MINUTES Regular Council Thursday, July 2, 2020 @ 8:00 PM PRESENT: Mayor Frank Friedman, Vice-Mayor Marylin Alexander, Councilmember Dennis Ayers, Councilmember Michele Hentz, Councilmember David Sigler, Councilmember Chuck Smith, and Councilmember Leslie Straughan ABSENT: CALL TO ORDER - MAYOR FRIEDMAN Mayor Friedman called the meeting to order at 8:00 p.m. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE - MAYOR FRIEDMAN CONSIDERATION OF THE AGENDA - MAYOR FRIEDMAN The agenda was approved with remarks from Councilmember Sigler under Proclamations and a COVID-19 update under Presentations. PROCLAMATIONS • Remarks from Councilmember Sigler Councilmember Sigler said that at the end of the June 18, 2020 meeting after coming out of closed session, he reflected on the last few weeks in Lexington and the national conversation. He said that he asked City Manager Halasz to pass a message of appreciation to the Lexington Police Department. Councilmember Sigler said that there is a very important national conversation and he would love for the Lexington Police Department to know that he personally appreciated them. He said when you do a good job within your profession and that profession is currently being looked down upon potentially nationally, he wanted the appreciation passed on to them. He added that Councilmember Smith also extended his appreciation to the Rockbridge County Sheriff's office because they support the Lexington Police Department in so many ways. Councilmember Sigler said that in these trying times, we are fortunate to live in a safe community. PRESENTATIONS • COVID-19 Update Regular Council Meeting July 2, 2020 Page 1 of 267 City Manager Halasz said that we should take precautions with COVD-19, but also continue on with our normal lives with adjustments. He also encouraged wearing a mask when around others to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19. He noted that he has heard from several medical professionals that we will see an effective vaccine by the beginning of next year. Fire Chief Ty Dickerson provided the following update on COVID-19: • The Emergency Management Task Force Press Release from earlier today provides updated information on available resources. • The Emergency Management Task Force staff has assisted with about 650 COVID-19 tests regionally at five varied geographic locations with less than 1% positive cases. • We have seen a lower demand for testing from the community than we had tests available to deliver at all five test sites. • Testing capacity is the highest it has been since the onset of the virus and turn-around time for results is the quickest it has been. • Even more testing capacity here in the Rockbridge region is coming online soon. • Contact tracing is also the most robust since the onset of testing and has proven valuable and effective. • Health Officials say that the small spikes we are seeing are both normal and expected as we move phases • Hospitalizations, Severity, and Deaths are down as compared to prior data. • According to Dr. Noelle Bissell, the director of the New River Health District, “Like a lot of the state, we are trending up,” she explained. “If you’re going to get herd immunity absent a vaccine, you do need to see some people get infected. You just want to control that.” PUBLIC HEARINGS None. CONSIDERATION OF MINUTES The following minutes were approved as presented (6/0). • May 21, 2020 Regular Meeting Minutes CITIZENS' REMARKS AND COMMENTS Mayor Friedman opened Citizens' Remarks and Comments at 8:13 p.m. Arden Courtney-Collins – A. Collins said that she is a rising junior at Rockbridge County High School (RCHS) and is a life-long resident of Lexington. She expressed her support for the renaming of Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery. She said that she has grown up in Lexington surrounded by symbols and monuments to the Confederacy; she was born in Stonewall Jackson Hospital, her dad works for Washington and Lee University (W&L) and visited numerous places such as the Maury River or walked along Lee and Jackson Avenue. A Collins said that these names are not meant to remember Confederate history, they are meant to glorify it. She said that the Confederacy and the horrible atrocities it committed should not be normalized or glorified, but that is exactly what the City is doing by allowing these tributes to the Confederacy to remain. She added that changing a name is not forgetting or removing history, it is addressing it so we can move forward. She asked that the Lexington City Council not only change the names, but also work with the Lexington City School (LCS) Board to change how Black history Regular Council Meeting July 2, 2020 Page 2 of 267 and Civil War history are taught in City schools. She said that in LCS, Black history and the history of other people of color is glazed over and left as an afterthought. A. Collins said that the first time that she read a book by a Black author for school was in the tenth grade. She said that the way she was taught about the Civil Was in elementary school was sugar-coated and inaccurate. She said that schools cannot teach the golden rule, while they simultaneously exclude Black voices and authors from their curriculum's and try to make racism and slavery appear not that bad. She added that, likewise, the City cannot claim to be a diverse and accepting place while glorifying racists and slavery. McKelvey Courtney-Collins – M. Collins gave the following prepared statement: My name is McKelvey Courtney Collins, and I've lived in Lexington for 18 years. I write to express my support for the renaming of Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery. We as a country are currently in the midst of a revolutionary upheaval, where we are standing up and refusing to accept the inequities and horrors of systemic racism and police brutality in America. But to truly end systemic racism now, we must address the racist histories in our own communities, including Lexington. In many ways, Lexington is a town built upon the Confederacy, with deep-rooted ties to Confederate generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. If we truly want to be progressive, we must make Lexington a town that welcomes people of all ethnicities, not one that memorializes and sanctifies slaveholders who fought to protect a racist institution that ripped so many families apart, and which haunts us today. That change starts by changing the names of town landmarks. Many people argue that removing statues and changing the names of landmarks is "erasing history" and that we intellectually suffer when we remove these structures from our public lands. But I disagree. History is not taught through statues, it is taught through schools, books and museums. By removing Jackson's name from the cemetery, we will are not attempting to erase his name from the town's history, but instead attempting to make Lexington a more welcoming and progressive place- a place that does not praise the names of men who defended the practice of slavery. But renaming city landmarks cannot be the only action we take- rather, I believe it is the first step. I urge you, members of the City Council, to work with the Lexington School Board and Regional Tourism Board to make Lexington more inclusive in all aspects, especially education. Put more books by Black authors on English reading lists, and require an expanded history curriculum on Black history in our schools. As someone who attended Lexington and Rockbridge County schools for my entire K-12 education, I honestly believe that my teachers failed to properly educate me on Black history. I distinctly remember learning in elementary school that the Civil War was fought over "state's rights." What my teachers and textbooks failed to mention was that the "rights" in question was the right to own enslaved people. I was taught that Christopher Columbus was a brave man who sailed the ocean and discovered America. The atrocities that he and other European explorers committed against Native American tribes were more or less an afterthought. In my four years of high school, I read three books written by Black authors for English class. Only one was a mandatory part of the syllabus. I could go on. The school board can work to update the Lexington City Schools' curriculum to include more works by Black authors and teach more Black history, as well as make the existing syllabus, including the units on European colonization and the Civil War, more accurate to the atrocities that Native American and African peoples faced at the hands of colonizers. Change starts with us. I hope that renaming the cemetery is but the first step in effecting real, powerful change in Lexington, and that we can work create a better and more equitable world for future generations. Regular Council Meeting July 2, 2020 Page 3 of 267 Sincerely, McKelvey Courtney Collins Adama Kamara – A. Kamara echoed the sentiments to rename the cemetery that is named after Stonewall Jackson. She said that she grew up in the community, attended Central Elementary School (CES), Lylburn Downing Middle School (LDMS) and graduated from Rockbridge County High School (RCHS), so the impact that the Lexington Community has had on her is undeniable. She said that however, the last four years that she has lived away from Lexington, she has been so embarrassed to say that she is from Lexington. She said that when she is asked about it, she is quick to denounce it and distance herself from Lexington. A. Kamara said that while there are so many wonderful things about Lexington, for her as a Black woman, the bad outweighs the good. She said that a major part of that bad are the statues and symbols that uphold the legacy of the Confederacy and the other part of that are the people who defend it and those that are complicit to those events.