--------- Sam, you. Good to go. Miss Kina, you. Ready. I'm ready. Not everyone has logged in to the it's making me a mess with my password, but I'm working on it. Yeah. Kinda getting out of here. I'm gonna try it on my computer. It might be easier. Okay. I think I know how to do it once it shows up. I was waiting for it. I'll call the, 09/02/2025 Charlottesville City Council meeting to order. Miss Thomas, will you please call the roll? Councilor Osherin? Present. Councilor Payne? Here.
Vice Mayor Pinkston? Here. Councilor Snook? Here. Mayor Wade? Here. Thank you. Is there a motion to, approve or amend the agenda? I move for approval of of the agenda. I'll second. We'll do a voice vote. Okay. Well, there I know there have been email discussions with Wayne or others. Do you have any desire to have, like, a special comment period? No. We're gonna not a special one, but we'll have the regular meeting at the beginning at the end. Okay. Yep. Did you have something further, Michael? No. I just know that Lloyd had emailed that suggestion.
I don't know if I hadn't I hadn't seen any response before it came, so I didn't know if it was Counselors, I I did send you a response just moments ago though, so it's okay if you did not see it. If you do want to add, a special comment period tonight, I would suggest maybe not calling it a public hearing because, well, we have not advertised it as such. But you can always amend your agenda. But if you're going to amend your agenda, Seems it mean that people will have plenty of chance to comment. I mean, either during the regular comments or at the end.
I we know that we've already had, 19 additional people saying they wanna talk on this topic. Yeah. And to to comment at the end of the meeting, of course, it it depends on whether we have an actual vote. If we don't have an actual vote tonight, the issue will continue for a while. So Yeah. I don't think we're planning to vote on it. Okay. Then that's fine. It's the first of two readings. Yeah. Okay. So it's been moving properly second for the discussion. All in favor, please we're gonna do a voice voice vote for now.
Please say yes. Yes. Yes. All opposed, please say no. Thank you. The the agenda has been approved. From this, our meeting will be divided into three, sections. The first one will be and to hear presentations that do not require a council vote, and then we will have a closed session, which I actually don't think we have any, anything in the closed session today. And then we'll come back at 06:30 for a regular council meeting. And today, we're gonna hear three reports. The first one is from the sister, city commission, mister Herring.
Good afternoon. Mayor Wade. Good afternoon. I'm here for council. Mister Sanders. Thank you for inviting me to come today. It's always a pleasure to come and talk about our sister city commission with you. We've had a very exciting year and looking forward to some other ones. Now just to remind you real quick, we have four sister cities. Baguio in Italy is our oldest. Our sister city since 1976. We have Blessing Song in France.
Sister Cities since 02/2006, which you would notice in fact that we'll be coming up upon the twentieth anniversary next year. What about in Ghana? Sister Cities since 02/2010 and of course Wewichinango, Guatemala, which has been a friendship city since 2021. We actually met with them and talked with them quite a bit before, but that was a time of the pandemic, which means the fact that we didn't become official or friends until 02/2021. Okay.
I do wanna mention the commissioners who are not here but we have a commissioner Allison Brown who works for the Charlottesville City School who basically is our education, k to twelve coordinator. Kimberly Hayes who is fairly new within a year or so, who has taken over the position as the representative to Winnibah. Estesah Herndon, who started this summer, is a commissioner at large. Myself, of course, commissioner at large.
A new commissioner, John Mason, who retired from the University of Virginia recently. Stella Matteoli, is a native of Posho and she represents Posho, on the commission. Salvador, Moshella is our representative for higher education and he works for Piedmont Virginia Community College. Benita Patterson is also new as an at large Christian Petros de Gersk business representative who's also a Spanish speaker and had spent time in the Peace Corps in Guatemala.
We have Elizabeth Smiley, who has been our secretary for a couple years and is also the representative to Bess and Son. Sherry Stewart has been on about a year now. She also works for Charlottesville City Schools as well as Piedmont and we do not have a youth coordinator. We're hoping that as school is getting started, in the last few weeks that we can find, perhaps a high school junior or even sophomore who will be able to
fill that position. And of course we have, Mike Cecilia Robinson, our staff liaison. We have, for the first time in quite a long time, we're almost complete. We did lose three people this year through the end of their terms came up. We chose not to renew. Now as I mentioned, the city we've had a relationship the longest is Poggio in Italy. And Poggio is a smaller city. It does not have a high school, but we have a mayor of the city who's very interested in coming here to meet us and learn about our city.
The last visit we had was in 02/2017. We had a delegation of about six seven people that coincided with the Virginia Film Festival, because couple people from POJO entered the film in the festival and we were able to have a screening sponsored by the sister city commission at that point in time. So that was 02/2017, but the new the newly elected mayor has, expressed his desire to come. We're still waiting for the time of and it would only be two people, and
so it'll be a quick visit to Charlottesville and back to Italy. We are looking forward also to Winneba. Now as you know, we have also in the city of Charlottesville, the Charlottesville Winneba Foundation or Association, which has been active in parallel with the city commission to, mostly to take, citizens of Charlottesville to Winniver. And I know that Mayor Wade went and Mayor, Councilor Stook went to Winnebuhr.
And they were we have probably historically a very, very close relationship with Winnebuhr. Ghana played a significant role over two hundred years ago in the North American slave trade. And and therefore, it sort of cemented itself in the history of Virginia. Sir, were there slides you were wanting to progress? Well, they could, but, I have them in front of me. I don't know if you want the clicker or Well, you know, I'm quite halfway through.
That's fine. Yes. Okay. We like we like folks that are ahead of schedule. Yeah. Kimberly Hayes, as I mentioned, is the representative from the commission to whatever, and she's begun to work closely with the prior representative along with Dave Norris, who helps run the foundation as well as work, she's made contact with officials in the city of Whatever. And we're we're looking forward to having events. We will be establishing some of our our own events, not necessarily the events through the foundation, but events directed from the commission with Gwenova.
Okay. I do wanna mention the fact that Bessa's song was very interesting this past year. Mayor Wade went to Bessessong on September 8. September 8 was a commemoration of the eightieth anniversary of the American troops liberating Bessessong. As you can imagine, that whole year, because from the time we had D Day, it took quite a few months, probably between D Day and the time we liberated last, location in France was about a six month period. So best start happened in September. They have a square called September 8, and they were very proud.
And they invited me a way to come and take part in the celebrations. And from everything I hear, it was very successful. It was a little bit overwhelming sometime when you think about that, but it shows us that we have a history that goes back well even before we became, Sister Siddiqui. There's also a little bit of a history because of some of the connections to Thomas Jefferson also came for the Bessessard area and some of his inspirations for architecture. Now the next one is of course out city of Hueyue Chirango.
October 10, we have a delegation of 11 people headed by to go to Hueyue Chienango in Guatemala. We're looking forward to that. We're gonna spend a day in the capital city. We're gonna do some other touristy things and then we're gonna go for three days of receptions and dinners and weekends with the, mayor and his staff for where we can angle. I do wanna mention the fact that not every city has a commission as we do. Many, many cities have just an office, of international relations or the mayor themselves handle
it. And in the case of way with an angle that mayor Mercado is heavily involved in the sister city relationship. But we're looking forward to that. We are going to do, just so you know, in case you wanna come, we're gonna do a middle of the night flight. Leave here at 2AM, rather at 6AM and be ready to run. It's gonna go to but so there's still one more seat left. If so, and the last moment I wanted to come aboard, you just give me a yell. Did you say be ready to run? Be ready. Yeah. Well, be ready to walk.
Be ready to walk. Perhaps I I don't do a lot of running anymore. So now this past year, we also did several, we participated in several activities. The Tom Tom Festival, we sponsored a program out at the Lewis and Clark, Exploratory Center. It was quite successful. We had over 110 people come, participate in a mapping plan to basically, freehand drug maps of where our sister cities were.
And a lot of people participated. It was a lot of fun. We participated in Jefferson Founders Day. We were asked for a second year in a row to participate in a wreath laying ceremony and we we did that also. Now as part of that they have what they call a partner's tent. So we were able to have a table in the partner's tent where we could basically meet people from Shoresfield. And we had a chance to give out our cards, give our paraphernalia to about 80 people. We also did the same thing during the Montecito naturalization, event.
We had it on the table out there and we were able to meet a lot of people, promote the things we're working on, give out information and solicit people who might want to help. And so it was very very successful. One other thing that we did this past year for the first time, we had a table at the X Farmers Market which was very successful. We did it on one Saturday earlier in the year and we'll be doing it again later this month, on a Saturday morning for four hours. And I encourage anyone to come by, just a chance to talk, say hi and
give a chance for the citizens of Charlottesville to see the commissioners and even city council. I think that the big thing coming up is going to be planning probably for the twenty twenty six celebration in Bessessong. Elizabeth Smiley, who's a representative of Bessessong, has begun planning together with the Office of International affairs for us to pick a delegation in September one year from now to Bessesson. We've been invited by the mayor and we're looking forward to celebrating twenty years because
you can imagine Besser Saarin has several high school with whom we work and the future of the sister city, the future of everything we do is with the young people. So we do a lot of work through Charlottesville High School working with business on. I did forget to mention something that we worked on for about a year. Back in April, 30 students from Charlottesville High School for the theater department went to Bessesson and performed two performances in a public theater of A Chorus Line.
It was well received and the the audience there was about three or 400 people in each performance and they were very excited. And, so we're looking to do something like that again. And as I mentioned also, the other thing that happened with Best of Honor is that we had a choir of four one people, a gospel choir come this summer. And they were able to have formed together with, the, Mount Zion First African Baptist
Church, as well as with University Baptist Church. There were several performances. The last performance at Mount Zion was packed. They have an overflow room, which we have packed full of people. I say that's probably the first time since I've been on a commission that we were able to reach so many people and or receive so much feedback and so many questions around what we do. I think with our chance to show the citizens of Charlottesville the value of the of the international relationships we have and we want to continue that up.
So we have plans for the year to try to continue to bring it to our people. One last thing was that we made a slight modification in our grants program. Historically, we have given our grants to people to do projects and or travel, but those wind up being more of sort of footing the bill for someone to go walk around Bessie Saan, walk around a different city for a few days. And they didn't bring anything back. So we're trying to shift the focus on grants programs to grants which bring something
to the city of Charlottesville. And we have one outstanding grant where a teacher here from Ghana is going to basically work on developing a children's book for presenting Winneba to our children in the schools in Charlottesville. And I think that's gonna be a type of program that we can bring a lot of information back to everyone else instead of once again providing sort of a travel jacket for one or two, three people. I think basically I've covered everything I can think of.
I don't wanna take any more of your time. It's always a pleasure to come come here. Are there any questions? Any questions? It's a great it's a great quote, man. Well, not a question, but a a comment. You mentioned the upcoming delegation to Weiwei Tenerango. Yes. I think we've talked about this a little bit before, but I am curious if there's any way to talk about the history of The United States in Guatemala, given that The United States backed a coup in 1954. There was a genocide of the Mayan population in the eighties backed by the US
government. Over a 160,000 Mayans were killed. Huehuetenango is 80% Mayan, indigenous Mayan. I just don't know how we can address that. One of the things that we are going to do because when I was there two years ago, I participated in several ceremonies. They have had a tragic history, not just with the CIA, but also with dictatorships. And so when we look back at the history of the last thirty years which quite frankly is fairly recent, one of the things we're looking at doing and we'll be talking about with the commission is developing sort of a documentary about each of
our sister cities and in a documentary that we want to present to our citizens in Charlottesville, we can touch upon those subjects about the history and the American history going on in Guatemala. I think it's important for people to understand, what is our connection with them? Why do we have a relationship with Guatemala, wayward Genango? And we can't do that without talking about the real history. And I think that's one of the things that we hope to focus on.
I've been asking each of the city representatives to look at how can you present that city's story so that the people in Charlottesville would not be more familiar. At the same time, we're looking at how to present our story to our sister cities, our story in French, our story in Spanish, and more other languages. So, yes, I think this could be a valuable exchange of information. It will give us a chance to understand more about each other. And of course, I still have one seat left for you to come. It's true. It's true.
Thank you so much. If people if people did want to join, how would they go about doing that? Send me a note, email. I will send you a link. And, Well, just for the if anyone's listening now. The thing about it is okay. My email address is, harrynee@charleshill.gov. Anyone who were to send me, an email and a special interest, I'll make sure you've got the information and a link to sign up. You know, as to say, there's always room for one more. Yeah. So so, yes, definitely contact me.
If you look at the city's website and click on the boards and commissions, the city commission, you'll see a direct link, to our website. And from there, you can send an email, and I will respond. Great. I encourage anyone who wants to go, we'll make room for you. We'll get rid of the spare time van. Yes. Thank you ever so much, everyone, and have a good evening. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you for your work on it. The next presentation will be from the Blue Ridge Juvenile Detention Center.
I'm gonna wanna use the clicker. Sorry. Hi, everyone. I'm Jay Bowling, the director of Blue Ridge Juvenile Detention. Hello? Thank you for allowing me to come present to you about and tell you a little bit about Blue Ridge juvenile detention. I'll kick it off with the mission statement. It is the mission of Blue Ridge juvenile detention to provide residents with a safe, clean, secure environment through a structured program. This includes assessment of residents through a, needs residents needs through integration of academic mental health, medical programs, and security practices. It means mission Blue Ridge juvenile detention will encourage and foster interagency collaboration and support
of transitioning residents to the community. A little bit about the facility. Our facility is located off Avon behind the, jail in the Armory. It's got the teal roof. You can see it from the interstate, but not not a lot a lot of people know that we're there. We opened in 02/2002. We have a 40 bed capacity, and, we have we are a commission based, facility governed by Almora, Charlottesville, Culpeper, Fluvanna, and Green. Our, Almora serves as our fiscal agent. We serve males and females from age 10 to 21.
We our education programs and key highlights, we have extended, instruction time. Students receive six hours of instruction daily exceeding your the five and a half hour legal requirement. Many believe that once a a youth gets incarcerated, they, school stops that couldn't be further from the truth. The moment they come in our backdoor, our principal, picks right up where they left off, contacting their, their base school and seeing what we can do to, keep them on track and moving forward while they're with us.
We have year round education. Students attend school for eleven months instead of ten, helping to close educational gaps more quickly. We have a very high graduation rate, particularly strong outcomes for our, DJJ, CPP residents, both which I'll elaborate on here shortly. They can earn any diploma approved by the state of Virginia and it's a comparable education. Our curriculum aligned with Dakota, Virginia and offers a comparable experience to students, home schools. We also offer career and technical, certifications. In addition to the, diplomas, they can earn industry, recognized certifications.
We have we're in the the school is made up of seven Albemarle County Public school teachers, one principal, one special education teacher, and and one newly hired transition specialist. Are you question about that? Are these teachers who rotate in and out or No. They're they're full time dedicated to Blue Ridge juvenile detention. Thank you. The reason for our successful, graduation rate is it's, our our, environment is a supporting learning environment. Many students thrive there. You know, small class sizes, at any given time, a class could be from three
to six students. So they get a lot of individualized attention, which is what a lot of our youth who end up in Leward Schuenal attention need, especially for those who struggled in traditional settings. We have postgraduate programming. Postgrads are still required to attend school and take college classes, earn certifications, or engage in vocational training. Just because you graduated high school, got your GED, we're not we're not gonna lie. You just sit on the unit and watch TV all day. We offer, a lot of a lot of classes and and certifications, to keep keep,
education rolling. Literacy challenges addressed over ninety percent of our students read two to three grade levels below their current grade level instruction is tailored to meet their needs. Minimal we minimal use of online learning. We prioritize in person instruction because we have the staff and, it the outcome seems seems, to be greater, when we, have in person instruction rather than just sitting in front of a computer and saying do this do this assessment. And we try it it also helps with security concerns because, the the youth these
days, they know how to decode, hack this, hack that, get around all these firewalls. So, if we do use computers, it's very highly, highly monitored. Comprehensive testing services, we provide SOL, GED, work case, special education testing along with all assessments required by the Department of Education. Like I said before, we had just hired a new transition specialist. This helps support students who have been with us from whether they were here with with us for a day or two years just to ease that transition back to their base school.
So they're they're they can pick up where they left off. Great example of, how amazing our education staff is. We had a girl who struggled in school. She was in and out of Blue Ridge, but she had been doing well for a while except for education. So the judge ordered her to come to Blue Ridge from 8AM to 03:30PM and then return home at 03:30PM, until she got her GED or till she got her high school diploma. And that proved the, server extremely well because of the one on one, individual individualized
attention, our students get. Mental health services. BRJD provides comprehensive mental health services through a dedicated team of professionals. We have a full time BRJD clinician. He serves as the primary therapist, for our, our state run programs. He conducts assessments for residents experiencing crisis and also leads our BRGED garden program. We have a full greenhouse. We have 10 raised beds, two greenhouses, a pergola, and a and a pond. He takes the the kids out there, because you can really get a kid oh,
I can call him a kid, the youth, to open up when they start getting their hands dirty. We can have a a closed off kid. He won't say a word, but once they start digging in that dirt and and and, doing something they really love, they start talking and, we're able to get to the root cause of some some of their mental health issues. We also have a region ten mental health case manager, who's permanently stationed at Blue Ridge, to act as additional mental health support. She acts as the primary therapist for our post dispositional program, offers case management mental
health services to predispositional residents. I'll go over the predispositional and post dispositional here in a second. She conducts additional mental health screenings for new intakes. Every youth who comes in our backdoor goes through a a list of of of screenings, mainly for their safety, anywhere from mental health screenings to, physical health screenings. We we don't wanna put a resident in general population if he's he's got the flu or COVID. So we we do a lot of those questionnaires, whether they are experiencing a mental
health crisis, whether they, have thought about hurting themselves. We wanna, get a baseline for them the moment they walk in in that back door, just just to prevent anything from happening in in, once once they get the general population. This includes, asking them if they have any enemies, anybody they shouldn't be around because the last thing we wanna do is put them next to, Johnny, and Johnny stands up and starts fighting him. So we we like to we like to make sure we we get ahead of that, and it it, it's it's proven to be a pretty good system.
We also have a psychiatrist that visits the facility weekly to provide medication management services. Medical services. We have a forty hour a week, licensed, practical nurse on staff to address any medical issues that arise, while the residents are with us. She conducts a more thorough medical intake and physical physical examination upon arrival, and she addresses minor medical needs on-site as required. We have specialty medical care. So sorry. Cases that require specialist attention such as dental work, physical therapy, medical medically necessary services
are managed via transport to external, specialist facilities. Anything above and beyond their capacity, just go ahead and take them to UVA. Advanced clinical oversight, we have a part time family nurse practitioner who works full time at the jail, so they're they're always just right across the street if we need them. And they conduct comprehensive physical assessments if needed and address medical issues beyond the scope of our LPN, nurse. Our all of our staff are med tech certified, so they go through training, just so they can, respond to emergencies in, if if if one were to occur when
our nurse is not there. And they're all able to, administer medications for MedTech certified. Alright. You heard me earlier speak about predispositional and post dispositional. Predispositional is, considered when a resident, comes in the back door and he's awaiting court. That's that's a that's predispositional. Post dispositional is after they've, gone in front of the judge, they've been adjudicated, and the judge places them in either, one of our programs or sends them to a
residential treatment, facility or to the to the Department of Juvenile Justice. We are not under the Department of Juvenile Justice. The Department of Juvenile Justice is is a separate entity. We are we're a a juvenile detention center. So if you if you, you can think of, the DJJ, which is a juvenile correctional facility. You can consider that like adult prison. A juvenile detention center is more like a a a jail. There's 24 of those, across Virginia, and there's only one juvenile correctional facility, and that's in in, in Bon Air, Virginia.
So it's it's up to the judge what program, or place that the that the youth ends up, if not released or diversion. So one of the many programs we have is called the post dispositional program. It's for local residents only, and it's a it's a structured alternative to juvenile commitment. So I think we're getting the there's the next one. Sorry. Instead of the youth going to the big juvenile correctional facility in in Bonaire, they can take part in a six month a a three to six month program with
us, and have their commitment rescinded, upon successful completion of that program. In that program, it's tailored based on the need and may include the following conflict resolution, criminal criminal and addictive thinking, problem solving life skills, anger control, victim empathy, character education, game prevention. In addition to the chief therapist, we have we also have four case managers that all that that facilitate aggression management, substance abuse, really whatever the resident, needs at the
time. We also have therapeutic support, provided by our our our conditions. We like to bring the family as much as possible because in essence, that's what they're returning, once they leave. So we provide individual and family counseling services and, numerous groups, led by facility staff and external community providers. The Department of Juvenile Justice program that we currently have is called the community placement program. In 2,014, there was a transformation done by Department of Juvenile Justice where they shut
down six of their juvenile correctional facilities. That left a pretty significant need for bed space, and that's when Blue Ridge, juvenile detention along with numerous other juvenile detention centers who were underutilized picked up the community placement program. So instead of residents going, 200 miles to a juvenile correctional facility, they can stay local, which is which is always good, because that's where they're going back to. That's where their communities can be, service providers are, their family, and it makes visitation
easier. It makes court easier. That's we we've had that program since 02/2014. And that's only for residents who have been committed to DJJ. DJJ. It's actually age 13 to 20, not 16 to 20, and we focus on the areas listed there. We we, foster a positive peer culture through cognitive social learning community model. I am a brother's keeper, emphasizing peer support as the primary agent in behavioral change, individual counseling, group counseling, dialectical behavior therapy, substance abuse, aggression management, and so on.
Any questions about the transformation? I know there's a lot of history in two two seconds. Alright. The next, program we offer is the CAP program. One of the juvenile correctional facilities that were closed was closed down was the reception and diagnostic center, where residents were sent once the judge committed them to DJJ. That closed so that also left the need for, someone to fill the fill those shoes. So Blue Ridge along with numerous other juvenile detention centers says we'll we'll do the assessments. So instead of going to the center in Richmond, they can stay local and close
to a home. And this is where it's a twenty one to thirty day period where it gets, psychological evaluation, full physical, educational, vocational assessments. It's it's a month long month long assessment on to find out what the resident really needs, what we need to focus on so we're not providing services to a resident who doesn't need it or providing too much services to a resident, who doesn't need that much. And, and each each resident has a probation officer who stays with them from beginning
to, their release and and, release from incarceration and after, the probationary period. Alright. Community partners supporting youth at BRJD. We are we have numerous, active an active volunteer roster of community members who offer educational therapeutic and career focused programs. It just seems like after COVID, everybody was just itching to get out there and, help help, the community, and we we felt that we we have a long list
of, a great, great volunteers, to help us out and provide services. Here's a list of a few of them, healthy relationships and reproductive health, job skills and work readiness provided by UVA pipelines and pathways program. We have a entrepreneurship series, home to hope in Central Virginia small business development, and, transformative futures, which is, led by legal aid justice center, deep justice program, the Uhuru Foundation, no left turns, not me and I believe, and a guest speaker series, organized
by the second chance of program. We recently had a large family day, the first one since the end of COVID. And we have really opened our doors to the community as well as, the the family members before COVID. Sunday was really the only time you could visit your your, child when you were there. We've had to think outside of the box because of COVID, and, we we are able to, we're able to allow residents to see their families all throughout the week. And we we've maintained that that, that that that process.
We had over a 100 people, show up from community members, family members, staff. It was just a a a a great, great, opportunity for, all those who will be providing services to our residents to all come to one place and really, really, think think outside the box. And we plan on having many more. It was July, so it was really, really hot. It was in indoor and outdoor. Most most people stayed indoor. Here's a a brief list of some of the, community partners that we recently or
or that we've been, doing business with. Probably recognize someone there. Couple of demographics, admissions, broken down by each fiscal year. The number on the right under admissions is Charlottesville only. Any questions? The the average length of stay has gone up pretty significantly since pre pandemic. Is there anything driving that trend? I think the the DJJ transformation, complete overhaul of their length of stay guidelines.
So it really it really depends on the current director of of the Department of Juvenile Justice, which which changes every four years. And, the the the current director is is, instituted a lot of minimum sentences. So, those residents who might have stayed, lesser time before now staying longer, Lower status crimes are now are now rendering longer length of stays.
That's proven not to be the best for the the individuals, especially when they when they go to the juvenile correctional facility away from their family. So it looks like it's taking a turn back to back to, looking at alternative ways to provide services to juveniles, outside of incarceration. So, hopefully, we'll see that number go down, which looks like we did in '25. Thank you. That's definitely helpful. The only thing just to comment, I mean, it stuck out to, you know, over ninety percent of Yeah. You know, people there are three Yeah. You know, grade levels behind in reading.
In our disproportionate minority contact report, one of the big findings there as well was that the achievement gap in, you know, literacy starting, you know, pre k through third grade is such a huge part of determining just by third grade, it starts to compound. Yeah. There's just all these life consequences and just the importance of focusing on that within our schools. It just stuck out to me that, again, we see that that is such a huge cause of people ending up in the criminal justice system.
Yeah. And, it's it's it's great that they they get such individualized tension while they're with us. It just stinks that they have to do what they did to get that individualized, services. So, yeah. I'm pretty proud of our educational program. How long have you been there? I got there in 02/2014. I was I was a, case manager at Culpeper Juvenile Correctional Facility. During the during the closure, I got laid off and, accepted the job at the Vanna Correctional Facility.
But before I I started there, the superintendent at Blue Ridge called me and offered me the job to, head the the, community placement program. I've been there since 2014 as the CPP case manager, deputy director, and the director now for four years. Well, thank you for your service. Yeah. So I'm just curious. A couple of times during your presentation, you used the term that came in through the back door. Is that just a term that's Yeah. What we what we do is, after, a youth has done their time, we always
tell them, hey, come back and see us. But through the front door, it's the front lobby. So that's that's a term that we we Yeah. Yeah. Come back and see us in into the front door and tell us how well you're doing, not through the back door, which is usually in a spot car. Yeah. Yeah. What are the general that kinda segues into my question, which is what happens to the folks who graduate and get out? Do you have any data on prognosis or, like, the the There were degrees of success or recidivism. Right? It that's a really hard number to knock down.
It's there's a lot of disagreement on what actually is recidivism. We have, some people consider a success when a youth gets released and never comes back. But if a youth comes to us and they were they came to us originally for breaking into someone's house and and and stealing a bunch of stuff and they come back for smoking marijuana, that that could be considered a success story because their latest crime is a lot less significant and, not towards a a person than than
their original crimes. That that that could be considered success. But in the system, it still says they got locked back up, and and goes against the recidivism rate. So there aren't really any good concrete numbers out there. We do have some frequent flyers, and a a lot of that has to do with where they go once they leave us. We we try to send, a lot of our youth to independent living programs because we can do all this work while they're while they're with us, but we send them right back into the neighborhood where their buddies are trying to get them to
do this or, they don't have a stable home. Then it it's almost setting them up for failure. So their their youth independent living homes, and apartment complexes all over Virginia, and those have proven to be the most successful, way for return to the community. Alright. Thank you. Lloyd, did you I have a question. I'm frankly been trying to figure out how exactly to formulate it. We have often heard, as we have heard presentations about the problems of shootings and
violence in the community and so on, that there is a significant and discreet population of basically teenage boys who are, you know, perhaps responding to to different things from what the adults are responding to when they commit shootings and so on. Is there any sort of broad theme or themes that you can tell us about among the the people whom, in particular, the anybody who's come in for a crime of violence or a shooting?
I would say I'll go back to what I was I was, saying earlier about sending him right back to the neighborhood they came from, sending right back, in in the same with the same youth that that, they were with when they, committed those acts. A lot of them are we see a lot of younger brothers following their older brothers. It's it's it's I think what would really help is if the moment they step out of our backdoor, someone's picking that up.
Probation does a great job at getting services in line, but I think there needs to be one more step in between that because, if you if you just, put them right back where they they committed their initial initial infraction to get them locked up, the the odds of them doing that again are very high. So, like, again, getting them into a different scenery has been the best the best, proven outcomes. I know that's not always, an option. So, just it's it's really up to having services ready and and waiting for them
once they're released. Is there any form of service that has been found to be successful elsewhere that you're sort of issuing for a chance to try out around here? We just we just started, a program dialectal behavioral therapy, which Yeah. It's not that reference. I was gonna ask you. Yeah. And it Yeah. It's it's about mindfulness and really understanding, what was going through your mind when when you did what you did. It's it's, a cognitive behavioral therapy, arm off of off of, that that modality, and
that that really helps them to, internalize and identify, what they felt in that moment. It might have been peer pressure. It might have been anger. It might have might have been, sadness. But, and at the facility, they have the opportunity to to practice those scenarios and and, develop skills to, hopefully make them hopefully allow them to make a a different choice than what they did in the moment to get them to the roof.
So GBT is is, is is is where it's at. Okay. Thank you. Was that your last slide? Mhmm. Any other questions? Thank you so much, sir. Appreciate it. Thank you. Our final presentation today is historic resource committee, and it will be Julie and Jeff. Jeff. Jeff's show. Alright. Hello. Hello, Julie. Some of you do various other things in the city? Yes. Okay. Is it going to come up on its own? No. Yeah. Excuse me. Was this presentation emailed to me?
I'm looking at my email. I don't see it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I can't see anybody's back. Sorry. I have it on a thumb drive. Yes. Immediately. Do you need it? It's in the, it's in the, Packet? Packet. Yeah. So no. The thing I sent you the other day is, of course, later see disembodied. So if we go to page 26 of the packet, we will see the presentation. Correct. Right. It'll just mean him Currently sharing it from the packet. I just didn't know if there is whatever else. Okay. So we're doing this, from the packet. Awesome. If you just say next slide, he'll be able to move it forward.
Thank you. Can everyone hear me okay? Yes. Alright. My name is Julie Basic. I am a landscape architect by profession, but I am the chair of the Historic Resources Committee in Charlottesville. We are a city council appointed committee, 12 members maximum. We have currently have 11 of 12 seats filled, one of which by mister Snook is our city council representative. We have some folks here today as well to support, from the committee to support us. I'm just gonna go quickly through a few slides to talk about who we are and what we've done and where we're heading.
On this first slide, you can see that we, our mission is to advocate, promote, encourage, and coordinate, historic resources, cultural landscape preservation, historic preservation, those kinds of things. We advocate for historic preservation. We promote an appreciation of local historic resources. And we encourage and coordinate, with other agencies, civic organizations, institutions. We have a lot of, intercommunity ties that we work with, to, to help these
goals come to fruition. Next slide. And a little bit of background for those of you who may not be that familiar with the Historic Resources Committee. We've actually been around in some form or another for, nineteen years, nineteen, twenty years. But, historic preservation has been around in the city formally for over sixty years, sixty six years of historic preservation starting in 1959 with the Architectural Design Control Ordinance that
also created your Board of Architectural Review that's still around today. So I won't go through the entire timeline, but you can see that this city has a long standard of preserving historic resources and this is where you are today, why you have such a beautiful vibrant city, with a mix of uses, a mix of culture, identity, and a diverse presentation to the community and visitors. Next slide. And when we're talking about, codification and planning and code precedent that we saw on
the previous slide, eight of the the 11 goals in chapter four of the comprehensive plan discuss the importance of historic preservation to the city. And these goals talk about directives to protect historic resources and the city's unique identity. So the vision statement in chapter four, it recognizes the importance of historic preservation and the efforts to celebrate the city's unique cultural and historical identity. You can see that in your own comp plan, there is a lot of precedent
and, directive to make sure historic resources are taken care of. Next slide. So the importance of the Historic Resources Committee, is many fold. We are a citizen led group appointed by city council to share insight, input, and concerns regarding historic resources. We're also a very diverse group, with individual expertise, unique experiences, and careers in a variety of qualifications. And we all work as one unit of a committee to make sure that we
are looking at things from diverse viewpoints. We are understanding from our professional experiences, whether they be cultural resource related or something that's completely different. It could be just a community citizen who's sitting on our our committee, or it could be someone who is qualified department I'm sorry, by the Department of Interior, to be doing professional preservation work. We serve as a sounding board for preservation staff, Jeff and Kate. They ask us questions. They ask for our inputs.
We help guide some of their choices as they, from the professional staff point of view. We assist them with their projects and tasks. If they need, help with anything, preservation related, they can ask us. And if we have the ability to volunteer, we will, because we are all volunteers who choose to be on this committee. We assist other city departments with their historic resources concerns. One of the biggest things that we're working on, right now, we do, flyers for the historic preservation walks I'm sorry, for the community bike head advisory committee walks that
happen once a month, Tommy Safranick. So we make a flyer that helps, Tommy talk about, historic resources along the walk. We are available to receive public comments and about preservation issues. We have an HRC email that, people can reach out to us and ask questions directly if they can't reach, Jeff or Kate, or it's just not something that the preservation staff needs to work on. Julie, just just quickly. I'm sorry. The information that y'all provide for the walks Mhmm.
I did several months ago, the one in Rose Hill. And it's it's a lot of interesting tidbits that y'all that you can gather up, and it was very interesting to find out some of the stuff. Good. You know? And I know that just one community is, it's a lot there. So thank you. We're on number nine now. So we we work as a committee. We I do the flyers, and the rest of the committee, they volunteer one per month to give me notes and tidbits and historical resources, and I compile them into
a flyer. So that's how how it works. And it's, Jefferson Park Avenue is this Sunday? The fourteenth. The fourteenth. Definitely. From one to three meeting at Endeavor Cycles. Yay. Yeah. Yeah. Because I know this ocean has been with us, like, once or twice on some of the walks. Yeah. A lot of them. So we also one of our, main goals that we really appreciate doing is informing and educating the community about the city's history. I think that's something that we all take pride in. It's not only receiving the information and, working with with Jeff and Kate, but also
being a resource for people to reach out to, with those flyers and other things that were I'll show you in the in the next couple of slides, some projects that we are gonna work on in the future and are working on now. So on behalf of the city, we, collaborate with other historical minded organizations such as the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society, and the Ivy Creek Foundation. We work with them to make sure that we understand what they need, that we're not reinventing the wheel in terms of preservation resources, and, just to make sure that
we're telling the full story of what's happened in our region. So our existence signals the city's commitment to preserving historic resources that make the community unique and tell the full story of Charlottesville's evolution and help drive tourism and economic development. So that's one of the, one of the reasons that we are an important organization. Historic Resources Committee has achieved, I limited it to the last five years because as you saw, there's over sixty years of, preservation work here and, about twenty years of historic preservation committee or historic resources committee.
So 2021, we supported work at the Daughters of Zion Cemetery, helped comment on honorary street names for their appropriateness and, endorsed historic designations in Charlottesville. And we support the work of the memory project led by HRC current HRC member, Jolene Schmidt. The next year, we had some issues with COVID. So we there weren't as many, highlights that year, but one of them was, funded the Burley High School plaques.
And, the next year after that, cosponsored the Anne Bailey lecture, about the weeping time, and researched updates for the downtown walking tour map. And that that initiated a a long, a long period of time where we were going through the text, going through pictures, making sure that the walking tour map really represented what we wanted to say. 2324 contributed funding for the Swan Tavern artifact analysis that was done through city county collaboration.
Ben Ford of Ravenna Archaeology worked on that. Contributed money for GPR examinations of the McKee block, and contributed funding for research of enslaved individuals at Penn Park. And just recently funded Court Square and Carver Inn markers that you probably saw or on the news or you may have attended those unveilings of those markers. And that kind of work is is really important because as our city grows and changes and evolves, whether it's increased density or demolition or whatever changes happen, if something
comes down, we wanna make sure that the city is able to tell the story of what was there, even if it's just a marker at this point. So we we do a lot of marker work. Release oh, yes. Quick question about that. When you say funded, is that does the city give money to HRC to do those kinds of projects, or is it fundraising? It is funded, through the city allotment to the historic resources community. Okay. So we have a budget. Got it. Okay. Mhmm. Thanks. We upgraded the Johnson Elementary marker because it was very small and somewhat illegible, about the Charlottesville twelve and the integration of, Johnson Elementary back in '19 I guess it's
Tall Oaks Elementary now, back in 1961, and got a much nicer, larger monument. And at some point, the city was kind enough to put a sidewalk right in front of it. So now you don't have to walk into the grass to read the markers. So thank you very much. And co sponsored the lecture, entitled The Past and Future of Court Square. And that was the findings of the Swan Tavern Artifact Analysis, which was fascinating. If you didn't have a chance to make it, it's on YouTube. You can find it through the Albemarle County Historical Society's YouTube page.
And they I think they had 38,000 artifacts they found there. It was quite impressive and a very important thing, to make sure we understand the the past and present of what happened at that site. Next slide. And while we're talking about past, projects, the Blue Ribbon Commission, on Race, Memorials, and Public Spaces took place in, 2016. It was a group of individuals, citizens, staff, and anyone else? Who's who Charles?
Who's who Charlesville, asked to comment and develop recommendations on race memorials in public spaces. So that came out in 2016, and it was it was accepted by city council, I believe, in the same year. And so of those items that were recommended, Historic Resources Committee, helped install a proper visible historic marker to replace the current illegible marker, state historical marker at Court Square, installed an updated plaque at the Daughters of Zion Cemetery, placed interpreter banners about the
former community of the Vinegar Hill community on the Code Building, highlighted and linked historic places that contributed funding for the tenth and page neighborhood survey, We advised city council on proposed honorary street names, funded and installed state historical marker at the Carver Inn site, and we developed the walking tour map and, hosted the Anne Bailey lecture. So all those items were in the 2016 Blue Ribbon Commission, document, and the HRC
is very proud of of making a lot of those things happen, those recommendations. It wasn't just sitting on the shelf somewhere. The next slide. Some of our current projects. The big thing we have going on right now is we have a group, a subcommittee of the Historic Resources Committee working on the fiftieth anniversary of the Downtown Mall, which is next year, 07/03/2026. So in 07/03/1976, the mall was officially opened with a ribbon cutting ceremony. So we are collaborating with a number of organizations throughout Charlottesville, mainly the Friends of
Seville, who has a pretty robust program in place to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary. So this project is gonna be, not an oral history necessary, but collecting of people's memories and feelings and thoughts about the fiftieth or about the about the Downtown Mall and taking those, pieces, tidbits, and making an exhibition out of them. A scrolling exhibition. There's still a lot of details to be worked out, but we're gonna collect that data about people, who lived on the Downtown Mall or near the mall, visitors, tourists,
people who work there. We're trying to get as much of a diverse population, of feedback as possible to make sure we have this exhibition that can talk about. Well, fifty years ago we started this, and here we are now. So what how did people feel about it? How is it today? And what's the future of the Downtown Mall? We are working on another project, a City Schools collaboration to promote the city as a classroom. One of our members, Denny Berry, is working with the city the Charlottesville City Schools to use some of the Swan Tavern artifacts to develop a social studies program in
the city elementary schools. So the school teachers can actually have pieces of Charlottesville history in their hands to talk about, the the history of Charlottesville with students. I've talked about the, bike ped neighborhood walk historical flyers that we do once a month in collaboration with Tommy Safranek. We have There's the JPA Oh, good. One and the walkable lounge. Okay. Is that the one I sent today? The one cake. Okay. Alright. Thanks, Matt. I just sent a new flyer.
There were a couple of errors on the last one. So, but that's the the general layout of the the flyer. We just wanna make sure that as you're walking through the neighborhood, you understand what you're walking through. So I think it's a good collaboration between pedestrian resources and historic resources. And then the walking tour map is also going around, I believe that is the second print of that. First printing. First printing, but we're getting ready for the second printing of that downtown walking tour map. And we're also working on supporting historic designations.
The Hammond House in the Greenbrier neighborhood just got a, National Register nomination approved. We are gonna continue working with other agencies such as ACHS on, cosponsoring speakers. And I believe coming up, preservation staff has some design, guidelines and documents that they will run by, historic resource recourses committee for just some general input and feedback. Next slide. So moving forward, what do we need to keep up the good work that we
are all doing here for the last sixty some years? Historic Resources Committee needs council and, staff support and buy in for our projects. We think they're very important, and we hope you do too. We need preservation our support and buy in for preservation staff efforts and what they're doing because we are linked. What they do, we help with. What we do, they help with. And continued inclusion in city led documents such as the comprehensive plan, visioning, small area plans, goals, and objectives. We cultural resources and historic preservation when those things come up, because we feel that
in addition to affordable housing and bicycle and pedestrian, actions, that historic preservation is a key thing that helps define the city, both just the way it looks, but the way it functions, who comes here, who wants to live here. If we're talking about a vibrant, beautiful place to live, Charlottesville, one of the key things that people come here for is the appearance. And I think that all those things can work together. It doesn't have to be one over the other, but I think it could be a collaborative effort about all the efforts that you're making across the board.
Continued funding for historic resources committee and preservation initiatives, and clear direction and specific requests. If you have any kind of, historic preservation question or, how does this work with what we're doing over here, any kind of directive that you want, if you just email us with a question, either directly through HRC at charlesville dot gov or through Jeff or Kate. We're happy to respond and, collaborate with you all.
So I will leave you with, this quote from your 1993 historic preservation plan that safeguarding the heritage of the city promotes pleasure, education, and sense of well-being among its citizens. Protecting the city's unique past, and serves as a guide for the future development. And the economic value of preservation can be realized both in the stabilization of property values and the stimulation of business. So that was written, you know, a long time ago, and I think that quote
still holds true for the city. Thank you, Ed. Just before we move on, I just had a quick question. I know at a regular meeting, we're going to be entertaining, a project about The Wurttemberg House. Yes. On on Wortland Street. I guess that's where that's where the name so, maybe maybe you can do this or Jeff can. How do you all play a role into you provide information to the bar? Or Well, I'm asking if you were, Oh, just in general.
But, you know, what I think what's first of all, add what Julie was saying. One really important thing hope people take away from this is that the 2016 blue ribbon commission report recommendations are are very much behind just about everything the HRC is up to. And I think, and I know I shared it what the city overall has done in response to those recommendations.
It's really an impressive list. So, for something like the Wurtton Bacher House, that's a really well known place. There wasn't, we certainly had members contributing, offering to me information they had in things that they knew. But the I don't wanna say the HRC and BAR are separate, but, the HRC is certainly aware of what the BAR is, up to. And if they have comments or recommendations, suggestions, they know where to find me.
So Mhmm. Yeah. That's a rather well known, property over there. So there's quite a body of work that that that is already there. Yes. Yes. But in yes. In general, it we help support research and, yeah, anything that needs to be done. Yes, sir. Thank you. I'll I'll see if others have questions or comments. Lord, I'll start with you. I have enjoyed my time affiliated with the, Historic Resource Commission. You gotta keep it fun. And I will blame the Historic Resource Commission for my broken foot since I was
on my way to to the walk around the Greenbrier Neighborhood Association when I broke my foot. Oh, that's that's where you y'all's fault. That's where you were going. You mentioned that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So Nothing further. And it it yeah. I actually there is one thing I would like to to point out. If you go back a couple of pages let's see. If you go back to the page that shows the past projects and activities back again. Back another there you go.
If you look at the last picture, I I noted this at the time, look at how packed that plaque is. There is not a single space unfilled, unfilled. And we probably went through six months' worth of arguing about exactly how that that space should be utilized, counting individual letters and even in some cases the fractions of letters of spaces to be able to fill every conceivable square inch of that.
And it it gave it sort of amused me as a wordsmithing kind of person, but it also impressed me greatly at how many people with such intelligence devoted so much effort to that one to to that one plaque? Yeah. So I came in at the tail end of the first printing of the walking tour map, and the the spacing between the words, the the way that people took the the passion that people had to make sure that the story was being told in a proper way and something that was still relevant to someone who is has
no idea what the downtown mall is or Heather Heyer Way or the history of the city. These people took a lot of time and care to do that walking tour map. So I just want to add with that. When you mentioned that, I I have this copy here that I got from Eugene Williams, who is kind of the patriot of the, of, this community with dealing with civil rights and he is extremely proud of it. So, well, it's hard to, you know, he's a high barrier. So you you you the wordsmithing did the job, so thank you so much for
that. I think that's you wait. You're up in the picture. Yeah. You were you spoke very well done. Yeah. Yep. I would say it's it's an interesting exercise, to take a complicated moment in time or person or events, and put it into 100 words. I mean, it is, I I like when we speak, I you guys know I spoke a lot in my career. 500 words is about three minutes. And but to to condense that down to 100 words is quite an exercise. And what was interesting is I've been involved in seven or eight markers, over my
career and it's always like the worst group project ever. This one was so buttery smooth. It was really, remarkable. Everybody brought things to the table, had a lot of thing. I learned what an Oxford comma is. In the, but it was it was really a rewarding process. And I I I think, I won't say I I I'm a fan of markers, but that one was an interesting one. But thanks thanks, you know, Wadeo for for for helping out with that one. It's Yeah. And unveiling it. I just thank you for your work. I really appreciate it.
You enjoyed the presentation. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for the presentation. I, I there I don't have a question, but I just have some there's some thoughts milling around. I, my degrees are in history, American studies, and art history was my minor. So all of the if I could make the historic resources meeting on Friday at ten, I would probably argue to be on that committee. But I do think it's interesting how there's this history of historic preservation that parallels,
the kind of restrictive covenants and downzonings of the past that created displacement and limited opportunities for non white people in our community and communities across the country. And so a lot of the work that's being done and that you're highlighting here is recognizing those folks who were displaced or, you know, there's the the Salem enslaved people marker. There's the Carver Inn marker.
There's, you know, the Daughters of Zion Cemetery, all of these things that are are related to that. And then the the quote that you cited from 1993 about the historic preservation plan happened right after the 1991 downzoning, which we know down zoning and limiting development to single family homes only is a really good way to not stabilize property values, but drive them up and create and foster more displacement.
So there's this interesting balance of recognizing history and also trying not to contribute to further, damage. Yeah. Yeah. I I think that's a key thing in I've always seen historic preservation not as saving old things, but as a way to manage change. Because we know that things are gonna change over time. We just wanna be more thoughtful and considerate from when, you know, the urban renewal projects in the 1960s. We have that as a touchstone to look at.
So when we're talking about historic resources here, I think it's important to look back at those things, and make sure that the processes that take place in the future, again, we work collaboratively with these. So we're not taking away everything that tells the story of Charlottesville over the last few hundred years, but we're making space for new things. So it's managing change over time and looking forward while we have these touchstones. Yeah. And I can appreciate that's that's probably a challenging conversation to have sometimes when you
know there's you know? Yeah. We have emergencies nowadays that we have to address, and and to balance those priorities is difficult. Mhmm. Thanks. Michael? Yeah. I would just say, you know, I appreciate the presentation, the amount of work that you all do. I think, you know, in the conversation you brought up, I think, you know, it's definitely about managing change and how do we grow and accept change while still, you
know, allowing architecture history of the past to be the part of the fabric of our communities. Mhmm. Because I think when it's done well, historic preservation and, you know, public architecture is not about blocking change or displacing people, but it is about those things as a public good that regardless of your income, you have access to as a public good as part of the fabric of communities. If the downtown mall did not have historic preservation and did not have intentional planning,
probably look like Barracks Road right now. So that, I feel like, is a perfect example of when it's done right, it can create transformative public spaces. And how do we move towards getting it right and allowing change if we think something like the downtown mall is good and shouldn't have just been like Barracks Road? And I think that's a very interesting big question. And I It is I know. But, but I think, I mean, you you raised part of it. And I think that is I think, you know, our current comp plan, I think, is, you know, getting the direction.
We're a city that can walk and chew on at the same time. We can have change. We can have new development, and we can also seriously take historic preservation seriously. It does not have to be either or. So And often, sometimes, they work hand in hand. If you're talking about adaptive reuse of an historic building, rather than demolish it to put up whatever the next thing is. Perhaps there's a a way to collaborate on that. So and I like your use of the word walk there. But that actually reminded me I was gonna make an announcement about the walk next
weekend, and thank you all then for the contributions that you've made with the, flyers, but I'll do it here as well. So I appreciate that we have those to look at when we do the walks. It's it's cool to sight see that way. Mhmm. Other comments? Thank you all so much for your your work. And, Jeff, thank you for your guiding staff on this. And I appreciate all of your work that you do for the city and the the community. Thank you, Julian. I know you do work with other things like Vineyards Venice Village. Village. Thank you so much.
Natalie, I just remind you or ask you to remind me about something. Yeah. And this came up, all the the crossing of lines of the research that we work on. And, Sam Tower, who's been doing a lot of the work on Penn Park, started talking to me about the hotel that used to be over here where Mickey Building is. Mhmm. And then they mentioned an artist who was there in the late eighteen sixties. A Swedish art artist Swiss artist who painted all around town these really amazingly detailed
paintings of emancipated, black families. And the they're in locations all and I didn't know anything about this. And I even Kate and I really haven't found many people that are aware of it, but I have to share that with you as from the art historian side and just looking at these images. I mean, I think it's as close to photographs as we'll ever have of of that period in in Charlottesville. And it's just it's surprising how, you know, just one of those things that comes along. Yeah. We all wish on the committee, I know that if we didn't sleep or have
to eat, we could just This is a it sounds like a a project for the HRC that we can talk about it. That's right. A couple of questions. Thank you for your time. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all so much. Have a nice evening. So we don't have a closed session, so we will come back at, 06:30. There's nothing else. Right, Sam? We can okay. We'll be back at 06:30. Thank you. Part: 2
Hello. Hello. We have a full house. We have a full house. Um and so if you have a seat next to you, if you can raise your hand because we do have some people standing up. Please raise your hand. We want everyone to and if you can consolidate so that people on the edges can access that seat a little more easily.
Yeah. So there some seats I still hear see some hand raised. If you are in the hallway, please come in. We don't have an overflow room, but I think we can accommodate everyone. You had people signed up, right? Yes, we we do have a we the start of
full uh today. So, um, so, um, we will not be taking a vote on We have another hand over here and some down here in the front row. We have plenty of seats if you're out in the hallway and you want to sit down.
Okay. So, just just for your education, we will not be having a vote on the um, camping ordinance um, this evening. We know we have a lot of people here for that. and the Wartland project. Um, we want to hear from from everyone and um,
so um, that's what we're here for. So, thank you all so much for coming. We're going to go ahead and get started. We don't have to come out of close session because we did not have a close session, but we will um, start off with a moment of silence. Thank you all so much. So, we do have um
a recognition today and you'll see them. They're the really tall ones in the orange t-shirt. And that is our Charlottesville boys high school um tennis team. They won the state championship last year. Come on down in front.
Glad to see you. So, I was at talking to Natalie who played tennis for Charlottesville High School. She was looking for a old teacher. Oh, well, but she couldn't find it. So, I I'm just going to read this certificate. It's really short. Certificate of achievement. Charlottesville City Council proudly awards this certificate
to the 2425 um Charlottesville boys varsity tennis team in recognition of an outstanding season for winning the second state second straight state championship. Thank you so much. Daniel, do you want to say something?
Yeah, I do want to say something. Uh, so my name is Andy Jones. I'm the uh director of student activities at Charlottville High School. Um, and so yes, we we're here to recognize them as state champions, back-to-back state champions. Um, but I think the the greater thing that we can find from them
is anytime you go past Charlottesville High School, whether it's the weekend or late afternoon, you will find a bunch of these kids out there playing tennis. Um and it's really what we drive for, right? Is um getting kids to love a sport, to be out there um to find joy in
something. Um and all the all of them have and um not only finding joy in a sport, but um the friendships and the relationships they built from um from this team um has been amazing to watch and uh it's what we aim for for for all of our teams at Charlottville High School. So, thanks for being great
models, guys, and uh let's continue the success success this year. Appreciate it. All right. Thank you. So, we do have a couple other announcements. Um, as B as Brian bringing that up, I I would like to announce that the um
Charles for Alamo NAACP, they're having a Freedom Fund banquet on September the 19th and um they are um have Speaker of the House Don Scott will be there, but they also will be honoring um many of
the um leaders, elder leaders in our community. Dorothy Olmstead, um Beriss Bale, Dr. Robert Jest, uh, Miss Edith Good, Eugene Williams, and Teresa Price. So, please, um, contact them, purchase a
ticket. It's a great event. September the 19th, um, the Charlottesville album NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet. Thank you. And I have an an announcement
of Mr. Um, Charles Alexand uh on Monday, September 8th, 2025 has been designated Charlott the Charlottesville 12 day by the Charlottesville Virginia City Schools. This day will mark 66 years since 12 black students bravely
integrated all-white venable elementary, now Trailblazer Elementary and Lane High School in 1959. The Charlottesville 12 has two historic markers, an annual scholarship fund, and
sundial in each city school garden. The Charlottesville 12 bring, excuse me, the Charlottesville 12 being the first African-American students in the south to integrate all white schools, a pivotal moment in the American civil rights movement. On Monday, Delegate
Katrina Carlson will present a Charlottesville resolution from the Virginia excuse me, from the Virginia General Assembly. For more information, contact Mr. Alexand Alexander. His phone number is 43420773.
Thank you so much. So, we're now to um I've got um two more announcements. Um first, uh next Sunday, September 14th, is the next monthly neighborhood walk that's sponsored by the Bike and Pet Advisory Committee. Uh this neighborhood will be
uh JPA Jefferson Park Avenue will meet at Endeavor Cycles. Sunday, September 14th, uh from 1 to 3ish, bring comfy shoes and a hat and uh it's just a chance to kind of meet new people and explore the neighborhood. Um the historical resources committee uh does a
great job of putting together um a fun fact sheet about each neighborhood uh so that people on the walk can learn something about what they are looking at. And this is a monthly series that BPAC puts on. So if you can't make this one, please look out for the next one. It's the second Sunday of every month.
Um my other announcement is that on September um can't believe we're in September already. On September 27th, uh 2025 this year will be the um this year's Loop Deville, which is a trail, bike, run, or walk that circumnavigates
the city entirely on our public trail system. So, it's a great way to again get out, get some steps in, meet new people, um, and learn a little bit more about the city where we live. I did it last year for the first time and was
I've lived here my whole life, was shocked at the amount of, uh, trail coverage there is that I hadn't yet explored. So, very much looking forward to doing that again this year. And I invite all of you to check it out. loopdeville.org. You do have to register. It doesn't cost anything, but it kind of lets the organizers know how
many people to prep for. So, um, please check that out and we'll hope to see you there and that we get good weather. Thank Thank you so much. Um, we now at the opportunity and before I begin, there are a few seats. If again, if you
have a seat open, if you can raise your hand because we have some people outside that um there's four seats down here on this side of the aisle. Yeah, just great. Great. Thank you so much. Um, we had the opportunity for community
matters. We have eight people that have pre-registered to speak and then we will have the opportunity for eight more during this time and I will just get a few from each section and then um there will be an opportunity at the end of the meeting for anyone that didn't get a
chance to to um share your your comments. So the first um speaker um to um on the list is Bethany Robinson. Bethany Robinson. Is she making her way? I don't I don't
see it. Oh, okay. Oh, y Yes. And for everyone who's speaking tonight, please make sure you speak into the microphone so that uh the folks watching at home will be able to hear you as
well. Thank you. Okay. Good evening. My name is Beth Robinson and I'm here to speak against this ordinance. I have lived on these streets not once but multiple times. I know what it's like to face long, cold,
dark nights with nowhere safe to go. Those nights were terrifying and I can tell you I would have never been able to rebuild my life back had I been cited, fined, or jailed simply for trying to survive. So I ask you directly, will
this city also site and find the yuppies, the wealthy, for spreading out a blanket at a park, for laying down at a festival, for resting their head in public within city limits? Or does this only apply to our unhoused neighbors?
Even Charlottesville staff have admitted there are not enough beds or shelter for everyone. Yet, this ordinance would punish people outside, living outside, while offering minimal safe, dignified alternatives without even designated camping areas,
just punishment. Back in August of 2024, residents and advocates made it clear. We denounced the lock them up rhetoric. We ask for solutions rooted in dignity, not criminalization. Yet here we are debating whether survival should be
treated as a crime. And make no mistake, even if the base violation is lowle, it can quickly escalate. Citations turn into unpaid fines, fines into warrants, and warrants into arrest
and criminal records. And once someone has that record, it causes it to nearly be impossible to get housing or a job. It traps people in the very cycle you claim you want to end. The unhoused are
not strangers. They are our neighbors. And most don't even have access to basic sanitation, let alone a bed. Criminalization will not fix that. All it does is deepen suffering and punish people further from stability. You simply cannot punish
people out of poverty and you cannot legislate away human need. I implore you to choose empathy. Thank you. Thank you [Applause] Mary Joy St. [Applause]
Good evening, Mr. Mayor and city councilors. My name is Mary Joyce Scala, 2320 Highland Avenue. I am representing Preservation Piedmont. We ask that you do not allow the demolition of 1301 Wland Street. Your only decision tonight
is whether the BAR acted correctly in denying demolition of the Warton Baker House, one of the city's oldest buildings, one so significant to the city's history that it was among those first protected. The applicant wants you to think that the BA aired by failing to discuss the public necessity of
demolition, one of 16 criteria the BAR must consider. But last May, when long term bar member Lewis made the motion to deny the demolition, she clearly stated that she had never before seen a demolition request where every single
criteria supporting preservation of the building is met. The bar fully understood what is at stake here. The applicant, however, didn't even show up. The applicant has made other false assertions, too. In their appeal letter, the applicant tries to pit affordable
housing against historic preservation, provoking simplistic, divisive, short-term thinking. But that's wrong. Our community has visualized something better, that both are necessary and desirable goals. Bar member Schwarz pointed out that the comprehensive plan
is not just about more density, more housing. It is also about protecting our cultural and historic resources. This is not a choice between desperate goals. Better housing and the preservation of our community go hand in hand. Back in
early 2023, a different applicant received B approval for an apartment building plan that preserved the Warten Baker House. Under the new development code, a similar layout with additional units is entirely possible. But we don't know that because the applicant did not
even explore an option to incorporate the Wharton Baker House. They went straight for demolition thinking that council would just roll over. This discussion is really about the continued relevance of preservation in Charlottesville. Will you continue to allow the unnecessary destruction of our
protected properties instead of supporting our comprehensive plan? A better outcome allows historic resources to celebrate our history and to transform what may be like the Verve another otherwise soulless housing project. In the past, Charlottesville
has benefited from forward-thinking local developers who understood how historic districts add to our city's culture, identity, and economic well-being. How this interwoven fabric of old and modern make it more desirable. This developer does not. Bar
member Tabony noted that the conversation between new development and old properties contributing to the history and story of this place will keep Charlottesville a unique city, a destination city. Thank you. Thank you,
Mr. Fogle. I guess I can move this right instead of sitting on her lap. Yeah, you can move it out, sir. Good idea. Thank you and good evening. When I first heard about the ordinance to criminalize the homeless, I was shocked followed by
absolute fury that continues to this day that you would even discuss even discuss an issue of making people who were suffering from a lack of shelter into criminals. It's disgusting. Your city attorney has relied on a decision by the Supreme Court of the
right wing of the Supreme Court. Is that where we stand? Donald Trump has asked all the cities to prohibit sleeping and camping. Are we with Donald Trump? We don't even know who this came from. It was just dropped on the agenda. There
was no community engagement as has usually been required because there was absolutely none. Nobody was talked to. Not the service providers, not the people who have cared about this issue. It is absolutely and completely infuriating, outrageous, unconscionable,
and inhuman for you to even consider an ordinance like this as any kind of solution to the problem we face here in Charlottesville. You have gotten the solutions. You know, the solutions. They range from what the service providers are urging you to do, set aside an area
of the city where people can camp out. And they range to what we should be doing, which is building housing. building housing because the solution to homelessness is housing, not the criminal law. And to characterize everybody in this community who's
unsheltered as a criminal is disgusting. And I'm hoping that any one of you who has we don't know who proposed this. Is any one of you willing have the courage to stand up and say, "I propose this." Let's see if you have that
courage because if you do vote for this, we're going to be laser focused on your inhumanity. Thank you. [Applause]
Good evening. I always love F and Mr. fold because it's my intent to speak on the same thing. So, councelor, city manager Saunders, Chief, I urge each of you to please reconsider this coming proposal to attack the homeless here in town. No
one, and I repeat, no one that is living on the streets, aligned at night, and doorways is there because they want to be. Their life circumstances have driven them to this point. This proposed ordinance only deepens their plight. go on the books or in accordance with
statute is it is a low-level offense. Can we honestly say how long or how many offenses will occur before a capius is issued for their arrest and ultimate incarceration stuffed into a jail in a system that is already designed not for rehabilitation
but for punitive measures. A system in a lo locality more concerned about expanding the numbers of prison cells than we are with keeping people out of jail. This appears to in some ways rival the actions taken by the dictating furer in
DC. The homeless population here and elsewhere don't need a boot to the face or a knee on the neck. They need a hand up from a city rich in resources. The homeless population deserves more from its leaders than simply spending a
night out on a grassy lawn, claiming to try to grasp what it is like to be homeless, knowing full well that they would be going home to their safe homes the next day. That was a slap in the face. It truly was. It was gaslighting at its best.
We have a solution sitting right here on the mall. That that hideous condemned building, the Deubberry Hotel. [Applause] If you're really sincere about trying to solve this problem, do what this city
has done in the past. Claim it under imminent domain, which we've done right here in this area anyway. You don't want to know what's under your No, but we want to solve the homeless problem and stop throwing throwing useless words at it.
So, I leave you with this. The righteous will answer him, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you invite you in? or needing clothes and clothe you. When did we see
you sick or in prison and go to visit you? The king will reply, truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. Then he will say to those on his left, "Depart from me, you who are cursed into
the eternal fire. Prepare for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not invite me in. I needed clothes and you did not close me clothe me. I was sick and in prison
and you did not look after me. They will also answer, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty for a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison and did not help you? He will reply, truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not
do for me. Thank do the right thing, please. Thank you. The next speaker, the next speaker is Anna Maro. Anna Naylor. Hi. Uh, I'm tired. I'm really, really
tired. I have spent almost every waking moment fighting fascism since this administration started. There are fascists in every branch of the federal government. They're fascists trying to control our universities. When I read that an ordinance would be brought up to council today, I thought to myself, "Oh,
great. Fascists in Charlottesville. Haven't we done this before?" Usually, I would give you a set of statistics or figures or data that would prove why this ordinance would do literally nothing to improve the problem of homelessness in our city. But I simply don't want to because I'm tired of being
a human computer to prove that marginalized people deserve respect. So, let me speak plainly. You will inevitably hear from a bunch of white people who work at sixf figureure desk jobs or people who own houses on Rugby Road who say they volunteer at the Haven
when they probably just donated clothes there once, who may have former addicts in their family who will weaponize every story in the book to justify their hatred and vitriol of people they deem undesirabs. But I say to those people, there is no justification. You will not
cleanse your soul with the anecdotes of how one time a person in psychosis who was slowly dying of malnutrition didn't want your leftover sandwich. Because if you've never had to know the inhumity of begging for water in a world where it flows freely, you've never been woken
out of a 2hour sleep at 2 in the morning by a police officer clicking a flashlight in front of your face and yelling at you to move from a public park that you're staying in. If you've never had to put precious family belongings in a black garbage bag or fake being a Christian to gain access to
a 90-day 100 square foot room with a lock, you'll never know what it's like. You will hear from a person who brought this ordinance who I'm not allowed to say what I want to say about him because of city council laws. That person will claim that he just wants what's best for the community. He will use the correct
terms like houselessness and will probably name drop a bunch of people and organizations to justify his ordinance. He will say it's not criminalizing because it's only a class 4 misdemeanor. But a misdemeanor is a misdemeanor. He will talk about open drug use even though there's no safe injection site or
in a 60-mi radius. There's not even a public sharps disposal on the entire downtown mall. Why? But if you want to bring an ordinance uh to displace members of this community who have no less right to live on this land than any of us, you to me are no different than
the fascists in the White House because Grant's Pass is a fascist playbook. It's the legal justification to discard the people who do nothing for a for a white supremacist system who will discard them. So I won't be a human computer. All I can do is appeal to the council's
sense of morality. When you lay your head down on the pillow at night and you close your eyes, will you sleep peacefully knowing you didn't vote for this? Or will the spirits of all that you have deemed unworthy pull at the fabric of your soul?
Thank you. Iris Iris Newman. No, I'm sorry. I Isis Newman. Isis Newman. Um, hi. My name is Joshua Baloo. Um, I
moved to Charlottesville in 2017. Um, I've been homeless ever since. I couch surfed for a while. Um, worked the whole time I was living under UVA Bridge for a year. I worked six days a week.
Um, poverty doesn't always mean homeless, you know. Um, some people are homeless by choice. Some people are homeless because of circumstance. Some get that way just cuz they didn't feel like taking the next step to
actually get themselves out of it. And in none of those ways is it ever okay. Um, I started out when I came here being one of the most caring, helpful people that even I knew.
and it has taken its toll on me after 7 years of being out on the street. But I've met some of the best people that I've ever met out there, the people with hearts. Um, I've watched the community grow and take care of themselves.
Some of them are drug users, some of them are mental, some are just like the people in this room. Some of them have day jobs. You never know if they were sleeping on a sidewalk at night.
Um, not once when I was living under that bridge did anyone know that didn't know me know that I was living under a bridge, including the pastor in my church and my boss who actually dropped me off there twice. He didn't know I was living under the
bridge because it was right next to Hampton in As far as this goes, um I was under this particular bridge that they kick people out from under on panties when that happened cuz I went there looking for my
brother. He's little brother, not blood, but he's been that way since I moved to Charlottesville. I ended up staying because I liked the people there and I wanted to do something to help. And so we became a community. when they
first flooded the bridge under there um for no apparent reason because it didn't rain enough for to show cause for it. Everybody lost a lot of stuff and they ended up having to move all their clutter really quick up to the front of
the bridge. It never did get put back in order because we never got a complaint when they were on the back side of the bridge and I was sleeping up on the sidewalk. They sat there and tried their best. And we were told that when we moved out from
under the bridge that it would be okay to be along the trail as long as everybody kept things nice. So far, every other camp butt mine, and I did it on purpose, every other camp but mine looks nice. It's clean,
organized. Um, they've been keeping up with it. Thank you, sir. And I'd just like to say that for this to move forwards, I'm going to be there every step of the way fighting against it. Thank you.
And my friends will be too. Thank you. [Music] The next speaker is Jenny Kelly. Hi. Good evening, Genevie Keller. Uh, First Street. Local preservation has supported the comp plan and the reasoning process for additional housing
along with adaptive uses and infill construction in historic areas. During both processes, city staff and consultants assured us that ADC and conservation districts were being retained with BAR reeds remaining in place to approve or deny
applications in our local districts. and that council would continue to deny demolitions when keeping significant historic resources would be the greater public benefit. The structural report explains that the Warton Baker House has no serious deficiencies, but instead has
issues of neglect and lack of maintenance. Several large student oriented housing projects are already in progress, increasing that inventory. The 12-story Verve, the Ivy Road Bloom, and others in the West Main vicinity. Wordland Street already possesses a
dense mix of housing types that the C comp plan and the zoning ordinance envision and there is an approved 2023 infill project for that property. There are other locations for future development that do not involve demolishing historic buildings that are
designated by the city and there are people willing to buy them and reuse them including this house. I've been called today about a potential buyer who could do it. Wartenbar was one of the earliest members of the staff and faculty to move outside the academical
village and initiate new residential development. Selected by Jefferson as UVA's librarian, Wharton Baker worked in the Rotunda from 1826 to 1891, was also sheriff and postmaster. The house is a rare surviving example of the pre-1850
era and a major contributing resource to the Wartland Street District. approved for certified federal tax credits in the 1980s. More dense residential development occurred adjacent to a rehabbed house as part of a complete project. This significant place in our
local history warrants an updated tax credit rehabilitation, not destruction. This house spans our collective history as the enforced workplace of enslaved individuals, notably members of the local Woodfolk family and later home to
generations of students who lived, studied, partyed, and perhaps even once played music with Bob Dylan during his Charlottesville residency there. It's witnessed our history, all of it, our complete history that we want to reveal for 185 years. But on another matter,
please tonight, please in the future consider the effects of West Main Street development on West Haven. As a planning as a planning commissioner, I voted against the standard because it did not consider West Haven connectivity. I've lived here all my life. I witnessed
Vinegar Hill come down from the windows outside Lane High School. I saw West Haven go up and gradually be hidden and disconnected because it was not disconnected in the beginning. Please don't let that happen again. Thank you. Thank you.
The next speaker is Wendy Gio. The next speaker is Wendy um Gail. Wendy Gail. I'm that Wendy. She's Yeah. I'll be sharing my time tonight.
Thank you. Good evening. My name is Joy Johnson. I am a advocate for public housing. I am wearing three hats tonight. Public housing resident um legal a justice center and for public housing
association of residents. I am here tonight to ask you or to inform you that we are against West Haven residents and the 10th and Page neighborhood. We are against that monstrous building that is
being proposed, a 12story building that's being proposed to be built on um West Main Street. And um the developer or the engineer, whoever they are, basically said to the D that they had
engagement with the residents. Well, this started in April. We didn't see them until June when they came to West Haven to tell us what they were going to do. Well, most of you know that you don't tell public housing residents what
you're going to do. you work with them to say here is what we would like to do and basically what he did what they did was just basically saying okay here's what it is we this is what we do in all these monstrous city we decided
that okay um we don't like it and you should not um have met with west haven separate from tenton page because tenton page is um a west haven is part of tenton page let me move on.
I am so upset this evening because here it is. You have a developer want to build a 12story building with student housing where you have homeless people who doesn't have anywhere to go
and we're not thinking about building affordable housing or even SRO's that can help folks. I'm going to I don't have time to read everything that I'm saying right here, but I remember this came up when Walker
was on council and she basically told y'all basically said council at that time no and most of this is being driven by the um downtown business association um tourism
um and um and privileged white people who does not want to see people with less privilege amongst them. You said council said no then I'm asking council tonight to all say no now.
Thank you. Thank you. So that was the last of the um register speaker. I'm just going to get one person from over here. Um, Jessica Jessica Jackson, property owner of Charlottesville. Before I start, I just want to say um, I came here very hopeful
that everyone here would be listening and actually paying attention. But it's been very sad for me to sit there and watch one of the city leaders on his telephone and reading his notes when
just out of common courtesy, we should be listening to people. So I would just ask all of the officials, please pay attention and please don't get on your phone. And when you speak tonight, I guarantee you I will not be on my phone and I will not be reading notes. I read
the article from Charlottesville about this proposal and um there's some questions that I think the city council should um require Chief Kachi to provide very clear fact-based answers to. The first question is why?
Why do you want to abandon the law and our and the core value of our country that has governed our country for many years that a person is innocent until proven guilty? The article in the Charlottesville newspaper states that priority were given to sites where
criminal activity is believed to take place. So it does not have to be a fact that criminal activity is occurring but simply a belief that criminal activity is going on. So someone can call and say I believe there's criminal activity on
the site and someone will be removed and their items confiscated. So that's the first question. Why do you want to abandon one of the core values of our country that we all are innocent until proven guilty?
Two, the biggest question is where this audience would ban people from sleeping and storing their possessions on public property. Where does Chief Kachi recommend that the people who are taken away, where are they supposed to move?
That has to be a definitive plan for where the people will go and or will they be just told to leave when the snow is on the ground or is pouring buckets of rain? Where are they supposed to go? The plan for the people who are homeless
is just is it just to remove them? Is it jail or is it just to get them to a less visible site? And my third question is why? Why do you want this amendment enacted now? And I know y'all aren't voting tonight,
but it's just so disheartening to think that we would criminalize the poor, take their possessions, call it a crime to be poor. And I believe that it's much more important
for our city to work on providing adequate housing. It's time for our city to stop letting big businesses and the University of Virginia buy up large amounts of land and just perpetuate
poverty and inadequate housing not only for the poor, the middle class, and the homeless. Thank you, Mr. Jackson. Thank you. Someone from the middle. Someone from the middle section. [Applause]
Good evening, Mr. Mayor and City Council. Uh, my name is Christopher Hall. Uh, I've been displaced and homeless for the past 10 years. Um, when I was in Charlottesville before, it was a different environment 10 years ago. Now I understand there is all this
unrest going on because people are discriminating against us. They're afraid of everything going on. They see, you know, I worked in recovery. I was a peer support specialist. Um I have worked in the field. We all suff go
through our own walks. But right now this ordinance, it it's appeasement. It's appeasement of the current administration and it's appalling. Thank you. Anyone over here like to speak.
Thank you. Hi. Uh my name is Greer Akenbach. I am executive director of Friends of Charlottesville downtown. I am here to speak in favor of the ordinance on camping and storage on city property.
Friends of Please, please. Friends of Charlottesville downtown is by nature not it's a serious moral issue. You don't seem to get it. Not a political organization. Our mission is to stimulate social and economic vitality.
Which puts me in the very unenviable position tonight. um for your job to speak on behalf of Please, please let let speak. Look at this brave woman here. Uh I represent many visitors and
business owners who are afraid to speak in favor of this ordinance for fear they will be misrepresented in a way that affects their businesses and their families. Um, we have a serious problem on the downtown mall and the lack of
ordinances is leading to a decrease in visitors and business activity. We agree with Mr. Vogle um that there should be a designated camping area in the city until we can provide enough shelter beds, but it should not be in our
business district. The city has invested millions of dollars into the downtown mall and seen a return on that investment tenfold in the form of tax revenue. You have a fiduciary responsibility to protect the tax base that funds vital
social programs. The downtown mall is one of our community's most valued public spaces. It serves as a destination for residents, families, and tourists alike, as well as a vital lifeline for the small businesses that line it.
Unfortunat Unfortunately, when when visitors when visitors encounter encampments and clutter belongings, aggressive panhandling, the atmosphere of the mall is diminished. They should change their heart. Please, please, please. This perception not only discourages tourism and local
engagement, but threatens the long-term vitality of the businesses that rely on that foot traffic. Case in point, Alakazam toy store, an iconic business on the mall that has been here for 19 years, is now closing its doors. The owner cited a 35%
decline in sales, attributing much of it to families no longer feeling comfortable bringing their children to the mall. Thank you. Uh, San Francisco. Morning. San Francisco is a cautionary example of what happens when cities delay action.
Despite years of efforts and hundreds of millions of dollars spent towards programs and homeless shelters, their crisis only worsened until ordinance were put in place. Charlottesville is now at a similar crossroads. We understand that there are people that
there is a small contingent a small contingent of vocal people who feel that these ordinances are considered lacking conscious but this is a dangerous position to take a thriving city and a downtown mall
benefits the entire city culturally, socially and economically. Thank you for your time. Thank you. John, John, John, have a seat. Arthur Long, please. Sir, John, please
sit down or better yet, please. All right, John. John. John. Thank you. So, uh, my name is Reverend Dr. Arthur Long, Jr. from the First Baptist Church downtown.
Can you speak up, please, sir? uh from First Baptist Church downtown uh Charlottesville. And I'd like to uh first of all say upon my arrival to Charlottesville, I visited the downtown mall with my family. The reason why the businesses are small and
they're struggling is not because of the homelessness. It's because of the price point. When a person cannot afford to purchase goods at a reasonable cost, the businesses diminish. That's number one.
Second thing you got to realize is this. Homelessness is here for a reason because we've neglected the needs of these people. So instead of looking at the need of a person, social, economical,
mental illness, or even substance abuse, if you can't meet these needs, you're going to always have this problem. When we looking at one another, everybody in this room is dressed to what they have. But when you actually
look at it, some of us in this room, even listening to me talk right now, are one paycheck away from homelessness. One paycheck away from poor. I come from a big city. And the reason why I'm here talking about this is
because homelessness strikes hard to me. I've dealt with homelessness in Newark, New Jersey, even in Jersey City. You can shake your head you want to, my friend. Uh I I dealt with this to a certain extent with taking people who have mental conditions to rehabs and drug
facilities where they can get help, not just taking them or sending them, taking them by the hand, walking them to their destination and partner with them along the way. You can't force this only on churches.
This is a community effort and if it's going to work, the chief got to re-evaluate his circumstances here because it doesn't work this way. Because when you look at it, you're saying first of all, it be a misdemeanor offense. How many of these misdemeanor
offenses is going to take before it actually become punishable? And then you look at it from another perspective that says you approved the budget for a jail renovation. Was this the backstory to say, "Well, listen, we renovate the jail so we can put homeless people there."
So, when you think about it, think about all the dynamics of it. And it just shocks me that after Trump signs this thing into law, now we're meeting about it tonight. Thank you. [Applause]
Good evening, Alex Joiner. I'm a co-chair of Impact Charlottesville, which incorporates 27 different faith communities in Charlottesville and Alam Marorrow. I'm a resident of the county and pastor of Charlottesville First United Methodist Church in downtown Charlottesville. And I'm here to speak
to this proposed ordinance on camping and storage. From the number of people who've spoken and signed up tonight, it's clear that we live in a community that recognizes homelessness is a major issue and it wants to see it addressed with respect for the individuals
affected. The congregation that I serve along with a lot of partners in this city has a long history to serve the immediate needs but also to advocate for more housing and for more affordable housing which is the only long-term solution to this. We're founding members of Patchchum,
which houses over 50 people a night through the cold weather months. Uh with our downtown partners, we have a feeding ministry that serves roughly 160 free lunches every day. Through Impact, we've pushed the city to dedicate $10 million a year to affordable housing each of the
last four years. And we're investing in affordable housing for ID individuals at 501 Cherry Avenue. Each of these efforts gives us the chance to develop relationships and to know those on the streets and partners who serve the same population. As I read this ordinance,
I'm glad to see language that refers to quote a compassionate and empathetic approach that ensures our unhorsed, I'm sure that means unhoused neighbors are treated with dignity and respect. I'm also glad to see the accompanying protocol which encourages quote a team
approach connecting city staff with nonprofit partner partners and ensuring a consistent fair response. I saw this in October 23 when our congregation along with other congregations in the area hosted a community meeting with city manager Sanders and Chief Coaches
to discuss ways to address the rising needs we were all seeing. And I applaud the city for considering serious steps towards providing more alternatives for shelter housing, including a year-round overnight shelter. But those plans are
not in place. And my question is, what new thing will be put in place through this ordinance to provide hope for those with no home? The briefing summary says the city has no intent to criminalize homelessness. But what happens to individuals who are displaced when the
alternative structures that we need are not there? There's a movement in this country that we've referred to that would use force first as a way to sweep homelessness out of the public eye. I'm grateful that this has not been the approach in our city. And I hope we will
make our language uh to and make our language a reality and see this ordinance in the light of a whole approach to this very real problem. In other words, that we will consider it in the light of the people that we see every day who struggle to keep going and
who are each one made in the image of God. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone over here? Is anyone over here like to speak? Someone at that hall. The gentleman in the back. I I'll come
back over here. start in the back with the Hello. Um, my name is Jordan Mcnish and I live at um 1226 Rockfish River Road. Um, I had a statement. I still have it, but I just wanted to comment on some things that I
heard. I heard Jeff Fogle talk about the idea of a designated camping area and I think that's a great idea. I also heard the woman from I believe it was like Friends of Charlottesville mentioned the same thing and also support this ordinance.
And while I think that's an interesting thing to pursue, this ordinance has nothing to do with that. like this ordinance doesn't just, you know, protect businesses a little bit or, you know, do a little trimming around the edges. It makes being homeless like
totally [ __ ] illegal, like anywhere. You can't sleep anywhere. Um, I'll just go through my statement. It's probably I don't have time for it all, but uh I've lived in this area the majority of my life. I began to experience periodic
homelessness when I ran away at 16. The cold nights when I unexpectedly had to sleep outside were the worst because, you know, it'd be cold and I had no gear. So, the sun would come up. I'd be grateful to at least go to the park for a couple hours and lay in the sun in
relative safely because safety because no drunk person's going to come and kick me or something. You know, it's a great time to be homeless in the day compared to cold at night. Um, more recently, I'm 37 now. In 2020,
I lost my housing when I went through a breakup and I camped in the Blue Mills neighborhood for about two months. I was working full-time still. Well, I was recovering from an injury, so it was part-time going back into full-time. Um, you know, I got to have visitation
with my kids and I was able to get my stuff back together and get into an apartment or I rented a room and that was great. And I couldn't have done all that like if I had to just rely on a shelter. I mean, you know, I'd see my
kid until 7:00. You have to be at the only and you know, I'm so glad we have the shelter. You have to be in at a certain time. There's like bars to entry and stuff. And the camping area or multiple areas or even not passing this awful ordinance allows people a little
bit of autonomy which can help them get it together. I do support shelters. We need many, many more beds. We need as much as we can do. We need the lowest bar to entry that we can possibly achieve. But just
this is like some like crazy dystopian crap this ordinance. This is like there's no there's no tolerance here. Like aren't you guys all Democrats? Like aren't you supposed to give a [ __ ] Like I also wonder I see this was brought by the chief of police. Like I also wonder
if like once they get rid of homeless people if they're going to kick nimi yuppies out when they're sleeping on their blankets in the park after a picnic. That's all. Okay. Thank you. [Applause]
Hi, my name is Dr. Jean Katherine Gray and I'm speaking as a business owner. I want to know why we are not putting our energy, our creativity, our our ability to endeavor and and make something new and apply it as a whole on the downtown
mall to this problem. Why on earth would businesses get together and try to make it illegal to live instead of getting together and saying we have an incredible resource in our community? Why don't we decide that we want to transform the feeling on the downtown
mall by walking out to meet our homeless neighbors, by making sure they have the resources they need, by creating places where they can sleep safely. Businesses should be working together to improve our community, not tear it down.
[Applause] Hello, I'm Shayla Washington. I'm the executive director of the Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless or Brack. Um, I've had the honor of serving in this position for almost two years. Prior to that, I worked at the Haven for
5 years. I served on the PCON board of directors for six years, worked for the city of Charlottesville during the pandemic. um serving many of our community members with financial aid and emotional support um during a very unprecedented time. Uh but before all of that, I actually experienced
homelessness here in the city of Charlottesville. And there were times when I would wake up in my car, which I was blessed to have, and there'd be police headlights trained on my car, and I would wake up thinking, "Oh my god, am I going to get arrested because I'm homeless? Because I don't have a place
to live." Meanwhile, I should have been thinking, "Is somebody going to break into my car?" or even worse, rape me. This is the unfortunate reality of so many people who are unhoused, right? And there's so many human beings in our homeless system of care, not only here,
but across the country who are going through the same exact predicament. Um, so I come to you tonight not only as the ED of a homeless coalition, but as also as a city resident and concerned community member about this particular ordinance that you're trying to pass. Um, I've been on the other side of this
trauma and I've made it through, but not everybody is as lucky as me. This is not the time to be adhering to draconian Trump-like policies on some of our most vulnerable community members. Yes, we have Salvation Army, but many people can't stay there due to a number
of reasons. Lack of beds, lack of mobility to climb into an upper bunk, and yes, some people do abuse drugs and alcohol. But if you were going through the trauma of homelessness, wouldn't you do that, too? Handing out class 4 misdemeanors to people who have no designated place to lay their head at night is cruel and
inhumane. Brack and the continuum of care are requesting the following. Delay voting on the addition of section 17-30 to the Charlottesville city code until discussions regarding our community's proposed year-round low barrier shelter develop into a more tangible reality. In
the interim, designate up to three city-owned spaces for people experiencing homelessness to officially be permitted to camp. These camping spaces can come equipped with security detail for not only the unhoused residents but people who are concerned for their safety in the community. Each site should be accessible to a
Charlottesville area transit stop and have a maximum allowable number of residents for ease of management. Each site will be regularly visited by outreach workers and CPD monitoring and also participate in a working group so we can work on this issue al together.
um comprised of city leadership, Charlottesville Police Department, homeless services providers like Brack, the Haven, Salvation Army, Pochum, and those who are invested in creating workable solutions for unhoused population. It's important to note that this conversation should not be happening without talking about
affordable housing at the end of it. Um we need to create more permanent affordable housing and Charlottville should not be considered a world-class city unless we're talking about housing for all and not just the people. [Applause] So,
so that that was the last um of the speakers for right now. We will have an opportunity um at the end um to hear and we have received several we we have received several we have received several hundred um emails on this and
we're continuing to see them now. John, no sir. We we have received several hundred and we're still receiving them now and so please continue to send them. Um I can't say we idea was this um we have read them all but we have
definitely got um an idea of it. Um we we will be um having this as a discussion in um a little bit later on the agenda. So next we have the consent agenda. Um madame clerk will you um please read the um consent agenda? Yeah.
Number four, minutes from July 7th, July 21st, and August 4th, regular meetings. August 6th, joint meeting with the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority and the August 15 and 16th council retreat. Number five, resolution to transfer additional funds
for electric buses, electric school buses in the amount of $10,32. Second reading. Six, resolution appropriating opioid abatement authority cooperative partnership grant for fiscal year 2026 to the offender aid and
restoration um for expanded specialty docket services $13,543. Second reading seven resolution appropriating Virginia Department of Social Services Temporary Aid to Needy Families Grant $69,31267.
Second reading eight, a resolution to appropriate funds from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, Virginia Homeless Solutions Program in the amount of $440,885. Second reading nine. Resolution for the consolidated
annual performance and evaluation report or caper for the program year 2024 to 2025 community development block grants and home investment partnerships programs. Second reading 10. Resolution to appropriate grant funds from the An and
Jean Warl Foundation for the KIPP Community Attention Youth Internship Program in the amount of $42,480, one of two readings. 11. Resolution to appropriate Virginia Juvenile Community Crime Control Act
Grant, $452,74, one of two readings. 12. Resolution to appropriate Virginia State Police FY26 heat equipment reimbursement funding $10,000, one of two readings. 13.
Resolution to appropriate $25,680 from the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services 2026 JAG Law Enforcement Equipment Grant. One of two readings. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve? Could I just
make the note that I was not at the meeting the first meeting in August and nor was I at the meeting with uh when we met with CRA for the minutes. So I I can't opine on those. Um same with me for the July meeting.
But you're you're still able to vote on those. Yeah. Okay. Is there a motion? Approval. Okay. Is there a second? Second. Um, oh, are we voting electronic? Yep. Okay.
Did it go through? It did. And I don't know why it's not showing. So, motion pass. 5-0. Okay. Um, the next item on the agenda is the city manager report. Mr. Sanders, and there are some more seats down up front if people want to find somewhere
to sit. A couple of things uh for the city manager report. First, I'd like to uh introduce John O'Randy. Uh John has joined the city as our new emergency management coordinator. uh he joins us uh from the county which is a
different change of pace. We're actually getting someone from the county versus losing someone to the county. But what's interesting is John is coming back to the city. So just wanted to give John a chance to at least speak to council. Yes. Uh thank you uh city manager Sanders. I appreciate it. Uh and I
appreciate the opportunity to be here today and working for the city of Charlottesville. This is my uh first day of my second tour uh with the city. I was with the city fire department uh many years ago in in uh I started in 1992 there um and then went to the county as uh city manager Sanders said.
So um Mayor Wade and the rest of the council I'm looking forward to uh the work that we will do um and I have a a great person. He's showed me around the city and parts of this building that I have never seen before uh and already
have a good idea of uh kind of what uh what's in store for us uh moving forward in terms of emergency planning uh and preparedness. And one of the things I'm most excited about uh in joining the city uh is it it it as you see here tonight obviously um it is an intimate
place uh with a lot of involved people and so I look forward to engaging with the neighborhoods on uh emergency management and preparedness issues as well. So thank you very much. Thank you John. Welcome. In addition uh our city attorney has uh comments that he would like to share in
regards to the zoning case as well. Certainly. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Sanders. Um, I want to speak to you all a little bit tonight about the and provide a status report on the city's claim uh with respect to Gentry Lock who has been representing us uh in handling
the White V Charlottesville zoning matter. Um, I'm providing this in this setting. I think a lot of this information will not be new to you. I've provided to you in a more confidential setting. However, I feel like the case has progressed to the point where I can be a little bit more open and it will not affect our litigation posture at
all. So, as a refresher, back in May, an attorney who was representing the city from Gentry Lock um failed to meet a filing deadline, failed to file an answer in time, which resulted in early June, the plaintiff's moving for default judgment against the city. Um, and on
June 30th, the court denied our motion to uh for relief from that default judgment and to uh file a late answer, which of course, as you know, set us into a tail spin. I'm sure someday John Gish will write a legal thriller about all the things that happened after that. I hope Danny DeVito plays me in the
movie. Um, but without getting too far into that, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about obviously at that point we had a uh claim against Gentry Lock for um possible malpractice and evaluating how
to respond to that. We had to consider a couple of factors. First, we had to consider how we're going to protect our financial interests. And to that to that extent, that's why I approached Gentry Lock and we worked out a deal which I can now tell you the full uh and give you the
full story on. First of all, the court the firm agreed that they were going to continue to represent us in the case. I'm sorry it's hard to it's a lot of noise. We're trying to can hardly hear myself think. Um Okay, I'll proceed. Um,
so first of all, we wanted to protect our financial interest. That meant ensuring that the firm would cover our expenses. We would not be paying any fees while they tried to correct this mistake and they agreed to that. Second of all, we had to ensure that we had competent representation going forward.
Now, it wouldn't have benefited us to change horses mid-stream, find new council. I mean, it was an option, but we would have had to pay to get new council up to speed, which would be an expensive proposition. And so, in lie of that, the deal we struck with Gentry Lock, we gave them a chance to correct
the mistake. If they were successful in that, they were going then uh we would move forward with them and they would uh we would pay them reduced fees moving forward. If they were not successful, we were going they agreed that they would repay the city all of the money that we
had paid for the for the lawsuit and liquidated damages of $150,000. That was if they were unable to get the court to overturn its ruling. Now, fortunately, as y'all know, a week or two ago, the court decided to uh rec on
our motion reconsider. They reconsidered their decision and uh decided to overturn the uh default judgment. We're now back to where we're able to litigate the case on the merits. One reason I wanted to talk to you'all about this in this setting is Gentry Lock screwed up. They didn't do a good
job in that, but since then, they have acted admirably. They have uh acted just how I would hope they do. They own the mistake and they provided very competent uh representation ever since. At my request, they removed the attorney who was uh representing the city and who uh
missed the deadline and replaced them with some of their senior counsel. Michael Fenny who's the head of their litigation section has been representing us very competently ever since and also Monica Monday who is the one of the very best appellet lawyers in the state. Um it was through their efforts working very closely with I got to shout out our
NDS staff and some of our public works staff and uh even some members uh some citizens in the community who worked very closely with us to help put together the defense of the judge that ultimately got him to change his mind on the default judgment ruling. So, I want to let y'all know that we're back on
track. We um I'm going to be entering in this agreement with Gentry Lock. We're going to be paying reduced fees moving forward, which should save us some money as we continue to litigate the case. And uh we're very hopeful that when we get the case uh before the judge on the merits that we will prevail and the city will have the zoning that you all voted
for. So, I'm happy to answer any questions, but I wanted to provide you that update in a public setting. Did you No, just thank you. No questions. Any questions or comments on that? When's the next date something will
happen? At this point, we're now our answer is now considered filed. Um the judge to sign that order, but he he does have it. And uh from there, we'll be talking about setting trial dates, discovery deadlines. There's a lot of litigation to happen between now and then. Okay. Thank you.
And the last part of the presentation tonight uh is for uh our director of human services, Misty Graves, is going to give a human services update. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Good evening. I was invited by Sam Sanders to talk
about one of my favorite topics, which is the Department of Human Services. I had the honor of serving as the director. I've worked in the Department of Human Services for 19 years and um I do it because I'm motivated by the opportunity to make change in the
community to make an impact and the caliber of folks that I get to work alongside. Um just to start with our vision and mission mission uh this feeds everything that we do in the department. One, our vision is to be a place where everyone
thrives by serving as the community's premier provider and meeting the therapeutic needs of youth, families, and residents by supporting the community's efforts to improve equity and address poverty and its impact. Our mission, what we do every day is provide services and program that improve and
support the resilience, health, and well-being of youth, families, residents, and community organizations. We have our own strategic goals that sort of uh sort of provide some direction for what we do for our action
plans. These five goals, one is a streamlined system of care for youth and families. Goal two is to provide outreach services that promote the resilience and self-sufficiency of residents. Goal three is to make sure that DHS staff are highly functioning
and supported and developed uh until they reach their ultimate potential. Goal four is really focusing on our organizational culture. We believe that we the way that we practice our services and programs and community engagement is
the same way that we want to engage our staff uh at the Department of Human Services. So fostering in our internal organizational culture that elevates diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Goal five is about the work that we do with our other service
providers and other coalitions and boards in the community. So that's extending and galvanizing movement within the wider community and partnerships with an anti-racist, trauma-informed, and inclusive approach. So you'll see we'll go into goal one. These are youth and family centered
services. We have three um that fall in that line. We have the community attention foster families or calf. This division has served in this last fiscal year 101 youth in the foster care system between Charlottesville, Alam Maro and
Green County and an additional 21 youth in prevention respit homes. Of those youth, 68% are served in what's called kinship families. It's when uh workers do their best to find a relative or someone that's known to the child um
because they have better outcomes when they're placed in homes uh that are called kinship homes. That's regarded best practice and I believe the state average hovers around 25%. So we are well above um that state average. community based services. That's where
we do our work directly with primarily teens and adolescents uh and their families. So they served aboutund 421 youth. Some of the u most familiar programs you may be aware of the community attention youth internship program. A number of you have engaged
with those interns and the teens give service learning program where we also have a variety of parent advocacy groups and skilluing groups. And then in January, we filled a vacancy to re-engage initiatives aimed at promoting wellbe well-being and success for black
youth and youth of color. Um this year we have uh the youth opportunity coordinator Howard has already implemented a new book buddy system that uh has started at Summit um elementary school and we hope to grow that program
in other city schools. Youth council uh the ones that you appoint were up to 15 members. We're starting the fall with a full uh youth council and they will kick off their season in early October. Some of our adult adult centered
services, we have the community connector program, so the community resource hotline um that utilizes the pathways fund that is funded by city council. Last year they facilitated $896 requests totaling in $679,000
in relief, financial relief to residents. This impacted about 421 households in Charlottesville. 73% of those requests were for housing needs and 27 were for for utility bill relief.
We also have a small housing navigation program that is for folks who are looking for a more stable place to live, maybe one that is uh within their budget that may have some challenges in order to secure a lease. Uh we have a small housing navigation program that sort of
works with landlords and community members um to make sure that they have a a home that fits their needs. And then we do facilitate again a small uh emergency hotel stay program. Primarily, it's for families experiencing homelessness because we do not currently
have a family shelter. We served uh about 52 individuals in that short-term emergency hotel stay. Additionally, for adult centered services, we have the West Haven Care Center. Uh the human services department
uh supports one program coordinator uh and they she is joined by a staff member, a nurse practitioner from the UVA school of nursing and together they provide navigation and some um some work
in the public health arena. Last year they really saw an uptick in food and security needs and so they were very responsive to that and built a on-site food pantry and served about 500 residents through that. Um and then Ankor, I was here
in July and presented their year uh their first year outcomes. But just to recap, 253 live calls for service, 142 follow-ups, which is after their initial interaction. It was a total of 395
encounters and 250 unique individuals. Goal five I mentioned was how we engage with our partners and um other providers to build a better community. So um one of the things just highlighting here we work with the Charlott Charllesville
area alliance that's to promote um an agefriendly community here in Charlottesville. I serve as the vice chair on that alliance. Um you all were um charter members of that group. Um we continue to work in the re-entry
um field and support the one-stop shop uh by offering some logistics and coordination there and that will continue. Looking ahead, some major projects and implementations this coming year. I am closing on a position for deputy
director of adult- centered services. They're going to support um building out Ankor or future iterations of Ankor and also support our community connector programs. Our community based services are going to explore more formal relationship with Charlottesville City
Schools to do more um prevention work in the schools uh to prevent youth from um engaging in uh issues around community safety. the community con connector program. Right now, they're exploring a master leasing program with other
service providers in the continuum of care supported by Brack. Um they're also we're exploring how we might increase self-sufficiency services and efforts within our department. For calf, the foster family program, we're pursuing a grant to improve
regional um expansion of helping other localities develop their kinship um program and family finding. And then as I mentioned before, anchor, we will be um proposing uh for the city manager's consideration the next phase of anchor
for FY27. That's just a nod to the link uh for more information and how to get in touch with me directly. And I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. N. Any questions? Not a not a question, but a comment for,
you know, everyone here tonight. That item at the end about the anchor team and the need and ability to expand it, I think is such an important point that connects with everything we've heard in public comment tonight. And so I just encourage you all when our budget
process begins, which it will sooner than we probably want to advocate to increase the budget for that team because that is a team that can go out to areas where there are uh individuals who are homeless or
experiencing other issues and be able to try to connect people with services in a different way. Um so anyway, I just encourage everyone don't end your advocacy tonight. There are so many budget decisions that we make or don't make that impact these issues so fundamentally.
Okay. Thank you. So, we are now at um action items and the first one is a an appeal resolution. Um we're going to get some specific direction on it, but first um this is to um appeal a a board of architectural
review denial of certificate of appropriateness for a demolition of a contributing structure um at 1301 Wland Street. Um Jeff or or Jeff, can I clarify if this is one or two
readings? One. One just tonight. Okay. Thank you. Good to All right, Remy. Does this control the uh Let's see. It does. All right. Technicality out of the way.
Hey, good evening. Uh again, uh Jeff Warner. I'm the city's preservation and design planner and in that capacity I'm staff for the board of architectural review uh the BAR. Uh the matter before you tonight is an appeal of the B to
Jeff. Can you speak up please sir? I usually no one has to tell me to speak not loud. Um I don't know. Huh? Does this work? Tell you what, I'll go coach Warner voice here. Uh the matter before you tonight is an appeal of the Bar's denial of a certificate of
appropriateness, a COA, uh to allow demolition of a structure at 131 Wland Street. After my introduction, I believe Steve Blaine is here and he'll speak on behalf of the property owner and then Mr. Zemer, who is the BAR chair, will speak on behalf of the B. And after
those comments, we certainly can answer any questions that you all have. Um, so quickly on May 20, 2025 by a vote of 7 to0, the BAR denied a COA for demolition of the Wartbacher House at 1301 Wland Street. Following the BAR's action as
allowed by code, the denial was appealed to city council. Um, the Wartenbacher House is listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places as a contributing structure within the Wartland Street Historic District. Uh
locally, city council designated the Wharton Bacher House a contributing structure within the Wharton the Wharton Street ADC district. Uh and from that designation, per city code, the BAR has purview over exterior alterations, new construction and demolitions with of
course those actions available to council. Uh the house was constructed uh circa 1842. Um we believe 1842, 1843. Uh it was built by William Wartenbacher uh who served as the university's librarian
from 1826 until 1880. Uh this two-story brick house was built in Greek revival style. In the late 188 late 1800s it was modified with the addition of a Victorian porch and an ornate cornice. Um the house was originally constructed
on a 6 and a/4 acre lot. While impacted by the encroachment of neighboring development, the house still retains its original and late 19th century appearance. It's worth noting that in January 2023, the BA approved a COA for a proposed
multi-story apartment building uh on the lot adjacent to the historic house and that project would have preserved uh the Wartenbacher House. So, in reviewing this appeal per code, uh, you all council will, as the BAR did in May, consider the review criteria for
a demolition request and also consult with the BAR, which we're here tonight and in the uh the record that was provided to you. Um, and also per code, council may consider any other information, factors, or opinions it
deems relevant to the application. So quickly and there's a lot there. That's those are the criteria for reviewing a demolition uh per city code under section 5.2.7. So just briefly I'll touch on a few of those to um for example what is the age
of the structure property? Uh this house was constructed circa 1842. Um it asks whether it's been on the national register the Virginia landmarks register and yes uh it it's a contributing structure in the national register district. So, it is on that
listing. Um, the questions of is the property associated with a historic event, historic person, and yes, this was the home of William Wartonbacher. He lived there from 1842 until his death in 1882. Uh, and as noted, uh, Mr.
Wartenbacher was the university's librarian from 1826 until 1880. the question of to what degree uh do the does the house retain dist distinguishing characteristics and features. Um aside from some repairs and
encroachment of neighboring development, the house generally generally retains uh its appearance uh of the original house and the late 18th century um modifications. The question of um to what extent is the
structure linked historically or aesthetically to other buildings within the district. So that would be within the Wharton Street district. Um this building is individually unique u for its architecture and its association with the early university and it's also a significant part of that cohesive
district which represents 19th century dwellings associated with the early university. And another question is about the condition and structural integrity of the building. Um per the applicant's structural engineers report uh the structure overall is considered
adequate and they had some recommendations of repairs. So finally um to provide uh information on uh the staff's response to the appellent's letter uh the appeal letter uh the comments include the following. Uh the
appellent stated that B failed to consider that demolition of this structure would have uh a public purpose or necessity. Uh in response staff notes that the applicant did not submit anything for the B to consider. In fact, they did not in attend or even
participate in the BAR meeting. Um, the appellant stated the initial design concepts illustrate that the demolition and redevelopment of this parcel would yield 212 bedrooms with 300 bedrooms achievable with bonus density. Um,
nothing of the that sort was presented to the BAR. Uh as again staff notes, the BA evaluates demolition on its own merits based on the design guidelines which you all adopt uh and weighs less heavily what development might be allowed by the demolition. Um again, the
applicant provided no information about proposed development, nor that did they refer to the approved apartment building uh at the site. The applicant or the appellant also stated that one of the city's primary goals is to support the opportunity to
provide more housing in all city neighborhoods. Um and noting they stated that council did not exempt Wartland Street uh in prioritizing the building of more housing. Uh in staff notes that the code the city code uh includes
historic districts and its protections. So all relevant code provisions are applicable to development proposals. So the city does welcome uh creative development. Uh and in a situation like this, we would look for something that preserves the historic resources while
accommodating increased density, which was indicated by the project that was included or approved in 2023. And so finally, uh staff recommends that that you all render a decision, uh by resolution to deny the requested COA. That's a COA that would allow demolition
of this structure. Um, should council deny the COA, uh, the owner may appeal to the Charlottesville CI court or code. Uh, in addition, the code also allows a remedy in which the owner, uh, is entitled to demolish the
structure if for a period of 12 months, the property is offered for sale at a fair market price to a party that will preserve and restore it. And within that 12-month sale period, no bonafide contract is executed. Second, if council uh agrees with the
appellent, there's is a resolution by which you can approve the requested COA. So, uh before proceeding the comments, is Mr. Blaine here? There he is. Yes. So, uh Mr. Blaine's here. Mr. Seamer's behind me. Do you
have any immediate questions for me? No, sir. You're not here on this. Are there any questions right now? Excuse me. Questions offer. Um Mr. Hall, Mr. Hall, um Michael or
I just took to to clarify um a couple slides back um you said that the appent the appellant didn't provide info but we have it now. Does that mean when they applied they didn't provide the info but upon appeal they provided it?
I didn't see anything about a um a proposed development or anything to to the scale which they described. So, so the the bit about 212 bedrooms, where does that come from? It's in their letter. It's an attachment, the first attachment in the
staff report, right? Okay. So, it's in here, but it wasn't presented to the BA. Correct. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Got it. That That's what I wanted to clarify. And then, um, do we know, and this might be a question for later, do we know why the 2023
project didn't get built? Excuse me, John. John, Mr. whole you're being disruptive concerns. Um, do we know why the 2023 project didn't proceed the one that was approved? Was it the same? No, I don't. Same group or a different group?
Uh, I think the owner changed. I don't know if the individuals were involved in that. The LLC's changed, but I don't know if that's being pursued or not. Uh, when I had asked there was didn't seem to be a decision on that. So, okay. And like I said, we were
evaluating it's a the demolition request. The city code has the things that we're supposed to review and that's what we stuck to. You guys can go you can color outside the lines a little if you wish, but yeah, the BR was in its box.
Right. So that was my next question is kind of a little procedural um along that same line which um you mentioned what should happen if council denies there are a couple of remedies that they can take. Um if they
does that deny it permanently forever or if there's some project down the line or some other would they be able to apply for a COA for demolition again later or not they but someone at any point? So I don't want to get into um legal um
hypotheticals because I I I know this things might likely No, I'm not. Sir, please let me speak. you know nothing about me and um so the uh Mr. Hall Mr. Please can we talk? We don't have to ask you to leave if you
keep interrupting. So the the situation with a uh an approved COA and that's either whether approved by B or approved by you all as council. Um there is a period of validity in the code and that's anchored
in certain actions. For example, getting an approved site plan or if somebody were to get a a a demolition permit, things that would move the thing forward beyond that COA. But if within that 18 month period that those steps have not been taken
then the COA would expire. Um but would the denial of the COA ever expire? Uh like if if we tonight reaffirmed the Bision double triple something Mr. Mattis could help.
Does my question I think it's it's a discrete concrete thing tracks and then it's over if that makes sense. So my question is like if we affirm the B's decision tonight it doesn't get
knocked down for this project in some future potential development. Could they reapply for another COA of demolition? Because you know potentially things change potentially. Yes. Things change and you can evaluate the circumstances in the project that comes before you at that time. Okay. It doesn't mean it's permanently
not allowed together. Correct. That is correct. Yes, ma'am. Yeah. For example, the B personnel changed and it's possible a different B could view this differently. So, yes. Yeah. The city changes around that sort of thing. Um Okay. Thank you. Um, but for the immediate future, should we deny
they go through those processes that you described with like the 12 months of sale? And I really that's where I hesitate to to I'm not a lawyer uh and I don't want to offer legal advice, but the code provides remedies. The code provides. Okay. Um, and then I
know this has been the kind of a process for the B and the planning commission does this too where they can offer suggestions, defer decisions, and then it comes back again. Does council have that ability? Um, I know in the past, and my predecessor
is here, I won't put her on the spot, but um, I know in the past council has referred things back to the bar. I don't know if that's um I can't speak for the applicant on what they would want, but I know that the BR, you know, stands I
mean the question is not the development of the site or how it might be developed. The question is the demolition of the historic house. Um, if something were to come back and had some variation of that, the B would have to look at that and and but um I would I
think it would be wise for the BA or for council to to to take action on this cuz and not go back to the BAR, right? Well, not go back to the BAR, but like if we told the the there's been negotiations with the BAR
and the developer or the planning commission and the developer about if you make these three changes, come back to us. You all abide your code, can consider other things and other circumstances. Uh I defer to John on the the balance of that. Yeah. Are we able to put conditions on?
I mean, I would assume that what we've got something before us. We have to vote yes or no on this is purely a procedural question. Are you suggesting add something to it if that's possible in the way that the B and the planning commission do? Do we have that?
This seems to me like a very discreet like yes or no kind of thing. And it is I I I never um want to advise to uh negotiate from the dis. It very rarely leads to good outcomes. I would say consider the proposal in front of
you. Um, you're allowed to as as uh Mr. Warner's very clear about, you're allowed to consider things that are outside um just the four walls of the application or the four walls of what the BA considered. Um but I would not want to um try to
create legally binding conditions or something like that in this kind of setting. Sure. Okay. Thank you. Um just to to clarify, you know, that certificate of appropriateness COA already exists to develop multi-story multif family
apartment housing without demolishing the house. Correct. Yeah. And they have an approved site plan. So that that's set the the the the COA didn't expire. So multif family apartments can get built on that site right now without demolishing the
property. Try not to look at what's going on inside the building, but yes, that's my understanding. Apartments um for who it's I don't know in in the uh information from the applicant about uh what could be built
by demolishing the site. I'm assuming that comes with no engineering work, no business plan, no analysis of what one option would compare to without demolishing the house versus demolishing it. In other words, we're essentially just being told to, you know, go on good
faith that something they said is accurate. That sounds reasonable. Uh but I have to defer to Mr. Blaine to to comment on what the applicant's intent uh was. Yeah. I I don't think it is either. Uh
it is a little bit, but um it's a little bit. All right. My answer was um I I would defer to to Mr. Blaine and representing the applicant on that. I I I don't know. And um you know, you went over some of the rationale for it being a property of
historic value. There's this built pre-1850. How many properties in Charlottesville remain that were built before 1850? I think it was something like six or something. It's very very very few. Um my house built in 1884 is one of only a hundred
that predate 1890. So it's a very few that remain of this period and and certainly I think of um uh the historical rel I think uh I'll speak louder again uh very few I don't know the exact number
but it's very few and I think even fewer that have an association with uh the early history of the university. Uh uh Mr. Whartonbucker was my understanding appointed by Jefferson himself. So there is a historical connection here that's unique. Um as far as the historic nature
of the property in the district, um that's that wasn't the BAR's uh designation, the state and federal designation that occur in in Richmond and Washington and but the local designation um which gives the B purview uh that designation came from city
council. So that so the B's presumption is that that um um historic character that designation has been established. It's not to necessarily debate whether it should or should be historic. Okay. Thank you. I have no further
questions. I said Mr. Blaine is here representing the applicant and I'm sure you just a quick question for you. Is it that my understanding from uh some folks that I work with who um know a lot about historic preservation uh that this house
is like the first sort of the the anchor house? Is that a way of putting it for that whole district? Wartland Street. Um yes. I know Wartland Street, you know, is it's a fun time of year. I understand uh this time of year, but that that house
was the basis for that that ADC. Is that correct? Yes and no. Uh uh the nature of a historic district is the sum of its parts. And I I think we talked about this a couple months ago about Chancellor Street. I mean, it's a
it's intended to be a quilt. Um and you can't remove panels from the quilt and have it, you know, rem retain its integrity. Um most of the houses that um are to the east of this date later in the 1800s. So this is certainly the
earliest building there and it certainly anchors um that that development that you saw of the university when you saw professors leaving grounds. You saw them beginning to occupy uh neighborhood adjacent to
the university. So, uh, but I think architecturally this house is somewhat different in its age. Uh, certainly it was it was renovated in the late 1800s. Uh, but it's the, uh, not just the architecture, but the story of that development that that that period of
development, uh, in the 1800s. So, this is a critical piece of it. Uh, I wouldn't suggest removing it. Um, and but again, it's the the sum of its parts. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions right right now?
Should we try that microphone maybe? Yeah. Well, that's what Mr. Blaine is going to next. He can talk loud too. Not as loud as coach. Am I in? It does scoot. if you want to
give it. Mr. Mayor, members of council, I'm Steve Blaine representing the appellant. Uh I appreciate Mr. Warner's uh summary of the criteria that the BA followed um and its findings. On whole, I think the BAR
uh did its job as it enabled to do. The BAR is limited to considering only those criteria. The city council, on the other hand, is not constrained by the BAR's criteria. The statutes permit you to consider other factors or information that you
deem relevant. Here, we believe the prevailing factors are the policies prioritized in the 2021 comprehensive plan and implemented through the NZO to increase housing opportunities and thereby promote more affordable options
for good housing. The council's decision tonight places two important policies at odds. architectural preservation of historic buildings, which we value, the overarching policy to improve our city's
housing stock, and create more housing in an effort to address the affordability crisis. The city council, not the bar, not the planning commission, not even a court, is the body that can determine which of those
two policies uh take priority in this instance. It's our position that the housing policy takes priority over the continued preservation of the structure. This site presents an ideal opportunity
for repurposing an underused parcel that results in more housing and responds to affordable housing needs. Under the ordinance now in effect, uh the site can achieve a density that will accommodate between 200 and 300 students. It's
barely a five-minute walk for students to grounds. Concentrating more student housing in closer to grounds reduces demand for transportation in infrastructure traffic. Generally,
we've seen a trend with new uh student housing uh emerging along West Main Street. The this places greater stress on transportation infrastructure and impacts established residential neighborhoods.
From the city standpoint, the preferred land planning concentrates housing in closer to grounds for more efficiency and reduce transportation infrastructure. This is supported by the site's RX5
zoning designation, which is the highest density residential designation in the ordinance. Now, we're fortunate uh to have beautiful architecture throughout Charlottesville, both modern and historic, due in no small measure to
the volunteer efforts and contributions of the BAR. I watched uh but I watched the recording of the BAR's meeting, and I did not hear any of the opponents describing the structure as aesthetically redeeming.
The old house sits wedged between mid and late 20th century apartment buildings on either side. It's isolated and somewhat removed from the Victorian era dwellings along the lower portion of Wartland uh below 12th Street. There's
no uniform setback with the apartments up close to the street and the house is pushed back. Uh this is in contrast with the similarly designed buildings across the street on the south side of Wordland that have a uniform setback.
Uh we think it's still possible to show the structure some dignity in removing it. The applicant has completed a 3D cloud scan using thousands actually hundreds of thousands of measurements
uh in the most up-to-date technology and this will enable future study of the structure in 3D. My last uh I guess my last point is it's possible to focus on the structure and still lose sight of the history
associated with it. Historic preservation is about objects associated with history. History is all the stories of humans who ever lived. Each person having their unique story.
I had the good fortune of hearing Ken Burn speak at the naturalized citizen ceremony on July 4th at Montichello, which is a very moving ceremony. If you have ever attended or you have a chance to attend, you should. Ken Burns
compared history to a puzzle that can never really be solved. We can search the stories of our past to learn about ourselves. Listen to other points of view and in doing so develop empathy.
So what was Mr. Wartenber's story? We were told that he was appointed librarian at UVA and the census data indicates that he was a bookstore which seems consistent.
Whittenbucker also owned enslaved persons in fact from 1840 to 1860. He increased his ownership of enslaved persons from four to 11 persons in 1860,
including an eight-month infant. Aside from the moral question, one might ask, "But a book seller had use for 11 slaves." Oh my god. These and so many other questions come to mind that may never be answered. The documents relating to the historic
landmark nomination and the local landmark designation leave out these facts. In the over 40 years of regulatory imposed preservation of this old house, there's been no scholarly advancement about Mr. Wartenbacher in the community
in which he lived. We're not lacking for old build buildings as much as the curiosity to know and understand the past. In conclusion, our request is with respect for the past to focus on the
current and future housing needs of our citizens and hope for prosperity for all. John, I rarely get applause, but thank you. Uh, and I have I have the
uh actually from the senses I have. Um, I'll start here. It's a person. Lloyd, do you have any questions or Yeah, I Mr. Um, Mr. Play, I'm curious.
The the information we've got is that you are your applicant is requesting the ability to put in what 212 apartments. Is that right? The current zone that NZO will permit that density. What's happened is the
architects have done they have to do a feasibility analysis to do a program. The um there's no building design or pictures to show you tonight. But before you embark on any project of this site sort, you have to do the the fe
feasibility analysis. You have to know what your your footprint to begin with. The the dilemma we have with the criteria as Mr. Warner said if we had a building a picture to show that's not an appropriate criteria for the B to
consider in issuing a demolition permit. So is the answer to my question yes or is it no? The answer is I'm sorry. What was your question again? I had the answer all in my head. But my my question was is your applicant
asking for approval for 212 units? Uh well, no, we're asking for a demolition permit. The approval for 200 units would be under the zoning ordinance which has um by ability and would require us to go
back to the BAR. Actually, the B would be the only review planning commission, I suppose, the site plan, but the BAR would have to review any project that was brought forward whether this is demolished or not. So there is my
understanding from what Mr. Warner said that there is already an approved what a site plan a proposal I'm I'm not sure what it is for for some multif family units on there. There's an approved site plan that would allow 34 beds on this same site with no
affordable housing. And the opportunity we have is we can provide the 10% affordable housing go for uh the density the extra density
with which is be 50% AMI and achieve 200 beds currently there are eight students living in that apartment. Okay. So the answer to my question actually was yes. Yes. Thank you. I have no questions. I'm going to vote
for the denial. Um, Michael, do you have any questions at this point? So, and I do just want to provide a correction. In our zoning ordinance, you would not have the option to build on-site affordable units, which I think is a I don't know because you're within
0.5 milesi of the University of Virginia. Um, that's the new zoning. So, that that statement was just inaccurate. Um the only question I have if you know you've you've provided a theoretical amount of units. Is there
any financial plan? Is there any looking at actual site conditions in terms of setbacks that would be required infrastructure issues as well as like any financial analysis of whether that building pencils out? That that would all have to be done. Um
what what the applicant has done is similar to what the city did in response to Judge Warl's order uh an analysis back of the envelope with the bulk and area restrictions that we have applying it to a 4/10 of an acre site. This is
the envelope that you can come up with and that gives you it's not hard to do that um mathematical calculation that is not engineering as you point out that is not uh cost or feasibility. What we have to
do is rely upon free market forces that determine whether uh a 200 unit apartment project has more financial feasibility than a 34 unit. And I'm it sounds like you didn't do any
analysis of what you could build under the new zoning while preserving the old structure. Um because that previous COA clearly shows the lot's large enough to build a fairly large structure on throughout the lot while preserving it. And I'm assuming you didn't do an analysis of what you could do under the
old zoning keeping that same layout. I don't believe so. No. Thank you. Um I have no further questions and I know we have another very big item to get to. So I will agree in saying like Brian, you know, I will
plan to uphold the B's decision as well. Um, so the reason why I asked earlier about whether or not the 2023 project was related to your clients or a different one was because I was wondering about the math on that. Um,
you said that that that project would have had 34 bedrooms. Is that correct? Correct. So um the difference between 34 and 212 is quite significant. Um if the 34
bedroomedroom house or bedroom apartment complex um would have pencled out, maybe we would have seen it happen by now and it would have made a tiny dent. um 212 beds, if that's the theoretical maximum
we can fit under our current zoning code, um makes a sign more significant dent. Um, I'm struggling whether I'm deciding whether or not I want to pontificate a little
bit about our um kind of the the things we're hearing tonight um are a little bit at cross purposes where we are advocating for more housing. We're also advocating to prevent housing from getting built often from the same we're
hearing that from the same folks. Um there's no way to meet the emergency of our housing crisis without trying to build as much housing as we possibly can. Um the and being enthusiastic about that um and
and not thinking we can relegate it to certain areas or not. Um it has to be citywide to meet the need to meet the moment. Um, and I have a longer I have a longer speech that if I was a a a still a a a
citizen, I would have made it at at the at the lect turn. Um, but okay, I'm going to I have the time. We have the time. We're here for this. Um, we acknowledge the need for student housing. We acknowledge the need for
housing in general. Um, but we want to preserve an old single house that houses eight people on Wartland. We want to preserve a parking lot on West Main Street. That project has some room to improve. I'm not saying it doesn't. Um,
but right now that's a parking lot. Um, we've had community feedback along the same vein when, um, the Verve and 2117 Ivy projects were being introduced. um people didn't want those to happen. Um
we've heard that since students are transient, they shouldn't get the same consideration as long-term residents. Um but while a single student may only spend a short time in Charlottesville, students in general are always going to be here and always going to need a place
to stay. That demand is not transient. Um, if the university expands enrollment, it is better for both the students and the surrounding neighborhoods if that student housing is as concentrated as possible so that they're not bleeding
out into the single family homes into the neighborhoods that can be turned into um duplexes or accessory dwelling units or that missing middle that we need. If we concentrate them close to the university, that space is still available. Um, so if we don't want housing in these locations close to
grounds, where is it going to be okay? Those kids need to go somewhere. I have been to the houses on Warland. They're not glamorous historic buildings. The floors are sticky. The windows are broken. It's it's different. It's not a
destination you go to on a walking tour of historical buildings. Um, so we hear calls for more publicly financed housing. I support that. We hear calls for builders to subsidize renters. I support that. We hear calls for sensitive building for working with the
communities. Absolutely. I support that. Um but we also need just support for rampant and abundant supply. Um apartments, town houses, um accessory dwelling units, duplexes, whatever. We need all of that. Um the city and our
budget can't unilaterally um we can't unilaterally force private developers to set arbitrarily low rental rates and expect to see enough get built. We can't say you have to build everything and it has to be affordable. No one's going to fund that. No one's going to pay for
that. There's not enough government subsidies, especially in our current administration to help bridge that gap. Our entire budget from Charlottesville City could go every year towards just housing and we would still need more homes to meet demand and to lower individual costs.
Allowing private developers to contribute to local supply takes this financial burden off the city and allows us to raise revenue via property taxes and affordable housing contributions. For example, the proposal on um West Main would generally that parking lot
generates about $66,000 in revenue for property taxes for the city. If there's an apartment complex there, I'm not saying exactly the one that is proposed, but some kind of housing that could be up to a million dollars a year. That would be the equivalent of raising the
entire city's tax rate by a penny. Um, so, uh, in addition to providing about half of our annual affordable housing contribute budget, which we allow for about $10,000, that one apartment complex could contribute between three
and $5.5 million towards that. That money then can be spent locally for maximum impact. uh like the reconstruction of West Haven that's being planned like the Kindlewood Sixth Street South first street projects that are already underway preservation of other affordable housing via AHIP and
CISRAP funds and tax abatement for qualified citizens. It is an inescapable economic fact that the city cannot provide all of that money. So we need outside development. New buildings ease the tax and rental burden on everyone. New housing makes it cheaper for everyone. Even if you are a
renter, you are still contributing to the tax payments of your landlords. Simultaneously, we're having this conversation about how homelessness in our community. The solution to homelessness is not making it more difficult to be homeless.
We know that. We've heard that the difficulty of living on the streets isn't why people get out of homelessness. It's resources like money and housing. And money goes a lot further if there is more housing, which is another inescapable economic fact.
Buildings take up space and that is good for the people who need to live and work inside that space. It can be surprising to those on the outside or are used to a familiar skyline. We've heard San Francisco cited as a cautionary tale of what happens when you don't criminalize
homeless folks in the area. However, I take a different lesson from San Francisco, which has roughly the same skyline in most of the peninsula that it did when my mother grew up there in the 50s and 60s. The skyline is the same because they haven't allowed new housing to be built to meet those demands. When new housing is prevented, while the
population naturally continues to grow, homes are scarce and therefore more expensive, and some people are left out on the streets. Do we want Charlottesville to become the land of $3 million for a normal regular house like it is in California? No. In order to prevent homelessness, in
order to prevent people having to be displaced to the surrounding counties and to give people more chances in life, we have to allow new housing, some of which will be bigger than before. And we can't be meek about buildings taking up space. With more space inside, then more
people can be on the inside. With more space on the inside, there's more choice and competition between landlords, so prices can stabilize and drop. We are not used to seeing change because there hasn't been enough built to meet demands in a lot of our adult memories. There were building boom booms in the 20th
century, the scale of which we haven't seen in decades. There's a reason why so many of the homes in Charlottesville are built between 1910 1920 and then again in the 50s when the building booms were happening. We didn't run out of space after that. Instead, the city both limited options with restrictive
downzoning, which prevented multif family homes and mixeduse commercial, and tore down homes, most notably in Vinegar Hill and the Preston corridor. When I hear the terms breaking at massing or stepbacks, those sound scared, like we're in denial about
buildings taking up space. An unarticulated facade with some ornamentation has served folks well for hundreds of years, including here in Charlottesville. Just look at the Montichello Hotel, the Wells Fargo building on the mall, the old Martha Jeff.
That being said, we can differ on taste and we can urge developers to behave with community conscientiousness. But if we truly want to build affordable housing, to build any housing to prevent displacement, to meet the housing and budgetary needs of our community, then we have to be enthusiastic about new
homes being built. And for that reason, I know this is addressing some issues that are in this exact item and some other ones that'll come up later. Um I would move that we can um allow the COA.
Okay. So we um now going to hear from Yeah. the um BA chair. That was a motion. So we weren't ready for a motion. Sorry, that was not a motion.
Well, yeah, it's entirely up to you all. I guess not a motion just to that I like you and you said uh good evening everybody. I'm James Zamer. I'm the chair of the board of architectural review. Um, and we are charged, as Jeff always often reminds
us, with uh kind of implementing and and um y'all's guidelines, the city city historic preservation guidelines, our city council's guidelines. So, those are that's our charge. That's what we're asked to do. Um, and that's what we did. We voted unanimously 7 to zero to deny
the demolition of the Warden Backer House. Um, I think that, you know, it is to some degree it is an anchor building in this particular district. It's on Wartland Street, right? It's the Wartenbecker House. It's the Wartland Street district. It's all named after uh
Mr. Wartbeck. Um he was uh has been previously mentioned um appointed by Thomas Jefferson as the first librarian at the university. Uh as I said during the V meeting, um the UVA was built um with what Jefferson called his temple of
knowledge uh as the rotundas it central building. um at a time when most universities had a chapel as their central building. Um this is because Jefferson was a very strong proponent of religious freedom and the separation of church and state. And so in a sense this
is this house is the house of his uh chief priest if you will uh as the librarian. And I think that at a time in this country when education's under attack, when um uh libraries are under attack, uh it's a it's a good thing to support the preservation of um the home
of a very important librarian to this community. Um I also think that the the COA that we did approve in 200 was it 23? Um to me that was a compromise, right? Uh that was a way for us to
achieve some more housing and also achieve preservation. Uh Miss Keller's here tonight. She came out and actually spoke against that project uh at that time because it was encroaching on the Wenbecker House. Um, and I feel like we
wrestled with it and work with the applicant to, yes, scooch the building back a little bit to respect the historic house, but are were also willing to allow for growth and adding a building on that historic site. Um, the historic house doesn't meet the setbacks
Mr. Blair was talking about because it was the first house built. So, there was no setbacks to meet on that street, right? Um, so but to me that's that was um the the application in 2023 I felt was a really good way to compromise and
preserve both preservation uh in the city and also allow for some growth. Um you know it as we've mentioned and heard tonight it's one of the oldest houses in all of Charlottesville and from our guidelines once a house is gone it's gone forever and we're never going to be
able to study it again. Any questions? Any questions or comments from from city council? No, Mr. Mr. Hall is is for council. Um, I had a a job a couple years ago um
downtown that included two historic homes on on site and they wanted to name some things in the building after the the folks who owned those homes. And I just had a sense that a house built in
that long ago probably wouldn't have a rosy past. And so I looked into the names of the folks that they wanted to to credit. Um, and one of them was a
Confederate officer who uh fought for the South and died at Chancellor'sville. And the other one was the doctor who declared Carrie Buck feeble-minded that led to the Buck Vel 1927 case that um turned into uh the eugenics policy of
the United States. So, um, I brought those to the attention of the team and they decided, you're right, we probably shouldn't name things after those folks. Um, so yes, this is a historic property. Um,
to me, that's not enough to outweigh the needs of the future. The the, you know, this this point is relevant, too. That's right. That those people live there, too. Yeah. So calling the fact that it's named the street is named after him
that's that's not to me that's not as relevant as the fact that we are in a housing crisis. So are we at a point where one of us could make a offer a motion? Well u before we do I want to get um the city attorney just to give us some
guidance on it. Make uh certainly and actually Mr. Warden did a very nice job of laying out the criteria that you all are required to consider. As uh as we said, you are allowed to consider matters outside the four corners of the application and more
matters than the BA are considered. But I would like urge you to and if you're going to deny this, you do need to take a a close look at the um uh criteria that Mr. Warden laid out and make sure that you're making specific findings as to those criteria. that would be helpful
upon review because as uh as laid out um there is a further right of appeal to the circuit court and there are are other issues been on here. So it's important to get your findings correct in a case like this. Okay. So, can we um bring those um that
criteria? Did was that one of your slides, Jeff? Just to because if we're going to make a a motion to support it or deny it, we want to list um the reasons um for if we deny it.
Well, we're not planning to list reasons tonight, right? We're we've got a motion in front of us, a resolution to either accept or in the content of the resolution is what we're voting on. I'm a little confused as I I I think part of what Mr. Maddox's memorandum to us was uh saying was that
we shouldn't simply rely on the resolution to provide the reasons, but we should discuss those reasons. Is that fair? The uh the language in the code that we're referencing here sets that the uh council will consider the written appeal. the criteria set forth within
this section as applicable and any other information, factors or opinions it deems relevant to the application. And so if you are going to deny, I suggest you have a showing that you these factors were considered. Yeah, I'm not prepared to support it because of the age of it and that we
have a proposal that has been approved that shows that we can keep the residents and um and also have some some units there. Um I respect the bar's discussion of it. they are more in
inclined to know the details of this, but I have read it and I didn't see anything that would make me change that my um my position on it. If I may, uh it wasn't an eitheror. Uh I'm simply noting that in 2023, the B
approved a request and that was under the prior zoning and was allowed. I I don't know if you took that same I don't know if you took that same footprint and went higher. Uh I can't comment on that, but I just want to make clear that the
the what was approved in 2023 isn't like what must happen, right? It's not an either or. Yeah. Well, I would uh I would agree with what the mayor said in terms of I think clearly meets the B criteria. Um I would just say briefly I think you
know that COA to me is interesting because to me it's a perfect demonstration that we can do two things at once and to me the principle of it is a very good model because the height on that could go up but you can build higher dense growth while preserving history which I think is a public good
and it is something that people of all income levels can experience and there's something different about being able to be in be in a building touch history and I'll also just say a lot of people's eyes probably roll back in the back of their head during this whole conversation because it's like what is this relevant to anything? I'll just say
I mean the principle of how we treat historic preservation bar will impact every neighborhood. Does it impact how is it worth preserving homes owned by John West, a prominent black business owner during segregation? Is it worth the BA having the power to the actual
power to reduce heightened setbacks to avoid a project shadowing over West Haven and not integrating their plans to reconnect with West Main? The principle of it matters a lot and I think we can do both getting um change while
acknowledging the importance of those things. Um but in any case, I will make a motion uh uh to uh denial of the certificate of appropriateness for demolition of the structure at 1301 Wland Street. Second. And Mr. Mayor, if I could just I I
happen to sort of talk a little bit about my reasoning, but I'd like to put it on the record as well. The first point I would like to make is that while I recognize that in our new zoning ordinance uh we did express a desire to increase housing in all neighborhoods,
that did not mean increase housing on all properties. And clearly the only way we can hold both historic preservation and increasing housing in any kind of tension is to recognize that there will be some h some properties where historic
preservation wins out and some properties where the need for more housing wins out. This is a case where I believe that the need for preserving uh the historic nature of the of the Warden Baker house uh wins out. And I would
also note that we we've got already in motion, already under development, I don't know, something a thousand different a thousand units of student housing within a couple of within probably a quarter of a mile or a third of a mile uh between
the Verve between the building on J 2005 JPA uh the building that's going in at um Massie Road. um alderman and and uh and Ivy Road uh and not even not even getting to the
issue of what's happening on West Main Street. So those are those are apartments that are intended for students. They're not intended for other people other than students. Whereas and and this would be another instance
of we're build we're looking we're being asked to approve housing for students not for families. Uh we haven't done a very good job of increasing the supply of housing for families. And that's something that I think we need to keep
in mind as well. So, as I look at all of the various factors, the age of the structure of the property is certainly one of them. The fact that it's a contributing structure in a historic registry, his register of historic places, uh the fact that it's
associated with a historic person, the fact that it has a a fairly unique architectural style and is a fairly good example of it from what I understand. Uh, and I'll also say, by the way, I rely on the BAR to bring better judgment on architecture
and architectural history and historic preservation than I possess and I will rely on them for that. Granted, the the ordinance requires that we even if we accept their expertise in those areas that we consider whether there are other factors we have to balance. Uh I don't
find that there are any other factors that that balance against that successfully. It was accurately noted that any historic district is the sum of its parts. If we mean anything by this historic district at all, we need to preserve that. Uh the probably the the
sometimes been called the anchor of of the district. Um and finally, I I note that when we start talking about perhaps putting 200 units on there, we don't have a plan. We don't have a a budget. We don't have a proform. We don't have any way of knowing whether it
would actually fit on the property. So, it's very hard for me to credit that for very much. So, I will be joining the motion. Is that a second? If it hasn't I thought it was seconded. Yeah. Okay. Never mind. But I will be joining in the motion. Um, Mr. I have a brief
just note. um which is I I recently spoke with a a client who's a student at University of Virginia who lives off of Little High Street. When they can't find housing close enough to the school, they take a single family house in a neighborhood. That's happening already.
So, just something to keep in mind as we move forward. Mr. Maddox, is this justification is that enough? You should we discuss it further? I I think if you have you've considered the factors, you're you're voting on it based on the B's um take on
it. Uh I think the you have a lot of reasons here. I think you've done a nice job of uh laying out the reasons why you are denying. Thank you. It's been moved and properly second. Um are we prepared to vote further? Is there any further discussion? If not, can we vote please?
recommend denial is a yes just to be clear. Correct. The resolution is for is the resolution for denial. So yes, just wanted to be clear. Okay. Um the next item on the agenda is um a motion to support city of
Charlottesville efforts to become a B city USA locality. Mr. Gains Durban Forester will um speak on this. Our guest is Chris is going to speak on it. They're both here. Okay. Can if you can quietly um leave
the room that would be great. Is this one working? Yes. Yes. Okay. That one is too if you get close enough to it. Well, good evening, mayor, uh members of council, and um city staff in in attendance this evening. My name is
Chris Gensik. I'm the parks and trails planner for the city of Charlottesville. Uh the issue before you um that was brought to the city parks department about a year ago. Uh there was a group of a garden club who noticed there was a thing called B City USA which is much
like Tree City USA which is something I did 15 years ago or so. Um this program uh rewards and designates communities as bee friendly. It's effectively like pollinator friendly with flowers, lowered use of pesticides, and working
to make sure that our codes and policies um keep in alignment with the goal of preserving honeybees and other pollinating birds and in insects such as that. So the uh resolution tonight would be to allow staff to sign a memorandum of understanding an agreement with the
Xerxes Society, which is basically B City USA. Um the things that are in the the request of the memory of understanding are things that we already mostly do. Um we have an IPM program. We've had it for many years to reduce our use of pesticides to the extent
possible while still managing our public lands and trees. We already have um planted pollinator areas on certain parks. Riverview power line is one of them. Uh we're looking to do the John Water Parkway soon and others. We've been putting native plants in our parks for many many years. So the staff here
the only impact of staff would be uh Mr. Gaines would be our uh representative on their committee. The group would actually run their own committee. This is not this would not be a new city committee. So there would be an outside groups committee that we have representation on and we would support becoming a B city USA. We would
get signs and advice from the B city people to tell us how to improve even more on what we already do within the parks department. I would if it's allowable. There are representative here from the B city group locally that would like to say a few words. Okay. Yes.
Thank you so much for your time and um actually it was nice of you to go ahead and give a nice synopsis of of what we're doing. that what it is. I'm a member of the Ryana Garden Club and the Ryana Garden Club, the Charlottesville Garden Club and the Albamaral Garden Club are
working in tandem to um to hopefully allow um Charlottesville to be a B city. There are a number of other um cities, you know, around Virginia that are also bee cities, but I think it's just it would be a great educational thing. And
then also just um you know without pollinators um your food I mean you know what we eat relies on pollinators and there's a declining um population of bees. Um it's not just the honeybees actually it's
there's so many varieties of bees and insects and so forth. So um it would not be a financial um you know obligation for the city. the three um the three clubs would take on the cost and the costs are not large and
also it's something that you can look at yeartoear. So if for some reason the city doesn't like what it's doing then you just don't have to do it. So, um there's really there's not, you know, there's not much that you're put at risk with. And again, there are um there are
a number of other I was going to mention to you, University of Virginia is a B campus. JMU, Randolph College, Ronut College, University of Richmond, Virginia Tech, and Virginia Western Community College are all um B campuses.
And the cities are Ashlin, city of Fredericksburg, Danville, Fauli, Faulier County, Glouester County, Hampton, Lynchburg, Manasses, Martinsville, Newport, News, Richmond, Ridgeway, Rowanoke, Scottsville, Vienna, Virginia
Beach, um um Winchester, and Woodstock. Um that's it. And do you all have any questions for me? Any questions? Um Nat question for the city really. Um there's
no um like doing B city doesn't mean there's no limiting factors that then could be applied to future developments of any kind because no there's no legal t this is similar to tree city like hey we recognize you're already doing good stuff keep doing good stuff like the bees
we'll promote it and you do stuff. So, no, the Steve attending their whatever might be quarterly meeting is is it they don't have any legal oversight on what we do in parks. And I think to the point if we ever decided this is a one-year renewal thing, we could stop doing it if it turns out anything did pop up, but we
don't see anything in here that would be binding in that sense. And April Wimberly, who is the legal counsel, so she um she did approve it on the she the memorandum of understanding, she approved the legality of that document. Mhm. So, okay.
Other questions or comments on this? Is this one reading or two? I believe the reading would would allow staff to sign on the move unless we already have signed it. We're just making sure council single reading. I'm happy to make the motion. Yeah. Uh, I would move the resolution
that um resolution of support for the city of Charlottesville's effort at becoming a B city USA locality. Second. Okay. Um, any further discussion before we vote? Okay. Can we vote?
All right. Thank you. And and this is a single reading? Yes. Yes. Okay. So, we'll coordinate with your group and um Mr. Sounders on a signing and if we wanted to do a picture something, I think tonight's a busy night. We might do that another time outside in a park. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next item on the agenda is the ordinance on camping and storage on city property. Um the chief um chief catches will present this right over here. Chief Chief
Well, good evening, mayor, members of council, city manager, So, as part of our ongoing conversation on the topic of drafting a camping and storage of public, storage of personal property. Um, I'm here this
evening to present the first of two readings of the draft ordinance related to camping and the storage of personal property on city property and in public rights away. This process began on April 3rd, 2025 during our 221s where I meet met with each one of you where we
discussed concerns around encampments in public spaces and reviewed examples from other localities including Ron Oak's ordinance focused on its business district. And when we spoke uh during those 221s, we talked about that ordinance being specific to their
business district. And the consensus was that if we were going to do such an ordinance, it should probably be more citywide and not just focused on one specific area. And I'll get into more of the timeline and more detail in my presentation. But I want to begin by acknowledging the many emails, phone
calls, and inerson conversations that both I and I know each of you have received on this issue over the past year or more. The perspective we've heard come from all sides and they reflect just how complex, emotional this topic is for our community. The reality
is that long-term solutions need to center on housing. I recognize the commitment this council has shown in working towards that goal. And at the same time, I've spent many hours over the years meeting with listening to members of our unhoused community. These
are overwhelmingly great people who want the same basic dignity and stability we all do. Many have shared with me that they understand and even welcome reasonable rules. What we often see, however, is that a
smaller number of unsafe and hazardous encampments create the greatest challenges and cause harm to others. Tonight, what I am presenting is a legal framework designed to help us respond to those unsafe and hazardous situations with clarity and consistency. We owe it
to our unhoused neighbors to ensure their safety just as much we do for our housed neighbors. We owe it to our business community. We are directly affected by unsafe encampments. And we owe it to our entire city to
approach this issue with compassion, fairness, and responsibility. And so with that, we'll start. There we go. The timeline. So this process, like I said, began on April 3rd, 2025 during my 221s with each of you where concerns about these
encampments and their impact on quality of life were raised. Since then, or at that time, I was instructed to begin the process of drafting an ordinance. And just to be just to be clear, there is a lot of conversation around the executive order that came out in July.
and I would agree that's not helpful as are most executive orders we're seeing these days. I'll digress when talked about these executive orders. Once once we were instructed to begin that process of it drafting that ordinance,
we developed an internal working group. That working group consisted of the city members of the city attorney's office, the commonwealth attorney's office, the deputy city manager for social equity, human services, and the police department. And then we met during 221s on July 31st
and August 1st. I updated each of you on the on the draft ordinance and it was placed on the agenda for tonight. Just to be clear, the housing I mean ordinances this ordinance does not replace our housing goals. I think we've been very this council has been very
clear on that. It it it exists alongside our housing initiatives and ultimately housing is the solution. The ordinance simply is about safety and health measures that we consistently see around large specifically large encampments.
I think it's important to know the the difference between the ordinance and the SOP the standard operating procedures. The standing operator operating procedures lays out how we operate within that ordinance. That's important.
Priority will be given to immediate hazards or obstructions. So in the SOP, if there is an immediate hazard or obstruction, an advanced notice is not required. The removal should happen within 24 hours. If people are present,
notification of law enforcement and outreach staff should ex should happen. Uh we should post notice if possible and then remove and store personal property. We will then photograph and document the site along with what was removed.
So how we report and inspect these encampments? Any encampment shall be reported to the deputy city manager for social equity. The site will be logged and assigned to a designated city personnel for inspection. Nonprofit partners may assist with outreach during
this inspection. And if safety is a concern, law enforcement may attend those inspections. And then the designated city personnel must also verify whether the encampment is on city property. So like I said, prioritizing sites
first and foremost, safety risks, traffic slopes, fire. Uh free bridge is a good example. Um the gentleman that was speaking here earlier, and I've heard this from other um folks who were staying under the bridge, actually asked me at one point if there could be an alarm put on the dam so when they open
it to release water, release pressure, they could warn them because when they did that, the water rose so quickly, it would wash them or their their their belongings away. It was a clear danger. Stuff like that would be a priority. Obviously, reports of criminal activity
would be investigated, uh trash and health issues, site conditions or complaints, and then interference with scheduled city work. For instance, um we have uh we're looking at um hiring a group called U
block by block where they go like down the mall almost like ambassadors and clean the mall. Um the challenge with that if there are folks who are um on the mall with a lot of belongings, we have no legal framework for them to move. They're just going to be cleaning around all their belongings and stuff
and and the the um the the campgrounds that are there. And then obviously the size uh and environmental damage that that would be done would also be a consideration um if the site's not an immediate hazard. So, we would post a 10-day
business a 10 business day notice u with the date of the posting and scheduled removal. Um warning that trash and hazards will be discarded. Um how to claim stored property. Uh notice that unclaimed property may be destroyed after 60 days and contact info
for service providers. Um, we would post this in multiple locations so the folks would know um that that we we were coming back and and they had 10 days to uh to move their stuff. U we would also provide oral notice if possible, hopefully finding the person that uh was
staying there and letting them know in person. Um and then if the removal is delayed, we would repost that notice as well. Um outreach. So, we would arrange at least one outreach visit between posting notice and cleanup. And then outreach
staff should be present during that cleanup when possible. Uh, Free Bridge was a was a was another good example. Our nonprofit partners were out there for weeks prior uh to us going out there doing tremendous work um working with the folks who were underneath there to
try to get them the services. Please let let them present. You cannot present. Okay. So, cleanup and resolution. So, law enforcement may be present if needed during a cleanup. Um, give a final we will give a final warning
before removing people or items. Um, we'll separate personal property from trash. Um, weapons should be reported to to law enforcement. Contaminated personal property may be discarded. Um, and store property is described in section 11. And then we will clean the
site and consider deterrence to prevent uh return from of uh camping in the area. And then we'll document the clean up with notes and photographs. So so the storage please.
So the storage of personal property. So we will store store property unless it's hazard or ruined. Uh we'll keep records identifying where these items are and we'll dispose of any any unclaimed items after 60 days. And it should be noted currently what we do
um if folks want to if folks want to store their items which many do when they they have a lot of stuff. We have a container the city has a container near the Salvation Army uh that we will store their items tag it and they can come to the police department at any time when they want to get it and we'll go out and retrieve it
for them. We've been doing that for a little over a year now. Why would they go to you to get their things? Uh returning property. So, we would meet with individuals who claim uh to claim who want to claim restored property. No ID is required unless there's some type of dispute over ownership and then uh
we'll release the property unless someone else uh claims it and then contact the city attorney. Um and the storage is free just like it is now. There's no charge for storing anything like that. Mr. Hall, please. All right. So, what it what this ordinance does and what it doesn't do
and what it and what it does not do. So, this does not solve homelessness. Clearly, it prohibits camping. What it does do, it prohibits camping and storage of personal property and public rights away. You can go through these and see, but there's a few things I want to hit on this. Um, the class 4 misdemeanor.
So, I spoke with Joe Paty, our elected Commonwealth attorney, um, about what happens if someone doesn't pay a fine. Is there a capius issued? Are they could they a warrant be issued? His response was no. a class 4 misdemeanor, a capius
will be issued. But what would happen is there could be those fines could gain interest and that could be a problem obviously if somebody wanted to pay one back pay it back. But capiuses and warrants are not issued for unpaid fines. How about if it happens John?
The the other piece I wanted to uh to to bring up as well and councelor Ashen, you had asked this during our our uh the April 3rd, I'm sorry, the August 1 meeting when we met on this um about what happens with a class 4 misdemeanor prevent somebody from getting a housing
voucher um in the city of Charlottville like through CRA or something like that. I talked to John Sales about that um and he said no, it would not. So, council, as you as you consider as you consider this very difficult topic, um
there's pros and cons to it and ultimately you will listen to the community, listen to all the stakeholders involved in this and make your decision, whatever that may be. I wanted to just lay these out to you. And um with that, I'll take any questions from you.
Could you go back, please? Yes. Could you go back one screen for Did you write this ordinance? You want to admit it? Truth tell. Did you write? I can't read it.
Can you go forward, please? Okay, thank you. So, um, Michael, I'll start with you. You have any questions or comments? Um, yes. Um I mean one of the questions when
I look at the enabling state legislation that's uh referenced in the policy brief um this is based on a number of uh state laws. One is I'll I'm trying to find the
direct language to quote it. uh upon the giving of such person of his written promise to appear at such time and place, the officer shall forthworth release him from custody. However, if any such person shall fail or refuse to discontinue the unlawful act, the
officer may uh proceed according to the provisions of 19-282 um to arrest the individual. And in addition, in another uh one of the enabling uh state legislative ordinances, misdeme class 4 misdemeanor
are carved out explicitly that a judge can still order to be someone to be arrested. Um and in addition, that $250 fine can apply for every single day. It could. Yeah. Um so those are kinds the fines definitely can acrue. And to your point
about um failing to discontinue unlawful lack, that's correct. they would be be brought before a magistrate where a magistrate would issue a a magistrate summon typically. Right. So I guess what you know reading that enabling state legislation would it
be it would be accurate to say based on the discretion of an officer someone still could be arrested only only if they discontinue the unlawful act. if they if they don't. Correct. Um so so I'll give you I'll give you an
example if that if it's helpful. So if an officer goes and said okay you this is encampment falls within the ordinance need to move and they just simply refuse to do so. They then could be arrested and taken in front of a magistrate and a magistrate summons
would then be issued. Right. No, that I hear that, but you know, it's it's easy to see how a foreseeable circumstance could happen where someone does end up arrested, you know, someone just refuses to leave, you know, encampment. Um,
the other element, you know, with the $250 fines acrewing each day someone has been doing that act. Um, and I believe in the at least in the state enabling legislation, it could even go retroactively if you were able to provide documented proof that someone
was there for say a month. It there's no limit on the total amount. I mean, what what is how does this work in practice in terms of discretion of officers in terms of deciding how many days or the size of the fine? So, the officers don't decide to the
size of the fine. That would be decided by a judge. Okay. Um the other question is we've you know we've received uh some legal analyses that obviously
grants pass Supreme Court decision uh strongly limited ETH amendment rights for homeless individuals but there's still um you know concerns around seizure of property without due process um disperate impact impact in terms of
how an ordinance is applied that grants pass does not address. Um, in addition, you know, I wonder if there's equal protection issues when in the standard operating procedures where saying that we're going to apply the ordinance
differently to different populations of people. Um, Wayne, we got Jeff over here. All all of all of which is to say I mean the city has lost very high-profile cases around homelessness issues on constitutional
grounds in the past. To me it seems like this I mean has there been any analysis of how this withholds constitutional muster and I would imagine we will be met with a lawsuit. So I think that gives me an opportunity to answer the one question from the
crowd earlier. So um and I've spoken to the city attorney. So, the city attorney's office wrote this ordinance. Um, they could probably answer the question as to the constitutionality of this better than I could. Whose idea was it? City attorney. So, so anytime we get asked to draft an
ordinance, we do so. And that is what we did in this case. We wrote an ordinance that we do feel would pass constitutional muster muster. John given that it uh talking ear to him uh oh I mean this John Grant's p grant's pass is not is you
know it dealt with a very specific case coming out of the ninth circuit and it is binding law. We're talking about city property and our ability to regulate city property is broad and wide and that is what we are doing here with this ordinance. Um that's I'm not speaking to the the policy decision as yours but as
to the constitutionality. We have done our very best in our office to draft an ordinance that accords with the uh council's goals and uh the requests coming from the police department. So who asked for this ordinance? Simple question. Nobody wants to answer.
Michael, Michael, do you have any other question? Did you say that and say I thought this was a good idea? Mr. Fo, please. The attorney says, please don't please gentlemen. Please, gentlemen, why won't you answer the very simple
question that everybody wants to know who opposed this abomination? We we appreciate community input. We have to run this meeting by a Robert's rules of order. There will be a public comment period at the end of our discussion and it would be helpful if we
could have our chance to ask questions first even though we absolutely hear you. one of you asked the question. [Applause] Michael, uh you finish your questions and comments or um I mean the other issue which is obvious
and um this is beyond your purview. So I I don't know if I guess it's more of a comment or really a question, but is I mean the obvious issue is I mean the de facto strategy of the city at this point is when there is an encampment and we start
to get emails of a complaint about it. You all end up you are called and we respond and you respond with no legal and that's not your and that's not your choice. You you are not jumping up and down to say I want to do that. We are not. But
to the attack. So to be attacked, the de facto strategy of the city at this point is encampments are there. When we get once there's enough emails that there's a vague sense that it's an issue, you all end up getting called out there, you ask people to leave, they go to a different location, the process
repeats again. And I just don't I how does this change that situation? I mean it adds a layer of criminality criminaliz potential criminalization on top of it but like I just but I know that's beyond your because I
mean the funal issue is we can go out there with social services providers but there's no permanent supportive housing or overnight shelter to direct them to and you've acknowledged that you know that but I'm just struggling to see how this plays out beyond just people end up
dispersing into woods in the urban ring and or uh people will still make the decision like you ask me to move and there's a threat of criminalization. Sure, I'll do it, but they don't have any. I mean, they're going to end up somewhere else until they get a home. I
mean, just what what's the practical effect of this in terms of changing where our status quo is right now, but I know that's I know that's far beyond just Yeah. Yeah. I mean, sir, like and we've spoken about this with all all of us. Um, I'm
not sure there's a good answer, sir. There really isn't. And And look, this doesn't solve the issue. Our I will tell you that there's not a meeting or conversation I have with my boss, the city manager, that this isn't something we talk about, whether it be
trying to find find a low barrier shelter or, you know, trying to find places for people to go that are safer than under a bridge where the water rises quickly. I mean this is a complex issue. This is one piece of it. But
again um that's why that last slide is pros and cons of it. And at the end of the day it's um it's this body's decision. This man cannot tell a lie. John and uh you know to an I to answer the
community's question. I mean at the end of the day I mean the buck stops with city council in terms of where things come from. When the city manager presented his original plan for homelessness, part of it was this as a possible policy. And the decision at
that time was we will not explore this until a permanent year-round shelter actually exists. And I think council enough of council had a change in perspective that that order of operations should change. So that's that's where we ended up. And I think but I think that's important to say this
is not some unilateral decision from the chief nor is it a unilateral decision from the city manager or the city attorney. Um but to that core point where I still really really struggle
with is we've had a viable plan to get to a low barrier year-round shelter that has not materialized for a variety of reasons. That's what we need. I mean, even if this is in place, people will still just move to other areas that will become
visible. Um, and I'm not sure what we end up accomplishing passing this before a permanent shelter exists, you know, just at the practical level. Um, because I just where are people going to go and people
are going to gravitate towards where services are, where they can walk to community, where they can get food. I mean, even I I don't know. It's correct, sir. Okay. Um, Natley, you have Yeah. Um, thanks, Michael, for um for
your questions. Covered some of the same bases that I had. Um, I have some thoughts and some questions. One of my questions is um what discussions were had with the local homeless services providers about
the creation of the ordinance and the likely outcome of what it would look like. So I personally didn't well it was a group it was a work group that met that put this ordinance together. Um, I will tell you that Miss Washington,
um, the email that she sent, I believe that we sent it today to us about adding other steps to this workg group as between the first reading and and the second and and to work and talk through this. Um, I love that idea and uh I think we should do just that. But uh to
quick answer to your question, there were none. Um, I will say that uh I will say I will say that these conversations with our nonprofit providers from what I understand with our deputy city manager for social equity uh speaks with them often on this topic.
Okay. But not a direct work group on this. Not there has not been a direct work group with our nonprofits about this. Okay. And we don't currently have we have our our uh deputy city manager of
social equity. social equity. I wasn't sure if we were still using equity. Um, but we don't have we have open positions for homelessness outreach coordinators and that sort of thing. We don't have anyone in those roles yet. That's my understanding. Um, so
the um one of the claims that's made in the policy briefing is the number of homelessness and and problems surrounding that have increased lately. But uh we got info recently and I I couldn't remember if this was at the um
retreat or a regular meeting um that and I also can't quite remember the year if it was 2007 or 2017 pick counts. Yeah, the pick count was and I know pick that was going to 221s I believe. Okay. pick count data and our ability to
acquire that changes slightly, but roughly um it had gone from 260 people to 240. It was close, but it was slightly lower now than what it had been at the previous data point. That was a reference from the community well-being report that was issued by UVA just recently.
Yes. So that to me shows that it's maintained lately. Um, so the timing of it all to to echo Michael's point is that we don't have any where
for people to go yet and that is something that we've been working on. I know it's been we've been in conversations with the homeless services providers about that and the community a lot lately and it is it is hard to come up with that solution. It's a lot of people who all mean well but there's a
lot of factors that make it hard to make a decision there. at at the council retreat, we all kind of said, "We're ready to do something." I'm not quite certain that this ordinance was the something because it is still putting that cart before the horse. Um
we we when Grant's pass came out, we had a conversation up here about how th that's not the city that we want to be. And so using that as a basis for an ordinance now, a year later, um
it's not it's not the right basis for something like this, it doesn't address the problems and it doesn't address the reality of the folks still need to go somewhere. Um so we had we had some great emails about
the legality of it. We've had a lot of folks expressing concerns about the pleasantness of their walks around. We've had um folks expressing concerns about, you know, the health and safety of these um the folks who are are living in
encampments. Um all of which are are valid to those individual people. Um but I am concerned about the timing of this. I'm concerned about the latitude in in clause C um and how this will be
applied. Ordinances should have a certain amount of discretion, but this feels like a big discretion. The clause C says nothing herein should be construed to limit the discretion of city personnel to engage in outreach or other non-inforcement actions in lie of
citation or arrest. So what are the incentives there to let people go or to pro provide? It's I know there's the SOP in place, but there's still that feels like there's a way to not apply this equally across folks who are
outside. Um, and so I would recommend that we either deny this or table this until we have a place where we can send people um that is meeting the needs if not of a 100% of the folks that are outside, at
least a good majority of them. Thank you. [Applause] Lloyd, do you have any? Yeah. Um, let me say I I I think we need to understand the limits of what the
Grant's pass decision was. The Grants Pass decision said that in the view of the of six justices of the Supreme Court, the Grants Pass ordinance was constitutional. it was legal but the but
it didn't resolve the question that I think we all need to resolve which is is it moral is it ethical is it practical um and so I've been struck by the answers by the the many now probably
couple hundred emails that we've received with six very specific proposals most of which I agree with though I would also add Miss Washington's proposals as well. I I had not seen anything from you, Miss Washington. I
heard what you said and I I I was writing it down as fast as I could, but I may not have gotten it all correct. Uh the bottom line and I I said this a month or more ago to uh within council's you know inner workings and so on that I
thought that if for us to move forward with an ordinance like this would require that we have a plan for where the people would go where we want them to be. Uh, and I don't mean in the in the Donald Trump sense of jail or
whatever, but in terms of of the housing first attitude that the city has adopted and has tried to adopt and and and work on over the last few years. Uh and maybe the maybe the answer is that we
authorize a you know a a campground in a sense that we would be able to to have portaotties at that we would be able to have some water at that we would be able to to to monitor for whatever safety concerns we may have. Uh and I I I think
by the way that that we need to understand that the that the impetus for a a lot of this has been that there have been some real problems that have come out of these encampments. Uh there was one encampment
over near uh the old English inn for example that when it was uh you know when folks moved on from there it took a hazmat team to go in and and clean up. Uh we had uh the problem under the encampment under the bridge and we
noticed that while while there was an encampment under the bridge the amount of E.coli coli bacteria in the Ryana River along there went up again attributable to in that case probably to a lack of a portaotti or anything else along those lines so I think there are
ways that we can uh we can do something I I I don't intend to propose a detailed plan from here for right now there are plenty of people who have much more access to the details than I but I think that we need a plan like that that would
say, if we're going to basically move, you know, take the people with the tents, move the the encampment, so to speak, let's move it to a place that we can monitor, that we can provide water, and we can provide portaotties, uh, and and and so on. Uh, so that's
that's sort of been my my position on it all along. Still my position. uh as I said Grant's pass uh may have solved or may have answered at least one legal question but it doesn't answer the the moral or ethical or practical question of what do we do about the situation and
it to me it is not a a simple answer just to to take the Trumpian response. We need to have a humanitarian response, but it needs to be an actual response and not what we've seen over the last year or two, which is we just kind of hope it the problem goes away because
it's clear that the problem is larger. We don't have the the if we were to right now commit ourselves to some particular building uh for an inter for an indoors kind of an answer, it would be at least a year. There is no
way we can make any progress on this in less than a year if we're relying on a building that would either buy we would either buy or build. Uh we've got to have some answer. I think the answer is to figure out where we could have a monitored um uh city approved city
monitored campground uh with you know with portaotties water etc. And that would also say uh all and I also say I am not at all convinced uh that I understand all of the ramifications of this particular
ordinance. I didn't actually see it until this weekend, I think. Uh and I didn't hadn't seen the operating procedures. And I'm not prepared to to say that I would vote for exactly this ordinance, but I would vote for an
ordinance that moved toward this goal as long as it was accompanied in real time, not just a year from now, in real time with another place to go. Yeah. Thank you. Um, I'm happy if folks
over there would like to associate my face for whatever reason with this. I don't think that I asked for it any more than anyone else here. In the meetings that we have with staff, we talk about real problems, concerns that we have that are being um
given to us. You know, it's um I certainly appreciate the outreach, the several hundred emails that we've gotten. We get um every week 10 maybe a dozen emails of people walking through um bringing up issues uh on this common
space that we call particularly the downtown mall. I don't think those people are bad people because of the fact that they have concerns about things that they see. I don't think the business community uh is composed of bad people because they have concerns. I
don't think that I'm a bad person because uh I would like that situation to be better. Um so that is where I'm coming from. Um obviously I think well I would say obvious you can't take
Yeah, it'd be lovely to be able to talk without being interrupted. It'd be Please let him speak. Yeah, we we have rules. Rules.
Please, please, let's have order. We're almost done. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Um, so as part of the conversations that we have about all kinds of things that we're we're dealing with, we we have
asked and as part of our strategic plan, one of the things we have has to do with economic vitality, has to do with what we're doing next summer with with um with the bsentennial and so forth. And so we have Mr. Sanders has been working
for several years now on a plan for the downtown mall. So this this was the genesis of this the genesis of this was what are ways that we can think about about how we can help our police
officers engage with people in crisis. help them. What are ways that we can um provide our police officers the clarity that they need when they're dealing with a situation that is is very very
difficult. And so that was part of the genesis of this. Uh just a few more things, Mr. Mayor, if you'll indulge me. Um um you know, we've I've been around here for almost four years, and my time is
almost up. I'm sure you all be glad for that. Um um but I think that I and others have really attempted to um vote with our money and our treasure to invest in
housing, to invest in the zoning ordinance. I think we've I certainly been my my intent and um I would be the very first to agree and maybe and I I think that this has been a helpful thing even though painful to help focus the
community's um um thought on the fact that this is something that we really have to address as a whole. What I will say is uh in my door knockocking last spring um I went all
over the city, not to much avail, but I did it anyway. Um and I spoke with people all over the city, very very liberal, progressive people um again throughout the whole city. And
what I have observed is that there's a very deep um cognitive dissonance within this city. Um people come tonight, they'll email us with hundreds of emails and I know that their hearts are in the right place. But when I go meet with
people on their front doors, people do not want a shelter in their neighborhood. Now, Okay, I'm I'm almost done. Just a couple more minutes and I'll be done. So, no one wants a shelter in their
neighborhood, which is one reason why I um I didn't feel like what was being proposed for Fville was fair to Fville. Now, ultimately, we've hired this guy down here who does a really fantastic job of
of keeping all the plates spinning. And this guy has um come up with an option of Fville. And if that doesn't work, he's going to come up with another option. Eventually, we'll land on it. And so maybe
at some point we'll have the money and the votes and everything else lined up to support the options that you find Sam. And um you know maybe this whole exercise is a way for the community to really realize that there are u many
people that are concerned about this topic. Yes, obviously the lived experience is essential, but the experience of the business community and the people that visit the downtown mall, it is it is absolutely relevant. Thank you, John. Appreciate it. Um um
thank you. I want to thank my colleagues for their comments. I want to chime in to to say a few comments on this. This is a very difficult issue as um I appreciate my colleagues because many of the questions that you had um I had as well about you know what what that
interaction would look like with the um police and the city um and this is a really difficult issue to to address. No one as as we said wants a a no or no or low barrier shelter and um every place
we have proposed it we have gotten um push back but um I continue to support the location in Ffield um I believe we what I'm hearing is that we need to come up with um a a uh a location alternative for the
residents. Um, this is, as I said, a really difficult issue because we get concerns from the business owners, which allow us to um to allocate the over the last several years 134 million towards affordable
housing to have that strong economic base. We also want to um care for um our most vulnerable um residents. and I on a daily basis, it's not uncommon for me to to interact with a person without um shelter and to interact with a business
owner. I think that's one of the lovely things about this city that we can have that I I work with the Salvation Army the patchum and and just interact with the unhoused on on the mall and as I see them I give them money. I understand that plight and I want this to be a
place where every resident thrive and we're trying to address this and I appreciate um all of the input that we have received and I understand the next steps that we have to take. I I just what I'm hearing from council that this
is not ready yet. We need to um come up with a a site on you know if we're going to say you can't be here but you can go there. That's what what what I'm hearing. And um and so um we're going to
continue to work at this. I appreciate everyone's input on this. And um you know it this is um Mr. Hall. Thank you. Did you have something? Yeah. But I want you to wrap. Um so I I
would just say that that you know over particular the last and we've received a lot of emails you know that you know um that's you know with the title um criminalizing homelessness. We also received some that said that you
know some of the issues that they have had with unhoused but also saying that you know I understand that this is a a difficult issue and and it is this is probably you know one of the few times that we've received this many emails and so we know that that when we try to
address difficult issues we're going to run into this and that's why you all have elected us. We're going to hear what all of the concerns from the business owners to the providers to come up with um a solution and likely it's going to be something that you know
everyone's not going to be happy with then you know but we're going to do um our best as we hear the input. So, um, what we're going to do one more round of of comments because we I'm sure some other people still want to to speak at this.
Um, I just have a a brief addition uh to the conversation, which is um, you know, you're you're taught growing up to, you know, don't talk about money. Well, up here we have to talk about money. Money is how we set our priorities. That's
what our budget reflects. Um, part of that is the need to raise money so we can spend it on things. Um, we can't grab dollars out of the air. So, um, one of the
one of the presentations we got during our council retreat the other week was the fiscal stress level of the city, meaning how much latitude do we have to do something like raise taxes? Um, and it's not not much. We're we're at the
the tippy top pretty much of our fiscal stress capacity, which means the other way to expand our revenue generation is to um well, so that's where you know the businesses are relevant. We get sales
tax that funds a lot of our things. Property taxes is where we get the most of our general um fund. So if we can expand our revenue by allowing more people to pay those property taxes so it falls on a broader range of people
instead of a smaller range of people. Then we can have money to fund things like a really good shelter like investment in um affordable housing vouchers and other things throughout the city like parks and things that we all
enjoy. But um we have to keep that in mind moving forward. So, we want to pay for good things, right? So, we have to raise money in order to pay for those good things. Um, so when we make a decision like um like this where we want
to make sure we pause this so that we can go ahead and get a homeless shelter, which is going to cost a lot of money. When the time comes to pay for that, we also need support for that. Um, and that can be direct by raising taxes, which we don't want to do, or it can be done by
broadening the folks paying for taxes so that it's less of an onus on each individual person. So, I just want to point that out because hopefully we're going to have some solutions shortly, but they are going to cost money and we need to keep that in mind.
So, Mr. Mayor, are we at this point wanting to indefinitely table this ordinance or just somehow strike it? I mean, we're obviously not going to vote for it in two weeks, right? Okay. So, what is what's the what's the
legal move here, Mr. Mr. Attorney? How do we deepix this? If you want it's the the agenda is the council. So if you want to not consider it next week, you know, there have you do not have to or next meeting, you do not have to. It can be removed from the
agenda. It could be I guess the public would probably feel more comfortable if there was a way to say that it was someone can move to table. Say again. Someone can move to table it if you want to. Okay. I would move that we table this motion.
Second. Any further discussion on tableling this until you know I I I'd like to understand what the term table means under our procedure. It can be raised at a in a future date. It can be just stricken.
You can bring it up in any future meeting just as you can raise anything you like at any future meeting. It's uh well, it's one of two readings, but um sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. If I may, what the ordinance says is
that no ordinance can be um become law unless it is first introduced and then after a period of at least three days, it is then voted on by the council. If you decide that you do not want to take this up at a future meeting, then it is effectively dead. Okay,
there's which is to say it expires. We we don't have to vote on it and it will not be on the next agenda, right? But it doesn't mean no one else can ever bring it up again. There's always that possibility and that's just the technical that's just the technical
um that is a great question. Would it be a second reading if it's identical? I think he's saying that it d it expires. it it this this specific uh measure would need to be raised again and heard again as I
thank you for that clarification. I would just say there's been a motion in a second and I would we've discussed it a little bit but I mean the core thing not just city government but the community has to figure out is where and how are we going to build a permanent yearround low barrier shelter
and a location for more permanent supportive housing. Yes, that location at Fithville I from my understanding city council's ready to allocate money to support that but the nonprofit partners and I don't not trying to be negative I don't know all the reasons have not been able to get to an agreement on running a low barrier
shelter there until that changes there's not going to be a low barrier shelter unless we find a different location which will then cost millions of dollars to acquire and then millions of dollars to renovate we can do that we have the money in our budget to figure that out but it would take a lot of time to get off the ground we've You got to figure
out a way to get the city together with nonprofits, but I think also private philanthropy groups like Bama Works and others to actually figure out and fund it because again until we one we know yes or no whether the Fithville proposal
is completely dead or still possible and then from there you know pick a location. But it's going to take years and millions of dollars and every budget cycle it's going to require city council prioritizing that. Um, so
I mean we've just discuss I mean the situation is the same as it was a decade ago in terms of I mean we're pretty close in terms of the number of homeless people in our community. We've discussed the need for a lowbear shelter for well over a decade and we've never done it and until we do it even if we pass this until we do that
it's not really going to change much. Yeah. So I want to thank you chief and city manager for making this presentation tonight. Okay, it's been moved and properly seconded. Thank you, Chief Kes. Um, further
discussion on tableling this. No. How do we vote? I initiated the vote. So, um, introduce So, Mr. We I I don't see a a thing to vote.
What is your You can tell me. Yes, I vote to table and Natalie. Yes, please. Okay. So, Mr. Folk, I would like to get some people people who haven't spoke who haven't spoken yet to speak. You mean you're not allowed to speak a second time?
You are, but we want people. So, I'm here. You're going to stay until everybody gets to speak, aren't you? Yes, sir. But it'll be Yes. Well, it's the people that you like to speak. Okay. No, I want to get You spoke once, sir. Who Who would like to speak? We're now
at time for a second community management. Who would who would like to speak on Oh, Miss Brian, would you like to close? Good evening. Diana Bryant, Charlottesville resident. Um, I first
just want to say like before I go into my official comments, Jen, thank you for running because yeah, anyway, um, hopefully hopefully it's tabled until Jen gets on. Um, but anyway,
I think that today really showed me that the blue heart thing the I love Seville, whatever that was, um, that the downtown business association did after August 12th, 2017 meant nothing. How do we know that? Because the
Charlottesville that they love so much doesn't include unhoused people. I mean, I think that's pretty clear. And so I mean I could do the whole like profound comments about how we should be caring for each other which there's a
place for that and I feel like everyone has already said that. I'm really saddened by the fact that Mr. Pinkston said but he said community members voices matter but the business owners matter blah blah blah. And it's just
very clear that there's no room for nuance here. People are picking sides and unfortunately there are some counselors who are prioritizing profit over people and that's very clear. I think it goes without saying that the downtown mall is often dead because we
don't need that many trinkets and pottery shops. We need things to do. And I mean that not in a disrespectful manner, but I'm saying that when people go downtown for the TomTom Fest, it's because there's actually some entertainment. It's because there's
actually something for multicultural um folks who are looking for multicultural fun to be able to enjoy something. There are go-go bands. When that happens at Fridays after 5, you see black people. When they're not there, you don't see them. I don't think it's rocket science. So, when we talk about
the businesses that we're protecting, let's really think about how black owned businesses are not able to do well on the downtown wall. And that's not new. And people have said that for decades. In fact, it's been said since before I was even born. And so, it's just like I
feel like we continue to talk in circles, but the reality is that you guys or someone, whether it was the city manager, no one's going to say that they came up with the idea. So, I mean, there's no point in us playing the guessing game. We can kind of assume who had the idea for the whole ordinance to
come up and we can base that off of past things that they've said. Um, but ultimately the ordinance is a terrible idea. We know that. And it's it's just very sickening to see how we got back to business as usual. We we had so many
people in the community begging for civility in these meetings, people not to come and shout or bring signs and protest during the meetings. And as soon as we got back to that business as usual, quiet, quick meetings, things like this happened. Luckily, we had some people who paid attention to make sure
that the community came out to speak up tonight, but if we didn't, that ordinance would probably have been approved. So, again, thank you, Jen, for running. And I hope to quickly everyone who supports the unhoused community and supports striking this ordinance, do you mind standing if you're able?
It's always good to see the support in the room. And now we know who's on what side. Thank you. Who else? No. Um, no. I'm sorry. Um, Wendy, um, I'm sorry. Which good afternoon? Well, good evening, good
night because it's been a long time that we've been in here. But uh my name is Rosia Parker and y'all claim that. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Miss Oskrin. I appreciate that
y'all have common sense and y'all understand what is really needed. I really appreciate that. But being a mother, being homeless for five years with children, living in Charlott, coming to Charlottesville,
coming to Charlottesville, allow putting my kids in foster care. Foster care loses the paperwork. That's not a happy feeling when you have to fight for your children to get them back. When you're carrying everything that you own on your back, a bag here
and there, you got to carry everything with you. There's no way that you can leave them. I understand 60 days they're discarded after not being claimed. Where do y'all expect the people to put their belongings if they are already being
pushed away from sleeping on the streets? Like Mike said, this has been a decade, if not longer. This I was homeless 20 years ago. I've been here in Charlottesville 20 years. the LV Collective, that big 12story building that y'all putting up there that y'all
allowing UVA to come in, make them pay taxes. Yes. And not the property taxes because people that got to pay property taxes, that's a short way of being homeless, too. So, I mean, I understand that these
things are needed, but like I say, 20 years, Charlottesville is far behind. What What did y'all think was going to come? Did y'all was y'all billing for the future? Y'all got that old man money up in here? Y'all should have been using that money.
I mean, that little sleep in that y'all had down at the Jefferson. Do you know what it's like to sleep in a car? Do you know what it's like to sleep on a sidewalk? Imagine going without food, going without washing your tail, going out
going without mental going with mental health, not knowing where you're coming or going. Didn't y'all see them people that slept out there in front of this city hall building at that bus station for how long? Y'all snuff you walked past them for eight years. Y'all all walked past
them. Did y was y'all blind? What? Did y'all not see them people laying out there? This is nothing new. Cautious. I understand. I was out there with you at the park, but still this is different. This is reality. This is real. and to
put them people in jail. Half of them during the winter time commit crimes so they can be in jail just so they can have somewhere to sleep. But y'all got to come together because it's not about putting them in jail. It's about humanity. It's about life.
It's about living. It's about suppressed, oppressed, and depression. Thank you, [Music] [Applause] um Elaine. and then the the gentleman.
Oh, and then Matthew, I see you. I'm sorry. In the corner over there. Hello, mayor and counselors. My name is Alen Kerry. I'm a resident of the city of Charlottesville. I also work at Cultivate Charlottesville. And um listening to everything this evening,
it's all related, right? We're talking about whether we're building student housing and prioritizing that over keeping buildings which can have an effect on uh other places in the city as well, not just at the site that was talked about tonight. Uh the big thing I
wanted to be here for was talking um about what FAR has been uh trying to amplify and that is a new building coming in um that would overlook West Haven. Uh we also already have the
standard which looks down on the West Haven neighborhood. Uh to put up another building on West Main Street that would look down on the residents of West Haven and uh the 10th and Page neighborhood is not what needs to go there. Um and I I
heard a lot of talk today about affordable housing, which that term means a lot of different things. um and just the need for more housing. And it does really feel like UVA students are being um and and sometimes UVA employees
as well are being um prioritized over other community members uh in how we're looking at a lot of different things. But the ma the main thing that I wanted to say tonight is do not whatever you all can do to keep that from being an 11
or 12 story building that looks down on a traditionally black neighborhood. I'm asking you to do that. Um the only other thing I wanted to say about the downtown mall is the downtown mall used to be Vinegar Hill. So when people are talking
about um businesses and who can and who cannot be in that area, uh that area used to be a thriving black business and community area that was taken by the city. You can say voted upon. You could
say that. Uh but that was taken by the city and those residents were pushed into West Haven and Tenth and Page. So all of these things are connected and when you all are making these decisions it shows who the priority is in this
town and it is not the people who look like me andor people who don't have in this town. It's about um very much on racial lines and it's very much on class or um economic lines as well. So,
please, please, please do not let them put up another building of students looking down on West Haven, literally and figuratively looking down on West Haven and Tenth and Page. Thank you.
Thank you. [Applause] Matthew, you Nick, sir. I'm Major Donald Wilson. I'm the new officer at the Salvation Army. I've been here uh for almost a month now, and I just wanted to share a little bit about the progress of what the Salvation Army
is doing at the present time in relation to uh the need for more shelter in relation to the the current situation and what we perceive as the growing situation. Uh over 40 years ago, Salvation Army
built a shelter with 55 beds. That's the very same shelter we still have. It hasn't changed one bit. We haven't been able to expand it. We haven't been able to modify it. It's just continued to be in use year round. We continue to use it. We plan to expand our current
services to expand at least to over double the capacity we have at the present time. We're making progress with that. But one of the good things is uh that we've seen in a short period of time is great cooperative spirit among nonprofits and other agencies working
with us to put together a comprehensive plan as quickly as possible. Not only to offer a momentary solution, but a long-term solution. And again, we're working together in good faith. We're working together with the the hope that
uh we will continue to find support within the community to deal with this issue. The complexity the complexity of homelessness is just beyond one agency or one entity and we need a community to to make a difference in the lives of
these individuals. Not just for sustaining for the moment but recuperating these lives for our community. So, I just wanted to let you know that we're going to continue to work the best we can with what we have and uh we're willing to work with all those who are interested in achieving
the same goal of bringing people back from that state of instability to stability and hope. Thank you. [Applause] Um, good evening. My name is Matthew Gillicanov in Fville. I'm one of the co-chairs of Livable Seville. Um, I
I don't have my fast ball now at 9:55 in the evening. Um, but I want to say a few things. First of all, the way that this proposal came about was incredibly disrespectful to our community. Um, this was a holiday weekend. I spent probably 15 hours this weekend
working on this. I had to do a Zoom call with someone who works in homelessness services area who was on vacation with their family so that I could understand their perspective on this issue. And it was interesting to find out that I spent more time learning from local homelessness service providers what
their perspective was on this ordinance than the city had done at all. That's not how we should be doing things around here. We should be going to the experts who are first and foremost the people experiencing homelessness. We should go to the local service providers
and learn and listen. This is not a community, as you know, that lacks for ideas about how to solve problems. Okay? So, in the future, let's try to be respectful of the community when we're trying to solve our hard problems by not dropping a total change in the city's
approach to addressing homelessness on a holiday weekend. You wouldn't be have people being quite as snippy with you tonight if we had been given a little more respect. Okay? Um, secondly, I think we I just want to make sure it's on the record that the
only uh entity that or person that voted in favor of this ordinance tonight was the friends of downtown. It was everyone else against even the five of you. Um, and I want to specifically mention a claim that was made that that those of us who are here,
even though we've filled up a room, are a vocal minority uh in this town, and we're just kind of rabble rousing and creating a fuss when there's actually this silent majority that really wants to criminalize homelessness, but in a nice way, but criminalize homelessness in Charlottesville.
um that this is a thing that that crowd, it's a small crowd, says claiming that there are a lot of people that feel differently about this issue, that they're actually okay with pushing homeless people off the downtown mall. That group that that entity that those people, they don't actually apparently
participate in the political process at all. They don't show up at any meetings to speak during public comment. They apparently don't vote in elections either to get candidates into office that will enable their policies. But somehow they somehow have a a little way of sticking in the brains of certain of elected officials. They're like, "Wow, I
got to really consider those folks." It's like five rich guys who paid someone to come speak for them. That's not who we should be listening to. Obviously, we need a thriving business community, but they do not have solutions to this issue. They haven't for decades. They keep doing the same
old thing. It's time for something different. One last thing, campground talk. I think I'm interested in that in some ways. There was a campground two years ago that you all shut down in Market Street Park. You didn't want a campground. The same folks here, we said keep the campground going and you said
no. The business community is upset. So I'm just saying just reminding us of our past. Okay. Thank you all. Thank you. So you you ma'am and then you and then you. So, I had no plans to speak tonight um
until just a few minutes ago. Um so, I've heard a lot of talk this evening about demolition of buildings in our town. I've heard talk about communities that you've gone to that don't want shelters in their communities. And also
that the businesses of our downtown district are the ones who are pushing to get the homeless people off the street. Why are we not thinking about putting the shelter in the business district where these people can have access to things they need on a daily basis? Thank you.
[Applause] Uh so I'd like to make a particular point that I think hasn't been brought up too often yet but will stay relevant because a couple of y'all have mentioned the the idea that perhap Oh sorry right Mo Vandesample 608 Caval Avenue. um this
idea that once we sort of have a place to push them that this could still be like a good idea to be able to do something like this. And I kind of want to make a particular point on that. There's this famous quote that I'm sure you have all heard at some point that the law in its majestic equality forbids both rich and poor alike to sleep under
bridges. This is of course a snarky joke that's getting at the point that even though laws in principle are applied equally, oftentimes they have disproportionate impacts. The thing that is really despicable about this law is that it is not even facially being
applied equally, right? Like you go and you like read this legislation and it talks about what is defined as a campsite. And so it mentions things like campfires in public areas. The Rivana Trail has bonfire pits all around it that I see people having campfires in
all the time. It talks about the idea of storing public property and yet I see trailers out on the street everywhere. I see UVA students dumping their couches out on the public rights of way. It talks about um camp sites and yet I see every time that there's a game day, I
see tents go up all around Charlottesville on our public rights of way in our parking lots. Right? All of these are explicitly and I and again I don't say this as like a gotcha on the law because the law does have in it this extra clause that says oh if a
reasonable person could surmise that the person is living on that property that's the thing that kind of makes it all there. But that kind of gives the game away, right? Laws are supposed to make acts illegal. Things that you do are made illegal by a law. But having this
extra clause on makes it so that like it doesn't actually matter what the acts are at all because we don't want to harass night nice white people that are having their bonfire. We just want to be able to like target the specific people of people when they do a thing that we don't like. And you know, you have this
like thing in the summary where you talk about it being like um you know that the city is committed to not criminalizing homelessness and that that's shown by the fact that we'd only make it a fourth level misdemeanor. But this is blatant double speak, right? I mean, this is just like literally double speak. You
are making it a crime to do the things that homeless people have to do to exist. So, it's just kind of like blatantly wrong. And so, the actual effect of this policy will be, as Mr. Payne said, to basically just force people into more and more distant
locations where they're not visible, right? into medians on highways where we have some grass set up unless indeed eventually we get this low barrier shelter. But at that point we probably will not even have enough beds in that shelter if it ever does get built. And
the final thing that I just wanted to point out is that none of the protocols that were like linked that the police chief pointed out which make the whole thing sound a lot more humane are binding in any way. Right. If an off like it's not in the legislation. if an officer ended up breaking that protocol,
they would just be able to kind of go away anyway. Um, so just at long last, this law is no law. This is just an excuse to hurt people. Thank you. So when before we loop back to Ryan, I want to get everyone that hasn't spoken
yet. Yes, sir. Uh, Ralph Braun. I live in Cros. I live in Cros because I was a victim in Charlottesville. Um, hello, John. Please, sir. Hello. Oh, I thought I thought the I thought I'd see the clock running down, but
um I I I'd like to thank everyone who's spoken against the ordinance. I agree with all those comments. Um I' I'd like to point out a few things if this comes if uh this comes back from the dead. Um hope that hopefully we'll
we'll uh be paid attention to next time. One of them is uh I I would categorize it as cander, accountability, and humanity. Uh cander, no one is happy with this process. I'd have to guess as to why why this why the process went the way it was. I hear about the 2 to1 ones.
I've or I've heard heard about those before. Why those are utilized. I would have to guess because one of the reasons they two tosses exist as a loophole in in Virginia Foy in the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. And I I'd have to guess that's probably the reason the 2 to1's were used in this particular case
instead of a more normal planning process, but I don't know that um the phrasing of the ordinance lacks cander. It lacks cander as to what the purpose is. You had you had the woman in the zebra dress earlier talking all about the downtown mall. The words downtown or
mall appear nowhere in the ordinance. Instead, it lists a whole bunch of types of camping and things. I know people live downtown. They move they move around a lot. that I don't see people with fires and permanent tents downtown. It lists a
whole bunch of things that don't apply downtown at all. So, what what is it going after? Is it about downtown? Is it about somewhere else? I suspect the reason this was not raised on the topic of cander is that that would then allow all of us to ask
questions about the specific issue instead of just pawning off pawning it off to the police and the prosecutors. I I'll note regarding the ordinances or the state statutes that Mr. Payne brought up earlier, um
15.2-208, most class 4 misdemeanors aren't jailable unless the person refuses to discontinue the act. That's accountability that the cops can say anything that
you know, you didn't clean your tent up quickly enough, so I'm going to arrest you. you you know you went there when I told you to go there, so I'm going to arrest you. There's a lot of paths to jail with that, but uh in in uh section 2018, it's actually worse because this is one of the very few places where there is a specific jail possibility for
violating a class 4 misdemeanor. The only other one I could find in the state code was a drunk tank law. Um, but one what what did what did we learn for I I think it's almost conventional wisdom now Black Lives Matter was some
afraid it was what did we learn what's one thing we took away from that in the long term is the police as an institution is one of the least accountable in our society I I don't know anyone in this room but I know there are officers on the force who've lied on warrants probably officers on the force who've lied in court you're
asking every bad apple to abide by as the guy said a completely non-binding policy to avoid people going to jail. So, I don't know what I don't know what what the what the policy was intended to solve and I don't know how the ordinance
has written lines up with how it was claimed you wanted to be implemented. Thank you. Who else would like to speak? Jessica, you you you um spoke once, so we'll we'll get you on it next time. Okay.
You're next, John. Okay. Good evening. Uh Matt Seaton, pastor at Wesley Memorial here in Charlottesville. Uh our congregation is a member of Impact, uh which is part of 27 or 26
other faith communities here in Charlottesville and in Alberal County. Um wow. Uh I had to change my temper after the decision. And so what I'm going to say is I think there is some gratitude
that uh in this moment this abomination isn't going to move forward. Um so I am grateful for that decision. I'm in this place because of of Jesus. I
follow Jesus. And what I have learned from Jesus is that all of the laws and the prophets in the Old Testament are summed up in two things. Perhaps you remember from Sunday school, love of God
and love of neighbor. That means that law is only just so long as it is rooted in love. preach. And so I want to speak to you as God's beloved. Though maybe perhaps my enemies
at times still God's beloved. When you entertain such things in the future, ask yourself, is this rooted in love and therefore God's justice for our neighbors. I've already heard a sermon tonight about whatever you do to the least of
these, you have done to me. That is that is straight from my man Jesus. When you think about our unhoused neighbors, ask yourself, would you do this to Christ if he were here tonight? And that is all I have to say. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hall. So, what's the point of all this, folks? What we need needed innovation in political science here I think or maybe we need needed innovation in a
solution to the problem. We look back at our history and our common ground our common ground of how we are formed as people largely as English people.
I think part of the problem here is that you got to consider population. When we were formed, when we had in 1787 when we birthed our constitution of the United
States by James Madison committee, what do we have? Well, everybody said, Mr. Ben Franklin, what do we have? A republic if you can keep it his answer. And uh
what is the solution to this? I think about Valley Forge and Fort Necessity and uh Tyonderoga, some of those places that George Washington foring the Delaware, you know, things like that.
Those guys froze to death during the winter when winters were severe. But they all had tents to biv bib bib bib bivwack in and a marine barracks for example is a bivwack you know way way of
uh you know maybe I'm spending a lot of money here you know but I know that there are some churches that will give you free tents for example if we go to our parks like forest hills parks pin park uh McIntyre
Park some of the larger parks in town and have the police kind of police and do a beat and uh have some uh tents that were issued. I think the city council could afford a few tents and also a
Pilates mat for each tent. So, if you have the tents on a concrete uh or a an asphalt uh parkway, no, I don't mean that parking lot. That's what I mean. Now, I went to uh I
had to kick kick back. I mean, I've been burning the candle at three different ends. And uh I went to Los Angeles. I wanted to see where the moral tone of this country and entertainment. We all love to be couch potatoes and, you know, talk
and argue and fuss and fight and everything because we we mirror what we see on TV and all our football games and everything. We think, "Oh, yeah. I'm going to be a champion athlete. You're not going to make it
cuz those guys are cream at the top of the butter churn, you know. Thank you. I'm not through. Well, I'm sorry, but the three minutes is up. Who else? Yes. Wait a minute.
Here I am. Limited three minutes. Come on. Maybe a better job. Um yeah. Um please sir, please please sir. Yeah. I when we keep talking about um
the different ideas like having a designated camping area. I think that's like a fine and well and good idea and it does not put us any closer to this ordinance being okay. It would still be equally as [ __ ] up. And like I've lived on the street at multiple points
in my life. And I don't want to go live where everybody else can see me. That's scary. I've had too many people start touching me in my sleep to want to live where a bunch of other people are right there. And I don't think that's an appropriate ass. And I don't understand who the hell you think you are or who the hell the cops think they are to be like, "Oh, this is your little field."
And that's the only field you can be in and then try to call that humanity because that's not humanity. That's [ __ ] up. Thank you. No. Uh just check to see make sure Yeah. Um um next time. Yes, sir.
Ma'am, did the sign. Did you want to speak or you just holding up the sign? Okay. Hi, my name is Aiden Workman. I do work for Impact. I'm not speaking on behalf of Impact. Um I just want to say two quick things in response to some things
that y'all said and that the downtown business association said. A couple of y'all mentioned that the Fville neighborhood does not want a homeless shelter. I live in Fville. I would love to have a homeless shelter near me. I live in walking distance of the shelter. I think it's needed. Just wanted to
state for the record that the whole community is not against it. Main thing I wanted to say is I also have a young daughter. We go to the downtown mall all the time. I have never felt unsafe because homeless people are there. I don't think that's why people don't shop at businesses downtown.
What is very frustrating as a parent of young children is that it's very hard to find a bathroom when my daughter needs a change of her diaper. There's not a lot of public seating. And I think a lot of these are decisions that are made out of wanting to make it harder for homeless
people to exist on the downtown mall. Rather, those decisions are made by the city or business owners. We're making life worse for everyone because we want to make it worse for some specific people. So, I don't know if the woman who spoke for the business
association is still here, but if the business association really is so worried about this decline in people coming to the downtown mall, we might want to figure out making it more accessible for everyone. And if that means that a homeless person might sleep on a bench by your business, that's
okay. Because the main reason I'm not there as often as I would like to be is it's very hard to be there with a little kid because we've tried to make it hard for homeless people. That makes it hard for me. So before we move back around, was
anyone else would anyone else like to speak? Yes, ma'am. In the back row and then you you miss Leticia. Leticia, I'm sorry. Hi, my name is Jacqueline Kim. I'm a
resident in Pantops and an employee in the city. Um, I'm going to start by reading a statement from someone who wasn't able to join us today. And I realize that the ordinance has already been um struck, but I'd still like to read it anyways. They say, "Experiencing homelessness is not a criminal offense.
What is criminal is enforcing an ordinance that criminalizes our most vulnerable neighbors during one of the horrifi during one of the most horrific experiences of their life. to make a decision that enforces this ordinance, plays into the right-wing handbook that we are witnessing taking place in DC, and further punishes those for merely
existing. Humans deserve housing, not threats of criminalization, and humans deserve to receive care without conditions. Um, I'd also like to add my voice to the course of folks um who are supporting Tenth and Page and West Haven residents in their campaign against the West the massive student housing development
proposed on West Main. Um, if you haven't had a chance to watch that bar meeting that happened a couple weeks week weeks ago, I'd really encourage you to. There's some really compelling testimony from community members and residents that was really moving in fact for the members of bar themselves. Like
you will see members there get emotional hearing the testimony from community members and how that development would impact their lives and and their community. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening everyone. My name is Latricia Gals and I am the executive
director of FAR, but I'm also clearly a resident here of Charlottesville. FAR, the Public Housing Association of Residents. No problem. Um, what I we've been a little bit of everywhere this evening.
What I really do want to of course stress is we we we we say no for the LV development. Like I understand the bar sent us back. We got to we got a lot to that we got to do, but I just want to say that because I also do want to
address the other issue that I am glad that we did get beyond. Um but I think one of the connecting threads is the continued level of disrespect by not making residents the center um in in both situations. So we have the
developers who came and they did not even consider residents. They were afterthought and it was really after the residents came up with their plan and then they said oh let's by the way this looks like something we might want to jump on. That is disrespectful,
especially when we are talking about, as it's been brought up here, the legacy of Vinegar Hill in the ways that residents have continued. And we're going to say particularly residents and community members of color within this community have not been listened to and heard. It
does not make sense that there was a community that was literally dug out intentionally where they were taken from successful businesses, successful family, successful culture, community, all of those things marched to this spot. Now you already dug it out and now
all of a sudden, generations later, centuries later, we got not even centuries because we ain't that old, but you know what I'm saying. I'm tired, y'all. We have now a developer that says we want to block you in. They cared more about the plants being surveyed than the
people. And so now we're also talking about people who are houseless and that are part of this community. They are a fabric. They live here and they deserve to be treated as such. And I understand the businesses. But it comes back to something else. It's people over as
profits. Profits over people. That is what I have heard. I know we had the business owner and I know that those things matter, but we have to really consider when we're talking about affordable housing and they're all intersecting. We are talking
particularly in this matter about luxury student housing. We have community members that work two and three jobs and I'm a person that has two three jobs and I cannot afford to live here. So, you're saying that people
who are down on their luck right now, possibly there are people that we know that are houses that work full-time jobs. They're not just people who choose not to. Who chooses that? So, as we're talking about making these things, uh, these
ordinances, let's bring back compassion because compassion was not thought of when it was written. And I I am just hoping that as you are going forward in the process, please come and talk to community members, you shouldn't have
had any conversations about homelessness and no one was represented like that. That is disrespectful. And I know I'm done. Sorry. Good night. But thank God. Thank you. Before we juggle up, I mean go back around. Would anyone else like to speak?
No, John. No. I'm going to No, John. I've got to make this. No. Mr. Hall, please sit down, sir. I really do. This Mr. Hall, I got to get a head start here. No head start. So, does anyone else like to speak? If not, start. I'm going to go with Jeff first and then
Wendy uh and then Jessica. Okay, Mr. F. 15 years ago, the downtown business association came to the city council and said, "We have got to prohibit panhandling on the downtown mall because
we're dying. Nobody will come here because they don't want to see these indesable people." And the city went along with it. At least we had a city attorney who had the consciousness to say to the city
council, "That's wrong." and it's probably unconstitutional. It violates people's rights. But a compromise was made and the compromise was let's limit the ability to beg on the downtown mall. I litigated
that case as some of you know for four years till we got the court of appeals and the fourth circuit to say you all and your predecessors violated the first amendment rights of every single poor person on the downtown mall who was
homeless. Now, in the ensuing 15 years, have we seen the death of the downtown mall? Well, you're all buying into what the what the business community is saying to you. We can't live like this. People won't come here. They've been coming there the last 15
years even though we were able to beat back a retrograde city council who thought property over people was important. Now, under no circumstances, by the way, Mr. Mayor, this is not a complicated issue. What's before you tonight is a
very simple issue. The simple issue is, are you going to characterize people who are homeless as criminals? That's the only issue. Instead, we're wasting our time, our energy, wonderful, creative people are here. This time could have
been spent discussing what the community believes could be done about the problem. But no, we're talking about, well, should we bust them? How badly should we bust them? Should it be a fourthderee offense or a third? That's all [ __ ] Excuse me. That's all
[ __ ] The bottom line here is a simple matter of humanity. And I urge any of you who think otherwise to simply read the dissenting opinion of Justice Stoayor. As she started out, sleep is a biological imperative.
It's not a crime. And you people don't even think about bringing this back. I don't care if there's a homeless shelter here. We're not going to make people criminal just because they don't have a house. And if you want to do that, you're
criminals. [Applause] They're trying. Look at what they're doing here. Mr. Hall, please have a seat. My name is Wendy. I'm a community organizer at the public housing
association of residents. I will be speaking on behalf of myself and only myself tonight. I'm also a UVA alum who chose to rem remain in Charlottesville. I want to respond to some things that have come up in this meeting. I first want to respond to this idea that any increase in housing supply is a helpful increase. If you are wealthy, you can
find an apartment or a place to live in Charlottesville pretty easily. There is not a lack in general housing supply. The housing crisis is in deeply affordable housing that people can actually afford. Building more student housing does not house more black and brown people. It does not make housing
more affordable because it doesn't increase the supply that needs to be increased. It just displaces more black and brown folks from where they were previously living because now a gigantic student apartment is in their backyard. But also, students want affordable housing, too. It is not a lack of student housing that is pushing students
to rent single families homes. It is the gross, frankly, appalling excess of luxury student housing on West Maine that many UVA students cannot even afford that is pushing them into historically black neighborhoods like Grady Avenue and Gordon Avenue. We need to build student housing somewhere else
far away from West Main and historically black neighborhoods like on JPA or the literal swads of land owned by the UVA Foundation and stop supporting huge multi-billion dollar apartments bought by out oftown developers who know nothing about this city trying to dispossess and displace more black
folks. There was a statement that students are themselves transient as individuals but as a whole they are a permanent fixture in Charlottesville. Students who attend an institution that does not pay taxes to this city should not be city council's priority. I think the more important population here is
the black and brown long-term residents of Charlottesville, many of whom can trace their lineage to the enslaved laborers who built the very plantation institution that students attend today. Black people, lowincome people, unhoused people are the stable population in this
city, who are the constituents who pay taxes, elect you into office, whose neighborhoods and homes are being destroyed and gentrified by UVA students. Those are the people you should be accountable to. Second to last thing I'll say, we should and can house everyone in the city. Every year, the point in time count shows that there are
around 200 unhoused people in Charlottesville from year to year. Across Charlottesville, we probably have that many or close to that many empty apartment units. There is not a crisis in the supply of housing. There's a crisis in deeply affordable housing. We just need to be willing to prioritize it. Last thing I will say, it is public
information that at least half of the board of directors of the Friends of downtown Charlottesville, who notoriously are anti- unhoused people, as we saw tonight, were top donors to the campaigns of some counselors sitting up here tonight. So, we know exactly who has been bought and we know exactly
where this anti-amping ordinance came from. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Jessica Jackson. I'm going to be very brief. Um,
the work group that worked on the ordinance, what was really strange and not well thought out of is that there was absolutely no people who were unhoused in that work group. I I find that kind of patronizing
because it's like saying, "Look here, little child. We know what you need. You don't know. So, we're not going to ask you. We're just going to tell you." And grown adults know what they need. Secondly, um although the ordinance has has, you
know, been tabled, the problem has not. And so it is still very important that finding housing for the homeless and affordable housing for many people in Charlottesville should be a priority. When my mother was in hospice, I had to pick a priority. You know, I couldn't do
everything. I so she became my priority and housing the people who live and work in Charlottesville really should be your priority. Other things need to um just go to the side. you need to concentrate on that because it makes no sense that
people sleep outside in the rain and in the snow. Lastly, when I first came up here, I said I was very disheartened because I looked at one of the lead city officials on his phone and looking through his notes while other people were talking. I leave the meeting the
same way because I sat there and I listened to how when someone was talking, people talked over them. They yelled, they wouldn't listen. You don't have to like what people say, but just common courtesy and respect
will mandate that you would at least listen and then when there's a chance for comments, then you can respond. But if we can't respect each other here, there will nothing will be accomplished. I'm just as passionate about finding um
homes for the homeless, but I won't do it by disrespecting other people have a different view. And I just hope that um your passion still allows you to realize that we're all human. We all have to work together and if we don't respect
each other, we're just going to come here and box. And that's just stupid. So I hope from now on that that we can just show each other some respect. You know, wait your turn. Don't yell out. It's not a hard thing to do.
Thank you. Thank you. Who else would like to to speak? Okay, Mr. Hall, this is your your second time. Thank you. I'm going to change this person. I think that's Johnson. Oh,
uh, Miss Johnson and then you, Mr. for you. Good evening again. My name is Joy Johnson and um there's a couple of things I just want to say. When you mentioned about the fine, the $250 fine,
please add court cost to that because that's going to add up. Also, just wanted to put that out there because I didn't know if anybody nobody spoke about that. I'm I'm here to talk again about the um 12story building that it will be overshadowing West Haven. Again,
it was very disrespectful the way the developer um approach this. Um but anyway, I just have a few thing I just want to say. I know that is what
went before the BAR and um I don't know what the B might do about their next meeting but if it comes back to you I would like for council to just stop the madness. Here are some points that I would like to um have you write the wrong of how we
looked at the the the change in the zoning law. First council can take the lead. It's legal responsibility to reverse errors in correcting inclusive v zoning. Second,
enforce including including new legislation to deny visual population i.e. building pollution i.e height building height. Three, give priority of land use management to those most
negatively impacted. for listen not just simply heard the voice and cry carefully recommendation of black and poor and reaffirm commitment to real inclusive zoning that
goes beyond possible development. So those are some things that we talked to some group of people that I just wanted to put out there. The other thing I wanted to say is that as I was sitting back there listening about the demolition of Worland, I'm like, we
really ain't paying attention to what is happening to our community because UVA is building a monster development on 10th and Wland, which is going to impact the tenth and p um page
tenth and page neighborhood. And now to have another building on Wordland, it is going to impact um I don't know what's happening to um
the city of Charlottesville anymore cuz there was a time that people would talk about preservation of neighborhoods. I had a friend who was on council who said to me, and I know my time is running out, that poor people needs to
come up with a plan about how they should exist this community. And when she said that, it kind of startled me. But I'm beginning to understand what she's talking about and how UVA and how the city of
Charlottesville is becoming an ACC community. It's all about the students and we need to stop it because the students are not the only one who lives in this community. Thank you. Mr. Hall will be our our last speaker for this evening.
I want to make an announcement about uh what I want to propose. There's plenty of time for the uh city council to mle this over. I once when I ran for city council and
was defeated three times when I did it always Paul Long was right up in front of me and Paul Long was my mentor really. I used to go up in Midway Manor and talk to him. We'd get together.
Paul Long was fine uh person from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and served on a city council up there somewhere. He was very sage, had a lot of good wisdom. And you know, I might say that uh with wisdom
comes age, with age comes wisdom. That's my own saying. We are in January going to uh be honoring Martin Luther King Jr., But in my opinion, there's a man still among us right here in Charlottesville
that's much greater. His name is Uriah J. Fields. J Fields. I'm not going to say where he lives, but he's here still.
The Montgomery bus boycott occurred right after Rosa Parks did her thing and Uriah J. Fields organized it as the secretary.
He organized the Montgomery bus boycott as a response. And of course, Martin Luther King got the credit for it. But these these this is the inner circle right here. And I've got my hand I've got Uriah J. Fields, Robert S. Great,
Ralph David Abernathy, Fred D. Gray, uh, Martin Luther King Jr. at the top. And we're going to change that picture, make it look more profound, you know, and Edgar D. Nixon, something like Ed Nixon. But I've got a picture of uh,
Uriah J. Fields. It's really fine. I mean, way he had to suffer and all. That's the hallmark of greatness is how much you have to suffer and still persevere. So if we honor these men,
we'll have a portrait. Now I I suggest we have a portrait of Heather Hire and Susan Bro, her mother, and hanging in the hallway. That didn't go over so well and didn't get done. I think this time and I still got the same lady that
I want to uh paint this. I want the city council to commissioner. Thank you very much. The city council to pay her. Is there Is there a motion to adjurnn $300 an hour? Thank you. To do the portrait. All in favor, please say yes. Yes.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hall. Now I'm getting credit for it.