Thread by @socialistdogmom

a short agenda doesn’t always mean a short meeting. i’ll be here at the planning commission work session until 6:20 or so, at which point i’ll have to leave to make it to the police civilian review board meeting at 6:30 in the basement conference room in city hall.

getting underway a few minutes late. chair lisa green says she’d hoped to meet with mayor walker before the meeting, but times didn’t work out.

board member @LyleSollaYates, who represents the board on the housing advisory committee, raises the issue of HAC wanting to draft some language for the land use chapter. other board members seem to be reacting very strongly & negatively to this.

another board member suggests that because both the planning commission and HAC are working with city council & not each other, “they’re operating on their own agenda;” “it’s like a different train track.”

former chair genevieve keller says of HAC “it’s like it’s their game or no game.” she has some obvious hostility toward the housing advisory committee.
chair lisa green: “we’re gonna keep butting heads,” and “we need some clear direction.”

chair lisa green says they welcome HAC’s comments on the land use chapter, but the planning commission will draft it without them.
she’s also concerned about members of HAC who aren’t city residents.

“how many of us who live in the city sit on boards to plan the county?” lisa says she’s held this in long enough & is very distressed about the input of county residents on city matters.

lisa robertson from the city atty’s office says mr stoner (a county resident) serves on HAC probably because he is a developer who routinely develops land in the city “his service is based on his business... not his place of residence”

oh no i just realized there are two lisas at the table. this is as bad as having two mikes on the dais at council meetings. i’ll do my best to be clear. lisa green is the planning commission chair. lisa robertson is from the city attorney’s office.

interesting to note during this discussion about undue influence of county residents that the husband of current member & former chair of this commission genevieve keller, timothy keller, is on the albemarle county planning commission.

as nice a space as it is, one of the major issues with meetings held at city space is that it isn’t mic’ed. the room setup often involves most meeting participants sitting with their backs to the audience and it can be very difficult to hear clearly.

chair lisa green says there is a lot of talk in the plan about physical hardware for police, but not enough about training. she cites repeated public calls for better deescalation training.

genevieve keller referred to the anniversary of A11/A12 as “the big weekend.” 🙄
another board member says he doesn’t want to see less for police equipment but is ok with more about training.

i know sidewalk cuts for accessibility & stormwater run off aren’t as exciting as some of the other things that come out of charlottesville government meetings, but the shaping of the city’s comprehensive plan is both extremely boring and VERY IMPORTANT. (i’m reminding myself)

they seem to be struggling to maintain consistent versions of their documents. the version on the website is NOT up to date and appears to be missing quite a bit of information

charlottesville.org/home/showdocum…

moving on to “economic sustainability” from the “facilities” section.
one board member expresses concern that the chapter is “very charlottesville-centric” - many people who live here work elsewhere & vice versa.

a board member says he heard from community members during their listening sessions that many residents don’t feel welcome on the downtown mall & feels that by focusing on it in this chapter they’re missing portions of the population. (score one for community engagement!)

another member literally suggests they “ignore the problem” or just avoid it by removing the language about the downtown mall from the vision section of the chapter. the member who originally raised the point is concerned about the messaging of emphasizing the mall so heavily.

genevieve keller pushes back - “it [the downtown mall] represents a place where our city has centuries of investment” even if it is a place where “not everyone is comfortable.”
that is some commitment to white supremacy, genevieve.

jody lahendro (still getting everyone’s name straight) is the member who raised the concern about the emphasis on the downtown mall in the vision section of this chapter.

to his credit, he didn’t back down on this - he argues the downtown mall benefits some at the expense of others, but everyone stops short of actually talking about the racism and classism going on here.

“for people who don’t feel comfortable there are other people who do feel comfortable,” genevieve keller says.
she objects to calling downtown a “cultural hub,” saying “that raises the question of whose culture?” (so close to actually naming the problem!)

they’re discussing adding language to the goal about attracting and encouraging diversity.
keller interjects that they should just call downtown “ a focal point for the region” rather than “the economic hub.” this seems pointlessly semantic to me, but ok.

“what you see out there can really taint the vision of what is going on...” “people’s perception becomes reality.” a board member talks about someone who almost didn’t take a job in charlottesville because of some unnamed image problem. wonder what it was? 🤔🤷‍♀️ (hint: nazis)

“our housing study tells us it’s too expensive to have it here” says genevieve keller of affordable housing downtown.

“at this point, downtown is not the place to incubate your microbusiness,” keller says.
so who is downtown for? if it’s not for housing or new businesses or people who “don’t feel comfortable” according to extensive community engagement?

i think her point is that downtown is and has always been a great place for wealthy white people and she would very much like to keep it that way.

chair lisa green offers a time check - “while this has been a lot of fun, it’s 6:10 and we haven’t gotten very far.”
evergreen meeting comment.

they’re hesitant to dig into the housing chapter tonight... “we could go all night,” says one board member. skipping now to the environment section.

one member says “this is one of or most mature chapters.” it was apparently very well written in 2008 - these plans seem to be only revisions of previous plans. a staff member says it’s been heavily revised based on public comment & goals being met over the last decade.

some light ribbing of the tree commission by chair lisa green. we have fun here, folks.

moving along to transportation. “i know you wanna skip to housing, but i wanna get something done,” green says.

i’m not sure if they are planning on getting to the housing chapter tonight... maybe @seantubbs will be here through the end to find out? i’m switching to the police civilian review board meeting now.

rory’s still in the planning commission work session. see his updates about the discussion on the housing chapter starting here:

https://twitter.com/rory096/status/1034573510696427520?s=21