--------- Not the one that we vote today. Okay. How do I um I call the um Charlottesville City Council um June 2nd, 2025 meeting to order.
[Music] Um Madame Clerk, will you please call the role? Councelor Ashin here. Councelor Payne here. Vice Mayor King Pinkston here. Councelor Snook here. Mayor Wade here.
The the agenda um published May 28th included an an action item for council to consider approving a proposal to finance improvements to the um ACRJ. Um um Colonelkumer has asked that this be
delayed um the vote be delayed um as staff and the board needs additional time to review bid proposals to set the condition the construction cost for the project. City manager is working with um ACRJ officials to determine a date for
rescheduling this item and but it will meet all of the the requirements and um for the vote. Um, is there a motion to approve or amend the agenda? Move for approval of the amended agenda.
Second. Okay. Um, so would you do a a voice vote for this? Yes. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. The motion passes five to zero. And Mr. Mayor, I would like at this point to apologize to the person who wrote to me saying, "Why was
it taken off the agenda?" and I didn't realize it had been taken off the agenda. So, I gave somebody some bad information. It was not on purpose. Yes. Yes. Um this um meeting will be divided into three
sections. The first will be a work um session to hear and discuss presentations that do not require um a council vote, followed by a close session, then the regular business meeting at 6:30. Today um we will hear a
the transportation planning update um by Mr. Chambers. And actually we're going to start with an update about parking from uh economic development office. So I'm going to get hand it over to Mr. Angel first. Thank you. And hopefully Remy can There
we go. Perfect. Thank you. Uh Chris Angel, director of economic development. Uh I am your opening act as you await the main act by Mr. Chambers about transportation but parking and transportation are related as we all
know. So uh going to focus parking can cover quite a bit of territory for uh folks and certainly sparks emotions in in lots of folks depending upon if you're talking about the space out in front of their house or not. Uh but we are focused mostly on the city's uh
facility parking. So, the two garages and the three surface lots that constitute what we call public parking for the city. This is paid public parking. Um, so I'm not really going to be focusing on neighborhoods permit parking or even on street parking per se. Just want to take a few moments to
um give a little update on on some facility related u parking items. You all have been privy to a few complaints um recently and over the years about uh equipment not functioning properly, slow
exits, etc. U so I know you've been hearing some of that. We've been hearing that, the city manager's office has heard it as well. Um so the update is really to address that uh and give you kind of an overall context on uh some of the parking activities uh related to that and then some of the equipment
improvements that are in the offing. So, uh, with that, it's always good to start off any parking conversation with a little humor. So, my favorite, uh, humorist with relate regarding to, uh, parking is Will Rogers, who says, I've always found
I've always felt that the shest way to tell if a town is prospering is to try and find a place to park. Uh, all good humor humor has some truth in it. And um I think that's safe to say that Charlottesville has its challenges with
um finding places to park cars, buses, trucks, people. Uh and that's a good thing because that means people want to be here. They want to come downtown. They want to engage. Um the opposite of that is not necessarily a place um that most folks would want to be if it's if
you don't have those issues to consider. So, I'll just leave you with that to consider as we move into the real stuff, which uh some of you will recognize this. Um this is a quick map of uh the current parking inventory. The
two main facilities being the two black uh blobs on the map there on the left. Uh the Water Street parking garage and the Market Street parking garage. And then there are three surface lots that I mentioned. Uh the largest of which is on Water Street. It's called the West Second Street lot. Uh and then the other
two are are smaller. Uh one's on Jefferson Street and one is on High Street. Um those constitute the public off- streetet parking that we have available for folks to engage in either in a monthly basis. So you you sign up for the month or you sign up um or you
just are transient uh user and you use it by the hour. Um so that's just a quick kind of overview of where things are. Uh on the right hand side is a little graphic showing u parking places that have been lost in recent months and
years uh mostly in the past five years. U some construction projects related to the Belmont Bridge, Court Square, Water Street Trail, things like that. So those are mostly on street spaces, but that does impact the overall inventory in some ways. So we just wanted to catalog
that and kind of keep track of that over time. And then there's some expected losses uh with future development of both the Levy lot and the water street lot uh west second lot that has been considered for development um some years ago. Uh that plan has been tabled but
inevitably um all surface parking is is a short-term uh land use and uh will ultimately have some other use take take place there. So in any case those are future losses that are anticipated. timing is a little unknown, but um just
uh things for folks to be aware about as we consider overall uh parking capacity in downtown. Just another little graphic. This is from our um parking study from some years ago, but changes have not been significant um with respect to what what's available
on street uh with the exception of those ones I just mentioned. Um these are the numbers with regard to the number of spaces at Market Street. Uh, Market Street, in case you didn't recognize, is in its golden anniversary this year. It's 50 years old. Um, preceded the the mall by about a
year in terms of its construction. Uh, Water Street is uh some some years newer, but um not uh not brand new by any stretch. And then West Second Seventh Street Lot and uh the Jefferson Street lot, which is our
newest um surface parking lot. These are parking spaces centered around the downtown area. Yes. Okay. Yes. And and the ones on the left are are all city city owned or operated uh and available for monthly parking and or
transit parking. As I mentioned, um the graphic on the right there does show some uh on street spaces and then um a piece of the private service lot slots that are available um in the downtown area, which that number totals about 4,000. This number as you can see here
total is about 2933. So you said sorry there's about 4,000 private spots. No 4,000 total including some of the private um it's about 1,100 private. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. As of when
this was done which was 2015. So some of that's changed a little bit. The private you can't really count on because it could come and go from from inventory. Um and we've seen that happen over time. um an entity will make it available for public parking and then once they have need for it they'll pull it from public
parking and it'll only be for tenants so to speak. So um that changes quite a bit. I'm sorry just to clarify that 4,000 and this is just to clarify Brian's question is just we're looking at downtown depending on how you define downtown. It's it's a little bit bigger than the
mall. So, so it does go out a bit. Um, and the map might have shown. Yeah, it would it would cover that whole map. So, kind of an expansive version of downtown, but yes, generally downtown. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, just want to kind of set that a little bit of context. And then
just operationally, in case you've never seen this um or thought about it, um the city owns these. Uh we essentially manage a contract with an operator that does the day-to-day management cleaning, make sure the lights are on, the trash is emptied, etc. That operator is uh SP
plus Metropolis. Two companies have merged to form that. Um so they're the daily on the ground. If you interact with anybody in the garage, that's who you're going to interact with. Um people come and go, either transient, so park for an hour, park for five hours, uh or they do a monthly contract. um net
revenues at the end of the end of the month, end of the year all go into a parking enterprise fund. And that's fairly new within the last seven or eight years that we had a parking enterprise fund. Prior to that, parking was just another line item in the budget that actually contributed to
the budget to the general fund. The notion behind a parking enterprise fund is that you capture all the revenues related to it and all the expenses related to it such that parking pays for parking so that you don't burden your citizens with an amenity that you've
decided to provide. Um you just have the users of that u infrastructure pay for pay for itself. Now, we've set up a parking enterprise fund, but we have not gotten to the point where it's fully operating and fully functioning, where it covers 100%
of all its costs. To really do that, you have to do some financial accounting and actually take the assets into inventory and appraise them and do some things like that. We have not gotten to that, but we we do categorize and capture all the revenues and expenses in one spot,
which is a change from uh starting in 2018. Yes. Are all those steps you just mentioned something that's on the to-do list or something we've decided not to do? Um since it's been baby steps on this, we haven't really made a full plan to do that full transition. So like the
utilities fund um has all those ass that's a true uh enterprise fund. Um this is a quasi enterprise fund where we're we're taking the first baby step to get all the expenses and uh revenues in one one bucket. But uh we do not have
a game plan for actually how to do that at this moment. Um since we did this, we had two good years and then we had COVID and then last year we had an increase that we knew about and that happened that has significantly
kind of dampened revenues, if you will. So there's a $3 million balance in the in the fund right now in the enterprise fund. um once that gets to a point where it's like so it's they're not off the table, they're just not in the current horizon, right? Yeah. We haven't
decided. The plan is still to do it, but u other priorities often intervene and um uh Gotcha. They get pushed aside or delayed until till a future time. So, uh there's no current plan to actually translate that into an actual enterprise
fund. Could be done. Okay. Take a little energy and effort. So, okay, moving on. Uh, current equipment, if you've been in the garage, looks something like this. Um, tickets, validation tickets, chaser tickets, receipt tickets, things of this
nature. You see them up there. That's kind of how the current system functions. There's lots of opportunity for error. Uh, credit cards can get jammed, dollar bills can get jammed. Uh, tickets can get rained on and then not read properly, receipt paper blows away in the wind. All those things happen
every day. It's not terribly efficient. There's lots of new um equipment and technology out there that allows a better system. This is what we have today. It's about eight years old. Um and it's not terribly wellmaintained by the company that uh created it because
they essentially walked away from the brand uh about the time that we got it and stopped upgrading it uh and whatnot. So, we're living on technology that is a little bit older and the parts are harder and harder to find and that kind of snowball of challenges kind of
continues to to escalate. So, that's kind of what we're currently dealing with and um sometimes that results in images like this that nobody wants to see. Um and and we've heard about this, you all have heard about this in terms of backups at
the garage uh on exit on big events. Um, some of these can be planned for, some of these can be mitigated. Um, we had a perfect storm of a situation about a month ago where there was a variety of things that all happened at the same time. Failing equipment, lots of folks,
uh, disabled vehicle, other traffic on the street. And so you get unhappy customers, um, in situations like this where they're waiting 15, 20 minutes to get out of the garage or more. Um, not ideal, not something that we want to have as an experience for anybody. uh
certainly not visitors that are coming downtown. Um and we want them to have a good experience train so they come back. Uh a train is a complicating factor at Water Street in particular on market days. Uh and that has been um a challenge and one that we probably have
uh less impact on a solution than any of these others that I'm about to mention to you. So but that that did happen and it does happen uh for that left-hand exit from Water Street. Uh so change is coming. Um my second funny for the for the show today. No
extra charge. Uh but um so there will be a moment when the change comes where um it'll be one of those who move my cheese moments. Um and so everybody involved will be nashing teeth and not be happy, but there will be a moment where we can
get through this and and and adapt to new equipment and uh new technology. U this is just a little funny that some people still like to put quarters in the meters. Um honestly we haven't had meters in Charlottesville in in in about 30 years but um some places do and
they're transitioning from uh actual coin operated meters to uh smart technology and smartphones and things like that. But um we're kind of skipping that step and I'm really focusing on the the garages and not the street. Um so this is only partly applicable. But um
the message is that there will be a change for the transient user for the monthly user um once we implement newer technology and equipment which this graphic attempts to show that uh in a quick fashion. Um, it uses machine
learning AI, it uses, uh, cameras, uh, recognizes license plates, um, automatically raises the gate once, uh, it it recognizes a vehicle in place, so that the in and out is a lot quicker and a lot more efficient. Uh, there is a
setup uh, this is the who moved my cheese moment. There's a setup that everybody has to do one time to to get into the system, so to speak. It'll be pretty easy for monthly users. a little bit um not more challenging, but uh for a transient user, a one-time user, some
will probably feel like it's not something they want to do. Um there are options to kind of get around that, but in general, it works pretty well when when folks um use their use their phone to set up um the connection between the equipment and them and then after that,
they don't have to do it again. Um, and so some of the benefits, uh, we're still learning about this, uh, and it's still evolving, but the basic benefits are a reduction in that, um, in-n-out time, that friction that you have when gates have to go up and people drop a credit card, uh, in their seat or
out the window, things like that. Um, this new system creates a an experience that is going to be quicker for for just about everybody. Um, lower cost, higher efficiency. um that hardware that I showed you
before is vastly reduced um to mostly software. Um so there's not an every five or six years a massive equipment purchase that has to happen. Um so the in-n-outs will be quicker and easier for folks. Uh it's a single single online
member signup. It links a phone, a license plate, and a payment methodology. It doesn't even need a name, an address, any of that stuff. It just needs to um connect for the transaction and then it's done. Um if I'm driving a different car, I'm in trouble. You're not actually. This will
facilitate that. So, if you set up an a user account, you can put in multiple um license plates, and you can only have one in at a time, but you can use multiple. So, that's a significant benefit to a monthly parker that would do that on on occasion. Swap cars with a spouse, uh get a loaner car, something
like that. um pretty easy to update and just allow that. So that's a benefit of a newer system. Yes. How does somebody use it if they don't have a phone? Um it's trickier, but it can be done. So you can set up an account uh in advance uh from a PC
um you don't necessarily have to have a phone, but you can do the same thing that you would do with a phone um in advance uh of of coming to the facility. It's a little less convenient. You have to plan for it a little bit. Alternatively, um you can go to the to the office and and the office is at
Market Street Garage. So, uh and interact with a person to to help facilitate the payment. Um there's also currently ambassadors in the facilities now. Those won't go away. Those will still be there. Some of them are on cleaning duties. Some of them are
on assistant duties um to folks that are exiting and they'll be equipped with um iPads essentially and they can help folks through the process. Um so it's not 100% self-s serve so it uh but it it is designed to kind of move away from
years ago we used to have people in in booze like all day in several boos and we've gotten away from that. Now we just have a floating ambassador. We'll continue that going forward uh for for some time for sure. So there'll be a person with an iPad that can help help
facilitate exit. Um they they can also send you a bill uh if you if you don't have any means of of connecting and it's a little bit of an honor system and honestly we have that now where there's people that have a situation where they say I just I I can't pay today and so they get information from them and they
follow up with them. Some of those you get, some of those you lose. it's kind of a normal part of the business. Um, but this system will also allow that that followup after exit and it it doesn't delay the exit like the current situation does when somebody can't pay and that everybody's backing backing
backing up. It'll say, "Okay, you you have a promise to pay um tomorrow and we'll raise the gate, let you out, and then hope to follow up with that individual the next day for payment." So, so Chris, as you all are tr you
know, thinking about this system, think of kind of worst case scenario like a Saturday night, you know, older couple who may not be as techsavvy or someone like me who had it come in to before the meeting today to help out, but they
don't know and they're there to at live to see a show or something. They just may not know about this. they expecting to come the oldfashioned way. And so that is the type of thing that as you all are implementing this that we want
to make sure that there's ways to that we're addressing. Sounds like it's it's a way, but you know, you know that someone should be there or there's a way when they're leaving at 11:30 that it's a way for them to get out if there's an issue or something. Yeah. And we fully
expect and you can't prevent all of that, but we will anticipate as much as possible with our partner um that will actually implement this um and and hope to capture the majority of folks. The other op opportunities here and and we have on street parking um as you all
know and other options for for people who really don't want to to do this. They don't have to. Um, we're not going to make anybody do it, but but it is the predominant uh most of the the spaces as I showed you before about 1500 spaces in the two garages um are going to be
there. So many will take advantage of it. Hopefully they'll find it user friendly. Um some will not and we'll work with them on that. Um but the alternative is further failing equipment. Um
requires an app. Want that? It does not require an app. So linking the phone number and the license plate and the payment info. How does that all Yeah, it it um so it's like a website you do QR code uh in the facility that folks um snap um and that takes them to a a spot
where they put in their license plate. I actually did this the other day. I got a full demo of the facility um of this equipment in operation. And it takes about a minute to set up the the thing. You punch in your plate. It actually prepopulates your plate if you've entered the facility because it's already snapped a picture of your plate.
So, you just enter the first two and it'll enter the rest for you, uh, provided there's not too many others in there with similar numbers. Um, and then you, um, let's put in a a payment method, uh, which generally needs to be a credit card or, um, they are moving
towards accepting things like Google Pay and and Apple Pay, but a credit card, uh, which you can either take a picture of or punch the numbers in. It's basically like if you park in the the lot right now where they have the excuse me the the markets the the lot that's right in
front of the garage the water street garage the air air garage you just come in and it's probably similar I haven't used that one myself but it's it's probably similar you use like u park mobile well to perhaps to Juan's point so you
mentioned in the past we used to have you know just the old school parking not attendance um which was a kind of failsafe system um in addition to you know creating some small amount of local jobs you know it was just simpler is any of this even saving that
much more money compared to that system um cuz maybe I'm just a lite but when I hear this it just seems to me like another instance of technology making people's lives slightly more inconvenient and not providing the cost savings or convenience benefits that are
promised I I mean, are these savings really that significant compared to just the old school system of having someone there as a parking lot attendant, especially when you factor in these um upgrade cycles? I mean, we were promised this technology. I remember when we first switched away from parking lot attendance and now we're back here, like
that system isn't working and needs a full upgrade. I just wonder about that. Well, um yeah, no, it's I mean it's a good question. Um when we transitioned to the current equipment we have now, there were more attendants than there are now. So we did reduce some of the
attendance over time. So there's now one in each facility um you know eight hours a day for sure. Some heavy weekends there's there's some additional uh there used to be um staff basically 18 hours a day uh multiple shifts in in in each of
those positions. So there was a reduction in in the booth attendant and that booth attendant became an ambassador that can roam and help people at the pay foot station or help people at exit or help people at entry. Um we still have that situation. We will still
continue that. So we really won't be changing um staffing that much. The real savings is in the equipment costs. The last time we did the equipment uh upgrade, it was for both garages, it would have been on the order of about $500,000. Um, so we'll we'll not have
that every five years. So that's a significant savings. The new equipment is essentially cameras and a a computer. Yeah. So it's um Well, to your point, you know, we originally switched away from much, you know, primarily relying
on parking lot attendance. Anyway, I just wonder, you know, the extent to which sometimes the way that it was done already worked and we're just kind of needlessly introducing technology. But anyway, is
there um push back about the like license plate reader aspect of it all? Uh I'm sure some um could be concerned about that. um in terms of you know somebody seeing their plate
but they're out in public and you know license plates are public so I guess what what happens to the data that the software is collect yeah it's only used for um the payment um you know cycle so once it's paid is it deleted is it stored is its recorded
and used for we need to study things we need to clarify and each each agreement with each municipality or operators probably slightly again like air garage. I mean they keep your stuff. I mean they keep your information if you go park in
that lot right now. And in term the one again where trying to come up with a name of it. If you can go back to the map. It is air garage. It's the one that's right in front of the It's where the market. Yeah. Where the city market is. Yeah. It
it or anything with pay park mobile or pay mobile. Yeah. You just Have you parked there before? basically take your phone and you scan the QR code that's on the po on the post there and it takes you to a website, not an app. I can park wherever I want. I
know you and it just takes you to the website. So like Park Mobile is an app you have to download, but this is Yeah. Yeah. So if you're going to park there, you've got to be willing to give up that piece of privacy.
So would it then be readable by flock or paragrin? I think anything that's in the cloud could be at some point. No, I don't think there's any connections. There's no connection between the two that I'm aware of. And my guess is that there already there's a
connection between air garage and the local um towing trucks because one time I was like 10 or 15 minutes late. I was at an event and I'm like just a little bit late. This was when that that same garage was under the Park mobile uh regime and boy they had had pulled my
car out. So nothing flat. So anyway, someone knows has this information otherwise they wouldn't be able to enforce it. So I think that was the last slide. Yes, it was. So, just wanted to give you a preview of um that and a little context
on current situation and issues regarding uh the equipment that is in our current facilities. And um does this come before us for like a vote or does it just something that the parking team does and it is what it is? Yeah, no plans to come for a vote, but it's um
something we're moving forward on. Uh don't just this is what's happening next FYI generally. Got it. Okay. And just a comment. I don't maybe I misunderstood your earlier remark, but for those of us who are uh not entirely comfortable with
these devices, to tell me that I don't have to worry about an app because there's always a QR code available is not a help. Okay. If you're a monthly parker, you won't have to worry about the QR code once you're set up. I'm I'm I'm I mean I I am a monthly parker and I'll be cool
with that, but I'm assuming that there are people who are coming to concerts and so on. And I particularly think of people who come to some of the classical music concerts and the opera and so on who uh tend to be older, tend to be less computer savvy, less mobile phone savvy
savvy. Uh and I just I I have visions of them getting enormously frustrated. I would I would agree with that. And it's not a sizable population, but I mean there are also people who don't have smartphones. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Now for the main action.
All right. So, good afternoon, council. I'm Ben Chambers. I'm the city's transportation planning manager. Uh you're going to help us understand why we don't have to have parking decks, right? I'm going to give you some other options uh in addition to the parking options. Um, so usually I come before you in the spring and give an update on
what we're doing with transportation planning. I'm a little late this year because I came before you in January and February to give you some updates on transportation planning. So some of this may sound a little bit familiar, but there are some updated information in this uh presentation. So, first I'm
going to give you an agenda of what we're covering just so you kind of understand how many things I'm going to try to cover so you understand how quickly I'm talking and maybe that helps give you an indication of when to jump in and ask questions. Uh, so I have this divided into two different parts. Uh, I
sort of thought of this in terms of I do a lot of work with planning infrastructure. that's where are we putting things on the ground. And then I also do a lot of work with my team uh looking at programming. What kind of things are we putting out on the street? How are we promoting people using different modes of transportation? So
those are sort of the two different realms uh that I work in and that my team works in. Um so we're going to talk about a lot of different things underneath that. Uh starting with the safer streets strategy and I'm just going to jump right into it. Uh where are we putting stuff that we want to
invest in? How are we making sure everybody has mobility with our investments in new infrastructure? Well, first we are looking at this sort of comprehensively. Now, we are using a three-phased approach for determining how we can make streets safer within our
community over the next 5 years. Um, this includes work that we've already been working on to date, trying to contextualize that into this new strategy so that it is cohesive and holistic and working with new things that we bring online. Um, so this is
work that we're continuing right now. It's things that we've already sort of committed ourselves to like sidewalk priorities, um, that we haven't even gotten started with yet, but we'll, uh, move forward with in the future, but it's integrating some new things, um, and some new planning work that we're
going to need to undertake. So, last time I presented on this, I shared this chart uh, that broke out the phases into, you know, couple year increments. uh their rough estimates of when we think things will happen based on funding, staffing, uh just sort of the
the way things are working between localities and regions and and at the state level. Uh we're still in phase one. So there are a lot of things on this list that we'd love to jump ahead to and talk about and and get right into the details of but first we've got to start with the first steps uh which is
executing the projects that we have already committed ourselves to and then looking at intersections that we can improve make safer looking at places that we can do traffic calming testing so that later on when we want to talk about hey how do we make this street slower how do we make it safer for
people to walk and bike on we have some idea of what tools are at our disposal. Um, and then in this phase, we also want to start talking about what does that process look like to start lowering speed limits. Uh, but for now, for this update, most of what we're focused on is phase one of what are we doing today in
Charlottesville. Can you go back? Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of information in these slides, so we'll make sure that they're shared after this as well. Um so first we want to talk about this term urgent transportation improvements is
something we've been talking about for about seven months now. Um this came out of the fatality that happened at first in Elliot. Um back in October we had a fatality for someone crossing the road there and we had a very quick reaction of we need to go out there and do some
quick fixes at this intersection. Uh along with that there was a realization of there might be other intersections where we have similar problems. Uh so we set about uh staff from NDS and public works to identify what those locations are and figure out are there lowcost
targeted things that we can do really quickly to make sure things are safer for people who are out on our streets. Um so this aligns very much with what we are saying we're doing in our safer streets strategy. Um we are testing traffic calming devices with this. We
are deploying things at intersections to make things safer. uh that's both signalized intersections and unsignalized intersections and we're gonna be using this feedback to have that discussion around how do we start talking about reducing speed
limits. So, as we were walk through this seven months of identifying what projects we thought would be useful um for this purpose, we came up with about 34 projects uh that we could do for a half million that we thought we could do
within this current calendar year. Um so, we identified this first 34 projects. Um that is part of the package of uh surplus funding that we'll be uh discuss later this evening. Additionally, we also identified 33
other projects that we would like to do as we're working for through those first 34 that we'll be able to deploy already uh funded sources uh from neighborhood transportation improvements, safe routes to school, bicycle infrastructure. We have funds that we can use for quick
builds in all of these uh capital funds and we think we can basically double the fund the amount of projects that we get done under the urgent transportation improvements uh umbrella. All of these projects are detailed on our uh transportation planning web page. Um
it's a long list of a lot of different things. Uh so what is on this list? New crosswalks, uh flex posts, reflectors. Uh you may have seen some of the no right turn on reds that are are popping up at some of our intersections. Those are actuated by
the push buttons that the pedestrians at the intersection use. So if there's no pedestrians so that's like at the Rose Hill Preston. I think that might be one. Yep. Yeah. Yep. Rose Hill Preston is one of those locations. Um so when there's no pedestrians, you can turn right on
red, but as soon as somebody walks up to that intersection and pushes the button, it becomes a no right turn on red intersection. Um, we're also looking at some more rapid flashing beacon locations. Uh, some locations to test many roundabouts to slow down traffic.
Um, bumpouts and chicanees to do the same. Uh, we are adjusting some slip lanes at some intersections where that's uh, a dangerous place for people to cross. Uh, we're adding some bike boxes. We are defining some parking lanes and some driving lanes so that people know about how wide their drive aisle is
actually supposed to be and they don't take up, you know, the whole road as they're speeding down the road. And we're also testing speed tables and speed cushions um at locations across the city. These are in neighborhood streets where we want people to be going slow. We also know there's not a lot of traffic volume. So, it allows us to
responsibly test these temporary measures and also get feedback from folks like the transit department and fire department to make sure that this isn't affecting their vehicles. While we're on this, could I ask you rapid flashing beacons? Yeah, I take it that's the RFB that appeared in the document
that we received. Yes. I was thinking request for bid and that didn't make any sense. So, I I think that the actual acronym is supposed to be RRFB. Uh but in our our list we put RFB because we were just using shorthand. But yeah, that's what that is. It's when you're crossing the intersection, you can push
the button and it'll light up those flashing lights like we have over on Ridge McIntyre uh at the McDonald's at that crossing. Yeah. So, we're going to have quite a few more locations that have Yep. years ago they put them down in the
down in the actual street and I understand that became difficult to maintain and a whole bunch whole range of problems but now they're up if you're driving sort of at this level. Right. Right. Um the other thing that is not on the list but h did come up as part of our discussion and has become possible
with some of the new traffic signaling software that we have is the implementation of leading pedestrian signal intervals. And what that means is when you're at a stoplight, when the traffic light changes, it changes first for the pedestrian. They get to go go out into the street, get into a visible location before the cars get to go out
into the street. Um so that when cars are turning, they're more vised more visible. Uh this has been implemented citywide uh and has been a a thing that we've been pushing on for a few years to get done. And now that we have the software to do it, we've done it pretty much
immediately. Um to talk about one thing that's not on the list, I'm going to bring up our city engineer and he's going to walk through this one specific intersection and talk about why this is not included as part of our quick build list. So, uh Brennan Duncan, our city traffic or city engineer.
Good evening, council. Um so, yeah, Brendan Duncan, city engineer. Um second and Elliot, again, this is one that has been talked about at council um both to you and by the public. Um, you know, we we did review this request um that came
in shortly after the fatality there at first in uh in Elliott. Um, you know, we we looked at it. Uh, you know, the intersection is characterized by excessive speed on on Elliot as well as poor sight lines and the lack of ADA infrastructure. Um, you know, adding the
crosswalk would not necessarily improve safety conditions. um and in some instances could make it, you know, more hazardous by en encouraging pedestrians at an intersection that doesn't have all of the safety infrastructure that First Street does or that Sixth Street does.
um you know so in conjunction with those two um and again given the range of 67 uh kind of urgent uh priority projects that we're working on um you know this one the the limited pedestrian
utilization at this intersection in conjunction with the amount of money that we would need to spend to actually make this crossing feasible um just doesn't have it as high on the priority list as the other ones that we're working on. Um, it's not to say that we can never install one here or that we
will we won't ever install one here. It's just that it's not high on the priority list at this time. Um, there's definitely things that would have to happen at this intersection before we could install anything. Like what uh first of all, like we would have to
do something to either reduce speed or in um increase the the site distance in some way. Um, also there are no ADA there's no ADA ramps or anything at that intersection in order to get the the stuff across there. So both of those are
musthaves in in order to do it. Um, you know, other things, you know, we may have to incre, you know, put another rapid flashing beacon here, even though we have one um just up the road at First Street. Um, when we were doing um, you
know, some some counts and stuff there. Um the utilization of this intersection relative to the other two is probably around half if not less than relative to the other which other two sorry at First Street where where the incident happened in October um where we've installed the
the rapid flashing beacon and where we you know put the flex post out there to kind of narrow the travel lanes. Um as well as Sixth Street where there's a traffic signal and a full pedestrian you know stuff there. Um, you know, one of recommendations that's not necessarily in here, but we're looking at doing is,
um, you know, installing some kind of pedestrian walkway across the front edge of X. Um, because that's really one of the barriers there is, you know, people are either having to walk in the bike lane or through the parking lot. Um, there's a crosswalk there, but there's not really a good pedestrian route, you
know, from there to First Street. So, that's that's something that we're looking at. Um, right now it's not on that list of, you know, 33 34 projects, but it's something that we're definitely looking at doing to to help with this area in general. Um, you know, getting
it on the the east side of this intersection, um, is more difficult. So, between First Street and Sixth Street on the north side of the road, there's not really room to install a sidewalk there or pedestrian way without removing parking. Um, some of those houses have
their own parking. some of them do not. Um, and so there's the there's just a larger discussion that needs to happen about how and you know how we would accommodate that at some future time. Thank you. But so the street that's been made such
a big deal about is the second street crossing that people want and we have up at six that's actually an intersection with a light. Yep. traffic signal and audible pedestrian signal. And then at
first that has the RR FBS. Yes. Rectangular rapid flashing beacon. Okay. Fantastic. And your point, the point that you've been trying to make is that you don't see how you could make the second street southeast which actually connects to where on the other side of
the road correct to wear street on the the south side. you don't feel like that we could do that in a way that it would require significant investment to truly make it uh a safe crosswalk. You'd have to have R our RFBs and work on the
sidewalk and and and possibly we we may even have to remove the parking just to get the sight distance that's required because it's it's close to a 10% grade coming down. So you need roughly 280 to 200 to to 300 feet of sight distance there. Um, and when vehicles are parked
there, it's all it's nearly impossible to see somebody who would be waiting even even if they were waiting in the bike lane. It would be hard for them to see, let alone off on the sidewalk. I see. Okay. And the other problem is that if there's if there's a car that has had to stop for that
pedestrian, that cuts another 20ome feet out of your sight distance as well because or at least of the stopping distance. you don't have as much room to for for the next car coming down, right? I mean, the theoretically, if there's a car behind the car that's stopping, they
should be accounting for enough space for them to stop for the vehicle in front of them. Um, but but yes, that you know, and anecdotally standing out there and watching like I mean again, people do cross there. I'm not saying that they
don't, but there's enough gaps in the traffic that, you know, pedestrians rarely have to wait more than 20 or 30 seconds to cross. Um, either before there's a gap or before a car just slows down and and stops and and allows them to cross even though there's not a
marked crosswalk. So, Brian, not since it's a pretty straight road, can you explain a little bit more about the sighteline limitations? Yeah. So, it's it's the sight distance from where the driver is seated to where
the pedestrian is waiting on at the you know on the ramp before they enter the roadway. So, when you have vehicles that are in the parked lane parking lane there the distance especially with how far set back um the the current you know
roadway and the sidewalk is like you you just can't see see them as they're approaching. daylighting at the corners, a bump out for the pedestrian would be things that would help overcome that problem that that could, but then we would have to lose bike lanes and that
kind of stuff that are there as well. So there's again there's a give and take with all of this and it it just seems with the proximity I mean VOTE wouldn't even consider it if it was under 300 feet and we're at 310 ft. So, we're like just barely at that threshold where VOTE
would even consider putting a crosswalk in um just based on the the proximity to another crosswalk. And you know, with the enhancements that we put at First Street and the current, you know, condition of Sixth Street where it's a fully audible pedestrian signal there
and vehicles have to stop, you know, as the pedestrian crosses. Um, you know, in conjunction with the fact that there's only 17 houses that this directly serves, every other house has to walk past either first or sixth street to get
to this intersection. And I'm just I'm looking at street view, which was this is from August 2023, so a couple years ago, but on this south side of Elliot in between 1 and 2, there's a pretty healthy um invasive species
issue. and a lot of the the plants are encroaching pretty significantly on the sidewalk. Does I mean I I don't know what it looks like out there today, but is that something that our team has taken into consideration? Yeah, it's it's been cut back. It's one of those that parks and wreck just has to kind of keep up on. Um you know, if if people
are out there and they notice there's an issue, please put something in my Seville and and they'll go out there and take care of it. Um, but yeah, they're parks is aware of the issue and they're they're trying to take care of it. And like I said, we're we're working on putting something on the north side as well that would act as an alternate
route for that. Yeah, I think that that's that north side of Elliot. Um, I mean, there's a lot of these houses have a fence and then a space for a sidewalk that I assume is city rightway and then the street. Yeah. But it's only about three and a half ft and it it's not wide
enough to actually put the sidewalk there. Yeah. So for people who are say trying to get to IK and they cross at six or they cross at first, there's not sidewalk for them to use to get down to that second street. So if you're trying to get to IK from Sixth Street, you just
continue walking down Sixth Street from the upper edge. Yeah. Um yeah. So, yeah, there there were there was almost as many people that were walking in the parking lane um or walking in the bike lane or through the parking lot to get down to that Second
Street intersection as actually crossed at the intersection. Um so, there's definitely, you know, people who are trying to get down there, but I I don't know that, you know, marking that crosswalk is going to stop the people from walking down the parking lane or walking in the bike lane or
whatever. So, and how much does it cost to install a rapid flashing beacon? They're about $25,000, I think. Um, for the pair, you mean one on each side? For Yes, for one on each side. We for First Street again because of the sight
distance issues, we actually had to install a um kind of one before it so that you know you can actually see it as you're coming down the hill. So there's actually a rapid flashing beacon at first or at second street for the first
street crossing um in advance of it so that when you activate it at first street that the one at second street gets up turns on. So again it gives more time for those drivers that are coming down the hill to realize there's a pedestrian in the crosswalk up ahead. Um
so something similar might have to be in place if you were to do something at Second Street as well. And if we wanted to build that sidewalk on the north side of Elliott, you said there's just about three and a half feet and like the 2010 standards are three feet, but the new 2019 standards are four feet.
Yes and no. So the the the old standard, you could go down to three feet for a narrow section to go around a power pole or something like that. The overall width of the sidewalk, even in the old standard, was still four feet. But the new standard says that you can't you can't even go down for a fire hydrant or
power pole. You have to maintain the four feet for the entirety of the sidewalk. Gotcha. And so in order to do that here, we would either have to take a little bit of land from folks or take a little bit of street from cars. Correct. And if we took it from cars, then there's not enough width to we
would either have to lose a bike lane, the climbing lane for the bike lane, or we would have to lose the parking lane. So, you know, those are all discussions about what we may be able to do, but all one of all of those different things have to happen before we can install something. Okay. Thank you, Michael. And
then I'll come back to you. Okay. Yeah. Um, yeah, I think obviously, you know, this is used as a residential street a lot and then you have the XAR park and then with the CRA redevelopment, I think there's going to be even more use for those purposes. Um, I appreciate putting
it in the wider context of, you know, the real problem with the when the tragic death occurred, they were in a crosswalk. The real problem is the width of the road, the length, um, the lack of lighting. Um, and I think that are really key points of what it would look like to make it more like a residential
road. And I'll be upfront, I'm fine for it to move in that direction of being less like a cutthrough and more treated more as a residential road. Um, two questions. one, and you may have already just touched on this, but to me it seems like one of the big issues is just the road is so wide, which really encourages
drivers who don't care to speed. And I know there are other roads in the city that are much narrower, some that still have on street parking, but are just much narrower. What would it take and look like to get it to be that narrow? And is the core of it really the trade-off of having, if it's narrowed,
having to choose between off- streetet parking or a bike lane? because I just know there's other roads that are more narrow that still have off- streetet parking. So there's there's off streetet parking on Sorry. Yes, off streetet parking. Sorry. I'll I I'm going to correct you
on the residential because there are homes there, but there are only three streets that connect between Montichello and Avon between 64 and downtown. This is one of those three. So, yes, there are residential uses on there, but it is
always going to be a vehicle street. Like, we we're not going to get around that. Like, there's only three spots for people to cut through or not cut through, but to get between those those two streets. So, we can work on reducing speeds on the corridor. We can work on
reducing, you know, how wide that corridor is to kind of induce slower speeds, but the volume of cars on that street is not going away. I just want to be clear on that. No, and I I hear you. There's only there's only so much we can do there.
Um to sorry, I'm going back to your your other points. Um so the the most of the streets that have on street parking that are narrower um are super those are your local residential streets. um our standards and design manual and and just
for transit and everything else. We need to maintain at least 11 foot lanes on these type of streets for for just so our buses aren't hitting mirrors and and oncoming cars. Um fire needs a minimum of 20 foot between the two lanes. Um
like I said, we need 22 if it's transit corridors. Um so we have that right now on the the eastern portion. So that portion between First Street and or really from Second Street to Sixth Street um that there's we don't have
buffered bike lanes there. We only have the the one bike lane and the climbing lane there. So that section of street is already narrow for what's there. Um the the part in front of and heading up towards Fifth Street that is wider. You know, we have the buffered bike lanes
there on both sides. There's no on street parking there currently. It's just just the buffered bike lanes. Um, so I guess I'm not sure what the question is because we could take away space from the bike lane there to put in parking,
but I'm like the section that has the parking, it's already as narrow as we can make it with the constraints that we have. Yeah. No, I mean, and and I hear, you know, there's going to be traffic there no matter what, at least, you know, for the present moment. Um, so I
don't know. I'm just thinking I think I think we'll just have to face the tension that with the CRA redevelopment there combined with the presence of the farmers market, it is used and is going to be more frequently used as if it's a residential road by a lot of people there. And that's why I think getting
getting that connection that pedestrian connection in front of the ex art park is going to be very important with the implementation of first street redevelopment because that they can use that first street crossing as well as then they can walk right down the frontage with a pedestrian and and get
to that way. And I know this is not the only road facing these tensions in the city but it's gotten a lot of attention because there was a debt there. Yeah. Yeah, I mean the only the only point I'm trying to make is just at least in my mind, narrowing roads is a really important way to force cars to slow down and just it seems like there's going to be something that's going to have to
force cars to slow down that a crosswalk itself can't accomplish. And then the second question is that you touched on a little bit, but just to play devil's advocate just because it's been a huge topic of conversation, what would you say to the counterargument in terms of the crosswalk there that yes, the real
problem is the whole length of the road, the lighting, the structure of it, but it's already a legal crossing, people already use it, so why not put a crosswalk there just given that? Yeah, I again it's it's the the safety liability of it. We we know that there's a sight distance issue there. we know that it
doesn't have the ADA infrastructure there. So, if we're marking something, then we're we're creating a liability for ourselves. Um, and can can we fix that? Can we do something for the site distance? Yes, there's going to be a cost to that. Can we do something for the ADA
infrastructure? Yes, there's a cost for that. Um, and the prerequisite is changing not the the corridor more broadly is what I I mean we that in order to reduce the speed. Yes, we would have to change the corridor more broadly in order to
actually reduce the speed there. Um like speed cushion, raised crosswalk, the the speed cushions and raised crosswalks. Um again, when you get into the volumes that we're talking about on that existing street like that becomes a
problem for fire and transit and everything else. Um having to navigate those. Um you know, could those be put in possibly, but you know, we got to have buyin from everybody on that. Um, you can't put them on the hill, so it would have to go at the bottom, which
doesn't really help the speed of the stuff on the hill. Um, how can you explain more why it can't go on the hills? Um, cars jumping. Um, it's it's it's kind of just the the repeated um
stopping of vehicles with gravity. Um, really it it pushes out the asphalt and stuff. is just very it's not best practice to put speed tables and speed humps on hills that are over 6% and we're at close to 10%. So
So I know this is just part Brian. No, it's all good. I know we've got other parts of the presentation to get to you. Yes, thank you. Thanks a lot, Bren. All right, so I think your questions actually touched on some of the things that we're going to cover on the rest of the slides and I'm going to try to do micro machines voice to get through all
of these. zone. Um, all right. So, how are we going to be considering some of these longer ranged corridorwide issues? Well, first we're going to uh adopt our regional safety action plan so that we can have access to federal funds that will help us do some of that work. Um, this is something that will be coming to
you later tonight. Uh, it also comes along with a bonus demonstration project which will also be coming before you later this evening. So, we'll talk more about this slide uh in a couple hours. Uh we're also doing more work in the future uh to lower speed limits. Uh
that's in part going to have to evaluate the performance of our current quick builds that we're rolling out. Um we're also going to have to look at definitions of what streets are. We have in our streets that work uh design guidelines this thing called a yield street or a shared street. We've never
once identified a street in the city as one of those. Uh so we have an opportunity to figure out what does that look like and what kind of speed should that have and what kind of speeds should a local street have uh in comparison. Uh we also will need to look at some of
these corridors that have 35 mph speeds like Elliot Avenue, like Rose Hill Drive, like Preston. Uh and start scoping out which ones of these are priorities for us to start with first because these are going to be big projects that we're going to have to tackle. Um and then what do the scopes
of those projects look like? So this is the kind of work that we'll be talking about uh probably later in in this year uh because we have a lot of the existing work that we're trying to get done in the summer. Um along with that and as part of that discussion there's some overlap with the scoping of if we want
to pull all of these modes together and think holistically across the entire network. What does a citywide transportation plan look like? How do we make sure that we're not just doing a bike ped plan and a transit plan and a parking plan and how do we make sure all of those are captured in a cohesive
statement about what we want our network for transportation to look like. Um we are planning to scope that out probably beginning of next year. Um starting this winter. Uh hopefully we'll we'll be able to get some of the things off of our
desk to move forward with this by then. Um, and we'll be using some funding also identified in the surplus, uh, funding that's coming before you later. Sidewalks. Uh, so I'll jump into some some infrastructure stuff that we're actually moving forward with. We've had some new sidewalks built in
the past year. Uh, in different corners of the city, we have more sidewalks coming. Um, we are currently working through designs at 9inth Street and South 9inth Street Southwest, Prospect Avenue, um, and St. Clair Avenue and working with parks and recck and city
schools to uh build a a sidewalk in the Trailblazer parking lot that connects to the Gordon Avenue sidewalk. Uh we are also going to be working on developing our budget for sidewalks. So this past year you passed
a capital budget for sidewalks that was about 10 times more than what our sidewalk budget has been in recent years. Uh, and that's awesome, but it's based on some cost estimates that are a couple years old now. So, one thing we need to do is given some of the changes to construction costs and some of the
construction costs we've seen in the recent projects is do a big batch update of what are all these conceptual plans that we're moving forward with for tier 1, tier 2, what are the actual cost estimates for these things. uh for tier 2 projects, we did not provide you with
a cost estimate in this most recent uh capital budgeting cycle because we weren't sure how much those things were going to cost to construct. Um so the capital funding that we're looking to use this year is going to be looking at all of these projects, recosting them, figuring out what's going to be harder
than we thought it was going to be, what's going to be easier than we thought it would be. The other element that is not mentioned on this is we also have a uh concrete crew that is funded in this fiscal year. And when we're looking at cost estimates for budget development, we're looking at concrete
crews from outside uh and and contractor services. So there may be an opportunity that I'm not coming to you with a higher number. I'm sure it is going to be a higher number, but it may not be as eyeboggling as what we're thinking it is because we're controlling cost by doing some of that work internally. Uh the
tier 3es are not included in this recosting because uh those we don't even know how much the planning costs are going to take. We those are big scale projects. Uh some of them are things like a budding UVA property where we need to work with this major institution
to work through this plan of how we would address the uh that corridor. Um and it's going to take a little bit more work before we have any idea what the sidewalk would look like, much less how much it would cost. We are also doing some coordination with VOTE. Uh they are doing quite a bit of
study in our region right now. They have uh they have two studies uh underway technically three but two of them are kind of bundled together. The first is at our intersection right here at West Main Water South Ridge McIntyre Ridge uh where the former uh Sakuia statue sat on
the plinth out there. Um when VOTE came to us and said, "Hey, we would love to do some more work in Charlottesville. what's a good place to start? Uh I pointed them in that direction just to see if they could. Uh and they have actually performed very well. They are
doing some great uh bike ped uh planning which I'm grateful to see. Uh we're also looking at US 29 corridor. Um the city section from Barracks Road to Hydraulic and then a county section from hydraulic
up to Woodbrook. Um they're also doing a lot of bike ped planning for that project which uh most of the impetus of that project came out of a uh grant application that we supported the county on a couple times uh that they were unsuccessful for uh a reconnecting
communities grant to figure out how do people get across 29? How do you get from your house to the grocery store across 29? Um we have that solution in one spot of 29 that's being built right now. with the pedestrian bridge at Hydraulic, but north and south of there,
there's still a lot of uh safety issues for people crossing. And B do's actually stepping up and trying to help us figure out what that looks like. Um they have done the existing conditions report for West Maine. They're currently developing alternatives for that and we'll be doing a survey and public outreach around what
those alternatives are later this summer. Uh the US 29 project team, they're currently writing their existing conditions report. They're a little bit behind the other team. Um they have also started two pipeline projects. This is a a different planning funding stream that
VOTE uses. Um the two pipeline projects are one is at and that says US yeah US 29 at interstate 64 exit 118. Um they are looking at um they had made some changes to the way that those loops
worked in a couple years ago. uh the I can't remember which which direction we're trying eastbound uh from US 29 to 64 that loop um was taken out of the the Clover Leaf right
there and replaced with a different ramp. That ramp has some now some issues with people making left turns across 29 to access that ramp. So trying to figure out how we can make that safer as well as make some upgrades to the park and ride right there and potentially make some uh transit connections out to that
park and ride. Uh the other project that they are starting is Fifth Street Southwest from Old Lynchburg Road south of I64 to Harris Road in the city. Um the existing condition survey for both of these just went live. So, if you look
at the Coal Pepper VOTE project page, there should be a link uh to both of these, they will be open until June 16th. Um, aside from this, we are also in coordination with VOTE on a range of projects. This is a map that that VOTE hosts. Um, these are all the projects
they're working on. Um, I've mentioned a couple of the gray ones that they're working on. Those are the the stars and uh pipeline projects. Uh the the yellow ones and the red ones that are within the city include the Fontaine Avenue streetscape, the Avon Street Extended
Streetscape, the Fifth Street Trail Hub, and the District Avenue roundabout. Uh you'll notice aside from those, there are quite a few other dots that are just beyond our border. And those are things that we're also following up on. things like the roundabout at 53, uh the
roundabout at Rio Road, and there's another roundabout that I'm forgetting about, but they're basically trying to make sure people are safely getting into the city on every corridor coming into our city by throwing in a new roundabout. So, uh we are working closely with VOTE on all of these
projects. Um and they are working closely with us on this project. This is a uh project will I'll be coming before you later this summer, but it's one that we've been working on for a few months now, actually over a year at this point. Uh so we've got a bike pad master plan
that says we should be building a protected bike facility on Fifth Street. And over the past decade, we've had a lot of different visions of what that looks like. And some of that has been driven by, hey, there's a another fatality here. there's another high-speed automobile crash that has has
injured or killed someone. Um, and that has kicked up several rounds of how do we deal with this issue? And every time we've come up with a solution, uh, it has run into issues of, hey, we put it through the model and the traffic congestion impacts particularly northbound are are not worth the the
risk. or it requires a significant public investment for us to make sure that there is a protected lane there but that there is still uh enough capacity for as much car traffic as we would ever want. So last year uh VOTE came to me and
said, "Hey, we just finished all of our road diet work in Harrisonenberg. We we have leftover funding and leftover contract space with our consultant. Would you like any funding to do a road diet project?" And I said, "Yes, please. We have some needs in our city. Um, and this was one that we had
before I came on as the transportation planning manager not come to a satisfying solution to. Um, mostly because of the northbound impacts of removing a lane in both directions. Um, so I said maybe you can do a less uh impactful road diet than the one that we
looked at several years ago. Maybe just look at removing just the southbound lane. Um so they have been uh doing design options for that. Uh we had a public openhouse um back in April as well as a online
survey that collected about 300 responses. Um right now the consultants are digging through all of those responses because every one of our questions wasn't just a multiple choice question. We had an open response and we got a lot of responses. Um so they're looking through those trying to figure
out how to come up with the best refined alternative. uh design options at all of these intersections. Uh a lot of the feedback that we heard were concerns with congestion and uh traffic operations at two intersections, Harris Road and Fifth Street Station. Uh
particularly some concerns about the traffic light at Harris Road and and how that signal uh creates some unsafe solutions. Uh uncertainty about how new facilities would function. this would be one of first-of-akind uh kind of project for city the city and there were some
questions of well how would I even enter this I I it seems like a a brand new thing and kind of foreign. Um there were also some concerns about emergency vehicle operations whether this would potentially block uh them from being able to get up and down Fifth Street safely and quickly. Uh and then aside
from concern, there was a lot of excitement, a lot of very positive feedback of I would use this. I would love to be able to There were folks at either end of it that that gave us feedback. Folks who live downtown and and Fville area that said this would be great for me to get to the grocery store
and folks from Fry Spring and Willoughby area saying this would be great if I could get downtown. Um so there is some excitement out there, but there are some things for us to tweak in our design so that we can come back to y'all later this summer. I'm sorry to interrupt. So, I did a I've done a lot of recent door
knocking um in Prospect Avenue. Uh there maybe you're already hearing this, but there's a lot of concern currently about people cutting through their neighborhood um coming
from Fifth Street getting over to Cherry or over to the hospital. Um I observed that while while I was there and you know based off what people were telling me in terms of the frequency in both directions. Um so I hope you'll just
keep that in mind at least the neighbors that I talked to in that area. There were quite a few people that were really really concerned about the impact any changes on this road would have for cut through traffic through Prospect Avenue to to the park, Forest Hills Park, I
guess. Um, correct. Yeah, the back of Buford and on up. So, anyway, yeah, definitely a consideration. And we don't necessarily want to say we can't do this project because that might change a tra traffic pattern in the neighborhood. We can also address that traffic pattern as
it changes using some of the things we're learning from our traffic calming. Uh and we're also going to try to make sure that it's a little safer to walk up and down Prospect with that sidewalk that we're trying to Yeah. I think making it clear to the residents over there that it's essentially an all the
above kind of approach. Yep. Thank you. All right. Uh what's next? All right. The other We're talking about some more bike infrastructure now. Um, part of that project, part of the feedback we got was how how many people are biking on Fifth Street today, and how will you know this is successful?
Um, and the answer is we don't have a counter out on Fifth Street today. We'll know if it's successful if a lot of people are counted using it. Um, but right now we don't have sort of the before and after, but we want the after to be very clear and obvious. Um, and so we are currently working on our strategy
for where we want to put bike counters out throughout the community. Um, in the past we have had bike counters. We've put them out here and there. They've been temporary. They've been very um labor intensive because you have to go out and collect the data. The current bike counters we can install permanently. We can collect the data by
radio. We can pull it all up on a on a computer instantaneously. So, we're trying to figure out how to do that. The other thing that we want to do is make sure that this data is obvious to everyone who's using it. Uh, and so there are counters like this signage that you see right here that will tell
people in real time, this is how many people are using this. It gives that feedback of, yeah, this is a real facility that people are using and there probably is a demand for more of this in the community. So, we're looking forward to rolling that out with our new intern this summer. Um, another thing that he's
going to be working on this summer is long-term bike parking. Um, we have been very successful over the past couple years at rolling out hundreds of new parking spaces, but those have all been what we call short-term parking. It's the the piece of metal that you hook your block up to. Um, our development
code update requires that developers provide bike parking, but they're also required to provide long-term protected bike parking. And currently, there is no publicly available long-term protected bike parking. And so what we're going to be doing in NDS is trying to figure out
is there a a turnkey solution where we can have something like a locker or a space that is managed uh that you know we're not managing ourselves but provides that long-term bike parking uh solution without you know burdening economic development or us. It just is a
a resource that's out there that generates its own uh revenue and has its own operations. So we'll be looking into that this summer. Um, we're also working through bus stop amenities. Uh, we are currently working through our priority
shelter locations. The next one you'll see is Midway Manor. Uh, the one I'm showing right here is Belmont Park. Um, that went up month and a half, two months ago. Um, we're currently working through building out an inventory of where are all of our bus stop locations.
Um, that there is a little bit of a mystery to that. We have some old bus stop locations in our inventory that we need to make sure aren't actually working anymore. And we have some new bus stop locations that we want to uh start adding to the system as we expand. So, we are doing an inventory of all the
current amenities. We're also going to be looking at where can we put new amenities. Uh where are we going to have to site new bus stops when we expand or change some of the services? Uh especially going into some of the places in the county where there aren't services currently.
Um, so we're working through that this summer and and that'll probably cons continue throughout the fall. Um, the other half of what we do is programming. So, how do we provide and promote mobility options for all? What are our services and programs that we're doing in transportation planning? Um, the
first one I want to highlight is safe routes to school. This is uh both education for schools. So, we teach kids how to ride bikes. Uh we also are making investments in school zones uh mostly through quick builds but also we have some uh things that we're turning into
concrete as well. We this past year we managed a pilot study on Belmont Avenue. Uh there was some unsafe dropoff conditions going on behind Summit Elementary. Um and we've changed that to a oneway. It has become a lot safer. Um uh before this was put in, we were
hearing a lot of uh complaints from teachers, parents, the neighbors about how dangerous it was back here and now we hear about wow it's really quiet. Uh so not as much noise and that's a good thing. Um so this has a a key role also
in implementation of our speed camera uh that has been in coordination with public works with the police department with the private contractor that is uh helping us put in these cameras and and monitor the speeds in front of three different uh school zones that' be Summit uh Buford Charlottville Middle
School uh and Johnson Elementary. In addition to this, uh, Safe Routes to School is going to be pursuing expanding our, uh, city- owned bike fleet. This is the fleet that we use for teaching elementary schools, uh,
how to ride a bike. Um, this is usually done through PE. And as you can imagine, PE is about 45 minutes. And if you have elementary school students that you're trying to get a bike and you're trying to get a helmet and you're trying to get them teach them how to ride the bike and by the time you get them, you know, maybe riding in a straight line, it's
time to pack up everything and go on to art class or whatever. So last May, we went uh to our after school programs and said, "What if we made this available to you? Would you use this?" And they said, "We have three hours every day that we need to fill with programming. We can definitely find a use for this." Uh it
went like gang busters. It was great. Everybody had a great time except there was a little bit of an issue. And the issue is the next day when they need to teach PE, sometimes the bikes were a little busted up because the kids have been riding them for 3 hours the day before. Um, and we realized if we want
this program to be successful, we're going to need more bikes. We're going to need a little bit more flex in how many spare bikes that we have that we can make sure, you know, that there are enough operating to teach PE, but also open this up to everybody. So, as the first phase of this, we're going to be
purchasing about 60 more bikes over uh the next 6 months. It takes about 6 months for them to get uh built and delivered to us. Uh as well as the trailers that are parked at each of the schools that we'll be uh doing this program. And so, this is a a big fun
program that we'll be doing later this year. And there'll be lots of pictures to share, I'm sure. Uh the other thing we work on is transit. So, uh, we have been working with Carta, that's our Charlottesville Alamar Regional Transit Authority. Uh,
they through TJPDC submitted a grant application to DRPT to ask for assistance to determine what are our priorities as a region. We've had this transit vision plan that says we want $35 million worth of service every year or $70 million of unconstrained service
every year, but what do we really need to invest in immediately in the near term in order to start building out this big beautiful network? Um, so we we are getting awarded those funds according to uh initially it was just a staff recommendation but CTB will be meeting
this month and approving those funds. We should be receiving those in July. Uh and then we're hoping to move very quickly because we are looking at also how do we pay for this which is has always been part of this discussion of
Carta. It was really for how we raise dedicated funding to pay for our priorities. And while we have the plan for the priorities, we also need to start thinking about where are we getting the funding from. Uh so now now that Carta exists uh we are meeting between city and county staff and we are
now pulling in the finance folks, the budget folks, the revenue folks, the economic development folks into the room and saying where do we get the money to make these expansions happen? And in align with that, we also need to go to the legislature and say, can we get the monies to make this happen? Uh we're
aiming to do that in January 2026. We we met with our delegate and state senator earlier today to get them up to speed on this. Um that may be a little bit of an optimistic timeline, but that's our northstar right now until something changes. That's that's the way we're
headed. We are at the same time trying to figure out what do we do next year. Um at the end of the FY2026 budget cycle, we said we are going to start on FY27 as soon as y'all are passing this one. and we met the next day and started
talking about what does FY27 look like for transit. Um we are pulling together different investment scenarios that look at different sorts of investments that you could make including uh higher frequencies, more nighttime services, Sunday services, improved Saturday services. And with all of these we
scenarios we will bring to you this is how many operators it takes, this is how many mechanics it takes. This is these are the other support roles that we need and this is the capital we need. this is how many buses we need. These are the different bus stops we need to build. We'll bring all that to you as part of
the FY27 planning. We're also going to be needing to have those conversations with the county because they also make investments in our in our system and need to be at the table for this discussion. Uh our scooters is the next
topic. So in 2024 we had about 250,000 rides. um very useful for supporting the mode share of people who don't have access to a car, can't drive. Along with transit, this provides them uh some
access to areas all over our city. Uh unfortunately, that means that we're still having persistent parking issues all over our city. Um we have also had some issues with major turnover with our local VO team. Um, and there have been points over the past few months where
we're we're calling them to say, "Hey, there's a scooter to pick up." And there's nobody at the other end of the line. And so that has highlighted some very serious issues that we need to address in our uh dockless mobility permit regulations so that if they want to keep operating here, there are some
standards for them to follow. But we do actually want them to keep operating here because they are providing a service to us at very low cost. So what we are trying to do uh right now is update these uh permit regulations. We've currently
extended their permit through the end of this month. We have put pulled together a draft. It is currently being reviewed by the city attorney's office as well uh as our internal staff to make sure that this is something that we can uh manage. It's it's it's a big system.
Uh the the big changes to this uh which are probably the details that you're most interested in are we are now going to require them to come up with a plan for how are you managing staffing, how are you managing parking, how are you managing public engagement, tell us explicitly what you are going to do
about these things and then we will have uh data reporting requirements that will have them follow up on those plans uh so that we can publicly report out this is what the the VO company is doing to address these issues. Um, there are also some updates to
requirements for how quickly they need to remove a vehicle, how often they have to move a vehicle if it's been sitting, you know, just sitting for a while. Um, and also some changes to how the user finds would need to be reported. Yes. Um since they're our only scooter operator
at the moment, they do kind of have the monopoly on, you know, on the the they're cornering the market, which means they can bend the rules as much as they feel comfortable be because there's no one there to take their market share. I mean, we they could always lose their permit, but you
know, this is something that we want as a city. Are we also talking about allowing other operators to enter the picture? We always allow other operators. Um, and we have been approached uh occasionally my time here, but they've only been nibbles. There hasn't been a hard bite. Okay. Because I
remember initially when the pilot program was, Lime was here and I think Bird Bird, I believe, was the other one. Yeah. Um, and from my understanding, one was asked to leave and the other left because they didn't feel like the market supported them and that the regulations were perhaps too financially ownorous on
them. Uh, so there's a point where we can be too harsh that we lose, right? And initially when I was uh first brought in to the city to work as the transportation planning manager, one of the first things I did was talk with VO about what the regulations were and because they were about to leave town um
and they wanted some changes to the regulations and there was some some push back from us as well that we needed some changes as well. So, this is more of an update to that of all right, we did a little better last time. Let's keep going and hopefully we can make this work for both sides and then to your
point, maybe this becomes an attractive enough market that's well-managed enough that another competitor steps in. Great. Thank you. All right, another few fun things I'll roll through very quickly. Um, our neighborhood walk series has been going
on for about a year and a half now. Um these are monthly walks on the second Sunday of each month. So join us next week uh June 8th at Berlin Miranda Elementary. We are walking around Locust Grove. Um this past fall we spent uh walking around neighborhoods around UVA.
So we got that opportunity to partner with student groups and with local residents who live across the street from UVA but may not interact with UVA all that much. Um we've also be begun a partnership with Rag Mountain Running Shop. they are promoting these walks with us and and bringing a lot more
people out. Uh we also have a partnership with the historic resources committee. They pull together uh a one-page document for us for every walk so that everyone understands the historic context of the walk. And we're going to continue working with more and more partners. We we would love it to eventually uh spin this off where the
neighborhoods are hosting our walks instead of us going into the neighborhood. And our last walk was a great example of that. This is a picture from that. Uh a local resident in Woolen Mills, Bill Emery. uh basically played host the entire time. I sat back and just chilled. It was great. Um and he
knew every nook and cranny of that neighborhood and was very excited to share. So I hope we get more opportunities to do that throughout uh this program. Next one I want to highlight is bikesville.com. This is a brand and website that we pulled together as part of bike month. I don't want to dive too
much into bike month because now it is no longer bike month, but it was very successful. Uh, please check out bikeseville.com to see all of the things that we were doing during bike month, but also look at the calendar of things that are coming up. Look at the resources we're providing. Um, this is supposed to be education for where to
get a bike, where to ride it, how to get it fixed, who to ride with. Um, it's currently managed by us, but we see this as a regional resource and we're working with Alam Marl County, TJPDC, UVA, the local bike shops, and some of the advocacy community groups to make sure that this is a a sort of hub of
information for people to use to get into biking in our community. Uh, we I'm going to end here with our ebike programs first with our voucher program. We are in in our second quarter of that program. We've given out 25 lottery winners each quarter. uh when
they win the lottery, they get a voucher for a thousand dollar uh voucher that they can take to a local bike shop and get an ebike. Um we've gotten some feedback on this program and a lot of it has been positive. Um we've had a lot of people sign up for these about a
thousand people each round. Uh the first round being in January, the second round starting in April. Um the the biggest feedback we've gotten is there are a lot more people smiling when they come to the NDS permit desk. um when when people come to our desk and ask for free money,
it it tends to change the vibe. Um it it has also changed what people are asking for in the bike shops. Uh a lot of our bike shops have catered to more high-end users who are biker guys. Uh this has brought in a different crowd and it has really changed the demand in their bike
shops and they are noticing it because they all get to see the spreadsheet of where the v vouchers are going and they are seeing the vouchers are going to where the cheap bikes are. And so if you're closer to that thousand dollars, you're getting more of those vouchers as a local bike shop. And the bike shops
are starting to respond. They are starting to bring in new brands that are lowerc cost brands that may be more uh accessible to more people. And lastly, uh there are a lot of applications that we're getting from county residents, uh which may indicate that they might want to have a similar program, but also from
city employees who are not eligible for this lottery. um which may indicate that there is some demand from city employees for this as well. Um and our last thing that I want to tack on to that program is the sister program that we're working on with the office of sustainability,
office of social equity, and department of social services. This is uh taking funds from our separate programs and putting them together so that we can put bikes directly in the hands of people. This isn't a voucher. This is here's a bike. I know this is going to get you to work, get you to doctor's appointments.
get you to, you know, whatever you need to do in the our community aimed at people who have have financial barriers so that they're not left out of this uh opportunity and option for mobility. So with that, that will be my last one. Uh
I got you two minutes left. So um Michael, I'll start with you, sir. You have any questions or comments? One one comment on the the legislation for Carter. Do you think it'll be important to get that in for this upcoming general assembly session? Because we've
definitely seen it can take a couple sessions for legislation to finally make it out of committee. Um, and I'll just also say I think I hope the community understands with this presentation big picture, there's a lot of bike ped infrastructure that has to be improved and people come to us all the time with legitimate complaints and they're upset
because it's not immediately responded to. But I think I hope the community can understand that, you know, as of 2022, not that long ago, we had gone through 20 different department heads, not just in the city manager's office, but citywide. That has an impact on public works, engineering, NDS, ability to do
long-range planning. And for us to actually fix that big picture problem, we have to step back and prioritize and act this way. you know, we can't if we're only responding to everything that comes up to us in emergency, we're going to be unable to have the space to do the big picture transformation. So, and it
doesn't mean the community is not going to see things that we miss and we don't need their input, but I hope the community can see, you know, the big picture of what's happening. Yeah. I want to kind of emphasize a couple of things Michael said. As you
mentioned, our our sidewalk budget was 10 times what it was previously, which means it is something that had been neglected and now we are focusing on it, which is excellent to hear. Um, and helping kind of get us out of triage. You know, we are several decades behind
of underinvestment. So, it's it's going to take a while to get ahead and not just be catching up. Um, but you you got to go through the catching up phase in order to get to the getting ahead phase. So, um it's going to take a second. There's just so much to be excited about
here. Um and one of the reasons why I like a lot of the the well, one of the exciting things about this is um a lot of times we hear that the only contact people have with the government is when they paid their taxes. And so they have this kind of
negative impression. And when you do infrastructure projects, that is something visible that people get to see. Um those kinds of safety improvements, accessibility improvements. this is a way that people are interacting with their government in a positive way. Um so it's good to kind of get that feedback out in the
community that kind of positive advertising for for government like we are working on things for you that will help. Um so that's another just kind of added benefit to infrastructure projects like this. And then um for the the bike accessibility um program that you
mentioned right at the end um I just want to kind of compare that to two things that happened to me um in the last couple of weeks. One is I had to buy some new um chain grease for my bike. It was $12. And I also had to get an oil change for my car. It was $65.
And so the cost and the cost of buying these two getting around tools is very different. And the cost to maintain them is very different. And if you're within the city trying to get somewhere else within the city, um the a bike is fast,
easy, we're working on making it a lot safer and more comfortable and um you know, more equitable in so many ways. So very cool that there are so many uh things that the city's working on to to make that better for everybody. Thank you so much, Lloyd. I have nothing I
have my questions as we went along. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I just want to echo um what uh Natalie and Michael had to say. I just really am so impressed with this the whole team here um in
terms of pulling together a plan and beginning to execute on it. I mean, I'm I'm seeing real um um forgive the term concrete um um things occurring u concrete um results.
And so that that makes me really excited and I think it it goes back and it speaks to the city manager's notion of, you know, discipline. Let's come up with a plan. Let's develop a plan. Let's stick to it and let's let's execute it. think we're finally beginning to see where we have enough resources both in
terms of money and human beings to actually get these things done. It it makes me really excited. I, you know, we get feedback. I mentioned the Rose Hill um intersection earlier and, you know, to have someone continue to ask you what what's up with this? Why
is it taking so long? This is dangerous. And then you see that it's fixed. You know, that that is a really rewarding thing. So, I want to thank all of you. Yep. Yep. In light of time, I'm as excited. Brought back some memories from my time as planning. I I want to jump
back into the game a little, but Well, you got time now. You retired, so you can hire. You can have him moonlight for you. Yeah. So, thank you all so much. It's exciting to see, you know, um the city moving forward with these efforts and we have
the capacity to do it is it's great. Did you you put up the Jesus finger? Oh, out the door. Sorry, it wasn't about here. Sorry. Um, okay. So, we're going to close session. Sam, if you put a Nick session, if you
could see if you can get staff to work on a little heat. Um, we'll find out. So, we're going into close session. Sure. Sweater. [Music] This is a motion for a city council closed session pursuant to section
2.2-3712 of the Virginia Code. I move that the city council close this open meeting and convene in a closed session as authorized by the Virginia Freedom of Information Act as follows. One, under Virginia code section 2.2-3711A1 for discussion and
consideration of prospective candidates for appointment to the following board, Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority Board and two under Virginia code section 2.2-3711A1 2-3711A1 for discussion of performance of specific public officers, appointees,
or employees of the public body. Second. Um, we're going to do a voice vote. Um, all in favor, please say yes. Yes. Yes. Any opposition? Thank you. We're in close session. We'll be back at 6:30. Part: 2
No, because I was just [Applause] Hello. We are going to um go into our business session. Um want to thank everyone for coming. Before um we begin, we're going to read oursel out of close
session. I move that this council certified by a recorded vote that to the best of each council member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion convening the closed session were heard, discussed, or considered in the
closed session. Second. Second. Um, we're changing up our voting, but right now we're going to do a voice vote. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. All oppose, please say no. Correct. Okay. So, we're at our regular
business session. Before we we begin, we have an announcement about the um C um ACRJ. Yes. So, tonight we were supposed to have a presentation from Colonelkumer to talk about the bond financing for the ACRJ. Uh, in an open um bid opening uh
that was open to members of the public on Friday afternoon, the bids came in. There were six, I believe, six contractors that bid. The lowest bid that was uh put forward exceeded the budget. And for that reason, that project is in the process of figuring
out a path forward. um that will happen. Those conversations are happening or will happen with the ACRJ board itself. Um I can't or won't predict what the next steps will look like with that project, but at this point that's where
that stands. Um and so tonight that item has been removed from the list. Yes. and several people um are signed up to speak and of course you still can speak on that when we get to that in a few minutes but we just want to um let you know when that comes up again at some
point um there will still be an opportunity to to speak um and we'll hear your comments on that at that time again as well. So, um, that being said, um, we're going to have a a moment of
silence, please. Thank you all very much. Are there any announcements? I I don't think I I had any. Okay, so one real quick. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. Second Sunday of the month. um neighborhood walks. This will be this month there'll be Locust Grove
and they'll be meeting at uh Berley Maran Elementary School on Sunday the 8th at 1 p.m. So check out the Bike and Pedestrian Advisory Committee website for more details. Thank you. Thank you. Um so are there any proclamations this?
I think so. Okay. Um we're now at the opportunity for um community matters where we um will hear from the public. There are eight um people that have already pre-registered and the first person is Mr. Harold Foley Jr.
Um thank y'all so much for allowing me to speak tonight. Um, first of all, I know that things was pulled. Um, but as an organizer, we can't put things back in the tube. And so, we are here today to talk about how um, the money should
go into the community. Before I get started though, I want to thank everybody who came out, everybody who came to a protest with us, everybody who did everything that they supposed to be doing to make sure we GSD. If you don't know what GSD means, it's get stuff done
or whatever. Yeah. But what I'm gonna do is pass my time to Kate uh so she can um start it off. Okay. Um Miss Thomas has a package of material that you can look at. I think you already got it. So, my
name is Kate Freley. I'm a uh resident of Charlottesville. Hello, mayor, vice mayor, members of city council. Thank you for this opportunity. Um, I was shocked uh when I heard that the
uh number 13 was removed from the agenda, but I was more shocked by the fact that in the packet last Friday, you had the proposal for the funding, but you didn't have any of the pictures from the final design. So, I'm going to talk
about that a little. Um, I was going to talk about it was going to cost more than you said before. First, I want to tell you about something they've already cut in order to stay within the budget. They're building a wall on Aan Street on the Avon Street side so people won't see Bob
Wire. And as a result, they're going to replace they're not going to replace the 20,000 buildings roof. If they have to cut something, don't let it be the renovations. We will have to pay for it eventually if they do. The People's
Coalition has always supported renovating the jail. Have not supported the final design, the big beautiful jail, and that's probably one of the reasons why they're over budget. The um first
page of the stuff that you have in front of you is a picture of how the jail looks right now. The second page is the preliminary design picture um which is quite modest. The third and fourth page are the front of the
building, the big beautiful jail. The next page is the existing Avon Street side where the magistrate's office is. And the next page is the big beautiful jail side uh next to
Avon. If you uh notice on these pictures, which you obviously haven't seen before, except for Mr. Pixton, Vice Mayor, um they Let's see. Thank you. Thank you,
Kate. Um it's time. No, it didn't even turn on. Yeah. Yeah, it did. Well, it's been Yeah, screen went back. So, thank you. We we have your information. The next speaker
is Sher Cherry Henley. Okay. Good evening. Good evening. Hey everyone. Um we have been I just want we have been addressing issues on criminal reform on ways to improve the community that's impacted. You will hear from other members of the people coalition and now
we're addressing a jail expansion fund and vote. I wanted to address other ways of supporting our people without caging them. You all have a copy of the report. I think imagine just seville hopefully as you can see all of those who worked
on Imagine just uh Seville names are listed on the front page. This was after the DMC report that 52% of black men were charged unfairly. There are other statistics for black women. Some of these people are still suffering the after effects such as probation, fines,
and fees which eventually has led to homelessness and for the city to consider what can be done differently. Its only response is to build a place to bring more harm and de devastation to families. After Tyler's worked from the grassroots organization many years
speaking on the racial divide, the DMC was released. The study revealed what was happening in Charlottesville. Little was done after the study for the harm caused to black and brown citizens. So the mayor took another approach in 2020
where work on imagining a just seale began. There were many recommendations in that study by this group for the city to rectify its mistakes. I want to enerate a few of those recommendations. Recreation activities for the youth. As we can see, the pain and trauma has
trickled down to gun violence among our youth. Gun violence in the US has increased due to complex interplay of factors including the CO 19 pandemic, gun sales, lack of social services and influence of drug markets. The pandemic
also exabated existing social issues issues and mental health concerns contributing to a rise in violence. Another recommendation was to hire advocates in the public defenders office. Um, excuse me there because they
are short staffed and have low funding. There are many in our community who are working to support those coming home that could be placed in these positions. The central focus of our group was to invest in programs that increase social cohesion and well-being while also
working to prevent initial interaction with the criminal justice system. Many organizations are leading the way to support our community members. The founding fund, home to hope, and other grassroot organizations such as myself, Lynen Hands, George Ree, wartime fitness, what he's doing to with the
youth. Uh, and lastly, I want to introduce you to a great young man who is changing the lives of many young people in the community, Mr. Ray Quan Jones. How y'all doing? How y'all doing? Um, I run a nonprofit called Brother Blessings. This is my team and we take the kids out of the community and we put
them into sports. So, as in with sports, it's like we we as in sports. Thank you. Thank you. So I would like to get more information about your your program and there may be other time
um because all the slots are not filled up. So just if you wait a few minutes Yeah. Yes. Okay. The next speaker is Richard Allen. Is Richard Allen here? Um the next speaker is
Elizabeth Stark. Hi counselors um and city manager Sanders. Uh my name is Elizabeth Stark. Uh I am a city resident. I live in the Woolen Mills neighborhood. Um I'm here today to support the people's
coalition's call to halt um the expansion of ACRJ. Um the project will cost the community tens of millions of dollars and as you've acknowledged tonight, even more likely than we anticipated. Um but these
funds should be used instead to um for restorative justice programs, rehabilitation programs, and re-entry programs to support community members and reduce the dependence on the jail in the first place. The jail should be a last resort for community members, not a
first response. I'm also here to ask that you reconsider your support of flock surveillance um technology and other data aggregating technologies like paragrine. At the February city council meeting, several of you, a majority of you signaled your
support for flock. I know some of you weren't here and others of you didn't go on the record about it. Um but there still was majority support for flock. Um, now after a spade of recent reports that have demonstrated um that when
these technologies are deployed, they will be used by bad actors in the state to surveil communities. This is the time for the city to protect its residents. Already nationwide Flock data has been used to track down a person seeking reproductive health care in Texas. And
now the federal government is using Flock for immigration related searches, surveillance, and detentions. Once this data exists and despite whatever restrictions our community asked to be put on the data,
these this reporting shows we can't put the genie back in the bottle. If the data exists, it will be exploited by both bad actors and the state. The federal government has shown that it's increasingly um lacks respect for the
rule of law and so we cannot trust this sensitive community data to be in the hands of law enforcement um and possible bad actors and the state. Um you know I think this is very very
clear. We need to turn off the flock cameras and reject technologies like flock and paragrine that hand our sensitive data over to anyone willing to exploit the system. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anna
Marlo. Anna Marlo is the next speaker. I don't see anyone moving. Rosia Parker. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Rosia Parker. Okay. I would like to speak to you about
the ACRJ um uh uh um expansion funding. Uh let's let's not be tricked by sunk cost. Charlottesville, Albamar, Nelson have already spent 4.5 million on
gel expansion plans. But that doesn't mean we should keep spending. Just because money has spent been spent doesn't make it wise to pour 49 million more before interest. That's money we could use for housing, jobs, mental
health care, youth programs. There's still time to choose a better path. The final check has not been written. city council could stop this. Now is the moment to ask, is expanding the jail the best use of public dollars when the jail population is at a historic low?
Expansion by any other name is still expansion. Adding a bigger lobby, second floor mental health units adds over 16,000 square ft. That's expansion plan and simple. Even if they say rated capacity won't change, this creates
space for more sales in the future. Adding a bigger lobby. Second floor. Mental health. Okay. Even. Okay. Sorry. Our community needs care, not cages. People struggling with mental health illness don't. Solitary confinement. They need services and support. Building a bigger jail doesn't fix the problem.
It enforces a system that punishes people for being poor, sick, and or in crisis. A vote for expansion is a vote against our future. Every dollar we put in the jails is a dollar we don't put into schools, clinics, transit, or youth programs. Let's invest what keeps our
communities whole, not what breaks them breaks them apart. We're not going anywhere. The People's Coalition and our community partners will continue to fight for justice. We're urging the council to vote no on jail expansion and we will back be back if you don't. I
also want to speak with you about uh this fitness room, the staff fitness room. Give that to and then I also want to give you the pictures of the outdoor recreation. I am want to speak to you
about the outdoor recreation. How does it comes from this to this? This is like a recreation outside of the cell. So there's no fresh air. There's nothing for the inmates slash innocent before
proven guilty. Um don't be treated like inmates. But I feel this should be a better recreation compared to the staff recreation fitness room. That's beautified more than what the jail would the jail recreation would be for the
inmates. Thank you so much. Thank you. The next speaker is Alicia Lahan. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity. My name is Alicia Lennahan. I live at 1420 Vivverie Lane,
22902. Since the city council meeting on May 5th, it has become apparent that Homeland Security, ICE, and other federal federal agencies are operating in our community. The courthouse action on April 22nd led to a foyer request by Delegate Coulson and Senator Deeds. Although little light was shed on the
courthouse, those documents provided some information about the level of cooperation between the Albaml County Police Department and the federal government. Historically, the ACPD has collaborated with Homeland Security on significant cases, including homicide, rapes, and child exploitation
investigations. Of immediate concern is the recent cooperation that targets our immigrant and refugee neighbors. On January 2025, ICE commenced an operational initiative to locate unaccompanied alien children. Also in January, members of the ACPD senior
leaders leadership team met with the regional homeland security agent and the ICE regional supervisor. In an email to the board of supervisors dated April 21st, 2025, Chief Reeves outlined the assistance being provided under the
operational initiative. On at least one occasion, a detective accompanied HSI agents to a home. This occurred under the guise of a wellness check to protect children from human trafficking. The operational initiative clearly states that deportation is the goal for
managing US UAC cases, pursuing and locating and/or preparing and serving immigration documents, or when executing orders of removal for alien cases that are included in this initiative. At approximately 7 a.m. on May 23rd, FBI
agents showed up at the homes of local public defenders representing the two individuals taken from the courthouse. Apparently, they were seeking information about the women who questioned ICE actions on April 22nd. On May 4th, there was an ICE encounter in a city neighborhood. On May 20th, ACPD and
ICE agents conducted a joint training exercise on the grounds of Alberal High School while classes were in session. Last week, DHS identified Charlottesville and Albamaral as sanctuary jurisdictions. Far from standing up for our values and principles, both local governments
adamantly denied that they have any policies or practices that prohibit or impede cooperation with federal immigration laws or law enforcement officers. Terror does not stop at the county line. For those of you concerned about what might happen if
Charlottesville stands up, please please consider the real terror of our immigrant and refugee families that they are living with every single day. It is time, it is past time for the city council and Charlottesville police to be
completely transparent. What agreements have you signed? What level of cooperation are you providing? A thorough detailed presentation will tell us who and what we have to fear. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker is Miss Beard.
Gloria Beard. Yes. Well, good evening. Good evening. My name is Gloria Beard and I'm going to talk about people don't get well in the cage, jail or prison, they get worse. People with mental health
conditions are over representative. Can y'all hear me? No. Okay. Well, let me start over. testing. Okay. People with mental health conditions are over represented to live in our nation's jail and prisons with
many individuals becoming justice involved due to a lack of adequate community mental health services. About two and five people currently incarcerated have a history of mental
illness, a rate twice as high in the average county. Jail and prison are mostly inadequate to meet the needs of a person with mental illness. Read the National Alliances on mental illness
nami. That's the conditions for this title. Also, National Association of Social Workers, Behavioral Health Disparities and the Pacific Needs of Special Populations,
NASSW. I have a few questions to ask you. What is the protocol for the mental health rooms at Aramal County Regional Jail? Also, is there going to be enough hired
staff for special purpose sales after being incarcerated with mental health issues? What happens when they are let go? When you release them? What about housing, the medications, the appointments and safety?
I heard of some communities that tried to the expansion of their jails but only to end up buyers remorse. For instance, in Oklahoma County, 26 260
million jail project has now ballooned to 700 million in Dne County. When constant a jail product is now 27.5 million over budget and in Lucas County, Ohio, a jail
project is now 83 million over budget. especially at a time of federal funding and you know the cuts uh starting an expansion project could be risky business. I'm not saying don't
renovate the jail but don't spend that much money to add extra sales for mental illness because you just can't get well in the cage. I have worked with the mental illness and that it's a sad sad business and then in
lockdown it makes it worse. It's not going to work. So I want y'all to think about that and Harold. Thank you. Y'all read please read what I send up there please. Thank you. Um that that was
all that was all of the um pre-registered speakers. So we have opportunity for I believe 10 more speakers. Anyone like to speak that um Jess? I'm Jessica Jackson. One second. Let make sure if we can get the time in straight. It's Should we just use the
I'm going to go back to this board now. Okay. Okay. I'm Jessica Jackson. I own property in Charlottesville. I went on the um Albamar Shalisville um jail website today and um just gathered some
information um and understand that there's a need to renovate the jail so that those who are living there and the working standards are adequate but it's also important to provide adequate mental health professionals for those who are incarcerated and for those who
work at the jail. According to the Almar Shalis for Regional Jail web page, currently the jail has three medical professionals dedicated to mental health. It also states that there were there are 300 people incarcerated. It
might not be 300 and maybe less, but there are only three medical professionals dedicated to mental health. The jail does have assistance from community nursing students, but students tend to be able to only offer temporary
assistance and they have to be supervised. So, they can't really provide um they can't provide care for people who are incarcerated. Three people cannot be expected to provide all the mental help needed to
rehabilitate individuals and help them transition back into the community as productive noncriminal citizens. I'm perplexed as to how anyone thinks that three professionals is sufficient.
A humane and reasonable requirement by the city council is to require that in addition to the jail renovations that there are funds set aside to train hire more mental health professionals and pay
for services at in-house mental care facilities. My ask tonight is that the city council would take a pause, that you would make some renovations, but that you would make it a priority to insist that funds
are also set aside yearly in the jail budget to hire more mental health professionals, pay for in-house stays at mental health facilities. The requirement of funds for increased mental health services for those in jail
should start immediately or at the beginning of 2026. Charlottesville should also ask Alar Nelson County to allocate money for more mental health care workers. If each county is willing to pay tens of millions to improve a building, surely
each county should be willing to set aside at least one to $2 million each year to hire people or to um send people to mental health facilities to help our citizens be rehabilitated and get the
mental health care that they need. If the money is not set aside to provide more health, mental health services, then it may send a message that incarceration is the only goal. And I hope that's not the case. Thank you.
Thank you, Jessica. The gentlemen, did y'all want to come on? Okay. Hey, my name is uh Jaquan Jones. I'm a co-founder of Brothers Blessings. We're here to help kids who struggle in school or at home or in life. If they don't
have pos positive role models, we step up. And if they need a father figure, we're here. We got support and care. We even take care. We even take kids into our own homes. This is about love, respect, and hope. We're building a better future one kid at a time. My name is Joe Whan and also just I just
want to talk and say how much this motivates me just helping the youth cuz I was once that kid that really need that motivation that extra push cuz I believe in second chances for sure and you know life it hits hard sometimes and you know just having that somebody that's in your corner that can relate
and looks just like you it it means a lot and it takes a long way. My name is Assan Nibblins and um my why for helping brothers blessings is I was in middle school, my father got incarcerated and I had a behavior specialist teacher that is still in my
life and I just want to encourage helping the community out. I'm the founder of Brothers Lessons and this is my team and you know we just wanted to come talk let y'all know what we here for and what we do it for. Thank y'all. Thank
you. Thank you. I I had not heard of your your organization. I'm I'm very impressed with what I hear. Um Ashley, if you you already got We here. We're here. Great. Thank you so much. Um yes.
Thank you. Ronz, I live in the county. Um I echo the alarm raised earlier um this evening. The physical presence of ICE and other federal law enforcement is terrifying for our immigrant and refugee
neighbors. It is intended to intimidate um you and everyone else in the community. The threat is amplified by the city's willingness to contribute to multiple layers of surveillance that come with data acquisition. I know the city plans to spend
$150,000 to purchase a system called Caragrin to pull together information already held by the Charlottesville police in different databases, thus making it more accessible and useful. Paragrin, a spin-off of Palunteer,
collects and connects data across desperate and dispar sources to reveal insights for government agencies. This product relies heavily on artificial intelligence, which finds connections that may or may not be relevant.
Open-source searches have expanded to include information no one should have access to. Health data, financial records, and any other digital data that these vendors scrape up and add to their packages. Today, AI is a popular
policing solution. This carries dire risks, including privacy violations, bias, false accusations, and sabotage of our civil liberties. At a minimum, the adoption of such tools requires community control of whether to acquire
them, and if adopted, transparency, and clear guard rails. The fourth amendment's overarching goal is to pre prevent overreaching by police surveillance. Data acquisition systems that include flock and ubiquitous ALPRs,
the cameras at intersections are developing the capability to build out a consolidated database of people's movements and locations. All an officer or other government employee would need to do is type in a search, provide a
generic reason, and hit enter. The administration uh awarded Palunteer Technologies $30 million to build a new deportation surveillance platform named Immigration OS. It will use the sensitive d personal
data that Doge has siphoned from federal agencies such as the IRS, HHS, and Social Security. Immigration OS is being built for ICERRO, the division responsible for raids, detentions, and
deportations. Palunteer must develop a or provide a prototype by September. ICE is using surveillance technology as part of its mass deportation efforts. That laser-like focus can easily be turned on any one of us. Your oath of office
requires you to support the Constitution of the United States. Your constituents demand it. Uh we too are watching. Thank you. Robin, I'm Robin Hoffman. I live on Caroline Avenue and last week we had a
police officer come to every one of our doors, I think it was like 14 houses and ask, "How did this sign slow traffic or something like that be on our street?" And everybody said, "I don't know. It's
really old. It's been there forever." Well, I do know. And so here's the thing. Um, we on Carolina Avenue have had four shootings, I think, into the homes. We've had flooding, which the
residents who were in their homes for like 35 or 50 years told me about. Uh so we you know we're fighting together to petition for against flood plane building and all that kind of stuff but
our cohesiveness has drawn us together so that we can talk with each other about what's going on in our uh street and we also wrote petitions to uh the neighborhood at city um hall. you know,
we did all the processes we're supposed to do and then all of a sudden, you know, we learned that uh Kevin Cox was arrested and we're like, what? He was our um he was our he was our children's
um uh safety guard uh school, you know, to get them when the buses wouldn't run, you know, when there was traffic on East High. that was during rush hour and he was like really lurching in the traffic
again, you know, for his life. Uh, and he still did it and he talked to Mayor Snook at the time and everybody and they came there and they publicized whatever. He did the process of trying to get people to make a crossing uh, walk
there. It took us over three years to get any kind of signage, any kind of crossing walk in on Caroline Avenue. There's a blind person who couldn't cross the street. I'm just saying could you please prioritize your arrests, your
resources, and ask people like Little High, as an association were able to get a huge flower where they were having issues with crossing and stuff like that. If I think Kevin Cox used the
chalk uh paint, he thought it was going to be erased. You ask him, ask him what he's done. He planted flowers on his tide to stop the traffic. You know, he's done so much for our neighborhood. But that's just an example of overreaching,
I think, and also underreaching. Please listen to your neighbors. Thank you. Thank you. Dee, thank you. Good evening. Dee Smith. I live in the Fry Spring neighborhood and I'm here to uh raise the alarm about
another big, very expensive project that you all voted on in June of 2022 is slated to be funded and start construction within the next was funded next month and start construction. It doesn't look anything like what you
voted on. and it is slated to go through a fivemile 30in pipeline in our city streets through our most vulnerable neighborhoods down Cherry Avenue past First Street, Sixth Street, Kendallwood, and it's it was ridiculous to begin
with, but it's gotten way way worse. And you all have not had any presentation, the neighborhoods have not had any presentation on the changes that have happened to the central water line. And uh if I can illustrate here, this is the
size of the pipe, the diameter of the pipe that is going to go in our city streets in a street that has our pipes that are 6 in in diameter, 8 in in diameter, and the really big ones 12 in in diameter. And they're going to put a
30 inch diameter pipeline. They thought it right alongside our our own pip our own pipes. Well, you know what? That can't happen. They've now decided, no, they can't do that. They have to put this 30inch pipeline 7 feet below our
sanitary sewer line. So, they have to dig a trench this wide. It's got to be wider than the pump. And then the pipe, 10 feet down, that's like here, here, here, into our city streets. And to to
boot, they found rock. So over four of the five miles they are going to encounter rock. How are they going to get through the rock? Well, they don't really know yet, but they're going to have to bore it because they can't blast it. And there is, you know, I mean, it
just gets worse and worse and worse. And then to to to here here is the crazy picture of it. Now the one of the worst things is that now they've decided that they're going to do this in two phases which means what they're going to vote on is to fund and start constructing
phase one here's the which is the pipeline to nowhere. you you construct that, you guys, they've got you by the balls because phase two, which has now been rerouted through more small city neighborhoods
um and is um and has to go through city land that they haven't even talked to you about yet. Land that you recently bought that you might want to build on, you might want to whatever. But there's once they start building that, they have to build
this first. What are you going to do? You'll have a $60 million pipeline that goes goes nowhere. I am asking you to have a full presentation not only to yourselves but to the neighborhoods before they vote. Thank you.
[Applause] Who else? Thank you. My name is Reverend Karen Man. I'm the pastor of Sojourer's United Church of Christ here in Charlottesville. The Justice and Advocacy Ministry of Congregation signed on to the People's Coalition letter asking you to say no to funding the
expansion of the jail. I also spoke last month about my concerns regarding ISIS's operations within our community and asked for clarity about what agreements the city has with ICE. Three minutes isn't enough time to address both issues, but I don't believe they are unrelated, nor are they unrelated to the
issues around the flock or paragrin system. What's at stake in all of these issues is whether or not you, our city leaders and our government are truly doing all that you can to protect and safeguard all the residents of our community, especially those who are most at risk. As the people's coalition
letter states, black people have been unjustly and disproportionately incarcerated at a higher rate than white people in our community and spend significantly more time in detention. This because systemic racism and injustice are sewn into the fabric of our incarceration system. and expanding
the jail will only exacerbate those inequalities. Meanwhile, as a previous speaker noted, there's mounting evidence that systems like Flock and Paragrin and other data surveillance systems are being used by ICE in its deportation efforts while they encourage racial profiling of both black and brown
residents of our community. When DHS DHS's list of sanctuary jurisdictions was released last week, I was disheartened to read the city manager's response that Charlottesville will quote comply with federal law and quote not obstruct federal immigration enforcement. Normally, I would be in
favor of following the law, but when laws and practices are unjust, we have a moral obligation to resist them. And right now, our federal government is unjust, and it is engaging in cruel and unjust immigration actions across our country through its mass deportations.
DHS and ICE are trampling on due process. They're attacking hardworking families, and they're creating a culture of fear and intimidation. Rather than trying to get itself removed from that list of sanctuary jurisdictions, which I understand has now been taken down, Charlottesville could should claim that
as a badge of honor. We know the dangers of white supremacy and racial injustice in our community. We have looked hate in the face. And we need to stand together and say no. No to expanding our jail and incarcerating more of our black neighbors. No to allowing ICE to kidnap
our m im immigrant neighbors. No to any surveillance system that aids in racially profiling our neighbors. And yes to investing in real solutions for this community and real justice for all of our neighbors regardless of their race or immigration
status. Sir come you come on up now. Councilors, my name is Bill Emery. I live at 1604 East Market in the Willow Mills neighborhood and I feel apologized to the jail folk for breaking in because
I totally believe in what you're trying to do. But on a different matter, this coming Wednesday night at Old Lane High School, the county office building, the board of supervisors will vote on a special use permit to fill an acre and a
half of flood plane that's in the county across Franklin Street from the mobile home park that has like 62 families or working people uh that's in the city. Franklin Street's the city county
boundary. It's actually city property. U you know when governments you know industry can be smartly located and Mr. Sanders can tell you that you know it's important to have a industry and then business base to help pay taxes
so you're not getting it all from homeowners. In this case there's no need to fill in the flood plan. the developer that's seeking the approval for the floodplane field, he owns a non flood plane lot 200 feet away. And like five
years ago, he got an approved site plan from the county to construct 160,000 square feet of u you know warehouses and stuff, 11 buildings. Five years later, he's got one of the buildings under
roof, but it's not completed. So, what I would encourage you guys to do is communicate with the board of supervisors. I'm going to leave these down by the parking tickets. This is a petition that you can very easily fill in if you don't want to write or speak
at the county meeting. Um, and that's really pretty much it. I mean, it's just, you know, we've all sinned. We've all could plan better. the city and the county. You know, why in the world our
planning commissions can't get together and talk about these boundary areas instead of doing one thing thing on one side of the boundary? And if you're in a trailer, I used to have a 8 by32. It doesn't protect you from the noise of tractor trailers, from lights at night,
from the beep beep, you know, there no sidewalks. And yeah, that was big problem on Franklin Street. a lot of pedestrians, no sidewalks. You know, filling the flood plane is like crushing baby birds. It's not something that good people do. And when you have um you
know, 16 or 11 sites that have been approved for buildings, go ahead and let the guy build those things first and then if they want to consider filling in the flood plan, then come back to it. Don't preapprove it now and destroy the
environment. Thank you, Bill. We have opportunity for a couple more speakers. Anyone? Sorry. Yes. Piggy back on a bill here. My name is Jenny Makowski. I live at 718 Franklin Street. I have the vain glorious
distinction of living at the lowest elevation in the entire city of Charlottesville. Um, my house was built in 1920. The Carlton neighborhood has its own history. I know that uh Belmont and Woolen Mills get all the attention, but Carl Carlton's own vernacular
history is actually pretty interesting. Um that was subdivided in 1891. So it is one of the more historic neighborhoods in Charlottesville. Um I bought my house six years ago and ever since I bought it, I've heard three things over and over and over again. The sound of the
equipment of this developer grinding rubble across the street from me to build the roads on his business park. and the cry of Alamo County that they don't have enough light industrial space in the county because of all of the conservation easements on the large
estates and three that the county and the city won't do anything to collaborate with each other or cooperate with each other. So, I can't believe the last one is true, but it's all I've heard and I'm think it's time to maybe think about a partnership there uh
sooner rather than later. As Bill said, that development isn't even close to being complete. Albam Marl counties finished that Broadway economic development plan. Franklin Street's literally the boundary. These projects can only be accessed on your streets. Do you have a seat at this table? Do you
have an opinion about what gets developed that can only be accessed by trucks on your sheet streets through city neighborhoods? And with one and a half minutes left to go and because I also feel really bad, I um not to be I I just I feel compelled to share that um
three years ago I lost my sister to suicide. She had been a city resident since 1999. She was a beloved artist and a resident of McGuffy. She suffered from very serious mental illness. Um when she was not unfamiliar with five East, was
there many times never great experiences for her there. But when there weren't beds at McGuffy, she was sent to the jail um many times during the pandemic. And there was one notable morning where she was released in the morning in winter
with barely any clothing and still in the throws of a psychotic episode. So I hear you. My heart's with you. Yes, it is a tragic thing when someone is having an already
incredibly distressing experience that is outside of their control is put in jail for a lack of bed space. And if that is the only recourse in those situations, then we have to have people in those spaces with the training and the sensitivity to know what those
people need in those horrible circumstances. So, didn't expect to speak about that tonight. Thank you. Thank you. We have opportunity for a couple more speakers in you. Hi. Um, so Flynn, I'm a I work with the
community uh climate collaborative in Charlottesville. Um, I am speaking tonight uh well partly I just want to um to express my gratitude for everyone who came out to speak about uh the the opposition to the jail expansion. Um there's a lot to pay attention to there
and we're going to be listening and paying attention. So, thank you for for speaking on that. Um I'm speaking tonight to express something that is um kind of somewhat related. Uh the gas rate increases that are on the agenda for for tonight's uh for tonight's
meeting. Um I have thoughts and concerns about the proposed rate increase for Charlottesville gas customers. The proposed rate increase of in some cases uh over 26% reflects the volatility of natural gas prices. It proves the need for a viable plan to reduce energy costs
for residents and also meet our climate goals. In 2020, C3, my organization C3 completed an energy burden study of Shardsville, showing that 22% of Charlottesville households were living with a high energy burden. Over 10% of their annual income is spent on energy compared to the overall average in
Charlottesville of 2.2%. We're currently completing the same type of study for the county that shows a similar picture for its residents, many of whom are also Charlottesville gas customers. For the households impacted by high energy burden disproportionately composed of low-income and black residents, utilities are not a minor monthly
expense. Uh they are a source of constant financial stress. While it's great to see the home the income eligibility and outreach for free weatherization with LEAP has been expanded by the city, much more work is needed to address the burden on the city's lowest income households,
particularly renters who face additional barriers in accessing home weatherization programs. Over the past few years, the city has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for a consultant to conduct a decarbonization study that has ultimately illuminated no path away from gas reliance for the city-owned
utility, forcing residents to continue using gas. Um the the consultant also projected massive rate increases through 2050. We need to see that rateayers money is being used to invest in local solutions for energy resilience and
affordability rather than continuing with gas and purchase carbon credit credits which are currently acquired from British Petroleum. In the absence of an energy transition plan that aligns the future of Charlottesville gas with the city's climate commitments. All we're getting are rate increases without
investments that reduce fossil fuel dependence for Charlottesville gas customers. It's the worst of both worlds. Thank you. Anyone? One more speaker. I haven't been over this area. Anyone? One. We have opportunity for one
more speaker. Did you have you prepared something for me? So, well, you have three minutes. You can come up. You can speak off the cuff. All right. Just need to Yes. think about it because I was um
emailing last week about the idea of doing a progressive property tax and I wanted to discuss the reasons I wanted to have that included in the um legislative packet. um specifically that I
am have been thinking about the ways to bring down the cost of housing and the cost of rent and the reasons why it would be so high in Charlottesville and why it's increased so much and I'm somewhat unconvinced that it is entirely a matter of supply and demand of housing
that just encouraging building some more housing might bring down the cost by maybe 5% over the next few But even that would just bring the cost down to where it was a year ago when it was already a crisis. And it makes me think that the
only way to really resolve the housing crisis and to bring it back to a level where it was affordable as it's increased like adjusted for inflation, I think it was a 50% increase in the past 10 years and double in the past 30. To bring it back to that level, the thing
that would need to happen is to both have housing be built and create a system where corporate landlords can't just buy up housing and keep people as perpetual renters. The idea that I have for having a
progressive property tax would be to create a system where developers and landlords after they've built houses are incentivized to sell and potentially if needed would be forced to sell in order to bring the cost down such that younger people like
myself are actually able to eventually buy a house and are not stuck in a cycle where maybe a third or half of many people's income is spent on rent. Thank you. Thank you very much. Great job. So, that was the last
um opportunity. At this point, there'll be another opportunity at the end for public input. Um Madame Clerk, will you please read the consent agenda? Consent agenda number two, minutes from the May 5th regular
meeting. Number three, a resolution to appropriate $7,285.76 from the Virginia Department of Social Services to use for overtime from Medicaid unwinding, second
reading. Four, resolution to appropriate $419,279 in additional funding received from the Virginia Department of Social Services to support staffing and operations. Second reading five, resolution to appropriate $15,000 from
the National League of Cities Southern Cities Economic Initiative Program to use for project planning. Second reading six, resolution to appropriate $266,387 in FY24 Meadow Creek Golf Course Surplus Funds, one of two
readings. Seven, a resolution to allocate $125,350 to the local energy alliance program or LEAP from the 2025 city climate program support grant and authorize the city manager to sign a memorandum of understanding. Is there a
motion to adopt the consent agenda? I move for adoption of the consent agenda. And just quickly just wanted for the community wanted to highlight the um clarifying for the the Meadow Creek Golf that surplus from Meadow Creek Golf's operations itself, not the city. I just
gotten one email about a concern about that. And then a small thing, but just again highlight um the investment for the um climate protection program and energy resource hub just being a small thing to actually promote electrification and weatherization. and
just wanted to highlight as a small positive climate action that the city has taken. But thank you. It's been moved and properly second. Any additional comments? All in favor, please say yes. Yes. All opposed, please no. Thank you very much. Um we're now at
the opportunity for the city manager um report. Good evening, councilors and members of the public. Uh the first part of my report is actually a presentation from uh John Sales, executive director for Charlottesville Redevelopment Housing
Authority. And then I will have additional comments after his presentation. Good evening. So tonight we're going to be talking about the city housing portfolio which is jointly owned by uh CRA in the
city. Uh so the portfolio is commonly referred to as the Noah portfolio which is naturally occurring affordable housing. Uh this portfolio started um after a couple properties went on the open market where the rents for the
two-bedroom units were about $500. And so uh we looked to ensure that those units stayed affordable to the individuals that were living in those units. And so that began this uh Noah portfolio. All right. So, uh the next
few pages are just uh the addresses for some of the properties. So, the first property we acquired was 1016 and 1020 Coleman Street. It's four twobedroom uh two-bedroom, one bath units. Uh the next property was Montrose 818 Montros,
which is two two-bedroom, oneb units. Uh we then acquired the Dogwood portfolio which was 74 scattered site units. The next couple pages uh identify those addresses and the number of units attached to them. And the last property we acquired was 100 Harris Road is a
single family home uh where the tenant had lived there uh for a couple decades. And so we wanted to make sure that tenant uh continued to live that property affordably. Okay, who we are serving. Um, so we're currently serving of the families that
we're serving, 68% of them fall under the 30% AMI and lower. 20% fall between 31% and 50% AMI and 11% fall between 51 to 80% AMI. Uh, 29% of the units have a rental
subsidy and 70% of them do not. Of the 70% that do not have regular subsidy subsidy, 75% of those households actually qualify for a form of subsidy. Uh operational changes. So last
year um we uh decided that uh after going out for contracts for pest control um we decided to bring that in-house because we needed a monthly treatment instead of a quarterly treatment that was under contract. Uh the pricing for that was uh triple the price. Uh we
could not afford it. We brought in we actually hired uh two pest control technicians and then um hired a resident that we then trained and now is a licensed pest control technician as well. Uh we also completed two roof
replacements on Red Street uh for a total of nine affordable units. This actually isn't the right part. This isn't the right presentation. So, I'm going to skip a couple of slides. Uh, this one. Uh, and so financials, which we're required to come back and report
each year on, uh, we we recorded about a million dollars in rental income from tenants and from the different subsidy programs. Uh total revenue brought in for this uh
development was $1.18 million. Uh we have one property manager and one maintenance technician. They also have a on call. Um in here we get a management fee which is 10% of the rent collected, not rent charge. And so, of
course, there are some tenant account receivables that we're going currently processing that are also in here, but we don't collect management fees on those. Um, something in here that I wanted to point out, we have a really
big where is it? It's okay, there it is. All right. All right. So, under contracted building repairs, you'll see it's $153,000 for the year. 130,000 of that is for the roofs on Ridge Street. There are metal roofs, historic homes. Uh there were
about $80,000 a piece or about $70,000 a piece to uh complete. Uh so, the total operating expense for the portfolio was uh almost 1.9 1.09 09 million for a net operating income of
$100,000. Uh here I mentioned the non-reoccurring expenses, the roof replacement of $135,000 and consulting fees for appraisals at $4,400. Uh upcoming projects. So, we uh did the two roofs on Red Street, but we
also have been working with a nonprofit to analyze the roofs at other uh properties inside of the portfolio to look at free solar that would benefit the residents living inside of the units that pay utilities. And so, we're actually looking at this on all CRJ
properties. Um but a lot of those are happening in redevelopment. This one we were looking to do before uh but we're also now looking at analyzing it when completing the 4% tax tax bond. And so the next bullet point on here is we've
gotten a lot of questions like what's going to happen with Dogwood? And so we are currently working to analyze um submitting a 4% tax credit bond deal which would allow us to pay the city back the $5 million initial investment in the portfolio and also to complete
substantial renovation on all of the units within the portfolio. The current timeline or the previous timeline was winter of 2027. We're actually going to look to push that to winter of 2026. Uh based upon where our current projects are falling with our other mass public
housing redevelopment. And I think that was the last slide. Did you guys have any questions for me? Lord, I'll stop with you. Um I don't. Yeah. No questions for me. Thank you for the update. Appreciate it. Yeah,
Michael. Um I guess a few one um I think the acquisition of older rental housing stock is a very important strategy. Philadelphia's housing authority has recently been making
national headlines. They have a goal of acquiring 20,000 units and they found it's more cost-effective than building ground up for you know preserving and expanding affordable housing opportunities. Um, so I think it's really exciting that the housing authority has been doing this kind of activity. Um, you touched on a little
bit. Could you talk about how that acquisition can put the housing authority in a stronger financial position long term and just exactly how that works? Okay. Yes. And I will say uh several of the large housing authorities have been buying Noah units for decades.
like Chicago has has a lot and so uh yes it's it's something that all housing authorities has started to do. The housing authority where I came from actually own just as many market rate units as public housing units because that's how housing
authorities stay sustainable. um public housing does not pay well and so it's hard to actually operate public housing with the funds that are just given by the federal government. And so allowing us to purchase the the Noah portfolio not only helps the community,
it helps the housing authorities. So the housing authorities can now collecting a management fee which helps us hire staff to run the agency. We're also able to cover additional maintenance staff, additional property managers. uh and that's also able for us to provide additional services to the community.
And so all of the nonpublic housing properties that we purchase do substantially well compared to public housing uh like uh on our budget. I think every every non-public housing site produced really good revenue in
reserves while the public housing I think like AMP 4 which is the scatter sites Mickey Madison Riverside had a actually a loss of like $40,000. The only way it makes up is because we do a4 million dollar transfer of capital funds
every year to cover the operational uh deficit that we have in in that portfolio. So redevelopment has to happen for public housing and for the housing authority to continue uh providing the services that the community needs. But
those low-income housing tax properties that are paired with vouchers are producing Oh yes. Like uh South First Street um is producing so well, we're able to add full-time security service. Uh two people working um I
think 10 hours a day. um every day of the week. And so before they weren't able to do that, they were only able to cover 20 minutes of an hour is how much South First Street could afford of security. And so we had a security company doing rover service at three
different sites. That's the only way public housing could afford it. Now Crestston Halls has its own security. South has its own security. And once West Haven and other sites are done, they will be able to have the same service, right? Um, and I think at least in the
presentation we've gotten in our our packet, I think an important point is 70% of who you serve is 0 to 30% area mean income. Um, 90% are 50% area mean income and below. And I just wanted to highlight that because even a lot of
low-income housing tax credit properties aren't meeting 0 to 30% AMI. And that 50% and below obviously is something the the market is necessary, but the market's not going to build units renting for $400 a month because those projects have to be debt financed. They need investors. No investor is going to
invest in a project that loses them a substantial amount of money each month. So, um, wanted to highlight the importance of just that element of it. The final question as it relates to the Dogwood portfolio is you mentioned kind of planning for um, a low-income housing
tax credit application. Obviously, those units are old. You mentioned some of the repairs, you know, need to happen. I imagine there's a lot more extensively that um needs to happen long term. Are you envisioning that that LITC application would be for renovating that
portfolio? Would it be for redeveloping sites throughout that portfolio to add additional units? Kind of what would be the I know it's a long way away, but So, some of these sites look different. And so I would say Dogwood is um is going to be a Litec deal uh which is going to be
a renovation. I think we're estimating 45 to $55,000 per unit. Um so really substantial renovations going on in the units. Um some of the other sites like Coleman uh may be a candidate for uh something different that's also not
inside of the portfolio and not inside of the Dogwood portfolio as a original loan. It's just part of the city housing portfolio. And so Dogwood specifically uh will we will plan on submitting a 4% tax credit bond deal for that property. The other sites are like uh 100 Harris
Road eventually will be a a homeowner home ownership opportunity. Again, uh the only reason we haven't done that yet is because the individual living in the home um has been there for multiple decades and she deserves to to stay where she is. And so we're not going to
touch that until it's time to sell and become a home ownership opportunity. But Coleman is going to be something else. And we'll present that when we get there. We're probably a little ways away. Yeah. And then so one other question in the P in our packet there
was um one of the discussion points was the one individual property you're planning to sell on the open market. if you could just talk um about why that is, what um that uh revenue could be used for. Yeah, you see you got the packet that I
wanted you guys to skip. So that slide I want you to skip because we are going to push up on the 4%. So if we push to 4%, we'll keep it all together as one. And so I actually sent a second presentation. We had a meeting a little last week and so you weren't supposed to
get new no new ideas. And so that was not supposed to come to you. I sent a new one this morning that was supposed to come out which we did not play. And so that is no longer in play. We're going to focus on the 4% deal. But I will point out that there is uh a joint meeting of the CRA board and council
that we are working to schedule. So we should have things firmed up by then because we're looking at all the ways that we're partnering together right now. That's it for me. I mean, I I'm sure we'll get into more discussion then. Obviously, it's a very um you know,
substantial investment for the city and CRA and I think it has been and will be a positive thing, but you know, there's always a lot more to discuss about it, especially because as you highlighted, we know there's going to be a lot of renovations and you know, a LITC application at some point that are needed. Yes. And I will just add uh you
mentioned earlier the cost difference between new construction and purchasing the dog portfolio. They've roughed out about $150,000 a unit. New construction is over $400,000 a unit. So there's a substantial difference between the two,
right? And that cost being driven by you need subsidy because it's still debt financed. Yes. And you're losing money. So it's not that it's not that it the construction itself costs that much per unit. It's the debt financing to get the affordability. Debt financing over 20
something years financed. Right. Yes. I just have a quick question. Um, you mentioned 75% of the 70 who don't use subsidies are could qualify for subsidies. Yes. Can you explain kind of the procedural or other barriers that
might kind of prevent them from getting subsidies? Well, the biggest barrier is just the amount of subsidy available. It's just not enough. So, we have our weight list is over I think 1,700 vouchers, 1700. Yeah, vouchers over 1,700 families. Uh we have over 3,000
families on a onebedroom public housing wait list for a total number of families on a public housing weight list of over five. So it's just not enough subsidy to go around for the need. Okay, thank you. All right. Uh couple of additional
items. Um, from some conversations with councilors, there's been a desire that I speak on a few um, city positions on some matters that have been a part of the public discussion. And while I remind everyone I am not a politician, I
do politic unfortunately because the job requires it. Uh, but I am speaking from the perspective of the role of a city manager and what it takes to do this job. Uh but I do want to point out a few things that we need to make sure that we keep in mind. Uh I'm not speaking about
any specific individual, but when we have uh infrastructure placed in the public rightway without permission, that is a violation. That is not something that we can accept. Uh it does interfere with public safety in more ways than one. And while advocacy is important for
us to always continue to do and to respect opportunities for individuals to advocate, we have to keep in mind that something that is not actually uh a sanctioned activity could also pose a threat. And when it does pose a threat, I do have a responsibility and others within this organization have the same
responsibility to make sure that the public remains safe at all times. So it would be best if we would make sure that our free speech does not run or follow the law so that the two cross the two shall not cross. That is really the message in regards to that. And also I do not direct the chief of police to
arrest people. That is not what I do. Um also point out that the flock system is a controversial matter. It is an item that was brought forward to council. We requested that it be a pilot opportunity. It was approved as a pilot.
It is scheduled to expire in October unless a different decision is made at that time. Uh the goal is to allow the system to benefit this community and it is working. We have solved multiple crimes in this community as a result of
the flock system. If that system did not exist, some of those crimes could still be unsolved today. I am not here to advocate for any company or any system. There's more than one that does it. We could easily go with someone else. And that is part of the reason why we consider this to be a pilot to begin
with. There is additional work that we will continue to do and we will make sure that we bring back to council the best recommendation that we can make and ensure that they make the most informed decision when it comes to whether or not we continue with this particular consultant or if we go with someone else
or if we cease to use uh license plate readers altogether. The matter of sanctuary city, no one knows what a sanctuary city is because people have debated about that for a long time all over this country. uh the designation that was issued in regards to Charlottesville
being a part of a list. We now know that the list is not online anymore. Don't know what that means, but I can assure you it's coming back. I would imagine that it will and we will probably still be on that list. It is our responsibility to make sure that we do what we can to stay within the law that
we don't draw the eye of those who want to punish those who choose to not follow the law. because if we make decisions such as that, we will injure other members of our community when funding is stripped and things that we're trying to do for the betterment of this community are not available to us. So there's a
fine line that has to be walked as it relates to managing these situations. I carry the burden of having the responsibility in many instances for making certain decisions. I will do my best. I will continue to do my best. I want to love doing this job so that you
can have me here for a long time because I do hear people say, "Please stay. don't leave while others are now asking me to leave because of decisions that I've made. I will continue to do what I think is best for this larger community at all times. And then lastly, I have not spoken about the federal executive institute situation since all that
happened. Uh I'll just start with I am deeply disappointed in the uh act actions of the federal government in pulling that property back from us. I spoke about it being a generational opportunity for this city and it was. But thankfully in the work that we did
in the short period of time that we had to consider this opportunity, we actually found some alternatives that we think might actually still give us an opportunity to do a real chance to make a significant impact for schools. Council will be meeting with the school board. We're working to schedule that meeting in August right now to have it
proceed their um council retreat. Uh but there are a few decisions that we can make right now and still benefit on the timing that and the opportunity to consider FEI. uh that will allow us to make uh a few changes to what we had originally planned and get some of those
benefits and still remain disappointed that our federal government did what it did at the last minute. We were informed of a process by the General Services Administration and the Department of Education that was presented to myself and Chris Engel, our uh director of
economic development. We believe that that was the process that would be followed. We followed that process completing every step along the way. When the city itself was determined to not be ineligible to apply, I immediately called the school superintendent and said, "Are you interested in being the lead on this?
Let's figure this out." And we did that. In submitting the proposal, we were selected. We believe on merit. And then it was taken and we don't believe on merit. So, in that situation, we have to accept the results because at this moment, I had to move on because it's time for us to make some decisions about
the Walker site as it relates to making this prek facility come to a community that's been waiting for a very long time for this facility to be available to them. So, we're doing that. We have tried to have conversations with the federal government. As you might expect, they're not taking our calls right now.
So, for that reason, I have not been able to figure anything out, figure out any other options. And in all honesty, I have actually been more focused on trying to figure out our plan B action so that we can get this prek center uh established as soon as possible and take advantage of some of the other choices
that I think we can make that will ensure that what we were dreaming of out of getting the FBI property, most of it is still possible. So again, I'm not a politician, so I will get off my soap box and end with that as my statement for this meeting.
Thank you. Thank you. Um the next item we have um on the agenda um are the action items and the first action is a public hearing an ordinance regarding an easement to
Dominion Energy for undergrounding of electrical equipment at Pen Park and Quiry Road. Um Chris um Jens will I thought I saw Chris but um
so this is the item removing from the item. This is this item we are actually requesting be uh pulled from the agenda. Oh okay. Okay. Well, the next item on the agenda is a public hearing and resolution to allocate um $12 million of capital
improvement um improvement program contingency funds. And Chrissy, actually, I'm going to Miss Hamill will help me out. Um and one I can't see, so you might want to come to the microphone for me. Um but uh
this is uh a request to uh spend some of the surplus funds that have accumulated uh from multiple years including FY24 was a little over $22 million. Um I spoke to you all in the last meeting. Uh I made a presentation uh labeled
community interventions. It was a series of recommendations that were aimed at public safety, um, quality of life, uh, and urgent infrastructure. Uh, you had a presentation this evening, earlier this evening about urgent infrastructure
projects, a total of $500,000. Uh, we've talked about downtown mall improvements. We've talked about uh, homeless outreach services that we would like to also engage in. That total roughly five that totaled $5.4 million. So that 5.4 4 million is what I shared with you at
that time. I would be adding to and I would be adding items that were items that were a part of what we normally do and a transition from one fiscal year to the next. In most instances, we will always find ourselves coming to you at the end of the fiscal year asking to use
surplus funds to help shore up the closing of this current year andor the stabilizing or prepping for the next fiscal year. So, Miss Hamill's going to read off because I can't uh the additional items that were added to go
along with the 5.4 million that I outlined for you in the presentation uh at your last meeting. So, just to clarify, do you want to read what was on your original list or the ones you're keeping? Just the ones that we're keeping and then I'll explain why it's not the same. Okay. Um so, we are adding
a few things that we are considering our budgetary guidelines, our policy compliance issues. Um some of these you've seen in years past as well. Um one is for the healthc care fund reserve replenishment uh fund that is at $3.5
million. You may recall that over the last few years um we have had a surplus in the healthcare fund and as consequence we have not changed uh premiums for city employees. Um we did make a few plan changes. Um however, we
have continued to see skyrocketing claims cost um that have um left our healthc care fund um at a balance that is well below our reserve. Um and so we are asking to um to um use $3.5 million
to replenish that reserve. And I'll just note that while that's not a great thing, um it is not unusual. our um a lot of localities are seeing this uh phenomenon with health care cost. In addition for the retirement fund um if
you'll recall last year we use some of the surplus uh to um pay out to the pension fund for the class and comp and also the three collective bargaining contracts that were approved for the last year's budget. In addition, we have
approved the teamsters contract this year. So that is an unfunded liability of $1.1 million in the pension fund that we're asking that you um replace. Uh human services had a loss uh in their
fund mostly uh for uh city services or city things that we added without additional revenue. Um and so we are asking for the $60,000 to uh bring that fund back um out of the red. And then
finally, um we're asking for $175,000 to um replace budget that has been used for contracted legal services uh throughout the year. So, the original packet for anyone uh and I wanted just to clarify that for
counselors and the public, the original packet that was published identified 12 uh $12 million in expenditures that I have reduced. uh one as a result of the designation that we just heard about from the federal government and concern for what that might mean in the way of
stripping federal funds which is what I've continued to talk about uh for months now as a matter of something that I think we need to always remain conscious of and be prepared for. So, what I did uh was go back into what I had originally prepared as a $12 million
ask, pull out things that I believe that we can wait on, not meaning that we won't necessarily do them, but I don't feel that the urgency is there for me to make the decision to bring to you a request to spend that money right now. And I also tried to take into
consideration where there might be moments that staff may need time to actually begin spending the money anyway. So we can work to prepare for the expenditure without actually needing to allocate the funds. In case something were to change in the posture and we end
up losing federal dollars that we are relying on at this time, we will continue to have a bank of funds available for us to backfill those for any period that we may need to. So this is the document that we were handed. That's the replacement document to point out for you the original resolution and
then with an edit to it. So it's now 8 69. Am I reading that right? Okay. I forgot my glasses. 8.69 million is the ask instead of 12.3 million. And the things below the yellow line there are the things that we took out um that added up to the $12
million. Correct. of there will be of course multiple moments for me to be able to come back to you to continue to spend that money as we've talked about it. You all have priorities. I have staff who are constantly asking me to spend more money uh because we have this these funds set aside. I don't have a
date in mind as to when I would come back and ask for the balance of what makes up this 12 million. But again, the point that I'm making is that I don't know that we have to act on those things right this minute. And I'm just buying time for us to clear up some things. Yeah. uh a process
question. You know, I my understanding is normally uh an item where there's a expenditure above a certain amount, there's two readings. Certainly, this would be far above that. As I read the agenda, this looks like it's supposed to pass tonight on one reading. Is that the
case? Particularly with the change being different what's in the packet, I'm just concerned from a public transparency level. I mean, even if nothing changes, I think the public deserves as much opportunity as possible to weigh in on, you know, significant expenditures and give us feedback. Um, I think that's
probably more of a legal question. I think one reason why it got to be a one reading was because these funds were previously appropriated to the contingency fund and now we're just reallocating them. But I have there's no objection if you want to have two readings. I don't know why I was
assigned one unless that was it. Yeah, and it may not be legally necessary. I just know it's been the internal policy for a while. Um, again, and maybe we won't get feedback that changes it, but I do I'm a strong believer what we do is for not just ourselves and staff, but the public and providing them an opportunity to weigh
in. So, fair enough. Um, does it impact you in terms of does not And tonight is a public hearing. Yeah. So, we we're still in discussing it on council before I open up the public hearing. So, um, so do you have any more
questions, Mike? Or, uh, questionwise, I guess for, so I think you explained it, but the city attorney legal fees, that's for the legal services. And when we didn't have a city attorney, correct? Um, the contracted out services, the parks and
recreation infrastructure, downtown mall improvements. I guess I'm still not sure exactly what those downtown mall improvements are. So that's what we're we're working to identify specifically what those items will be. Uh the downtown mall action plan is the document that the committee that served
for a year produced. So the action items will come directly from that report. It'll be from that series of recommendations. The question that we have posed to staff is what can we get done for that amount of money within the timeline that we are allocating. The goal is to ensure that any um projects
on the downtown mall will be concluded before June of next year as we will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the downtown mall during the Fourth of July weekend and we would not like to have an ongoing project in the middle of that for people to pose as a hazard. So the goal will be that we will come back to
council. The intention is to go back to council with a work plan on what it is that we plan to do specifically for the downtown mall because of funds being allocated in addition to what's already available. And um similarly, just to clarify, the Meadow Creek Trail, that's not any additions or changes to that
project. That's basically additional money to complete cost overruns and budgeting. Just the time it has taken to get the project done, it's escalated. Uh we've had a few um changes of course in what we have to do in order to maintain uh two crossings in that area. Uh but
those are just cost increases for a delayed project and it got pulled a couple of months ago previously. Yeah. To accommodate something else. Well, and I'll say that just again for the benefit of the public appreciating 500,000 had been previously allocated out of ARP.
Those were federal funds that we received in response to COVID. Uh we had a deadline that we had to meet. That deadline was not going to work along with the Meadow Creek timeline. So those 500 that $500,000 was pulled and reallocated uh for other distribution that then made the project short
500,000. What we have now done is made up that 500,000 plus added 250,000 because it's as it's gone out for bid in that time period it was more expensive. Those are all the questions I have. Natley, you have any questions? Yeah, I have a couple. This might have been
something that um Ben Chambers said earlier, but I don't remember. Um in here we've got 34 projects for quick builds, but the fullest is 67. The remain the remaining funding is
that TBD the the remaining so the additional what would that be? 33 projects are coming out of uh safe routes to school and and other existing funding sources. Okay. So, we don't need 34 is the is what's coming from the source. The 34 are just
the ones that don't have funding already from whatever source. Got it. Okay. Thank you. Um and then uh for the items removed, um I know we still had some questions amongst ourselves about um especially
the temporary shelter situation. So, I was glad to see that put in a TBD line item. But um for the Meridian barriers, everyone seemed pretty jazzed about those other than the fact that they were expensive. Is that being moved to
TBD or It was just because I made the call to reduce the amount to spend right now. Not saying that we wouldn't come back to it. It was just based on being a little easier thing to DBD. Yep. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. I think we have enough information in
regards to the cost. There's probably a few more questions that we can interact with the vendors on before we have to do anything. If I found that there was anything that would be u worthy of coming back on its own, I'll do that as well. Okay. Um and I I know that technically I think we could do this
tonight, but I actually agree with Michael here that delay a vote for one more meeting for a sum this large. You know, I'm usually a a let's get it done vote, but I think for something this big, it's worthy of um just some additional public notice.
Okay. Brian, do you have any questions? I appreciate the thoughtfulness that you put into all of this and your flexibility and nimleness to to adjust as you as you think um appropriate. Um a little disappointed that the mall lighting improvements
aren't making the list. And it's that I will tell you is just a matter of timing. Okay, that's all the timing. Um, the mall manager, I guess. Is that something you're We found another way to pay for that, actually. Okay. Gets better all the time. Um,
I'm hoping I might be able to do that on some other things that are on the pending list, too. I um second Natalie's point about the meridian barriers. I think those are particularly what just happened in Boulder, Colorado. I I think we're going to
be it is a lot of money, but I think, you know, god forbid something were to happen, we'd we'd be really upset with ourselves and rightfully so. Um, and then the healthc care fund reserve, do we have a sense of like over the
last five years how how often we have to top this up? That's that's a big number. Um, so this is the first time in a while. uh we were actually uh our industry standards or best practices would tell you that based on
recommendations we've received is about 30% um is a good reserve. Uh at one point we were like at 60%. Um that was largely during COVID because people weren't going to the doctor, they weren't having tests done. Um and now um
we are in very close times of becoming zero to be quite honest with you. Um we are still evaluating claims. Unfortunately they are small numbers but very high catastrophic type claims um that are driving the cost. It's not the
sniffles or the um you know clinic visits. It's the more catastrophic cancers and those types of things um that are driving cost. And again, uh, many localities are seeing very similar results. Um, and so we will be spending
some time in the next budget looking at, uh, different plan changes or different things that we can do, um, to try to help offset this. But, uh, this is the first time. Um, I'm trying to remember the sheet, but I think I don't know how long for sure, but I can tell you that
at least within the last eight years, we haven't um added any money. So, if we were to say, hey, what about 2.5 as opposed to 3.5, you would say that just won't cover the the need or the expected need. You know,
it's a shot in the dark because it depends on the claims and as they come. And if we don't spend it, we don't spend it. And if we don't spend it, it stays in the healthc care fund and certainly that becomes part of the funding for the next year's budget. Um so it, you know, it's pay now or pay later. Um and so if
we don't need it, that's less money we'll have to ask of the general fund in the 27 from the general fund or employees um in the 27 budget. Okay. Thank you. And I would point out that if we also were to make the decision that we did not top it off with the $3.5 million that this would be the first
time that we were in the red at the close of a fiscal year. So that which is in violation of our one of our policies. Fair enough. Can I ask a quick followup to what what you just stage said? You said a lot of localities are seeing a similar trend. I'm just curious on um
how that data is gathered. I mean is I know there's various like conferences and and groups that we're a part of, but how do we know what other localities are experiencing? Um I'm going to say that's some of that is anecdotal based on how they were
handling that through their budget process. Um and then some of it is information that we received from our consultants who help us manage the health care. Um I don't know those exact sources, but we could get you some more information for sure. Yeah. I'm just
curious if there was like a like a bulletin that goes out for all finance departments or something like that. Yeah. Um not not aware of but Okay. Um it has been a general theme throughout budgets for this year. Yeah. Just surveying other people's budgets. Okay.
Cool. Thank you. And I also just want to allay any concern about the choice to not do Meridian barriers right now. Uh for the TomTom Festival, we did engage that same company. we rented them and deployed them for our own testing capabilities.
Uh if we have anything else that comes up, we would pursue that option as well because there's still some other features that we did not get to test that I think we would try to test. So again, I did consider that in making the decision to do this now or a little bit later. I'm just happy that we're
actually at this point because 2017 happened and we should have probably had something like that at that time and at least we're this much closer to getting it done. Thank you. Okay, so what is the uh line item for $1.5
million for city environmental and mobility policy plans that we're not currently going to be funding? So, I was hoping you would let us bring you that information later when we need to spend that money, but Mr. Freeze can give us an update as to what he thinks that uh
will go towards uh Sure. So, um Council, first uh during um Mr. Chambers's presentation, he mentioned the the transportation plan as a plan that brings together what are now disparate plans around bike infrastructure,
pedestrian infrastructure, transit, and also looks at our policies in this space and how they how consistent they are with kind of the current direction we're going in. Um, so that that that transportation plan, transportation strategy he referenced is the same thing as the mobility plan talked about in
there. And then similarly, the the environmental plan is is also looking at kind of the disperate range of of planning processes we're engaged in around environmental issues and trying to bring that together into a more holistic uh natural resource planning
process. Okay. Um and I'm sure um that'll be something at our next meeting, right? Uh on the at the June 16th meeting, our NDS director, Miss Brown, will be speaking to um those aspects of the NDS work plan. Okay. Another reason for choosing to have it
wait so that she would have the opportunity to give you that information as well. Didn't mean to for somebody to steal. You're fine. No. Okay. She'll have more details. I assure you she's excited about this. So, I'm stepping in temporarily for the mayor. Are there any other clarifying questions you
counselors have? One more clarifying point just to highlight. Um, as you know, this this last year's um surplus was just under uh $23 million. In addition, we added $2.7 million from the
school gain sharing. So, even with these allocations, um, you'll be left with about $22 million in the CIP contingency, which we will be left to address federal needs if possible or federal omissions if possible. Um, and
then, um, any other things that council would like to use the contingency for. Thank you. So, um, any other clarifying questions? I got one myself because I just went on the city's insurance fund. I want to make sure if I should recuse myself, but
I I'm good. I'm good. So, um I mean I'm good and to vote in I'm good. Good. Anyway, you're just good. You're just good. Um so, I will now open up the public hearing. Anyone from the public like to speak on on this matter?
Yeah. I just found interesting what the um city manager Sanders said about the uh flock system having it like there. So I mean this is just on the um the the matter ship. Sorry. Yeah. So there will
be another opportunity for to speak at the end of the meeting but this is just on the um surplus. Yeah. Thank you. Um any if there's no one else I will close the public hearing and this will be on the um um I don't do
we want this on the consent agenda um for I would just have it as an agenda item agenda. Okay. And on meeting on the 16th and I'll that's fine. Oh sure. I said this last time but I'll just say it again. The the 1.2 million for the clean
team. I'm not against that as a program, but I do still question whether it pass a costbenefit analysis of jumping ahead over even other investments related to homelessness. So that's that's the only item that I have a concern about. Not that it's a bad
program. I just really question whether it costs, you know, would pass a costbenefit analysis of being the first investment we need to do. Is part of the strategy there because it's we're calling it a two-year pilot. We're not Yeah, that is two years expenses, right?
So, we're not um you know permanently adding it to our our line items is because next year is such a big year. I I'll say that that is part of it. That's not my motivation as I've been trying to work towards addressing issues in different ways than we have in the past
and hopefully we get a different result. um that what I wanted to do was just to interrupt what we have as the experience on the mall, making it a better experience regardless of what it is that is detracting from that today. But one thing that I feel like is missing and I
know that my parks and recck team will admit that they can only do so much. We've only funded them to do so much and we leave the bulk of the day untouched because they can't do it. Um so there's a gap and there's a need for it. So whether I did it with this external firm
who does this or expand parks and recck services in order to do it is still going to come at a cost. And our initial assessment suggests that they would be about the same, maybe more in some instances based on what we would try to do. Um, but again, what I believe that
we should do at this moment is by having this amount of an excess fund, try something, give ourselves a little bit of time to see how it works, and then we can make tweaks along the way andor different decisions at the end. And theoretically, at the end of the pilot
program, if there's things we like that they do, we could incorporate that inhouse and potentially. So, I mean, they're they're only going to be able, of course, to engage in a contract here locally for a certain amount of money because they're working in different places and they're drawing on resources from different places. We've explored
all of that in our conversations with them. This is a minimum version of the program that we've identified. There is a a Cadillac version that comes even more expensive than this. Again, I felt like it was important for us to interrupt what is happening by trying something. That's really why we're where we are. Are the people on the ground who
would be hired and facilitate the clean part of this. Are they local or uh we would still be trying to figure that out, but I believe so. It all depends on what it is that we end up engaging them in doing because they may have to bring different people instead. Okay. Because yeah, the the opportunity
cost that comes with that is also something. Yeah, I've as we've said before and we've we've had we've had situations where contracting out city services has worked or been necessary, but we've had a lot of opportunities
where the product we got was not very good. And I think there's a lot of rent seeking in that world of organizations that are trying to go to local governments to offer service. And so I do also kind of wonder about that here as well. But anyway, that's fair. Okay.
Okay. So, that will be on the agenda on the 16th. The next item is the ordinance to amend and reord ordain um city code chapter 31 um um the utilities to establish a new utility rate and service
fees for gas, water, sanitary suner, and this is the first of two readings. Good evening. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and counselors. I'm Lauren Hiltbran. is the city's director of utilities. Uh Mr. Cullinan and I are
going to go over the annual utility rate report. Little bit about utilities by the number. Uh in water and wastewater, we serve 14,800 customers of which 94% are residential. We maintain 179 miles
of water lines, 168 miles of wastewater pipelines. In the storm water area, we build 15,300 customers, of which 83% are residential, and we maintain 136 miles of storm water conveyance piping. In
natural gas, we serve 21,600 customers, of which 56% are in the city, 44% are in the county, and we maintain 340 miles of gas main lines. Now, if you look at these numbers specifically for water,
wastewater, and natural gas, these are taken at a point in time uh where we download that from our database. So, at any and they they fluctuate based on the season. Uh so at any point in time like
at when UVA you know goes back home for the summer and there aren't as many rent or owners in those spaces that those numbers can decrease but they do fluctuate over time and I thought I'd point that out. I want to talk a little bit about
reliability and water quality. In the past, you know, we have touched on some other communities oops um around the country like Flint, Michigan and um and uh Jackson,
Mississippi. But we've seen certain water service disruptions in our neighboring Virginia communities in recent months like the city of Richmond, Green County, Louisa County, and you know, we're certainly sympathetic to what their whatever their situations are. Um, we'd like, you know, and it
it's what people in my profession, it's what keeps us up at night, frankly. And, uh, but we'd like to think that Charlottesville is a is different. While we can't guarantee this these things can't happen in our community, but we'd like to think with the the planning
we've done over the last 15 years, long range planning, investments in our infrastructure, and what we're continuing to do in our community, that should preclude these kind of disruptions that happen here. Um, and
because we always strive to make sure that we give reliable utility services. In our last customer satisfaction survey, when people were asked in April of 2025 what they thought about reliability of their water service, 99% responded that they were
satisfied or neutral. And I think that's based on our as I mentioned our proactive approach where it it uh where we address aging infrastructure. I'd like to highlight just a couple of projects that we're going to be focused on in the next year. Our community is
going to be focused on uh Locust Avenue phase one which is a waterline project that and I'm sorry I think I'm pressing something. I don't know what I'm pressing and it's going blank on me. Locust Avenue is phase one and that is a project that's actually we're
anticipating starting either late June, early July and it's High Street to Route 250 bridge. Uh since 2011, we've seen 10 reported water mane breaks. And this is a pipe that was installed probably in
the 1920s. And so it's seen its its end of its useful life and it needs to be replaced. And so we are replacing 2900 ft of 6 in with 8 in ductal iron pipe. Along those same lines, we're also working on the design of a new water
line in West Main Street. This will be done in conjunction with the natural gas cast iron replacement project that we're planning to start uh in the spring of next year, late spring. And this is where we'll be installing a 12-in ductal iron pipe. And we anticipate it'll
increase reliability in the West Main Corridor. We also are working with our partners at Ravana Water and Sewer Authority and Almar County Service Authority to build a resilient water supply system. Recently, Ravana has bid opened bids on the central waterline
project for the first phase. This project over the entire two phases that they anticipate includes 5 miles of 24 in and 30-inch water line that basically connects the WA observatory water treatment plant to High Street uh to
their transmission line and High Street and 250 bypass and it has other interconnections of their system along the way. It it will improve the hydraulic connectivity. It'll add redundancy to our system and also
improve efficiency of the urban water system. I'd also like to uh touch on our safe drinking water or water quality. In our last survey uh what people thought about safety of their drinking water, 93% were were satisfied or or neutral when they answered that question just
this year. Uh we do an annual consumer confidence report and this is taking thousands of of uh testing that Ravana assists us with of our water treatment as well as our distribution system and the this report we're notifying people
right now is out for them to observe online. Uh we coordinate with the Virginia Department of Health on this report and it indicates that the quality of our drinking water meets and exceeds all regulatory requirements and expectations for safety and reliability.
In addition, last year we were required by EPA to do a lead service line inventory. That report was comi completed and submitted to the Virginia Department of Health in October of last year. And we I can gladly say that we
have no evidence of lead existing in our public or private water distribution system. I also want to touch on updating you on some of our new energy efficiency initiatives. You know, we we have a really successful energy saving tree
program that we've been conducting since spring of 2022. It's only been in the spring, but people love this program when we give away trees and we're promoting safe digging practices and strategic tree planting helps uh
households uh conserve energy. Uh we've planted a thousand trees uh or households have planted a thousand trees since we started this giveaway program. But we also see additional benefits. You know, and recently the tree commission's report, it increases the city's tree
canopy. And of these trees, 65% of our our trees are included in their report. And 65% of the total tree planting activities on private property. And another benefit I want to mention is it reduces storm water runoff. We've
updated our rebate program. We've added a new rebate of for $125 people can get reimbursed for a smart thermostat. We've also expanded $100 uh for our program again programmable thermostat uh rebate
program. Uh we've increased and expanded our attic insulation rebate from $300 to $500. And we have a new program uh $150 rebate for attic air sealing, which is this. When people sometimes do attic installation improvements, they'll go
back and they'll seal cracks and and gaps in their attic to get a full uh benefit. And uh that that's what this rebate is for. In addition, uh, utility staff, we we realize since 2020 that that since
we've been doing these attic installation rebates, there's been pretty low participation. And we believe it's due to the belief that people think their attic installation is okay. Uh, in our gas mitigation survey that we conducted in the last few years,
residents believe their homes have adequate attic insulation, 68%. But yet you when you look at the Energy Star report, 90% of the homes in the United States are underinsulated. So there could be a disconnect here and we kind of want people to check out their attic
installation. So there was an idea that we would develop an application and utility staff stepped up to this challenge and developed this self assessment tool where people can walk their way through this tool and it's available to all city residents. They go
up in their attic, they measure their attic insulation, and they can work their way through this tool to determine if they have adequate insulation or not. Um, and we hope that people will take advantage of it. We're partnering with the local energy alliance program on
this program on this on this on this deal where if people need assistance and they can't get to their attic then they can ask leap to do an assessment for them or they can also and there's really no you know there's no pressure on this
people have as an option they can also consult with leap based on their their assessment that they did on what the cost would be to enhance their attic installation. Of course, they can also call contractor, but they can also consult with lead there. And I just want
to reemphasize that, you know, we've increased our rebate value for installation and added on this attic air ceiling rebate. And so the total is $650 value. And so that complemented with the the current 30% federal tax credit can
go a long way for people to improve their attic installation. And that's what we're going after. Uh we've launched a comprehensive outreach campaign to promote this program. Uh last week we started TV ads. Uh we're incorporating Flicker the Flame in our
TV ads to try to get people incentivized to take advantage of our program. Uh we're also targeting streaming spots and later on we'll do direct mailing through postcards to try to promote our attic installation
rebate. I also want to touch on our free home weatherization program. In the last survey, we found 45% of the people are not really familiar with their free home weatherization program. And this program is free. And I believe there's a
misconception in our community that there's not adequate funding. But there is funding. We just need to get people incentivized and change their behavior to take action to look at see whether they qualify that for the based on the
income qualification limitations and uh you know contact us and we can work them through this free home weatherization program that's available for income qualified folks. Uh we you know have found working with outreach a long time
uh in utilities uh you know we in 2007 we're taking a similar pathway here that we did when people didn't recognize the natural the smell of natural gas. It's associated with our gas safety regulatory compliance. And uh that was back in 2007. Now everybody recognizes
the smell of gas because of the the way we promoted that public outreach. And so we're taking a similar path here by having TV commercials that have been developed to peique the awareness of people and try to get them interested in
this program and motivated enough to take action to participate in this program as well as the attic installation program. Um, of course, you know, it's a little different than what we did before, but we're going to give it a shot and see if we can be
successful. Uh, and with that, I turn it over to uh, Mr. Cullinan, who's going to give you the financial overview. Before we do that, can I just Yeah. Two things quickly. Um, one, we had someone earlier talk about um, homeowners and renters.
And I just wanted to point out that the weatherization program you just mentioned is available to renters. Yes, it is. Um, they just need a written permission from the landlord. So, if that's something that a renter wants to pursue, and considering 60% of Charlottesville is renters, this is
available to you. Um, uh, but I do want to also note that, um, these are only available to people who, uh, heat their homes with natural gas. That's correct. So, that's also something to consider. If you were interested in this, but you don't have natural gas, then you wouldn't qualify. So, just kind of like a heads up to folks. That's all I wanted
to add. Yeah. Thank you for doing that. Yeah. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of council. I'm Chris Cullinin, the city's director of finance. And so, you know, Lawrence had the opportunity to share with you, you know, all the efforts that she and her staff
and our partners at Ravana and Almore County Service Authority uh have been taking to uh plan, maintain, operate, uh uh safe, reliable utility infrastructure and services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. as you touched
on, we have had some some recent examples of what happens when that doesn't go well uh here in our own backyard uh with some of our neighboring jurisdictions. And uh suffice to say, you know, there is a worth and a value to having these services. The fact that
uh for the most part, people can uh utilize these services without really thinking about is it safe, is it reliable, will it be there? uh uh these things happen and that's good uh given all the things that we we do have to think about in our day-to-day lives. But that being said, um it doesn't happen
without sufficient financial resources. And um as we've seen and as you've seen uh in your recent budget discussions, uh costs have gone up. They continue to go go up in some cases um quite a bit more than we've seen in the past. But again,
uh, as we go through this, uh, we'll we'll dig into the numbers a little bit, but I'll also offer some of the empirical data we have that our customers do see the value in, uh, the dollars that they are spending for their city utility services. And so what you see on this chart is our average customer, our average residential
customer comparing what they're currently paying uh for these four utilities and what that monthly bill will look like uh starting July 1st based on the proposed changes to the volumetric rates and the monthly service charges. And so to the bottom line, it's
uh a little bit under $13 a month, $12.84 for all four utilities. And you can see the the relative contribution of each of those changes uh to that bottom line. And again, I'll go through each of these in some uh in a little more detail for each one. Um but again, we are
asking folks to pay more for their utility service. Uh that's the bottom line. But again, I do think and I we again we have the data to back it up that they do see the value and the worth of having those safe, reliable uh city utility services.
And so starting with water, um the revenue requirements or the budget for water for next year is a little uh $20.7 million. That's about a $2 million increase over uh the revenue requirements for this year. Of that $2 million, Ryana Water and Service Sewer
Authority makes up about 1.4 four million of that uh for their uh for their expanded uh primarily for their p uh their expanded infrastructure and debt service uh for their projects that they're doing. And so as you look at that little pie chart there um you see that they make up the largest chunk of
of these uh of the water budget. Uh last year that number was about 54%. So it's creeped up a little bit. The other pieces are relatively stable uh in terms of the city's uh the cost to operate the city's water division uh and customer service billing. And then over on the left there, this is what I mentioned
before. Uh these are questions that are part of the uh customer satisfaction survey uh that we do. And again, uh 96% uh rated excellent, good or fair value uh for what folks pay for their water
service. And uh just to clarify um so the you know 56% of the the cost of water service and 56% of what would be driving rate increases that purchase of
drinking water from RWA that does capture the cost of RWA's infrastructure and capital projects. Correct. It's a combination of their operations and their infrastructure and any related debt service with that with that infrastructure and and it's the way to think about this is of every dollar you
spend uh on your water uh 56 cents of that is attributable to Ryana in terms of the increase as I mentioned before this is about a two uh $2 million increase over a year ago but Ravena makes up about 1.4 four million of that. So that's why that piece of that that pie has gotten a little bit the pie
itself has gotten bigger and that wedge has gotten bigger as well. Um in terms of the portion of it attributable. Yeah. I would just be curious just for public information to know which you know slice of the 56% is capital projects versus other things at RWSA. I think it's about
50/50. Um and you know utilities uh utility finances are a little bit different than general government. um in that they are much more infrastructure intensive than your than general government is. And so that metric of 50/50 is not terribly uncommon. You see that in a lot of utilities in my past
utility experience. That's about where where we were operating. So Michael, if you go to the the our last Rivana meeting, which was last week, and download the packet, I think it's more like 55% of debt service. It that
portion of their budget has gone up. Um, and I think it's it's either been 50/50 or maybe just past the 50% mark in recent years. Do you remember Sam? I don't think it's 52. Somewhere between 50 and 55. We get
we'll get to the number. Yeah, we do have that. Um, going over to wastewater, um, some something of a similar story. Um, the revenue requirements for next year are just a little over $19 million. Um, that's about a $1.4 $4 million increase
over the current year. And of that $ 1.4 million increase, about 1.1 million is attributable uh to our share of Ravana uh operating and debt service costs uh related to wastewater. And again, you see that piece of the of the pie, the
Ravana piece is the largest one. Um last year that was about 58%, so it's 60% this year. Again, the pie's gotten bigger and that piece of it has gotten bigger at the same time. And then again on the left side you see uh the same question as you saw before. Rate the
value that you pay for your wastewater service. And we see a similar um a similar number to the water for storm water. Uh on the financial side of it, there are no changes uh being proposed to either the budget or to the rates. They're going to
remain the same as they were uh this year since actually the inception of the uh of the storm water utility. Uh, one thing I do want to note is the number here, rate the value that you pay for storm water service is definitely lower than the other
utilities and that's an item that Lauren and her team have flagged. Uh, it's their belief. It's a it's a messaging. It's more outreach is needed to explain exactly what they do uh and how they do it and why and so forth. And that's an item uh that's on her team's work
plan. Okay. And then finally, natural gas. Um, total gas budget for next year is projected to be $35.4 million. Um, that's about a $7.1 million increase over the current year. And the biggest driver of that is the cost to purchase natural gas. Um,
price of gas has gone up uh fairly significantly over the last year, specifically in the last six or seven months. Again, you see that that little wedge there says 43% a year ago. that was about 32%. Um, but again, similar sort of uh result in terms of the value for gas
service and I'll talk a little bit more about that uh in a slide or two because gas the gas rates are a little different. The way we financially operate the gas fund is is different than water, wastewater, and storm water. But I'll just I'll touch on that in a
moment. And so when you look at your utility bill, there are two pieces of your bill. There's the volutric piece of it based on how much you use, how much of the utility you consume, and then a monthly service charge. And so for the volumetric piece, based on how much you use, these are the proposed increases
um over uh the fees that were adopted a year ago. Two things to note. One is you see there on the right, we are updating the city's water and wastewater assistance programs. Uh when that program was put in place in 2012, there was a maximum of
$150 of assistance available for customers per year uh for water and $150 for wastewater. Obviously, over the last 13 14 years, uh utility rates have gone up. And so to uh to sort of keep that
number uh in line with how much they've gone up by, we're increasing that to 250 a month uh for each utilities for so for a total value of $500. So again, that's going from 300 to 500 uh to help our customers um with their gas with their water and wastewater bills and again to
reflect uh the changes in utility rates over that time period. And that's something that going forward we'll review on a much more regular basis to just ensure that uh we're still meeting the um intent of that program and the value of it. Quick note on the natural gas. You
see here it says 4.3%. Um the legal ad that was published showed rates of about 25 26%. And so here's the difference. So for the legal ad, if we were comparing the rates that were adopted July 1st, 2024 to what
we're proposing for July 1st, 2025, it's about 25 or 26% rate increase. But what you see here is reflects that over the course of a year, every month, we're actually adjusting the gas rate using the purchase gas adjustment because uh natural gas is a commodity. It's traded
on a daily basis. The price fluctuates and we operate all of our utilities on a break even basis. And so as the price of natural gas changes uh either up or down, whichever way it goes, uh we make that corresponding adjustment in the gas rate so that we're not overcharging our customers, we're
not undercharging them as well. And so that increase that you actually if you were do to do a point in time between July 1, 2025, and July 1 and 2024, it is that 25 26%. But what you see here is what we've tried to depict is based on
your current budget your your current utility bill which we use April as the most recent just because when we calculate the rate or calculate the rates for the purposes of the report compared to July 1st it's only 4.3% because that gas rate has been increasing over the course of the year. It gets adjusted every month and so it's
a little complicated. Like I said, it's it's you know, the way we do natural gas is very different than water or waste water, which is where we set the rate at July 1st and we don't touch it for the rest of the year. It's, you know, we we it's designed to recoup that revenue over the course of the of the calendar year. But again, because natural gas
fluctuates and as you saw before, it's the single largest expenditure of the gas utility, uh we do make that adjustment uh every month. And so, you know, we try to be transparent. It's like I said, it's a little complicated. We try to be transparent and try to explain exactly how those numbers tie together. The legal ad has certain
requirements, but we also tried to depict, you know, based on what you're paying now versus what you can expect to pay July 1. But again, we do adjust the gas uh rate on a monthly basis uh up or down depending on whatever price we paid for it.
So, I'm sorry, year-over-year it was a 25% increase, but for April alone, it was only 4.3%. compared April to July, April 2025 to July 2025, we're projecting a 4.3% increase. But but that rate has actually been going up since
between July 1 and July 1, 2024 and April 2025, that rate has been increasing. Like I said, especially starting in about November, we saw those prices start to creep up. Okay. And then as I mentioned there, you know, so that's the part of your bill
that is based on how much you use. And based on the proposed changes to the monthly service charge and to the uh the volumetric rates, customers will still have the vast majority of control over their bill based on how much they use. It's roughly 79% of their bill is based on what they use. So they still have a
lot of control uh within their power to to affect their their their um their checkbook in terms of their usage. But there is a monthly service charge. And the idea behind this is just simply that there are certain there are certain costs associated with having an account, utility billing, meter reading
or debt service that they're just fixed regardless of how much you use. And so we have a monthly service charge for water, wastewater, and natural gas. We're proposing a change to the water and wastewater monthly service charge. Uh and what you see up here, these are the combined numbers. So it's currently
$7.50 a month for water, $7.50 a month for wastewater. proposal is take each of those to $10 to again reflect the rising uh fixed cost that we have with operating the utility. On that chart that you see there, roughly 94% of our customers fall in that very first group
who have a 5/8 inch water meter. And so they would see a change of about $5 per month. Um we aren't proposing any changes to the natural gas uh monthly service charge. So for the majority of our customers, it's going to be 10 10 and 10. 10 for water, 10 for natural gas, 10 for wastewater. Um but then as
you see here as you go up in meter size uh there's a proportionate uh difference between those uh a 58 inch meter uh is roughly you know or I should say a 1 inch meter is roughly double that of a 5/8 inch meter in terms of the amount of water that can flow through it. And so
these proportionate impacts are are captured up here. And just so that I get the question all the time who has the 14inch meter that's UVA. They're the only one in the system. They're the biggest one. And so that's what their monthly service charge will look like, but obviously their monthly water bill
is fairly substantial. So it's it's somewhat relative to that. And that concludes our presentation. Um I'd be happy to qu answer any questions you might have. Well, Miss Hold's available as well. Thank you. So we've been asking
questions u you know during the presentation, but are there others now um additional questions for open up the public hearing? Yeah, several comments, but questions wise, just for now, questions. Um, so I look back at 2022. Um, and the
equivalent, um, rates and charges for average customers was $29 for water, $50 for natural gas. Um, today that's $44.80 for water, um, $66 for natural gas. So obviously, you know, looking
back several years, there's been a substantial increase over 50% just for water. Um the assistance program, you've increased, you know, kind of roughly in line with those increases, but for those who don't qualify, you know, it's still a pretty significant increase that, you
know, is impacting housing costs. You know, you touched about how RWA's capital programs are significant part of the cost of water. um and they obviously have a number of very expensive projects coming forward.
Are those yet reflected into the rates? Are those going to be reflected in the rates once those projects begin? Um because my I guess the debt service the debt would not have been issued yet. Correct. So we we base uh for Ryana they
give us uh every year an annual uh operations charge and debt service charge and it's based on the debt the debt that they've already issued or are about ready to and so similar to how we do it. We we issue our bonds on a on a cash needed basis. They're in a they do it the similar way but they do have a a
CIP program that spells out what their plans are and so but we but we base the rates on what's what they've actually issued. Um and so it's based on their actual debt service costs in the rate report. Um in the in the in the um
detailed sections of that we do do a rate projection for water and sewer and that includes both what we know from our as well as our own operations. So we do try to to the best of our ability project those things ahead and they do show those rates continue to increase over time. Um just just for the public
because I think it's important for the public to know. I mean what's kind of the scale of those increases? Um, I will have to look. I I honestly don't have that on the tip of my brain right now, but they are um, you know, in the range of 5 to 10%, but I but they're in there. I can direct you to which exhibits those
are. Um, but again, in the interest of transparency, and these u again, these services are essential, but they are expensive. And the only, you know, because our our utilities are operating on a self- sustaining basis, the only place we have to go for that
for that revenue is to our customers. No, I I hear that. I just think, you know, it's still important to understand. I mean, since 2022, um, water alone has gone up over 50%. So, it sounds like the trajectory would be projected for that kind of continue
over that same, you know, 3 to four year time frame. I'll I'll find those exhibits and make sure that you get them. Um, like I said, comments, but question wise, there's only the only question I have right now. Natalie. Lloyd, do you have any? No. No. Um, I
will now open up the public hearing um for this. And would anyone like to speak? You guys can do math. Man, that was magical thinking. Um, Michael, thank you for bringing up the obvious uh about the tie between
utilities and housing and being able to um just afford there's a half billion dollars in the next CIP RWSA. The rates and and I'm surprised you guys didn't didn't chime in. They are they are skyrocketing. I've never seen anything
like it and I've been following RWSA for at least 20 years. Um, and so it's it's bad. It's really really bad. And the the average daily demand for the urban area
has not gone up at all in 25 years despite population increases. And that's just water technology catching up. And it's worse for the city because we're old. We have old infrastructure. and as so it's longer and high rental so it's
longer for the city to to improve its water efficiency but what I really want to get to and we try to bring this up every year is the pilot for gas it's a payment in lie of taxes um this drives me crazy Mr. Cullen and I when I was on council would fight about this every
year um and it's the same language utilities do not operate on a for-profit basis yes they do you all charge a I think it's around 25% tax on gas, not necessarily on all the parts of the gas.
It generates $6 million that is taken from the enterprise fund and put into your general fund. If that's not profit, I don't know what you call it. And the explanation was always, well, if it was a for-profit company, they would make profit. Well, that's right. It's a
public company, and that's why it is. It's profit. And to say that utility rates are calculated annually to bring the enterprise fund to a break even except for the $6 million that you charge on bills on your gas bills and it
might be water too, but most of it comes from gas um that you then put into your general fund to use any way you want to and which is a real problem for the C3 folks because it makes the incentive
to decarbonate real hard if you're going to lose that $6 million in your revenue. Um, you know, they n in 1860 in the 1860s, Virginia had the same problem with uh with secession. The economics
just didn't work out real well. So, I would, you know, I would encourage you to ask the questions about pilot. This is and let's remember utilities are really regressive because they hurt the people who have the least the most they
have the least energy efficient homes. They have the least water efficient homes and as we all improve our stuff and we do and I've those rebates are most for mostly for homeowners that means that most of the costs are going to go on the lowincome rentals. Thank
you. Thank you. Did you want What? Yeah, for the um ordinance utility rates. No, I'm not. Okay. I made my longer remarks earlier obviously on this uh gas rate increase.
I just want to point out that the it is extremely extremely confusing and unclear to advertise in the agenda that it's a 4.2% 2% increase in your actual bill when we're then told that it's actually it is you know the 26 27 odd
percent over the year. So we just need a lot more clarity in what we're communicating um and what we are hearing so that we understand what the actual impact is on people's annual planning for their you know for their income for their spending. It's news to me that
everyone's bills increase slowly month by month. That's that's something that needs to be communicated more clearly if I understood that correctly. Um the increase the actual increase in people's bottom line is what they really are considering and caring about. So please
some more clarity on that. Thank you. Anyone else like to speak on the utility? If not, I will close the public hearing. And are there any other comments? This is the first of two readings. It'll be on the um agenda on June 16. Well, um
just a a couple comments. I mean, one um I do think it's important for the public whether the infrastructure whether the perspectives of the infrastructure is needed, not needed, whatever. I do think it's important for the public to fully understand the the rate at which their cost is going to go
up over the next 5 to 10 years. Um, granted, I don't know what the historical trend line is on percentage increases year-over-year, looking back like 20 or 30 years, but these, you know, are pretty astronomical and do have an impact on actual housing costs. Um, you know, if you're talking about 50% increase over, you know, a three or four year period and that continuing
forward. um a little not directly related to utility rates but I do think they are still related because you know it's about the service people are getting for it. I do agree at some point it would be worthwhile having a presentation on the central water line. Again not saying whether the project is necessary, unnecessary, good, bad, but
just the cost increase itself and the impact it'll have on infrastructure um I think does warrant uh city council public information. Um, and then I would also say I think um I think the comments we've heard tonight and some through email are accurate in terms of the
natural gas utility in this report. Not shocking, but it's expanded by about 500 customers, I believe. Um, so if our goal is decarbonizing the natural gas utility, I think it just is true that the the study we had done was, you know, a waste of time and money that didn't
change things that couldn't have happened otherwise. And um certainly we're not seeing decarbonization and I do think um we still need to move towards any carbon credits being done locally as opposed to the the n the
international credits um which I don't think are providing a significantly larger impact. Um, and I think, you know, if we've abandoned the goal of trying to transition the natural gas utility to incentivizing electrification, um, you know, we should communicate that to the public. But
certainly, you know, in in the information we've seen tonight, there's not any move towards that vision. Any other comments? Yeah, I I wanted to ask um maybe Miss Brand is the right person. Uh, one of the emails that we
received, uh, was talking about the fact that the cost of a gas connection ver uh, although we raised it recently, is still nowhere near, for example, the cost of a water connection. And the the
the the gist of the email message was, well, why the heck don't you raise further the cost of the gas connection so as to rem to deincentivize, if I can use that neologism, the uh the the the
the new gas connection. Um so what's built in and Mr. Culinary could certainly weigh in on this, but what's been bu what is different is uh in water wastewater, we have a facility fee which basically um when people set a meter and
it's it's quite a bit of money. Um we are trying to recoup the capacity of the system that we've already invested and you don't have that same situation when you're setting natural gas rates. Um why not?
It's it's um we don't have, you know, where we're putting in additional water treatment um additional transmission lines, additional capacity in the water system. Um it's it's just a different kind of
way people look at their their it's we don't look at natural gas utilities. If you look at how they set their rates, that's not how they look at it. Um, and it's just a different commodity. Well, it sounds to me, and maybe I'm oversimplifying or
misunderstanding, but it sounds to me like basically you are charging the water connection people what amounts to an average cost and you're charging the gas people what amounts to a marginal cost. Um well but when we set that
connection fee and certainly I will say that um you know we didn't put that in place because we gave people notice until January. So that's still out for us to evaluate whether it's going to work or not work frankly uh because
we've only seen 23 new connections since January 1st. Um there hasn't been a lot of activity associated with that. Is that just a seasonal thing or it could be, you know, since we gave people notice, you know, they had some time to,
you know, already get on the books what they planned on doing the first quarter. So, it it it'll it we have to just I would suggest we wait and see what happens. Uh because it's it's still a little early, you know. Well, is my marginal cost versus average cost
analysis a correct way of looking at it or am I misunderstanding? You know, maybe Mr. Colony can help me with this, but the way we, you know, because we set the they're they're modeled through our water and sewer rates. Yeah.
So again, keep in mind for the water and wastewater connection fees, those are pay for infrastructure capacity. And in both cases, we still have outstanding debt associated with uh with those investments. And so as new new customers come on, they pay the proportionate share of the capacity that
we've already put in place for them, anticipating their arrival. The gas utility has no debt. It's its capital improvement plan is relatively minor compared to water and wastewater. And so there just isn't anything there to charge uh for that additional capacity.
That capacity is there. It's been paid for. Um and so the basis of actually setting that charge for capacity is different. Now where we start mixing things up is con the actually connection is so when you get a new utility service, there are a couple different
pieces that you're paying. Um connection piece is actually for the meter to come out and attach it to the city system. Um and so those numbers are um relatively much smaller compared to a capacity fee because again that you know we're
talking about pipes and you know bigger infrastructure. Um I guess the only other thing I would comment is just that again keep in mind that fees and rates are meant to be proportionate to the cost to provide those things. And so when I hear the words but proportionate
requires establishing both a numerator and a denominator. And if the if one of them is on an average basis and one of them is on a marginal basis, you're not doing it the same way between the two. And what you're saying to me is
that you're charging the gas people based on a marginal cost and you're charging the water people based on an average cost. No, the because you're factoring fixed costs into the water, but you're not factoring. They're proportionate to the meter size.
So somebody setting a five a brand new 5 in 8 inch meter is paying something different by somebody setting a 1 in or a 3 inch or a 4 inch again it's based on the capacity that's going through that. So it is marginal in that regard on the impact on the capacity of the water and
wastewater system. But the way in which you I if if in one system you are charging the cost of uh of the the debt service and the construction of the system and the other piece isn't getting
charged for the debt service and the cost of it doesn't exist and the cost of having put in the entire system. I mean, it it's clear it's clear to me that that the gas people are getting a heck of a deal and the water people are getting
screwed. It's it's the difference in the infrastructure because again, as we've talked about uh in some of the past presentations, this the the gas system um when it went to all plastic back in the 90s and 2000s, that infrastructure
is good for 50, 60, 70 years. And so that system is modernized. The debt service has been retired. There are no costs associated with that capacity anymore. Um whereas water and wastewater, we are continuing to make those investments on an annual basis.
And so again, it's just the nature of the it's the nature of the systems as being entirely different from an infrastructure perspective. Let me ask a slightly different question. Uh it was mentioned that we've added roughly 500 new gas customers in the last I guess year.
Where are those folk? Are those folks city folks, county folks? Where are they coming from? I I I've heard that figure. I I can't I don't know what the details. Well, you know, I mentioned that during my presentation that we look at the customers served at a point in time. If
we were look at the customers served right now, they would be a lot less in gas, for example, because we're we're running a report off of SAP and it's looking at the number of customers served. So, the number of active accounts, if we were looking at it, like
I had um someone uh inquire today of utility billing, what would that number be? It'd be less than what we reported right now because it fluctuates with the season. I think what councelor Snook is asking is, have we opened 500 new accounts in
the last year? No, we have not. I'll say in the full um and where did that number come up? the full the full annual report the number of natural gas customers was 21,50 in 2024 and in 2025 the number was 21,600.
Yeah. So, but if I were look to run a report on it today, the number of customers served would be a lot less and it's mainly because um people, you know, UVA's just gone back to they're not in session. Their houses aren't being
rented. So that number does fluctuate based on the season, but that that's not the number. Maybe put it slightly differently. If if what we're trying to do is to figure out whether we have incentivized or disincentivized
uh people going to gas, it seems for whatever reason we have incentivized people to continue to go to gas and we have more. We have 540 I guess it was more more accounts whether
they're using it in June because it's hot already or whether it's there there 540 more people connected to the to the gas service now than there was than there were a year ago time a year ago. Uh, and if we're thinking that part of
what we want to be doing with our with our structure in all of this, uh, is is is to figure out how to how to push people the way we'd like to push them. We're not doing that. And maybe we decide, well, we really aren't supposed to be doing that because we're supposed
to be just doing it on the basis of actual costs, however we want to calculate that. uh in which case I guess the question is are we should we be thinking about other ways to encourage people to you know to to go away from
gas and towards an all-electric model or something like that. I I'm just concerned that I think we're headed in the wrong direction anyway. Okay. Are we legally allowed to change the gas connection fee to any
number that we want or does it have to be related to something? Well, um disclaimer, I'm not an attorney, but in the public finance world, rates and fees have to be proportionate to the actual cost to
provide what it is that you're charging for. And it's the idea of public versus private benefit. fees and rates are meant to reflect more of a a private benefit. So you that that cost should be whatever it takes to do that thing. And that's true of just fees in general, whether it's gas, whatever. Um that
that's always been the standard from a public finance perspective that I've uh understood to be. And so um I get I to me incentive disincentive I I don't use those words because it's just the cost to provide that thing. It's in the eye
of the beholder. Is this an incentive or a disincentive for me to do that thing? And again, that's based on the person seeking the service and and paying the fee. So, we couldn't say charge the $13,000 does it cost to connect water? I
would strongly recommend against that. How come? For that reason, it doesn't cost that. But we don't know right in this conversation. Well, that would be the analysis that would have to be done. Yeah. But because we have no debt service attached to it, we have no
seemingly infrastructure costs attached to the gas utility, I don't know how you would ever get to that number, um, unless we came up with a project that costs money, right? Unless it was a capacity related project. That's the other sort of nuance of connection of
capacity fees. I'm going to use that word because it's a little more clear. Okay. And um can you is this $6 million question that gets turned over to the general fund.
What's that about? So and it's true for water and wastewater as well. So there's a payment in L of taxes. And I know we talk a lot about you all talk a lot about pilots. Let me just explain what this one is. And what this is meant to depict is it's an expense of the utility as if it were a private utility
operating within the city limits. And so if it was a private utility, it would be subject to real estate taxes, sales tax, any any fees that are associated with uh operating within the city. And so it's a common feature of uh most utilities in
Virginia, if not across the country. We've had that looked at a number of years ago. Um, and again, it's it's an acknow it's it's an expense of the utility. It's included in the utility calculations, and that money is remitted back to the drill fund as if it were a
private entity being taxed. Now, that's a choice. That's a choice for you all. Um, and we've we've broached this with past councils in the past and uh I don't have the exact number off the top of my head, but you would immediately need to take out about 8 to9 million of the general fund that you just adopted
because it's and I think it's somewhere it's not in the top five, but it's in the top 10 revenues coming back to the general fund. So, it's a financial choice for council as to whether to charge this or not. And so if you directed me to say we're not going to collect these anymore. We're going to
take it out of the budget, make the adjust those adjustments as needed in the general fund, we would take that right out of the utility rates because again that's it's an expense of the utility, but if we're not charging it, then it goes out. So it's it really it to me boils down to a financial choice
by council. Okay. Thank you for explaining that. And then just one final comment also from the full annual report just that the total amount over the entire six years of the low income weatherization programs the city spent
$28200,000 total over all six years. That's about the amount we spend um on the um carbon credits each year. And I think that just highlights the impact that could be had if we switch those carbon credits to local expenditures. Um
but okay, thank you. Um the next item on the agenda is an ordinance to amend and reenact um article 9 um the transient and
occupancy tax. Um it's chapter 30 and Mr. Dapers. Mr. Mayor, members of council, Mr. City Manager, madam clerk, here to lighten the mood talk about Airbnb.
Um, my favorite. Um, no. Uh, what we need to do tonight is, uh, make some tweaks to the, uh, transient occupancy tax ordinance to keep it in line with what was done by the general assembly this year. Uh, in a nutshell, Airbnb
came to the table and said they want to stop fighting. um which was you know music to my ears. They have uh you know for the last five six years they uh while their competitors have been providing um gross receipts and address
information for their hosts Airbnb has not done that. Um whether they got new advice from general counsel or whatever they came to the table this year and they said we're ready to give that information. Uh but they wanted some things in return and so this is one of the things that they wanted in return.
They want for their hosts who book exclusively through online intermediaries not to have to file a transient occupancy tax return every month. Um, currently they're doing it. They file a zero because all of the taxes are currently being assessed and
paid by Airbnb or by VRB VBO or whoever the whatever the case may be. So, the taxes are getting paid. Um, the the hosts are just filing a zero return. most well a lot of them I don't know if it's to most or not um we're okay with this um this is just um we're just
pushing paper around uh we're we're fine with that going away what they will have to do instead is they will f uh file an attestation every year that all of their bookings uh are managed through an online intermediary um we get to specify when that
attestation is due uh if they happen to book something outside of an online intermediate area or they do the booking themselves, then they still have to report that. Now, how I would know about that or how we would learn about that, I have no idea. But that they are still
required to file and pay uh if they do the booking. But if the booking's done through Airbnb, Airbnb collects it, pays it, and now they're going to give us the address and the gross receipts associated with it, and that will allow us to, you know, pursue business license
or business tangible uh property tax, you know, things like that. So, we're very pleased with this. Um, the other piece that we're doing tonight is just some uh housekeeping on some terminology that we adapt adopted a few years ago that is not in line with state code. For
instance, state code refers to accommodations or accommodations intermediaries or accommodations providers. So, an accommodation provider would be a host. Accommodations intermediary would be Airbnb. Our code says lodging provider um lodging
intermediary. So, we just want to try to get those things the meaning is the same questions. Did you guys had some questions about Airbnb last time? I think I was ready. Let's let's get into this. Well, I guess my question is, is this is this going to make any
difference to our bottom line? No. No. We're already getting the money. It will give us a little bit more um uh it will give us a way to make sure that the money is correct. So for instance, if they're currently u giving us money for lodgings that are taking place in Albamar County, we'll be able to see
that and catch it and correct it. And likewise, if you know some of our money is going to Alar County, they can catch it. And so that that's why we want this. And then we'll get a little bit on bold and we'll get a little bit on business tangibles, but um it's a transparency
thing primarily. Okay. Because I know one of the hopes was that coming out of this whatever was going to happen in in Richmond that we would get a little extra something. No, not going to be much money. I mean, like
I said, you know, most uh like somebody running Airbnb is usually paying a $35 business license, so it's not much there. And they're not using a lot of business equipment. So, but it'll be something. I have no idea how much. I'll
just I'll say in addition to the dodging of the tax revenue. I think it's a huge problem in a city of 10 square miles that can't expand, Airbnb and hotels crowding out housing investment is particularly huge issue because we can't expand whatever they take. That's an opportunity for housing going away. Um
so anyway, it's bigger than this, but I think we're just we're losing more than we're gaining from this wonderful Silicon Valley app. you. No, man. You might be right. So if this was a request from Airbnb like
we'll finally be truthful about our data if you change this requirement is their motivation that it just makes it easier for their users so that people are I think so because a lot of localities were doing it the same way we you know we were saying well if you're not going
to give us the data we're going to go to the people who have the data and that's the hosts and so we were pestering the crap out of the hosts to give us the data that airb Airbnb wouldn't give us. And so then Airbnb, I think, heard from their hosts and said, "Please fix this."
And so I think they came to the table. Does this give us more Thank you. information or data in terms of how many units are being rented or do we already have that? No, it'll give us Yeah, it'll give us a lot more information about that. Now, there there's another shoe
that hasn't dropped yet. Did you want to finish your question? No. No, go right over. The other shoe is uh that hasn't dropped yet is they tightened up the the the privacy language in 58.1-3. So the data that they give to us
we cannot share with the zoning folks. Now there's a lot there's a lot of there's a lot of localities who don't already as a matter of course they view that data as private taxpayer information so they don't share it. I don't tend to agree but with the new
language we're not going to share it. So, there's more than one way to skin a cat. And that's why, you know, we're going to get that that u that's also from I think it's granicus. Yeah. And uh you know, that should be able to to give us what we need um that we weren't get
or you know, that should allow us to give NDS what they need that I can't give them directly from Airbnb. Yeah. And to Michael's point, I I just would be very interested in how many of these units are being rented and what
percentage of our housing stock is going towards that. Um, you probably have some sense already, but I think more specifics would be helpful. And yeah, this will this will give us a pretty good idea. And then, you know, the software the the scraping tools that
we're going to be getting with this new software are pretty impressive. So, uhhuh. I'm looking forward to seeing that. Okay. Yeah. I'd be interested when we have the conversation about the transit occupancy tax next year. You know, are
there the the home state ordinance? No, just the the toot amount. You know, if that if that it shouldn't change that much because we're already getting the tax. I'm just wondering to to Michael's
point, does it make sense to increase it to change the the cost benefit for people as they're evaluating? Oh, that's that's above my pay grade. Okay. Um, you can't change it. You can't
change it for just the home stays. I mean, you'd have to change it for all hotels. Yeah, hotels, right? Maybe. Um I'm curious once when did we get the software that'll help us? Um they are in
negotiations with the vendor now I think and working on how to pay for it. Um so like I what you guys approved in for this fiscal or for the coming fiscal year uh we're hoping to actually have it in place. NDS had some money that
they're going to use to go ahead and get it up and running hopefully in FY25 because I'm kind of interested in thinking about the order of operations here where if we do this item agenda
item first then that data is locked away from our zoning folks having easily accessible information. Yes. Whereas if we get the software first, we get all that info, we can share it with
zoning and then if we do this, someone can I'm just trying to figure out if somehow doing this first creates an extra step. Not really. I mean, we're going to have
to do this at some point. Um because this we're we're literally just mirroring language in state code and even if we don't adopt the language in our local code, state code's going to trump what we have in there. So we just we want it in our local code. Um and how
come we need it by July 1st? How come there's a clause that says you can't share it with zoning? uh they tightened they tightened up the language 58.1-3 um is the section of code that contains the secrecy provisions of taxpayer
information. That's sort of our bible of you know if if that's why you know tax officials can't share other pe you know taxpayers tax information. You know there are some things that we can share
but gross receipts and things like that we cannot share. They are they are secret and there are criminal penalties if we divulge them. And so they went into that section, tightened it up, said this this data that that is going to be going to commissioners of the revenue
now is just as secure. So that's a state code. Yes. And so there's no way around it anyway. No. Got it. Okay. It's wonderful to have a lobbying arm. Um, but if there's no other, I would
move the the ordinance to amend and reenact uh article 9, transit occup transit occupancy tax, chapter 30, taxation of the code of the city of Charlottesville, Virginia. Um, uh, based on the, uh, ordinance that is in our
packet. I'll second it. Okay. Further discussion? All in favor say yes. All oppose say no. Great. Passes 5-0. The next item on the agenda. Thank you, sir. Thanks, Todd. The next item on the agenda is the move safely Blue Ridge
Regional Safety Action Plan and East High Street Demonstration Project um alternative selection. And Ben is will present. Yeah. Good evening. I'm back again. Um so there's actually going to be two presentations here. The first is going to be on our safety action plan
which TJPDC staff is going to present to you. That'll be followed by a vote on whether you accept that safety action plan. And then I'll follow up with another presentation that will walk us through the demonstration project that comes out of that and look for a vote for you to uh accept that alternative as
our preferred alternative. So first I'll turn it over to Goran to kick us off with the TJPDC presentation. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, uh vice mayor, members of the council. My name is Gorian Gerki. I'm a regional planner at the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission working on the move safely
Blue Blige initiative. I'm here tonight to present you the draft comprehensive safety action plan that was provided to you. I really hope you um looked at it in details uh because it is about safety uh not just in the city of Charlottesville but also for the rest of
our jurisdictions within the town planning district. Uh tonight's agenda will include the background of the safe streets and roads for all program, city of Charlottville leadership commitment, the planning process, emphasis in areas in the high
injury network, public engagement, proposed solutions and next steps. Uh move safely is the region's plan to reduce roadway fatalities and serious injuries for all road users regardless of their mode of transportation. Uh in 2021, a bill was
signed into law that became the bipartisan infrastructure law. Uh this law established the safe streets and roads for all discretionary program which supports the United States Department of Transportation national roadway safety strategy and its vision
of zero fatalities by 2050 using a safe system approach. Uh this slide highlights the city of Charlottville leadership commitment. Um, in from 2018 to 2022, uh, 28 people
were killed or seriously injured on the city's roadways. Uh, the city council recognized this and on March 5th, 2024 signed a resolution to eliminate the total number the to eliminate fatalities and reduce the total number of serious
injuries by half by 2045. Um I want to thank u the board for making that the leadership commitment because the adoption of this plan is a key step in fulfilling that goal as ultimately it will position the city uh
to be eligible applicant for implementation funding in future uh rounds of the safe streets and roads for all program. Uh before I talk about the planning process for this project, I want to acknowledge the project team who besides
uh TJPDC consisted of uh the working group members represented by staff from uh each of the jurisdictions uh as well as VOTE. Their feedback uh and input in all of the components of the plan was very valuable and not just for the
planning process. Um the planning process for this project consists of four key components and is supported by three rounds of public engagement. All of that combined serves as the foundation for the development of the final comprehensive safety action
plan for adoption. I mentioned the period from 2018 to 2022. Uh that is uh because our crash data for this project was from that period. uh it's identified around 13 emphasis areas which are the key
factors that contribute to fatalities and serious injuries. Uh ultimately the project team uh used this emphasis areas to identify the needs and potential solutions uh for the project.
Uh one of uh another methodology that uh the project team developed for this uh initiative was the high injury network methodology. Uh this serves as a map that shows the highest concentration of crashes that resulted in fatalities and
serious injuries. So from 2018 to 2022, 84% of those crashes occurred on just 17% of the road miles in the city. uh public engagement was a key component for the plan. It was very important to get the public public input um not just
for the potential solutions but also to identify all of their concerns and issues um when traveling through and in in the city. Um we did that in three rounds. Um two rounds uh included a survey um in
which we gathered their feedback. Um in round one we identified issues and opportunities. In round two we engaged on strategies and collaborated on proposed solutions. A little bit more details about the public engagement that we did
in the city. Uh we kicked off the project with a regional safety summit. Uh then we did popup events. We went out to where the public was. We attended the Charlottesville City Market, farmers in the park Fridays after 5. Uh we also
held a public meeting at the Carver's Recreation Center. Uh for round two, we did the we followed the same steps. Uh another thing that uh we did is uh we held a roundt discussion with uh farmers
and ranchers from the region to uh so they can share their concerns uh when it comes to transportation safety using farm vehicles. Uh this slide highlights the spot specific improvements. Uh there is a lot of them and I'm mindful of the
time that I have to present. So I'm not going to go through all of these but I really hope that um you looked in details. I want to mention that um these spot specific improvements were identified in collaboration with city
staff as well as VOTE. Um I also want to mention that um in the plan we have acknowledged other VOTE efforts that are uh occurring in the city. Uh but for this um spot specific improvements for the city we have uh
nine um they include like u comprehensive pedestrian upgrades, ramps, uh roundabouts, uh crosswalks and and many other things. Um another part of the solutions that we
have or another category of the proposed solutions that we have in the plan are the systemic improvements. Uh these can be implemented across the entire network in the city. Uh they include high visibility back plates, improved signal timing strategies, flashing yellow
arrows, speed limit evaluations uh and leading pedestrian intervals. uh the candidate locations for these um solutions are uh documented in the safety action plan. And third and last category of the
proposed solutions are the non-engineering policies and programs. Um these uh go through educational campaigns uh implement support programs um curb management policies red light cameras at
intersection high visibility saturation patrol for impaired driving. Uh we have a couple examples here here but um there's over 30 identified in the plan document. Uh the next uh step for this is uh as I
mentioned adoption of this plan will position the city as an eligible applicant for implementation funding um through the future safe streets and roads for all programs. There's currently uh one round ongoing um with deadline application deadlines
in June 2026 and then there is another uh round after that uh with approx approximately $1 billion. I just want to mention that the next round is going to be the last round for implementation funding that we know of.
We're not sure what's going to happen in the future, but um implementation funding is going to be a lot more competitive when it comes to the last round. Um then we have a smart scale highway safety improvement program and
revenue sharing um funding. Uh the project team also plans to do an annual update of the crash data on the move safely blurridge website. This will help all of our jurisdictions um be in trends like with current safety
strategies and re also refine their strategies in the future as needed. Um that's the end of my slides. I just want to mention that uh with the adoption of this plan uh city of Charlottville will be able to create safer and more efficient transportation
safety network not just for people who live in the city but also people who travel through. Um I'll be happy to to take any questions. You have any questions? No, I'm good. Thank you.
Uh very early in your slide deck there was there were two pages of there those prop yeah project IDs and counter measures and so on have those been approved have those just are those
just suggestions what's the status so yeah suggestions is uh is the right term they are proposed solutions that will be identified in the plan um or they are present in the plan these These solutions would be can turn into implementations
projects to increase this the obviously to increase the safety for residents in the city. Is is there anything that we are being asked to vote on here that declares that we are in favor of those particular projects?
I mean yeah you can certainly look at them and provide any feedback. Um but as I mentioned before, these um solutions or these spot specific improvements uh were discussed with VOTE and city staff
um before we came out to city council to present them, but it's not requiring any of these. No, no, you could apply for all of them. You could apply for for none of them, right? But in order for them to be able to be applied for, they
have to be identified in the plan. And are we identifying the locations that are problems or and is that what's required that we identify the locations that are problems or is it required that we identify specific solutions that we would then want to
secure funding for? So the requirement is the specific solutions, but they're both identified in the plan. Specific solutions as a requirement, but also based on the crash data, we're focusing on the most
severe or high-risk spots. Uh are we essentially affirming this plan so that we can get be able to make the next step in a process? I think this is more like you know sort of painting with
really broad strokes and then the next phase will take us into more finer detail if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. All of these projects will require further further evaluation when it comes to like implementation. I I just want to make sure that if we
say yes to this plan tonight that we are not saying here's how we want to solve the problem at East High Street and Meat Avenue. Not not necessarily. I mean, as I said, it will require further re evaluation. When it comes to if the city decides to
go for either one of these projects, then um slightly different solutions might come might come up from that analysis. Yeah, we don't know the specifics. So, I'm I'm curious, um, Ben, is this
aligned with like the 34 project priorities? Like, uh, some of these are included in that list. Some of these are also things that would come up in in later forms of our planning, like we've talked about some of the corridor planning that we'll need to do down the line. Some of that's baked into this as
well. Got it. Lord, have you finished your comments? Well, I I guess uh I'm I'm pretty sure I understand what you're telling me, though I don't understand why it's worthwhile for us to
do it because we're if if we're not agreeing that that we have specific countermeasures in mind or we're not even agreeing, I take it that these are the top eight or nine areas where we have improvements we want made. I I
guess I'm kind of wondering why we're I think it's essentially why the detail is there at all. It's something that you this is sort of like an initial pass through the system that identifies in sort of general terms and
general locations issues somewhat but we are actually focusing on the highest priority locations. So there is some prioritization to this that is saying that these are the most important places for us to be looking. As for the specific countermeasures, yes, listing
them does mean that those are things that we are committing to potentially looking at and potentially asking for funding for, but we're not saying we're definitely doing all of these things. Okay? because I I would hate to have it thought that that anybody on this dis
had actually critically examined any of these proposals because we haven't. Sure. And and to speak to the top one on our list at East High meet that's the one I'm presenting on next actually and we'll we'll go through a demonstration project that evaluates whether that is the the solution we would want to go
forward with. I mean, something like suggested countermeasures might be a more helpful term, but well, I I'm not I'm not concerned about it given what you told me. I just wondered why
why the detail is there if it's that and part of it is the the guidance that the safe streets for all action plan requires through the federal guidance that we So, if somebody wants to come up to me and say, I understand you just approved a roundabout at the at McIntyre and Preston Avenue. I want to be able to
say no, I didn't. You did not. You you I may like the idea, but I a plan that said we should look at that further. And like you said, you're following federal funding opportunities, which can be very clunky in terms of requirements, right? Absolutely. Um Michael, do you have any comments?
No. Um Natley, you have any? No, thank you. Thank you. So, I would move the resolution to adopt the move safely Blue Ridge Regional Safety Action Plan. Second. Second. Further discussion. Um, all in favor, please say yes. All
oppose, please say no. Great. Now, we're here for um a resolution selecting a preferred alternative design for East High Street Demonstration Project. Yes. So, this is a follow on to the previous presentation and and a little bit about
that very first uh area that we highlighted as being a safety uh issue and that is East High Street. So, as part of the scope of our safety action plan, the city also was given a demonstration project to test uh a
design for a potential safety intervention. And part of this is because we were doing a RA regional safety action plan. We're the urbanized area of the region and we have a little bit of a different need than uh some of our more rural uh partners. So, we were looking at how do we deal with some of
these bike ped safety needs that maybe don't pop up in in our rural neighbors. Uh the analysis that you just passed uh showed that this was one of our our biggest issues was safety along East High Street corridor. Um this is a corridor that has lots of breaks in the
sidewalk network, lots of places where you might want to have a crosswalk to cross the road, but there isn't a safe place to put one in today based on road geometry and sight line. Um, and so we wanted to see, are there some things that we can change up in this little quadrant around uh, East High Street,
Meat Avenue, Stewart Street that could make things a little bit safer for pedestrians getting through, calm down traffic coming through the residential neighborhood streets through there, uh, and and make the the flow of traffic a little bit more logical. So, we came up with some design
options for how that might happen. uh looking at turning me into a one-way in one direction or the other or two-way with a pench off at the northern end. Um we took these uh options to a public open house at the end of February. We also had uh a survey out during that
time uh asking people for feedback on these options. Uh so these options were looking at moving the traffic signal from me avenue and East High Street to Stewart Street. That was one of the major changes and then changing the flow of traffic up and down me street. Uh
trying to move some of that traffic onto Stewart Street which is a more of a commercial corridor. Uh we received 268 responses on our survey. Uh many of those responses were in favor of the option that would keep me avenue as two-way but make it so that you could
only go northbound at the intersection. So, there's sort of a two-way traffic along the section of Meat Avenue that we're talking about, but at that intersection, you can only go northbound. Um, so that would allow the people who are living on that street to still be able to get in and out of their house uh without having to change their
travel pattern completely, but it would impact some of the folks who are traveling through those neighborhoods. Uh, out of the responses, we got uh some indication that some folks wanted an option that was none of the above. Uh, out of those we had about 81 responses.
Out of those, even those people said the two-way option, if we're going to put down anything, was probably the most preferable of the ones that we had in front of us. Uh, so what this option does, it adds an always stop at Me Avenue and Stewart Street intersection. It adds
additional marked crossings at East High intersection. It adds a refuge space for that crossing on East High in the left existing left turn lane which would be removed as we removed that that left turn and the traffic signal that's associated with it. Uh and we revised
some of the curbing uh associated with that option two that we put in front of everyone that had that two-way travel. Um some of the curbing that we had marked at that intersection was blocking some driveways and things like that and the business owners let us know about that and we worked out how that would work a little bit better. And so that's
shown in this diagram as well. Um so what we are looking for tonight is a resolution of support to uh go after this preferred alternative that had been tweaked from our option two. Um the next step after having that resolution would
be getting our final roadway markings schematics uh from our consultant support and then purchasing materials. Um purchasing materials is really going to be the next bottleneck in the timeline. uh the the materials in question uh that are probably going to
give us the most uh issue are the temporary signals. So when we shut down the signal at ME and put a new signal at Steuart, that's not a full-time signal. That's a temporary signal uh that we'll only have in place during this test period. Um once we have the materials
and we're ready to deploy uh we would put this demonstration project in place for 60 days collecting data and feedback from neighbors and travelers who are coming through that area uh on the changes that have happened and then after 60 days uh the chariot turns into a pumpkin and
it goes everything goes back to the way it was. Uh the reason it goes back to the way it was is because we want to eventually be able to come back and do it right. We want to do it the permanent way, putting in actual street lights in at Stuart, making sure that all of these things work through the demo project
before we go out and ask the federal government or the state government for some funding to help us in this corridor. Um, I'll also remind you that this East High Street corridor is a tier three sidewalk. We talked a little bit about sidewalks in my earlier presentation this evening. Um, tier three sidewalks are the ones that we
have not identified funding for design or construction for because we know that these are going to be big, heavy lifts. And when it comes to those big heavy lifts, it helps to have some demonstration, some plans, some a good idea of what you're trying to build before you try to get that funding for
permanent investment. Uh, so that's what we're trying to do with this project. After 60 days, we go back to normal, but we have all the good info in our pocket. Uh, and that lets us go on and uh, do some more grant applications. And so that's all I have
for you tonight. Yeah. Any questions? Natly, you can go. Yes, please. Yes. Hi. So, back to the diagram. If you scoot that way. Um, so there's the always stop being added to Stewart in both
directions on me. that lower the lowest stop sign in this diagram is as you're coming up the hill just past fairway. Mhm. Um, so is it I'm I'm just curious about the
design there for people exiting Fairway and whether or not the stop sign would be better at fairway for those northbound folks since if cars are stopping like 50 feet up, people coming out of Fairway are not going to be able
to see the left at all. We can look at that I think still in or because we still have to do the final schematics for things but I would have some concerns about you know you have the two stop signs at Stewart and me and then you'd have one a block away and it it'd be kind of difficult to understand
how to navigate through that. But we can look into seeing how that might be able to be feasible because it's already tough enough turning left at a fairway and then if you can't see because cars are there it's going to be even harder. Um, also on this design, the northbound
lane of me is where folks park. Are those parking spots maintained? All the parking is maintained in this one. Yes. Okay. Um, and then those those are all my design questions. My I have a procedural question about that 60-day time frame. Um, I assume after those 60
days is when you'll do analysis and yeah, there would be come back with a presentation about stuff. Um, does it have to come out? Uh, we would recommend that it comes out just because it's temporary materials and those would be hard to maintain. If
there was a directive for us to keep it there, that would be a different story. But it would be our suggestion that yes, it would come out and not be a permanent fixture. The reason why I asked is because if it like turns out to be working and we want it there, it feels like then it would be
duplicating work to put it in again or put it in again while we wait for the permanent funding. Yeah, if it turns out to be wildly successful and everyone loves this thing and wants to keep it, we can look for ways to keep it rolling. Um, but right now we just want to only commit to that 60 days until we actually
know what we're getting ourselves into and actually see how it's performing. Is it worth changing that? I don't know. The the resolution doesn't put a time. Oh, it does. It does say for up to 60 days. It does have a time. If we need to amend that later because it's doing great. I wouldn't have a problem
bringing you a different resolution. Should we amend it now? Just like if we like it, it stays. But like in better language, I I'll leave that up to you. I You would still have to indicate that you like it. So, it would still require bringing it back to hear that from you all. Right. Where did the 60 days come
from? Uh that was just recommended by staff. That was just us thinking that sounds like a good enough timeline. Initially, we thought we would be able to potentially fit this in during the summer if we get those materials in. It's kind of dependent if we couldn't get those materials in, but we were hoping that 60-day window would fall
during the summer, so it wouldn't necessarily affect school uh because we have a school right around the corner from that location. So, would it be useful to have information about how this would affect school? It could be and we may just look into that just by
the schedule as well. Okay. I I would be open to changing the language in here so that it says um something to the effect of to data collected for 60 days to then be evaluated and um you know
recommendations brought after that point and then we can kind of re-evaluate just in case we like it so that we're not duplicating that work. Um, unless the kind of temporary materials you're talking about are like going to disintegrate. Uh, no. But it's it's I'm not sure how long we want to leave
temporary signals out and some of our marking paints would have to be reapplied and things like that, but yeah. Yeah. Um, you could authorize me to extend it and therefore I can make the call. Yeah. Can we somehow bake it in that like we revisit the length
before it gets ripped out so that we remember to do that or you know say that again like we we somehow have a chat about it at 56 days or something so that we can revisit it
before work is done. That's the basis of me saying if you authorize me to extend it then I can make that call. I will check with you all and determine that there's support for carrying it forward and provided the materials are still of good quality. We can just let it stay in
place. And do we need to change the language in here? Just adding the authorization of the city manager. Okay. For extending it. Okay. I think the the change would need to be um made by motion. Okay. Could I ask a couple questions?
Yeah. Before we do that, before we do that, Natalie, do you have any more questions or comments? No more questions. Um, other than I'm worried a little bit about that stop line and fairway, the stop sign and the fairway business. And I think that's the whole purpose is just kind of see, you know,
Oh, actually I do have one more question. I know this was one of three suggested alternatives. There were other alternatives suggested in the responses. So is there a plan maybe, you know, at 60 days we know like, oh yikes, this is bad or not as good as we thought it was
going to be? we want to try one of the other alternatives. Is that one of the future work plans? I would have to ask you for more money if if we're doing that. Uh we basically have set aside a budgeted amount for this project and if it comes out that we need to do it again. I'd have to ask you for more. Be
a whole another Okay. Thank you, Michael. So my only question is um you know I'm curious how this will work. I think one weird benefit could be the businesses on Steuart Street actually benefit. Um, but I could see it going
well or I could see a lot of people being very frustrated. Point being, you said you're going to be collecting traffic data and feedback from um, you know, people in that area. What would the kind of feedback look like for you to say this didn't work? Uh, we're going
to be collecting feedback on does this feel safer? That's going to be pretty much the the primary thing that we're asking folks. And if the answer is no, that's a big problem for us. Um, we're also going to be asking different things like, did this encourage you to walk more or bike more and things like that
that would be good indicators for us? But the overall feedback that we're looking for is did this make you feel safe? If it didn't, what were the elements that made this a problem for you? Uh to your point about the businesses on uh Steuart Street, we did do a lot of outreach with the businesses
along this area. Uh the businesses on Steuart Street were very excited about this. Uh there were some businesses that had some concerns about how cut through traffic might affect their businesses, but uh there were others that were like, "Hey, we wish that we had this problem a long time ago and and that would have
helped our business a lot more and they're looking forward to this test and seeing how it'll go." Yeah. Um okay, that's the only question I had. I mean, I'm comfortable and and and good with this. Um, so to be clear, the money that we're getting from
this action is letting you install something temporary to essentially run a test. So, what the the money from our uh move safely blue ridge scope allowed us to do all the design, do all the public outreach, basically have consultant support. Okay. And now
we'll be using uh neighborhood transportation improvement dollars from the city budget to do this test to run this test. Yeah. Um do you already have a sense if it'll work or not? Uh I'm I'm hoping that it
will work. I don't know that it'll work, but I know that this will help us create better sight lines so we can put on a crosswalk and I think that works. Um I don't know. My question is looking at it. I mean on the one hand I can see how it makes a lot of sense to run an
experiment. On the other hand if you think the thing will work why don't we just do it you know and I I think there is enough uncertainty about whether we do think it's going to work that it's hard for us to go after the amount of funding that
it'll take to do it right. Um, so we want to make sure that it is clear that we have have decided that this thing actually does work and that we do have the community support. Right now there's a little bit of uncertainty even in this room about whether it's going to work. We want to be certain before we go after
millions of dollars of funding. So that's what it would take the actual investment. Yes. Yeah. There are major constraints in this corridor that are going to require a lot of money for concrete. So this is basically going to give you more um refined information
about so you make a better overall decision for that corridor, right? And and it also gives us another leg to stand on while we're going after a grant. Every plan that you have that supports a project, every uh demonstration that you've done, every policy that supports a a certain project
helps you in that grant application process. And having a project that says, "Hey, we already tried this. we know what works and what doesn't is a much better cell to our partners in the federal government and state government. I see. Yeah. Cuz I I can envision some
frustration on folks that use that every day to be like, "Okay, so we're doing this for 60 days and then you're reverting or maybe it's a 90 days, whatever." Um anyway, okay. Thank you. Yeah, Lloyd. I'm sorry. I have one more that's
related. Um, you mentioned East High being a tier three corridor street for the sidewalk project. I assume if or I hope that if the pipeline project happens and they're ripping up the street at the lower end of East High,
um, will somehow as it gets rebuilt, the like sidewalk is incorporated. I haven't looked at their plans for that part of of the water line and and we'll have to talk through that because that's a multi-year project and we'll have to understand where the schedule for that falls. But uh yes,
that is something that we keep an eye on is there opportunities. Yeah, it's south of here though. Right. It's fur It's further down East High. Yeah. Yeah. Closer to 250. I would move the resolution selecting a preferred alternative design for the
East High Street demonstration project. uh amended to include language that the demonstration project can be extended beyond 60 days by authorization of the city manager. Second. Okay. Further discussion? All in favor say yes. Yes.
All oppose say no. Okay. All right. Thank you all so much. Appreciate you. Um we're now um at general business and we have a um Sam, are you doing this next time? Okay.
So, councilors, the uh general business item is uh by motion, I am officially presenting uh John Maddox as my selection for serving as the next city attorney for the city of Charlottesville. Having secured your
concurrence with that selection, uh we are now able to bring forward his contract, or I shouldn't say contract, his employment agreement. Uh but John joined the city on May 14th uh at that time as managing director of the city attorney's office because he had to go through the process of gaining
admittance to the Virginia bar. That actually was something that we anticipated taking a lot longer. Thankfully he called me and we both were excited that it was not going to take that much longer. So he will be sworn in at the state supreme court on June 4th
this week and I am presenting to you his employment agreement for him to take um responsibility fully for the office on Friday June 6th. uh the con the employment agreement that you have in your packet identifies that he will uh
serve uh in this capacity at an annual salary of $25,000 and that he will manage the current workflow uh of the office going forward and transition the um engagement of Sans Anderson as acting uh city
attorney represented by Pamela Oberry. Yay. Yay. Um any questions on this? Yeah, I don't know. This is just pure pure curiosity. How long does that transition period typically take or how long are we aiming it? Well, I'll be
honest the transition because he has uh assumed responsibility for things that he could um actually do like running the office itself. So, all staff started reporting to him immediately. Uh we had to be careful of him not practicing law.
So he knows where to stop and we got we received guard rails for where to ensure that he stopped. Uh so we're working through that process but ultimately he will shift into um full responsibility and he will continue to have Sans engaged in some of the things that are
being offramped and I guess I can allow him to speak to that as well if there's any reflection you want to offer on what you are anticipating. Thank you Mr. Manager. Um, yes, it's going to be a transition. Pamela Barry, u say a big thank you to her. She's been
wonderful in helping me get acclimated here. She's done a great job um making sure that we are set up to succeed as I come on as we build more capacity in the office. As you know, we still have a number of vacancies, but I'm I'm already um making moves to hopefully get those filled. And hopefully as we get those
filled, we'll have to rely on outside counsel less. But you cannot um uh understate the value of having somebody who's an expert in just certain sub subject matters that we're going to come across. Sans has a deep bench as far as that goes and they've already been very
helpful to us. So, um it'll be a taper and but I'm hoping to um recoup some of those fees and that we've been having to spend over the past year or so and bring put them back towards uh you know things that we'd rather spend money on.
Great. Thanks. Okay. I appreciate hearing that. We already too. Absolutely. Any any other comments? If not, I get a motion to approve this. I I would move his approval. That's our new city attorney.
Second. Further discussion? If not, all in favor, please say yes. Yes. All oppose, please say no. So, we now have the opportunity for Actually, Mr. Mayor, I'm sorry. Uh, one thing if we could, uh, Miss Ory is on. I would like to have her
turn her camera on. She knows I'm asking her to do this. So, if she could be promoted, please. I'm here. All right. Mr. Bear, can you hear us? I can hear you and I can see you. There we go. Okay. So, I wanted uh just one
single indulgence and then to offer council any opportunity as well. But I wanted to personally thank Miss Ory for her professionalism, her support of the city of Charlottesville in this period of transition. It's always difficult when you're dealing with the loss of a key leadership position, but it is
always great to have partners available to step in the gap. She has been that she has led she has led a number of great initiatives that have helped the city uh in the past year. and I just wanted to publicly thank her for that and hopefully give you all as council
members an opportunity to say the same. Yes, thank you so much. I I know this is for city of 50,000. I know we kept kept you hopping. So that's how that's how we roll, but um thank you so much for stepping in during that that critical
gap. So I don't know if others have something. Yeah, we're very grateful uh for your support and certainly wish you all the best. Yes. Yep. And also thanks for staying on and helping with the transition. Yes. Yes. If I could also offer thanks, Pam. Thank
you so much for working with me. This is Kina um through so many items. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. You take care. Thank you. And I just want to say it's been my honor and my pleasure to to support the
city of Charlottesville and your wonderful staff and citizens. It's uh it's certainly I've learned a lot and I've just met some wonderful people and I hope to continue those relationships as we move forward and I wish the best to to John. I think uh you've made a
good pick and the city is in good hands. Great. Thank you. Thank you so much. Great great picture to Thank you. Um so this is the the next item on the agenda is the last opportunity for
um community matters. So if anyone would like to speak if you could come up and and give your your your name and and um what you like to say. Thank you Dee. And then thanks. Uh just three things um that
came up tonight. Uh, first of all, um, tran, uh, transient occupancy tax. Uh, when we I was on council when we put those regulations in, I'm not I just want to make sure that you all realize that you can only do that rent short
term if you're the if it's your primary residence. And that's a way that this Airbnb disclosure actually could help you a lot. It doesn't zoning or otherwise. We're a small city. you can figure out real quickly whether people are doing this because it was beginning
to be a really big problem. People were buying houses solely to Airbnb of them. So anyway, I just wanted to make sure that was clear. Uh secondly, I just wanted to say that's in terms of the payment in le of tax. This is the closest I've ever heard anybody
acknowledge that this is a optional tax on gas. And and you know in page 56 of your budget has it under taxes total. It has the um payment in lie of taxes and it's 77 7 million
uh $881,000. He Mr. Cullen was right. I was wrong. Wasn't six. It's seven almost $8 million. Most of that, the majority, simple majority um is coming from the city. And just remember that when people can't pay their gas bills, they also
can't pay their water bills. It's one bill. And if you if your utilities are cut off, you will lose your kids for one thing. You cannot the social social services cannot leave your children in a house that doesn't have utilities. When I was on council, we kept track of how
many households were cut off every year. It was around 10% every year um of people losing their utilities. Sometimes they would be able to turn them back on, but it's very expensive to be dropping your utilities and turning them back on. That's another fee you have to. So, it
just hurts people of low income disproportionately. And just the last thing I'd like to say is if you believe that the public does not need to know that in front of their houses and their 75 to 100 homes impacted are going to
have a 36 in 10-ft deep trench dug in their streets over four miles of the city, then God bless you. But I believe that the public needs to know. They have not been told this. I asked Ryanna this question and they have they said we'll
tell them after you vote on it, after it's approved. I believe the public needs to know what is going to happen and there it's a possibility their utilities will need to be disconnected for a time because there's all of this
is all below the existing gas water and sewer utilities that have laterals on both sides of the streets from the main there's you know and it's in some of the oldest parts of the city so those are could be terracotta laterals so I mean there's so many liabilities the city the
public really needs to know what's going to happen. Thank you. Yep. If you can give your your name, please. And Lucy, the thing I wanted to ask earlier that I don't what you mentioned about the uh
flock system being used in um resolving several cases. I just know that I just heard it the like I know several people who were very concerned about the system existing
or being used by the federal government and I just wanted to know what the scale that is like how many cases are actually being resolved just to see like if somebody doesn't feel safe with having this being used and as a surveillance system then what is the actual trade-off
there like what benefit is there versus that risk that comes from And sorry, I'm kind of rambling here, but is there a clear, I guess, accounting of what is what it has been used for and what it is
benefiting the community for. Thank you. And let me just add, I would hope that that would that information would be a part of whatever we're going to be getting when we look at things in a few more months as we review it all. Yeah.
So, um, with no further business, is there a motion to adjurnn? Move we adjourn. Second. Um, any oppositions? If not, um, we adjourn. Thank you.