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extremely out of sorts tonight, having been forced to sit in a seat outside of my preferred row in city council. it’s pretty crowded!
after a moment of silence for the latest mass shootings & a moment of silence for karenne wood, we’re moving into announcements.
roanoke.com/news/virginia/…
roanoke.com/news/virginia/…
at last week’s retreat, they revisited some of the rules for meetings they agreed on last year. they didn’t revisit or reaffirm this forgotten commitment.
good to know the city of charlottesville supports the equal rights amendment i guess. that’ll really show ‘em.
a member of indivisible is asking i have item K, the special events permitting amendment, removed from the consent agenda.
“the proposed amendment to the city code would make much of the work we do impossible,” she says. grassroots organizations would be hurt by these stringent new requirements for exercising first amendment rights
“the proposed amendment is clearly unconstitutional” and any attempt to enforce it would result in costly lawsuits that the city would lose. it does nothing to keep us safer.
i don’t usually give a public comment, but this ordinance is grossly unconstitutional.
civil rights attorney jeff fogel up now agreeing - this is so vaguely written that any enforcement is going to result in civil rights violations.
jeff fogel says he’s happy to test the ordinance - “me by myself, drinking a coca cola.” says he’ll even call the police himself to come down & enforce it.
reverend don gathers asks city attorney john blair to offer some clarification on the proposed amendment to the permitting ordinance.
to my question of where the definition of “demonstration” came from, he cites a federal statute that also defines it as “one or more persons.” interestingly, the city’s version strikes the language about the expectation of drawing onlookers. 
to my question about whether civil penalties would be assessed against the children who organized the climate strike (he told me at the last meeting they wouldn’t fine children)... he’s talking around the issue.
if the lawyer is having troubling clearly explaining how the law would work, how do we expect the average beat cop to make a fair and consistent judgment?
parts of the ordinance apply to “participants” of an “event.” “participation” is not defined. if an event is something that attracts onlookers, is looking at a demonstration participating? if you walk by a demo while drinking from a glass bottle are you breaking the law?
i’d like to know how much the city spent settling a federal lawsuit over violation of a man’s civil rights last august over enforcement of a similar prohibited items ban. i guess they loved the experience so much they’re eager to do it again!
mayor walker moves to pull items K & M from the consent agenda, seconded by wes.
“certainly you could amend it to two or more” from one or more persons constituting an event, blair tells council. sure, that’ll fucking fix it!!
wes says he and his wife were out on the mall the day the kids did the climate strike. he doesn’t think what they did should be against the law. (that really underscores the amount of selective enforcement this ordinance would allow.)
wes wants to table the issue for now. blair is re-reading the national parks services definition of an event.
if a law requires this much mental gymnastics at this stage, it’s a bad law.
if a law requires this much mental gymnastics at this stage, it’s a bad law.
if they can’t ban guns (and they can’t) what is even the point of banning bottles and sticks?
blair says another option is to just pass the portions of the amendment that changes the penalties from criminal to civil, and not adopt right now the questionable definition changes (that actually sounds like the best idea to me)
galvin says she doesn’t have clarity on what’s being voted on and needs more time, perhaps an entire work session. she agrees it should be tabled for now.
wes motions to table it to august 19, kathy seconds. it gets tabled, with heather and signer dissenting.
the other item pulled, item M, is the hinton avenue rezoning (the supportive housing for disabled adults on the church property in belmont). alex ikefuna from neighborhood development services is up to answer some questions.
“i think the city should support this effort,” ikefuna said. it is a unique example of the community stepping up to create new affordable housing. he confirms for kathy that the rezoning is consistent with the comprehensive plan.
kathy moves to adopt the rezoning of 750 hinton ave and it passes unanimously to great applause from the crowd!
a little out of order for the agenda, but jay james has been appointed to the regional jail board. now on the the city manager’s response to matters by the public. dr richardson says he has only one response tonight - the city CAN implement a CO2 inventory every 2 years.
he should watch some footage of old council meetings. mike murphy was much better at responding to everyone.
now on to matters by the public. harold folley from the people’s coalition up first. he thanks the members of the initial police civilian review board, who stand to receive a round of applause.
“they were charged to do something and they got it done,” harold says of the CRB. the community is concerned city council will water down the next iteration of the board.
“i taught my son, if you’re pulled over, put your hands up,” says a black mother.
she says chief brackney “doesn’t do shit,” but PR and attending big functions.
we need a strong civilian review board.
she says chief brackney “doesn’t do shit,” but PR and attending big functions.
we need a strong civilian review board.
the next speaker is concerned about the ubiquity of styrofoam, which can’t be recycled and doesn’t biodegrade.
heather hill asks the city attorney to confirm - the city cannot ban styrofoam (just as we cannot ban plastic bags). we can put it in our legislative packet and ask the state for permission though.
i was looking forward to a fiery comment about buses, but paul long cedes his time to nancy, speaking in support of the police civilian review board & asking council to adopt the bylaws.
“if we’re talking about dismantling the ways that people are oppressed in this city,” it’s paramount to start that conversation & move forward with the CRB.
the next speaker says the skate park needs more lights. we need a clean, safe place for teens & the skate park is that! but it needs more light to be safer.
the speaker is also concerned about a planned subterranean parking structure in rose hill.
a community member is speaking directly to police chief brackney’s comments in this absolute softball interview in last week’s cville weekly
c-ville.com/one-year-in-po…
c-ville.com/one-year-in-po…
“a strong independent PCRB can get to the bottom of the root causes of disproportionate minority contact and help fix it.” this problem predates brackney but maybe we can fix it during her tenure, the speaker says.
the people’s coalition calls on council to take bold action to end the disproportionate policing of black and brown people. a strong and independent police civilian review board is critical.
andrea advocates for a strong PCRB & cedes her remaining time to luis from the legal aid justice center.
luis says one angle of the conversation that’s been missing is talk of immigrants’ rights. police leadership have promised not to work with ICE or cooperate with raids, but he has worked with immigrants who’ve been questioned by CPD officers about their status.
one person he worked with said an officer told him that when he went to jail, he’d be turned over to ICE. these are marginalized people who aren’t going to complain to the police department. we need a strong and independent CRB.
“they are the most dangerous interface between immigrants and the government,” luis says of the police. the human rights commission is great for many things, but for issues of police conduct, we need a specific accountability body.
wes says he’s very concerned to hear about officers questioning people about their immigration status. he asks chief brackney if a conversation can be had about how officers are treating people.
luis says LAJC would be happy to come back with specific policy feedback, but the point in this moment is that we need police oversight.
tanesha hudson up now talking about her upcoming unity days event. she’s requested additional funds from the equity fund for her event but hasn’t received a response yet.
“there’s a lot of white men in these high positions,” tanesha said about the meeting she had for her event permit - it was a room full of white men. “it’s that thomas jefferson effect,” she says.
she says the city is not prioritizing life experience in hiring, which means they end up hiring people to work on issues of housing, low income people, and people of color, who know nothing about the people they’re making decisions about.
she’s absolutely right about this - big blocks of older white people get worked up about a single issue & spend a couple of meetings showing up en masse, dominating the conversation until they get what they want.
independent candidate for city council john hall approaches the mic with a large toy bus in his hand, says something about buses then moves on to talking about james fields’ sentencing hearing.
john hall summarizes a conversation he had with the assistant commonwealth’s attorney & commonwealth’s attorney about the case. i can’t really tell what his point is, but i do recall that he’s had to be physically removed from their office before.
mary carey up now recalling decades of police misconduct. “i used to have to go over there with a metal bat to tell the police they gotta get outta garrett,” she says. she supports a strong, independent police civilian review board.
like tanesha said, too much of the city is run by rooms full of nothing but white men. “nothing has really changed.”
“you don’t need the police to be in control no more. they need someone to get control of them. they’re getting out of hand,” mary carey says. “i’m not saying all police officers are bad, i’m not saying all police officers are good. there’s not really any good cop.”
“i’d like to say something to chief brackney: would you get those police men some shirts? because the ones they wearin’ is too small!” mary carey says before taking her seat. (brackney has been standing at the rear of the chambers by the door all night)
the next speaker was addressing item 2, something about the land use map, but she concluded by saying some children came tonight to ask for extended pool hours but their chaperone took them home because of “some language” 🙄
i’m going to teach the children of every uptight WASP every swear word i learned growing up on an army base
ms katrina is still unsatisfied with the official result of the investigation into her son’s comapaint about officer misconduct. she wants to know if there are other complaints about the chief of police.
the next speaker lives in gordonsville but says “i still have a house in the city” which i assume means she’s a landlord?
oh yikes there is some bad and wrong language in the city charter. apparently the charter says the school board is appointed by council?! and requires the use of only male pronouns in official documents??
she’s asking for a public meeting for rezoning of the site of the greenleaf center.
next up is city council candidate sena magill who says the children had a petition of over 400 signatures for extended pool hours but left because they were uncomfortable about something that happened before the meeting began.
i believe that must be a reference to the loud disagreement between independent city council candidate john hall (who earlier gave a confusing comment that seemed to be defending the terrorist james fields?) and a local black activist who called him out for insulting the mayor.
ms gloria says we definitely need a stop light at tenth and paige. with the construction starting at the old dairy, she expects traffic to get diverted down tenth which will make it worse.
she also proposes a program for teens at risk of quitting school to connect them with seniors who need help with things like grass cutting.
back from recess and just getting into the agenda proper. i’m not sure we’re gonna finish by 11:30...
there’s been some kind of change to the maury ave proposal so it’s going back to the planning commission and won’t come back before council for a few months.
superintendent dr rosa atkins up now for the appropriation of funds to hire eight new teachers as part of the district’s efforts to reform their gifted education program (which has a history & current reputation of racial exclusion - this is an effort to fix that)
rather than my blurry pictures of the powerpoint, i offer you katherine’s article on the proposed changes
i love it when kathy galvin talks about her time on the school board. it’s weird that she never mentions the massively racist memo she wrote in her capacity as a school board memo.
kathy doesn’t understand the problem. one of her kids was identified for quest and one wasn’t. the subtext there is that she doesn’t think there’s a race problem. the data clearly shows otherwise.
kathy is now reframing this pushback as a criticism of this being an off cycle budget request. mayor walker says there’s been a real change in the kind of equity this community demands in the last two years.
wes moves to allocate the funding to hire the 8 new teachers, it’s seconded, and it passes unanimously.
we’re on #4 but i missed something while i was trying to figure out why everyone online is joking about feral hogs
heather is neutral on the project. kathy has “serious reservations” about this type of rezoning, planned unit development.
both nikuyah and kathy are concerned that what the project is calling a “park” is actually a trail on a critical slope. there’s very little open public space.
i feel as ready to leave this meeting as kathy galvin looks
(very)
(very)
kathy moves to deny the street closure and the critical slopes waiver, which passes unanimously.
kathy moves to deny the zoning to PUD with the original proffers, which also passes unanimously.
kathy moves to deny the zoning to PUD with the original proffers, which also passes unanimously.
now a resolution for council to ask the state landmarks register & national register of historic places to consider the carr-greer farmhouse and river view farm as historic landmarks. it passes unanimously.
i highly recommend visiting the ivy creek natural area when the barn is open! the volunteers can tell you all about the carr-greers.
it is actually possible this could end by 11:30. that would be a minor miracle.
although the terms of the members of the CRB all expired last month, they’ve come together to give a presentation to council about the work they did over the past year.
it’s being livestreamed here: facebook.com/cvilletv10/vid…
ms rosia is reading the outgoing board’s proposed next steps. she says one city councilor will need to take this project under their wing and commit to keeping it alive - the board itself is currently empty.
the full text of the 60 page document they have turned in to council summarizing their work and the proposed next steps is here:
charlottesville.org/home/showdocum…
charlottesville.org/home/showdocum…
mayor walker says over the next two months, they’ll have a series of meetings with the city manager, city attorney, police chief and other parties to discuss the proposal.
city attorney john blair says they plan to meet with the fairfax civilian review board to “get the flavor of” what a CRB in virginia does. (investigating this & communicating with other similar bodies was part of the board’s charge but ok)
mayor walker says the police civilian review board’s bylaws will probably come up for a vote sometime in october.
mayor walker volunteers herself to be the councilor to take on the task of ensuring the police civilian review board is kept on council’s to do list.
interesting to hear councilors who’ve opposed this project every step of the way pretend they haven’t been doing that!
“we have a very good police department. who do you go to when something happens?” kathy galvin says. (lol imagine saying that to most of the people in THIS room)
ms gloria says if there is any money left in the CRB’s budget, members would appreciate being considered for a small stipend. (while i do think they should be compensated for their work, i don’t think there’s any precedent for retroactively compensating a body like that)
brian wheeler & charlene green now giving an update about the more than 80 events scheduled over this summer as a part of the unity days project.
most of the unity days events are on the city calendar - click the title of the event to learn more about it.
charlottesville.org/community/city…
charlottesville.org/community/city…
literally no one wants to hear the police chief talk about keeping us safe on the anniversary of that terrorist attack. her handling of the first anniversary was appalling.
“the police presence that you’ll see will be a lot of bicycles,” she says.
she compares it to the police presence we saw during the NCAA basketball finals.
she compares it to the police presence we saw during the NCAA basketball finals.
as an aside, fuck bike cops. departments like to roll out huge squads of bike cops when they aren’t sure if things will get bad but want to be able to hurt the crowd without warning.
a bike cop looks friendlier than a riot cop, but they’ll beat you with the bike just like they can with the shield. i’ve left rallies with visible tire tread bruises on my body from bike cops turning on the crowd and ramming them with their bikes.
anyway, the chief says they’re aware of no specific threats against the city the week of august 12th, but reminds us that anything can happen at any time.
tanesha hudson is putting on one of the unity days events - she says the police department is charging her $45/hr per officer for security for her event, which i believe is downtown. shouldn’t our police officers’ salaries be paid by the city to keep the city safe?
tanesha is asking for an additional $35,000 in funding for the concert she’s organizing for unity days. signer says things they go over $5k require RFPs.
now he’s listing things they’ve spent money on that help black people but he won’t say black people. he calls them “this population”
wes is going to bat for tanesha, but it doesn’t look likely she’ll get that money.
tanesha says black women have been erased in the story of august 12th, including the mayor. “you don’t even respect her, kathy galvin,” she says, calling out a distracted looking galvin.
kathy asks if there is any precedent for the city paying for a “for-profit entertainer” to come.
“last year we had snipers. this year we’re just trying to get a rapper,” someone shouts.
“last year we had snipers. this year we’re just trying to get a rapper,” someone shouts.
motion to reallocate mike signer’s salary to get a rapper for tanesha’s concert
note that this was not on the agenda and if not for this we could possibly be done by now
kathy points out that the council can only allocate discretionary funds up to $25,000
tanesha says if she’d been allowed to use the downtown pavilion for free, as other unity days events were allowed to do, she was told it would cost her $23,000 to rent the pavilion.
she moved her event to tonsler park, which means she has to rent a stage and sound equipment that would’ve been unnecessary at the pavilion.
it’s after 11pm, so council had to vote to extend the meeting until 11:30.
signer keeps saying downtown business association did present a detailed budget for their off cycle $75,000 allocation. i don’t recall that but i’m interested to see it.
wes motions to allocate the money to tanesha, but couldn’t get a second. the motion dies.
moving on to closing matters by the public.
moving on to closing matters by the public.
“the experts are the initial civilian review board,” says adeola, an attorney who has been involved in the CRB process since the draft of the original resolution. they are already experts. council doesn’t need 2 months to try to make themselves experts. trust the board.
mayor walker announced earlier that the plan is a series of closed door meetings with city staff. it sounds like adeola (and others) are concerned council will make their own plan for the CRB out of the public eye. adeola asks for a transparent timeline.
former CRB board member josh bowers says the city meeting with the fairfax CRB won’t really teach them much. CRBs vary widely. this body researched many of them! the model this board produced is right for charlottesville.
harold folley is recounting an anecdote from an NAACP dinner when someone told him he had to leave charlottesville to get culture. it broke his heart that black people feel like there’s nothing for them here.
nancy asks how much money was spent in 2018 for the over the top police presence in august of 2018 for the a12 anniversary. wes says a million was allocated. she asks how much was spent in excess of that. that was an off budget expenditure, too.
little miss civility heather hill very dramatically rolled her eyes at nancy while she was speaking. but god forbid anyone say a bad word.
man at the mic asks who paid for the replacement of the pavilion’s roof. brian wheeler says it was not the city.
tanesha is back up, taking kathy to task for having an issue with tanesha’s earlier comments about too many white men in power. “y’all don’t really give a damn about black people, you proved it.”
“y’all like sticking to this bullshit narrative of this town after august 11th and 12th.” tanesha says they love to pretend they do a lot for people of color, but it’s a lie.
“last year we had snipers,” says they next speaker. tanesha is trying “to do something good for us.” “it’s vinegar hill all over,” white people taking everything. “we try to change this narrative in charlottesville,” “fuck the budget plan!”
this speaker, too, directly calls out a fragile white woman on the dais, addressing heather directly. “any chance you get, you stab somebody in the back!”
meeting adjourned. only slightly over time.
