The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - 2025 Snapshot: CVille City Crime Is Big-Time Down; Gun Violence Down 51% In City (2024 v 2025)

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

The I Love CVille Show headlines: 2025 Snapshot: CVille City Crime Is Big-Time Down Gun Violence Down 51% In City (2024 v 2025) What Stood Out To You From The 2025 Snapshot? How Did Police Respond To CHS ICE Truancy Protest? Will CVille Police Provide ICE Protest Protection For Kids? What Is The Role Of Police With Protests & Activism? How Will Downtown Mall “Clean Team” Interact With CPD? How Will CPD Manage/Enforce Homelessness In 2026? Read Viewer & Listener Comments Live On-Air Charlottesville Chief of Police Mike Kochis joined Jerry Miller live on The I Love CVille Show! The I Love CVille Show airs live Monday – Friday from 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The I Love CVille Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible, Rumble and iLoveCVille.com.

Welcome to the I Love Sevo Show, guys. My name is Jerry Miller, and thank you kindly for joining us on a Friday in downtown Charleston, that's where our studio is located. This is the water cooler of content and conversation for Charlottesville, Almore County. And as we spread our wings, we're looking to make it the water cooler for the Commonwealth. We take topics that are important, and they may not be topics that are kumbaya, that are feel good, rainbows and sunshine. But there are topics of real life.

And a lot of the material you see we highlight on this show comes from a perspective or lens that my wife and I talk about over coffee, breakfast, and it's kids. It's this intersection of policing and governance and the economy and policy and how it impacts us as homeowners and as business owners and as taxpayers and frankly our children because there's nothing more than than, you know, for me personally, my wife personally, I know many of you, our kids are our hearts walking outside of our body. And we want to leave this community in a better place than when we first arrived. I think about that every day, the older I get with our two boys who are our pride and joy most of the time. Right now they're all from school, and I think they're driving my wife absolutely crazy right now. And as I get home to that, I may feel some of that. And that's why we have Woodford on the home bar, ladies and gentlemen.

We encourage the viewers and listeners to like and share the show. I want to give some love to one of the best businesses out there, Charlottesville Sanitary Supply. John and Andrew Vermillion are the owners. They're three generations strong, and their family is five generations strong in Amarro County. And their business is on East High Street and online at Charlestphal Sanitary Supply.com.

These people are class. They're honest. They're class. Anything sanitary-related, swimming pool related at Charlottesville Sanitary Supply. Judah Wickhauer, the George Clooney of Policing. I'd love to say this about him. I actually made a comment the other day. Chief Conscious was on the program.

Today, I said the community is going to rally around Chief Cottes in the courtyard in front of us. The extent of the activism that might happen, I don't know if you heard this, the extent of the activism that might happen with Chief Conscious on the program is maybe 20 to 30 ladies age 25 to 50 may ask him to sign something. I literally said that.

We got McGuire on the show next week. haven't said the day yet strategically why I haven't said the day yet but John McGuire in the studio next week Chief Kachis is on the show me and we have first a 2025 snapshot to celebrate but before we get to that thank you for joining us

Absolutely Jerry, thank you for having me appreciate it. We appreciate you anyone that watches and listens to the show knows how much we appreciate you maybe we start off with the state of Charlottesville State of the Police Department how are things going? Things are going great They really are, you know, obviously we're very busy doing a lot of things.

You know, we've gone into our new planning for our next three-year strategic plan. So if you remember three years ago, that's the blueprint for our organization, right? So three years ago, we set out with three overarching priorities, address gun violence, build community partnerships, recruitment and retention, and the treatment and wellness of our staff. and under each one of those three overarching priorities, there's a lot of things to do, right? And so we've hit a lot of those marks

and couldn't be more proud of our staff, couldn't be more proud of this community. I'll be honest with you, Jerry, and I know we'll talk about those numbers and the snapshot that we put out, but that snapshot, those numbers represent real people, you know, and so, and when I say real people,

you know, real community involvement, real community partnerships that we have worked with to get us to where we are. And we still have a lot of work to do, though. We can't spike the football. We don't do that. It's a reflection, and it's now let's drive forward and keep moving. Because while we only had one homicide last year, that's one person that's not with us anymore. That's a family that had to bury their child.

And it's something that we can't lose sight of. The three goals that you mentioned in this period of time of three years to meet the goals, you have crushed it with meeting these goals. I've been in this community for 26 years, and perspective is important. When you took this job, I'm going to be straightforward here. These are my words. When you took this job, gun violence and crime was, from my standpoint, at an all-time high in my 26 years of being in this community. morale within the police department was at an all-time low.

Vacancies, and you could correct me on this number, I was using 25% plus the vacancy rate within the police department. Yeah, 25%. It's somewhere around 30, 32 vacancies. Yeah, so significant vacancies. And we'll get to the Chief Brackney, Jackson, Mississippi News, and her hiring. I posted something on the I Love Seville Network earlier this week, just highlighting that she was hired.

also highlighting that she had lost her job here. Chip Boyles had let her go, the former city manager. And then I champion Chief Kachis because he's in a lot of ways reimagined the department, filling the vacancies, improving morale, and solving crime. I got to give you props for that. I mean, you took a job that a lot of people did not want, and you made this community better, safer, and more sound because of your reimagining of the police department.

Well, I'll say that we as a community made this community safer, right? Think about you were at that meeting at Trinity Church, very early on in my tenure, right? I think we had like four homicides in three months leading up to that. And the community, what I took out of that meeting was like, man, a community's pissed, that this is happening, right? And so, you know, that was for me encouraging that we had a community that really wanted to be involved and is still involved in things we do. So, yeah, I mean, this is not just one entity could do it all, right? We're just a piece of it. We come up with a plan, put out a vision, and then we've got to go out and execute.

And we have a zero-fail mission, police department, right? We can't afford to fail. And so the stakes are too high. And working with the community, we've done that. And so I'm proud of our folks, and I'm proud of this community. Would you make of the Dr. Brackney News with Jackson, Mississippi? I have a very good relationship with Dr. Brackney. I will tell you that she has been nothing but kind to me.

We share spaces at different areas. We're both on the advisory board for UVA's Justice Center and Public Safety and have a very good relationship. You won't hear me throwing shade or criticizing another chief no matter where they come from. And I say that because I know how hard the job is, right? And so, yeah, I, you know, there's a lot of work to do out there in Jackson, Mississippi. You know, they've got some challenges out there. But she's been in this business a very long time.

And I have no doubt that she'll do fine out there. Okay. My follow-up to that would be the department you inherited following Chief Brackney's termination by Chip Boyles. How would you characterize the department you inherited? Well, I think there was a lot going on, right? So you can't just go back and say it's this one person that was at fault or this or that, right? Coming out of COVID. I mean, look, Charlottesville did real deal COVID.

Like, I kind of joke that, you know, when I was in Warrington, we did COVID for like a day. Well, here, like, I got here and there were still, like, virtual council meetings and stuff like that. So, I mean, this place shut down, right? So there was a lot going on combined with, like you said, a spike in crime, spike in violent crime. and pay. They've been struggling in Charlottesville for a long time with pay. City government in general, vacancies all over the place, right? The city attorney here that was working, when I got hired, they wasn't here anymore.

I never saw that person. So there was a lot going on, and anytime you have instability, whether it's at the top of an organization or within the government in general, you're going to have these challenges. And so I'm not sure it's fair to blame one person. I think there, like I said, I think there was just a lot going on at the time. And there's a reason why that,

what do I say, the windshield's bigger than the rear of your mirror, we've got to keep looking forward. That's good. I will use that. I will use that analogy. I didn't make that up. That's a good analogy. Keith Smith's giving you some props.

Philip Dowell's giving you some props. Conan Owen is giving you some props. Bill McChesney, Vanessa Parkill, literally every media outlet in town, is watching the program in some capacity here. I need to get to the 2025 snapshot and celebrate it. I'm going to highlight a couple of key points, and I encourage any of the viewers and listeners to find the snapshot

on the Charlottesville.gov website. Probably the easiest way to find the snapshot is on the Charlottesville Police Department Facebook page and to scroll to February 9th, the post that highlights the snapshot. Here's some of what's noteworthy to me. Gun violence, gun-related incidents decreased by 51% from 2024 to 2025, marking one of the most substantial public safety improvements in recent years.

Overall crime declined by 10.9% I'm going to call it 11% for a talk show when including larcenies and 18% when excluding larcenies underscoring sustained reductions across multiple crime categories. this is awesome stuff here. Yeah, it's good news. I mean, we're seeing that not just in Charlestville, we're also seeing that in other cities in the Commonwealth, right? I'll tell you that I was just last week, I was in Richmond with my peers, chiefs from across the Commonwealth,

and, man, we got just a great group of leaders leading our law enforcement organizations in Virginia right now doing really good work and focusing on what's important. And so, you know, we're focused. And when I say focusing on what's important, you know, that's constitutional community-centered policing, right? We get it. And so, yeah, it's definitely numbers that we are happy to see. We also realize that there's still a ton of work to do out there.

So, like, I'll give you an example, that 51% reduction in incidents involving firearms, right? So that includes shots fired, homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, stuff like that. While we are seeing a dramatic reduction in our shots fired calls, we are also seeing the amount of rounds fired on each one of them significantly higher. So we may have had more shots, fire calls over the last year or two by a lot. So we're reducing those incidents, which are really important. but the capacity of magazines that we're seeing, the amount of rounds being fired,

I mean, it's nothing for us, if we do have a shots fire call to see, you know, 20, 30 rounds being fired at a house. So that's something we have to focus on. So that's, you know, it's that, we've got that snapshot. It's absolutely, let's reflect on the great work that's been done over the last year. We're going to be putting out our annual report, which is going to be more detailed kind of building off of that snapshot.

And then let's move forward and start building out our next three-year strategic priorities. and how we continue to get better and get those numbers to zero. I'm not going to be happy until we have zero, homicide, zero shootings. And that might not be realistic, but that's what we need to, mindset we need. Comments are coming in extremely fast. Brett, who you know says this. Charlottesville is lucky to have Mike as the police chief. This is an absolutely fantastic guy.

I have probably somewhere two dozen live comments in the feed here on the student protest locally and looking for the support the police department may provide. I promise you we will get to that. And we understand that that's a topic that is important to everyone because it's our kids. This is an interesting one that's come on one of the 15 Facebook pages. How much of the statistics that are certainly impressive are tied to policing and improved police department or tie to the fact that our baseline with COVID behind us is a little bit more stable. That's a good question.

Yeah, it's a great question. And I was asked this just, I was asked yesterday by a reporter, you and I both know. Is that Hawes? Hawes, yeah. So he'll mind if I said, right. Yeah, he was asking me about this. And I was, and I was giving him really kind of a long answer. And he's like, I was hoping to have just like a simple, simple answer to it.

I was like, the answer is there's no simple answer to it. And there's not. When we're talking about crime, we're talking about gun violence, we're talking about, you know, just it's complex. You know, like how do you sustain those numbers, right? Well, the reality of it is, especially, you know, when we talk about our criminal justice system. So people who are held accountable and then are incarcerated. The reality of it is most people don't go to prison for the rest of their life. Very few people get life sentences, right?

So at some point, folks are going to get out of prison and reenter. our communities, and if we're not investing in re-entry, then we're, you know, what are we doing, right? So we need to make sure we are setting folks up who are reentering our communities so they can be productive members of society. And so that's one piece of it. That's not really law enforcement related, but we have to understand and recognize that. Yeah, so, but again, it's a combination of things. It's a whole community approach. Police department, yes, we have a piece of it, how we deploy our resources and when. you know, our focused deterrence mindset that we're using where we're identifying that small group of individuals

and really focusing on those who commit most of the violent crime in the city, and then our community partnerships. You know, those three things for us really seem to be that recipe for success. And if you think about those three things, they involve a lot of people, not just folks, not just the police department. Nick Pollack watching the program. Jason Noble has this comment. Jason Noble watches the show all the time, his photo on screen. He says, I don't think the magazine capacity has much to do with anything.

Can you pass this to Chief Kachis? Those calls for shots fired that only had one or two shots fired, most likely still used a standard 10 to 15 round magazine. Can he comment on that at all? Maybe. You know, I don't know. I will tell you that, and I would respectfully, kind of push back and just say that if folks have access to large capacity magazines and

with weapons like an AR-15 or an AK-47 or a Draco, which we are seeing much more common now on the street, they can unload those magazines much quicker. And so, you know, and the more rounds being fired out of the house, the more chance it is somebody's going to be hit. And so, but, you know, look, there's, I mean, the conversation about gun reform, you know, guns and ammunition and all that stuff that's happening in Richmond right now, you know, it's so politically charged. It really is.

And I just think if you got common sense people in the room and had real conversations, most people would agree on some common sense things and disagree. You know, obviously some things are going to be very political, very hyper, you know, on this side or that side, but I do think there's some type of middle ground somewhere. I'm not sure if you and I'll see it in our lifetime, but I think it's there. We should highlight what you're doing in Richmond. You, you, I find this regardless of politics, this is nothing to do with politics, this is just props to you. You were handpicked by Governor Spamberger to serve her administration, and you're doing so amongst a pretty stellar cast of police chiefs across the Commonwealth.

Can you kind of give us the flip book or insight into what you're doing there? Yeah, so myself, there's other police chiefs and sheriffs. Andy Block from UVA, as well as on that was on the group. It's a, so we were part of the transition team for the governor-elect, now Governor Spanberger, to look at policy recommendations in the area of public safety. And, man, it was a lot of work. I'll tell you, getting a snapshot of what they're dealing with in enrichment or that process, if you will, whether it be our delegates, delegate Carlson or Senator Deeds,

you know, it's, man, they move fast. I mean, we're meeting twice a week coming up with, like, you know, pretty robust policy recommendations in a short period of time, you know. So, and then just seeing how things work in a general assembly, I'm not sure how many people understand that, like, they have like 2,000 bills they have to get through within a very short period of time. So, yeah, it's been a good experience. And, yeah, I'm happy to be part of it in any way I can.

Viewers and listeners, the comments are coming in aggressively quickly here. I'm going to do my best to kind of moderate as much as possible. I understand that the protests are a huge part of what we need to talk about here. I get that. There's other things I need to get off my notebook first before I get to them. I was sent something from multiple people about a bill and resolution as it applies to law enforcement agencies and protests locally. So I'll get to this, I promise. The morale of the department, how do you characterize it now?

I see a lot of new faces, which I find pretty awesome. Well, remember, we've hired a quarter of our workforce in the last three years. Yeah. So the benefit of that, when you talk about building culture, you know, we're, I wouldn't say it's easy because we're dealing with real people, right? But it's a real opportunity that we've had. We have such a great group of officers. I mean, just this stuff, I could, we don't have enough time to talk about. some of just a great work that they do but I'll tell you that when we talk about

morale you know from where I sit I think that morale is pretty good right now but you know that doesn't mean we don't have challenges you know I got you know 150 people in that building that's 150 people people things right so we're always gonna have those those those things that go on but for the by and large we are in a really good place and I couldn't be more more fortunate to be able to serve with those folks? I've been sent videos and screenshots. There appears to be a massive protest right now of Almaral High School students outside of Stonefield and Burton's Grill and Bar. I've got a photo where it looks like there's 100 plus kids holding protest signs in

front of Burton's. Stonefield is private property, by the way. That is Almarl County. That's a different jurisdiction than Charlottesville here with the police chief. Clearly this is the transition into Monday's protest. Charlottesville High School. I first found out about this from my wife. Okay. She was driving on John Warner and then along McIntyre by Seville Coffee and said that the students were walking in some cases in the road. Yeah.

Because the sidewalk was still iced in snow. Snow Creek, I think you call it? Yeah, Snow Creek. That's right. I'll start open-ended Monday afternoon. Yeah, so I was contacted like the last minute that, hey, there was a, from the schools, we were contacts saying that there was going to be a walkout protest at CHS. So the first thing we do when we get something like that is, okay, how do we make it safe?

Right? Because folks have a, you know, no matter what your opinion is on whatever topic it is, my concern is, number one, are we going to be able to make sure we can facilitate someone or a group expressing their First Amendment rights, right? Or to express their grievances against the government or whoever, for whatever topic that may be, and do it safely. And so obviously talking about our children, meaning our students, there's a little bit more sensitivity there because, you know,

a lot of people want to know, like, is my kid okay? You know, they're walking out of school. Is it, are they going to be in a road? They don't want to get, you know, hit or anything like that. So we immediately mobilized and, one, communicated to the public like, hey, be careful driving. You might see some kids walking in the road, and then we got our officers out there to make sure we were,

able to block, in some cases block a lane of traffic so they could walk in the street safely or just make sure folks knew that, hey, there's kids, there's a large group on a sidewalk here, you know, be aware. So that's our goal. It was peaceful. We had no issues. And so, I mean, no issues at the time, obviously, the whole social media stuff and comments and all that kind of stuff. That's a whole other, whole other conversation. But yeah, you know, look, there's a lot of topics out there that people are very passionate about right now and our goal

and our role is to make sure that folks can express their grievances safely whether it be against the government or whoever and protect those rights. I thought as my wife and I were talking about this as a parent as parents we felt a breed the side of a leaf that you guys

were there because there was a boatload of kids and I used the word unsupervised on social media I got flack for that but they were unsupervised. Let's go to the chase. They were not in school. Getting flack is part of my business.

I'm sure it's part of your business. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, that just goes with the territory. It does. And to have you guys there, especially with you kind of like being that like metronome of like consistency of leadership behind the scenes

and on the front lines offered relief for us, I was disappointed to see the response to the social media post where you kind of just basically said, we're going to be here. And then the comments that came in were disgusting. Yeah, so I typically don't read comments on social media. That was some advice I got from a very wise chief one day. But I was made aware of those disgusting comments.

And while I can't get in too many details, because we are conducting an investigation into some of those. They were threatening. Can we say that? Yeah, I mean, so look, there's a legal definition. of threatening, right? And so we have to determine if that's, if it meets that threshold, and then we will investigate it. But this has been assigned to our Investigations Bureau, and they're investigating them now. I respect that. And I posted that that I respected that you

guys were doing this. This has come across our deaths. It was passed to us by Carly Wagner. And this has since been passed by by the House in Richmond. Okay. That law enforcement agencies, agreements with federal authority for immigration enforcement, that law enforcement enforcement of federal immigration law prohibits any person acting in his capacity as a law enforcement officer to assist or cooperate with or to allow or authorize any resources to assist or cooperate with or to otherwise facilitate any operation executed in whole or in part by federal authorities for the purpose of enforcing federal immigration law. So this, like we have this weird thing that's going on here where it's like these are my words we have from what i can tell

federal overreach i'll catch heat for saying that um and then that overreach is positioning departments like yours and kind of a precarious position we this has happened before 2020 similar right the murder george floyd it doesn't matter where it happens you know we we as a profession all kind of get lumped into that right And I'll be the first to say this. I said this last night at the Police Civilian Oversight Board meeting. What we've seen in Minneapolis, right, the form of, and I wouldn't even call it policing, form of law enforcement activity maybe on behalf of some, I say some federal agencies,

because most federal agencies have good, hardworking law enforcement professionals. Most of them, that has been my experience with them. But what we have seen there is not constitutional community-centered policing. That's just not what we've seen, what we've been seeing. And I think as a profession, we need to call that out, and we have been, to say, hey, that's not, you know, we are bound by the law, the Constitution, the United States, Constitution of Virginia, right? And so, bills that bill you're like you're talking about, so I want to say two weeks ago, maybe, maybe it was three weeks ago. the governor asked for a meeting with a group of police chiefs in Richmond. It was like, it was a, you know, short notice like, hey, we need to meet.

And so went to Richmond and met with her. And what the impression I got from, there's a lot of bills. There's like 2,000 of them, right? But everybody associates all those bills with one person, the governor, right? And whether that's fair or not, I don't know. But it was very clear to me she understands the nuance of the law. the nuance of what we can and can't do as a profession. And I really did appreciate that.

So where those bills go, what happens to them, whether they're amended at a certain point, whether they're veto, I mean, I don't know, you know. But there's a lot of nuance that needs to be discussed, especially a bill like that. The bill's about making it illegal to wear a mask for federal law enforcement. The whole idea of one armed law enforcement agency arresting another armed law enforcement agency for something,

that's never going to go well. I don't see a scenario where that would happen. I just don't think that's smart policy. Would you think what went through your mind personally? This is Mike Hatch is the person here. You gave me in trouble. When you saw what happened to Minneapolis. Two murders.

Do I characterize it as murders? So in my mind, when I look at the first thing that comes to me as a career law enforcement professional, is that how do you make a, how do you automatically come to a conclusion at the highest level of government that a shooting or use of force is justified within an hour or two? It's never happened in my 28 years.

No use of force. You should be able to come to that conclusion. There's an investigation that happens, there's a thorough investigation that occurs, and there's a criminal investigation that occurs, in any type of deadly force situation, And then there's an administrative investigation that occurs. We're talking months that these take.

And I think the big problem that most people have, and especially that I had, is that you have to be very careful. How are you are talking about something that could be a crime? You're talking about officers that could be charged with a crime, right? And so I just felt there was a lot of irresponsible comments and conclusions made at levels of the government that matter. right? I mean, is it different that you on a show, no offense, right? But like, you could say

those things, right? But me as a police chief or a certain level of government, you can't say those things. You may think it, but there is an investigation that has to happen and all that has to be washed out. Some of the viewers and listeners, and I'm paraphrasing for them here, but it's all over the feet, are concerned with the position that the police

department may be in if there's seem to be aiding or supporting, some are even saying encouraging the ICE protests. What's that? Encouraging them? Yeah. I don't think encouraging is the right word. I think all you're doing is keeping them safe. That's all we're doing.

Yeah. Yeah. We don't take a, it's not our place to take a position. We have to, we have to be content neutral when it comes to these things. I mean, that's, I mean, that's just good governance. Yeah. Right? That's good policing.

It's that we are, we swore an oath. to protect the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of Virginia, and the laws of Virginia, right? And so I'll be honest, I don't care what you're protesting. You know, you have a right to do that peacefully, right? And that's what we've seen here, whether it be the No King's protests that we've seen, that have been very large,

I appreciate what we've seen in the area of how people are expressing their grievances and what they're seeing. And as long as it's done peacefully, and people's lives are protected and people's property are protected. That's our concern. And I, I, I,

I, I, I, I, I think it's just like, the jump to conclusions, perception is the police is keeping these protesters safe, so they're,

like, on the side of the protesters. But that's not what's happened is, all they're trying to do is maintain an ecosystem of safety. I'm not going to take a side. Yeah. We're not taking sides. Yeah. That's not,

our role. We shouldn't do that. Right. But we also have an obligation to keep people safe, and that's what we'll do. This has come in. What is the, this is from Conan Owen, and we'll give Sir Speedy, Central Virginia, some love. They're a partner of the show. He does a really good job, Conan Owen with, you know, building visibility for business.

I noticed you got more signs in here now. Yeah, Conan Owen, Sir Speedy Central Virginia. Thank you for noticing that. He says, do police have any responsibility to oversee unpermitted protests? We do, but we also have to use common sense. Right. And so sometimes, you know, would we love for people to get a permit to get a group?

Absolutely. But there's different. There's pre-planned protests and there's spontaneous protests. And there's a lot of legalities around those and what is considered a spontaneous protest and whatnot. But at the end of the day, from the police department standpoint, if someone has a protest and everybody is safe, nobody is hurt and no property is damage, I look at it. I look at that as a success. So do I. And I think what's interesting is like the dichotomy of the unpermitted protest

and keeping the community safe and comparing and contrasting it with the unpermitted camping or sheltering in place or storage of personal property. Yeah. And that scenario, you guys can't do anything about it. That's correct. that that right there if I were to compare and contrast the two it would it would be a head scratcher for me as someone who like in downtown Charlestville

you know wants to see downtown Charlottesville you know shoot I'm choosing my words carefully now as safe and inviting and as quality of life prioritized so I can bring a seven year old and then four year old yeah down here and feel okay with it as do I And I can tell you, as does the, you know, I talk with the city manager and his team all the time.

And that's their goal as well. And they're working their butts off to do it. This has come in from Ginny Who, her photo on screen. Comments are coming in extremely quickly. And I appreciate the comments here. She says, I'm excited for the chief's interview. And in light of what Charlottesville Police Department posted last night about the social media threats, she says their social media post gives me serious concern

and seems more like what England is currently doing to its citizens rather than what the law should be in the United States. She says, is this post the best use of CPD's time stating they have received reports about comments? And she also says, if there's a true threat, don't give a warning, go pursue it. And she also highlights, what about the students threatening language towards law enforcement

on posters that were carried around town. And then she finally says, if we aren't, she's concerned about hypocrisy, shouldn't every poster that has a threatening message to police department be held in the same vein as threatening messages and comments on social media? So good question. I'll take the beginning of it first.

So the reason why we put that out that we were looking, we were getting bombarded with questions. And people, I mean, people were walking in the police department. saying, hey, these are threats. My kids were out, you know, they're concerned, this threat, that threat. So we were getting a lot of inquiries about the different threats that were out there. And so when that happens, typically we will say, okay, hey, we are, we're aware of this, right? And we are investigating it. And that's basically what that, what that post was meant to say. And so as to, you know, people's comments, people equally have a right to go online and social media. and comment and make their opinions heard. That's okay.

That's their right to do so, just like it's the right to protest, right? But there's a line. And so we are investigating whether that line was crossed in specific areas. I don't know if that's happened yet, but we're investigating that. But no, those are good questions. And, you know, we have an obligation

when folks in the community have questions about what's out there and what's the police doing about it. You know, we need to answer to community, and that's what we did. This question's come in here. Can you ask the police chief, and we had this as one of our headlines as well, what the relationship will be with the police department and the clean team, the two-year contract the city spent to hire basically, what, a third party to serve as like evangelists or a clean team?

I mean, they're out there with the big things, and they're out, I mean. Yeah, what are they working? you call those things? I don't know. Big garbage cans. Yeah, right? Yeah. And it has the Friends of Seville branding on it? Does it? Yeah. Has the Friends of Seville branding on it. What's the role? So, between, for the police department, our role really hasn't changed. We still have an officer assigned to them all every day.

I won't say until what time, but it's late, right? So we have a daytime officer out there and the evening shift officer down there. And they have met with the clean team to talk to him because in case there's questions that come up. The clean team may run into something and want to know how to contact the police. They don't have like our radios or anything like that. They don't work for the police department. So, but yeah, we, you know, just like we, if it was a parks and rec person down there, then we would, you know, we know who they are.

And they are able to call us if they need something. But just like any other citizen could. This comment's an interesting one. The police department has helped with the houseless over by the Rangbana River and by Freebridge. How is the police department able to help? clear that section and not do the same with downtown charlesville yeah so we really haven't cleared them all i mean when you talk about you're talking about the trail right i'm about the trail i mean so there's a lot of our unhoused neighbors are living down there on the trail and um you know

we have a relationship many of them um i was talking about this last night jerry we our officers you know they they just they care about these folks they they know them by their first names many of them my officers personal cell phones, they'll call them and ask, you know, things pop up or things happen, right? I have some who will reach out to me, who I have relationships and speak with. And so, you know, we're trying to keep them safe, especially obviously with that cold weather we just had. And we're down there and we're just managing it, right? We've got to get this low barrier shelter done. The city manager and his team is working their, like I said, working their butts off on this issue. I don't think there's a day or a week that goes by that they're not working on this.

So, but we'll do our part and make sure we're keeping people safe. Here's a good one. This is a regular viewer and listener. Jennifer says, I watch a show, often Jerry, on the last interview you had with Chief Conscious, he mentioned that it's only a handful of Charlottesville folks that are truly doing most of the violent crime. Can he offer perspective into any of the policing with these people and whether or not there's less of them in Charlottesville and thank you for what you do. Yeah, so like I said, that's what, so when I talked about, you know, our focused deterrent, or a focused deterrence model when it comes to policing.

So, you know, what was happening for a while in a lot of jurisdictions is you would have an issue that would occur in a neighborhood, you'd see a spike in crime in a neighborhood, and police departments would just flood that neighborhood with resources and folks would feel like they're under siege in their own neighborhood, right? And while that may drive crime down for a little bit, it's really not sustainable. And then you're not helping in the area of building trust within a community. And so what we do is we're trying to figure out, like, who are those individuals? And it's a really small group.

And those are the folks we are identifying. And we'll either reach out to them or we're going to say, hey, if they're committing these crimes, you know, we're going to put a case on them. And, you know, maybe they need to sit down for a little bit and they'll have their day in court. But that's where we've made a lot of progress, is identifying that small group of individuals and focusing on them instead of, you know, instead of going in neighborhoods and just trying to take over. Now we're going to go in neighborhoods, but our officers are going to get out and build relationships with folks and be there for the community. This comment comes in as a follow-up from a different person that's watching the program. The small group of folks that are committing much of the violent crime, how much of those folks live in public or, subsidized housing? And is there any mythology tied to revoking the public and

subsidized housing if they do live there? So I wouldn't say it's overwhelming. I mean, we have pockets of spikes, I guess, if you will, of crime in the city. You know, we have our monthly comp stat meeting where we look at this data every month and say, okay, where are we seeing these numbers, where are seeing these spikes, and why are we seeing them, right? So we talk about hotspots. Remember we, like we have these hot spots? well, now where's the hot spot within the hotspot, right? What's making that neighborhood the problem, if you will? Well, it's typically like one or two addresses or a small group of people.

Sometimes they live there, some don't, right? And it's not always our public housing areas. I think our public housing areas get a bad rap sometimes, right? But, you know, we see spikes in crime in other areas of the city as well. And I think the city does a really good job at investing in people and places, right? So there's, you know, and that's shown to work.

Chad Wood is watching in Crozet. He says, you have an extremely difficult job, keep up the great work, and has given you the hand salute emoji. He's given you props. The props are all over the feed here for Chief Kachis. We'll spend about eight more minutes here with the police chief. This question's

come in for Chief Kachis. Do you feel that you have the support of the city manager, and of city council, and if there's one or two things that you feel like could be more, that could offer more support to your police department, what would they be? The quick answer is yes, I do. I do feel like the city manager supports the police department. I feel like our city council supports its police department, too.

You know, they've come to our meetings. They, you know, I have a very good relationship with our counselors and the city manager. And so as for things we need, Jerry, I'm a cop. I could come up with all kinds of things that we need, right? I mean, but things cost money. I get that. We're in the budget process right now, and I've been doing this a long time,

and I've gone through a lot of budgets. And so I understand that this is our community's money. It ain't ours, so we have to be good stewards of our taxpayers' dollars, and we don't take that lightly. And so we're going through that budget process right now, And, you know, I think for 28 years, I've heard it's going to be a tough budget year. And so it's going to be a tough budget year again. And it really is.

I think this one, I've been here 26 years. I think this budget year for Charlottesville City is going to be one of its most challenging. The days of double-digit assessments are done, right? Look at this. The man falls so closely. I do, yeah. You're taking it from here. I mean, I watch my wife gives me some, gives me a hard time.

I watch. Public Access TV. I did. I watch council meetings from all over and budget work sessions and stuff. So to me it's fascinating to kind of see how this stuff happens and works. Like I said, I've been doing it a long time. And it's important that I understand the process of budgeting. I understand where the money comes from.

And there's only so many levers that they can pull, right? And I think we're kind of at the top when it comes to the whole meals tags and lodging, right? you got the real estate tax one, but again, in the area of affordability, like all of those decisions have real life impacts on folks. And our council members, I will tell you, they, man, they're thoughtful. They're thoughtful, and they got away a lot of things. I would never want to have to sit up there and make those decisions. And he analyzed it perfectly.

The assessments are flat, if not down, real estate in the city. I think they're up single digit, right? It's a very marginal. Marginal. Marginal, yeah. And the meals tax is flat at best. The sales tax is flat at best. The lodging tax is slightly up.

And the city of Charlottesville has headwinds when it comes to January and February collections of taxes because of snowpocalypse. And the fact that folks stayed home, they also had to go deep in the coffers for snow and ice remediation because the city owns their roads. And this is all coinciding with the unionization of a lot of city. employees, in particular Charlottesville schools. And the police. And the police. We have collective bargaining, too.

It's a different world. Yep, we have, where more money is allocated to human capital. Not only that. I mean, collective bargaining, and I'm a fan of collective bargaining. Yeah, me too. I was the union president in Alexandria for many years where we were fighting for back that. But man, it's a lot of money. And that's a lot of work. I mean, there's got to be an infrastructure built around

collective bargaining. That means attorneys and labor relations managers, all that stuff. it's a lot to navigate. I want to welcome Meg Payne to the broadcast, who is setting me messages on the feed that are not the nicest. I still salute you, Meg Payne, and thank you for watching the program. That's what I'm going to do is take the high road here. I think city residents may see a real estate tax rate increase

because the money's got to come from something. And as you highlighted, and I think you were one of the best things, smartest things you've ever said on the show and you say a lot of smart stuff is that the meals tax is at its peak. Yeah, I think that was brought up at the last work session. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And so, you know, they look at other jurisdictions.

I think the highest is like Covington. Which, I didn't even know where it was first. But yeah, it's, I said there's a lot of tough decisions that have to be made at that level. So we'll see where it goes. What are we missing? What should be out there that isn't covered? What do we miss? I don't know. I think we've covered a lot.

Yeah. Yeah. How's everything going with you? You're good? Yeah, things are great. My son's a junior at Radford, and he's a handful, but he's great. He's doing good. He wants to get into sales. He doesn't want to get in the family business of law enforcement. Do you have two sons, right? I have two. I have my son. He's in sales. He wants to do sales. He's a junior at Radford. And my oldest actually lives in Jackson, Mississippi. Okay. He's an electrician out there. Fantastic. So yeah. I'm grateful for you.

Yeah. Thank you for having. I appreciate it. I sincerely mean that. His name is Mike Kachis. We have monikered him, the George Kludi in policing, and Chief Kautchus, I sincerely mean this. And I say this as often as possible, has had more of a positive impact on Charlottesville

than anyone since COVID, which is when he arrived. Is it three? Three years. Three years. Three years and change now, right? Time flies when you having fun, isn't it? Three years and change for Chief Kachis on the job, guys. I think he said I had less.

like three days. I initially said, I initially gave the man, and he does not let me forget this. I initially gave the man grief that I was like, maybe he's not the right guy for the job. And now I continue over the last 36 months to eat those words. From time to time, hear them from chief catches that I'm eating those words. Like you, making criticisms okay. Yeah, it's okay. It's okay. As you, as, just like you, we have thick skin. That's it. You have to. Yes, he's is. I thank him. I thank Judah Wickauer. And this show airs wherever you get your podcasting and social media content. archive there. For the viewers and listeners that have watched the program, thank you kindly for

joining us. Even viewers and listeners like Meg Payne, thank you kindly for watching the program as well. We'll see you guys on Monday for the I Love Seville Show. So long, everybody. That was awesome.