City Council Meeting   9/19/2016

right now that's going to be going through the, so it's not just a musical underscore for us.

We'll begin with awards, awards and recognitions, and then announcements.

So let's go through first awards, I think, and proclamations.

I think everybody has one.

I don't have a proclamation.

Yeah, let's, well let's, sorry.

Let's do this one first.

Does anybody have another?

I think we only have this one again and then we'll go through announcements.

Okay.

This is a, and I first of all like to start and we have, we have a large number of folks tonight with us from the Center for Politics Leaders for Democracy program from the Middle East and North Africa.

That's wonderful.

We had a really nice meeting beforehand.

Everybody, everyone stand up.

We had a really wonderful chance to talk beforehand.

And these folks are engaged in NGOs and political parties and government offices all throughout a wide range of countries.

And they're bringing their expertise to us in Virginia and the United States and taking back some lessons from this land and UVA and Jefferson and Madison and so on.

And we're just delighted to have you here.

And we hope this is a little exercise in democracy here at the local level.

Okay, this is a proclamation for the Neo Cultural Center of Rwanda.

Let's declare September 24th, 2016, Artists and McGuffey Art Center and the Neo Cultural Center Day in honor of the developing cultural relationship between the art centers of the city of Charlottesville and the city of Kigali, Rwanda.

Whereas the McGuffey Art Center was created in 1975 as a way to allow artists to develop their individual craft,

and share their creative spark with the Charlottesville community and whereas the Neo Cultural Center was created in 2012 to preserve and promote Rwandan art and culture by providing a safe space for children, youth and adults to participate in life changing activities.

and whereas the city of Charlottesville represents a community of people from many different ethnic and racial groups and has been designated by the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service as one of the most racially and economically diverse cities in the region and whereas the relationship between artists from the McGuffey Arts Center and the Neocultural Center have provided educational opportunities in African dance and culture to the students in the Charlottesville City Schools and community and whereas this cultural exchange provides an opportunity for people to hear how the country

of Rwanda reconciles its history and adds the community dialogue on race memorials and public spaces in Charlottesville.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that we the members of the Charlottesville City Council hereby proclaim September 24, 2016 as Artists in the McGuffey Art Center and the Neocultural Center Day in the City of Charlottesville, signed the 19th day of September, 2016.

And Jim Raspess and Pasifik Niyonsinga are here to

Except the Stepkin.

Thank you very much, mayor of the city of Charlottesville, city council members, and distinguished ladies and gentlemen.

My name is Pacifik Nyonsengar, the founder and representative of Neocultural Center Tigari Rwanda.

I'm here in Charlottesville to make connections and spread the culture and history of our country.

through their connection with Jim Respez and other artists from McGaffey Art Center, me and my team from Rwanda, we was able to present our culture and history to all of elementary schools across the city.

And we was able to develop conversations between us and various

institutions here in the city, including the African American Heritage Center and City of Promise and other institutions in the county area.

As we heard conversations with Charlene Green, who is here tonight, both cities, Chigali and Charlottesville has a lot to share and to learn from each other.

In 22 years ago, our country Rwanda meant quite simply genocide.

But now we are the top performer, not only in Africa, globally, in different areas, such as business environment, health and education, crime and corruption, women's employment,

Trust in public institutions and personal well-being and freedom.

Our country is also the top performer in gender violence, as we have 64% of women in our parliament, 50% of women in cabinet of ministries, 50% in Supreme Court.

There is, and all this was achieved during those 22 years through the conversation of unity and reconciliation of Rwandans through Cachacha Court, which is the community conversation court to develop

the conversation of what happened during genocide and the solution of what we can do to promote unity and reconciliation and bring back the people.

You know what happened during genocide in the 90s.

So we are very glad that you have welcomed us in the city, and through art and music and performance with the community and society here in the city, we will continue to build a relationship, not only with institutions and schools, but also the city of Chicago, which is beautiful, and the country of the Thousand Hills,

which was only broad and bodies of victims of genocide 22 years ago.

But now it's the city of hope and very beautiful.

So I would like also to use this opportunity to tell you to welcome to Rwanda and see what's happening there.

So I am grad and I would like to thank you so much again for this wonderful

Thank you.

Thank you.

I have one recognition, it's short, and then I have two announcements, so I'll do it all together.

Last Friday, the Alma Charlottesville chapter of the NAACP had a packed house for its annual banquet, Freedom Fund banquet.

and that was at the Doubletree Hotel in Elmont County.

And I had a great table that I sat at and one of the people at that table was Counselor Szakos and I see Mr. Mason over there as well.

Winners of the Virginia Bank's Fifth, the Fifth Virginia Bank's Carrington Humanitarian Award were announced.

One of those winners was Bob Guest and the other one was our very own Counselor Kristin Szakos.

The award is given to people who are passionate about social justice.

And I think any of you who have ever met Kristin, I've had the pleasure of working with Kristin for four and a half years, will know that she lives and breathes justice and she puts action to her words.

So I would like to thank you, Kristin, for your tireless work

No.

But thank you.

Well, and you should have heard what she said though at the banquet.

Maybe she'll get a copy available to us all, but it was very well said in express words at the time.

And she's also very active in getting out the vote right now, so it's like I said, it's tireless and endless what she does.

Now going to the

The more pedestrian issues of the day, Our Town Charlottesville, the 2016-2017 series of Our Town town hall meetings continues.

on September 29 with a meeting for the Lewis Mountain, University, Venable, Rose Hill, and Kellytown neighborhoods.

Join us from 6 to 8 p.m. at Venable Elementary School, which is 406 14th Street, Northwest.

Our meetings are open to all, and it's for you to express what your issues are with your neighborhoods.

Dinner and childcare provided.

The next and last announcement is the Carver Indoor Flea Market.

Charlottesville Parks and Recreation will present the Carver flea market on Saturday, September 24, 2016 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Carver Rec Center.

We've brought the traditional outdoor yard sale into Carver.

Admission is free.

Come and browse for that special item at a low cost.

Carver Recreation Center is located in the Jefferson School City Center at 233 4th Street Northwest, which is accessible via Main Street and Preston Avenue.

and I don't, is this mine too?

Do we, this is the announcement for voter registration?

I've got that on my hand as well.

Okay.

So yes, there is a voter registration deadline coming up.

The deadline to register for update information, if you've moved since the last time you registered to vote, is October 17th.

Right now in Virginia, newly, a new regulation says that if you have

Virginia driver's license or an ID through the Virginia Department of Transportation, you can actually register to vote online.

So if you haven't done it or you want to change your address, you can do that online.

Otherwise, you can go to the voter registrar's office for the city.

It's right next door to City Hall.

For the county, it's out in the Fifth Street or the street extended county office building.

So please make sure you get that done before October 17th so you can vote in this next upcoming election.

And for more information you can go to www.Charlottesville.org slash vote.

I also

Was anybody going to announce the Blue Ribbon Commission meeting?

The only other one I have is that City of Charlottesville has been selected by the National League of Cities Institute for Youth Education and Families to participate in the City Leadership to Reduce Overuse of Jails for Young Adults Leadership Academy, October 19-21 in Chicago.

The Academy will help participating cities develop strategies to reduce the misuse and overuse of jails for young adults, improve public safety, and reduce racial and ethnic disparities and arrests.

City leaders will learn from experts about emerging strategies to reduce the overuse of jails for young adults,

developed local plans and teams to pursue those strategies and engage in cross-city learning and sharing with peers.

Charlottesville's team will include Police Chief Al Thomas, Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy, Kristin Szakos, myself, and Criminal Justice Planner Neil Goodlow.

Neil Goodlow and I have also been asked to serve on the faculty for the academy to share some of the innovative practices that have already been developed in Charlottesville.

and selected cities will benefit from tools and supports to analyze local data regarding young adults in jail before and during the academy.

Sessions will be led by experts and pioneers in the field, peer learning opportunities with fellow city leaders, workshops for drafting action plans and formation of a new peer learning network, which will provide ongoing opportunities for city leaders to learn and receive support from nationally recognized experts in the field and city peers.

And it's all being paid for by a grant from the National League of Cities.

Thank you.

I'm going to turn it over to my colleague.

But just a quick moment on the sign ups here.

We still have a public comment period that's coming up.

It looks to me like there's still six spots that are available.

So if anybody wants to come down and sign for that, that's the open public comment period, which will begin the meeting.

And then we have four public hearings tonight.

The deer issue looks like there's a bunch of folks.

But all these, you could still come up and sign up for now.

Sure.

Good evening, everyone.

Good evening, everyone.

There we go.

There we go.

There's a concert going on outside.

So this is an announcement about the City Services Fair.

The City of Charlottesville City Services Fair is held every year in the fall on the historic downtown mall at City Hall Plaza.

This event gives the community a chance to meet and talk with staff from dozens of city departments and partner agencies about a wide scope of services and programs.

This year's event will take place on Friday, October 7, 2016 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The city staff and other representatives will be available to answer questions and distribute useful material to help citizens become more informed about their city.

People of all ages are invited to participate in everything Charlottesville City Services Fair has to offer, including interactive displays, exciting demonstrations, educational tours, special guests, and more.

So make sure you're there on Friday, October 7th, 2016.

Got one more announcement, Mr. Mayor.

Tomorrow at the Jefferson School, we will have the official kickoff for the Charlottesville Lions for Black Male Achievement, My Brother's Keeper program.

So come join us to learn about job training, career development, and how to navigate through the game of life.

Opportunities will be available to learn about skilled trades, including HVAP, plumbing, carpentry, as well as a computer technical skills track.

Excuse me, that will include computer programming, coding, network engineering, and graphic design.

This circle of brotherhood is specifically for African American males ages 17 through 29.

Again, tomorrow, September 20th, from 6.30 to 8.30 p.m. at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.

For more information, you can email bmacville at gmail.com.

We have several different sponsors and partners, including the City of Charlottesville, PVCC, CATEC, Region 10, OAR, Willow Tree Apps,

Design Electric, Sytent, and Crutchfield.

So if you know a young man who needs a mentor, a young man who's kind of lost in that age demographic, 17 to 29, send them tomorrow.

Again, Jefferson School, 6.30 to 8.30.

It's going to be a good time.

Thank you.

This is the Day Without Water Art Contest.

The second annual Imagine a Day Without Water Student Art Contest is underway.

This fun for kids contest is open to all city and county public, private and home school students.

Last year's contest was a huge success bringing in over 570 entries and we hope to see increased participation throughout the community.

Art entries will be accepted from September 16th through October 14th.

There will be cash prizes awarded to the top finishers in different age categories and a fan favorite selected by the community.

So if you want more information on this, visit www.schalitzville.org forward slash art contest.

And the Blue Ribbon Commission Community Forum.

The Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces will be hosting its second community forum on this Thursday

September 22nd at 6 p.m. at Buford Middle School.

Come out and see how this thing is being discussed and decided.

It's a tremendous opportunity.

Excuse me, Mayor Signer.

Our clerk, Paige Rice, has just alerted me that there's one extra piece of information that we need to share with the public about the voter registration.

And the voter registration office

is open from 8.30 a.m. until 4.30 p.m. Monday through Friday in the City Hall Annex Building.

In-person absentee voting for Charlottesville registered voters begins this Friday in the voter registration office.

Bring your photo ID when voting in person.

Absentee ballots will be sent out this week to those who have already applied for them.

And you can get additional information at www.Charlottesville.org slash vote.

Thank you.

Sure.

Mr. Mayor, most of the public comment centered around Crescent Halls, we provided an update on that at that time, so there's nothing new to report on that situation right now.

There's one issue that had been raised previously about deposit assistance for renters.

and we do have some information on that.

There are two pots of funds, one through the Virginia Homelessness Solutions Program grant where the City of Charlottesville partners with TJAC and other providers.

The second is an emergency assistance funding that the City of Charlottesville provides.

Can you say what those acronyms stand for?

Sure.

TJAC is the Thomas Jefferson area

Coalition for the Homeless.

And that can be accessed through The Haven, so folks can contact The Haven for that.

And then there's the other funds that they can also contact through The Haven for assistance.

And MACA is the Monticello Area Community Action Agency.

We're all on the same page.

All right.

Thank you.

It Matters by the Public.

Ms. Rice, would you mind handing me that?

Thank you.

You have three minutes to speak.

We welcome public comment.

It's an important part of our meeting.

Time is reserved near the beginning and at the end of each regular city council meeting for matters by the public.

Please follow these guidelines for public comment.

These are all laid out on our governing procedures, which are on our website.

There's many more particulars on there.

If you're here to speak for a public hearing, please wait to speak on that matter until the report for that item has been presented and the public hearing has been open.

There are several tonight.

Each speaker has three minutes to speak.

Please give your name and address before beginning your remarks.

Please do not interrupt speakers.

Whether or not you agree with them, please refrain from using obscenities or any other disorderly activity.

If you cannot follow these guidelines, you'll be escorted from city council chambers and not permitted to re-enter.

And the three minutes, please pay attention to the time when you're down to yellow.

I think it's 15 seconds, then red is when your time is up.

Joe Starzio, 118 Blinco Lane.

I'm here both as a lifetime Charlottesville resident and as a member of the Charlottesville chapter of Surge.

What's Surge?

Glad you asked.

SURGE stands for Showing Up for Racial Justice.

It's a national network organizing white people for racial justice.

I asked to speak tonight first to praise the work of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Monuments.

I admit that I went to the first meeting to try to gauge what the value of the commission would be.

But as I've listened and learned, I've come to see through their work that perhaps nothing is more important for Charlottesville than to make a true accounting of our history.

At one of the last meetings, those in attendance were asked to think of overarching themes of the Monuments Project, not just what we should do with the monuments, but what the project means.

More recently, one of the commissioners, Dr. Mason, mentioned that great William Faulkner quote, the past is never dead, it's not even past.

And as I look around at our community as we're in the midst of the planning stages of redevelopment, I fear that we'll prove both Dr. Mason and by extension Mr. Faulkner correct

I fear that the past is very much alive in what some view as the future of downtown Charlottesville.

For as with Vinegar Hill in 1965, again in 2016, the eye of redevelopment is on the residences of some people of color in our community.

Once again, there are those among us who would displace people of color to create space for private development.

Yet perhaps by looking back at history, we can make better decisions of how to look ahead.

One of the core values of surge is the value of calling in to bring as many white people as possible into the struggle for racial justice.

And so I've been trying to educate my white friends about the shameful history of urban renewal in Charlottesville and how that history is playing out today.

They're shocked.

They want to know who's to blame.

And I tell them, my friends, we're to blame.

those of us in this community who never took the time to learn the history of prejudice in this town, those of us who have been blissfully ignorant and willfully silent.

And I truly believe that only when we come to grips with our history can we break that pattern.

And so once again, I applaud the commission.

I hope that their ultimate report will be a huge step towards Charlottesville coming to grips with our history.

Even more deeply, I hope that the understanding of that history will inform the ways in which we proceed with redevelopment, that the process will be led in a meaningful way

by those who are most affected by it.

That the redevelopment process will first and foremost serve the interests of our lowest income residents rather than once again brushing them aside.

And I pledge to keep educating white people in this community to lend our voices to that effort so that Charlottesville can begin to atone for the sins of the past and in so doing create a more just future.

Thank you.

My name is Downing Smith.

I live at 810 Locust Avenue and the main thing to talk about is the speed limit on Locust Avenue.

I've been working for decades trying to slow the traffic down on Locust Avenue.

Recently, the people on the 800 block got a petition to City Council to raise the speed limit.

I raised the fines for speeding to $200.

We got that passed.

We worked for many months with the Department of

Neighborhood Development Services to come up with some plans.

They gave us a couple alternatives.

We managed to get enough ballots back in and they implemented those things.

Across the street from my house there's this big sign and it says slow down speed limit 25 miles an hour.

I found out last week that the new city traffic engineer wants to raise the speed limit on Locust Avenue to 35 miles an hour.

I can't tell you my initial reaction because you kicked me out here.

I was incredulous.

It's ludicrous.

35 miles an hour is the speed limit on the bypass, which is a limited access divided four-lane road.

And you want to put that on a residential street where people are backing their cars out of their driveways?

It just doesn't make any sense.

In sort of a related matter,

On Thursday night, I'm going to Burley Moran for the widening of the free bridge.

I think it's a bad idea, but I'll have to wait until after I go to the meeting.

But what we really need is an eastern connector.

City Council required the county to build the eastern connector as a condition by agreeing to the Meadow Creek Parkway.

City Council, not y'all, but the City Council at that time did not hold the county's feet to the fire.

the county never followed through on their promise.

So I don't think that we should allow the county to make the residents of the city of Charlottesville suffer for their uncontrolled growth in running all of that traffic through our city streets when it shouldn't go in at all.

Thank you.

Virginia, I'm sorry, it's hard for me to read the last name, but.

His first name is Virginia... Good evening.

I'm Virginia Amos, and I live at 628 Watson Avenue, and I'm a lifetime resident of Charlottesville.

I attended McGuffey School and I walked through Lee Park on the way to school every day, all those many years.

I learned to appreciate Mr. McIntyre.

Our teachers had great respect and appreciated what he had given to our city and of course they taught us to respect him and appreciate him.

Many people do not realize he also gave the library

which looks into Lee Park and was our only city library until very recently.

I learned to read books there.

I started going there as a very small child and it's one of the most beautiful buildings in all of Charlottesville.

He also gave us the tennis courts, but of course they have been sacrificed for widening McIntyre Road.

Now the city accepted a gift

from Mr. McIntyre in perpetuity.

The city block which he also purchased to be a city park and to be a proper location for the statue is perfectly architecturally symmetrical in so far as the four corners and the sidewalks and I just believe that

it should remain exactly the way it is.

Like I said, symmetrically it is laid out architecturally in a perfect manner.

Now, what I would like to know, and I understand that there are several other places around Charlottesville to locate other monuments.

I read about the creation of the vinegar hill park.

And I know that there was a statue that was supposed to have been already accepted

designed by the sculpture to raise money for it.

Now my question is why would anyone donate to any future park or statue if they realized that in a limited period of time we could just decide to do away with it or remove it or put something else there.

It's a gift.

and it was accepted by the city as such.

I think it should remain the way it is.

And frankly, I would be willing to donate to other statues and other parks around the city.

But certainly not if they were going to be subject to being removed at a later date.

Okay, that's all the sign ups that we have, so I want to thank everybody for it.

Ms. Schmidt, it was crossed off.

Oh, well then please come up.

Okay, sorry.

Council members, I'm Jelaine Schmidt, resident at 2314 Fontaine Avenue, Charlottesville.

I'm here as a citizen who identifies as African American and queer.

I am not in any way affiliated with Seaville Pride, so I am speaking only for myself and a number of other residents.

This past Saturday was the city's fifth annual Pride celebration held in Lee Park.

In attendance was marvelous.

I've attended Pride the last several years and every year I note the increased proportion of the attendees who are young people of middle school and high school age, such as my own children.

I would estimate that around half of the crowd at Pride 2016 were under 18, which bodes well for the future of tolerance in our town.

Many community groups, organizations, services, businessmen, businesses, and religious communities also had booths.

Like many citizens who oppose white supremacy, I do not feel comfortable in Lee Park for reasons that I and many others have discussed here on previous occasions.

This year at Pride, unknown persons who are not affiliated with the Seabell Pride organizers took the initiative to drape a rainbow boa through travelers' bridle.

The monument was neither defaced nor damaged in the slightest.

It was merely festooned with a multicolored garland that lent a fabulous gay aesthetic to an otherwise offensive statue.

For the first time, I witnessed delighted Pride attendees actually interacting with the General Lee statue, smiling and stopping to snap pictures with it.

That is to say, on our only day of public visibility, LGBTQ citizens were linked to an ironized version, queer, if you will, of this symbol of the town's premier civic space.

But even this eight hour attempt at festive decoration of this excuse for public art was too much for certain citizens.

Somebody called the police and complained, and the police sprang into action, perhaps to protect the boys in gray from being associated with the gay.

In the afternoon, I'm told Seville Pride staff felt obligated to remove the rainbow oboah in order to spare uniformed civil servants the bad optics of ascending the statue to remove it and likely to spare their organization any entanglement in our town's monument debate.

White fragility or the protection of the dainty sensibilities of those who prefer to avoid conversations about race is a more important priority than challenging, even for eight hours, the racist and heteronormative values that undergird these Confederate statues.

Here's the rub.

I've been told that during its festivities, the Tom Tom Festival has decorated the Lee statue, as has an organization of lady knitters who place delightful woolen leg warmers on travelers' legs.

To my knowledge, no one called the police to insist that these temporary decorations be immediately removed.

It was considered all in good fun.

But this generosity was not extended to include the LGBTQ community.

Why the unequal treatment?

Perhaps because the Tom Tom Fest is viewed as unobjectionable since it celebrates Thomas Jefferson.

Or because lady knitters are considered a paragon of innocence.

I just want to make sure because there was another, you did, okay, all right.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Okay, thank you on behalf of city council for coming to speak your minds in public comment period.

We really appreciate it.

It takes courage and strength to come up here and share opinions and we take them very carefully and seriously and we read all the emails we get as well.

So, and the city manager responds to all matters that touch on staff issues in the next

and the next meeting, as you did this time.

Sure, absolutely.

Thank you, Councillor.

Mr. Smith mentioned that there is a recommendation from our traffic engineer to increase the speed limit to 35.

He has not made that recommendation.

What he did do was

posted some information about recent traffic studies that were done in different areas of the city.

And one of those traffic studies mentioned the possibility of increasing it because of the width of the road and other aspects of the study that demonstrated that it warranted a speed limit of 35 miles per hour.

But that is not a recommendation.

It is not under consideration by the staff or by the city council.

Thank you.

I guess I would just add about the BOA

Right.

I'd like to just make a comment.

Ms. Schmidt, those words are very articulate and very thoughtful.

Okay, thank you very much.

Moving on now to item number two on the agenda, public hearing and a report on deer management strategies.

Excuse me, I was so excited to talk about the deer that I moved over the consent agenda.

Okay, consent agenda.

Item A, minutes for September 6th.

Item B, an appropriation local contributions for crisis intervention training, $71,200, second of two readings.

Item C, an appropriation grant funding for West Main Street National Register nomination, $24,000, second of two readings.

Item D, an appropriation Virginia Homelessness Solutions grant and housing opportunities for persons with AIDS, second of two readings.

Item E, an appropriation fiscal year 2017 fire programs aid to locality funding $141,082, first of two readings.

Item F, an appropriation $10,000 return from Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund Award to Albemarle Housing Improvement Program and Habitat for Humanity, first of two readings.

Item G, a resolution agreement for the Piedmont Housing Orange Dale neighborhood, first of one reading.

Any questions?

Yes sir, one quick question.

For item G, the grant agreement between Piedmont Housing and the Orangedale neighborhood, isn't there we can give a very brief synopsis about such?

Sure.

Sure, go ahead.

Okay, basically what the item in the consent agenda is, and I don't want to pull it necessarily because I do support it, I just think it's something worthy of saying out loud because I think it affects people in the community and people might want to know about it, that the Piedmont Housing Alliance was given $110,000 for down payment assistant loans for low income families and $62,500

to help low-income families with home repair within the area of the PHA, the Friendship, I'm not doing a very good job of this, but within Friendship Court residents and their clients.

They have not been able to find enough people to take that money, which is kind of an odd thing, but I think that this publicity may help.

And they have asked for the

in terms of this agreement to be changed so that they can consider people from throughout the city for these grants.

So they'd like to change the targeted area from just specifically Orange Dale and Prospect, I guess not Prenshaw Court, to encompass the entire city with priority given to Orange Dale and Prospect residents.

They'd like to have a maximum sales price for the house that is affected to make sure that it continues to be for low income families.

to $200,000 value and eliminate the minimum housing ratio and establish maximum debt ratios for those houses.

You can certainly get more details from the city but if you are in a position where you are trying to find down payment assistance for a home or have a home that needs repair and you can't afford to repair it, check with Piedmont Housing Authority.

Correct, so I think it's very important for individuals, those who are watching as well as individuals in the crowd to know

that we are doing everything that we can to increase home ownership within the city, specifically for those who may not have the ability or the capacity to not only be able to save for a home, but may not be in the best possible position to purchase a home.

And that is what this grant is for.

So again, if individuals are looking to purchase a home and they may need down payment assistance, this program is right up your alley.

If you have more questions, please feel free to let us know.

Contact staff, you can contact one of the counselors, and we will make sure we do our best to help you.

I just purchased a home in this area.

I wish I could have used this program, but this is Prospect in Orange Dale.

It's a thriving neighborhood, wonderful community.

I love all of my neighbors.

Mr. Vice Mayor, there are a couple of contact numbers that folks can reach.

817-2436 is the Piedmont Housing Alliance phone number.

And I would just like to point out, as I often do on these consent agendas, that this consent agenda, the items that we're approving here, represent about a million dollars in state grants and private grants.

And that's the motion to adopt the consent agenda.

Is there a second on the motion to adopt?

Second.

Any questions?

All right.

All in favor?

Consent agenda carries five to zero.

Thank you.

All right, now moving on to item number two on the agenda, public hearing and report, deer management strategies.

Mr. Mayor, actually, I'll begin our discussion this evening and hand it over to Mr. Murphy.

The issue of deer management, as you know, is not a new one for the city of Charlottesville.

We have for a number of years heard from residents in several neighborhoods about their concerns in the growth of the deer population.

In 2012, the City Council decided against implementing a deer management initiative that would call the herd and instead ask the staff to increase awareness and education about interactions with deer, especially in the neighborhoods with the highest populations.

But the issue was placed on the agenda for discussion and consideration once again back in July of this year.

The City Council heard a presentation from Mr. David Kochka with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries on urban deer management.

Mr. Kochka mainly discussed measures for the eradication of deer through a variety of lethal measures.

The controlled culling by hired professionals, the use of a police force, and urban archery were all potential options that were discussed that evening.

Mr. Kochis recommended clarifying the current ordinance to make it clear whether discharging a bow in the city of Charlottesville is legal and decisions about what to do with the deer and access to land would be up to individual landowners as part of that urban archery approach.

He provided us with an estimate of about $400 to $600 per deer to remove the deer by lethal methods here in the city.

The City Council asked the staff to conduct additional research on what other cities have done to address deer management.

We looked at four similar cities here in the state of Virginia who have taken steps to reduce their deer population in recent years.

The city of Harrisonburg, the town of Blacksburg,

City of Lynchburg and the City of Fairfax.

Our Assistant City Manager, Mike Murphy, did most of the research and he'll fill us in on the details of this work.

After his presentation, we'll also hear from Dr. Denise Bonds, our Health Department Director, who's here tonight to address concerns that have been raised about Lyme disease and what the statistics may be saying about increases here in Charlottesville and in the state of Virginia.

But first we'll hear from Mr. Murphy.

Thank you.

I will say that I know more about deer population management than I had ever imagined I might in my life.

And Mr. Jones has captured that really there are some key decisions to be made.

First,

Whether population management is the will of the council and the community and whether a community implemented lethal or non-lethal strategies, they all recommended

some robust engagement of neighborhoods around this topic.

So I think that's an important point and you all will have to decide that while this has been talked about for a long time, do you think that you've had the breadth of input that you may want?

On the matter of what sorts of strategies you might implement, in addition to the localities we talked to, I did speak with

Folks from the U.S. Humane Society and a group called White Buffalo, which is an organization that implements all the different types of deer population management strategy.

They were the folks who did the deer sterilization project for the city of Fairfax, but they also do

Vaccinations, bow hunting, sharp shooting, all sorts of strategies.

So good information from those folks.

And you do have to look at each of the localities that we examined and then our particular issue in Charlottesville.

So I know that there was some concern when Mr. Kochis was here about what does our ordinance say and would we have to allow urban archery.

And so based on the information that we got from localities, I had NDS do some mapping today.

And with 10.4 square miles, we have just under 7,000 acres in the city of Charlottesville.

And we have a total of five acres that might qualify if you stay 100 yards away from every commercial building, dwelling, roadway, or park or trail.

So just so you understand urban archery and its practicality in the way that we've used our land and our particular density,

It would be extremely difficult and that's not to say that we shouldn't be more specific with the language of our ordinance that may be something that the council wants to take up with Mr. Brown's assistance but I think that for all practical purposes it remains a non-issue and I will say that

Dr. D. Nicola with White Buffalo.

He went through a survey of our community with Google Earth and consulted with me, and he didn't feel that that would be practical.

He did say that it would be possible to do a controlled cull with bow hunting or sharp shooting where you attract the deer to a location.

either with professionals or with law enforcement.

Communities use both strategies.

We talked about the relative merits of sterilization efforts.

He couldn't really recommend vaccination, although they do offer it as a service because, number one, you have to dart the female deers in and tag them.

in successive seasons, right?

And the difficulty in that is great enough, and the loss of dollars for when you're on the field is great enough that he prefers sterilization through ovaryectomy where they tranquilize female deer and then they either remove the ovaries or

tied the fallopian tubes and it cost about $1200 per deer.

So there is some significant cost to that intervention.

Yes, they did have a grant and we have talked to those folks with the wildlife fund in Maryland.

So there are a variety of options.

I would say that you know one of the other things that council needs to measure that all the folks talked about was you know there is some difference between kind of what's the biological capacity of our community and you know that would be evidenced by is there enough food source for the deer and what's the incidence of traffic accidents and a little bit about

disease, and Dr. Bonds will certainly talk about that, versus kind of what's our community social caring about cohabitating with deer and wildlife, and you know whether that's more so about people's vegetation and landscape and interacting with deer.

So there are a number of issues, certainly can answer a lot of questions from council on this topic,

Two non-Health Department related questions that are I think pretty straightforward.

A couple of things since our last meeting about the deer that people have talked to me about and may come up during a public hearing as well is the concern about the fact that where deer are very heavily populated they're eating a lot of the kind of understory of trees and brush

and the concern that they may be increasing erosion around creeks.

I would say that based on my conversations with the U.S. Humane Society of folks that they would say that site-specific strategies that include fencing and other barriers for the deer would be something they would try rather than

And what about the habitat that that sort of undergrowth provides for other small animals?

I got Mike, Mike got a question.

In the cities that you checked, the police department was one department that would handle this.

Council Fenwick, really it is primarily in police as a separate division through animal control or a special assignment for the officers in the regular force.

But it varies from department to department.

But for example, Blacksburg, Lynchburg, they have folks who are either part time and that's all they do.

or it is a part-time assignment for them.

And you said because we have 10.4 square miles that all we have is five acres basically.

Well I will say that one thing I talked about with the professional staff of all these organizations was does the city manager or town manager or county executive allow hunting on public land and all of them said no.

And so certainly a decision point

but we approached this as though would we be allowing property owners to have rights to hunt on their property with an urban archery permit and then once we mapped structures and following state code about not discharging a weapon within a hundred yards of a roadway or a dwelling we ended up with ten parcels

that account for five total acres.

So there's 10 areas, tiny little white spots on our map in the city of up to a half an acre each where you could do this.

Are they in deer heavy areas?

Not all of them, no.

So when Mr. Koshka came on July 18, he mentioned that they looked at 46 communities, that they studied 46.

I don't know for sure that we overlap with that.

We went out through some resources of colleagues in these cities, knew that they had implemented some strategies.

We're also trying to match up folks who may have similar communities in population.

And did any of the four localities that you looked at, the Blacksburg, Linsburg, Fairfax, and Harrisonburg,

Did they all undertake a deer inventory first?

And then what would that cost to do?

Two of them, I believe, did do a deer inventory.

Two of them have done this for such a long time.

They didn't have any kind of institutional memory of that.

They basically decided that they wanted to cull the deer.

I think Blacksburg, you'll see in

My report, what, 218 deer in a year last year, right?

So what they tracked then in terms of the outcomes was not so much diminished deer population but diminished accidents, collisions, that sort of thing.

That was absolutely their intent.

Thank you.

So I spoke to Mr. Kochis today because I had a couple questions before this.

And I was just going through the presentation he gave us before.

So there are 45 localities in Virginia who have urban archery programs that are supervised by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

And they include some communities that are very different from us, but Arlington County has this, Richmond City,

A couple of the ones that we have in the report here, they have an urban archery program and then they have the culling on top of that.

I was confused about that.

And the reason they have that is because they have areas where they need a supplemental program because it's public land or there's some other variable.

So they have the hunters doing the self-policing one and then they also have.

So I was, and I don't want to be critical and put us on the spot, I just want to know why.

Did we look into any other communities that are pure urban archery?

That's the only system they have that are like us, that are like communities.

And then the other thing is, I'm just googling, I'm just looking at a couple articles.

This is one about the implementation of the program in Chesterfield.

And it says here that you must aim 150 feet away from a building and have the property owner's permission at the season and it's only antler to steer.

Some of them are state level code with relationship to roadways for example.

That's a roadway, okay.

I would say that when we talk to experts about this and the localities themselves everybody makes a decision about how to write their ordinance and I would say that nobody I talked to would say 150 feet is adequate because all of them said even expert professional hunters

could hit a deer and it could run between 50 and 100 yards and in pick a neighborhood, Greenbrier that has the most, you would have to have property permissions

for every potential affected person who's within that radius when you put your urban archery ordinance into place in order for the person to get permitted.

And so, for example, I think it was Blacksburg, they don't allow it on any parcel that's smaller than three acres.

That's a zoning determination that they make.

and because they allow it on certain types of zoning.

In Lynchburg, they don't allow it within 100 yards of any dwelling, which certainly, you know, we use that standard for our map today, which gives us so little room.

So even for the non-lethal interventions, right, if you brought somebody to do sterilization, they wouldn't do it on private property at all.

without the same range of permissions.

So let me, so if a hunter were to be in say, Middle Creek Valley, Middle Creek Creek Valley or Shanks Branch and they wanted to do what he had to do or she had to do there,

I would say that would be good practice.

Yeah, we have 20 minutes in the agenda.

Good evening.

So I have been asked to come and talk about Lyme disease.

So I want to just spend a few minutes.

So Lyme disease is caused by bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi that is carried by the tick, commonly known as the deer tick, but in fact it's not limited to the deer.

So just so we're all aware and can understand the ramifications of

Deer reduction on the tick population in Lyme disease.

This particular tick has a two-year life cycle.

It starts out as eggs, they hatch, become larva, and then take a blood meal, generally off of small mice or birds, and that carries them for several months to the nymph stage.

The nymph stage, they're about two millimeters in size, and that's the point when typically they transmit

the Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease to humans and that's because they're very small and you don't notice them when you're out walking and so you get bitten and then don't pull them off immediately as you would with an adult tick.

The nymph can bite a variety of animals so they're not limited to deer for example.

They can also bite and take blood meals off of raccoons and foxes and other

Mammals that live around in addition to humans.

Once the nymph takes that blood meal then they again sit around and do nymph-like things for a few months until they become adults and at an adult stage they bite the deer at that point and take a very large blood meal and that provides the nutrients that they need to lay the eggs.

So the deer are actually considered a terminal host at that point in time.

So the deer may be infected by Lyme disease but they're not going to

to be able to transmit that on because the tick no longer bites after they bite that very large mammal.

Very rarely do the adults transmit the Lyme disease to humans because they're pretty big at that point in time and you know when you've been bitten by a large adult-sized tick and you pull it off quickly.

To be infected by the Borrelia, the tick has to be in contact for about 36 to 48 hours.

That's why the nymph, which is quite small, again, two millimeters, typically is overlooked when you get bitten by it and has the opportunity to infect individuals.

So I want to talk just a bit about how we track Lyme disease in the state of Virginia.

This is a reportable condition.

That means that when a physician diagnoses Lyme disease, they're required to report it to the health department.

and we get those reports all the time.

But we don't do surveillance testing.

So we rely only on physicians, rely on individuals having symptoms, seeking care at a physician's office.

The physician actually recognizing those symptoms of Lyme disease, doing the test and sending it off and then reporting it back to us.

So all of the data that I sent you last July is not pure epidemiological data.

So it's

A representation of how much Lyme disease we have in our community, but it's probably not the true measure of burden in our community.

There's lots of people who probably get infected with Lyme disease and never seek treatment.

There's lots of physicians who see patients who have the same symptoms but don't bother to draw that test.

And there are probably some cases that they do diagnose and just never bother to report to us at the health department.

So that's a big caveat.

It does appear if you look at the reported number of cases that there is a rise here in Charlottesville, but also across the entire district that we see.

So there is more Lyme disease being reported.

I don't know that that means that there's more Lyme disease actually in our community.

There's a pretty big increase in awareness of Lyme disease amongst the general population.

And so that may be

the underlying cause for the increase.

More people are aware of it.

They go to seek care of the physician.

The physicians are more aware of it.

They draw the test.

We get more reports.

So there's some caveats with that disease.

The final thing I'd like to talk briefly about is there have been some studies that have looked at reducing deer populations and the impact on infected nymphs in communities.

There aren't very many good studies.

So a good study would be that you reduce the deer population in one community and you have another very similar community where you don't reduce the deer population and you compare over time.

And what they've found is that you can see a reduction in nymphs, but typically you have to get the deer population down to the order of about three per square kilometer, or about roughly eight per square mile.

before you really see any substantial reduction.

And that reduction is not immediate because this is a two-year life cycle for these ticks.

And the deer, again, are kind of that terminal host.

I actually don't know.

That's the square mile I live in.

It's more than that.

Well, mark this my first city council meeting where we've had blood meal as a term several times.

And terminal host.

That sounds like something out of an animal rice novel.

That's funny.

So thank you.

Okay, so now we've back on our 20 minutes.

Let's, everyone okay with another 10 minutes?

Okay to this topic?

Okay, so let's do, we have a public hearing.

Any other questions before we do the hearing?

Public hearing and there are baked goods up here for everyone, courtesy of Ms. Szakos.

Dina Imlay.

We have a bunch of folks with us.

Everyone has three minutes.

I'm Dina Imlay, 2014, out of Brooke Road, Charlottesville.

I'm here all the time.

I'm the president of the Meadowbrook Hills Rugby Neighborhood Association.

And we did a deer poll, just asked our 200 households what they would say about culling deer or not culling deer.

Of all the respondents, we had 97.7% in favor of culling in some form or another.

2.1% felt that it was not a problem, that deer were not a problem at all out of the respondents.

76.6% were in favor of bowhunters.

The remainder were in favor of birth control or catch and remove.

So those people that were in favor of catch and remove and in birth control were not necessarily against

and Bo Hunting.

They were just stating their preference for how they would call the herd.

On a personal note, a Thanksgiving ago, we were driving on Route 29 and a large buck stepped onto Route 29 in front of our car and we totaled our Prius instantly.

and we're really very lucky to be alive.

The deer went into the windshield and up over the top and the response we got from the policeman was, did you want to keep the meter, could I?

You may.

So I just want to say that this is an overall problem that is not going to go away by just ignoring it.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Nancy Summers.

Blue Ridge Road.

And I'm very concerned about the fact that herds of deer live on our property.

It's not that big a property, but it's not unusual to see six or eight deer on our property looking out the window.

Needless to say, they do a great deal of damage to the property.

It's surprising to me that wildlife now inhabits the city.

Of course, when I was growing up, you never would see deer in the city.

And when they saw you, they would skedaddle.

They were gone.

And of course, now they've evolved in such a way that they're no longer afraid of humans.

I'm sure everyone's experienced that.

And so I began investigating, well, what's the problem?

Why are there so many deer here?

And of course, we are the problem because we've created the ideal environment for deer in our own neighborhoods.

They have no natural enemies.

They see me.

They think of me as a friend.

I don't feel the same, of course, about them.

There's deer feces in the yard.

Last year in September, I had to have the police come to kill a deer that had been injured and was lying in our front yard.

It seems to me that this problem of deer overpopulation is going to only increase.

When populations begin to increase, they increase more.

So when I heard this gentleman talk about the fact that it was going to be very difficult

to control populations, I thought, well, you're going to have an even worse problem soon, because it's the nature of population increase that you have a geometric progression, so there'll be more and more deer.

So I think that we're going to have to think about how we're going to solve this problem.

These are wild animals.

They don't belong in a city environment, even though they're very happy there.

And I think we have to consider what alternatives are available to us so that we can live as, you know, as people.

And I want to say one other thing about as people in neighborhoods, about the ecological effect of deer.

So I started to read about this on the Internet.

They do, in fact, eat saplings.

I've had to meet three deer in my own yard.

I like to be a good citizen.

If some sort of tree dies in our yard, I plant a new one for posterity, not for the deer.

But I do plant them.

and they eat them, they eat saplings and you will see this in the UK, in the whole eastern United States, florists are actually threatened by the overpopulation of deer.

It's not a small thing when the animal-plant sort of balance is out of whack.

And so I think we need to think about what are we going to do because the population will continue to increase, not decrease.

Thank you.

My name is Tom Gallagher and the deer and I live at 1920 Barracks Road.

Two years ago, policemen came through our yard looking for the deer that had been hit by the car.

About a month ago, when I walked up Barracks Road to our house, I discovered a dead deer on the side of the road.

It was a fawn, so it probably didn't do too much damage to the car that had hit it, but if it had been a big one, it could have been like the Prius.

So, this problem is getting worse.

I keep track of the number of deer in our yard, and so we haven't quite hit the record of seven or eight, but I've seen six at once.

But more important, I've seen three flans at once.

So, I mean, they're clearly multiplying rapidly.

And they're getting hungrier, too, because it used to be that they were in the back of our yard, in sort of the edge of the woods, far away from the road.

But now, of course, by now, the hostas are long gone.

These areas have all been trimmed off.

And so they're working on the foliage near the road.

You can see that they're hungry because now it's September and our Euonymus that I trimmed back a year ago are all stripped of the bark.

I knew that in fact animals in the middle of the winter are busy taking the bark from the trees, but it's September, it's not the middle of winter.

So basically these deer are desperate looking for food.

They're now quite happy along the edge of the road.

And it's only a matter of time before more of them wander out in the road and get hit.

So I implore you, as the members of the city council, to do something about the deer.

This is actually a public safety problem.

Meredith Mercer, 2000 Hessian Road.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I don't want to repeat too much, but of course I have exactly the same.

I've seen six and seven deer, not the two or three that were mentioned before.

And the other thing I want to point out is that I have a 10-foot fence around my backyard, and about a week ago, a doe managed to jump it.

I know.

And tore part of it down, but still managed to get over to the other side.

So it's not as if we haven't tried other solutions here.

And when I came 10 years ago to the area and to Charlottesville, living in the city, I saw very few deer.

I mean, I don't think I saw anything in my area.

And now, so soon later, we have such a large population.

I don't know if the gentleman before has walked through Meadowbrook

but there's certain areas where they sleep.

You know, some of the properties are an acre or two acres and there's low level areas where they gather and I think it would be a benefit for some of them to walk the area and see it for themselves.

How bad it really is.

Anyway, I really hope that you can give some serious attention to this matter.

Thank you.

Hi, thanks for having me back.

My name is Laura Jones and I live at 106 Holly Court.

I know I'm in the minority here, but I think therefore it's even more important that I speak up.

I'm opposed to allowing any hunting in the city limits, and I'm opposed to the use of sharpshooters to kill deer in the city limits.

I have one qualified apology, one compliment, and three points to consider in probably two and a half minutes.

The apology is I apologize for speaking out of turn at the last meeting.

Mr. Kochis' report, though, was quite difficult for me to listen to as a person with some experience in science because he had very little scientific data in it, and I found that frustrating.

But again, I apologize for speaking out of turn.

Even with that lack of scientific data, he admitted that the only problem in Virginia

is the cultural carrying capacity and not biological carrying capacity.

The compliment is that I think the staff report that was presented here today, and I read the full report and the agenda, was incredibly science-based, comprehensive, very detailed in gathering data from relevant places, and I was so pleased to see staff and council getting that kind of information, so I'm grateful for the staff's work there.

Three points to consider.

Back to science, since we don't have a count of our deer and we're relying on anecdotal evidence, I find that upsetting to again follow, to consider killing without a starting point.

and New York Times article recently even says we kill millions of animals each year without the science to justify it and I know the city spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on parking studies and no one dies in a parking study so I would ask, I'd obviously ask first that we do not kill the deer

and that we follow the HSUS suggestions.

But secondarily, if I am overruled by my neighbors and my council, then I would ask that we get some data.

And so the first point is let's get as much science as possible.

The second point is since this is a divisive issue, it pits neighbor against neighbor.

I live in Greenbrier.

I don't have a problem with the deer.

Again, I understand I'm in the minority.

I'm not asking you to make a decision on my personal experience.

But I am asking you to consider that I have strong opinions on this matter, and I have neighbors that have strong opinions on this matter.

I also have neighbors that use their leaf blower all day long chasing one leaf around the yard.

I have cats that sit in the middle of the cul-de-sac that have to make my neighbors insane.

We manage to get along.

We get through these little divisions because my neighbors are good people.

I'm a good person.

So we kind of ignore them.

My neighbors allow bow hunting in their yard, and it's done.

I mean, that's not going to be okay.

That's going to be hard to get along and get over if that happens.

So, third thing is leadership.

I think this is kind of a neat opportunity for the city to really...

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, my name is Fred Bork.

I've lived

for 25 years at 1647 Oxford Road in the city.

And my first time I've attended a meeting, and I'd like to make a couple of points, if I may, about the deer.

I agree with the speakers who said, look, this is a city.

A city generally is for human beings.

That's how we organize our society.

And we can't just have wild animals here.

Suppose we had an overcrowding of bear or wolves or foxes.

And suppose foxes were eating people's cats that they have in their backyards.

Would that person come to you and say, I'm willing to let all the foxes that want to live in the city be here?

Well, I think no.

That would be foolish.

The deer are a real problem.

They certainly devastate our yards.

My wife is an avid gardener, and it's very upsetting to her

that the deer do the damage and I understand that's one point but I would ask the council to consider as others have said it's really a health and safety issue.

It is only a matter of time before someone is involved in a serious automobile accident with the deer and they will be killed or seriously injured and then there will be a lot of hand wringing in the city about what could we have done about this.

And I'm serious.

I think it's only a matter of time given the speeds on 250 before there will be a serious accident.

And I agree with the earlier speaker who said the deer population is not going to decrease.

It's only going to increase because that's the way it is.

25 years ago when I moved here, you didn't ever see a deer in the city.

15 years ago, one or two.

Now, you see them all the time.

During the day, they're out in the streets.

It is a real, real problem.

It's health and safety.

I don't think birth control is much of an option.

I realize we had a doctor testify here about Lyme disease, and I certainly defer to a medical professional, but my wife got Lyme disease

Fortunately, she had a symptom that was detectable.

Not all people who get Lyme disease have symptoms.

It is a deadly disease.

It can really kill you.

And Lyme disease is, in fact, connected to deer.

And so I'm convinced that because we have so many deer in the city, that is what allowed that Lyme disease to affect my wife.

Hello everyone.

I made the mistake to register my name in the tier management strategy.

This is my first time here.

I just wanted to address a small word friendly and it's not a matter of concern.

We are a few participants from the MENA region.

We have Jordan, Algeria, Palestine, Tunisia, Morocco.

And we came to the US to benefit from its experience even if the US is one of the youngest countries in a matter of history, but it is the oldest democracy.

This opportunity allowed us to gather between us and get advantage from the U.S. experience and also share our own experiences between our cultures.

And also, finally, we're not here only to get from the U.S., but also we're working on civic action plans in Charlottesville to implement something that will remain after we leave.

This is an example of civic engagement in action, the public hearing.

Thank you.

We're delighted to have you here.

Colette Hall.

Good evening, counselors.

Colette Hall, 101 Robertson Lane in the city.

I left my paper at home, so I'm kind of ad libbing here.

In deference to what the doctor had to say, I've been a registered nurse for 47 years, and I have too often seen Lyme disease misdiagnosed or undiagnosed, and it's frequently diagnosed as chronic fatigue syndrome,

fibromyalgia, fever of unknown origin, arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and frequently by the time a person is correctly diagnosed and treated they will have lifelong symptoms and as one gentleman said, perhaps even death.

So I do attribute that to the overpopulation of deer in our city.

I live four blocks from this building down off Park Street.

So you're going to see them on the mall probably in the winter.

In this summer, I had seven deer in my front yard.

And during the winter, my neighbor on the other side of the fence, he had 13 deer in her backyard, despite the fact that she has a dog.

I personally would welcome

a professional or qualified hunter into my yard to help eradicate the deer problem because it is indeed a problem.

I think it is a health problem.

We know it's a safety problem.

I know many, many people who have told me they've stopped gardening.

I mean like vegetable gardening.

Forget ornamental gardening.

And they want to eat fresh vegetables and we talk about local food sources.

Well, we can't grow our own gardens anymore because the deer just decimate them overnight.

So I hope that you will carefully but broadly enough craft an ordinance which will allow us to call the deer that do not belong in this city.

Thank you.

Downing... Smith again?

Hello again.

I think most of you... Name and address.

Oh, Downing, Smith, 810, Livingston Avenue.

Thank you.

Is that better?

I have a different slant on this thing.

A compound hunting bow is a lethal weapon, and having people running around Charlottesville firing those things off scares me to you know what.

The assistant city manager has laid a lot of my fears from his presentation has given me a lot of facts that I did not know.

So at this point, even if you pass the thing, if he would tell me where those five acres were, I'll just stay away from him.

But before that I was worried about having to post my property to keep people off of it from hunting.

I was worried about having to wear blaze irons and put blaze irons on my dog if I wanted to walk on the Greenbelt Trail.

And quite frankly from what the city manager said, if we can only implement it on five acres, I don't think it's worth doing.

Thank you.

That is the conclusion of our public hearing.

I'd now like to, we have a lot to get through tonight.

This is a really important issue.

We've got several other items ahead of us, so I'd like to put 10 minutes more for us to talk about this and get some advice from staff about what they need from us in the way of direction.

We may go over that.

But we don't have a motion.

This was set up as a report where we want direction from council.

It's sort of a little different from a standard item where it's going to be a resolution on the floor for us to vote on.

You're looking for some direction from us more in the sense of a

of a conversation and a consensus or at least some directions.

So with all that said, the floor is open for discussion.

And I should say also this is the second meeting of the month.

We moved the work sessions that we used to have off camera the first Thursday of every month into the second meeting of the month so that under the new procedures that

in an effort to be more transparent.

People can watch us deliberate openly as opposed to have it be in Thursday in city space.

So this is one of those work sessions.

We're just talking.

There doesn't have to be a motion that's passed under Robertsville's order.

You want to start on this side?

Sure.

Yeah, Mr. Fenwick.

OK.

I'm all over the place with all these notes here, but I'll try to make it fast.

And I don't mean any of these comments to be disrespectful.

But these are what I've heard from neighborhood meetings, residents.

We do have a culling program now.

It's called an automobile.

It's just not doing the job.

Some people are really concerned.

Well, let me see.

As a community, we cherish our nature.

That's why we have these trails.

That's why we try to open up stream beds and work on stream meanderings and all that.

So when deer overpopulate, they will affect the balance of nature.

There is no predator.

And that's a problem because if and when they do that,

then they affect other creatures that are in that same stream bed.

One lady in particular was very concerned about butterflies.

It would affect the butterfly population.

So there's more than just a deer that we're talking about.

We're talking about a lot of different animals that inhabit these areas.

From what I hear from the neighborhoods, people would support a culling program.

And that's not to be characterized as wiping out the deer in the city.

And I would propose a pilot program.

And I would propose limiting it to bigger open areas in the five acres we mentioned.

Penn Park, McIntire Park, Meadow Creek Park, which is a long longitudinal park, basically.

maybe one or two professional bow hunters and see how that works after a year or so.

We would have our own local statistics about that.

I would not be in favor of having the police take care of this.

The police are trained law enforcement people.

I would rather have them doing police work.

They go to the academy and all that.

They are police officers.

They are not game wardens.

So I would not be in favor of the police being in charge of this.

One lady said about the 10 foot fence, I have seen them clear an 8 foot fence.

So they do, they just move.

I had a, last time I had a garden, they ate everything.

And I think they enjoyed it because everything in that garden was down to about an inch nub.

So there went all the vegetables and all of that.

But to me it's a safety thing.

It's not for ornamentals because people are losing roses or azaleas or whatever.

It's a safety thing.

I was building a house in Massen.

I had a young fellow who was working for me.

We walked up the driveway.

He was early in the morning, and he was looking at his lunch.

He was looking down.

And for some reason, he looked up, and there was a buck from here to probably 10 feet away.

And it startled him so much he froze.

and I said that was probably the best thing that you did because deer in rutting season, this was either late summer or early fall, I forget, they will move toward movement, they will charge movement and I said it was the best thing that happened to you and eventually that guy stayed there long enough the deer just wandered away but I tell that story because you see around town, not just on the streets but in the parks, kids, young kids, even adults

I think based on the research that we've gotten from staff, this is kind of what I'm seeing

our options are boiling down to.

And because of our density, because of our land use, because of the lot sizes we have and the overall settlement pattern we have, we have one of two choices.

The first choice would be that non-lethal intervention, which would be the birth control.

The second would be a controlled kill.

I do not see how

open archery in a city with our kind of a settlement pattern would work.

The implication of this is I am saying that I do believe we need to manage the deer population because there is no natural predator.

So then it does begin to be the question, so how do you do it?

How do you do it accurately and humanely and safely?

It does seem to me, based on staff's recommendations, and correct me if I'm wrong at the end of this, that your research is pointing to a city like ours doing a controlled kill with a professional hunter, and that it would also mean that we should actually

do a deer inventory.

I really do think that we need to do some sort of assessment beforehand and after so that we know where we're starting from.

Now that is what I'm hearing.

I hear from multiple neighborhoods.

Just Thursday night I was in Greenbrier.

That's the whole pressure in the room was about deer.

I do think we do need to also do an intensive outreach to get more community input.

I really applaud the

The neighborhood that's represented here for doing your own survey is pretty amazing, pretty impressive.

But I do think we do need to hear from people about their concerns.

I do think we need to to really get an estimate of what it would cost to get a deer inventory.

And I am not prepared to go the route if we proceed with the majority of council doing the

a managed deer population.

Well, I thought the report was very informative.

Just for the sake of time, I'm not going to run the point.

I agree with Ms. Galvin in regards to I think we need to do a little bit more, not just research, but community engagement to hear from a wide variety of different individuals.

I know some people will say that it's council's responsibility to make decisions, and I think in order for us to make a well-informed decision that we need to hear from more people.

I don't want this to be a situation in which we just jump the gun, quote unquote, and just make a rash decision based on the input that we heard.

I've heard very compelling arguments from two different sides here tonight.

You've made two different arguments on two different occasions stating very clearly in which how passionately you feel as well as there are many others who emailed us and communicated to us about how they do not want to see deer just quote unquote shot and killed.

However, we've also heard from a large group of individuals who have stated that something must be done.

I agree.

Something must be done.

We cannot continue to go the same route in which we've gone.

But in order for us to figure out exactly what that is,

I think we need to make a collective and unified decision together.

This city is one, I don't want this dear situation to be one that rips us apart, especially in a neighborhood as great as the Walker precinct.

I agree with almost all of what Councilor Galvin said except the idea of the deer count.

I think we could spend an awful lot of time and not really have any accurate deer move all the time, but I do think we already have a proxy count.

We have the traffic accidents which have risen exponentially and I think that we can have that baseline as something to compare to if we do a deer cull or kill.

I think

All respect to Councillor Bellamy and I'm fine with hearing from more people but I will say after six and a half years on council I've heard from a lot of people every single year the whole six years and people do feel strongly and I think I've certainly heard far more people feeling that there is a problem that there are dear and that something should be done

But I certainly respect the people who don't want them killed because I've gone through that same place myself.

I do think that wildlife belongs in the city.

I think it's one of the things we love about our city, that we have wildlife in our city.

But I think that this particular wildlife at this point is severely out of balance and we're seeing that

the suffering of the wildlife themselves when they get hit by cars.

We're seeing other habitats, you know, probably, we're not absolutely sure, but it's, you know, common sense tells us that they're being affected.

We're certainly seeing imbalance in the ability of people to grow food, to grow, you know, other, to grow trees in the city, and I think those are all very important.

The couple of things that I've kind of come down on is I too do not like the idea of a hunting season where regular, you know, hunters can come into the city and hunt.

So I don't see any reason to pursue that or try to make that any easier.

And I am concerned about, I think the proposal for police was paying police overtime and not using police time during the day.

That is fine.

I'd be equally interested in looking at other people with, you know, hunters for the hungry or something like that if there are people who can do that, who are, you know, can be

trusted in some way to be in the city.

I do worry about gunfire.

I mean, I think we have enough gunfire in our neighborhoods already.

And I don't know if there are silencers or if we could hire bow hunters to do that same thing.

I am concerned about shots ringing out in neighborhoods and frightening people and making them think that something of calling the police because they think someone is being shot.

I missed my note.

I'm interested in the birth control idea, the spaying of female deer.

I'm appalled by the price.

So my thoughts are that I have heard about this issue constantly over the last, ever since, well before running for city council, and a lot of the same sentiment that I heard today.

I think that with everything, every policy decision in this city, we're trying to make a decision that's consistent with our values and our culture, we're trying to

be fiscally responsible, we're trying to be inclusive, we're trying to build bridges as much as we can but we also have to make decisions and as I've learned there's no decision that is not going to unsettle or make some people unhappy with us so that's just a fact and that would be the case with any decision we would make on this issue including not doing anything.

I am, I kind of

In trying to think philosophically about the culling prospects, I actually have more discomfort with the most kind of methodical kind of lethal action.

I like the idea more of having hunters who are stewards of the environment, are connected

in some way with their prey in a way that goes very deep to human history and that at least has, it's a part of Virginia culture, it's heavily regulated.

I sort of have more personal discomfort with the idea of this both very expensive and very methodical, you know, the kind of more machine-like

execution of deer, I guess.

None of these is perfect options, but as I've thought about this for a few months.

And the other thing is I really would like more research from the cities which have urban archery programs that have similar population densities to us.

I was just looking through a few.

Fredericksburg is the same size as we are.

It's got 28,000 people, not 46,000.

or whatever we are, but they're one of the urban archery.

Arlington County, where I grew up, has a much greater population density, probably many factors, and they have urban archery as I've been looking.

Richmond does as well.

And I really don't want to make decisions based on

kind of feelings about, discomfort about.

When I've looked at the research and what we got from David Kochikow, who's here, there is no demonstrated public safety concern about urban archery programs.

There has been one incident, I think, since like the 60s, he said, if I'm remembering.

So I understand our feelings about this, but if they've done it in cities like Richmond, Arlington County,

Blacksburg, Roanoke City, Fredericksburg, you know those cities also I'm sure confronted these same issues and got over them and dealt with them in a way and I'm curious about I really would like to know what their experiences have been so for me and the other really specific regulatory statutory question is what are the specific state restrictions that would limit the terrain where this could be done specifically do you and I didn't see them the maps but and Mike got into it some

So I really would like to know about the lessons from other similar areas which have done the pure urban archery

and that is, but I'm inclined to be for a range of options with culling and I'm very sensitive to cost.

That's my, that's where I am.

And I also think I would rather go sooner rather than later.

I think that the, I don't think we need to do, to have a study that is a precedent for doing this.

I think that we can include some data gathering along with it, but I'm wary about setting up an expensive obstacle that could

May I add one other thing that if we do, in order to make a decision, what I would love to have from staff in order to make that decision would be sort of a plan of if it were to be done in a particular, if we were to do the hired guns or hired bows in a particular neighborhood, what the plan would be to notify the neighborhood.

So we could certainly address that.

If we come back to council, I will say that everybody said that you have to acquire individual property owner permission, both for lethal and non-lethal interventions.

And I'm happy to survey as many of the cities have the urban archery ordinance as is the will of council.

I would point out that

Harrisonburg, for example, has an urban archery ordinance.

And the city manager there is unaware of any permits they've issued in the last three years.

So having an ordinance on the books will not necessarily equal that people are taking deer.

And so we would also want to provide counsel with some information.

Sure, there's an ordinance in Richmond.

I think it would be helpful.

to go down the list

and a common theme was three acres or 100 yards of a dwelling and many of, not certainly not all, but many of the municipalities around the state, whether they're counties, towns or cities.

So there seemed to be some agreement with a lot of these municipalities.

OK, so this, I think, OK, so we could go through the specific bullets here.

or we could go yay or no.

So whether additional public input beyond the previous town hall discussion scheduled public hearing is needed and to what degree?

So that would be before decision is made.

But this is before weaving.

That would be up to council.

Well we'd have the public hearing again when this came back.

Yeah, when we would have an ordinance we would absolutely have public hearings.

Well,

Before I got the staff's report, I thought that we had done enough and that we've heard a lot.

And over the last five years of town hall meetings, this always came up.

Although we never recorded it in a very formal way, that this is what the report from the community was.

And so reading the staff report, how frequently

those communities did community outreach in a very concerted focused way has given me some pause.

Should we be more diligent about collecting input on this?

I actually think we can proceed on two tracks.

That we, as we continue with our town halls, we can create a situation where the future town halls

we offer an opportunity to talk just about deer.

We do know from Greenbrier, we do know from this neighborhood here, which we've already met in a town hall, but at the same time look into what are the kind of the performance metrics we're gonna want to see before and after changes if we had a controlled culling.

Like, not a deer inventory per se, but at least some

data that tells us how many cars have been hit, how many complaints have we heard, that sort of thing so we know before and after.

So I'm willing to go both tracks.

We continue doing research to the point where we get more of a comfort level as to what exactly to do for controlling the deer population.

I think there's consensus here about we need to control the deer population.

I

I don't, I still don't see how an urban archery ordinance is going to solve our problem.

Perhaps when we look at, you know, we do, so, I mean, oh, we're just doing bullet one all the way?

Except that we always

Always welcome comments.

Okay.

I would say yes, but I'd like to explore the hunting in McIntire Park, Penn Park, Meadow Creek Park,

Streamway, whatever we call it.

So it wouldn't be in the neighborhoods.

You wouldn't have people climbing over the fence in a sort of a distant place.

Because the deer will be there.

Can I just get some clarification on that?

Do you mean to have a professional hunters organization that the city would contract with, or you mentioned before you were against having the police, but it would be someone that the city would contract with, not just opening up hunting

It would be bowhunting.

Are you for allowing private?

It would be limited, no.

It would be limited on public property.

So not the urban or tree ordinance?

So I too am against open bowhunting.

I've got to just kind of give my own

But I have a question then, because the third bullet, the way it's presented to us, is whether to allow the police department or a private organization to hunt deer on public land within the city.

Yes, you're right, I'm on the wrong bullet.

But my understanding is that it is okay to have a professional hunter or somebody trained with using the weapon to be on public land.

The problem is to have

is when you have amateurs on public land.

And so can I have a clarification from staff?

Is that when they did have a professional organization calling the herd?

There are organizations that

have been hired by cities or cities have allowed their police department to bait and kill deer in a publicly owned place.

And that makes sense to me because that does sound like that's a very dangerous thing to do

It's on the issue of the urban archery.

I heard from Councillor Fenwick and Councillor Szakos.

I just think the urban archery, again based on what we've read tonight and heard, urban archery is not effective and it's just not effective.

We don't have the land area and it's too dense, it's too

Well I would be the lone voice for we're doing one based on but I'm out voted and I'm not going to argue for it.

In principle I would say yes in very restricted conditions.

So is there a difference between, okay, so we've talked about individual hunters, self-run, out there hunting, we're allowed to do that by an ordinance.

If you have an organization as

An entity that has an agreement with the city, that's a different... Can that still be free?

Can they be... Because one of the appeals to me of the Urban Archery, and this is what David, when he presented this, is that it's just free.

Hunters are self-regulated and it doesn't cost the city.

There is a contractual relationship.

Sometimes there is a cost associated with it.

I would think for the most part that there is.

Hunters for the Hungry is not always the organization doing the hunting.

For example, in some of the departments like Blacksburg and Lynchburg, when the police do the cull, they donate that meat in Lynchburg to a packing plant that will give the meat to Hunters for the Hungry.

I did some research.

Almost all those places are west and south of us that have plants like that.

I saw that there was somebody who participates who does meat packing in Schuyler.

We didn't call them because it wasn't sure how far to go down this path without instruction from council.

But I think you would look to see what kind of arrangement you could make.

And so the hunters for the hungry angle is not necessarily

I think that's a good question.

I think that's a good question.

You'll see I think I included a model ordinance for you all and it specifies the size of the property, the height that the hunter has to be up in a tree stand, and you know I think that there's

Mr. Mayor, are you talking about on public property or private property?

Well, I guess both.

In private property, I think that's the urban archery.

So another follow up then for clarification.

Going the route of a contracted professional organization to cull the deer population

that by contract with the city, we would set the parameters for public land, but then if they did a go on private land, they would have to be subject to an ordinance, just like any other individual hunter.

Well, then this is telling me that since I am leaning towards getting a controlled call with a professional organization, we may need that ordinance just to allow them to be also effective on private property.

I think we'll have some volunteers.

And that's why my question is whether there's an option here where the organization you're talking about and whether it's professional but whether it's highly regulated and it's essentially a registered, it could be volunteer hunters but they're willing to subject themselves to an additional set of

I think the cost that you heard from Mr. Kochis the last time, that four to six hundred dollars was kind of for the service of

Okay, we do need to...

It's gonna be a long night, everyone.

I am a yes with

And those are restrictions we bring back to you.

Let me just ask, are there any no's on this?

No, it's not who's going to do it.

Oh, yes, on public land.

Yes, I would favor that.

Yes.

I agree with it.

Me too.

OK. All right, so we have consensus on that.

Okay, whether to further investigate sterilization is an option for consideration.

Yeah, I wouldn't because you'd have to take the deer down anyway.

Yeah, I just, how many, if there is, but

I'd like to explore a grant.

And we can certainly follow up on that.

And one of the things to consider about that is that when grants have been given in the past, they're for limited times.

Not saying that we'll get it, but I do want to, just a lot of it because related to that ratio of how many deer, what deer population you need to see a diminished tick.

An estimate for the estimate.

Any other?

Yes, sir.

I would like some, is there agreement here with this option of sort of figuring out whether a private organization of a city run, city created, hopefully low maintenance

A quasi-organization of registered participants is an option looking at whether other cities have done that.

It's an option that we could do, because if there's no existing organization that would do this, then we're back at square one.

Well, but see, we would be creating that.

So that would be hiring.

I mean, that White Buffalo thing, they do it.

That's an organization that's already there.

I think the way around this is to give us a range of cost options for a controlled call.

And if there is a model like the mayor's that is effective but lower cost, sure.

But if that doesn't exist,

Yeah, I was thinking, my mind was wandering, Mike, I'm sorry, but look, over in Fry's, I'd like to protect two albino deer in Fry's Spring.

Two white deer.

I think there's three now.

Yeah, I guess that means it's either the white buffalo model or it's a confederation of hunters.

I think we're all set.

Okay, we're taking a break, five minute break, and then we're moving on to the rest of the agenda.

I'm

Dr. Bob Fenwick

I don't know.

I don't know.

?

?

I don't know.

It doesn't help to have a back in the background.

He's right there.

It makes me feel like I'm getting a headache.

We have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven other items on our agenda.

This was a very packed meeting.

We generally put time estimates in front of each item.

That's a new practice under the new rules.

We had 20 minutes under the deer management, but that went well over an hour, but it was a very complicated issue with a lot of aspects to it, as everybody heard.

So I'm going to try and run the meeting really tightly.

We have 10 minutes for the next item, 15 minutes for the one after that, 20 minutes for the one after that, and I'll say this at the beginning.

We try to do motions for extra time when we have, and we also have public hearings in each of these, which is going to add time.

So, we're doing a public business.

We really do want it to be accessible to people.

Unfortunately, a couple of the items are going to be at the very end of this long meeting, but I wanted to say all that.

We're going to try to keep it running apace, consistent with the procedures.

This is the first of one reading.

We have 10 minutes allocated to this.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of council.

I'll be brief.

We have a 26-year history now as partners with the Virginia Discover Museum.

Their lease has run out.

And staff proposed a new five-year lease consistent with the terms of past leases.

The only major variable being that in the past, we had a separate lease for the space and for the space on the mall where the carousel was located.

This lease would combine those two.

Any questions?

Okay, is there?

This is not a public hearing?

We need a public hearing.

I'm going to open the public hearing now.

Nobody's signed up for it.

Anybody would like to speak on this issue?

And if I might just take one second to say one reason why.

One of the things that I really like about the way that the Discovery Museum is working is you can currently go to the library and get a day membership for free.

to go to the museum.

Any other comments?

I have twin two-year-old boys and we go to the Discovery Museum weekly and we love it.

It's a great resource to the community and I think it's great that the city uses our property to support this.

Any other?

Okay, all in favor?

Motion carries five to zero.

Well, this was actually only the first of one.

That's it.

All right.

OK, number next agenda item, setting priorities for community development block grant and home investment partnership funds for program year 2016-2017.

Yes.

So this public hearing is intended to serve as a forum for public comment on

The program year 15 CAPR, which also means consolidated annual performance evaluation report for CDBG and home activities, and also to aid city council and staff in gathering information about the city's needs.

Goals and priorities determined as a result of this public hearing will be a framework for funding recommendations made by the Community Development Block Grant Task Force for the funding available July 2017.

Based on current projections, the city can expect CDBG funding amounts similar to or less than that received in program year 16, which is about $371,000.

Last year, home funds were expected to be dramatically cut, and the home consortium was likely to receive $0 in funding.

However, the home budget was restored, and the city received about $58,000 for program year 16.

The city can expect home funding to be similar or less than that received in program year 16.

Currently, for the current plan of fiscal year 16-17, the priorities set by council as determined at the September 21st, 2015 public hearing were workforce development, microenterprise assistance, access to quality child care and down payment assistance.

For program year 16, 20% of the CDBG entitlement was allocated to admin and planning, 15% was devoted to social programs,

and then the remaining funds were set aside for economic development projects and for the 10th and Page priority neighborhood.

I'm just going to review some of the highlights from the caper for home and CDBG.

In program year 15, CDBG projects benefited 683 people.

Projects included technical assistance for 47 micro enterprises and entrepreneurs, three public facility improvement projects, one acquisition,

Reentry Services, Child Care Scholarships and Workforce Development Programs.

For economic development projects, data on accomplishments at the end of program year 15 have been collected.

However, we can expect that the businesses will have successes and grow far after this program year or the previous program year.

Some infrastructure improvements have been completed within the 10th and Page neighborhood.

However, project outcomes cannot be reported until the project is fully complete.

Of the 683 beneficiaries, 26% were extremely low income, 70% were low income, 4% were moderate income, 54% were white, 42% were black, and 4% other.

And then I also provided a table in the memo which outlines the goals and the actual outcomes.

For program year 15 for home projects, 36 home projects were completed, a total of 38 units.

And I will note that the home funding that we receive is distributed through a home consortium.

So it's distributed to the city of Charlottesville, Albemarle County, Green County, Nelson, and Fluvanna.

The total includes home projects, I don't need to say that, sorry.

So six rental projects were completed and those projects consisted of eight units.

Twelve home buyer projects were completed and 18 homeowner rehab projects were completed for a total of 38 units across the consortium.

I then provided information for City of Charlottesville specific home activities where you can see we provided down payment assistance to 10 families

We rehabbed six home owner occupied units, actually seven.

And then we provided rental rehab, which amounted to one.

So the total number of projects that the city completed was 18 versus the goal of 10.

So you can access the full program year 15K per online.

It's a draft report.

We'll be submitting to HUD the end of September.

I want to say the 28th.

So any comments are welcomed.

You can email me.

I'm in the Department of Neighborhood Development Services.

You can come by and get a copy of the draft report.

Fiscal year 2017 2018 is the fifth year of the five year consolidated plan.

And the consolidated plan is known as like the strategic plan.

So it's a five year plan which expands from program year 2013 to actually I had 2017 was actually 2018.

And so basically this sets the framework.

It identifies the needs within the city for that five year span.

And then each year action plan is submitted, which is our way of showing HUD this is how we're going to meet the strategic plan goals.

The next consolidated plan is due for submission in 2018, so keep that in mind.

So for discussion, I provided a copy of the current fiscal year 15-16 budget, as you can see in your packet, so you can get an example of the types of projects that were funded in the past.

So following the public hearing, staff is asking council to make the following decisions.

One, to set priorities for CDBG and HOME programs.

Council is asked to determine what its priorities are for fiscal year 17-18.

Having specific priorities helps the CDBG task force ensure that the diminishing funds are targeted towards projects that meet the goals of council, the consolidated plan, and the growing opportunities report.

The high priority needs identified in the consolidated plan include risk of homelessness, lack of jobs that pay a sufficient wage, rental cost burden, lack of training needed by employers, high cost home purchase, transportation access barriers, housing options for special needs,

lack of child care options and lack of shelter for homeless.

The second decision that council needs to make is determine if a priority neighborhood should be designated.

10th and Page has been the priority neighborhood for the past fiscal years and the previous council, following a recommendation made by staff, agreed to continue 10th and Page for a fourth year.

Last year,

Historically, a priority neighborhood receives three fiscal years of funding.

However, 10th and Page will be the priority neighborhood for a fourth year if council determines that they want to do that today.

In the past, priority neighborhood funds were set at $200,000.

However, reduced entitlement amounts will make this amount more than 50% of the anticipated budget.

Last year, the priority neighborhood budget was set at 69% of the total entitlement amount, or about $258,000.

as a result of program income received and reprogramming of funds from closed projects about the same amount of funds were applied to the priority neighborhood this fiscal year.

Other considerations that council need to determine if CDBG funds should be set aside for economic development.

Last year, council set aside $45,000 for economic development.

However, the strategic action team only allocated $34,500 to eligible projects.

And then council will also need to determine the percentage for public services projects.

The maximum amount of our budget that could be allocated towards public service projects are capped at 15% as determined by HUD.

Council can decide to keep the allocation at 15% or designate a lower percentage.

The current budget for public services projects is set at about 55,700.

Admin and planning has a cap of 20%, which is about $74,000.

And then council may wish to

provide any other guidelines or directions for how CDBG and home funds can be spent.

Community engagement, the task force would meet over the winter to review.

So when you guys set the priorities, we will put out an RFP around October, November, and then the task force will review those RFPs in relation to goals of the consolidated plans, council priorities, as well as the growing opportunities report.

We did advertise the public comment period for the caper in addition to setting priorities.

And this will have no budgetary impact.

Home funds will require 25% local match.

However, there will be no impact to the general fund.

So with that said, staff recommends approving the 15% maximum allocation allowed for public service projects and approving the 20% maximum allocation allowed for admin and planning.

Public service funds remain citywide, but nonprofit partners are made aware of the priority neighborhood and encouraged to recruit beneficiaries from that area.

$45,000 to be set aside for economic development activities.

The remaining estimated CDBG budget, $200,000 to go towards priority neighborhood funding.

Staff recommends 10th and Page to continue as the fourth priority neighborhood for fiscal year 17-18, and then Belmont to be the next priority neighborhood.

However, council may wish to designate a different neighborhood.

staff recommends that any public service, housing or economic development activity meet the goals of the growing opportunity report and the consolidated plan.

And then staff recommends for home funds if there's any program income or reprogramming available that they go towards down payment assistance in homeowner rehab.

Alternatives include finding the priority neighborhood economic development, public service and housing programs at different percentages or restricting beneficiaries to specific areas of the city.

Specifically, council could choose to fund the priority neighborhood at less than the recommended $200,000.

This would allow more funding available for economic development and or housing projects.

And I will note that we typically do not fund housing with CDBG because of home funds are specific are exclusive to the home to housing activities.

And that is everything.

Thank you.

One question or comment rather for Council.

Thank you, Ms. Howard.

That was a phenomenal report.

I would just like to ask in terms of the decisions that Council has to make that we continue to allocate funds from CDBG to the Economic Development Department.

Yes, and thank you for answering all my questions.

I really every year I get I'm always confused by the all the different numbers we have to look at.

So thank you for answering my questions.

I would like to ask counsel to entertain that it's it indicates the staff recommendation is to have the next year's priority neighborhood be Belmont because it's within the SIA.

Okay, because Mr. Bellamy made the point about supporting $45,000.

And just so you all know, I'm not sure if you were able to read the response, HUD has

something known as income eligible service areas.

And so the map that I sent you called out where areas within each neighborhood are 51% or more low to moderate income.

So the funds, if you guys wish to use them within the Ridge Street and Belmont area, would have to be in those designated areas where the census tracts show 51% or more.

Any other questions for Ms. Howard?

But again, the clarification you just gave us is only a portion of Belmont is eligible, but that portion that's eligible is within the SIA.

So there's a certain, yeah, there's a certain portion.

All right, let's, no more questions?

Okay, so we have a public hearing for this matter.

I'm going to open the public hearing.

Nobody has signed up, but if, was anybody like to sign up for the public hearing?

Mr. Collins?

Good evening, Brandon Collins.

I live at 418 Fairway Avenue.

I've lived in Charlottesville my entire life.

I have three children who are living here.

Just real quick, I used to speak on this topic quite a bit and then just start off with a reminder that the federal government's desire to give localities, CDBG, and home funds is hampered by their efforts at imperialism and expanding their military efforts around the world.

And I think that's a real shame, and it really definitely

has an impact on home and CDBG funding and I think that's one reason why this council should be involved in matters of a national scope.

But I did want to throw out a couple of things.

One is the 10th and Page neighborhood.

It sounds like it's going into a fourth year.

The past three years, I think it's sort of been left out that West Haven is a part of the 10th and Page neighborhood, and I think the funds from CDBG have not been reaching the Housing Authority and addressing some infrastructure needs that may need to happen there.

Some of you may feel like that's not appropriate because they have their own funding streams and it comes from HUD and all this,

It's actually been clarified quite a bit in the past through legal action that you can't exclude our public housing neighborhoods from use of CDBG funds.

So I would encourage you to collaborate with the Housing Authority on things they may need, particularly as concerns infrastructure and things that will further redevelopment.

And I also want to mention, this is just my own personal comments.

The other piece is, you know, the numbers for economic development and other programming to me has always seemed like a mistake.

I think that number could be much lower.

I'm not sure the impact from these things has been felt enough.

Now some of you may disagree and you may have some data to back that up, but I think you should make that case so that

to the rest of the public.

And I'd love to hear some discussion about whether that's really a good use of those funds when we've expressed such a need to address affordable housing in Charlottesville.

And really, bricks and mortar and infrastructure needs are a much higher priority in my mind for CDBG and home funds.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

OK, closing the public hearing.

And I'm not leaving, I'm just getting my water.

Am I able to make a comment too, just about the priority neighborhoods?

CRHA had received, they were actually designated priority neighborhood in fiscal year, I don't know exactly off the top of my head, but for several fiscal years.

But when the 10th and Page neighborhood does meet, we actually do have a resident from the West Haven community neighborhood on that task force.

So

OK, thanks.

All right.

I move that we adopt the resolution.

I'd be happy to move that we accept

So Ms. Szakos has moved that we adopt a resolution with the staff recommendations.

We have a second and we can have some debate where you'll be open to amendment and we're going to try to keep this at a good clip.

And I guess a point of order, how would we best go about making these, having this discussion, discussing the recommendations or discussing changes to the resolution?

For the first one, approving the 15% maximum allocation allowed for public service projects and approving the 20% maximum allocation for admin and planning.

The last two bullets on the resolution sheet

Sure, but the the major one so that one would fill in the the bottom two.

I'm confused.

So the first bullet in the resolution is for you guys to set the priorities.

It sounds like the only real, it sounds,

But the one thing is that we need to before we can properly have resolution on

These priorities, we need to actually know what the priorities are.

Yeah, number one in the discussion part.

So it has a number of risk of homelessness, lack of jobs that pay a sufficient wage, rental cost burden, lack of training, high cost home purchase, transportation action, access barriers, housing options for special need, lack of child care options and lack of shelter for the homeless.

Those were the high priority needs.

And then the the previous priorities

were workforce development, quality child care, microenterprise assistance, homeowner rehab, and down payment assistance.

Because this is somewhat complicated then, let me just take a poll of everyone.