Dear Mr. Barry,

Thank you for energizing the election! Your e-mail to all of us was both timely and needed. Without further delay, here are some things I hope to accomplish as a member of city council.

As you well know, we are in a recession and we will need to creatively generate revenue for the city if we want to continue to support our educational system as well as our first class social programs. As it stands now, the city is cutting it's funding to programs like The Quality Community Council and Legal Aid for FY02-06. I cannot stress the importance of prioritizing our spending enough in this election. I have run several small businesses successfully for over ten years in this city and twenty overall.

I have a tremendous amount of experience budgeting both in times of economic prosperity and recessions. The city has allocated $500,000 in FY00-02 for the Paramount Theater. While the renovation of this historical property will generate future tourism, I believe that we could have spent less in this area knowing that our schools have serious problems. We could have at least spread the cost out over several more years.

As I've talked to many people and listened to their concerns and experiences here in Charlottesville, I've realized that there are a lot of wonderful and talented people here who really care and want to make the city a better place, but often receive little to no financial assistance from the city. As result of our current economic crisis, we will need to rely on the efforts of private citizens more and more. One project in particular comes to mind ... Joe Mallory's gym for kids. I don't know if you know Joe, but he's a wonderful guy, an Olympic boxer, and quite a hero here in Charlottesville in the African American community. He's tried for over ten years to get some financial support but can't. He's trying to provide a place for low income kids to come after school to get away from the drug dealers. Did you know that these kids can't even use the basketball courts at Tonsler because it's so dangerous? I am currently helping Joe, as is Joe Szakos, to put together a 501c3. I will be actively involved in helping him raise the money he needs.

By creating an office or incubator for non-profits and small businesses, we can bring millions of dollars into the city and put that back into the community by supporting and nurturing local efforts like Joe's. Currently the city has allocated $10,000 for FY01-02 for a small business development center (SBDC). While this is heading in the right direction, the SBDC is not an incubator. Incubators have been very successful in other localities and we have enough private resources here in the city to get one funded. For example: several prominent local philanthropists support the Paramount effort and lobby on it's behalf. The city, knowing who those people are, could easily say to them "We'll allocate these funds for the Paramount and we'd like your support on our incubator." It's that simple but it takes good relationships with those people to be able to successfully have those conversations. An incubator, both for local non-profits and small businesses benefits everyone. The developers will invest because they want their space leased, the banks will support it because they prefer commercial and business loans as opposed to other types.

If you read the Sunday paper and saw the story on the Payne's Beauty and Barber Supply business then you can appreciate what a little help from the city can accomplish in the lives of our residents. With an incubator, we could multiply the Payne's by 20 or even 50. This of course not only supports residents in the workplace, but increase's the city's tax base and keeps personal property taxes lower.

We must expand tourism in the city. Monticello had over 500,000 visitors and yet the Charlottesville visitors center only had @177,000. If we can reach those visitors who come to Monticello and bring them into the city for an extra night we will increase the cities economic base by 35 million dollars. That's an extra 1 million in tax revenue for the city which can be allocated to education.

The Downtown Mall was not a success until 5 years ago when many small business people and developers and the city worked to bring exciting new businesses and public events to make the mall what it is today. I was a founding member of "Downtown for the Holidays," and I sit on the committee that hired the architectural firm that is working on concepts for the mall. I am also on the steering committee for the design. One proposal on the table is the Lewis and Clark Museum. It's been proposed to put it on the east end of the mall, combining the bus transfer station with the museum. I think this is a fantastic idea, and if elected to council I will continue to work to make this concept a reality.

This, of course brings us to the issues of parking and alternative transportation. We have one parking lot left that is going to be sold. We must have retail space at street level to maintain the vitality of the area. It is also important to the future vitality of the Garrett Square area to have retail that faces that direction. By having the backs of buildings looking out at Garrett, we continue the "other side of the tracks" approach to economic development, further disenfranchising the residents who live there. If we are going to have economic development, lets make sure that it enhances our city and satisfies the needs of our community.

We also need to ensure that any deal to sell the lot requires more public parking than presently found on the site, and it must be underground. There is an art to making a deal and I have a tremendous amount of experience in this area from running my seven retail stores.

We are not a pedestrian or bicycle friendly town and we must focus on improving in this area. It used to be that people would stop and wave if they saw someone trying to cross the street. Try crossing McIntyre. It's impossible, especially if you are elderly, infirm, or with a baby. I've seen mothers with strollers in this town get practically run over! Pedestrians need to have the right of way - always.

Thank you so much for bringing this election to a whole new level.

My best,

Joan Fenton (electronic mail, February 10, 2002)