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7 Responding to a question from Mr. Lynch about the Medicaid increase, Mr. Cox said it is due to increased health coverage for children and families with children. He said they are pretty close to covering all who are eligible in the City for this program. Mr. Cox said that a social worker was added and resulted in an increase of adoptions from 8 to 20. Mr. Norris said he wanted to plug funding for child care scholarships. He said that without those scholarships, it benefits some people financially to go back on welfare rather than work and pay child care expenses. Dr. Brown said the increase in food stamp participants is indicative of the good attitude in the Social Services Department and their outreach program. REPORT : VOTING PRECINCTS Dr. Brown explained that the Voter Registrar had reported to Council on issues regarding voting precincts and reported that one option would be to realign voting precincts. He said Council felt that before that was done we should see if there were easier fixes. Ms. Sheri Iachetta, Voter Registrar, reviewed problems and potential solutions for all the precincts. Councilors agreed that parking in the City owned lot across from Recreation and adding voting machines should be explored. Councilor agreed that designating on-street parking adjacent to Clark should be explored during voting hours, talking with residents first. Councilors agreed that asking Public Works vehicles to park elsewhere at Carver would be explored. No real problems with identified for Walker School especially when school is not in session. Ms. Iachetta said that Tonsler precinct may not be able to handle future development in the area, for both parking and voting. Dr. Brown said a lot of low income voters with no cars vote there. He said he knows it is a problem but is leery of a solution that makes voting inconvenient. Councilors agreed that political party representatives and election officials should be encouraged to park across the street and the crosswalk should be reviewed for safety. Councilors also indicated that if Tonsler became too crowded they would prefer to add a precinct rather than replace Tonsler. Councilors agreed that adding voting machines at Jefferson Park precinct should be explored. Councilors agreed about designating 15 minute parking on streets adjacent to Venable School would be explored, meeting with the neighborhood association first. No real issues were identified with Alumni Hall. Dr. Brown asked Ms. Iachetta to provide Council with more information on the logistics of getting more voting machines and the parking proposals suggested. He said there is no need to appoint a task force at this time. Ms. Iachetta explained that the General Assembly has required that the current voting machines used in Charlottesville be phased out after their current life span. However, she said that the federal government is requiring that printers be used by