1999-12-06 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

247 PRESENTATION: FIRST NIGHT VIRGINIA Mr. Bob Stroh, President of First Night Virginia, thanked Council and staff for their support of First Night. Mr. Stroh said that First Night Virginia, as the official celebration of the millenium in Charlottesville, provides a unique opportunity for the City, County and University to celebrate together. PUBLIC HEARING: RESOLUTION DECLINING TOWN STATUS (REVERSION) Ms. Daugherty read the following statement. "Since 1994, the Council has been studying town reversion and discussing it. We began with studying South Boston, a small city in southeast Virginia that became a part of the surrounding county about six years ago. Soon after, we began to discuss town reversion and related issues directly with the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, because this is a regional matter. And what were we talking about? Many of you know, bm t would like to refresh our memory. There are several issues facing the city that we were concerned about, including the following: 1) a severe revenue shortfall; 2) the City's loss of middle income residents to Albemarle County, and our own percentage of homeowners to renters was going down; 3) our unique state taw that forbids cities from annexing urban land around them; 4) our lack of voice or vote in many decisions that affect us in the County, including decisions about sprawl, roads and new development; 5) the possibility of segregation recurring in our school system because of housing patterns; and 6) the financial responsibility that the city takes to support victims of poverty fromaIl over central Virginia. The City Council began looking at town reversion as a possible solution to some of these problems, based on the idea that with town status, we would be a part of the County and its political system, some of our services would he combined, and we would have the right to annex. We also began to spend many hours meeting with County Board members to see if we could negotiate some cooperative agreements outside of reversion, such as in the areas of education, housing and fire services. These were eventually combined into one joint agreement we hoped to have approved by both jurisdictions. At the same time the Council continued to study reversion to see if it was a viable change. We gota ten-year financial projection ofcity revenues and expenditures, known as the Muller report. We also contracted to get a voting district study to show how Charlottesville might fare if we were to vote as town citizens for County Board of Supervisors. Some citizens, such as Bill Lucy, also contributed studies. During these several years the Council also decided to take the issue to the community; a slide show was prepared with the figures from the Muller report and other indicators of the condition of the City, and we ventured out to PTOs, neighborhood associations and other civic groups to talk with residents about the problems. It became clear the joint agreement was not going to he approved. At some point when the Council did not directly file for reversion, a citizen group, the Town Reversion Committee, decided to start a petition drive in order to file. This took a long time to get the large number, over 3,000 signatures, required. Finally, the group reached the required number, and did file a petition for reversion. Following that, the County continued to resist the reversion petition and through its lawyers' efforts, the citizen petition was said by the court to be illegal and was thrown out. At that time, the City decided to join the Town Reversion Committee in appealing the ruling, as it was on a mere technicality and did not seem the appropriate way to deal with such an important issue.