Thread by @socialistdogmom

here’s tonight’s charlottesville city council agenda — they’ll be revisiting the revised ordinance about special events permitting

charlottesville.org/home/showdocum…

local racist mason pickett signed himself up for the public comment period describing the nature of his comments as just “slavery.” can’t wait to hear what he’s got to say about that.

the meeting should be starting momentarily... councilors are still in a closed session about “personnel”
when it starts it’ll be streaming here:
facebook.com/cvilletv10/vid…

in honor of close your mouth & listen day, we’re having a moment of silent reflection at the top of the meeting
cbs19news.com/content/news/M…

i guess i go to too many meetings because i’ve heard someone introduce the new CAT director several times already.

i’m feeling an inexplicable lack of energy and enthusiasm for this meeting. i guess after two years of this, it really does start to feel like work sometimes and sometimes you just don’t wanna be at work.

kathy galvin uses the announcement portion of the meeting to announce that wes’ wife just had a baby! little stokely is happy & healthy.

and now for public comment on items on the consent agenda. as he’s done at every meeting in recent memory, john hall takes any opportunity to speak.

the consent agenda minus item O passes unanimously. item O passes 4-1 with mayor walker dissenting.
dr richardson has nothing to say so the city manager’s response to the public from the previous meeting is skipped. on to matters by the public.

mary carey again asks for an apology from kathy galvin for a comment she made last year about the history of the star hill neighborhood. i was watching from home that night last fall (i was very sick!) so i missed the verbal altercation they had during a recess.

nancy urges council to support a strong police civilian review board. “we really need a strong independent board that reports to you,” she tells council. there have been recent incidents that would’ve resulted in complaints but “there’s no outlet for that at this time.”

harold folley from the people’s coalition cedes his time to ms edith who also calls for a strong police civilian review board, including that the city fully fund the staff positions the initial board recommended.

there’s a city council work session at 6pm on thursday at city space to discuss the police civilian review board. hope to see some of you there! this is so important. we can’t let them drop this.

nelson, the man who’s come back several times to talk about lack of enforcement of illegal parking in accessible spots, says his recent meeting with the chief of police was a “total and utter fiasco,” that she didn’t want to listen and was argumentative.

“she didn’t want to listen. she wanted to argue the whole entire time.” “this is the worst experience i have ever had” meeting with a public official, nelson says about his meeting with chief brackney.

mayor walker asks city manager dr richardson, who was also present at that meeting, if he has any comment. he does not. he rarely does.

john hall is up again. he really does mean well and is sometimes entirely right! but his belief that he is authorized to conduct business on the city’s behalf has been a problem in the past and he’s flirting with that line a lot.
c-ville.com/unauthorized-c…

and mason pickett is up. he’s upset about the recent vandalism of the confederate statues. he says somebody took it upon themselves to “let us know that 1619 is an important date in the slave community.”

i have no idea what he’s talking about at all. he’s talking about bad parenting?

“parents would rather spend money on getting their nails done or getting a smartphone” than buying their kids a book, mason says. what the fuck is this old man talking about.

he just pointed directly at wes, a black father of three, and said “you gotta call these parents exactly what they are, slave-makers.”
what in the entire fuck?

one of the things mason said parents don’t do is go to PTA meetings. two women up now are speaking on behalf of an organizer with the food justice network who couldn’t be here BECAUSE she is at a PTA meeting. mason yells “PROVE IT!” from the back of the room.

food justice advocates have asked councilors to do the SNAP challenge, surviving on only the budget allowed to families on food stamps. mayor walker says she has in the past relied on SNAP & says the challenge would be an “interesting experience” for other councilors.

tanesha asks that in the wake of the decision in the confederate statue lawsuit & permanent injunction against removing the statues, has council talked about placing some additional context in the parks? wes says it isn’t over yet.

“we still haven’t fully seen any type of accountability from the city,” says tanesha. “you guys shouldn’t anticipate having any kind of respect” until we get the accountability we need & deserve. “you gotta give it to get it.”

some guy who writes for forbes & works with something called the independent institute said something boring i didn’t listen to.

ms rosia, a member of the initial police civilian review board, also advocates for a fully funded, strong & independent police civilian review board.

mayor walker acknowledges that while the city debates on how to move forward, people living in public housing are living in conditions that are affecting their mental and physical health.

wes says much of our public housing stock is very old. it should’ve been demolished and rebuilt long ago. modernization of those units is difficult - parts for some items can’t be replaced because they aren’t even made anymore.

heather hill says the number of offline units is concerning and wants a more robust conversation about the maintenance issues. ms carey is angry & yelling that heather should go live in one of those units for a week before she talks.

while i do think it would be enlightening for heather to go live in west haven for a week, heather was trying to articulate the need for better maintenance & unit improvements.

technically council only has a two minute period to respond to any one public comment but that surely won’t stop kathy from expounding at length about the virtues of form based code.

heather hill has some community member comments that were given to her that they prefer not to have read but would like entered into the record. i guess i should FOIA those and find out why they prefer not to have them read in public.

can we knock out this whole agenda before the 10:30pm meeting end time? we’ll see!

“there’s been a lot of discussion about juveniles that might organize,” says john blair as we enter the discussion about the proposed revisions to the special events permitting ordinance (come to the climate strike on friday!)

these are the main changes made to the ordinance since the last time it came before council

i can’t wait to never hear mike signer talk again

he’s really stuck on may vs shall in the language about issuing a warning before assessing a civil penalty for permit violations.

wes says he supports changing “shall” to “may” if it means we can move on. as much as i hate listening to mike talk & wish we could move on i don’t think yielding to his bad request is the best way to move forward.

one of the problems i’ve had with this ordinance from the beginning is the amount of officer discretion baked into it. you can’t have a content neutral law when you leave the law up to the cops. the more flexibility you build in the more dangerous it becomes for us.

signer’s amendment fails 3-2 (signer and bellamy voted for it) - the language about issuing a warning remains SHALL not MAY.

“i will acknowledge publicly that this is a better version than what we had in place,” mayor walker says of the revised ordinance before they vote on it.

the ordinance passes 4-1 with mayor walker dissenting.

the last item on the agenda is a report on a downtown public comfort station (basically, a bathroom that homeless people would be allowed to use). the report was not included in the agenda background so i haven’t read it.

the presenter says the primary issue is finding a location. the city owns very little property and no one downtown wants it anywhere near their business.

other concerns include “vandalism and illicit activity” particularly about a facility that would be open at night.

“i would hope that we are purchasing something that people would actually want to use,” mayor walker says.

honestly a public bathroom that is always open and accessible to anyone without the need to buy something is a real need downtown and not just for unhoused folks. it’s absurd you can’t take a piss downtown without buying a $5 coffee.

sounds like the downtown business association really doesn’t want you to be able to pee for free though!

we’ve been talking about a request for an allocation from the equity fund for a trip to our sister city in ghana. signer is concerned about off cycle budget requests and says he hopes people don’t make this into a “sensation.”

signer says he has “misgivings” about the equity fund and doesn’t believe there is discrimination in the regular ABRT funding process.

“clearly there have been some discriminatory aspects to it in who gets funding,” says mayor walker about the ABRT process, which she’s done a lot of work in reforming.

signer says it would be really helpful to get a full list of every allocation they’ve made from the equity fund.

the equity fund creates inequities - mike signer, who needs to go home and go to bed.

reverend don gathers says this country does an extremely poor job of education people on the history of people who look like him. he asks councilors to search their souls and find that this expenditure would benefit the minority community.

nancy, who works with unhoused folks, says she was glad to hear the discussion of a public bathroom downtown come back before council.

she suggests as an alternative offering downtown restaurant owners some kind of rebate on the patio space they rent if they will open up their bathrooms for public use.

meeting adjourned. and still so early!