City Council
City Council
Mon, June 15, 2026
Agenda items
Vote records
Discussion summary
Transcript
Meeting summaryAI-generated
Charlottesville City Council — June 15, 2026
This was a regular meeting with a work session, closed session (CRHA board interviews), and business session. Mayor Wade was traveling; Vice Mayor Oschrin presided. The session was notably substantive, covering climate program results, human rights ordinance updates, a contested transportation project, utility rates, housing programs, and police oversight.
Work Session: FY26 Climate Program Update
Crystal Rittervold (Director of Sustainability) and Emily Irvin (Climate Program Manager) presented the annual update, beginning with a candid accounting of the headwinds facing climate work: rising energy demand outpacing clean production, loss of federal funding (including the rescission of Virginia's $156 million Solar for All award), the federal EPA's rollback of the Endangerment Finding, the end of EV tax credits under House Bill 1, and ongoing uncertainty around home energy rebate funding.
On emissions: community-wide greenhouse gas emissions rose 4.8% from the prior year — about 13% above the 2020 pandemic low, but still 37% below the 2011 baseline. Key drivers were the return to pre-pandemic vehicle miles traveled, a shift in vehicle mix toward heavier trucks, increased electricity use, and a striking 8% increase in Virginia's grid emissions intensity as natural gas generation surged to meet data-center-driven demand — the first time Virginia's grid has gotten dirtier in years. Municipal emissions rose 9%, though they represent only about 4% of total community emissions.
Despite disappointing emissions numbers, staff highlighted significant wins: the 263 kW KTEC solar array came online (the city's largest); power purchase agreements were executed for 2.2 MW solar installations at Charlottesville High and Middle Schools (projected to save nearly $4 million over 25 years, installation expected by end of 2027); six EVs were added to the municipal fleet under a five-year electrification plan; the city's first electric school buses began service in January (funded by EPA rebates, but staff noted cost parity with diesel buses has not been reached, making future electric bus purchases uncertain without grants); and the e-bike voucher program was restructured with tiered income-based awards ($500/$1,000/$1,500) after lower-income recipients redeemed vouchers at lower rates in year one. Q3 sign-ups open July 1 at cvilleebikes.com.
The Energy Resource Hub served 178 city residents and 130 county residents in FY26, with 76 homes receiving weatherization services and 55 homeowners accessing mini-grants. A new commercial small-business energy efficiency program is launching imminently. Staff also reported advocacy wins: Charlottesville joined an amicus brief supporting Virginia's return to RGGI, submitted comments opposing Dominion's net metering changes (the SCC rejected Dominion's proposal), and are now helping residents access the newly enabled Shared Solar Program.
Looking ahead, the draft Charlottesville Adaptation and Resilience Plan — covering 16 strategies from wildfire preparedness to urban heat — is expected for public comment in late summer/early fall, with a council work session planned before adoption. Staff intend to bring it forward as a comprehensive plan amendment.
Council questions focused on whether the 2030 emissions reduction goal remains achievable (staff said yes, pending large projects not yet reflected in inventory data), the potential for airport solar, hybrid transit buses, and goals for the Energy Resource Hub. C3's Susan Cruz noted that the natural gas utility decarbonization study is expected to yield community feedback sessions July 6–7 with recommendations before year's end.
Vote: No vote required; informational presentation.
Work Session: Human Rights Ordinance Revisions
Director Todd Niemeyer presented a set of proposed ordinance amendments to Chapter 2 (Human Rights) approved by the Human Rights Commission on April 16. Key changes include: updating membership criteria language to align with state and federal law; adding "inquiries" to the scope of individual assistance (reflecting that most contacts are pre-complaint inquiries); clarifying the complainant non-response process (cases will be administratively closed if a complainant fails to respond within 30 days of a 30-day notice); standardizing language around "no reasonable cause" findings; clarifying the appeal process for complainants (routing through the office rather than directly to the commission); allowing contracted services for housing cases when the city is not in a HUD Fair Housing Assistance Program agreement; and adding a conflict-of-interest recusal provision for commissioners in public hearings.
Council had no substantive objections. Discussion touched on the gap in tenant-landlord mediation services locally and tracking of repeat respondents. Niemeyer noted he is developing a protocol for flagging systemic issues among repeat respondents. Council agreed the ordinance should be placed on a future action or consent agenda; the next meeting is July 20.
Vote: No vote; direction to place on future agenda.
Closed Session
Council voted to enter closed session to consider CRHA board appointments, consult with legal counsel on a matter involving a former city employee, and consult on legal matters related to the Wertland Street Historic District.
Vote: 4–0 to enter closed session.
Upon return, council voted to appoint Bridget Moss to the at-large position on the CRHA Board.
Vote: 4–0 (Mayor Wade absent).
Consent Agenda
The following items passed on consent without discussion, including a one-reading waiver (approved by four-fifths vote) for item 15:
Minutes: 2025 General Election Abstract, three work sessions
$356,805 additional appropriation to Streets and Sidewalks operating budget
$123,600 DCJS Victims of Crime Act grant
$20,000 VDSS Family Assistance Management grant
Ordinance establishing gas service connection fee
$2,076,696 from Virginia Office of Children's Services for at-risk children and families
Return of $1,848,424 to General Fund / $423,546 transfer to Children's Services Act Fund
$16,846,224 in FTA/DRPT funds for CAT capital projects
Critical slope special exceptions for 2010 Meadowbrook Road and the Botanical Garden
Stormwater management agreement and lease addendum for the Botanical Garden
$52,981.60 from VDHCD Virginia Homeless Solutions Program (one reading, 4/5 vote)
Vote: 4–0.
City Manager Report: Police Civilian Oversight Board 2025 Annual Report
Acting Director James Walker presented the PCOB's 2025 annual report. Key statistics: 32 internal affairs cases in 2025, 12 of which originated through the PCOB; 65 total allegations across those cases; median time to close a case was 34 days, leaving on average only 11 days before the chief's 45-day disciplinary deadline. PCOB budget is approximately $300,000 (roughly 1% of CPD's budget), though a vacant staff position means actual expenditures are lower.
Walker described the board's access — unique in Virginia — to body-worn camera footage, the (now-discontinued) FLOCK camera system, and internal affairs interviews. He reviewed policy work in 2025 (limited English proficiency, use of force, early intervention system) and outlined the shift toward a monitor-audit-review framework rather than independent investigation.
Upcoming priorities include a standardized case-scoring manual, expanded community outreach via a 150-organization directory, and trust-building metrics. Independent legal counsel has been retained. Councilor Snook commented that the current ordinance structure finally positions the PCOB to fulfill its intended purpose.
Vote: No vote; informational report.
City Manager Report: Homelessness Update
City Manager Sanders updated council on homelessness response efforts: a porta-john, handwashing station, and dumpster are being placed at Zero East High this week; meetings are underway with POTM partners toward an emergency overnight shelter; a meeting is planned with Support Works (operators of Vista 29 and The Crossings) about expanded service provision; and an expert from the former U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness has offered to consult. Sanders noted that an operating plan for Holiday Drive shelter is due by end of August.
Councilor Snook noted the recent death at the Rivanna encampment and asked about timelines for assessing imminent safety risks at the floodway encampment. Sanders acknowledged the situation is not acceptable, noted access challenges due to the bridge configuration and reluctant adjacent property owners (Rivanna River Company has been helpful but is on the wrong side), and said the city will ultimately need to disturb the encampment.
Action Item: Utility Rates Ordinance (2nd Reading)
Director of Finance Chris Cullen presented the second reading of the ordinance establishing new FY27 rates for gas, water, wastewater, and stormwater utilities. He confirmed that, consistent with council's consensus at the prior meeting, the city did not renew the $300,000 BP carbon offset contract. That $300,000 will instead be directed toward locally-based carbon mitigation alternatives developed in coordination with C3 and the Office of Sustainability, with council to be briefed before final allocation.
Vote: Moved by Councilor Fleisher, seconded by Councilor Payne. Passed 4–0.
Action Item: CSRAP Grant Agreement Extension (Resolution)
Housing Senior Planner Madeline Metzler presented a resolution extending the Eighth Amendment to the FY26 Charlottesville Supplemental Rental Assistance Program grant agreement through September 30, 2026. CSRAP serves approximately 68 extremely low- and low-income households annually. A comprehensive program evaluation has identified needed improvements in eligibility, program tenure, transition planning, and data systems; the extension gives staff time to develop revised policies before bringing a new grant agreement to council in September.
Vote: Moved by Councilor Fleisher, seconded by Councilor Payne. Passed 4–0.
Action Item: FY27 Housing Operations and Program Support (HOPS) Grant Allocations — 1st Reading
Metzler presented the CAHF Committee's recommended allocation of $575,000 in HOPS funding across 13 programs. Fourteen applications were received totaling nearly $1.4 million. Awards include approximately $224,000 to The Haven for day shelter and coordinated entry; $123,000 to Habitat for Humanity and Piedmont Housing Alliance for homeownership readiness; $74,000 to Support Works and Community Services Housing for permanent supportive housing; $54,000 to PACHM for emergency shelter and case management; and smaller grants to AHIP, MACCA, IRC, Georgia's Friends, and the Legal Aid Justice Center.
Councilor Payne raised whether the allocations align with where the city wants to go on homelessness — particularly whether investments in case management to support Holiday Drive are being prioritized. Councilor Snook raised a broader question about whether funding is filling gaps systematically rather than just funding what organizations request. City Manager Sanders encouraged council to use strategic planning sessions to give explicit direction (needing a majority of three) on where to direct funding, which staff can then translate into grant criteria. Item carried to July 20 for second reading.
Vote: No vote; first reading only.
Action Item: West Main and Ridge SMARTSCALE Application Endorsement
City Engineer Brennan Duncan presented the resolution endorsing submission of a SMARTSCALE application for improvements at the five-leg West Main/Ridge/Water Street intersection. The preferred alternative would convert Water Street to one-way eastbound (paired with South Street one-way westbound), add a two-way protected cycle track on Water Street to 4th Street, improve pedestrian crossings and accessibility, and add wayfinding signage. If funded, construction would not begin until approximately 2033. The project costs would be entirely state/federal funds.
Extensive public comment opposed the change — speakers cited concerns about Water Street's history (it was previously one-way and then made two-way in the 1990s to revitalize downtown), potential traffic backup on South Street (especially at the railroad crossing), impacts on downtown business access, and insufficient study of downstream intersections. VDOT acknowledged in writing that South Street and Second Street intersections were outside the original study scope and that additional traffic data would be needed before construction.
Council debated the merits at length. Councilor Oschrin expressed strong support, citing urbanist principles, induced demand, and the long timeline before any construction. Councilor Snook expressed concern that the problem being solved (primarily bicycle safety) is real but the solution's effects on the downtown economy are uncertain, and that downstream intersections have not been adequately analyzed. Duncan confirmed volumes on South Street (~2,500 vehicles/day) are well below capacity thresholds even with diverted Water Street traffic.
Council agreed that even if the application is endorsed tonight, a demonstration project should be pursued in the interim to gather real-world data and address community concerns. The city manager noted any demonstration project would need to come back to council with a scope and budget.
Vote: Moved by Councilor Oschrin, seconded by Councilor Fleisher, including direction for a city-sponsored demonstration project. Passed 3–1 (Councilor Snook dissenting).
Action Item: CA-MPO US 29 NB/US 250 EB Ramp Extension/Barracks Road Off-Ramp SMARTSCALE Application Endorsement
Duncan presented a resolution endorsing the MPO's SMARTSCALE application for improvements at the US 250/Barracks Road interchange: extending the Leonard Sandridge on/off ramp to connect with Barracks Road, adding a second left-turn lane off the Barracks Road exit, completing sidewalk on the south side of Barracks under the bridge, and adding pedestrian refuge crosswalks on either side of the median. The MPO endorsed the application with some discussion about maximizing pedestrian and bicycle facilities. No significant council concerns.
Vote: Moved by Councilor Oschrin, seconded by Councilor Snook. Passed 4–0.
Key Takeaways
Utility rates approved: New FY27 gas, water, and sewer rates take effect; the $300,000 previously earmarked for BP carbon offsets will be redirected to local climate mitigation alternatives, with council to be briefed before final use.
West Main/Water Street project endorsed 3–1: Council authorized submission of a SMARTSCALE application for the contested Water Street one-way conversion and bike lane project, with a request for a demonstration project in the interim — but construction, if funded, would not begin until at least 2033.
Climate emissions ticked up: Community-wide GHG emissions rose 4.8% in 2024, driven largely by a dirtier Virginia electricity grid (8% more carbon-intensive) and return to pre-pandemic driving levels; staff do not recommend recalibrating the 2030 goal yet given major projects not yet reflected in the data.
Homelessness remains an urgent crisis: A resident died at the Rivanna encampment; city is working toward placement of sanitation facilities this week and an emergency overnight shelter, but acknowledged access challenges and the likely need to eventually disturb the floodway encampment.
Bridget Moss appointed to CRHA Board at-large position.
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
Report: FY26 Climate Program Update
# FY26 Climate Program Update Summary
Crystal Rittervold, Director of the Office of Sustainability, and Emily Irvin, Climate Program Manager, presented the FY26 Climate Program Update, reporting that the city is pursuing a 45% reduction in community greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050 across municipal operations and community initiatives. Despite progress on 25 of 134 Climate Action Plan key actions with 76 more underway, community-wide emissions increased 4.8% from the previous year due to rising electricity demand from regional data centers and increased natural gas generation on Virginia's grid, though emissions remain 37% below the 2011 baseline. Key accomplishments include the KTEC solar array (263 kilowatts) now operational as the city's largest solar system, planned installations at two schools totaling 2.2 megawatts, six new electric vehicles added to the fleet, and expansion of residential energy efficiency programs serving 178 city residents and 130 county residents through the Energy Resource Hub. Staff also highlighted successful implementation of an electric school bus program, expansion of the e-bike voucher program through a tiered income-based system, and development of an Adaptation and Resilience Plan addressing biodiversity, emergency response, urban heat, and wildfire preparedness. Council members raised questions about vehicle categorization in emissions data, the impact of federal funding cuts, opportunities for hybrid buses, and the feasibility of solar installations at Charlottesville Airport, with staff indicating that a natural gas decarbonization study and transportation analysis would be conducted in FY27.
Crystal Rittervold, Director of the Office of Sustainability, and Emily Irvin, Climate Program Manager, presented the FY26 Climate Program Update, reporting that the city is pursuing a 45% reduction in community greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050 across municipal operations and community initiatives. Despite progress on 25 of 134 Climate Action Plan key actions with 76 more underway, community-wide emissions increased 4.8% from the previous year due to rising electricity demand from regional data centers and increased natural gas generation on Virginia's grid, though emissions remain 37% below the 2011 baseline. Key accomplishments include the KTEC solar array (263 kilowatts) now operational as the city's largest solar system, planned installations at two schools totaling 2.2 megawatts, six new electric vehicles added to the fleet, and expansion of residential energy efficiency programs serving 178 city residents and 130 county residents through the Energy Resource Hub. Staff also highlighted successful implementation of an electric school bus program, expansion of the e-bike voucher program through a tiered income-based system, and development of an Adaptation and Resilience Plan addressing biodiversity, emergency response, urban heat, and wildfire preparedness. Council members raised questions about vehicle categorization in emissions data, the impact of federal funding cuts, opportunities for hybrid buses, and the feasibility of solar installations at Charlottesville Airport, with staff indicating that a natural gas decarbonization study and transportation analysis would be conducted in FY27.
Ordinance: Presentation on Human Rights Ordinance Revisions 5:30 PM Closed Meeting (CRHA interviews) 6:30 PM Business Session
# Summary
Mr. Niemeyer presented Human Rights Ordinance revisions adopted by the commission on April 16th, which include revised membership requirements, updated terminology, new 30-day protocols for complainant non-response, clarified appeal procedures for findings of "no reasonable cause" (changed from "insufficient cause"), and a conflict of interest clause for commissioners in public hearings. Councilmember Michael supported all changes as straightforward without questions, while Councilmember Jen inquired about referral tracking and common case types, learning that staff track referrals by agency and identify housing navigation as the most frequent request. The discussion revealed a significant service gap regarding local landlord-tenant mediation, as the Piedmont Housing Alliance no longer maintains dedicated mediation staff, prompting Jen to request that staff explore solutions to address this unmet need.
Mr. Niemeyer presented Human Rights Ordinance revisions adopted by the commission on April 16th, which include revised membership requirements, updated terminology, new 30-day protocols for complainant non-response, clarified appeal procedures for findings of "no reasonable cause" (changed from "insufficient cause"), and a conflict of interest clause for commissioners in public hearings. Councilmember Michael supported all changes as straightforward without questions, while Councilmember Jen inquired about referral tracking and common case types, learning that staff track referrals by agency and identify housing navigation as the most frequent request. The discussion revealed a significant service gap regarding local landlord-tenant mediation, as the Piedmont Housing Alliance no longer maintains dedicated mediation staff, prompting Jen to request that staff explore solutions to address this unmet need.
Minutes: 2025 General Election Abstract of Votes, April 8 work session, May 13 work session, June 10 work session
The consent agenda included approval of minutes from the 2025 general election abstract of votes, April 8th work session, May 13th work session, and June 10th work session. A motion was made to adopt the consent agenda, which was seconded. The motion passed 4-0 with no discussion or questions raised by council members.
Resolution: Resolution to Appropriate $356,805 in Additional Funds to the Streets and Sidewalks Division Operating Budget (2 reading)
A resolution to appropriate $356,805 in additional funds to the Streets and Sidewalks Division operating budget was included on the consent agenda for second reading. This item was approved as part of the consent agenda motion that passed 4-0 with no separate discussion.
Resolution: Resolution to appropriate Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services Victims of Crime Act Grant Award FY26 - $123,600 (2nd reading)
A resolution to appropriate Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services Victims of Crime Act Grant Award of $123,600 for FY26 was included on the consent agenda for second reading. This item was approved as part of the consent agenda motion that passed 4-0 with no separate discussion.
Agenda items (26)
Procedural (26)
1ProceduralReport: FY26 Climate Program Update
City staff will provide an update on Charlottesville's climate program and initiatives for fiscal year 2026.
What happened
# FY26 Climate Program Update SummaryCrystal Rittervold, Director of the Office of Sustainability, and Emily Irvin, Climate Program Manager, presented the FY26 Climate Program Update, reporting that the city is pursuing a 45% reduction in community greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050 across municipal operations and community initiatives. Despite progress on 25 of 134 Climate Action Plan key actions with 76 more underway, community-wide emissions increased 4.8% from the previous year due to rising electricity demand from regional data centers and increased natural gas generation on Virginia's grid, though emissions remain 37% below the 2011 baseline. Key accomplishments include the KTEC solar array (263 kilowatts) now operational as the city's largest solar system, planned installations at two schools totaling 2.2 megawatts, six new electric vehicles added to the fleet, and expansion of residential energy efficiency programs serving 178 city residents and 130 county residents through the Energy Resource Hub. Staff also highlighted successful implementation of an electric school bus program, expansion of the e-bike voucher program through a tiered income-based system, and development of an Adaptation and Resilience Plan addressing biodiversity, emergency response, urban heat, and wildfire preparedness. Council members raised questions about vehicle categorization in emissions data, the impact of federal funding cuts, opportunities for hybrid buses, and the feasibility of solar installations at Charlottesville Airport, with staff indicating that a natural gas decarbonization study and transportation analysis would be conducted in FY27.
2ProceduralOrdinance: Presentation on Human Rights Ordinance Revisions 5:30 PM Closed Meeting (CRHA interviews) 6:30 PM Business Session
Council will hold a closed meeting at 5:30 PM to interview candidates for the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority, followed by a public business session at 6:30 PM where proposed changes to the Human Rights Ordinance will be presented.
What happened
# SummaryMr. Niemeyer presented Human Rights Ordinance revisions adopted by the commission on April 16th, which include revised membership requirements, updated terminology, new 30-day protocols for complainant non-response, clarified appeal procedures for findings of "no reasonable cause" (changed from "insufficient cause"), and a conflict of interest clause for commissioners in public hearings. Councilmember Michael supported all changes as straightforward without questions, while Councilmember Jen inquired about referral tracking and common case types, learning that staff track referrals by agency and identify housing navigation as the most frequent request. The discussion revealed a significant service gap regarding local landlord-tenant mediation, as the Piedmont Housing Alliance no longer maintains dedicated mediation staff, prompting Jen to request that staff explore solutions to address this unmet need.
3ProceduralMinutes: 2025 General Election Abstract of Votes, April 8 work session, May 13 work session, June 10 work session
Council will approve the official minutes from the April 8 election, and work sessions held on April 8, May 13, and June 10, 2025.
What happened
The consent agenda included approval of minutes from the 2025 general election abstract of votes, April 8th work session, May 13th work session, and June 10th work session. A motion was made to adopt the consent agenda, which was seconded. The motion passed 4-0 with no discussion or questions raised by council members.4ProceduralResolution: Resolution to Appropriate $356,805 in Additional Funds to the Streets and Sidewalks Division Operating Budget (2 reading)
Council is being asked to approve an additional $356,805 in funding for the city's Streets and Sidewalks Division operating budget (second reading of ordinance).
What happened
A resolution to appropriate $356,805 in additional funds to the Streets and Sidewalks Division operating budget was included on the consent agenda for second reading. This item was approved as part of the consent agenda motion that passed 4-0 with no separate discussion.5ProceduralResolution: Resolution to appropriate Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services Victims of Crime Act Grant Award FY26 - $123,600 (2nd reading)
The city will accept and allocate $123,600 in state grant funds designated for crime victims' services in fiscal year 2026 (second reading of resolution).
What happened
A resolution to appropriate Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services Victims of Crime Act Grant Award of $123,600 for FY26 was included on the consent agenda for second reading. This item was approved as part of the consent agenda motion that passed 4-0 with no separate discussion.6ProceduralResolution: Resolution to appropriate the Virginia Department of Social Services Family Assistance Management (FAM) grant in the amount of $20,000 (2nd reading)
The city will accept and use $20,000 in state funding for family assistance management programs (second reading of resolution).
What happened
A resolution to appropriate Virginia Department of Social Services Family Assistance Management Grant in the amount of $20,000 was included on the consent agenda for second reading. This item was approved as part of the consent agenda motion that passed 4-0 with no separate discussion.7ProceduralOrdinance: Ordinance to Amend and Reordain Chapter 31 (Utilities) of the Code of the City of Charlottesville, 1990, as Amended, to Establish a Connection Fee for New
Council is considering changes to the city's utilities code to establish new connection fees for utility services.
What happened
# SummaryThe City Council approved an ordinance to amend Chapter 31 (Utilities) of the City Code on second reading, with Chris Cullen, Director of Finance, presenting updates to utility fees and service rates for water, wastewater, natural gas, and stormwater for FY27. The $300,000 previously allocated for a BP carbon offset contract will be redirected to explore locally-based alternatives to mitigate gas utility carbon emissions, with the Office of Sustainability coordinating with C3 and others to develop a list for council endorsement once the Climate Action Report is completed. Cullen also provided information on utility bill assistance, directing customers to contact the Utility Billing Office at 970-3211. The motion to approve passed 4-0. In separate discussions, the City Manager presented updates on addressing conditions at Rivanna encampment areas, coordinating with the Blue Ridge Health District on health and safety concerns, with a deadline of end of August for developing an operating plan for Holiday Drive, while councilmembers raised concerns about dangerous conditions including a recent death, flood risks as tropical storm season approaches, and fire hazards.
8ProceduralResolution: Resolution to Appropriate $2,076,696.00 in additional funding from the Virginia Office of Children’s Services to support at-risk children and families (2nd reading)
The city will receive and allocate $2,076,696 in state funding from the Virginia Office of Children's Services to support at-risk children and families (second reading of resolution).
What happened
A resolution to appropriate $2,076,696 in additional funding from the Virginia Office of Children's Services to support at-risk children and families was included on the consent agenda for second reading. This item was approved as part of the consent agenda motion that passed 4-0 with no separate discussion.9ProceduralResolution: Resolution to Return $1,848,424 to the General Fund and Appropriate an Additional Transfer of $423,546 to the Children Services Act Fund (2nd reading)
The city will return $1,848,424 in unused funds to the General Fund and transfer an additional $423,546 to the Children Services Act Fund to balance the budget (second reading of resolution).
What happened
A resolution to return $1,848,424 to the general fund and appropriate an additional transfer of $423,546 to the Children's Services Act Fund was included on the consent agenda for second reading. This item was approved as part of the consent agenda motion that passed 4-0 with no separate discussion.10ProceduralResolution: Resolution Appropriating funding from the Federal Transit Administration and the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation supporting multiple Charlottesville Area Transit capital projects - $16,846,224 (2nd reading)
Council will authorize the city to accept and spend $16,846,224 in federal and state grants for multiple Charlottesville Area Transit vehicle and infrastructure projects (second reading of resolution).
What happened
A resolution appropriating $16,846,224 in funding from the Federal Transit Administration and Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation supporting multiple Charlottesville area transit capital projects was included on the consent agenda for second reading. This item was approved as part of the consent agenda motion that passed 4-0 with no separate discussion.11ProceduralResolution: Resolution Considering A Critical Slope Special Exception for 2010
Council will decide whether to grant a special exception for a critical slope at the property located at 2010 to allow development that might otherwise be restricted.
What happened
A resolution considering a critical slope special exception for 2010 Meadowbrook Road was included on the consent agenda. This item was approved as part of the consent agenda motion that passed 4-0 with no separate discussion.12ProceduralResolution: Resolution Considering a Critical Slope Special Exception for the Botanical
Council will decide whether to grant a special exception for a critical slope at the Botanical Gardens property to allow development that might otherwise be restricted.
What happened
A resolution considering a critical slope special exception for the Botanical Gardens of the Piedmont was included on the consent agenda. This item was approved as part of the consent agenda motion that passed 4-0 with no separate discussion.13ProceduralResolution: Resolution Authorizing Execution of Agreement to Maintain SWM Facilities for the Botanical Gardens Project
Council will authorize the city to enter into an agreement to maintain stormwater management facilities for the Botanical Gardens Project.
What happened
A resolution authorizing execution of an agreement to maintain stormwater management (SWM) facilities for the Botanical Garden project was included on the consent agenda. This item was approved as part of the consent agenda motion that passed 4-0 with no separate discussion.14ProceduralResolution: Resolution for Approval of Addendum to Lease with Botanical Garden of the Piedmont
Council will approve an addendum to the city's lease agreement with the Botanical Garden of the Piedmont.
What happened
A resolution to approve an addendum to a lease with the Botanical Garden of the Piedmont was included on the consent agenda. This item was approved as part of the consent agenda motion that passed 4-0 with no separate discussion.15ProceduralResolution: Resolution to appropriate $52,981.60 from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, Virginia Homeless Solutions Program (requesting one reading with four-fifths vote)
The city will accept $52,981.60 in state funding from the Virginia Homeless Solutions Program to support homeless services (requesting approval in one reading with a four-fifths council vote).
What happened
A resolution to appropriate $52,981.60 from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development Virginia Homeless Solutions Program was included on the consent agenda with a waiver of the second reading requested. This item was approved as part of the consent agenda motion that passed 4-0 with no separate discussion.16ProceduralOrdinance: Ordinance to Amend and Reordain City Code Chapter 31 (Utilities) to Establish New Utility Rates and Service Fees for City Gas, Water, and Sanitary Sewer (2nd reading)
Council will vote on new utility rates and service fees for city gas, water, and sanitary sewer services (second reading of ordinance).
What happened
The City Manager presented an update on homelessness and encampment issues as part of the City Manager Report. Discussion included meetings planned with Support Works (Vista 29 and The Crossings), participation in community conversations with the Continuum of Care, and consultation with Nichelle Carver formerly of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. The Manager emphasized a comprehensive, long-term approach to this issue rather than viewing it as temporary.17ProceduralResolution: Resolution Approving Amended Grant Agreement for the Charlottesville
Council will approve an amended grant agreement for the Charlottesville housing or community services program.
What happened
# Police Civilian Oversight Board 2025 Annual Report SummaryActing Director James Walker presented the Police Civilian Oversight Board's 2025 Annual Report, noting the board consists of eight community representatives and highlighting leadership transitions including former Director Inez Gonzalez's departure to BART and Dr. Jeffrey Frazier's assumption of the chair role. The report documented key oversight activities including monitoring of 16 internal affairs interviews across 8 cases, participation in use of force panels, and auditing of license plate readers, while also reviewing critical policies on limited English proficiency resources, use of force, and early intervention systems. Significant ordinance reforms shifted the board's approach from independent case investigations to a monitor, audit, and review framework to address practical constraints, and established the PCOB office as a separate entity with clarified roles and independent counsel engagement. Community engagement efforts included hosting international policing accountability leaders, conducting a well-attended April 2025 town hall with over 50 participants, partnering with UVA to document community input, and planning 2026 initiatives such as ride-alongs, a case scoring manual, and expanded community outreach targeting approximately 150 organizations. Walker indicated that 2025 disciplinary data would be posted on the PCOB website in real time, with plans to develop a public data dashboard for enhanced transparency.
18ProceduralResolution: Resolution Allocating $575,000 in Housing Operations and Support FY27 Grant
Council will approve the allocation of $575,000 in Housing Operations and Support grant funding for fiscal year 2027.
What happened
# Summary: Resolution Allocating $575,000 in Housing Operations and Support FY27 GrantStaff presented FY27 Housing Operations and Support (HOPS) grant allocations totaling $575,000 across 13 nonprofit programs providing services from emergency shelter to permanent supportive housing, following a notice of funding availability that generated 14 applications requesting just under $1.4 million. Councilmember Michael raised concerns about whether funding allocations reflect the city's evolving homelessness priorities, particularly regarding case management and low-barrier shelter services for Holiday Drive initiatives, while another councilmember questioned whether funding decisions respond to applicant requests rather than city-specified priorities and whether the committee adequately identified service overlaps and coordination opportunities. Staff explained that requested funding typically exceeds available resources by more than double and noted the committee reviews for duplication, indicating they could be more prescriptive in future cycles if Council provides clear direction during strategic planning sessions. The City Manager emphasized that Council must reach majority consensus on funding priorities to enable staff to effectively direct allocations accordingly. Council scheduled a second reading and vote for the July 20th meeting to allow time for further consideration.
19ProceduralResolution: Resolution Endorsing West Main and Ridge SMARTSCALE Application
Council will endorse a SMART SCALE transportation grant application for improvements to West Main and Ridge.
What happened
# Summary: Resolution Endorsing West Main and Ridge SMARTSCALE ApplicationCity Engineer Brennan Duncan presented a SMARTSCALE application for the West Main and Ridge intersection—Charlottesville's most critical intersection—proposing to convert it from a five-leg to a one-way pair system (one-way Water Street paired with South Street), add a two-way cycle track, and implement safety improvements including leading pedestrian intervals and enhanced accessibility. The project aims to reduce turning conflicts, decrease delays, and improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists while nearly doubling traffic capacity from 6,000 to 11,000 vehicles daily, and has undergone extensive public engagement with the Downtown Business Association and community members. A council member raised concerns about potential traffic impacts on South Street during train operations and at nearby intersections (South/2nd Street Southeast and West Water/2nd Street Southeast) that were not analyzed, prompting staff to acknowledge that additional traffic data collection and mitigation strategies would occur once funding becomes available in 2033. Staff clarified that the endorsement is non-binding and could be withdrawn if circumstances change, and that construction would not occur before 2033 using only state and federal funds. The council voted 3-1 to endorse the application with an amendment requesting a city-sponsored demonstration project be conducted before construction to test the improvements and address community concerns.
20ProceduralResolution: Resolution Endorsing CA-MPO US 29 NB/US 250 EB Ramp Extension/Barracks Road Off-Ramp SMART SCALE Application
Council will endorse a SMART SCALE transportation grant application for improvements to the US 29 northbound and US 250 eastbound ramp extension and Barracks Road off-ramp.
What happened
# SummaryStaff presented the CA-MPO US 29 NB/US 250 EB Ramp Extension/Barracks Road Off-Ramp SMARTSCALE application, which extends on/off ramps to connect Leonard Sandridge to Barracks Road, adds a second left turn lane at the northbound exit, and includes pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure improvements such as sidewalk connections, crossing islands, and a shared use path. A council member inquired about the Rivanna Trail connection, and staff confirmed the project would improve pedestrian and trail access from northwest Albemarle neighborhoods into the city via Barracks Road. MPO board members raised concerns about pedestrian refuge island navigability but expressed support for the bike and pedestrian facilities, though they advocated for greater emphasis on such amenities in future VDOT projects. The motion to endorse the SMARTSCALE application passed 4-0, with public commenter Rachel Flynn expressing appreciation for City Council's work on infrastructure decisions.
23ProceduralThis 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 meeting is open to the public in person and via Zoom webinar registration; it will also be livestreamed on local government Channel 10 and the city's online platforms. Residents needing accessibility assistance should call (434) 987-1267 or email ada@charlottesville.gov at least 48 hours in advance.
24ProceduralThe 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.
The meeting chair will ensure speakers address council comments at appropriate times according to the agenda and council rules.
25ProceduralNo 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)
Members of the public must receive permission from council before speaking, unless invited by the mayor (per City Code section 2-71).
26ProceduralRemarks 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
Disruptive remarks and actions during the council meeting, including those from non-council members, are prohibited and subject to enforcement.
27ProceduralThe 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
The meeting chair will enforce rules by calling individuals to order for prohibited behavior, including interrupting speakers, shouting, blocking exits, making threats, engaging in criminal conduct, campaigning, promoting private business, using profanity, making personal attacks, or attempting to intimidate others.
28ProceduralDuring 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.)
The meeting chair has authority to maintain order in the council chambers and connected areas, and may suspend the meeting, clear areas, or require individuals to leave if disruptive conduct occurs.
Additional votes recorded in minutes
Approve the agenda
aye 1
voice voteaye
Go into closed session
aye 1
voice voteaye
Certify closed session
aye 1
voice voteaye
Appoint Bridget Moss to CRHA Board
aye 1
voice voteaye
Adopt consent agenda (items 3-15) with waiver of second reading for item 15
aye 4 · absent 1
Jen Fleisheraye
Juandiego Wadeabsent
Lloyd Snookaye
Michael Payneaye
Natalie Oschrinaye
Adopt ordinance amending City Code Chapter 31 to establish new utility rates and service fees (second reading)
aye 4 · absent 1
Jen Fleisheraye
Juandiego Wadeabsent
Lloyd Snookaye
Michael Payneaye
Natalie Oschrinaye
Adopt resolution extending CSRAP grant agreement through September 30, 2026
aye 4 · absent 1
Jen Fleisheraye
Juandiego Wadeabsent
Lloyd Snookaye
Michael Payneaye
Natalie Oschrinaye
Endorse West Main and Ridge Smart Scale application (including city-sponsored demonstration project)
aye 3 · absent 1 · nay 1
Jen Fleisheraye
Juandiego Wadeabsent
Lloyd Snooknay
Michael Payneaye
Natalie Oschrinaye
Endorse Charlottesville-Albemarle MPO Smart Scale application for Barracks Road and Route 250
aye 4 · absent 1
Jen Fleisheraye
Juandiego Wadeabsent
Lloyd Snookaye
Michael Payneaye
Natalie Oschrinaye
Motion to adjourn
aye 1
voice voteaye
Verbatim transcript available
815 transcript segments indexed
Ready? Go. Good afternoon, everybody. I will call the June 15th, 2026, Charlottesville City Council meeting to order. Ms. Thomas, will you please call the roll? Councilor Fleischer? Here. Vice Mayor Oshrin?
Here. Councilor Payne? Here. Councilor Snook? Here. And Mayor Wade is traveling. Great. Is there a motion to approve or amend the agenda? I move to approve the agenda. Second. All in favor, say yes. Yes.
Any opposed, say no. All right. Motion passes. This meeting will be divided into three sections. First, we'll have our work session to hear and discuss presentations that do not require a council vote.
Then we'll follow that with a closed meeting, and then the regular business meeting will begin at 6:30. We've got staff reports to start with, with the climate update. Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council.
I'm Crystal Rittervold, the Director of the Office of Sustainability, and I'm joined here this afternoon by Emily Irvin, our Climate Program Manager. We're both pleased to be here to share our annual climate program update.
As a reminder, we're working with the goals of achieving a 45% reduction in our community greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, which is right around the corner, and aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050. We have seen local progress on these ambitious goals, but also acknowledge that climate change effects and impacts are being actively experienced locally and around the world.
And daily, it seems, new impacts are being recognized. Poison ivy that thrives with warmer temperatures and rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, more lightning, including the variety that starts associated with wildfires, and even rapidly evolving microorganisms that could have implications for us humans.
Climate action is both city work and community work. It covers mitigation work, which is the reduction of the greenhouse gas emissions, as well as adaptation and resilience work, the capacity to adjust to and cope with climate-driven stressors and events.
We're already feeling such stressors in the form of the early season extreme heat and drought of this year. Climate work involves education and engagement, support for initiatives that drive action, piloting projects to inform future considerations, tracking the regulatory and policy landscapes, monitoring progress and outcomes, and researching new technologies and initiatives, including integrating lessons learned from our peer communities.
This work is a primary focus for our Office of Sustainability team, and also, importantly, delivered by our colleagues from many departments who are operationalizing climate. It is also being done by our community itself, which is critically important given that over 95% of the emissions are from community activities, most of which are outside of traditional government control.
Charlottesville has been investing in climate action, and today we look forward to sharing some of those updates. Work has happened in municipal operations as well as in support of community action. Projects have again tackled various sectors of emissions, source sectors, the built environment, transportation, and waste.
Climate adaptation and resilience planning is ongoing, with a vision for our community to be strong, safe, and healthy as the impacts of climate change increase. We've tackled solar projects, municipal and school building energy efficiency projects, high performance buildings, residential energy efficiency initiatives, alternate transportation incentives, electrifying equipment, supporting urban forest management planning, and supporting resilience planning.
And if you haven't already, I encourage you to read the recently completed 2026 Climate Action Report. The link in your packet will take you to that report, which is also shared on the city's website.
In this year's presentation, we've actually chosen to highlight various initiatives rather than go through the whole portfolio of work. That said, we welcome any questions you have now or later about the many items that are detailed in the report.
Before we go there, though, I'm going to take a moment to cover some of the things that are presenting new and expanding challenges to climate work. Last year, I referred to a shifting landscape that is undermining commitments to a clean energy transformation and a decarbonized economy.
And here are some of the things that we have seen. Projections of energy demand are outpacing energy production. In the past few years, we've been seeing a steep rise in energy demand, and electricity producers are having a hard time keeping up.
Utilities are making investments in clean energy strategies, including battery energy storage systems. But the pressure to meet demand is driving them to propose new fossil fuel plants and to delay retirement of others.
There was an ongoing legal dispute concerning Virginia's withdrawal from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI. This is the cap and trade program designed to reduce carbon emissions from the power sector.
A few months ago, we were encouraged to learn that the appeal of court order striking down the previous governor's administration's removal from RGGI was withdrawn. And furthermore, provisions requiring Virginia's re-entry into the program are in the proposed state budget bills that have yet to be passed.
And now, Dominion has filed a cost recovery rider with the State Corporation Commission. We've seen further loss in federal funding for various projects, both ours as well as others that would benefit this community or further the clean energy transition.
The passage of Federal House Bill 1 this past summer curtailed many clean energy initiatives, including incentives for tax-exempt entities such as local governments. It terminated incentives for electric vehicles and efficient appliances.
It phased out tax credits for wind and solar and other clean energy technologies. It ended investment in vulnerable communities disproportionately burdened by pollution, and it established new and expanded support for fossil fuels.
Here's some more updates to this shifting landscape. Federal funding for the Solar for All program was rescinded. Virginia had been awarded $156 million to aid about 15,000 income-qualifying households in accessing solar.
Executive orders were issued that, amongst other things, deregulate and accelerate domestic fossil fuel production, reverse prior climate-focused mandates, reduces federal support for renewable energy, and directs the withdrawal from international climate agreements.
There has been much ongoing uncertainty about home energy rebate funding. States administer this program, and in Virginia, we've been waiting to see this launch for over a year. Earlier this month, Federal Department of Energy issued guidance that introduced several key changes to the programs that could affect the pace of energy efficiency deployment, and eliminate incentives for fuel switching, and will probably cause another delay.
The EPA Endangerment Finding was rescinded. In August of 2025, EPA published a notice of proposed rulemaking titled Reconsideration of the 2009 Endangerment Finding and GHG Vehicle Standards. The endangerment finding had become the legal foundation for federal climate policy, including regulating vehicle, industrial, and power plant emissions, and treating climate change as a public health nuisance under EPA's authority.
And in February of 2026, EPA finalized this rescission of the endangerment finding. Litigation on so many of these issues abound. So now that we've gotten through that, I'm actually really proud to be here to share with you what we've been able to get done anyways.
We remain committed to this work. We're encouraged that there's a growing workforce focused on climate action, both mitigation and resilience. We appreciate council support, and with that, I'd like to turn the presentation over to Emily.
Thank you, Kristen. Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for making time for us today. We're pleased to be here to share an update. Let's see. Oh, I'm in charge. All right. So like Crystal mentioned, we are switching it up just a little bit this year.
We usually try to cram every single thing into the slides, but we're going to focus more on a few, what we like to think of as wins. I will start with an update to our greenhouse gas inventory. We'll talk about those wins.
I'll give a brief update on the adaptation resilience planning work. And then we'll look ahead to the next fiscal year, which is coming at us quickly. All right. So I want to start by saying that the encouraging news is that we are making really good progress on the implementation of our climate action plan.
So in the CAP, there are 134 total key actions that are in there, which is a lot. But of those 134, 25 are completed and another 76 are in progress. And so that means only 33 are still awaiting resources, or we haven't even been able to start them yet.
So, some of that work that has been started is very long-term, but we're feeling good about all the many ways that we're pushing forward on implementation of our climate action plan across a lot of different strategies and sectors.
So the disappointing news is that we're also seeing our emissions creep up. As you can see in this annual greenhouse gas inventory graph here, our community-wide emissions are up a little bit less than 5% from last year.
And we have been on this upward trajectory since our pandemic-driven low that we saw in 2020. So since last year, I just said up almost 4 to 5%, it's 4.8%. And so that's about 13% higher than that pandemic low in 2020.
But it's also 10% lower than our 2019, which was our last sort of normal year. And then 37% below our 2011 baseline. So over the next few slides, I'm going to walk you all through what we think some of the primary drivers of the increases that we're seeing.
And then it's also important to keep in mind that this is data from 2024, so we're a little bit behind the present day. All right. So one driving factor in rising emissions is the shifts that we're seeing in the transportation sector.
So this is something that I first talked about last year when I was here, the return to pre-pandemic levels of travel. So the data that we use to estimate community transportation emissions comes from VDOT.
VDOT's traffic monitoring program collects VMT data or vehicle miles traveled for each locality around the state. And so VMT is the total miles traveled in a specific area, and it's divided by different classes of vehicles.
So when we dig into this data, it's kind of an imperfect estimate, but it is a reliable data source year over year. And this is standard protocol for communities in estimating their transportation emissions.
So this chart here compares our 2019 transportation data to the current inventory year, which I mentioned is 2024. And so you can see in the total, in the bottom line there, comparing the two years, it's pretty close.
We're up less than 1%. So really back to our pre-pandemic levels of driving around. But the big difference that you see here is the distribution of vehicle types. So while we are seeing a decrease in the percentage of passenger vehicles, we are seeing a pretty big increase in the number of both light and heavy-duty trucks, which of course are more polluting.
Can I ask a clarifying question? Sure. What is a light truck? What is a heavy truck? So, the VDOT data divides vehicles into, I think, 13 different classes and types. And when we put that data into the tool that we use for doing our emissions calculations, it classifies them into these three categories.
So some of them are lumped together. So heavy duty is- Big rigs ... big rigs. Yeah. Things like that. And then light is sort of medium size, anything that's not light duty, so not passenger vehicles. I think- Where do pickup trucks- Does that fall into our light duty trucks?
I don't remember. Light trucks would be like F-150s, F-250s. Yeah. Okay. So- By federal rule, it's anything under 8,500 pounds. Yeah. Okay. So, the passenger vehicles is maybe like a sedan or a minivan- Yeah ...
and people might be- Yeah. So like- ... reducing that, but then buying pickup trucks instead. Yes. They're in the light truck category. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Okay. So now we're switching over to the building sector.
So these two charts here show our energy use that we use in our buildings. So both natural gas on the top there and electricity on the bottom chart. And in both cases, we get aggregated data by sector.
And so this data comes from Charlottesville Gas for the gas and Dominion for the electricity. So this is total usage data for all buildings within the city, and we're comparing energy use in 2024 to the previous inventory year.
And so the data is showing us a small decrease in gas usage and about a 5.5% increase in electricity. And so it's the electricity data that I'm going to dig into a little in the next slide. So When I was here last year, one of the things that we talked about was the impact of grid greening, which is the electricity from our grid getting cleaner, less carbon intensive over time.
And so this has been a big driving factor in emissions reduction in our region for the past 15 years or so. Across Virginia, across our region, we've been closing coal-fired power plants and largely replacing that with natural gas, which is less carbon intensive.
And of course, we've also been bringing on more renewables, mostly in the form of solar, but wind and batteries are also on the way. But between 2023 and 2024, we saw a reversal of that trend. So this is around the time where we were really starting to see an increase in demand growth that Crystal talked about in her remarks for electricity in our region.
So I know that this chart's a little bit hard to see at this scale. This is annual electricity generation in Virginia. This data is from the Energy Information Agency. But what is important to see here is the rise in generation between 2023 and 2024.
So you can see that dark orange showed the biggest increase in size. That's natural gas. So what that tells us is that to meet the increased demand, electricity generators in Virginia had to use more gas, which led to an increase in the emissions intensity of our electricity in our region.
So this was the first time we'd seen Virginia's energy grid get dirtier, 8% dirtier, in quite a long time. And so not only did we use more electricity, which we're actually trying to do through building and vehicle electrification, but the emissions intensity of the electricity went up, which means our emissions also went up.
And so in Virginia, we still have the Virginia Clean Economy Act, so legislation in place that requires all of Dominion's electricity to be carbon-free by 2045. So they're going to have to get a handle on this.
And this is, of course, related to all the conversation about data centers in our region. That's the number one driver of energy demand in our region. We're also seeing increased demand from electrification of buildings and electric vehicles, and I have to mention that, of course.
But in our region, data centers are having this outsized impact on electricity demand. And even though we don't have any in Charlottesville, this is a ripple effect of that industry being concentrated in our state.
And is this also showing that we used more coal this year than last? Is that kind of- It is ... what the bigger blue is talking about? Yeah. The blue is unfortunately also covering some of the gap. Going the wrong direction.
Yeah. Okay. But also the brown solar on the bottom, which is a funny color for the solar band, is also getting bigger, and we expect that to also continue to get bigger. And it is interesting, so this chart has 2025.
We're talking about 2024 today, but you can see we don't expect to see such a jump in grid emissions intensity between '24 and '25 because they update that factor every year, and hopefully we'll have that factor for when we do our next inventory.
But it was a particularly big jump that we saw this year. Quick question. In the key, there's a Virginia wind in red line. I know. Is there a red line in there? I wasn't able to spot it. Okay. But there's a little...
That's what I said. So the dashboard that is associated with this data source is great, and I encourage everybody to check it out if you really want to dig into the details of electricity in Virginia.
But they're working on that big wind farm. Yeah. It's coming online. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Okay, so this slide is just a summary of what I've just talked everybody through. So overall, our community emissions are up a little less than 5%.
Our municipal emissions are up 9%, but the municipal emissions fit inside the community emissions, and they are about 4% of the total. And of course, city facilities are also being impacted by this increase in emissions from electricity as the same as our community is.
So that's a driver in both of those inventories. And if you're interested, there are some more of the gritty details in the report that is part of your packet if you want to dig into the details a little bit more.
So before we move on to all the good news, I do want to acknowledge that I know this feels disappointing. We felt disappointed about this when my team member, Trey, and I wrapped up the inventory. The first thing I thought was, "Ugh, I'm going to have to present this to council." But I really do hope that we don't get too wrapped up in the carbon accounting because we are still doing a lot of really good work here in Charlottesville that I think is having a positive impact on our community and our community members.
And so the more solar we put on our buildings, we're buffering ourselves against the increased cost of utilities that we know is coming. That's protecting the city and our taxpayers. The more we can help our community members save energy at home, the more it frees up funds for them for other things.
It's the same helping people access alternative transportation, whether that's e-bikes or the bus. It's helping people to save on their transportation costs. And so even though we're not yet seeing a steady decrease of our emissions, I do think we are contributing to improving affordability and quality of life for our community members, and systems changes is really hard, and I do feel like we're trying to do our part here.
So I'm going to transition to the wins. And just one more plug for the report, I do encourage everybody to take a look. It is kind of fun. Even though it's a lot of work to get it all together, it's a rewarding feeling to see everything in one place once we get it all pulled together.
So when I was here last year, the KTEC solar array was under construction. It went into service in the fall, and at 263 kilowatts, which is also 478 panels, just to some people understand that language a little more.
It's currently the largest solar system in the city's building portfolio. So far, it's produced over 200 megawatt hours of power, and so it's on track to meet its annual production projections, which is awesome.
This project was completed under our master energy performance contract, which is also the mechanism that we use to do other energy and water improvement projects within the city and school portfolio.
A local installer did the installation work, and it also had a small workforce development component that was in partnership with a local nonprofit. And as excited as we are about our KTEC solar installation, we're also excited that it will soon be dwarfed by two larger systems, one at Charlottesville High School and one at Charlottesville Middle School.
I'm not going to spend too much time on the details of this. Crystal was here not that long ago, sharing about this project with you all. But we're really happy to finally have these agreements executed and moving forward.
CHS and CMS are both really excellent candidates for solar, not just because of their size, but also because they have new roofs. And so the combined size of those systems will be 2.2 megawatts, which is projected to save the city nearly $4 million in avoided electricity costs over the 25-year term of those agreements.
And we're excited about these projects because they're really going to help us work on our goal of 100% renewable power for municipal facilities by 2030. So since these are two of our biggest buildings, they're also two of our biggest energy users.
And so these projects are going to significantly reduce the electricity we need to purchase from the grid to power these big buildings. So currently, design for these projects is being finalized, and we're waiting on Dominion to do the grid upgrade work that they need to do to interconnect them, and we expect installation to be complete by the end of 2027.
So one last thing related to the built environment. Since 2008, Charlottesville has operated under a green building policy, and so all new buildings built since that time have been LEED certified. But ever since the adoption of the Climate Action Plan, staff have been working on ways to codify and standardize our high-performance best practices.
So they're baked into all city building projects, not just new construction. And so the result of that work is our high performance buildings resolution, which we brought before you all just a few months ago in April, and the associated high performance building standard is the implementation tool for that new policy.
And so that will make sure design, construction, operation, maintenance, and renovation of all of our facilities are to high standards. So just as a little personal anecdote, this was a really fun project to work on.
It brought staff together from capital development and facilities maintenance and sustainability to do a lot of problem-solving and relationship building. And so it was rewarding as staff to work on this project.
Okay. So one of the projects I talked about when I was here last year was our community-wide EV charging study, and that wrapped up in the fall of '25. And so one of the components of that study was an analysis of the city's light duty fleet, and about 155 vehicles were identified as possible candidates for electrification.
So over the past couple of months, our office, Office of Sustainability, has been working with Public Works to develop a five-year vehicle replacement plan that integrates EVs into the municipal fleet.
And between now and FY 2031, we've identified 45 vehicles for EV replacement. Fleet is using their replacement schedule to identify vehicles, so we're not replacing vehicles before their end of life. But largely, Fleet has been handling the vehicle side of things, and Sustainability has been supporting with planning for the charging infrastructure to support that electrification.
And so when we work with them, we know where the vehicles live, where they're parked, what department they'll be with. So that helps us to understand where we need to build out charging infrastructure at a couple of locations across the city.
So in FY26, six new EVs were purchased for the fleet, and as we integrate more electric vehicles, we will start to see some significant cost savings on fuel and maintenance. Electric vehicles can have less total cost of ownership, and so of course, that math improves the more gas costs.
Can I ask a quick question about that? Yes. So do we pay for-- I know when we get replacement buses, FTA helps fund some- Mm-hmm ... of that cost. When we get replacement vehicles for other departments, is any of that offset by the state or the feds, or is that entirely coming from us?
So it's mostly our funding. So some Programs that have state funding like DHS and HHS do get some state support for their vehicles. Okay. Thank you so much. So the electric school buses, this is one of my favorite wins from this year because it's so visible to the community.
So in FY26 we welcomed our first electric school buses to the pupil transportation fleet. These buses were purchased with funds from the 2023 round of EPA's Clean School Bus Rebate. They're Thomas Julie buses, is the type, and they were ordered in late 2024.
They arrived in late 2025, and they started serving students in January of this year. And by all reports, everyone loves the electric buses, the students, the drivers. If you guys didn't see the video that we released with the press release, totally go back and watch it.
It was really fun to make, and it has great testimonials from students and drivers. The DC fast chargers that support the electric school buses were installed and are owned and operated by Dominion through their electric school bus charging program at no cost to us, which is nice.
But one thing that I do have to mention on this front is electric school buses, unlike electric vehicles, are not yet at cost parity with their diesel counterparts. And so even when you take into account fuel and maintenance savings over the life of the bus, we're just not at cost parity yet.
And so without outside funding, and until the cost comes down, it is going to be difficult to continue to add electric school buses to our fleet. So we do continue to work with CAT to explore different options, but I don't feel optimistic that we, in the next year or two, will get any new electric school buses, which is sad.
Wait. Oh, I'm going the wrong way. Okay, so now I'm going to pivot and share about some of our more community-facing programs. One popular program has been our e-bike voucher program, which Office of Sustainability has been working on in collaboration with Neighborhood Development.
The first year of the program was really successful. Of the 112 vouchers that we gave away, 90 of them were redeemed at one of our three local bike shops. As some of you all up there know firsthand, e-bikes can be a really good way to get around our little hilly city.
And there's a lot of benefits besides just the pleasure of riding an e-bike: fewer cars on the road, less traffic, less air pollution, and of course, fewer emissions. So in the first year of the program, all the vouchers that we distributed were worth $1,000.
And we noticed that some of our lower income recipients were redeeming their vouchers at a lower rate than higher income recipients. So it was clear to us that for some community members, $1,000, even though that is a lot of money, was not enough to access an e-bike.
We also saw an increase in the cost of e-bikes over the last year due to tariff pressures. So for the second year, we redesigned the program so that it's tiered. And so now there are three eligibility tiers based on income, and so all community members are eligible for a tier one or $500 voucher.
Community members that are at 80% AMI or less are eligible for a tier two or $1,000 voucher. And community members who are enrolled in a couple of qualified federal benefits programs are eligible for a tier three or $1,500 voucher.
So thus far, two cycles of the redesigned program have happened, and we're collecting data to verify that we are in fact reaching a broader number of community members with the expanded program. And since I'm up here talking in public, I will say that sign-ups for Q3 open July the 1st.
That happens on a quarterly basis. July is the sign-up month for Q3, and so Charlottesville residents can go to cvilleebikes.com anytime in July and register for the Q3 voucher program. Okay. The Energy Resource Hub is one of my favorites, and it's a project that we continue to be really excited about.
So just a reminder, the hub is a partnership between the city, the county's climate program, LEAP, Local Energy Alliance Program, and C3, Charlottesville Community Climate Collaborative. And it supports Charlottesville and Albemarle residents connecting to various energy programs, not just through a website, but with a human being, our energy navigator, who supports people and guides them through the process.
So the thing that we really like about the hub is that it provides a suite of services and programs that work together to help our community members to reduce their energy use. So in FY26, a Charlottesville resident who came to the Energy Resource Hub was eligible for a subsidized home energy audit using funds from a federal energy efficiency and conservation block grant program.
And then once that audit was completed, they could access one or more programs that directly supported making the improvements that were recommended in the audit. So depending on age, veteran status, or income, some people were connected to programs offered by either our own utilities department or Dominion.
And all residents, regardless of income, were also eligible for the new Home Energy Retrofit Mini-Grant program, which we funded with Climate Action Initiative CIP dollars. So that program provided up to $2,000 per household to make a variety of energy improvements.
And no matter which program, community members access to Rosina, who's pictured up here, our energy navigator is there to answer questions or help with paperwork or just support the process. So, in 2025, the Energy Resource Hub helped 178 city residents learn about and connect to local energy programs.
It also served an additional 130 county residents. LEAP provided 167 energy assessments to Charlottesville residents, with over 66% of those being for age or income-qualified community members. 76 homes received weatherization services through one or more utility-funded energy efficiency programs, and 55 more homeowners went on to take advantage of our residential mini-grant program.
So we're really pleased with the way that these programs work together and are augmenting one another, and this work will continue in FY27. And so far, I've only been talking about how the Energy Resource Hub serves homeowners, but it has always also been envisioned to serve the commercial side as well.
And so we made significant progress on that this year. We are in partnership with C3, who's always been the commercial audit partner within the resource hub. We're launching a small business energy efficiency program that will help business owners to access energy improvements to their building.
So we've been working on the program design, and we're excited to launch this program within the next couple of weeks. And it will provide participants with a commercial-level audit, technical assistance that's suitable for a commercial space, and funds to support some energy upgrades.
And it was designed to specifically shake hands with Dominion's Small Business Improvement program. So leveraging outside funds for local business owners that often lack the time or expertise to be able to take advantage of that program.
So we think of this as like a sister program to our residential program, and it'll continue to be marketed through the Energy Resource Hub. Emily, do the businesses have to own the space that they're in to get that assistance?
No. Hmm. Thank you. Not to access our program. I don't know the answer if they have to own their building to take advantage of the Dominion funds. Susan's going like this behind you, so I'm going to say no.
Okay. Okay, awesome. Thank you. Okay. So the Office of Sustainability recognizes that engagement is something that's really important in this community, and we make a big effort to try to be a visible presence within the community.
I always say it's especially near and dear to the climate program because we know that 96% of our emissions or so are from the community, so we really need everyone's help, and we're here to support that.
So, we also do a lot of our community engagement in partnership with other partners, and that can mean other city departments or outside partners. So we're always out and about with friends in the community, it seems.
So in FY26, we continued our Climate Cafe series, which is a bimonthly casual conversation-focused gathering around various sustainability topics. We gathered folks this year to talk about transit, energy efficiency, food justice, water conservation, mobility, and we plan to continue doing that series in FY27.
Another new thing for us this year was Eco Fair. We partnered with the Botanical Garden at the Piedmont this year to celebrate Earth Day. That event brought over 300 people together at the Botanical Garden and featured community demonstrations, educational talks, volunteer opportunities, performances.
That was a fun event. Another big event that our office supports every year is River Fest, which of course, brings folks together to celebrate the Rivanna. And an aspect of this engagement work that actually is not called out on this slide is the work that we have been doing on our employee engagement program.
So in this past year, we piloted our WISE or Working in a Sustainable Environment program, and that is designed to empower city employees to take part in supporting our climate and sustainability goals.
And of course, we're talking about systems change here, so we have to talk about pulling levers beyond just our community. So there are quite a few key actions in the Climate Action Plan related to state-level advocacy and engagement around policies that have an impact on our sustainability work locally.
So we're always on the lookout to provide comments or take positions on climate and clean energy legislation at the state level. So in 2026, we participated specifically in two issues. So in September, Charlottesville joined several other Virginia municipalities to file a second amicus brief in support of Virginia remaining in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI.
So of course, you all know that program generates funds for flood prevention and low-income weatherization, so that's climate resilience work, and we have benefited locally from those funds several times.
So we definitely want to keep that flow of money flowing. And then in January of this year, we submitted written comments to the State Corporation Commission related to Dominion's proposal to change its net metering policy.
So net metering is the agreement between the utility and the owner of a small-scale energy generation like rooftop solar. And the proposed changes would have really had a negative impact on affordability of solar for all Virginians, including Charlottesvilleans, of course.
And so in May, the SEC rejected that proposal from Dominion and preserved the current net metering policy, which is much more favorable for owners of small-scale solar. And then recently, there was a victory related to another regulatory issue that we engaged on, not this year, but in FY25.
So back then, we made comment for another SEC item in support this time of Dominion's Shared Solar Program. And since that time, that program has been enabled, and we're now working with LEAP and the Energy Resource Hub to connect interested community members with shared solar opportunities.
And so that allows community members who maybe cannot have solar at their home, whether they're a renter or in a multi-family building or for whatever reason, they live in the shade, they can still access some of the benefits of solar.
All right. So we are not going to spend too much time talking about this this afternoon. We plan to bring you all a more in-depth presentation on this later in the year, but I wanted to provide a quick status update on the adaptation and resilience planning effort.
So you all know that climate action falls broadly into two buckets. Crystal talked a little bit about this during her opening remarks, but mitigation or reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, that's what we're talking about this afternoon, and then adaptation and resilience, which is strengthening our systems to the impacts of climate change.
And so the city's commitment to the Global Covenant of Mayors requires us to do both. And so the Climate Action Plan, talking about today, focused on our mitigation work, and then the forthcoming Adaptation and Resilience Plan is the sister document that will be our roadmap to building community resilience and adapting to more extreme weather.
So for the past two years or so, we've been working collaboratively with Albemarle and UVA on the Resilient Together project. And that has been doing research and engagement and strategy development for the resilience plans.
And so now we have reached the point, which was always planned, that we have a draft of the Charlottesville-specific Adaptation and Resilience Plan. And so it's undergone an initial review by a small group of staff stakeholders, and will soon go to a broader group of stakeholders for the next phase of the review, and that will include partner organizations.
So we expect to release a draft for public comment in the late summer or early fall, and then we also anticipate coming back to you all in another work session later in the fall to share about the plan prior to bringing it forward for adoption.
It's been a pretty long road to get here with some detours that we had not planned upon, but I'm actually really pleased with the document, and I'm looking forward to bringing it into the light of day.
So just a little more detail about it. So I already mentioned it's a requirement of our commitment to the Global Covenant of Mayors, and we think of it as a sister plan to the CAP. I feel like you've been using that term a couple of times during this presentation, but it's cool.
So like the Climate Action Plan, it is strategic in nature, but we did try to take some lessons learned from the development of our Climate Action Plan and make this plan both a little bit simpler and taking a few more steps towards the implementation planning part of the work.
So within the plan, there are 16 resilience strategies that cover a pretty broad range of topics, biodiversity, buildings, emergency response, community education, urban heat, wildfire preparedness. That's just a few, but so it covers a lot of topics.
And then within each strategy, there are implementation projects or steps that are associated that will help us to realize the broader strategy. So the implementation steps that are in the plan are focused largely on what the local government can do, either on our own or in partnership.
But what we have said throughout this whole Resilient Together process is resilience isn't really something the local government can do to or for the community. It's really something that has to be co-created.
So each strategy also has a number of suggestions about what community members can do, either at the organizational level or at the household level to support resilience building in our community. And we're almost to the end.
I want to just spend a few minutes talking about our plans for next year. So one of the packet items this evening is our new FY27 Climate Action Work Plan. It's pretty extensive. I think there are 45 line items on it in nine different outcome areas.
We work across the city organization to put that work plan together. And we definitely don't have time to go over it in detail, so I just will hit a couple of the highlights, maybe a sampler of the work plan.
So we talked about the Adaptation and Resilience Plan. And another thing I wanted to mention about that is it's our intention to bring that forward as an amendment to the comprehensive plan, which we also did with the Climate Action Plan.
And then the next suite of projects that will take place under our energy performance contract or Master Energy Agreement is a suite of schools that will get energy efficiency upgrades this year, predominantly lighting retrofits.
So this work is planned for KTEC and four other elementary schools, and will result in energy and cost savings of course. And one thing just to highlight that's particularly cool about this project is it will make our solar project at KTEC even more effective because it will reduce the energy usage at KTEC so that solar will cover even more of that building's energy needs.
So that's how we're building on the work. I talked a little bit about the power purchase agreements and the solar installations at CHS and CMS. Those projects have been tons of planning and contracting type work, and now they're moving into installation in this next fiscal year.
So we look forward to getting those underway on the roofs of our buildings. So I mentioned we'll continue our support for the energy resource hub, expanded to businesses in a more intentional way in the next year.
There are also rumors afoot, I would say, about the long-delayed federal funds for home energy improvements, that there's rumor that money may start flowing in Virginia in the next year. And so if that does materialize, the energy resource hub will be ready to help our community members to take as much advantage of those programs as possible.
Sharing the love a little, CAT will be welcoming its first two electric transit buses pretty soon, and I know that the installation of the charging infrastructure that will support those buses is underway.
And also we're finally making progress on the expansion of our neighborhood compost drop-off locations, which is a project that's been languishing a little for a while, but we're excited to be moving on that one.
So that's just kind of a taste, a sampler of things that we have on the horizon for next year. Thank you all again for your time, and we welcome any questions that you have. Great. Thank you so much. That was very thorough.
And I learned a lot about all the great things in the work, the great things that we are able to do given the constraints that you mentioned at the beginning. Anyone have any questions? Jen? I have a couple.
Okay. Dr. Silva. With the list of achievements in the 160, or there were 70 that were rolling- Mm ... and where did we think we would be right now? Oh, that's a good question. Right exactly. Right exactly where we are.
Okay, good. That's what I thought. And do we have any sense of similar like Harrisonburg, or are there other localities investing like we are and getting the same ROI? Do we know where we stand with the increase, the 4%?
Sorry. Well, everybody- Okay ... in our region is being impacted by that- The ... increase in emissions from the building sector. Okay. Everybody's being impacted by increase, like being back to- The pre-pandemic ...
pre-pandemic levels of travel. So, those are very broad systems issues that are affecting everyone. Okay. So everyone's feeling that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, definitely. And in Charlottesville, we're very urbanized, so we're not under some development pressures that the county is under, for example.
So it is different per locality. Some of it is locality specific, but the issues we talked about today are impacting everyone. Okay. I will share. We just went to an annual meeting of Southeast Sustainability Directors Network, and there was a conversation about trying to identify a couple of key metrics- Mm-hmm ...
that we're all working on, and trying to even aggregate that at the regional level so that we could perhaps show needle moving but have it be, whether it's electric vehicles or electrification. So that's work that probably will be happening over the next while.
Oh, great. Okay. Yeah, that will be super helpful. Does that increase in usage put our 2030 goal at risk, or was there already a kind of room for error built into that goal? Like just one, this bump? Well, it's a delay, right?
We looked at '24 data. A lot of the big projects that we have accomplished, especially within the city's portfolio over the last couple of years, are definitely not impacting our inventory yet because we just haven't gotten to when they would be seen.
Right? And then between now and 2030, we'll have those big solar installations. Maybe we can do a virtual power purchase agreement. Okay. I think there's still room to make it. Yeah. And also, in a state with a clean energy standard for electricity, which is what the Virginia Clean Economy Act is, Dominion is legally required to be moving in the right direction.
So I do hope- You don't feel like we should recalibrate right now. You're like- I'm not ready to say we should spend time on recalibrating. Fantastic. Yeah. Can I ask one more question? I think we should just keep putting our resources into making progress.
And then last question. What are the goals for the energy research hub? We did 178, but what would be like A plus that we haven't- Ooh, that's a good question. We probably need to work. We track our metrics from the hub, but we probably need to set some specific goals.
If we reached 176 community members in our first year, it might be great to reach over 200 community members. Yeah, just to say what success looks like. It'll be interesting to see if the state program is able to start this year, how many people we can direct into that program will be a metric of success.
I will be very excited to see how many businesses that we can serve over the next, it's an 18-month period of performance we have. So over the next 18 months, can we use up all of the resources that we have put into that program?
That would be success. Excellent. Thank you. Michael, did you have anything? Yeah. Thank you for the update and all the information. As you highlighted, there's a lot of negative things in the climate space at a national and international level, but it's definitely worth highlighting and celebrating how much progress we've made locally and how far we've come, even just in the adoption of the Climate Action Plan and the fund to implement it annually, and the new staff positions, and then all the work that you highlighted today is just a tremendous change, I think, for the better locally.
A few questions. So, obviously the electrification of our bus fleet is paused with federal funding cuts. But I think there's still an opportunity around hybrid buses as part of the fleet expansion and not just diesel.
What does that work currently look like? So, there is an item related to this in the work plan, which is the study of whether we need to pivot our plans to include diesel hybrids. Okay. So that is something we'll be working on in FY27.
Okay. I didn't know diesel hybrids were a thing. Well, for school buses. No. Wait, no, transit buses. Yeah. Transit buses. Yes, transit buses. Which we already have some of, but they're old first gens that are complicated.
Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's good, and I hope we're able to time it to not miss too many opportunities with our fleet expansion, because I think the current technology is reliable, and obviously the emission impact, but also just the impact on air quality, I think would also be a positive benefit.
In addition, you highlighted the solar work, rooftop solar. What would it look like or entail if the Charlottesville Airport was going to be included as a priority for solar installation? That's a question you ask me every year that I never have a great answer for.
And I think every year we look at the city's board members on the airport authority to help guide that conversation. But if we put solar on the airport, it doesn't change the emissions in the city. So that is one reality.
It's a big airport. It's a big roof. It's got a lot of land. I think the conversation should be explored. Mm-hmm. Well, I continue to bring it up, and will again, just because Charlottesville and Albemarle do have those board seats to dictate the policy direction, and we've heard in the past that they just very, I think, were complacent, and the CHO itself was complacent in not wanting to explore at all solar.
I think their response so far has been, "Well, it's not in our existing master plan, so we're not going to explore it." Well, that's not a very compelling answer to me. It seems like a missed opportunity.
But I hope that can make it in, because I think, as you said, it's a large roof. It's also just a large amount of land. I also had a question. I think you kind of answered it. I had a question on what the climate resilience work would look like, but it sounds like at a later date, we're going to get an in-depth presentation about that.
I think that was largely it. I guess the final question is, I know we have the fund for a million dollars annually for the implementation of the work in our Climate Action Plan. What's the scale of what that money is able to do annually versus work that's still not able to be completed, if that makes sense?
Well, we are using the fund both for capital projects and for programmatic type of initiatives. And so frankly, that's the limiting factor. More dollars would realize more capital projects. More dollars could realize expanded or additional community-type initiatives.
Okay. So we're trying to find a sweet spot that we're doing, making progress in both. Mm-hmm. And real final last question. Natural gas utility. I know there's work underway around that. Where is that currently at in terms of a date that we should expect an update on the new decarbonization study around our natural gas utility?
So, my understanding is that C3, who's the lead in that project, is hoping to bring their recommendations forward before the end of the calendar year. Mm-hmm. 10 o'clock. Just quickly, hi, Susan Cruz with C3.
The folks who are doing the energy modeling of the study and mapping out the pathways are going to be here July, I think it's 6th and 7th. And so we're going to be hosting several events and opportunities for city staff, city leadership, community members, businesses, et cetera, to engage with Dunsky Climate & Energy Advisors, who's leading that energy modeling for feedback on our first...
At the end of this month, we're going to get a draft of scenarios and opportunities and get community feedback at that time. So they will be here for two solid days, and we are working on packing that agenda.
And so you all, Cyv is not here tonight because she's probably sending you all invitations to attend some of those listening sessions. Thank you. That's it for me. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Great.
Thank you so much. I have a couple questions as well, and I know we're running low on time a little bit, so I'll try and be brief. I know you have another report. Yeah. But I really did appreciate how extensive and thorough this one was.
I want to just mention how great it was to hear about the teamwork that went into the high-performance building standards, the teamwork across departments. It's really nice to see. And then wanted to just clarify that we saw our numbers go up, but that doesn't include the KTEC installation, which was this past- Right ...
year. So that data hasn't been incorporated yet, so- Right. And neither the Bypass Fire Station, there's enough- Right. We've done a lot in the last couple of years that wasn't reflected in this data.
So that's- We've done- ... that's good ... some big energy savings projects here in City Hall, City Hall Annex, so- Mm-hmm ... that work will start to show up. Yeah. I'm looking forward to those numbers, when we get them.
Yeah. And then, you mentioned for KTEC and for the school solar, it will be 60%-ish of the usage will be covered by that. You might not be able to answer this off the top of your heads, but what kind of carbon offset does that look like?
Or what does that reduction look like in not just kilowatt hours or percentage, but like- We can get you those estimates- Okay ... but I don't know off the top of my head. Okay. Yeah, I think that would be cool to see.
Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Thank you. And then for the solar installation, I know that parking lot installs involve more infrastructure than rooftops, and our goal hopefully as most of our goals, and should be to reduce the amount of open parking lots that there are in the city.
But in the meantime, what kind of programs are available to help add solar to open spaces like that in a city environment? So to my knowledge- None could be the answer. Yeah. So to my knowledge- Yeah.
It's limited ... it's limited. So there was some legislation in the recent General Assembly session around solar canopy allowances, and I believe it's allowed in the new zoning code. That's an allowance for parking lots.
And so nothing is stopping us in Charlottesville, should a developer or a property owner be interested in that. Mm-hmm. I would love to see some development of canopy solar in our community. Is that something that the resource hub can help guide businesses- Oh, that's a good question ...
towards? Yes, I think that's something that if a commercial entity was interested in that, we could at least help them get some of the answers that they needed and find some resources. Yeah, maybe in the future we'll do a commercial solarize or something.
Yeah, I will say the two other opportunities, LEAP runs a solarize campaign each year. Mm-hmm. And this year- Which is open right now. And this year, one of the models that they're offering and really helping households with is a leased type of arrangement versus an owner-financed arrangement.
And then the Virginia General Assembly also passed allowance for balcony solar- Right ... which is never going to offset a whole household, but it is going to be another opportunity for people who are interested to bring some small, like literally off their balcony or some other lower technology systems.
So they're all tools in the toolbox. Yep. More solar everywhere as fast as we can. That's good. Okay, great. Thank you so much. Last call for questions, comments? And just as a quick follow-up, because Googling it, there were one bill for a grant program for parking lot canopy solar, and another bill to allow localities to require it for a parking lot above a certain size.
Both of those haven't passed, but maybe there's an opportunity for our legislative packet to advocate for them. There's a little momentum there. Yeah. Great. That's great. All right. Well, thank you all.
All right. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks. I got to call the next one. And then our next presentation is about our human rights ordinance revisions. Mr. Niemeyer? Good evening, everybody. Thank you for another opportunity to speak to you this evening.
Tonight, I'm talking about ordinance revisions, which we've done a number of over the years. This Collection of ordinance revisions is a little bit more limited than the ones that we've done in the past.
I think we're at the stage of refining the ordinance at this point. So tonight is just an opportunity for you to review the ordinance amendments that are proposed by the commission and ask any questions.
We'll come back at a later meeting if you choose to adopt those and put them on the action items or consent agenda. So just very briefly, this is the 30,000-foot view of the changes that we're making.
So first of all, the commission adopted them on April 16th, and the main things here are looking at some of the revisions to membership requirements, something that we worked closely with the city attorney's office on revising.
The updated wording and terms in certain spots, we just wanted to make it a little bit more cohesive because we had some conflicting terms in certain spots. Talking about protocols for complainant non-response.
We were having some delays in being able to finish cases for that, and so we'll talk a little bit about those changes. And then when we render a finding of no reasonable cause, we just updated the procedure for a complainant to file a request for appeal.
And also talked a little bit about delegation of decision-making and contractual services for housing cases, specifically when we're outside of the fair housing, what do we call it, fair housing assistance program work-share with the federal government.
Which we are currently trying to figure out what we can do around contractual services when we are not in that particular arrangement. And then also just adding a conflict of interest clause for commissioner participation in public hearings.
So I'm going to go through these really quickly, and then if you have questions, just let me know. If you look in the agenda packet, there is a copy of the draft ordinance that's color-coded. New things are underlined in green.
Things that we're proposing for removal are striked through in red. So that makes it a little easier to find. Okay. Bless you. The first one here, section 2-432, is where we changed the language around what criteria council should be looking at to select members of the commission.
And what we're doing here is trying to make sure that the language there coincides with state and federal law and doesn't present any exclusionary language that might get us in any trouble. Unusually, that language had been in there since 2013, and only now are we realizing, "Oh, we probably need to update that." So that's one change.
We're also seeing that reflected in our rules and procedures for the commission, which are sort of their bylaws. We've removed that same language from there as well. This section talks about the individual assistance that we provide.
The really simple change here is that we added the word inquiries into that language because a lot of what comes in, the vast majority of what comes into the office is not a complaint of discrimination, but rather somebody inquiring whether something is a complaint or something that we cover, and we often do a referral or provide some other guidance there.
So that's just a very small language change. Here's where we get into the complainant and respondent non-response issue. So trying to summarize this in a quick way. The idea is that when we're in the middle of an investigation or trying to bring people together for mediation, if the complainant doesn't respond to the office's request for information or request for a next step for 30 days, we send a notice that says, "Hey, we haven't heard from you in 30 days.
Please respond to us within the next 30 days after receiving this notice, so that we can know what to do with your case." The problem was we'd send a notice out, somebody would respond, and we'd go, "Okay, we'll keep it open." And then they wouldn't respond for another 30 days.
We'd send another notice, and they'd say, "Oh, I'm still here, I'm still here. Keep it going." We'd wait another 30 days and then no response, so we'd have this ongoing cycle of 30 day no response. And so what we're saying now is that if we send a 30-day notice that says, "Hey, we haven't heard from you.
Please respond within the next 30 days." If another 30-day period goes with no response, we'll administratively close your case. Just so that we don't have all these cases just sitting there, not moving forward and remaining open and sort of tying up our resources.
So that's what that is. We also changed wording in there that says it's not just a non-response to the investigator, it's also a non-response to anybody within the office. And that goes for respondent non-response, where we won't close a case for respondent non-response, but we will say, "We're going to move on without you." Right?
So that's the difference between complainant and respondent in that situation. But any case, that's that, and this is going to pop up in two other spots in the ordinance, so when we get to it, I'm just going to breeze right by it because it's the exact same amendment.
Because this one applies to employment, the other one to housing, and then the third to public accommodation, credit, and private education. So moving on from that. This piece is changing language here.
We had some discrepancy in language about insufficient versus no reasonable cause. We've adopted everything within the ordinance or adapted everything within the ordinance to say no reasonable cause, which is the language used in federal statute.
So we wanted to mirror that because obviously we still have to maintain substantial equivalence to federal fair housing law if we're ever to enter into a fair housing assistance program agreement. And that took a long time to get, so we don't want to lose that.
In addition, just adding a little bit of clarification around how a A complainant can request a public hearing or an appeal by the commission for a finding of no reasonable cause that I determine. And that was just to say that the old language said that they would contact the commission, but there's not really a direct route for a complainant to contact the commission other than showing up at a meeting.
And so it's more they contact the office. We're the point of contact for the public in general, especially for things revolving around a complaint, and then we would relay that information to the commission in a timely fashion so that the appeal could go forward.
So that's that piece. Again, this is another one that falls into all three sections in the ordinance pertaining to all five protected activities. So this one will show up again. We'll breeze over it when we get there because it's the same.
Next thing here, looking at it real quick. Okay, so this is around decision-making authority when it comes to housing discrimination complaints. So the history here is that for substantial equivalence to federal fair housing law, HUD said you have to centralize all of your decision-making that pertains to complaints within the Office of Human Rights.
You can't externalize, contract anything out, right? The only exception to that would be mediation. We didn't have a real clear definition on that because that wasn't part of what's considered in federal law.
So what we're saying in this particular piece is that we would still be able to outsource decision-making authority, say there was an absence of staff or something like that, for housing discrimination complaints in the situation in which we're not entered into a Fair Housing Program agreement.
So if we were into the Fair Housing Assistance Program agreement, we'd follow the rule that, yes, we'd centralize all our decision-making authority there. But while we're not, we should be able to outsource because it makes things more efficient.
So if we don't have any staff, we need to be able to outsource the decision-making, for example. So that's a provision just to make sure that we have continuity of service regardless of the situation we may find ourselves in staffing-wise.
So there'll be another follow-up amendment that relates to this in a little bit. It might be the next one. No, it's not the next one. This is the same non-response clause that you saw in the employment one, just catered towards housing in this place.
Here, this is the same thing about how we handle the complainant's request for public appeal. So that's the same thing as it was in employment. Here it is in housing. And here we get back to decision-making authority and contracting of services when we're not part of a FAP agreement.
So in this case, we subdivided the section into two pieces that outlines what we can do if we are in a Fair Housing Assistance Program and what we can do if we're not. And basically, it just means we can contract things like informal dialogue, mediation, conciliation, investigation, or cause-finding, which is when we make a determination whether discrimination occurred on a case when we are not in a FAP agreement, right?
We could not do all of that when we are in a FAP agreement. Only mediation was included for contracted services in that. So in any case, it's just an efficiency thing. It allows us to do more with less when we're not in that agreement.
If we are in the agreement, it all goes back under our own house. Okay. Getting so close. Here is the same thing about 30-day non-response, but for public accommodation credit, private education. We'll keep going.
Next, here we go again on the wording around how does a complainant file an appeal. Again, nothing fancy there. The same thing as in the other two sections. Moving on. And here we are into something new.
So these next few things pertain to the commission specifically. This one is just to make sure that if commissioners are engaged in a public hearing of discrimination, it's just to make sure that we assess for conflict of interest before they engage.
So if, for example, a commissioner has some relationship to either respondent or complainant, they should recuse themselves from participating in that hearing. Okay? We didn't have that in there before.
It makes sense. It's obvious. It's part of law in the state. Let's drop it in here so we make sure we're paying attention to that when we get to public hearings. This last little piece here, again, changing that insufficient cause to no reasonable cause language again there.
And also, we added again the language around how do people file for a public hearing on an appeal of a finding of no reasonable cause. And I think that was it. So any questions on all those pretty dry presentations?
Sorry about that, but we did it pretty quickly. So questions? Michael? Thank you for the update. Yep, sure. And important, even though it's dry. But I would say I don't really have any questions. To me, all the changes seemed pretty straightforward, and I agree with that framework of kind of specifying how to do things if we're not in an FHAP agreement, given that for at least the next few years, it's very likely we won't be, unfortunately.
So no real questions, really. I'm supportive of all the changes you outlined and don't have any issues with any of them. Okay. Lloyd? I have no questions. Jen? It all makes sense to me. Yeah, the ordinances all make sense.
I wondered, you mentioned about the referrals or questions. That's what's coming in the most. Are you tracking what the most asked are? Oh, yeah. And is there somewhere to funnel that? How does that work?
Yeah, absolutely. And this is kind of going back to the last month's presentation. In the annual report, we track all the The referrals with regard to where we're sending things, like to what agency, how many did we send to that agency and this agency?
So that's in the annual report. But in addition to that, the other component to take a look at in that report is around navigation and advocacy. So it's another classification that we use when we have something come in.
It's not a complaint, it's not a non-jurisdictional allegation of discrimination, but it's somebody looking for some sort of service that we don't provide, but they need help accessing the service somewhere else, and how do we guide them there as efficiently as possible.
So, if you look in there, that information is there. I can tell you that the overwhelming thing that people ask about is housing navigation. And I define that quite broadly from anywhere from, "How do I find housing?" And we try not to handle that because that's a whole ball of wax in and of itself.
But, it also encompasses things like, "I can't have this dialogue with my landlord, and I've got this conflict. It's not discriminatory, but I don't know how to talk to them. Can you help me?" And we try to outsource those things, but there's really not very many resources for that to happen, especially if it's not, say, a lawsuit that is winnable in court.
And just having somebody talk to the landlord to resolve a conflict, we get involved in that sometimes on a limited basis. Usually when we say we can see the clear path, and we can do it quickly, but you can really get bogged down in that work.
So you'll see in the report that we've tried to narrow that navigation and advocacy down as much as possible because you can spend all your time doing that stuff. So there's kind of a gap for mediation with landlords- There is to a degree ...
locally. Yeah. At one point, Piedmont Housing Alliance had a landlord mediation person on staff in their housing hub. Since that person left, I don't think they've renewed that. And they may do a little bit of that engagement, but mostly what they're doing, as I understand it, is they're helping people find housing, maybe pay a deposit or for first month's rent or something like that, but not sort of negotiating conflicts.
So sometimes I'll work with Piedmont Housing Alliance on stuff like that as well if sort of a tenant comes to us, and they've been really great about that. But there's not really an external resource for that negotiation that I'm aware of for us to just refer someone to.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So put it in your thinking cap because that's an important thing as housing is just incredibly difficult to navigate, especially if you don't have much money. Right. And then this is such an ignorant question, forgive me.
Right. If you have a repeat... I don't know how to say it. Like repeat offender, or some organization or some agency that you're continually getting complaints or going down these paths of process with- Mm-hmm ...
how do you manage that? Where does that go? Yeah. So that's something I'm thinking about a lot actually. And I'll be careful here because that stuff's confidential and sensitive, especially if we have cases open that are in progress.
What I would say is some folks we hear about as respondents multiple times, some of them are amazing in that they come to the table and resolve. And for those, I'm not really concerned because stuff comes up all the time.
People's perceptions of something feels off. They report to us. They have grounds for a complaint, and then we go, "Oh," we mediate, we talk it out, things are good again, and they both reconcile, right?
That's great. Happy to receive more complaints like that about the same respondent. In other cases, I have more concerns where I am seeing recurring problems with a respondent. And sometimes they're willing to come to the table, sometimes they aren't.
There's inconsistent responses, and it points to other systemic challenges within that respondent's sort of customer service or some sort of thing like that. Again, I'm not going to say too many details because I'll get myself in a mess here.
But, what I would like to do is probably for some of those, maybe draft a bit of a memo to city manager to say, "Hey, what would you think about us approaching this a little bit differently?" Especially if it's somebody that is well-known and takes a lot of or does a lot of things for our community that we want supported.
So things like that. I- Get some sort of threshold, and then yeah. Yeah. Like some system. What is that threshold? I don't know. Right. I think I'm at it at a certain point, and how I then go kind of glean through the data to find the systemic issues that are outside of the complaint is the next thing.
I'm thinking about how to do that. Once we get our policy and impact analyst in, I may have the intern do a little bit of that, but it's complicated, and it's going to take time to sort through the data.
But we also kind of know intuitively and can go back through the cases that we know have had trouble and maybe pull out some things quickly. So yes. Okay. Stay tuned because that is an issue, and I want to think about that.
Thank you. Yeah. Great. Thanks. I just have one question. Yeah, sure. Which is you mentioned complainants who don't respond after 30 days- Mm-hmm ... they get a reminder to... Is there any commonality in why they're not responding?
Oh, boy. Yeah, I think there's commonality. Let me think about this. Or systemic cause. Well, so let me turn the eye inward for a second and say, "Well, what's wrong with our process?" Sometimes I look at that and say, "Is our process too complicated?
Are we not exploring all avenues?" And I would say that, yes, it's complicated. It sort of is complicated by nature once we get to investigation, unfortunately. I would say at the intake process, through alternative dispute resolution, we're constantly reaching out and trying to make things work because that's the opportunity moment really, is at that beginning stage when people are still willing to have a dialogue.
Once we get into investigation, it just becomes adversarial. That's just kind of the nature of that process. And I think that sometimes that gets intimidating for people or confusing for people, and so we will try to follow up as much as we can, but there becomes a certain point where you go- You either got to come with us or we're going to have to let you go because we've got 10 other cases that we're trying to work on at the same time.
So that's kind of where... Yeah. But I think it's a challenging process. I think people bring a degree of stress and trauma into the process inherently, and investigation, unfortunately, is a triggering process, because we have to revisit the same thing that brought you in, in the first place.
And so I think that that becomes hard. And again, people are not only experiencing what they experienced in terms of what they filed the complaint about, they may be experiencing other challenges that makes it hard for them to even make time for that process.
So that's why I focus a lot on alternative dispute resolution and try to really encourage it. We can't make anybody do that, but it's an opportunity that once it kind of slips through their fingers, it's hard to get back because it kind of snowballs in terms of people's unwillingness to work together if we go too deep.
Okay. Great. No, it's something to always look at, like what are the barriers within our process? Yeah. I appreciate the fact that your first instinct is to think, is it something we're doing? So- Totally ...
that's great. We're always having those meetings internally about like, can we tweak this? Can we tweak that? Yeah. So it's an ongoing process to make it better. But- Okay ... thanks for asking. Great.
Thank you so much. Yeah. And we'll be working on, you guys can maybe let the clerk know what you want to do with this ordinance, if you want to put it on action item or consent agenda for the future. I think the next meeting is the 20th of Oct- July ...
July. Yeah. I'm saying October. Where am I? July. And we'll work on the preamble piece, because I know there's a whole preamble that goes along with it that you kind of attach to it once you formally pass it.
That's in review right now. So, yeah, let us know, and we'll be ready to do it. All right. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you. And we did it, 5:24. All right. And on that note, about time, do we have a motion to go into closed meeting?
Yes. Pursuant to Section 2.2-3712 of the Virginia Code, I move that the City Council close this open meeting and convene in a closed session as authorized by the Virginia Freedom of Information Act as follows.
One, pursuant to Virginia Code Section 2.2-3711 (1) for discussion and consideration of prospective candidates to be appointed to the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority Board. Two, pursuant to Virginia Code Section 2.2-3711 (7) for consultation with legal counsel pertaining to actual or probable litigation where such consultation or briefing in open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or litigating posture of the public body, specifically a matter involving a former city employee and Columbia Gas of Virginia versus City of Charlottesville.
Three, pursuant to Virginia Code Section 2.2-3711 (8) for consultation with legal counsel employed or retained by a public body regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such counsel, specifically state and local regulations pertaining to the preservation of historic properties, including the Wertland Street Historic District.
That's my motion. Do I have a second? Second. Would you like us to vote a voice vote or- It's not walking yet. Okay. All in favor? Ayes. Yes. All right. The motion passes. We're now in a closed meeting.
We will return around 6:30. For anyone joining by Zoom, there is a separate link for the 6:30 meeting. Good evening, folks. I move that this council, certified by a recorded vote, that to the best of each council member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom Information Act and identified in the motion convening the closed session were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed session.
Was there a second? Second. Are we all logged in to vote? Yes. All right. Please go ahead and cast your vote. So how do I initiate the vote? I've got to figure out how to get back to it. Okay. I can mark it for you, too.
Oh, let's just... Voice, I'm a yes. Okay. All right, and the motion passes four to nothing. Just as a brief recap, Mayor Wade is out of town this week, so that's why I'm up here. Hello. During closed session, we voted to appoint Bridget Moss to the at-large position on the CRHA board.
Oh, you would have to do it as a motion first. Oh, sorry. Right. We discussed that. I will entertain a motion. I would move that we appoint Bridget Moss to the CRHA board. Is there a second? Second. All right.
All in favor? Yes. Yes. All right. The motion passes. Welcome, Bridget. Can you talk a little louder? Can you talk a little louder? Yeah. Test, test. Yeah. All right. Sorry about that. Thanks for letting me know.
And now we will begin our business meeting with a moment of silence. All right, thanks everyone. Are there any announcements this side? No. Any announcements, Michael? Okay, thanks. I just have a couple.
I wanted to note that there's no Monday meeting the first Monday of July. Our next council meeting is July 20th. But several other meetings are going on in July, so just check in with the city calendar to see what's going on.
Also, July is the next installment of the e-bike voucher program application period. So every quarter you can apply. So check that out on Cville Connect to find out more information about the vouchers and how to apply and what information you need to submit.
And then thirdly, it's always nice to recognize the success of products of our Charlottesville school system. So I'd like to congratulate Jalen Brunson ... a Walker and Buford Middle School student, and his New York Knicks on their NBA championship over the weekend.
Thanks. Last call for announcements. All right, wonderful. We'll now move on to community matters. There are some pre-registered speakers, and then there's going to be... Sorry, there's seven pre-registered, and then some folks on the wait list that will take up that eighth spot, and then eight additional slots for speakers on community matters.
Each speaker will have up to three minutes to speak on topics that are not listed as public hearings. So if your item is coming later in the agenda as a public hearing, please save your comments for that.
If it's not, then please, you are welcome to speak now. I will just remind everyone that it is a three-minute limit, and that goes across the board for everybody. And your time will be noted on the screens.
I will now open the floor to pre-registered speakers. Is Heidi Bertaux available? Thank you. Good evening, councilors. My name is Heidi Divya Bertaux. We know you are very busy with many issues and projects.
You have before you handouts that we gave you Yet we would like to remind you of the sustained efforts of the Court Square Enslavement Memorial group to restore the slate plaque to Zero Park Street that honored the site of Slave Auction Block.
Originally placed in 1962 by Council, it was removed in 2002 by Council. We ask you to restore it now in 2026, an action well within your power. We urge you to make an exception rather than to make us wait for the formation of the Arts Council.
Please know that we are encouraged that you are creating a process that will expedite requests such as ours. In January, Deputy City Manager Freeze suggested that as an alternative to waiting another two years for the creation of the Arts Commission, that this group could ask the City Council to vote.
Therefore, per Mr. Freeze, would you please vote yes to move this project along now? We are encouraged by your recent vote, and I quote, "On Monday, May 18th, Charlottesville City Council unanimously endorsed the potential use of city parks for Swords into Plowshares project, which is also about public spaces where Charlottesville's history has been made, covered up, and remembered." The Plowshares project is a very involved initiative with extensive community engagement.
Replacing the slate historical marker also enjoys community endorsement. But in contrast to the Plowshares undertaking, it is a very simple endeavor and made more simple by your affirmation. Mayor Wade's most recent request of our group was to get approval from UVA Descendants of Enslaved Communities, the Jefferson School, and Swords into Plowshares, which was delivered to you by Jessica Harris, director of UVA Descendants, by email on April 20th.
On March 3rd, 2025, while unveiling the historic signage titled Enslavement at Court Square, Councilor Snook emphasized the importance of our history and economy for the coming decade of Revolution tourism.
Councilor Fleischer recently shared her concern over the atrocity, which was a half-century auctioning away thousands of local captives to distant and brutal misery. The restoration of the auction block plaque will provide a healing of this historic erasure and will inform the Revolution tourists arriving in July 2026.
The reading of this proposal will be continued by Mike Henry-Ada. Unfortunately, he's number eight on the wait list, except I think he's been moved up. So thank you for listening. Thanks very much. Next we have Laura Sergani.
No, my neighbor. Thank you. My name is Laura Sergani, and I'm a community member. I'm sure the council is getting used to seeing me at this point, and I genuinely wish that I was coming to you, again, under better circumstances.
10 days ago, I was sharing a potluck dinner with housed and unhoused friends to discuss the immediate and ongoing needs of our neighbors camping along the Rivanna Trail. Among them was my camping friend, Tony, who I've known and worked with for about a year.
Tony was telling us that he would like to attend this meeting tonight to express his frustration about how the city has treated him. Sadly, Tony could not make it to this meeting because he passed away last week.
I do not think that I could do justice in representing all of his experiences or thoughts, but I can tell you that I believe the city has failed him and that it is failing a lot of people, people like us, people with children and families and friends and stories of struggle, people who are our neighbors.
I want to believe that this city is capable of building a community of care instead of perpetuating systems of harm. And because I want to believe that, I'm going to share the things that we talked about at that potluck, including Tony's suggestions for how we could improve the conditions for our most vulnerable community members.
In collaboration as housed and unhoused neighbors, we assert that the city should take the following actions for the wellbeing of our community. Portable toilets and access to clean water for drinking and bathing.
I understand the city has been having discussions about this, but there's been enough discussion. There needs to be movement. With the increasing heat of summer and potential spread of diseases, this is a major risk to health and safety every day that passes.
Dumpsters and trash cans. With 50 to 100 people now living along the Rivanna Trail, they need their own rolling trash cans and dumpsters for disposal of trash. Like any neighborhood, they are a neighborhood just like yours.
The city previously placed a dumpster at the Free Bridge location, which demonstrates they can do this. You've already done it. If the city's concerned about the concentration of campers in an area, then the city should increase the number of camping areas available with access to resources instead of policing.
No forced displacement, period. The low barrier shelter project should go forward with input from the unhoused community, and it should serve as transitional housing with more permanent affordable housing being created, providing ongoing services that help people stay sheltered.
And the city needs to prevent housing discrimination and barriers to shelter, such as screening for drug use or previous incarceration. Human rights mean housing. Housing is a human right. Moreover, the city should take UVA to task for its discrimination against unhoused patients, turning them back out into the streets directly after medical procedures rather than giving them shelter to recover.
This is disgraceful, and I know people that this has happened to that I'm working with right now. The city also needs to acknowledge the role that policing has played in creating and exacerbating homelessness and stop targeting harassment of unhoused neighbors with unnecessary arrests for petty infractions.
The community requires care, not cops. And lastly, the city needs to acknowledge how corporate development has displaced residents from once affordable neighborhoods and fueled homelessness. The city needs to stand up to developers and put a moratorium on these greed-fueled projects that hollow out our community.
Thank you With Tony not able to be here tonight, I feel I owe it to him to remind us all that it is our responsibility and our job, every one of us, to create that community of care. Thank you. Ludwig Kutner?
Hi, my name is Ludwig Kutner. I live on Water Street and work on the mall. When I came to Charlottesville in 1981, the downtown mall was a disaster, and nobody came downtown. There were traffic problems, homeless problems.
Property values were down, properties selling between $20,000 and $40,000, the third of them. One building, the city foreclosed. The owners were not willing to pay taxes, walked away, and the city took over the property, and offered the property for free if somebody would build.
One of the reasons of the decline of downtown was Water Street and Market Street were one-way streets, which made maneuvering downtown difficult. So why do we want to go and repeat past mistakes? How easy traffic flow is critical is the success of downtown Charlottesville.
I think there is a group that perceives it's dangerous downtown. But the question is, do we have statistics of how many bikers are actually riding downtown every day? Do we have statistics of how many accidents have there been?
Exactly where are these accidents occurring, and what is causing these accidents? I would be extremely surprised to learn that a two-way Water Street is the heart of the problem. And our mayor rides his scooter downtown, and I have never seen that he was scared.
I ride my scooter all the time, and I never have felt unsafe. I rode my bicycle in New York for 20 years. That was a little more different. In fact, the drivers of cars here are extremely careful, and I hope that you can spend time out in the street and see what it is.
If there's a bicycle going up Water Street, the car stays behind and never even pass them, and are extremely successful. So I think changing Water Street into a one-way street could have disastrous effects and may set us back.
And as we just heard, maybe taxes go down, and we can't afford to support homeless people. Thank you. Thank you very much. Joan Fenton? I'm Joan Fenton. I have property and a business downtown. In 1996, the Office of Economic Development put together a committee of business owners, property owners, city staff, department heads, two members of council, to find out what would help downtown because it was not thriving.
This is 30 years ago. And the major thing that we asked for was to make Water Street two ways, and it was successful. It had a big impact on downtown. It impacted visibility, it increased traffic, and it worked.
And they did their due diligence. They looked at how to do it, what the impact would be before they do it. And I believe that this proposal, you have not done your due diligence. VDOT has not looked at the impact this would have on South Street.
You're going to send all that traffic onto South Street. And when you try to turn left onto Second Street, what's going to happen? It's going to back up. Already when they try to make a delivery on South Street, and a truck stops, you can't get through.
When the train comes through, you can't get through. If you're going to do something like this, you need to know what the impact's going to do before you do it, and you should at least take the time to find out what it is.
Your traffic department has not looked at this, and your Department of Economic Development has not looked at the economic impact, and I think both of those are failures. And I think for you to take this action without understanding the consequence is a failure of you to do your duty, and I really feel that the city often makes mistakes because they don't take the time to find out what's going to happen afterwards.
And I think you need to pause, find out what's going on, and if you really think this is a good idea, then close Water Street in one direction for a month and see what the impact is. And go stand there and watch the traffic back up, and watch on camera and see what happens at rush hour when nobody can get through.
And drive with somebody who's a tourist or somebody trying to find their way downtown when they're lost and can't find their way down here, and think about the economic impact. Because if you want to fund all those things that she's asking for that you should fund, then you need the money that you get from downtown.
So please think twice before you go ahead and do this without knowing the consequence. Thank you. Thank you. Greer Achenbach? Good evening. My name is Greer Achenbach. I am also here tonight to urge you not to move the STAR study proposal forward.
So this year, we're celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Charlottesville Downtown Mall This is a huge milestone, a major triumph. But I encourage you to remember history. During the urban renewal area, over 200 pedestrian malls were built across America, but 89% of them failed.
The ones that survived, like ours, did so because of a delicate ecosystem built on accessible parking, intuitive traffic flow, and clear way-finding. Altering Water Street disrupts the primary artery that keeps this ecosystem alive.
From an economic development standpoint, the decision is highly concerning. A significant portion of our downtown retail, fine dining, and vibrant art spaces rely heavily on baby boomers, older population, and tourists.
These individuals directly fuel our local economy. By upending established traffic patterns, you aren't just creating a minor inconvenience, you're creating a cognitive barrier. When navigating downtown becomes confusing, stressful, or unpredictable, the patrons won't adapt.
They will simply pivot to places like Stonefield or Fifth Street Station, where parking and driving are frictionless. We cannot afford to alienate customers, keeping our local businesses solvent. Furthermore, this proposal highlights a deeper, more systemic issue.
If you speak to business owners, operators, and workers who make the downtown mall thrive, you will hear a consistent, heartbreaking refrain. They feel the city rarely supports their success. Whether it's infrastructure maintenance, safety concerns, or parking management, our business community constantly feels like they're fighting against City Hall instead of partnering with them.
A one-way conversion on Water Street against the vocal warnings of the people whose livelihood depends on it only deepens that divide. It sends a message that experimentation matters more than local economic survival.
For 50 years, the downtown mall has been a crown jewel of Charlottesville, but its continued success is not guaranteed. It requires intentional, supportive stewardship. Let's celebrate this historic anniversary and not pass anything that might trigger a decline in the pedestrian district.
Thank you very much. Thank you. Blair Williamson? Michael Kaplan would move up to that spot. Oh, I see. Yeah. Sorry, I was putting him at the end. I think she's reclaimed it. No, I'm sorry. Hold for a second.
You'll go next. Is Michael Kaplan here? Yeah. Sorry about that. It's all right. It's my first time calling these. It's all right. Thank you. My name is Michael Kaplan. I'm a member of the community, and I too am here to urge you to not vote tonight on whether or not to make Water Street one-way until you have more of the data essential to a knowing and well-informed decision, and can confirm that this actually solves a problem rather than merely moving the problem to another intersection.
Bicycle safety and pedestrian safety are important goals for downtown. Pedestrian safety, smooth flow of traffic is important to downtown. The VDOT proposal before council defines a strategy that is focused on Ridge Street and the Water Street intersection.
At the most recent VDOT meeting with the public, VDOT staff said at that meeting that they crafted the plan without considering the impact of the plan on West First, West Second, South Street, or Second Street East.
That means at this time, it is impossible to know whether the plan solves the problem or merely moves the problem a few blocks down the street. It's entirely possible that the plan will create more problems than it claims to fix.
It's possible the plan will impair traffic flow, bicycle safety, and the downtown economy. It's possible it will create as many problems as it claims to fix. As you've heard from other people, Water Street was one way once before, and it had a very bad impact on the downtown economy, and that the downtown merchants urged city government to come to their rescue, and city government did, and they made it two-way again.
And as we have just said, our downtown pedestrian mall survived while most of the pedestrian malls across America failed. It's a very delicate balance, and we urge you to evaluate the data from that last time we had one-way experience to see whether one-way actually is in the best interest of our community.
The downtown economy generates over 10% of city revenue, and it remains a fragile economy. The downtown economy should not be stymied by reduced vehicle access when other bike and traffic flow options exist, such as bike lanes, shared lanes, signage, and lights.
The plan before you lacks sufficient demonstration that it will improve downtown traffic and bike safety. In the name of good urban planning, I urge you to postpone any vote until you have been provided the data that shows the plan's full impact throughout the downtown region.
Thanks. Thank you very much. Ms. Williamson, thank you for your patience. Hello, thank you for allowing us to speak tonight. I'm Blair Williamson. I do have a business on the downtown mall, but my real job is I'm president of SL Williamson Company, which is a heavy highway asphalt paving company, and I've been there for 34 years.
So I do have some experience in the construction traffic world. Increasing bicycle, pedestrian, and/or vehicle safety is always a good reason for transportation improvements. It's in our community's best interest to continue to look for projects that improve safety, traffic congestion, and other design needs and issues.
This project is well-intentioned, but fails at the basic level of looking at this intersection from a master planning perspective, as there are multiple failures that will be a result of this incomplete design.
There needs to be a strategic plan for the roadways in the city and not a Whac-A-Mole implementation. I realize that only one project can be built at a time, given money constraints, but the parts need to add up to the whole.
We have to know where we're going. At the last public presentation meeting of this project, I asked if the plan would be further vetted for design issues if it were to proceed, and Sandy Shackelford, who's the project manager for VDOT, said it would not change in design, but the plans would be developed for construction.
At present, this plan puts all of the eastbound traffic from Water Street, intending for Water Street, onto South Street. This street is not designed to carry this load. In addition, it dumps all of the traffic at the terminus to either cross the railroad to Garrett or get in line with the vehicles entering and exiting the parking garage on Water.
This parking garage is already congested from people coming in and out at that intersection. This project is designed as a bicycle safety improvement plan and makes assumptions that everything that is good for bicycles is good for pedestrians and vehicles.
We also have the important consideration of the downtown mall and the tourist, residential, and business communities that depend on good access to the mall. At present, there is virtually no way-finding, and finding the mall is often only achieved by driving across it by accident.
Also, the two Water Street parking lots and the future Dewberry or hotel, whatever we're going to call it, will eventually be developed, and this odd system of one-way roads will not help these businesses.
Please do not give people another reason not to come downtown. Also, Don Franco, who's an engineer with Roudebush and Gale, who has also decades of experience, sent you guys an email at 5:00 today. You may not have seen it because you were probably in another meeting.
I brought copies for you. But he has really good insight as to how this could be improved. And again, we all agree that the intersection needs to be improved, but it needs to be thoughtful, and we need to know how all of this works together.
Thank you. I'm going to leave these copies for you guys, if that's all right. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you very much. Susan Kutner? My name is Susan Kutner, and for the past 14 years, I have both lived and worked on the downtown mall.
So I am intimately familiar with all of the issues that face downtown Charlottesville. I also happen to be a very avid biker who rides both for pleasure and to run errands. So I appreciate and am grateful to the city that they are bike-friendly and that they are concerned about bike safety, and I hope that in the future, more people will begin riding their bicycles.
Having said that, I believe that the bicycle community should not be the driving force behind how traffic moves downtown. We are a passionate community, but we are also a very small minority community, and as bikers, it is our responsibility to adapt to the needs of downtown Charlottesville, not the other way around.
Who is the majority of the people that we should be paying attention to? It is people like me who live and work downtown, some of whom may be bikers, but the majority of who are vehicle owners. It is the people who are delivering goods and services to both the residents and the downtown businesses.
They are most assuredly not bikers. And it is the tourists and the guests who come to visit downtown Charlottesville, few of whom I would guess are bikers. It is the convenience and needs of these three groups that we should have foremost in our minds as we decide what traffic patterns should be.
Because if we do not have an economically vital downtown, then the same thing that has happened to most pedestrian malls across the United States will happen to us. We will end up bankrupt. I can tell you from personal daily experience that a two-way street on Water is not your problem.
Water Street is not crazy busy. I cross it every single day, multiple times a day. I have never had a problem there. If I were to identify an issue that causes traffic problems downtown, I would point to the short turn lanes that exist on Water and Ridge-McIntyre.
There is a turn lane, and there are two street options, South Street and Water Street, to turn onto, but I have often had to wait two or three lights to even make a turn because the lanes that are provided there offer a short window of opportunity.
So what that means is that cars turning onto Water Street are oftentimes mixed in with the cars going straight because they can't even get to the turn lane, and the cars going straight are interrupted by the people trying to get to the turn lanes.
That is what is creating a lot of friction and frustration in that particular intersection. So I would strongly recommend that whoever's in charge of traffic movement in the city take the time to go down there yourself, spend an hour in different locations at different times of day, use your own two eyes, and get out from behind your computers and behind the maps that you're looking at and see what the problem is.
Talk to the downtown residents, talk to the downtown businesses. I'm pretty sure that you will find that the majority of those people will tell you that having a one-way street on Water will create a bigger problem than what exists right now.
Thank you for your time. Thank you. That is the end of pre-registered speakers. Is there anyone in the audience right now who would like to speak as well? We'll start over here with Tyree. Hello. So the writing is pretty small, so let me take my time.
My name is Terri Tyree, and today I'm here as the president of Charlottesville Community Resilience Center, or CCRC. Our mission is to strengthen individuals facing housing insecurity and related crisis by providing coordinated support services, resource navigation, emergency referrals, and community-based education that builds resilience and long-term stability.
Although we are a young organization, we are proud of the impact we have already made in just a few short months. In January, we launched our community prayer board workshop, creating a space for reflection and healing.
In February, we hosted a Healthy Hearts Healthy Habits educational wellness-focused event and a Taste and Thrive, which brought community members together around healthy food, conversation, and resource sharing.
In March, we facilitated a community listening session at Crescent Halls to hear directly from residents about their needs and priorities and co-hosted a hot chocolate social that fostered community connection.
April, we were pretty busy. CCRC organized the Community Resilience Egg Hunt at JMRL, bringing families together for a free family celebration. We also participated in the Great Mother Festival and partnered with the Tom Tom Foundation for Glitter and Goals event, highlighting community engagement, creativity, and resilience.
In May, we launched our Dirty Word Poetry program, creating a safe space for storytelling, healing, self-expression, and community dialogue through the arts. This month, in June, we are proud to be tabling at the Black Business Expo, where we'll connect with residents, entrepreneurs, community leaders, while sharing information about our programs and services.
In July, we are excited to introduce the Resilient Families Empowerment Program. This initiative is designed to support families and parents, caregivers through trauma-informed parenting, education, school readiness support, and workforce development resources and emotional wellness tools.
However, I would be remiss if I did not raise the concern that many emerging grassroot organizations face. Despite securing funding and demonstrating a clear community need, finding an accessible and affordable venue for our Resilient Families Empowerment Program proved extremely difficult.
We spent weeks reaching out, making calls, and seeking partnerships, and ultimately, the lack of available space forced us to reduce the number of families that we could serve. This is not just a CCRC issue.
It highlights a broader challenge of gatekeeping and organizational silos that can unintentionally limit community impact. So we know there are many underutilized community spaces throughout Charlottesville, and we encourage you all to seek guidance on this issue.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone from the middle here who'd like to add anything? Anyone from this side? Yes, sir. And please state your name and address. I thought it was on. No, please go ahead.
Anyway, Mike Henrietta here. I'm continuing where Heidi Bertu left off with our Court Square Memorial Enslavement Project request. The City Historic Preservation Officer, Jeffrey Warner, has confirmed at the November 2025 Historic Resource Committee meeting that the auction block has been found and is secured.
Surely the restoration auction block sign should already be in place before this fact is widely announced. For 24 years, our group members have worked with HRC, city managers, parks, planning, and city council.
Please see the timeline record we provided. We know there is no city 2026 budget for this project; however, our group has raised funds to pay for the slate marker. Also important would be for city council to please direct HRC to meet with our group and our leaders as soon as possible to finalize the plaque's rewording and installation.
We ask you, Mr. Sanders, to schedule this vote for the 2026 July council meeting. We hope you all agree that now is the time to reinstall the long-missing slave auction block marker. A new book, "The Queen's Silence," traces the extent to which British monarchs and members of the royal family invested in and defended the transatlantic trade in African captives and the expansion of colonial slavery.
Please see the research insert, which shows how under Queen Anne's leadership, the South Seas Crown Colony was a central player in the transporting of enslaved captives on Royal Navy vessels and branding the Queen's crown onto the backs of at least 64,000 people.
By 1702, this corporation poured vast sums into royal pockets. The cruel history is foundational to the naming of the Rivanna River and as well as Albemarle County. When Elizabeth II was asked to simply acknowledge how enslavement dividends continue even today, hers was a failure of leadership.
She kept silent. We believe the city council can break the auction block silence now. We ask you to expedite this project. This would go a long way towards healing and painful wounds of the erased and forgotten people who built this town.
This will bring important transformational awareness to our community. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone from over here? Anyone in the room at all would like to... We have a couple spots left. Okay.
All right. That is the end of Community Matters. That was our final speaker. There will be another opportunity for public comment at the end of the meeting. Thank you all for your input. If you would like to stick around for the rest of the meeting and agenda items, please do so.
If you would like to exit now, I'll give us a beat before moving on, so you've got time to do that. All right. Thank you. Ms. Thomas, can you please read the consent agenda? Yes. Consent agenda number three, minutes.
We have the 2025 general election abstract of votes, April 8th work session, May 13th work session, and June 10th work session. Number four, resolution to appropriate $356,805 in additional funds to the Streets and Sidewalks Division operating budget, second reading.
Five, resolution to appropriate Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services Victims of Crime Act Grant Award, FY26 $123,600, second reading. Six, a resolution to appropriate Virginia Department of Social Services Family Assistance Management Grant in the amount of $20,000, second reading.
Seven, an ordinance to amend and reordain Chapter 31, Utilities of the Code of the City of Charlottesville 1990 as amended to establish a connection fee for new gas services, second reading. Eight, a resolution to appropriate $2,076,696 in additional funding from the Virginia Office of Children's Services to support at-risk children and families, second reading.
Number nine, a resolution to return $1,848,424 to the general fund and appropriate an additional transfer of $423,546 to the Children's Services Act Fund, second reading. 10, resolution appropriating funding from the Federal Transit Administration and Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation supporting multiple Charlottesville area transit capital projects, $16,846,224, second reading.
11, resolution considering a critical slope special exception for 2010 Meadowbrook Road. 12, resolution considering a critical slope special exception for the Botanical Gardens of the Piedmont. 13, resolution authorizing execution of an agreement to maintain stormwater management facilities.
Is that SWM? Sorry if I didn't catch that. Yes. For the Botanical Garden project. Number 14, resolution to approve addendum to a lease with the Botanical Garden of the Piedmont. 15, resolution to appropriate $52,981.60 from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development Virginia Homeless Solutions Program, and this one is requesting waiver of the second reading with a forfeits vote.
Thank you. Is there a motion to adopt the consent agenda with the authorization for one reading for number 15? So moved. No second? I guess- Is there a motion? I move. Yes. Okay. Do we have a second? Do we need to pull that item out specifically, or?
No. So long as it's included in the motion, you should be fine. Okay. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Thank you. Initiate the vote. Oh, do you have... Go ahead. I'm sorry. Nope, just everyone vote, please.
Thank you. Just hold on. Okay. All right. And the motion passes four to nothing to adopt the consent agenda. And now we will move on to the city manager's report. Mr. Sanders, is there a report from the city manager's office?
Yes. First up is James Walker with the Office of Police Civilian Oversight, and then I'll have a few comments afterwards. Thank you. Mr. Walker? Good evening, Vice Mayor Osherov, members of council, and Mr.
City Manager. I am James Walker. I am the acting director of the Police Civilian Oversight Board on the staff side, and we have our eight-member board that are representatives of the community. So we work together.
I was just with the chair and vice chair this morning, doing some planning and kind of reestablishing our second half of 2026. But tonight, what I'm bringing to you is an overview of the 2025 annual report for the board and the office.
It looks correct up here. I saw on the city council agenda, it was kind of pink. I don't know why, but we'll hopefully have a good version posted on the PCOB website for sure. Yeah. But it looks good here.
So, I apologize if the darkness around my eyes, last time I was here with you, we were talking about changes to the PCOB ordinance, and we had a little girl three days later. So, we are less than a month into our second child, and so- Congratulations ...
figuring that out. Thank you. So just to begin, this covers calendar year 2025. So I know the city operates on the fiscal year, but for the board's purposes, just sticking with the calendar works for them So the first section of the report just kind of gives the overview about the office, about the board itself, how it relates to each other.
There are photos of all the different members that have been on the board throughout 2025. There's actually, I think you'll see 10 individuals on that page because there's been quite a bit of transition.
There is also a recognition page of former director, Inez Gonzalez, who departed back in August of 2025 and went out to the Bay Area Rapid Transit system in California as their independent police auditor for their transit system.
And so, there was just a recognition of her in there, as well as our former chair, Al Pola, who had been handed the chair for the first part of 2025, passed off from Bill Mendez before that. So Bill kind of completed his term back in 2024, 2025, that turnover in January, and then Mr.
Pola took over for the first couple of months before he had left the board. So since that time, Dr. Frazier has become the current chair of the board. That was in late 2025, Dr. Jeffrey Frazier, and he remains the chair today.
We had welcomed quite a few new members to the board in early 2025, but then several new members replaced some of those slots in late 2025. And so today, we still have all eight members, four of which are fairly new, two of which are kind of new, and two of which have been around quite a while.
So it's a good representation of kind of different perspectives. So as we spoke about last time, the ordinance recommended changes currently being reviewed by city attorney's office. That might change some of the aspects of the powers and duties of the board, but the focus in the past as well as in the future is to provide the greatest level of oversight of the police that this city can provide.
It is meant to be objective and civilian-led. That was the intent, and the goal of this board and this office is to provide more of that, not less with these changes. And so, we established some of the foundations of that back in September of 2025.
City council graciously met with the board, and we kind of did a first run pass of the ordinance and cleaned up some of the smaller ticket items in there, as well as moved some ordering around, preparing for this second set that came to you more recently.
So a lot of the duties center around the concept of reviewing police department policies, practices, procedures, as well as what is happening in terms of complaints being filed with the Office of Internal Affairs.
A lot of that is still remaining, and the goal is to carry that work forward more in-depth going forward. So the second section just talks a little bit about the community and the state of oversight. So the community is constantly changing, and we've heard some of that tonight with perspectives from 30 years ago about the community and versus today.
And so the needs of the community are always changing. It is the intent and focus of this board, it was in 2025 as well as it is now, to get out in the community more. Myself and some of our members were down at the river with the police department, walking around, talking to individuals last week.
And our goal is to be out more, not only with the police department, talking side by side with them, just in some ways following up after they've had a conversation for us to have a conversation about, "Hey, what has been your experience with police?
How do you feel about them being in this area and talking to you?" But also on our own at events and in public areas that we've been connecting. And so one of the things that I wanted to highlight is that the landscape of oversight has been changing drastically across the country.
One interesting aspect that I came to learn is that there are actually more oversight entities across the country than there were last time I reported to you in the 2024 annual report. But one of the emphasis pieces that NACOLE, National Association of Oversight entities, one of the things they emphasized was that a lot of the oversight entities that are being created have less powers and less duties than in the past.
And so there is a continual struggle, a churn in what oversight entities are meant to do, what their powers and duties are, what their access is. And that is happening nationwide. And also there's been some changes at the federal level that have affected localities.
So you're seeing that change, that churn. We are not the only one that does that, and 2025 certainly was a year of transition, the goal being sustainability going forward. Public confidence in policing has declined, and this was according to Gallup and Pew Research.
So there's widening racial gaps. There is lower confidence in policing, and those changes affect this community as well as many others. So those are just some of the overviews. Police department oversight, this is kind of the core bread and butter of the PCOB.
One of the things I like to emphasize is that the PCOB has more access to police records and police meetings, police actions than any other oversight entity in Virginia. That is a definitive statement.
I have direct access to body-worn camera footage. I have direct access, at the time, to the FLOK camera system to be able to audit these systems, to sample data in them, to understand how they're being used by the department, and to audit the use of them, to check them against policies.
And so these are things that can be brought through this office to the board to review and understand. So there was at least 16 internal affairs interviews that were monitored as part of complaints across eight cases.
Now, there were about 32 cases, but typically with one person in the office, I try to pick ones that are going to speak to a variety of topics or more critical topics. Also, participation in multiple use of force panels.
So this is a panel where every time the department uses force, whether that's physical hands-on or the deployment of a weapon, doesn't necessarily need to be used, but taken out of the holster, pointed at someone, that Taser, that kind of thing.
All of those go through a review process, and the PCOB as part of that review process provides input from a civilian perspective. Also, the license plate readers, those are no longer currently in use, but for much of 2025 they were.
And we were auditing that system, looking at the data and the usage of that system, providing feedback both to the police department and attending those community meetings to answer questions from our end of the perspective that the police department was holding.
And so we learned a lot about that, but also understood a lot of those community concerns and heard a lot of that as well. And so one of the big changes that had occurred midway through that pilot was the restriction of access to other police departments in the state of Virginia.
So by the second half of that pilot, the only people who could access that system were CPD officers, and I guess myself, because the only person who was not a CPD officer who could get in was myself. But that was for the auditing and data purposes.
So also, there was a couple policies that the board looked at throughout the year, the limited English proficiency, and how resources are provided to those who do not speak English as their first language or their primary language.
The use of force policy and the early intervention system, which the department is currently starting to deploy and build out, which is identifying officers that may be at risk for a variety of factors.
It could be not necessarily negative or issues, but if there's been a couple of severe cases related to having to use force, all those could've been within compliance, within policy, but maybe that officer needs some additional attention and a check-in.
And so that early intervention system, that's something we used to use in education, trying to front-run any issues that may arise before they do. And so the board has been part of shaping that policy and having those conversations.
This was just a quick fact sheet, just about the numbers. The PCOB's office budget is about 300,000. Now, you'll see the next number over. A lot of that isn't being used because currently the office is slated for two individuals, but we currently just have myself in the office as the acting director, and so there's a big portion of that budget that is a salary that's not being used.
But also, one of the things I like to emphasize about this is that we represent-- The budgeted amount is a little bit over 1% of the police department's budget. The actual probably used amount year to year is probably less than 1% of the police department's budget.
I like to give the figure that it represents about two officers per year, is what the PCOB costs. And so as a ratio of value, that is one of the things I like to point out, and our goal is to produce as much for that value as we can.
And so there were 32 internal affairs cases in 2025. 12 of those actually came through the PCOB. So 12 cases were either a call or through our online portal, someone coming to the door, and then referred to internal affairs and monitored.
And that's a process where I'm having a conversation with that complainant, guiding them through the process of internal affairs, making sure they're being contacted and followed up with. And of those 32 cases, there were 65 allegations across a variety of officers.
So most cases are a single officer, some are four officers, and so it kind of skews, but I have that more detailed data published on our website. And the median time to close a case is about 34 days. And this is an important figure because it speaks to some of the recommended changes in the ordinance, where the chief of police has 45 days from the moment the complaint is received to the moment that discipline is given out.
Yes, or false? I'm so sorry to interrupt your flow. So you had 32 cases with 65 allegations- Correct ... meaning some of those incidents were multiple officers. Were- Or it could be one officer with multiple allegations.
Ah, okay. Yes, yes. Okay. So my question was going to be, are there any officers that were involved in multiple of the cases? Yes, that does happen, and that kind of data I didn't put as expansively into the report this year because one of the goals is to move some of that online, where it lives all the time, that people can access all the time and is updated regularly.
So kind of like a data dashboard. And so, yes, that is true. There's officers that you'll see routinely through there, but that could also mean that sometimes they're an unfounded result as a result, but then other cases are sustained.
So yes, that could represent the same officer multiple times. Yeah. 32 cases is just like 32 complaints. Could include multiple officers, could include multiple allegations. Okay. Thank you. Sorry, any other questions up to that point?
No. Thank you. I know I go fast. That's all right. I want to use your time wisely. I appreciate it. We appreciate it. So if you're thinking about the 34-day time to close a case, that means there are 11 days until, in average, the chief has to make a disciplinary decision.
So thinking back to some of those ordinance recommendations, on average, the board would have 11 days to collectively get together. Actually, we wouldn't be able to do it collectively. They would have to do it just like two-two-ones occur, two at a time or one at a time, to review the case, and then meet in a public forum.
So actually schedule a date, publicly announce it, and then provide a vote of findings or determinations based on that case. So the feasibility of being able to do that is part of why that recommended change was, let's move that process to, hey, the chief's already given out discipline.
Let's review the sufficiency of that discipline, the discipline policy after the fact. Rather than trying to fit in that 11 days, a case review of eight board members with all very different schedules, part of which includes a public meeting that has to have public notice, and there is a challenge there.
And that kind of represents it Policy, ordinance, and governance reform. I hit on this a couple times already. The council approved those changes of the ordinance that we talked about in September. Actually in November is when it went into effect.
And so since that time, we continued working on the ordinance and making additional proposals, the ones that were presented more recently to you. And part of that original process was formally establishing the office as a separate entity than the board.
So a lot of the original issues with the ordinance was it didn't clarify what does the office do, what does the board do, how do we relate to one another, what is each responsible for. Ever since my time here, and especially since acting director, I view my role as supporting the board in fulfilling its functions.
I support the board through providing the internal access and understanding of the department, of the systems, of being able to prepare research, data, and information for them, and to serve their needs in having those coordination of public meetings, as well as the work that we do week to week.
Like I said, the chair and the vice chair meet with me every week. We were meeting in the office this morning. So we're planning, we're working, we're scheduling additional follow-up events, trying to include all the board members into our work.
And so one of the other big things is that the original ordinance had the independent council power vested with the board. That was just a functional thing that made more sense to fall with the office as a city employee, and I'm happy to let you know today that we do have independent counsel, and they are able to provide a second lens on things like the ordinance revisions, as well as the way that we go about handling FOIA, public meetings, and these kind of considerations, which are challenging.
And then finally, the goal is to work towards that concept of a monitor, audit, and review framework of oversight. So again, moving more from the independent investigation to monitor, be aware of what's going on with the department and the community, audit, making sure we're looking at the data, the systems, the practices, the policies, and the review framework, providing a civilian-led accountability, transparency, and commentary on what the police activity is.
And so that's kind of where we're moving. Part four is community engagement and outreach. 2025 was a very exciting year. It started off with one of the most unique opportunities that I've ever had, which was that we hosted a session as well as CPD, but PCOB did separately with the presidential precinct.
We had probably about eight gentlemen from much of the Middle Eastern countries. It was Jordan, Morocco, United Arab Emirates. I'm trying to remember some of the others. But what they were, were all various leaders in policing accountability, so their version of internal affairs in their countries.
And so many of them are very different structures, but we had a very interesting and open dialogue with them through translators about some of the ways that policing looks here and accountability looks here versus in their countries.
They asked many questions. We had many questions of them as well, and it was just a very interesting conversation, and we hope we can do that again because that was very cool, and they all had gifts for all of us.
So that was interesting as well. And then also, we had the town hall this last year as well in 2025. It was the end of April. And at that town hall, Inez Gonzalez had led that effort and got over 50 community members to attend.
I believe some of you were there as well, and it was a good time to hear the community. It was raw, it was truthful, it was honest, but it gave a great opportunity for some of those members of community who were part of this originally to come give their voice and lend their thoughts to the board as a whole.
And we have that captured through-- We partnered with UVA and captured that in a summary report, and so that's something we have and have published as well. And then also, we've had various interactions with NACO.
I mentioned them before. I am on one of their committees, and Inez was on one as well. She probably still is through her new role. But mediation center, we've also done some training and work with the mediation center of Charlottesville.
And NAACP, I just mentioned, one of our members is the vice president, Mr. Dillard, and so he invites us regularly to their meetings to go over and answer questions, speak to them. And he just kind of helps provide that link between NAACP and the board.
And then lastly, we definitely strengthened the office's response to media. Any media entities that reach out, I always try to provide a very clear and open response to them about what's going on, what we're working on, answers to questions.
We've had many media come to our meetings over the past, well, 2025 and more recently as well. And so we welcome that, and I've got to know some of them and have dialogue with them about where the board is going.
So that's all been very good. Professional development and peer engagement. This is part five. So there's a lot of professional development that I do that's more targeted at understanding policing, internal investigations, those types of things.
But the board itself has focused more on oversight in general, what are the various models of oversight, and how do you deploy oversight in a locality? One of the things that we're working towards now, going off of 2025, is doing ride-alongs.
So really trying to have a full perspective of the community side as well as the police side because the goal is objectivity and making decisions about the police actions and how they are serving the community.
So the NACO has a lot of different groups as well as their investigators forum, so that was a routine thing that we would join. And there is a collective of oversight entities in Virginia. There's a couple cities that have an oversight entity.
We meet on a regular basis, discuss different issues and challenges among them. So I always look forward to those as well. And then finally, part six, office operations and city collaboration. As you know, there's been a lot of transition in 2025.
The goal through this year is sustainability and consistency. That is my effort, that is my intention. And I come from a background in more of the operations area with IT and education. So, that's how I'm always minded.
And some of our newest board members are very similarly minded. So, the goal through 2026 is to build on 2025 and not call it a year of transition, but a year of growth and sustainability. We've stabilized a lot of the core systems, the way that we're doing things, the way that we are publishing things.
And we've also introduced-- at the end of 2025, we were discussing, hey, let's actually create a work plan for 2026. The board approved that and are now carrying that forward. And we've been meeting about kind of doing a mid-year check-in on that as well.
So, a lot of the work and the struggle and the challenge of 2025 definitely built some of the groundwork for 2026 as we move forward. So, it has been a very exciting and interesting year. There has been a lot of change, but there's also been a lot of growth.
And so I'm happy to report that to you. And as we work towards going forward in 2026, we want to bring a lot more back to the council of the success and the work of the PCOB, how it's connecting to the community, and how it's shaping the police department in ways that it needs to change, and reinforcing the ways that it's already been successful.
So, thank you, and I appreciate your time. Great. Any questions? Great. Thank you. Any questions for David? No. One's a pet, two's a zoo. Best of luck. Yes, our two-year-old is more work than the baby, so thank you.
No questions. Any questions? Just obviously, a huge focus this year will be, as you highlighted, the move potentially to the monitor, audit, and review framework. Beyond that, what are some of the other things you're looking to accomplish this year or- Sure ...
are you looking to replicate the town hall in just one example? I would say that one of the big things is case review. So, one of the things that we've been working on this spring is developing a case scoring manual and case scoring process.
It actually has a process that describes how a case is reviewed by the board, and then how it is scored according to a standardized process. So, the goal of that is moving forward. We've done a mock case.
It was a real case that came through the PCOB. But going forward is to be able to do routine cases or topical sets of cases, let's say on courtesy, as an example, and look at maybe three cases related to that.
And then be able to score them, each board member independently, and provide a final kind of determination, outcome, recommendation from that scoring. So it's meant to be a very public, transparent process.
So that's kind of the meat and potatoes of oversight. Now, on the outreach side, our goal has been to connect more directly with small groups, organizations, individuals. And so what we have is a communications and outreach plan.
We have a directory, I think it has about 150 entries on it, of various groups, entities, individuals. Many of our board members have already started making those connections. We're trying to build relationships, not just quick touch points.
And so through those relationships, we're asking very simple questions like, "What has been your experience with policing?" And we're starting to try to build a metric around trust. What is your feelings of trust in the police?
Do you feel like they're helping or harming? In what ways do you feel like they're helping or harming? What would you like to see different? And so through that, we're able to then create and provide resources and recommendations to the police department that are actionable and effective, and actually based on community data.
So, I would say there's the background work of the actual oversight of cases and systems, but then there's also truly the community outreach that's focused on listening to the community and bringing that data back to inform our work.
Sorry. That would be the focus, and I hope I can bring some products to you. Actually, I will bring some products to you later in 2026 that demonstrate that. Thank you. Yep. My question is, what happens after the investigation?
It goes back to the police. They have those 11 days to make a determination. Without revealing any personnel concerns, can you tell us some of the results of the investigations in however vaguely you need to be?
Yeah. So, one of the things that... And I haven't done it. My goal is to get some of that up pretty soon here. But in 2024, I had a conversation with the chief, and he had released to us the disciplinary outcomes, not of each specific case, but by month.
So saying, okay, these were the disciplines given out in January, February, March, August. What we're able to do is then actually pair those up with some of the allegations and just see trends of what types of allegations are coming in, which ones are sustained based on the investigation, and then what kinds of discipline are being paired with those allegations.
So, that's enough of a connection to say, hey, this type of discipline is not consistent or is not substantial enough, or it is maybe, to match this allegation and the severity of this type of complaint.
And so being able to kind of track that process from start to finish, it is a lot of confidential information behind the scenes, but the board has access to that through various controlled settings. And then being able to transition that into a public item that can come out, a recommendation.
That is a challenge. That process from behind the scenes to the public eye is hard, and it requires a lot of consideration of FOIA and public meeting rules, many of the things that you deal with as well.
And so- That is something that requires that foundational work to be done with the legal departments, with the policy, with all the things that govern how we go about doing these. And we're trying to make sure that we're doing it correctly.
But 2024 had that data, and 2025's data is going to be posted on our website. So the goal is to get that so it's more live and in the moment, real time. When cases are closed, was there a discipline? It might be delayed by a little bit to keep the confidentiality, but that's something the chief has given to us, and we publish it to the extent that we can, because it's his record.
So that's what we attempt to do- Okay ... that transparency piece. I appreciate that. Yep. Thanks. Anyone else? Thank you, James. I just want to comment that as one who had tried for many years to get an ordinance crafted that would really make a difference, it sounds like the ordinance we have now finally arrived at is likely, A, to be implemented successfully, and to be implemented in such a way that we can fulfill the purposes for which we've created PCOB in the first place.
And I can say that for myself as well as the board, it is 100% our mission to see that the statement you just made be successfully carried out, and to prove that to the council, to city manager, and to the community, as well as to the police department in the sense of it ultimately helps them as well.
Yeah. So thank you. Thank you, James. Other James has an item as well. Good evening, Vice Mayor Oshrin, members of the council. Just a brief, more in the way of an announcement, recognizing that back in 2021, the General Assembly passed a law banning food establishments from using styrofoam.
And that law goes into effect for all food establishments, effective July 1. City is going to be putting up a website here shortly that explains how that will work and provide resources in terms of information and process for restaurants within the community.
So again, just for awareness. Okay, great. Thank you. And then I have a series of other things that I wanted to share as well. Because we don't have a council meeting, actually it would be after, I think, I don't remember, another meeting.
Just wanted to remind the public and because this plays on a loop and that the public gets to watch it as well. July 3rd, Downtown Mall 50th anniversary party. 10:00 a.m. there'll be walking tours. They'll be going on all day.
4:00 p.m. there's a birthday party at Central Place. It's free to the public. Ice cream, face painting, and live music from CvilleBand. At 5:30, Fridays After 5 will feature Baba Seth at the Ting Pavilion.
At 8:30 there is a lantern parade. Greer has promised me a very good time walking up and down the mall with folks in lanterns in the dark with the LB Brass Band playing. And at 9:00 we have a 50th light show at The Cove building.
So that's open to the public. Come one, come all. It's for everyone. Also on the 4th of July, the Cville Spectacular Fireworks show on Carter Mountain will happen 9:00 p.m.-ish. Chris? Yeah. My message, I recorded a message with Dan Schuette at CBS 19 and basically said, "Find your spot." So find your spot to take in the fireworks, compliments of City County University, CBS 19, and a host of other sponsors.
And then this is the America's 250th celebration, so there are all kinds of activities going on at Monticello and other places all over the region, will continue. So this message is stay in town. There are plenty of things to do.
Find other things to do instead of traveling, right? All right. Now, last thing is homelessness update. As I promised, I'll continue to give an update on this hot button issue that we have in our community.
I just wanted to share some things that have been happening, just so that folks are appreciative of the notion that we are not sitting idle on this issue. Assistant City Manager Roman and DHS Director Misty Graves participated in a meeting last week with POTM partners to continue to explore opening an emergency overnight shelter as soon as possible.
We hope that we can get that done. We're not confident that we're going to be able to. The city has arranged for the placement of Porta John hand washing station and a dumpster at Zero East High. We expect the placement of that this week.
We have continued to try to work with business owners in the area, but they have not been open to the idea of supporting an effort to put additional items in that general area, so that poses a continued issue.
We remain in contact with the Blue Ridge Health District regarding conditions and health concerns at both Rivanna encampment areas, and we'll continue to prioritize what is safe and to push for changes that lead to safety for everyone involved, for those who are there, as well as those who pass through the area.
Tomorrow, a meeting with Support Works. These are the folks behind Vista 29 and The Crossings, and the goal is to discuss their ability to participate in the service provision in a bigger way than they currently are.
They've expressed an interest and an openness to that, so we hope to engage. Assistant City Manager Roman is going to be attending a community conversation with the Continuum. That's the BRAC organized effort later on this week.
I have a meeting with Nichelle Carver. She's formerly with the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. She currently serves on the BRAC board of directors and is local, and has expressed an interest in helping us understand some of the facets of addressing such a complicated issue.
So I'll be meeting with her later this week. And I just want to remind everyone that we continue to focus on a comprehensive approach to address this longstanding issue in our community. We are working to set a new standard and manage expectations, as I mentioned to council in October of 2023.
This is not a fleeting issue for me. It's something that we continue to focus on, and we're looking for a way for us to make a difference for the long haul. So that is my report Good. I'll report on that.
Please. Mr. Sanders, as I recall, I think it was May 13th when we had the meeting with the three agencies, and there was discussion of hopefully getting a plan within 30 days. They asked for six months, and I gave them three months.
So end of August- Okay ... for the plan that we discussed. Okay. Operating plan for Holiday Drive. Right. Okay. Maybe I was wishfully thinking that we would get a faster result than that. I'm still hoping it'll be faster than the end of August, but end of August- Okay ...
is what we ultimately agreed on. Thank you. I'll share that that plan is more of what does Holiday Drive actually feel like when somebody walks in the door. That's the plan that they're trying to arrive at.
In addition to that, we've engaged additional experts in the field of looking at spaces, architects, and others, to try to help us see are there ways to adjust what we anticipate the cost to be, to see if we can get that down.
So that is happening right now as well. And I also say that in the last couple of weeks, I've talked to a number of people who are on the boards of those various agencies, and a number of them have said to me, in some fashion or another, "I don't know whether we're all going to be able to get on the same page.
Can't you guys at the city just say, 'This is the way it's going to be,' and let's see who wants to come rally around that flag?"" That's what we're doing. Okay. Sadly, that's what it feels like. Yeah.
But that's what we're doing. And obviously recently there was a death in the encampment, and we don't know everything that happened there. We do know from the reporting that it was initially reported after a smell was indicated- Yeah ...
a potential sign that the individual had been passed away for some time there. Obviously, the conditions are conducive to that kind of tragedy happening. And people remain in a flood way as we approach tropical storm season, flash flood season.
Are there any timelines or approach for the city assessing what are conditions that are so dangerous in terms of fire risk or health and human safety that death is a real imminent risk given those conditions?
Yeah. So we're working through those, looking at each issue one by one, checking what are the legal parameters for enforcement, what is available to us in the way to enforce, as well as what we are limited in being able to enforce.
There's no set timeline at this moment that I'm prepared to announce, but I have made it clear that we are not going to accept the individuals who are currently closest to the river remaining in that posture.
So we're working through that process. The goal was that we would hope to get some support out of one of the adjacent business owners to allow us to set equipment and things up in that space, but we have yet to find anyone willing to do that.
That hampers our ability because we can't roll those things in ourselves, because we can't get on the bridge. And I do want to clarify, there's several businesses along that route. Correct. One of them has offered to help, the others have not.
Yes. The Ravenna River Company has been helpful, and has been very open to supporting, but they're on the wrong side of the bridge is the issue. It's not their fault that they're on the wrong side. We're trying to find a way to access on the other side of the bridge where the actual tents are physically located next to the bridge, and that is one of our limiting factors.
One approach that we will ultimately end up having to take is that we are going to have to disturb the encampment. Folks have asked us not to do that. I don't think that that's tolerable. Well, and I know everyone is in agreement on this point, but would just highlight the gravity of someone having just died there.
And we don't know what happened, but I think the conditions there are not compassion. I would offer, I wish everyone were agreeable. And I pray and hope there won't be further deaths. I agree. Sir. Okay.
Thank you. And I appreciate everyone who's working towards that. We will now move on to our action items, beginning with the... Do I read this or do you read this? Okay. Ordinance to amend and reordain City Code Chapter 31, utilities to establish new utility rates and service fees for city gas, water, and sanitary sewer.
This is the second reading. Hi. Good evening, Madam Vice Mayor, members of council. I'm Chris Cullen, the city's Director of Finance. And as you just summarized, this agenda item is the second reading of an ordinance to amend and reordain the city code to update new utility fees and service rates for the city's water, wastewater, natural gas, and stormwater utilities for FY27.
At your last meeting, you received a presentation from city staff on this item and held the required public hearing. During the discussion of this item, it was clear that the consensus of council was not to have the utilities department renew the one-year contract with BP for carbon offsets.
We have not signed that document. Staff recommends that the $300,000 that was going to be used to fund the BP contract instead be used to explore responsible, locally based alternatives to mitigate the gas utility's carbon emissions.
This recommendation will not require a change to the proposed gas rates. Happy to answer any other questions you might have. Start down here. Just because I got a specific media inquiry about this, could you walk through the reasons?
Because last council meeting when there was a consensus not to move forward with the offsets to BP, there's indication maybe we would need some additional ordinance or vote. Could you walk through why that is not needed tonight?
I don't know if that makes sense, but... On the contract? John, can you speak to the ability to continue to collect the money that would've been used for carbon offset that we're not going to use for BP specifically?
We're still using the money toward pretty much the same goal. We're meeting the goal in a different way than through buying the offsets, but that's completely permissible. So the initial concern was that we might be collecting funds with no intended purpose.
Right. So that's the clarifying item, is that it's just a redirected purpose. That's helpful and clear. There's just a specific media inquiry about it I got earlier today. Ultimately the same purpose, just a different way of getting at it.
Exactly correct. I think the only other question is at this time, and it's fine if the answer is there's not, is there a timeline for when it would be determined, the alternative uses of that $300,000?
I totally understand that this is a fluid, new situation. Yeah. The direction that's being given to the Office of Sustainability is to coordinate with C3 specifically as one of the external organizations, but maybe others, to develop a list, because that ultimately is what we had agreed that we would make sure would happen if you all had renewed BP for another year, that that same action was going to be requested of them.
We have not set a date and time yet for when that would be delivered because they've been working on the Climate Action Report. So we'll be able to shift into that next. I think that is completely understandable and reasonable.
But that's it for me. Anyone down here? Can you just, again, for the second reading time, tell folks how, if they need support with their utility bill, how they go about doing that? Please call the Utility Billing Office at 970-3211 or reach out through them via email.
My advice to them is please reach out sooner rather than later. I think a lot of folks hope it'll go away, it'll get better, but folks continue to consume utilities on a daily basis, and just dig themselves further into that deficit situation.
And so the sooner folks reach out, the sooner that our folks can work with them to come up with alternative payment arrangements, any assistance they might be due, if there are any leaks involved, what their options are.
So, my advice is sooner rather than later. Thank you. And the rebate programs for insulation and- Those are open year-round at any time. Okay, great. If there are no other questions, is there a motion?
Hold on. I would move approval of the ordinance to amend and re-ordain City Code Chapter 31 to establish new utility rates and service fees for city gas, water, and sanitary sewer. Second. All right. If there's no further- Motion and a second ...
if there's no further discussion- Oh ... we can go ahead and vote. Okay. Are you a yes? I'm a yes. I don't know why I can't get back to it. Yeah. Actually, a question not related to the vote. Okay. But does the $300,000, does that come back in front of us or is that just inside the Office of Sustainability?
We'll bring to you a list of the local actions. I would want your endorsement of how we would do that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. That motion passed four to zero. Thank you very much, Ms. Thomas.
Next is item number 17, a resolution approving amended grant agreement for the Charlottesville Supplemental Rental Assistance Program, CSRAP. Madeline Metzler will be presenting. Thank you. Good evening, councilors.
I'm Madeline Metzler, housing senior planner with Neighborhood Development Services, and I'm presenting, as Councilor Ashron mentioned, a resolution to extend the eighth amended grant agreement for the Charlottesville Supplemental Rental Assistance Program, or CSRAP, through September 30th, 2026.
CSRAP provides assistance to extremely low and low-income households earning below 60% of area median income and supports approximately 68 households annually. Over the past eight months, the city has conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the program as part of our commitment to transparency and effective administration, and this extension is needed because the evaluation produced substantial findings that require careful policy and operational development before they can be incorporated into the next annual grant agreement.
The evaluation examined participant and referral partner experiences, program design, and administrative processes, and identified recommended updates in areas such as eligibility and prioritization policies, expectations around program tenure and transition planning, improvements to administrative procedures, and data systems as well.
The extension provides city staff, CRHA, and stakeholders the time necessary to translate these findings into well-developed recommendations. To summarize progress, the evaluation has completed the first five of eight phases, including establishing goals and evaluation questions, developing and conducting interviews with staff, data collection, analyzing service coverage, equity impacts, and operational performance, and reviewing preliminary findings with CRHA referral partners and internal departments.
Together, these steps provide a clear picture of the program's strengths and opportunities for improvement. Work now underway focuses on developing actionable recommendations. The remaining phases include refining policy and operational options with CRHA stakeholders and city leadership, finalizing the full evaluation report and council briefing materials, and presenting a revised grant agreement with all of you, which we plan to do in September.
During this extension period, city staff will continue engagement with referral partners and program participants through meetings, surveys, and feedback sessions, refine and prioritize recommended updates, develop revised policies related to program eligibility, program tenure, transition planning, and administrative procedures, and assess improvements to data systems and communication processes to strengthen oversight and customer service.
There's no additional financial impact associated with this action. CSRAP is supported through annual capital improvement program allocations, and current funds are sufficient to maintain rental assistance through the extension period.
That's in part because we delayed the start of the agreement last year, so it has not been a full year since the current agreement was in place. City staff recommends that council adopt the attached resolution extending the time for performance under the Eighth Amendment to the FY26 CSRAP grant agreement through September 30th, 2026, and I'm here to answer any questions you may have at this time.
Thank you so much. Any questions from over here? So will we get the evaluation report in September as well, or when do we get- A final report will be available in September, although drafts of that should make their way, if not to all of you, to some of you through some of the committees that do exist before then.
Okay. Thank you. Great. Nothing? Okay. Michael? Would it be in September that city council would make any decisions about changing the CSRAP program? The idea would be that there would be some changes that would be made, though the goal would be to have vetted some of those so they would hopefully not be a big surprise when they would come to you at that point.
Mm-hmm. Makes sense. I think what's in front of us tonight makes sense, and definitely look forward to September in the fall, because I think there's a number of changes that could be made to CSRAP that ultimately would mean more working class and poor families would be able to have housing.
So I think there's definitely opportunities for improvement I'm interested to see in September. Yeah. And I think some of the important feedback from the evaluation was that it is a really important benefit that people really, really value in this community.
Of course, it's always challenging to determine how could we make it go further, especially if we're trying to work with limited resources. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much. If there's no more questions, is there a motion?
I make a motion to adopt the attached resolution extending the time for performance under the Eighth Amendment to the grant agreement for the fiscal year 26 CSRAP through September 30th, and that CRHA is authorized to use eligible and applicant carry forward fiscal year 26 CSRAP undrawn funds in amount not to exceed $545,731.20.
Is there a second? Second. All right. If there's no further discussion, we can vote. Now we can. And the motion passes four to nothing. And then we have Madeline presenting again for the resolution allocating 575,000 in housing operations and support FY27 grant funding.
This is the first of two readings, so we'll hear the presentation. Thank you. Great. Thank you. And again, I'm here to present the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund Committee, the CAHF Committee's recommendation for the FY27 grant awards for the Housing Operations and Program Support, or HOPS, grant program, and to request your approval of the proposed allocations.
These were also presented back in one of the April budget meetings, but this would be the formal adoption, so we can go ahead and get all of those applicants their exciting award letters and grant agreements.
The HOPS grant program is a key part of the city's overall affordable housing strategy. It provides operational support to nonprofit partners who deliver essential housing-related services. This ranges from homelessness response and eviction prevention to transitional housing and long-term stabilization.
Beginning in FY24, these housing-specific requests were moved out of the Vibrant Community Funds and into this dedicated process, which is funded through the city's capital improvement program allocations into the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund.
A notice of funding availability was issued in August 2025 that announced $575,000 was available in HOPS funding for FY27. Fourteen completed applications were received, and requests totaled just under $1.4 million.
With requests far exceeding available funds, the committee focused on programs that showed the strongest alignment with city priorities, demonstrated organizational capacity, and delivered meaningful impact for underserved residents.
The goal was to support a broad range of critical services while making thoughtful and sometimes difficult decisions about how to distribute limited resources. To evaluate applications, the committee used a comprehensive scoring rubric This looked at the strength of the proposed program, the use of local data to demonstrate need, the applicant's understanding of the population that they serve, the use of best practices, and how outcomes would be tracked and measured.
Organizational capacity and financial stability were also key considerations, including budget feasibility, and the ability to leverage outside funds. The scoring process also reviewed how programs engage underserved communities, the structure and representation of staff leadership, and how participants are involved in shaping and evaluating services.
Collaboration with other providers and how well programs fit within the broader network of housing and homelessness services were also important factors. Together, these criteria helped ensure that the recommended programs are high quality, well-aligned with the city goals, and positioned to meet the needs of the community.
Final application scores ranged from 70 to 101 points. Based on those scores, the committee grouped applications into four tiers and applied consistent award percentages within each tier. Overall, the recommended FY27 HOPS awards support 13 programs across a wide range of housing-related services, and funding is allocated as follows.
Approximately 224,000 supports day shelter operations, coordinated entry, and housing access services at The Haven. About 123,000 supports homeownership readiness, financial coaching, and resident services through Habitat for Humanity and Piedmont Housing Alliance.
Roughly 74,000 supports permanent supportive housing and long-term stabilization through Support Works and Community Services Housing. About 54,000 supports emergency shelter and case management through PACHM.
Just under 43,000 supports pre-construction services that help low-income homeowners prepare for future home repair projects through AHIP. Approximately 35,000 supports transitional housing programs serving families, refugees, and women in recovery through MACCA, the International Rescue Committee, and Georgia's Friends.
And about 22,000 supports eviction prevention and legal advocacy through the Legal Aid Justice Center. These funding categories reflect a broad range of services needed to support residents from homelessness response to stabilization and prevention, to pathways into long-term affordable housing.
The committee's process ensures that each funded program plays a distinct role and contributes to a coordinated, effective system of services. All recommended expenditures fall within the FY27 CIP allocations for CAF, and no additional financial impact is associated with this action.
These recommendations support essential nonprofit partners whose work advances the city's affordable housing goals and strengthens housing stability for residents with the greatest needs. City staff recommends that City Council adopt the attached resolution approving the FY27 HOPS grant program funding recommendations and authorize allocation of CAF funds to the 13 programs as outlined.
And once again, thank you for your time, and I'm happy to answer any questions. All right. Any questions? Michael? No questions really. I guess it's not the committee's fault at all, but looking at it, I wonder given where conversations have been going with homelessness in the community and the kind of responses we're looking at in terms of low-barrier shelters, is this reflecting where the city is at in terms of where we want to go?
I'm not sure it does. Maybe there would be a little bit more emphasis on case management or PACHM running those kind of services to better prepare us for where we want to go with Holiday Drive, either long-term or in a more immediate interim level, utilizing it in some way.
That was the only thought I had looking through it. Anything else? Anything else? All right. This side? Well, the concern that I have had, and I had sent Ms. Methler an email tipping her off about my concern that I was going to raise this issue, but it's something I've mentioned before.
I wonder if you could comment on whether it's a concern that we ought to be having about this particular allocation for the HOPS money, is that we're putting money into these programs based on what they have asked us for, what they think we want.
And I don't know whether we have said to them with any greater specificity what we want, or I guess my question would be whether having received these different applications, was there ever a point where anybody sat there and said, "Okay, we've got two or three people all vying for money for the same basic function.
Can't we see how they work together to make sure that we're not leaving people out? That we're making money available or assistance available to all of the people who may have a need in this area, and not merely the one or two constituencies?" I'm thinking in particular, there are a number of different agencies, not just through HOPS, but through other funding sources as well, that deal with re-entry from prison, or prison or jail.
And we have one particular request here for that kind of service for women in particular. We have a couple of different requests. If you look at funding sources ranging from the jail through some of the nonprofits like Uhuru Foundation and things like that, a number of folks who work in that space, or at least are close to that space.
And I wonder whether there is anybody in the regular course of things, in the way that we handle all of this, if there's anybody who sits there and says, "Here's a hole. We've got somebody working here and here, but nobody working here." And I just wonder whether there is something we ought to be doing or a way we ought to be organizing the way in which we solicit requests or applications for the funds.
If there's some way that we can be spending some energy and some thought on how we make sure we're covering all of the folks who ought to be getting those services. Sure. Yeah, I think that touches on a bit of what Councilor Payne said, too, as far as would we want to be more prescriptive in the future about these are the specific services we really know there's a need for.
And that is certainly direction I think the committee would be happy to take from you all if you wanted to give it. And your point about- When in your sequence of how you do your work- Sure, yeah ... would that be useful?
I think that would be coming up shortly with the NOFA being released this summer. But the HOPS program itself, usually the application is open in October or November, so it would be, yeah, sometime between then, we would want to be able to give some feedback to applicants with that direction.
And also to your point about the duplication of efforts, that's certainly an observation that comes up when reviewing the applications, especially if you're looking at a two-sentence summary of each of them.
Often digging in deeper into the applications, it can become a little more clear- Sure ... of they're really serving this specific population, and it doesn't have a lot of overlap with this organization over here.
But that's part of the due diligence that the committee does. It's also helpful that we have Taylor Harvey Ryan, who's our grants manager on that committee, as well as Misty Graves. She's also on the committee, and they both have some other ideas about what these organizations are doing in the community besides my more narrow view, which is really about HOPS and CAF.
And that helps bring some awareness as well. And sometimes we do go back and ask the applicants to specify. I think it wasn't as much this year. I want to say it was last funding cycle. It was, in particular, it seemed there was a high number of applications that were doing something around eviction prevention, and that was a big question.
I was, "Wait, the city is also putting a lot of money into that, so is there a duplication?" And we found that there wasn't so much, but it did raise a question of, oh, is there maybe a bigger need that is being unmet since we're seeing so many of the same organizations asking for funding for that specific need?
So, I don't know. I think that's part of the process when you're having the government funding a bunch of nonprofits rather than having one central service provider. And I don't think that's the direction that we necessarily want to go in.
But I think if we could help nonprofits collaborate together, there could be a desire for that, but I would want to hear from those service providers before I speak for them. Yeah. Okay. All right. That's my thought.
Yeah. Yeah, I just have one question, which was- Yeah, go ahead ... is the gap, the 1.39 and 575,000, is that an average gap of asked funding? Yeah. It's pretty typical. Okay. I can look back over the years and see exact figures, but it is always the amount requested is always more than double what we have available.
And that's every funding source. Yeah. Right. Thank you. Great. So is there agreement to carry the item to the July 20th meeting for a second- Sure ... reading and vote? Yes. Okay. And I'll just offer...
Thank you, Madeline. But I'll offer perspective on the questions that have come up in regards to prioritizing, strategizing, directing to certain areas. The work session that we just had on investing in community, your strategic planning sessions or retreats are those moments.
That's what we'll have to make sure that we call out. I'll be a little more conscious of calling out the opportunity for you to help direct where you want money to go by prioritizing is the moment that we're looking for.
We need that clarity from you- Yep ... as a majority. Because it's great to hear from one person about this priority and this person about that priority, but I jokingly share with you all, give me three, because that's a majority of this body.
Mm-hmm. So I need three people to land in the same place suggesting that reentry is a hot topic for us. We want to focus some energy there. And then I can give Madeline the clarity that she needs to then inform the process to bring you that result.
So just keep that in mind as we go forward in those different meetings when we're in a strategy moment, and I'll make sure to call them out more specifically that those are the moments that I'm looking for the feedback that then becomes the direction that informs our process.
And then hopefully we'll bring you the results you're looking for. Good. When it comes to Speaking to nonprofits about should they be doing this, should they be merging at all, we don't see that as staff perspective as their place.
If you want us to speak on that, that would be more in a non-public setting, because we're not looking to be partial in that particular moment. I think you, as a body that is putting out funding, can state that you have a priority that collaboration be funded, so we can give points for that.
Or if you're looking for direction that you want to give to us that no more than two organizations doing the same thing should be funded in any specific round, you can give that kind of clarity for us.
That would be very helpful if we had some language like that to then put in front of the committee that's reviewing the packets, and then can more or less filter using those parameters. So we need to, before we ask that, do maybe some research on how does that actually affect nonprofits.
Have people done that in the past? How has- Yeah ... consolidation been either pushed for or been incentivized in some way? It's usually driven either by the organizations concluding that on their own, that we can't cut it on our own, or funders drive that conversation.
Yeah. That's really where it comes from. Yeah. So we would want to make sure we're doing something effective, not just vibes based, sounds good. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to be fleeting in where you're going.
You want to make sure that you're targeting certain things. I think to Councilor Payne's point of, are we hearing the list of where we're funding? He didn't really hear homelessness. I get that. That's a fair question with the issue that we face today.
But if that is a priority that you want to then be able to tie to the results that you get in the next report, we have to hear that from you. Mm-hmm. And I know we're not going to resolve it tonight, and I don't expect to discuss it tonight in depth, but would just throw out for the upcoming one, I'd be particularly interested with investments in homelessness targeted towards one, no matter what, holiday drive, one of the biggest challenges will be funding case managers and staffing for it.
So looking at investments in that direction. And then if we do anything in the interim, the biggest challenge will also be- Sure ... funding case managers and who would staff any interim solution. So really gearing it towards that.
Because even some of our homelessness investments in this round aren't really answering that specific question. Right. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Madeleine. Yeah. And congratulations on your new role.
Thank you. She was promoted to senior housing planner. Some order of those words, yes. I thanked her today for carrying this load by herself in a lot of ways, and thank Kelly as well for what she's done to help you, even though we're losing Kelly later this month.
Thank you. Up next, we have a resolution endorsing West Main and Ridge smart scale application. Mr. Duncan? Sharp dressed city engineer. I like it. Thank you, councilors. My name's Brennan Duncan, I'm the city engineer.
I'm here tonight. I've actually got two items here. So this one and the other one, the next one, are very similar. But we're to the point in this project that we're looking for a resolution of support.
So a quick background here. We started this process way back in 2024. And it's gone through several iterations of data collection, public engagement. We came to you in March, and it has not changed that much since then.
We held one more public meeting since March with the downtown business owners to listen to their concerns and see what we could do to either tweak it as part of this or look at how we could incorporate that if and when we got funding later on.
So that's a quick background of where we're at. But the study and purpose of this was really fourfold. Improve safety for all users, so we're not just looking at cars, we're not just looking at bikes, we're not just looking at pedestrians, but really everyone who is using this.
The West Main and Ridge intersection is one of the... I would call it the intersection in Charlottesville. It connects our biggest east, west, and north, south corridors. So this is really where we're trying to invest some effort here to rethink how this could work for everybody.
So with that, we're trying to improve traffic flow and the ease of use for all the users, maintain the pedestal that the statue was on there at one point, just so we can reuse it at some for whatever may come available.
And then develop a competitive smart scale application, and really there's two parts of that. So it has to show a benefit of congestion there, and also it has to be cost competitive. So we looked at roundabouts and other things that could be done at this intersection, but really the cost for that just kind of blows up, and we wouldn't be able to put in a competitive application.
So here's that timeline I was talking about. So November 2024, we started with the data collection. 2025 in March, we had public survey. 20th April, existing conditions findings were published. August of last year, we did our first public informational meeting and survey on the three alternatives.
January of this year, another public information meeting, feedback collection on our proposed alternative. April was when we came to you all, or sorry, March we came to you all. April was when we had the meeting with the Downtown Business Association.
So here is, I know it's probably hard to see, but this is the preferred alternative. We are showing one-waying of Water Street with a pair for the one-way of South Street. There's a cycle track or a two-way bike facility on Water Street.
This goes up to 4th Street, which we're in the process right now. Utilities is starting a large utility project down West Main Street. It's going to take several years, so we're going to be studying West Main Street and hope to be able to continue this facility further to the west.
We've had our consultants look at multiple versions of this, almost every iteration I can think of, to come up to this kind of preferred concept to try and address all the needs through this intersection.
So the project benefits. Right now we've got a five-leg intersection. This will create a one-way pair. It decreases delays. We're reducing turning movement conflicts, improved pedestrian safety. We're enlarging the spaces for waiting, leading pedestrian intervals, sufficient crosswalk time at all the controlled crossings, enhanced accessibility for pedestrians and cyclists, expanded protected bikeway, improved right turn visibility, and then improved way finding signage.
That's kind of italicized there. That, we can possibly even do a lot of that before we would get the funding for this. But the study just kind of identified where we could do some of those things. So the next steps.
So right now we're here, this June to August. The Smart Scale application window is open. We need city council endorsement of the project before we can submit for it. If and when we get that support from you tonight, we'll do our application.
It'll move forward in September through January of this year. Smart Scale applications are assessed by VDOT. By spring of next year, we'll know if we were successful in that bid. It will put it on the six-year plan, and then that funding for this project will become available in 2033.
As I mentioned, 2027, '28, '29, we'll be working on that utility project on West Main Street. So once that's complete or kind of during that process, we'll be starting a new study process for West Main Street to kind of tie into this project so that hopefully, we'll be right around the same time, maybe a couple of years difference, between when we get this funding and when we would be able to implement something further down West Main Street.
So with that, I'm here for any questions that you all had to answer anything that came out of the public comment. We do have the recommended motion there if you want to move forward with this. All right.
Thank you very much. We'll start over here. Sure. So obviously we've gotten a lot of engagement on this, and I'll fully admit my bias is when there's a situation where a change is going to slow down or interfere with vehicular traffic, my bias is towards that's okay, and people will adjust, and that will be beneficial to pedestrians, bikers, and generally be able to work out.
But, I think some of the questions raised are worth engaging with. So I'll just read from a little bit of what we were given today from VDOT directly that we did not collect traffic data at the intersection of South and 2nd Street Southeast or West Water Street and 2nd Street Southeast, where the one-way portion of West Water Street would end.
The study was scoped to consider solutions to the intersection of Ridge, West Main, West Water Street, and so that was outside of the initial traffic collection plan. We have received several comments that there would be issues with traffic on South Street getting backed up when the train is running on the track south of the South 2nd Street Southeast intersection.
Sorry. The city expressed willingness to remove on-street parking and install a left turn lane on the last block of South Street to prevent the train acting as a barrier, and I also heard a suggestion last night that it may just require installing signage.
The discussion I had with the city is that if the project is funded, additional traffic data would need to be collected to determine the appropriate mitigation strategy, but they believed it wasn't required at this time.
And again, that's from Sandy Shackleford at VDOT. And so the question from that is, there are elements of this that were not in the scope in terms of assessing impacts, and there was also an identified need for additional traffic data as well as in that analyzing what the mitigation strategies would be.
Where in the process would those things be done? So yeah, that's a good question. So again, 2033, when funding becomes available for this, so we're talking five, six years out. At that time, we would kind of engage a new engineer.
We'd look at the new existing conditions. It's possible in the next six years that new buildings could get built, that traffic patterns in the area could change. We could have some traffic apocalypse like, I don't know, COVID or something like that, where traffic volumes completely disappear or flying cars or whatever else.
I don't know. But at that time, we would kind of look at the existing conditions, look at what we can do. I think a lot of the reason that we didn't look at those areas specifically is the volumes are low enough that even if they increase, we're still way lower than a lot of other intersections in the city.
There are currently about 2,500 vehicles on South Street. There are about 6,000 vehicles a day on Water Street. So even if we took those eastbound traveling people on Water Street and put them over onto South Street, we're still going to be well below any kind of capacity threshold.
So we're not denying there may be some things that we need to consider with trains and that kind of stuff. We just feel like it's something that can be overcome with engineering stuff. It's not going to stop or prohibit us from doing this project.
It's not a red flag, I guess, for us, that it's not something that can be overcome. Mm-hmm. And I guess, really, I think one of the big things that could change, which I hope changes, is in the next 10, 15 years, the surface parking lots there could be developed into some sort of mixed-use development with residential and commercial, which would obviously transform traffic patterns.
And I hope we see that happen. I think it's very possible we could see that happen. I assume that is not something that's entered into thinking through what that may look like. So in the traffic study that was done, they ballooned that.
It's a very conservative study, in my opinion. Like I said, there's about 6,000 vehicles a day that are shown on Water Street now. They took that up to nearly 11,000, so almost doubling it, and looking at those traffic volumes, and they still work.
We still get congestion benefits and everything else from this project. Mm-hmm. And so you already outlined this, but construction itself wouldn't begin until at least 2033? There's always the possibility we could accelerate that funding, but right now the six-year plan would be us getting that funding in 2033.
Mm-hmm. And again, thinking through the additional traffic studies as well as any mitigation that may be needed, you said that would be evaluated in around 2033 before construction begins? Yeah. We would definitely.
What we're presenting tonight is a conceptual plan. In engineer speak, it's we call like a 30% design. It's probably not even that, more like 15% design. So we've done enough to look for where those red flags are going to be, make sure things will work, but we're going to move forward and look at it in more detail once the fund-- So one of the benefits of this program is all this funding is state and federal.
So there's no city funds right now that are going into this. So when 2033 rolls around, we take the money, we enlist an engineering firm to design this with these parameters that are in this study, and look at what needs to be tweaked, what works, what doesn't work, and move forward from there.
So there will likely be a 12 to 18 month design period once that money is released to us before any type of construction would occur. Mm-hmm. And one of the other things we received emails about, quite frankly, I have no idea how to evaluate what claims are accurate or not, but a concern is this could have some interference on the ability for delivery drivers to drop off things to the downtown mall or drop off supplies to businesses there.
Is that something that's just outside the scope of work of the analysis that you would do? No, we're looking at that. We're not taking away any parking at this point. We're not taking away any access to the mall crossings at this point.
So I don't really see how that would... A delivery driver might have to come from a different direction, but the actual stopping to do deliveries would be much the same as it is today. Mm-hmm. I think that is it for me now.
Thank you. Can I ask a clarifying question? Sure. This endorsement is not a commitment to making the change. Is that correct? We can always pull back our application if we decide that something has changed, and we don't want to move forward with it.
Okay. And the question in regards to additional development plans that come to pass get factored in could be a basis for why that changes? Could be. Okay. It could also be an opportunity that we have a plan in place, and if one of those developments happens, that we can ask them to do a portion of that as part of their development.
From a timing standpoint. Yes. I always like to spend other people's money. Yes. Okay. Just wanted to make sure I was understanding what I need to be understanding. Yep. Thanks. Okay. Jen? Along the lines of that, I know when you had come to PPAC, we looked at some other recommendations for the two-way bike track and some concerns about how that flows.
So if this may be too in the weeds, let's pretend we win based on this iteration, this 30%, and we make it happen, and we find that there was some unintended consequence that happens from it. Who builds it?
Does VDOT build the project out, and then we pay for changes to it, or how would that work? So this is, again, look for it at more as a framework than a fully fleshed out design. So there are aspects of this that we have to hit.
So we have to do the congestion mitigation, because we've got that in our proposal. We have to do the bike, ped improvements because we have that in our proposal. Now, which side of the roadway those go on, what exactly they look like, all that is up for change.
We just have to make sure that we're hitting those key scoring criteria so that we don't have to-- If we change it too much, then it has to go back and get rescored, and that's where we could lose funding.
But as long as we're still hitting those key factors that we're trying to accomplish with this design, we can make those tweaks once we get to that 2033 when we get the money and start fleshing out that design a little more.
And that money is going to... But that money goes to VDOT to do the building, or we hire somebody? No. So yeah, the intention with this would be- Just use that money. Yeah ... that we would use our own contracts with the...
Basically, we're only getting the money from VDOT- Got it ... from this, unless we ask them to do the design. But right now, the intent of this is that the city would be enlisting engineers to do this full design, come up with the plans.
We would bid it. Our project managers would oversee the project from start to finish. VDOT's involvement from this point forward would only be financial. Thank you. Yep. So my question, I guess, more than anything else is, what exactly is the problem that this is meant to solve?
So a lot of it is access for multi modes. We're trying to create some north, south, east, west kind of bike corridors. If you think of it as you've got highways that are exclusively all for vehicles, we don't allow pedestrians, we don't allow bikes on a highway on one end, and we've got the pedestrian mall on the other where it's intended fully for pedestrians, and outside of emergency work or whatever, we try and keep vehicles out of it.
We're trying to create some of these corridors that are more focused on bicycle infrastructure so that we can get some multi modes throughout our city, and increase that. So, we've got plans right now, or we're planning to expand on West Main Street, further down Water Street.
Right now, we have the trail that picks up just on the other side of the Belmont Bridge and connects you all the way down to Meade Avenue and Meade Park. So we're trying to make that kind of cross-city connection for cyclists and pedestrians throughout the city.
So for most of the people who go through that intersection, they would think that a problem at that intersection was basically rush hour vehicular traffic, things backing up, in some cases backing up to the interstate.
This will not solve that problem. So this does get us some congestion mitigation. So it's- And I've looked at the numbers on the figures in here, and maybe I'm not understanding them, but I don't see that the...
The numbers seem to increase maybe 5%, 10% over the next 50 years, 30 years. For the overall traffic volumes? I'm just looking at individual numbers. Yeah. So- If there are 500 going this way right now, there may get to be about 600- Mm-hmm ...
20 years from now. Right. So, we're going to get traffic growth. So what we're really looking at is not, does it get worse from today till 2035 or 2045 or 2055? Because if we get more people in the city and we have more cars, that's going to get worse anyway.
What we're really looking at is, if we kept the existing condition for the next 20 years and had the traffic growth, comparing that to what it would be with this improvement 20 years from now. Okay. And maybe I didn't find the right figure for that, but I look at the figure 20 is the no build design year peak in 2056, so 30 years down the road, compared to existing peak volumes, and that's up about 10 to 15%.
You're talking the future no build? Right. Compared to? Right now. Right. Compared to figure 20- Yes ... to figure 2. Okay. And I didn't see, maybe I'm misunderstanding the figures, but I also saw 2045 interim year peak volumes.
Is that assuming that the project gets built in figure 19? Correct. Figure 19 would be, yes, that would be if this project got built. So those are the two diagrams that you would be comparing if you're looking at a 2045 build for existing conditions versus the proposed condition.
Okay. But if we're not building anything, the comparable data would be the 2056 no build design. Correct. There's very little difference between the numbers on those three charts. Yeah. So this is not a traffic congestion issue that this is fixing.
It's mostly the safety factors, the pedestrian enhancements, the bike enhancements, and we're accomplishing all that without making the vehicular traffic worse than it would already be. So there can still be the same car throughput while having a safer bike and pedestrian facility.
You're right. It's not a lot less, but it is slightly less. So we will still score points in the VDOT system by reducing the congestion. Okay. So- And that's also making a lot of assumptions. Yes, all of this makes a lot of assumptions.
The models are not based on a Parisian style city engineering plan where you actively build enough bike facilities that people mode shift. These are based on American- Right ... so we can also decide which policy do we want to go down in the future.
Is there anything in what we have here that attempts to estimate What the effect would be on the number of bike trips 30 years from now, or is that just too much an imponderable? To answer your question.
Yeah. I don't think the consultants looked at that as part of this. Frankly, I would think anything that they would come up with would be like a Ouija board at that point. Well, maybe not quite a Ouija board.
They would be looking at other- Could do through engagement ... jurisdictions that have done this type of thing. But nationwide, we are on the front edge of this. I know a lot of our bike advocates ask for more and more, but we're doing a lot.
We're doing a lot more than Joe Q City in America right now when it comes to this. So there aren't a whole lot of other cities for us to... And a lot of them are only doing this in the last 15 or 20 years.
So, when we're trying to project out 30 years, it's hard to do that because we don't know all the effects of that. So one of the main ways, I guess, that you're going to get some of the effects that you want is by making it so that we treat Water Street and South Street as effectively two sides of the same street.
Correct. Wouldn't it be easier to leave Water Street as is, dead-end South Street, so that it doesn't come into the five-way intersection at all? And then if you want to make that purely a bike ped route, you could do so, and then you don't have any issues, really.
You could have South Street accessible by a turn off of Second Street or something like that, but the point is it wouldn't be getting into the five-way intersection. And that would allow the concerns that the folks on the Mall have for not being able to find the Mall.
If somebody's on South Street, isn't going to logically find the Mall. I can tell you from 30, 40 years ago, that was an actual serious problem. I would believe that 30, 40 years ago, but almost everyone has a cell phone and maps on their phone right now.
We've had the crossings closed now for a couple of months while we're redoing the Mall crossings for the vehicles, and I was down there last weekend of last Friday in May, and it's as busy as I've ever seen it.
Surprise, surprise. People can still find it, even though those crossings are not active currently. But again, I think we should do more on the way finding. I look at Winchester and Boulder, Colorado, and other cities who have successful pedestrian malls.
A lot of them have big gateway entrances onto the Mall. We don't. Maybe that's something we should look at doing, to get people as they're driving down the street to realize, "Hey, this is an entrance to pedestrian Mall." So I think we can accomplish both.
They don't have to be mutually exclusive. And to the point, I guess, with South Street, it's room, really. We've got on-street parking because several of those old houses, businesses that are in there now either don't have driveways or don't have sufficient driveways in there.
The Midway Manor bus stop. Yeah, we've got our bus stop in there now for Midway Manor. There's just not enough width to get everything we need on South Street from a multimodal standpoint. If we tried to do it as a bike corridor there, either we'd have to remove parking or...
Well, we'd just have to remove parking. And you can't get two-way traffic and have a bike corridor in there and have parking. We'd be taking property. The thing that's in our favor on Water Street is it is really wide.
The right of way that we have on Water Street compared to most of our other streets gives us the opportunity to do something like this. Well, I think that the concerns of the folks on the Mall not only have some historical justification but have some present justification because one of the points that I've tried to make in my years of advocacy for the Mall is that the reason why it has continued to be successful is because the city has, A, continued to invest in it year after year after year, which many people who put in malls wound up not investing further, whether it's, in our case, building the Omni or subsidizing the building of the Omni or the Pavilion or all the other things that have happened ever since.
So it's the investment of money we put into it. I agree with the people who spoke earlier who said that in 1996, when it was made more visible and easier to find, that that made a significant difference.
I think right now, as I look at the Mall, even assuming three weeks from now that the crossovers are all fine and everything is back to normal, still a lot of vacancies down there. I think it's holding on, but I wouldn't say it's truly healthy at the moment.
The only good news out of all of this is that whatever we talk about tonight isn't going to happen for at least seven years. Yes. And maybe in the next seven years we'll figure something out. But I'm concerned about that.
I'm also concerned that one of the constraints, I remember we ran into this on the MPO, when I was on the MPO five years ago, was trying to figure out when we could expand the scope of a project or of a study of a project.
And one of the things that we were told as we were looking at that point At the intersection of Preston and 10th Street and Grady and so on, was that we wanted to extend the area that could be subject to the traffic improvements by a couple of blocks down Preston Avenue, and we're told, "No, you can't do that.
Once you've set the footprint, the footprint has to stay." And so if we're going to put this in, let's put in a bigger footprint. Let's put in a footprint that goes down to the Second Street parking garage.
It does. Well, that's not what any of these maps that I see indicate. If that's the case, then great. But- Yeah, we're proposing improvements all the way down to the garage there on Water Street. So from Second Street all the way up across to Fourth Street on the west side, and then 150, 200 feet- Right ...
kind of north and south. I think the concern people raise is it not evaluating the relevant intersections and then not going down South Street far enough. It takes it the full length of South Street, so if we're going to do any changes, that's kind of already in that overall kind of project area.
Mm-hmm. I have no idea what the future holds for those parking lots, although looking at it, certainly within the lifespan of the kinds of drawings you've got here, it would certainly seem highly likely that they will be very large buildings in the meantime, with a lot of people either working or living there, and a lot of people therefore presumably trying to get there.
I think that the fears that the folks on the mall have about the health of the mall are legitimate fears, and I don't think that the notion that maybe we'll get a few more folks on bikes coming down there is going to solve their problem, particularly in the next 10 years, or maybe in the next 30 years.
I can't predict what the future would hold that far out, but I've got real concerns that I don't know what it's actually going to serve. B, I know it's not going to serve what most people perceive to be the problem there.
And C, I don't think it's well thought out in terms of what the demands are going to be on that road network over the next 10 to 15 years. Any other comments? People raise this in public comment, and I think demonstration projects, you mentioned- Mm-hmm ...
the temporary shutdown of the cross-sections on the downtown mall, which inadvertently has been like a case study of how that may play out. There's a lot of fear around the change, and I understand that because local business owners are not necessarily the richest people in the world, and they have a lot of money and time invested in their businesses.
So it's a very emotional, personal thing. All of which is to say, is it practical or possible for the city to do a demonstration project, making it one way on the temporary basis and just seeing this is what it looks like and kind of removing some of that fear of the unknown?
Or is that just not realistic? No, I think that's 100% realistic. If that's something that council wants us to do, you can give that direction to Sam, and he'll direct us to make it happen. So, depending on the length of time that it would take to do, we could do it pretty quick and simple if we're just doing a couple of weeks or a month to test it out.
If it's six months or a year, the cost of materials, we might be asking for some funding to do it. But, I think there's definitely a possibility to do something like that. And I'll say, like you said with the mall crossings, we inadvertently tested one way on Water Street for almost a year for the Belmont Bridge.
So it was one way already for a significant portion of time. I know that's kind of a little bit further down, but- Yeah ... effectively it was a one-way roadway at that point. Mm-hmm. Of course, the part that was one way was not the part we're talking about here.
No, but the people who would normally travel eastbound on Water Street no longer could. The vast majority of people who travel continue down Water Street towards the transit center, and they would have to make that right on Second Street and head back over- Okay ...
to Garrett, if they were making that. Yeah, I don't know how many people that is, but... I can tell you next time- You'd say ... if you want. At least according to the counts that they did, maybe. Actually, no, they didn't count that one.
So I can get that number for you later if you're interested. Well, I have no idea how practicable or easy it is, but I do think it would be interesting to have a demonstration project, even if it's just a period for a few weeks, month or so, to be able to see it, and I think that would take away some of the fear.
And if it turns out maybe it is a traffic disaster, we would see and know at that point. But if it is a very unreasonable or cumbersome thing, then I don't think there's a need to make it top priority or anything in the city.
But again, I think a lot of it just comes from the fear of what if? I think that's a very astute observation. There's a fear, and there's a what if. And I think also you saying that we can't predict the future, there's certain things, obviously, we can't predict, but we can shape and build the future that we want more decisively.
If we hedge-- I don't want to hedge. I don't want to hedge on our commitment to designing and engineering a city that makes better multimodal plans, builds safer streets, and facilitates better land use choices.
Every study that you can find pretty much shows that when you pedestrianize, when you reduce car speeds, when you do road diets, when you see multi-lane streets that were then turned into slower streets, revenue increased for all of the shops on those streets.
So there is an amount that we do know that what if has been taken out of the equation because we might be on the forefront a little bit, but we are not inventing any wheels here- Correct ... in America or abroad.
There are plenty of case studies for these types of projects that we can look to, that we can see, that our VDOT teams know about, that our internal teams know about. So there's not a lot of I don't knows for something like this in general.
Cars whizzing by don't spend money. People lollygagging, people who live nearby, those folks are the ones spending money, and those who can find easy parking. And there's nothing easier to park than a bike or being a pedestrian.
Yeah. So we get to build the future that we want. We get to set these policies. We had a demonstration project, as you mentioned, when the Belmont Bridge was underway and Water Street was closed. We had a more recent demonstration project when, was it like a transformer exploded and Water Street was completely shut down for a period of time?
Yeah. A pole was hit and wires were- Yeah. Right. The pole was hit, and that had to be-- And as someone existing- Are you claiming that as a success? I'm talking about it being a demonstration project of that street being interrupted.
And that worked? I don't know if you spent any time down there on it, but it was lovely to exist in that space without-- And I do bike, as I make no secret about, often up Water Street. Most of the traffic goes up Water Street anyway.
And the amount of times I've had to-- We had a public commenter earlier today say both that Water Street is not very busy and- And the added traffic on South Street from Water Street would-- Yeah. Yes.
Thank you. Those things are not quite reconcilable. And while it is relatively a quiet-ish street, so it's going to be less of an effect than if we did this to 250, which I know we can't. But even though it is a quiet street, I, as a bicyclist who uses that street to get here sometimes and uses it almost daily for whatever meetings I have downtown, have to yell at cars frequently who are pulling out without looking, who are rolling through stops, who are verging into traffic, again, without looking, and probably more frequently than even on West Main Street.
And so creating a safer space for bicyclists is both safer and more useful. There's a urban planner and urbanist, a city planner and an urbanist. If you've spent any time in the city planning space, you'll recognize his name, Brent Toderian, who has a famous quote that says, "You can't justify a bridge by the number of people swimming across a river." Meaning, what you have now is not necessarily the model you use for what you want or what you can do.
They didn't see, "Oh, a lot of people are swimming across the English Channel. Let's build a tunnel." I mean, a lot of people were trying to take boats, but you build what you want to see. We get to build the future that we want.
And the future that I want, that I've made no secret about since I started being in the public eye, is one that is more multimodal, which doesn't mean we are forcing bikes and pedestrianism on people.
But it means that there's more options for more people so that you don't have to be car dependent. We also had a mention in our public comments earlier about baby boomers who are going to age out of driving and needing to create a safe way for them to get around, for apartment buildings to go in so people can live closer to the community where they want to be.
More people does not necessitate more cars if we do it right. And by inducing demand, which works for cars, as demonstrated by every road as a demonstration project on that front, induced demand works across modes as well.
We can induce demand for different choices by making different policies. I appreciate you, maybe without realizing it, suggesting we turn South Street into a woonerf. I would like- A what? A woonerf. It's a Dutch term for a slow street with traffic calming, chicanes, with planters, with road furniture, with a style that automatically, by design, reduces car speed.
So it is more of a shared street for everyone who needs to use it. That is something that I would love to see an actual demonstration project somewhere in the city. I know we've talked about that before.
But I really appreciate your comments about wayfinding and addressing those concerns in a way that doesn't involve- ... cars. We can add signage, we can add entrances. I've sent around pictures of during our Chapel Hill trip, we got a tour of their alleys that they had made, cut-throughs between really long blocks, and in order to make them welcoming, they put in archways that titled each alley.
That is place-making. That is defining areas and spaces in a way that is built for people, not for vehicles. So, I think that's something we have to keep in mind, is what is our unit of governance? It's a person, and making sure we have space for people to exist, to get around safely.
It is not the vehicle. So, I think we can address being able to find the Mall in ways that are outside of the scope of this project. We should do that sort of stuff anyway. And again, that doesn't have to wait for- Correct ...
six, eight years. And then I've heard the Mall is dying my whole life. I didn't say it was dying, I said it's fragile. No, yes. I appreciate that. We hear that bandied about quite frequently. I've been hearing that my whole life.
I remember when there was the two-waying of the previous one-way streets, and how this differs from that is we have the ability to make policy choices with more information and with a different goal in mind.
We cannot keep building space to fit cars in a land-constrained locality. So, what can we do differently is actually facing the truth of what's in front of us, is our land-constrained borders that get eaten up every time a certain local partner in some things entity purchases land.
We can build. We can build up. We can build infill. We can reduce the space that we give to cars, so that, A, we can build the community within our city limits. We can reduce traffic. We can reduce emissions.
We can get people where they need to go faster, more safely, and we don't become a parking lot for the county. That involves regional partnerships outside of the scope of this project, park and rides, a more expanded transit network, that sort of thing, but this is a piece of that.
This is part of building that future that we want. And we've seen Water Street one way recently. We should keep in mind the benefits of increasing bike access also improves car drivers' experiences. If you are the 10th in line for a red light, you're going to be 10th in line.
If five of those people make another choice, now you're closer. So, even though you are not choosing a bike lane or a bike lifestyle, your life has still improved, and traffic congestion has been reduced.
This is part of that. This doesn't fix it as one project, but it is part of a network we should be working towards enthusiastically. I mentioned Paris before. I know people say, "We're not Paris." That is a policy choice.
We can make similar decisions, and we could get there sooner. They have radically transformed their network in the last 10, 15 years. That's not 50 years, which is what Amsterdam took. They also have four times the density of population.
Again, a policy choice. You want 48,000 per square mile? It's a policy choice. Okay. So, if there's people living in the two parking lots that are in the area we're talking about, they have access to proximity.
Proximity means they don't have to get in a car every time they need something. That's what density buys. Right. Well, in terms of process, let's say we approve what's in front of us tonight. Likely, at the earliest, construction would begin in 2033, so a gap of seven years, potentially longer than that, and maybe we don't even get awarded funding.
So, in that interim, maybe there's still utility for a demonstration project, even if we approve it tonight, because in that gap of the seven years from VDOT, they acknowledge themselves additional traffic data would need to be collected to determine appropriate mitigation strategies.
Maybe that helps us just get a head start on being able to do that and collect data on how it plays out, and also see on some of the surrounding intersections, does that create a need for new mitigation to improve safety there if the flow changes in some way?
So, that just seems like a reasonable potential process. So, are you suggesting that even if we pass this tonight, we still should do a demonstration project in the meantime? I think there could be utility there because it would help us collect the data, and we know from what VDOT said, there's going to be, again, that need for mitigation.
Yeah. And the gap is just going to be so many years. Well, and I think what's useful about that, potentially, is the bulk of the expense of this project is the Ridge McIntyre intersection portion. Correct.
And the Water Street portion is something that's going to be definitely less intense infrastructure wise. There's not going to need to be earth movement. It's essentially- It's more of a restriping exercise ...
it's essentially a restriping and maybe a curb input. So, that is something we could do before, and then even harden before and have it... I don't know that we could harden it, just because the improvements that are needed at the intersection are kind of tied- Sure.
Okay ... to this, so. So, maybe not all the way up there. Not- Yeah ... at least not-- To your point, we could do a demonstration project Just to take away the vehicles. It would be more difficult to make it a true bike way and have all the infrastructure that we need for the bikes up at the intersection.
But we could at least model the vehicular part of this- Mm-hmm ... in real time and say either it works or it doesn't work, or find out where are those pinch points that we need to decide for. Right. If we're open to be flexible about it, some of the concerns from-- We understand the business community's concerns.
We have heard that. We also want the downtown mall to succeed beyond whatever level it's ever achieved. That should go without question. That is a pride and joy of the city. It is a gem. It is the central hub and the central place-making feature of Charlottesville.
I've been in cities that are very similar to Charlottesville, and they don't have something like that, and you feel truly like, "Where do I go? What is this?" There's no base. There's no home base, and the downtown mall is the mothership of the city.
So, of course, we want to protect that. But if we can do a demonstration project in the meantime and address some concerns also from the bike ped community with the interactions at the intersections or the bus stop or the larger intersection at the top, that's also valuable.
I think all of that is made possible by the fact that we do vote yes on this tonight. And- Because of the scale of the smart scale timeline, it does take so long that losing this opportunity sets us back several years.
And recognizing if council voted in the affirmative tonight, it's likely at least a seven-year process that also still has uncertainty in terms of funding awards. What, if anything, would be needed to indicate our desire to have at some point between now and the next seven years before construction would begin a demonstration project?
Would that be needed incorporated in the vote tonight? Would that need to be a vote at a later date? Would that just be an indication from council of a general goal? Let me offer on behalf of your concerned public that I would say that you make that an addition to this endorsement, that you make that as a request.
Okay. Because if you're taking that as a vote, if you were to pass the authorization to submit this, basically the endorsement, and you want a demonstration project, that is your way tonight to say to your public that, "And we want a demonstration just so that we can see." That has to be scoped, budgeted, and brought back to you for approval anyway because there's no money sitting waiting for that use.
And then we can make sure that we put together the right approach to doing a project like that. I have many thoughts, as he knows I do. So it's a strong request, but we can't condition because we don't know about money and that sort of thing.
Well, I think you can because we know that we can pay for it. To me, what I'm saying to you is you've heard opposition to this. If you're going to endorse it, then at least make the endorsement also conditioned on the idea of a demonstration, so that at least people will recognize that we are going to prioritize getting a demonstration project.
I would like to point out we have heard opposition to it. We've also heard a lot of support for it. Correct. A lot of support. Right. Especially in January when it first came up, and then we added an additional public meeting- Meeting.
Yeah, sure ... to reach out to even more folks. So we've heard one side tonight- I'm just saying express support for the demonstration ... but we've heard both sides throughout the last six months. Yep.
Express the support for the demonstration as a part of this action. I think that's ultimately what I'm suggesting to do. Okay. Well, in that case, I would move a resolution endorsing West Main Enrich smart scale application, including as part of that, at some point between now and construction- A city-sponsored demonstration ...
that there be a city-sponsored demonstration. I don't know if that is clear enough to get direction, but... To me, at least. Do we have a second? Second. All right. Let's pull up our voting pages. All right.
The project passes 3 to 1 with the bonus note. All right. Thank you. And I got another one. Next item? Yeah. Remy, if you can put up the presentation again. All right. So the second one, this one is not in the city.
This is a MPO request, but it's the same thing. They're asking for resolution of approval for what they are submitting. So what they're submitting is Barracks Road and 250 on/off ramps. So this is extending the on/off ramp to connect Leonard Sandridge to Barracks Road along 250, constructing a second left turn lane at the Barracks Road northbound exit, constructing sidewalk on the south side of Barracks under the bridge, and connecting that new sidewalk on the north and south sides of Barracks via two median refuge crosswalks on either side of that.
This addresses corridor statewide significance, being 29 North and 250, improving capacity need on regional networks, improvements to support the urban development area in the county, improvements to address the VTrans specified safety need.
So this is kind of where that is. So this is Leonard Sandridge on the left-hand side of the page here. As you come off of that onto 250 right now, you merge into the three lanes, or the two lanes that are there.
And then immediately, you've got about a third of a mile right now of condensed lane, and then it gets back into the turn lane to get onto Barracks. So it's just really connecting that so it'll be one off ramp, on ramp for that.
Today, they experience backups regularly coming off of Barracks Road into those through lanes on 250. So they're just trying to mitigate that safety need there on 250. So this is coming to the off ramp here, and then really at the intersection as it comes off.
Right now, there are two lanes. There's a right turn lane and a left turn lane. This is putting in a second left turn lane, as there's a predominant movement going that way. And the right turns can kind of turn right on red right now.
So it does add, right now, there's no pedestrian crossings in this area, and actually the sidewalk stops on the south side, southeast side, as you're approaching from the city portion. So this connects that through and under the Barracks Road 250 bypass, and allows you to connect back over into the other lane or other side.
So similarly, they're looking for the endorsement by city council here of their thing. Same timeline, September for the applications, and then spring next year for whether they'd find out if they were successful or not.
So similar motion here, moving to city council approve the attached resolution of support for the Charlottesville-Albemarle MPO Smart Scale 2026 application. All right. Any questions? We'll start over here this time.
Me? Mm-hmm. How does this improvement impact the Rivanna Trail? I don't know that it would. Because the RTF crosses... Well, I guess you would be able to come off of the RTF. Right now, it kind of crosses Barracks Road in the city portion.
So if you were trying to get, or trying to get from that northwest portion of Albemarle of this intersection over, right now you don't really have a way to do that. This would make that connection from that neighborhood up in Bennington and- Mm-hmm ...
Ricky Drive and all that kind of stuff over into the city. With the sidewalk build? With the sidewalk. Okay. And those pedestrian crossings. Okay. That's it for me. Where is the Rivanna Trail in that area?
I don't- It's just off the screen to the east here. It comes down- Across- ... Cedars Court, I believe. Okay. And then- That's not the- ... there's an access that goes up into the ball field or whatever there on UVA property.
By the bank and that side. I just realized I- Yeah ... I know where the trail is in most of the places. I'm familiar with it. If anyone would like to find out more about the entire trail- ... Loop the 'Ville happens the last week of September, including this section.
I have no questions. Michael? No, I assume that it was endorsed by the MPO means- Yes ... that there generally weren't significant issues. The only questions I would really have would be to our two councilors who are MPO board members, is if you, in your review, there were issues you saw with it.
If not, I'm fully ready to support it. I will say that so our tech board worked on this and endorsed it and supported it, and then came up to us, and the MPO as a whole did support this. But not without some concerns.
Making sure that the pedestrian facility, the shared use path, the bike and pedestrian facility, was included as much as possible. The pedestrian refuge islands were, I wish they were a little more navigable, where that was discussed.
Jen, would you like to add anything else? No, I think that was... Yeah. There were some concerns about UVA. Or was that the other ramp extension? Other extension. That was the other one. Yeah. Okay. We're generally not stoked about...
It's a weird role to be in when you're trying to push for bike pedestrian infrastructure on a board that is dedicated mostly to a car infrastructure project process. So we were happy to see the shared use path in there, and hope that that kind of bike and pedestrian facility is included more and more in VDOT projects, and with more and more enthusiasm.
Was that helpful? Yes. Thanks. All right. Any other comments, questions? Okay. Is there a motion? I would move the resolution endorsing the submission of Smart Scale HB2 applications requesting transportation funding by localities as presented in the packet.
Is there a second? Second. All right. Let's go ahead and vote All right, the motion passes four to nothing. And now we have an opportunity for our final speaking moment for members of the public. Individuals may raise your hand to be recognized to speak.
Each speaker will have up to three minutes. Please don't forget to state your name and place of residence. Is there anyone who wishes to speak? Yes, please. Good evening, Vice Mayor and Council. My name is Rachel Flynn.
Long time on-and-off resident of Belmont, but now I'm on again. I'm coming back to the city and learning a lot about what you all are doing. I have no complaints. I have no asks. You're going to fall off your chairs.
I actually want to thank you for what you do. I think you all are remarkable, and think you really work hard to consider what the people of Charlottesville want. I know how challenging it is to meet so many demands from citizens.
As a former municipal executive myself, I know what you're up against, how you have to prepare for meetings, like you obviously did tonight, community meetings all the time, phone calls, emails, and clearly, you all really do your homework and really pay attention.
And I know it's not easy to make these difficult decisions, whether it's land use, infrastructure, like tonight, the unhoused, like came up tonight, budget, taxes. These are really difficult decisions, and you all do it very thoroughly with grace, and I really appreciate it as a citizen.
I know you don't always agree, and that is tough, but God bless democracy, right? I also wanted to thank you for the work that city staff does. They're really remarkable. I came in, I don't know, a month or two ago, and was trying to talk to someone about land use, and couldn't really find my way, so I went to the city manager's office, and a lovely woman named Terry Bentley walked me down the hall and told me, "Here's who you want to talk to." And she didn't need to do that.
She could've said, "Go down there and press the doorbell." But she didn't, and it was very thoughtful. I called in for pothole repairs. They were repaired, wait for it, the next day. Nobody does that.
I just haven't seen it. I couldn't believe it. I went and talked to Missy Creasy because I wanted to know more about the development code, the comp plan, affordable housing ordinance, and she really took the time to explain it.
I know that with the lawsuit, it was complicated to a lot of people, including me, and she was able to tell me about it and where I had to go. Patrick, who always answers the phone, customer service, I'm sorry I don't know his name, but Patrick here always knows, gets me to that right person.
People don't answer the phone anymore, but your people do. It's really remarkable. I can't emphasize that enough. Mike Graff in utilities, he and I had a great discussion about sewers, and he really helped me understand some things.
Matt Alfley. If you want to know what the zoning requirements are, the height, the number of units, the setbacks, the number of parking spaces, you name it, that guy will call you back. If he doesn't already answer the phone, he will get that email back to you, and he's so thorough and very patient.
And then there's Joyce Patterson, who is just lovely. I think she's been here since the Civil War. Not sure. And I call her all the time. I've been calling her for years. And she'll walk me through something, tell me how to get to a property, and figure out the assessment.
Jeff Warner, historic preservation. I was trying to find some old drawings, and he wasn't really sure, but his files are incredibly organized, and he took the time to go through it, and then two days later, he called me back.
He said, "I looked somewhere else, and I found what you were looking for." He didn't need to do that. And so I just really want to let you know what a good staff you have and how much I appreciate what you all are doing.
I could use your help on urban forestry. I'm not sure who handles that here. He's great, too. Steve Gaines. I'm afraid I do have to cut you off in the interest of fairness, but can we count on you to come back at the next meeting and keep going?
I'm done. Thank you so much. I just have the Belmont Association of Reforestation, BARF. Did you send an email? Huh? Did you send an email previously? I've sent them to- What's your name again? Rachel Flynn.
Okay. I sent them to- We can- Mike Alfley. No, I didn't send an email for- No ... Reforestation. No, but I can make the connection for you tomorrow. Okay. What's his name? Steve Gaines. He's our urban forester.
Steve Gaines. Okay. I can find him. Thanks. Great. Thank you all, and thanks for what you do. I know this is not easy, but- Thank you ... appreciate it. Thank you so much. Any further business from anyone?