Name: Charlottesville City Council meeting, Aug 17, 2026
Start: 2026-08-17
End: 2026-08-17
Location: City of Charlottesville

City Council

Mon, August 17, 2026

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Agenda items

Vote records

Discussion summary

Transcript

Meeting summaryAI-generated

Charlottesville City Council — August 17, 2026

This was a full-day session including a work session with presentations on regional solid waste planning and police/city technology, a closed session for board appointments and the city manager's annual evaluation, and a regular business session with several significant resolutions and a contested ordinance.

Work Session: 2026 Regional Solid Waste Management Plan

Krystal Rittervale (Director of Sustainability) and Isabella O'Brien (Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission planner) presented the required five-year update to the regional solid waste management plan, covering Charlottesville, Albemarle, Fluvanna, and Greene counties. The plan must be submitted to the Virginia DEQ by October.

Key findings: the Charlottesville/Albemarle area consistently exceeds Virginia's 25% recycling rate requirement, reporting 41–49% between 2021 and 2024. Per capita waste generation is below the national average — a positive indicator. However, data gaps exist because private haulers are not required to report recycling activity to DEQ, meaning the true recycling rate may be higher than reported.

A public survey of 257 regional respondents (57 from Charlottesville) showed residents want better transparency about what actually happens to collected materials, more composting access, and improved services for renters and multi-family properties. Rittervale noted the city plans to deploy three additional composting drop-off sites in late September/early October at no cost to subscribers.

Council members raised questions about plastic recycling (plastics #3, 4, 5, 6 remain largely without markets), whether reported recycling is actually processed (staff confirmed it is), and the pace of moving toward curbside composting. Rittervale noted Arlington has curbside composting and UVA recently received a DEQ grant to expand composting in student housing areas.

No vote required tonight. An adoption resolution is planned for the September consent agenda. Council was asked to submit any concerns to staff by August 27. A public hearing at the TJPDC is scheduled for September 3; final plan adoption is October 1.

Work Session: Technology and Government Presentation

City IT Department (Steve Hawks, IT Director)

Hawks briefed council on city IT operations: 24/7 support for ~900 employees, 400+ city-issued phones, 300+ CCTV cameras (now under IT management), and a migration from desk phones to Teams/Webex due to complete by December. The city runs Microsoft 365 and recently completed a major SAP upgrade.

On AI: the city has been actively exploring AI since ChatGPT's release in 2022. Current tools include Microsoft 365 Copilot (paid, within the city's secure tenant). A new AI use policy was added to the employee IT security agreement in June 2026. An AI working group involving risk management, the city attorney, and IT now reviews software purchases with AI components and rates their risk. A new staff position focused on AI enablement across departments is being filled.

Councilor Payne asked about the cybersecurity threat landscape; Hawks confirmed threats are increasingly sophisticated but preferred to discuss specifics in a one-on-one meeting. Hawks confirmed that AI interactions saved by employees are FOIA-able. Mayor Wade requested a ransomware preparedness briefing in a private session.

Charlottesville Police Department (Chief Kochis and staff)

The department presented existing and potential technology tools:

Body cameras (Axon): New AI features include real-time translation in 50+ languages (all recorded), a policy chatbot, and an officer assistant.

Fleet cameras: Dash cameras are active; the department is *not* currently using the automated license plate reader (ALPR) function built into those cameras.

Virtual reality training: In use for officer training and demonstrated at National Night Out.

Drones: FAA-licensed officers deploy drones on-call for search situations. The department is *not* yet using the "Drone First Responder" autonomous deployment feature.

Community surveys (Axon CommunityLink): QR codes on officer business cards will allow public feedback on officer interactions.

Early Intervention System: Flags officers for review when use-of-force incidents, complaints, or sick-day patterns exceed set thresholds. Recently activated.

Axon FUSIS: Allows live-streaming of body cams and dash cams in a map overlay; future plans may include voluntary partnerships with private businesses to integrate their cameras.

Counter-drone technology: A trailer-mounted system can detect and neutralize unauthorized drones; used at downtown events.

On records management: the department's current Tyler Technologies RMS system is antiquated — officers in the field see limited data, searches cannot be done by age range or tattoo description, and duplicate name files pose officer safety risks. Crime Analyst Lori Seiden described spending 40–50 hours preparing monthly CompStat reports that could take a day with modern analytics tools like Tableau.

Councilor Payne noted a recent letter from the Police Civilian Oversight Board endorsing new technologies under two conditions: no collection of additional personal data, and formal policy adoption before deployment. Chief Kochis confirmed that any new technology requires a formal policy under accreditation standards and that the PCOB would be involved in developing those policies. Payne suggested council and the PCOB work together to adopt a formal technology guardrails policy; the chief welcomed this.

Vice Mayor Oschrin asked about expanding the use of speed cameras beyond current General Assembly limits (school and work zones only); the chief said the department wants to get existing technology working well before pursuing that but acknowledged speed cameras are effective.

No vote required. Council directed staff to schedule one-on-one cybersecurity briefings.

Closed Session

Council convened in closed session to discuss appointments to multiple boards and commissions and to conduct the city manager's annual performance evaluation.

Vote to close: 4–0 (Councilor Payne not yet present at that point).

Certification on return: 5–0.

Proclamation: National Nonprofit Day

Council issued a proclamation recognizing National Nonprofit Day (August 17). Dr. Doyle accepted on behalf of the local nonprofit community.

Community Matters (Public Comment)

Several residents spoke on significant issues:

Castalia Street vacation: Two Belmont-area residents (Anne Lasser and Lee French) urged council to vote against vacating a 162-foot section of Castalia Street for a private developer, arguing that public rights-of-way should not be surrendered to private developers, that the developer's site plan had already been denied twice for technical deficiencies, and that closing the street would reward non-compliant planning while permanently eliminating a public asset.

Court Square Slave Auction Block sign: Four speakers (Heidi Berthou, Jim McKinley Oakes, Donna Shaughnessy, and Susan Del Gobbo) pressed the city to restore signage at the site of the slave auction block at 0 Park Street, removed in 2002. Oakes noted that six Black and two white leaders of their memorial group have died in recent years while waiting for action. Berthou stated the group has followed all staff-directed steps to get the item on a council agenda and asked City Manager Sanders why it has not appeared on any agenda since their requests in July and August.

Free Bridge encampment/September 1 closure: Multiple speakers, including current and former encampment residents Jennifer Grant and Amber Thompson, as well as advocates Donna Tietjen and Laura Sergany, raised concerns about the planned September 1 displacement. Speakers argued: the proposed Holiday Drive shelter lacks fire suppression sprinklers and adequate safety for women; people are already scattering and losing support connections; the death, fire, and assault incidents cited as justifications do not establish that the entire community should be removed; and alternatives such as tiny home communities exist and have been used in other cities. Jennifer Grant described a robbery after she was hospitalized, and the ongoing presence of people from outside the encampment; Amber Thompson described ongoing safety concerns for homeless individuals on the Downtown Mall, including her own rape in January.

Azalea Springs/Stanley Martin erosion violations: Jesse Harper (209 Azalea Drive) and William Martin reported that Stanley Martin Homes failed to comply with critical slope waiver conditions set by council in January 2023, leading to a significant erosion and sediment event on August 2 documented by both the city and Virginia DEQ. Harper stated that before DEQ arrived to take measurements, Stanley Martin workers entered private property with equipment without permission and removed sediment from a stream. He asked whether the waiver approval could be suspended or revoked and called for meaningful enforcement consequences. Councilor Snook asked City Manager Sanders to investigate and report back; Sanders confirmed staff would look into both the city's stop-work order and DEQ's findings.

VIO scooters/ADA access: Kevin Cox filed two FOIA requests on the record — all emails between city staff and VIO from August 17, 2024 to August 17, 2026 regarding improperly parked scooters, and a list of all fines assessed against VIO during that period. He noted 662 reports of improperly parked scooters over five years and that staff has declined to answer how many times VIO has been fined, despite the fine being only $100 compared to $500 for illegal handicapped parking.

Consent Agenda

The following items were passed together as a slate:

$204,017 in additional funds for the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail (2nd reading)

$63,000 in Albemarle County Human Services funding for the Community Attention Youth Internship Program (2nd reading)

$45,330.18 additional HOPWA grant funds (2nd reading)

$78,150 Virginia Behavioral Health Docket Grant (1st of 2 readings)

$10,000 Virginia State Police HEAT equipment reimbursement (1st of 2 readings)

$400,000 for climate program/residential energy improvements (1st of 2 readings; required a 4/5 vote, noted in the motion)

Renewal of the CenturyLink Communications license agreement (updated template with improved enforcement provisions)

$750,000 from Jefferson Scholars Foundation for vacation of Clarke Court (1st of 2 readings)

$2,000,000 school operations contingency funds, amending FY2027 City Schools and pupil transportation budgets

Vote: 5–0

City Manager Reports

CAYIP Annual Report (Latara Ragland, Department of Human Services)

The Community Attention Youth Internship Program served 152 interns this summer (87 city residents), achieving a 92% success rate over a six-week session. The program had a pool of 320 applicants. Highlights included 102 site partners, 98 banking bonuses (interns who could prove they had a bank account), 10 interns hired at their sites, 8 certifications earned, and 11 counselors (two of whom were former CAYIP interns). The fall session begins September 15; applications open this Thursday. Organizations interested in becoming site partners can contact Ragland or visit charlottesville.gov/256.

Storm Debris Update (Public Works Director)

Following recent storms, the city identified Greenbriar and Milcus Grove as the hardest-hit neighborhoods. A special debris collection runs through August 23 for storm-related vegetative debris only (branches up to 10 feet, 6-inch diameter maximum). Routine yard waste, construction material, furniture, and contractor-removed trees will not be collected. Debris should be placed at the curb, away from fire hydrants, sidewalks, and gutters. Staff noted that mixed debris piles containing lumber or firewood will be left uncollected. Contact: 434-970-3895.

Homelessness/Free Bridge Encampment Update (Assistant City Manager Sam Roman)

Roman reported 43 total assessments completed, four SNAP applications, six ID applications, seven connections to Home to Hope, two dogs receiving medical care, and five phones distributed. New signage has been installed at the encampment. A cost-tracking system is now in place for all encampment-related expenditures. The goal remains opening Holiday Drive shelter as close to September 1 as possible. A business summit was held with Holiday Drive-area businesses. Councilor Payne confirmed that Holiday Drive will pass full fire inspection and building inspection before opening. Roman confirmed that when severe weather is approaching, public safety teams engage with encampment residents both before and after the event; he acknowledged that tree damage to tents occurred during recent storms.

Court Square Slave Auction Block Sign (Deputy City Manager James Fries)

Fries reported that the Historic Resources Committee met the previous Friday but lacked a quorum to vote on a draft letter to council. The working draft acknowledges a shared objective of accurately representing the city's history but raises concerns about historical accuracy and limiting the broader story of Court Square enslaved-person sales to a single site. Council agreed to wait for the HRC to finalize its recommendation at their next meeting (second Friday of September). Mayor Wade stated he would inform the memorial group of this timeline.

City Manager's Report and Work Plan (City Manager Sam Sanders)

Sanders introduced Joshua Barr as the new Chief Prosperity Officer, responsible for the Office of Human Rights, Office of Police Civilian Oversight, ADA coordination, and new equity initiatives including a national childcare access cohort. Sanders reviewed the FY24–FY26 work plan themes (stabilizing/strengthening; communication/collaboration/coordination; implementing plans) and introduced the FY27 theme: "Strategic Execution." Top five priorities for the current fiscal year: homeless intervention (Holiday Drive opening), transforming transportation (EV buses, new drivers, citywide mobility study), supporting schools (CMS now open, collective bargaining active, sales tax referendum discussion), arts and culture (Arts Council and Public Art Commission in development), and safety/security (coordinated emergency management). A new three-year strategic plan is expected to go live July 1, 2027.

Ordinance: Partial Closure of Castalia Street

Staff recommended approving the closure of a 162-foot unimproved section of Castalia Street between 221 and 303 Palatine Avenue to enable a 13-unit infill development. The developer would provide a 22-foot public access easement running from Palatine to the rear alley in exchange for the street vacation. Developers Nicole Sgro and Kelsey Schlein stated they had spent approximately $100,000 on engineering, surveying, and studies over 18 months to reach this point.

Councilor Snook raised a longstanding concern: the city has previously received payment for vacated land, and under a 2019 street/alley closure policy, this should have gone through a negotiation process via the city attorney's office before coming to council. He calculated the land's value at approximately $60,528 based on adjacent property assessments. The city attorney confirmed the policy exists but acknowledged this case had not been routed through that process. Developers argued they had followed every applicable step and that no payment requirement was communicated to them upfront.

After public comment (two speakers had already urged a no vote during Community Matters), council deliberated. Councilors Fleisher, Oschrin, and Payne expressed willingness to approve the project as submitted, noting the developer's good-faith compliance with all known requirements, while supporting a clearer formalized policy for future vacations. Councilor Snook maintained that the city should receive payment for the land. Mayor Wade moved to a vote.

Vote: 4–1 (Snook dissenting). Ordinance adopted.

Council directed staff to formalize and clarify the alley/street vacation policy for future applicants.

Resolution: $3 Million Grant to Salvation Army — Center of Hope Capital Campaign

The Virginia General Assembly earmarked $7 million to Charlottesville for transitional housing and workforce development. Staff recommended directing $3 million to the Salvation Army's Center of Hope capital campaign (combined with $3 million previously committed by the city, totaling $6 million from local/state sources). The remaining $4 million will be retained by the city for transitional housing initiatives currently under negotiation.

The Center of Hope project is a four-story, ~47,000 sq. ft. replacement facility that will increase shelter beds from 55 to 114, add seven two-bedroom transitional housing suites, and expand daily dining capacity from 60 to 120 seats. The total capital campaign goal is $28 million; with this grant, $21.3 million (76%) will be committed, with $10.75 million already received. Campaign fundraising is targeting completion by end of August.

The Salvation Army confirmed that city/state funds will be used for eligible capital costs only (not religious activities), to be specified in a formal grant agreement with the state Department of Housing and Community Development. Council passed this on a single reading with a 4/5 vote so the Salvation Army could use the commitment in its final fundraising push before August 31.

Vote: 5–0

Board and Commission Appointments (Correction)

Council discovered it had recorded the wrong name for the Piedmont Family YMCA Board appointment during the post-closed-session vote. A motion was made to rescind the appointment of Phil Barefoot and appoint James Brown instead.

Vote to rescind and re-appoint: 5–0

Full list of appointments approved: Terri Tyree (Affordable Housing Fund Committee); Greg Self (CDBG/HOME Task Force); Hillary Worley (Historic Resources Committee); Anne Hemingway (Jefferson-Madison Regional Library Board, term through June 30, 2030); James Brown (YMCA Board); George Dillard, Ruairidh Vaughan, Karen Lenoir-Kelly, and Albie LaFave (Police Civilian Oversight Board); Talia Long, Liza Kucker, and Brian Hommitt (Sister Cities Commission); Linda Watson and Avon Batten (Social Services Advisory Board); Joseph Burns-Peacock (Towing Advisory Board); Callie Sun (Youth Council). Lyric Cooper and David Derry removed from Youth Council.

Key Takeaways

$3 million pledged to Salvation Army's Center of Hope, bringing total city/state commitment to $6 million toward a 13-story facility that will nearly double shelter bed capacity and add transitional housing units; the remaining $4 million from the state appropriation will go toward city-managed transitional housing projects currently under negotiation.

Castalia Street vacation approved 4–1, allowing a 13-unit infill development in Belmont to proceed, but Councilor Snook's objection that the city gave away land without compensation prompted council to direct staff to formalize the alley vacation policy for future applicants.

Court Square slave auction block sign: Council agreed to wait for the Historic Resources Committee to formally vote on its recommendation (expected at the September meeting) before placing the item on a council agenda — a decision that frustrated the memorial group, which has been pressing for action for over two years.

September 1 Free Bridge encampment closure remains the city's goal, with Holiday Drive shelter expected to open around that date; multiple public speakers raised serious concerns about safety, lack of outreach presence during recent storms, and the adequacy of a congregate shelter as an alternative to the encampment community.

Police technology presentation revealed significant gaps in the department's records management system and prompted discussion about adopting a formal policy — in collaboration with the Police Civilian Oversight Board — governing when and how new surveillance and AI technologies can be deployed.

AI-generated summary from voice-to-text transcript. Not the official record. Verify important details with the source documents linked above.

What happened at this meeting

Presentation: 2026 Regional Solid Waste Management Plan for the Thomas Jefferson Solid

# 2026 Regional Solid Waste Management Plan Summary

Krystal Ritterval and Isabella O'Brien presented the updated 2026 Regional Solid Waste Management Plan for the Thomas Jefferson Solid Waste Planning Unit, which must be updated every five years with a 20-year planning horizon and includes three main implementation goals: data and information sharing, planning, and waste diversion. The region consistently exceeds Virginia's minimum 25% recycling rate requirement, achieving 34-41% regionally and 41-49% for Charlottesville/Albemarle combined (2021-2024), though staff and council members including Jen and Lloyd emphasized that data gaps from private haulers may undercount actual recycling activity and called for improved transparency and baseline establishment. Public engagement through a survey of 257 respondents highlighted requests for greater transparency about collected materials, expanded curbside composting, and clearer guidance on specialty materials, with three new subscription-based compost drop-off locations launching in late September/early October as an interim step. Charlottesville has 12 of 64 total regional objectives, focusing on transparency, contamination evaluation, and food/yard waste diversion, with a public hearing scheduled for September 3rd at the TJPDC commission meeting before local adoption in October and submission to DEQ. Staff requested council feedback by August 27th and noted that the implementation plan includes no immediate actions required from City Council, with long-term goals extending over 20 years.

Report: Discussion on Tech & Government 5:30 PM Closed Meeting (Boards & Commissions Appointments) 6:30 PM Business Session

# Summary

Steven Hawks, Director of IT, presented on Tech and Government, detailing the IT department's comprehensive services including 24/7 hardware and software support, management of approximately 400 city-issued mobile devices, cybersecurity oversight, data center and wireless network maintenance, oversight of over 300 CCTV cameras, and a planned transition from Cisco desk phones to Teams and Webex within four to five months. Following a closed session, City Council approved multiple board and commission appointments, including Terri Tyree to the Affordable Housing Fund Committee, Greg Self to the Community Development Block Grant and HOME Task Force, Hillary Worley to the Historic Resources Committee, Anne Hemingway to the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library Board, Bill Barefoot to the Piedmont YMCA Board, George Dillard, Ruairidh Vaughan, Karen Lenoir-Kelly, and Albie LaFave to the Police Civilian Oversight Board, Talia Long, Liza Kucker, and Brian Hommitt to the Sister Cities Commission, Linda Watson and Avon Batten to the Social Services Advisory Board, Joseph Burns-Peacock to the Towing Advisory Board, and Callie Sun to the Youth Council, while removing Lyric Cooper and David Derry from the Youth Council. Council also discussed the city manager's annual performance evaluation during the closed session.

Resolution: Resolution to Authorize $204,017 in additional funds for the Albemarle

# Summary: National Nonprofit Day VII and Jail Funding Discussion

City Council unanimously approved a proclamation recognizing National Nonprofit Day, acknowledging local nonprofits' vital work in affordable housing, education, healthcare, food security, and support for vulnerable populations, with Dr. Doyle accepting on behalf of the nonprofit community and emphasizing the need for continued collaboration between nonprofits, government, and the private sector. During public comment on a separate resolution to authorize $204,017 in additional funds for the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail, commenter Laura Sergany challenged the spending allocation, arguing that the city should prioritize housing solutions and support for unhoused individuals instead of increasing incarceration funding, and she advocated for alternative approaches such as tiny home communities and expanded mobile health clinics.

Resolution: Resolution to appropriate Albemarle County Human Services funding to the Department of Human Services for the Community Attention Youth Internship

Resolution to appropriate Albemarle County Human Services funding to the Department of Human Services for the Community Attention Youth Internship program in the amount of $63,000 was presented for second reading as part of the consent agenda.

Resolution: Resolution to appropriate additional $45,330.18 from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS/HIV grant 25-HOPWA-303 (2nd reading)

Resolution to appropriate an additional $45,330.18 from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS and HIV grant was presented for second reading as part of the consent agenda.

Agenda items (22)

Procedural (22)

1ProceduralPresentation: 2026 Regional Solid Waste Management Plan for the Thomas Jefferson Solid

City staff will present the 2026 Regional Solid Waste Management Plan for the Thomas Jefferson area, which outlines how the region will handle trash and recycling services.

What happened

2ProceduralReport: Discussion on Tech & Government 5:30 PM Closed Meeting (Boards & Commissions Appointments) 6:30 PM Business Session

Council will discuss technology and government matters in a closed meeting, followed by a public business session that includes appointments to city boards and commissions.

What happened

3ProceduralResolution: Resolution to Authorize $204,017 in additional funds for the Albemarle

Council will vote on releasing an additional $204,017 in funding for a project related to Albemarle County.

What happened

4ProceduralResolution: Resolution to appropriate Albemarle County Human Services funding to the Department of Human Services for the Community Attention Youth Internship

Council will approve using Albemarle County funding to support the Department of Human Services' Community Attention Youth Internship program, which provides work experience for young people.

What happened

5ProceduralResolution: Resolution to appropriate additional $45,330.18 from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS/HIV grant 25-HOPWA-303 (2nd reading)

Council will allocate an additional $45,330.18 in state housing grant money for people with AIDS/HIV to receive housing assistance.

What happened

6ProceduralResolution: Resolution to Appropriate funds for the Virginia Behavioral Health Docket Grant - $78,150.00 (1 of 2 readings)

Council will approve $78,150 in state funding to support mental health and behavioral health services in Charlottesville (first of two required votes).

What happened

Resolution to appropriate funds for the Virginia Behavioral Health Docket Grant in the amount of $78,150 was presented for one of two readings as part of the consent agenda.

7ProceduralResolution: Resolution to Appropriate Virginia State Police FY 27 HEAT Equipment Reimbursement Funding - $10,000 (1 of 2 readings)

Council will accept $10,000 in reimbursement funds from Virginia State Police for equipment purchases (first of two required votes).

What happened

Resolution to appropriate Virginia State Police FY27 HEAT equipment reimbursement funding in the amount of $10,000 was presented for one of two readings as part of the consent agenda.

8ProceduralResolution: Resolution to Grant $400,000 for Climate Program Support for Residential Energy Improvement Services (1 of 2 readings)

Council will approve $400,000 to help residents improve their homes' energy efficiency and reduce their carbon footprint (first of two required votes).

What happened

Resolution to grant $400,000 for climate program support for residential energy improvement services was presented for one of two readings as part of the consent agenda, with a note that a four-fifths vote is required for one reading.

9ProceduralResolution: Resolution to renew CenturyLink Communications LLC License Agreement

Council will renew the city's telecommunications services agreement with CenturyLink Communications.

What happened

Council discussed the resolution to renew the CenturyLink Communications LLC license agreement. A council member raised concerns about past issues with utility poles and ADA compliance, asking whether those problems had been addressed in the renewal agreement. Staff confirmed that this is not merely a renewal of the old agreement, but incorporates a new standard template that corrects previous enforcement issues with poles and relocations. The updated agreement reflects considerable changes made to enforcement sections across all license agreements based on templates developed after previous council discussions.

10ProceduralResolution: Resolution Appropriating $750,000 received from the Jefferson Scholars Foundation for the Vacation of Clarke Court (1 of 2 readings)

Council will approve using $750,000 donated by the Jefferson Scholars Foundation to close and reimagine Clarke Court (first of two required votes).

11ProceduralResolution: Resolution to Allocate $2,000,000 School Operations Contingency Funds and Amend the FY 2027 Charlottesville City Schools Budget and the City's Pupil

Council will allocate $2 million in emergency reserve funds to support Charlottesville City Schools' operations and adjust the school budget for the upcoming year.

12ProceduralOrdinance: Ordinance Approving Partial Closure of Castalia Street

Council will vote to partially close Castalia Street to vehicle traffic.

What happened

# Summary: Ordinance Approving Partial Closure of Castalia Street

Staff presented an ordinance to approve the partial closure of a 162-foot section of Castalia Street between 221 and 303 Palatine Avenue to facilitate a 13-unit infill housing development, which would include a preserved 22-foot public access right-of-way and stormwater easement maintaining pedestrian and vehicular connectivity. Multiple community members opposed the closure, with Anne Lasser arguing that surrendering public land to private developers sets a problematic precedent and eliminates a vital public asset forever, Lee French contending that the city should not hand over public land to increase a developer's profitability, and another speaker raising concerns about increased stormwater, traffic, and parking pressures on surrounding streets. Council member Lloyd questioned whether the city should seek compensation for the property—calculating its value at approximately $60,528—and requested the City Attorney evaluate the matter under existing policy, though staff acknowledged they had not yet been asked to negotiate. Despite these concerns and recommendations for further policy review, the Council voted 4-1 to adopt the ordinance, with Councilor Fletcher supporting an immediate vote on the closure.

13ProceduralResolution: Resolution to Authorize the City Manager to Execute a Grant Agreement Pledging $3 million to the Salvation Army for the Center of Hope Capital

Council will authorize the city to contribute $3 million toward the Salvation Army's Center of Hope capital project for a new community facility.

What happened

# CAYIP Annual Report Summary

Latara Ragland from the Department of Human Services presented the CAYIP (Community Attention Youth Internship Program) Annual Report, reporting that 152 city applicants were screened with 87 city residents participating in the summer 2026 program, achieving a 92% success rate with outcomes including 102 site partners, 98 banking bonuses issued, 10 interns hired at their sites, and 8 earning certifications. The program, which has served Charlottesville residents aged 14-21 since 2007, includes a six-week academy period with expert panels from community partners followed by paid internship placements at city sites. Staff recommended continuing the program based on strong support from youth, families, and site supervisors, and proposed enhancements such as having returning interns lead academy experiences and developing more thorough exit survey reports. Council members expressed appreciation for the program's impact on youth and asked about expanding opportunities to more city agencies and departments, with staff confirming year-round site recruitment efforts and noting that the current applicant pool of 152 city students represents near capacity.

14ProceduralReport: City Manager Report

The City Manager will provide an update on city operations, priorities, and ongoing initiatives.

15ProceduralPresentation: a. Strategic Plan Report for FY2024 - FY2026

Staff will present the city's strategic plan covering the 2024-2026 period, outlining long-term goals and priorities.

16ProceduralPresentation: b. City Manager's Work Plan

The City Manager will present their work plan for the upcoming period, detailing specific projects and tasks they plan to accomplish.

What happened

# Summary: City Manager's Work Plan Presentation

The City Manager presented the FY2027 Work Plan, structured around five strategic priorities—homeless interventions, transforming transportation, supporting schools, arts and culture, and safety and security—with the theme of "Strategic Execution" emphasizing consistency, quality, coordination, and measurement across approximately 1,100 city employees. Councilor Michael requested a more tactical, simplified version with quarterly status updates, to which the City Manager agreed. A Council member raised concerns about performance metrics for larger priorities, particularly how the city measures progress on equity-related benchmarks such as achievement gaps and wealth disparities; the City Manager responded that newly hired Chief Strategy Officer Jen Hendricks will track organizational metrics and impact, with a comprehensive three-year strategic plan launching July 1st, 2027. Councilor Natalie commended the work plan as a transparency tool and encouraged community review of the detailed city manager's report in each agenda.

19ProceduralThis is an in-person meeting with an option for the public to participate electronically by registering in advance for the Zoom webinar at www.charlottesville.gov/zoom. The meeting may also be viewed on the City's streaming platforms and local government Channel 10. Individuals with disabilities who require assistance or special arrangements to participate in the public meeting may call (434) 987-1267 or submit a request via email to ada@charlottesville.gov. The City of Charlottesville requests that you provide 48 hours’ notice so that proper arrangements may be made.

This item provides information about how residents can participate in the meeting in person or online, and how to request disability accommodations.

20ProceduralThe presiding officer shall ensure that individuals address their comments to City Council at appropriate times, in accordance with the meeting agenda and Council’s Rules of Procedure.

This item establishes that the meeting's presiding officer will ensure speakers address their comments at appropriate times according to the meeting agenda.

21ProceduralNo person who is not a member of the city council shall orally address it until leave to do so has been granted by the city council or until invited to do so by the mayor. (City Code sec.2-71)

This item states that members of the public must receive permission from Council before speaking, in accordance with city rules.

22ProceduralRemarks and actions that disrupt the progress of the Council meeting, and remarks from persons other than councilors, the City Manager, the City Attorney, or a presenter for an Agenda

This item describes what types of remarks and actions will not be tolerated during the meeting, such as disruptions or conduct that interferes with Council's work.

23ProceduralThe presiding officer shall call an individual to order, including a councilor, when that individual goes afoul of these rules. The following are examples of remarks and behavior that are not permitted: i. Interrupting a speaker who is addressing Council at the speaker's microphone, or interrupting a speaker who has otherwise been invited to address Council during Community Matters or a Public Hearing ii. Interrupting a councilor who is speaking iii. Shouting, and talking (either individually or in concert with others) in a manner that prevents a speaker or a Councilor from being heard or that otherwise hinders the progress of the meeting iv. Blocking paths for emergency exit from the meeting room; engaging in any conduct that prevents a member of the audience from seeing or hearing councilors during a meeting; standing on chairs or tables within the Council meeting room v. Threats or incitement of violence toward councilors, City staff or members of the public vi. Engaging in conduct that is a criminal offense under the City Code or the Virginia Code vii. Campaigning for elected office viii. Promotion of private business ventures ix. Using profanity or vulgarity x. Personal attacks against Councilors, City staff or members of the public xi. Behavior which tends to intimidate others

This item lists specific prohibited behaviors during the meeting, including interrupting speakers, shouting, threats, profanity, personal attacks, and intimidating conduct.

24ProceduralDuring a City Council meeting the presiding officer shall have control of the Council Chambers and the connecting halls and corridors within City Hall, and any other venue where a Council meeting is being held. In case of any conduct described above, the presiding officer may take measures deemed appropriate, including but not limited to suspending the meeting until order is restored, ordering areas to be cleared by the Sergeant at Arms, or requiring any individual to exit the meeting room and adjacent premises (connecting halls and corridors.)

This item gives the presiding officer authority to maintain order in the Council chambers and adjacent areas, including powers to suspend the meeting, clear areas, or remove disruptive individuals.

Additional votes recorded in minutes

Approve agenda

aye 1

voice voteaye

Motion to enter closed session

aye 1

voice voteaye

Certify closed session

aye 1

voice voteaye

Board and commission appointments (initial motion)

aye 1

voice voteaye

Approve consent agenda (with item 8 on first reading requiring 4/5 vote)

aye 1

voice voteaye

Ordinance approving partial closure of Castalia Street

aye 4 · nay 1

Jen Fleisheraye

Juandiego Wadeaye

Lloyd Snooknay

Michael Payneaye

Natalie Oschrinaye

Resolution authorizing $3 million grant to Salvation Army for Center of Hope Capital Campaign (single reading with 4/5 vote)

aye 5

Jen Fleisheraye

Juandiego Wadeaye

Lloyd Snookaye

Michael Payneaye

Natalie Oschrinaye

Rescind YMCA board appointment of Bill Barefoot and appoint James Brown

aye 1

voice voteaye

Motion to adjourn

aye 1

voice voteaye

Verbatim transcript available

884 transcript segments indexed

Sam, you ready? Yes, sir. Madam Clerk, you ready to go? Mm-hmm. I call the Charlottesville City Council meetings August 17th, 2026, meeting to order. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Councilor Fleischer?

Here. Vice Mayor Oshrin? Here. Councilor Payne, not yet. Councilor Snook? Yes, I'm here. Mayor Wade? Here. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Second. It's been moved and properly seconded.

All in favor, please say yes. Yes. All opposed, please say no. Great. The motion passes four to zero. The meeting will be divided into three sections. The first will be a work session, where we will hear and discuss presentations that do not require a vote, followed by a closed session, and then we'll come back with our regular business meeting at 6:30.

The first, we will hear a presentation on the solid waste management plan for the Thomas Jefferson Solid Waste Management Unit. And here's Krystal. Hi. Good afternoon, Mayor Wade and councilors. Good afternoon.

I'm Krystal Ritterval, Director of the Office of Sustainability, and I'm joined today by Isabella O'Brien, a planner with the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. We're here today to provide you with an overview of the updated regional solid waste management plan for the Thomas Jefferson Solid Waste Planning Unit.

The TJPDC has facilitated the development of this required regional plan update for numerous iterations, convening staff from the member localities of the planning unit as a technical advisory committee for this effort.

So I'm here on behalf of the city team representing various departments who served on that committee, Public Works, Neighborhood Development Services, and the Office of Sustainability, and representatives from those departments are here with us today.

So per state code, the solid waste management plan must be updated every five years and has a 20-year planning horizon. Isabella will cover the regulatory requirements, summarize the plan development process, including the public engagement, present the regional goals, and share the remaining steps related to submission of this plan by October.

The technical advisory committee collaborated on the development of the implementation plan portion of this document, which is organized around three main goals: data and information sharing, which is essentially transparency and metrics, planning, and waste diversion.

The objectives within those goals are developed by each locality and are specific to each locality, and these are the actions that were identified by the city staff team to meet the goals and reflect practical steps that align with our programmatic and operational priorities.

They were informed by strategies in our comprehensive plan, landfill diversion study, and the climate action plan. So we're happy to discuss further following Isabella's presentation, and I'll pass it over to her.

Thank you so much for that introduction, and good afternoon, everybody. Thank you so much for having me. I'm Isabella O'Brien, a regional planner with the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, and as she mentioned, I'll provide a brief overview of the 2026 Solid Waste Management Plan update, highlight the findings specific to the city of Charlottesville, and review the next steps before plan adoption.

Let's see if I can get this working. Okay. Ah. There we go. Okay. The Solid Waste Planning Unit includes Albemarle County, the city of Charlottesville, Fluvanna County, and Greene County. TJPDC staff coordinates the activities of the state that the state requires of the Solid Waste Planning Unit on behalf of these localities.

The planning unit has two primary responsibilities, annual recycling rate reporting to DEQ, and maintaining our regional solid waste management plan. State regulations require that the plan be updated every five years, with the next update due to DEQ October of this year.

The plan is also guided by Virginia's waste management hierarchy, as stated in the associated planning regulations. The preferred approach is to reduce waste before it's generated, followed by reuse, recycling, and composting.

Disposal options such as landfilling are considered after those opportunities have been evaluated. State regulations also establish the required contents of the plan. The update evaluates existing facilities and services, waste and recycling trends, future needs, public outreach efforts, and implementation strategies for the next 20 years.

It also includes future population and waste projections, funding considerations, and strategies for maintaining compliance with Virginia's recycling requirements. One of the plan's major components is the annual recycling rates.

Virginia requires our planning unit to maintain a minimum recycling rate of 25% based on our population. TJPDC staff coordinates the collection and reporting of recycling data from local governments, public facilities, and participating reporting partners around the region.

It's important to note that the recycling rate is based on reporting requirements established by DEQ, but it does not capture all of the waste management activities occurring regionally. This includes construction and demolition debris, and then information from private haulers or private recycling facilities is encouraged to be reported, but not actually required by state code that they report their data back to us.

However, local governments may obtain this information through requirements and local ordinances or through their permitting processes. As a result, the recycling rate should be viewed as a useful compliance metric, and a trend metric rather than a complete picture of all of the activity occurring within a specific locality.

The recycling rate is calculated by comparing documented recycling tonnage to documented municipal waste disposal. There are also credits up to 5% that DEQ can provide for recycling of non-municipal solid waste, for source reduction, and for reuse programs.

So based on the data that we collect for the recycling report, the region consistently exceeds the required recycling rate. Between 2021 and 2024, the regional rate ranged from 34% to 41%. Charlottesville and Albemarle are reported together because much of the data comes from the Rivanna Authorities, which serves both jurisdictions.

And based on their data, information from the city's contracted waste and recycling hauler, private businesses, and UVA, the reported recycling rate ranged from 41% to 49% during that same period. The reporting from private haulers and facilities is voluntary, and some recycling activity may not be captured if haulers manage waste at private facilities or haul it outside of the region.

As a result, understanding local performance requires looking beyond the recycling rate alone, and especially in the more rural portions of the planning unit. This chart illustrates some of those reporting challenges.

Differences between jurisdictions can reflect differences in data availability and reporting practices as much as differences in recycling participation. Localities with more recycling activity handled through private sector haulers may appear to recycle less or manage less waste because fewer materials are captured in the scope of this report.

The Charlottesville Albemarle area reports per capita disposal rates that are generally lower than the national averages, based on the latest data from EPA, which is 2018, which may point to some of these data gaps.

Disposal trends have also increased slightly in recent years as population and economic activity have grown following the pandemic. The planning process began in late 2024. We've held five technical advisory committee meetings over the course of the process with your local staff and stakeholders.

The TAC was instrumental to the plan's update. They provided local details, developed the locally specific implementation actions, and reviewed the draft plan in advance of this current public comment period.

Public engagement occurred throughout the process. We've shared information through the TJPDC's informational channels, locality newsletters, and heard community feedback through a public survey and community workshop We are currently collecting feedback during a 30-day public comment period, and a public hearing will be held at the TJPDC commission meeting on September 3rd at 7:00 PM before local adoption.

So looking closer at the public survey, we received 257 responses across the planning unit, including 57 from the City of Charlottesville residents. Across the region, several themes emerged repeatedly.

Residents wanted greater transparency regarding what happened to collected materials, improved convenience for recycling and composting, and expanded waste diversion opportunities, and these themes helped to shape both the regional goals and local implementation actions in the plan.

Charlottesville specifically, overall residents support Charlottesville's existing waste and recycling services while identifying opportunities for improved convenience, education, and transparency. Consistent with the findings from the city's 2021 landfill diversion study, respondents demonstrated strong interest in expanding composting opportunities, particularly through curbside collection, additional drop-off locations, and programs that make composting participation more affordable.

Residents also requested clear guidance on recycling and composting requirements, especially for plastics, batteries, electronics, and other specialty materials to help reduce contamination in the recycling stream.

Many respondents emphasized the importance of transparency about how materials are collected and processed, and highlighted the need for stronger recycling and composting services at businesses and multi-family and rental properties.

Detailed survey results are included in the plan appendices if you'd like to take a closer look. The draft plan organizes the implementation efforts into three main focus areas: data and information, planning, and waste diversion.

The goals address many of the issues identified through public engagement, including improving transparency, maintaining accessible waste management services, and expanding opportunities for waste diversion.

Each locality submitted locally specific objectives to support these goals. This work was part of the focus of the technical advisory committee, ensuring alignment with each of the localities' programs and opportunities.

Charlottesville has 12 of the total 64 objectives in the plan. For Charlottesville, the implementation actions focus on increasing transparency about waste management programs, improving recycling and diversion data collection, evaluating contamination in the recycling stream, and increasing diversion of food and yard waste, supporting the McIntire Recycling Center and their operations, and maintaining ongoing engagement with neighborhood, business, and multi-family housing stakeholders.

Compared to the 2021 update, this plan includes a more detailed analysis of recycling and disposal trends, expanded documentation of our public engagement, and the locality-specific implementation actions.

The appendices include our public engagement materials, adoption resolutions once approved, and a technical report developed by UVA's School of Public Policy, a master's student that focused their thesis on rural waste diversion opportunities, as well as the detailed implementation plan with your locality-specific actions.

The draft plan is available currently for public review throughout August on our website, which I'll share the link in the next slide. Following this month's presentations to the council and other boards, the TJPDC will hold the required public hearing, incorporate any final feedback into the plan, and then return the plan to your council and local boards, and then the TJPDC commission for final adoption before being submitted to DEQ in October.

Thank you for your time and participation throughout this process, and here's the link for more details about the public comment, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Jen, do you have any questions or comments? Yeah, thank you for this, and we were lucky enough to see this at the TJPDC- Oh, okay ... and kind of get some. But one of the comments that came out of that meeting that was on more detail here was that the kind of the metrics and the tracking, and you had mentioned in that meeting it would be up to the jurisdictions or municipalities to choose to not consolidate, but at least cooperate on what metrics are being tracked and how we could get private waste vendors into that data collection so we could be more accurate, just kind of seeing your lines and how far apart they are.

I mean, 2018 is also a long time ago. Am I reminding you of this piece? Okay. In my shorthand. So can you give us some kind of that guidance and some updates on that- Yes ... so that we can consider that?

Absolutely. So as it stands, we are meeting all of the state requirements for our recycling rate report, but the technical advisory committee members had noticed that having clear information and a better baseline of what our actual recycling rate is might be prudent for best planning practices.

So while we're meeting the current regulations, it's up to the locality to divine their implementation plan, and ways that they might be interested in improving data transparency, if that makes sense.

Thank you. Lloyd, you have any questions? If you said something about this, it went over my head. I'm a little bit surprised to hear, we try to think of Charlottesville and this area as being very environmentally conscious and so on, but to hear that we're below the average for recycling rates puzzles me.

What's going on there? What are we missing? What are we not doing that we really ought to be doing? So I think that was not the recycling rates, but actually the per capita waste generation. So I'll go back to that slide.

Whichever one it was, we were below average on, I mean. Yeah. So it's this one. Okay. Per capita waste generation, the pounds per person per day. And so this isn't saying that we're recycling less than other areas.

This is saying that the total amount of waste generated per person is less than the average of what the US states. So they state that on average, one single person is creating 4.9 pounds of waste per day, and we're seeing here for Charlottesville and Albemarle's area that it's ranging between 2.8 to 3.85.

So I was just highlighting that there's a bit of a gap of the per capita waste. Maybe that means that we're just generating less waste, which includes the recycling. It's waste and recycling, total MSW.

But I also highlighted that that may point to some data gaps where it may be private haulers or private facilities. We're not capturing the entire picture. I see. Okay. But we want to be below average here.

Yes. Yes. That is a good thing here. Okay. Yes. That is a good thing. And I'm always wondering, are there more things that we could be doing to recycle? I happen to sit on the board of the Solid Waste Authority, so I have a little bit of a sense from their perspective on all of this.

And of course, the biggest problem is you don't want to be claiming to recycle something that you're not, in fact, recycling, that you're just diverting to a different dump. Are there things out there that you think we ought to be looking harder at to figure out if we can find a market for something?

Hmm. That's a good question. I think a big point of what's come out of the public engagement and the feedback from Charlottesville residents is not necessarily about the types of materials that they're already accepted here.

It's more about making it more accessible to some folks that maybe are left out of that. So while there is curbside recycling and composting available, a lot of the multifamily housing or renters don't have access to that as easily.

And what's kind of seen in best practice is people are going to do what's easiest for them, and so having the option for each type of disposal and diversion, which I'm thinking landfill waste, your recycling, and your composting, having that be as accessible as possible, I think is where there could be a jump in increasing our diversion rate here in the urban areas.

One of the things that I know a lot of folks are confused, they ask me this question, and I don't know the answer because I'm confused. I know we can recycle plastics one and two. At one point, there was some talk that we were going to recycle five, but that three, four, and six, there was just no market for.

Is that still essentially the state of play? I would speak more to public works or Ivana authorities that might have a better sense of that. But I know that it was recommended in the survey multiple times, wanting to have access to recycling plastics number five.

That was also spoken about in green, so I think there's a big opportunity for diversion there. But I think you need to speak more closely with- Okay ... staff there. Thank you. Sid? Natalie? Yeah. Thank you.

Just a technical question first. When I clicked on the link to view survey results, it said I had to have an ArcGIS Online account. Oh, okay. Is it public? Do I have to create an account? Is there an easier way to see the results?

So I think that's a settings issue, but actually, all of the survey responses are included in the appendices outside of that link. Yeah. That's just kind of a link that was in this, but all of the survey responses are in the plan appendices.

Okay. So we should not direct people to that link. Yes. Oh, and I can also correct that link because I think that's a back-end thing, which I apologize for that. Okay, cool. Great. I'm glad I double-checked.

Thanks. And then substantively, I noticed in the public survey, it did say that 44% expressed satisfaction with recycling, with the drop due to a lack of trust on whether materials were actually recycled or uncertainty about what is accepted.

So with that same skepticism, when we're talking about we're required to meet the 25% minimum recycling rate, it looks like we're at about or close to 50% based on your graph. Is that just what is collected, or is that what is actually processed and recycled?

That is what is actually processed and recycled based on those reports. Okay, great. Yeah. That's- And I think a lot of the data and transparency, because that's the overall regional picture, is more so with private haulers, folks not knowing where those materials are going because that's- And so this survey was for not just Charlottesville city service residents, but anyone could answer.

This was for specifically our solid waste planning unit, so City of Charlottesville, Albemarle, Fluvanna, and Greene. Sorry, what I mean by that was not municipally served- Yes ... people, but anyone could answer.

Yes. Got it. Okay. Any community member. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And then- Actually, that was all I had at the moment. Thank you. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Michael? Oh, I'm sorry. I did have one more. I'm so sorry.

You're accepting comments through the end of the month, but it's just send you an email. There's not another survey to fill out. Exactly. Okay. You can also mail comments to the TJPDC office. All of the instructions are on that link.

I'll reshare that for folks here. I just wanted to make sure that was the appropriate format was just general comments, not specific lead survey questions. Yes. Okay. And also, we welcome comments before at the public hearing at the TJPDC presentation on the 3rd.

Okay. Thank you so much. Michael? Thank you. The only question I have is obviously you've been already working together with our city staff, and from anything that's come from this in terms of potential policy recommendations or changes, if there have been any, are there any actions city council will need to take or is that kind of everyone's already on top of all those things?

I might point over to you. There are no near-term actions. There are a couple of items in there, so the implementation plan is broken up into ongoing initiatives, short-term, near-term, and long-term.

And there are some items in there in the long term, but that's- 20 years ... before 20 years is over. So nothing immediate. I just wanted to reiterate the feedback that we've gotten about concern about things actually getting recycled is definitely not unique to Charlottesville.

Anyone who is wonky enough to track the recycling industry on an international basis, it's been flipped upside down, and there's really some severe limitations in our domestic recycling industry that have created this ripple effect problem.

And so I think there are opportunities, but many of them are not necessarily the control of the city. Some of it is the industry has to still catch up. I'm sorry, I actually did have one more question.

Sure. In the public survey it also says 17% people are satisfied with composting, and I know in Charlottesville, the public composting is you can bring your compost to the recycling center, but there's not any kind of pickup service.

I think Black Bear does provide. Not municipal. Oh, yes. Sorry. Yeah. So, there's only private. So, what would it look like for the city to undertake that? Have we done any research into it? Where on the long-term- I'm glad you asked- ...

goal strategy is that? ... because I actually have a, in the very near term, so we have one drop-off location that is not McIntire Recycling Center that people can subscribe to. It's right near downtown.

And we've just ordered a set of collection containers to deploy three more sites around the city that people can subscribe to and go to. I think those will arrive in late September, early October. And so the idea is there's still some steps between where we are now and full curbside, because that's a much more significant system, right?

Right. Service and system. And so the idea is can we meet the need and the interest of people to compost by creating more accessible drop-off locations. And they're secure and actually everybody who signs up wants to do it, so there's no incentive to break the system.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So hopefully that'll be successful, and if it is, then that seems to be a model that we could look at deploying more. UVA also just got a grant from DEQ to increase compost collection in predominantly student housing areas, and so we're trying to work with them about having some consistent branding and look, feel, and rules.

Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Because I know that Seattle has a robust public composting system. Yep. And they'll inspect bins, and if there's compost in your trash, you get a fine. Yeah. So. There's communities, Arlington has curbside compostings, so.

Yeah. We wouldn't be inventing the wheel to get more involved in that. Can I ask a follow-up? What is involved with a- We'll get back to you, Mike ... subscription to composting? So essentially when I say subscription, it essentially is signing up to have access to this drop-off location, and then you are provided with a code to access it.

Oh. And you are put on a member list and get updates and are able to provide feedback so that we have a little bit of a- Any cost associated with it? No. Okay. It's at no cost. And these additional sites will similarly be at no cost to the community.

Okay. Thank you. Yep. Did not know. Michael, I'm going to finish with you. I'm sorry. That was it. I have no questions, and it sounds like your team is already on top of next steps for how we can improve our local system.

I had a couple of questions. Lloyd asked my question about what can we do next. You had mentioned that September the 3rd is going to be a public hearing before you meet, and then you're going to adopt it.

So what if you get some input- Sorry. Maybe- Oh, let me know ... I just want to make sure I understood that. Yes, absolutely. Sorry for the confusion and sorry to interrupt you. September 3rd is the public hearing, but then October 1st is actually the TJPDC adoption.

Mm-hmm. So we'll be incorporating the feedback from the public comment period and the public hearing, and then before it goes to your boards in September and the council. Yeah. My next question is, you mentioned, and I was taking some notes, but you mentioned Charlottesville has 12 of the 64.

I didn't quite understand what that was. Can you just do a quick explanation of what that is again? Yes. Absolutely. So, these are regional goals that I'm displaying on the screen now. And under each regional goal are locality specific actions to help inform and meet that goal.

So there are 64 locality specific actions. Got it. Mm-hmm. And 12 of those refer to Charlottesville, I guess. Any other questions or comments? So as I understand, Crystal, there's nothing for us to do right now.

This is kind of for information. Any action or anything we need to do right now? What can this council do? Well, to support the process, the next action is to adopt a resolution that will be on your consent agenda in the September meeting.

And then I think after that, it's really for us internally to look at if there are immediate growth or opportunities. Thank you. So council, so it's planned to be on the consent agenda. If you have any- Yeah ...

major concerns or things, please get it to staff so that they can incorporate or so that if we have to pull it or something, that there's no major issues that come up at the last minute. So you would like that by as soon as possible but that's like three weeks away.

Yeah. In a couple of weeks, right? Yeah. I think that- By the public hearing ... again, the bulk of the document has been developed by the PDC, and a lot of it is process and data- Sure ... and things which don't require massive changes.

If you did want to look at the Charlottesville specific elements, then I would look at the implementation plan- Sure ... and look at the actions. They're called out by locality, and if you have any questions about those.

Hmm. I'll ask council that if they have any concerns, that if you could get it to staff by August 27th. I just kind of... We have a deadline then. Yep. Oh, yeah. Deadlines are good. And again, the program is delivered by Public Works, NVS considers it in the planning.

It's obviously aligned with sustainability goals. So it's another thing that's very- Yeah ... multi-departmental. Good. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you ladies so much. Thank you all. Thank you. Thanks for your time.

Appreciate you. The next item on the agenda is discussion on tech and government. Steven and Chief Cocchius. Steven Hawks and Chief Cocchius. Wow. Good to have you. Good afternoon. You won't have any tech issues with it.

We better not. David, could you put... This is the chief's presentation. Good afternoon, councilors. My name is Steve Hawks. I'm the director of IT with the city. How much time do I have here? 15? Yeah.

Okay, 15. You can give it to five here. I'll give it to 15 then. Once the presentation comes up. Well, I can just get started here. Hopefully, it'll come up at some point. So I have three things I'm going to talk about.

Some of you may not be familiar with some of the services we provide in the IT department. I'll talk about that, the software landscape as we see it today, and then we of course have to have a section on AI in any type of tech presentation.

So I'll talk about that as well. So in city IT, we are 24/7 hardware and software support. You all have interacted, I assume, with our help desk. They're there 7:30 to 5:00 every day, and then we are on call after hours.

We're in charge of all hardware and software purchases in the city. The PCs you're using, we replace those every five years. We reach out to you and coordinate with you and replace them. We're also city-issued mobile phones.

There are around 400 here in the city that are issued to employees. Majority of them are iPhones, but we have some Android users. We're in charge of cybersecurity in IT. Then on the infrastructure side, we do have a data center up in IT, if you've ever been up to the fourth floor of the annex.

It's a secure area. The footprint is getting smaller and smaller over the years, but we do still have a data center. The wireless networks you're using, those are managed by us. All these access points have been replaced in the past year, through our five-year strategic plan for networking.

CCTV is becoming a much bigger part of what we do here at the city. There are more than 300 CCTV cameras out there. We now manage it in IT, just received a separate budget for it last year. And office phones.

I have a bullet on office phones, but that will be gone in about four or five months. We're migrating from the old Cisco desk phone you had to Teams and Webex. So employees will be answering their phone extension through their computer, which we think is a real advantage.

There's some cost savings. Also, I think the user experience is better. Eight departments have so far been migrated, with an expected completion in December. We also like to think of ourselves as a strategic resource.

We have an applications development team, an award-winning application development team that won three state awards over the years and a national award, but they write software for departments. Oh, there we go.

So most departments have something that the applications team developed, but we write software for the different departments. We also manage GIS through our department. So looking at the software landscape, this is a little hard to see, but this graphic, how things have changed over the past 35 years.

So in the '90s, the city in that data center had a mainframe computer, an HP 3000. It ran pretty much everything for the city. Then starting about midway through the '90s, you saw the advent of these client server applications where the back end was still up in our data center, all hosted here in Charlottesville, but then the front end, the interface, you installed on your computer.

And some of you probably remember that, installing software on your computer. Once you've installed it and paid for it, you had it for the life of the computer Then in about mid-2010s, we saw this move from where we're hosting things in our data center to where they're being hosted with these hyperscalers.

Hyperscaler would be Amazon, Microsoft Azure, Google as well. So we saw the rise of what's called software as a service, which is a subscription-based software where you pay annually. You get to use the software hosted somewhere else.

If you stop paying, you don't get to use the software anymore, whereas before you owned it. So in a sense, you're just subscribing to it. And then I have a little chart, a little graphic at the end where things are moving now in the software industry with regard to AI and the software.

A lot of changes are taking place. I'm not really sure how it's going to shake out, but AI is going to really change the way we use our software. So now, look at what enterprise software we have here in the city.

So these are software that everyone uses, including Microsoft 365. We are a Microsoft shop. That includes Teams, Outlook, all those Office products. We run SAP. SAP, we migrated to a new version this year.

It was a big project, long project, long time coming. But we feel really good about the new interface: simple, intuitive, modern, web-based. SAP runs our financial management reporting, accounts payable, accounts receivable, HR, payroll, utilities.

It's our enterprise system. Adobe Sign we use for electronic signatures. And then MyHR, this is an application the app team developed in IT. This is where we employees enter our time, look at our pay stubs, leave quotas, and actually, we have W-2s.

You can get on through MyHR, so you could be at the tax preparer and on your phone, you can show your W-2 for the year. Continuing now, I'll talk a little bit about AI in the city. We've had a lot of initiatives over the past eight years with regard to AI in the city.

I'll touch on a few of them. We did move to a new website in 2020, right in the height of COVID, the end of April. And as part of that new website, we added a chatbot. Some of you may remember this, but you could ask questions on the right-hand side of the website.

And we were excited about it. We thought it would answer people's questions. How do I get a building permit? How do I pay a parking ticket? But it wasn't very effective. We ended up discontinuing it after a couple of years because we could see on the back end that less than half the time it was answering the question correctly.

So this is what we've seen with AI, where our expectations are really high, and then the reality doesn't quite meet our expectations. But that was six years ago. November 2022, I'm sure you all remember this, but ChatGPT was released.

It was a big deal in the tech world and with everybody else. So we in IT saw this. We have a number of us who are very interested in it, in AI, and these generative AI chatbots. So we had a focus group in IT where we really tried to make use of it during our workday, and then we'd meet periodically to talk about how it was helping us.

What use cases did it make sense? Where didn't it work? Around this time also in 2024, we issued some guidance. This is a post to the org-wide team, which all employees have access to. At the time, we did think about policies with regard to AI.

That's a big topic, governance of AI. We did not want to put out a policy at that time because I realize a lot of our users, a policy will stifle them. They will not use this tool because there's a policy about it.

So we gave them guidance. Don't put sensitive data into these tools. If you're purchasing any AI-based system, contact IT. Some general guidance, although we knew we were going to have to eventually add some policies.

So last two years, we've had a lot of initiatives. Early in the year of 2025, we sent a survey to all our users. Are you using AI? When do you use it? What tools do you use? Do you want some training on this?

The answer was they did, and the city has an innovation team. The i-team and IT partnered up to create an AI workshop through our WIIFM series, What's In It For Me? So we held that in 2025. Then later that year, Microsoft Copilot came out, which we are a Microsoft shop, so we've added that as one of the tools employees can use.

There is a cost. I think it's well worth it. But we had a focus group where IT paid for four months of licenses for some employees who were interested, and then we would meet with them, talk about our experience using Copilot.

In 2026, we've had a lot of initiatives. We had another AI workshop, WIIFM workshop because of people have been asking for it. Those two workshops of these WIIFM workshops are probably the most well-attended ones we've had.

We also started developing policies that time. We were very fortunate. A deputy city manager came on board who had a lot of experience with AI policies and AI. So we worked with her and risk management.

Now, in June of this year, some changes or updates were made to the IT security policy that every employee signs, where we spell out things you should and should not do with AI. So it's become part of our policy.

In addition, we've added another AI working group made up of risk, city attorney, and IT, where we work with departments that are purchasing software with AI, which is essentially ... every software now.

And we do a risk and suitability assessment along with the department and the vendor to try and gauge if there are risks, and we end up scoring the software and the AI features low, medium to high, and then we provide the department mitigation strategies if needed.

We also have an AI user group in the city, started this year, where employees get together. We meet about every two months. We have a presentation on AI, and then we have general feedback, what works, what doesn't, trying to crowdsource our AI knowledge.

We do have a couple partnerships going on with UVA and Microsoft, where we're working with them with potential AI pilots. And then that final bullet point, AI is moving from generative AI to this agentic AI, where it actually can do things, these agents, and automate, which is scary, but it can be really exciting and a good thing, I think, for the city.

So we're working with a couple departments who have some interest in potentially some pilots using AI agents. So what have we learned over all these focus groups and user groups? Helps with productivity and efficiency.

Communication is a big one cited by employees. All those bullet points are coming from these user group and focus groups we've had talking about where AI has helped them at work. The levels, the playing field, to me, this is an important one.

Quite often, what we see with new employees is the limiting factor is the tool itself, like, "I don't know Excel. I don't know how to write these formulas." Well, all of a sudden, with a tool like Microsoft 365 Copilot, you can ask the proper questions.

It knows how to do the number crunching and the data analysis, which can be really helpful. Another advantage with this 365 Copilot is searching and organizing, and I can ask it, "Give me all the chats, emails, and files I've worked on with Nathan Newell in the past 18 months." And there it is.

Old school, I would have had to go into each of these applications and try and find these things with keywords. Not nearly as effective. And then the agentic AI development by IT, where we're working with a few departments to potentially build some agents for them.

So what hasn't been good? I think the expectations versus reality with AI. I talked about that briefly. The mindset change is difficult. Using these tools, you're working in a different way, so that takes a little effort.

Change is hard, but we found that with our employees who have been using these AI. And then hallucinations, where AI makes something up. So those are the concerns we have with regard to AI, and here's how we're trying to mitigate those concerns.

For sensitive and confidential data, we now have these policies and procedures in place. The agentic AI and hallucinations, once again, that comes down to training and the guidance and the policies. And then cybersecurity, the bad guys have access to this stuff just as well as the good guys do.

So trying to buy the best enterprise cybersecurity tools we can is really important to fight that. I think it's under 15 minutes. Are there questions? Questions, I'll start with you, Michael. You have any?

Yeah, one on the cybersecurity threat. Are you seeing that that threat has substantially increased for Charlottesville and local governments writ large? And are you seeing that there's a potential need for us to make significant new investments in our defense capabilities, or do you feel like we're in a good place currently?

Well, yes, that we're seeing many more threats, much more sophisticated threats. We have been very happy with the money that we have been approved for our budgets to buy these tools. That's a great answer.

And yeah, I'd say we have done, I think, some, what are they? The two-two-ones, where if you want to talk specifics about cybersecurity, I'd be happy to have those discussions with you all about that.

Yeah. I would be curious, whatever the format, your full assessment, because obviously the risk is growing more in very unpredictable ways. Oh, you're totally right. Yes, I'd be happy to have those discussions with you all in separate meetings.

Mm-hmm. The other question, you talked about workshops you've offered, and it sounds like those have been well-attended and successful. In addition to that, is the city currently offering anything like employees could have the opportunity to get a certification or online course just about AI as more formal training for its use as a tool?

Yeah. With regard to formal training, we do have through our upgraded SAP, we use a learning management system where we have some AI courses. Any employee can self-assign these courses to themselves. As far as the certificates, we don't have anything ongoing right now with regard to AI certificates, but it's something to consider.

Yeah. And what you talked about at the very beginning in terms of the internal policies around you can't put sensitive private data into it. Let's say someone does that anyway. They go to a service they could use for free.

They put that data in. Obviously, that company now has access to it. Currently, is there any way we would actually be able to know- ... that sensitive data has been used in that way? So we do have some tools that will help us with that.

And maybe I'll leave it at that. Okay. But we do have the other alternate option is, I've said Microsoft 365 Copilot, which I appear to be a shill for Microsoft, but that particular product has visibility to everything that I have access to within the Microsoft landscape.

But it is protected. It's in our tenant. I don't have access to Sam's emails through Copilot, but that'd be the one instance where you cannot use a sensitive file, do analysis on a spreadsheet that you wouldn't normally, you'd do in Claude or something else.

We wouldn't allow that. Mm-hmm. And does the city have any overarching strategy at this point in terms of looking how AI could be deployed across different departments or integrated into different processes?

As a random example, obviously it could totally change how we track our housing investments every year and how we report that out and be able to do it in a far more systemized, fast way. Are we looking at opportunities like that and proactively trying to incorporate it into that workflow?

I would say yes. As part of IT strategic plan, that is one of our four main goals over the next few years is enabling AI more throughout the organization and these potential pilots with departments to help business processes to make employees more productive, more efficient.

So I'd say yes, we're doing a lot of work on that. We're actually looking to hire. We have a new position reclassification for something where this would be kind of their charge, enabling departments and working with departments to use these new technologies.

Mm-hmm. That's all very helpful. Thank you. That's it. And as just a reminder, it's accurate, correct, that if someone's using any kind of AI tool, everything they've put into that and the response is FOIA-able?

Yes. For those that are saved, plenty of these generative AI tools you use, if you're not paying for a paid service, it's not like they're retaining it for periods of time. Yeah. I know Richmond has had some- Yes ...

interesting- They have, yeah ... stories from that. Mm-hmm. You're right about that. That's it. Thank you. Yeah. Natalie? I'm just imagining the scenario where we've gotten to the point where a staff member is having AI help with their email, and they're responding to another staff member who's also helped AI write their email, and then it's just two AIs talking back and forth to each other.

Which I know that's probably one of those expectations versus reality, we're not there yet sort of scenarios. So, do different departments have different guidance about what's allowed to be used for AI?

Or like we need you to use your brain on this one, or is it a free for all, use it as much as you like sort of thing for staff? Or are there roadblocks anywhere? Well, so there are the user policy- Gotcha ...

that was approved back in June, or the addition to the user policy, which is specific to AI gives you can do these things, you shouldn't do these things. Now, at a department level, I don't really know if department heads are giving guidance about other ways to manage AI.

But we have overall these AI policies. To your question about the email, when we do the trainings, we do the policy, we talk about you still need to-- It should be your voice. You're responsible for these emails you're sending out.

I find it incredibly effective at taking three or four sentences that I've tried to work together and still don't make a ton of sense, that this thing can make it much clearer. And I'm still looking at it and still making sure that this is what I intend to say, and I find it incredibly effective.

Okay. And then for-- Michael talked a little about the cybersecurity of it all, but I know you mentioned don't put sensitive information into the AI- The chatbot ... prompt. Mm-hmm. But just in case that does happen, that's no longer ours.

There's no- If I put in a bunch of sensitive data into ChatGPT, and yes, potentially they would use that for training. Yeah. Yeah, so that is why it is a significant concern of ours. Yeah, there's no like internal, it doesn't get past here before it gets to the whole system.

No, we have some-- I touch on this with Councilor Payne that we have some things we can do, and that give us visibility. But I would say none of these are 100%. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So that's just up to staff to be responsible.

Yeah. Well, we're relying on staff quite a bit. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, that's all I've got at the moment. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Loil? I'm curious about what kinds of things you all can do to protect against the sort of ransomware- ...

problems that I know a number of other city governments, in some cases, have been subject to. Yeah. That's a good question that, once again, I think I'd be happy to have these discussions in two two ones- ...

as to what we have in place. I think that would probably be a better forum for those talks. But it certainly is something that we invest a lot of time and money in, cybersecurity. Is it your sense that, judging by the emails that I get from you all and the trainings that we're getting from you all, phishing is one of the biggest weaknesses.

Is it your sense that most of the problems that folks have had with having their servers taken over and all this sort of stuff, come in one way or another through a phishing kind of an angle? Quite often that is the entry point.

So that is why we spend a lot of money and time working on- Yeah ... and testing our users. And, to an earlier point, what we're seeing is much more sophisticated phishing attempts. And we have 900 employees who are logging in, and we're relying on all of them to be part of the defense.

So it is tricky. It is challenging. I don't think we have a perfect solution, but we have things in place to try and help. Okay. And just, if folks ever wonder why, perhaps, if you send us an email that's got some attachment to it, why we might not click on it right away, that's why.

Definitely. That's one of the first of the warning signs if you're getting an attachment and you're like, "You weren't expecting this attachment." And even if you are expecting it, we tell our users, "Report it.

The minute you pause on an email, report it to us. We'll investigate it and get back to you. If it's fine, we'll let you know." If it's not- And you can do something to check the- That's right ... the attachment to see whether there's anything nefarious- That's correct ...

inside it. Yes. Okay. The minute you pause, report it, and we'll get back to you quickly. Thank you. Mm-hmm. We get a lot. Yes. Yeah, I'm not even- We do? I'll send it in a separate- No ... Like, it's- No, we get a lot of phishy- Phishy emails.

Yeah. I was like, there's also a lot of... I had a AI concern email, but I wrote it so long ago now I can't remember what all my questions were. But I guess I'm interested in the pace of change. So as AI becomes more ubiquitous, how...

It is part of every Google search now, that kind of thing. Does this mean that your pace of iterations, even in your bullet points, it's like five of those things happened just this year. Mm-hmm. What demand does that put, not only on your department, but on staff to stay up at that pace?

Well, I think you're just shifting what we're doing all of a sudden. I think it could make you much more productive and effective and efficient. So it's like, "Well, this is going to really help me." But it takes effort and time to figure this out, to learn these different technologies, to build potential agents.

That takes a lot of resources on our app team and others. But the expectations of our users and our departments, they see this stuff. They see what's happening in private, with agents, like, "Why can't we do that here?

Wouldn't that help us?" And that will help them and lighten their load. That's why they're coming to us, is we have this bottleneck that we can't quite figure out. Could this help us with that? And I think the answer is yes.

Now all of a sudden then we have a resource issue in IT because we have many departments coming and saying, "Hey, can you do something with AI with this?" And if we can, well, then we have to build something.

Yeah, and I guess my only other question is, it's often, for example, in Microsoft, when doing collaborative work with external agencies, so even other municipalities or nonprofits, et cetera, that sharing of information can be really challenging.

Are there accommodations for that? Or can AI assist in that with the way that our structure-- Can we still say that we're doing that in a safe way, but in a way that enhances that productivity too? Yeah, and I wouldn't say it's necessarily even with AI.

With sharing of files, whether using OneDrive or Teams, you can share with people externally, but as long as you do it properly, which we have to be trained well. But that's, in my mind, much more secure than the old school way of, "Here, let me send you a copy of it as an attachment." Now you have a version of it.

And just management-wise, you have a version, I have a version. What's the current version? You send it to someone else. Now we got three versions of this. And you could do anything with that file. Whereas sharing, I have a lot more control over it.

So just the Microsoft 365 environment, I think, makes us more secure. Thank you. I think that I would like an update in the two two one on what we're doing for ransomware attack. I don't want to get a call from Sam that said, "Mayor Wade, we got..." I just want to make-- Having it happen- And it came from an email that you clicked on.

Yeah. Particularly that did, yeah. But because it's real that it happens. Sure. But anyway, at some point, you just can- Happy to do it ... I would like an update on that. Mm-hmm. Other questions? No.

Okay. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Now that Steve scared everybody. Yeah. Mayor, members of council, city manager, good evening. And I think I'm waiting for our PowerPoint to pull up. But while that happens, I am not a tech person.

Steve Hawks knows a lot about this stuff. I'm still learning about it, so that's why I brought my team here to talk through just a few things in this presentation. What they're going to go over is, number one, technology that we have and are using.

Number two, technology that we have and we're not using. And then number three, some of our gaps. That technology that we don't have and some needs. I'll say this before I turn it over to Jonathan Sayat first, just that I'm very cognizant of the fact that we as a profession, we as a police department, have to be very careful when it comes to technology, that we are not moving faster with this stuff than our communities actually understand it.

Just this morning, I was at the FBI Academy in Quantico talking to chiefs from around the world, and I asked a group, "Who here has a real-time crime center?" And a lot of them raised their hands. And I said, "If you went out to your community and asked your neighbors or asked your folks if they knew what it was, would they?" And nobody said yes.

None of them. I said, "They're going to look like at you like you got three heads." And so, I know we have a lot of conversations around this. There's a lot of skepticism around technology and law enforcement.

There's a lot of rhetoric. There's versus reality, all of that stuff. But I am sympathetic to the concern that this body has and to folks in our community. So, whatever we do when it comes to technology, I commit to all of you that we will continue to speak to our community about it and get your input.

So, with that, I'm going to have Mr. Sayat start this off and go from there. Thank you. Hey, everybody. Thank you for having me. I'm the software specialist for the police department. So I manage all of this technology and everything.

When it comes to training, implementation, research, I try to do my best and look into all of the stuff. What I'm going to talk about is mainly the Axon software that we have, body cams, dash cams, some of the other new platforms that we have through them that we aren't using all of them, and the ones that we are using.

So first one, body-worn cameras. I'm sure everybody knows they record interactions with the public. So there's three new features that we purchased with our new contract. First one is Axon Assistant. All this uses AI.

It is a closed system, so it's not learning. Other people don't get the information. They're using the same servers we've been using with axonevidence.com and so forth. The Axon Assistant, it just helps with daily tasks.

Officers can ask their locations, and receive real-time feedback right on the spot. The translation feature, very cool option in my opinion. So if there's an officer that speaks English and the citizen speaks Spanish, for example, they don't speak English very well, they'll be able to do real-time translation.

The body cam will translate the English into Spanish, and then the body cam would also translate the Spanish into English. Wow. Hmm. All of this is recorded. It supports over 50 languages right now, and they're still adding more, last I saw on Axon's updates.

And then Policy Chat. So we take all of our policies that we have created internally, and we submit it, and it's inputted into the AI system. Again, it's not learning from it, it's just basically reading off it.

So officers will be able to get real-time answers on policy questions that they have right then and there. And it could be as simple as a citizen asks a question about one of our policies that they want to know.

The officer could give them verbatim what the policy says. So that's the body cams. Next one, fleet cameras. These are dash cams and internal cameras inside the patrol vehicles. So right now they record excuse me.

Right now they record when the officers engage them manually or if they engage their emergency lights, sirens, their body-worn cameras, and their tasers. Any of those can actively record through the dash cam.

Some of the technology that the dash cams come with that we aren't using right now is automated license plate readers. It allows officers to patrol while the camera is running license plates, and it only provides hits to the officers based on the parameters we set.

So we could set give us alerts when there is a suspect for whatever crime we choose. It will give us those alerts at that time. It could give us alerts for stolen vehicles, excuse me, warrants, unlicensed drivers.

Like I said, the parameters we set is what they'll get the alerts for. And again, we're not using the ALPRs right now. Virtual reality training. I don't know if anybody's used those before, but they're actually very cool.

We have them at the police department. We utilize them for training new officers. We utilize them for training the public if anybody wants to use them. We just had them out in the last National Night Out event where the public was able to utilize them if they chose to.

There's different training scenarios that officers use on a daily basis, or officers deal with, excuse me, on a daily basis. And then there's obviously some fun, cool games that are in there for kids and also the public, and stuff like that.

Drones. So we currently, excuse me. We currently have drones out in the field. They're on a on-call basis. So if there's a missing individual, child, missing adult, the drone responders can go and retrieve a drone and put it in the air and try to look through a wooded area or a neighborhood, trying to find the person in a faster, more efficient manner.

Are certain officers trained for that, or is it pretty- Yes, sir. No. User-friendly. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. These are FAA pilots. They go through the FAA training course. They're licensed pilots to be able to operate the drones.

What we're not using yet is the Drone First Responder program. So this is an autonomous feature using AI, and basically if we wanted a drone to respond to a call, let's say there was, for example, a motor vehicle accident.

We want it to autonomously deploy to a motor vehicle accident so we get real-time information right then and there. We could set it where it will deploy on a motor vehicle accident call that comes in through the dispatch center.

And that could be variable calls. We could change it to what we would like to see them go to. Having the DFR program and drones in general, you get faster response times, you get more accurate information from the scene, and the officers know what's going on.

So Community Link, it used to be called My90 through Axon. This is basically a survey. So the plan is that we're going to put QR codes on the back of officers' business cards or the front, and any time they engage with the public, they issue these business cards out with the QR codes, and the public's going to be able to fill out a survey and give us feedback of the officer.

Potentially talk about problems that we're having with that officer, if there is any training deficiencies that we need to address then and there. So we could use this data to give better policing to the community.

Axon Standards. Right now we're using it with our IA team, our internal affairs. Officers use them for use of force, weapons. Any time a weapon is drawn, they're filling out reports. And then the Early Intervention System IA utilizes, it's to basically notify command staff before situations potentially can happen.

So for example, if you have an officer that is involved with multiple use of forces in a short period of time in the parameters we set, we will get an alert saying, "Hey, this officer has this many use of force in this set period of time.

We need to review that body cam. We need to review those reports. We might need to talk to that officer, see if there might be a training deficiency, and see if we could negate any future bad acts." That's the purpose of the Early Intervention System.

Axon FUSIS. So again, we have this technology, we're just not using it completely yet. So Axon FUSIS basically is a Google Map overlay, and it shows our current cameras, our body cams, our dash cams, any drones that are currently deployed on this one map feature, and we can click on them and live stream them.

We use it in command posts, like when there's big events. We'll be able to see what the officers are seeing right then and there. Now, future plans hopefully will incorporate privately-owned cameras, and these are going to be a partnership with the private businesses, private citizens.

So basically, if we have a private business that wants us to have access to their cameras because it might be a high-crime situation, whatever their reasoning is, they'll be able to give us access and also take access away at any time.

Again, this is one of those platforms that we can utilize to watch cameras, but nobody's actually sitting behind it 24/7 watching every camera. I don't think we have the staffing for that, first off, but two, it's not necessary to watch a camera 24/7.

It's as-needed basis. So if a call comes out in a certain location and we have cameras there, and it is resourceful to use this platform, we're going to pull it up and utilize it so we can relay real information to the officers responding so they know what's going on, or we can see if we can see any weapons or anything along those lines.

And last thing from me is the D-Drone technology. Ugh. The chief makes jokes about- ... some stuff about D-Drone, but I don't know if you guys are familiar with it. It's basically a hardware that's provided that can track, detect, and push out or land other drones that are not supposed to be there.

So we have a trailer. This trailer goes up, let's say for example, in the downtown mall. We have an event there. We do it yearly, multiple times. We put this trailer up. It will basically surround the area, the airspace, to not allow drones to come in.

Obviously, the time of day we live in, there's a lot of people attacking others with drones and so forth, so it's to keep people safe. And how it works, it, again, just puts a shield over the environment that you put the trailer in, and if there is a drone that flies into that area, it could either land it, identify who's flying it, where it's at, where the remote pilot is located.

This is definitely a really good resource to utilize for big city events and also partner with UVA. When we do partner with them, we could use it over there, too. Questions about... I figure we'll break it up.

Questions about this part, and then we'll go to any questions about any of this. Any questions from Michael? Yeah. I'll save mine until after the next- All right ... part's finished. Okay. Natalie, you wanted any now?

Or... Well, I don't believe this presentation was in the packet, so we haven't gotten to spend a lot of time reviewing all of this yet. So I will also hang on too. Okay. That's fine. My questions. Okay.

That's sufficient. Thank you. Oh, thank you. You weren't ready. Hi, I'm Tiffany Miller. I am one of the records supervisors in services. So I'm part of the professional staff for the police department.

I'm going to talk about what we do currently have. So when I refer to Tyler, we always end up talking about like it's a person. It's not. It's just what they call... That's their company, is Tyler Technologies.

All right. So first I want to talk about computer-aided dispatch. So that's our CAD. So when I say CAD, that's going to be what this is about. What you're seeing on the screen is a picture of what our emergency communications screens look like.

Obviously, they have many for what they have to do. So the whole point of this is to streamline dispatch. So it suggests the closest available units. It also suggests based on personnel, so now that we have Anchor, it's going to suggest the Anchor in the event that that's necessary.

It's going to suggest fire, EMS, that kind of stuff. And it makes sure that we're using time and personnel the best and most efficient way possible. They use the available units. They can track everybody through the ADLs in the cars and also in their phones and their body-worn cameras all have access to see where they are at any given time so that they can get to the quickest calls.

It actually includes things like public works. So if a water main broke somewhere, it's going to show that as an alert to the officer so they can get somewhere and go around it if possible. So it also includes immediate real-time information being given to the officers.

So not only can ECC put that in, anybody in services if they know something about an individual who's there or an address that they're going to, they can put that in. Investigations can if they're in their office, and they're like, "Oh, I know that that person has access to firearms or whatever." They can put that in so the officer is available, the information's available to them at that time.

It also helps with our compliance. For example, we have to put missing people in in two hours from the call coming out. So two hours sounds like a lot of time. It's actually not. They get the call, the information.

They have to dispatch the officer. They have to go meet the person and file the report, do the report. It has to come into services, and then it has to get put in the national database. That's a lot of things for two hours.

So it keeps us honest when it comes to state police because we do report those to state police, and we have a timestamp that we can say, "No, we did put this in, in this amount of, this time. When the call came in, this is when we put it in.

We have proof of it." So it keeps all of us in compliance with those kind of rules and regulations we have to follow. Also, obviously, I'm not sworn, so that's not my wheelhouse, but they can use the robust call logs from CAD for training in their incident-based scenarios where they're doing for training.

So maybe if they had a very large incident, they can say, "We did this really well in this, but maybe we should add this into this," and they can use that in future trainings. Kind of, I don't want to say armchair quarterbacking, but keeping ourselves honest and armchair quarterbacking what we did good, what we can work on, that kind of stuff.

It also helps with the safety of officers. They can see kind of like what Jonathan talked about. They can see where, not necessarily just IA, but when people are going to certain traumatic calls. They can use that information for debriefs.

They can use that information to make sure that these officers, we're kind of spreading the wealth. Not everybody's going to all of these super traumatic calls. We're making sure that everybody's healthy mentally, and that we can debrief, whether that's they debrief with if services people were there on a traumatic incident, and they had to field calls for that.

If ECC did as well, they'll use fire EMS. Everybody will get the opportunity to get any kind of help that they need in those moments. All right. So this is some things we look for, what we want to see when we use a records management system.

Now, records management is the repository for all our information. So it's going to be what we have. Everything that goes from CAD gets put into our records management system. So what we look for in an ideal situation or an ideal system, we want to have data management.

We want to be able to see from beginning to end. When the call came in, everybody that went there, everything that happened, all of those notes. You're going to look for the case report, and then any supplements to it, anything like that.

We want to make sure that that whole thing is there in the repository, which is our records management system. We want to have robust search features. I'll talk about some examples of some challenges with that in a little bit.

But people like to be a little loosey-goosey with the truth sometimes. So we may not have someone's full name, date of birth, or whatever. They might give us a nickname with part of their birthday being the truth or something like that.

So we need to be able to Have a broad way to search within our data that we have. For integration, we want to talk about how it works with third-party vendors when we have different add-ons to our system.

For example, I am in charge of online reporting, so that's a third-party vendor for citizens who don't want to call the police department, they don't want to waste resources or whatever it is. If they don't have time or anything like that, they can file a report online for certain things.

We use a third-party vendor to put that into... It gets imported and exported into our system. So we want to make sure that the systems work well together, and they talk to each other, and it has the ability to talk to different places.

Data analytics, not going to lie, that's Lori's wheelhouse. You'll hear from her in a minute, because that is not my jam. But we want to see what our data says and how we can use it. And like I said, she'll talk about that.

That is not my wheelhouse. We also want to reduce redundancy. So we have, and obviously we'll talk about some of the limitations we have, but one thing for this is our current system doesn't have the ability to merge everybody's name files together.

So if we end up having multiple name files for the same person. A name file is when we look someone up for an officer or whoever, it'll come up with their name, and that'll have all of their activity, of their warrants, protective orders, cases that they've been involved in, anything like that, tickets, anything.

So if there's an alert, which an alert would show them, "Hey, there's something you guys probably should know." We can put alerts in for certain people or businesses or whatever. It's going to show that alert.

If John Doe has 14 name files and only one of them has an alert that he has access to firearms and has used them before in cases, it's not going to show up. Yeah. There's not a name file for every incident.

It's like if they say their name is John Doe, and the next time they say John A. Doe, and then different name files. Yeah. It'll end up being two name files for sure. And again, people are loosey-goosey sometimes, so that can create issues that way.

So- Merge it ... our system isn't smart enough to merge those all together. I have seen third-party vendors and how they can take people's data and do that, and it somehow knows to merge. Again, not a tech person.

It somehow knows to put those people together so it's easier and it's better for officer safety. Currently, the only way that we can do that is by me and Ashley. When we see it, we consolidate those people.

We have to do it manually. It also involves ripping it apart from, because we're in a triad, with UVA and Albemarle County, I can't rip theirs apart. I can only be like, "Hey, this is a problem. Let's merge it all together." So it's a lot of time and manual labor to try to reduce that.

The history tracking and the records retention, we have to follow the Library of Virginia for a retention schedule. Sometimes that's 100 years after birth. Mm-hmm. For real. Sometimes that's 10 years.

So we have to be able to hold those records for that long and have a way to track that we're keeping it or that we're getting rid of it. And we also now have the sealing law that came into play, so we have to work on how to accurately and efficiently seal all of that data that needs to be sealed.

Let me see. Okay. So I'm going to talk about some strengths and challenges of what we do have. Earlier, I showed you a picture of what ECC's CAD looks like and how big and robust that was. This photo is what the officers have.

That's it. Just what they have on the GTAC. So it's user-friendly and intuitive, and it is customizable. However, that's the space they're given. So they don't have the robust screens that ECC does, and so they're limited to what they can see.

And that also is problematic because in order for them to... Let's say they had to do a broad search of something. Instead of the thousand things that could come up if they did a broad search, it'll come up with just 25, because it's limited space and data.

It's not holding all of our data. It's not a repository for it. It talks to our repository, but it doesn't hold it. So that's a bit of an issue. Bethany? Yes. You have 5:30. Okay. I'll try. Sorry. I'm actually almost done, I promise.

All right. This is what our actual search system looks like. So this is when I say RMS or records management, that's what this is. That's just a search for a person. That's what that looks like. Some of the strengths for this is apparently we can hold all virtually any data and all of our data.

There are advanced analytical capabilities. Again, I think Lori's going to talk about that more than me. It is a bit time-consuming to do those analytics from what I do. We do have a lot of challenges with them.

There's limited customization and search functionality. If I had an officer ask me to look for an age range, I can't easily do that in this. I have to go on the back end and run a report to try and pull that data and mine it out to see what I can see.

So I'm not going to be helpful in an immediate situation, and neither is anybody else. Another example of that would be looking up tattoos. It's not smart enough to recognize when I... Because we, I know that sounds strange- Mm-hmm ...

but we have people who call, they'll ask us, "Hey," somebody's got a cross tattoo on whichever part of their body. I can look that up, but the system's not smart enough to see if I'm looking for an arm, if it's looking up forearm, upper arm.

It's not intuitive enough to know that, so it's not going to pull that data. But again, I've seen other third-party vendors that have that capability with the data. It's just that our system isn't able to do that.

And we're good to speeding up. Yep. So for the future, and obviously I think Lori's going to touch on this more, a lot of different things that we would like to see is a fully integrated platform that works with everybody in kind of like a Lego system instead of like a one-way situation.

Mm-hmm. And that can include fire dispatch, jail, courts, anything that we think that would be beneficial. An auditing system that keeps us accountable. Currently, I cannot audit certain things, so if something goes wrong in a protective order or an accident, I don't know where it went.

I don't know if it was user error. I don't know if it was the system. I have no way to find it. I can fix it, I just have no way to figure out where we went wrong with that. And I think she's going to talk about the dashboards.

Thank you. Mm-hmm. Lori. So real quick, because I know we only got five minutes. We can go a little bit over. You sure? But yeah. Okay. All right. Lori. Hi. Hello, all. I definitely hope I won't take more than five minutes.

My name is Lori Seiden. I'm the crime analyst for the department. There are two types of analysis that I do. There's data analysis, and then there's also investigative analysis. So on the data analysis side, I'm using all the different technology that you've heard Ashley discuss to pull the kind of data that we're looking to see, violent crime or gun violence, larcenies, things like that, that's being reported out monthly in our CompStat meetings.

Any kind of request that's made, so the chief may want to know what's happening down in the mall before a big event or after a big event. That's the kind of analysis I'm looking at. One of the things that we are working on currently, is something called Tableau.

If you've heard of it, it is something that the city already has and uses in other avenues. But this is like a big Excel. It's just more intuitive in terms of looking at more pivot tables in an easier fashion.

And things like this can be ready at the chief's hands in seconds rather than the hours or days it may take me in order to mine the data that we have. The other kind of data automation that we're looking into is a third-party vendor to help with our RMS system with Tyler.

We are getting a quote-unquote, "upgrade" to our RMS system- Soon ... sometime-ish. In a pink And it is our understanding that these two systems are not going to talk to each other. So when I pull data, I'm going to need to pull it out of two systems, which is double the time consuming.

And depending on the tools that come with that upgrade will depend on how easy it is to get out of that new system. It's more like a smart data program. What it's going to do is it's going to take our RMS system and make it a Google style searchable system.

We'll be able to go through and look for suspects who, with an age range or with tattoos, things that we definitely cannot do now. One of the first things I got asked when I started last year was we had a report of a Honda that was potentially soliciting children at a school.

We don't actually have a narrative search that is robust enough to do that. That has not been my experience with most RMS systems that I've used in my career. That is abnormal. Honestly, our system's very antiquated for that.

So we'd like to bring in one of these third-party vendor programs to make our data work for us. It would help advance our operational and our investigation needs. Something like that can be looked up in 30 seconds, whereas I may have to go in and read 25 cases that use the word Honda to see if that Honda has been involved in anything else.

I can't see what kind of call type it was written in. It could've been an accident, and I also cannot truly differentiate between... I can differentiate between agencies and dates, but that's kind of it.

I'm going to back up real quick to this. And then this is purely from Excel. This is something that has to be hand done every month, and having a third-party vendor will hopefully be able to build these dashboards where it will be more intuitive for use.

It will cut out some of the time. It can take me 40 to 50 hours to put together our monthly meetings where something like this, or again, like our Tableau, could take A day. Just something where our time is being better utilized.

Are there any questions that I can answer? So, was there any more presentations? Nope, that's it. Okay. Thank you, Lori. So on council, we have a robust closed session, but this is really important. I didn't realize all of this was kind of going on behind the scenes, if you will- Yeah ...

of the technology, which is great. So if we could have any concise questions or comments, and we can quickly go down. Jen, I'll start with you. On the early intervention, the Axon thing. I think you mentioned that it triggers a follow-up for poor behavior, but then does it also follow the follow-up internally?

Yeah. So, yeah. Yes. So, for instance, and we have to set the parameters, right? So say an officer has three uses of force in a month. That officer will be flagged. Now, all three of those use of forces will already go through the investigative process, the use of force investigation process that is robust in and of itself.

But what we're really doing, it says, "Okay, somebody needs to sit down and look at all of these, and even go back. Is there a trend? Is there something going on?" It could be a conversation with that officer as like, "Hey, is something going on?" These were all within policy, but why are we seeing this outlier?

And it could be used for other things as well, like too many sick days, stuff like that. And so, complaints, somebody could be receiving a large amount of just citizen complaints for rudeness or whatever it may be in a short period of time.

It'll flag us to say, "Hey, you need to take a look at this officer. There might be something going on. Maybe there's something going on at home." You just don't know. And so, it's something that we just stood up not too long ago.

It's up and running, and I'm glad we finally got it going. Thank you. Okay. Lloyd? No questions. Thank you. Natalie? Some kind of software program that would let the department search all the databases at once was something we talked about during the budget season.

It is. Did we get that or did we not get that? No. We did not. That was Peregrine. That's right. So Lori was just talking about the new system. So UVA, they have Peregrine. We share our system with them.

So, the new upgrade that we are getting, that's not an issue for them because it automatically pulls it all together. Peregrine's not the only company out there. There's other ones out there that do it.

There's ones that actually, what I would like to see is the fusing of data, but also the frontline officers responding to a call, knowing the history of where they're responding and saying, "Hey, maybe I'm not the right response for this call." They can look at an address and say, "You know what?

There's been some domestic issues here. There's been some mental health issues there. You know what? ANPR needs to go here." Or maybe someone else needs to go to this call, right? And so, right now that data's just not at the fingertips of our officers.

There is software out there that does just that, that have those systems, that other agencies are using them, and they're using them for just that purpose. Okay, thanks. And I have one more question, which is, currently this wasn't on here.

We talked about body cameras and drones, but we didn't talk about speed cameras. Yep. Which currently have a limited usage set by the General Assembly. Right? It has to be within a school zone, a certain- Yes ...

et cetera. As we're putting together our legislative request packet, is there any initiative within the department to request additional uses for speed cameras, which can be deployed in a, they apply to all- All hours ...

cars equally. A little more equitable than human officers. Has there been any initiative with that? So like you said, right now, legally, it can only be in school zones or work zones during those hours.

We've seen them to be very effective, right? But I think we got to get what we have right first. I think we're getting there. Mm-hmm. We've had some growing pains with them. It is resource heavy on the police department side, I will tell you, because by law, a police officer has to review and sign off on every citation, and that's a person that's not on the street doing what they're supposed to be doing.

And so, that is a challenge, but they definitely slow traffic, and people slow down when they know they're there. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Absolutely. Michael? Thank you. Obviously, a lot involved- Yeah ...

with these issues. I think as you acknowledged, technological change is inevitable. Mm-hmm. Obviously, a lot of the concerns we hear from the community, and you hear as part of national conversations as well, are concerns around technologies that are collecting personal data, particularly if it's a third party that will monetize it, as well as just general fears about technological capabilities to do mass surveillance combined with AI.

All of which is to say, I know last week, we got a letter from the Police Civilian Oversight Board- Mm-hmm ... which endorsed adoption of new technologies for both the Charlottesville Police Department, I think generally the first responder system writ large.

But within the scope of two specific kind of guardrails of, there would be no collection of additional personal information, and there would also be a- clear policy adopted before deployment of new technologies.

And I'm just curious if you have any thoughts at this point about their recommendation that was sent to us, and what that would look like for us to adopt that as a formal policy. Yeah. Well, first and foremost, any technology we get needs to have a formal policy.

Our accreditation standards require that, and that's something the PCOB would be involved in, the development of that policy. So anything like that would exist. I think what they're talking about, and I've spoken to Dr.

Dobson a lot about this on the board, he does a lot of research, and one of the challenges that he's finding, and that we find, is just what we've talked about. Our data's all over the place, and it takes Lori a week just to prepare for one meeting about putting-- And again, I'm not the tech person, but I can understand that if there are solutions out there to make it where we can see what are we doing, what's working and what's not, what are the best ways to respond to calls, what are the best services we need for folks.

So, I was speaking to someone with the Alexandria Police Department recently, and they have two systems that they use, and it integrates not only their police department data, but also integrates it with the court system, with their human services folks or social services, and just the whole city system in general.

And so it's just a way to make it more efficient. I understand the fears, and that's where I think sound policy really needs to come into place, to your point. Yes, we did present. We presented to the PCOB, and that's one of the things, because they have a lot of questions.

That's their job is to see what are we doing. Is it best practices? Is it evidence-based? And in order to get those answers, we need something that puts it all together so we can answer them. Yeah, I would say, as whatever technologies we do and don't adopt going forward, it definitely seems like there would be value for us as city council working with the PCOB to adopt a formal policy around this- Mm-hmm ...

which I think would help provide clarity to the community about what guardrails there are- Yeah ... and be able to clearly show this is what we are going to do and aren't going to do. So I think that may be of help.

Yeah. I would appreciate that, Councilor. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor. We appreciate all the work that you all do. Thank you. I appreciate your staff for doing this work.

Sam, any other actions, or I mean, not actions- That's it. All right. I've got the motion. Pursuant to Section 2.2-3712 of the Virginia Code, I move that the City Council close this open meeting and convene in a closed session as authorized by the Virginia Freedom of Information Act as follows.

Pursuant to Virginia Code Section 2.2-3711 , 14 discussion and consideration of prospective candidates to be appointed to the following boards and commissions: the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund Committee, the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority Board, the Community Development Block Grant and HOME Task Force, Historic Resources Committee, Jefferson Madison Regional Library Board, Piedmont Family YMCA Board of Directors, Planning Commission, Police Civilian Oversight Board, Sister Cities Commission, Social Services Advisory Board, Toni Advisory Board, and the Youth Council.

And B, discussion and consideration of the performance of a City Council appointee specifically to conduct the city manager's annual performance evaluation. A lot to do, so we may be back a little bit- Second the motion.

Second, I'm sorry. Second. We may be back a little bit later than 6:30, but been moved properly. Second. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. All opposed, please say no. Thank you very much. Sorry for the delay.

We had a lot to cover in closed sessions, but will you read us out of? Certainly. I move that this council certify by a recorded vote that to the best of each council member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion convening the closed session were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed session.

Second. I'm not sure if everyone's connected, so I'll do a voice vote. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. All opposed, please say no. Great. The motion passes five to zero. Did you want to take the action on the- Yes.

I make a motion to nominate the following people to the following boards. For the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund Committee, Terri Tyree. For the Community Development Block Grant and Home Task Force, Greg Self.

For the Historic Resources Committee, Hillary Worley. For the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library Board for a term ending June 30th, 2030, Anne Hemingway. The Piedmont YMCA Board of Directors, Bill Barefoot.

Police Civilian Oversight Board, George Dillard, Ruairidh Vaughan, Karen Lenoir-Kelly, and Albie LaFave. For the Sister Cities Commission, Talia Long, Liza Kucker, and Brian Hommitt. For the Social Services Advisory Board, Linda Watson and Avon Batten.

The Towing Advisory Board, Joseph Burns-Peacock. And the Youth Council, Callie Sun. Second the motion. And one more, sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. And the removal from the Youth Council of Lyric Cooper and David Derry.

Second the motion. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. Everyone's logged in. Everyone is okay. So we're going to vote. Motion passes five to zero. Thank you all. We had a lot of great candidates to apply for different positions.

We still have some open, so please check out the website. Let's see. We're going to have a moment of silence. Thank you. Are there any announcements? Okay. If not, we do have one proclamation. Ms. Fletcher The celebration of National Nonprofit Day.

Whereas National Nonprofit Day is observed annually on August 17th to recognize the indispensable contributions of nonprofit organizations that strengthen communities and improve the quality of life for residents.

And whereas Charlottesville's nonprofit organizations provide critical services and opportunities in areas such as affordable housing, education, healthcare, food security, environmental stewardship, arts and culture, youth development, economic mobility, and support for older adults, veterans, and individuals with disabilities.

And whereas these organizations are sustained by the dedication of staff, volunteers, board members, donors, and community partners whose service and generosity help build a more connected, compassionate, and resilient Charlottesville.

And whereas nonprofit organizations serve as trusted partners to the city of Charlottesville by fostering civic engagement, encouraging volunteerism, responding to emerging community needs, and working collaboratively to address local challenges.

And whereas the city's nonprofit community enriches the social, cultural, and economic vitality of Charlottesville and demonstrates every day that collective action and public service strengthen our community for present and future generations.

Now therefore, be it proclaimed that the Charlottesville City Council hereby recognizes and honors National Nonprofit Day in the city of Charlottesville and encourages all residents to recognize and celebrate the invaluable contributions of nonprofit organizations and to support their missions through volunteerism, charitable giving, advocacy, and community partnership.

Signed and dated the 17th day of August 2026 by mayor. Dr. Doyle, would you like to come up? Accept and maybe say a few words if you would like. Sure. Well, this is lovely. Thank you to each of you on city council, each council member, and with regards to the National Nonprofit Day.

This was approved at the national level, and it's tremendous to bring it to the city as we are just a city tremendously affected by a number of different social issues, and we have a great nonprofit community that is here to support all of those issues alongside government, alongside the private sector as well.

So we thank you for your support. We look forward to continuing to be in collaboration with each of you. Thank you so much. Thank you. We are now at the opportunity for Community Matters. There are eight pre-registered speakers, an opportunity for eight other speakers, and we ask that you limit your time to three minutes.

And we have the first speaker is Anne Laser. Very close. Lasser. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yes. All right. Good evening. Yes, my name is Anne Lasser. I've been a resident of the Belmont neighborhood for 12 years, and I'm here tonight to ask you to vote no on the proposed ordinance to vacate the 162-foot section of Kastalia Street requested by 303 Palatine LLC.

Charlottesville needs more housing, and I support the higher density zoning even when it's happening in my backyard, which it literally is. However, I believe it would be a mistake to set a precedent of surrendering public land to private developers.

This 162-foot street is a public asset, and these historic alleyways are one of the things that make the Belmont neighborhood special. Public rights of way serve a vital long-term purpose for our neighborhood connectivity, future pedestrian pathways, and public infrastructure easements.

Once the city surrenders public land to a private entity, it's gone forever. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much. Next speaker is Jennifer Grant. Good afternoon. I'm Jennifer Grant. I am at the Free Bridge Encampment site.

We have a lot going on down there right now. First of all, I want to say y'all put the cameras up for our safety. Safety where? Because I was recently admitted in UVA, I came home the next day, and the whole backside of my tent is slashed out, and they have robbed me for everything that I have.

The camera footage did not catch anything. So then now we oppose the shelter idea. Let's go to the shelter. Y'all broadcast this across everywhere. Now we have people coming in from all over the Tri-Cities stating that they live at the encampment, which they really don't, just so that they can go to the shelter.

Let's bring back the two rape incidents. So now let's put everybody in one building. Bathrooms and showers are outside. Where's the safety gonna come about? Y'all have police on patrol 24/7 down there and cameras.

Nobody can tell us anything. So you want females to go shower outside, use the bathroom outside when there is no safety ... in this ordinance at all. Nobody can sit here and live day-to-day basis and tell us how to live.

We live how we want to live, and this is how we want to live. People with mental health issues, substance abuse issues, you cannot control this by putting us into a shelter. It comes hand in hand. With mental health comes housing, comes substance abuse.

You have to pair them all in one group. You cannot say, "Okay, a shelter's going to solve all the problems and get people out of this one neighborhood." Well, guess what? It's not. We're going to find other places to go, and it's just simple as that.

Then you guess what you're going to have? More violence, more rape issues, more this, more that. You're going to have everybody spread it all across the county, and you're not going to know where anybody is.

You're going to have a lot of death victims coming up on your hands. I'm just going to be here to let you know, so you better get prepared for it. I sat there and watched a man almost take his life the other night.

This is the reason why my tent got slashed, is because I saved his life. It is not fair. It's not fair at all. I would be not who I am today if I sat there and let that man take his life and walked past him.

He was laying under the bridge, and he was literally taking his life. So therefore, I get retaliated on because I helped that man save his life? That's not fair. It's not fair at all. You guys need to come up with another plan, and you need to come up with another plan fast because this shelter idea is not going to work.

I'm here to vouch for it. I'm here to help you. I'm here to tell you. Maybe y'all need to take some of our ideas and our suggestions into hands before you say, "September 1st, go." Or you put up all these new signs saying, "You'll be put in jail." We don't care about jail.

We've been there before. Who cares about it? Think about what I'm saying, please. Thank you. Heidi Berthou? Hello, my name is Heidi Divya Berthou, and I live on River Vista Avenue, and I speak for the Court Square Enslavement Memorial Group.

Deputy City Manager Frees, when our group met with you last December, you told us your office needed to know there are descendants of enslaved ancestors who want the sign of the slave auction block restored to 0 Park Street and East Jefferson.

We gave you a list of 20 NAACP members. You also directed us to request a city council vote to restore the sign or wait two years for the Arts Commission to be created. So in January and February, our group made 12 presentations to council showing why the auction block sign should be postponed no longer.

Mayor Wade, you met with us, and Councilor Fleischer, thank you. You also wanted evidence from descendants. UVA descendants of enslaved communities, a large group, together with Swords into Plowshares and the Jefferson School, emailed you that support in April.

We were informed by Council Clerk Thomas that we must ask you, City Manager Sanders, to place this issue on a council meeting agenda. We complied, asking for that for July 20th. You said August would be better.

We asked for August 3rd, August 17th, and we're not on the agenda. In addition, you received supportive emails from other citizens asking you to schedule this issue. Deputy Frees directed us how to pursue this process.

We also fulfilled the requests of Mayor Wade and Councilor Fleischer. City Manager Sanders, I continue to you. Why has this issue not been placed on the council's meeting agenda across the last three city council meetings?

We join with hundreds of citizens whose ancestors were sold on the auction block who long for truth and reckoning. Will you please place our request for restoration of the sign for the slave auction block on your September m- meeting agenda?

Would you please answer now? Thank you. We'll begin to report on that later. Are you finished your comments? Well, I've got 23 seconds if you want to answer. Okay. We're not prepared to answer that right now.

Okay. Can you answer in some other way? We've... By email- Yeah ... by a phone call? Is that a yes? We will follow up on the next steps. This is something that we have to make sure that we get all of the input in it.

And everything that you said was not accurate, but we can't get into that now. Okay. Thank you. Okay. The next speaker is Jim McKinley Oates, Oakes. Yeah. Thank you. Good evening. Again, my name is Jim McKinley Oakes.

I live in downtown Charlottesville on Park Street, just a few blocks actually from the auction block where my White predecessors sold Black human beings for decades. I speak for the Court Square Enslavement Memorial Group, and our members have been asking you to restore the sign for the slave auction block for 24 years of trying to get the information to you the way you want.

In the past year alone, eight of us are no longer able to stand before you. Former Howard University dean, Marie Baker Coles, has died Eugene Williams has died. The secretary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Reverend Dr.

Uriah Fields, is incapacitated. The Reverend Dr. Marvin Morgan, former pastor of Sojourners Church, has retired to Atlanta. The Reverend Dr. David Garth has died. Sergeant Herb Porter, who met with four different city managers and several city council members across 10 years, has died.

Our leader, 30-year Air Force colonel and former Federal Executive Institute director, Robert Guess III, age 89, is in the hospital. Former chief engineer of the University of Virginia, Kirk Bowers, has died.

That is six Black and two white leaders of our memorial group gone. Five of our other senior leaders, including me, who ask you to restore the sign, are in our 80s. We'd like you to tell us what you're waiting for.

Why won't you tell us? The city of Charlottesville has a right to know. How many more of our citizens' enslavement memorial group asking you for the auction block sign must die before you schedule a vote to approve this project?

Thank you. Thank you so much. The next speaker is Lee French. Good evening. Mayor, members of city council, my name is Lee French, and I live at 1000 Brooklyn Avenue in Belmont. I'm here tonight to ask city council to vote no on the proposed ordinance to vacate and close the 162 foot public section of Castalina Street for development at 221 and 303 Palatine Avenue.

While the city's new zoning code allows for higher density by right, this city council is not obligated to hand over public land and city right of way to make a private developer's footprint more profitable.

The developer's 13 unit major site plan has already been denied twice by Neighborhood Development Services due to technical plan deficiencies, specifically concerning stormwater management and site layout.

By vacating this section of the street, the city would be rewarding non-compliant planning and permanently giving up public assets solely to resolve a private developer's space constraints. Without this public land, the developer will be forced to design a project that actually fits in the geographic and infrastructure constraints of our existing neighborhood.

This level of consolidation exacerbates existing pressures on our narrow streets, increases stormwater and drainage concerns, and overburdens local parking and traffic flow along Palatine, Quarry Road, and The city's primary responsibility is to protect the public space and the neighborhood livability, not to optimize private development assembly.

I ask the city council to protect our public rights of way, preserve future pedestrian connectivity, and vote against this street vacation. Thank you. Thank you. Susan? Hello, my name is Susan Del Gobbo, and I live in the Locust Grove neighborhood.

I am here in support of the tireless work of the Court Square Enslavement Memorial Group's efforts to restore the missing signage of the slave auction block at Zero Park and East Jefferson. As we all know, in 2002, this signage was taken down and not replaced.

It's been 24 years. From speaking with the members of the group initiating the replacement of the signage, I've learned that despite extensive outreach and regular emails written to the city manager requesting City Council's attention, there has been no substantial action, no discussion, and no vote.

I find this to be an affront to our community. On the other hand, thank you, I applaud you for approving the complex long-term and impressive project of park memorials led by Swords into Plowshares. Not only do the memorials show long overdue and deserved respect, they let visitors to Charlottesville know that we care about and want and strive to nourish and celebrate diversity and inclusion in our community.

With all this in mind, it seems to reason that the recognition of the slave auction block Auction site, excuse me, is simple in scope, yet mighty in significance. This deserves immediate and swift action.

Please, city councilors, make this a reality as soon as possible. Thank you. Jesse Harper? Can I give some documents to the clerk? Yes. I need a picture of you taking it and pass it down. My name is Jesse Harper.

I live at 209 Azalea Drive, and I own property at 302 Monte Vista Avenue. In January of 2023, city council authorized the disturbance of approximately 93.1% of a site's critical slopes in the Azalea Springs neighborhood.

They granted a waiver that was subject to a series of specific conditions. Several of these conditions directly address erosion and sediment control, stabilization, construction sequence, and the safe conveyance of water during construction.

You recognize the risks that this waiver imposed on the neighborhood and created these conditions. They weren't suggestions, they weren't decorations, they were conditions of the waiver, part of the basis of the approval of this project.

Stanley Martin was responsible for implementing those conditions. They didn't. And now we in the neighborhood are living with the consequences. These aren't simply allegations from irritated neighbors.

On August the 2nd, a storm carried sediment and construction debris off the site and downstream onto neighboring properties. The city documented erosion and sediment control deficiencies and issued a stop work order.

Virginia DEQ documented additional deficiencies and sediment extending approximately 1,000 feet downstream. The very thing these conditions were intended to prevent happened. It happened on my property, it happened on my neighbors' properties.

And now we've been told by the city that the downstream damage is a civil matter between Stanley Martin and the affected property owners. I understand that we may have a civil claim, and we're pursuing that remedy, but I don't understand how that answers the city's enforcement question.

This council granted the waiver. This council imposed the conditions. So my question is not simply when Stanley Martin gets to start work again. My question is whether a material failure to comply with the conditions under which this project was approved affects Stanley Martin's continuing entitlement to move forward under the existing approval.

Can this approval or permit be suspended or revoked based on that non-compliance? Not necessarily to cancel the development, I understand we need housing, but to bring Stanley Martin back to the table with this council and this community and put meaningful safeguards in place before development continues.

And when considering how much confidence to place in Stanley Martin going forward, look at the photograph I gave you. This is the morning of August 3rd when DEQ was coming to document the downstream damage.

Before DEQ arrived to take measurements, Stanley Martin's workers entered private property with a machine without permission and began removing sediment from the stream. Consider that conduct. It's not an isolated incident.

Thank you. Stanley Martin has a documented history of DEQ enforcement involving erosion, sediment, and storm water violations in Virginia. Thank you. Here's what we're asking for. Can you submit those- Use the strongest enforcement available.

Thank you, sir. You have three minutes left. Pursue the fines allowed by law and determine whether this approval can be suspended or revoked. Thank you, sir. Conditions only matter if there are meaningful consequences.

Thank you, sir. If you can submit your comments. Mr. Cox. Kevin Cox, Fairway Avenue. I'd like to commend the city's ADA coordinator, Paul Rudacille, for the work that he has done to make Charlottesville more accessible.

He's updated the city's ADA plan. He's responded quickly to problems. Many accessibility issues have been addressed. Obstructions have been removed. New ADA compliant curb ramps and sidewalks have been built.

Unfortunately, that work is routinely undermined. A new curb ramp may be installed making a sidewalk accessible to someone using a wheelchair, then someone drops a VO rental scooter on the ramp, and the ramp may as well never have been built.

If the government provides a sidewalk, everyone has a right to use it, including disabled people. That right disappears when a VO rental scooter is left in the way. For someone using a wheelchair, that isn't simply an inconvenience.

They may have a regular route they use every day, and suddenly that route is blocked by a VO scooter sitting there. One person I know who uses a wheelchair calls the VO scooters "the bane of my existence." This should not be happening.

Regulations govern VO's operations and are intended to protect people's civil rights to full access. Those regulations provide for fines when scooters blocking access aren't removed. The fine for VO is only $100.

Illegally parking in a disabled parking space carries a $500 fine. There have been 662 reports on MyCville of improperly parked scooters over the past five years. People who own their own scooters don't leave them lying around on sidewalks.

They park them properly and lock them up because they don't want them stolen. So we're potentially talking about hundreds of violations and tens of thousands of dollars in possible fines. However, the staff refuses to tell me how many times VIO has been fined, probably because VIO has threatened to leave.

I've asked Ben Chambers and Tommy Safranek several times how often VIO has been fined. Neither will answer or even acknowledge the question. It's public information. So for you, city council, I have two Freedom of Information Act requests.

First, I'm requesting copies of all emails between city staff and VIO concerning these issues from August 17th, 2024 to August 17th, 2026. Second, I am requesting a list of all fines the city assessed against VIO during that same period, including the date each fine was assessed, the date it was paid, and the amount.

I would like a cost estimate for this public information. We have a right to know whether these regulations are actually being enforced. If accessibility is a civil right, protecting that right has to mean more than installing a curb ramp.

It also means making sure people can actually use it. Thank you. Madam Clerk, did you note that FOIA request? I'll get it to our FOIA officer. Thank you. That concludes our eight pre-registered speakers.

We have an opportunity for eight more. I'll start over here. Would anyone like to speak over here? Here, Donna. Good afternoon. I'm Donna Shaughnessy. I live on Birdwood Road in the city, and I am supporting the folks from the Court Square Enhancement Memorial Group.

I just think it's unconscionable that we have not yet, in all these years, replaced the slave block information signs. And I speak to it from a person who was a German major and also spent a lot of time in Germany.

And so in Berlin, in particular, they have Stolpersteine, it's the stumbling blocks, but they don't stump on. They're little stones that appear wherever you go, where a person was taken away to a concentration camp or killed.

It's not just Jews, it's people who disagreed, and they're everywhere, and they're all throughout Europe. There's 100,000 of them everywhere. And those are such an important learning tool for people, and to remind them of the horrors that happened with the Holocaust, and similar to what horrible things happened here.

And one of the really cool things about it is the research on each of these stones is often carried out by schoolchildren and their teachers. So they research the people whose names are then emblazoned in brass on these concrete stones.

And it is an amazing learning tool and a wonderful way to recognize what happened, in hopes that stuff like that will never happen again. So I urge you to move forward on this. I am embarrassed that Charlottesville does not have that anymore, and I hope that you can see your way clear to actually moving on this.

Thank you. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Scrap forced displacement at Freebridge. Good evening. Donna Tietjen, Albemarle County. The city calls the planned September 1 encampment sweep a public safety intervention.

It isn't. It's forced displacement with no viable alternative. People living at Freebridge have been there for years. Many have been there since the last sweep. They've built community, relationships, routines, and support systems.

A congregate emergency shelter that may or may not be open by September 1st, and still under construction, offers no privacy and is not a viable alternative for the vast majority of the people being displaced.

The city points to flooding, water quality, a death, a fire, allegations of sexual assault as reasons the sweep needs to happen. But these are the facts. Flooding, the encampment has not flooded. The river is controlled by dams.

A hypothetical future flood does not justify forced displacement today. Water quality. Recent monitoring has found generally good recreational water quality in the Rivanna. Death. A person died at Freebridge.

This is tragic, but one death does not establish that an entire community is unsafe. Fire. There was a fire purportedly set intentionally by someone from outside the community. When outside agitators enter the encampment, harass residents, provoke conflict, and intentionally create problems, the answer is to address those actors, not displace the people being targeted.

Sexual assault allegations. There are unsubstantiated allegations. They must be investigated, but allegations are not findings, and they do not establish that an entire community must be removed. Meanwhile, the city's policy is already causing harm.

People are already scattering. They are losing community, relationships, outreach connections, transportation, belongings, and the people who know where they are. For people who have already experienced homelessness and repeated displacement, forcing people to move again is re-traumatizing and runs counter to the lessons other cities have learned about the harm caused by repeated sweeps.

Your proposed alternative creates its own safety concerns. Holiday Drive is just being prepared. Among other things, it has no sprinkler system, has outside bathrooms, and will have construction noise going on for the foreseeable future while people are staying there.

24-hour staffing does not substitute for fire suppression. A person sitting at a desk is not a sprinkler system. The city says it's creating individualized safe transition plans. If the plans are individualized, why is displacement mandatory?

There should be no mandatory clearing of this community. When genuinely available, appropriate housing options become available, people should be offered those options voluntarily, not forced out by a deadline.

Let individual circumstances determine the timeline. Scrap the sweep, back off the arbitrary September 1st deadline, and stop forcing people out of their homes. Thank you. Yeah. Anyone over here like to speak?

Anyone over here like to speak? Yes, ma'am. My name is Amber Thompson. Yeah. I used to live down at the encampment. I can't say what they're going through, but there's people that live on the Downtown Mall.

There's companies getting them for trespassing. When it rains and everything, we're not allowed to go underneath the pavilion to stay dry. There's people out here with mental health and everything that get scared of storms, and they don't have a safe place to stay because people are getting them for trespassing, and it's hard for people to stay dry when it rains.

And they've been getting sick, hospitalized, and there's even people out there that's pregnant that's staying on this Downtown Mall. They don't feel safe down there, and it's been really tough for a lot of people, definitely with mental health.

I have friends that's scared to stay by theirselves because of all the sex offenders that's on crime radar. Mm-hmm. If you're supposed to protect us, then y'all need to put people that's pregnant in safe places as well.

Because when it comes to certain things, we're going to have to defend ourselves, and we will get in trouble and go to jail for it. Yes. And I just want everybody to be safe and everything because I got raped back in January because I was walking outside of Downtown Mall.

They're still working on my case. I turn around and look behind my back every time because I'm scared- I see ... that the same person is walking around downtown looking for the next person to do it to.

Thank you. Thank you. I'm so sorry. Yes, sir. Good evening. I'm- Evening ... William Martin. I'm William Martin. I've lived on Jefferson Park Circle for over 40 years. But I'm here to support the comments of Jesse about the corporate responsibility of a group like Stanley Martin that's come in and completely shown that they cannot be counted on to be responsible in what they're doing.

They've got their plans. They had plans specifically specified. They didn't follow their own plans. They've got people who are working there who actually have been very aggressive with some of the neighborhood, who's come to try to see what's going on.

And they've created a huge mess. They're going to be coming back in, if they follow their plan, they're going to come back in with several, maybe as much as 40 feet of fill dirt. So here we've got water quality problems with them just allowing the runoff to go.

How are we going to actually monitor at all the building up of that big of a landfill? They're going to put a fill in there, channelize the stream, and then put the houses on top of that. And so for a company that has shown their lack of responsibility, how we are going to actually make sure that they do the responsible thing with the plan as it is, is a good question.

The fact that they have actually done cited violations does give us an opportunity, as Jesse pointed out, to possibly reconsider the plan and ask them to come back with a better plan. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Other speakers? John. I'm Johnny Hall of Frost Spring. I have a TV show on channel 13, CPATV, "Save Our Nation." Hope people kind of donate to help it be sustained. I just got a provisional patents, a series of provisional patents granted in July, and I hope to help solve some of the problems in this city with them.

One, get fold-out flash stop signs, as seen on school buses, on all commercial buses, and have driver corral gates for security on all buses. Two, accountability, housing, and job fair for the homeless.

Three, public bathrooms and seating on the Downtown Mall. Four, a standard 32-foot, 37-foot, 42-foot wide street walk state plan in the city. Five, voter ID means. Six, annex UVA and county land to decrease real estate and bring taxes by greater than 60%.

Now, I'd like to kind of dwell on that. I have what I- I've described here by metes and bounds, and this won't happen until 2032 now because the moratorium has been extended till then. This is called the Christmas Tree Annex, and it is large.

And Lloyd Snook cautioned me about that , and I appreciate that, Lloyd. I know it's kind of grandiose here, but that's what I envision here. Now, the growth in the county, urban-wise, there'd be plenty of money to go to the city.

It would be for a good cause, but provision would have to be made to pay back the city at the same time. Provide a payback to Albemarle County in order to rescind the revenue sharing agreement, and at the same time create a transit authority that would get transit out to the Charlottesville Albemarle Airport.

Thank you. I just wanted to open discussion about an annex, but it would be for 2032. Thank you. Other speakers? Yes, ma'am. Hello, I'm Lisa from Fry's Springs Neighborhood. And I just wanted to extend to Charlottesville Police Department and to the community deepest sympathies at the loss of the K9 Blue.

We lost a K9, and Chief Kochis has come out and some of his other people that work there have talked to us at the Fry's Springs Beach Club Neighborhood Association. So appreciate all their walks in the neighborhood, but just thinking about the department today and the handler and the community and everybody for the loss of the K9 Blue.

And the dogs, they're police officers, too. They put their lives on the line every day to go to work, just like the rest of the department does. And I appreciate Chief Kochis and all the walks in the neighborhood.

I have really noticed the last few years, and I have to say this, where the community, just from a lay person, I'm sensing more of a trusting relationship with law enforcement now than perhaps in years past.

Perhaps, and I'll just stop right there. But I did want to just acknowledge Blue and extend my deepest sympathies to the department for your loss and for the community's loss. Thank you so much. We do acknowledge that loss.

We have opportunity for two more speakers. Anyone? Yes. My name is Laura Sergany, and I live in the Fry's Springs neighborhood. I'm here to address the proposed September 1st displacement date of unhoused neighbors living at Free Bridge and Zero East High Street.

By setting this arbitrary date, it is clear that at the urging of bullies and bureaucrats over the advice of those who would work most closely with unhoused neighbors, the city has prioritized expedience over humanity.

Now the city is having to rush through a series of policy and funding decisions that do not serve our community and are creating further trauma for our most vulnerable neighbors. The $4 million that was allocated to help the unhoused should be allocated to long-term housing solutions, not to paying contractors to provide lower quality living conditions than most people here would accept during a short-term crisis, let alone giving up your freedom of movement.

The city needs to explore other options for transitional housing. To be clear, those who participated in the assessment and the survey, and everyone that we've been talking to felt that they were being told that they were getting housing at the end of this assessment, not being forced into a shelter in cramped conditions that don't support quality of life for them.

The city needs to explore the other housing solutions that are available to them. This could be tiny home communities, such as they already have tried in places as close as Greensboro, North Carolina.

We have UVA here. We can be harnessing our resources through UVA to create community partnerships with the engineering and architecture schools to build tiny home communities and plan infrastructure for supporting unhoused community members.

We could also be expanding the UVA Mobile Health Clinic with medical students and staff to serve areas that don't make unhoused residents feel that they have to choose between freedom of movement or needed healthcare treatment.

Right now, the city and organizations can also designate camping areas employing a co-governance approach. There's other municipalities who have done this. The idea that we're the only city with encampments is just ridiculous.

Everyone knows this is happening around the country. We get to decide what goes on in our communities, so should those who are camping. Whatever long-term solutions are pursued, it has to be clear that having a shelter of any kind is not a substitute for housing, and it is never a justification for harassment, displacement, or arrest.

Because over-policing and under-resourcing is how we got here. If you are considering adding funding to the jail which I notice on the agenda, you could be keeping people out of jail by housing them rather than spending more money on the jail.

The city's overall lack of understanding of housing policy and its link to community health is morally bankrupt and economically irresponsible. We, the community members, do understand this connection, and we're all bound in this housing crisis from 10th and Page to Fifeville to Free Bridge.

We'll not let you divide us or pretend that our struggles are not your responsibility. Thank you. We've seen how resolute this council can be making a poor decision. Now let's see if you have the moral courage to make some good ones.

Thank you. Yeah. Opportunity for one more speaker. Opportunity for one more speaker. This will be another one at the end. Thank you. Thank you. Madam Clerk, will you please read the consent agenda? Consent agenda.

I'm sorry about my voice. Yeah. Number three, resolution to authorize $204,017 in additional funds for the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail, second reading. Four, resolution to appropriate Albemarle County Human Services funding to the Department of Human Services for the Community Attention Youth Internship program for $63,000, second reading.

Five, resolution to appropriate an additional $45,330.18 from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS and HIV grant, second reading. I'm just leaving here Six, resolution to appropriate funds for the Virginia Behavioral Health Docket Grant, $78,150, one of two readings.

Seven, resolution to appropriate Virginia State Police FY27 HEAT equipment reimbursement funding, $10,000, one of two readings. Eight, a resolution to grant $400,000 for a climate program support for residential energy improvement services, one of two readings, and I do believe that's the one that is requesting four-fifths vote for one reading.

Nine, a resolution to renew CenturyLink Communications LLC license agreement. 10, resolution appropriating $750,000 received from the Jefferson Scholars Foundation for the vacation of Clark Court, one of two readings.

11, resolution to allocate $2 million for school operations contingency funds and amend the FY 2027 Charlottesville City Schools budget and the city's pupil transportation budget. Can I get a motion with noting number eight, if there's support for that to- Do we, should we just pull number eight and put it at the end of the agenda?

Or does us voting four or five for the consent agenda automatically- I think you can specify that in one motion. And I have a separate quick question on the agenda, the item number nine on the consent agenda.

I know in the past with these agreements, this has been one of the areas where the language in the agreements was making it sometimes harder for us to address issues with utility poles. Are there ADA issues?

Is this agreement separate from those issues, or has that already been addressed in the text of this renewal of the CenturyLink license agreement? I'm sorry, I didn't catch the first part of the question.

It's a new standard template we're using that does correct a whole lot of issues with how we've dealt with poles and relocating things in the past. This is a far better agreement than we've used in the past.

Mm-hmm. So this, it's not just a renewal of what had been in the past before those issues were addressed? No, there will be an update. There was considerable changes made to the enforcement sections on all license agreements, so as they come up for renewal, that information's being updated using the template that Mr.

Maddox is referencing. Uh, gotcha. And that's a few years of work. Sorry, you would recall, some number of months ago, we did a couple of these where they were not on consent, and we walked through those new provisions.

Everything since then has been based on the templates that we walked through on those occasions. Great. Just wanted to- Yeah ... confirm that. Okay, so, um- I'll make a motion to pass a consent agenda acknowledging that item number eight will be passing on a first reading with at least four-fifths vote.

Second. Second. Okay. We can begin vote. The motion passes five to zero. Thank you very much for that. The next item on the agenda is the city manager's report. I know it's going to be pretty robust this- Yeah, it's a long report, so buckle up.

First up is Latara Ragland with our Department of Human Services for a KAYI report. Good evening, everybody. Can you hear me okay? Hello? Yes. Okay. You can speak up a little bit. Good evening, Mayor Wade, councilors, and City Manager Sam Sanders.

My name is Latara Ragland, gladly presenting on behalf of the City of Charlottesville Department of Human Services Community-Based Program, Community Attention Youth Internship Program, also known as KAYI.

For public reference, Community Attention Youth Internship Program is a paid youth internship program offered here primarily to City of Charlottesville residents aged 14 to 21. It is an opportunity to gain workplace readiness skills made possible by way of the priority areas of investment that you all continue to make for our youth and their futures.

KAYI has been in existence since 2007. Tonight, I will provide a brief overview of summer 2026. Our summer session runs for six weeks. You can go to the next slide. Sorry. I got to do all of those things.

You can use the clicker. Oh, I can use the clicker? Yep, just press the arrow. Oh, okay. So the goals of the program, obviously, we have four main areas that have not changed since 2007. We're working on making sure that our youth have a hands-on workplace readiness experience, fostering that sense of resiliency many of them already have, and coming into the program is just highlighting that and emphasizing those.

Networking and mentorship through our counselor and site supervisor engagement, as well as the community engagement that happens while they're in session with us. So throughout those six weeks for the summer, we start at our academy period, and this summer, we strive to respond to past year's requests of our youth asking for more engagement.

And so this summer, we had experts from Region 10, Student Assistance Program, YouthNext, our UVA Community Credit Union, city manager's office, the economic mobility officer, CNF Bank, Virginia Career Works, Mahogany Friends, as well as various site supervisors that provided a panel for our interns.

All in all, this experience does provide interns an opportunity to set them up for success before they actually get in the workplace, building upon their professional communication, financial, and leadership skills.

Prior to academy, we host a family night, and this is our second summer doing so, where we really have a chance to connect with youth and their families, getting paperwork completed, as well as having a meal with them.

We had a spotting of Deputy City Manager Roman that night, and it was awesome to really just have, once again, a collaboration of all of our partners. Talking through some demographic data. Numbers aren't really my thing.

We really speak to the quality of the experience that we are providing our youth. So of course, we have the goal to really host 200 total interns this summer. We did have an applicant pool of 320. And so we will make sure that we get there.

Throughout the school year, we will continue to build upon our site offerings as we do offer those sessions throughout the school year. So 149 city applicants were accepted into the program, and then we implemented a screening process.

Oh, sorry, 149 of those applicants were city applicants. We did implement a screening process just to make sure that we could really get everybody a quality interview experience. After they apply to our program, we do offer them an interview.

So to do that, we screened out those that were not old enough to participate by the time the program started. You do have to be 14 before our start date, as well as schedules and the overall commitment.

We accepted 152. 87 total city residents came on board this summer, and we strive to offer acceptance to all of the applicants that meet the criteria of age, schedule availability, interests, as well as our site compatibility offerings.

Other demographic data. We had 80 male participants, 72 female participants. Most of our interns are in that range of 14 to 16, with our 14 and 15-year-olds being at the highest. And this really is just a testament to what we're striving to do at KAYUP, and that is giving those first, second-time experiences.

We had about 30 interns return to us. If they're a city resident, they can participate twice. So we had about 30 interns that did come back, and then we encouraged them and followed them along their journey to find their next employment opportunity.

Our program is diverse. It is a representation of what the city looks like. So we appreciate that we have the space for all of our youth who feel like, "Yes, I want to do this," or if they have an adult that is encouraging them to apply or make them.

We love to see everybody. Our data for free reduced meals. This is just a quick chart to just show. I know it's a little different now since some of our schools offer free meals anyway. But again, reiterating that our platform allows you to show up as they are.

They make a goal with us, they get a resume, and we celebrate them as they reach that goal by the end of the summer. Some highlights for the summer 2026. We did have a 92% success rate. We celebrated paydays.

Thanks to the Jefferson City School Foundation for giving us space to do that. We really, really make a big deal out of our paydays, just because for some of them, this is their very first paycheck. Their families come, take pictures.

It's a really great time. We did host a T-shirt design contest for our interns during Academy Week. We had five total submissions, and this is the one that won here. And so hopefully, you'll see them around, and you all are welcome to have one as well if you haven't got one already.

We did have 102 site partners to come on board with us this summer, 98 banking bonuses. And the banking bonuses is when an intern can prove that they have a bank account, whether that is prior to starting with us or by the end of the session.

So we were able to issue 98 of those. And then we were able to have 11 counselors, which is amazing. Again, honing in on that quality experience. Two of those counselors were once KAYUP interns, so my heart.

It was really a great time to just see them in action after being part of the program. Ten of our interns were hired at their sites. Eight earned certifications, whether that was in Barberside, the Serve Safe, really just honing in on whatever they could capture, including the formerly Ready to Work.

We did have Paris Jones as our graduation speaker. For those of you who don't know him, he is a former UVA running back and trauma survivor. So he didn't get to join us in person, but his speech was still great nonetheless.

We also had Sam Sanders, city manager, come and share some words with our interns. So we'd love to have a graduation where everybody just comes to celebrate as a community. And really, it is about that, right?

We talk about what it takes to do KAYUP, and it is a lot of work. We just finished, had our end of our session on August 12th, and just coming on, looking at our site partners for here in the city, local government, it is increasing, and we're looking all across our community here to jump in and provide some youth support.

So the asterisks, that just means that an intern was placed there, for whatever reason, they weren't able to complete the session with us, or even start for that matter. But special thank you to the city manager, economic mobility officer, Abby Matthews, Wade, the clerk of council team, the Office of Sustainability, as well as Budgets and Grants for their work.

And really, the picture that you see here at the top, those young people are right here, practicing doing the very thing that I'm doing at this mic, with speeches that they were very passionate about.

I tried to get one of them to actually come and speak to you all tonight, but you will see him. I feel like if I recall correctly, he is the school board student rep. Mm-hmm. So all the great things that our youth are doing, and really and truly just giving them opportunity.

So looking forward, as far as recommendations go, still peeling through all of our data. So we do exit surveys at the end for our interns and for our parents and site supervisors, and so pulling all that information together, some of the highlights for sure is keep KAYUP going.

Our youth love it. Our families love it. Our site supervisors, it's a lot of work for them that they are giving up their time and sacrificing for, but really and truly, that is the main underlying. And people are like, "Is this in the county?" Some say, "Can we do it again and again?" The comments are in there, and I will make sure that you all get a more thorough report, as you have in the past.

But, as far as our interns, again, they just want to keep it going. They all appreciated the opportunity to build their confidence, their communication skills, independence. Of course, waking up early for some of them was one of the challenging things.

And then just overall, we know that we need to continue working on our academy experience. One of the things that we're going to try and do for next summer is actually have some of them lead. And why not?

They can do it. But really and truly just giving them that voice, especially for those that do return. As far as our site supervisors, again, they are volunteering their time, and again, they say yes to this, and they just give their all.

So continue to finding ways to celebrate them, prioritizing their support. A lot of them appreciated the fact that we actually matched them very well with their interns. Sometimes just magic, you all.

And then we've really taken their interest and all that good stuff for the youth. But, as far as parents, man, you all, this is the part that kind of gets me emotional because you never know, right? Mm-hmm.

We try to keep parents say, "Hey, this is your child's first job, second job. Let's see what they can do." And so we try to keep them a little bit at bay. But what we end up learning is that they want to keep themselves at bay, too.

Mm-hmm. And so the parents, there was a grandmother that came and picked up a paycheck and just was in tears. She was so moved. Yeah. She was like, "His grandfather would be proud of him." He's passed.

He had retired- Mm-hmm ... from the city and had hosted interns- Mm-hmm ... and shepherded along other employees. So it was great to hear that. One parent said, "This program just keeps giving." And that, I just hear that in my head.

Mm-hmm. Because I do feel like that is what we're about. We want to just keep giving as many opportunities and experiences as possible for our young people, especially because they show up to this opportunity, right?

We're out doing our recruitment as much as possible, but it is them that have to put in the application, do the interview, complete the six weeks. Other general program logistics. As the program increases, we have to try some different things, and hopefully, that direct deposit option we'll try and work around.

Utilizing the website FAQ page we think will be helpful as well, just to get information out consistently. And then, as you saw in the data, half of our applicant pool was Albemarle County residents, so trying to figure out that piece of it.

Because again, we don't want to turn away any youth as much as possible. But that financial contribution does have to come with it. A call to action. Well, before the call to action, I just want to acknowledge that I don't do this work alone.

I don't want to do this work alone. Of course, I have Mr. Graves, our director; Charlsie Stratton, deputy director; Kamisha Spencer, the program supervisor; my little family's here- Mm-hmm ... and anybody and everybody that is connected to KAYUP.

This work is not my work. This is all of our work and for our youth, for sure. So thank you to everybody that makes any little contribution to make this thing go. Call to action. So this summer, our themes were inspire, momentum, and power.

And these were, like I said, the driving themes for the summer. And I just want to leave you with this. Our young people inspire us every day, and as adults, we have the opportunity to inspire them to dream bigger, lead with confidence, and recognize their own potential.

Together, we have built incredible momentum through KAYUP and other youth development programs across our community. Now it is time to turn up the momentum, turning it into power, our collective power, to invest in our young people, strengthen our community, and create lasting change.

Let's keep moving forward together. And then I'll take any questions that you have. Thank you again for another amazing summer. I just continue to hear great things about this program. It's one of the more visible things that we do as council to support in the city.

But I think one of the more powerful things it does is that the youth, they start to believe in their local government, that we support them. It's very tangible. So thank you. I know it's a lot of work to get the students together in summertime, to get them up and to get them energized to go work.

But I never hear a complaint. So, other comments from council? I'll start with you, Jen. You want to Thank you so much. That was a really inspiring presentation. I was wondering about... So you have room for more interns.

You're trying to get to your goal. But what about for more agencies or departments or organizations? All the time, absolutely. We are doing site recruitment all year round. And the goal is really if they can supervise, provide meaningful experiences for the youth while they're there.

So during the school year, we have the eight-week sessions. And then in the summer, we have the six weeks. So yes, any time anybody wants to have a conversation, happy to do so. Thank you. That's it. Mm-hmm.

Louie? I really don't have any questions. I'm always intrigued to see what you all are up to, and it's just an amazing kind of proliferation of good things happening. So thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Natalie?

Should someone be interested in becoming a site... Sorry, what's the word? The site supervisor? Site supervisor. Yeah. Yes, thank you. What is the best way for them to get in touch? They can contact me directly.

The website, charlottesville.gov/256, will have all that information. I love coffee, so we can always just start there. But yes, that's the direct way. And then we basically set up a meeting to go over the process.

In the summer, we do an orientation for all of our sites. But the school year, because it's not as busy, we can slow it down and bring people on board that way. And then does someone from the city go and check out the office or the work site?

Yep. We do site visits, yes, ma'am, all that good stuff. Okay, great. So folks who are interested in having an intern get in touch with you, and parents whose kids are interested know that you've got an eye on everybody.

Yes. Okay. And we'll start our fall session September 15th. And so that application pool will open this Thursday, actually. So we'll keep it open for a few weeks for those that want to apply for the school year.

Great. Thanks. And I should say parents and caregivers. Yes. Thank you so much. Michael? No questions, just as always, an extremely impactful and successive program, and it's always great to hear it's been another successful year, and it just continues to grow and continue.

Thank you. Anything we can do here on council to continue to support you? Just keep doing what you're doing. And really, it's really, I highlighted the city sites just because that is amazing that we keep growing that.

Mm-hmm. I know it's been a hard push around just... But I think our interns really got a lot out of that. But yeah, just keep pushing for the site opportunities- I did- ... for sure ... yes, I did have one other question.

I think you said we had 152 city- Um ... students? Was that- Oh, for the applicant pool? Yeah. Yes. So do we have the capacity for more? That's pretty much tapped out of what- Um ... the students that really want to do it.

For the applicant pool. Yeah, for the applicant pool, it's a little tricky because what ends up happening is applicants may not show up for their interviews. They might have something else come up that they don't want to, don't have the capacity to participate in KAYIP.

So like, no. I would say start there for applicants, and then we're able to hear more about their schedules and whatever else. So do you go into the eighth grade and high school classes or, I don't know, assembly programs and say, "This is an opportunity.

Here's the deadline of how to-" We do. Yeah. Okay. So of course, targeting the city schools because that's where most of our, all of our money is. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So we target the Charlottesville Middle, and then the high school.

Yeah. And then we'll tap into our referring agents, community partners, Abundant Life, everybody that has 14 and up connection- Mm-hmm ... we're getting that information out to them. Yeah. When I was working, I did it for many years, and it was just amazing.

I still keep in touch with the interns that I had, so it's an amazing impact. So... Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Ragin. You're welcome. And DHS team. Yes. Thank you. Whoop.

Yeah. Next is a storm debris report based on the weather we just had. Our public works director is here to share information for you all as council, as well as the public. And we haven't been outside yet tonight- Yeah, doesn't sound like it was- ...

so if there's any updates we need to know about- There's probably a little more out there ... are our bikes still there? I know. Oh, great. Well, good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Councilors, and Mr. Sanders.

I'm gonna be quick, just like the storm was. And so I'm gonna just... Must have already pressed the wrong button. All right. So we did go assess over the weekend as well as wrapped up a ride earlier this morning, and there is debris throughout, obviously.

And it's mainly focused on these two neighborhoods, Greenbriar and Milcus Grove. And so as a result, we will be allowing residents to bring out debris at least until August 23rd. That's gonna be the cutoff date.

In the presentation, I'm gonna tell you our target response, some of the clear guidance that needs to be provided, and how we're gonna focus on the cleanup. So the response is based on the hardest hit areas in the city of Charlottesville, and it's two neighborhoods.

It's gonna be seven days. Actually, it started today. We already have the sweepers out there, and also a lot of other neighborhoods or residents are already bringing out debris. And I just wanna remind everyone the cutoff date is the 23rd, Sunday.

This is not a citywide debris collection program. This is just focused in the community here in the map. A news release will be going out tomorrow morning. It'll also have a link to this map so you can zoom in better, but also it also will give you some more deeper guidance on what you can bring out.

So, the city will collect only storm-related tree branches, limbs, and vegetation debris. The maximum branch length is 10 feet, the maximum diameter is about six inches, and it's storm-related only. Routine yard work is outside of the special collection.

I've been managing debris type events for a long, long time, and typically, this does not mean an opportunity to clean your yard up- Yeah ... or get rid of old firewood- Yeah ... or a shed that was torn down a couple of years ago, and now you're going to bring it out.

So, it's going to be placed in front of the residency where it originated. If a contractor is removing large trees or large branches or deciding to go ahead and daylight some of your trees for you, that will be the responsibility of the contractor.

What we ask you to do is stack it neatly, the best you can. We want you to be safe. Place it at the curb or the shoulder, whatever's appropriate for your property. And we want you to protect the access.

We want to keep the streets, the sidewalks, the gutters, the drain, all the driveways, any fire hydrants, don't block that, mailbox, poles, vehicles, sight line, and overhead lines clear. Just do your best to look out for everyone when you do this.

So, the picture on the left, that's how we would like you to stack it. Now, we know that's not going to happen, but we also know people are going to stack it like on the right and try to avoid it. We know things happen.

But this is- That's funny ... one of the better pictures. It's in front of a fire hydrant, sidewalk, and a drainage pipe, so you can't go wrong with that one. They've hit... Of the five, they did three of them, no, no.

Now, this is a real picture. This was this morning. This debris, when we come by, if we see a mixture of two-by-fours, firewood, and other debris, we will not pick this up. We will... Yes? Oh, no, sorry.

Go ahead and finish. I'll ask you again. Oh, okay. All right. We will leave that there, and we'll ask you to... Even our bulky pickup program would not pick this up. This would be something a contractor would have to do for you.

So now, I'll ask my question. Just to clarify, a branch fell on my neighbor across the street's property, and it took out their fence. So, it is storm debris, but it's also manufactured, or engineered wood, or lumber- Mm-hmm ...

not debris. So, if they wanted to get that fence dealt with, their only option is private contractor? Correct. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Good question, though. All right. So non-vegetative material also. Typically, we'll see a variety of household trash.

We'll have furniture, construction and demo materials we talked about, fencing and lumber, and no chemicals and hazardous materials. You can't bring out your paint. And then the vegetative materials outside limits- Leaves that fell from the sky ...

whole trees and root balls, stumps, logs or trunks, loose leaves and grass clippings, and again, routine yard waste. Our staff will be doing this, so they're very familiar with what looks fresh and what looks old.

And we're going to do our best to pick everything up. We ask, if you have any questions, to call our public service division, 434-970-3895. And you will see a lot of our street crews out, starting tomorrow, until all this is cleaned up.

Any questions? Mr. Wery, thank you for the pictures and the detail of what is allowed and what's not. That's going to be real helpful for the public. You had questions, Mayor? Yeah, a quick question. I really appreciate that it seems like we're trying to keep this clean debris.

Mm-hmm. Nature, recent, all of that. What happens to it once it's collected? So, we take it to Paramount Farm, and then also we take, depending on what it is, to the GFL landfill, and they'll grind it and potentially use it for mulch.

That's why it has to be clean. Great. Okay. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Michael, you have any questions or comments? No. Lolly? I don't have any questions. I just wanted to say, yesterday I was out talking to one of your employees who was standing by the tree that was blocking Yorktown.

And we were talking, and he mentioned that he had helped somebody out on my street, on Hillwood Place. I'll just say for the record, I don't have any storm damage. This has no benefit to me whatsoever, so anyway.

And he had made some comment about having helped them, because this woman had come out and said, "Well, I've got a 90-year-old husband. Can you move this log for me? I can't move it." And so, he did. And of course, he didn't have to, but he did.

And then just by chance that I happened to talk to her, and she was full of praise for how wonderful your public works employees were, how they came and moved the log that she couldn't move. And that's just the sort of thing that I was just very glad to report.

I wanted to let you know that your folks are doing good things out there. Yeah. Well, I'm very appreciative. And yes, our folks were out there, but as Mr. Sanders also recognized, the whole team that was involved, that's Emergency Management, Public Utilities, Parks and Recreation, Police Department did a lot, and our Fire Department.

So, without everyone, I don't think we could've been able, the first initial push or recovery, would've been able to perform it without everyone's help. But thanks, I will pass that on. Yeah. Go, city team.

Yeah. Jen, did you have anything? Thank you so much. I'm sure that number will be, people will be calling that number, so. Yes, and they'll be emailing you- Yes ... so- Yes, they will ... we'll work through it.

All right. Next is a homelessness update from Assistant City Manager Roman. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the council, and our community. I am here just to give the brief update, as I have done the past two council meetings.

So with that said, I want to talk a little bit first about the encampment outreach that continues. Five additional assessments have been completed for a total of 43 assessments. Four applications for SNAP has been taken care of, six ID applications, one Medicaid application, seven intake connections to Home to Hope.

Two dogs within the encampment received medication and provisions for food, five food and clothing connection has been made, five phones distributed, and one Health Connect America connection was also made.

What does that mean, by Health Connect America? Mental health services. Yeah, okay. A little bit about internal logistics. New signs were installed with updated messaging regarding the encampment closure.

Our parks and recreation team continues daily trash collection and provide garbage bags upon request. The dumpster hand-washing stations and portable restrooms continue to be serviced with a general three-day cadence.

Weekly internal coordination meetings continue. We've had one last week, and our next meeting is scheduled for Thursday at 2:00 PM, where we maximize our internal connection and coordination. Last week, or last council meeting, I told you that we are embarking on a process to develop so we can track costs.

That process has been developed. So all costs associated with the encampment closure, and cleanup, and restoration, we have that in place now. With the recent storms, our public safety teams assigned to the Ravenna Trail were able to engage with folks in the encampment to ensure maximized safety.

This included trying to speak with them before the storm, and obviously, checking with them after the storm as well. Engagement. Our city continues to take the lead for emergency shelter operations, while, of course, collaborating with all of our community partners to include the CoC.

Our goal continues to open Holiday Drive as close to September 1 as possible, with a sustainable operating plan. That work continues. Our internal communications team has solidified a communications and engagement plan for the businesses near Holiday Drive.

And as a result, CPD held a business summit with all of the businesses in the Holiday Drive area after the recent visit, to include myself out to the business area. This event was well-attended and designed to respond to concerns and create a partnership to address those concerns together.

Sorry for the typo there. Frequently asked questions were last updated on 08/12, and those were also disseminated to the folks out at the encampment as well. It answers a myriad of questions, mostly derived from all that during the assessments, some of the questions that came up, most of those answers are on the frequently asked questions sheet.

So as I wrap up, our key takeaways, much like last time I reported out to you all, outreach efforts continue to connect individuals with services. Operational support remains in place while cleanup preparations continue.

Planning for opening the temporary emergency Holiday Drive shelter definitely remains a priority, and community engagement and transparent communication remains a priority as well. Collaboration with our local providers, partners, CoC, and beyond continue to be prioritized.

And enhanced public safety presence is ongoing and likely to last throughout the closure. That being said, I did not want to miss the opportunity for a what we need, transportation, meals, and staffing, obviously with our partners, specifically through the CoC.

Mechanisms to provide these items are already in place. And so just leveraging some of the things that's in place and directing them to Holiday Drive is a focus that we're focused on. And with that being said, happy to answer any questions you may have.

Okay. Lloyd? Was there any issue with any harm to anybody or harm to the encampment with the rains over the last few days? Yes, there were some. Misty, feel free to jump up and help me anytime you care to.

But in speaking with the police chief certainly, and the fire chief certainly, those public safety patrols and presence that's down there did note some trees came over, some on tents, as well as debris as well.

The trees on tents would be the area- There's zero down ... further south on Zero East High? Yes. Misty, are you able to bring some clarity to that? I am. I was just trying to-- If there are trees down, I would assume that was over on the tents that are on Zero East High, further down south of the encampment.

Bridge. At the bridge? Yeah. Okay. Actually, a tree on top. The pictures that I saw mostly included the debris at Free Bridge. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Has anybody heard? Not that we are aware of. Okay. Thank you.

Jane. How are we soliciting help for meals, transportation, and staffing? Yes, great question. As I mentioned earlier, using the mechanisms that we have in place, for instance, POTSHM and the Haven, just the normal protocols that they have.

Obviously, we're trying to capitalize on those and just perhaps, where appropriate, divert those toward Holiday Drive. Same thing with transportation. We know that many of our congregations have vans that may be willing to help.

So just having those conversations to see where that kind of resource could fit in, but obviously don't want to duplicate any work or overstep any work that is already occurring. And I think we have opportunities as well for donations to stand up the shelter and the transition through CACF.

So I think that is another- Absolutely ... option for yeah, contributing to the cause. Absolutely. Okay, great. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for that. Michael? And it's not surprising at all, but obviously, very concerning to hear about the storm damage, because branches of those sizes very easily could have killed someone or resulted in serious injury, and very glad that that did not occur this time.

Along with that, obviously, as we know, in just recent years, there have been times the river's been 20 feet above its normal height, which has caused extensive flooding of the area, including flash floods.

So when we know that there's an upcoming forecast involving extensive rains where, again, there's flash flooding risk, where someone could have their belongings wiped away, or if they're asleep at night, die, what's our approach in terms of informing people of that risk?

And if they are in a flood way, that would be in the highest risk danger zone for a flash flood. What is our current outreach approach right now? Absolutely. So, as I mentioned in the past, we have set this up under the ICS format, and so there is a plan when we are expecting impending weather.

The public safety teams that are down there are not just down there to maintain peace and order, but they're also down there for things just as you've described. So when we have impending weather coming in, those staff and that personnel engage with the folks in the encampment as well to warn and then check on after it's done.

Mm-hmm. And obviously- Very helpful ... in recent weeks, there were two reported rapes in the encampment, including one involving the use of a machete. As those investigations go on, how are we approaching ensuring that for crimes like that that occur, that the perpetrators are held accountable as well as preventing future crimes?

Absolutely. Great question. As you may be aware, obviously, in some of the incidents in which you've just described, arrest has already been made. So our public safety team- What happened? What about the person that just...

Listen here, hon. Ma'am, please. So our public safety teams obviously do everything they can to, number one, show compassion toward the victims of these crimes, and then two, aggressively investigate to haul the people that committed the crimes responsible and ensure that they are brought to justice.

So that's the primary responsibility of our public safety teams, and I can assure you that they are committed to just that. They wouldn't be out there if y'all had sent the invite. Mm-hmm. And- Just so you add that note ...

excuse me, sir, please ... final question, as something that came up earlier, just to confirm, at any point at which Holiday Drive is opened, it will pass fire inspection safety codes, go through a full building inspection.

Just want to confirm that would be the case. There was a concern raised about fire sprinklers. Absolutely. As you may be aware, our building official is very strict, and his primary concern is making sure that anyone who is in 2000 Holiday Drive is in a safe environment.

So the answer to that question is absolutely. Thank you. Other questions or comments? Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. Miss Jackie. That's all right. Thanks. For the note about public safety teams assigned to Ravana Trail- Where it at?

... are you referring here specifically to police officers on patrol, or have public works crews been down there? Police and fire. I would consider public safety as police and fire. And so- Okay. I know Lloyd and I once left an event and a tree had fallen on power lines and the fire department came.

Are they the ones who are tasked with the chainsaws and- They thought if they won't ... removal, or would that be public works, or is that a private contractor? How does that work? Yes, that would be more of public works- Okay ...

to do that. So obviously public safety would respond initially- Mm-hmm ... assess, and then lean on Dominion and other partners to ensure that the problem is taken care of. And so are our public works teams planning on going down there for any Trail clearing or debris removal?

Yeah. So the first thing, obviously, for us to do is to ensure that there is no imminent threat. And as we conduct our internal meeting, obviously conversations have already occurred, but as we conduct our internal meeting, we will definitely finalize what needs to be done, when it's going to be done.

Those conversations are already occurring, but we will finalize those in our internal meeting on this Thursday. So Public Works won't be able to get there until after Thursday at 2:00? I'm not saying that.

Okay. I'm saying we've already had those conversations, and so just assessing that in terms of priority. The storm- What about people with tents on them? Where are they going to stay? The storm hit several areas as well, so it's a matter of prioritizing those, assessing what is imminent, and then assessing those.

So at some point, yeah, I'm sure Public Works will definitely visit the area and remove what needs to be removed. Okay, thanks. And then our emergency preparedness team, is that what that- Yeah, where ...

are they involved in these conversations? Do they have a plan for this area with regard to storms? Yes. As I had mentioned earlier, we are operating under the ICS format. Our emergency manager, John Obrendi, is very involved, attend every meeting, and actually facilitate it through public safety, how we would handle responding to a storm both pre and post.

And so yes, there is a plan in place to ensure that we do the best we can, obviously, with alerting people when there is a storm approaching, and obviously check on folks after who opt not to leave. Okay, thanks.

And it seems like the last several days have anything to say, this is a pattern- Sure ... probably for the rest of the week. The afternoon storm getting a little- Mm-hmm ... more aggressive than usual in the summer.

That's the typical Charlottesville weather pattern is the summer storm, but these have been a little rowdier than the last several years. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you for the update.

And the last update before I give my report, is Mr. Fries is going to speak about the request regarding the slave marker. All right. Good evening, Mayor Wade, members of council. The Historic Resources Committee is charged with encouraging and coordinating the documentation and interpretation of local history.

Based on this mission, the HRC has worked to advise council on the sign proposed to memorialize the sale of enslaved persons at the Number Nothing building in Court Square. The HRC met last Friday and prepared a draft letter to council offering their recommendation, but lacked a quorum allowing them to vote as a body to finalize the letter and provide it to council.

The working draft of the letter offers context and asks critical questions to aid in reaching what is recognized as a shared objective to accurately present the city's history of the sale of enslaved individuals at Court Square.

Towards this objective, the HRC led the effort to create the state historic marker that was recently placed at Court Square, recognizing that sales of enslaved individuals occurred throughout Court Square, including at the Number Nothing building.

While the HRC letter in its current kind of working draft format emphasizes the shared objective, it does identify concerns with the current proposal. These concerns center on historic accuracy and on the idea of limiting to a single site the broader story of enslavement at Court Square.

The decision on the proposed memorial rests with council, and you have the option of moving forward by placing this item on an upcoming agenda or waiting for the HRC to finalize their recommendation, which would occur at their next meeting.

Thank you. So, I'm sorry that some of the speakers that were here before had to leave. I would support waiting for the Historic Resource Committee to officially vote on it, but I would like to get input from my- I mean, does the Historic Resources Committee at this point even have enough members to have a quorum?

Yes. It does? Yes. Okay. It has seven, and we appointed another one tonight, eight. Okay. Sure. They're supposed to have 10. I'm happy to wait. I do hope whatever our final decision is, just able to make one.

Yeah. Yeah. What are your thoughts, Vice Mayor? Yeah. We've been able to see a draft of the letter- Yes ... which was informative. Are we hesitant about releasing the draft of the letter until there's a quorum to confirm it?

It's only a working draft until they've voted on it. Yeah. Okay. And I have a copy of the letter that's been modified since you guys have seen it. Oh, okay. So very much working. Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

We had asked for the Historic Resources Committee to take another look. We appreciate them doing that, and we would continue to appreciate them getting quorum so we can have a final report. Thanks. Yeah.

Lloyd? I just want to say I am ex officio, a member of the Historic Resources Committee. I was not at the meeting on Friday. Wouldn't have had a vote even if I were. Ex officio members don't have a vote.

I will tell you that the sense that I had tried to convey to the members of the Historic Resources Committee in other contexts was that basically we hope that they all would do history correctly, rigorously, and then give us the recommendation based on their assessment of the historical accuracy and all those kinds of issues.

And if we end up doing politics on top of their history, that's our job, but it's not their job. And so we'll see what their final analysis is from the historical context. Mm-hmm. Agree. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

So we're going to wait to the historic... When do they meet again? When did you say? You're not exactly sure? They meet once a week. Second week of- Once a month. Yeah, second week of- Yeah ... second Friday of each month.

Okay. Right. Great. So I'll notify the parties that have reached out to me repeatedly in reference to that. They've been waiting on me to move, which I move when you all advise me to. So I'll be able to fill them in on that.

Sam, which- One of each ... does she- It's two Two? You're getting both. Oh, okay. Yeah. Here. So Remy's gonna pull up a couple of things before he actually gets to my slide. I'm sorry, David's gonna pull up the FY26 work plan.

The one with the highlighting. The one with the highlights, yes. And before I do that, I wanna take a moment to introduce a new team member. Joshua Barr has joined us. Joshua will serve as the chief prosperity officer.

So he will be working hard. He started today. He- Yeah ... was bombarded with a lot of work. Steve told him he had to get to work on, so tomorrow he'll be released to get to work. Yes But Joshua comes with a very nice resume history that I will indeed expect that he will share with you as he interacts with us, talking about our various prosperity priorities, which is lifting everyone in our community.

And we definitely look forward to having him here. He just got here last week? Right. Just got here last week- ... so he still doesn't know his way around. So he'll get lost a little bit, but that's a good thing.

He can find his way through neighborhoods as well in doing that. So welcome, Joshua. All right. And just for the community members who may be watching who aren't familiar, what does that position do? So the chief prosperity officer is equity by another name.

It's still the same equity work that you all knew that was created when the deputy city manager position was originally established. This is the reset for when I reorganized the office in October of last year to keep a dedicated staff person cabinet level, meaning an advisor to me, working with all parties, all departments on various initiatives.

Joshua will be responsible for supporting the Office of Human Rights, the Office of Police Civilian Oversight, our ADA team, as well as he will be responsible for a body of work of his own. I refer to it as the laboratory.

So that is the work that we will be looking at, exploring ways that we can help various aspects or members of our community in different ways. An example of that is right now we're part of an initiative to help close the gap on childcare access.

So we're in a national cohort. Joshua will be a part of that conversation and other conversations, and he'll be asked to seek other opportunities for us to be a part of things like that, that bring resources to the city of Charlottesville.

So that's the job. David, this isn't the slide. This isn't what I want. I'm looking for the other document. It has the lines across it, but it has yellow highlights all over it. And I'll just go ahead.

I'm gonna move on so that we can get through everything, because this was probably the longest city manager's report since I've been here. But just wanna take a look back at FY26. That is the purpose of the work plan, is to track the work that we're planning to do, get that work done, and then show you the results.

And then we're gonna look ahead on another document as to what the current fiscal year plan is. And then we'll go through the actual slide deck that I have for you as well. All of these documents that I have will be posted into the transparency portal on the city's website in the morning.

So anyone that's curious about them, counsel, you've received the two actual documents. Early this month, I completed my third year as the city manager. It's a moment that's never lost on me when I think about the awesome responsibility that I have to care for the 46,000 individuals who call Charlottesville home and the many thousands more who visit on a daily basis.

Their well-being is important. It causes restless nights, and it also causes me to run away and seek freedom in other places every now and again. So I'll share that, too. Actually, David, why don't you just pull up the slide deck that you had up initially, and I'll just go with that.

What I'll remind the public of, for those of you that have seen the work plan before, it is a laundry list, as Councilor Snook likes to refer to it as. It's meant to be a reflection of things that I am actively working on as the city manager, as well as my team in the city manager's office, as well as directors across the organization.

It's meant to be a good snapshot of what 1,100 employees are working on over the course of a year. And the intent is for it to be an accountability document. I produce the document at the beginning of the fiscal year.

I give you quarterly updates, so I'm tracking our progress by month, and then we conclude the year, and then we roll right into the next year. That approach has been rolled out to my leadership team. I've asked all leaders in the organization to produce a work plan to capture how they plan their work in association with the budget that they've been allocated, the resources that they need to do the work that they've identified as the priority.

So when we look at these sets of slides, I'm gonna just walk you through what we have here. So I produce the work plan every year, as I mentioned This. Here we go. So in FY24, when I started, the theme that I set for that year's work plan was stabilizing and strengthening with a destabilized C-suite.

I'm the seventh city manager in eight years. I was crazy enough to take the job, and I've now had it for three years. So I feel good about that. We've calmed some things down. Uncertainty fueled a lot of turnover.

We had a lot of folks who were leaving the building and not a whole lot of people wanting to come into the building. That caused tension throughout the building, and there was clearly a need to calm down.

And you all remember the infamous phrase from Mr. Michael Rogers, "Bring back boring," which has been my specialty. 2025. This isn't working. Thank you, David. 2025 was focused on communication, collaboration, and coordination.

It was to slow down and plan, to bust silos across the organization, just helping individuals realize that working alone isn't the best way to get this work done. Tell others what you are doing, where you're going, and bring them with you, is what has been expressed as expected.

And I've also asked that people stop assuming things, because I've heard a number of assumptions about what council wants, what the city manager wants, and I've made it clear that you need to ask the question and you'll get an answer.

Next slide. FY26, our last fiscal year was focused on implementing our plans. We are good at having plans. I know you all are frustrated at times by the number of plans that we have, Council Fizer. And the goal was to implement those plans.

So part of the focus has been on making sure that our team appreciates that it is not really about getting the plan done, it is about implementing the plan. And if we can't implement the plan, then we probably should have never produced it in the first place.

We need to make sure that we work on a reset so that it's realistic. No is an answer. I've shared that many times. It has not been a thing that we have done a lot of. We've said yes to everything, and then we are unable to do the things that we've said yes to.

I've made sure that I prioritize for our team to appreciate that sometimes no is the answer, and it doesn't mean no forever, it just means no, not right now. We're looking to link our plans for a sign of good work and report, report, report.

It is important that we don't miss the accountability requirement that if you're going to produce a plan, you need to talk about how well it's going or not. Next slide. So over the past three years, this is what building a three-year tenure has been for me.

It's been rewarding to see that our team has responded to these things. We have gotten better in a number of ways. There's still a lot of work to do. So now we turn to FY27, our current fiscal year. Next slide.

The theme for this year, strategic execution. Next slide. You ask, what is that? Strategic execution is really about being able to be consistent and make sure that quality is our focus. Next slide. When you think about strategic execution, you need to have well-formulated plans, coordination of people and process.

You need to measure and monitor, and you need to give progress reporting. Next slide. This is your vision. It's one that you set. It is one that I value and believe in. Our team knows it. Everyone is saying it on a regular basis.

Next slide. And strategic execution is how you get that done. So here's just the top five of the things that we're working on in this fiscal year. And when you look at these things, there's nothing small on this list, and I always remind you all that the city of Charlottesville is punching above its weight class, and this is an example of that.

When we have homeless interventions, transforming transportation, supporting our schools, arts equals culture, and safety and security. There's nothing small about anything on that list. There's nothing easy about anything on that list.

And then, of course, I have to be the fiscal responsible person that I am and say there's nothing cheap on that list. Next slide. Homeless intervention, we're working hard, furiously, on 2000 Holiday Drive with the goal to open soon.

If we get this thing open as we have planned, it will exceed all expectations because no one would have been able to expect that the doors would open to this facility this year. Next slide. We're transforming transportation.

We're adding bus amenities like the shelter you see at the top. That's a bad version of the picture about the EV bus at the bottom. But we have our EV buses in place, and we're rolling those out, both in the public transit side and on the school pupil side.

And the goal is to continue to work on making sure that our network is reliable and efficient. We have big projects underway. The Citywide Mobility Study is going to bring all transportation initiatives together.

As I mentioned, we're deploying our buses, our EV buses, our bus shelters, and we're in the throes of drivers, drivers, drivers. I welcomed our new team this morning in orientation, and half of the room was drivers for CAT.

So it was quite nice to see that and to hear that, to see that we are successfully adding those individuals to our team. Yes? How many drivers are we up to? I don't know. We can get you that number. Sure.

Thanks. But the number in that room looked like we were probably halfway to what we're looking for right now. Great. Thank you. Next slide. Supporting our schools, these are pictures from CMS. I know many of you were able to participate in Friday's final version of opening the middle school, which is great.

So the middle school is now completed. Reconfiguration was realized with the opening of school this session. Collective bargaining has been activated, and there's a sales tax referendum that people are talking about, and it equals opportunity if it should pass.

So there's a lot going on in the support of our schools at this time. Next slide. Arts Council and the Public Art Commission, those are things that we have on the list, and Mr. Fries knows that he's got to find some extra time somewhere so he can sleep a couple hours a week and try to get this done.

But the goal is to bring both of these items to you because you've made it clear that you want them. So I just labeled them coming soon, James You got to do that to make that happen. Next slide. Safety and security, because any local government has to stay focused on that as one of its key priorities.

It's a quality of life priority. This badly designed version of what I did here was just to indicate that coordinated emergency management is important. As someone who came here from the Gulf Coast, you never know when it's coming, you never know how bad it's going to be, and the forecast is usually off.

But the thing that you don't want to learn is how bad it could be and not have a plan. We have a coordinated emergency management priority, all under the leadership of our assistant city manager, Sam Roman, who is a public safety expert himself.

And what we have done with the portfolio that's been put under his guidance is have our police, fire, emergency management, social services, the human services together, all in one coordinated system.

It is meant to be that so that we can rely on one another. And again, this is an example of the silo busting that we have to do in order for us to serve our public well. Next slide. Just a few signs of progress, just a few pictures.

I didn't put a whole lot. So next slide. Great things are happening here in our city. Next slide. Sam does not take himself very serious. If we go back, actually, there's a picture of Councilor Fleischer in a green cape.

I know. I was talking about me not taking myself serious. Yeah. But she is standing there with a green cape. David, go back one slide so people can see that. Yeah. I didn't see that. Right there, up front.

Yes, there it is. A green cape. Looking like a bike superhero. We get to celebrate Bike Month whenever we can. Yeah. Yes. And our bike head coordinator in a Wonder Bread onesie. Yes. So it's infectious, that not taking yourself serious.

So I was on a bike myself because people have asked, do I ride? I have and will do more. Hey, Sam, was it fun? It was fun. And I didn't fall. Was it useful? It was, absolutely. Thank you. Next slide. Again, I remind everyone, council's vision for this community is to be a place where everyone thrives.

Next slide. Strategic execution this year is how we're going to work to realize that. Next slide. And organizational excellence is what you can all expect, and that is quality and consistency. That's what we strive to provide on a regular basis.

That is it. Any questions that you all may have? Any questions from anyone? Michael, any questions or comments? Just a few quick ones. One, I would encourage anyone in the community who's interested in the work that city government does just to check out the work plan, as something that you could review and really see in depth all the different things that the entire organization is working on, because it really is a tremendous amount of things, a lot of things that maybe people don't see in the press daily or are constantly thinking about, but it is happening.

The only questions are just, at what point will we begin updating the work plan? And council together with you kind of getting us to the next version of it. So I have always been committed in my tenure here that every quarter I'll give an update, a status report.

So that's me going through the document and updating the status column, and that's where you see progress that we're making, and the note section is where I'll talk about where things may be happening and/or difficulties that we may be facing.

As it relates to revising the work plan layout, format, size, I think there's a different version of it that I will engage with council on, more of a simplified version, because I know that there's an interest in being more tactical in some key things.

What I've done on-- If you look at the two documents together, you'll see that they're laid out differently. There we go. The original document from last year is tied to the commitment to community prosperity and each of the strategic outcome areas, all nine of those.

What you see in the FY27 work plan is the transition. Earlier this year, you all set five strategic goals. So I have converted the work plan to embrace those five goals. So now it's actually a little bit shorter than last year, because then the focus is to be a bit more targeted, and therefore measuring a little bit more impact.

What I will open as an opportunity for us in the coming weeks is to take a look at the new version of the document and integrate things that you all would like to make sure are listed there, and then we can determine if they will make significant progress or what level of progress can occur, and then I will begin tracking those and reporting those to you quarterly going forward.

And I personally don't necessarily have an issue with a longer document because there is just a lot of really specific stuff. It's a lot of work. Yep. It's all stuff that we're doing. There's nothing on there that we're dreaming about doing.

Everything on there is practical. Everything on there we've deemed necessary. Like with adding Joshua to the team, now we have somebody to pick up that body of work, and make sure that everything that's on the list can begin to be juggled.

He has a skill set, I understand, that he can juggle. Nobody told me that. I just assumed that. So we're going to try to see if we can't test that. And with the city's, our stated vision and these work plan goals, do we have any, for some of the larger priorities, like performance metrics of when it comes to prosperity, I think of by every benchmark in terms of achievement gaps- Yeah ...

our ranking in terms of our achievement gap relative to other The state, differences in life expectancy- Yep ... differences in wealth and income. We haven't made progress. So when do we or how can we measure it in ways so- Okay ...

are the investments working? Sure. Where you are now is in the strategic planning section, and that is why one of my changes to the team was adding our chief strategy officer, Jen Hendricks, whose job is to capture metrics across the organization and to help us then track how it's making an impact in examples of what you just identified.

We are in the, I'll say, midway of that new process for us. The goal will be that council will have a new three-year strategic plan that you will be spending time with probably in January forward. The goal would be that it would go live July 1st, 2027 for the next three years, and that's where you will see items like that.

Because the point of the strategic plan is to be the highest ranking document. The work plan is how we work to implement that document every single year of its existence. And then we start a process again when it ends.

Thank you. Natalie, you have anything? I would like to echo something Michael said about the work plan being a good resource for information. I would also like to say that every meeting we get the city manager report, this is kind of the most expansive live presentation we've gotten.

But there's pages in every agenda with all of the things that the city is working on that are up to date in the most recent activities. And so I do encourage the community to check out the city manager's report in every edition of the agenda, because there's just a ton of info and effort that has gone into all of the items that are listed there.

So this is the brief. That is the biweekly update on what's going on. No, we'll spend some time with it and provide feedback. But thank you. And remind everyone that that's what transparency looks like.

Yeah. Yes. Thank you. Transparency. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is, we're now at the action items Castelia Street. Is an ordinance approving a partial closure of Castelia Street. Mr. Duncan.

All right. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, council, Mr. Sanders. Tonight, what we have before you is a closure for Castelia Street. This is for a development project that has been proposed at 303 Palatine, as well as 221 Palatine.

The property owner owns both of these parcels on either side of the current street, and they are looking to abandon this and then replat and access easement over top of it to connect to the existing alleyway that is on the north side.

So, that's kind of the background. We've noticed this obviously, given the council's priorities for housing, and our ability as a city to maintain that access easement to get back and forth from the existing alley.

Staff's recommendation for this would be for adoption of the ordinance authorizing the closure of the 162-foot portion of the unimproved Castelia Street between 221 and 303 Palatine Avenue. The clerk of council send a copy of said ordinance with the attached plat drawing to the clerk of the city circuit court for recordation in the current street closing book.

So, the applicant is also here to, I think they wanted to say a few quick words about their project, and then I'll be here if you have any other questions. Okay. Hey, I'll be really quick. I know it's late.

That was a long report. It was great. Thanks, Nicole. Yep. So I'm Nicole Sgro. I'm here with Kelsey Schlein. We're the developers on this project. So we've got 221 Palatine, 303 Palatine. 303 had some platted Belmont lots within it already, but it's two single family homes, and they're considered two parcels under the GIS and tax world.

But we are going to do three zoning lots on 303. You can kind of see there's three units. It's RA, so you can see them kind of delineated by the single families facing Palatine. And so there's three units on each of the zoning lots on 303, and then 221 has three units in the rear of an existing house.

So it's 13 units in total. So we're really excited to bring to life the idea of infill under the new ordinance. I don't know how to click ahead. I'm sorry. It's not working. Just ask them to advance it.

David. So this is just more detailed information with the site plan. You can see there's a very large old stormwater pipe that goes across the Castelia. So we're going to put a easement on top of that, and functionally it really will be mostly a public access right of way that will consist of that 50-foot right of way.

It'll be about 22 feet for fire access, and it'll go from Palatine all the way through to the 12-foot alley in the back. If you could go to the next slide Um, I don't have too many slides. This shows that, and if you click again, it shows where 303 and 221 are on this GIS map.

And then you'll see where Castelia cuts and bisects both of those properties, and you'll see 918 and 1000 Rockland. That part of Castelia, as well as the other part on the opposite side of Rockland, were closed in 2000.

In other words, there's nowhere for Castelia to go except for that alleyway, and we are going to preserve that alleyway. So all of the pedestrian and vehicular, and whatever access you would like, is going to be preserved.

Another point is that that's an unimproved alley, but if anyone were to improve it, we would preserve that connection. So there's no benefit of interconnectivity beyond the development parcel itself. So if you keep going, if you keep clicking, you'll see I just highlight where the Castelia, as it goes through further up towards Rockland, it is closed and just consists of 1000 and 918 Rockland.

If you keep going, I think this is the actual plat that will be recorded. So the first step will be to vacate Castelia. The second step, if you keep going to the next slide, will be to preserve the utility easement I talked about earlier, as well as the new public access easement of 22 feet that goes all the way through from Palatine to that 12-foot alley.

So anyway, I don't want to take up any more of your time, but we're here to answer questions. Thank you. So, Jen, you have any questions on this? Yeah, because I walk by this every day. Yeah, this is where the trailer is.

Okay. So, right. The trailer has been there for a long, long time. Yeah. There's a story about it. I made up so many myself. I can't wait to hear what the real one is. Because right now, if you try and walk through that, you just end up at that...

I've only done it once. You kind of end up at the top of the alley, but there's a tree. There's a very nice tree there, yeah. Yeah. But so now, there'll be the houses on the two sides, and then this will be like a paved thing between, but it will connect the top and the bottom.

So now you'll end up at 1000 at the top of it, or? So, the alleyway doesn't continue to the north. Okay. So there's an alleyway that's east-west- Yeah ... that's also unimproved. Right. So this would connect to that if the city or a private developer ever decided to improve that alleyway.

So we maintain that connectivity, but it wouldn't continue all the way through because that further northern alley has already been abandoned, and it's just the property- It's just the- ... of the two properties on either side of it.

Okay. That's what I was envisioning coming from the bottom to the top. Okay, great. That makes sense. Thank you. Just needed a visual there. Mm-hmm. Lloyd? I guess the only question that I've got is that I remember a couple of years ago, I thought we had adopted a policy that we would sell this land to people, but we weren't just going to give it away.

If we sell it, by my calculations, if it's 132 feet long and 22 feet wide, and if the land is being sold at the same rate at which the adjoining property is assessed on a per square foot basis for the land, that would be about $60,528.

And I'm wondering why we're not asking to be paid for the land that we're selling to the developer. I mean, I don't know if that's a question for the city attorney. I know we did that for Clark Court.

That one was an improved right of way. That was already an existing street. We are giving up that property, so I think if that's something that council wants to do is request the city attorney's office to go into negotiations on what that property's worth, that's well within your bounds.

I had thought, and of course, Mr. Maddox wasn't here a couple years ago, so he wouldn't have any direct knowledge of it, but we had a number of discussions, and Sena McGill was particularly strong on this point, that we shouldn't just be giving away city-owned real estate.

They don't make any more of it. So I would think that we ought to be, whatever the going rate is, I would think if it's $16.90 per square foot, which is my calculation for what the adjoining property is, that would work out to about $60,528.

And I would think that if we're going to have that policy, which I think is an intelligent policy, we ought to stick with it and we ought to do it today. We just, I think as part of consent agenda, approved $750,000 from the projections- From Clark Court ...

yeah, for something kind of similar. But- From my office's part, this has not come to us for evaluation or negotiations, potential sale. I will say the Clark Court, it was a dedicated city street maintained.

This is an unopened alley, I believe, at the moment. So there might be some difference there. Mm-hmm. But if the council's decision, they want to kick it back, we'd be glad to look at it and see if in terms of the policy or see if it merits negotiation under that policy.

I mean, the last time that I remember the issue coming before council, was an instance where it was at the corner of 9th Street and Jefferson Street, and the property owner there wanted to buy a stretch of land that was owned by the city.

That was an artifact left over from when Avon Street and 9th Street had been widened. It was still owned by the city, and he wanted to buy it. And, or actually, he wanted it given to him, and we said, "Well, on a per square foot basis, it's worth $34,000." This would not be the first time that we would have done this.

I think that it's a good policy that we ought to be following. So I would recommend that that be the approach. I don't know what that does to any action tonight, but clearly, we couldn't vote on anything tonight without a lot of staff work going into it.

I would just indicate that you would need to be clear that that's a policy that you're asking for, because it does not exist today. It may be practice that has occurred here and there. But if we could- Yes ...

Mr. Mayor, make sure that we get enough of the direction- Yes ... and we'll do the work on crafting said policy for going forward, and make sure that when it goes through the city attorney's office, it can be checked that way.

And do- So it's just kind of ad hoc at the moment. There is a policy for street vacations. I do not, right off the top of my head, know for alley vacations. But the street vacation policy is what we followed in the Clark Court case.

The only thing I can distinguish it right now, off the top of my head, is this is an alley that has never been opened, as far as I can tell. Mm-hmm. This is just something that was dedicated when it was platted, I would assume.

So. Yeah. I guess this is relinquishing our ability to use it in the future. So it gets into a gray area. Like John Mayers said, Clark Court was accepted. We got state funds for it. We did maintenance on all this stuff.

This was platted as part of the Belmont Plat 1901- Sure ... whatever it was. And there are a lot of those, right, around town. Yeah, there are a lot of those. So- And we've occasionally sold them, and occasionally, I don't know what we've done more often than other times, but there have been times when we have said, "No, we're not going to vacate that, and you can buy it from us if you want." I know up until 2019, we would just go through a closure process, and it would be split between the two property owners on either side, basically the city saying we don't want it.

We're basically relinquishing our claim to it. That's how I've looked at these through my years with the city, is it's not necessarily that the city owns it, but the city has right of first refusal on this.

If we ever wanted to do something, it's there. We can use it if we want to. I don't know if that's the correct interpretation, but that's kind of been how I've looked at these. So you're saying up to 2019, there was no money exchanged for this kind of vacation.

Not that I'm aware of. And then post 2019? We've not had very many of them. Part of that 2019 policy became a scoring rubric, because council didn't want to see so many of these, because there were a number of these that came before council, and they were like, "We don't want to give up all these.

We don't want to have to make a decision on this every other meeting." So essentially what it came down to, other than very slim parameters, unless it's like this project, associated with an actual development, so we're getting something for it, we're not just giving something up.

And the fact that they're putting in an access easement here for us to maintain that access. So, this was platted as a street. It was not platted as an alleyway, so I don't know if that changes either.

This was a 50-foot wide street that never got built. Basically, we're turning that street into an alleyway with this 22-foot easement. And then it essentially functions as a driveway, not as a street, for the city to maintain.

Correct. Yeah. We will not maintain this. There'll just be this access easement over top of it, that, again, if we decide to do something with the alley that goes east to west, people in the city will have the ability to walk through this driveway/alley to get to that.

Well, it looks like the plan that they've shown, they intend to use, at least in one direction, the east-west alley as the access to the back part of the- That's a different... So the east-west alley that I'm talking about is at the far north end.

Oh, okay. So they're creating a- There's the mid-block ... They're creating a mid-block driveway to get to the backside of the new units that they're building. Yeah. So that will be a fire turnaround for a portion of it, and then the rest of it'll just be private alleyway.

Yeah. Or a private driveway. Yeah. I'm going to s- one of the reasons I want to support it is because we need more housing. We talk about streamlining the process and reducing the cost. This is, I think.

Well, Mr. Mayor, I think if they're proposing 13 units here, I'd be very surprised if it was less than a $5 million project. $60,000 added onto a $5 million project should not be a deal killer. But question is, if we were going to ask for money, how much time would it take to determine that value and enter negotiations, and how much additional time would that cost?

How much would, how much you know what I mean? Well, I've suggested a number that is based on a technique and an equation that we've used before. I don't know how long it would take them to talk to the city attorney about it all.

In theory, it could be possible to get it done in a week or two. Would it have to come back in front of us? At some point, sure. Is staff going to provide any perspective? So, we do have a 2019 street alley closure policy There are exemptions in here.

There's a whole scoring rubric. There's a process that requires negotiation through the city attorney's office. There's a lot of stuff with this that I'm not prepared right this moment to say what does and does not apply from standing right here.

If you would like me to explore that, then I would suggest that you kick it back, and that we look through that, and we go through this process or see if it applies. I know that's not what anybody wants, but this is the first this is being brought to me in this manner.

Well, and I would suggest that we simply defer action tonight, and ask the city attorney to figure out what this policy is, and see if they want to have some discussions with the developers, and see where that goes.

At the end, I don't know how anybody else feels about it, but I just think that at a time when we have an asset that has value- Mm ... it makes sense for us to try to get value for that asset. Right. And the asset and the value should be more than simply, well, we're enabling them to make money by enabling them to make more housing.

Let's get paid for our asset. Let's hear from- It sounds- ... hear from everyone else. Yeah. It sounds like just purely from a process level, this is not the applicant's fault at all, but it sounds like we have an existing process, but we just did not do what we're supposed to do in terms of reviewing it before it got to an agenda item.

Is that accurate? Does it mean we have that existing policy? It should have gone through the city attorney's office first. Yeah. Recognizing- Hard to be able to go through that rubric and everything, because it sounds like we have the system in place ...

recognize that there is no city employee up here who was a city employee at the time that this policy- No, I'm not- ... was created, so I'm not blaming any staff ... I'm not trying to be negative about it.

Yeah. It's just there is a policy to follow, and it's not the applicant's fault, but we do have that internal process. I'm interested in hearing from the applicant, who seems ready to provide some comment.

Yeah, absolutely. Good evening, Mayor Wade, members of city council. My name's Kelsey Schlein. I'm working on this project with Nicole. Yeah, we've been working on this project for 18 months, and are trying our hardest to get it done.

I think I can understand your point, Councillor Snook, about getting compensated appropriately. However, that was not the process that is currently required. That is not a policy that's in place. We have checked every single box.

We nearly have a fully approved site plan. We couldn't get before you without spending tens of thousands, many tens of thousands of dollars, nearly $100,000 on surveying, engineering, study, study, study to get to this point, just for you to be able to consider this.

Every delay extends that burden. And so, if this is a policy that council wants, I would urge you to set the expectation with applicants upfront. Thank you. Jen, what are your thoughts? So we just want to- I- ...

determine- Yeah ... whether we want to have staff to review this, or- I think for this, I'm ready to go forward with giving up the alley and get the project going per the request. But I would want from here on in this to be clarified and properly, not codified, but- Formalized ...

formalized, so that we can use it as a tool that would come before any applicant knowingly and would be considered in the review as it would stop being a gray area or unknown. But for this particular project, with the due diligence they've done, and we just found out...

It was obviously here, but we did not know about it. I think we need to do that for future self, but for this, we need to move forward on what we think for this project right now, which I'm willing to go for.

And let me just say, part of the problem I've got with this is that I understand what you're saying, but I don't understand why you thought the city ought to give you land for free. And if you're not willing to understand that concept, I don't understand why you would undertake a project like this on the assumption that the city was going to give you your land for free.

I- Well, I think it's not their responsibility to ask to pay more. It's the city's responsibility to catch that earlier. If I may, the policy I'm looking at, this is what happened with Clark Court as well.

You all authorized me to enter into negotiations following discussion at council regarding selling the street in that case. If that's what council would like to do, I feel like we could probably get that done fairly quickly as far as that goes.

Now, as far as the formula that Lloyd's talking about that has been put in the past, I'll tell you with Clark Court, we went with the assessor, and then we asked for more on top of that because of the situation in that particular case.

In this case, I think we would do the same thing. We would ask the city assessor what the value of that land would be And that we would go with that price, would be my guess. So it wouldn't be a very long process if council wants to ask me to engage in negotiation on it.

That would at least meet with this policy. Did the folks at Clark Court, were they informed that there would be a price from the beginning of the plans? Oh, yeah. Yeah. They knew there would be a price.

We arrived on how we were going to get there, and then we actually put a little bit more premium on it because it was developed and that was just how those negotiations fell out. I'll just note, in the case of the Clark Court, they approached the city about purchasing the property.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. So they came in with the expectation in that instance. I'll just note, for what it's worth, I appreciate the thought that we should get money or compensation for public land. I will note the public access easement being offered by the developer is also a form of compensation that should be taken into account.

And I would also note, I think the rubric we have, a big part of it is based on the fact that alleys can perform an informal amenity in terms of pedestrian access in the connectivity of a neighborhood.

And part of that rubric is if we're shutting down that, we don't want to do that, but in this case, we're both preserving and arguably expanding that inter-neighborhood pedestrian connectivity. I don't know.

Okay. So Michael, what are your thoughts? Do you want to have staff enter into negotiations or are you ready to... Is this a public hearing? Yes. It is. After the public hearing, vote on it tonight. And I don't know if it matters, but this is not in the agenda as a public hearing.

Right. That was definitely an oversight. We talked with the clerk beforehand. It was noticed as a public hearing. The advertising happened properly. The staff report said it was a public hearing, so we're confident going forward with the public hearing even though it's not listed public hearing on the agenda.

Mm-hmm. Before the public hearing, I don't have any additional questions. Natalie, what are your thoughts? Do you want to have staff enter into negotiations or after the public hearing, prepare to vote on it tonight?

Can you come back to me? Yeah. I think I know where Lloyd is, what your position. So I'm going to, if there's no other comments at this time, I'll open up the public hearing. Anyone from the public like to speak on this ordinance for this project?

If not, I will close the public hearing and bring it back to council. Yes, Vice Mayor. I had a question for the city attorney. Yeah. But I think I would like to ask it privately. Is that possible? You would have to go into closed session.

Okay. Yeah. Then never mind. Yeah. Okay. So, okay, it's back to council. Do we want to have staff enter negotiations with this? I think Councilor Fletcher and I, I think, support voting on it tonight.

Mm-hmm. And I'm... Oh, go ahead. And I think Lloyd would prefer to have staff to go into negotiation. So now we're on this side. Yeah, I'm fine to vote on it tonight. Again, I do think that it would be best if we had informed the applicant from the start that we were going to put it through the rubric and have negotiations, but again, I feel like this is not the kind of project where the problems are emerging.

Yeah. The bigger problems are with a project that is going to, again, really close off the access of the alleyway or create other problems. So again, I don't- Yeah ... it's not my ideal, but I don't think it is the applicant's fault.

I support having a distinct policy moving forward. I think that is a good note. Yeah. Can I get a motion on this, please? I make a motion to adopt the attached ordinance authorizing the closure of the 162 foot portion of unimproved Castalia Street between 221 and 303 Palatine Avenue, and that the Clerk of Council send a copy of said ordinance with the attached plat drawing to the clerk of the City Circuit Court for recordation- Recordation ...

recordation in the current street closing book. I'll get a second. Second. Okay. We're going to vote. The vote is... I'm not seeing an option. He didn't know. If it didn't come up, you can let her know.

My answer is no. Okay. The vote passes four to one. Thank you very much. The next item on the agenda is a resolution to authorize the city manager to execute a grant agreement pledging $3 million to Salvation Army for the Center of Hope Capital Campaign.

So council, this is an item long discussed and has caused a bit of confusion, but to clear it up, the matter is on your agenda this evening. The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia has earmarked $7 million to the city of Charlottesville to use for transitional housing and workforce development services.

That $7 million was awarded to the city of Charlottesville with the intent by the senator who sponsored the bill to have a portion of the funding go to the Salvation Army for their Center of Hope campaign.

The Salvation Army has, as a project that they are hoping to get started on, a plan for a four-story, approximately 47,000 square foot building, which is an increase in capacity of 15,000 square feet.

This will increase bed capacity from 55 to 114 beds, and an additional seven two-bedroom suites will be included. It will also increase the Salvation Army's feeding capacity from 60 to 120 seats daily.

The consideration of the $7 million is that the recommendation that it's been made to you is for 3 million of the $7 million allocation to go to the Salvation Army, indicating that as a match to what the city gave of your art funds a couple of years back, making it a $6 million total contribution, city plus state, for the Center of Hope.

That does not close the gap that they have, but it gets them significantly closer. Major and his team are here, and board members as well. I'm sure they're appreciative of the notion. I've heard the same from them.

Of course, they would have liked to have had more, but the remaining $4 million would be retained by the city to be used for initiatives that we would prioritize as transitional housing and workforce development for unhoused individuals ourselves, as there are other items that we have beyond 2000 Holiday Drive that we would like to focus attention on.

Right. So I will end there and just allow you all to ask any questions if you may have any. And as I said, the Salvation Army representatives are here if you want to ask them questions as well. Thank you very much.

We have always said that we need this expansion as part of our unhoused plan to address the, on any given night, 220, 230 individuals that may not have a place to lay their head. So I think this is a worthy thing that we're doing.

I'm glad that the city can lean in to assist this so that we can move that much closer to be able to have a place for every resident to lay their head. So I'm glad that we're able to do this. I'll start with this end.

Michael, do you have any questions or comments on this? For the remaining, the unallocated 4 million, do we currently have any projects potentially in mind for that $4 million? And if not, what kind of projects would we be looking to invest in?

Yes. We have other projects in mind. There's negotiations attached to those, so I would like to keep some of that quiet. But the intent is that transitional housing is where individuals will go when they leave the shelter.

So it is the next rung on the ladder. It may not be an opportunity that they are quite ready for full independence, but there'll be wraparound services that can continue to be available to those individuals.

But it is non-congregate housing that we believe is an option that we can bring to light as well, and the $4 million would begin to be used for that purpose. So in the overall ecosystem of housing options and the definitions of transitional housing versus permanent supportive housing, the difference would be like Vista 29 is a unit someone could stay in.

It would be their own individual apartment. They could stay there for years, however long. Yeah. They would have a lease, and it would be an indefinite lease. But this transitional housing would be- It's more short-term ...

someone has their own individual room, but it's limited in terms of how long they could live there? Yes. So what we would be looking to explore is would there be an opportunity for individuals to be able to have what we would consider to be a bridge from being unhoused to being able to manage full independence.

So it could be an 18 to 24 month opportunity for them to have a place to call home and be served intensely during that time period is what we envision, and that's the work that we're also doing beyond 2000 Holiday Drive.

This has been ongoing as I've issued my own commitment to this not being a one and done type matter. Mm-hmm. Those are all the questions I have. I think to echo comments that others have made, we've always acknowledged that the Salvation Army is not the one only solution.

Right. I think the Salvation Army themselves would acknowledge that. It's a high-barrier shelter versus Holiday Drive, which will be a low-barrier shelter. But it is an important critical piece of one option that needs to be available both for the high-barrier shelter beds as well as this project will include transitional housing, including units for families, as well as that ability to serve around 120 people daily with meals.

And I also look at it in terms of our investment. We will not need to continue investment in ongoing operations of the facility. Right. And our investment is only a very big and critical part, but it's not a majority part even of their full capital campaign and the full renovation cost.

So I do think our return on investment for those additional shelter capacity, transitional housing units, and dining hall capacity are a good return on investment for the city. Sure. And that builds on the notion of what I've said as well as I've talked about the issue as we face it here in this community, that we have underfunded this issue long term.

So we're playing catch up at this point. Natalie, you have any questions? Yeah, thanks. Just something that we've discussed internally but want to reiterate for the benefit of the public. We've had people write in saying, "Why isn't this going to Holiday Drive?" And that's because of the distinction between transitional housing and low barrier shelter.

Right. This was specifically earmarked for transitional housing, which Holiday Drive is not. Right. And then, a question that we had. We appreciate this project and how it's going to fit into the housing ecosystem in Charlottesville, and we know it's going to be an important piece.

But something that we've talked about also internally is it's not an independent organization being started for the specific reason of doing this work. The Salvation Army does a lot of work. It has a larger network.

It also has a denominational element to it. And so something that we wanted to be sure about was that, and it says in the resolution, three million to the Salvation Army for eligible capital costs, but it doesn't expand on what those eligible capital costs are, and we wanted to make sure that our state and city money is going towards services and housing and not clerical work.

Is that the case? And that'll be identified in the actual agreement, because there will be an agreement that we'll have to execute with the Salvation Army that is to be worked on. We didn't include a copy of that agreement because we have not received these funds yet.

Mm-hmm. And we have to work with the State Department of Community and Housing Development as the entity that receives the political direction to execute that agreement. So Taylor Harvey Ryan will be working with that department to get everything squared away.

And from that, we will be able to generate an agreement because the three million will have to be reflected in reports back to the state, as well as what we end up doing with the $4 million. Okay, great.

So this is essentially a note saying, "When we get it, you will get this." Yes. And at that point, we will have a more distinct outline. Right. And as Council Payne indicated, their capital campaign total is 20- Eight ...

eight. $28 million. So we're talking about six million, of which we have control over three, that we're indicating would not be used for any secular reasons, any religious reasons- Non-secular ... I should say.

Not secular. I said the wrong word. Any religious reasons, and we can indicate that. Great. Yeah. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Billy? So the whole project is 28 million. How much have you all raised at this point?

The capital campaign is 28. No, it's Derek. Oh, okay. Just so the public can hear. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Derek Allie. I'm serving as the Capital Campaign Council for the Hope Has a Place capital campaign, and thank you very much for your generous support of this effort.

The capital campaign goal is $28 million. The capital campaign goal includes $22.2 million to construct the new Center of Hope, plus $2.2 million, 10% of the cost of construction, to furnish the Center of Hope, a $2.2 million addition to the endowment to create further sustainability and help maintain the new Center of Hope, and a small contingency fund of about $1.8 million that will ensure that the Salvation Army doesn't have to go back to the community and request further support once the capital campaign goal has been achieved.

I guess my question is, how far are you away from having enough money in hand to start the project? So City Manager Sanders whispered a question in my ear that's different than the question you posed, so I'll answer Sam's question first.

Mm-hmm. Towards the goal, including the $3 million that we hope you will award or agree upon, whatever term you all use- Understood ... we'll have $21.3 million. That'll be 76% of our goal. Of that amount, $10.75 million has already been contributed.

So we've received $10.75 million. Now- Does that include our first three million? It does include your first three million. Does that answer your question? Well, I guess your total of, I didn't follow all the totals, but it was roughly $27, $28 million.

That's correct. That's the capital campaign goal was $28 million. Okay. And a number of those things are contingencies, and I guess my question is, are you going to wait until you get $28 million, either in hand or steadfastly committed, before you start building?

My concern is that if we end up giving you another $3 million, now we're up to $6 million, and say you're at 21 in our three, we're including our- 21.3 million. Yes, sir ... okay, including our six, and you've got contingencies that you are putting out there of roughly another three, three and a half million, as I recall.

One was a specifically a contingency, and the other sounded kind of like a contingency. Are you going to wait until you get all 28 in before you get started? Are you going to say, "Well, okay, let's say we get to 23.

We're ready to go. The Lord will provide for the rest." So, the Salvation Army has been in Charlottesville for 114 years. There's one thing I can promise you from the Salvation Army Advisory Board currently, and that is there will be a new Center of Hope for the people in Charlottesville who need the programs and services provided by the Salvation Army.

We are working very hard to wrap up the fundraising segment of this capital campaign by the end of August. The Salvation Army internally is a fiscally conservative organization because they have learned through the years constructing buildings around the world, and they have a couple of guidelines that we're following.

One of those guidelines is that we have to have one third of the amount of the capital campaign contributed in cash. We have satisfied that requirement. The second requirement is that we have 100% of the goal of the capital campaign committed.

We're working towards that now while we also have in mind wrapping up fundraising efforts by the end of this month or by the end of summer. And I read a news account, which may or may not have any veracity to it, that part of this project is the chapel for which there was a price tag put of $7 million.

Is there any truth to that? The Center of Hope includes, as part of a capital campaign, many capital campaigns have recognition opportunities associated with them. The recognition opportunity amount associated with the chapel is $7.5 million, but that large space will not cost $7 million to construct.

Furthermore, if we're going to end fundraising by the end of the summer, the Salvation Army is currently going through a value engineering process to make sure we can make good on our promise to construct a new Center of Hope and meet the needs that exist in this community, and the four additional counties served by the Salvation Army.

So, the chapel, there was a chapel and there was a large, multi-use space. To save some expense, those two areas have now been combined. But I promise you, the cost of the kitchen, the dining room, and two floors, at least, of congregate shelter, plus the family apartments that will be in the new Center of Hope will absolutely cost more than $3 million to construct.

Thank you. Any other questions? Lowell? I guess not. No, thank you. Jen. What proportion of the Center of Hope is transitional housing? Major Wilson. Thank you very much. And as Derek was saying, thank you very much for your concern, and thank you for your help thus far.

At the present time, we have plans for seven apartments for transitional housing, and we have the potential of adjusting and expanding. When we put together the plans for this, we understand that things change within a community as time goes by, and needs need to be adjusted occasionally to the demand.

But at the present time, we have seven, which it fluctuates by the number of people who can stay in this. For example, our current family transitional housing program, we have one apartment with three people.

We have another apartment with six people in it, and another one with four. So we know it fluctuates. So, it would be close to, I would say, a third. Okay. And again, that's hard to put an exact number on because of the number of family members that would come into a unit.

Okay. And so overall, our ecosystem would- Too far ... look like we don't have an idea of how many units we would have for transitional housing for our project yet. Not yet. But we're looking in the area of 50 to 100, depending on how opportunities that are in front of us may go.

So we would have two shelters, high barrier, low barrier. Correct. One in transitional- One or two transitional housing- ... locations plus- ... plus seven ... transitional units at the Center of Hope.

Transitional units. And then one permanent supportive housing. Two. Two? Crossings already exists, and then- Oh, right. Crossings and Vista 29. Right. And then the next rung would be affordable units that are being added to the market at the lowest income brackets, which are across the remaining housing authority developments because everything that is now coming online within the housing authority is in addition to what was already preexisting.

So we're going to have a net plus of affordable housing units. And then I would offer to council as well that the Avon Levy site that is under control of the city is to be determined. So the South First Street, the West Haven redevelopment- Right ...

those were all the- South First Street, phase two, I believe, we gained a net positive, provided everything else comes as scheduled. So Sixth Street would be a gain of more than what was on the original site, and West Haven will dramatically be more than what is on the site today.

So this is the part of the redevelopment phase where we actually gain deeply affordable units. Fantastic. It would be fabulous if there could be more transitional housing built into that model. We're seeing a real...

I think the future will be relying on that level of the ecosystem, more so than shelter even. So thank you for starting there, and hopefully that can build out. Yeah. Yeah, t- So you sat down for that.

See, I'm trying to warn you, don't sit down. Sit first. Yeah. I do want to say, when we put together this plan, we weren't aware, and I believe this has been a perpetual development in the city, which I think reflects the seriousness of the situation, but also the level of compassion.

And again, the Salvation Army, as Derek mentioned, 114 years, we understand flexibility, and we understand adjustment. And the current location where we're at is a really good reflection of that. The first building that we had was for afterschool program daycare, and we did that for a number of years.

But the community changed and so forth, so we transitioned into something else. And we're very excited about the whole plan, not just our component. But the Salvation Army as a whole always looks to meet the need.

We are not program-based. We are program shelter, but we are missionally minded. And as the needs change and the dynamic has modified a little bit, we desire to have some flexibility. And we know that this facility will be a complement.

It won't be the total solution. We never envisioned it to be that, but a complement to what was already in place. And we're very grateful. Again, city manager, mayor, all of you have just been so kind to us.

And also looking at the aspect of the Salvation Army being a partner and a player to help solve and to strengthen lives in the community. So thank you very much. Thank you. And I just want to add, as I recall from some of your statements, that on an average month, you transition about 10 individuals into housing, so that's 120 a year.

That's significant. Yes. And in fact, this past July, we had 26, which the number-- and again, that's a reflection upon our staff. And the program aspect of the Salvation Army is critical. The transitional housing program we have, we have a program that's connected to it.

It's called Pathway of Hope. It's a two-year program for families, and that's one of the reasons why we're striving to do more in relation to families. If we can move with them so that they do not return back to that homeless or without housing situation, we know that we're just going to strengthen that cycle.

And we believe if we can work with a family long periods, there's better success in that area. And again, we hope to go out of business. We really do. And so, thank you so much. Thank you. Other comments or questions?

If not, can I get a motion? Or is this public-- This is not a public hearing. No. And I actually included a request for a 4/5 vote if you are so inclined. And the reason for that is so that the Salvation Army would have the ability to indicate that they have been awarded these funds, so that as they continue to work for the remaining days of the month, they can indicate that to any prospective donors.

I move to authorize this resolution with a single reading and a 4/5 vote to ensure the inclusion of this grant amount in the capital campaign, which closes on August 31st. Second. All in favor? Oh, we're going to vote.

Oh, wait. Oh. The vote passes five to zero. Before we go to the next public comment, we made an error, and we need to go back and make a change with a vote that we did earlier today. I just played the wrong vote here because I was inputting the next thing.

Uh-huh. So if we could go back and- Oh, oh, I'm sorry ... redo that one. Okay. For the e-vote. Oh. Oh, right. Yeah. Spoiler. So that one was- Yes. Oops. They would love that many- And then we will restart that.

Okay. Okay. There we go. Yeah. To rescind the vote that we did for a placement for the YMCA board. So, yeah. Yes. We moved a little faster in our closed session, and we accidentally appointed the wrong person to the YMCA board.

So citing section 2-73 of the city code, a motion to reconsider, which must be made in the same session during which the vote was taken. This will remove Phil Barefoot from the YMCA board and add James Brown.

Is there a second? Oh. Hmm? No. We had appointed Mr. Barefoot, but now we want to do Mr.- Rescinding Mr. Barefoot and voting to appoint Mr. Brown is the correction. Yeah. Second. I thought I saw another name on there.

Sorry. Yeah, no. So when we went into closed session, we rushed through a lot of appointments. So we wrote that down incorrectly. We're so sorry. Yes. So yeah, motion to rescind and appoint Mr. Brown instead.

Yeah. Is there a second? Second. Okay. So we will vote to rescind that vote and appoint Mr. Brown. Oh. I'll entertain the vote. Okay. We do apologize for that confusion. Yes. There we go. Okay. So we're now at the opportunity for public comment for individuals that have not spoken already.

Anyone who would like to speak? Yes. Hello, my name is Donnis Chambers. I'm part of the encampment under the bridge. I've been sitting here listening tonight to everything that's been said. They said there's been services coming down there, checking on us to making sure we're good, letting us know the weather and stuff like that.

Unless I'm blind or these people are invisible, we haven't seen nobody down there with none of these storms, none of these weathers. They've been showing up afterwards, after trees down, trees fell on tents that still hadn't been moved.

And another thing, I listened to y'all last week of how y'all say y'all been spending all this money, $30 million, $4 million here, giving the Salvation Army money. The thing about that is I'm curious of one thing about the Salvation Army.

I'm a father that has a son that tried to get in there, and they don't have units for fathers. Is that going to be fixed, and then is that going to be addressed? Another thing, y'all been spending all this money, but there's been no support for the homeless people.

You say you want to help them. You say you want to get them out of the streets and in apartments. There should already be a team put together that is helping every homeless person, whatever service they need, whatever they need, putting them in order so housing become available, shelter become available.

Whatever becomes available, they're already in the process of getting in there. You're just taking people off the street to try to throw them in there, and they have mental health problems. Some of these people are pedophiles.

You're sticking them near women with no doors where they can lock theyself away from these people, and you're just throwing a whole bunch of people in here with a whole bunch of mental health problems that you know nothing about.

Y'all don't communicate with these people. Y'all don't talk with these people. Y'all don't build bridges with these people. You have nobody coming out there doing nothing. The Care Bears do more for us than y'all do, and they're not funded by y'all, which I think is absolutely crazy.

They come down there and help us out, make sure we're good, and everybody doesn't have good days. Everybody doesn't have bad days, and they understand that. Y'all should already have a team that's working on that, but y'all don't.

But y'all can allocate all these funds to this building, to this place here, but y'all forgetting the main thing. The main thing is the people. If you don't fix the people, what's the purpose of building this building that nobody's going to be in?

If you don't work with the people and figure out what's their problem, why are you out here, why are you homeless, let's start there and then move to the building. If you don't fix the problem, you're going to have people go into these buildings and back out in the streets again.

It's like y'all use us for cattles, line us up. We need money for homeless. Y'all get money, do nothing. We need money for homeless. Get another grant, do nothing. Y'all build these building, build this stuff.

These people are going to these buildings, and they're back out on the street because you're not fixing the problem. If you don't go to this person and ask them, "Why are you out here, let's start there," you're not going to fix the problem by putting someone in the house.

Thank you, sir. Thank you for you. Good job. Anyone that hasn't spoken already would like to speak? If not, can I get a motion to adjourn? Before we do, Mr. Sanders, I wondered, I'm not quite sure who the right person to address this to would be, but there was a question that was raised during the first public comment period about the Azalea Drive project, and it seems to me that I would certainly like to know the answer about, A, what the problem has been, B, what the administrative response has been, the enforcement response has been.

I suspect that the folks who are raising the question may think the city has more power than it actually has, but I would like to know what power the city actually has. Yep, I made a note of that as well, and we'll make sure that we dig into that.

I think there's not only our public works stop work order matter, I guess we issued that. I'm not sure if we did it or if NDS did it, but we'll check into that as well as check into how DEQ is assessing it because they were engaged as well in regards to the violation of the sediment moving.

Thank you. We'll get that response to you. Yeah. Thank you. It looked pretty bad, but we've had a lot of rain. Well, yeah, but that's the reason why you have erosion controls in place, and they're supposed to work.