Preamble
Citizens of Charlottesville, engaged in the betterment of our City, have joined together to create a constructive vision for Charlottesville's future. Affirming our Democratic ideals, we declare our commitment to the realization of the following principles and goals:

Principles

I. Ensure an Open and Responsive City Government
II. Build Strong Relationships Between the Educational System and the Community
III. Safeguard Quality of Life and Social Equity
IV. Address Affordable Housing Needs
V. Work to Ensure Health Care for All
VI. Create and Implement a Vision for a Sustainable, Healthy Community
VII. Preserve, Protect, and Improve the Environment
VIII. Improve Economic Opportunities for All City Residents
IX. Optimize Cooperation between Charlottesville, Albemarle County, and UVA

I. Ensure an Open and Responsive City Government

1. Increase the amount of interaction between City Council and the community during Council meetings, at work sessions, and at neighborhood gatherings.

• Elect City Council members who will listen and respond to citizen concerns expressed at Council meetings.
• Expect full public discussion among Council members before decisions are made.
• City Council should go out periodically to neighborhoods to hold listening sessions.

2. Improve the flow of information among City Council, staff, and citizens so citizens have timely and complete information on projects and policies that affect them.

• Improve methods of delivering information to the public and receiving input from the public.
• Improve City web site to provide easy access to information about decision-making bodies.
• Publish timely notices of all meetings (including City Council agendas) with topics defined fully and in layman's terms in the newspaper and on the City's web site.
• Require the Mayor and City Manager to meet with the public and the press for questions and answers on a monthly basis.
• Utilize Neighborhood Associations to gather and disseminate information, and provide input into decision-making process.

3. Provide for direct election of the Mayor.

4. Ensure early notification and consultation with communities affected by development projects or policy changes.
- Require city staff and developers to:
a. Refer any proposed project or policy issue to the affected neighborhoods at the earliest stages.
b. Hold public hearings in neighborhoods on the project or policy.
c. Incorporate neighborhood recommendations into the project or policy.

5. Strengthen Neighborhood Associations and encourage all neighborhoods to form an Association.

• Provide more City assistance to neighborhood associations, including tenant groups in rental communities.

II. Build Strong Relationships Between the Educational System and the Community

1. Ensure school system accountability to the community.

• Select School Board members who will listen and respond to citizen concerns expressed at School Board meetings.
• Ensure that the City Council is actively engaged in dialogue with the School Board.

a. City Council should welcome public input on education issues.
b. The monthly meetings of the City Council with the School Board should be work sessions on substantive issues.
c. Appoint a City Council member to be an official liaison with the School Board.

• Continue to provide meaningful opportunities for the involvement of community members in the appointment of School Board members and Superintendents.
• Promote the idea of School Board members being selected by school districts rather than by wards.

2. Eliminate barriers to equal education and opportunities for all children.

• Review the process of "ability grouping."
• Encourage and support students from all backgrounds to advance into higher-level academic programs.
• Demand high academic performance of ALL children.
• Make eliminating the racial gap in academic achievement a top community priority.
• Value students in all educational pursuits whether technical, alternative, or college-prep programs.

3. Preserve the Jefferson School as an educational and community institution

4. Expand means for Parents and Teachers to be heard.

• Require the School Board to provide time for dialogue (questions and answers) with the public monthly.
• Establish an office of Ombudsman to address parent and/or teacher concerns.
• The School Administration should encourage active participation of teachers in PTO's and actively encourage all schools to organize PTO's.

5. Encourage community involvement in the schools and involve students in the community.

• Develop courses and programs to bring parents into the schools.
• Expand use of public schools for multi-purposes: e.g- .mmunity centers, health clinics, recreation centers.
• Actively encourage community service from ALL students to cultivate a sense of self-pride and good citizenship.
• Take broader advantage of community and university educational resources.

6. Provide more resources for continuing education and technical training for adults.

7. Continue to support early childhood development programs such as Head Start and Even Start.

8. Work to reduce the Digital Divide and encourage the School Board to support programs that will achieve this goal.

9. Explore ways to reduce the high teacher turnover rate in the city and develop new incentives to increase teacher retention.

III. Safeguard Quality of Life and Social Equity

1. Provide a safe environment in all neighborhoods by continuing to expand Community Policing.

• Support the efforts of the Quality Community Council to develop real community policing initiatives in the City.
• Continue to promote and support non-violent Conflict Resolution Programs in schools and neighborhoods and study the feasibility of a Peace Education Curriculum in the schools.
• Find ways to reduce gun violence.
• Evaluate the city's ability to keep guns out of municipal buildings and schools.

2. Make Charlottesville a true Living Wage city by tying the living wage to the rate of inflation and cost of living and by challenging local businesses to pay all workers a living wage.

3. Insure an unbiased and just criminal justice system.

• Support meaningful record keeping in the criminal justice system by which to evaluate fairness.
• Promote public understanding and discussion of minority overrepresentation in the criminal justice system.
• Review the size and effectiveness of the regional jail.
• Commit to rehabilitation for all offenders including drug treatment and job training.
• Strengthen support systems for victims and their families.

4. Celebrate/Enhance Diversity -Gender, Race, Class, Sexual Orientation.

• Demand fair treatment/non-discrimination incity and school contracts and hiring.
• Strive for diversity of representation on City Council, boards and commissions.

5. Leverage City financial power to get banks to provide more and better services for people of color and low-income, e.g- credit programs, fees, loans, small business development.

6. Update programs to address the recent increase in refugees in the City.

7. Improve "Active Use" Recreational Facility, Parks, and Libraries.

• Increase neighborhood and user input into recreational needs/facilities.
• Improve or make available fields and gym space to meet current users' needs.
• Expand meaningful after-school activities for children from disadvantaged communities and/or homes.

IV. Address Affordable Housing Needs

1. Guarantee no net loss in current levels of public and subsidized housing.

• Address the strong demand for, and inadequate distribution of, Section 8 rental assistance vouchers.
• Educate landlords and encourage them to accept Section 8 vouchers.

2. Expand the supply of affordable housing in our community by integrating affordable housing units into market-rate housing developments throughout the entire region.

• Provide incentives to developers to build low-income housing, or to mix low-income housing into developments with more expensive homes.
• Promote the building of low-cost rental units in parts of the city that do not currently have such apartments in order to reduce concentrations of poverty.
• Encourage low-income housing providers to target their resources towards low-income homebuyers who make less than $20,000 a year.

3. Work with Albemarle County to move towards a regional low-income housing strategy and to build more low-income housing in the County's infill areas.

4. Establish an office of Housing Ombudsman to:

• Mediate conflicts between landlords and tenants.
• Help identify renters who could become homeowners.
• Help put low-income people in contact with non-profit organizations that can assist them with home ownership, job training and educational programs.

5. Protect the dignity and rights of subsidized housing residents.

• Support the right of public housing residents and Section 8 voucher holders to participate in the decision-making which affects their daily lives
• Address the growing problem of homelessness.
• Identify and develop more Single Resident Occupancy (SRO) rental units.

V. Work to Ensure Health Care for All

1. Assert that health care is a right and work to ensure universal access to health care in Charlottesville.

2. Explore matching grants, working with UVA, and other ways to creatively meet health needs.

3. Explore ways to provide health insurance at affordable cost.

4. Look to provide:

• Access to convenient, affordable primary care.
• Long-term care.
• Substance abuse treatment.
• Mental health services.
• Emphasis on prevention - integration of services.

5. Provide better publicity and outreach for existing services.

VI. Create and Implement a Vision for a Sustainable, Healthy Community

1. Make the Comprehensive Master Plan a reality; set benchmarks and completion dates.

• Strictly enforce adherence to the visions and goals of the Comprehensive Plan.
• Develop a means to measure success in resolving conflicts among zoning and land use issues.
• Designate a Planning Ombudsman on city staff to ensure plans are translated into action.
• Use government leadership in project initiation; do not wait for developers.

2. Devise a transportation and land use system that will genuinely reduce the reliance on cars and promote mixed-use, human-scale development.

• Immediately commission a study for a light-rail or other appropriate fixed route transportation system that is part of a land use plan.
• Do not build the Meadowcreek Parkway as currently planned.
• Greatly improve transit by promoting transit options like: establishing fare-free transit zones, integrating CTS, UVA, and other regional transit services.
• Implement the plan for a network of bicycle and pedestrian ways.
• Identify explicitly impacts of all proposed transportation projects on pedestrian and bicycle transportation.

3. Integrate Transportation, Land Use and Environment in the Comprehensive Plan.

4. Consider the following in all future planning and development:

• Shift design and development priorities towards accommodating humans rather than automobiles.
• Encourage preservation of historical resources.
• Ensure that the regional implications and impact of transportation and planning issues are considered within the larger context of regional sustainability.

5. Adopt the Sustainability Accords.

VII. Preserve, Protect, and Improve the Environment

1. Develop and implement an ecological action plan and integrate it into the comprehensive plan.

• Conscientiously monitor and improve the elements of our living environment including the following:

a. Water - drinking, storm, waste, natural systems.
b. Air - quality, ozone, other contaminants.
c. Soil - quality, erosion control.
d. Plant community.
e. Animal community.

• Create a Water Budget for Charlottesville.

2. Protect, improve, expand, and connect parks, trails, and natural areas within City limits.

• Park land must be sacrosanct.
• Natural areas should be better integrated into urban areas.
• The City should provide a natural area or wildlife area designation and explore accepting wildlife easements from property owners.
• Designate sensitive natural resource areas for protection.

3. Employ a full time ecologist/environmentalist on City staff to champion the ecological action plan and other environmental issues throughout the city.

4. Review all chemicals that the City uses to make sure that they have minimal environmental impact - for example, use alternatives to the salt de-icing the downtown mall.

5. Look to the Rivanna watershed, including Meadow Creek and Moore's Creek, as the environmental cornerstone of our City's bio-region. Provide aggressive protection of these areas.

6. Partner with environmental groups in the region and increase communication and cooperation among them.

7. Adopt a program similar to NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) whereby any action undertaken by the City is considered within its environmental context.

8. Promote energy-efficient and ecologically healthy buildings and systems.

9. Explore the use of renewable energy sources such as: solar, wind, biomass, methane.

10. Enact a Dark Sky/lighting ordinance to reduce light pollution and improve the quality (color) of light.

11. Explore alternatives to our waste production and disposal.

VIII. Improve Economic Opportunities for All City Residents

1. Support increased educational investment in job training and workforce development.

2. Promote existing locally-owned businesses and increase the supply of local capital creation for small businesses including social entrepreneurs, non-profits, and non-commercial enterprises.

• Build on existing job areas such as hi-tech, bio-tech, knowledge and information services, etc.
• Educate the public about the relative impacts on the local economy of their purchasing products from local businesses vs. national chains.
• Provide incentives to establish new local businesses.
• When attracting new business, try to encourage them to locate in areas designated for new business in the Comprehensive Plan, like the entrance corridors.

3. Focus on economic opportunities that build on those things that make Charlottesville uniquely attractive as a community such as our quality of life and our well-educated workforce.

• Support a rich cultural life through the development of arts and cultural education to attract well-educated and creative people.
• Develop stronger connections between tourist attractions such as Monticello, UVA, and Downtown.

4. Stimulate local employment opportunities that provide satisfying and useful work for all skill levels.

5. Ensure that natural and historic environments are protected and enhanced as part of an overall economic development effort.

6. Recognize the connection between innovative transit solutions and job creation.

• Reduce the need to find parking for downtown jobs.
• Provide a means to get to work for those without cars.

IX. Optimize Cooperation between Charlottesville, Albemarle County, and UVA

1. Find ways to share more services with the County (e.g: recreation, social services, education).

• Use existing agencies or organizations whenever possible.
• Strengthen groups that are already formed and working in this area.

2. Insist that the UVA Board of Visitors and UVA officials work with neighborhood associations to reduce the negative impacts of the University, including demands on affordable housing, traffic congestion, neighborhood maintenance and adjacent development.
- Try to get UVA to be more community conscious:
a. Encourage more dialogue between the UVA Board of Visitors and City officials.
b. Encourage the University to build more student housing on grounds.
c. Encourage the University to limit the number of students with cars.
d. Allow adjacent neighborhoods to have input into planning of University projects which impact their communities.
e. Revive the Venable Neighborhood Association connection with UVA, and work to increase communication between UVA and the surrounding neighborhoods.
f. Increase law enforcement cooperation around UVA where students are involved.

3. Develop methods to enhance city-county cooperation.

• Seek enabling legislation to provide for a voting City member on the County Planning Commission and vice-versa. (In the meantime, assign a City staff person to attend and participate in County Planning Commission meetings, and a county staff person to do the same at City Planning Commission meetings).
• Explore having a joint planning staff for the City and County.
• Encourage increased informal contacts among local elected officials.

4. Work to repeal the Dillon Rule to enable local governments to be more responsive to community needs.