--------- Can you hear us? >> I can now. Yes. >> Okay, good. >> We don't have to go through the whole minute. Were you supposed to? >> I think so. >> Available. Okay. >> Make sure no one's
It was it was a choice. >> I don't know why, but it was a choice. >> We We hear you crystal clear, Lloyd. I can't hear you except intermittently. >> Uh same. >> I call the Charlottesville City Council
October 6, 2025 um city council meeting to order. Miss Thomas, will you please um call the role? >> Councelor Astrin here. Councelor Payne >> here. >> Vice Mayor King Pinkston >> here.
>> We have a quest request from councelor Snook to join electronically. Mayor Wade >> here. Um, councelor Sook is participating virtually from his home due to a temporary disability or medical condition that prevents his physical
attendance. Um, councelor Snook, I'm going to um first ask if you can we're going to need you to turn on your your camera and ask can you hear us clearly now? Well, is my c my camera shows as being on from my end.
>> Toggle it. >> Yeah, >> there we go. >> Cuz it it's showing it's showing it's on. Um, I wonder if one of my other programs that I last used the camera on has
hijacked the camera link. >> I wouldn't know how to fix that. >> Yeah, >> you could try rebooting your computer, Lloyd. Yeah, that might be a good >> Or your phone or using your phone instead. >> Or use your phone instead.
>> Yeah. >> Knock it three times. >> Yeah. So Lord, we're going to let you um play around with that um some while we um um assuming that you can get on um so that we can see you and are there any
objections from other councils for law to participate in this capacity um to participate electronically? Any objections if we can get them up? No objections >> assuming we can. >> But it we do have to be able to see him
for him to vote, right? >> Yes, >> we could maybe just said that Mr. Could we bring him in for the main meeting? >> Um voting. We don't need that now. But >> yeah, there's no vote at this point. >> To be counted present, you have to be um
have a visual and audible. >> Okay. >> Well, could we bring him in to count it as president later? >> Later. >> Mhm. And >> yeah, he's trying to reboot now. But yes, I can keep a lookout for when he is able to join. >> I I'm back to where I was. Are you
You're not able to see me? >> No. >> Shoot. >> Well, um if all else fails, I guess I can come down uh for 6:30 for the time that we have to actually be able to vote.
>> Uh Mr. Snook. >> Yes. Um, try pressing the the the arrow that's next to the video icon in Zoom. It might give you other camera options. The only thing it says is USB video device.
>> You don't have an internal camera on your computer? >> I do. I don't have an external. >> Oh, gotcha. Um, >> I guess just try switching. If it gives you multiple options, try switching from one camera to another if you have.
>> It It's not giving me that option. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Hey, Lloyd, do you want to try your phone? >> Well, I guess I could. I don't really use that phone. Yeah. We could go ahead and get started though that way.
>> Yeah, I I'll join you momentarily by phone, I guess. >> So, >> thanks. >> Can um what we'll do is that we will um approve us um being present and excluding Lloyd. And if he comes in later, we'll count him as present. But
right now um you may be able to listen in but maybe um not um vote but we're not voting in anyway. So can I get a motion to approve um or amend the agenda? >> Move for approval of the agenda.
>> Second. >> Um >> it's a voice vote. We don't have everyone logged in. So >> yeah. Sorry. >> Um all in favor please say yes. >> Yes. >> All oppose please say no. Thank you. Um the meeting will be divided into three
sections. The first section will we'll hear and discuss presentations that that do not require council vote. Um followed by a close session. Um and then we'll have our regular business meeting at 6:30. And today we're going to hear
three reports. The first one will be um a presentation on FY 2027 budget um development kickoff by um Miss Chrissy Hamill. >> Yeah. >> Good afternoon, councilors. Uh Chrissy Hamill, budget director,
>> if you can believe it, we're starting to talk about the new next new budget FY27. Uh so tonight we'll uh start with a kickoff. Basically, we're going to review the calendar and the process. Um, and then we'll finish up, if you could go to the next slide, please, for the
agenda. Um, we'll finish up with uh looking at Thank you. looking at uh the long-term forecast of sort of where we're starting. Um, and then, uh, we'll end up with questions and comments or any concerns or anything you all have as
we head into the process. So staff have been working on the have already started their work on the budget. Their CIP budget requests were due last Friday. Uh their operating budgets are due next Friday. Um we'll be meeting with the um city manager and the
budget team. Each department has an opportunity to meet and discuss their budget submissions um at that time all through the month of November. Um we we used to do this throughout the whole month. This this year we changed it up a little bit.
We've set aside I think it's uh six dates where we're going to do a marathon of budget meetings all day. Um so we're going to try that this year. Uh in December and January the city manager will be having budget forums which will
also we'll talk about that in a few minutes. That's going to be a little bit of a different format. And then finally on March 2nd the city manager will be presenting his proposed budget to you. So, you'll have two meetings to set uh
to talk about the school board's budget. Uh the first meeting will be on December 18th. That will be a joint meeting to talk about their budget priorities. And then on February 9th, uh we'll be meeting with them and you'll get a preview of their budget request.
Uh, city manager Sanders will be bringing to you a series of budget briefings. One, uh, tonight will be on schools and public safety. Uh, November 3rd will be one on transportation and then on, um, December f 1st there will
be affordable housing. So, the city manager budget forum, we're still working on these dates and times. Uh for the last what two years we actually did a single budget forum. Uh this year uh city manager and communications are working with the
neighborhood um leaders groups uh in hopes to bring several of those meetings to to them uh to the neighborhood. And so we'll have more information on the exact dates and times uh for those will be coming shortly. Do
>> you want to say anything else about that? >> You got it. >> Okay. Uh we're also going to have a community budget forum on March 19th. This also serves as the public hearing for the budget that will be at city space at
6:00. And then we'll have our normal series of budget work sessions which will begin we'll be spending every Thursday evening together um starting March 5th going through April 2nd. We'll be having a work session on the 5th to talk about the revenues and expenditures. We'll
talk about outside nonprofit agencies on the 12th and on the 26 we'll talk about the CIP and then on April 2nd we'll wrap up um for any final changes that you all would like to see in the budget. So, the key dates, uh, we're going to
try for January 30th as a date, uh, that we will need to know if council chooses to advertise any rate increases for taxes. March 2nd, as I noted, that will be the date that the city manager and the school board will present their proposed
budgets to you. March 16th will be our first tax rate public hearing. April 6 will be the second public hearing on the um on the budget and the tax rate. And then on April 9th, we will formally adopt the budget.
That gives us a few days. April 15th is what is required by code. Um we try to keep a little buffer in there in case anything happens that we need those dates. Um but April 9th is the date we're shooting for. So to sum that up, we'll have four work
sessions. two public hearings, one community budget forum, and then we'll adopt the budget on April 9th. And then again, there will also be several uh city manager budget forums as well. Uh for the CIP budget process, we have
two dates uh set to meet with the planning commission. One is on November 25th. That is basically a work session where we meet with the planning commission. um they get a first chance to look at the first draft of the CIP
and then on December 9th, I think that's a nine. Um we will meet with them to hold the public hearing. So, three budget drivers of this budget, as you know from your uh retreat that you had back in August, uh
transportation, affordable housing, and schools. Those are both big ticket items. They'll drive big expenditures in the budget. So, we'll be having lots of conversations on those. And now I'm going to transition to the
fun part. So, um, these numbers are a little bit hard to see now that I see these on the slide, but they are in the packet. Um, this is a long-term forecast. We have been working with our financial advisor VN came and met with you all um, as part of your retreat.
We've been working on this uh, forecast for number of reasons. One, we're getting ready for the budget season, but also we're in the midst of uh, new contract negotiations for collective bargaining. So trying to determine what we could expend um for those things or
what we think we can afford. We have been looking at this model. Um this model is basically bare bones. Um I I will say that we always start with a budget gap. Um when we're starting the budget process, we always end with a
balanced budget. Um but this year feels a little bit different. Typically our our budget gap starts with us having more expenditures um than revenue. That's not that's not untypical or atypical. Um but in this
case uh with this forecast we basically are looking at bare bones. So what this means is that for um on the expenditure side just if every no without looking at any new contracts just if everybody's uh
got a step u for their compensation where they are now um we looked at about a 2 and a half% inflationary increase on other expenses. Um we do know that we need to make some additional investments in our healthc care fund. Um and then for capital
projects and debt service about 5% given what we know we already have built in the CIP and that's about it. No other expenses. Um you'll see here that on our revenue side we
really are looking at a very modest increase in revenues. uh real estate tax, we're looking at about a three and a half, maybe 4% assessment increase is what we're projecting right now. We actually saw a decrease in our personal property tax
revenue for the current year is what we're working with uh is a decrease on that projection. And then the uh sales, meals, lodging are basically um flat even though we had uh tax increases on
meals and lodging. So when we compare all of these things, we are basically starting with about a $6.7 million projected budget gap. Um that's without adding any of the bright new shiny things. Uh so as
I said, we have a lot of work to do. We will get it done. Um and we'll get there. Um but this is what I would say the certainly the budget's not negative. It won't be negative. Um but we do have work to do in terms of setting
priorities, figuring out where to spend dollars, how to spend the dollars. And this is what is I would say of my tenure here something that's a little bit more normal. Um we've had many the last three or four budgets have been budgets that
were flush with new revenue. We had federal dollars, we had state dollars and those have basically they're they're done. So we're back to our normal sort of tax base um in terms of balancing our
budget. Any questions on this? >> What are you what are the revenue projections based on? >> Um in many ca so the revenue projections for the real estate tax are based on
what we're seeing. Um this is a number we actually worked with our assessor on based on their tracking of sales and other things related to the market. Um it's also based just on trends that we're seeing. Um, personal property is
the same kind of thing. Um, when we did the budget for 26, we basically, um, I would say we were overly optimistic. We will be revising that budget number for 26 as well down. Um, so that's kind of
our uh, springboard for 27. And then the sales, meals, and lodging, we're basically looking at trends and based on actual collections to date. And in for the immediate year the projection total growth is 1.6%.
>> Pardon me. >> And so for for FY27 the projection is a total revenue growth of 1.6%. >> Overall right now that's the change from uh 26 to 27. Some of that is being driven by uh about a half a million
dollar half a million dollar decrease in personal property tax. Yes. Mhm. I guess I just find that by looking it up. I think at the height of the Great Recession, our annual budget growth was like 1.1%. Then before and after it quickly went back to five or 6%
annually. So I guess I'm just surprised that it would be a number as bad as you know our worst year at the height of the Great Recession. >> Yeah. I I mean I don't Did you have anything you wanted to add along those lines or >> and I would say it's very early we so we
have time. >> Hello uh Jason Vanderver, city treasur. Yeah, these are ones that we've been working on a lot lately. Um you know obviously the biggest piece is real estate and those the three and a half% to 4% number is kind of where we are with the assessor right now. um that
doesn't include any sort of um you know large new construction projects, but there are several you know under construction. It's just we don't know when they're going to be done and we don't want to count those in our projections until we have more certainty of when those might actually be completed and incorporated into the assessments. Um but you know some of
those are are large projects. So the three and a half to 4% is based mostly just on reassessment of current properties. Uh so that's one piece of it uh that you know might get more optimistic as we go. Uh as far as personal property um that one is also
hard to project because we basically get those numbers on January 1st every year and as we get closer to January 1st and uh closer to your January January 30th uh deadline on on setting the tax rate we should have some more information about that. But I think last year we had
projected about a 3 and a half% increase on personal property and and that didn't materialize with the 2025 numbers. Uh so some of that is is new vehicles, some of that is reassessment on old vehicles. And so there are a lot of factors at play uh in the assessment of of um used
vehicles especially uh and what those numbers are going to be. So that's that's part of it. um your question about the you know looking at a 1 to 2% increase overall uh some of that is driven by those economically sensitive um revenues like sales tax, meals tax,
lodging tax. Uh and certainly another month of data might help, but one of the things that we've noticed this time around is that there's not really a consistent trend either up or down. It's like some months are up, some months are down. It just makes it really hard to forecast right now uh without having that consistency. And so those are some
of the things that we're looking at and hopefully as we get closer we'll be a little more optimistic, but right now the data is not really there to support, you know, projecting revenues that are higher than that at the moment. >> Thank you. >> Could I ask a question about this page?
>> Sure. >> I'm looking at the line down there that says 15% growth in health benefits to build up the reserve. Mhm. >> Can you explain that to me? >> Yeah. So, uh I think one of the things
that was uh Ven also presented to you um at the retreat is the idea that we are self-insured for our health insurance. Um and what we have seen over the last few years is increasing claims costs um that have been exceeding the amount that
we are actually funding into the plan. And so um there is sort of a universal standard of uh a reserve that you should keep for that healthc care fund. Um and right now we are below that and are projecting to remain below that for this
year. And so this is a way to build up those reserves to um to get back on par because we are um there's a chance we are we are in on a downward trend. So I don't want to say we're going to end
up negative, but we do need to address that to make sure that we are not in negative territory. >> So what is the reserve supposed to be? >> Do you want to talk about that? >> So we have a target reserve in the healthcare fund of about 30% of uh
claims. Uh and I think there was a work session last year where we kind of talked about that in a little more detail and how we've fallen below that. And so this 15% is not I mean obviously the city is not can't absorb 15% increase in its healthcare cost every
year going forward but this is sort of a one-time adjustment that we feel would be helpful um to the healthcare fund to kind of get it back on track and and recover some from some of the bad claims experience that we've had over the last two or three years. So, >> well, and just in terms of plain old
dollars, how how much are we low? How much are we below where our reserve should be? >> Yeah, I I we'd have to get that number to get a hard dollar number for you. >> I mean, I don't need it to to the penny, but I mean, we talking about a $1
million gap, a $5 million gap? What are we talking about? >> It's more than one. >> Less than 10. Yeah, we'll get you some specific numbers, but I would also say that uh this is not a unique problem to the city of Charlottesville. Um there
are a lot of local all local well I don't want to say all that's a big word but a lot of our peers that we are talking to are having similar issues. Um COVID was a time when people were not going to the doctor. Um and so claims were low. People started going to the
doctor. Um, and um, we've just experienced uh, we've had some bad experience with some big high dollar claims as well. Okay. I mean, I guess I'm I'm just trying to get a sense of uh, as as we
look at this revenue, this expenditure line, I assume it comes under benefits, not under cash compensation. How much of the $3 million or $2.4 4 million in increase between 2026 and 2027
is going to be attributable to and this extra amount that we're looking to to kick in to build the reserve back up. >> So I I we can get back to you on total dollars, but I can give you an example.
In 2024, uh, no, excuse me, 2025 per employee, the city was contributing $10,717 per employee. Um, with the 26 budget, because of similar issues, we bumped
that up to $14,000 per employee. Um, we're looking to probably raise that somewhere in the 10 to 15% category. from the 10,000 to the 15,000 was roughly a 30% increase um from 25 to 26.
Um and so we're looking to raise that, you know, about we're projecting about 15% increase here, but I can get you the absolute dollar amount. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah, it's based on a percent of payroll
as well. >> Okay. So, sorry, that 14,000 is how much we pay for each employees insurance. >> It's how much. So, we get a flat amount that we pay. Um, and then that amount is ex distributed by the number of
employees and that's just how we break it out. And it ends up being about $14,000 per employee. That's not the exact premium. There's a total cost. We not because not every employee has city health insurance. Okay.
>> But we allocate it for >> And is that I don't I've never bought large scale company insurance before. Is that a normal amount? Is that high per person? >> It's based on your I mean we are
required to make a payment for our health care that covers our cost of claims. Every lo I mean everybody's plan is different. your your bit, you know, the number of people that are in your plan, the health of your people. Um, so
it's hard to compare apples to apples, but we can we can try to get you some more information. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Do you remember how bad things were a year from now? I mean, not a year from now, a year ago. >> Was it this dismal? Um, you know, we,
um, I think a year ago we were looking at, uh, we didn't necessarily look at it this way starting out. Um, we were looking more at revenues and I think we were looking at roughly like a 5% increase on revenues at that time. Um,
so like I said, this one feels a little bit different because revenues are not performing at the levels we've seen for the last few years. Okay. >> Any other questions or you >> No, I think that's I mean I just you
know one thing to say is it's not negative. Um you know revenues are growing. Um it's just not growing at the rate that we've been accustomed to over the last three or four years which really if you went back historically
they are not that was abnormal. This is more normal quite frankly. So, um, you know, we'll we've got a lot of work to do. >> I'm sure y'all will figure it out. >> We have no choice,
>> right? >> So, just, uh, final thing, um, please be sure to check out our budget web page. Um, we'll be rolling out, uh, new budget explorer with some enhancements, uh, with the first quarterly report in November. Um, that's also where you can
find all the information for the budget work sessions, presentations, all the information is there. And with that, uh, if you have any questions or concerns about the process, anything you'd like to see differently, now would be the time to let us know.
Um, good. I'm glad that um, Jen Flasher is here because she's going to be in the thick of this when we get to roll in on this next year. So, welcome. Thank you so much. Any other questions or comments?
>> Um our next um presentation will be um I guess you're doing it. Okay. >> Did you knock that off? >> Sorry. >> Okay. So, um, Chrissy brings you all the
great news and then I just go deeper. So, I'm going to give you a budget brief on public safety. U, we had identified in in the presentation that uh, schools, housing, and transportation were the budget drivers. Uh, we still have some
work to do to figure out exactly what the school's exposure may be as it relates to budgeting. Uh, so we're in a shift and I decided to make this brief really focused on public safety. The intent of this budget brief, and this is a three-part series. You'll get one of
these uh each of the next uh first work sessions over the next three months. The goal is just to highlight some of the things that we're thinking about, talking about, and seeing as it relates to the budget so that you can begin to feel my pain of putting a budget together.
Really feel Chrissy's pain because she's the one that has to make it all come together and add up. So, as I said, the budget drivers being transportation, affordable housing, and city schools. We're just going to substitute and put public safety ahead of that for now because city schools is going to be something we have to work on.
Our public safety priorities being public service interventions, fire department, police department, emergency management, as you might expect. And our public service space, uh, we added a concrete crew in the last budget. Those new positions have already been integrated. We're now going to be looking at, is there a need for
equipment? I'm sure there will be some adjustments that come from the public works team as they talk to us about that. We've been talking about trash collection, bringing it in-house and is that a benefit to us to do that? If so, there's a huge outlay of cash for buying new equipment. So, we'll be talking
about that. And then, of course, having to take a look at what impact that has on current contracts. And then capital development is just our continued work of building. We have a lot of projects still in the hopper. We'll continue to put those there. Uh, and you know what stress that brings. So there's work to
be done and we'll still have to determine what some of those financial impacts will be. In interventions, the first we'll highlight is anchor specifically. It's a very high-erforming pilot program that we've been running. We've internalized the role. We're talking about
internalizing all roles. So taking a look at the mental health clinicians and determining should we go about doing that? Do expand service hours? Do we broaden the scope? Uh we've been very pleased with what we've seen in that space. uh and Misty and her team are working together right now for what
they're calling Ankor 2.0 that they'll be presenting pretty soon. It will be basically uh an update on what more we can do in that space, but it comes with a budget ask attached to that. So, we'll have to see if we can make that fit with what you just heard as to how things are
working. Flock specifically, as you know, I put it here just as a reminder that the pilot currently ends at the end of the month. the chief is engaged in outreach sessions. Uh it looks like I'll be telling him he's got to do a few more outreach sessions, but we'll uh make sure that those happen and then we have
a council check-in on the matter of whether or not we continue flock uh into u another year. It will not be a specific budget ask because we've already determined that if we were to do that then chief will pay for that and we will not include any additional cost to
make that possible. in the fire department. I met with the leadership team. Uh part of my conversation with all lead team members this year was that they had to meet with their city manager's office contact before they could submit their budgets. And the goal there was just to help provide a little extra guidance on what
uh they have done in the way of prioritizing their budget asks and determining if there were some things that we were just going to be able to give a quick answer and say we're not going to be able to consider that. One, it saves them the time of submitting something that's not going to likely make it through the cut. And two, it really gives us a chance to make sure
that we're uh taking stock at what's coming before we get the massive list that then becomes uh a pretty hard task for us to go through and determine what uh we can and cannot do. In the operational areas for the fire department, managing overtime is a big
deal. uh uniforms, gear, and PPE are some things that they've talked about needing to make some adjustments to their budget for and integrating single roll EMS, which we had brought that to you previously. That's a new division within uh the department. So, with that comes a little bit of adjusting for
individuals who are just EMS um service providers and they will not have a firefighter response role. Uh and just making sure that we've accounted for that. So, there's a sizable increase that we projected. uh we have to reconcile that with some of the other citywide submissions. Um but ideally our
goal is of course to take care of our fire department to the best of our ability. Police department I added school resource officers. This has become a very hot topic. It's here in that there is a recommendation that will be coming from the school board. That
recommendation has not been received at this time. It is being discussed. Uh the initial conversation was that there would be four officers that would be proposed to be added. That would be a new budget ask. That was roughly $900,000, which is what the chief
confirmed for the uh work group that's been considering this particular item. We have since heard that there appears to be a desire to cut back on the request and go with two officers instead and the chief has identified an ability to operationalize those two officers
without an additional uh budget ask. Uh that does not become formal until the superintendent submits an ask and that has not happened at this time. But if that should happen, then we will of course have to bring that forward because we still want council to weigh in on the matter of supporting the uh
deployment of resource officers in schools. Again, some of the other budget priorities, uh we are out of compliance today in that we are not currently providing a drug court officer, a sworn officer to serve drug court. Uh it's a part-time position. So, the chief has highlighted
that for me and our clerk of court of circuit court has identified that as an ongoing concern. So, we're going to have to take a look at that. There's an internal conversation about some additional support for community involvement because the work that the chief and his team has done has actually been wellreceived and we might need a
little help to help coordinate some of that and we are expecting software and contract increases because we're seeing that across the city. So, still a few more things to work out in that space. And then emergency management. I'm actually going to have um our new emergency management coordinator, John
O'Randy, step up and give you an update as to what he's been doing in the how many days have you been here? >> The very long period of long tenure that he has here, uh he's already put some serious points together as to work that he's doing.
>> Good afternoon, Mayor Wade, council members, and of course, city manager Sanders, John O'Rady, emergency management coordinator. Um, and I appreciate the opportunity to give you a brief update on the plans, um, that I'm putting together for my first 100 days,
uh, give or take. Um, certainly by the end of the year, here's what I hope to, uh, kind of have accomplished. Um, there are three kind of main areas I would like to address. Um, completing review of emergency plans and procedures. Um, of course, budget planning, which we just heard a lot about. Um, and then
also the emergency management framework uh, that the city works within. Uh when we talk about emergency plans, there are two that are key. Um and those are our continuity plan, which is our internally focused plan that helps us
deliver uh the business of local government during a disruption on a daily basis. Um and then our emergency operations plan or our EOP. uh and that's more externally focused and that's how we coordinate across the city and across other agencies throughout the
city during a disaster that might impact um the community at large. So with continuity planning, there's been a lot of work that's uh been ongoing over the last number of months and that's in pretty good shape. We are having a um uh training event the first week of
November uh that is going to introduce a citywide continuity plan. Um, and what I will announce by the end of this year are some plans that uh designate certain dates in the springtime for uh actual exercises that will be conducted at the
department level because we don't want the plan to just sit on a shelf. We want folks to work with that plan and understand it. Um, in terms of the EOP, I'll talk a little bit more about this in just a second, but um, I've read through it and there are some updates that, um, I'll make
primarily around our emergency management um, framework. Um, but I'll also in the coming weeks I'll be talking with the city attorney's office in terms of our emergency procedures so I can get a good understanding um, of those procedures and any changes that we might
need to make. Um, in terms of the emergency management framework, uh, the city adopted the National Incident Management System or NIMS some time ago. Um, and we're going to lean into that framework, but what we're going to do is clarify roles and expectations of staff.
Uh, I'm making some changes in the EOP to make that um, a little bit easier for folks to understand and feel confident in their role during an emergency. Um, so I'll publish a training schedule by the end of the year and also um have chosen and scheduled a date for an EOC
exercise um in 2027 hopefully uh late uh spring perhaps early summer of 2027. So thank you again uh for your time. I appreciate it. >> Thank you John. So then the the book end to that uh set of of of objectives being identified is
there are going to be some financial uh requests that will be uh coming forward as well. At this point I am not looking to necessarily um add things to the FY27 budget but what I have talked to John about was that I have previously
prioritized emergency management within the deployment of our current surplus. Uh, and there are some items that we will still bring forward. And the goal is to try to help give him a little more time to reconcile some of these things and determine what things really rise to the priority of being able to come and
ask for that to hopefully avoid having yet another increase having to be operationalized uh in the FY27 budget for the fact that it just might not fit. Um, but I I do feel good about what I'm hearing him say and and see already.
that last last item there about uh the emergency operations center drill and exercise. We have not done any real testing of our ability to respond. We haven't done that for years. So that is something that I do consider to be a very high priority and it does come at a cost. So we want to try to begin to do
that work soon. Next up, uh, November 3rd, I'll do the budget brief on transportation, uh, and skip forward on a 1 of, uh, December, we'll do one on affordable housing. In between that, there's the CIP work session with the planning commission and then the public hearing, uh, on that
CIP, but the budget, CIP budget on the 9th of December, and then you have your joint meeting with the school board on the 18th of December. And I will make my budget presentation to you on March 2nd. It is the greatest day that I have when I get to come and
tell you that the budget is balanced because it must be. And then we adopt on the 9th unless something goes wrong. >> I knew she was going to say that. So that is where we are with the brief uh at this point in time. Did you all have
any questions on anything? Just how we're wrestling with the budget already. >> Lloyd, did you have any questions? >> No, I didn't. Thank you. Okay, Michael or >> um I guess it's a bit broader than just the budget, but with the emergency
management piece, um obviously in 2017, Charlottesville went through, you know, several events in a terrorist attack that exposed a lot of deficiencies, >> right? um what are you seeing as the deficiencies that still exist today in terms of the
scale of investment in order to get into a place where we feel like we've fully implemented all the lessons from 2017? >> Yeah, I I'll say honestly we're still figuring out what the lessons are. Um we have not really done the most robust um
bring yourself forward out of a set of big events like that. We've talked about it a lot. Uh we've had different people in in different um positions at different times, but until we really formalized that there was an office of emergency management that that's what they were going to do all day long every
day, um that hasn't really gotten us to a place of having this checklist of things that we're going to just tick off and say we're going to get these things done. We did a lot uh with Jeremy as in his tenure uh in the seat of figuring out what we weren't doing that we had
been doing. So, we've gotten a lot of that stuff, the coupe planning back so that all those plans can be up and running so that if we had any interruptions, uh staff would know what they're supposed to do. Like, we've gotten that part done. When I first started talking about this uh surplus
round, one of the things that I highlighted as a big deal was getting barriers for the downtown mall, especially for those two crossings that we still allow cars to cross where people walk. um that we need to at least uh implement a barrier system because we're using vehicles today and we've
been using vehicles from well before 2017. Um that's that fails. That's not a good uh version of doing it. And I would uh plan to bring that back and get that done. And I think the exercise is is something that we need to just put into
the budget on some schedule so that we can test various things that could happen. And just remembering that and in a community where there is a river, where there's an interstate, where there's an airport, things happen. Where's a railroad, all those things, it just happens. So, you need to plan for
those because any one of those accidents could happen in our footprint and we have to respond and we need to make sure that we're ready to. >> And there would be obviously it's more long-term. Is there any like connection with the work the climate team does on resilience
planning, not emissions reductions, but resilience with emergency management or are they kind of in different >> They're in different lanes, but I do there's they're moments to come together. The river specifically is one of those things that we we have to take into consideration. Um John has already started moving around the organization
and getting connected to more and more people. So, I think there's there's still opportunities for us to figure some of that out, but yes, there's a place for it. We we have sustainability, emergency management, equity as just topics that go they supersede a department or an office. They go everywhere.
>> And the only other question um what's kind of the sense of scale with both the fire department and police department in terms of the um requests for additional staff um positions and kind of the cost of that. >> I think they both understand that they're not supposed to be asking for
more staff. Um, as the chief is laughing in the back, uh, only only positions that are needed is what I keep hearing, but their numbers are they're very small numbers. One, one and a half, maybe two people is what I've heard in my check-ins with them in the past few
weeks. Uh, that makes it easier because we are seeing just the cost of doing business continue to go up. So, they're software contracts and other things that they absolutely have to have are automatically going up. So, we're having to absorb that before we can even have the conversation about can you get
another FTE or not. >> Yeah. And I remember at some point there was a discussion with the police department of having like a outside analysis to try to figure out what the ideal like staffing levels would be. >> Is that something that
>> is ongoing stopped? >> We haven't talked about that recently. So if you remember that was uh I say two budgets ago we requested the but that was something that we pulled pulled out. We had a um we had an agreement with the the justice department to do a
collaborative reform effort under the prior administration that was in place and that was one of the things that I've asked them to do. Um but that was pulled with all the other federal grants and stuff. So that's no longer happening. I'm not sure if that'll get up and going again. Um, so to answer your question, I
think we definitely need one staffing study for me to stand in front of you and say I need 20 more cops because of this that we need to have something that says that. I I don't feel comfortable saying that right now. >> Sure. >> And the approach really has been I'll just kind of share how I've processed it. Whenever the chief and I talk, I
keep telling him no more FTEEs, no more FTEEs. And he knows better. He knows that he's supposed to come and ask me for them. Um, we talk about how are you going to use them? Where are you going to use them? What is it that we're going to be able to do specifically by adding uh because we had more we had a higher
number of of police officers uh and then we also shifted some of the various management of expenses to make sure that our officers had take-home cars. So for that we reconcile that that cost then meant that we weren't going to fill some of the vacancies that we had. That's
still a balance and we're still and we're we're in collective bargaining like you don't get out of it until you kill it. If you don't kill it, it just gets more expensive because that's part of the process. So, we have to be able to reconcile all of it. So, more of the conversation that we're having is really where do we need officers? Is there an
area? Is there a shift? Is there more that we need to be able to do? Are there special beats that we need to consider uh being able to prioritize? That's really where the conversation has been. And similar with fire in terms of >> fire. Yeah. >> What types of conversations about new?
>> Sure. Because we've had we've had I don't know Chrissy, how many years have we talked about overtime? >> Fire department. >> Long. We've had a good number of years. I've posed the question a few times. At what point does overtime come down just by adding officers to trade off the
overtime expense by putting permanent bodies into those seats? We're still wrestling with that, but we're never going to eliminate overtime. There are some structural things that need to be looked at as well. Uh the number of holidays and and vacation days that we give for individuals who really can't
take them because we need them. Uh there's there's some some work that still needs to be done in that space. Uh but I'm not um refusing FTEEs in in those critical spaces just offhand. We're really having conversations about it. >> Yeah, that's it for me. Thank you.
>> Okay. Next, >> um, something you touched on in your response just now, but was isn't part of this presentation is the fact that there's two crossings of the downtown mall for vehicles. >> Yeah. >> Are we going to have a conversation at some point about closing one or both of them?
>> I had a feeling you were going to say that. Um, I don't want to go there, but I'll just say that we did talk about it during the downtown mall action committee. Um, it comes up every time we talk about the downtown mall. There is a lot of back and forth on should we um
I'll say that we see reasons why we should and we also recognize that there are legitimate business reasons for not because it does make it difficult for accessing some of the businesses because they use those through points as being able to make deliveries. Uh so it
changes the orientation of how you use them all. Um but we have not prioritized a specific conversation on that. It has just come up every time we've talked about them all. >> Yeah. >> Um perhaps if it's come up every time, it might be worth a specific
conversation. >> I'll make a note of that. It's it's being noted. I'm sure James is like, "Yep, we'll we'll talk about it if that's what you want to do." >> Okay. Thank you. Um especially in light of >> Yeah. >> You know, Fourth Street. >> Yep. >> Um Okay. Um
for the I was focused so hard on that question. Um I um for the concrete crew, that was one of my other questions. Um the new positions are being integrated. Great. When you say need equipment, does that mean we
don't have equipment for them to do the work that we are currently asking them? Are we renting it or >> No, they haven't. We We just may need more because we might actually be able to do more >> do more work. >> Yeah. I mean, it's it's been one of those things. Um, uh, Steve Hicks has has been really really excited about the
idea of being able to have a crew a crew that could actually perform and get that work done. And we've gotten a number of projects done that would have taken many, many more months to get done. Uh, so I think he he feels good about that. The question is really just whether or
not we're going to need anything else. And if we do, we'll manage that with our fleet replacement and through an addition if we had to. But it's just a question because it's new. >> Mhm. Yeah. >> Okay. Yeah. I wasn't sure if they're like hired but just sitting around. >> Oh, no, no, no, no. We have a backlog of
many things. So, they No one sits. >> Okay. They've got the tools for their tasks. Okay. Um, great. And that was really all that I had at the moment. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um, Brian, you have any questions? >> No. Um, I think I asked Lloyd. Um, you
>> I'm good. >> Great. So, >> I've got nothing further. Okay, thank you. Um, >> I would just add the downtown mall crossings were only opened somewhat recently to vehicle traffic, so it's not like it was always the case that they were even open to cars, but anyway,
>> we'll we'll have an official discussion about it. >> Thank you. Um, the next presentation will be um Misty Graves and the Sharks for Area Alliance. Okay. Okay.
She has Sue Freriedman with her. >> Yes. Yes. Uh I do want to say I'm Sue Freriedman. This year I am secretary of the Charlottesville Area Alliance. Uh Misty Graves is our uh vice chair and our chair is Melanie Benjamin who you
may know uh from the center on bev Belvadier. And we wanted to start you've got an agenda and say welcome. Thank you so much for giving us this annual opportunity. We really appreciate it because substantial significant work has
been happening and I applaud the city for paying attention over the 10 years of Charlottesville Area Alliance to the promise of becoming an agefriendly community. So this organization was founded by five
individuals in 2015. We are not a nonprofit on purpose because we do not want to compete for funding with other nonprofits. We have been gifted consultants from Virginia AARP
once we signed on to the national initiative to become a certified age friendly community. And I'm really proud to again this year applaud the city for being the first local jurisdiction that approved commitment to the age friendly
initiative with a resolution in 2017. So thank you for that. One of the first things we did is decide how do we know we're moving towards an age friendly community? And after research, we decided to join in with the
AARP age friendly livable communities initiative which was created by the World Health Organization back in 2004 and 2005. WH said to the countries in the world, here it is. Here's the model. Here's the
evidence-based opportunity to become age friendly. You decide how you're going to pursue it. In this country, AARP stepped up. In other countries, it's higher education or the health system or newly formed organization. So, AARP has been
involved with this for more than a decade. So we completed a survey with the health of the Blue Ridge Health Department back in 2017 and 18 and our senior citizens across the planning district indicated the three issues for
them were no surprise transportation, housing. a surprise at the time. Social participation, being lonely, being alone, being isolated is a detriment to one's health. So, those have been the three issues
that we've been pursuing over the 10 years. We now have about 85 different partners. You can be a business, an individual, an organization, a nonprofit, a government. We have four elected bodies who have signed on.
Fluana County, Albamo County, of course, the city of Charlottesville, and the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. So, that's a very brief history. We have a lot of good information on the website or I can certainly give you more, but your time
is important. So we want to give you just a snapshot of what's happening in each of those three areas that were highlighted as the most important for the community and for becoming an age friendly uh community. So the first
thing we're going to do is I'm going to ask Misty to share a little more about the AARP and those domains and what we've been pursuing. re pretty much captured um what the ARP has set is those eight domains. You see it on your uh agenda in front of you and
also um there is another infographic on the more specifics about the AARP. Again, this is a framework that guides the work of CAA. And we use a lot of our time together to think about action steps that we can take towards improving
um the eight domains. And we also think about ways in which we can increase awareness or advocacy around the issues. Um because not only uh will creating a place to be age friendly here in Charlottesville, it also benefits all of us. Because if you look at the list of
the eight things that are the most important, they're the things that are important to people of all ages. So, it's very relatable whether um you are a child or an adult, a family or someone that's aging. Um, one of the things that
we'll talk about in the three priorities that we selected is um, transportation and what elements of transportation are needed to um, be in place to be considered age friendly or part of a livable community. Affordable housing.
What we hear from our community members who are aging is that they want to age in place, which means they want to have housing that one is affordable um and also that has accommodations and amenities that is suitable to keep folks
who want to age and play safe and then social participation. So, one of the um elements of of this plan that is actionable that you can see is um from this alliance, two of our nonprofit leaders were able to work together to
implement a memory care cafe at the center at Belvadier um to make sure that they were using their content knowledge in order to create a safe space for folks that may be having um issues with their memory. Um, so those are just some of the practical things. We're going to
go into a little bit more of a deeper dive on transportation next. One of the first areas that we worked on in transportation was ADUs several years ago. And of course, the city has been very wise to incorporate that as an
option and an opportunity for many of the newer housing uh communities and potentially some of those retrofitting of housing housing communities. And so now we're looking at transportation in the rural areas in particular. And our
current consultant uh contract is helping us hear from um seniors in the rural area about what they need for transportation because the vast majority of their transportation needs are into the city especially for medical and
health appointments. And so that's a big area that we're looking at. We also um and uh Lucinda Shannon of the Thomas Jefferson Partnership District said this the other day. Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission I should say that
through CAA the PATH program was birthed and that is a wonderful opportunity to allow any citizen to call them and say I need a ride. How do I get it? Where's the bus? Where's the microat? Where's
the Uber? Where's the ride share? How do I get my ride? And so the path program is actually uh one of the results of this alliance coming together and seeing what needs were and how we could make a collaborative effort to to address those
needs. We've also been looking at the amenities around bus stops, the sidewalks, the uh benches or lack of benches, the shelters or lack of shelters, the curbing, and we've had a wonderful relationship with CAT. They've
been really involved and engaged and we're doing bus field trips for an example and we're helping people understand how the bus is friendly, how they can use the bus, how they can feel comfortable and confident about it. And there are monthly bus field trips that
are available for different housing communities as well as around the city so that people can become more comfortable and more um confident about riding the bus. in using that transportation. Number one, they're not driving a car, but number two, they may
not be able to drive a car. So, this gives them additional transportation. And so, uh, we're continuing to look at ways that bus transportation, walkability, I know last year, uh, council member Ashwin joined us for the
walkability audits so that communities, neighborhood associations, walk to school initiatives can do their own audit and find out how their pathway can be more walkable and less reliant on uh, bus or car transportation. So we're
really excited to continue these initiatives and again the work of CA is to bring together by BIPAC and all those organizations Pedmont environmental council the city cat
to bring everybody together so that we all can collectively create options and opportunities and results to address issues that keep us from being an age friendly community >> in the affordable housing space. Um the
work group that is taking a look at that, we were able to receive a technical assistant grant from AARP. So we have some consultants that are working with us on creating an action plan for the affordable housing work committee. Currently we are working on a
outreach and engagement plan to elevate resources um for folks who would like to age in place and who need assistance with uh housing navigation or finding affordable housing or accessible housing. Our idea that's in the works is
to work with the existing um resource that the um Seville tomorrow had put out around housing resource guide uh and use an element of that to highlight some additional information related to aging in place and what are some of the um
assessments that somebody may want to do for their loved ones or someone that they're caring for um on finding um housing that's affordable and accessible. to them. Um, so we will be uh likely doing some outreach on some of
the city networks um and um utilizing some of our existing mechanisms for our communications department to elevate CAA and what we're trying to do in the affordable housing and aging in place social participation. We've had a number
of uh online Zoom programs. Again, we're having the memory cafe. But one of the things we need to understand is who's living alone and who's lonely. So, we're working to identify and answer
those two questions. We're looking at new options and opportunities like a buddy system, almost like a friendly visitor type system for those who are isolated. They don't have a car. They're not comfortable with transportation, but they're isolated. And in isolation comes
all kinds of health issues, primarily around Alzheimer's and dementia. So, we're looking at partnering with other organizations like the Women's Initiative. What might we do? What might we encourage them to do to build out their service portfolio so that they're
more available to our lonely and our alone citizens? And there are many of them. We're looking at the and I'm going to read it behavior risk factor surveillance system BRFSS that's done every year by the Virginia
Department of Health through the CDC. They have questions on there asking about loneliness, living alone, isolation, caregiving um um demands, etc. So we can utilize data from that to
help inform where our people are and what else we might do to help them become uh less isolated and more engaged in uh social participation with enhanced transportation of course. Um so in closing, one of the things that
we have next on our u agenda for CA is to continue to assess not only community members uh but also other organizations and and our partnership to look at are the three priorities that we selected
some time ago still the priorities that we want to focus on or do we want to expand to add another one of the eight domains of livability. Um, are we um making ourselves available as content experts to other work groups that maybe the city has or the county
has um and our other jurisdictions that we can advise or be at the table when decisions are made made with transportation and affordable housing and social participation? How can we expand the reach of CAA? So, we just ask
council to consider of the eight domains, are there ones that you feel like we should add to our list? Are there certain things that you're hearing from your constituents um who are aging in place or caring for someone who is aging that they would like to see
incorporated or elevated and potentially the the work of the CAA can help do that on behalf of the city. And that's it. Opening up for feedback and questions. Um yeah. Um I'll go with Lloyd first.
>> I I don't have any questions. Thank you, Misty. >> Okay. >> You're welcome. >> Um Brian, I'll start with you this time. You have >> No, I can't think of anything to add. It seems like a very thoughtful, well integrated list. Um thank you both for
your work and for coming to see us tonight, >> Natalie. >> Yeah, thank you so much. Um this is um I so I'm on the the RTP which includes um a representative
from CIA which is great. So, we we hear a lot about the transportation issues that older adults face. And of all of the eight uh pieces of the web, I think all of them are easily tied back
to just one, which is housing, which I'm so glad you you covered that. Um and and use the term aging in place, which I'm sure we all understand, but um can you talk a little bit more about the specifics of what that means for for anyone else who's watching?
>> I can be a personal as well as professional example. Aging in place means that my home allows me to live there if I don't see as well, if I don't hear as well, if I'm not as stable as I
used to be, if I'm um have less strength than I used to be for stairs. So, aging in place means helping individuals figure out what it is they can do to make their homes aging in place safe.
It's about hallway um sizes in railings on hallways and it's about cabinets and kitchens being lower. It's about things that you don't think of until your body uh slows down a little and you realize
you can't reach that high or you can't bend that low. And so there are actually aging in place realtors. There are actually aging in place certified contractors and developers and uh construction specialists. And so making
sure that we are able to connect those to the people who need them. It could be an entry ramp or cemented over steps. It could be a lot of different things. Just depends on, you know, what the capacity of the individuals are and then what
their homes are like. But if someone's living in a home that's 20, 30, 40, 50 years old, it was in no way built to be aging in place ready. So it needs modifications. It needs renovations. And
so um helping people realize that there's resources out there. Ahab does a little. There are other resources out there. And should we bring additional resources to that issue? Chances are we should. The second part of aging in
place is finances. Are my taxes going up to the point where I cannot afford them. So there is both the physical uh home issue, but there is also the financial issue of being able
to age in place. And so having financial experts who are available to help people understand how they can um get the money if they need it to maintain staying in their home and to do the renovations that they would need um to to age in
place. So that's that's what we're looking at for aging in place. >> Great. Thank you. And I I correct me if I'm wrong, but I also like to think about it as being able to not not only or not necessarily staying in the exact home in which you, you know, raised your family or spent a lot of years, but at least staying within your same
community. Um, so you're not having to go to a care facility a county over. You get to stay where you are. And so that's when you were talking about accessory dwelling units being crucial to that, right? >> Absolutely. So there are more and more contractors and developers looking at
creating aging in place u communities and I'll give you an unusual example. Ryana village which is in the county has sent out an email. I don't know how we got on the email but we did saying we are building an aging in place
community. Would you like to be on the list to come first and learn about it? It's one floor living etc etc etc. So more of new construction is happening in that way and we could encourage more of that. But nine times out of 10, and I'll
speak for my mother, she wanted to stay in her house. Period. The end. So how can we make that possible? How can we make that feasible? Both of the physical uh aspects and the financial aspects. >> Yeah. And what we were talking about
earlier with um car dependency being a problem as you age is Yes. that community out in the county might have the houses built for the inhome needs to be met, but are they able to get somewhere easily and so having that ADU in the backyard in town
>> means you get to stay on your same block maybe, but you've downsized and then you're able to have the same kind of uh proximity to the things that you're familiar with. >> You know, you raised an excellent point. Transportation is at the end a key. So
transportation and housing in my mind have to go together. So the city and if you will the urban ring are the places, >> you know, where we can really focus in on creating an aging in place, age friendly initiative because transportation is always going to be an
issue for folks. But if housing can be um available for them to age in their home and they know that they're going to have that transportation available, that's like the win-win. Yeah, >> absolutely. Yeah. One of the things we talk about in the RTB when we So, the
path program for um folks who aren't in these meetings as often as uh Brian and I are is like you said the the kind of hotline for someone uh with transportation questions to call and ask how do they get somewhere? And the biggest challenges is getting people from uh rural areas to their medical
appointments. And what something we talked about in uh the RTP meeting was how that sounds like a transportation problem, but it's often really a housing problem because of affordability concerns or availability. Those folks might be living where they can afford
but not where they would choose to be. And so their challenges in getting to their medical appointments are compounded by the distance. Yes. >> Um >> whereas if they were able to afford or find something in the city, they would >> Yeah. >> have access to those. to that point I know um we've tried to CIA tries to
connect okay so um we connected path to um Jaba's new chair of the board and we connected path to um Ravi Raspido Cooper who we know runs the United Way of Greater Charlottesville but she's also
the new district governor for Rotary and has 52 Rotary clubs in her district and guess But the Lake Anna Rotary Club is looking for a project and so we're trying to encourage them to become
volunteer drivers. So, you know, what is it we can do? Who can we intersect with? Who can we connect to try and address both the living in Charlottesville and the needing to get to Charlottesville issues with the housing around it as well. So, >> and then of course that ties into your
third point too, which is when you're in a community instead of isolated, you have access to a community for that social participation of it all. >> Yeah. Anyway, lots of Thank you. It's hard to reiterate, but I just, you know, wanted to highlight some of those key key things that are things that I think
about when I try and think about um the volume of housing needed, the types of housing needed, the empty bedroom problem where maybe you are an older adult in a house where you raise your family and you have three kids bedrooms where the kids don't live, but there's some family out there that would love a four-bedroom house and so if you're able
to downsize to the backyard, they can move in. And we, you know, there's all this kind of um uh interplay between aging and community development. >> Um >> you finished. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Michael, did you have any?
>> Uh no, I mean, just in terms of feedback, you asked if you had any feedback. I mean, I imagine I hear similar things as you all already do and mention tonight in terms of um you know, hear a lot about a desire for more community spaces where there aren't just something like a brewery where you know
people could go and be in community um maybe without needing to spend a lot of money to do that as well. um aging in place, the work of AHIP, um desire for again something you already mentioned like more diverse types of
housing developments like you know development of small tiny homes where people can live independently but there's some community um yeah I I think one of the things um like the Belmont apartments a few years ago I think were a good example of it's
a community of uh people who've been living there for decades and we're all old. Most living on fixed income of social security or disability and naturally occurring affordable housing. Um monthly incomes around $900 a month and the rents they
were paying were like $3 $400 and had not been raised in decades just because um someone who owned a tow truck business happened to own this um small apartment complex and didn't raise the rents. And I think a lot of particularly older residents who are renters are in
those kind of naturally affordable uh developments. And um that one was sold and redeveloped and their rents went from like $400 to like $1,600. So all of them had to move, you know, over an hour out of here. Um some of them were blind
and didn't have any other options. um once they were forced to move, you know, out into a rural area, they couldn't drive in to the transportation issues you're speaking of. All of which to say, I think the issue of preventing displacement in those naturally occurring affordable housing units is
like really really important. Um because if someone can only afford $3 $400 a month, you know, they lose that, they're not going to be able to be in this community, period. Um, so and then the other another thing I
hear that I is there's a lot of people I've talked to who want an accessory dwelling unit in their backyard to either age in place or have a relative age in place, but they can't figure out how to get the capital in a way that makes financial sense for them. So what
programs could we do to have access to lowerc cost capital to actually do an ADU? Um but yeah, and then I the only question I've I've heard before the pandemic, Parks and Wreck did a lot of programming, Midway Manor, but other places as well
with um day trips to Stanton, um a lot of people loved taking a day trip to Wood Grill Buffet. I mean, but really, I mean, these these, you know, gettogethers, um checkers events, bingo's events, those went away during the pandemic. they've come back but not
at the scale that they were pre- pandemic. Is parks and wreck and that kind of programming that's targeted at you know existing senior community is something that you're involved with or is that kind of siloed in its own world? You know, outdoor spaces is one of the
late outdoor spaces and recreation is one of the eight domain areas and parks and rep would be certainly within our purview to kind of try to address transportation slash um social participation issues.
>> Part of my role which is being a liazison on city uh from the city to CA is to be able to leverage those relationships with other directors to talk about the work. So that's a a great opportunity. >> Yeah. And I know they still do some of this work, but I mean it's things like,
you know, a van will go to pick people up from these communities, take them on that day trip, bring them back, go into the, you know, uh, building to do the bingo, checkers night, whatever it may be. Um, so I'm sure you're all all aware of that work, but I think it's just like
parks and wreck I think has a a real um positive role that they play in the in the social connection piece. But >> yeah, so um I just had a couple of comments as far as what um I think um
you know you should focus on and this is like an example that that I use a lot for my block and it's ironic that John O'Randy we all live on the the same block. Brian does too but a little bit further down. Um and that's the social
interaction. We have a few elderly people on our block and a couple of them that I connect with every day with a a text and if I don't get a text back I you know I know something is wrong. This particular one is 90 years old and
yesterday you know but I'd like to see her and sidewalks are really important too because that's how she gets her exercise. She walks up and down the block and we see her as well. But yesterday when I went to see her, she was doing fine. So she's 90 years old,
can still um be um live alone, but she doesn't have any family close by. So, you know, a few neighbors we are that network that kind of check in on it. And so yesterday, she um said that um she
needed some medication, but the next door neighbor was going to get it when she got off work. And but she wasn't getting off to aid. And I said, "Well, the pharmacy might be closed." And they were thinking that it closed at 11:00. Of course, it closed at 6:00 or at CVS. And I was able to get it. And I know
that this our neighbor is fortunate. She has this kind of community of care around her. Um and um I if we could do more to because I think people want to give back and it's a real easy way to
give back and they might not know that their neighbors might need help if it's a way we could promote that or advertise just to do it doesn't have to be daily. It doesn't have to be even weekly but somehow have a way to check in on elderly residents if if it was a way to
do that. I think that you know is it really can be a meaningful way for people to give back to their community and also have that social inter interaction and um find that also when I um volunteer with the meals on wheels when I go to homes and see and you know
many of them that's that daily interaction is what they is you know they look forward to that of course the meal as well but to see someone and see that face to face so so I would say that that is a big one because that that social interaction if you don't have
that that can have an impact on your health and if you don't have that so a lot of things can be impacted like that so I think if we can pour into that that continue pouring I think that would be good >> thank you >> we really appreciate all the good comments
>> thank you Missy Misty and and Sue thank you all so much >> um is that okay so um Sam is That um that's it. So, do we have a close session today? Yes. >> Yes.
>> So, a motion for a city council close 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. It's authorized by the Virginia Freedom of Information Act as follows. One,
percentage Virginia code section 2.2-3711 2-3711A7 for consultation with legal counsel pertaining to actual or probable litigation where such consultation or briefing and open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or
litigating posture of the public body. >> Okay. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion? Um all in favor, please say yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. Um >> all oppose, please say no. Okay. Thank you. We will be back at um 6:30. Part: 2
Okay. Yes. Tina, you're you're ready? No. I called the, Charlottesville business meeting to order. Can we get read out of closed session, please? I move that this council certify 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. Okay. Can I get a second? Second. Second. Are we voting electronically? Let's try it.
Okay. And I vote yes. Yes. Lloyd is, of course, joining us virtually. He's had, operation on his foot, and, and so it's best that he, not put weight on it. So Stay home and stay seated. Yeah. Yes. Stay home and stay seated. Great. Let's see. Was there ever a vote at the beginning of the 04:00 meeting to approve me of, participating electronically? Do do we need no objection. For you at all. Yeah. There was no objection.
So Okay. Okay. Yep. So we will begin the meeting with a moment of silence. Thank you. Thank you very much. Are there any announcements? Yes. I have this announcement on Saturday, October 11 from 11AM to 3PM, excuse me, commemorating the African American military experience, telling their stories. The event will be held, as I said, this Saturday from eleven till three at the Carver Rec Center, the Veterans Committee of Central Virginia.
Their website is vetcomcva.com. I have one as well. Okay. I don't wanna get all the details right, so give me one second. Mhmm. This Sunday, October 12, is the next, addition of the neighborhood walks presented by the bike pedestrian advisory committee in Ragged Mountain Running Shop. It will take it will be looking through the or walking through the Tenth And Page And Star Hill neighborhoods, meeting at 1PM at the Carver Rec Center.
So, hopefully, everybody can join. They're a lot of fun. It's nice to, not only get out and explore a neighborhood maybe you're not as familiar with or maybe you're already super familiar with it, wanna share it with your your neighbors from across town. But, also, it's just nice to see things at a slower pedestrian pace, and, and get a chance to talk to people. So, again, that is, this Sunday at 01:00, meeting at Carver Rec to check out tenth and Page and Page and Star Hill neighborhoods. Thank you.
And just say, that this week is National Fire Prevention Week, and there's going to be a, a presentation tomorrow at, City Space from 02:30 to 03:30 just to give some ideas on things you can do. There will be, some pizza, available and the, just some reminders that they give is like, for one thing to prevent fire is to use the right charger, charge safely,
like don't put it on pillows and and and beds, store batteries properly, watch for warning signs, you know, for, charging, and dispose of bad batteries safe safely. So a lot of different things that can be, you know, done to prevent fires, but, they were focusing on charging because we a lot of us have different charging you know, things. So anyway, there's a presentation tomorrow by the fire, Charlottesville Fire Department to, get some other in-depth ideas.
So any other announcements? We are now, have some recognitions and proclamations. Natalie? Yeah. Certainly. Welcome. Alzheimer's awareness month twenty twenty five. Whereas Alzheimer's disease is a progressive degenerative brain disease tragically robbing individuals of their memories and whereas in Virginia over one hundred and sixty five thousand people have Alzheimer's or related dementia and in The United States there are more than seven million people living with Alzheimer's disease. And whereas, nearly two thirds of those with Alzheimer's disease are women, and Alzheimer's is the sixth leading cause of death in The United States, killing more than breast cancer
and prostate cancer combined. And whereas, the Alzheimer's Association is the world's leading voluntary health organization in Alzheimer's care, support, and research. And with the vision of a world without Alzheimer's Alzheimer's care, support, and research, and with the vision of a world without Alzheimer's disease. And whereas the annual walk to end Alzheimer's offers everyone the opportunity to get involved in the fight, and whereas as the city of Charlottesville offers its support to those living with Alzheimer's disease, we also recognize those who care and provide for them, sharing their loved ones' emotional, physical, and financial strains. We honor their compassion, remember those we have lost, and press toward the next great
scientific breakthrough. Now, therefore, the Charlottesville City Council proclaims twenty twenty five to be Alzheimer's Awareness Month. We call upon all residents to show their support for Walk to End Alzheimer's Charlottesville on Sunday, October 26, as well as other activities that bring awareness and understanding to Alzheimer's. Okay. Sherry, did you wanna have some comments? Thank you. Mayor Wade, members of council, thank you so much. I'm Sherry Owen. I'm the development director for the Central And Western Virginia chapter of the Alzheimer's Association.
As she read, our walk to end Alzheimer's, our largest event. There's seven million Americans living with Alzheimer's currently, and there are eleven million people that are unpaid caregivers right now. The Alzheimer's Association, the large the walk is the largest event, to raise money for finding a cure for Alzheimer's. And so on October 26, there will be about 900 to 1,000 people all joining together walking to find that cure. And I thank you for this and I hope that there will be more people
around here that will join us. There are still opportunities to do that on alz.org. And I thank you so much because I strongly believe that in my lifetime, we will find a cure for Alzheimer's. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Sherry, for your work. It's my pleasure now to, read a proclamation for the Chamber of Commerce Day, where Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1913, and has for more than a century served as a vital in institution in strengthening the fabric of our local economy.
And whereas, the chamber is composed of more than 600 members representing enterprises in the city of Charlottesville and Napa Moore County, Augusta, Fluvanna, Green, Nelson, Orange, as well as localities across the Commonwealth of Virginia. And whereas, the Chamber serves as a convener, catalyst, and champion for the business community fostering collaboration and innovation to support both and establish enterprises and emerging entrepreneurs. And whereas the chamber provides a forum for businesses to connect, share resources, and advocate
for policies that promote, economic development and community well-being. And whereas the chamber leadership is exemplified by Andrea Copeland, president and chief executive office officer who in 2025 was honored with the Virginia Businesswomen Leadership, award in recognition for her leadership and excellence, civic engagement, and leadership in in breaking barriers, particularly, as the first black president and CEO in Charlottesville, a hundred and twelve year history.
Whereas the strong local business create job, expand opportunities, and invest in future of Charlottesville and its residents, and whereas support your local Chamber of Commerce Day offers an opportunity for all residents to recognize and celebrate the Chamber's leadership in advancing prosperity, inclusion, and community vitality. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that the city of Charlottesville City Council hereby recognizes 10/15/2025
as support your local chamber of commerce day in the city of Charlottesville and encourages all residents to join in in celebrating and supporting the work of the Chamber of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce signed this day, 10/06/2025 by Mayor Juan Diego Wade. Thank you. I'll just quickly say thank you very much to the city, council. Mayor Wade, you said it great. And on behalf of Andrea Copeland, who is our new president and CEO, I'm Jonathan
Chase, and I'm the chairman of the board, and we just thank you guys for this proclamation. Please support your chamber and support local business. Thank you. So we're now at the opportunity for community matters. We have eight preregistered speakers, and then we have eight slots slots for, additional speakers. You have up to three minutes. And I will now open the floor to, the preregistered speakers. The first one is former mayor, Walker. Good evening. Is this on? Yes. Good evening. Good evening. I'm here tonight to talk about the return of SROs, that conversation that's gonna come
up during the budget with the school system. I encourage you all to, I know there have been some changes made, but the changes haven't been significant enough where black kids will not be policed in the Charlottesville City School Division. I also want you all to think about the time frame since we voted on those measures. It has not been a significant amount of time for any change to occur. In education, they ask for three to five years, but max usually ten year time frame for institutional changes to take place.
That has not occurred. COVID occurred, and within a year and a half of COVID, the school division was asking for money for police officers to return. When your current police chief came into this community, one of his first interviews, he said, we know who's doing the shootings. They're mostly juveniles. They will be arrested. Shortly after that, the school board chair at a time signed a notice that stated that we can only do as much for the kids as they allow us to do. On during the media, the times when the kids were challenged having challenges at the
schools, parading through the media were black kids at schools fighting. You didn't know what those fights were for. It wasn't all the kids in those areas. It was a few kids at a time. And then we were hit with teachers walked out. If you know the stories from that time, it wasn't a massive amount of teachers who walked out that day. Some of teachers happened to be out sick, but the story line became all the teachers were out that day because of the disorderliness that was happening at school. And then the conversation quickly turned to that our kids were unteachable, conversation quickly turned
to that our kids were unteachable, that our kids didn't deserve anything other than to be policed. Now you have to ask yourself if this was a white school or white kids that were misbehaving in these ways because I'm not I do understand that there are things happening that is not that does not produce an ideal learning environment. But is policing the only way out of that? Is budgeting in hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars the only way to produce
change? It is not. It is lazy. We're in an environment at the state level and federal level where people are comfortable with eroding the changes that we've made over the years, not just here, but around the country. You all are just doing a little bit better than 47 and his gang is doing and that Youngkin and his gang is do are doing. And you all can do a little bit better and still be praised because you're doing a little bit better. But decades from now and generations from now, kids will tell the stories of what
generational policing did to their families. I know historically, council just votes on what the school board asked for, but you all need to ask some questions. I sat in those rooms and asked questions about how the mental health policies that I don't think the school has implemented properly, how was it gonna work? They could not answer those questions. They could not answer questions about the money that they were asking us for when I was on council, how it would be implemented, how it would change lives. What they've done is what traditionally happens.
There are people who get hired and get paid and lives never change. You all have to start asking some very difficult questions. The second largest per pupor expenditure in the state of Virginia comes from this locality. And since integration, desegregation, Charlottesville City Schools have failed black kids. It is unacceptable when they ask for SROs to return to the schools. They are not asking for white kids to be policed. They are asking for black kids to be policed, for black kids not to be
given a chance, and that is unacceptable. A few years back, there was vandalism at Western Almar High School. It never made the news. We never heard about it because of whose kid and the color of that kid's skin. Our kids make mistakes like all kids do, but they're never given the opportunity to grow through. We had an incident a couple years ago, a year and a half or so ago. You had a black 18 year old classified as a black woman on the media, arrested by your police department, and prosecuted by Joe Plutania's office.
If she had been a white kid, it would have never happened. Should she have been at the school? Should she have been on the bus? No. She should have not have. But ATO's do make mistakes. There are other options here if we are patient enough and dedicated enough and believe that black kids are more than monsters. Thank you so much. Thank you. The next speaker is Anna Towns. Hi. I'm Anna Towns from 900 Bellmont Avenue. I thought I would show up in person rather than writing emails as I have been want to do of late. And this time wanted to speak a little bit about the item coming up later
on this evening's agenda with regards to the Holiday Drive property. I just wanted to thank, mister Sanders, council and staff for giving such careful consideration to questions of homelessness and ways to best perhaps provide, a balance between providing the best care we can provide for folks who are in our community and also for protecting quality of life. So thank you for pushing further and considering additional options, including the one on Holiday Drive. Thank you. The next speaker is, Troy Robinson.
And I think he has some guests. Hello, city council. How are you doing? My name is Troy Robinson. I have the honor to bring to y'all two children that were brought to me through the city care program who have an amazing initiative that will not only build Charlesville High School, but help it thrive for years to come. I bring to you Gabriel and Suan. Looking very nice, sir. Thank you so much. Okay. First, I'd like to start off by saying, I apologize for any mistakes I make along the way. It's just this is a really big opportunity for me and not only me, also
everyone else back at CHS depending on me. Depending on me. Take your time. We we Okay. So I'm sorry. I apologize. Mhmm. But I'd like to establish an entrepreneur club for all the other aspiring entrepreneurs as in myself because I think personally, you need more than just one summertime to go out and actually truly experiencing that. I feel like I've become that living proof because my mentor here, Troy Robertson, mister Robertson, he's the one who took me in, taught me my skills, and taught me
how to apply them in the real world the real world and how to use them to, you know, build something for myself. So I'd like to be, sort of a figure of hope for other people that are in my similar situation, and they don't really have anyone that they can go and depend on. I'd want to become a club that anyone well, that I want to become a club that all CHS students can come to and aspire to be whatever they wanna be. They could Hey. Hey. Yes. Mhmm. Okay. They could come to the club and they could hone their skills.
After they hone their skills, everyone's gonna be a community for each other inside CHS. It'll be something like CIC, but downscaled for CHS. Just off, I would like to say it's nice to meet all of you all. But I feel like it's a safe space for everybody to come to, the entrepreneur club for any race. It doesn't matter what. Everybody can have each other's back in this, entrepreneur club and learn from each other and just pursue their dreams, not only in school, outside of school and throughout school and throughout, like, even outside of school on weekends and everything, everybody can come together and learn, and just pursue their dreams.
Like Gabriel Gabe discussed everything else. Sorry for starting. No. No. You did you did great. Like I was saying, I more so just like to be the foundation for future success to come and see that, yes, you can come to even if you're only a high school student, that doesn't matter. You can still work on your skills. We'll come with help you work through. We'll navigate Just as Troy had did for me, I'd wanna be that exact same figure just for all of my other peers inside CHS right along with me.
Thank you so much for your time and taking it. Then just listen to this. Give him a round of applause. So please, please. Come back, please. So thank you all so much for coming out, and we do have the vice, chair of the Charlottesville School Board is here. And I see we have a candidate for school board that's here. And so I think that I'm already thinking of, at least a dozen people. There's entrepreneurs in the community that would love to come and speak once your club is established. And I certainly would would like to to come. I give you my contact information.
Anything that I can do in the formation of this, this is, what I I love, about, you know, Charlottesville High School, and I know this is the type of thing that Mayor Walker was just, speaking of. So thank you all so much and I know this club is gonna be a success. And it's ironic that we have the Chamber of Commerce because many of the businesses that, are part of the Chamber are are entrepreneurs or small businesses and that's where most of the people are employed by small businesses. So thank you all so much, for for coming out and speaking.
You did a great job. Thank you for giving me the chance to know this. Alright. The next speaker is Rachel, Mulvaney. Did I get that correct? Mhmm. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Rachel Mulvaney. Thank you for having me here. Once again, I'm here on behalf of Friends of Farr. We were here last week to support West Haven and Tenth And Page Residence. I'm a student at UVA, and I wanna be clear that students don't want more luxury housing. Luxury complexes like the standard and the flats are already out of reach for most
students. We've been conducting a survey over the past few weeks, and out of 341 students surveyed, only 10.6% said they would pay $1,400 or more in monthly rent, which is the estimated rate for the proposed LV collective project. This development won't meet student housing needs. It will only meet investor demands, and that's even questionable given the lack of so varied demand we found. Additionally, with UVA planning to house all second year students on grounds by 02/1930, the
need for more off ground luxury housing will only decline. So we wanna ask you, what exactly are we building this for? As a student, I and the rest of the students here, on behalf of friends of far, refuse to be complicit in the continued displacement of black communities in Charlottesville. I urge city council to reject this development, also to reject the ordinance that criminalizes the unhoused and to stand with all residents, not just the wealthiest. Thank you. Thank you. Joy? Joy? One minute. Let me find my let me read.
Okay. Good evening, everyone. My name is Joy Johnson, and get out of my way. Okay. Hold on a minute. My name is Joy Johnson and I'm the FAR board chair. I'm here to comment about changing changing the zoning around large lovely student building on the edge of low income communities. Back when far pushed, for zoning, we and city council missed this piece of the zoning that by right means community only have have one opportunity to comment.
All city council need to do is to go back and change it. First, there was the standard, then there is central. Now there is LV collective building, the building on Seventh Street over 5 Field, Tenth in Wirthlin, and they want to build a hotel in the Tenth in page, part of the dairy expansion. This is a pattern that is also closing low income communities. LV collective trying to build above West Haven. But if it happened to West Haven, it happened to other neighborhoods next.
The building above West Haven will will set a precedent. Above West Haven will will set a precedent. They are trying to build this building above West Haven, which is the most political site in the city of Charlottesville because it is the birth out of Vinegar Hill. It's walk able. The right it's right next to West Main and it's UVA path, which growing like a cancer even though UVA is sitting on $14,200,000,000 and they pay zero taxes.
The UVA Foundation currently own 2,913 acres of land, and they still metastasize in our community. Lots of poor folks live in West Haven and work at the UVA. But how would people walk to work, catch the bus if they can't get West to West Main? This building is about pushing people out of the city and turning Charlottesville into a ACC town. Soon, no one else is going to live here who was born here.
But even the students are saying they can't even afford to live in these luxury student apartment. Look at these students who are here tonight to oppose more luxury apartment. This city has to prioritize people over money. This isn't just about West Haven and Tanton Page. It's about Fifeville, Rosie, and the world anywhere. There are pockets of low income communities. This building above West Haven is going to affect the whole city, and the city council must change the zoning to give communities more than one opportunity to comment on
these large building near near low income community. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Good evening. My name is Alicia Lenahan. I live in the county. In in the months that ICE presence and actions in our community have been raised at these meetings, you have been presented with facts, compelling arguments made by preachers, teachers, and judges. You've heard from the Latinx community and you know that over 1,500 community members support the anti ice resolution. You've received messages from constituents pointing out that unmasking and identifying federal agents is not
radical and will in fact make us all safer. In a decision handed down last Tuesday, senior judge William g Young wrote that, quote, masks are associated with cowardly desperados and the despised Ku Klux Klan. In all our history, we have never tolerated an armed, masked secret police. Carrying on in this fashion, ice brings indelible disgrace to this administration and everyone who works in it. He went on to reject so called legitimate reasons for masking as disingenuous, squalid, and
dishonorable, writing that ICE goes masked for a single reason, to terrorize Americans into quiescence. It's all about intimidation and control. There is an expectation that you, that we, will obey the administration and do so voluntarily. Institutions and individuals must push push back every time they have an opportunity. There are countless judges and prosecutors who still manage their dockets without fear or favor. There are state, county, and city leaders who have refused to bend a knee to
this administration, all honoring their respective oaths to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of The United States even in the face of threats, personal, professional, and levied against entire communities. I'll borrow from a letter from a Birmingham jail written by doctor King in 1963. He asked whether the greatest stumbling block in the civil rights movement was the moderate who's more devoted to order than to justice, who prefers a negative piece, which is the absence of tension to a positive piece, which is the presence of justice.
Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more dangerous than outright rejection, which brings us here. When something bad happens, will you cling to caution, comfort, and convenience knowing that all our rights hang in the balance? Will you continue to sit here in silence? Thank you. Doctor doctor Doyle? Good evening. Good evening. My name is doctor Mary Anne Doyle.
I am the executive director CEO of the Center for Nonprofit Excellence here in Charlottesville. I am, here to both welcome you and to share a little bit about the Center for Nonprofit Excellence. We are a champion learning and learning, partner and adviser for Virginia's nonprofits. What I've provided to you today is both an invitation to the day of learning, which is on October 16, and it's here in Charlottesville. It is for the entire state that we have, centered it here where we were founded twenty years ago next year.
We're really excited to, to share that background and heritage with this the entire state of Virginia as we invite them both to learn with us as well as to partake on the downtown mall in some lunch, and and, patronize our businesses there. In addition to that, you know, we are also, you know, providing you with the impact report, which shares some stories. Little bit about CNE that the mission is what it is. But the best way to really capture it for you is to ask you to think about the nonprofit that means the most to you. You've heard some wonderful causes in this room, and certainly there are nonprofits in our
community, in our county, in our city that support those causes. And think if they are resourced effectively, do you think that they have what they need in order to be sustainable, in order to actually be able to thrive? They come to CNE every single day for that support, whether it's one on one advising, whether it's learning programs, or whether it's for us to champion on their behalf, in a variety of different ways. And certainly meeting with each of you is one of them. And so one of the things that I would encourage is for as you look through the impact report, you'll see some great data, including a wonderful story and, a
testimonial from Gracieando Juntos, which of course is a local nonprofit here, and, would love for you to engage with them and and so many others. You can also join us by following us on our social media. LinkedIn is where I tend to be. I don't really spend a lot of time on the other ones, but, you're always welcome to follow me and and read some of the stories there. But what's important is we are also engaging in a national media campaign called Nonprofits Get It Done. There's so much rhetoric, against non Profits Get It Done. There's so much rhetoric, against non profits happening right now, and I'm sure you're quite
aware of all of that negativity. And at the end of the day, when there's a disaster, who do you call? The end of the day, when you need housing, when you need any type of support, you need food, you need anything that allows you to be sustainable education, who do you call? It's generally a non profit. Obviously, government does what they can, and but but we definitely fill in those gaps. And so we hope that you'll always reach out to us, ask questions, and also be, able to follow us on the non profits get it done campaign on our social media. Thank you. Thank you so much, Maryanne.
Thank you. Kevin? Kevin. Hello. Hello. My name is Kevin Cox. I live on Fairway Avenue. And tonight, I would like to comment a little bit about pedestrian safety issues on one segment of Elliott Avenue from Ridge Street to Avon. People from different neighborhoods walk on Elliott on the South Side where the sidewalk is to get to a variety of different places, but many people walk on Elliot to get to Second Street X and then on to the downtown mall. The Second Street crossing is a link in different routes.
Most of the people walking on Elliot are going to Second Street. Okay? They're not going to the cemetery. A few are going to the bus stop. And some walking on Elliot actually cross at the Second And Elliot unmarked crossing. Diagonally, and a few cross at First Street. But again, most of them are going to the bus stop. They're not going they yeah. They're going to the bus stop. A few of them are going to the bus stop, but few of them are going to the bus stop, but some of them that cross at First Street are doing what the staff wants them to do.
They're not crossing at Second And Elliot. They're walking up the hill. They're crossing at First Street, and then that route goes into a parking lot or the street. That's the options. And that's what the staff is telling people. We want you to go up there, and then what? How do you get to Second Street? There's no sidewalk. This is in lieu of a marked cross walk at Second And Elliot. The pedestrian crossing at Second And Elliot is clearly the optimum place for a pedestrian crossing there. Consider, we have two separate routes, one from Avon and the other from Ridge.
A marked crossing brings those together at Second Street. It eliminates a lot of driver pedestrian encounters because people are unifying into one route rather than coming across the street as two. Okay? Still, people are crossing at Second And Elliot without the marked crosswalk and they're gonna keep on doing it and the staff knows this. BDOT standards indicate that this is a good location for a marked crosswalk, and local pedestrian routes indicate that it is the best place to cross Elliot for people going
to Second Street. It's not just a good thing, it's the right thing to do. Now I wanna also add, the speed limit on Cherry Avenue at Tonsler Park is thirty thirty miles an hour. Across Bridge Street, the speed limit there is 35, and it stays 35 from from there down to the bottom of the hill at Second Street. It was 35 when that terrible accident happened there. Why wasn't the speed limit changed the very next day? Thank you. Thank you. So that was the last of our, preregistered speaker.
We have opportunity for, eight speakers. So I'm gonna try to get a few from each side. Yes. You're young Lee? You. Yes. Hi, everyone. I'm Molly Knipe, a student at the University of Virginia studying global development. Thank you very much for having us today and for listening thoughtfully to the citizens of Charlottesville as they voice their concerns. Your time here today is much appreciated. I'm here on behalf of the Public Housing Association of Residents, FAR, as well as the UVA Coalition, Friends of FAR, and also generally support the residents of West Haven
and Tenth Of Page. I'm echoing the concerns of others regarding the luxury student housing set to be constructed on West Main, which you have all heard much about tonight and in previous nights. You've heard a little bit about the specifics of why this is a bad idea, coming from Rachel, one of our friends, bad idea, coming from Rachel, one of our friends as well as Joy, but I wanna talk a little bit about the bigger picture, about what this luxury student housing complex communicates to the broader community and to the future university, as well as my time spent as a tour guide for UVA, I have learned that this physical space we inhabit, the one that we have constructed
on top of sacred land, is deeply ref reflective of our values. I spent my time studying the way Charlottesville and other communities have exploited marginalized communities in search of commodifying physical space and the way that they have sought to repent for these actions as well as memorialize them. As we stand on the precipice of one of these decisions today, I ask that we don't stand on the precipice of one of these decisions today, I ask that we don't have to do those things, that we make the right decision the first time. Where we choose to place things, which stakeholders we value, and who we choose to
sacrifice in that process, sends a message about what we care about. In an ideal world, we would build and demolish and rebuild in accordance with our vision of the world as it should be, not as it is. I can say confidently that a luxury student housing unit, one that will cast a shadow literally and metaphorically on West Haven And Tenth And Page, does not reflect the world as it should be. It communicates university citizens, to Charlottesville residents, to the next generations of Charlottesvilleians who are watching us in our decisions closely, that this citizen that this city will prioritize the
wants of the student population over the longtime residents who uphold the community, economy, and future of Charlottesville. I am not a longtime resident of Charlottesville and exist here as a part of the demographic for which these units are being built. I'm simply asking that you consider what this development says about this city, what values it communicates to its children, and what future it represents for West Haven and Tenth And Page. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Wendy? Hi. My name is Wendy, and I organized for FAR. Y'all know me at this point. I've talked at great length about the myths of trickle down housing and how filtering
doesn't work and is rather the driving logic behind gentrification and displacement. Data shows that contributing directly to the deeply affordable housing stock is more than twice as effective at protecting residents from displacement. This is why residents of West Haven, Tenth And Page, and Fifele are opposed to these luxury student apartment buildings on the edges of historically black neighborhoods. There is a narrative among city council that our opposition to luxury housing is about being averse or meek about change. But generations of black and brown residents have been petitioning for exactly that, change. Building dense luxury market rate high rises is not actually a deviation from the norm
in this city. It is a continuation of Charlottesville City's centuries long tradition of systematic oppression, violence, and dispossession of black people. The real change that this city needs to not shy away from is amending the zoning code immediately to return land use decisions to communities who will be most impacted by development and are barely able to afford living in the city already. There's a huge gap between rent prices, people's wages, and what people can actually afford. To afford the average price of an apartment in Charlottesville currently, you have to make $72,200 a year. That's $34 an hour just to live in this city.
City council cannot keep building luxury housing for UVA students over long time generational residents. Not only does UVA not pay taxes, they get steady inflation adjusted returns on their $14,200,000,000 endowment. Meanwhile, UVA is actively fueling the displacement of black and brown communities from their generational neighborhoods, and UVA employees' wages have not kept up with inflation or living costs. $15 an hour is simply not livable in the city and far stands in solidarity with the UVA unions renewed fight for a living wage. Wage. It is deeply telling that the city says they can't unilaterally build enough deeply affordable
housing to meet the city's needs without private development of luxury market rate housing. And yet we are somehow spending $1,000,000 on downtown mall cleanup crews who will just harass our street based neighbors, and we are spending $49,000,000 on renovating a jail to incarcerate unhoused people who are sleeping outside because they cannot afford astronomical rent. $49,000,000 could have been invested in infrastructure that would actually keep people housed off the street and out of jail. I also wanna make a last preemptive comment about the proposed low barrier shelter. It is great that we're building it and that we are exploring options.
But once it is built, the fact that an alternative housing shelter exists would still not absolve the previously debated anti camping ordinance from being any less cruel or inhumane. The mere existing of housing options doesn't mean that people who do not choose those options should face possible criminal charges or contact with the police that may result in jail time or exorbitant fines. People need to be met where they are and supported wherever they are, whether in supportive housing, in a tent, or otherwise on the street without the threat of state violence hanging over them. We need to change the city council zoning code while also permanently tabling the anti
camping ordinance that was previously debated. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening. I'm doctor Rochelle Brackney, the former police chief for Charlottesville Police Department. Counselors, when you allocated $1,000,000 to a clean team as ambassadors for the Charlottesville Mall, when you started down the road of trying to criminalize the unsheltered and the housing insecure under the guise of safety and support, and as you are considering allocating $1,000,000
to establish reestablish school resource officers in our schools, I asked one simple urgent question. What problem are you attempting to solve? Because I can tell you what problem I was attempting to solve when I made the difficult, often unpopular decisions rooted in equity, dignity, and justice. When I disbanded the the SWAT team, I was trying to solve the problem of racism, misogyny, and homophobia, the kind that thrives unchecked in militarized specialized policing units.
In 2022, SWAT had $8,000 allocated and a specials response team zero. In 2026, SWAT has zero and a specialized response team $60,000 Who are the special responders, and what are the problem they are attempting to solve? When I disassociated CPD from Jade, the task force, I was trying to solve the problem of addiction being treated as a crime rather than a public health crisis. I was working to stop the cycle of locking up people who need treatment, not
jail. So I ask you again, when you fund by an additional $2,000,000 this year to the budget, when you fund militarized operations like the three a task force against your residents, what problem are you really attempting to solve? When I removed the school resource officers from classrooms five years ago, I was trying to solve the problem of the criminalization of normal teen behavior, things like talking back in class or skipping classes, which should never result in handcuffs. I was solving the problem of school resource officers being used to enforce administrative rules,
not protect our students. I wanted to decouple law enforcement from the classroom, the cafeteria, and the in school suspensions, and to return education to educators, to care to those who are most in need. Those actions were not about being soft. They were about being smart. They were not anti safety. They were pro humanity. So I ask you again, what problem are you attempting to solve when you propose millions of punitive programs in the name of safety? Is a $1,000,000 clean team about cleanliness or about sanitizing public space who may peep
who who may make us uncomfortable? Is recriminalizing homelessness really about support or about control? Are SROs about keeping students safe or putting police back in a system that disproportionately disciplines black and brown youth? You say these measures are about health, about order, about community care, but the path you were taking looks a lot like the old system of punishment, policing, and exclusion just with a softer name. Thank you. So as you continue down this road of criminalization under the guise of support, I
leave you with this. What problem are you really trying to solve, and who will be hurt if you get it wrong? Thank you. Thank you. Felicia. Good afternoon, counsel. My name is Felice Roland Key. I'm the wife of the deceased Herman Key who bears the name of the city advocate for Americans with disability. He wanted to fight for people who couldn't fight for themselves. I came out this evening because I read the article. Mr. Savage, you spoke on the low barrier. I came to you and I said, where they were talking about putting wasn't good for me, wasn't good for the neighborhood. I hear you heard me, and so you start looking at other places.
So I'm thankful that you're still trying to do what you can do, what the council can do for the homeless in the city. This is so important. These people need us to speak for them. I just recently started working on a paper for school. And, it's a two weeks long, and I read about five books. And and it really enlightened me. But it took me back to the oldest book and the I heard everybody this evening. It took me back to one of the oldest books in the world. The first chapter in that book, it teaches us that we're all made in the
image of god. Not that we look like him, but we have characteristics that are built into us such as creativity, reasoning, morality, and capacity to for relationship. These gifts are given to humans so that we can act as stewards of creation so that we can represent God or a godly figure here on earth. We we we need to let those attributes. We're supposed to be taking care of the earth, not just the grass, not just
the animal. Some people will come out and fight for their dogs and cats. We need people to stand up for people, for humans, you know, and and that's where we need to come from. We we need to put all politics aside and let that be our last resort. The politics is where we come together, but it's our humanity, it's where we stand. And we need to think about others when we are setting up making decisions. I also wanted to welcome Stephen King. You need assistance for your promise, but think about it. And I thank you all for hearing us when we've talked about the low barrier
shelter being in the wrong place. I think this is a good decision, and, you got my tax 2¢. Miss Bryant. Miss Bryant. In fact, and then you, sir. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Diana Bryant, Charlottesville resident. So, I just wanna start by saying that public education is a community asset that deserves our full attention and care. Our students deserve our full commitment and investment into their educational experiences with the goal that they will be able to live up to their fullest potential.
By a show of hands, how many of you believe that education is a community asset? Okay. Hopefully, that was everyone. And so when we think about how we steward our community assets, we have to think about how we do that practically. And so as someone who's attended countless school board meetings, I can say that I believe that there needs to be a stronger connection and collaboration between city council and the school board. Why? Because we have educators who are driving forty plus minutes to find affordable housing. Right? Like, how can we genuinely keep and retain talented teachers and educators here in the
city if they have nowhere to live? So as we say that housing is a human right, education is a human right. And so that connection must extend beyond just a few, work sessions about the budget Year. You have to be asking the critical questions to the school board about how they're managing the funds that you're giving. Delayed maintenance is a big issue. School buildings are literally crumbling from the inside. Right? Like, we have school classrooms that are extremely outdated, and we are not giving our
students the best possible educational experiences because it starts in that classroom. But even before they get to the classroom, it starts at home. And so I'm often troubled by a lot of the discourse about young black teens in our community, and we act as if they have an abundance of places to go after school. They don't. I was recently talking with some parents about how I credit so much of my academic success to being a public school student. Right? I went through Trailblazer, Walker, Beaufort, now Charlottesville Middle School, and Charlottesville High School.
And I was able to take advantage of so many educational opportunities. But let's be clear, it's a different era. I went to places like Crow Rec after school when I attended Walker to hang out with miss Tabitha, and Parks and Rec was investing in those programs. We had Friday night lives. We had so many different opportunities for students to have safe places to go after school, to have social environments, to have fun, to have educational experiences that enhance what they were getting in the classroom. You do not address these issues by bringing SROs back into the hallways.
I wanna be clear about that. That does not solve the issue as doctor Brackney, already raised. That does not solve the issue of more things that students need to be able to do, having more resources for parents, for families. I'm almost done. I promise. So let me just finish by saying that you do not fix these issues by bringing SROs back into schools. You need to ask the school board how they are managing their funds, why they're not taking care of their buildings, why they're not upskilling and giving more professional development
opportunities to the CSAs who are brought in as a replacement for SROs. So thank you. I'm not gonna take any more time. Thank you for listening, but please ask these questions. Thank you, miss Bryant. Good evening, mister mayor and city council. The last time I spoke on another issue, this time I am gonna speak on the proposed site for the, low barrier shelter. Yes, sir. I have spent I live on the streets. My name is Christopher Hall. Been here before. Yes, sir. I advocate, you know, spent the past couple of days talking to other homeless people on their thoughts on the issue.
I also spend my time talking to the cops, you know, and helping out other people with various things. I work at the historical society. I've been cleaning up the bushes up there for the past couple weeks. The thing of it is a lot of them feel like the proposed location is segregation. They do. They feel like they're being segregated, and I'm gonna tell you what they're telling me. You know? I get it. I've heard everybody's opinions on it, and I understand the different viewpoints. It it's a sensitive issue, and it needs to be solved.
But putting this out there out of sight, out of mind, I don't feel is like the solution. If it does done, I hope there is an our resources put in place and implemented. That would be the best way to do it because I know you guys are actually trying to seek find a solution and fix this problem and are trying to be of help. That is what I have to say. Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Do you mind if you're here? Yes. Hang on. Pete? Yes. I'm sorry. Hi. My name is Sophia and I'm a community organizer at the Public Housing Association of
Residents. I'm here to speak on the LV Collective building. I'll start by saying that the idea that simply building as many new apartments as possible, especially high end market rate ones, will eventually bring down housing costs for low income residents is a myth. This approach does not serve the working class families or those living at or below the 30% of the area medium income who are most in need of housing support. Charlottesville has seen the rise of developments like the standard, but none of these luxury projects have eased the city's housing crisis. Since 2021, rents in Charlottesville have only increased, and as of 2025, out space both
state and national rent averages. This model, historically, black and working class neighborhoods accelerates gentrification and displacement. These projects often attract whether wealthier often white residents pushing out black and brown families who have been in these communities for generations. Long time residents, many of whom still work, raise children, and have deep ties to Charlottesville are being priced out of the very city they helped build. Concentrate student housing along Jefferson Park Avenue where it belongs. Developments like the standard have not stopped students from spilling into residential areas because these
luxury units don't meet student affordability needs. Building more high end student housing doesn't solve the problem, it compounds it. City council must stop prioritizing the needs of UVA students over the well-being of Charlottesville's long term residents. The University of Virginia, an institution with a $14,000,000,000 endowment, pays no property taxes to the city of Charlottesville. The city should not have to bear the responsibility of housing UVA students, especially at the expense of black and brown communities that have already endured displacement and systemic exclusion. UVA's violent history of indigenous land theft, enslavement, and destruction of black communities like Vinegar
Hill continues today through economic pressure and displacement. The city's priority must be long term residents, especially the descendants of the enslaved labor laborers who built UVA and the families who've been forced into public housing are entirely out of city limits due to gentrification. I also want to strongly voice my opposition to the anti camping ordinance. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. My name is Gillette Rosenblith, and I am a board member on the Charlottesville redevelopment and housing authority board. I'm also a professor at the University of Virginia. And I wanna express my gratitude for the fact that you all in the city of Charlottesville have in general been very supportive of public and affordable housing.
This, I have to say, is largely because of the impressive advocacy and organizing a public and low income housing residents. However, while their cities have abandoned public housing, Charlottesville has not. We should also be proud of resident led redevelopment and our residents' first priority of the CRHA. But all of the support means nothing if we don't fix the zoning to ensure that low income communities are not displaced by luxury housing that's only for the wealthy. The LV collective and much of the proposed new buildings, as you've heard, serves neither long time residents nor most UVA students.
While you all have helped move the needle forward to serve our public and affordable housing residents, continuing to do so requires amending land use restrictions, fixing the zoning, and preventing the further gentrification of of Charlottesville. The history of race in place in Charlottesville is one of my areas of expertise, and I am guessing that you all have some awareness about this history as well. We need to honor this harmful history by standing with those who have been exploited and marginalized in our past and continue to be so today. We can do this. Right now, Charlottesville is a national example of what we can do right in public
housing. The decisions we make as a city and a community in the next months will will determine if we are able to maintain this good example. I implore you to keep up the good work by respecting our residents who have led us this far and hearing their calls to prevent the building of these new buildings. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. That was the last, slide for public comment at this time. We have another one at the end of the meeting. We're now we'll go to the consent agenda. It's a long one, so bear with me.
Okay. Consent agenda. Let's see. Number four, minutes. August 18, regular meeting. September 2, regular meeting. September 11, special meeting. Number five, a resolution appropriating Charlottesville Albemarle adult recovery court grant award in the amount of 240,000. Second reading. Six, resolution to appropriate the victim witness grant, dollars 299,672. Second reading. Seven, resolution to appropriate funding from the Virginia Department of Housing Community Housing and Community
Development, housing opportunities for persons with AIDS HIV grant in the amount of $392,582 second reading. Eight, Resolution Appropriating Community Flood Preparedness Fund Grant Award in the amount of $400,000 second reading. Nine, resolution for a special exception bill to permit, bill to requirement at 1107 Myrtle Street. 10, resolution to appropriate funding from the Virginia Department of Housing and Charlottesville Fire Department
to donate Charlottesville Fire Department to donate self contained breathing apparatus equipment to KTEC for its fire training program. Number 12, resolution to appropriate Albemarle County's Human Services Fund for Community Attention Youth Internship Program or KIIP, dollars 60,000, one of two readings. 13, resolution to appropriate funds from the Virginia Risk Sharing Association, dollars 18,238.84,
one of two readings 14, a resolution authorizing payment to Kokhosing Construction Company, Inc. For a bridge repair contract claim. One of two ratings. Thank you. Can I get, I move for adoption of the consent agenda? Okay. Second. Second. Okay. Can we vote, please? Yes. Just okay. And I'll walk. Yes. And I'm initiating the vote. Okay. Okay. So thank you all so much for that. We're now, at the city manager's, report.
So that passed five zero. Five zero. Yes. I'm sorry. Yes. Alright. Good evening, council members of the public. First up is a presentation from our social services, team. It's the annual report of the social services social services, team. It's the annual report of the social services advisory board. Good evening, everyone. Good evening, Ann. I'm Sherry Stewart, and I appreciate the opportunity to, give a report for the Department of Social Services advisory board as the chair. But before I do that, I would like to express my deep gratitude to Brian
Pinkston. He's been an amazing part of our advisory board for the last several years. He has offered wise words, friendships, support, great ideas, and he's just been a wonderful person to work with, and I'm very sad to see him go. So I have a small gift, and then I have some swag from social services as well. Thank you, Brian. I'm gonna try to recruit him when he's a civilian. Okay. So we have the annual report to city council, and we have our new director, Leon Henry, and he is going to support me if I miss anything or if
you have questions that I cannot answer. We start on the next page. I don't know who's do I have a clicker or somebody clicking for me? It's over here. On the On the other lectern. There we go. Gotta press the play button. Press it on. Okay. Okay. Oh, okay. So there are a 120 localities in Virginia, and we are in the yellow. We are the Piedmont Region as many of you already know. The vision of social services is meeting the essential needs, promoting self sufficiency, and enhancing
the quality of life for all residents. There are three main divisions of social services, the benefits programs, the services programs, and the the administrative services. And as you can see, the benefits programs have federal and mandated programs that help low income families and provide them with food, shelter, and medical care. And this is very important to remember when I talk about some of the new cuts that are happening. The family services programs provide assessment intervention and case management services also through federal and
mandated programs. And the administrative services help with all of the actions to support the finances and the being a good steward of funding. The next page will show us the budget. And if you look at the top, that shows the amount in US dollars for Medicaid and FAMIS is the highest. And then if you look at the state and federal funding, that's a 128,495,585.
And then the total expenditures are 134. So, the state shares funding with the, federal government, but unfortunately, the federal government is changing the amount that they're going to be giving the state, so that's going to, affect the budget for our local social services and and everywhere around the country. So the SNAP program has some changes that are coming up that are very important for our community. One of the most important ones is that they are now going to be requiring
all able-bodied adults that are able to work, including homeless or unhoused folks, to work, in order to get these benefits. And they're they used to be responsible for, funding 75%, and the state stood 25, and now it's going fifty fifty. So that's a $90,000,000 shift in cost for Virginia. They're also implementing community engagement, like volunteering or taking classes as a requirement as well. We have a the second cohort of the Ken First program.
There's a push to increase the numbers, for that. But, the Charlottesville City Department of Social Services is doing an amazing job, and, mister Henry walked into some really nice shoes, and is doing a wonderful job as well. The, state of Virginia is at 22% at but Charlottesville is at 55% for kinship placements. That means when we have foster care, placements, they're trying to keep people within their families and the goal is always to get them back to their families.
Let's see. Another issue that's coming up for social services is with the vendors, the folks who participate in the care for children. So therapy agents, agencies, and counselors, all of the things that social services might pay for. The vendor, that there was a transition to a different financial system. So that's a challenging transition for them, and it's making everything take a lot longer. They are implementing a new technology system in the lobby of DSS, so they're gonna
capture data better. They're going to that's gonna increase, security in their office, and, they're trying to be more efficient about knowing who's coming in and what they're there for. The family services division, the so this is also very important to note for the city of Charlottesville. The foster care caseloads have increased by 50% over the last year. And, of course, this is a result of a lot of other things that are happening in our community.
We currently have a 108 children in foster care, and then the APS adult protective services reports of neglect or abuse have increased by 4.8 80%. So these numbers are going to continue to increase with all of the funding cuts that are happening and if folks are not getting the resources that they need. The last section, and I already mentioned that to you, was the the shift in administrative funding. They're also asking social workers to spend more time doing the intakes.
They're gonna have to be done more than once per year, which is going to take a lot longer for the folks who work at social services. So all of the processor processes are becoming more difficult. They have to do the redetermination policy is now every six months, and everything's being monitored. There's a mandated work requirement of eighty hours per month, which would be working half time. And so the social services department in Charlottesville, it has a need for increased staffing to be able to manage those workloads and hopefully prevent burnout and, continue to foster
team engagement. And then looking ahead, we want to continue adopt adapting to policy changes and needs of the community. We would like to focus on the outcomes and delivery and stay committed to transparency and innovation. The Charlottesville Department of Social Services advisory board welcomes new members. We often have, month between the hours of twelve and 01:30.
I believe it's the is it the first Monday or the wait a second. I get confused because I do another commission. It's the first Monday of every month, except for when we we change that. So if anybody's interested in learning more about what our community social services program does, how they help folks, and we also share information as a board that we know about different things and ask questions to try to advocate for the folks that we work with in the community. So, do you have any questions? Lloyd, do you have any questions?
Lloyd? Sorry. I was muted. No. I don't have any questions. Thank you. K. Michael, do you have any? No questions. But, you know, in the presentation seeing, you know, the changes to Medicaid and SNAP, are just really scary to see. Because I know a lot of people are aware of it, but they haven't taken effect yet. Right. And, you know, that's just gonna be a wrecking ball to a lot of people losing housing, going into medical bankruptcy, avoiding health care, I mean, just the knock on effects are gonna be enormous. Exactly.
It's a very scary time. Natalie? Yeah. I agree. It's you know, we we we're trying to mentally brace for this news to come down and, you know, now we know exactly what the policies are gonna be and just there's no question that the effects are gonna be unfortunate. And it's frustrating that we know that in advance, and there's no need for this type of policy change. So we definitely can appreciate that It's going to get tough for your office, tough
for the people that you're helping, and hope that we can do what we can to to fill the gaps, to address the needs, and to, you know, try and minimize. I mean, try to minimize the impact knowing that it's it's not gonna be enough. We're a very resourceful community in my over twenty years of experience living here, so I hope that we can continue mayor Wade, I'm looking forward to mayor Wade, I'm
looking forward to speaking Spanish with you in just a few days. Yes. We're but, sorry. We got a couple more. Oh, sorry. Oh, yeah. I just wanted to thank you for thank you for my flowers. You are welcome. Thank you for the time I've got to spend working with you and, Leon and your staff. And It's been a pleasure for us. Yeah. I mean, it really is the the workload that the staff has already and the professionalism that they show, and, it's hard work. And, it's hard because it's in some ways, it's very bureaucratic, but at the same
time, you're dealing with real people in their in their lives. And I really admire one of the things we're able to do is get to see and meet a lot of people on staff, and I just really, you know, please let your people know, Leon, that how much we appreciate them. Yeah. And we also get to know how hard it is to be on the city council. Yeah. And we have one of you working with us. So There you go. We appreciate that as well. And, we're so glad, mister city manager, that you let her go in the middle of the meeting as opposed to the very end.
Thank you, mister city manager, since I I didn't get my lunch. There's a lunch that's still at still That was still that was a week to your schedule. Yeah. There's still a a debt to be paid there. So I'll get that done. Yeah. Thank you for coming. Thank you. You can you can invite me to the city council potluck picnic in the park. Okay. If there is one. No. But we'll we'll get that taken care of. Alright. Take care. Thank you. I'm sorry. A couple of more comments. So just to, sorry. He keeps getting what?
We're we have a a small delegation of Charlottesville going to Guatemala this week to consider that, for sister city. Guatamago. So it doesn't escape me that I'm have a Spanish name and I can't speak Spanish. So I'm gonna stay close to you. So I'm I'm not I'm I'm gonna be with Kristen who speaks fluent Spanish and did the Peace Corps there. I was a Peace Corps volunteer as well, but not I learned Polish. But I'm I'm going I'm going without the interpreter, so Yeah. You might wanna stick to the other side.
So I do have a couple of comments. What do you, contribute the high kinship rate with 55%? I mean, that's that's great. What's the secret recipe? Charlottesville, I believe, was a trendsetter with that program, and I believe that the department of social services, they are following the lead on Charlottesville's projects because, that was something that they came up with. Right? I believe. Yeah. Correct. There's a a Liam. Yeah. So as Sherry mentioned, good afternoon, council.
Yes. As Sherry mentioned, right, currently right now, the state is at 25%, we're at 55. There's a project that the state is doing as a new initiative called the Kin Kin First Now Mhmm. And our our deputy director, Jenny Jones, was a part of the process of helping them to develop that program, and going into different offices, getting information, sharing the process that we use in order to identify family members early on in the case management process. So she was able to kind of share some of that support and you know, just the way the way we engage families early on, especially when we know that
there's a a high risk of potentially a child coming into care, we try to start working with those families and and and and helping them to engage other family members so that see if it's in one family. If in a time of crisis, they they do have support available. So it's not a a traumatic type of transition for that particular child, but they can move into, home more seamlessly. My next comment or question is that I mean, I just retired from the county's social service after fifteen years. And as I recall that social workers are really employees of of the state, but
employed by the locality. So if we need additional workers to do the additional work, is that something that's going to be borne by the state or the locality? Do we know that yet? Yes, so usually, as long as the locality is supporting the additional FTE, the state will support it as well. There is a city match, but we typically don't get, pushback as long as it's supported by by the city. Great. Thank you guys so much. Keep up the good work. Thanks. So I'll get that lunch. Sorry.
Oh. I'm rich. Alright. I they know where to find it. We got it. We got it. Thank you, Sherry. Mister, Friess has a comment as well, and I have one last comment. Yes. Hi. Good evening, Mayor Wade, members of council. Good evening. James Friess, deputy city manager. So as I know all of you are aware, last week, the city once again experienced pedestrian fatality as a result of a car crash, this time on, Route 29, near the intersection with Angus Road. As you also know, improving pedestrian safety has been a long term goal of the
city and in particular over the last year, we have really done a focused effort on, investing in, rapid deployment of kind of quick build, materials and methods to try and improve pedestrian safety across the entire city. As we did last year after following the pedestrian fatality on Elliot Street, we're going to do a, assessment of pedestrian safety in the vicinity of where this most recent, fatality occurred and, consider whether there are improvements we might similarly be able to make
on a quick kind of rapid response, way. If you have any questions about our approach, we're gonna be looking to turn around, some some recommendations as quickly as possible. But if you have any questions on on what we're doing, please let me know. Yeah. It's very sad. So thank you. Thank you. I'm glad that you'll take an action. How soon do you think we'll get an update on that? I asked for to get an initial assessment by the end of this week. Thank you. And I'm actually going out to the site myself tomorrow with the chief, take a look at helping, get a feel for what actually happened.
And that way, we can make sure that we don't miss, details as to what we might be able to consider. The last comment that I have, for new face in the gallery, Steve King has joined the city manager's office. He will serve as the assistant to the city manager. I know that's a new title for folks around here, but it's one that is overdue because I need help. We're doing a lot of stuff, and thank you for saying that. I do appreciate you recognizing that. But just in the appreciation of the comment that I have made consistently about the
city of Charlottesville that we punch above our weight class, that comes at a cost. There's a lot of work that has to get done to hold that title. And in doing that going forward, I will now have an assistant to help me with that project manager focus. Steve joins us, having served with ICMA. That's our national, our international, credential organization that supports local government management, and he is he started today. So I told him tomorrow, I start piling work on. Yeah. Nice to meet you. Welcome. Welcome. Would would you like to say a few words? Yes. Mayor and council, it's a pleasure to be with you.
I look forward to, working on behalf of, of of of our office in in partnership with you in advancing your priorities, to the residents of the community. I look forward to building relationships with all of you and and learning more about how we can be, good partners in advancing, the work and and making sure that Charlie Charlottesville is a community that that everyone gets to thrive. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome. Welcome. So, this that it for the city manager? That's right. Thank you. Thank you, sir. So now we're, here for the, action items.
The first item is a public hearing resolution approving a a lease agreement with, Cultivate Charlottesville and miss Kelly. Hey. Hey, Brenda. Good evening. Good evening. The, for the record, I'm Brenda Kelly, and the item in front of you is a request for you to approve a lease agreement with Cultivate Charlottesville. And this is for the vacant lot next to City Of Promise the address being 210 Eighth Street NW cultivate charlottesville has been using this property for many years and
it was time we needed to get a lease agreement in place. This lease is for a term of one year with an option for three one year additional terms. And as you see, miss Carrie is here. If anybody has any questions, we're able to answer that. The rest of the terms are in your package. And this is a one reading resolution following a public hearing. Thank you. Did you, Aileen, did you want to say? I can just let you all know that, cultivate Charlottesville was approached by City of Promise, to steward the land. There's two separate plots, as miss Kelly was saying, where the City of Promise offices
are in the house there. And then also this space, that has been a garden for many years. And so they, approached us and asked if we would steward that space, which we've been doing for many years. And, as miss Kelly said, as the city is going through and, updating agreements, they asked us to sign a lease for this, space. The space is used as a a place where community members can come by and get the fruits and vegetables that are there at any point in time. They don't have to wait for one of us to be there. We do several community, events there.
We have a pumpkin painting coming up later in October, but we've also hosted, events with the women's initiative, UVA cancer center, volunteers, neighbors at West Haven, and others in Tenth And Page, about growing food and and making sure that people, have an opportunity to plant and grow themselves. And as I mentioned, also come by and take whatever they might need, from the garden space. Thank you. So before we open up the public hearing, I'll start with Nothing at this time.
Thank you. Thank you. Michael, did you have any questions coming up? I I don't know. I just chuckled a little bit at keeping of livestock is not permitted. Yeah. We we don't have any livestock. Cultivate Charlottesville doesn't have any livestock. The only place where, we're involved in anything is at the high school. We help out with the high school. We don't run the entire program anymore because there's an urban farming, program through the schools now, and there are chickens at the high school. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. But no questions. Yeah. Okay. Bye. Thanks, Aileen.
No. Great program. Then so I will now, open up the public hearing. Would anyone like to, speak on this matter? Did you want to speak? Okay. You just wait. Okay. Okay. Seeing no hands, I will close the, public hearing. And are there any further comments or questions from counsel? If not, I'll entertain a motion. I move to adopt the attached resolution approving the attached lease agreement with Cultivate Charlottesville. Second. Second. Okay. No further comments. Can we vote?
I vote yes. Okay. The vote is initiated. Okay. Thank you, Eileen and Brenda. Thank you guys so much. Keep up the good work. Thank you. Appreciate your work. The next item is a public hearing, a resolution to approve amendment of lease, with the International Rescue Committee and Brenda. Oh, yeah. Again, Brenda Kelly for the record. This item in front of you is to approve an amendment to a lease with I R IRC International Rescue Committee who, you approved a lease back in July 2024.
That lease was for eighteen months. It's set to expire, at the end of this year. IRC complied with the renewal request, to extend their option for a one year additional term. That's the item in front of you for the lease of 410 Old Lynchburg Road. And we have Cecilia with us from IRC. If you have have any questions, again, this is a one reading resolution following a public hearing. Lloyd? I don't have any questions. Okay. Is there anything you wanted to add? Oh, no. I really appreciate that. Yeah. I'm sorry.
Thank you. Sorry. Sorry. Good evening, mayor and council. I'm Cecilia Lobstolz, who's with IRC, and I'm joined by two colleagues this evening. I just want to thank you for your past support with regard to the New Roots Farm property. New Roots is a multicultural community growing food together to support health, connections and power. And each year, we engage residents from over 20 countries of origin in this multicultural agriculture project. So since the time that our lease was formalized with you all in 2024, we've been able to leverage new funding and support from local, regional, and national partners to
support our work. We've been able to continue engagement with local partners. And in a quick count this evening, I was, naming over a dozen local partners that have been involved in stewarding the site and supporting as volunteers. And we've been able to invest together in improvements to the site, such as improving the access road and the Ravana Trail, which now passes through the property, clearing, dead and dangerous, overhanging trees, invasive species management, a new professional fence, new irrigation system. And we're working towards an installation of solar panels that were donated by a local
small business, improved yields of crops and aesthetics of the farm, increased engagement by neighbors, volunteers, and farm members, and continuing to exchange knowledge and learnings with the parks department, which manages the gardens that are neighboring at Azalea Park. So, with the continued lease of this additional year, we look forward to sustaining this momentum for the benefit of Charlottesville residents, especially the refugees and immigrants that are members of the farm, as well as residents of Fry Spring neighborhood and others who, recreate
on the Riverino Trail, which passes through the property. Thank you. Thank you. Michael, do you have any questions in the comments? No. I don't have any questions. Natalie? The the Loop De Ville passes right that because we're on the trail passes right by the garden. So it was really great to get to see that, during the loop and be, like, this close to being able to just pop a tomato off, but knowing it wasn't my tomato. But that's part of the loop where you're really getting kinda hungry. So, it's great to see, and, thanks again for all the good work you do. Thank you for visiting. Brian. So, I don't know if this was I recall the last time we brought up
the gardens. We had some comments that we needed more, people to use the garden, because, you know, they get it for four or five years and it was just no entrance way for other people to do it. Was is this the same thing? It's different. No. Those are the garden plots for the parks and recreation. Yeah. And we're looking at that. That's still Yeah. That's different. Okay. I'm sorry. I thought so. I just wasn't sure. I just, you know. So if there's no other comments, I will open up the public hearing aid.
Would anyone from the audience would like to speak on this? If not, I will close the public hearing and entertain a motion. I move that we adopt the attached resolution approving the attached agreement for amendment of lease with IRC. Second. Second. Okay. We will vote. And I'm a yes. Yes. Thank you, and thank you for all your work. Thank you, Brenda. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Have a good night. The next item on the agenda is a public hearing to reallocate 7.9 $707,950,000 of capital improvement contingency fund.
And, Sam, are you Actually, Christy's coming. Okay. Christy. Yeah. And the public hearing will be on the second reading. It's not tonight. Oh, okay. So that we can make sure we advertise. Okay. Good evening, counsel. Good evening. Tonight, we are here with a resolution to ask, for you to allocate $7,900,000 of the capital improvements contingency the surpluses from the general fund each year. There is a running total on in your packet that, summarizes several years of uses
of that contingency fund. Of the 7.9, we are proposing to use 6,300,000.0 for the acquisition of 2000 Holiday Drive, 1,500,000.0 for both, city environmental and mobility policy plan, and city hall renovations, for a $150,000. Okay. So this is a, it's not a public hearing, but this, way Before before you ask questions, I would like to just, express a couple points. In regards to the, acquisition of 2000 Holiday Drive, as with most things, I have
heard all kinds of comments. So there's always a different opinion than the next opinion, and we do our best to just work through those. But ideally, the the priority that has been expressed and committed as it relates to homelessness in the city of Charlottesville is that we have a great need for low barrier shelter. That is what I have committed to working on for two years now as I recently expressed, in sharing the homeless intervention plan that we have been been working on all this time. And we have successfully found an opportunity to acquire a substantial piece of property, not
just the building itself, but the land that is available as well allows us to to attack this issue from multiple angles. And while it may be viewed as, an attempt to move people away from other people, it doesn't because they're still in the city and they're still, adjacent to folks who are probably going to express concerns when they ultimately find out what it is that we're proposing to do at the site. It is important that we remember and I have stated clearly my position on this matter on behalf of council is that this is a human issue, and we need
to have people have a place to live inside as many people as we possibly can get inside, and that is what this priority project has been about. So the goal is for us to get this site acquired, and it has not been a perfect process. A real estate transaction is really all that we have in front of you at this time. There is a lot of work that has to be done to determine how to activate the space because it is an office building today. It is not meant for people to sleep in it overnight and to do all the many things that we need to do to serve their needs.
But we will continue to work on those things and make sure that we can get a a plan together as quickly as we possibly can and activate that site as soon as possible. So, again, I'd like to write my own headlines and my own narrative because it always gets written for me, and I wanna make sure that it's accurate. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Michael, do you have any comments or question on this? I know we have separate agenda item just about the shelter. So I'll see if kind of comments or questions about, you know, the specific operation
opera yeah. Oper I can't speak. Operation How are you operationalized something? Yes. That word. Until then but, I do have a question just about the other items, not the 6.2 for the acquisition on Holiday Drive. What is what are those environmental and mobility studies, and what is the expected product at the end of those two studies? So Kelly James? Yep. We have, Kelly Brown from neighborhood development services here to to answer any questions on
those items. Hey. Kelly? Hi. Good evening. I'm Kelly Brown, director of neighborhood development services. And, here to answer questions you have about, the request for carryover funds for the, environmental regulation and policy study and also the, the mobility policy policy plan. So, these are items that we actually, have, brought to you previously, presentation of our annual work plan, for fiscal year twenty twenty six. We have been working to scope both of these items and at our point where
we are preparing, potential options for the development of a scope of work for those items, pursue, consultant services to I do have some slides that I could share with you. But if you had some specific questions, I could also just try to tackle those as well. I mean, I I think the question is just at the high level, you know, at $1,500,000 for two studies, what's the expected policy change or or product at the end of the studies, and what's kind of the expected timeline?
And Sure. So for the, environmental policy and regulatory review, we are actually looking at a number of different, areas of natural resource management. So stormwater management, flood plain management, tree canopy and preservation, stream buffers, critical slopes and energy efficiency. We're actually going to be coming to you in November to give you a more detailed update on an assessment all the existing conditions across across all of these areas. And our specific recommendations for a scope of work in each of those areas.
But some of the things and I feel like I'm kind of stealing my staff's thunder but some of the you know anticipated outcomes would potentially be updates to stormwater management regulations that could improve the feasibility of infill development while also increasing the use of on-site measures for water quality. Data to support future infrastructure needs and a long range storm water capital improvement plan are also items that we may recommend. We would be looking to coordinate with our sustainability office in the use of the
community flood preparedness grant that we could build upon to potentially update regulations and standards for development in the flood plain. Working to upstate landscaping requirements for things such as tree canopy, street trees, looking to update the water resource, water protection ordinance requirements. So these are all items that we, likely would not tackle all at once, but we do anticipate, them being priority items that we would need to tackle. And so we are looking at that $1,500,000 request as, half of it going to
the environmental policy regulatory review and the other half going to the citywide transportation plan or mobility policy plan. And we do anticipate that given that wide range of needs, we would we would be looking for, a substantial amount of consultant support. Potentially, 3 quarters of a million dollars for all of that work. Mhmm. That's definitely helpful. You might have covered this already, but similar to, you know, with how some of our decarbonization studies were were not done is the climate team, you know, planned to
be a part of developing the RFP and a part of the process throughout it, or is it kind of just a BDS alone thing? We have a, a comprehensive, interdepartmental team supporting the development of the scope of work. Our climate action team, staff from our engineering bureau, our utilities department, they're they are all, working with us closely to develop, the scope of work for each of these efforts. So there'll be yeah. I'm just I'm not against these happening.
I just know there are there have been expensive studies we've done that have resulted in policy changes, and there's been other ones which which haven't. So anytime I see, you know, a consultant study that's, you know, reaching near $2,000,000, I just get nervous. Like, will that result in policy change afterwards? Which I don't mean a criticism of any part of this because I know it may be necessary, but just, like, how do we ensure it? It's not just $2,000,000 1,500,000 spent for nothing. Sure. So so, just bearing in mind that it's $1,500,000 for two really distinct efforts.
One is the creation of a host of new, policies, potential updates to our comprehensive plan as well as new local regulations, to bring our environmental regulations, integrator, alignment with the goals of our transportation plan balance a number of different goals to support growth and change in our community. And then the other half is for a mobility policy plan. Which I can tell you from experience the creation of a plan like that for a community such as Charlottesville with, you know, very ambitious goals for creating a, a
more walkable pedestrian, bike community. That sort of plan, it it does it does require a great deal of consultant services. Certainly. And and I know, obviously, there are, you know, there are limits to how much your team and office can ever do at one time. So I know, you know, it is needed to, you know, sometimes have outside help. I guess it's just up to city council to plan to actually make investments and policy changes after this. The the only other question I have is I know it's a much smaller amount
of just a $150,000, but what are those city hall renovations specifically? So there's a series of changes that we are making because we are, putting people together, and in some instances, we are taking former conference rooms and splitting them into two workspaces. So it's just to create privacy opportunities for them. It's just a host of moving things around just to be able to optimize our working our workflow. And the goal has been to try to minimize that, so that's why it's only a 150,000. Right. But that I don't I don't have any further questions.
Thank you. Natalie? Yeah. Thanks. So I know one of the things that we've talked about with the zoning code is the like you mentioned, the stormwater infill of it all, where is, like, a full retention pond required for, like, a duplex in a backyard? Like, is that the kind of thing that this study would address? Yes. Okay. And then I'm so sorry if you already answered this, but what was the timeline we're looking for? Oh, I I didn't mention that. Okay. So we are, we're on somewhat parallel tracks for both of these efforts, working to
develop the scope of work for both And then the results? I think that's something that we'll have to continue to evaluate. I would want to target for completion of the mobility policy plan within eighteen months. I think that's a reasonable time frame based on my experiences developing these sorts of
plans, in other places. The the environmental and policy sorry. Environmental regulation and policy review, that work will be phased over time. So there's some, changes that could come forward sooner within potentially the year and then some other recommendations, that would likely require, a longer time frame given the amount of analysis and, documentation that might be required. Okay. That's kind of what I was hoping because something like the stormwater retention pond retention
pond study of it all is potentially holding up development. So having that as a Yes. Speedier priority would be useful. We're we're we're going to be recommending a phased approach to try to acknowledge those needs. Okay. Great. Yeah. And then will we review the scope on council? Yes. So we are going to be coming to you in November, to present to you our recommendations for the scoping and phasing of the environmental work. So you'll have an opportunity to give us some feedback at that time. And then for the, the mobility policy plan, we're hoping we can come to you
for some, get to get some feedback in the first part of next year. Okay. Great. And then, thank you for that. My last question is for the the consultants that we're likely going to use. Is it, bandwidth issue or an expertise issue with with staff? Why we can't do some of that in house? I think it's both. I think it's, definitely a bandwidth issue. These, these consultant teams that you bring on board to produce these sort of plans are bringing with them like a, you know, a whole army of, experts in GIS
analysis and community engagement. They they also bring a lot of expertise and knowledge from other communities. We have excellent staff, you know, that that really can provide us with a solid baseline understanding of that kind of thing, but it's great to also bring in consultants that can supplement that as well. Right. So they can kind of collect the broader knowledge and then our staff will know how to implement it locally? Yes. Each of the the the the mobility policy plan will definitely have an implementation element to it that will lay out recommendations for near, mid and long term, investments.
Okay. And then because the scoping is still TBD, or, you know, sorry, in development. Yeah. You know, it's not finalized yet. Sorry. Not TBD. I know we know what we're trying to do, but it hasn't been finalized. Yeah. This amount of money is where does that come from? You mean the estimates? Yeah. So it's it's it's based on my familiarity with developing these sort of plans in other jurisdictions and the amount of money that it cost to build to develop to hire consultants to do that sort of work.
Okay. Yeah. And Yeah. If there's a chance that we might not need all of it, there's a chance we might need more? Or are we I think we are trying to request what we think we'll need. Okay. So, hopefully, we would keep it within that. In the ballpark. In that ballpark. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Brian? No. No. No questions. So, Did you ask Lloyd? Oh, Lloyd, do you have any questions? Actually, Natalie asked a bunch of the questions I was gonna ask. So no. Okay. Cool. Thank you. So I guess next month, it'll come back.
Did we want this I actually have a question about the Okay. The structure of this as an agenda item. Mhmm. The if you don't mind. Yeah. That it's a public hearing on the second reading, but then there's a separate agenda item for just that holiday drive acquisition, but not for the other two. Why is that the structure? Do you wanna explain? So I'm happy to answer that. So the we're appropriating an amount of money that we put a statutory trigger that requires a public hearing for that, specifically the appropriation.
And the other portion, the single reading for the resolution, you can approve the, city manager to go ahead with the project in a single resolution, but the appropriation itself needs the separate public hearing. And so we need to get the deal moving, so we decided to have the first reading tonight. We'll advertise for the public hearing, so we're meeting all the statutory requirements in advance of the second reading. Okay. Thank you. So do we You have to move it forward. Right. Move it forward. But I was I wanna know, do we want it on a consent agenda item?
Do do we want to action items? Well, you're gonna do a public hearing. Oh, the public hearing. I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Chrissy and Kelly. Let's see. The next item we have is an ordinance to establish a franchise agreement with, Cochin Fiber LLC. Brennan. Good evening. Good evening. Mayor Wade, council members. So what's before you tonight is, a resolution, or sorry, an an ordinance to establish, this franchise agreement. Normally, these have been, kind of consent agenda things.
We wanted to kind of bring it before you tonight, because this is kind of our first step in some of our poll remediation, measures, that we've been taking. So this new ordinance and the language that's in it, it'll kinda go forward in subsequent ordinances as they kinda come up on a, you know, two to five year schedule, however long they were were enacted for. But this really gives us a lot more teeth to, you know, find, people if they decide that they, you know, know, don't want to move their lines off of old poles, as they're going.
So that's the the biggest change to this. I think that would pertain for for counsel's kind of, judgment. I mean, there's a 23 page document there if you really wanna go through it. But, that's that was kind of the the highlight of this was the ability and the more more teeth for us to, kind of enforce some of the actions there. So, that's really it. I'm hoping we've got another one, I think, that comes to you in November. So hoping that that one, you know, if you guys are okay with this language and stuff that we can just put that on consent going forward. But did really did wanna kinda give you guys the opportunity to ask questions and,
present that, in in front of the public here. Yeah. Thank you. Lloyd, do you have any questions or comments on this? You're muted, Lloyd. Yeah. The the question I I posed the question and I maybe I didn't understand exactly what I was reading, but we've we've had this ongoing debate, at least on email traffic, if not necessarily publicly. I don't know that it's ever made public, about what do we do about the proliferation of light poles, power poles, you know, whatever, in in the middle of of
the sidewalk. And the fact in in some cases that maybe Dominion has come along and replaced a power pole. But this right next to it, there's an old pole that nobody is able to take down because there are still lines from Sprint or Cogent now or whatever other entities there may be that haven't been moved off of that pole. And a lot of frustration about how about the fact that we haven't been able to make that happen. And I couldn't tell for sure where in this franchise agreement it gave those additional
teeth that you were talking about. Is that there was a portion, I think it was on page 18 of the agreement, where it talked about I the the headline was something about moving things off of, the the right of way. Is that the place that's supposed to be giving us more power? Yeah. So it's it's section two zero six, specifically two zero six point one, removal of obstructions. It says upon notification from the city or an entity that has an attachment agreement, that company shall remove any of its facilities installed in the public right of way,
contrary to an approved public right of way plan within forty five days of receipt of notification. If the company has not removed its obstructions from the public right of way within forty five days of receipt of notification, the City shall assess the company a fee of $500 per day. The company has failed to remove the facility installed in the public right of way contrary to an approved public right of way plan. So that's kind of, you know, and it goes on there, but, that really, you know, it gives them forty five days to, you know, have that removed or at
the very minimum tell us what their plan is to have that that removed. But, you know, that it it just gives a a very static time frame for for this correspondence to take place. Okay. I I I was I the reason I was confused was I was looking in the wrong place. So, two zero six point one is on page four of the agreement. That's, that that that is much more much more teeth than I would I thought I had seen elsewhere. Yeah. That's good. Thank you. No problem. Sam, would you come to I was just saying with the penalty. That's the other part.
It's like we're really trying to push. Lloyd, did you have anything else? No. I'm good. Right. So this is that language was not in previous agreements of this nature. Correct. The previous franchise excuse me. Previous franchise agreements didn't have kind of the the mount monetary, limits on here. Even if there there may have been some some day limits, there was nothing really to, you know, again, to have that teeth and that penalty that went along with it. And so I'm glad that this is in here now, but it's only going to affect franchise agreements moving forward.
Correct. But most of them are not indefinite. So, you know, as they come up, you know, like I said, we've got another one that's gonna be coming up in a couple weeks. So, I mean, realistically, within five years, all of them outside the dominion would be pretty much done. So, you know, it's we're we're moving in that that direction. The timeline was gonna be my next question. Yeah. And, I mean, this is this is really only one step, like, that we're taking. This is not the end all be all to to address double polls and getting lines on polls. We're having meetings.
We're doing other stuff. This is just one Part of the rest of the aspects of that that, you know, kinda gives us a little bit of a stick to to help move move this process along. Mhmm. And who who's in charge of noticing and counting the days and enforcing this? That would more than likely be the engineering department. We're the ones kinda spearheading separate. Okay. Great. Thank you. Mhmm. Michael. Yeah. As you as you said, obviously, the importance of this is Dominion has poles that will just be in the middle of a sidewalk in a way where someone in
a wheelchair literally could not get past there. And we can't remove those until, everyone else who has wires on the pole has removed it, as well as just some of these wires on their own beam and obstruction, which is why this item is important. So I'd I'd looked at the existing franchise agreements, and you may have touched on this, and I'm just misunderstanding. There was a process for, the director of public works, requesting that they remove it. And if they don't within thirty days, then the city can remove it ourselves and
then charge them for the cost of our removal. And then the city attorney could take action to collect, that payment. What in this will help us in a way that's stronger than that previous framework? So some of that gets into liability issues and stuff of the the previous way of doing it. I don't know that we want our guys going up there and remove just removing, lines off of poles, and and attaching them to other poles. So, it it kind of removes us from having to do the work ourselves, and
and really just puts the financial penalty on them to to be able to do that. It's the it's the main reason for it. Okay. I don't have any further questions. Is it worth having both? Because if $500 a day is, like, no big deal for some company, there's nothing we can do other than wait them out. Again, I think it goes to we don't want to be in the position of physically taking them off. I mean, I look at our city attorney, like, I'm not even sure if with some of the FCC regulations and stuff that are now in place that may may
have come after, like, kind of that original language was there, like, I know for for instance, Dominion is not even allowed to go in and remove the other people from their polls. Like, there there are rules against that. So I don't know if we even like, even if we put it in the franchise agreement, I don't know if legally we could could And there's not I don't know if there's, like, freelance line workers for hire who would, like, do that anyway. I don't Probably not a lot of them. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. I have no questions or comments as we are we voting on this?
Yeah. There would be So can I get a motion, please? I move approval of the ordinance granting a franchise to Cogent Fiber LLC. Can I get Second? K. Lloyd second. K. Vote. Put me as a yes. Thank you. The motion passes five to zero. And mister mayor, before we leave the topic, I I just want to acknowledge publicly, we often get into situations where we're fussing at Kevin Cox and he's fussing at us, but this particular issue is one that he has really brought home to us. And I think he deserves the credit for having flagged that for us to bring
it to everybody's top of mind. Yes. Agreed. Thank you. He was here here earlier. So have a good night. Thank you. The next item is an ordinance for temporary easement, to our banner water and sewer authority at Haywood Community Forest, for use of the reservoir doing the, reservoir pool raise project. Chris? Thank you, mister mayor and, council. I'm not another staff. Chris Genzic. I'm the parks and trails planner for the city of Charlottesville, and the city of Charlottesville manages the Ragged Mountain or owns the Ragged Mountain property as well as the
new Hayward Forest property adjacent. As part of the reservoir pool raise project, There's a open space that is part of the Hayward property that we have in our plan that we'd like to turn that into a parking lot someday. So we found a way to provide a temporary construction easement draft for approval, because you are putting a real estate interest on a city city owned property. So, it will be an approval of that temporary easement that's to be used as a bar area for some dirt. They're gonna regrade it out, and I think they might have trucks on it coming
in and out for a while. So we would get an advantage from it, and it would help advance the project of the community And one thing I noticed is I don't think the area is attached, so I made some quick sketches if I don't know how to add can I just hand these out to council now? Yeah. If you give it to miss Thomas. Is there enough for me to keep one? Yeah. I mean, Okay. Thanks, Chris. Sir, did you just want to introduce yourself and say Absolutely. Yeah. My name is Austin Mars. I'm a senior civil engineer with the Ravenna Water and Sewer Authority, and I'm, managing the, the project that Chris mentioned, our Ragged Mountain Pool raised project.
So we'll actually add, 700,000,000 gallons of water to Ragged Mountain Preston Ward. And this this borrower will help us immensely. We've got some drainage improvements along the dam, along the down, downslope of the dam. Mhmm. So that'll actually provide, build their work for that process. So we really appreciate, Chris helping us out with this. And, as a as a bonus, you guys will get, basically, the grading work for a future parking lot, at at this area that that Chris handed out to you. And then the good news is that's already in their stormwater ENS kind of level
of disturbance thing. So they didn't have to really add. So it's already approved in that sense as well. Yes. And this would be an ordinance creating the temporary easement, and it would dissolve when the water project is done. Natalie, I'll start with you. I'm one of my guiding principles is to not support any additional parking within city limits. So that part is not that attractive to me, but, otherwise, it seems like part of the project. So Those are extremely popular parks between the two of them.
So it's just like a gravel lot as I understand. And it's also a future. It's that's not really what we're agreeing to now. You later on, you'd have to figure that out. Right? Yeah. I think if if they gravel it for their purposes, they'll leave the gravel. But if nothing else, we do get a graded and and stabilized area that we can come back and add. But we would think a gravel lot is probably the right way to go with a natural area Mhmm. Setting. Our anticipation is that the contractor is just gonna grade the area, harvest the filter that they need to, and it'll be seeded, in accordance with with city standards. And it could be on you guys to add gravel at a later date.
But it is in the county, technically. So we just happen to have the land. There we go. Yeah. Brian, do you have any questions? This is a very important project. Yeah. Lloyd? No questions. No no comments. Okay. Michael? Yeah. No. I mean, it seems like a pretty, you know, smart win win. Yeah. How long will the project is the project plan to last? So we actually just got going, and the anticipation is that we'll be done by the 2026. Okay. So yeah. I know it has to happen, but sad to see it all set closed for so long. And I believe this piece would come in first because this is this is down
in the lower area, so we might be able to, add that parking area to help take some of the pressure off the fact that now the Upper Dam areas would be closed to parking. So our little parking lot down there is gonna get pretty quickly overrun on a nice sunny day. So but, yeah, again, this this item seems pretty, you know, straightforward. And this one reading ordinance, is that technically? Yep. Did you have any more comments, Nesha? Okay. Can I Yeah? I move to adopt the attached ordinance approving the temporary easement to RWSA for the project. Can I get a second?
Okay. Can we vote on this, please? I'm a yes. K. Motion passes five to zero. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, sir. It's Goodbye. The next item on the agenda is a resolution authorizing the purchase of 2000 Holiday Drive. Chris. Hey, Chris. Good evening. Chris Engel, director of economic development. Your next item involves the purchase to enter, the authorization to enter into a contract to purchase a piece of property known as 2000 Holiday Drive. This property is situated in the Northwest quadrant of the city, kind of bounded by
Hydraulic Road, 250 Bypass, and Emmett Street. The property is actually two parcels consisting of 3.8 acres. One parcel has the current improvement on it, the other parcel is vacant. The building is 27,000 square feet. It's currently configured as an office space. The intention as, you heard from the city manager previously, tonight and at the last meeting, is to find a place for a low barrier shelter, to serve as part of the homeless intervention plan. That is the intent here.
It is situated fair amount of renovations, life safety improvements would have to take place, to get it to a place where it's, suitable for such. At this stage, there's very little detail on that. City manager can provide what he knows beyond what I'm I'm sharing with you now. It is a real estate transaction at this point to get the property under contract. The resolution within the document authorizes the city manager to sign the contract. We do have a purchase and sale agreement included in the in the document and
has been signed by the seller. We've agreed to all terms. The purchase price is 6,200,000.0. We have a thirty day study period through October 30. Should anything arise that would cause us concern, to not move forward with the purchase, providing that doesn't happen, Providing that doesn't happen, we would close on the November 20 or otherwise agreed upon by the parties, but that is the target date for closing, should we move forward. We are proceeding with a, full third party property condition assessment that's gonna take place,
this week. That could, you know, reveal some concerns or it could, give a a bill of clean health, so to speak. So we are taking those necessary steps during a study period to determine whether there are any kind of, ongoing concerns. The building was built in 1964. It's been kept in very good shape. It has some known issues such as the original elevator, and there are other things, as I mentioned, in terms of transitioning use from office to, living quarters and, space,
you know, that will have to be addressed. Those will cost real dollars, and then there's the question of the operator and and how that all happens. We don't have answers to all those tonight. This is a first step. It does put a piece of property under control of the city, who can then work with local partners or others to operate and renovate, the facility. I think those are the highlights. I'm happy to try and answer any questions. You have, the funding was referenced earlier in the contingency item, which has two readings,
which, including a public hearing at your next meeting. This item, is a resolution to, authorize the city manager to sign the contract. So we're in a binding contract, and it authorizes a deposit of a 100,000, to indicate good faith towards the purchase. And that comes from a separate source, citywide reserve. So, that reserve would be repaid upon the, following, the October 20 meeting when you take final action on, the content contingency funding.
So that's kind of the two step that's happening here, but this would authorize the signing of the contract and the deposit and, potentially moving towards the closing November 20. Happy to answer any questions you might have or seek help from city manager. Great. Sam, did you wanna chime in now? Nope. Okay. Brian, did you want to add anything? I just thank you, Chris and Sam for your diligence in sticking with us. I think it's a great opportunity. K. Natalie? Yes. Yes. Thank you so much for for keeping eyes out and doing all these negotiations.
This is a very large building that, from all the discussions we've had so far, seems I don't wanna jinx anything with what the inspection might find, but, it's gonna be more of, like, a floor plan rehab that renovation than any than any rehab. And, hopefully, we'll be able to get it online, and the size will, hopefully, make a big impact on the, the need in the community. When was it last used as an office?
About two years ago, it was vacated by the most recent tenant. So it it has been essentially vacant since then, but kept in great shape. We've we've walked through it. Not a lot of time for it to fall into disrepair. Correct. And, I know this is a hard question to answer, but what's our approximate time line for For the purchase? For the renovation. November 20. For the renovation, that's a We wouldn't be able to answer that at this point because we're the assessment work is just beginning. We really had to figure out what we find. The, inspection report that Chris mentioned is the first thing that we've, initiated to be
able to find out that the building is really okay. It looks okay. Now we need someone to verify that it is okay. But the actual upfitting, process is actually, in my mind, twofold. We would have to determine what we first think we might want to do in the space, and then how we do that in the space could actually cause changes. So there's there's a bit of time before we're actually gonna be able to commit to what the actual renovations look like and therefore what it would cost. Mhmm. And what what is the current besides the bus route, what is the the trail
connects nearby. Right? It does. It's very close. It's actually on this property, the a piece of The piece of this property. Yes. Great. And then, once we have this purchased and renovated and it's open and operational, are we done, or are we working on other things? No. There's this is I wish I could That was a that was a Yeah. That was an editorial comment. I'm sorry. No. That was a leading question to give you a chance to Yeah. There there's more. This is this is really a complicated issue. It's a very significant sized issue, and then the scope of of what it takes
to really make a material difference. It's not just the low barrier shelter. It has to be more than that. That's just the lowest rung of the ladder the way I describe it. It is meant to give people an ability to take that first step, and then you add all the additional, steps beyond that. So it's it's this and more. And there are there are many more things for us to continue to talk about, continue to explore, and hopefully, we can assemble enough units, enough spaces, to ensure that the count of individuals that we find outside throughout each year, we at least have
a place to accommodate them. So this is one piece of This is a one piece of of few, I would say. Yeah. It's a really big piece. Yeah. Really big piece. Yes. I know we can't compel any regional cooperation from the surrounding counties, but have there been any discussions with them and how have they gone? Yes. There have been conversations. As a part of my regional, connections, I have always, elevated this, leverage this into the conversation as an issue that is not just the city's issue, but for all of our surrounding, county peers.
We have had, positive interactions. I have currently scheduled a meeting with them on November 7, and the goal is for them to get a direct, sharing of what we see as a possibility and that what we see is the city council and my seeing what is possible there, so that they then can actually understand what this is and what it might be. Therefore, we would like to see if you're interested in joining in this. They know me enough to know that I'm not gonna stop asking.
I think there's a way for us to get them engaged, and ideally, it'd be great to be able to see that. I agree. Thank you. I'm glad those conversations are ongoing. And then how has it have the conversations gone with the regional not the regional, the local, service providers? That conversation has started. It is ongoing. We've been working through a low barrier shelter work group for, months now, and the focus has been on the Cherry Avenue location, which was what we had available to consider. We have shifted that conversation by bringing forward this property that was in last week's
meeting. They're meeting every week. I have asked Ashley Marshall to continue to facilitate this work on behalf of the city, so she is taking an opportunity to outline a process for how we help them begin to appreciate what is a very big opportunity. It's pretty big, I would say. And and we wanna make sure that they have the opportunity to ask questions. They then also kinda kick the tires and make sure that they feel comfortable. We know that it's not gonna be an easy process, but this study period is meant to find out from them if they are interested in being a part of
what could be done here at this site. And if they were to choose to join us, then they would be right at the table making those decisions with us. Great. Thank you so much. Thanks. Good. Michael? Along similar lines, I mean, you covered this. But this is a very first step towards, hopefully, a plan to model what other cities have done where they have a centralized location where there's a large low barrier shelter with, services that are also there in terms of service providers who could do
things like connect people with getting an ID, signing up for Medicaid, Social Security, etcetera. So that's the long term vision. And I you know, we heard earlier a comment, you know, a concern that this was about, you know, pushing people out to a further out location. I think especially as this is a brand new idea that a lot of the community is hearing, I think a lot of reactions are are totally fair, in terms of, you know, people kinda thinking through what does this mean, why is it happening. Just some of the context I would add is, is it the most centrally located
place in the city possible? It's true. It's not. But it is still near a bus line. It's walkable to grocery stores. A shuttle could, get people to anywhere in Charlottesville pretty quickly. It is within city limits. The other thing I would add is the the Cherry Avenue shelter was 50 beds. The shelter was 50 beds. The proposed low barrier shelter, there was 50 beds. By at least one count, there's between two hundred and two hundred fifty homeless individuals in Charlottesville, which is about the same as it was a decade ago. So even it's not just a choice of a low barrier shelter at Cherry Avenue
or this site. Because even if the Cherry Avenue had gone through, that would not come close to meeting the full need. And it also would have the space to have a family shelter within it or separate a men and women's shelter. So this site for pets. Yeah. I mean, many many things. So, I mean, this this site also just provides the space in terms of the existing building as well as the vacant parcel there to build a large enough shelter for 200 plus people, which I think is a really, important point in a long
way to go. But, you know, it's an important first step. And I think, you know, we're also gonna need to have our nonprofits be able to coordinate and cooperate because this is not just something that the city can do alone. And I know for executive directors and boards, I'm sure this is a big thing to process because it may involve thinking about really changing how their fundamental model works in some ways. But we're all gonna need to be able to cooperate and come along on this
journey to figuring out how to get to a permanent year round low barrier shelter, which as others have said, we're still gonna need permanent supportive housing and, many other things. But to have a space where people can come in, have a shelter, and get connected with the first steps of getting IDs, signing up for health care, Social Security, beginning the process of applying to get a voucher to move into permanent supportive housing. We're not gonna have success until we have this. But anyway I think it's also important to make sure that it's clear for the
coverage that comes with this story is that, the Cherry Avenue location is not dead. This is where we're focusing at this time, because the scope of the problem is so big and there's so much more that needs to be done. There may be other ways to look at that site. Site. So we are shifting to the Holiday Drive location with the focus, but I don't want anyone to walk away thinking that if I come back talking about Cherry Avenue that I've somehow violated what I said. That's not accurate. Lloyd, did I can't remember if I touched base with you.
No. I just a couple of things. One is, I think it's important to look at the fact that, the property that we're talking about here, the two properties together have a combined assessed value of $8,800,000. And so we're actually, getting a pretty good deal on the land. But this part of that is, as I understand it, in about two, three years ago, mayor Wade and and I, when I was mayor, he was vice mayor, went to meet with the owners of this property as they were trying to figure out
some other use for this parcel and wanted to know what the city's position would be. And one of the things that they were discussing is that there are apparently a number of utility easements that have to be dealt with on the, the 1900 Holiday Drive, lot. And that may be something that, was getting in the way of their efforts to develop, but we may be able to develop in a way that is not adversely affected by those easements. Has any has, has anybody from the city manager's office, anybody else given any thought
to the the easement problem? You you are correct. The vacant parcel has a, water and sewer easement running across it, kind of in an inconvenient place for development purposes. It does kind of limit It still does have development potential. It's just kind of shoved over a little bit and it does limit it to some extent. So there is still some new development potential there. Currently, we're simply looking at the current building and using the remaining vacant land as, you know, potential outdoor space.
There's been mention of of, you know, ability for pets and and things things of that nature to to take place on that that type of, on that side of the property. So we're aware of the easement. It does limit, in some ways, but if the ultimate purpose of this facility is is overnight shelter, it it may not ultimately be a detriment. Yeah. I mean, my suspicion from what I recall from having looked at the at all of the the plots and so on that they had a few years ago and
thinking about how we might be able to apply things is that, a, having some outdoor space that is not developed could be useful either just because people will enjoy being outdoors or because they may have a place that they could have a dog or something. But then there's also there's at least some part of that that could be developed, could be added on to for, for example, a service provider if they wanted to come build something there or if we want to have a building there that could
be a place for, you know, a medical center or a drug rehab facility or a, you know, psychotherapy wing or whatever. I mean, there are a number of services we might decide we could provide, and there there may be some additional space on that other lot that might be available for that, those easements notwithstanding. I think that's fair. Thank you, Lloyd. I just I just had a you you finished, Lloyd? Yeah. Yes. I am. I just had a couple of comments. I just want to really thank staff and council and community partners for getting us
to this point. I especially wanna thank, the public in and the numerous emails that we received on on this. The public hearing that we had last month was, although it may have been long, it was truly insightful. I just want the public know that we heard their concerns. And this is, this is a community problem that's gonna take many steps to, address. And I I do not believe that we are, as I said before, we're segregating our unhoused brothers and sisters. It will, this will allow us to potentially bring our services, together and desist those
that are most in need in our community. This is a tremendous step and opportunity for the community, And, I'm looking forward to making it a reality. So so, thank you all so much for this. So with that being said, I will entertain a motion to, approve this. I move that we adopt the attached resolution authorizing the purchase of the property upon terms stated in the resolution. Second? Second. Sorry. Oh. Really good. Go ahead. Okay. Can we vote, please?
I vote yes. Yep. Motion passes, My computer just died, so I will verbally vote yes. Motion passes five to zero. Thank you all so much. Alright. Good job. Thanks everybody. Yeah. This thing. Yes. The next item, this is the second opportunity for community matters. Would anyone else like to speak that didn't speak the first time? Actually, you have, general business items. So the first one I'll take is just the, acknowledgement of the Bennett's Village, report to council. That's their, quarterly report, I believe it is, or their obligated report, that is in
your packet. And, I was able to go out there to take a look at the tree house and actually did a social media post, because they have me doing that now. Yes. But it was great to be able to do that and see what is available to kids with all abilities to have a chance to to play in our recreation space. It's lovely. It's amazing space there. Yeah. Glad we could work with parks and rec and make this a possibility. Yep. The next item is mine too. So I'll go ahead and get started on that one. The, legislative agenda discussion. First, I'll say that, acknowledge that David Blunt with TJPDC is here.
We are in this is part two of your consideration of legislative agenda items for your packet, to be, adopted on the twentieth, so that we can submit that to the local delegation identifying your priorities positions and just support for various, legislative considerations. Having recently had a meeting with Senator Dietz and delegate Carlson, the, legislative agenda legislative committee was able to hear directly from them on items of concern, what we are
facing, what the federal passed down to the state, to the passed down to the local government is gonna feel like. Kinda made us all feel sad about where we are and what's coming. But, ultimately, it was a great opportunity for us to make sure that we're partnering and identifying the things that we want to, highlight and put pressure on as it relates to the conversations that happen in Richmond. You have in your packet an updated presentation of sustainability recommendations from our office of sustainability, as well as an update to the recommendations from the Human Rights Commission.
Both of those, we asked them to go back and prioritize their list. They have done that, and that is what is available for you in the packet. We added the planning commission, agenda as presented because they were not able to reprioritize that list, but we feel confident that you have exactly how they feel about the items. And, ultimately, today's conversation was just meant to give you a chance to see if you had any concerns, any other things that you wanted to discuss so that we could begin to prepare the packet, to bring back to you on October 20 to
conclude your consideration. So, I think, so was the environmental was all that part of the It's in yeah. That's the sustainability package. Okay. Okay. Excellent. So what they did was and Emily's here if you wanna hear anything specifically. I'm setting you up now. Just to be sure if you wanna, give an update on anything. But they did, prioritize their policy positions. Okay. Hi, counsel. Good evening. Thank you for having me. I didn't sit through the whole meeting not to get to talk.
So, at the end of the last time that you all spoke about this, and I'm here today on behalf of Crystal who's out of town today, but so I'm representing our office. At the end of the last discussion that we had about the legislative packet, councilor Payne mentioned that we might consider putting forward budget requests or, items that don't have sponsorship by other, members of the general assembly that our own local representatives might be interested in sponsoring.
So if you look at the other priority positions that we put forward, the through line through them is really we're very concerned about energy affordability and the and clean energy for our community. And so, those two things together got us really thinking. And so we put forward this potential new request, for funding for the energy resource hub. And we have we, of course, realize it's gonna be a tough budget sis budget year coming up, for the state. But, the energy resource hub is really something that we're doing here locally that's really
helping, with energy affordability for our community. And it's been locally funded the last two fiscal years, to the tune of $100,000 from each jurisdiction, by the city and the county. And we feel like it's potentially a replicable model that could be used for other communities across the state and that per perhaps this, one of our state representatives would be interested in, putting this forward as a budget request, to fund the resource hub
for several years so we could add some, funding stability to that service to this community, to demonstrate the feasibility for that across the state. So that was our thinking. There's a little write up in your packet about it, and I just wanted to say that out loud, and I'm here to answer any questions that you guys might have. Yeah. So any any questions on this or, the planning commission items or or, you know, anything as part of the legislator?
Yeah. I was wondering, Lloyd, weren't you and, Natalie working on? I'm guessing I got that wrong. And Natalie and I are the legislative committee for counsel. Are y'all gonna continue to distill this, I suppose? Yeah. We well, we met with, delegate call center center deeds, and, one of the purposes in in meeting was just to kind of understand whether we were accurately reflecting the need on their part to for us to have fewer rather than more goals.
And they reemphasized the idea of, you know, don't give me a 10 page list of things. Give me a one page list of things perhaps. And one of the things that we need to need to talk about, and I think delegate Carlson was gonna try to to see whether, for example, there were any delegates from Northern Virginia who were planning on on bringing some of these housing related issues forward. If there are ways that we can can see that other people are addressing some of these issues, that that would be that would be helpful.
There's I think delegate Deeds said pardon, senator Deeds said that he's got a limit on the number of bills he can actually introduce. So he's not like on the other hand, we also know from past years that he has been extraordinarily helpful when budget time when the budget crunch gets down to it. Now this isn't the budget year, but they're always budget amendments. And so we'll have to see what, what, you know, what that leaves us. But my sense of things, was that Natalie and I, are gonna have to take
a look at all these things, and we will, in consultation, probably with the city attorney and various other folks, come to you in, I don't know, a month or so with more detailed, whatnot, more detailed, a a more thought out list of what we think the the real priorities ought to be for our for our delegate and our senator. The next meeting. Yeah. Next meeting. Yeah. We our conversation was, about the priorities, but also about the strategy. And so if we were asking for something, they they were giving us advice on
the specificity or this is the data we need to make that request more palatable. So we we talked strategy and specifics, and we'll probably maybe have another meeting, if we can get it on the calendar, before the twentieth. With them? No. Oh. With us. Well, yes. We can do that. Yeah. Yeah. To to get that list Well, and then just to and we shared with them the the conversation that you all had at the last meeting, and that was the the focus would be on the packet would be laid out as priorities, positions, and
then everything else. Mhmm. So that the first two pages of the document, they would see as the things to to work on and or pay close attention to and then check on the remaining items. And I did specifically ask about RGGI, and the senator Yeah. Said that that was a good thing to include, but also a likely there's a lot of general support for getting back into it. Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Michael, do you have any questions in that, you know, on any of the items that's part of the I would just say, I mean, I think the the LEAP
request, I think, is, seems like a very good kind of approach to the the things we should maybe, you know, be looking to ask for. And I do think a similar type of request for a centralized regional homeless facility or shelter would be a very good potential ask to make. In I mean, I think the general approach makes sense of trying to have one or two pages that are priorities. I definitely think there's more to pair down in the planning commission's request, but I
don't I don't have an answer for tonight of what I would or wouldn't, you know, kinda prioritize above some of their other things. So, I don't have any questions or comments. I I so this is the second, phase I mean, second, hearing. So we'll bring to you a packet, in your next meeting, and that will be presented to you as the draft, for your action item. And then we would turn it over to David, who would make sure that it
gets passed on to the delegation. Thank you, David, for being here. Yep. And I just wanna shout out in the past how helpful David has been, and I think he's been very responsible for us getting some big legislation passed. So just shout out for everything we do. Thank you. Indeed. Okay. Thank you all so much. Anything else on that, Sam? That's it. Okay. So this is our opportunity for, community matters if anyone would like to speak. Yes. I'd like to say two things.
One, I would like to, state my support for the residents of West Haven and Tenth And Page. And I also would, I support us or the city going forward with purchasing that property as a potential low barrier shelter. And I also wanted to reiterate that that would not mean that you guys should bring that ordinance back up from being tabled and that that will not be any more appropriate. Even if you bought everybody a house. That will never be appropriate, and that needs to never come back up.
Thank you. Anyone else like to Can you tell us your name, please? Oh, my name is Isis. Actually, guys, actually, I still have two of this. I also still have to say that the other day, so one of the unhoused people in the corner was ticketed for being on the corner. They didn't even have a bunch of stuff. I emailed all of you about it. The only one who responded was Lloyd to tell me that that didn't happen despite it being on camera. And the officer who did that said not what I said. Mhmm. I did not say it did not happen. I did not know. Okay. Well, what I'm saying is that officer cited city council as one of the reasons
that it happened along with the chief of police, and that it was orders from above for this crackdown to happen. And so I also wanted to point that out. Thank you. Thank you, miss Isis. Miss Bryant? Zayanna Bryant, Charlottesville resident. I actually wanna end with something positive. Thank you for your time and attention to the matter of the low barrier shelter. It's needed. Thank you, city manager Sanders. Thank you to the whole staff who's worked on it, and I hope that the
work continues. Have a great evening. Thank you, miss Martin. Any other would anyone else like to speak? If if not, can I get a motion to adjourn, please? So moved. Okay. Thank you. All in favor? Oh, second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. I was supposed to please note. Thank you so much. Alright. Take care. Alright. See you later.