys and girls basketball teams recently won Conference 23, and they won their first set of regional games this past Saturday.

CH athletes are routinely featured on News Planet's Student Athlete of the Week because of their challenging course loads, their excellence in music, their involvement in the community, and more.

Nine CH hockey field players were named to the National Academic Squad.

That's more than any other public or private school in the whole southeast.

We were cited by JLARC in 2011 for having exemplary third grade achievement.

We ranked 14 out of 132 school divisions.

Our readings achievement was showing steady growth until the test changed in every content area.

Thank you.

One more thing, though.

What can be measured doesn't always count, and what counts can't always be measured.

We need the school funding guarantee from council equal to the school board's request, and we need to send a message to the community that our children are a top priority.

We can't do it alone.

Thank you.

Hi.

Robert Sorri.

446 Allwood Lane, Charlottesville.

I'm the managing partner of the Downtown Grill and Fry's Spring Station and have about 60 employees.

I'm here tonight to speak out about the proposed increase in the City Mills tax.

I think there's a perception that restaurants are money-making machines or why would people keep opening?

I'm wondering myself.

The fact is we have the highest

value rate of any industry.

The reason for that is we have razor thin profit margins, generally between 2% and 6%.

And with rising food costs, beef alone increased 12% in 2014, 5% increases expected in 2015.

It's just getting more and more difficult.

to make money in the business.

For every $100 we take in, 65% is spent on food cost and labor.

And this is before rent, insurance, utilities, equipment leasing, interest payments, credit card fees.

And by the way, we pay 2.5 to 3% transaction fees on sales, which includes

sales and mills tax.

When profits shrink, our only alternative is to raise prices, which I can't, but you're thinking about doing with a mills tax, or to cut hourly labor, negatively impacting the very people who can least afford it.

By raising the mills tax, city restaurants will no longer be on a level playing field when competing with county restaurants.

When it comes to booking large rehearsal dinners or corporate events, we will be at a distinct disadvantage.

Those of us with restaurants on the downtown mall are already battling negative public perception because of panhandling, the perceived lack of personal safety, and both the cost and lack of parking.

One recent survey of 2,300 residents cited 20% had to decrease their mall patronage

with 14% siting mall conditions.

Please don't add another negative to this.

We can't afford to lose any more business to county restaurants.

If I lose one customer a day, it doesn't sound like much, but it's $20,000 a year.

It's a huge amount of money.

If three customers, you know, and the city loses as well in the long term.

One last point.

When I moved here 16 years ago, I found Charlottesville to be this really progressive city, but one that was also fiscally responsible.

Unfortunately, I don't know that I can say that any longer.

Adam Frazier, 707 Grave Street.

I'm going to try not to disappoint you, Mr. or Mayor Huja.

But what I want to talk about is the meals tax as well.

I've heard that one cent per dollar is not very much, but that really doesn't tell the real story.

It's actually in a 25% increase in the current tax.

You guys have estimated it's going to raise about $2.1 million

So this is going to make going out to eat $2.1 million more expensive.

It's taking money out of the consumer's hands and placing it in the government's hands.

It's a tax.

A tax is a tax is a tax.

Most restaurants in town are owned and operated by business owners that live in the city.

and this tax is not going to affect a lot of the Marriott's in the armies of the world.

Most money earned by restaurant owners are reinvested and recirculated.

This tax will diminish that capability.

For example, the local now has 41 what's referred to as FTEs, full-time equivalents, and that's in large part because the money that was earned

at the local was reinvested and that allowed us to grow and increase our employees.

And there's a cost to collect the meals tax.

It's estimated about 3%, you know, some paid two and a half, some paid three and a half.

I know that the local collected about 130,000 for the city and that's including the 1% that's given back by the state.

So that's about $4,000 that I have to pay

for collecting cities tax.

And I know that the Roanoke model was used to try to justify a meals tax increase.

And I called Roanoke, and they did in fact have a 2% increase in their meals tax.

But that was for a specific program within the school, and it was a sunset program.

And they phased that out after two years.

I certainly could get behind something

or an increase in tax if there was a specific program that the school board or the city came up with that would improve our school's performance.

So I'm not sure that raising the tax just 1% and sort of continuing the status quo is going to do that.

So there was a real concern there.

And lastly, you know, Mayor Huja, for all of Charlottesville, Liberal, Progressive,

social justice issues, which I count myself one of them.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm Michael Rohde, 403 12th Street, Northeast.

And surprise, surprise, I'm also here to address the proposed 25% increase in the city's meals tax.

I am here, however, not as a restaurant owner, which I am, but as a taxpayer.

And to pick up, actually, where Adam left off, you know, we didn't plan this.

But what seems to me unique about Charlottesville is that it has successfully married socially liberal politics with the kind of fiscally responsible policies

normally embraced, at least in theory, by the political right.

This tempered fiscal approach has been characterized by reluctance on the part of this council's predecessors to raise taxes.

They have preferred to avoid spending beyond their means and have been models of budgetary discipline.

As a result, Charlottesville has continued to attract prosperous citizens.

Its working citizens have been somewhat insulated from economic downturns.

They used to say that Charlottesville was recession-proof, but I don't hear that ever since the actual real recession we had.

They kind of stopped saying that.

But its municipal bonds have earned AAA ratings, ensuring that the city has preferential low-interest borrowing power for its capital projects, and that its taxpayers are not simply working to service high-interest debt.

Taxpayers and businesses value the city's disciplined approach, and historically, so have the mayor and councilors.

And when the economy is sluggish and taxpayers must tighten their belts,

The city has not responded to corresponding budget shortfalls with increased taxation, but rather with belt tightening of its own.

However, Charlottesville's longstanding tradition of tax-weary fiscal sobriety seems to be coming to an end.

After a decade with no new taxes or tax increases, or almost a decade, I don't know, eight, nine years, except a rate increase on cigarette taxes, the council passed the stormwater fee.

and this opened a flood gate so to speak.

The flood water tax was followed by an ambulance tax, now the proposed 25% meals tax increase, a proposed property tax increase for downtown commercial properties, possibly parking meters downtown and even I've heard rumors of bicycle tax.

In a very short time, the Charlottesville that has maintained the balance between its liberal politics and fiscal responsibility has become or is on the verge of becoming

the Tea Party cliche of a tax and spend government.

I'm asking that we step back for a moment.

Does this council, does this mayor want to be remembered as the council and the mayor who ended the good stewardship of public coffers that its predecessors maintained even during times of economic hardship?

Does it want to preside over the largest increases, tax increases in decades?

Does it want to jeopardize its own standing as a shrewd fiscally clear headed city?

Worthy of both Standard & Poor's and Moody's endorsements.

Is it comfortable with the high level of spending proposed to the city schools when it's not entirely clear that the results of existing spending merit more revenues?

And I listened to the first speaker and I may have to qualify that one because it sounds like there have been a lot of

And if the proponents of this 25% sales tax increase, arguably one of the most onerous types of regressive taxes since the lowest income brackets spend the biggest percentage of their own incomes on food and on dining out, really believe in this tax, then why the Orwellian double speak?

Why call this a luxury tax or a penny tax?

Don't insult us, call it what it is.

John Hayden.

My name is Susan Hathaway.

He asked me to speak for him.

What's your name?

I'm sorry?

What's your name?

Susan Hathaway, Sandston, Virginia.

Honorable Mayor, Councilman, Citizens of Charlottesville and the Commonwealth, since I last spoke in these chambers, much has been made about the fact that I and a few others who spoke against the proposed amendment to remove the Lee Jackson holiday are not Charlottesville residents, as if that somehow makes what we have to say irrelevant.

After witnessing the way speakers in this chamber were treated who dared to have an opinion different than those of the vocal citizens in attendance, I can understand why the dozens of citizens of Charlottesville who have contacted us do not feel comfortable attending these meetings and speaking up in this atmosphere.

Charlottesville has a rich and honorable Confederate history.

On March 7, 1864, the ladies of Charlottesville presented a hand-sewn flag to the men of Stuart's Light Artillery after the unit, facing five to one odds, stopped the Yankee Army from burning and destroying Charlottesville.

The battle flag was carried by the unit until it surrendered in April of 1865 and is now on display in the Jefferson County Museum in Charleston, West Virginia.

The flag now shows the patina of age along with the rents of battle, but it continues to serve as a reminder of what might have been the worst day in Charlottesville's history, if not for the courage of its brave defenders.

Since some folks in West Virginia had a replica made and asked us to show it to the assembly today, I would like to again point out the real and present danger of the precedents you are setting if you decide to eliminate this holiday tonight.

If you take it upon yourselves to strike down a holiday that was established by the duly elected representatives of this city, you are opening the door to have the same thing happen to Thomas Jefferson Day, for instance, in the future, should a future council decide he is not worthy of honoring.

I and many of those present here witnessed one of your own citizens call for the removal of every trace of Thomas Jefferson from the very city that he helped build and receive applause and cheers in this chamber following his remarks.

Certainly you must see that once you open the door there will be no end to the PC cleansing of our heritage and history.

In the background of the proposed amendment, Charlottesville's commitment to be a community of mutual respect is cited, which reads, In all endeavors, the city of Charlottesville is committed to racial and cultural diversity, inclusion, racial reconciliation, economic justice, and equity.

How can you possibly claim cultural diversity when you choose to dishonor Confederate veterans whose descendants make up a large segment of your population?

How can you suggest that this amendment will promote racial reconciliation when it serves to divide people instead of bringing them together?

How can you claim that this decision is unbiased and without prejudice when it singles out an entire group of people and dishonors their heritage?

Understand that at least one member of this council has suggested that the Confederate monuments here in Charlottesville be removed.

And by your actions tonight, you will show the Commonwealth and the nation whether or not you are heading down that very dangerous path.

But even if you choose to move forward with these desecrations, and should your backwater tyranny temporarily succeed, you will, I hope, ultimately fail.

History will remain unchanged.

and the sterling character of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson will remain long after your names are forgotten.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Pat Smith and my address is 100 Boulder Spring Court.

I'm here to speak and I'm just going to share a little bit of it with Dave if we can.

I'm here to speak.

I'm the director of OAR Jefferson Area Community Corrections and I want to thank, first of all, start by thanking the city manager and agency budget review team for recommending funding for our agency and I appreciate that greatly.

What I'm here to speak about is a criminal justice planner.

That position is housed at our offices but it isn't really a part of OAR per se.

We have that housed, we agree to do that, and we submit through our budget process.

And I wanted to talk a little bit about, this year the recommendation is a 25% cut for that funding, really only amounting to like $3,700, but we had requested $10,000.

I am asking for you to consider, this is a, Charlottesville Albemarle benefits totally a lot more than just

under OAR's programs for the planner.

The planner represents our whole community.

In fact, we're one of seven in the United States who is an evidence-based decision-making team that involves my criminal justice planners across the community.

Charlottesville benefits way more than the $10,000 I'm requesting.

We have key projects that affect us all and are impacting our criminal justice system in a very positive way.

The planner

is key to that.

I can't coordinate that.

Dave can't coordinate that.

We are all doing our jobs every day, and the planner keeps all of us providing better outcomes for our system.

So I'm asking you to consider that.

I think that, and Charlottesville is one of seven, or one of nine jurisdictions served by our criminal justice board, and I would like to see Charlottesville contribute at that level.

So I'm asking you to consider that.

I know the budget is just being announced tonight,

We will have other opportunities which I hope to be there too.

Hi, I'm Dave Chapman.

I live on Lyons Avenue and I'm Commonwealth Attorney here in Charlottesville.

As you all know, the pace and number and variety of different initiatives in our criminal justice system is accelerating.

We've had a planner

serving criminal justice in our regional planning district for almost 20 years.

The newest holder of that office is the first person we haven't had to teach the criminal justice system to anew.

We have a very well respected veteran who's our current planner.

Without planning and coordination and staff support, we would not be able to conduct the kinds of

investigations into evidence-based practices and best practices from which our community and criminal justice system is being benefited currently in Charlottesville more than any other jurisdiction in our region.

It's an essential position.

I'm also signed up, so I'll carry on for just a moment.

Will you have two chances at budget hearings over here also?

Please come and talk there.

Yes, good evening.

I'm Barbara Cruikshank, 324 Parkway Street in Charlottesville.

I want to applaud the efforts by the City Council, Parks and Rec, and the many people in Charlottesville who have supported the campaign to make our parks pesticide chemical free, our park school grounds and other city-owned spaces.

We need a safe chemical policy in the city that will limit the use of pesticide chemicals to situations where there is a threat to human health or the environment,

and non-chemical methods have been tried and shown ineffective.

Most of us are feeling a little bit of spring in the air and I took my granddaughter to McGuffey Park recently, although there was a lot of snow, she was running and frogging and it was wonderful to see.

She's going stir crazy in the house.

However, the coming of spring also brings with it a call to apply pre-emergent chemicals, to apply chemical fertilizers in the areas where our children play.

And these are used all with the belief that it is necessary to do this in order to maintain our parks in the manner that we are used to.

Not a day goes by, however, when we don't hear of more research showing pesticide residues in the water, in our wildlife, in our soil, and of course in us.

And not a day goes by without research also showing that the wildlife is being gravely affected.

Our pollinators, our frogs, our beneficial insects,

butterflies and birds.

I am asking that the City Council call for an immediate moratorium on the use of chemical pesticides in the parks and on the school grounds until we have a safe chemical policy in place unless again there be threat to human health or the environment and

then we would need to use that clause.

But I would ask for you to consider a moratorium.

I'm concerned about what's going to be happening this spring.

And I know, I believe that there is movement to work on a safer chemical policy.

But before that gets into place, we need to not allow the use of these chemicals starting now.

Emily Dreyfus Emily Dreyfus

where I am on the staff and the Charlottesville Public Housing Association of Presidents where I serve on the Advisory Council.

I wish I was here talking about the topics that usually bring me to the microphone, but instead I'm here to talk about the budget and the ABRT process.

We recently learned that both LAJC and FAR's applications for funding were not very successful.

Legal Aid's Just Children program, FAR's internship and service coordination programs were recommended for zero funding.

Additionally,

The initial review proposes substantial cuts to LAJC's health program and civil program.

The total of the proposed cuts to LAJC is over $25,000 and to far over $80,000.

I'm here to request that the city not reduce funding for our programs.

Both organizations offer much needed services.

to many of the most vulnerable people in our community.

The substance of LHAC's programs remain the same as in prior years and yet our proposal was graded much more poorly.

We believe that our poor grade can largely be attributed to changes in the process this year

specifically having different people review each program proposal and not holding site visits.

In retrospect, we should have provided additional information to ensure each program would be as well reviewed and well understood as our unified proposal had been in the past.

We'll work hard to remedy that for the future.

Our internship proposal was apparently reviewed very favorably, but criticized for being overly dependent on the city for funding.

Raising funds for city-wide grassroots organizing efforts in a community the size of Charlottesville is a challenge.

FAR is a stable organization and has been for over 15 years in large part because the city has valued input from people from all walks of life.

Low-income residents need the information and education that FAR provides in order to be at the table for the decisions that affect their lives.

The internship program makes this possible because interns are out in the community door knocking and getting to know people's concerns and interests in every public housing neighborhood.

Barr's budget has grown increasingly diverse over the past several months with a new foundation grant of $30,000 and a significant increase in donations from individuals.

However, these funds are not sufficient to run programs as intense as the internship program and the service coordination.

These programs have a truly impressive record of successful job preparation, placement, and retention.

Similarly, LAJC provides unique and invaluable services to Charlottesville's residents, helping them defend their legal rights and strengthening civic participation on a range of issues critical to residents' lives.

We help families to overcome legal crises, and we help the courts and other service organizations to function better.

We have a meeting scheduled with city staff to discuss LAJC's scores in more detail, but I wanted to make you aware that LAJC did submit an amended work plan after last year's proposals were not funded at the full requested level.

We met the vast majority of the goals of the amended work plan, delivering what we promised and in several areas more.

Despite some staffing cuts that we suffered, we exceeded almost all of our program's goals in our most impactful outcome areas.

In the very few areas where we came in low was because we shifted resources to more impactful services.

LAJC and FAR are great examples of responsive community-based service providers.

We hope that you will agree that the important contributions LAJC and FAR make to our community merit remedying this situation.

Please ensure vital services to the city's residents are unharmed and restore funding for these programs.

My name is Laura Riden.

I live at 133 Birdwood Court in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Good evening members of City Council, ladies and gentlemen, and my fellow concerned neighbors.

I was born and raised in Charlottesville, and I'm a resident of the Birdwood Road, Edge Hill, Hillcrest and Birdwood Court neighborhood and president of the Birdwood Court Homeowners Association.

I'm here this evening to talk about Hillcrest Road.

It's a hazard and an accident waiting to happen based on the most recent poor plowing job that was done after the February 21st snow.

This has also happened before during the February 12th and 13th snowfall in 2014 when the city took more than a day and a half to reach our neighborhood.

In that case, our lawn maintenance company had already dug us out before the city plows ever showed up.

He did this because he was worried about our neighborhood being stuck.

There was a fender bender at the Hillcrest intersection this past Tuesday, February 24th, the day after two of my neighbors hit black ice on a poorly plowed Hillcrest and slid out into the intersection ramp, and three days after another neighbor hit a patch of black ice in Hillcrest, had his anti-lock brakes freeze up and slid out of control before his tires hit a patch.

A dry patch, very scary indeed.

It's unconscionable that our neighborhood, which has been forced to rely on one exit, is not provided with the impeccably clear road when it comes to bad weather.

It's inexcusable to put our lives at risk because you, as a city, have made a decision, which completely and utterly ignoring our request to the contrary, to force us to adhere to an exit situation that is not safe in favor of closing down a perfectly good exit situation, Birdwood Road.

That has been there for decades.

The city is not doing enough about keeping Hillcrest clear for us and we consider that negligent behavior.

This is one of the many safety concerns we brought up a long time ago and we will consider legal action if something happens going forward.

We've given you enough chances to make this right.

I went down and took photos of the road after it was plowed last Wednesday, February 25th.

And there was a huge pile of snow blocking the entry lane at Hillcrest.

So there really is now only one way in and one way out.

This is what it looked like earlier today.

You can see what I mean.

When they plowed Hillcrest, February 21st and 22nd, it was a great deal worse as there was only one lane that was usable and it meandered from one side of the road to the other and ended up in a pool of water that you could almost skate on.

In fact, two of my neighbors slid out into the road because they hit that.

It's clear from these photos that the entrance to Hillcrest is also not a priority as there is a large bank of plowed snow there making it very hard to see around and so we essentially now only have one way in and one way out and not the two ways in that we were promised.

I'm surprised that there have been no more accidents.

I was also surprised to see the recent installation of not one but four Do Not Enter signs at the Birdwood Road exit.

Overkill is not the word for this.

It's amazing to me that one was not sufficient enough and yet there's no signage on Route 250 to explain what's happening with the roads and anything indicating that the gateway to the downtown mall is coming up.

This is essentially saying that no one knows how to use basic driving 101 skills when it comes to arriving at a stop sign, looking all around for other cars, and then executing a safe right turn.

Thank you very much.

We hope that the city will take our concerns lightly.

We also want to thank Kathy Galvin for agreeing to a meeting with local engineers, neighborhood reps, and city planners.

Good evening.

My name is Raymond Mason.

I live at 717 Cynthia Avenue here in the city.

The reason I'm here tonight is for the last couple of weeks I've been picking up data from our school system for grades three through eight concerning blacks, concerning black students.

Reading below level, starting from the third, all these numbers will be starting from the third grade going to the eighth grade for black students.

Third grade for reading below level, 42%, 58%, 50%, 59%, 56%, 64%.

Failed reading English SOL test, same grades, 44%, 57%, 57%, 54%, 52%, 59%.

Failed math SO, 53%, 40%, 56%.

31%, 46%, and 60%.

Now these numbers are really alarming.

I mean, it seems that black students are really doing poor.

If you look at the numbers compared to white students who are doing, in some cases, five times better, something's going on.

Now, Ms. Ivers spoke on how well Charlottesville High is doing and the students there.

I'm just curious to how these students who are coming up in the early elementary and middle school are doing so poorly, how are they getting so much better

in high school.

Are they just being pushed through with these deficiencies in reading, math, and English, or what?

I would be curious to find that out.

And what I would hope is that you could convince her to have a public meeting addressing these issues, this and, you know, the lack of hiring minority teachers, you know, just by itself.

So not, you know, I know we have a school board meeting on the 5th, but this stuff here deserves attention by itself because it's really sad to see these numbers, like I say.

Now, other kids are doing great at Charlottesville High, but not considering other kids in the black community are doing so poorly.

And, you know, I'd like to have these numbers for the last 10 years just to see, you know, I'm sure they're pretty much the same, but they should be better.

But if they're not better, that shows me that we're not addressing the issue clearly enough.

This is really important and it deserves to be talked about.

Like I say, I'd like to have a public hearing, a public meeting to discuss this so we as a city can figure out what we can do.

I mean, Charlottesville is one of the best places in America to live.

Where clearly with these numbers, it's not one of the best places in the world for these children to go to school.

They're doing terrible.

We're doing Lloyd Smith, 929 Henry Avenue.

Once again, coming back to address the taxi stand issue and the Uber issue by the cabbies.

They asked me to come back again because last time, if you all remember, the council remembers I was here and we talked about this.

I was told that it was a person that handled the issues for the cabs.

I could not find that person.

So I'm not aware of who he is and no one is aware of who he is and where he is or how to get in touch with him.

I was told last time from you all who it was and how I can get in touch with him.

That person does not exist, I was told here.

Okay, so, I mean, we need to speak with someone about that.

The catchers are still concerned and I have nothing to go back to them and tell them because what I told them last time, of course, like I just said, it was not right.

that person does not exist.

Everyone keeps referring back to you all, to the city council to talk to you all about this issue because they're saying you're the ones who have the power to take care of it.

We need someone to take care of it.

Okay, so hopefully we can leave you any more information that you need for the get in touch with me or Mr. Young who's handling the Uber.

He's also wanna speak on Uber if you all don't mind.

Share the minutes with me.

You know, get in touch with the taxis.

cab drivers to let us know what we need to do about this and who do we really supposed to be talking to.

Good, okay.

Hello, good evening.

Donald Young, 2315 Peyton Drive, Apartment C. I'm just here once more to represent the

business owners as it relates to the taxi operation.

You all know that I came the last time with a problem that we faced with one of our biggest competitors, Uber.

And the problem that we're facing is that they're not operating in the way that they should and we have no one supervising these people.

Now, I was told the last time that I came here that the city was told to stay out of it and let the state handle it.

Now, I'm saying that it is unfair for the state to ask the city to stay out of it and still not do anything.

and I also believe it's on a failure for the city to step up to the plate and ask the state that, you know, they need to untie the hands of the city so they'll be able to do the job, otherwise the state is going to have to do it.

We can't have a situation where the state is doing nothing, the city is doing nothing, and we're just left out in the open.

That's craziness.

That's not acceptable at all.

I mean, we're tax separators, legitimate business owners, we're also taxpayers.

So I'm asking the city, please,

Help me in this because I'm reaching out to the states as much as I can.

I'm reaching out to DMV.

I've spoken to Mr. Dougson, the liaison officer who had contacted the people who were supposed to be coming out to the street.

Nobody came to the street.

So it seems like I'm standing alone.

My name is Lewis Schultz.

I live at 1809 East Market Street.

This is the 35th time since October 3, 2013 that I have 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 by unlawfully taking private property for a public use

violated Charlottesville code, the city's charter and the code of Virginia and in doing so have violated federal civil rights statutes.

For 17 months now, I have repeatedly told council that my rights as a U.S. citizen were illegally taken from me by force with no due process and no compensation by people acting in their official capacities as employees of the city of Charlottesville and under the direct supervision of the city manager.

I have provided council documentary evidence to prove my assertions

and I have asked numerous times that council hold a hearing where I may give sworn testimony and present any additional evidence they might request of me so that justice may be served and those who have broken the law might be held accountable.

Despite the seriousness of my accusations, their very public nature and the important role of the city manager, whose duties include enforcing the laws of the city, no councilor has ever contacted me in any way to seek more information.

On the contrary, Kristin Szakos has gone so far as to threaten me with prosecution

for speaking the truth at council meetings.

Other councilors have refused to speak to me, my neighbors, or representatives from my neighborhood association when we have reached out to them for help.

No one has ever questioned the veracity of anything I have said about the law, the facts I've presented, or the conduct of the officials I've named, and a report which was prepared for council in July by the city attorney proves beyond any reasonable doubt that the accusations I have made are true.

Still, no councilor, not even the supposedly outspoken Bob Fenwick or Dede Smith,

will say a word or lift a finger to see that anyone is held accountable and counsel as a whole refuses to hold a hearing apparently based on the advice of the city attorney.

City Attorney Craig Brown's own conduct as well as that of Barbara Ronan, his paralegal, will be placed under scrutiny in any hearing.

Also by law, the city attorney is the city manager's legal advisor and defender.

Mr. Brown acting under those and other conflicts of interest

has predictably advised counsel not to hold a hearing.

For 17 months now, counsel has followed his advice and pretended like I'm not here and the uncomfortable facts I've exposed don't have to be dealt with.

Because Mr. Brown and others have been embarrassed by what I have been saying and because he is under pressure to make me go away, he secretly and illegally hired an outside firm to research property records.

Unfortunately for him, that firm's report, which has been hidden from the public, proved beyond any doubt that the property the city seized from me and my neighbors was in fact private and that the city has no lawful interest of any sort in it.

The same is true of as many as hundreds of other properties the city claims rights to.

Council has been aware of all of this for months but still refuse to hold Mr. Jones or any other city officials accountable for violating numerous laws.

For more than a year now, as an inept city management fumbles around trying to avoid the consequences of the mess they have made for me and my neighbors, not to mention themselves, their negligence has threatened the safety of several small children and may yet result in the uncontrolled release of raw sewage into an otherwise perfectly healthy stream that feeds directly into the Rivanna River.

Good evening city council members.

My name is Gabriel Lefkowitz.

I'm a senior at Charlottesville High School.

I live at 1515 Oxford Road.

I have come to speak to you about a topic which is of great importance to the learning community at Charlottesville High School.

I am referring to the Advanced Placement European History class, CHS, and the proposed schedule to which it may be moved in future years.

The proposed schedule has two parts.

First, the offering of the course is to be limited to only once every two years, and second, it will only be offered to upperclassmen, juniors, and seniors.

I believe this plan will be greatly detrimental to the CHS learning community.

For me as a sophomore, this class was transformative.

APURO developed my writing skills through extensive free and document-based writing and thus challenged me to look at history in a more personal way than ever before.

And most importantly of all, it was a class that sparked inside me an interest in history that I have kept with me today.

I'm not the only student who thinks highly of this class, according to Anna Ford.

a CHS sophomore currently taking AP Euro, quote, out of all my courses AP Euro has been by far the most educational, interesting and influential.

Kayden Yang who took Euro two years, last year said, quote, no other classes I have taken has provided me with such a diverse outlook on the changing world around me.

Nathan Schuster who took Euro two years ago said, quote, taking AP European history was important to me because it grounded my view of modern society in a global perspective.

CHS English teacher Marissa Tierney said, quote, I have found that the students who take AP Euro as sophomores are among my strongest students because the course provides them with an entree to the rigor of reading and writing in AP courses.

Thus, restricting the Euro class to only upperclassmen would shut out this group that benefits most from the course.

Furthermore, our CHS sophomores have been succeeding in AP Euro, while the average score

on the AP Euro examination wide was 2.81 in the past five years.

At CHS, it was 3.78, almost a full point higher.

These are CHS sophomores.

Nearly the entire classes of all these years have been made of sophomores.

And furthermore, they're having fun doing it.

In a survey taken of the current CHS Euro class, who is composed of entirely sophomores, 91% of them said that enjoyment far outweighs stress in the class.

This class has traditionally been very well enrolled with an average number of 31 students in the past four years.

However, the proposed schedule would only allow students to take Euro in one year of their high school career because during their junior and senior year they'd be able to take it, but only one of those years it would be offered.

I'd like to now talk about the money in this issue.

Now, of course, the school's budget is under concern, and I'd not like to talk about how much money the school is receiving, but how it's being allocated.

I believe

that the money given to the school system is not being allocated fairly.

While it has been argued that we don't have enough money to offer a critical European history course, last year $800,000 was spent on a new science sigma lab and $1.7 million is to be spent next year renovating all of the science classes at Charlottesville City Schools.

Furthermore, two new science AP classes are being proposed for addition, a second AP science physics class and an AP environmental science class.

The history department at CHS needs to be saved

and we have to give more funding and attention to it.

In the past year, AP scores in the AP History program at Charlottesville High Schools have declined 1.5 points on a 5-point scale.

We need to save our history department at Charlottesville High School by giving it more money and funding and attention.

This is the end of the comments.

Let me start from the bottom and work my way up.

Where's Gabriel?

Gabriel, that was magnificent.

I'm sure you do, yes.

You know, this room is chock full of school board members, the school superintendent, and they're right up here, and you got your audience right here, but you did a remarkable job.

Thanks for coming down here.

Taxi stand, I think David Ellis is out there working on that right now.

Raymond Mason raises some very interesting questions.

As far as the meals tax go, I would not like to see the city get into a tax fever where they're looking to raise taxes all the time, because remember,

Everything we do in the city depends on the businesses, schools, roads, bridges, whatever it is.

Even the federal grants we get or the state grants, that comes from us anyway.

So we have to make sure that we don't look on these businesses as sort of a cash cow and not forget how difficult it is, the things they do, starting with really the taxi cab drivers.

So

We have five weeks left on the budget process approximately and it's important that everybody be engaged in that and I'm hoping that the budget is not set in stone right now because the public really has not had an opportunity to weigh in on it.

yeah functional completion is functional yeah but substantial completion has not occurred just yet you still have the we still have some work that they have to understand that but yeah but what I'd like to know is has he applied for that and or has it been paid is it in the works I'll check that out or whatever yeah just a couple comments thank you all for coming out a lot of budget issues that we will be talking about later I connect which of our upcoming budget meetings are ABRT

It doesn't say on this list.

We have work sessions.

Anyway, I assume that we'll be speaking, talking about ABRT at a work session.

We will, yes.

But we will have, obviously the schools are presenting their budget tonight so there will be opportunities to address some of the issues that were brought forward.

And I just wanted, last thing, I just want to say that I know that I met with Parks and Rec about the pesticide policy and it is in progress.

I don't want to go too much into school funding since we will be discussing that later, but I just wanted to address a little bit.

I actually did a quick analysis today, just of SOL readings course at all grades, so third on up.

And it is true that there is a gap between white and black students in the city schools, but I also compared to Albemarle County and to Virginia because the tests have changed.

And I'm not at all saying it's not important because it really is important and we need to get a handle on this, but I will say that the gap

widened a little bit in Charlottesville.

It widened more in Albemarle County and the only reason it didn't widen more in the state is that white students did worse.

And we actually have done a better job of raising scores in all those categories than either the state or the county.

So these are complicated issues and they're really important.

But I just want to not leave us with the idea that we're not doing a good job of dealing with it, we're just not doing a good enough job of dealing with it.

but thank you for bringing that forward.

These are things that I look at a lot and one of the things that we'll be talking about eventually is some of the ways that we, in the ABRT process as well as in the budget itself, the way that the city council can address some of those issues because the school board is elected to deal with the actual six hours a day that children are in school and what they do there and we don't, that's not our job to tell them how to do that.

That's the voter's job to tell them how to do that

But the city also does things within the community to help kids enter school ready to learn, keep them from losing learning over the summer, make sure they have support in the afternoon in not losing learning and catching up.

And so those are all things that I hope that people will see as really important to helping to close some of those gaps in schools.

The tax stuff, again, we'll have the budget, but just to give a slight approach to that,

I was actually surprised to hear, Mr. Fenwick, the concern about putting this on the backs of business because the original intent, I think, of the Blue Ribbon Commission that we had to look at funding streams for schools was to do a combination of property tax and meals tax.

But we didn't have the votes on council to do a property tax increase, although we have not raised the property tax in 20 years in Charlottesville.

and we actually dropped it from $1.11 to $0.95 before the recession, just before property values plummeted and have stayed along the bottom since then.

So really that would be the way to do that in a balanced way.

We can't do that for this year now because that deadline has passed.

So the meals tax is no more than it would have been if we had done a balance.

What we did was we kept the meals tax as a possibility and we made a lot of cuts, including

here, this cut in the history class.

Each cut is painful, and the school board is the one that will make that decision.

But I think that we have to know that every time we make a decision as a council to not fund something that is important to our constituents, there is pain.

And this is how a city pays for the things that are important to its citizens, is by taxation.

And so I stand

ready to go ahead and do that.

I know it's painful and I think that there are ways that we can help with that.

The ABRT stuff we'll discuss later.

The Uber stuff, I just did want to mention that both the State House and the State Senate passed legislation about Uber.

And I don't know if the final bill has been signed yet.

It doesn't look like it's official.

I was checking on the Capitol News Service.

But what they have is that

that you'll have to be 21 to drive, get a background check, that each driver has to have a million dollars of liability insurance, that Uber or Lyft or any of these other companies will have to pay a $70,000 licensing fee plus $3,000 a year, and that the state is setting aside about a million dollars for enforcement.

So there is some effort at trying to regulate that at the state level, since they told us we can't regulate it at the local level.

and I guess that the idea that we had a taxi board was an error and Mr. Jones informed us last week that it was an error and I guess that the taxi drivers had left already.

Yes, thank you.

It is getting a little late so I'll try to be quick.

I first want to make sure that we acknowledge Gertrude Ivory.

This is her last budget cycle with us.

I'm sure that's not something that she's going to miss very much, but I will like to say from the bottom of my heart that I will be missing you.

I think you have provided us with tremendous service, and it was an honor to be on the school board and working with you.

I do want to point out that when I was on the school board when I first started, and I guess it was in 2012,

I believe the African American graduation rate was like 60%.

And we're now at 85.

That is a very, very big accomplishment.

And I do appreciate Ms. Szakos looking into the relative differences between the different localities on how the change in a test does have direct bearing on these outcomes.

And this school division will adjust.

It will move forward.

It has done that for the last eight years.

So I do want to acknowledge Ms. Ivory.

You were part of that success.

Now, with regards to Ms. Riden and the Birdwood neighborhood, and I do believe I have made arrangements to have a meeting to discuss

The very very complicated issues that you bring up and I think in large part it is the snow removal has to be done extremely well because of the one outlet.

I do think we need to have another discussion though about what is the overall transportation plan and Mr. Jones and I have exchanged some emails about that so we will be getting together with a meeting with you.

It does need to bring in other expertise

with tool design and perhaps even with, I see Mr. Chip Boyles here with TJPDC to see if there's any numbers that we can look at that can start helping us understand why there is such a problem with the traffic patterns around your neighborhood.

Everything else seems to be revolving around the issue of budget cuts

and tax increases.

On the one hand, you're having people come to us identifying what is the consequence of their budgets being cut.

I do believe that we need to be somewhat flexible in how we look at how we're going to meet the budget shortfall, but I do have a very strong commitment to meet our obligations to our city schools as well as to fund our local police.

And that is my bottom line.

How we do that, I'm somewhat flexible how a combination of taxes.

Yes, Ms. Zagos is right, we had three days basically to make a decision about whether or not to continue with a real estate tax.

But I will say that I do acknowledge this concern about our stewardship in the sense that people don't understand, don't know the complexity behind the budget.

We are very strong on getting an audit.

done on management efficiency audit for next year so that we really will have a better handle on the long-range budgetary needs of this community.

It has already been pointed out that a lot of the reasons why the city schools are in such a difficult situation is because the state has been abdicating its responsibilities for funding its mandates.

So it does fall to the localities, and we are a growing community.

and we've got to either grow or raise revenue some way.

And if people don't want to grow, that really only leaves a few options.

If you want to grow, you've got to grow well.

So we've got to do that full combination.

So with that, I'm finished for the evening.

I just have one quick other explanation that I forgot to mention.

Gabriel, is that your name?

When you were talking about, and this is obviously a school board issue,

It's the same on the city budget side that programming money doesn't come out of the same pot as renovation money.

We actually have to keep a balance.

And so if they weren't doing that renovation, they'd have even less money as counterintuitive as that is for programming.

Can I actually ask a question?

Because your comments have raised a number of other issues.

We really haven't discussed publicly, except for at the work session, which isn't televised like this, these tax issues.

But the public hearing is here, right?

So it'll be televised.

Well, right, but I'm just concerned that there's been a lot of conversation going on even at the work session that about raising these taxes that the public hasn't heard because they're not televised and there's sometimes, often there's not even minutes.

So if we could actually even have an opportunity tonight to talk about it.

Another concern is that we're hearing the school budget really for sort of the first time because we've usually had a work session up at this point with a lot of the information that somebody finally sent it to me.

So I'm just concerned that we're approaching raising taxes because of budgets

Can we go to the budget discussion?

We've actually started earlier this year, and we have had a couple of work sessions about the City Schools budget.

We have not gotten the information.

Not all of it, but usually what happens is that we are starting about now, and we started earlier this year, so I think that that's part of why it feels that way.

We've got another six weeks

If not, we'll go to the next item on the agenda.

Item A, minutes for February 17th.

Item B, an appropriation, fire station donations, $1,500, second M2 readings.

Item C, an appropriation, Virginia Department of Social Services, SNAPIC grant, $45,000, first of two readings.

Item D, a resolution, Waterhouse investors at LLC and Charlottesville Economic Development Authority performance agreement appropriation, $84,054.10, first of one reading.

Item E, resolution, Cary Avenue streetscape improvements, transfer of funds, $40,000, first of one reading.

Item F, a resolution, Carleton Views, LIHTC support change of non-profit partner owner payment schedule, first of one reading.

Item G, a resolution, parking management study, $120,000, first of one reading.

Thank you.

And I would like to remove F. Okay.

Okay, so we'll hold it until the end of the meeting.

Any other changes, additions?

Second.

Any discussion if not vote?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next is a public hearing on Stonehenge Avenue and Castelia Street.

Your first item or second item of the consent agenda is a request to adopt an ordinance which closes a portion of the unimproved Stonehenge Avenue and Castelia Street.

The ordinance is offered tonight on first reading and as you mentioned Mr. Mayor there is a public hearing requirement.

In 2013, City Council adopted a rezoning ordinance which created the Stonehenge Avenue plan unit development.

The improved portion of Stonehenge Avenue

and the current subdivision, Platt, approximately right here.

As Platt and Stonehenge comes in this direction, and this is a portion of the failure, both of these are unimproved.

What council approved in 2013 is a new alignment of Stonehenge Avenue extended, which picks up here where the current

This is a request that's in authority with the approved PUD that council adopted in 2013.

The ordinance is requested pursuant to city council street closing and vacation policies.

Since it is only a paper or unimproved street that is being vacated, there's no impact on traffic circulation.

I'll be happy to answer any questions that council may have.

Any questions or clarification before we have public hearing?

I have two questions.

There are actually questions.

The first one I already got an answer to, but I want to ask it just publicly to make sure people know the answer, which I assume is correct.

Not to the city.

I can't think of any in terms of the utility relocation.

The new street that they will build, that will become, assuming they build it to city standards, it will become a city street.

Okay, thank you.

So I'll open the public hearing on this item.

Is there anybody who would like to speak on this?

I'll close the public hearing.

Is there somebody saying that?

I don't see it.

Is Roy Van Doren here?

I'll second.

Okay, there's a second reading next time.

Next item on the agenda is a school board report

2016 budget.

Actually, what I'd like to do is just speak for a couple of minutes and then we're going to present with the PowerPoint.

Okay, thank you.

And will we get a copy of the PowerPoint?

I'm deciding how much notes to write after tomorrow.

Is that it?

I would just like to get one at some point just so I can add it.

By golly, there it is.

Do we by any chance have the materials that we would have gotten in the past with all the additions, reductions, all those sorts of things?

That's what we usually have at this point.

But traditionally at our work session.

Actually we did have that at the work session.

We had a box.

Right and on the other side there was line items of staff.

No, actually, I'm just going to talk to you.

First of all, thank you for having us here.

As Ms. Ivory has noted, and as our school board member, Ned Mickey, has said to us for years, the summation of our school division is reflected in our graduation rate.

The graduation rate reflects the efforts of the whole school division.

And with that in mind, let's reflect on the progress of our school division.

In 2008, the graduation rate for African American students was 66%.

In 2014, it was 85%.

That is nearly a 20% increase over six years.

We also increased our Hispanic population rate by 18%, from 57% to 75%.

And our Caucasian population rate also increased from 83% to 93%.

This reflects in my mind an incredible amount of time, commitment, and effort by all of our staff, teachers, administration, and our community.

Are we satisfied with those numbers?

Of course not.

But we must, I think, acknowledge and appreciate the progress we have made in the past.

So with that said, who are we educating and what are the services that we are providing?

So we have currently about 4,400 students in our schools

ages 2 to 22.

That's right, we are offering early intervention services to our youngest students and life skills and job coaching for our oldest.

We have approximately 2,300 of our students that require free and reduced lunch.

That's about 54% of our students.

We also have English language learners population that has nearly doubled in the past six years.

They now represent about 10% of our student body with over 50 languages being spoken.

We also have about 15% of our population has a special need, ranging from health issues to autism spectrum disorders.

So with this wide array of students, what are the services that we are providing to them?

First and most importantly, we offer small schools and small class sizes.

Every year in September when we get our enrollment numbers, our phone starts ringing, our email blows up.

Our families expect and demand small class sizes.

We also offer a plethora of summer programs.

Over half of our students are enrolled in some type of enrichment program that we either provide directly or we partner with.

We partner with PVCC, UVA, Boys and Girls Club, Parks and Rec, and I know there's a lot more that I can't remember right now.

But if you're a parent looking to extend your child's learning or working and don't know what to do with your child, you can come to the schools.

We can offer low cost and no cost programs.

This is a valuable service to our families and quite frankly I think they expect and demand that.

And also it's really helped us to decrease the summer slide.

We saw our partnership with Parks and Rec actually increase our summer school program because instead of being summer school, it became summer camp.

We also offer world-class arts programs, world languages, STEM education, and our high school Bacon Science Club.

We have orchestra that performs around the world,

We have compulsory Spanish in elementary school and all the way to AP Chinese.

We also have a STEM program that exposes our middle school students to professors at Harvard, sharing their three-dimensional projects.

And our science club at the high school called Bacon, that you actually have recognized in the past, placed second in our worldwide competition.

The exposure and experiences these young people receive is, I think quite frankly, priceless.

and I think it's an amazing opportunity for a public school system.

We also offer dual enrollment, associate's degree and 28 different AP courses.

And as you have just heard from Gabriel, that is very critical to our high school program.

And our students can earn as much as two years of college before they actually graduate from high school.

So if you're a family contemplating sending your child to college and you're not sure how you're gonna afford it, we can offer that service.

Can I ask the folks in the front row to stop talking because I'm having a hard time listening and I imagine she's having a hard time presenting.

Thank you.

Also, if you are a first generation aspiring college student, we also offer counseling and help to apply for school and financial aid with our AVID program.

We provide career and technical training, certification programs for approximately 60 students, and they can graduate and enter the workforce running.

Now onto our remedial services.

You see this array is just huge.

We offer speech therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy offered to our children that require these services.

In fact, I've been a beneficiary with my own children.

We also have before, during, and after school intervention help.

We have an alternative education that actually extends programming from the high school to students that really are struggling in a traditional classroom setting, but they can still continue their education.

Can you imagine a family that's child has made some poor choices and you're terrified of what are the outcomes for them?

We are still providing these services.

We also have another alternative education program actually within the high school called WALK, where a child can go during the school day if they're struggling.

So we've extended that actually, this WALK program, to Saturday and evening school time, because we want all of our children to succeed.

We also, thanks to the city council, have a great preschool.

We have 220 kids, three and four year olds, enrolled in free preschool.

So if families cannot afford high quality preschool, they can come to our school and get this invaluable service.

And they know that they are giving their children the best possible chance to succeed.

We also offer a post high program.

So if your child is mentally or

intellectually disabled to the point that they cannot graduate at 18.

We have a place for them.

Actually, we bought a house from CATEC.

CATEC students built the house.

We put it behind the high school.

And those students actually learn life skills like cooking and cleaning.

And then we also have job coaching.

And we also help them to find employment.

In my mind, that is the most amazing service we could offer these students.

If you're a family that's looking at a child that could possibly not be independent,

It's devastating.

So this is a huge relief and comfort for these families.

We also finally have adult education programs.

So if you are unable to earn your high school diploma 2, 5, 10, 30, 50 years before, you can come to our award-winning adult education program.

OK, I would invite all of you to come to the GED graduation.

It is incredibly inspiring.

The stories of how people have been transformed by this accomplishment is truly amazing.

So, if you did not believe the high school diploma mattered before, you will certainly understand how much it matters when you hear the experiences these people have gone through.

No one leaves there with a dry eye.

Unless you're a stone.

Alright?

Alright.

These are not even all the services we provide to the community, but it truly shows you the wide range of services

Our community demands and expects in the right range of needs there are.

Every year we continue to respect the use of community funds and judiciously look to have the most impact for the least amount of funds.

We also respect and appreciate the different requests that City Council receives every year, but we feel that the schools have a great impact on a wide swath of community members.

You know, I can get it to you.

I can get it to you.

I would love to see you there.

Okay, now to the more mundane, just the several slides that we're going to go over that cover at a very high level.

What's in the current proposal?

First, the salary increase, average increase of 2%.

Almost 80% of the budget is salary and fringe benefits.

The vast majority of our staff are teachers and instructional assistants.

It's very important that we continue to maintain our competitive position, and this budget, like most others, takes a focus on that.

We also addressed the living wage.

We went to the city's living wage of $13.26 per hour.

This affected our custodians, our school nutrition workers, and our secretaries.

And so all of our positions are now at the city's

minimum established wage, living wage.

Also very important, too, is our long-term substitutes.

When a teacher's out for a long duration, it's extremely important that we have the most qualified person in the classroom to continue the quality instruction.

We're a little bit behind in some of our neighboring school divisions, so this does shore us up.

This is part of a two-year plan to ultimately get our long-term sub pay at the same level as our surrounding school divisions.

A math specialist, the budget also provides a math specialist at Walker-Bieford and Halftime-Adventable.

A 60% science teacher at CHS.

There's a lab liaison currently there.

Having a 0.6 teacher will allow that lab liaison to then go and assist other teachers in developing cross-curricular fabrication lessons in the new Sigma lab.

Technology, additional position.

to support the investment in and the need to sustain what is really a saturated technology infrastructure across the entire school division.

That's also being supported in this budget.

Under fine and performing arts, we also have some funds that are provided to increase participation in fine and performing arts for underrepresented students.

In addition, some fine arts instructional position that will also support programs at CHS in the elementary.

This is really in response to increases in involvement.

Also a significant investment in Charlottesville, of course, is the small schools, small class sizes.

This budget will continue to support that.

Again, that is a significant investment in Charlottesville and one that I think is pretty significantly valued as well, at least as you see some of the public meetings that we have.

That one always gets a lot of support in the community.

Under student transportation, this is a contract with the city, one of our large contracts.

The budget addresses pay equity with the Charlottesville transit drivers

It also sustains an employee incentive bonus system that's currently in place and provides additional funds for bus replacement.

Athletics and student activities, this is an item that has not been increased in more than, I can't even remember, it's been at least 20 years.

We've got great and broad participation across 38 sports and academic teams.

Again, in the last five years, enrollment has gone up.

These additional funds will support all 38 academic and sports teams.

Also, small contracts, these are part-time contracted.

Strength Coach, and Athletic Trainer to help support the increase in participation in all these programs.

So those are the major highlighted items.

Now turning to just the overall changes in the budget.

These are revenue changes.

These are all funds.

The proposed increase from the city, just over $1.8 million.

State, $407,000.

Federal, a slight decline.

And then other sources

These are primarily carryover balances and small grants that typically come and go, in this case, to a net decline of $138,000.

So overall, the budget, small local operating grants, every year some grants drop off, some come on.

We also have some carryovers that we use from time to time.

Part of that loss is the absorption of all of those carryovers.

So total change, the budget is increasing 2.81%, just over $2 million.

A pie chart of all revenues.

The change here, there's been a significant over the last five years, a significant pullback in state and federal funding to, if you include the cost increases that have been handed down by the state, better than a $4 million negative impact from the state alone.

The school system has cut about $3.7 million over that time in discretionary cuts to try to make up some of that.

The rest of it, as has been pointed out, has fallen to the city.

which is so the change in those pie charts is that the city's piece of the pie has increased while the state and federal slices have decreased.

Turning to expenditures, salaries and benefits, again, over 80% of the budget and so you would expect they would take up the largest of the changes.

Again, about a 2% average increase in salaries, just over 1.4 million benefits, about 400,000 major contracts.

This is primarily the contracts with the city for transportation and

Maintenance and Facilities, and then all other operating changes in every other line item, slightly smaller.

So again, total changes in expenditures, 2.81%, just over $2 million.

Pie chart of the expenditure budget, the change here has not been very material.

The budget has always been just about 80% salary and fringe benefits, the rest operating.

The vast majority of that operating slice is the major contracts, which themselves are salary and benefits.

So the amount of money spent in school division for paper, pencils, tables, those kinds of operating costs, a very, very small amount relative to the overall budget.

We report to the state by functional categories, instruction, maintenance, administration, attendance, health, nutrition, non-instruction, technology, pupil transportation.

This is for the most recent data released by the state for 2013.

The change here, I would say, is really in technology, and that's no different than, I think, almost any other entity.

Over the last 10, 15 years, technology has become very important and very embedded in just about every aspect of what we do, so that piece of the pie has probably been the one that's changed the most.

The rest of those slices have not changed as much.

Can you talk about, this was in the paper actually, what you chose not to, of your initial request, what you chose not to fund?

Sure.

Actually, do you have that list?

You know, I didn't bring the unfunded list.

It's significant, and we have quite a detailed list actually.

I didn't bring it with me, but there's, each year we go out to all of our budget holders and there's an extensive list of requests that come to us.

Yeah, okay.

That's what we usually get.

Right.

And earlier we heard the concern about literacy in the elementary and middle and you responded that graduation was the metric that you used.

Do you have any sense for how many kids who graduate have gone through the system such that if they leave the system before high school

Ms. Smith, would you repeat that question, please?

Earlier, we heard the statistics about half of our African American kids are not reading at grade level in elementary and middle, and Ms. Laufer was saying your

your measure of success is graduation.

So maybe you could just speak to that particular point.

Whatever, whatever.

Or if we even know what that number is.

I don't know that I'm understanding the question.

We have students that leave our school division each year.

We have students who come into our school division each year.

Yes.

There are multiple data points that we use in order to address literacy and mathematics and all of the academic areas in our school system.

And those data points, the ones that you have referred to, actually represent a point in

And so we're very courageous in asking our teachers and our staff members to collect those data so that we can accurately measure where our students started.

and we can also know the progress that they've made during that school year.

So I applaud them for actually being transparent with those data because oftentimes many school divisions don't collect that kind of data.

It is our in-house data that we use.

It's not benchmarked against another school division nor against the state.

We're looking to make sure that our students are continuously making progress with literacy.

I think it's important to say that the document you're discussing is not normalized against any other.

The SOL is nice only in that we can compare ourselves to Virginia and other school divisions

that is a working document that constitutes a lot of different types of tests.

It's your data.

It's not anybody else's data.

And it talks about at and above reading and below reading.

And that's the way it's framed.

It is.

data points that we actually use to make sure that month after month we look at where our students are.

Literacy is embedded in almost everything that we do.

Even if you look at the addition to science classes, literacy is threaded through all science classes.

Other questions and comments?

I have one comment.

I'm really pleased that you have gone to a living wage

And I have a favor to ask of you.

I mean, you have some, to call some of your students remarkable doesn't begin to say what those kids do.

So when I go into the school, I want to sit down with those kids.

Those are the kids I want to see, have lunch with them, talk with them, whatever.

So when I show up and I make that request, please don't draw a blank look.

Mr. Fenwick, I think having mentors in our school system is incredibly important.

Well, yeah, but I mean, just because when I visit your schools, when I come to lunch or anything like that, I would like to meet with a group of the kids that maybe somebody else doesn't want to meet with.

and I'm sure we're not going to find a group that no one wants to meet with.

All of them are valued and very important in our system.

Do you understand what I'm asking for?

I do have some comments.

I do think it's important to note that when you're talking about getting a salary increase, the first year teacher's salary is $45,000 a year.

I mean that's just really an important point to keep in mind that that is only $45,000 a year for a

individual that has a master's degree.

And so that, I mean, this is just strictly to keep us competitive.

And the other thing that I think is truly remarkable about our school division that I don't think gets quite enough attention or kind of discussion, it really is, when I look at these numbers that we have 54% free reduced lunch, 10%

are, English is a second language, 15% special needs, deal with the needs from two years old to 22 years old.

And I think it's kind of the pattern across the United States has been that in urban school systems, there has been a real divide.

And your upper middle income, predominantly white groups, are those which then go to the outlying suburbs.

This is a school division where everyone is staying in the school division.

It's 10 square mile city.

It's now 4,400 students.

And I think it's truly remarkable that

that this is the diversity that we have and it's something to celebrate.

It's something to really acknowledge that we are not experiencing the great polarization, the great divide.

Now there's definitely a lot of work that I know you're constantly doing to integrate every classroom, but then that gets back to some of the comments that Ms. Szakos has brought up about how this is the partnership between the city system and the school system.

Definitely the city funds a lot of city services and also nonprofit organizations through the AVRT program.

We also have a major thrust at this point in time to really increase the kind of the opportunities for the adults as well through our very strong robust emphasis now on continuous workforce development, continuous access to jobs for the adult population.

That is where we've really got to, I think, really continue to

to emphasize that importance of the success in the home and the success in the neighborhood has direct ramifications to the success in the classroom and vice versa.

So again, I just think this is truly amazing that this school division has been seeing the gains that it has had over the last eight years and it's maintained its diversity.

I think it's a strength of our school is our diversity.

It absolutely is.

And I would say our high school is like our shining star.

It really is.

It's an amazing place to be.

You know, when you see the array of students we have, it's truly incredible.

We routinely get students going into Ivy Leagues from a public school.

That's no joke as far as I'm concerned.

That's really amazing.

And then to see students learning functional skills at the same

I would like to see a brief summary of your comments and Ms. Ivory's comments, the data which was presented to us.

Sure.

I don't see we publicized enough what we were achieving so far.

As Ms. Szakos said earlier, school is only six hours.

Other 18 hours is family and community.

I agree.

Can I ask another question that I'm sort of curious about just because we were talking that you know it's a very small system and you know it's and you all have how many

About 220.

Do you mean the?

Per pupil, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, the diversity, of course, first is

a large component of it.

We have everything from, as Ms. Lauber described, there's such a diversity of students from the very gifted and the very advanced to those that struggle mightily as they come in.

So that's the first thing.

Our poverty level, of course, is much higher than that of the county.

What's also different in Charlottesville is this huge investment in small schools, small class sizes, and a full complement of staff within each building.

The efficiency report, of course, pointed that out directly.

And that's the largest driver for us.

All of the support roles, all the building level roles, and the great diversity of students that we serve is really the difference between, and that's typical of a county versus a city in terms of our people in Spanish.

Of course, as our enrollment has increased, as the denominator goes up, just because of sort of a set base of expenditure, your per pupil expenditure number goes down.

And we've seen our per pupil expenditure number go down, in part just because of an increase in enrollment.

So some of the high per pupil expenditure number was really born out of just several years of declining enrollment, which is now turned around.

I think we should emphasize small class sizes more because that is a huge investment.

If we end up with a class with possibly 26 students, now we have to hire another teacher.

You know, it's definitely a balancing act.

I would imagine so.

As a teacher, I've taught 35 kids in a classroom in New York City.

In the county.

No, in New York City, and then in Louisa I had about 30, so.

There you go.

But it is our big investment.

Yeah, it would be an interesting exercise to see what the combined system savings would be as we struggle, because you are struggling, and they're struggling, because that's a

$3,000 difference per child is a $12 million per year savings.

If we were spending the same as the county, I mean, I'm not saying that we could, but if we did, it's $12 million.

That's a lot of money and would solve a lot of problems.

Well, I think it's not so much of an accounting issue as it is a philosophical political issue, honestly.

And related to what Ms. Smith is talking about, that was consolidation was one of the recommendations that came out of the Blue Ribbon Commission report.

And that was a report that came out a year ago in January.

And we never talked about some of those long range issues.

and certainly I think there's an interest in council and with the school board.

We need to really delve into that report.

We have not given that report the time it deserves really for both near and middle and long term alternatives.

But I think we've been left with looking at how do you do different combinations of basically two taxes left and when that whole

The compendium of that study was filled with lots of things that we could be talking about.

I have just a couple of things.

One is that I was really struck by the fact that, was it 80 some percent of the budget is salaries?

And we talk a lot in this council about the need for jobs in our community and that those are jobs.

They're skilled jobs, the very kind of jobs that we want in our community.

Any cuts that we make over the years and any cuts that the state has made over the years have really been in job loss.

Three hundred?

No.

How many positions have been lost?

About thirty-eight.

Thirty-six.

Wrong by a factor of ten.

So thirty-eight positions.

I mean those are jobs in our community.

And the other thing that we care a lot about is the folks at the bottom of that pay scale.

People who work full-time jobs and can't afford to feed their families or can't afford to, you know, pay the rent.

And so by moving

the schools, and I understand there weren't a whole lot of folks, but by moving into kind of philosophically supporting the living wage to bring those folks up to a place where they have a shot at actually living the American dream, I think is something that I really support and I applaud.

And the other is that I think when we talk about wages of teachers and the need to increase wages of teachers, some people say, well, you know, if you have a teacher

that you don't like and you give them a raise, what is that doing?

But I think what it's really looking at is retention and attraction of the best teachers.

If we don't keep up with the Joneses, if we don't keep up not only with Albemarle County but with New Jersey, then we're not going to be able to attract the best teachers.

We're not going to be able to keep the best teachers.

Teachers who have options will eventually go somewhere else, no matter how much they love us, because they have their own families to take care of.

And I just want to make sure that we stay

on that cutting edge so we can responsibly keep the best teachers and attract the best teachers.

So I wasn't quite done.

I just have one quick question.

So when the school board approved the budget, when we kind of get our draft budget from the city manager, it goes online and we see it.

And I see last year's budget on your thing, but do you

At what point do you put that on the website?

We can put the whole budget.

The way we've approached it so far is we have the budget from the current year that's online.

The documents that you see online for the current year are all the changes to that budget.

So the two together, but we can.

Because there's so much change as we go along, it's difficult to produce the entire hundred pages.

OK, so if we take last year's budget and take those lists that you're going to send us.

That's correct.

It's not so much that I want to micromanage your budget, but people do ask us.

So what does that pay for?

And that is the answer.

So you're going to email that to us?

Because that's what we usually see.

I just want to make a comment because I do think this is important this sort of philosophical question of you know sizes of schools and therefore the numbers of adults because eighty percent of budget is staff and we have a

disproportionately large number of staff.

Just to clarify, Charlottesville is not a tiny system.

It's bigger than half the school divisions in the state.

Oh, OK. We're in the upper half.

We're a medium size.

But we do.

We certainly aren't tiny.

We're about a medium size.

I promise.

If that led to make it maybe seem easier to do some other things.

Right.

But because 80% of the budget is staff, and we do, according to the Blue Ribbon Commission, have a really significantly higher number of staff per student kind of ratio.

And every time you give a raise, then that large number of staff increases the amount you need.

I think that needs to be factored into our philosophical question as to at what point does

would we increase efficiency by at least cooperating more with the county?

And I think it's also really just interesting that

We're dealing with our small enrollment by bringing in county kids.

Well, actually, we're growing internal enrollment now.

As the enrollment has turned around and increased, we're going to slowly decrease the non-resident enrollment, which was the plan all along.

Oh, really?

Let me ask this question again.

I'm good with what we've got.

If I can get some information.

So I want to just clarify.

Thank you very much.

Music Playing

Mr. Mayor, members of council, it's my pleasure to present to you the proposed budget for fiscal year 2015-16.

We do have a PowerPoint, yes, so if you'd like to move, now is the time.

the lead team budget review teams for them all together met with the departments to discuss their proposals including new requests and reduction submissions that then made recommendations to me that helped to shape this budget.

I want to thank all of them for their involvement in this process.

There are several themes for this year's proposed budget continuing our strong support for city schools, public safety and capital needs, preserving our quality services, focusing on the council priorities through our strategic plan,

and maintaining our real estate tax rate.

So how does this budget impact our residents?

We are not proposing a real estate tax increase for fiscal year 2016, a rate increase.

In addition, we are not proposing any significant reductions in our services, although this budget does propose changes to some user fees.

We are very fortunate to be able to provide high quality services to our residents, our businesses and the visitors who travel to our city.

In Charlottesville, folks have come to expect these services and I believe we're delivering them in a professional manner that addresses the needs of our community.

Public safety, education, parks and recreation, social services, public works, these are just a few of the departments that are serving our residents every day.

And this budget prepares us for the future by investing in the services our residents have asked for and finding sustainable ways for us to pay for those services.

So let's dive into the details of this budget.

For folks who are watching on television or in the audience, you can find out all of this information that we're talking about tonight, plus supplemental information about our budget that we'll be talking about at our work sessions and throughout the budget process online at www.Charlottesville.org slash budget.

So let's take a quick look at the changes in the general fund over the course of the last ten years.

As you can see, we've experienced low to moderate growth in the last five years.

Our proposed budget is a 3.4% increase over fiscal year 15.

That's fairly conservative growth, and that's kind of the new norm when it comes to budgeting, not only here in Charlottesville, but in other places around the country after the Great Recession.

Revenue projections for fiscal year 16, very similar trends as previous years.

We'll get into those details in just a moment.

Our real estate assessments are healthier than previous years.

There's positive news when it comes to new city development.

That continues here in Charlottesville.

Revenue that we have is relatively diverse, and it's well-balanced, and we believe that our approach to this is a very realistic approach to projecting our revenues.

The one significant proposed change, as folks have already mentioned tonight, is a one percentage point increase in the meal stacks, moving it from four to five percent.

That is one of the recommendations that was made as part of the work and the report of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Sustainable School Funding.

It is an issue that we've talked about over the course of the last three years.

This is not the first time we've talked about the possibility of raising the meal stacks to address some of our issues, but it is the first time that we're proposing to raise it since 2003.

This proposal was not taken lightly.

We've had increasing demands for resources, especially in our schools, in public safety, and our capital needs for several years now, and we felt it was necessary to find a sustainable way to address the deficits we have faced.

The increase in the meals tax would fund an additional $1 million for our schools, nearly half a million dollars for eight new police officers for our police force, and a half a million dollars

to help pay off some of our debt service that is connected to our capital projects.

This is the first significant increase in the major tax rate since 2003 when the meals tax was raised from 3 to 4 percent.

It is estimated that over 40 percent of the people who pay our meals tax are visitors or tourists.

In recent years, municipalities around the state have utilized the meals tax to help cover deficits that they face, especially to assist their schools, including the City of Roanoke

the city of Harrisonburg and Henrico County.

In each of those cases, the revenue generated was greater than expected and it had no negative effects on the restaurants in those municipalities.

Here's where Charlottesville stands on the meals tax rate compared to many cities around the state.

As you can see, we are on the low end of the rates and would continue to be on the low end with this proposed increase if it were to pass.

So let's talk a little bit more about our revenues.

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 68% of our revenues.

Revenue trends have been improving in recent years, such as personal property, lodging, and the sales tax revenue.

Residential real estate assessments have grown modestly in the last couple of years.

We'll look at those now.

Overall, total real estate assessments in calendar year 2015 are projected to increase by 2.76%.

which is good news compared to previous years.

This budget keeps the real estate tax rate at 95 cents per $100 of assessed value.

As I mentioned before, this has not been changed in over 20 years.

The real estate rate has not been increased in over 20 years.

When I came to work for the city back in 1999, it was $1.11 per $100 of assessed value.

So this is obviously an indication, the growth that we're seeing in real estate

that people continue to invest in the city of Charlottesville, both in residential and commercial properties.

Personal property, we anticipate a 7.65% increase.

People are buying newer cars, which is another positive sign that the economy is getting a little bit stronger.

Sales tax, another important indicator.

We anticipate a nearly 5% increase here for the next budget year.

Meals tax is also expected to increase even without the proposed increase in the rate.

We're expecting a 4.6% jump in the revenue generated by the meals tax.

And you can see by the chart there that it's been going up pretty consistently over the last four or five years or so.

The lodging tax is expected to increase by 5.7%.

This accounts for several new hotels that have come online and will be coming online in the next year.

So now let's move over to our expenditures.

The schools are the largest slice of our expenditure pie, coming in at 33.31%.

This city council has traditionally strongly supported our school system and its operations and its capital needs.

And I think we do so once again in this proposed budget.

I believe our budget also provides a healthy amount of support for public safety.

That makes up 26% of our operating budget.

That includes not only police, but fire, sheriff's office, courts, and others.

That's followed by healthy families and community at nearly 19%, and in infrastructure and transportation at 10%.

So let's take a little bit closer look at the schools' funding.

As you can see from the chart, state funding for schools has decreased as a percentage of the schools' budget pretty steadily since 2007-2008.

and is projected to comprise 23.6% of the school's fiscal year 16 budget.

That's down from 29.2% in fiscal year 2008.

Conversely, local support for schools as a percentage of the school's budget has increased by pretty much the same percentage point will be approximately 76.33% of the school's budget in fiscal year 16 compared to where it was in fiscal year 2008, which was a little over 70%, almost 71%.

So we don't anticipate that this trend will change in the near future.

Our proposed contribution to the schools is $47.4 million, an increase of $1.7 million over fiscal year 15.

This is nearly $1 million more than the 40% formula we've used in the past to allocate new funding, and that's derived from the real estate and personal property taxes.

Compensation and benefits, we are proposing a 2% salary increase that would begin on July 1st.

That equates about $824,000 in our budget.

Neighboring localities in the state are providing salary increases that are similar in their fiscal year, 16 budgets.

We believe it's vital to remain competitive in attracting and retaining high quality employees with the city of Charlottesville.

There's also a 3% healthcare cost increase.

that will be paid for by the city and participating employees, about $190,000.

And this fully funds the city's requirement towards its retirement fund.

So let's talk about some of the things that are new in this, some other things that are new in this budget.

This proposed budget would increase Parks and Recreation by about $120,000 to cover the cost of landscaping and turf maintenance at the recently opened McIntyre Interchange and the city's portion of the John W. Warner Parkway,

including areas north of Melbourne.

I'd add to one gardener to help with that landscaping along there.

And that will kick in later on in the fiscal year.

And it continues the afterschool meals program.

The grant that supplied that and funded that for a while is expiring at the end of this fiscal year.

So we're proposing about $20,000 to help cover the cost of the afterschool meals program, which has been very successful.

The city funds several contractual partnership agencies including the regional jail, juvenile detention center, the library, the 911 center and others.

And the cost for the city to support these agencies is increasing by over $775,000 for next year.

We have several new human services agencies and programs that are recommended for funding for a total of $88,000, almost $89,000 for next year.

The general fund transfer to the debt service fund is increasing by $553,000.

I mentioned that a little bit earlier.

City departments have worked to identify some budget reductions.

We've come up with about $268,000 that have no or little impact on the services that we're providing for our residents.

Another step that we've taken is suspending a one-year payment into the computer replacement fund.

That saves us about $74,000.

We have about $162,000 in savings with our new, now in our second year, our residential recycling program, our contract that we had that saved us $162,000.

And then we have savings from vacant positions that are not being filled.

We estimate we'll save about $250,000.

and that for fiscal year 16.

Well, just a few issues or a few funding programs that are aligned with our strategic plan.

If you look at one goal of our strategic plan and it's to enhance the self-sufficiency of our residents, there is a proposal to provide an additional $32,500 to help support the director's position with the City of Promise.

and goal number two to be a safe, equitable, thriving, and beautiful community.

As I mentioned before, about nearly half a million dollars, $481,000 for eight new police officers.

Also goal number two, two new fire EMS medics that are funded by CARS at $130,000.

And we also have a family services specialist long-term temporary positions.

We have two of those.

$90,000 is our local share for that.

and this is to help improve permanency for children in the child welfare system.

Another funding, new funding program is our citizen engagement opportunities.

This is under goal number five, which is foster strong connections to our community.

It's really not new money because we've been utilizing different funds to help pay for citizen engagement over the course of the last few years.

And we just felt that we needed to formalize this this year, stop rating other funds and line items and put it into one fund.

So we should see savings elsewhere in order to fund this at $15,000.

Our capital improvement programs, we continue to have a robust CIP, about $15.8 million in projects for fiscal year 16.

That includes schools' capital improvements, sidewalks, the Tomsler Park master plan implementation, the McIntire Park

Master Plan implementation.

We have money in for the West Main Street Streetscaping Project, the SIA implementation, $200,000 to help continue to improve our bicycle infrastructure, about $3.5 million for public safety and justice, and about a million and a half, a little over a million and a half dollars for affordable housing.

Looking ahead, state and local funding of our schools will continue in the same trend that we've seen in recent years.

We don't see a change in that anytime soon.

We do, without a question, have major capital needs that we have been trying to address and will continue to try to address, but we've got to be patient in our approach to that.

1.2% increase in the growth for our budgets in the next five-year cycle.

That's what we're anticipating.

The residential real estate market will continue to tick up.

We've seen improvements there, but we're being cautious in that.

It's been a slow movement.

We have been working to curb the use of one-time funds several years ago to help the schools.

I think, if I remember correctly, it was about $3.5 million in one-time funds that we've used.

We've reduced that dramatically over the last few years and we want to continue to do that and hopefully get to the point where we're not using one-time funds to help close operating costs.

New development has been positive, but overall it's just not enough to cover the needs that we have in our community.

Some other good news numbers.

Our regional unemployment rate has been trending downward for the last few years.

It's about 3.7, 3.8 percent, depending on the month.

Commercial and residential permits, those continue to remain strong in the city.

Once again, another sign that people are investing in Charlottesville.

And then our retail vacancy rates remain steady in our commercial quarters at 3.9%.

So we've seen our businesses have been able to thrive in the last few years and hopefully that will continue, that trend will continue.

Yeah, we wanted to show you some of the projects that have been helping our commercial development in the last few years and I wasn't understating the fact that people are truly investing in the city of Charlottesville.

We've seen the CFA Institute that was completed about a year ago, a little over a year ago, the Battle Building, which is

obviously associated with the University of Virginia but providing great influence and presence on West Main Street.

The Cardwell Center at the old Martha Jefferson Hospital site is being renovated and being completed soon.

The Homewood Suites was completed last year.

New hotel, the Flats at West Village was completed last year.

City Walk was completed last year.

in August of 2014 and there are other developments in downtown that are coming soon.

The Rucker Building at Martha Jefferson Hospital, the old Martha Jefferson Hospital site, the Pavilion at North Grounds, the Marriott Residence Inn, Country Inn and Suites, Coca-Cola Building on Preston Avenue, so we could go on and on.

There are a lot of different projects that are out there on the horizon that we're very excited about and that will contribute to the vitality here in the city of Charlottesville.

So let's look quickly at the budget calendar.

Councilor Fenwick went over this a little bit earlier in the night.

March 5th, this Thursday, we'll have a work session from five to seven to look at revenue and expenditure.

It's kind of an overview of where we are, and that will be at city space.

March 12th, we'll have a work session from five to seven, once again at city space to cover the capital improvement program.

It's an opportunity for the city council to talk to staff about where we are with the CIP program and where we want to be in the future.

March 16th is the first of our two public hearings and the tax levy and the budget at 7 p.m. right here in the city council chambers.

On March 18th, the community budget forum, 7 p.m. city space.

So that's an opportunity for the public, another opportunity for the public to weigh in on the budget.

March 26, we'll have a work session on the outside and non-profit agencies, once again at City Space from 5 to 7.

April 6, we'll have our second public hearing on the budget, our first reading right here in the city council chambers at 7 p.m. April 9, budget wrap-up session from 4.30 to 5.30 in City Space.

and then, if all goes well, April 14th, we'll have a budget approval by our City Council at 5.30 in the second floor conference room here in City Hall.

With that, I thank you for your attention.

I have a question about the recent news that retail sales were way up.

I just wonder what the implication of that is for our budget this year as well as our budget next year.

You know, I haven't seen the numbers.

I think we tried to take that into consideration when we were doing the projections.

Sure, exactly.

Well, in addition, it's something that we didn't know before the budget was posted, but we have learned that there could be about $292,000 that's coming back to the city from the state.

You know, in recent years, we've had what we call local aid to the Commonwealth.

We hope it's continuing.

I guess that's the way you'd have to treat it.

And I have another increased question.

The lodging tax, do we anticipate, should we start getting some lodging tax from our short-term rentals?

I think it's impossible to put a number on that just yet, to be honest with you.

It really depends on what the city decides to do.

from a regulatory standpoint.

Right.

I just wondered if there was any sense, Mr.

OK.

I have one other.

I can't read my own writing.

I'll follow along on that same, because those were actually my first two.

And then I have one more, which is that we have gotten

kind of a call that there's a possibility that if we add a staff person in the Commissioner of the Revenues Office, that there may be a lot of businesses that have filed with the State Corporation Commission but have not registered as local businesses that we're not collecting taxes on because we don't know they're there.

Yeah, and we've actually had some conversations, Mr.

Divers and I have talked about that,

One of the options for that is to hire someone as a long-term temporary employee.

It would take a close look at those numbers.

I think we're a little reluctant to hire a full-time equivalent just yet, not knowing what the long-term results would be, but I think we'd get some sort of indication if we hired a long-term temporary employee to really take a deep dive into the numbers.

I would imagine sometime next fiscal year.

Is it already embedded in here?

I just missed that if it was on in here.

So you wouldn't put it into the projections.

So it's not in the projections.

Okay.

It's an unhashed chicken.

But it's more real than not though.

It's already.

It's going to happen.

But if you're asking for specific numbers, we don't have those issues.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

Just some general questions.

Who am I asking here?

Depends on your question.

Oh, you, I do, okay.

The general fund transfer to the debt service of $553,000, half a million, does that mean our debt is going up?

Yes.

Okay.

And you have an estimate in here that 40% of the patrons of restaurants are tourists.

It was provided by the folks in economic development who provided some information.

On what it was based on?

And you said with this meals tax increase the revenue to the schools will be sustainable.

And that's one area.

But every year our budget will go up.

No, because we anticipate that the meals tax revenue will go up and we anticipate that the real estate tax revenue will go up.

Yeah, the sustainable part.

Right.

It provides more funding for our general fund that we didn't have before.

But our expenses would go up as well.

Because we don't currently have $2.1 million.

This would add $2.1 million to the revenue to help pay for it.

Oh, yeah, I know.

Yeah, but our expenses are locked the same way.

The budget this year will be the same next year plus 2%.

And you anticipate that the other rates will, that the other revenues that are generated

Yeah, I'm just not making a connection.

Okay, I'll figure that out.

And you also said it would have, in the studies you mentioned, no negative effect on the restaurants.

No, both.

Actually in terms of the number of restaurants that were opened or closed after, for instance in Harrisonburg,

They didn't see any significant impact on the number of restaurants that were closed and then also in terms of the revenue that was generated in comparison to what was anticipated to be generated.

Well, yeah, the number of people eating out I would agree with, but if you're going to have more restaurants, then the individual revenue per restaurant would not be going up, necessarily.

But that would be true if you increase the number of restaurants.

We also had a number of work sessions discussed in detail.

Well, since we have our treasurer and our commissioner of revenue here, I'm curious in some of the materials that I've gotten even independently.

It says this is some 2012 that Charlottesville Albemarle has a second

and the highest cost of living index, of course second only to the Washington, Northern Virginia area.

What does that mean?

Where does that come from?

What are the drivers?

What are the drivers to that high cost of living?

restaurants.

I'm curious, does anybody know that?

You money folks?

I think historically housing has been amazing.

That's what I'm wondering.

I'm just curious because as we explore raising real estate tax, which we turned down, but it'll come back because I think

Mr. Fenwick's right.

I don't think that this, you know, we're going to cover ongoing costs of the schools, but, um, you know, it would just really be good to know where the bulk of that.

The other question I had was, I think I know the answer to this, but Ms. Beauregard, you might have a sense for this is,

if the schools are giving a 2% salary increase and the city is giving a 2% salary increase, why is the schools higher?

I mean it's like a million something and ours is 800,000 for the same percent increase.

But I do think in terms of Mr. Fenwick's concern is that we just need to be cognizant that

It's true, as you've been over the last three years,

You're giving more money to schools without raising any taxes.

Right, and it will cover the gap that we've had, but will it cover a gap going forward?

I just think we just need to be cognizant of the fact that the salary increases in the schools are even higher than they are in the city.

I would like to have some information about the number of full-time employees in both the school division and in the city government, just to have a good baseline comparison.

And I would like to just say again, I made a request to have us look at another combination of not only the meals tax, but also a combination of meals and lodging.

just so that we don't rule that out.

I think I also just want to, and this isn't really for our work sessions, although I think at some point it's worth teeing up, that I think when Councillor Smith said that we only had a short period of time to discuss a property tax increase, I think I would like us to start that conversation the day we get this budget done for next time to start

That would be a great conversation, but I think it would be even more helpful to have a more holistic conversation about what a lot of different increases in revenue, including what would

Can we really lock the budget for that?

I would just say a couple of things.

One, if you're looking at other revenue streams for schools or anything.

There's no guarantee that's going to be here three years from now.

I mean, as the recession taught us about relying on real estate tax rate, right?

A lot of municipalities across the state were caught because they were relying on their real estate tax rate.

And many municipalities that had cut their tax rate by 20 cents had to raise it by 20 cents in order to just protect core services.

And in terms of consolidation,

There have certainly been efforts to have discussions about consolidated services over the years.

Right.

I've had some positive conversations with the county.

Because I do, again, think it's important to see that we had, it looks like we had a really good year for new development, for new tax revenue.

And we can see what 40% of that looked like.

for the school.

One last thing.

One quick question, though, and it comes up.

I think Mr. Fenwick kind of raised it, and Ms. Szakos kind of asked the question.

Would it be possible at all to kind of target a revenue stream like the meals, lodging tax, to a particular item like you would an enterprise fund?