Minutes 09/08/2020 - Laserfiche WebLink

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September 8, 2020 The following comments were submitted by citizens for the September 8, 2020 Virtual City Council meeting: 20-197: For more than 40 years Cox has been providing services in Portsmouth and the greater Hampton Roads region, investing millions of dollars in thousands of miles of fiber that connects residents, businesses, nonprofits, and city government. We employ about 1600 local residents and we are proud to be part of this community. We’re proud of the fact that 99% of Portsmouth residents have access to our services, and all customers, no matter where they live, have access to up to 1 gigabit speeds. Furthermore, our commercial services team, Cox Business, has been working with City leadership to develop plans to reach areas where affordability may be a barrier – for example, PRHA neighborhoods – and I’ve been working with Community and school leadership to make sure students are not left behind in the new virtual learning environment because of their family’s inability to pay for internet. In short, we want to be a partner. We want to work together to find solutions to eliminate the digital equity gap – and we have the teams in place and the resources available to make things happen. We’ve had several discussions with the CIO indicating there should be more opportunities for us to work together; we look forward to exploring that further and seeing that happen. As you’re evaluating next steps – and the millions of dollars it will take to deploy and maintain services - know that we, too, have a vested interest in the success of the City and we’re here to be your partner, not to be your competitor. Sarah Buck Public Affairs Manager Cox 20-198 (a/b): I live in Westmoreland townhouses and it is hard enough to get in and out of our neighborhood due to high traffic and to navigate around the traffic from High Street to Tyre Neck Road. We do not need more apartments in the area. Our schools cannot handle the overload of children that would add to the already crowded classrooms and schools need multiple repairs. What we really need in Portsmouth and the Churchland area are businesses so we don’t have to travel to Suffolk and Chesapeake to shop and eat out and that would provide jobs and taxes in a city that is desperate to try and improve itself. Unfortunately, due to the closed and virtual meetings citizens do not have a chance to express their concerns and desires as we are at the whim of people nor listening to us. Please think long and hard about how this will affect the area and your citizens. Sharon Mason 20-198 (d): As a frequent train rider who enjoys that mode of travel more than most others, I draw a distinction between riding the rails and being railroaded. What is before you for consideration, proposed changes to our zoning code to accommodate the presence of casinos in our city, is the latter. From the beginning of public discussions in 2013 about removing prohibitions on casino gaming in our commonwealth, the current council and its predecessors have pressed forward on that front without a public mandate to do so. Particularly vexing to me is that this effort has been funded by tax dollars never identified in prior or current city budgets for public review and comment. Consequently, tens of thousands of dollars of public money have underwritten this endeavor with little or no regard to the wishes of our citizens. This particular agenda item is one more link in the chain of what is intended to look like inevitability. Under the enabling legislation passed by the General Assembly last year and this, the citizens will have our say on this issue in November. Council voted two months ago to petition the Circuit Court to add a referendum on hosting casinos in Portsmouth to the ballot. The resolution requesting that court action, like the tax money spent to advance this cause, was strategically withheld from public view, however, until the last moment. On the morning of the July 16, 2020, virtual council meeting, the day after the public comment period for agenda items closed, item