Monday, November 21, 2022: Appomattox may not expand SRO capacity with Virginia grant; Charlottesville Council to review employee satisfaction survey
A quick version of the newsletter for this Thanksgiving week
This week is more or less a week off for this particular newsletter! Two of the three meetings listed today are also printed in this week’s Week Ahead on the Charlottesville Community Engagement newsletter.
Next week will be busier, but we’re well into the holiday time now when everything is slightly different.
I’m grateful I have the resources to produce this newsletter and to continue to get to know the district one week at a time. Please send this on to others you think may be interested in learning more about this new district. And if you have any questions for me, please drop me a line!
Appomattox Supervisors to tour future vocational center; consider leash law
The five-member Appomattox Board of Supervisors will begin their November meeting at 5 p.m. with a tour of the space that the Appomattox Christian Academy is renting from the county at the former Carver-Price Elementary School. The ACA is converting the space into a regional vocational institute.
“Anyone attending should plan to meet in the Board of Supervisors meeting room at 5:00 pm, beginning the tour in the Auditorium (future Appomattox Performing Arts Center) and proceeding into the old cafeteria area of the school,” reads the agenda.
The regular meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. (regular agenda)
On the agenda:
Appomattox Schools seek approval of a pass through of $56,835 for a federal grant for “school-based health workforce grant.”
Will Appomattox County accept state funding to cover the costs to provide new school resource officers? Pittsylvania County did so last week, but Appomattox officials have concerns about future funding and whether the amount is enough. The Sheriff’s Office currently provides four full-time and two part-time SRO’s and the Board will discuss whether this is sufficient.
Supervisors will review a list of projects to be funded by the county’s share of funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. These include $500,000 for a walking trail at the sports complex, $1.16 million toward broadband expansion as part of a public-private partnership with the Central Virginia Electrical Cooperative, and other projects at the sports complex.
There will be a discussion of whether the county should enact an ordinance prohibiting dogs running at large in some residential areas.
Appomattox is conducting a feasibility study for the replacement of its radio communications system for public safety. There will be a discussion of how to pay for a cost-overrun. The wireless fund? The capital project fund?
Charlottesville City Council to review human rights ordinance updates, get crime statistics
Charlottesville City Council will meet at 4 p.m for a work session followed by a regular session at 6:30 p.m. (meeting info)
There are two topics at the 4 p.m. work session. The first will be a presentation on the results of a survey of employees conducted by the University of Virginia Center for Survey Research this year.
“The results of such surveys are used to increase City Management and leadership's
awareness of employee satisfaction and engagement levels and provide an opportunity to consider changes to bolster positive employee initiatives and work to consider how to repair opportunities to provide additional support to the employee community as they provide critical services to our community,” reads the staff report.
This is the sixth time the Center for Survey Research has been commissioned for such work by the city. There were 531 respondents, or about 45 percent of the city’s workforce. Just over a third of employees are either extremely satisfied or very satisfied. That figure is down from just under 50 percent in the 2017 survey.
The second is a presentation of the annual report of the Jefferson Area Community Criminal Justice Board (CCJB).
“The Criminal Justice Planner provides administrative and research support to the Jefferson Area Community Criminal Justice Board (CCJB) and annually presents key data to City Council and the greater community,” reads the introduction to the report from Neal Goodloe.
One of the source materials in the presentation is on crime trends from 1984 to 2020 with data coming from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reporting Summary Reporting System.
“The total index crime trend fell 64% in the City of Charlottesville from 1984 to 2020,” reads one of the slides in the presentation. “In 1984, the total index crime rate in Charlottesville was 82.7 per 1000 Charlottesville residents. By 2020, that rate had fallen to 23.2 per 1000 Charlottesville residents.”
A second set of materials comes from the Virginia State Police and tracks crime from 2012 to 2021.
“In 2021, Charlottesville ’s Group A crime rate was 60.3 per 1000 residents, below the 72.0 per 1000 average rate among peer cities, but above the 44.0 per 1000 statewide rate,” reads a slide from this presentation. “Charlottesville ’s 2021 overall Group A crime rate ranked 23th among Virginia’s 133 jurisdictions (and 22rd among Virginia’s 36 independent cities).”
A third set of materials is the Charlottesville Utilization of the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail from 2011 to 2021.
There are three action items.
One is a resolution to extend the due date for Charlottesville taxes by two weeks. This is not driven directly by a need to assist community members, but is because the third-party vendor who prints the city’s bills had issues getting the bills out in the mail.
“The City Treasurer's Office is requesting City Council to adopt a resolution approving a one-time extension of the due date for payment of taxes from December 5th, 2022 to December 19, 2022,” reads the staff report.
The second is the formal appointment of an emergency management coordinator. The city manager is the Director of Emergency Management, but state law requires appointment of a coordinator to oversee the work.
The third is the second reading of changes to the Charlottesville Human Rights Ordinance. Charlottesville Mayor Lloyd Snook had several questions he wanted more information on when this was before Council at their last meeting. I’ve got a full story on Information Charlottesville from then if you want more background.
The Food Equity Initiative’s annual report will be given in written form with no presentation before Council.
“City Council passed the Food Equity Initiative for the first time in 2018 beginning a course of systemic efforts to reshape community health, wealth, and belonging through our food system,” reads the staff report. “The Food Equity Initiative work is designed to support implementation of citywide strategies outlined in the initial FY19 proposal.”
There is also a resolution of support to state that Council will agree to fund the program in FY24 at a cost of $155,000.
Louisa Supervisors to lease space to Arc of Piedmont, JABA
The seven-member Louisa County Board of Supervisors will meet at 5 p.m in closed session before meeting in open session at 6 p.m. (meeting info)
It’s a very quiet meeting. In one item, the county will enter into a lease with the Arc of the Piedmont for a portion of the Betty Queen Intergenerational Center at 522 Industrial Drive. They’ll also enter into a lease with the Jefferson Area Board of Aging in the same building.
There will also be an update on the recent elections.
For more information on Louisa County, do check out Tammy Purcell’s Engage Louisa.