Town Council - Regular Meeting

I'm gonna call the Dumfries Town Council meeting to order. So I wanna say good evening and welcome as your mayor and presiding officer. Excuse me. My role is to make sure that we have a good meeting for all our participants and so that they can all be heard respectfully and fairly. To that end, please note the following requirements which apply equally to council members and members of the public. All comments must be directed to the mayor, who is the chair to preside and offer. No comment should be directed to an individual member, a staff member, or a member of the public. We ask that your side conversation, whispering, and side talk not be permitted, and make all your remarks audible for the room, for FOIA. We ask that you avoid any text, emailing, or message related to public business matters during this meeting. No one should speak while another person has the floor. Interruptions will be ruled out of order. Council members will be recognized by the mayor before speaking. Council members may speak up to two times on any item with a combined total of no more than 10 minutes. Members of the public are allotted three minutes to speak during the citizen comment or public hearings unless otherwise changed by majority vote. During citizen comment time, council members will not respond directly to the speakers. Any response, clarifications, or follow-up remarks may be offered later during the designated time. Any member ruled out of order must yield the floor immediately. Clapping, yelling, other outbursts are not permitted unless invited. Disruptive behavior may result in the removal of the meeting. Speakers who allot the time may have their microphone silenced. Any direction given to staff? will be given collectively from the council. These rules are designed to protect the rights of all participants, ensure compliance with the law, and keep our meetings efficient, respective, and productive. Madam Clerk, please call for the roll.

Councilman Fields?

Here.

Councilman Pete?

Here.

He said here? Okay. Okay. Councilman Young? Here. Councilwoman Peterson. Present. Chair Poteau-Miles. Present. Vice Mayor Nickerson.

Here.

Mayor Wood. Present. Thank you. I would now have our own Potomac Supervisor, Andrea Bailey, come and give us our opening welcome and our opening prayer.

Good evening, everyone. Good evening. You can do better than that. Good evening. There you go. There you go. It's an honor to come before you into my wonderful council. It's a pleasure to see you this evening. Shall we bow our head for an invocation? Dear Lord, our God, we are eternally grateful for your goodness towards us. We thank you, Lord, for the pathway and the responsibilities that you have bestowed upon this wonderful council. We ask, God, that you continue to lead and guide them in the way that you would have them to deliver for this your people. Thank you for the wonderful business that they will be conducting this evening, dear God. That every tongue that speaks, every thought that is thought, every vote that is taken, be one that will be robust, strong, and ever... Hmm. ever going for this home called Dumfries, a place where it all began for this community, dear God. We thank you for the responsibilities that you give to us, God. And we ask God that you strengthen our bodies, our minds, our souls, our spirits, dear God, to keep running the race that you've so easily set before us, dear God. and that we will know and your people will know that we've come to serve and to serve you first, but to serve them continuously. We are grateful for this day and all that is given and is in your divine son that we pray. Amen.

Amen. Amen. We'll now have Truth80211 to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Ladies, if you want to stand up behind the dice and lead us in the pledge. You have Ms. Aliyah Ahmad, Sarah Jane Lindor, Selena Joy Wells, Yasenia DeBridge, DeBrownie, Aurore DeBride, Junior Caleb Mitchell. They will now lead us in the pledge. So please all rise.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

And to get your civil service badges, ladies come to the front. Brownie Aurora Debride. Who's that? Junior Kalia Mitchell. All right. Junior Aliyah Ahmad. All right. Junior Sarah Jane Lindahl. All right, Julia Selina Joy Wells. All right, now read the last one so y'all know what these certificates say. And this is Julia Yasenia DeBride. It reads, in grateful recognition for your leadership and your service in leading the town of Dumfries in the Pledge of Allegiance during the September 15, 2026 council meeting, as a Girl Scout ambassador with Troop 80211, and wherever you guys go to school, whatever grade you're in, You demonstrated confidence, civic pride, and commitment to community service. Your participation helped open the meeting with dignity and respect while reflecting the values of leadership, citizenship, and service embodied by the Girl Scouts. On behalf of the town council, town staff, and the residents of the town of Dumfries, thank you for your service and for helping make this occasion meaningful. We wish you continued success in your education, leadership, and service to others. All right. Next on our agenda is the adoption of our agenda. Are there any changes, updates to the agenda, Madam Town Manager?

Yes, Mr. Mayor. Item E, I'm going to ask that we remove that from the agenda, please, sir. Okay.

And that's action items.

Okay. Okay. Anything else?

saying none chair protein uh yes mr mayor i move that we adopt the agenda as amended second all right it's been motioned and second all right seeing no discussion please call for the question councilman fields yes councilman pete yes councilman young yes councilwoman peterson aye chair for some miles aye by nickerson yes mayor wood yes emotions pass

All right. First on the agenda is awards and proclamation. First one is a proclamation recognizing Hispanic Heritage Month from our Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. Tonight there are two proclamations recognizing Hispanic Heritage Month. Although they share similar information and the same purpose of honoring history, culture, achievements, and contributions of Hispanic and Latino Americans, the proclamation I'm presenting places particular emphasis on the organizations and community leaders whose service and advocacy strengthen families and expand opportunity throughout Dumfries and the greater Prince William region. I requested the opportunity to present this proclamation because recognition should extend beyond celebrating culture. It should also acknowledge the people and organizations doing the work every day to remove barriers, connect residents with resources, develop leaders, and ensure that our Hispanic and Latino neighbors have a meaningful voice in our community. I'd like to recognize the representatives joining us this evening. Chris Concepcion, State Director, Virginia League of United Latin American Citizens, Virginia. Lenka Mendoza, Dream is Mothers in Action, DMIA. Oriela Mija, representing the Virginia Latino Leaders Council. Valberto Tony Vasquez. Amy Henriquez, Legislative Liaison, National TPS Alliance, Virginia Chapter. And Hector Hoyer from Casa, Virginia. Whereas Hispanic Heritage Month is observed annually from September 15 through October 15, providing an opportunity to recognize and celebrate the rich histories, culture, achievements, and contributions of Hispanic and Latino Americans whose heritage is rooted in Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, South America, and other Spanish-speaking communities. And whereas the observance began in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week and was expanded in 1988 to a 30-day celebration, with September 15 selected as a starting date in recognition of the independence anniversaries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, followed closely by the independence celebrations of Mexico and Chile. And whereas generations of Hispanic and Latino Americans have helped shape the history and progress of the United States through their leadership, innovation, service, entrepreneurship, artistry, scholarship, and contributions to our nation's civic, economic, cultural, and social life. And whereas Hispanic and Latino Americans have made lasting contributions in fields including government and public service, education, business, science and technology, medicine, the arts, agriculture, athletics and the armed forces, strengthening communities throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia and across the nation. And whereas the town of Dumfries is enriched by the traditions, languages, cultures, perspectives, experiences of its Hispanic and Latino community, which form an important part of the town's diverse and involving identity. Whereas we offer particular recognition to the Hispanic and Latino families, residents, business owners, entrepreneurs, employers, employees, educators, volunteers, faith and civic leaders, and community members whose hard work, talents, service, and commitment contribute each day to the economic vitality, cultural richness, strength, and diversity of the town of Dumfries. And whereas Hispanic Heritage Month provides an opportunity for all residents to learn more about Hispanic and Latino history and heritage, celebrate the accomplishments of Hispanic and Latino Americans, foster greater understanding among neighbors, and recognize the value of the many cultures and traditions represented within our community. And whereas celebrating the heritage and contributions of our Hispanic and Latino neighbors, the town of Dumfries reaffirms its commitment to being a welcoming community where the contributions of all residents are recognized and where our diversity strengthens our shared sense of community. Now therefore, be it proclaimed that the Dumfries Town Council do hereby proclaim September 15th through October 15th, 2026 as Hispanic Heritage Month in the town of Dumfries and encourage all residents to join in celebrating the history, culture, achievements, and enduring contributions of Hispanic and Latino Americans with special appreciation for the Hispanic and Latino individuals, families, businesses, and community members who helped make Dumfries a vibrant and thriving community. and witness whereof, I have herein to set my hand and cause the sale of the town of Dumfries to be affixed this 15th day of September, signed by order of the Dumfries Town Council. So at this time, those that I've called out for this proclamation, if you'll come to the front, we'll take a group picture. Afterwards, then we'll have a few moments on the podium by Ms. .

Come here.

Should we invite more? Yeah, right there. Come here, Vincent. Come here. Come here. Come here. Come here. Come here. Come here.

Come here. Come here. Come here.

All right, here we go. All right, here we go. One, two, three. One, two, three. Last one. One, two, three. Thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone. I am your Commissioner for Parks and Recreation. The reason I mention that, in case you need anything, I am right here to support you. But secondly, this came about because of a comment I made at the park right here in Dumfries where we were having a nice, beautiful town concert. They had a great series of summer concerts and someone mentioned what's next for Latinos in the town. Vice Mayor Monet happened to be there and I said well we should all come together again to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month because it's next month. One thing led to the next and now we're all here together. Yeah, we're here celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month. Together, and that's how I hope our community continues to stay. So I am happy to see so many friends here from all parts of Latin America, including, I have two friends here with me today, Lenko Mendoza, who organizes for Dreamers Mothers in Action. And I have here State Director Chris Concepcion of Virginia League of United Latin American Citizens. So I'll give them each a brief moment to speak about their statewide organizations that do great work here in the town of Dumfries.

Thank you. Well, as you know, everybody, my name is Lenka Mendoza. I represent Dreamers Mothers in Action. It's an honor here today. Voy a dirigirme a mi comunidad latina en español. Es un honor para nosotros estar aquí y que nuestras voces sean reconocidas. Somos una comunidad que aporta con nuestros negocios, nuestro trabajo, nuestros impuestos, y también con nuestra participación cívica, votando, asistiendo a reuniones, cambiando leyes, haciendo abogacía, y mejorando la vida de nuestras comunidades. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. My name is Christopher Concepcion, and I have the honor of serving as the State Director of Virginia LULAC. On behalf of Virginia LULAC, I want to sincerely thank the Mayor, the Town Council, and the entire Town of Dumfries for this proclamation recognizing Hispanic Heritage Month and Virginia LULAC's commitment to the Dumfries community. I also want to give a huge thank you to our Virginia LULAC members who are here Here tonight, your commitment to our community is what makes this organization strong. This recognition is especially meaningful here in Dumfries, where about 40% of the population is Latino. Latinos are your neighbors, small business owners, teachers, workers, students, and families. We're an important part of the story of Dumfries, Virginia, and our nation. Dumfries represents what makes Virginia so special. People from different cultures and backgrounds coming together as one community. That is why proclamations like this are so meaningful. They remind us that everyone has a place here, that our contributions matter, and that our cultures and heritage are an important part of the community we share. Thank you, Dumfries, for welcoming our community, celebrating our heritage, and recognizing the contributions Latinos make every day. Muchísimas gracias y feliz mes de la herencia hispana.

On the behalf of the community, we're all excited to accept this proclamation. And we're also so happy that the town council remains united in making Dumfries a wonderful place for Latinos to live. And we also thank Supervisor Andrea Bailey for lifting us up to positions of leadership and never forgetting us along the way. So we're super grateful for you as well. Thank you.

I'm just gonna read one whereas for each one of these and just ask you to come up and pick up your proclamation as we continue to celebrate the Hispanic Heritage Month. Whereas the Town of Dumfries recognizes Virginia LULAC for its commitment to advancing the wellbeing of Hispanic and Latino communities through civic engagement, leadership, advocacy, education, and community empowerment, helping individuals and families strengthen their voices, access, and opportunities, and to participate fully in the communities they call home. And this organization exemplifies the spirit of service in not only Dumfries, but all of Greater Prince William.

Oh.

Next organization, where is the town of Dumfries recognizes the Hispanic Organization for Leadership and Action, OLA, for its commitment to leadership development, advocacy, civic engagement, and community empowerment by helping Hispanic and Latino individuals and families strengthen their voices, access opportunities and activity, participate in communities they call home. Give that organization a hand. The town of Dumfries recognizes we are CASA. Virginia for its commitment to advancing Spanish language literacy, education, and access to learning opportunities, helping individuals and families strengthen community skills to build confidence and more fully engaged in their communities. Newly changed name, we are CASA.

Thank you so much. We are very honored and grateful to receive this nomination of this recognition. I think on behalf of all our staff and our organization, we can say that You know, as an organization that is a grassroots, that we are very rooted in our community, in our members, in our mission of building all this power in the community. Right now, I know there are some like so hard times we are having so so much hard times but you know whenever you know moments get hard we are here for our community and we are here to keep building the power in the community um and i can say um we we are we are doing a lot of this work and all our stuff is putting the heart of all all the work that we are doing and we are removing effectively a lot of barriers that are affecting our communities lately. And also we are bringing a lot of resources. I think we are CASA, we are always that bridge that keep connecting community with a lot of resources that are all our partners that are amazing. Just, you know, bring so much to our community and on behalf of our own members, we are also very grateful and thank you so much.

Next, the town of Dumfries recognizes CNAE, Spanish Literacy Center, for its commitment to advancing Spanish language literacy, education, access to learning opportunities, helping individuals and families strengthen community skills, build confidence, and more fully engage in their communities. Thank you so much.

Good afternoon. This message is bilingual. Somos SENAES, el centro de alfabetización en español.

Sorry. Sorry.

We are CENAES, the Center for Spanish Alphabetization, whose purpose is to teach, read, and write in Spanish to many Latino brothers and sisters who have arrived here in the United States but have not been able to study in their countries of origin. There are more than 50,000 Latino brothers and sisters, adults, who need to learn to read and write first in Spanish. Somos 25 profesores que estamos trabajando durante más de 20 años y hemos graduado más de 3,500 personas en el área metropolitana de Washington. Tenemos cuatro lugares en Washington, cuatro lugares de clases en Maryland y un lugar de clases en Virginia. La idea es dar el poder de la educación a nuestra comunidad latina para que puedan cumplir sus sueños. Nunca es tarde para aprender. Yes we can. Sí se puede. Gracias.

Hi, good evening everyone. This is a great honor to receive this award or the recognition for this entity. We have our organization. CHINAIS is a non-profit organization located in Washington, DC. The mission of our organization is help to the community adult community, all the other community for they are Spanish, right? And writing and reading Spanish. Right now we are located in Washington, in Virginia, in D.C. We help to the community for all the people for maybe feel the confidence for writing and reading in Spanish. That is our focus, you know. We have to live in the area something like 20 years ago. I say thank you for the recognition. God bless you, everybody.

Next, the town of Duffridge recognizes El Impacio Nuz for his commitment to supporting Hispanic and Latino immigrant families through education, advocacy, community engagement, empowerment, and helping individuals and families access opportunities to strengthen their voices and build brighter futures. Give them a round of applause.

bueno este buenas noches a todos y realmente me siento infeliz sobre todo pues por esa acertada I'm very happy to be here and the honor of the recognition that you guys have provided. I'm very happy how you guys chose the different leaderships that I see among us as well. Yes, so thank you very much to the council, thank you very much to the mayor, thank you very much to everyone who has organized this magnificent event, and well, more than to tell you that we have a happy month of Hispanic heritage, month of independence for many countries too, and well, thank you, I'm very excited, thank you Mayor, thank you to the whole council.

So very expensive. Thank you. Thank you. The town and darn first. Thank you. The mayor and council said thank you, everybody. It's an honor to be here and let's enjoy the Hispanic heritage month. Thank you.

Next, the town of Dumfries represents recognizes dream in Nova for his commitment to supporting the Hispanic and Latino immigrant families as well through the education advocacy, community engagement, empowerment.

Give it up for Dream Innova.

One, two, three.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Michelle Tapia Modes. I am a volunteer executive director of Dream Innova. We serve a large Hispanic population, but our mission is to build a more equitable future. Can you guys hear me? Okay, our goal is really to create a more equitable future and we have programs all over the greater Prince William County area. We have three pillars, education, workforce, and community initiatives. I'm just going to speak real quickly on our initiatives that have helped support our Hispanic families, one being our bilingual volunteer core, which is a group of just community members that have raised their hands to volunteer and be a hotline for community members to interpret, translate, and honestly just be a resource and a wealth of knowledge to our community members who may have that language barrier. We also run coding camps in Manasa's Park High School, and we take in youth from our Prince William County schools, and we also help mentor them, and we have been successful in acquiring scholarships for our students. It's first-generation students, so there's a lot of work that we're doing, and it's all through the power of volunteerism. We have some volunteers here with us, including myself, because it's 100% run on just the power of community for community, and so we invite you all to come volunteer with us and check us out. Dream Innova. Thank you so much for

Next we recognize Dreamers Mothers in Action for its commitment to supporting the immigrant and Hispanic and Latino families through their advocacy. Give them some love.

Three. Three.

Good evening, everyone. Good evening. Before I get into my typed out speech here, I just wanted to say thank you, Dumfries. Quick story, I grew up down here, too. So I've seen this community and this area and everything else be built up and understand how it works very well. And it just makes me happy. I just say, wow, Dumfries, you look good. You look good. Real quick, my name is Alejandro Zuniga and I serve as the Deputy Director for Dreamers Mothers in Actions, or DMIA. On behalf of the entire organization, thank you to the Town of Dumfries for recognizing DMIA during Hispanic Heritage Month. The recognition means a lot to us because the MIA comes directly from the community we serve. We are a grassroots organization that informs, organizes, and supports mothers, workers, immigrant families, and community members so they know their rights, develop their leadership, and make their voices heard. Hispanic Heritage Month is an opportunity to celebrate our culture, our roots, but also the people behind them, the families who work, contribute, lead, organize, strengthen our communities every single day. Tonight we receive this recognition on behalf of our entire DMIA community, our families, community leaders, staff, interns, volunteers, partners, and everyone who has trusted us and been part of this work. Thank you for recognizing our community, our contribution, and recognizing our voices. With dignity and strength, we fight with love and organize with power. Thank you.

and Spanish. Our last recognition on that is recognizing for his commitment to supporting the immigrant and Hispanic community. I give them some love.

make comment please good evening everyone i am so happy to see the one wait a minute can i have someone translate for me who's gonna volunteer real quick i want this message out one person thank you all right thank you thank you This is loud enough, it would have been okay. I don't make a big show out of it, we're not gonna do that. Yeah, just for the record.

Thank you everyone for coming out tonight.

When I first came to the town of Dumfries in 2006, I had to quickly embrace the Latino community because Dumfries was majority, as you said, Latina.

Cuando vine aquí por primera vez en 2006 tuve que rápidamente acostumbrarme a la comunidad latina ya que son muchos latinos acá.

So I had to quickly learn a little bit of Spanish to the point where I married into the Latino culture.

Tuve que aprender el español muy rápido porque así mismo me casé con una latina para aprender más rápido.

I love football, as you know, the World Cup. So I have a good friend that's from Colombia, and I was supporting that team, so I figured out where it is tonight. to the point where, in this area, I assisted my soon-to-be daughter-in-law, who's from Mexico, in the DREAMers Act. So we found someone here to help her out with dreaming, with the DREAMers Act, and she's fully vetted and ready to go. She has everything. .

Can you repeat that again?

My daughter-in-law, to the point I got help for her.

She's a dreamer.

Right here in Prince William County. So we, as a family, are greatly indebted to the culture, to the assistance that is here in Prince William County. And I, and I'll speak for my daughter-in-law and family, and my nephew and everyone that I help with their process in becoming a citizen and a resident here in Prince William County and the state of Virginia.

Thank you so much.

All right, next is a proclamation to recognize Sickle Cell Disease Awareness Month. It says, where sickle cell disease is an inherited blood disorder that can cause severe pain, organ damage, serious health complications, and other lifelong challenges for individuals and families. Where September is nationally recognized as Sickle Cell Disease Awareness Month, providing an important opportunity to increase understanding of sickle cell disease, support individuals and families affected by it, promote the research and treatment, and encourage blood donation, where sickle cell disease affects approximately 100,000 people across the United States, and disproportionately impacts the black and African-American communities, making awareness, education, equitable access to care, and community support especially important. Whereas our Prince William County community continues to honor the extraordinary life and legacy of Candace Gabriella King, a student, a community member, a Delta gem, and a courageous sickle cell warrior whose impact extended far beyond her 15 years of life. Whereas Candace's life and advocacy inspired by her story contributed to historic action in the Commonwealth of Virginia, including legislation expanding sickle cell education, training, awareness, coordinated care and support for students and families affected by sickle cell disease. Whereas on September the 26th, 2026, Prince William County Alumni Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated through the Delta Gems Educational Program will host the inaugural Candace King 1.5 Mile Sickle Cell Disease Awareness Memorial Walk and Community Blood Drive at Charles J. Cogan Senior High School. Whereas this event will honor Candace's life by bringing residents together for a 1.5 mile memorial walk, sickle cell education and advocacy, sickle cell trait screening, community resources, and an American Red Cross blood drive transformation, transforming awareness into meaningful action. Whereas Candace's legacy reminds us that one life can inspire a family, mobilize a community, influence public policy, and help create a better future for countless others living with the sickle cell disease. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that the Dumfries Town Council do hereby proclaim September 2026 as Sickle Cell Disease Awareness Month in the Town of Dumfries, and we encourage our residents to learn more about the sickle cell disease, support individuals and families affected by it, consider the life-saving gift of blood donations, and participate in efforts that advance awareness, education, advocacy, research, and compassionate care. Be it further recognized that the Town of Dumfries honors the life and the enduring legacy of Candace Gabriella King and commends her family The Prince William County Alumni Chapter Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated, the Delta Gems Educational Program, all of our community partners, healthcare professionals, advocates, caregivers, the blood donors, the sickle cell warriors, who continue service has helped turn an awareness into action. Signed this day, Mayor Derrick R. Wood by order of the council. And we'll have the Delta Gems and the Deltas come forward.

Can we tighten up just a bit or make another row, please? Thank you. Let's fly it up a little bit. Some folks get behind us. Can you see everybody? All right, here we go. Here we go. One, two, three. One, two, three. One more. Thank you.

And it wasn't, as she makes her way to the podium, it wasn't through any type of awareness that I found out I had the trait. It was when I joined the military and they tested my blood and they said I had the sickle cell trait and the Thastamania trait that they tested twice to make sure it didn't impact me as I went through my training. So awareness is important.

Thank you so much, Mayor Wood, and thank you so much to all the community for recognizing the Delta Gems, the Prince William County Alumni Chapter, Delta Sigma Theta, Sorority Incorporated, and the Delta Gems Educational Program. We definitely appreciate you so much. There's been a lot of hard work and effort that went behind planning and coordinating this event. to honor our Delta Gem, Candace. Today is September 15th, and in just five days from now, September 20th, Candace would have celebrated her 16th birthday. So we are doing this as a birthday celebration to her and also to make folks aware of sickle cell disease. This has been a labor of love and it's 1.5 miles for her 15 years of life. So we just appreciate you recognizing the gems. Candace, if any of you knew her, knew that she was very intelligent, very talented. She was a singer, a dancer. She was very witty. She was funny and humorous. And she was sassy. She was a little sassy. Now, you know, Delta Gems are all high school students between the ages of 14 and 18. And so we get all the good and we get all the teenage. Yes, they can give it to you, especially on the survey. On September 26th, we will have the Memorial Walk and Blood Drive. And we're just asking everybody to please come out and support it. You can just go to Eventbrite and put in Candice, C-A-N-D-I-C-E. And it will come right up and we will welcome you all to come out and also donate blood. Please. It also affects the Hispanic community as well. Sickle cell disease is not just limited to the African American community. So we're going to do the Walk for Awareness. So we have partnered with 11 organizations, and we have five collaborating organizations, and each one will have a table with sickle cell disease awareness facts. So everybody will get a chance to walk at their leisure, stop at a table, learn a new fact, get a little token from each table, and then we're gonna take that walk, that awareness, and we're gonna put that into action with the blood drive. So we need blood. Blood saves lives. Our blood saves lives. Blood from diverse communities are needed for sickle cell disease. Diverse communities, our blood takes better in diverse communities. It's just a fact. It's an NIH-studied fact. And we do not give blood as much as we should, and we don't give blood as much for different reasons. And I think a lot of that stems from education. So this is awareness to help everybody understand this is something we have to do. You did mention the Queen Candace Act. It's just amazing to see someone's life of 15 years have such an effect on a community and on an entire state. And I was telling some of my chapter members this past weekend, We received an email from somebody from New England inquiring about this walk and saying that they would tell their friends that are in the area to come. So we just want you to know that Candace, her life might have been short, but her impact is amazingly great. And so we want to make sure that we have that same impact and let her continue to inspire us. I think it's very important. This walk is youth-led and that's another thing too. You know, it's not just about adults doing things for other adults, but children doing things for other children. They're empowered. They have the potential to do great things. And I think through programs like Delta Gems, we also have Delta Academy, and there are other youth groups out there You can't tell a child what they can't do. You just have to show them, you know, just give them those opportunities. So please register. I would like to mention we have 11 partners and five folks that are collabing with us. I just want to make sure I mention Heart of Gold Sickle Cell Disease Foundation. Ms. Hurley's back there, Melanie Hurley. She's here in the audience. Just thank you so much. She does so much wonderful work on sickle cell disease. It is amazing. And all of the partners have been absolutely fantastic. Sentara, Inova, George Mason University Mental Health, Howard University. There are a lot more. I don't want to lean on my memory right now, but just thank you to all the partners and my name is gina carrell i'm co-chair with melanie barrow she's not here this evening but we just want you to know that we love our delta gems and we love them in this program and we are going to take this whatever train we're on we're going to take it to the wheels fall off because these girls keep pushing us and we're going to keep pushing them so thank you so much mayor wood thank you so much to all of y'all

All right, before we move on, I'd like to ask that Lance Ware Jr. come to the front. This was a formal item. This past weekend, Lance Ware Jr. completed his Eagle Scout Service Project. And he did it at the Dunphrey Slave and Free African American Cemetery. What made this project meaningful was not just the physical work that was done, but the respect that he put behind it. Lance chose to invest his time and leadership in helping preserve a place that holds an important part of Dunphrey's history and the memory of those who came before us. A service like this deserves to be recognized because it It connects leadership, history, and community in a very real way. Lance, we thank you on behalf of the town of Dumfries for your service, and we present you with this letter of recognition because your work reflect the very best of what service should look like, thoughtful, respectful, community-centered, and connected to something larger than yourself. Projects like this matter because they leave a lasting impact. Long after the work is complete, the care you put into the effort this weekend and over the service time putting it together is gonna be seen and appreciated by residents, families, visitors, and future generations. We're grateful for your leadership, your commitment to service, and the example you set other young people in our community. From everybody here on the dais and everybody in the audience, we give you a round of applause for your work. to speak to the project. Oh, give me a turn.

One, two, three. One, two, three. Thank you.

So my name is Lance Ware, and last weekend I just finished my Eagle Scout project, so it's nice. Basically what I did was I went out and I placed a headstone where the Dumfries Cemetery was. He still is there. So I placed that there. And before we placed it there, we basically came out and helped the people clean up the cemetery. It was really nice. I learned a lot from it leadership-wise. It was very helpful. And... I just want to thank the people who came out. They were really nice. They helped me and helped me learn a few things. And I'd like to thank my troop for coming out and helping clean up the area as well. I'd also like to thank all the people who donated. This is a community effort, and without your help or your donations, I don't think this project would have gotten very far. I'd also like to thank the Omega Psi Phi. They also came out and they helped us clean up, which was really nice. And I'd also like to thank Mr. Woods for coming out during the unveiling ceremony and also speaking, having the opportunity to speak. Thank you.

Yes, and we're going to take a quick seven-minute recess so everybody can stretch and use the bathroom and get down. So, yes. All right, next on our agenda is the approval of the September 1st minutes. Are there any corrections to the minutes? All right, hearing none, is there a motion to approve? So moved. Second. All right, it's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none, Madam Clerk, please call for the question. Councilman Fields? Yes.

Councilman Peay?

Yes.

Councilman Young.

Yes.

Councilwoman Peterson. Yes. Chair Pro Temow. Aye. Vice Mayor Nickerson. I abstain due to absence.

Mayor Wood. Yes. Motions passed. All right, next on our agenda is citizen comment. Our public comment, again, is limited to three minutes. Is there anyone signed up to speak?

Yes, we have one person that signed up to speak, Mr. Tyrone Brown.

Good afternoon, council, town manager, town attorney. I'm going to be brief. I know we have a long night, so I just want to briefly speak about the Flock Tamar program, specifically in support of Chief Galen and the Dumfries Police Department. I'm not going to rehash this, but first, residents have the right to raise questions about privacy and transparency and technology. is used in command in the community the concerns deserve to be heard but i also believe that public perception that records should be clear uh chief galleon did not act along with this particular rollout that uh though he spent considerable time pursuing the funding grant funding uh trying to bring in a two that would help this community from his perspective and I just want to make sure that the residents of town knew that the whole town as a political whole government supported this initially and when you spoke out the council made the right decision to pull those cameras back but I just want to make it for the record that this was not something that she's done on his own and second piece I want to address the Code of Ethics issue that I brought up a month ago. I'm not asking the council to prejudge or punish anyone. I'm asking the council to follow the Code of Ethics that you created. There's a process for this. Whatever the outcome is, is the outcome. Whether it's a fine, whatever it is, a reprimand, whatever it is. However, there is a Code of Conduct that you guys created to check yourselves. And you're not using that for this particular purpose. And I believe that this particular scenario falls within that particular process. Just use it. Report to the residents that you used the code, the policy that you created. That's all I'm asking. Lastly, I want to thank Councilman Young. The label love, I simply want to recognize Councilman Young and express my appreciation for his label love initiative. What touched me most was not simply the event itself. It was the turnout. those folks who came out from the community to help this particular project. It reminded me of a community, it's only strong as its residents feel connected, supported and valued. The turnout was amazing. More importantly, it demonstrated that people in Dumfries are willing to step forward and give their time and support for their fellow neighbors. So, Councilman Young, thank you for taking an idea and turning it to action. Thanks to all the volunteers that came out. Thank the town manager in support with Public Works. I don't know the supervisor name, but he was definitely helpful out there. Tell him I said thank you. And the only thing that I would have to add to that is I didn't sign a liability waiver as a volunteer. So I don't know if that's something that the town attorney may want to look into. But I did catch poison ivy.

Thank you. All right. Anyone else? All right. Next on our agenda is to meet our new police officers and have them sworn in. Mhm.

Thank you. Mhm.

Good evening, honorable mayor, vice mayor, chair pro tem, town council, town attorney, town manager. I'd like to introduce the three new recruits that just graduated from the Rappahannock Regional Criminal Justice Academy. I'll give them a quick second to introduce themselves, tell you a little bit about them, and then we'll get them sworn in.

Hello, good evening, how y'all doing? My name is Officer Tyler Pellew. I moved to Virginia probably like 10 years ago, originally from Brooklyn, New York. I always had a dream to be a police officer. And I also have a passion for protecting people and putting people before me. So when I first came to Virginia, I lived about 10 minutes away from here. So that's why I decided to serve the community that I first came here to. So yeah, that's me.

Good evening. My name is Officer Lorenzo Mendoza. The reason I wanted to become an officer is because my father back there in the corner, he's been with Prince William the last 20 years. I grew up around the area and I just wanted to follow his footsteps.

Good evening. My name is Officer D'Angelo Grayson. The reason why I wanted to be joining law enforcement, I have family members who are in law enforcement, and there's nothing better than helping out people. I live here in Dumfries, so I just want to help people in the community that I live in.

Okay, first person, D'Angelo Grayson. Ryan. for the incorporated town

that I will support the c of the United States, th of the commonwealth of Vi and the ordinances and law of Dumfries and that I wil discharge all the duties as an officer as an offic of my ability. So help me stand right there. So th

So they can hear you. Tyler Palutz.

you have to meet. I, Tyler police officer, police o town of Dumfries, Dumfri do solemnly swear that I of the Commonwealth of and the ordinances and l of Dumfries and that I wi and impartially and impar all the duties, discharge coming upon me as an of of Dumfries, Dumfries, according to the best of my ability, my ability. I Lorenzo Mendoza, Lorenzo police officer, police o do solemnly swear that I Constitution of the United the United States, a const of the Commonwealth of V and the ordinances and l of Dumfries and that I wi and impartially discharge all the duties and incumbent upon me as an officer of the town of Dumfries according to the best of my abilities. So help me God.

Give it up one more time for our newly sworn police officers. All right, next is our inaugural EDA report update. Chairman Daley.

afternoon mayor town council it's an honor to be here today and i'm excited to present our first report before i get started i just want to say that it has been a pleasure working with the eda so far and i want to just give a lot of recognition to not just the town staff who's been supporting us as we continue to do this mission, but also directors who have continued to put in tirelessly efforts and work that I'm very grateful and I wouldn't be here without your support, so thank you. With the Rose part of Dumfries evolving destination and economy, our mission for the Economic Development Authority is to become one of the most trusted engines for the town in investment, entrepreneurship, and economic opportunity. We were established in 2025 and we took our seats this year, about seven months ago, and the board knew that we had an opportunity to uphold a public responsibility to build the institution so that it could be capable of strengthening the community but we would have to make sure that we were handling the public resources responsibly and creating a long-term path for prosperity. Not only was this in our comp plan 2044, but what we did was that we decided that we would take these seven months and make sure that we became a credible public authority by taking on the Virginia Economic Development Authority official guidebook for elected officials and appointed officials. That way everything we did could be easily passed down. Director Harris was very instrumental in creating that ConOps plan so that we could all continue to follow the guide and as well as incorporate into the culture of this town. One of the things that we did also focus on is we focused on our public records training. We adopted our bylaws and established an operating framework and made sure that that work began to align with Destination Dumper East 2044. And that's what you have in your report. I'm going to stop here just for a minute and let you know that report is robust just a little bit because one of the goals here is to set a path so that moving forward, we all knew exactly what was going to be expected of the EDA from quarter to quarter. And one of the things that you'll find in there is that we ended up coming up with this emerging philosophy where business friendly growth should also involve community preserving growth, which means essentially is that we just want the existing businesses to remain, expand and build value, as well as we wanna make sure there's an entrepreneurship pathway to knowledge capital in some of these partnerships that the mayor and the council has been talking very aggressively about, not just on the council, but also to the town as well. As chairman, I'm committed to building a durable partnership with the EDA, with the town council and the staff as well, with the residents and business and the regional institutions as well. And any of our prospective partners. Again, I'm honored to be the chair. And as I go through this report, everyone to know that this report is really is a reflection of every director and each one of these members have brought a distinct strength operations whether it be operations or finance or just accountability and community engagement those partnerships and those abilities to to make sure that we are following a governance schedule is led us to some very strong three pillars which this report is really based on and as we go forward you'll see time and time again these reports will come back to what our organizational structure has been defined as. The goal here will be to the EDA to be a turnkey operation for the town so that we can fulfill some of those guidelines that were established in the 2044 comp plan for our creation. Last I'll say is on behalf of the EDA, we wanna say thank you before we get into this report. I wanna say thank you on behalf of the EDA for your vote of confidence. And again, thank you to the town management and also to the mayor and the council as well. So what's new? We organized this report in three central pillars. First, guide the system, grow the spirit, build the engine. Those are the three pillars that we've established. Now, when we say guide the system, what we're talking about is governance and change management. Part of this comes directly from the VITA, which is the Virginia Economic Development Authority playbook, But what it specifically does is that it essentially clears the direction and creates an efficient process for us to have measurable results. Now that's, in a nutshell, what that's saying is that when they come down to it, making sure that our bylaws, making sure our con ops plan, making sure that we're following any of the additional conversations and directives for the town is being done. The second thing is building that engine. Building the engine actually deals with how we deal with the strong businesses, do some of our modern infrastructure, and making sure that we're creating a lasting opportunity, not just for us, but for whatever directors that come after us as well. And then finally, grow the spirit and grow the spirit has to deal with specifically the culture and identity of our town, not just in the workforce development portion, but also making sure that we're empowering the community so that they know that they can take advantage of the opportunities that the town has to offer. Now, in the first seven months, you say, well, what have we really got accomplished? And these things were very much discussed. So in February when our board started we made sure that we followed all of the guidelines and the swearing in. By March we were dealing with organization and compliance in terms of working with the town attorney who was an awesome help and we appreciate all the help that you gave us understanding the FOIA requirements. And then by April, May and June we're dealing with a lot of the committee structure so that we can align our plans and what we're doing with the actual comp plan so that it can actually yield some fruit here in the next quarter of the year. Some of the things that I want to just point out, and then I will talk a little bit more about what we plan to do next, is how we are going to continue building that trust with the town. One of the things that we have done is made sure that not only did we establish that CONOPS plan, but within that CONOPS plan, you're going to see things like an email policy. You're going to see things in there as also There's also going to be things in there that deals with how we do strategic communications, how we establish a committee. These things are going to be very instrumental moving forward for the town to be able to say, hey, listen, we want to be able to accomplish this particular goal. What vehicle can we use in order to do that? This report not only gives you that starting base, but it also helps us to keep track of that, which is what you're going to see when we look into some of the comprehensive plan alignments. I'm not going to get into all of those, but I will point out a few of them because I feel it is actually relevant to the season that we're in. The other portion to that conversation is understand the economic development intelligence. In that conversation, and you'll see in our report, we go through our community and market signals. What we're looking for is to create value across services, create value services across generations. Now, what that means is that we took in and went to some of these meetings that the council has been having with other consultants. And as we continue to look at what they're saying, we're also looking at the surveys. What I've decided to pull, we pull out in this particular report is what Chandler listed And we just kind of identified some of the areas in which the generations are kind of moving here and how relevant it is based on the surveys that we've listened to, not just with the community, but also with the work in our mission as well. That service and that generation, again, we're gonna go, I'm gonna have Director Garber speak on that here momentarily about some of the things that we're doing in order to grow that spirit with the town. But I think it's important for us to note that all of the work and all of the efforts that we're putting in to the comprehensive plan of 2044, we are listening to and we are discussing and finding a pathway to make sure that those things that we are responsible for, not just for the town, are accomplished. The other thing I'm gonna say, and then I'm gonna point out Director Garber, is that our committees that were established We're very instrumental in helping us to make sure that we did not only fulfill the requirements of the 2044 comp plan, but also what we did was we found a way to make it a work stream. We found a way to streamline it. So in this report, what you're gonna see is how we're operating from the submission, to the screening, to the assessment, to how we decide, and then some of that delivery. And when we get into the conversation, you say, I have a project here on Route 1 that I really want someone to look at. What is that process of bringing it into the EDA? What should it look like and how do you measure those results? That's what this report is about. And as we move forward, we want to continue making sure that that is visible. So one of the things you'll see in here is that we're creating the dashboard platform and part of that dashboard platform will allow us to be able to see what that project is, who's the sponsor of that project, what is the plan of action for that project, as well as what is that approved scope. So there are multiple items in there. We're still listing that out and where our goal is to make sure that that comes out within the next quarter. But that is a transparent tool that we're going to be using in order to make sure that we are communicating with the town some of the progress that we're making. And it doesn't have to always happen every quarter, but you'll be able to come in and see those live updates as well. The other thing I want to say is that we do have some of our committees. I want to point them out because Director Spence isn't here, but he's been doing an amazing job with the Small Business Development Committee. and that he's been able to immediately start designing a plan for the Micro-C and some of our grant operations. Now I'm going to pause here because I want to do special projects, but I think we're almost out of time. So I'm just going to say that we do have another pathway and partnership that Director Garber is executing, and that does deal with AWS. And if we get a chance to continue moving forward, we'll definitely be able to present that to the town at one time. Thank you.

All right, Council. First, I want to say this, starting a new committee and presenting your first report. I remember when Councilman Pete was there, when we had to create our first report for when we created the Parks and Rec Commission. And back in those days, every planning commission, everybody came before the town council and gave a report. I wanna thank y'all for the first report, y'all foundational report. It kind of exceeded, I looked to critique it with a magnifying glass, right? And I looked at what we wanted to do, especially in our strategic plan with an EDA planning document and kind of looked at it and I saw that you all already kind of like started putting the bones together for what, Northern Virginia Regional Commission with a lot of the regional EDAs have already started to do. So I want to commend all of your directors and everybody who contributed to this first report because I think it exceeded what I thought I was going to get. I thought I was going to get like a sheet with some minutes and stuff, but you guys kind of put the bones together for a plan. I take my hat off to your very first report as far as the foundation just putting this thing together. So give yourselves a round of applause for that. Thank you. and I'll come back to my questions at the end. Councilman Young. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

First of all, again, I wanted to repeat the sentiments from our mayor when it came down to you guys did a great and awesome job doing this first time of reporting. And I just have a question. With the framework you set forth, what is a realistic timeframe to show measurable success? So that's a good question.

So in our report, what we have is in the next six to 12 months. Now we've been about seven months so far. So in about the next six to 12 months, what we expect to have and accomplish then is making sure our financial controls are in place so that we can immediately go after grant funding and become that full pastor. So we are on our way to that portion now. In terms of the results, we are looking to make sure that dashboard is up and running in the next three months. So then by the next time we're here, we should have that prototype ready and ready for launch. The goal is by the, we get to that 12th month in February, we should be making tweaks and finalizing that and getting it out there.

Thank you. And again, great job. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Vice Mayor.

Thank you. Chair Daley, thank you for the time that you and EDA members have invested into establishing the authority. So I see that the report identifies general operating needs. such as part-time support and proposed performance measures as councilman young just talked about when will council receive specific operating budget showing the amount that you all are requesting as far as funds are concerned and support and how the funds would be used with the measurable deliverables tied to any town funding and staff support

That's a very good question, and that question I hope to have answered, I mean, a budget to your desk within the next month or two. The reality is we need to make sure that financial controls are in place so that we can make sure that our procurement process is in line with what is expected for an EDA. i did not uh we did not rush that process because it needed to make sure it went through proper channels so that is what is on our agenda for the next month in terms of our meeting so you should have that within the next month i'm looking forward to it thank you councilman pete did you have anything because i know you're on the camera i just want to come to you

Absolutely. Thank you there, Mr. Mayor and Council. Good evening, everyone. Thank you there, Chair Daley. You mentioned several initiatives tonight, right?

Yes, sir.

That are currently being developed. You know, Vice Mayor spoke with one of them, and that's in the financial arena. Then you also included a dashboard and the micro-seat and grant programs for your report this evening. Before town resources are committed in that arena, can you clarify which of the EDA's financial, to which Vice Mayor has already spoke of, the administrative and program control systems, which are fully established and operational today versus those that are still under development?

If I understand your question correctly, you're asking which financial controls need to be put in place before that is reached?

No, I'm asking which of the EDAs, can you clarify which of the EDA's financial administration and program control systems are fully established and operational today versus those that are still under development?

The only thing that's operational right now in terms of the financial piece is that we do have a grant funding streamlined process that's being headed by Director Spence. In terms of the financial controls and governance for where we're gonna keep that, those are things are still up for discussion in terms of the banking, those also, the banking measures as well as how are we gonna operate that budget. So those things we have not decided on just yet.

So those are things to look for. Okay, good. I was going to ask you that, has the EDA established a banking system yet? Accounting process, expenditures control, approval process, a conflict safeguard, which you definitely need if you guys can look into a conflict safeguard for your banking expenditures, and a financial report requirement, if you can write those down and get those to us as well. Okay. What is the anticipation date of those when you guys would get your bank account established? Is it established or not? It's not. No, sir.

No. Okay.

So right now we can take that as not yet being operational as of tonight? As of tonight, yes. Okay. All right. Uh, town manager based on what we heard tonight as as administration review the current operational and financial infrastructure.

Sir, we have not received anything from the sir.

Okay, with those few bullets and questions, Mr. Chair, if you can get with the EDA and everything and get those tools. So what my take is now that you guys are here, we're seven months in, and so my take now is to make sure that we launch off correct, all right? And that we don't have to circle back and take care of things before you guys properly launch off on a concrete basis, you know?

Oh, absolutely. Thank you, Councilman P. Okay.

All right. Chair, my apology. Mr. Mayor, that is all I have for this evening on that matter.

councilman fields yes when it comes to grant funding you'll be applying for grants from the federal level or this grant come from here in the town of dumfries or the county level where would it come from or state level so that's a good question and that's a two-fold question number one we plan on doing both uh one of the conversations that we have already been in discussion with with uh

one of our directors, we want to make sure we have a partnership and a way to evaluate how we're going to screen grants when they come in. We don't want just to have a grant process and then it's not be approved. We are sure that whether we're doing federal, whether we're doing town, the question is going to be how are we assessing the applicants of that grant and then who then what is that criteria and then what are the results for that auditing measures to make sure that it is there. So right now, what we are doing is looking, is creating that process for both of those funding lines. And part of the conversation that we've been discussing is not just how we are gonna go about actually going after a certain grants, but also identifying a sponsorship program that will allow us to be able to make moves a lot faster on behalf of the town for some of the projects that we have as well.

Okay, so we have a grant writer within the EDA?

Do we? Yes, sir. Well, I'm a grant writer personally, but I do know that we, Director Spence, he also is familiar with grants as well, and Director Garber has a ton of experience with contracting as well in the financial sector. Thank you.

um looking at your priorities here for the next six to 12 months i think your priority number one uh i just want to read it your number one priority it says is uh institutional capacity right uh establish operating costs uh banking uh records meeting workspace capacity uh part-time support to launch a business listening, establish your SBDC pathway, finalize incubator micro seed designs, to build out the grant calendar, create site inventory, which is the one that I'm very particularly interested in, partner match structure, project intake, uh align with town communication strengthen your web email architecture and pursue professional development and so i'm just curious that uh how soon will uh you guys be able to put the site inventory and a project business pipeline together and really start to uh engage the the local business community here as a as a eda what is the timeline for that

That timeline is within the next quarter. But what I want to pause for a second because it's important that we make sure that we understand the dashboard that needs to be transparent for the council. What I don't want to do is have community engagement and have us going out bringing in businesses and then something gets lost in the cracks because we didn't have a system there for everybody to see what was coming and what was going out. So if it would be it would be very helpful for us if the council review some of the dashboard fields so that we can be clear as to what items that they feel comfortable seeing and with some of the projects that they may be referring over to the EDA as well.

Mayor, if I may, there's been several conversations as it relates to financing, funding, budget issues. If I may ask of the council for those items to be submitted so we can include it in our budget review, I'd appreciate that.

Okay, absolutely. Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to make sure because I know that the was established to operate independently, but it requires a direct coordination with the town specifically with the town manager. So, do you all have a mechanism in place for your communication with the town manager to make sure that you all are on the same page with. I know you're using the CIP and the Dumfries 2044 as a guidance, but it also requires direct coordination with the town manager to ensure that there are no duplicative efforts and things of that nature. So do you all have a mechanism in place? Have you already began these conversations with the town manager? And then also, two-part question. And then also because you all do not have the authority to direct town staff, how is that managed as far as whatever requests that you all have as far as the support from town staff?

okay uh so i think i can answer it in both uh what we did establish was the intergovernmental committee uh the intergovernmental committee deals with not just the local but also with the state so there are multiple requirements that we have to have in terms of that communication and making sure we're meeting those measures what we did is we established that committee now so that that would actually be the course and the conduit that we use in order to maintain that communication uh part i think of the i think part of the best practices that we have reviewed and we have discussed is not just how we're gonna communicate with the town, but what is the strategic communication plan for the EDA itself? And so, you know, the question that you have is a great question because it is, is the one that has given me pause from the legality side because we are an independent institution in terms of how far we are allowed to go in terms of that collaboration and coordination and information that comes back and forth. When we look at other EDAs and how they are structured, some of them have an operating MOU with the town, the EDA with their town, and then some are just just operating independently under stakeholder provisions. So there are multiple avenues there. What is the vehicle though that we're gonna use for both of those is gonna be the intergovernment committees, intergovernment committee.

Okay, and so when do we intend on beginning that process is because me what I'm hearing is, you know, you all have been in the organizational phase and now we're moving into the implementation phase. But as we move into the implementation phase, it seems prudent that this is the time where we identify what that vehicle will look like.

No, that's absolutely correct. That's exactly what we're working on.

Excuse me. It's important that we have direct communication with the town manager so that we're always on the same page.

communication with the town manager has been through uh the town management staff so far and uh that communication has been going back and forth along with mr uh director tabor okay great that's what i was asking mr tabor has been at most of our meetings uh and uh the conversations that i've seen go back and forth with him have been very productive thank you

If the council is amenable, I would not mind sitting down with the chair or anyone on the just to discuss the communication from the town's perspective. And we don't have to take that up here, but I wanted to make sure that we further the conversation so that we can move the council's initiatives forward.

Yeah, I think just with a nod ahead, I think council is amenable to that. We don't have to. all right all right thank you uh councilman pete

Yes, just picking back on what the town manager was saying, and vice mayor, because I was actually about to go into that. And Mr. Chair, because I don't know, do you guys have an email or anything yet? Or do you guys have cell phones? Or how is that usage? If we could, once you guys talk to Cal, that's not an answer for tonight. But once you talk to the town manager, once we can get some clarity and update on the communication of how we should move. Because I believe- us on council can help you guys as well uh but we need a a communication lane there absolutely okay all right uh thank you um um all right thank you for your presentation director chair all right next is a presentation from axe ceo mr staff

Good evening, honorable mayor, members of the council, staff, and the audience. And obviously, I want to say hello to Supervisor Bailey. That's why I couldn't be at your event on Saturday, but I understand it went well. So I'm going to go quickly in the absence of time. And I will, just before I start, just mention this is now my third year at Axis as CEO. So it's gone fairly quickly. Seems like it's been one, but it's been three. So I'll just go through this fairly quickly. Obviously our mission, foster hope, provide relief, and promote self-sufficiency, something that, in my view, we never need to change. Even in our 58 years, that mission still remains the same today. The next slide is essentially the founding organizations were founded by 13 local churches when a family lost its home in its fire, so you know that history. But I'm gonna jump right to the numbers. And the very beginning of this, this is for all of Prince William County. So we go to the next slide. You'll see there the number of families we serve in our food pantry, and we've broken that out by adults, individuals, children, and you'll note the 650,000 pounds of food. We'll just mention real quickly what we know is happening in Prince William County is that the demand for food assistance is going up. The first year that I was at ACTS, we were feeding 730 families a month. Now we're feeding 1,000 families a month. So the demand is going up. Next slide is our housing data. So you know about the Beverly Warren and it shows you the number of people that we housed and the number of clients we served. The rapid rehousing program is when we get people from shelter into affordable rental housing. And then the affordable housing program is we have two townhouses that we acquired in cooperation with Prince William County. Both of those properties are now occupied. We renovated one of those properties this summer through a grant from the county. And so that property's been fully renovated and we'll have a tenant in there in the next few days. Next slide is our emergency assistance numbers. And I just wanna explain here, we often get calls from people who are seeking assistance with their utility bills, and that is totally driven on donations. So when the donations draw up, the assistance draws up, and we refer them to other agencies. But that is one of the programs where those 13 original churches still make contributions to us annually. But that is, again, that's another area where we've seen increased demand. Gwen Diotolo, it would mean that she is our Director of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services. One of our changes is that we've combined those two departments into one program, and Gwen is the director there. So you see the numbers there, and if you're paying attention to what's happening publicly, you know about the Monta Coughlin trial that's occurring right now in Prince William County about a lady that went missing. So that trial begins this month in Prince William County. We'll be in the courtroom supporting those families that day. But you see the numbers there? The Lethality Assessment Program is how we deal with folks that are in imminent danger. They call the police. Police call us. We try to get those individuals in shelter that night. And then we case manage those individuals. And we take very much of a survivor-centered approach. So we base it on what the client needs. Next is sexual assault services. Again, the demand for that is going up. It is an issue in this community. Sexual assault domestic violence is the number one form of violence on the planet everywhere. So it's just what it is what it is. And we are the only organization in Prince William County that I'm aware of that provides domestic violence and sexual assault services. Matter of fact, we're doing the domestic violence and breast cancer awareness event with you during October. And we've been doing that now for three years. These next set of numbers are the numbers specifically for the town of Dumfries. So you see there, we serve 944 citizens in Dumfries with food assistance this year. That number continues to remain relatively high for the town of Dumfries. Next slide shows you the number of people in emergency assistance we serve. I do want to point out here, that the $58,338, that's the total we spent on utility assistance for the year, not just for the town of Dumfries. But the numbers you see for clients, adults, and children is specifically for the town of Dumfries. The Raptor Rehousing Program, again, number 17 clients, and then 15 behavioral referrals. We refer most of our clients for behavioral service through a relationship and partnership with the George Mason MAT Clinic. We're not licensed counselors, so we refer the behavioral counseling to another entity. also see the numbers there for beverly warren uh domestic violence services and and it's almost shocking but we've had more sexual assault clients in dumfries than we've had domestic violence clients next slide i'll go through fairly quickly too that's just simply for the public if you want to volunteer we always need your help we feed 10 000 families a year we have four staff members So we do that work because of volunteers. As a matter of fact, tonight, Mary, your dear wife was on our campus volunteering. So thank you for your willingness to volunteer. Next slide simply explains what we provide with sexual assault and domestic violence services. We provide hospital accompaniment. We do have a 24-hour hotline for our sexual assault program. We also have a 24-hour hotline for domestic violence survivors. But you see there, we also have three staff members in the Manassas Court building who assist clients who come in to file a protective order. They talk to the court staff, and then we work with them on a safety plan, and we also accompany them to court. Next slide, it really talks about financial donations for the public. The best donation is unrestricted because it allows us to look across our program areas and determine where the greatest need is. So I would ask if you ever make a financial donation, please make it unrestricted. October 24th, 2026, is our signature fundraiser event the 5k walk run that is going to be a family fun day it will be held at stonebridge at potomac town center we'd love to see all i guess it would be a meeting if all council members participated in that but you're certainly invited to participate and create your own team i know there's some rules about meeting but maybe you can walk that day support to support acts And of course, we always want you to spread the word and we appreciate our partnership with you in particular. The next last few slides are simply our contact information. And then if you go to the next to the last slide, I wanted to point out a couple of things that you've seen in the numbers. We're already serving hundreds of hundreds of dumpery families every year. We respectfully ask the town to partner with us in expanding food assistance, crisis response, housing stability, and victim services so that every resident has access when they need it the most. What every nonprofit is seeing right now is less reliability on federal and state grants. So we need your support at the local level. And then the last slide will tell you about one in six residents of Dumfries is receiving food assistance from us every year. So we're asking nicely, but also I'm not too proud to beg for your help. We really need your assistance right now because the demand is going up and the resources are going down. And we don't build our budgets based on the number of clients that we serve. So regardless of whatever funds we have, we don't turn anyone that comes for food, we don't turn them away. We serve every single person that comes for food assistance.

the only requirement to receive our services is to be a resident of Prince William County or one of the localities in Prince William County so with that I have a minute and 30 seconds left I want to go fairly quickly I'm sure you probably have questions I just in these numbers you know my question is do you track how many people are repeat are these different people or do some people are you counting everybody and they're coming back most of those are unduplicated Most of them are undiluted, not all of them.

Yeah, but not all of them. Okay. Because the reason I mention that, you know, our mission statement says self-sufficiency. So the majority of our clients are only with us temporarily. We never want our clients to depend on us for long-term service.

Because I saw that $944 and I'm thinking we got 6,000, like you said, one in six. And I was like, I wonder how many.

And our typical, just so you'll know this, our typical food service client is actually a family, a mom and a dad, two or three kids, and they're working 80 hours a week, making minimum wage. So they can make all ends meet. But the majority of our clients are only with us temporarily. That's where the case management comes in because we refer them to other localities, but we also try to help them become self-sufficient. All right, Chair Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you so much for your presentation tonight. And more importantly, thank you for the work that you've been doing in the community. I have to give credit where credit is due. There's another nonprofit, the two nonprofits in Dumfries that continuously provide support will be you and St. Francis. So I thank you for your presence here and for the work that you're doing. Families now are facing hard times financially with the changes in the federal government that's being so closely related and some of the other things that we're dealing with economically. I'm glad that you mentioned partnership because you're located here in Dumfries. partnership i would like to see a strength in that relationship because you're definitely an organization that we wouldn't want to build into but in terms of partnership would it be an opportunity for someone from this town to serve on your board sure be able to give the direct input to bring the aspect of it okay we welcome that and what does that process look like

Basically, just contacting me and letting me know and I will have our governance chair of our board reach out to you and they'll work with you through the process. Basically, we just need a resume. A letter of interest and a resume.

And what is the time requirement for that? Do you have fundraising...

So our board meets once a month, but not every month. So we never meet in July and December. So you're really looking at 10 meetings a month. And then there are a number of committees. There's a governance committee, finance committee, et cetera. So really kind of two meetings a month at the most.

So yeah, I definitely look forward to having further conversation and strengthening that relationship and making sure we invest in our nonprofits that have already proven to invest in our community.

And our board meetings usually last exactly 90 minutes.

Yeah, we're pretty efficient. All right. Thank you, sir. You're welcome.

Councilman Young.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Quick question for you. You have on one of your slides, it says total children served was 418. Yeah. Two questions. One, what's the ages of those children?

I don't know that off the top of my head, but if it's a parent and we're providing to the family, that's the child is included in that.

So it's really all ages. Okay. And I'm also looking at

it being 418 children served but then you have total family service 211. so those children are the children are a subset of the families so a family is one unit so even says 211 families okay those children are a subset of that unit so we just break because and part of that is the way we're funded we have to report the number of households or families that we serve okay so some of that is the metrics based on the grants and the funding that we receive

Okay. And my last question is that you had the last one was one out of six in Dumfries. Are we just speaking of Dumfries is the area or the town of Dumfries? Okay. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. Vice Mayor.

Thank you. So I have previously served as a sexual assault victims advocate, and it's a cause that's near and dear to me. So thank you all for being the leaders in the community with regard to that advocacy and support. The numbers that you guys have shown demonstrate that services and access remain paramount. So thank you all for what you're doing. continuing to serve as a resource and a strategic partner and a safety net for the community. And I also wanted to thank you all for your continued support of our pink and purple event.

Absolutely. It's one of our favorite events.

The resources that you all provide and the help that you offer to the families that are engaging in that event is unmistakable. So thank you for that.

It only gets better every year. We strongly encourage you to join us.

tell manager yes I just wanted to make sure I'm a few times in your presentation you had talked about support from the town if you could get your request to us within the next couple months because we'd be gone through the budget process if you could send that directly to me I would appreciate that you can count on it thank you my CFO is well prepared to do that thank you so

You know, we've had several conversations like this over the last three years. One of the questions, okay, I'll come back. I'm gonna finish my remarks now. One of the questions we kind of asked when you came on board is, why isn't Dumfries supporting X, right? We had this conversation. We had several of those conversations. We had several of those conversations. And it was simply that they never came by and asked. And so the number one question I always asked was, Is there direct representation from anybody in the Dumfries community that's advocating on behalf? And so I'm glad Chair Pro Tem asked that question and what the makeup was and that you're continuing to get in there. We've seen a huge presence as you've been in the last three years. I think you've been here, I think all three years that you- Actually, I skipped you.

I did not come and ask you for anything last year. So I'm trying to make up for that. And Mayor, you also know, one of our first conversations, you said to me, why don't we even mention it on your website? I did. And that was one of the things that I was really upset about when I first arrived was like, we're located in Dumfries.

No mention, not one mention on the website. And I was quite upset about that. You fixed that.

Well, that resulted in a new vendor.

That's all I'll say. And you fixed that. So thank you for doing that. Councilman P.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Stan, for coming up with that presentation, you and your staff. I want to applaud you and four people, well, yourself included, for tasking on annually almost 60,000 people. That is some hard work right there, you know, and I just want to toot my hat off to that. But I remember speaking with you. What was that? Maybe about two weeks, three weeks ago. I said, oh, man, Stan was trying to present this to me in a real quick spin. I said, wait a minute. I believe with this information you have right here, our council members need to hear this because you have a very vital piece of information and resources that that can be used within our town that you actually are doing. um to that higher volume i didn't know that you were moving that high but it is very interesting to see that you guys are moving at that rate and i would love to see where uh you know what as the town manager said you know get those get that uh information over to her to see where the town can uh assist you guys in moving forward with some things uh as far as uh move moving the programs and things forward for this town again thank you and your staff for all you do and please sir do not stop

Well, Councilman Pete, I want to thank you because you came by that day. I recognized you immediately as soon as you came over, and you sort of expedited this opportunity for me. So I want to personally thank you for that, sir.

Yes, sir. Anytime, sir. We all here as council members are ready to help our town out. We are here for it. Yes, sir. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right. Counsel, y'all good to press forward? Okay. Just looking. All right. We'll now have an update on the Boys and Girls Club. It's Nadia.

Good evening, everyone. Good evening, Mayor, council members, town staff, and members of the Dumfries community. My name is Nadia Peterson. I'm the Senior Regional Director of Operations for the Virginia Clubs, and I have the pleasure of overseeing the Heiser Club with the branch director, Judy. On behalf of the Boys and Girls Club of Washington, I want to thank the Town of Dumfries for their continued partnership and investment in our Dumfries clubs, and most importantly, our young people and our families that we serve. I would like to provide a brief update on how the Town's previous funding was utilized, highlight some of the successes we have seen at the club, and share how we plan to build upon the impact with this year's continued support. We were fortunate to partner with Dominion Energy, which supported upgrades, the light fixtures throughout all of the clubs, minus the gym. This project has helped create a brighter and more welcoming environment for our young people while improving the overall efficiency of our facilities. The remaining town funds were used to provide scholarships for Dumfries families, helping to remove financial barriers and ensuring that more young people could participate in our program. Through the town's support, we were able to provide 14 Dumfries youth fully support summer camp. We have eight weeks of summer camp for 12 hours a day, Monday through Friday. Also, we run before and after school care for the school year. So we provide before care right before the kiddos go to school. And then we ensure that we have pickups for them after school. And those were 20 Dumfries families that were supported throughout that year. For sports scholarships, we provided volleyball and basketball scholarships to eight Dumfries youth as well, and as well as 15 memberships that go from September through June. We are especially proud of the success that we saw in Dumfries this summer. During our highest attendant weeks, we served as many as 80 young people per day, demonstrating the continued need for affordable, high-quality youth programming in the Dumfries community. Just as important as the number of youth walking through our doors is the experience families have once they get there. We continue to hear positive feedback from our parents and caregivers about the quality of our programming, the relationships that our staff build with their children, and the value of having a safe and defendable place for their children during summer and after school. That customer satisfaction and trust from our families is something that we are extremely proud of. Our summer camp also gave people opportunities to participate in academic enrichment, recreation, sports and fitness, field trips, social emotional development, and character and leadership activities. For many families, the club is simply not a place for childcare. It is where children build friendships, discover new interests, develop confidence, and have adults in their lives who invest in their futures and success. This year we want to build on that momentum. With the town's continued funding, our goal is to double the number of members receiving scholarships. We want to ensure that cost is not a barrier for our Dumfries families who need access to summer camp before and after school programs, sports, and other opportunities. Our goal is simply not to maintain the Dumfries Club. We want to grow in improving it. We want our young people to walk into the club and feel safe, clean, welcome, and reflective of the investment this community is making in them. The town support combined with community partners allows us to invest in both sides of that mission, improving the physical club while expanding the access to the programs and opportunities happening inside of it. We're incredibly grateful for the time at Dumfries for continuing to support our investment in our young people and our future of Dumfries Club. We are proud of the progress we have made, excited about where we're headed, and look forward to continuing to strengthen our partnership. Thank you for the continued support, the Boys and Girls Club of Heiser, and most importantly, the youth and families of Dumfries. So that's what I've prepared, and if I have just a little bit more, I wanted to kind of go off script. We have our Big Kid program coming up, which is one of our fundraisers for Prince William County, and also including Heiser. It is an eight-week mentorship program where we align communities community members to one specific mentee at our club. And they have really great mentorship sessions and really learn about each other. And the goal of this program is really not for it to end in eight weeks and to continue on. If you think about somebody that has mentored you growing up and the impact and the importance that that role and that person plays in your life, that's essentially what we're trying to do. We've done this for the last three, four years and it's been just a great program and it really highlights what we do with the clubs. I want to say a special shout out to Councilmember Young and Peterson who are doing this program with us second year in a row. You guys are doing so much in the community and for you to make that special time to really devote to a young person just speaks volumes about your commitment not only to community but really to the youth of Dumfries. So thank you for that. Yes, absolutely. Yes. And that is my thing. I'm ready to take any questions.

Did you have any other board members here today? Oh, I do.

Hello. Supervisor Andrew Bailey is also on our board. Wonderful addition and for, I don't even know how long you've been on there, but yeah, we've lost count, but absolutely. We couldn't do what we do without her support and just what she brings from the county. So thank you. And then I also want to highlight your right-hand person over here, Ms. Karen. So, you know.

All right, council, any questions, comments? Okay. We all good. Thank you. Oh, Councilman Pete.

Absolutely. Thank you there, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Nadia. How are you doing this evening?

Good. I'm well. Thank you. How are you?

I'm all right. I'm doing well. I was looking to see Jerome and the guys up there with you as well. Okay. So, um, um, You have mentioned at some point in time, are you guys still, okay, my question, let's get this right. My question is more so to the transportation that we had spoke of previously a year ago when you guys came up to the council meeting. Are you guys still having those challenges and how are you guys operating morning transportation and afternoon transportation after school? And what challenges do you guys have at this current moment?

So I do want to say we have improved. Are we there 100%? Absolutely not. But we have had an influx. We had had a few buses within the organization. Heiser did receive a newer bus a few years ago, but since another club received a newer bus from a specific funder, we were able to cycle some of those buses back to Dumfries, which has been helpful. Again, it's still aging fleet, right? We're still putting some band-aids on these older buses, but it is, you know, it's working for now. And in terms, I do want to address the transportation for Town of Dumfries. Something that we've started this year is also, for those of you who kind of understand what the club is, generally the before and after school program is the only program that utilizes our school buses. So this year what we've done is for the membership for Town of Dumfries, we're also picking up at the schools for a reduced rate so we can make sure that again and that's where we're applying some of the funding as well. So we're using that funding that the town of Dumfries is supplying to pick up kids from town of Dumfries and bring them directly to the club. So there's, especially for those clubs that, you know, they don't have the bus stops in this location, but it's another avenue for them to be able to get to the club without any barriers.

Okay, thank you very much for that. And real quick, what's the total number of bus that you guys have currently?

Currently we are at two, but we have another one parked there for now because the other club doesn't need it. So I want to say two with the borrowed three.

So you guys are borrowing a third bus? Correct.

There's another club in Alexandria that does not do before and after care. So we house that bus at Heiser in case there's a breakdown or, you know, so many things can happen. So we just have one extra essentially, or if there's a trip that needs to go somewhere, we have that additional bus.

Okay. All right. Thank you very much for the update on that. And with that, thank you again for the presentation. With that, Mr. Mayor, I'll yield.

Okay, thank you for your presentation and all your hard work. Thank you. And all your board members. Next on our presentation is an update on Quantic Cold Creek phase two, the restoration project where we are.

Good evening, Mayor, Council Members. I'm Brian Peckins, Director of Public Works. I'd also like to introduce Kip Mumaw. He's a principal engineer and co-founder of EcoSystems, a natural resources consulting firm located in Charlottesville, Virginia. Kip received his Bachelor of Science degree at Virginia Tech in Civil Engineering with a concentration and environmental and water resources. He's an alumnus of the North Carolina Stream Restoration Program and the Virginia National Resources Leadership Institute. His teams have restored over 20 miles of streams, 100 acres of wetlands, and over a dozen stormwater retrofits in the Mid-Atlantic over the last 15 years. He's our consultant on the Quantico Creek Phase II project, and we're going to co-present. Next slide. We've really got three things that we're going to talk about, just kind of stream restoration in general. Phase two, I'm going to turn it over to Kip and let him describe what he's done, and then we'll talk about phase three. Restoration overview. These are the four reaches that we talk about. Phase one has already been completed. Phase two is 85% complete. Phase three, we'll talk a little bit about in phase four. We're going to propose a feasibility study to see what comes next. You can see there, that's before shots, invasive species, unstable banks. Again, this is an outfall, erosion, unstable stream banks again, and streambed degradation. This is erosion. I'll let you talk about that a little bit, Kip.

So this was the erosion analysis for phase two. And so it's just color coded there. What we're looking at is the likelihood for those banks to erode and then send the pollutants downstream. And so the color coding there, the kind of red is the more significant erosion and the green and yellow are more moderate erosion rates.

Okay, thank you. Okay, stream restoration, basically reduce property erosion, reduce flooding, return the stream to a more natural and functional state, enhance fish habitat, improve aesthetics and improve water quality. That's kind of the goal of stream restoration in general. This is some cost information. Phase one cost approximately $800,000. That's been complete. Phase two, as I mentioned, we're 85% complete. KBS is our construction contractor. KIPP and Ecosystems is a consultant there. We're using state ARPA funds for this project. And we still have some work to do, but we're 85% complete. Phase three would be a feasibility study, including investigation, design, and permitting approximately we're estimating 200 000 to take a look at you know alternatives for phase three and we'll get into that a little bit later and with that i'll turn it over to kip for phase two thank you brian

Some of these, this you've seen before, but the area for phase two here going down to Main Street. And these are some of the progress pictures of the restoration activities. And so you can see on the left-hand side, this is looking upstream. So compare that with, I think the conditions in some of those first slides and the eroding banks, you can see the banks have been graded back. a smaller channel has been created to help with fish passage conditions there and you can see in in the picture on the left some of the stacked rock there that was put in place to limit the amount of grading on private property the the neighborhood has been fantastic to work with and from my interaction supportive of the work. On the right there, you can see other conditions. The matting that you see will all kind of be planted and you'll really just see grass at the end of it, but that's to help get it to that state and hold the banks. This is that outfall that you saw in a previous picture. So again, laying back the banks to a non-erosive condition, placing some larger material in there to resist that down cutting, manage the energy as it goes to Quantico Creek. This is at the downstream end by the bridge. And you can see here looking upstream, what we're trying to do is just concentrate the flow into the center of the channel so it passes through underneath the bridge in a hydraulically efficient manner. So that's gonna be helpful for reducing kind of the backwater conditions of small flood events. And just downstream of this, of course, is where phase three would start. This is actually at the upper upper reach. So this is the we worked from upstream to downstream. And so you can see the conditions that have been in the constructed a bit longer. And you can see some of that grass taking off and the start of the project and then phase one just upstream of that. And so again, this project and the first phase also were conducted primarily for to prevent total suspended solids and total phosphorus and total nitrogen from moving downstream. Those pollutants are attendant to the sediment particles and this causes. problems in the Chesapeake Bay. And so a lot of the funding then is tied to these reductions that are helping both the aquatic life in Quantico Creek and downstream. And some of the stats there for phase one and phase two. The next steps, the as-built is in progress. Some invasive species management, that'll help get the native species kind of on the right trajectory. And then plug installation, these are herbaceous plugs, grasses that'll be planted, bare root plantings, trees, and live stake plantings. And the schedule for that, you can see they're extending into February of next year. for phase two. This is the ongoing maintenance that would be required of the project. So the town is responsible for maintenance moving forward. That tends to be associated with invasive species management, kind of that ongoing corrective action as needed, tends to be minimal for these types of projects and yearly inspections that is a permit requirement. So those typical maintenance items can be invasive species control, potentially supplemental plantings if there's a significant number of plantings that die off, debris clearing just to make sure that there's not any exacerbated kind of erosion conditions through this reach. I'll turn it back over to Brian.

Okay, we'll talk a little bit about phase three. That's restoring Quantico Creek between Main Street and Fraley Boulevard. The big question is to determine whether dredging or targeted sediment removal is feasible, necessary, and permittable. We can't assume dredging, but the next step is to hire a consultant to take the necessary steps to determine the appropriate way ahead. Some recommendations are to incorporate the lessons learned. We've learned from phase one and two. One good thing about phase three is there's less urban constraints. It's more forested, greater opportunity for trails and floodplain connection. And our recommendations for, you can't see all of the slide, but this is phase three. This is what we need to be doing is sediment investigation, contamination testing. We need to evaluate whether dredging would improve the channel capacity, reduce flooding and support restoration. We need to look at it, assess effects on bridges, utilities, stream banks, habitat, wetland, and downstream erosion. And then we've got to look at the, there's a pretty robust permitting process that would require the Corps of Engineers, Virginia DEQ, and potentially FEMA if we're going to move forward with dredging. We also have to look at constructability and cost, evaluate equipment access, dewatering, staging, disposal locations, environmental concerns, and probable cost. What we'll be looking at, alternative comparison, either full dredging, targeted sediment removal, channel restoration without dredging, or no action. And our recommendation is for the consultant to provide a clear finding on whether dredging is technically feasible, environmentally appropriate, cost-effective, and compatible with the overall stream restoration plan. Right now the town is preparing requests for proposals for the Quantico Creek phase three study. We think we can do that in two to four weeks. Select a firm to conduct the study and then determine the way ahead based on the results and recommendations from the study, maybe in about three months. I'll turn this back over to you.

Looks like we're gonna run out of time here, but I think we can maybe cover some of these in the questions too, if that makes sense.

Yeah, thank you for your detailed presentation and your diligent going through it. We appreciate the work you, your firm have done both in phase one and phase two and being accommodating just the the feedback from the community who as property is now protected is uh is is well received and uh people are happy over there um from that so um we are excited um uh councilman young thank you mr mayor um first one is gonna be a silly question but i wanted to ask which way does the water flow from from the main creek going down through the little creek or which way is it coming from

yeah quantico creek is flowing east going back down to there okay now when you mention as far as the not assume dredging will occur is there a reason why we won't because we're talking about the fact of doing our um waterfront property and it's gonna those particular movements and what our overall plan would be is to have further water more water coming down through that way so Help me understand that for a quick second.

Ideally, for that outcome, dredging would be the best solution. But I tried to go through the, it's an extensive process. You have to look at the contamination, the environmental controls, the permitting. There's a lot of factors that have to be approved by other agencies. So we would like to go that route, and that's kind of what we would like to see happen, but some of those things are out of our control, and we'll do our best based on the recommendation we get from consultants like Kip.

Okay. And also to my last question, Has there been any conversations that you've had with Prince William County as far as any type of partnerships to go along with this for when it goes past our line, that goes underneath of, what's that, the 95 highway corridor? Just so it wasn't, what I'm thinking about is, As we move forward with it, just as saying, if it's an increase in water and all the rest of that, that way they don't affect the residents at, was that Prince William States and that whole back line. And we bring back in a situation all over again, because if it's a stoppage there, then it just, like I said, it just continues to back up. So has there been any conversations with them?

That's a good question. And no, we have not at this point, at least I haven't. Okay.

All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

um i guess my question is are we looking at trying to get in the pipeline of projects for the army corps engineers worded just to have this listed i know um this year was a project deadline and then we have this kind of like every two years so we're looking at 2028 before uh there's opportunity for us to get back in order are we looking at that as a pathway forward. And I know you may have a little Army Corps engineer experience.

I don't know if I have much influence anymore, but I have talked to the Corps of Engineers and they gave us a list of steps that we need to go through to get at least consideration for their approval. But it's a lengthy process. I don't know if you have anything to add to that.

yeah to do the restoration work specifically um on phase three we would i think 2028 would be a um an optimistic but also realistic based off of the past uh permitting timelines that we had both with the corps of engineer and the state

do we need to add this i don't know to our legislative process or are we good from there i'm just saying well depending on what comes out of the feasibility study depend you know if they recommend full dredging we need to find a funding source

yeah i'm just wondering if we we don't wait till later and sooner we just kind of start putting our project kind of on that path line so that we don't we don't miss the deadline knowing that 2028 is coming right and so to start preparing to to be in that pipeline i understand i think that that makes sense Okay, well, thank you for your presentation and your update. And we'll see you soon.

Thank you.

Thank you. Councilman Pete, hold on. Sorry, Councilman Pete. Go ahead, Councilman Pete. The floor is yours.

Oh, yes. The question is actually for them or maybe so Mr. B. On your phase one side of the river that's already completed, up on the upper bank there under the... Under the bridge per se?

Are you tracking with my location? You're saying the far upstream end to the start of phase one?

The start of phase one right up under the bridge where there's, are you guys responsible for that tree brush there or no?

I would have to take a look at the area. The project started just downstream of 95. I guess I should say we would not be responsible for clearing that, but that could be a maintenance item that would be identified to remove. And that would really be whether or not that tree specifically was contributing to erosion would be the reason that that our group would identify as a maintenance concern. If there are other concerns, that would be probably part of the town's process.

Okay, tracking. Because, you know, throughout the process, there has been several times that the area was cleared out. And I'm not for sure if that could go in, you know, help out with, you know, some of that downstream flow or not. We can say, you know, just take that into consideration and take a look at that as well. That may be more so for staff. Okay with that Mr. Mayor I yield.

I want to add to that question because in the report you talked about our staff being responsible for a certain type of maintenance and replanting the trees. Are we prepared for that?

That would be something we do with a third party contract.

so this goes one going out there making sure everything and then uh to piggyback off of councilman young uh up screen i know in the past uh we've gotten calls uh from the folks up at like little union baptist church because of construction and stuff that was happening up there and concerns about um stuff going into the river flowing down to outside but i know that's that's much more does that has that impacted any of your work while you were out there

not that i know of i haven't seen any um upstream kind of turbidity or sediment in the water or anything through through the project site um we haven't had a lot of really big storms we've had some good ones in august um but we didn't see anything specifically associated with that okay while we were on site all right thank you thank you thank you thanks kit

All right, next on our agenda is our FY26-27. Hold on. What is that? Presentation for our capital improvement plans.

Good evening. Um, tonight I'm responsible for presenting. Um, it's a positive that we have to make an amendment to our C. I. P. Plan. Um, the So what we're attempting to accomplish or the reasons for the ordinance amendment tonight is the state of Virginia has appropriated 7M dollars to the town of Dumfries for a U. S route 1 corridor projects. The second item purpose of it is to correct a mistake that was in the original ordinance. We would like, we need to place or put the starting point as our approved town manager CIP budget rather than the departmental requests which were shown. So we'll be adjusting for that as well. The outcome that we hope to reach today is to receive authorization to have a public hearing on the amendment and then finally to have the town council approve the amendment.

So it's two things here. We want to schedule a public hearing and then two, you want action from us outside the schedule of public hearing?

Actually, it's just going to be a presentation on the amendment. Everything will be done at the next council meeting with the public hearing.

But we still have to schedule the publication.

Yes, the action will be, that's part of the action items. okay i'm just wondering if we were just scheduling but she's going to do a presentation yeah and the reason why is one the presentation covers the projects that we're recommending for the funding and it also fix it corrects a problem where the budget was adopted where they used the staff recommendation as opposed to what council approved was the town manager's recommendation so that's why the purpose of the presentation sir yeah

And currently the request to hold a public hearing is on the consent agenda for tonight. The next slide. Just to provide a brief overview, the Commonwealth of Virginia provided $7 million to support redevelopment and improvements along the US Route 1 corridor in Dumfries. The funding will advance projects focused on pedestrian safety, placemaking, historic preservation, economic redevelopment, and furthering the town's vision to become Destination Dumfries, a place where people will choose to visit and call home. Through the funding, it is outlined that they would like to have projects that cover pedestrian safety, enhance walkability, streetscape and beautification initiatives, gateway and wayfinding features, historic preservation, historic tourism investment, public spaces and placemark making projects, and infrastructure improvements that encourage redevelopment in private investment. So staff has met and looked at our current CIP and then obviously looked at projects that we could include as part of this funding. So the items, the projects that we've identified initially are the Jeff Simpson Community Center Upgrades, the Historic Dumfries Repairs, Wayfinding Signage and Historic Markers, Land Acquisition, EDA Facade Improvements, and then at the moment, the balance is just sitting at, you know, will be remaining and unallocated until we determine projects for that. The breakdown for this is the Jeff Simpson Community Center upgrades. The budget is $180,000. This was identified as local funds within the CIP, so we will move those to Route 1 corridor funding. The historic dump free repairs is $112,000. This was identified in the CIP plan as well. These are really the $28,000 from FY28 through 31. So we're just advancing that funding forward utilizing this source. Wayfinding and signage and historical markers is $200,000. We are transferring our local portion to this particular grant, our funding stream, and we added $100,000 to that to assist us with these markers. Land acquisition is half a million dollars, and that is a significant portion of the identified land acquisitions in the original CIP. We also want to provide EDA with $100,000 to fund facade improvements in the town. And then the balance or what is remaining of the funds to date is $5,908,000. And at this point, we're still researching what we propose to expend those funds on, but it's undetermined at this point in time. So that does provide the allocation of the 7 million. 6.2 is really going to new projects or new projects initiatives and $780,000 was transferred within the CIP. To step back and to just give you some context as to the original amendment, which was the departmental request versus the approved CIP. The department requests contain 36 projects for a little over $27 million. The approved CIP budgets contain 33 projects, which total $22,389,535. So that is what we will use as the starting point for the CIP ordinance that you will find for the public hearing. Just to summarize this one more time, the 27 million, which was the departmental crest really was in air, so we're correcting that. We will start then at the starting point for CIP budget at 22.4 million. We will then add in the 7 million that the state of Virginia is providing to us. We will need to reduce the overall program by $780,000 simply because we took local money and applied it into this program. In other words, we don't want to double count. And that would bring our new CIP budget to $28,609,535. pause for a second. And so the outcome for tonight, as we stated when we originally started, is to request authorization from Council. It is currently in the to hold a public hearing on the amendment and the changes. It's currently on your consent agenda, and then ultimately we would request the Council to approve the ordinance. And that brings us to the questions.

All right. On the CIP, these are all our projects. This isn't the CIB. This is the CIP, right? Is this the capital improvement budget? Is this the budget or the plan? So this is the budget. This is the budget. This is the budget. Okay. All right. Because I was looking at the, now I know our rec center by itself is $24 million. Okay. I just wanted to make sure I got clarity on.

Okay. All right. To be specific, it's what's affecting the current year budget for 27. FY27. That's right. It's not disclosing 28 to 31. Okay. I'm good.

Councilman Young. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Quick question. You said the $5 million was unallocated, correct, as of right now? $5.9 million. $5.9 million. Is there any way to increase the land acquisition amount for new projects?

Sure, if that's the will of the council, we can. I believe we budgeted $750,000. We put in the budget $750,000. But if you would like to increase that amount, the council can direct us to increase it.

I'm just thinking as far as how we want to shape Dumfries for future. And if we acquire the land for it, we have a better grasp on how to shape that.

So the $500,000 is based on current property that the town is interested in purchasing. So if there are future properties that we will be interested in purchasing, we could just come back to council and we can allocate funds from the 5.9. Okay. Thank you.

Also, if I may, I had a comment.

I had received a couple questions in regards to the recommendation on the facade improvements. So I just prepared remarks to provide counsel with some context. The project will provide funding because it's a new project. so no one has seen this before the project has been will provide funding to support grant programs designed to assist existing businesses with street facing exterior building improvements focus on enhancing outdated deteriorated or otherwise renovation needs needing commercial businesses facility facades. The program will be facilitated through the Economic Development Authority. The matching grant program will encourage investments in commercial properties, enhance the appearance and vitality of the town's business areas, support existing businesses, and contribute to broader economic development and revitalization efforts. Applications will be reviewed by town staff, submitted to town council for review and approval, and submitted to the Economic Development Authority for allocation.

All right, was there any other? Oh, Vice Mayor.

So thank you for providing that information because I was going to ask that question. I wanted to understand what that allocation was for and how it would work. So I appreciate that. I know a few years ago, maybe before your tenure, the mayor and I both had pushed some sort of beautification project so that we can have the town beautified by the current business owners and we sought to figure out a way that we can do that and invest in the town by helping these businesses to kind of make things look look better because there's a lot of the town of Dumfries as much as we value our historic value doesn't mean we have to look dilapidated so it was important that we figured out a way to get that done so thank you for that yes ma'am it only um works out best if we partner with our economic development authority and make sure some of these improvements gets done i appreciate the the match part of it because what that's saying is we are willing to help you but you have to help us help you and that's very important versus just you know going out and just handouts for the investments in their business because ultimately it's an investment in their business and an investment in our community yes ma'am thank you

Okay. Any other, um, Councilman Peek? Is that a spin-up?

Uh, yes. Just a follow-up question. If, uh, well, two. If the local dollars are available for reallocation, could Council consider redirecting some of those, um, Nah, let's omit that because I believe that will be out of the scope right there. But before we establish the 100,000 matching grant program that will be through the EDA, what financial control and procedures will be in place for the EDA to receive, hold, dispute, and account for those public funds?

So, Councilmember Pete, we will work with the Economic Development Authority to ensure the financial controls are in place before any funds are released to the EDA. But right now, this is a recommendation. All projects will be brought back to the Council for review and approval. And before the funds are released to the EDA, we will make sure their financial controls and their accounts has been established.

Okay, and since these are public dollars, will council receive written criteria for businesses that require match maximum awards per business documentation requirements, conflict of interest safeguards, and reporting requires before any grants are awarded?

so you council will receive all information from a report from the town manager that you requested in regards to conflict venture interest safeguards that is outside of my control but that would have to come from the economic development authority sir okay all right my last question there um tell me if the town staff reviews the application and council approves them what what actually is the eda's role in the process beyond allocating the funds They're just to allocate the funding to pass through. The town cannot give funds directly to private businesses. Okay. All right.

that is all my question that's all my question mr mayor thank you to town manager and thank you to mr miller chair pro town oh yes thank you mr mayor uh town manager or town attorney just procedurally i have a question on how we move forward so tonight you're not looking for a motion towards this recommendation is that going to be after the public hearing right okay thank you that's all i needed

So what about the ordinance? You are asking for us to approve the ordinance.

So the ordinance is for, so is the ordinance, everything will be done at the next council meeting. So none, no action. The presentation was for information purpose, informational purposes only.

Okay. Okay. All right. So I think we're good.

Unless y'all gonna direct us to make revisions before the next council meeting. Okay.

Mr. Mayor, if I may? Oh, yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. My last question, town manager. How does the town attorney, how does that work if the EDA hasn't established their bank yet? Would you clarify? Do we wait on them or do we wait on them to establish their bank once we, if approved?

Well, I think the question presumes that everything is going to happen in like within a fast succession, but they would have to have a repository for the funding once it's given. So there, I mean, sequentially, it has to be in place first.

Correct. Okay. All right. Just making sure we're tracking right. Like I said previously, I just want to make sure we're moving off, not jumping off the steps, but we're taking the correct steps moving forward. Thank you. Thank you, guys.

Yes, sir. Thank you.

Seeing no further questions, thank you for taking the time.

Thank you all.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Tasia, and I am the Director of Recreation and Civic Engagement, and I will be giving our proposal for the 2027 farmers market. So in 2025, we had a total of 10 vendors register for the farmers market and about four vendors actually attend the farmers market on average. And in 2026, we had a total of 14 vendors register for the farmers market and six members since six vendors on average attend weekly. So it has been increasing. We want to recommend keeping the traditional farmers market, one, to protect the market's identity, keep a clear weekly proposed centered on agricultural producers, food vendors, and related businesses. Two, build on 2026 momentum. The vendor participation increased from 10 total vendors in 2025 to 14 in 2026. and we want to three, use the new specialist strategically. We just hired a new farmers market specialist, and we would like for him to focus on recruiting, retaining, and developing through the traditional vendor base instead of completely rebuilding the program. What we recommend is in April through September 2027 trial period, where we keep the traditional farmers market, but one Saturday each month. Oh, I'm so sorry, I was not clicking this. One Saturday each month, we run a flea market on Main, where we welcome flea market and non-traditional vendors, including artisans, crafters, community organizations, and other retail participants, and promote the monthly date as a larger community shopping event. And this way we can test demand without completely replacing the weekly farmer's market. The monthly flea market can be a measured pilot. First, from now through March 2027, we'd like to plan and set monthly dates, vendor standards, and promote. Through April, 2027 through September 27, we'd like to operate and host one flea market each month from April through September. And we would like to measure these by tracking vendor participation, attendance, repeated participation and vendor community feedback. And then we would like to report back in September, 2027 and return to the town council with results and a recommendation for the future market model in September. In conclusion, DRCE recommends maintaining the weekly traditional farmers market April through September 2027 and adding one flea market event each month. Any questions?

Councilman P. Thank you there, Mr. Mayor. Tasia, great. Good report. The only thing that I was objective to was the fact of one day added on to as a test run, right? So I'm from a background with the town of pretty much, Take this win and embrace me. Go hard and go home type stuff, right? And that's not position-wise. That's performance-wise, if that makes sense, right? And so my take is that I just came out of a conversation this morning, and I'm trying to – And maybe I need to get these guys to you all you in the town manager. There's there's a group of right in front of Port of Dumfries. There's a group that roast they host a farmer's market pretty well not a farmer's market. They do a flea mouse star market in the Port of Dumfries area. every Saturday. And this is what brought this conversation on to catch you up of where we're at. And this has been going on for several months. We tried it last year. Then we went on a spin of changing directors to an interim director, and now we're here. But my take on that is to to combine the two and to see if we can do that. I wanted to see if she can get up here this evening, but she couldn't make it. But she does not mind wanting to come and speak. pretty much heads or if you per se or runs the flea market over there. But my take with her, like I was explaining, I believe that she would benefit us and that group for them to come and talk to you all and the town manager of how they instrument and move about their performances over there and with their flea market over there in Port of Dumfries. And the take is listening to them and seeing what we got to combine the two so we can get maximum participation at one locality. They have a nice rotation of people doing what they do over there in front of that community. So like I said, everything was sounding good. I like the fact that the director is coming on board to see where we can go and steer from there. But I do would like to include, and I know that we're pretty much coming to a conclusion of the farmer's market in itself, right, in November.

That would be September 26th. Oh, we're moving on September 26th? That's our last farmer's market, yes, sir.

Okay. Let me write that down. Okay, so that reverses where we're at right now with the update. So, okay, so since we're moving on, concluding at the close of this month, my take is to see if I can get them to town manager. I will get the number to you so I guess we can move that on to talking with the town manager. with the director of park recreation to see what we can do. And even with the farmer's market director of what we can do to introduce that in a better format coming up next year.

Yes, sir. What the council has before them is the staff's recommendation. The council would like changes to the staff recommendation need to be directed to do so by the council, if you don't mind.

Okay, council, I would like to make a motion that we include into the next physical year. Find a way to include into the next physical year the farmers market on a every Saturday versus a one day deal.

Are you saying farmer's market or flea market, sir?

Farmer and flea market. To combine the two into an every Saturday versus them coming in next year on a one-day-a-week deal. They have a draw. Our farmer's market needs it.

Okay, Councilman Pete, there was no second on the motion, so that just fails on the floor. So we'll move on to continue discussion of this item. Councilman Young. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

First of all, thank you for the presentation. Secondly, and that you are addressing with the farmers market specialists to find out exactly what is, you know, what's going on and which way you can make it better. I do have a question for the trial period of the once a month moving forward. That is the farmers market and the flea market together or that just the farmers, I mean just the flea market just for that Saturday?

That would just be the flea market just for that Saturday. So every Saturday we would have our traditional farmers market and then let's say the last Saturday of the month we run the flea market as a trial before we incorporate it entirely with the farmers market.

and um my last two questions the cost of the process for these vendors there was an increase from 10 uh from 2020 with 2025 to 14 to 2026 um the cost of that process application all the rest of that is is that general cost of that or i know that um telemedicine spoke one time before i said that we already reduced it a little bit but just want to know exactly what the cost of that would be

There is a cost, so it costs $100 to register as a vendor, and then they would have to pay a $50 Town of Dumfries business license fee. So in total, it would be $150, and that covers them from April through September.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Vice Mayor.

Thank you. I have a couple questions. What is a farmer's market specialist is my first question. Would you like me to roll them all out or you want me to, because I don't want to throw them all at you at the same time. I have three.

So, okay. Well, I can answer the first one. A farmer's market specialist is someone who specializes in increasing farmer market participation and vendors. So, as of right now, I've been told that We've been going to the farmers markets throughout Prince William County and the farmers market special is not to give too much away. I would like for them to visit farmers markets throughout DC, Maryland and Virginia and bring on knowledge that they had from their previous jobs as well.

So is that a 1099 position? Is that a full-time or part-time position? I'm trying to understand.

That is a part-time position, ma'am.

Okay. Yes. Okay. Because I had never heard of that before. I was curious about that. Okay. Well, thank you. The other question I have is what's the return on investment for the farmer's market? What does it cost in the town to host this and now even to fulfill the to have a staff person even part-time invested in doing the recon for the farmer's market what's the return on investment for the town for that i recognize that one of the reasons that we initially created the farmers market is because the town of Dumfries has been a food desert for so long. And that was our way of offering different access for people to have access to fresh foods and vegetables. Fortunately, we have a supermarket of the like proposed to come to the town of Dumfries, so that will help address the food desert. But I do think it's still important that we continue to have that access to the fresh fruits and vegetables. but i want to understand what is it costing us as a town to pour this money into a farmer's market and now even a position that is dedicated to this when the farmer's market is such a small window that it operates here in the town of dumfries that is an excellent question vice mayor that i do not have an exact answer for at this moment in time but with town manager's permission i will get that to you by the end of the week Thank you. I'd like that because it'll help me with assessing how supportive I am of continuing this adventure. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

In that return on investment, we want to look at how much the vendors pay. If any of them are paying any meals tax, which that's only hot meals, but cold meals, we're not getting anything. and i think that'd be the only revenue that the farmers market will bring in and so uh the biggest thing i think we're looking at is how much staff volunteer time how much intern time that we're spending out there how much is this uh farmers market specialist is going to bring in is this grant funded is it like All of those type of things are going to be very important, especially with now we got competition coming down the road with the Sprout about to open up or whatever that's called. So I think those are important avenues. I think one of the fundamental challenges probably that I've been screaming for decades 12, 13 years is as somebody who bends at festivals and conferences and stuff like that, there's just not enough foot or car traffic that comes. So the visibility in this particular location and we've had this conversations probably 14 years. I think I've had it with Supervisor Bailey's office. We need a high traffic area like a commuter lot like they have in Dell City where you have uh more cars coming past and more visibility in this cut why it's going to be a challenge to attract anybody unless you have somebody who has a built-in follower like the watermelon man uh any farmers to come here it's just because It's not attractive for traffic and people. It's in the cut. And we just don't have a walkable community yet. And the people that's just driving to for that type of specialty market. So we have to look at how we market and how visibility of it. I mean, this is a great proposal to bring in. a flea market once a month and get rid of the farmers market. But I think it doesn't solve the fundamental problem of you have 14 vendors signed up and less than 50% of them are showing up. That's a problem. to have less than 50 percent of the people signed up show up and so that probably because you need a 100 participation in this like we can't have people showing up and then they're not participating so that's where the problem so i don't think that this fundamentally answers uh the problem i mean it's it's it's a nice to have but i'll go with the will but i uh as somebody who who has been in this industry for a while don't see that solving the problem okay So with that, Councilwoman Peterson.

I just have a question. As far as the farmers market specialists, how many farmers market, is there some research that we did to go out to see how many farmers markets we actually have to want to pursue the specialists? like around in the areas? Because I heard you say D.C. and different places, but I'm in D.C. a lot. I think I've seen one farmer's market and the other one I think closed. Like what made, where are we getting all these

so so in regards to the positions um council approved in the adopted budget and the previous budget for recreation to be able to hire several part-time positions um farmers farmers market specialists van driver it's the culmination of them i believe the they don't they don't make more than if they make twenty dollars an hour they have less than 30 hours a week They just get called on a rotating basis to assist recreation in the different areas that we don't have when we don't have volunteers or where our interns are not old enough to be able to perform some of the duties. This Farmers Market Specialist will be able to alleviate some of the burden that's put on full-time staff who are there every weekend, and we have to pay them overtime. And they get paid significantly higher than this particular individual. So if council disagrees with it, then when we bring back the proposal in regards to the return on investment, then we could make another decision at that time if that's okay.

No, that's fine. I guess I wasn't too concerned about the specialist. I just wanted to know how many did we think there was that many farmers markets in the area to go research, I guess.

So part of the legwork that the current staff has identified is we've been floating around Prince William County, and when they went to other places, they seen that there were other farmers markets and wanted to dedicate some of their staff time to go do some additional research and have conversations with these other farmers markets to see how we can basically bridge the gap. Okay?

Thank you.

all right councilman pete real quick please last one last one there mr mayor um as we move forward today uh town manager and um director can we look into marketing and advertising um new new marketing and advertising avenues that will help promote the uh event uh a grocery store coming next to a farmer's market i don't see that as competition because we have a grocery we are just across the not maybe 10 minutes away from here in dale city and the giants right next to each other and they're doing well they grow every year but again to um the mayor's point i i i believe that that We've been having some challenges trying to get it, but that community lot is kind of key. If we can take another shot at that again and see if we can get it. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. That's all I have. All right. Thank you for your presentation.

All right. Next, we will have our town manager report.

Okay. So I'll try and be brief. I'm pleased to present the town manager's report highlighting our work during August 2026. Across the organization, staff continued delivering essential services while advancing the strategic priorities established by the council. I'm especially proud that the finance department received the GFOA Association Budget Presentation Award for the eighth consecutive year. The town reported a bank balance of approximately $11 million. August revenue collections totaled $1.33 million compared to approximately $841 last August. Finance also continued preparing for the annual audit. and evaluating improvements for our financial management system. DMV Select served over 416 customers during August and collected and reconciled approximately $442,000 in revenue. Year-to-date revenue collections total approximately $984,000. And the town submitted approximately $25,000 in DMV payments for July. At the end of the reporting period, 28 titles and registration transactions remain pending. We welcome internally and promoted our news chief financial officer. We also hired a new maintenance worker to recruitment currently for several important positions include the town treasurer planning zoning administrator. Procurement specialists and senior accountant are currently on the way. Human Resources is currently updating the town's administrative regulations as well as our personnel policy. Planning and economic development continue to move several major initiatives forward. The small area plans are advancing toward the Planning Commission and Council's review this fall. Harbor at Quantico Creek received its certificate of occupancy and is nearing completion. The proposed commercial development at Old Stage Coast Road and Route 234, which is includes a grocery store and pharmacy received favorable remarks from the planning commission, and the recommendation is proceeding to our council this evening. The Wawa development is open, which includes a Tesla supercharger station located on our property. An additional Iona charging station is moving through the permitting process. Staff also expanded the town's GIS capabilities, including development maps, online permitting applications, comprehensive plan dashboards, and a new GIS webpage. Public Works completed several visible community improvements, which includes the ADA ramps at the Wingspot Museum annex, replacing lighting at Garrison Park. Quantico Creek Restoration Phase 2 is approximately 85 percent, which I've heard already, 85 percent complete. The town is also making significant progress with our EPA Brownfield multi-purpose grant work associated with the Waterfront District. This initiative includes environmental assessment, cleanup, redevelopment planning for our former Camel Salvage Yard property along Quantico Creek, as well as related work at 3800 Grand Park Road. Staff secured an agreement and intended to reduce DEQ and EPA review timelines and his parent is preparing for ground penetration radar work these steps will help the town better understand the site conditions and move the waterfront district towards implementation preparation for demolition at the cloud washington community community center is also advancing utility disconnection work is underway with the demolition readiness targeted for early october stormwater ms4 compliance remains major priority staff continue draining and excuse me, drainage investments, I mean, drainage investigations, illicit discharge inspections, hydrology modeling, post-rain inspections, and improvements to plan review procedures. Public Works received 16 requests through GoGov. Our response metrics is 67% acknowledged within 24 business hours, 56% closed within seven days, which shows that we need some improvement there. Staff will continue strengthening departmental accountability and follow through. Our sustainability efforts also continue. A pilot collection event diverted approximately 1.5 tons of electronic waste tires and other hard to recycle materials from the landfill. The Trex plastic film collection program at Town Hall has received strong participation and staff is evaluating opportunities for expansion. Recreation and civic engagement served approximately 1,476 participants during the month of August. which included the backpack bash, participated at our summit concert series, and attendees for our senior dance. Thank you. Sorry, I'm almost there. Planning is currently underway for the fall festival, as well as the community versus police basketball game, which is tomorrow. and other community programs. The clerk responded to several FOIA requests and continued digitizing the town's historic ordinances, resolutions, minutes, and agenda materials. The police department continues its enforcement and community engagement activities. And I'm gonna give y'all a culmination from April through August, the department issued a total of 652 parking tickets. 153 April 95 in May 32 in June 134 in July and 138 in August following council's decision on September 1st action staff is coordinating with flock to remove the cameras which were installed but never activated the town will hold three hybrid community town halls on September 29th October 15th and November 14th final times Final times and locations will be announced, and each meeting will be recorded and shared through the town's communication platforms. The deputy town manager continued coordinating major projects, including ARPA implementation, the 2027 Capital Improvement Program, stormwater compliance, fleet planning, and Route 1 utility undergrounding. Overall, August reflected a steady progress in financial management, infrastructure, economic development, community planning, public safety, and organizational improvements. I appreciate the continued work of our employees and council's direction and support. This concludes my report and the staff stands ready to answer any questions because I can't talk anymore.

Vice Mayor.

Thank you. Thank you for the report. Very detailed. The question that I had coming into tonight's meeting was about the 67% acknowledged and 56% closed. As far as those that have been closed, are we distinguishing between requests that are still open because work is ongoing versus requests that simply have not been answered? Can you repeat that please? For the 56% that are closed with regard to the response rates. Is there a distinguishment between those that are open because the work is ongoing or have they just not been responded to? And I ask that question because if the work is ongoing, if there's a way for it to be tracked and noted that this work is ongoing because we're not closing them until the work is complete, then that makes a difference as far as what your 56% looks like because 56% is not acceptable.

So what we realized is some staff was responding to some of the requests and they were saying completed and the work was truly ongoing. So we had to go back, meet with the staff and tell them something that's in progress, it's ongoing, you've reported as such. Things that are completed should be recognized as completed. And all of the comments need to be tracked throughout the DCC system. So that's what we were working on.

I apologize. Thank you, ma'am. So I'll follow up with you separately. I don't want to keep, have you keep trying to talk. I don't want you to be choking and what have you. But I am interested in what we're doing as far as the corrective steps to improve the acknowledgement. Because as a customer or consumer, one of the most important things to me is acknowledgement. Even if you don't have the answer today, don't leave me hanging. Still acknowledge that, okay, this is what's happening. and keep me informed, which is one of the reasons why I was so interested in us having a system that allows us to track and communicate with folks when there are ongoing requests.

Yes, ma'am, you are correct. And I am big on accountability and transparency, which is why I thought it was important to report that to the council to hold us accountable to the things that we fought when we fall short at.

Thank you.

Chair Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have a question slash request in terms of community engagement with the flock cameras and that is there any way we could set up a link so that people could submit feedback after the meeting or if they don't get a chance to speak during the meeting just to maximize citizen input when we visit this? yes ma'am i'll have a link added to um the police department's website where we could keep track of all the questions and comments that we've received i can have that done ma'am okay well not just the questions that are in live but if someone you know goes to our website could they click a link and say this is my position on the fly cameras this is where these are my concerns so you want we can't that we could address during one of the public engagements like prior to so you want a public facing

dashboard that they can submit their comments to? Yes. Okay. I will work with IT to see what we can get done and I will report back to council. Okay. Thank you. All right. Okay.

thank you for your uh your report um question on and i don't know uh you know you bring your finance person up uh to just talk about what's the um the the biggest congratulations on uh a consecutive year on getting the budget presentation award first of all you know Now the question is, how do we get over the hump to the other two? I know we've submitted. So tell us what's going on with the financial excellence award and the popular annual financial

So the popular annual financial award was submitted several months ago. And when we got this notification, I asked for an update. It is still pending a response from GFOA. Once we get that response, then we'll be able to apply for the financial award as well. And Garland, did I say that correctly? Okay, so we're still tracking, we're still waiting for a response. And because I knew that would come up once we talked about the budget presentation award.

Okay. Where are we with the demolition? I saw that a piece of power got cut off at the old rescue squad. So just so the public know where we at now with demolition of that particular property. And then more importantly, what's next for the council decision point, like design, finance, and procurement so that we can move forward with the Clyde N. Washington Jr. Center?

So if you don't mind, I'm going to ask either Brian or Ray to come up and answer the question. In regards to where we are in the cloud Washington, what's the next decision point?

Are they going to tag team it maybe?

Mayor, vice mayor, chair, pro council members. Good evening. Brian up attacking this as far as the demo, we're working on finalizing the disconnects for all the utilities. So that process is taking a little bit longer because it's been a pretty complex process. The last of those right now is the water and. There are some challenges there, but we're moving through those. And so with that said, we're looking to finalize most of that through September into October and look at having the demo team be able to get the building down in October. Simultaneously, we're also working on the RFP for the design phase. And so next steps for us is making sure that we put that document together so that starts the process of getting design concepts, real hard line information as far as the build out. And then that will also give us more concrete pricing as far as what the building will cost because we want to make sure that we get some real time pricing as well. So those are next steps once we have that RFP. The RFP timeline, Brian may be able to speak a bit more to that.

um i think we're trending towards probably about four to six weeks to get it out and then probably it's an eight month process to get a to get a design yeah it's probably about four to six weeks to get you know to get a request for proposal out and selected and probably eight months after selection to get a design completed

Allow me to correct that. The four to six weeks allows him to pull his documentation together for the advertisement. The RFP process typically takes about 90 days for completion. After that, then we will have someone on that can do that the rest of the timeline. Okay.

So when will the next time council will have to take action? once the rfp is on the street depending on how much that award we might have to bring it back if it's above my authority okay okay all right uh thank you on the cloud washington um on the the deq issues that we added there um what was the the trigger um there and um was there a corrective action required and and what's the deadline and are we currently in compliance with that

The answer is the reason we got the warning letter is because there were some erosion and sediment control inspections that did not occur in 24 and 25. You can't go back and correct that. We're having GKY, our consultant, do a lot of work for us. But yeah, we sent a letter back to them and we're working with them. We should be in compliance by the end of the year. We've done a program review and evaluation, designation of responsible personnel, training and certification, inspection procedures and tracking, and consultant support, which is GKY. They're doing a lot of work for us, and our annual report is due at the end of the month. So we should be in pretty good shape. We're trying to set up a meeting with DEQ to make sure that, you know, they're tracking with what we're doing, but I think we're on track now.

Great. All right. Lastly, when is council going to see a final recommendation and decision on the trash contract?

So we are still negotiating the final terms for our contract. We was trying to work between the attorneys to make sure we have some language that is agreeable and amenable. If we cannot, we will have to make a recommendation to award to a separate company, a different company.

So best case scenario case 2 weeks so the October meeting maybe OK possibly OK just want to see all right. Thank you for your report. All right see no no further questions. We will move into our consent agenda.

It's a.

it's been motioned and second um let's see any remarks what do we have um okay all right any discussion all right seeing none madam clerk call for the question councilman fields yes councilman pete yes

Councilman Young.

Yes.

Councilwoman Peterson. Aye. Chair Proton-Miles. Aye. Vice Mayor Nickerson. Yes. Mayor Wood. Yes. That motion has passed.

All right. Moving into our action items. The star of the show tonight. I know we tried to wear y'all out so we can get everything we're going to ask for tonight. Mr. Tabor, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much. Honorable Mayor, Vice Mayor, Chair Pro Tem, and members of Council, this is a public hearing and consideration of an ordinance approving an application to rezone approximately 15.33 acres addressed as 17439 and 17471 Old Stagecoach Road from M1 Light Industrial District to B1 General Business District. So the town of Dumfries has received an application from Bridge Line Development Group LSE requesting approval of REZ 2026-001, an application to rezone the subject property from M1 to B1. The rezoning is requested to allow the development of a grocery store with a drive-through pharmacy, inline retail space, and associated site improvements. This is an aerial of the site and to the north is Potomac Shores Parkway and on the left is Route 1. And this is the current zoning map. Encircled is the site and the arrow as well. We can see that to the, and the image on the right, the red is B1 zoning district, and then the light yellow to the bottom is R1, the adjacent zoning. The proposed development includes approximately 50,325 square feet for a grocery store, approximately 6,700 square feet of inline retail, a drive-through pharmacy, an outdoor dining area, and associated parking and site improvements. The subject property is zoned M1 as previously mentioned and the proposed commercial use is not permitted in the M1 Limited Industrial District. The proposed rezoning would change the zoning district of the property from M1 to B1 and grocery stores and the proposed uses of general retail are permitted within the B1 district. The adjacent property to the northwest, west and south are zoned B1 general business. The property east of the subject property is zoned R1 limited residential. Staff reviewed the submitted application materials and evaluated the proposal against the applicable zoning regulations. And staff finds that the proposed commercial zoning is compatible with adjacent zoning districts and more so than the current industrial zoning. With regard to the town's comprehensive plan, destination Dumfries 2044, the plan designates the property as mixed use. Staff reviewed the proposal for consistency with the comprehensive plan's land use and economic development policies and considered the applicant's justification regarding the redevelopment of the site. Staff find that the proposed use is consistent with the comprehensive plan. And this illustrates the comprehensive plan, the site encircled in black on the right, or outlined in black, and with the arrow on the left. And the mixed use designation is purple. so um the developer has also submitted profit conditions to be considered and approved with the rezoning and uh we'll quickly go through these uh one is a substantial conformance the subject properties shall be developed in substantial conformance with the general generalized development plan or gdp entitled conceptual layout plan minor modifications subject to the approval by the planning director the applicant may make minor modifications and or variations to the GDP when necessitated by sound engineering or in furtherance of the final site plan. CONCEPTUAL ALTERNATIVE SITE PLAN BY THE TIME THE SITE PLAN SUBMISSION OF THE SITE PLAN SUBMISSION DOMINION VIRGINIA POWER IS TO GRANT AN ENCROACHMENT PROPOSED BY of the proposed development into the on-site Dominion Virginia power easement and the applicant will pursue conceptual alternate site plan dated June 18, 2026. If they are required to relocate the building a little bit to the west, and that will result in a reduction in the amount of retail space that will be available. And this illustrates the GDP with the 50,325 square feet grocery store and 6,700 square feet of retail space. And in the event that the easement issue is not approved, then this illustrates the grocery with the same square footage and the smaller 5,700 foot retail space. The proposed development is a fourth proffered condition and the ultimate development proposed with this rezoning shall include a grocery store containing approximately 5,100 square feet, a pharmacy drive-through adjacent to the grocery store, a retail building of up to 6,700 square feet, a surface parking lot of up to approximately 378 spaces. With regard to building design, the proposed development shall be in substantial conformance with the design concepts and details set forth in the elevations entitled REZ 2026-001 Elevations, dated September 8th, 2026. and vacate with regard to vacation and abandonment of a portion of old stagecoach road the applicant shall coordinate with vdot in the town of dumfries for the vacation and abandonment process for the portion of the old stagecoach road right-of-way identified on the gdp With regard to parking, the applicant will provide parking spaces within the surface lot in accordance with the tabulations provided on the conceptual plan sheets of the GDP. The applicant shall provide one bike rack on the subject property to serve the shopping center. And subject to acquisition of the necessary right of way and easements, and approval by the town of VDOT, the applicant will construct improvements including a right turn lane at Potomac Shores Parkway and a traffic control at the intersection of Potomac Shores Parkway. And this illustrates those two with the circle to the top that is the proposed location of the traffic signal and the arrow illustrates the location of the right turn lane. And over to the left, you can see outlined in red, that is the proposed right-of-way. Then with regard to a pedestrian connection, the applicant will provide a five-foot-wide pedestrian sidewalk along the east side of the driveway access. These profits will bind and inure the benefit of the applicant and its assessors and assigns. Any portion of the subject property may be the subject of an amendment to these proffers, the GDP or other zoning action in accordance with the appropriate amendment provided that other project components are not impacted by the proposed amendment. then with regard to delay applicant despite diligent efforts by the applicant or due to factors beyond the applicant's control any improvements and or contributions required under these proffers have been delayed or will be delayed beyond the time frames the applicant may request that the planning director or its designee extend time frames for completion to a later date And then finally, these proffers may be executed in one or more counterparts. So the Town's Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of an ordinance approving the rezoning during their August 10th, 2026 meeting. And staff recommends adoption of the ordinance approving REZ 2026-001 to rezone approximately 15.33 acres from M1 to B1, addressed as 17439 and 17471 Old Stagecoach Road. Thank you. And the applicant is also here to provide information and respond to any questions. And I'm happy to respond to any questions.

council any questions on the staff report very detailed staff report uh we appreciate you mr tabor councilman pete your questions sir thank you thank you there mr mayor uh great presentation and update there mr tabor uh real quick just two things here uh as far as the entries go as far as the entry go when we're making that right away on to the um going into the location there was talks of that hole right there right where the i guess their signage is going to go right right when you're turning off the parkway into the plaza there was a hole right there and we had spoke of still water and then mate and then also there was conversations of a fountain have we i don't know which option they're using but have they addressed that at all because i'm not hearing it and then secondly um i know there's been um additional talks even in the planning commission while viewing their meeting uh on that backside retaining wall of um where are we at with those two sir

So if it's okay, I'll take the second question first. The conceptual plan and GDP does include a retaining wall that is between the subject property and the adjacent residentially zoned property and neighborhood. And actually there is a zoning requirement that there be a separation and that does meet that requirement. Then with regard to your first question.

One second, Mr. Taylor, before we move forward with that. Also, wasn't there talks in the planning commission about some lighting there that may have been too bright for the citizens there?

what okay and so um okay with regard to that question and your uh your first question about uh water and water retention the applicant will be required to submit a site plan that will have details with regard to storm water management with regard to any water features with regard to any lighting and all of that will be reviewed and approved once it's submitted and meets all of the requirements of the town code, the building code, and all other relevant codes.

Okay. All right. Sounds good. Thank you there, Mr. Tabor, and thank you again, Mr. Mayor.

All right. Council, was there any other questions? This has got a couple questions on it. i think on the application i read the applicant acknowledged that there's about a 60-foot grade change and the retaining walls were going to be probably up to about 35 feet and that a full grading analysis had not yet been complete and so i just for staff what confidence do you have that the site can be built as shown with the final grading the geotechnical the field the retaining wall and the way the storm water is engineered. How confident with still needing that site grade report?

uh confident and um you know additional engineering uh has to be completed and all of that will be included in the site plan but from a concept conceptual perspective and the information that we've received so far it indicates that it is possible to construct the necessary retaining wall and project

One of my concerns, and I've been pretty vocal about this because of our comp plans and a lot of our things, is about future connectivity, right? And so, has the staff or the applicant evaluated preserving future, you know, if not today, future vehicle, any type of emergency access, bicycle, pedestrian connected, anything to connect pedestrians and people to the summer duct. If not, would approval and final grading risk permanently eliminate that option, even if that thing get redeveloped 20, 30, 40 years from now? So are we stuck with, and my concern is, as we look to develop this waterfront, What other ways are we gonna have for people along Possum Point Road to get in and out? So are we eliminating future vehicles, pedestrians indefinite? I mean, we've seen this preserved in other places in the county on Van Buren, through Montclair, those type of situations. And so I just wanna make sure I'm on the record asking this question because the design has eliminated all future access altogether.

so the conceptual proposal includes access to the development along old stagecoach road and that would be closer to possum point and the waterfront access and it will also be part of the route one widening so wait a second so we'll be able to get to possum point from old stagecoach road No, no, no, no, no, no. I apologize. You'll be able to get to the site, to the project site via old Stagecoach Road as well as Potomac Shores Parkway from the north. And that will be a southern entrance.

I'm cool with that. I understand that. My problem or the problem I still foresee happening 10, 15, 20 years from now is we're going to outgrow whatever's happening on the waterfront development and you're going to have one way in the possum point and one way out and where else on possum point are you going to let are you thinking about future somewhere down possum point where you're going to let other people get to your waterfront development and so that's that's i'm i'm okay with old stage coach road i'm okay with what's happening over there i'm just i just want to make sure i'm saying out loud uh what a concern is going to happen 15 20 years down the line

And certainly within our small area plan process, we're looking at access to the waterfront district and multiple points of access, taking to heart comments that we've received previously about safety and access to that property. But we anticipate that there will be a draft plan available for review in October. And through that process, we will endeavor to provide multiple points of access to the Waterfront District. Okay, I'm looking forward to this. This is a big new thing. Let's see how we go.

Okay, next question. Beyond the right turn lane that we just saw, the signal work, the five-foot sidewalk, all the landscaping signage, the other commitments, you know, are they all legally binding after we do this? And I don't know, Councilman Pete added in a nice little facade with a water presentation and a welcome sign. I don't know how to see it in there, but hey, if we could throw that in there, keep it legally binding, I like it. I mean, I think it's the, it's, We got one chance to make this gateway in this entrance of everybody coming on. One of the concerns when they would build a Potomac Shores Parkway is that people were really gonna start flying and driving through Dumfries and not driving to Dumfries. And so we wanna make sure that that is very welcoming. So is there anything that we're missing and asking in those proffers? you know i think that uh uh all of those proffers were nice and and um i guess you know cutesy because the project needs those proffers but uh one of my main concern is uh there are no sidewalks on old stagecoach road i mean there are you know we're looking at potomac shores parkway which is being built out. But when you come around that corner, people can't walk from Old Stage Coach and there's no connectivity through Coach House Plaza as well. And there's a big pothole and stuff there and a road connection. And so, yeah, what's legally binding already? Is that it, what's in the proffers? Or is there opportunity to kind of like weigh in for more?

So with regard to proffers, I would have to, I think, defer to the developer to respond to any proffered conditions or potential changes. These were proffered conditions offered by the developer that have been presented so far.

The developer want to speak to it, maybe say? Yeah, I would love to hear.

Do you want your presentation?

Yeah. Evan, can we also bring up the second? There you are. Thank you. You can use that. Sure.

Good evening. Mr. Mayor, Madam Vice Mayor, members of the Town Council, my name is Noah Klein by the process of elimination tonight. I'd like to address the question, would it be better if I went through my update presentation first or would you prefer I can?

Let's go through it because I thought that that was the presentation. Yeah, we'd like to see it.

sure and um let me just first uh you know thank mr tabor uh for for his work hard work on this project um this is a project it's been uh seven eight months in in the making um we're very happy with the the planning commission recommendation we had a very well attended community meeting um and so we're very excited to be in front of you and then with me tonight on behalf of the applicant we've called castlebound we have members of our our consultant team. I'd like to thank Supervisor Bailey. Thank you for sticking around for this project. So you heard a lot from Mr. Tabor about this project that I don't need to rehash, essentially. But I will say that, I mean, you all sort of looked at the location here. This is a pretty significant, highly visible gateway location for the town of Dumfries. This is a very, this is a Dumfries specific project that we're happy to bring. It fills what we understand to be a pretty critical need. but we heard it earlier tonight we've heard it at the community meeting we've seen it referenced in economic studies that have been produced uh uh just across across the board of the potomac district um the need for a grocer and it and it's The focus on the grocery and the high-end use that's going to be proposed here has been a large focus for a very good reason, but there is tenant retail here. This is new retail space that I don't think the town has seen in quite some time. Inline retail, end cap, restaurant-type food establishment-type space. for property that is really in need of significant redevelopment. And so we're happy to bring it. I will move forward with the So here's a site context. You heard this from Mr. Tabor. I don't think I need to rehash what we're looking at. But again, this is a very highly visible location. And so what we're proposing here we think would be a pretty significant benefit to the town. the area context. You heard this from Mr. Tabor. I can always come back to these slides to talk about them. We have the primary proposal, which is the rezoning to the commercial district. There are attendant conditional use permits. I'm going to bundle all that in this discussion right here. The rezoning, as you heard from Mr. Tabor, is for a commercial from an m1 industrial to b1 commercial the attendant condition use purpose conditional use permits are there to facilitate the proposed use we have conditions permits for comprehensive sign plan so that we can have a larger degree of control over the signage from a design and and a parent standpoint um We also have a condition use permit for off-site sales of beer and wine and a condition use permit for a drive-through for the pharmacy. As I mentioned, this revitalizes an area that's been characterized by longstanding and undesirable auto salvage yard uses and reinvigorates a highly visible gateway corridor to the town of Dumfries. And I think it's important because you've heard it a lot tonight about destination Dumfries in various points of this evening. You have Definition Dumfries, which is a pretty robust forward-thinking plan. Part of that includes three small area plans, the Gateway, the Waterfront, and Main Street. And where we fit in here is that the location here, as you enter the town from Route 1, or if you're coming from 234, this project, we think, will really announce a newer Dumfries that's envisioned in the comprehensive plan. It starts somewhere. We think this redevelopment will be what the town will be looking for in terms of energizing investment and interest in the town based on the plans that you all are putting together in destination Dumfries. I think what we produced here would be a significant upgrade. It has a very classic look, a very classic and permanent look and something that, again, that we're, we're proud of. And I'll move on to that second. So, uh, Mr. Tabor also went through the options we have for, um, the site plan. And so one of the things that is pretty, um, noteworthy for this property, it's not just location of course, but the site itself is pretty challenging. Uh, you have longstanding auto salvage uses there, uh, I'm sure you all have driven by the site a bunch of times. You can see it's sort of this sort of sunken appearance as you approach from all points, either on Potomac Shores Parkway or Route 1. There are grading challenges, as you heard. Things slope downward. So it's a site that's going to require a lot of fill. It's a site that's going to require a lot of work to grade and level. But aside from that, aside from some of the topographical and soil issues, we're also encumbered by about five acres of a Dominion easement. And so that is why we have those two options. We've been working with Dominion on to get some potential resolution. And really what we're asking for there is some slight encroachment within the primary 200 foot easement on the property. And it can be a little tricky because Dominion does not prefer to have vertical encroachment within their easements. So when you have five acres of this property encumbered by Dominion easement, it does present some challenges. This use, what we've proposed here, we think um meets those challenges because by the nature of the use we're able to make adjustments and shift things so that we can keep a substantial amount of our development of vertical development outside of those easements so that's why the site has been laid out the way it is to the right and i think it was alluded to previously we have our proposed stormwater feature we don't know yet it's as mr tabor mentioned things are at a sort of higher level conceptual at this point when we start doing some final engineering and final design things become a little more clear and that's the case with with the stormwater management area that we show there that could be a wet pond it could be also a dry pond we don't know at this point um but because of that easement we're able to shift that feature away from the rest of the development and sort of maximize what we can develop here um with those conditions. And because it's a primary grocer with secondary retail, there's obviously a pretty high demand for parking that also works within a Dominion easement. And so what doesn't work is a lot of vertical development that's going to be very challenging for this site that's already a challenge to develop because of the existing soils and existing topography. So that's the alternate site plan. So the difference there is that the primary plan, which would give us as an expanded retail would be the plan where we get the approval from Dominion to put a tiny bit of our building of the grocery building within their easement. And that allows us to expand things. If we don't get that allowance, that shrinks slightly the retail. So we wanted to account for both plans in the proffers. So this just gives you some context. This is Potomac Shores. It's currently in phase one of its development, but this is the Potomac Shores Parkway at full build out. This just gives you context in terms of the overall transportation network here. We heard about transportation improvements. There's a proposed signal. The plans for the Potomac Shore Parkway already have planned a left turn into the site. So the Potomac Shores Parkway already is planned for future development of the property. And then we also are looking at a right turn and taper into the site from Potomac Shores. Here are the front elevations. The choice of design here is obviously very, it's brand-specific, but these are high-quality materials. It's a mixture of brick, you see there, different color and variations of brick, also high-end stonework. Aris Craft is the brand. And so it's something that we think presents a very sort of classic, with some modern touches, facade and approach, but also something that has, we think, a degree of permanence at the site, which I think is what you would want to see with a new development at this location. These are the rear elevations, similarly tracking the materials and colors that you saw on the front elevations. the monument sign uh elevations you can see here sort of echoing that brick um the the uh the brick material that we that we feature pretty prominently in the primary elevations uh here's some illustrative renderings uh that we put together that show the site of full build out and i've one second left and i didn't get to your question though i was i was wrapping up I think I wanted to answer the question you had about the proffers. Yes. Which one did you?

Well, you only gave us off of Potomac Shores Parkway. I asked about Old Stage Coast Road. Because Potomac Shores Parkway is brand new.

of Potomac Shores.

Potomac Shores is developing a lot of Potomac Shores Parkway. I mean, you're putting sidewalks on it. Yes, that's nice. I'm looking for more community benefits as well for, you know, the town of Dumfries as far as the other side of it. If you go back to where you got traffic coming off, because we're already cul-de-sac. We're already losing access to old stagecoach. We got our Boys and Girls Club. We got our Novak Gym. We got a lot of youth programming. happen back there. And so maybe some of the kids w restaurants or come get ic but right now there's cur on old stage coach road be nice or, you know, to g there as we build on the you got to talk, this is Yeah, so there's no sidew We got a lot of, I think 80 kids in the summer, in the summer programs and stuff like that.

So. Well, we are, so our site, the pretty substantial portion of old stage, that's not part of our, that's outside of our boundaries. As Minister Tabor mentioned, we are requesting and if we're fortunate to get your approval this evening, and this is also referenced in the proffers, we'll be working with you all on the eventual acquisition of the portion of Old Stage Coast Road that's shown on our plans to be able to build out that retail space and add the outdoor seating. But sidewalks is something that we had not don't think we've been talking about that for a long old stagecroach road but again a large part of that road it's about a mile long is it i don't think it features sidewalks as it is and it's outside of our our project area okay all right i will pass on vice mayor yes questions yes thank you um

what i heard you say multiple times is i heard you highlight the benefit that you all are bringing to the town of dumfries and thank you for that we have been waiting for you for a long time and when i say you i mean figuratively of course because we've been wanting a grocer and something of that nature here um a couple of the things that the mayor said touched on things that have been said from this diet for multiple multiple times we are a lot of our neighborhoods are cul-de-sac and as we continue to grow what we're doing is we're bringing more people into the area but not creating infrastructure to go along with the access and so you have these neighborhoods that are cul-de-sac i heard you say summer duck i didn't catch exactly what you said but i want to be clear on record that i see that retaining wall you put up there at the end of summer duck i don't know how we need to document this but i what we cannot do is in 10 years when there's a lot going on come back and say hey we can break through some of that tear that pertaining wall down and open up some of that i need to preserve the sanctity of that neighborhood i need to make sure that with all the hustle and bustle that's going on around us people can still have the sanctity of their neighborhoods. And so I need to make sure that we have it on record, that there will be no attempts at changing that picture right there. Because we can't afford that when it comes to just the sanity and just preserving the peace of the neighborhood.

Sure. And that was, and frankly, that was something we had heard at our community meeting when we started talking to folks that live, actually live within the bulb of that cul-de-sac, which was, you know, what was going to be the impact on them. And one of the issues that was raised was exactly what you described, which is keeping this sort of the sanctity of that cul-de-sac. You know, the issue of potential connectivity of summer duck was raised at one point in some discussions early on. We had looked at that just to be comprehensive. The feasibility of that is very low. It's a pretty significant grade difference.

I remember we talked about that because I'm people. We talked about it when I was there.

And so it's a pretty significant grade difference there. That retaining wall is really necessary to stabilize the site. So we... Physically, I don't think we would be able to put a vehicular connection from Summer Duck into the site. And those facts are not gonna change.

okay good um in that conversation that we had we also talked about if there was a way to create a walkway and and then there was like okay well how many steps would that be because of the significant rate so we did have that conversation but like i said i just wanted to make sure that it was noted that there are no future plans or anything that looked like disturbing that neighborhood not in our in our proposed materials no okay thank you

Was there any other comment before we go to the public hearing? All right. I just, I do want to add that And just acknowledge a couple of things. One, I want to acknowledge that a grocery store this size, we don't normally see a grocer come in and do all of his own development. So we normally see you guys come in and lease and rent. And so we understand you're making a significant investment in our community. And so I want to acknowledge you guys are purchasing the land, you're developing, you got to bring in tons of of dirt and whatever to like stabilize that. And so I wanna make sure I do acknowledge this because I know other ones around the county, it's leasing a space and somebody else built it for them. And so you're making a huge investment. Two, I would love to see, because this is our gateway and we're looking at some type of placemaking within there, some type of gathering place. And I know the retail space that you got on the end, you got some type of outdoor seating, but we don't have many gathering spots and we're limited on space in town. And so our people want some place to just hang out and kick it and we don't wanna have to drive. uh up uh to woodbridge to do that we want to be able to kind of like stay here and hang out so is there a way to add some some some public space you know uh possibly you know maybe it solves the problem that councilman pete was talking earlier maybe uh i don't know the parking lot if we we have a space that you know maybe there could be some type of market or things i don't know i'm just thinking of a place that people can hang out is there any possibility of that

i would say you know given the challenges here that we've got with the easement we've we have to limit the ability to have vertical development the parking that we show there that we were able to then you were able to develop within area that otherwise would be undevelopable because it's in the easement We have parking that really meets our needs. And so the opportunity to take out some of that parking, I suppose, to add an additional sort of gathering space is really limited to I don't know if it's something that we can we can fit with the existing development and given these conditions.

noted i've asked all right well um thank you with that said i will um councilman pete

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. One last thing, putting all our concepts together and ideas together. Thank you for putting that out there, Mr. Mayor, because I was thinking of when he spoke of outdoor seating space, and it just reminded me of how up the street up in Woodbridge that you can go up into their grocery store and sit and lounge and eat. and have a conversation and work on your laptop and things like that within the grocery store itself. So I don't know what the infrastructure looks like inside of that building, if it's two levels or not. But maybe that's an option you guys maybe want to entertain as far as not taking away from the parking lots per se. But, again, I don't know what the inside looks like, the design of that. But maybe there's a second-level conference-style, lounge-style space available there, if that's an opportunity for you guys to entertain that.

I think that's something that we could certainly take a look at. We can take a look at that.

Thank you very much for taking a consider what we're asking, because we're asking if you guys can help us out with our serviceable needs. And that's more so lounge. Being that you guys are coming off pretty much the beginning of it, uh y'all like the beginning of us pretty much uh when it comes to um entering the town as far as amenities go you know we're just trying to see if we can maximize our uh uses uh when you guys come around and and certainly um you know there is this i will say there is there's definitely from an interior

standpoint, there's definitely a particular program for the for the for the for the grocer. So I don't want to give the impression that something that's going to actually happen. It's just the program here. And I would just say more broadly that we you know, we would maintain that the grocer itself with the tenant retail spaces is going to be a pretty significant draw in and of itself.

And so we're- We understand that, sir. We understand that it's gonna be a significant draw. It's gonna be something new to the area. We're more so doing a deeper dive into the concerns of our serviceable needs, if that makes sense. We get what's gonna happen on the front end. Now we're diving in to see what does our day-to-day living look like when it comes to the beginning of our gateway?

Understood, understood.

Yes, sir. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. If those can be taken into consideration of what, you know, just to counsel concerns and considerations moving forward, sir. Thank you much.

And before we go to public hearing, uh, town attorney, how much flexibility is there here with the site plan, with the layout elevations? Like after we take action, will there be any type of modifications that we can make after any actions today? Or is everything pretty much set? Can you help us understand some of that?

Thank you for the question Mr. Mayor. The time to make modifications would be now before the rezoning is approved. Once the rezoning is approved and the proffers are accepted, the proffers can only be changed on a formal application for amendment and another public hearing and actions by the council. So the possibility is there, but certainly it becomes procedurally a more challenging proposition when you can just take care of the issues before you grant or approve the rezoning. And if the council needed more time to make a determination, I would recommend that when you open the public hearing, you do not close it and you just continue the matter over to the next meeting.

Tell me, did you have anything to add?

No, sir. I'm good.

So the proffers that are presented today is and what Mr. Tabor has recommended the planning commission has recommended what we have I know you know I would at least like to see a almost like some type of monumental you know welcome type of sign that you know says welcome to to because what you show pull that slide back up of the sign that you had you know let's let's let's pull that back up and just talk about the sign for a second know um and and we see what the what the rose did we gave them a special monumental type of sign that kind of shows i don't know if uh if if i i t they could pull back up the slide with their sign rendering yeah yeah it's just uh uh hey we got a grocery store and a tenant type of situation so you know coming to our our our frontage and our welcome it would be something that differentiate you are now in the town the oldest like we're working on brandon right now right this is the oldest continuously charted town so if it will be i think i can um

So a couple things, one on that point, Mr. Mayor, what you see there is just sort of gives you a sense of the scale of the lettering. But we, thinking of a way to have something very specific to the town is something that as we kind of move forward, we can see what works for that side. all we're asking for the approval that we were asking for tonight is what you're what you're looking at is here's the scale of the sign and here's the scale of the of the sign lettering but we can um that's something that we can look at uh as we kind of move things forward again if we're fortunate to to get uh to get the town council's approval and to the second point um just one sort of qualification, I think, to the question about the proffers. We do have in the proffers the ability to make some modifications. It's sort of spelled out. Mr. Tabor ran through that. I would just say that those would be if we get to final engineering and we feel that we need to make a slight adjustment here and there, that we'd be able to do that with the concurrence and the review and approval by the plan director. You know, if we're looking at the design and someone has a suggestion about maybe a certain coloring for some of the brick, that's something that the proffers allow us to do. I guess because proffers are volunteered, those are what we provided and tried to do a thorough job in providing. that those modifications you can make certain updates without having to go through a proper amendment but those would be ultimately within the applicants sort of control with the review and approval of the plan director where we have it laid out there so there is a little bit of flexibility but ultimately um it would be something that we would on the applicant's side we would be the one for promoting it um with again with the concurrence of the plan director Town manager.

Mayor and town council, if we may, I've heard several concerns voiced in regards to what was in the amendments and things that the council might want addressed. If we may have a separate discussion, get council's remarks shared with the developer for decisions prior to approval, then that would be what I would possibly propose if council's agreeable to it.

councilman young thank you mr mayor um real quick i know this is conceptual i understand that um but you didn't mention about the fact of dominion power lines and where it is um in conjunction with the uh the building itself you said if it was too close that you might have to scale back some of the building? Is that what you were saying? Correct.

So we have, so just to, yeah, just to review that. So what you see here is what we call, this is our primary plan. It's called the expanded retail for the reason that this would give us This would be able to allow us to maximize the retail space here. And the way we're able to do that is if we are able to encroach within the Dominion easement with a portion of the grocery building. But if we do not get that approval from Dominion to locate a portion of that building within the easement, then the alternate plan would essentially be the same design, but we would have 1,000 square feet less of retail space because things would be shifting over accordingly.

Now, you're saying the actual building retail space, are you speaking of the parking lot as well?

The building retail, the retail space.

Okay. Okay. Thank you, sir.

Vice Mayor.

I'd like to make a motion to adjourn.

Can I get that motion? We're in the middle of a public hearing.

You haven't opened the public hearing yet.

Okay.

I'll go to the town attorney for procedure.

The motion to adjourn takes precedence to the pending motion, Your Honor. Mr. Mayor, and it's not subject to discussion.

So we need to vote on it, okay. All right, so there is a motion on the floor and discussion now. So for me, I would like to get this- It's not open to discussion, she said. Oh, it's not open to discussion, she said, okay. All right, we'll call for the vote.

Councilman Fields?

Aye.

Councilman Pete?

Yes.

Councilman Young?

No.

Councilwoman Peterson?

no should i put something else no discussion no she said no we gotta vote what is either yes or no there's no discussion can i ask a question no we have no question we have to vote first

yes mr mayor respond okay go ahead okay so so we adjourn does this come back to the next meeting like what what happens to it becomes unfinished business for the next meeting but you would have to re-advertise the public hearing so then what happened so in the time to re-advertise the public meeting

Would we be able to get additional information from the town staff?

It would be almost as it was before it got here today. So theoretically, developer could continue to talk to the town's representative as long as there was sufficient time prior to the next meeting for the ordinance to reflect what the draft proposal is supposed to be, you're fine. But this is not subject to discussion. That's just the rules. It's just if you got a second, you have to vote yes or no.

So if I were to vote, would we be able to take a break right after the motion and then come back for a court action? Like if we- No, it's a motion to adjourn meeting. Excuse me.

So it simply, it ends the meeting. Anything that was on the agenda rolls over to the next meeting as unfinished business that would take precedence over the new items that would be added to the agenda for the next meeting. So you go to unfinished business first, then new business, whatever would be what you would want.

you would have wanted heard or handled on october the october 6th meeting or whatever date it was okay yeah i'm sorry i'm just asking because i've never since before um i will say i don't like the direction this conversation is going in is this is it no discussion we can't discuss it all right i abstain

I think you have to have I have I have some kind of conflict or state the basis for abstaining from the vote Adam from Tim.

Okay. Vice Mayor Nickerson? Yes. Mayor Wood?

No.

That motion fails.

Okay. All right. We will now open the public hearing. All right. Is there anyone signed up to speak here? Is there anyone here? If you want to speak at the public hearing, you can say your name for the record.

Good evening. My name is Ebony Lofton. I live on Mill Road Drive here in Dumfries and I don't know if there is an opportunity to answer the question with regard to this public hearing because I'm not sure if the conditional use permits are being voted on together if this public hearing is together or just separate okay um so i will say this as a long time resident in dumfries as someone who has who started in commercial lending back in 1993 um and have seen a number of my borrowers go through processes like this i I will just caution and I will just share. I think there are both sides to what has transpired. I understand why the vice mayor may move to adjourn because respectfully, our mayor is shaking down a developer for additions when what is before you is just the motion to move the project forward. It is 11 o'clock at night. It's midnight at this point. If this is a major developer, because we don't know who the retailer, I'm sorry, the retailer is, some of the biggest money that can come to any local economy is outside funds so all those folks that came to that community um discussion that was down in the dmv um were people from potomac shores they didn't live in the town of dumfries so when you have people coming to dumfries that's the point and please understand my humble professional opinion is that there are other potential developers who are going to watch this meeting and we're going to watch how this group has been treated tonight. And it may either be one of the reasons why or a future reason as to why we don't have people trying to come to Dumfries because we respond in this way. I don't see any reason why this group requests would not be approved, there's so much more discovery and so many other reasons that would potentially derail or stop any future development. So I think that the town council has a culpability and improvements to its community versus giving themselves 300% raises. You've got somebody that wants to come here, that wants to bring money, that wants to help the town go in the direction that most claim they want to approve it and let's move forward. So thank you for your time.

Okay. Was Supervisor Bailey, does she still want to speak or does she leave? Okay. All right. So is there anyone else? All right. With that said, I will close the public hearing. Public hearing is closed. Chair Pro Tem?

Yes, Mr. Mayor. I have a question for the attorney.

Madam Attorney?

Yes, ma'am.

Would it be appropriate to make a motion to continue all of the public hearings to our next meeting or would they have to be done individually?

You can just if you want it to just roll everything over to the next meeting after you vote on this item, or if you want to continue the deliberation of this item to the next meeting, you can move. to adjourn, everything that is not handled in this meeting will automatically roll over as unfinished business on the next agenda. And so the question then becomes, you know, a matter of timing of your meeting relative to the new business. But this would be handled first as unfinished business. So everything would just roll over. Okay, so the motion would be to motion to adjourn. If you do the motion to adjourn before the meeting is over, all the items that have been listed on this agenda will roll over to the next agenda as unfinished business. All right. Okay. So there would not be a need to open things up one by one to continue them. I move we adjourn.

Second.

Okay, Madam Clerk, call for the question. Are we re-advertising?

Yeah, unfortunately, especially with the one that you've just done. So if the idea was to actually, well, if the idea was to at least save some advertising relative to this particular item that's being bifurcated. We've lost that by closing the public hearing before making the motion to adjourn. But yes, all of those items that were now continued over as unfinished business need to be re advertised.

I'd like to withdraw my motion. I request that we take a five-minute break so we can consult with the attorney.

The motion has been withdrawn. Does the second got to be withdrawn?

What's the second?

Oh, Blackberry, you seconded. She withdrawn or adjourned.

Do I have to withdraw? You don't need the second to withdraw.

Okay. All right. So we'll take a five-minute recess.

Okay. All right, we're back out. Councilman Young? Yes, Mr. Mayor. I would like to make a motion to approve the ordinance for REZ 2026-001 to rezone approximately 15.33 acres identified as GPINS 8289-24-2502 828914-7901 and 8289-14-945 from M1 Limited Industrial District to B1 General Business District.

Second that motion. It's been motioned and seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, Madam Clerk, call for the question.

Councilman Fields?

Yes.

Councilman Pete?

Yes.

Councilman Young.

Yes.

Councilwoman Peterson. Aye. Chair Proton-Miles. Aye. Vice Mayor Nickerson. Yes. Mayor Wood.

Yes.

That motion is passed.

I'd like to make a motion to adjourn. Second.

All right. It's been motioned and second. Madam Clerk, call for the question.

Councilman Fields?

Yes.

Councilman Pete?

Yes.

Councilman Young?

Yes.

Councilwoman Peterson? Yes. Chair Pro Temow? Aye. Vice Mayor Nickerson? Yes. Mayor Wood?

No.

This meeting is adjourned.