City Council - Regular Meeting

Maybe someone else should grab it. Okay, good evening everyone. Want to call our work session to order. Thank you for everyone's flexibility for a rescheduled date due to yesterday's weather. We'll start with roll call, please. Sure. Mayor. Mr. Aen here. Miss Connelly here. Miss DS. Uh Laura has a family commitment, so she'll be here a little bit later. Miss Flynn here. Mr. Schneider here. Miss Underh Hill

here. Mayor Hardy here. Thank you, council. Uh, everyone's here in person. Uh, I think we're ready to jump into the work session items. It is on. Get closer. How about now? No.

Hello. Are any of them picking up? Oh, there we go. We will share them. Is mine picking up?

Hello. Testing. Hello. All right. We got red up there. Feel like I can hear Justine as through the microphone. Now I can hear myself. It just looks like maybe the Yep. No, now well it caught that last sentence. How about now? Does this old mic still work?

I think it's lagging for some reason. Taye, are they getting it in the FCC TV room? They're checking. Thanks. I just turn caption on mine and it's not picking up. Caught some of it.

Just ignore the captions. Okay, let's jump right in. Uh, good evening, council and mayor. Um we're going to start off the evening with the resolution to name the city park that's on Oak Street. Um Amy Young's is joining us. Amy Young is joining us um to present the report. Okay. Good evening council. Thank you for your time. And it sounds like everyone read the staff report and had some fun looking through the names. Um it was a lot of fun for us um in Recken Park. So um hopefully everyone had enjoyed it as much as we did and we're very excited to bring this park to the community. At the last time we came to city council, we were um there was a motion to solicit us to go out to boards and commissions and the general public to get feedback. Uh we did that with a communitywide feedback um online form that got over 100 submissions which is all in your staff packet. Uh we engaged with the students at Oak Street Elementary and then we went to a few boards and commissions. Uh there were a couple themes that were repetitive throughout the public feedback form. Uh as a reminder, we can name uh city code allows us to name a park after the geographical, historical or ecological context or commemorating individual service or to better identify the use of the park. So a little bit of a summary of the public feedback uh names that repeat appeared several times. Uh names honoring individual service. We saw a lot named after Barb Cra or using Greenscape which was her business in the city. uh a lot of suggestions for fellows and a few suggestions for Thomas Jefferson. Uh ecological themes that appeared several times were the use of the word acorn, firefly, forest, and oak. Geographic was Virginia forest, uh which is the neighborhood over there, appeared a few times. Additional names we saw several times were the use of the word tiger uh with the Oak Street Elementary's mascot right across the street and park you make park

face. Uh so that's a bit of a summary of you know the 100 plus submissions. They're all in the staff report but those were the ones that we saw a few times. Uh the student input is also in the staff report but a lot of them also had the word tiger in it. Uh so that was the theme with the students. The advisory board of recreation and parks provided both guidance as well as actual recommendations. Their guidance is they do not recommend supporting uh names that um after an individual or a family and they would rather not use the word oak to avoid confusion with the school um having similar names uh being so close together and they have a strong preference to name the park after the natural or e ecological features of the park. Uh their recommendations are Firefly Forest, Firefly Grove, and Hidden Harvest Park. Uh so that's the Recreation and Parks Advisory Board. The Arts and Humanities Council also suggested we do not name the park after a person, do not use the word oak, and you pick a name that's child-friendly, whimsical, and nature focused. Their recommendations were Wild Wonders Park, Small Wonders Park, and Virginia Forest Park. The historical commission had three names uh toxinet or doge uh fellows park Virginia forest park and the planning commission didn't give name recommendations but they did suggest that the park be named um after geographical or natural features. Um so that is the summary of what we received. So interested to hear council's feedback and discuss next steps. There is a public hearing set for next uh Monday the 23rd. Thank you. Uh, thank you for the process to kind of solicit community input. I think we all had fun reading through them. Um, so this is kind of like picking a name for your kids. Everyone's got an opinion. Um, so I don't know what the best way to do it whether we want to

go around the room and say like if everyone has like a top three and maybe based on top three hopefully we will all get to consensus that way. Does anyone want to start with their top three?

I'm happy to start. Um, one comment I do want to make. Um, I was at the as leazison I was at the planning commission's um, discussion. They actually did like Firefly. However, it was raised that the parks close at I think basically they close after sunset. So, there was some concerns that you'd be promoting something that was after closure, but they did like Firefly. They just decided not to make a specific recommendation. I personally like Firefly Grove. I think it does do it. I also like um Acorn because it gives a nice linkage to Oak Park Elementary and Oak Street without the confusion of Oak. Um those are the two that really jumped out to me. Uh beyond that, um kind of like and I'm going to throw a vote in for Parking MC Park Face because somebody has to. Okay, got yours, Erin?

I can go next with the top three. I would go with Firefly Forest, Hidden Harvest Park, and then um I actually liked Fellowship Park just for a play on both, you know, the community gathering place and since it's supposed to have that like kind of platform central location in it, but also because of the play on kind of Fellow's Court, Fellow's Park without necessarily naming it after or I don't know, we I just suggested we maybe each have a top three and then if we can find consensus that way, the easiest, but we can skip you if you haven't. Okay, Dave, do you have a top several?

Sure. Democracy Park, Fellowship Park, and Greencape Park. Greenscape of course in reference to the contribution of Barbara, but also a more general concept about what the park is. Mary Beth Mary Beth, is your microphone on? Thank you.

Gosh, it's like a rookie mistake. Uh, acorn forest. I like I Well, I like acorn. I don't see acorn forest here, but I I also like forest as a way to think about the park because it's sort of if you're little, it seems like a forest. And one of these descriptions said it used to be an old growth forest. So, I kind of like acorn forest. Um, hidden harvest. I like I like Fellowship Forest and I also like Holly Oak because it has oak, but there's holl's there, too. So, um, so I like the idea of going I I agree with one of the groups who said, you know, whimsical and playful, especially this being next to an elementary school. I think something that can ignite the imagination of the kids nearby. Um, so that is one reason that I do like Firefly, Firefly, whatever. Um, fireflies are still there. Even if you can't see them at the night time, they still light up sometimes during the daytime. So, um, it's a 24-hour thing. Um, I also like Acorn. Um, Acorn Forest, Acorn Park, Acorn, whatever. Um, and then my third one, I was debating. I know we decided not to do names of people. I was thinking about Kirby. I think that could be also something that ignites the imagination. Um, but I really, every time I hear Parking McPark face, it makes me laugh. And so it's just something that is just so funny and I think it would also just bring bring delight to people too. So anyway, my top three would be Acorn something, Firefly something or Parky McParkface.

Okay, Laura, do you have your three?

Yeah. So, um I I uh I would say I do do like um the hidden uh which hidden harvest. Yeah, I do. I like that. I was trying to also the reason I needed a second I was trying to remember when we were in art in the arts and humanities council what they were talking about. Um but they yeah I think hidden harvest was definitely one that that came up and then um I do like fellowship that is something that again I'm not um you know I am the one person who does not like to name things after any individual or group of people or families but the idea of fellowship and across from an elementary school think I think says a lot. And then I like Firefly Firefly Grove or whatever, but I think to Mr. Aen's point, they were Breco Parks was a little worried like or no, maybe I think you all someone was saying that would that encourage people to come after Dusk and try to find the fireflies. Yeah. Yeah. But something I was in too said it too. I don't know if it was in Reckom Parks or Arts and Humanities, someone. But anyway, but I Nice job. I thought I thought they were all really great options. I like South Park. Anyway, I thought it would be cute. That was one of the suggestions.

South Park. It is South Oak. So, okay. Um, so, so far I've counted four votes for Firefly. If I got that right, three for Acorn, right? Art, Mary, Beth, Justine for Acorn. Uh, one, two, three, four. Four for fellowship. It was Aaron, Dave, Mary, Beth, and Laura. And then three for Hidden Harvest. If I got that right. Aaron, Mary, Beth, and Laura. Uh, I put mine down before any of this happened for Firefly, Forest, and Hidden Harvest. So, it seems like our top three contenders are Firefly, Hidden Harvest, and Fellowship. Does that sound like a good capture of what everyone said? How do people feel if we do a second round or do we just want to throw out opinions and discussion? Then we don't have to go around and revote. Firefly, Fellowship, and Hidden Harvest, I think were the top three that I think had the most votes across if I did my counting correctly. Firefly, Forest, Hidden, Harvest, and Fellowship. If you want to go around and pick one out of the three and that'll make it go faster. I would put my vote behind Firefly. One so hard. I also like Firefly, but that wasn't even one of the ones that I picked in my first top one. So,

but I like Firefly Forest. Yeah. Okay. So, that's two Firefly Forest. Dave, fellowship. So, one for fellowship. Laura, I probably say Firefly. I just think Firefly has the more of a kids connotation, but Firefly. Erin, I'm fine with Firefly Forest. And then maybe to avoid the after dark concerns like when we had talked about the entryway or sort of the little creatures, right? You could sort of envision, you know, the park entrance or that thing having like little metal.

So to what Miss Flynn is pointing out at the I don't know if you were at the recon parks advisory board when we talked about it, but the entrance um there is an option to kind of add fireflies into the design of the entrance and then one of the animals inside the park could be a firefly if we went that way. kind of like Howard Herman, there's like the bee. Okay. Um, I would go with Firefly, although I feel like Firefly Forest feels a little bit heavier. So, I I think I would prefer Firefly Grove or Firefly Hollow or Landing.

I I do like Grove, but I think when I was in Arts and Humanities, the reason um some of the people actually live in that neighborhood, the members of and they were saying that that's called Virginia Forest or that that neighborhood is. So I think that's why the firefly forest was combining that neighborhood and the fireflies. So not that we have to but that was just the reasoning that I would change my vote if we didn't have the alliteration. Yeah, I like the alliteration kind of like Howard Herman because Howard Herman is double H and I was like oh this could be double F like

Okay, so who didn't vote yet? So Art, you were Firefly Forest as well. Yeah. Okay. I think it's me. Okay. So I like Firefly Forest out of those three. So it sounds like we've got a good majority. Thank you. That was pretty painless for easier than picking a kid's name. So So I guess when we can do the same for you. Oh, a community survey. A community survey. And then two rounds of, you know, top three choices. Only took two rounds. Okay. Well, thank you to the community and to council for working through this. I think we look forward to the park going under construction hopefully this summer. Yes. Very exciting. Thank you all.

Great. Thank you. Thank you, Amy. Okay. Well, we're ahead of schedule because we didn't need whole 30 minutes on that one. The last part was harder. Okay, let's move on to the next one.

Uh so the next one I feel like this is part one of two. Um both are uh B and C are related to the U memorandum of understanding between the false church economic development and um development authority um regarding the management of the Virginia village uh properties. So, um, Sally is going to speak first regarding the waiver.

Hello everyone. Um, before you tonight on this item is a, um, a waiver of any conflict of interest of your city attorney in representing both the economic development authority and the city council on this project called Virginia Village. Um, the uh, the EDA is, as you know, an independent entity um, from the city and uh historically the city attorney has been asked to represent the city council, the city as a corporate organization and then also its boards and commissions and its author in this particular authority um the economic development authority. um pursuant to the rules of ethics that govern attorneys. Um if we are going to represent more than one party who um in in a transaction, this type of waiver is required to be um this kind of consent is required to be um obtained from both of the the clients in an informed way. So, I've attached for you to this staff report a um a uh a waiver um that the city council could um adopt by motion. And if you'll give me a moment, let's see. Is it pulled up? Thank you. I am um happy to take any questions. I don't know if this is something that you all have thought about, but um the EDA, I did present this to them when they first took a look at the um memorandum of understanding that was um that is going to be before you in just a moment. Um that memorandum of understanding will establish the obligations among the parties relative to the Virginia village project and um

and the EDA did vote to consent to this um to this waiver of any potential conflict of interest. If um I guess it's important to know that um even if you consent to the conflict of interest waiver, it um it can be with that consent can be withdrawn at any time. um it does trigger you know uh the only complication that I can really foresee it triggering and I don't I don't foresee a conflict arising only because the memorandum of understanding that would govern the relationship gives really all practical authority to the city council and not to the EDA. So, um, the only conflict that I could realistically see is if the EDA were to, you know, or either party were to breach that agreement. Um, I suppose that would be a conflict, but as the agreement's written, it seems unlikely as if both parties adhere to that agreement that there would be a a direct conflict of interest. Um, however, if one should arise, then um this the attorney would be required um either the EDA would need to consent to u my representation of the city and and release me from representing the EDA or um if neither party is willing to to to wave the the the the actual conflict should it arise, then uh I could be required to withdraw from representing both parties. So um and of course if a direct a conflict actually does arise both parties can continue to agree to joint representation.

Okay. Do we have I guess the recommendation from staff is to sign the waiver. Well, I didn't provide one because really it does need to be your informed decision without um without more information from me than other than what I've just given you. Okay. Do questions or comments for Sally?

I I would just say I don't have any concerns. I mean, in the short time that we've worked together, your your ethics are beyond report to me. here. I I have complete confidence that you you would be the first one to figure out if there was a conflict before either side would and I know you would come to us to say um so I have complete you know I have no problem with this and I have complete trust in you that you would you would call it to our attention if there was a conflict. Thank you. Um yeah that would be my obligation to both parties to bring the conflict to their respective attentions and um and then ask for action to be taken accordingly. others.

I just wanted to to make sure I was clear on something. Um, in the event of a of a conflict, if it does come up, the one scenario that does not that is not an option is you representing the EDA and not the city, right? So, um, I I would not do that. I think that's right. Um, so the ED I would allow the EDA to consent to representation of only the city and not the EDA but not not v not vice versa.

Okay, other one and that's it's also just a clarifying question that if we didn't do the if we didn't do the waiver then the result at this point in time would be that the EDA would have to retain its own attorney out of its funds. Thank you. Yes, that would be the outcome if they should wish to do so. Justine just so just generally my sense is that the risk to city council is fairly low. If there's a conflict that comes up then you would say as our lawyer and then the EDA would have to find somebody else. there's that um the risk I suppose the only

the only real risk is if a conflict actually arises and the EDA refuses to um consent to to my continued representation of the city council then I would have to withdraw. Okay. So then you would have to withdraw as representing city council too. Yes. Okay. On this project. So that would be the main the biggest risk that we would face. Right.

Okay. That's helpful to know. Thank you. continually I don't know what the right word is comes to mind. The EDA serves at the pleasure of the city council. We appoint them. So they are a subsidiary body to the city council although they have a budget that they handle and they have separate. I just wonder how it the conflict of interest piece is like they are advising us it's almost not a separate entity so and maybe it's just in this particular situation because of this the property that's involved but I I do uh it is a separate entity they have the ability to to raise funds um impose those um I mean I'd have to look into this more but I think they have the taxing authority they have the ability to raise money they don't have to um that now I will say the state law does provide that a city council that you know creates an industrial development authority or an economic development authority can express through ordinance it the scope of the powers of that body so yes that's true but once that body is created it is indep independent. Um, it does not have to do what it is told by the city council.

Could the city council remove someone from the EDA in a or or once they're appointed for their term, then they're there for their term? This is really going down a rabbit hole. I'm just more curious than anything else because I think the the basis of this makes a lot of sense and I appreciate you bring it to us this way. I do think the MOA, if we all sign it, kind of helps as an extra safety net, right? Because it governs the relationship of how we should treat each other and who does what. And so that feels like extra assurance that the EDA is not going to go astray. So Dave,

yeah, I think for the reasons stated, I agree with this action. And I have one more reason for the EDA to spend money on its own attorney at this point in my view would be a waste of taxpayers funds. So I think this is not reasonable under the applicable uh legal standards, but also reasonable from a financial standpoint. Okay, sounds like we're good to go next week then. Uh next week. Thank you. Great. Thank you for bringing it. Okay, now we're

still ahead. Just one moment. MOA. Speaking of MOA, I think we're ready to talk about item three. If I could before we shift, um, we're having audio problems and some of the teams people aren't hearing. Um, and it doesn't seem to be anything with Teams or the audio that TEA and FCCTV can fix. I just wanted to highlight that. So, um, our staff are having a little trouble hearing, so we may have to be patient as they answer questions. Um hopefully the recording that will be posted will have the audio because FCC TV is hearing the audio.

I guess you all hear that you want us to pause for a few minutes. Okay. So not something that we can fix tonight then. Nothing we can fix tonight but everybody in the room can hear. It's just the staff may have some problem. Okay, that's probably what's causing the captioning. Also,

ask staff to watch on YouTube while dialed on to Teams. Thank you. Okay, I think we're ready for the MOA then. So, I think uh Andy is also going to join me um on this particular staff report. Uh this is for um the MOA, the memorandum of of agreement that is between the city and the city economic development authority. The uh economic development authority um reviewed this at this at their March 10th meeting. Um and uh there are a couple of adjustments that are highlighted in gray um throughout the document. Uh one was an adjustment to the address um and the other was um adding um a section on line 196 um that is

what we do in practice. And however, the EDA did not see that language at the time. And I believe those are the only two adjustments within um the MOA. Andy, do you have anything else to add?

No, I don't think so. So, we had talked with at the EDA meeting on the 10th, we had, you know, they had discussed and kind of had a vote about, well, okay, we'll finalize the language and um the chair will kind of okay it. Um I but I think staff after just after some discussions have you know uh thought it best to take it back to the entire EDA one last time and so we would do that at their early April meeting. So the staff report suggests bringing it back to you for final consideration next week on the 23rd. I think instead we would propose um taking it to the EDA at the beginning of April and coming back for final consideration at the April 13th meeting. So that's the only other change. Okay. Okay. I guess for the public's benefit, it's probably helpful to recap what the broad concepts are. So, the EDA owns these properties. I think the MOA spells out that the city is an agent of the EDA. Um talks about the rent proceeds going towards only maintenance, acquisition, and planning for future development. Uh we are committing to a return of equity on their 475,000 plus CPI plus 1% every year to be paid out in July, I believe. Uh, and then the MOA also talks about if we do sell 302 surely for purposes other than affordable housing, it lays out kind of the terms of that that we pay the EDA back 475 plus the profit, the market appreciation. Did I get the broad concepts correct? Is there anything else that's come up that we should know about?

Not to my knowledge, unless Sally or Andy have something. Um Cindy did relay to me that um you could council could approved this first on March 23rd um and then it could go to EDA um or vice versa or what Andy explained. So there could be a work session tonight and then it would go back to the EDA and then come back to council in April. Um or it could go to council on the 23rd, be approved by council and then go to the EDA.

I guess once we get my from a schedule perspective, once we get into April, you're in all the budget work sessions and so it might be better to get it. Yes, it is done earlier unless there's anything substantive and there was no

there's no substantive disagreement per se, but there is um you know we have there uh so At the last work session of the EDA, language was was agreed to in concept, but it wasn't drafted at that meeting. When uh they voted, they voted to approve the the draft that was in front of them with the changes that were orally made at the meeting. Um and then they reserved the right once they saw the language in print to um recall it and you know and and have another discussion. when they saw the language in print, there was some disagreement between um how to val what the market value would be of of a say uh of a house, what that what that means. Um with the EDA wishing to include fair market value in that terminology and with the city uh manager's office thinking that just market value without fair was the better approach. Um those two terms do have different meanings in um in real estate. Um, so, uh, it's not it's it is, um, it actually is substantive. So, um I guess what what I'm recommending is that the EDA um if you if you go ahead and vote on this item with the wording the way the city manager has proposed it without the word fair in front of market, it's possible the EDA would not agree to that in which case um we'd have to bring it back to you or um risk not reaching an agreement. So, um, either side could go first theoretically, but, um, it might make sense to have this, um, debated at the EDA one last time and bring it to you clean.

And that's line 171. Okay. That sounds like not March 23rd. Then we should let the EDA discuss in early April and then we'll take it back. I think that would that'd be recommended. Okay. So, just for our knowledge, fair market value would would that imply like getting an appraisal or it might Yes. versus market value would not. I can't. What's the difference? I guess

um I can't say that I know. Um but others um and I did look it up to see but I haven't I haven't really looked at it. I do think the fair market value is I I've seen this defined uh you're the MBA but I've seen this defined as you know what a willing purchaser is willing to pay in the marketplace. Um it typically I think it does involve an appraisal and market value. I'm not really sure I'm not really sure what the difference is but um the people who disagree um disagree so they need to I think it needs another discussion. Okay. I guess I'd just like to be better informed if we have a pos if the city manager position is market value versus fair market value just to better understand why implications of that are for us and whether we should agree or not agree or hold.

Let me just a moment. I we don't need to I mean

okay I can um bring up an email from Wyatt. Okay. So, uh um so the way Wyatt described it is um a market value is a theoretical value rather than an actual salebased value. So I guess um market fair fair fair market value seems to be tied to comparables maybe as opposed to market value which is not tied to comparables. Um I'm sorry that's probably not so helpful but at any rate that's um that's what I get from why it's email. We do. Okay. I mean, I can see why the EDA would want fair market value. Seems more fair to actually know what the market, you know, determines value to be rather than us making up the number. Um, okay. Well, hopefully we have a good rationale for why we want market value,

especially since I was just looking it up. And fair market value is the theoretical one, while market value is the actual. So, the reverse of what you just said. So I think we need some clarification.

Okay. So probably not ready for March 23rd, I guess, is the conclusion either way. But did anyone else have comments on other things in MOA other than this? I just had one comment and it and it maybe gets to lines 169 through 183 and why 302 surely is treated differently than the other eight properties that comprise you know like the nine that we own and and I wasn't sure if the MOA should reflect somewhere right that the the reason the city contain like maintain so much control over the property is that the EDA was like the vehicle through which the city money and the city like grants were able

wasn't sure if that

were able to purchase the property and if that should be reflected somewhere and I don't know if 302 surely is different because it was actual EDA funds and not sort of a conduit. The EDA wasn't a conduit in the same way that it was with respect to the other eight properties. And so I would feel more comfortable if the MOA actually reflected the basis for why the city maintains so much control as to the eight generally and and why 302 is different as to the profits on any sale should the affordable housing you know or preservation covenants not sort of um play out that way. So that if there, you know, were, for example, a disagreement later, it's clear as to to why the properties are treated the way they are because of the way that the properties came into being using the funds that were kind of seated in the EDA for this express purpose.

Some more context on how we got to 302 Shirley and the purpose of the EDA for the other acquisitions. Yeah, I would agree with that. Make it clear. So Brendan Woodley has just joined us and he might be able to speak more to the market versus fair market conversation if we I guess before we lose Aaron's point. Um okay and and also maybe speak to the to to Shirley. I guess the question for that is if we add that to the MOA that feels like I mean it's important to add I don't think it substantly changes. No one disagrees on how we came about to these nine properties, but could it be in the staff report or does it need to be in the MOA or

would be comfortable if it were in the recital even or like just somewhere so that it's clear in the document itself as to kind of the basis for the terms of the agreement as set forth in the MOA? Okay. Would it make sense to include in there all of the addresses that are applicable now 302 being separate because there are others further on here it says if others are acquired maybe we just need to delineate between that was supposed to be in the exhibit. Yeah. Is it in the exhibit? Okay, that's correct.

The map is I think Can we scroll to the exhibit and where that is then? The MOA references an exhibit that was going to list all the current properties. It's just not attached to the work. Sorry, it's hard to hear you, Cindy. I was just noting that the MOA referenced an exhibit for the existing properties um that as addressed Miss Conny's point um but it was not attached on the work session.

So I think we can get that cleaned up since we have the other edits to do. Yes. Okay. Okay. So going back to fair market value versus market value. Brendan, do you have something to add to that point if you can hear us? Brendon, can you hear us?

Yeah, Dana was telling me she can't hear either in addition to Joe. So, okay. Well, since this is going to go back to the EDA, Don't want to hold things up at this moment. Okay, I just Googled it and AI gave me a really good answer. So, what did AI tell you?

There are four things that are different. In market value, it's an estimated price for which the property is exchanged. Fair value is the determination of the right price. Uh market value determination depends on supply and demand in an active market. But fair value it's not active in a market. It's just the advantages and disadvantages to both parties. Market value has a particular date of valuation. Fair value does not. Market value is between a willing buyer and seller but not specific. Fair value is between specific parties. So that may be the determination there.

Something else I looked up on fair market value is the real estate assessments. Uh Virginia is that they're they represent 100% of fair market value versus market value. So we do get that number annually. Market value is whenever there's a transaction and the EDA supports fair market value and city manager prefers market value. Okay. Well, let's follow back up on that as well as the other edit suggested. Yeah. Anything else on this one? Okay, thank you. Tricking alone permits. Welcome. Thank you for joining us. So, next we have uh the permit process improvements and the proposed fees changes. Uh Aikita Rousey is joining us along with John Russell and um Andy Young's Young will present. I am h having a tongue tied day today. So Andy will present.

Great. Uh thank you council for the opportunity to come speak with you all tonight. We wanted to provide some updates on um kind of our permit process assessment work as well as kind of our kind of roadmap going forward as well as uh talk about some potential permit fee changes that we would be proposing as part of this year's budget. So um as Jenny said we're joined by our building official John Russell and our zoning administrator Akisa Bruszie. So um we'll kind of work through the presentation and happy to kind of take any uh questions you all may have. So uh kind of hop through. So the the ne the next slide please. So um I think as you all are aware from the in the second half of 2025 we conducted a pretty extensive assessment of the city's permitting processes. So um had extensive uh outreach and collaboration with customers, multiple city departments, community stakeholders and neighboring jurisdictions. So the outcome of that was a a pretty hefty report, 70 plus pages long. Um we included that with uh with the staff report this evening. Um but it laid out a broad set of recommendations to us, 12 or 13 of them here on the slides, kind of in four buckets, right? um things that you know the city could do to improve customer service, make process improvements, um staff development and support and then technology enhancements kind of underpinning the the the whole effort. Um we shared what you know I shared we shared this with the gov ops uh committee in January as well as um the EDA and I think you know I think some of it was like a big avalanche of a whole bunch of stuff and then the you know we're all left with the question of well okay what what are you guys going to do about all of this and so so I think what tonight we want to kind of we've been putting some thought into kind of what

does 2026 look like for this you know kind of process improvement effort and it's kind of year one on a multi-year journey for us. But um Tay, if we could go to the next slide, please did you want to take the lead on this one or Sure, happy to.

Aita Rusie, zoning zoning administrator. Um thanks for having us. Um so the uh permit assessment report that came out in January had a great set of recommendations and ideas. Um first of all, we'd like to say thank you for city council and leadership support on that assessment. and it's started this momentum and this energy around permit process improvements that staff has been really energized and very excited about implementing moving forward. Um and so the the recommendations of that staff report um I mean the the assessment report we have a plan to implement and we're going to start um in the early summer by establishing a interdep departmental task force um which includes uh representatives from planning, zoning, permits, building safety and DPW. Those are the key stakeholders in the permitting workflow. So we think representation from each of those groups would be very meaningful in implementing the recommendations from that assessment. Um and that group is going to be responsible for um translating the recommendations out of that assessment into an actionable plan and then we're going to take it from there um to implement it and some of the uh quick win big impact items Andy has on his slides here. Website improvements uh targeted website improvements, customer service. Uh we'd like to improve customer satisfaction by modernizing and improving our permit processes, making it more efficient and easy to navigate for customers. Um targeted process improvements in include improvements and uh modernizing the certificate of occupancy process, eliminating the smart meetings. Um and structuring things like pre and postsubmission meetings. Um I think Andy, I might let you talk about the permanent counter reconfiguration.

Sure. Yeah. So, um I think building off of some of the things that Kea was talking about. So, one of the things you'll see in the budget that's coming to you all next week is some structural changes to uh to allow us to kind of bring some um kind of call it, you know, leadership, you know, and and focus on kind of this permit process assessment work. So, we won't be proposing adding any positions to the city, you know, to do this. We're we're you know trying to get creative about shift shifting purpose and focus um with the resources we have. Um we'll have more to share with you. We haven't met with the the department staff which we're going to do this week and so we'll have some more to share next week on that. I think from a technology strategy standpoint, you know, city intends to issue an RFP for its enterprise resource platform in 2026 and that'll include the enhancement or replacement of our permit processing kind of subplatform for that. Um, and we'll be framing that kind of effort as a as a a way where we could kind of do it all in or do a separate award for a for a new permit processing platform. So the focus for the team on the technology side in FY26 or in 2026 is going to be on defining our requirements. What exactly do we want this thing to do for us? And then um and then the acquisition activities to do that. So 2027 would be where we're doing configuration and eventual uh implementation. I think is a key to mention website improvements. The city is about to roll out an entirely new city website that's coming here in the next few weeks. Um, I think specific to the permit process work, you know, we're talking about some quick quick fix content cleanup probably by the summer and then, you know, um, looking at an overhaul of the overall format kind of late in the year, early 2027.

Andy, if I can jump in because I think your next section is on the fees that are being proposed, but on this body of work. So, thank you for kind of chunking into like what do we think is reasonable for 2026. I think GovOps has had a couple opportunities to dig into this and we've talked about a lot. So, I appreciate the update on it. Um, what I would suggest is that for the 2026 work though, even even if not kind of the full multi-year effort, still kind of being able to find like what does success look like at the end of 2026? What are we going to hold ourselves accountable to? Is it better satisfaction from customers? Is it cycle time? Is it the number of permits that we, you know, I don't know what the right metrics are, but for this body of work, like how do we know whether we're doing the right things and moving the needle? being able to target some sort of goals I guess for this work.

Okay. I don't if that's reasonable to do. Um obviously we should have some goals overall for the overall effort but for this you know year one of the of the multi-year effort it would be nice to kind of know whether we're on track to improve the overall process.

So so I we'll you know definitely take that feedback. I think um when we look at kind of the the input from our customers as part of the assessment you know a lot of it's around you know I think most of it I would say is around um clarity and communication right and so I think it points to customer satisfaction and and so I think we can take that back as far as how do we capture that and measure that over time I think some of the other things um cycle time and the others I think some of the feedback or the the the data that that consultants collected is the city's actually performs pretty well from a cycles time standpoint compared to other jurisdictions and so um so so I think kind of what what our focus needs to be on that customer experience piece right you know clarity of what I need to submit kind of understanding where things are you know and trying to do some targeted things to to improve that right and I think kind of what we've laid out here some of it's foundational that you need to do to be able to kind of build up you know future capabilities and then some of it is things I think people can see sooner. So, um Nikita talked about the targeted process improvements. You think about the certificate of occupancy process, there's like six different entities within the city that all weigh in on that. It can be a it can be a chaotic and messy process. We've had a team already starting to look at this. we've kind of piloted kind of um with with one or two of the recent projects trying to trying to provide some clarity there that I think we can build on. The smart elimination of the smart meetings is a is a a step that I think that our customers, you know, our permit applicants and the city staff will appreciate. It reduces everybody's workload.

Yes, I have a question about that one. Um, I've been around long enough that I remember when the smart meetings were added. And part of the reason they were added was not for the customers or for the staff, but for the neighbors. And were neighbors included in this decision? You're only a neighbor once or twice next to a construction project. So, I don't want to lose that. It may slow things down, but I think it's is is there still an opportunity for neighbor concern who are worried about storm water on their property because SMRT hasn't happened? Like I see through here that why it slows things down, but I think that was on purpose.

So I think with the with the the SMRT meetings that it's in the code actually, so this would be one of the things later in the year that we would come back to you all and I think that those kind of points we can talk about. The um reality is we've set up a process that kind of gives the appearance of there's some sort of approval when it's an administrative function that there really isn't a a neighbor really can't you know change the outcome of things. Now, it doesn't where I think there can be some discussion is like providing better information and and letting people know what's going on and and um so I think that's those are some of the things that we can talk about, but I think I don't think it's performed kind of the intent that it was really originally set up to be.

Sounds like neighbors think they're being consulted and really we're just trying to inform them. Right. Right. And then it adds one or two months to the process and costs thousands of dollars. It's, you know, um, okay, point taken. I think that, that would be something we would need to kind of talk about some more, but we can't, it sounds like it would be an ordinance change to take that out. Correct. Yes. Council will have a chance to weigh in again later on. That's correct,

Yeah. I was going to say I had a question about that one too and so I'm happy to save the question or conversation for later but I would like you know when we come back to understand more about right what was the point in originally including them what were they supposed to achieve why haven't they been achieving their purpose where have they been beneficial and how are we going to capture the benefits of having others input and sort of lived experience next to the water issues for example um in in the in that review so that we don't sort of end up in a reactive posture as opposed to proactively addressing storm water issues that we know exist around the city. Understood.

I think that's why going back to my original comment is like how do we know we're successful? Like what are the metrics we care about? Like do each one of these things improve customer satisfaction? Do they improve cycle time? Do they improve both? You know, whatever we think we're holding ourselves to. I think that should be the lens that we decide which one of these things we take on or all of them. And the communication I think is very critical. We've talked about pushing communication to people, pushing it out, not make not just making it available for them if they come because they'll often be there. Um to Letty's point about the the targets though, I would like to make sure that we don't get caught up by making our targets too too low. Let's push ourselves. Let's because you you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Um, I worry about Parkinson's law coming in where basically the effort will fill the amount of time available. So, let's let's see what we can do to push things a little bit. If if we push it a little bit and then we're, you know, a week later, two weeks later, at least we tried. Let's go for it. Um, let's make sure that those goals include stretch goals that you're actually targeting. And if you hit your basic goal but not the stretch goal, great. Um, so let's make sure we're doing that and pushing out. It's um I do have some process questions, but I can keep those with uh the fees because there's some confusion in my mind from who the different entities are that we're talking to. A lot of this seems to be targeted towards the contractors community, which is, I'm sure, most of the people coming in for permits, but there's also that homeowner community as well. So, there's some pieces to that. I kind of just threw three different comments into one paragraph, so you're going to have to do a little parsing.

Uh, Mayor, if I if I may, and I'm sorry, you're never going to get through this. No, no, this is an important slide, so please. Yeah, go ahead.

Um, but as the mayor said, um, in terms of what, you know, how are we going to measure that we achieve what we want to achieve? And you talked a lot about customer service, do we, so when that certificate of occupancy is granted, do we ever do sort of a follow-up survey with um, you know, whether it's a builder or a homeowner, what have you, to say, you know, maybe it's just a Google form that can say, hey, was did was this a timely process? were we comm you know just it doesn't even have to be anything. It could just be like a simple Google form that's that's emailed out once the once they're they're in um you know how did this process go and you know if we haven't done it before we could at least start and then you know we could um and you know you could just basically do on a scale from one to five so you could make it very um easy to to look look at our how our our scores are improving every year.

Um but that might be something that we could think about. I really like that idea versus having to hire a consultant every five years to assess our process. Just make it an ongoing kind of cultural thing that we want to hear your feedback at the end of the process. And we've all gotten them from 16. We get about 1,600 of them a day from everything we do.

Yeah. And ask for that feedback proactively versus right now we get a lot of when things are not going well, they escalate to us and we hear feedback that way. Right. So, okay. Anything else before we move on to the fee part of this? So the last So the last piece, you know, trying to kind of tackle this from a number of different angles. Um, one of the proposed projects in the CIP will be the reconfiguration of some spaces here at city hall. And, um, you know, the assessment talked about making some improvements at the permit counter to present kind of from a customer standpoint a little differently. And so, uh, that'll be something for your all's kind of consideration here in the coming couple months. Okay, next slide. So, I want to talk a little bit about permit fees this evening. So, um permit fees are embedded in the city code in chapter 15, you know, and they're kind of, you know, um kind of lumped into two main categories for what we call development services, things like bu building safety, planning and zoning, as well as public works, which engineering and urban forestry. Um this is how we facilitate oversight of construction activities in the city. things like residential and commercial construction, grading plans and site plans and then work in the city's right of way. So you see the reference picture on the right that John provided me, right? But primary purpose of kind of this work that we do is to keep you know our residents and businesses here in the city here safe, right? Um, so the kind of from from a permit fees standpoint, the last set of changes we made to the city's permit fees were part of the FY207 budget a decade ago. Next slide. So, um, so we're proposing to make some changes. So, so kind of the rationale for the the changes before you this evening, you know, our fees have not kept pace with increasing costs since 2016. And there's a couple reference points on the right side of the slide.

You know, the change in the uh DC area consumer price index since 2016 was 30%. And the change in city salary since 26 has been 39%. And when you think about kind of this function for the city, you know, it's mostly a people kind of function, right? And so um all that contributes to you know why we want to kind of in increase the permit fees is to help improve the city's what we call cost recovery. So um reducing the reliance on the general fund you know for the financial stability of our permitting services and have development pay for development basically right the the folks that are using the services pay for it. Um and by doing this it helps us maintain our organizational capacity. So, um, oversight for the ongoing and upcoming development activities, you know, um, the big things you see or or we're about to see in the city like the Westfall Senior project, the Quinn project that's upcoming, as well as a whole boatload of kind of tenant fitouts and single family home construction that continues to go around in the city today. and all of that kind of being our base work, also having given us the bandwidth to support, you know, this process modernization and customer service enhancements that we're talking about tonight. So, we're proposing a baseline increase to most of the permit fees in the city. And we kind of laid out a couple examples down here below of kind of some of the big drivers of kind of permit fee costs in the city. So, you know, we have a per square foot um uh building permit fee. We have electrical circuit fees and piping fees that kind of contribute to kind of the overall costs of permit fees for projects. Um it's it's a 35% increase, you know, um to to you know some of these fees which is substantial and I think we understand that. Next slide. On the flip side of that, we've tried,

you know, the team's gone through the the schedule and tried to target some fee reductions um to be more balanced and equitable, particularly when it's compared to the level of effort that we've got to put in for some things. And so, highlighted a couple of them here on the slide for you. Um we do what's called an administrative certificate of occupancy and it's when a business or ownership ch business name or an ownership change or you know a minor change of use. So the uh trying to reduce that fee from $200 to $50 a town h minor site plan amendments a town like you putting a deck on a townhouse that requires a site plan you know we're trying to simplify that make that less expensive from 1,100 to 200 and then things like temporary sign fees. The temporary sign fee right now is $165. That might be more than the sign itself. So, um, we're proposing to reduce that to $75, which we think supports businesses and short-term promotions. Next slide. So, how does this So, so if you look at the fee schedule, it's this long list of all these different kind of fees and like how does that actually translate into an actual project? And so one of the things John and his team did was come up with five example projects for us to be able to illustrate the total impact of the fee fees u fee changes being proposed. And so we kind of work our way from small to large. And so the ones on the small project sheet here are for a residential furnace replacement, a residential 200 square foot deck, and then a residential addition of two floors that are 300 square feet each. And you can see kind of the changes, you know, from 36 to 29%. And if you think back to the changes we were talking about on the previous slides, you get a mix of them on each project and that gives you your differences. Next slide. So then on um

so then on the two larger projects, so the left one is a a residential or a restaurant buildout. So that's a commercial. That's the one commercial project example that we've got. And then the the one on the right is a single family dwelling, the 6,000 square foot house that you see being built in the city today. So, and a, you know, 34% change with the restaurant buildout and a 29% change with the single family dwelling. So, then the next question is like, well, okay, how does this compare to our neighbors? I think this is a favorite question I feel like council asks us since we're trying to trying to look at in particular our two neighboring jurisdictions that you know deal with the same a lot of the same types of work and things that we do here in the city. Um but it's kind of tricky. So the approaching approaches to permit fees vary widely between jurisdictions. You can't go look at Arlington County, Fairfax County or Prince William County and and look at their list and our list and you know the the fee structures in every jurisdiction seems to be different in both the structure, the different rates they charge and then what I would say is their cost recovery strategy. You know, different jurisdictions can make decisions about how much of that cost they want to kind of charge to the applicants versus their general fund picks up. Um and what we see is some uh cross subsidization. They'll incentivize certain activities over others and that'll be reflected in their fees. And so um in most cases I think permitting activities are usually supported through multiple streams, the general fund and fee collections for example. So we wanted to walk through um examples for Arlington and Fairfax counties right next door. And so this is a bit of an eye chart. Hopefully everybody got to see it a little bit and I had a table in the staff report we can talk about. Um,

but these are the same three small projects we were talking about it a minute ago. And so the blue and the dark blue and the orange or the current and proposed fees for the city and then the green and the light blue are Arlington and Fairfax County respectively. So you can see for the small project um we're half of what Arlington County would be and kind of you know a little more expensive than Fairfax County. The 200 square foot deck were slightly over kind of the others. And then on the residential addition it's interesting we're a lot less expensive than Arlington County but we're significantly more than what Fairfax County charges for the same project. Andy, can I ask you a question about So why um would we use Fairfax instead of Alexandria City as I'm just curious like to me in my head we're more like Alexander City than we are Fairfax County.

So we did we we I'm not trying to put you on spot. No, no, no. So we've we've talked about this, right? We looked at you know Arlington County is one of the ones we tried to do. their structure is completely different than ours and they go off of project costs and so we got a little hung up on making the comparison with Alexandria. um something we could kind of work on a little bit more, but that's part of the reason

I just my point is that, you know, Fairfax is so huge, right? So huge. And I'm just thinking, you know, in terms of you all are the experts on this, but I'm just thinking that, you know, in terms of just development, all this, I feel like we're closer just our our actual city is closer in line with Arlington and Alexander than Fairfax. I don't know. I don't know. I just I'm wondering if that's why the discrepancy to me were so different than Fairfax.

So I'll make a point on the next slide about the residential examples, right? So you see that Fairfax's residential costs are less than ours. So when you look at the large projects, right? Um the restaurant buildout were less expensive than Arlington and Fairfax County. Um close, you know, in the ballpark of Fairfax County. But again on the on the single large single family dwelling you can see again we're less expensive than Arlington and then Fairfax County is doing something else and and this I think you know council member DS I think is part of your point is like Fairfax County particularly from a residential standpoint might be a different animal and they might be making different decisions about how they're you know

subsidizing that work. Yeah. And I'm just wondering, I'm sure everyone saw it on the news, but that there um now um because of the whole that one threetory edition um I don't know if you all saw that on the news, but when there was the threetory edition right next to the little Cape Cod and they were talking about how that they're they have not really been on top of that with residential builds and they're getting way too tall and now maybe they're going to I I don't know, maybe there's just the residential piece of that at Fairfax. I don't know, maybe it needs some finetuning or something. But

well, what I would ask is, do we have some idea of the level of technology usage within Arlington and Fairfax? I know Arlington recently within the last three, four years, completely replaced their permitting system. Um, finally implemented it. Uh, I know the person who was in charge of that. So they may have done that and then have not yet gotten to the point of saying, "Oh, now we need to adjust our permits to match what it actually costs." Fairfax may have been past that point. I wouldn't be surprised if they're heavily automated on a lot of things just because they've they're big and they have the money to put in a system. Um so I'd be curious where they stand in that because eventually we bring in new technology our c even though we are very heavily um human driven there might be some savings that happen and you know three years from now we might be looking at this and saying oh well we're overcharging. Um I'm just wondering whether Fairfax has passed that point. I don't know. I I I'm I'm a little skeptical to that that it's that that it's driving that kind of difference, but it's

it is an extreme difference. Yeah. Let's let's next slide, please.

So, um wanted to talk about our building safety team, John's team, for a minute. Brag up brag on them a little bit. So, so our current staffing for that team is 12 and that's with an administrative assistant we're sharing with some of the other teams. It's down from a peak staffing of 14 in 2023. Um, and we've looked back over the last 10 years. I went through every budget book from this year back to 2016. And we've averaged a staff of 10 kind of with this department kind of over that past decade. Um, we put together a strong collection of uh technical talent. So, uh, our team including John here, we have three master code professionals and certified building officials kind of on our staff. most jurisdictions, you know, are lucky to have one, right? Um, this is part of the this is a primary reason why we've been able to handle the the kind of work and the level of and volume of work that we've had going on in the city over the last five plus years. City's also um received an updated building code effectiveness rating with the insurance safety organization in 2025. So this rating is used as kind of advisory information for insurance underwriting and can have an effect on um property insurance policies and rates. So our team received the highest ratings for a locality in the state of resident of state of Virginia for both residential and commercial properties. So um you know we've got uh we've got a lot of good folks. We've got a lot of good work going on. We've got process work and things we need to do, but we've got a collection of talent that we think uh um critical kind of for our mission, you know, both today and going forward.

And congrats to the employee of the year, Del Raj, on your team. Yes. Yeah. So, uh next slide.

Um so, permit free revenue, how does this translate into the money we collect? And so this is the the information. This is kind of just building permit. You start talking fees and which you know the different departments and things, but when it comes to kind of like building safety, building permit fees, this these are the fees we've collected kind of since 2019. And you know, it varies every year, right? you know, and particularly with some of the activity that we've had going on in the city over the last five plus years, but it's um kind of influenced by both the basic economic conditions going on, you know, in economic development activity in the city, the pace of major development projects, and then the fee rates, which we're we're talking about this evening. So, in this this chart, the dark blue is kind of our base level, what we call our base level activity in the city. The green is from the major project developments kind of over the years. And then um and projecting the future is always an adventure, but we've tried to kind of lay out kind of um some estimates going forward. And this this projects one uh mid-rise mixeduse project every two years beginning in FY28, you know, and we can kind of debate whether that's the right amount or not, but that's what we've kind of laid out here. um kind of from a development outlook standpoint, you know, we've still got a lot of tenant fit out work going in the in the you know, active kind of commercial projects in the city. The the next big development for Quinn is slated to begin here in 2026. Um so, you know, that that's that's kind of what we've got for that. So, we ended FY25 with $2.7 million in the city's permit fee reserve and we'll continue to draw down on that over the next several years. um how much so is dependent on kind of what what actually kind of happens you know um in 2026 and beyond. So I think we'll we'll be continuing to

monitoring the workload and efficiency opportunities for ways to kind of reduce our costs and you know and kind of live within our means. Um like I mentioned earlier we've already drawn down and not backfilled two positions since 2023. So that you know John's kind of been taking some of that proact those proactive steps. So we'll continue to ask those questions as we go forward. Um next question or next slide please. So um so the schedule so um we talked uh at shared this information with the EDA at their March 10th meeting so last week. So um they were largely supportive of the plan we laid out like I was pleasantly you know pleased with that. Um there were two points of discussion that I would note. So, um, one of the questions we got asked is, will these higher fees, uh, deter business activity? And what we, what we kind of shared from the assessment work that we did last fall was the the feedback that we got through those discussions was um, clarity and speed of the process were more important than costs to the customer base. So, um, so fees matter, right? But when they talk about kind of what priorities are that that is what we heard through those those interviews. The second uh I think topic that came up is you know should the city be doing something to provide relief for small businesses relocating within the city and um talked about examples of of we've done some of that with b recent special exception projects and should we think about doing something like that going forward and I thought that was an interesting point that that was brought up. That was the economic development authority discussion last week. Um slated to go to the Chamber of Commerce's legislative committee next Monday. So we'll we'll share this information with them and then um pending your all's feedback this evening, we'll we'll continue talking

about this in the the budget discussions uh in the next couple of months. Next slide. So, our focus for 2026 is working on our process improvements and we talked about that earlier in the discussion. Um, we will be proposing fee changes as part of the FY27 budget. You know, this is a baseline increase in most permit fees. We've got t a list of targeted fees that will be proposing to be reduced. And our real goal here is to cover the costs of the permitting function of the city. And I think for me most one of the most important things is um we want to incorporate an annual review of these fees going forward. Doesn't necessarily mean it would be a set of increases every single year, but um I don't think we want to go a decade before we take a look at this again. So that'll be something we'll work into our annual budget process going forward. So with that, John and Akita and I would be happy to take any questions you all have.

Great. Okay. Thank you for that report. I'm glad to hear that you're thinking of proactively addressing fees on an ongoing basis so we're not doing a big jump for 10 years. But I'm sure we have questions and comments. Dave,

sure. Thanks a lot. Um, and thanks for working on all this. Um, number one, I think in terms of process, I'd like to see a process where a project comes in, it's tagged, and it automatically goes through the process. Um what occurred all too often was documents would sit and the transfer from one office to another was very rugged to say the least. So I'm interested in in a um in an understandable kind of process that we actually enforce that the thing doesn't sit that it moves and that the applicants are informed um when each step is occurs and it's done proactively rather than waiting for the person to say well where is this where is that so it's a more proactive, smooth diagram type process that that will help with people's expectations.

On that point, I literally just talked about the Domino pizza tracker. Like, you know, when you order pizza online, you can see the status, you've ordered your pizza, now they're putting the toppings on, now it's in the oven, now it's getting delivered. Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The more like transformative

version of that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, second point I'd make, um, is, um, I'd like to see the collection of fees, um, kind of put on either hypothetical or real world projects so that we can see what is the impact. And I'm I'm particularly interested in making sure that for large projects, whether they be large residential, you know, um townhouse projects or large mixeduse projects, that they're actually paying consistent with what their costs are. um so that we're not engaged in accidentally subsidizing the big projects at the cost of the smaller projects or taxpayers paying more than they should. So the three points I guess I'm making is number one the tracking um and that reflects a very smooth process. Secondly, um run these through a couple either hypotheticals or existing projects that we've seen. What would be the impacts? And third, making sure that we're not subsidizing large projects. Um and finally, fourth, the safety issue. Um, that's one where I want to really make sure particularly on large projects that um there's nothing and it's not at odds with what I'm saying, but I want to underscore that the safety element of this um frankly needs all the time and money that that it deserves to have. So even in as I'm interested in speed, I'm not interested in degrading in any way fundamental safety particularly for large buildings. I mean you're talking

about now what 18 stories at the senior project going on. I mean that that's the kind of thing that if anything were to happen five or 10 years from now, there would be serious questions about whether we invested enough time and expertise in safety. So I just want to make sure and that ought to be paid for by the people coming in and doing the projects. So that would be the fourth point I'd make. Thanks,

Mayor Beth. Um, just to the permit reserve and the permit staff and this is sort of like a historical budget comment. Many years when we first started ramping up and building the West End, there was conversation about increasing your staff because we weren't able to do that. Oh, okay. Um, I was going to say it followed you kept the staff the same, but now you've reduced the staff. Well, we added throughout the years we had two other positions and we actually did not back those positions. So that now that development were not back positions but they were built before development. Got it.

So it's a cost savings now because we don't need that. Yes. But the electrical and to JD Martin as our fire protection engineer he's a he came from Arlington he's 40 years I stand behind these guys% due

oh I am not even on I just got a loud voice so probably don't even need the mic. But we've got the great staff for the area. And I think the buildings, I don't think we can get any safer with the reviews we're doing. Uh right now JD alone with the sprinkler and the fire alarm for the senior building is on like his seventh review. That's how bad it was. Uh we're tackling it, but the issue we hit is we got to make sure that we maintain the staff without going into general reserve. We do not want to use the general fund or the reserve to fund these positions. So, we're looking for cost recovery to maintain what we have for these big projects. The smaller houses sometimes they can be just as complicated. We got we got Matt Marion who is our structural engineer. He he catches so many things. It's I don't want to bore everybody with the details of way cash as far as like wind load and bracing and there's various things but we can't you can't put a price on the the knowledge that they have. So it is is very important to maintain what we we have going forward and this goes back to even Bob Young back in the day I don't know who remembers when Bob was yelling about transparency. Uh we've been trying we're really trying to get to the point where the public can see their permit, their plan review and their inspection. Currently right now we came up with a me a method of using Excel spreadsheet. Soon as the permit is issued from the counter to review, we track it internally. The customer has to call the permit office and say, "Where is my plan?"

The permit office will tell them, "It's with this reviewer being reviewed." That's that's kind of not acceptable in today's day and age. We're paper and pencil still. And this goes back to before COVID, we were paper and pencil. We're trying to find a way now to get caught up with like Fairfax and Arlington. They implemented systems that show you in real time where your inspections are, where your plan review is in the system. That's what we need. That's what I'm after. And I'm passionate about it because something even like I said 5 10 years ago with Bob trying to get these things started. It's hard. It does take a lot for a city to implement a new system like this,

right? I'm not saying that it's something we can get or have by 2026, 27. Uh, but I would love to see it. I would love to, you know, tomorrow is what I'm pushing for, but we know we got to take these steps to make sure we get the right process. We don't want to jump and do something wrong. That's that would be the worst case. Absolutely. Is put the public through something that doesn't work. Right.

So, we're doing the RFPs, we're looking at various vendors for the technology side, but beyond the technology side, we've got to make sure that we're doing the cost recovery. And that's where we're 10 years behind. And like Andy said, I I don't want to do this again. I don't want to wait another five years or 10 years and run everybody through this exercise. If we can do this on a continuous basis and stay with the market, that would be phenomenal. Be great.

I think the timing is right to really kind of invest in our process while we are through hopefully the big hump of the big projects. It's really a good time to look at how we can improve our processes so we're well, you know, set up for the future. The thing I would caution is I know that a lot of the feedback is people value kind of the personal hightouch. I I would like this to be an and and not an or, right? So we can be personal and be efficient and transparent and have systems. I don't want to swing too far and say, "Well, we're just going to have a system and then you can't call the office and ask questions too, right? So finding that happy balance where we are a small city. We value small businesses. We value that interpersonal interaction, but we're going to have a very transparent system should you want to self-service and be able to use the pizza tracker to know where your pizza is."

Exactly. We do not want to push somebody to a kiosk and say that you want to know where your plans are, go type in your permit number in the kiosk. We don't want that. We want people to be able to, especially homeowners to call us and have these discussions, but we want it to where the contractors, the general contractors we work with every day, they know the system. And one of the issues we hit, like I said, we created a spreadsheet behind the scenes to track things. Even like small projects, we put an S on top of the plans so that we know that stands for simple. So when they come into the queue, we automatically jump on them and get them back out the door. So we know that they're small projects while we're working on the reserve or the senior building or the Quinn building so that we don't get bogged down for six weeks of a review and somebody's deck is sitting there waiting for that. So we do have a method, but it's just not transparent because our technology isn't there yet. And that's where the whole fee increase comes into play to get us to help us help us get that new technology.

Justine. Oh. Oh, you finish. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Oh, sorry. 11. No. Uh, for all the demands, uh, we've got everybody's broken into disciplines. We've got electrical, we've got plumbing, we've got gas, we got structural engineer, I got fire protection engineer. Uh we've got all the disciplines for underneath the building official to make sure that that discipline has a perfect person in it.

Yes. Uh, I was going to say several years ago, my predecessor, uh, Doug, uh, he tried to do third party, and we're paying for that today. We've got one condo building with the wrong sprinkler heads in it. Uh, I've got one building when what, three years ago, I had to condemn half the building because there was a structural issue, right? I don't want I don't ever want to see that. That that's what I'm not I'm definitely not after that. Okay. And then my second question is just about the permit reserve and that's you said there's two million 2 we ended FY25 uh with a 2.7 million

2.7 million in there um and that is money that has been collected over the course of several years and is being spent as those permits are done on those larger small or small buildings. That's correct. Right. Okay. So that 2.7 you said is going to go down Is there a minimum amount that we keep in the permit reserve? No, I don't I don't think Okay. You know, um the scenarios of kind of how quickly we burn down that vary quite a bit. Okay. Right. Like so um we're we're we're good for you know the next couple of years like the

but part of like increasing the fee rates allows us to kind of extend that. That's part of the reason we're having that conversation. Okay. Thank you. along those lines while we're on that point because one of my questions is whether we should have a policy on how much we keep in the permit fee reserve a minimum and a maximum because I know that obviously it's it's funding our permit team but I don't know whether we've ever taken that up in budget finance is actually having a a min or max we seem to have policies around all the other

yeah I do remember talking about it when we were going to ramp it up really high but I don't remember if there's a question for budget Okay. Are you done? Okay. Justine,

do we have information as to um like how long it takes because we're looking at the um comparison between Arlington, Fairfax, False Church for pricing. But, you know, one thing could be that it takes Fairfax, you know, 10 weeks to review a deck, but it takes False Church two weeks to review a deck. Or maybe it's the other way around. Maybe it's it takes Fairfax two weeks to review a deck and it's really really quick and simple. And so I was just wondering about that timeline also as another metric for comparison. We do have a comparison on that and Arlington they try to do 10 uh 10 days for anything residential small projects and we're 5 to 10. We try to do the 5 to 10 days with decks also.

Okay. And then it depends on the project. When you get into commercial it's hard to put a number. Uh we go four to six weeks and that's in line with Arlington. Okay. And I can't speak on behalf of Fairfax. I know Alexandria they're also because I worked in Alexandria. They're also they do like a four to eight weeks. It's kind of like that's what we talked about like comparisons. Everybody's a little bit different. We do the levy which is 2% with the state and for some reason Alexandria they do a 1.9 which I don't know how they can pull that off but then they also charge the fees based on what the contractor tells them the cost of the project is. Okay.

I even when I was working there it didn't work. Yeah. But they they the plan reviewers have so many issues with it. We use uh basis as far as like square footage, inspectable square feet, so we have a more realistic expectation what the fee is going to be. You said 4 to 8 weeks in Alexandria for what was it? Uh just like small commercial. Small commercial. Yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't say small commercial. Okay, we're just checking. Um okay, so that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, you know, if um it's funny looking at like how much it cost, you know, Fairfax is so much lower for some of this stuff.

Well, there's they're subsidized for the residential through their commercial. Uh they've got projects that we'll never see as far as like they've got the data centers, they've got the big sh uh shipping and storage container uh yards, uh they've got the hospitals, the airports, uh things like Tyson's. we we will never be able to compete with that magnitude of commercial that they use to offset their residential. Okay. So that's it's just a totally different ballpark. So in that case um Arlington is a much better comparison to us

knowing yeah knowing the matrix and knowing people that work there and being able to reach out to Shriar we were able to get the information and find out more realistic our fees and our schedule uh has been based and developed through the years in line with Arlington. Okay. Uh Doug came from Arlington so he took brought the fee schedule with him. So that's how we tied in with Arlington better, right? Okay. Um and then I guess the final thing is uh so we do this co um we do the cost update. Um like are we we're going to index this for inflation or are we just going to like is this something that we just need? It's a twofold. Okay.

For us today uh which is unfortunate it took this long to get here. It brought the inflation part into it that we're so far behind that we need to get caught up to the point where we can maintain a recovery. But at the same time, when we did the fee assess, the permanent assessment, we also were behind the technology. So, we have to spend on the technology part and implementing training for staff to get us to where we're, you know, current with the other jurisdictions. But we also have the part where we're so far behind as far as cost with the other jurisdictions. So it kind of it's hitting us on both sides.

It's it's a one one situation single situation but with two sides coming at us. I guess I what I'm concerned about is that you know 10 years from now we're also like we didn't adjust the fees and then we're having these sorts of problems again. Yeah. So I think the intent going forward is that we would do an annual review of this similar to what you know so if you go back three or four years we weren't updating our sewer fees and other things the same way. And so um now that's part of the annual kind of package you all get you know as part of the budget process. And so our intent would be to do that

bring this now whether it's just CPI or it's something else. I mean, I think that's we would work through that and present something to you, but uh but the intent is for that to be a regular process going forward. Okay. Yeah. Or like whatever staff like increase in cost for staff would be the increase in cost for this program. Okay. Thank you,

Art. We'll come back this way. Um, first off, I want to say after you uh brought that report to GovOps, looking at the current process, um, it's kind of the definition. It gave me a headache looking at it. It was quite the presentation. So, I'm really looking forward to the new process, simplified process. Um, I'm excited to to see that at the end of the year. Um what I I'm going to get into the category, but I I for also the other thing I wanted to say about the fee the size of the fee increase is that when you start looking at everything else over a 10-year span and the accumulative uh interest of all rates, uh 35 actually is a little bit low over 10 over the last 10 years. So, um I don't think that number is really out of line, but I would say every time you talk about the fair increase, I would use the term or something similar 10-year catchup.

Something to make it very clear. This is a 10-year catchup. It's not one year increase. It's 10 years. And I think that'll really help

short change complaints. Um the so I took a look at the fees that you have and the proposed fee schedule and part of this is me as a layman looking at this. So I've got some questions on it and some of them are just weird like work without permit. How do you charge a permit fee for work without permit when it's in the definition without permit? There's no permit. So how do you charge a permit fee? That was weird. The stop work order uh by its definition is what we're doing is a stop work order is if I go out and somebody's putting addition on their house and we catch them without a permit we placard the house or the restaurant and when they come back to apply for their permit that fee is attached on top of the permit

fee for doing it without it. Yes. And there's two levels to that. If they don't respond in a reasonable time, the fee increases even further. And then at that point, it becomes a notice of violation and goes to court. All right. I just didn't understand it. That's okay. Um the other one is I saw there was an AAB fee in here that we're going to get rid of. I would hold off on that. Just anything related to the boards and commissions because council is taking a look at is playing to take a look at boards and commissions. So that may come back. I think you said it it's not being used, so I don't think there's any harm in leaving it for another year.

I don't think it has anything to do with the boards and discussions boards and commission discussion. So, it's a it's a dead fee that we've never charged and so I think the team was like, let's just get rid of it. Yeah, we found a few that we just haven't been utilizing.

Okay. So the the big thing I saw though, what confused me as a layman is I'm looking at from the perspective of you've got the contractors. I mentioned this earlier. You've got the contractors. They understand all these different pieces. I I was surprised the fees are per outlet box. That's that gets expensive fast. Um but from a homeowner perspective, this is confusing. So, if I'm a homeowner and I want to put up a fence, I I I think the fence fee actually went away. You were moved in the building fee and I'm not even sure what a fence is going to cost. Um, a a deck, same thing. How how as a homeowner am I going to know very simply and concisely what one, what the fees are, and two, um, what needs a fee? Your your example included a residential furnace replacement.

I had no idea you needed a permit to do that. And I have a feeling 80% of the furnaces in the city that are getting replaced are not getting permitted. And that was a lot of our stop work orders in the past couple years. Uh because you know there's you see a company out there with a furnace laying in the front yard and you you knock on the door and like hey y'all got your permit. and the contractor. It's it's ultimately up to the contractor that does the work to know better.

And that's what we're after. That's why the fees gone up for from $50 to $200 for the stop work order because $50 in today's market when a furnace went from $3,000 to $19,000 for an install on some of these furnaces. Now it's $50. They don't care. Yeah. So, I think some of these like, and this is a great example where we've got to be incredibly fast with them. Um, because that furnace may be getting replaced because furnace died, families without heat, they're trying to get them heat. We don't want to be holding it up. It should be like, boom, you've got your permit, go. You've got

We do allow that uh for emergencies, not inconveniences, but for emergencies where it's like a cold night and your furnace is out. Yeah. uh you're allowed to do the work before the permit as long as the next business day you come to the city hall or go online and apply for the permit. You can go ahead and do the work ahead of the permit. And I will not stop anybody from doing that. It's we just had an elevator situation where they started work almost two weeks before they finally got their permit. All right. The homeowners to to me as a homeowner, I had no idea. I think there's pieces to that like there's there needs to be more outreach

and I would I would love to do that. It's I think that's going to tie in with our website and if there's something I could do further, I would I would love to entertain that conversation. Yeah, I I'm I'm pretty sure I have violated these just because I got the contractor. Um similar to like the compost thing like here's what goes in compost bins. Maybe it's like here's the type of work that needs permits. Just very simple.

I don't want to don't want to derail what we're doing here today, but that's something like it would my thought on that in the past without going too far onto a sidebar was the local paper having to ask the building official or ask DPW and have people send in questions that we could put in the paper to where everybody can read the answer and makes everybody more aware in the community. something anything like that even if it's on the website and I think the website and the way the website interacts with search and AI I think is also very important people are now going to be asking do I need a permit and we should be able to have it

that information should be out there and the AI should be learning it and embracing it. Um, so my my last question is just real quick. You mentioned you've got the specialties on the staff. What happens when there's a transition of a staff member? Somebody leaves, you're hiring somebody new. How do you deal with that gap in the skill set? If that's a really skilled person in electrical, for instance,

we haven't hit we have hit the electrical one. I haven't hit the fire protection engineer yet or the structural engineer. Those give me those keep me up at night because I can't fill those. When the electrical like with the electrical engineer doing the plan review, we had Steve Hurer and before when Steve retired, we brought in Gary Williams, but during that gap, we kept Steve Haler on as a part-time employee until we were able to fill the gap. And there's several of us on staff that do hold the certifications. Being an MCP, I've got all the certifications across the board. I just don't have time to be that guy and do the work, but I can fill in for like tenant fit outs and stuff like that to help the staff, but it's just it's hard to do that on my level.

Yeah. But we were able to bring Steve and hold that position until we filled it. So, if we have turnover, we could be in a really bad spot. Yes. We're always one person away from an emergency. All right. And that's where I've through outreach I have created a network with other inspectors and other thirdparty companies to where if it push comes to shove to fill that gap I can reach out to local community and bring in that expertise for a couple weeks or a couple months wherever it takes. That's the challenge of being a small very challenge. Yes. And it's that's the part that keeps me up at night if something like that happens.

All right. That um I think that's all I had. Okay,

I don't have much. Just um thank you. Support the increases. uh you know, as you say that regardless of what neighboring jurisdictions are doing, what we're doing is um reflecting on our fees versus our practices and costs to our building safety team and what it is that we need to do to bring them into kind of to reconcile the disparity that currently exists to make sure that your team can do the work that it needs to do to keep, you know, structures safe. Um, and uh, yeah, hopefully going forward, I don't know how much this fee increase sort of encompasses the expertise of your staff, right? And the efficiency that comes with their expertise regardless of some of the inefficiencies that we have in like the process piece of things. And so I guess yearly going forward, it would just make sense, you know, to make sure that you're calibrating that and that if you were to lose, you know, a very experienced staff person that your fees are commensurate with like what the average

average person would be the market rate of the Yeah. Because we're getting the benefit of that expertise. Um and then having gone through we did a number of renovations was I was over across the street for different permits. I you know we have our I knew we needed a permit because it's like sitting on whatever the water heater is or anything else in that sort of closet. And I think just you know it's important for the public to recognize right permits they shouldn't think of permits as a nuisance. Permits are a public safety issue and they're getting the benefit of a very experienced public safety and building safety team when they come through the permit process because it isn't simply like the fee. It's the expertise that goes with it that you can have confidence in what's in your house and that it's done properly and that you're not going to have electrical fires behind the walls because you have people, you know, with the right expertise coming and making sure that like the ruffins and whatever else that you're looking at in those two visits are done properly. So, um, thank you again to your team and yeah, we can we can promote the permit process with the new fees knowing people are getting, you know, good value for it.

Thank you, Laura.

Uh, thank you so much. And I think I do agree that I I support the fee increases and I I feel that you know when you're talking about whether it's commercial or residential spending that kind of money in the end that that that's you know not so much of a you know I think what matters more to people is that great customer service you know so I'll give you an example and I I think I've said this maybe in Gov Ops I talked about this but we built our house 10 years ago in Foster City and it has a um ground level garage which makes it taller. And uh you know, we we were waiting waiting waiting on the permits and um and you know, finally our builder said, "Why don't you call them? Sometimes they'll they won't respond to me, they'll respond to the taxpayer." And so then uh we called and they said, "Well, your house is too tall." So I won't get into all that, but we worked it out. But my point is it was a good six weeks, you know, and so that for us, if if you know, paying a a little bit more for fees, it's the customer service I think that gets people, you know, either happy or upset. So, yes.

Yeah. Um, but a couple things. One, I was reading through the staff report. Um, and one of it talked about, you know, looking in the technology piece either enhancing or replacing Munis. And so, I didn't know is that because I think the rest of the city government works on Munice, right? And so is that do we foresee like if we were to replace Munis would that be like a huge problem because you know Jod and Tom are using Munis for their operations. So um should we get to that point that it will be a significant endeavor for the city you know

to undertake. We'll we'll have more to share with you all I think kind of during discussion work sessions in April. I think specific to this discussion, I think we've recognized the current setup. John's talked about it. It doesn't work right. And and so we either need to make some significant improvements to that that deliver on the things that the staff needs and that the public expects, right? Or we need to replace it with something else. Okay? And that would either be integrated with something the city did kind of more holistically or it would be a um something that would be integrated with that. Right. And so what you know, at least what we've tried to articulate here is that we're not necessarily wed

to what's best for the city's financial system, for example. Um, but it could work, right? And and so um there'll be more to come on all of that, but uh but at least on the permitting side, I think, you know, something something needs to be different. So, do you foresee I mean I know this is way too early and you can't look into a crystal ball, but would there do you think the fee the increase in what we're going to be charging for these permits would help pay for that or do you think this is still going to be a big budget issue in the next year or two? So, I think the the technology the cost to the technology investment I don't I don't think we've kind of nailed down yet.

Yeah, it's too early. I understand that. Um, so, uh, so I think more to come on that. I think, you know, there's a scenario where we would kind of come to you all to dip into the permit fee reserve to make a one-time kind of investment potentially, but um, but uh, okay. But we're ahead of ourselves on it. That's something we'll talk about going forward. There's real quick on that, too. It's with with Tyler program. They make Munis. Uh, with Tyler, they do have programs that can build on Munis. Uh Alexandria used one called Energgov.

There's there's programs we we need to look at to make sure that they work with our system holistically so that we don't do something that's going to cost us because my big thing is the permanent reserve. Every using it is just scares me because I want to make sure the staff and the permit reserve carries forward. If it's something we can use our tech fees for to compensate and cover, then that is something we're looking at. Okay. But we don't know until we get those RFPs and find out exactly what we're after. And I'm I'm pushing as much as as as far as we can. Uh, one of the things we've actually started doing was the inspectors in the field now use iPads.

They can do their inspections in real time and report back to Munis. But if you call for an inspection on your house, Arlington, Fairfax, all the inspectors, they swipe the button pass and automatically comes to your cell phone with a result. We don't have that technology. We have to bring the iPad back to city hall, download it into Munis, and if you want to know your result, you have to call permits counter and ask, "Did I pass inspection today?" That's how far behind we are. Yeah. And that's where the technology, like Andy was alluding to, we really need to find out what's our best program at our best cost, right?

But we don't want to take a program and just use it without actually knowing if it's going to benefit us holistically with the city, right? No. And that's munus is that's an important question of asking if we're getting rid of munus. And it's something that I've been wrestling with for years. Yeah. No. And and you know, I think we've heard we heard about it also when we were talking about um how we're going to charge for trash, you know, and and Miss Aosta is like, "Oh, Muse is, you know, it's a very inflexible system." And so, it's my understanding. So, that's why I was just, you know, and so that could be that, you know, we start with the permitting process, but it's a much bigger, you know, we're going to have to, you know, I I I think everyone feels like we need to update our technologies.

Yes. We want to get real world in real time and have results whether it's plan review, inspections, compost, uh, you know, tax dollars, whatever we're doing. We want to make sure that it's actually reporting in real time. And that's that's the big key, finding something that's going to work for us. Great. And then, um, just two other quick things. Um I was glad to see that one of the key um goals was to improve the um occupancy permit process because I feel like that's where people really start losing their patients because it's at the end of the process, right? And so um I'm sure you don't want to go get into that now, but I what exactly you need to work on with that process or do you I don't know. the coordination.

Coordination. The big the big part on that one is we've been in silos and when it comes time for a project to finish, uh tenant fit outs are usually okay because it's Aita and myself that sign off on smaller ones or change of use. Uh we sign off on them. When you get to the bigger projects, there's the arborist, there's public works, there's the engineering firm, there's so many different departments planning. Everybody's got to look at their part with the VCs. We need to come together and have an pretty much an unbudsman, which we do have. I think we got Laura is I don't want to throw your staff under the bus. Yeah.

But I think Aikita's got Laura and she's been the spearhead on top of all these CO changes and what we can do to actually change and make things faster. We do we did a change several years ago where we make people pay I don't want to say make probably a bad term. We have people pay for their CEO when they get their permit. So all they have to do at the end of the project is pick up the CO but it's getting all the signatures on the CO

and they usually wait till my guys are in the field do the final inspection and say I'm going down get my CO. Well, we didn't even know you were going to call for inspection today. It takes several weeks to get all these drawings together to make sure you built it right. So there's there's things we're working on. Okay. No, and I think that's why I do I feel like people their patient because it's at the end of the process their patience is like this and then you know very Yeah. Is that Laura Arsenal? Yeah. Is that how you say

Yeah. Laura Arsenal? I might be able to add to that a little bit. So we so we have a pretty good idea a sense of the deficiencies in the process. Um we've seen that with the assessment report and we've seen it even before the assessment report came out. None of that was a surprise. Um so the the problem right now is what um John just alluded to in that because we have these different silos, different disciplines reviewing and signing off on one co.

The process is very fragmented. And so our sort of goal is to integrate the process and have one shepherd or work one coordinating staff to take the the project or the owner of that project through the process. Um and so that's the goal. I don't know if it's going to be Laura, but we're still sort of working out those details. Um or write because we know what the deficiencies are. I think we're going to have a better time writing the process. We we're gotten there, but we just need to sort of identify the key staff and stakeholders in that process, but we'll get there.

No, that sounds that sounds perfect. That sounds exactly I think how how it should be. And then my last um question is I was looking at the staff report and it was um there's a little summary on the EDA's feedback from March 10th and um this is um to Mr. on your point about the small businesses and this um where I'm at line 2011. The group discussed having a potential city program to wave fees for small businesses relocating within the city. Um is that the same that if if a small business wanted to needed permits to improve their current building or are we just talking about relocating? So, so I think this discussion was referencing some, you know, um, incentives the city provided to businesses that were being relocated due to some of the special exception redevelopments kind of in the recent past. So, think of Founders Row and the collection of businesses that were there before,

you know, and and finding ways to kind of Oh, I see. lessen the blow for them to be able to move. So, that's what they were referencing. I think what it could be. I mean, I think that's up to council, staff, EDA, others to think about whether there's something that we wanted to do um internally. How much of that you do and then we don't collect fees on creates a different financial challenge. You know, there's pros and cons to that, but um but I think they were, you know, that it was just referencing what what had been done with the special exception pro projects previously.

Okay, I understand now. Um that and this is a little off topic, but um what do we have a firm definition of what what a small business is like? Is it a certain dollar amount that's made per year under I don't believe okay we do. I would love u mayor I would love because I I just received an email from a small business owner who was complaining about how much they had to pay in business license fees and all that and so um I'm wondering if at some point we I don't know when where would be the appropriate or maybe it's an EDA discussion but just I just think that's an interesting piece is to talk about small businesses permitting and all of that

probably commissioner revenue might know based on the business licenses we offer like what the spectrum might be and where the thresholds in gross revenue might be to define what a small I think he just mailed out the the bills. So I know we have an envelope from Tom sitting on our counter. Do you have others? No, I'm done. Thank you.

Okay. Uh thank you very much for this work. Um I'm going to start kind of backwards. So starting with the process changes. So I know we spent a lot of time in Gov Ops and we've dug in. Um, a point I'm going to make again that I think I said at the beginning of when we started this process is I would love at the end of this for this process to work whether you are a frequent flyer like you are a you know experience builder or whether you are a first-time person going through the process from an equity perspective like we want this process be easy to use non-lingo checklist like things that make it easy for people to navigate like I think that should be our northstar because I get that you know builders who you know experienced us or know how to work the system between Fairfax and Arlington they will be fine Uh, but we really want to make sure the experience is great for those people building small businesses, adding their decks, you know, that one time they come experience something in false church. We want it to be a great experience. So, I would love for us to keep that in mind as we embark on this, you know, process redesign and simplifying our process. Um, AI could be a really great thing to think about, right? I know it's kind of scary, but I think the idea of, you know, having some sort of AI tool that says, "Hey, do I need a permit for this? Here's how you go through this." like have that be part of the website could actually help clean up a lot of the work that we have to do because we know that the the the process itself is technical but this is where AI could be really helpful in translating that for you know any person on the street right so let's not be afraid of you know that kind of technology and figure out how to embrace it to make it work for us uh on the fees um can we go back to the projected revenues I I think we're expecting 30% more revenue to come. Um it's the one with all the bar charts and different colors.

Yeah, towards the end. Um I do think that's a little aggressive. So I went back and looked up because our next and only mixeduse project to come is Quinn homestretch building. And I went back and looked it up. We approved that special exception February 2024. So two years ago. uh for us to have revenue in 29 and 20 in 2030 for example, we would have an SE in front of us now. We don't. And so I would again like caution on whether we should bank on those light blue bars given just what the pipeline is and obviously where the commercial real estate market is, you know, rebalancing right now. So um I would not expect that same level of volume of activity and therefore permit fees just based on what we don't have in front of us in council right now. Uh so that one uh going on to the whole fee discussion. So overall I support the idea of revisiting it. Certainly it's been 10 years clearly we need to make sure we have cost recovery. So when I think about kind of how to set a fee schedule I know that cost recovery and competitiveness are things that staff has brought forth. I would like to think about kind of a third category which is are there public policy goals we should be accomplishing with this. And I don't know whether fees are the right place but I'll call out a couple examples. For example um we talked about small businesses right? So it is now one of our council priorities be the best place in the DMV for small business. So if we want to attract small business and retain small business, are there certain fee categories where we should be actually more competitive than our neighbors to keep and retain them and attract more here? That is a public policy goal. And so I guess that's a question I have for staff is what are the most common fee categories that our small businesses kind of hit up against? And should we actually do a better job of lowering them and then advertising them as hey come to false church because this fee to build out here is actually be way lower than going to Arlington, Vienna or Fairfax, right? uh but make it a competitive advantage. Uh another public policy goal that we've talked about is child care. It is really expensive. It's like the number two cost for most families after housing costs. Building out child care facilities might be really cost prohibitive. I don't know. But that could be another public policy goal that we might want to

accomplish by making sure our fee schedule is um competitive. Another one is like green energy upgrades. We've talked about it as part of our community energy action plan. Are there fee categories where if you say, "Hey, you upgrade to a energy efficient appliance, the fee is going to be lower than if you upgrade to a gas equivalent one." You know, I don't know what those types of fee categories are, but I guess it's a broader question I have is are there things in our fee schedule that actually accomplish council priorities and public policy goals? We've talked about green, small businesses, certain types of businesses. And then likewise on the flip side, are there things that we actually want to discourage and make sure that um we don't want people doing more of those things. And I don't want to name all those things we don't want people doing, but I just want us to think about both sides of how we can use fees actually accomplish more goals beyond cost recovery and competitiveness with our neighbors.

Um is that helpful to kind of think about? I mean, it's kind of a broad cer. I get through a couple examples, but I just want us to be creative about it. And then complexity. Um not knowing enough of the fees. Um, does this reflect complexity of work? So, for example, single family homes, like doing an addition is probably less complex than tearing it down and rebuilding it. Does I don't know from from like a work I guess perspective in terms of inspections. Does the fee schedule appropriately represent the complexity of work involved?

Uh, I believe it does. Okay. Uh because like your example, the addition a lot of times with additions, it's it becomes more complex tying into an existing structure and using the foundation of that house that's built in 1930 is a gets really complicated. Uh and that's where our structural engineer spends a lot of time make sure that the loads from the roof all the way down to the foundation are adequate. Okay. So, it's it's hard, but I think based on the fee, what we went through uh with the staff, we went through everything meticulously. I think we capture what as far as workload. Okay. For that fee.

Oh, good. Uh and then the last thing I'll say on uh permits, fee changes. I think I liked Art suggestions about kind of calling this a catch-up. I think it would be helpful for the public to understand just to get some context on the volume of permits, what percent are residential, what percent are commercial, and how this impacts people who are filing permits because I think I saw a stat that we have last year in FY25 close to 1300 permits. Of those, how many are residential, how many are commercial, how many are, you know, one-timers, how many are frequent flyers who come in regularly. So, for us to get a sense of like who are we going to hear from that's going to complain about the 35% increase in fees, right? Um I think some additional context um as part of the budget process would be helpful for us to understand go through my notes.

Um just related to what the mayor just said, we have the one-stop shop which has green building options. It would be great to see these two things tied together somehow. So, if I go on the one-stop shop and look for information about something that I know if there's a fee a fee to go with it or a reduced fee or a permit or whatever it is, those to tie those two things together and then that helps with the community community energy action and plan. That's something we'll look at as we actually go into the one-stop shop and develop it further. Like I said, right now we just got a simple spreadsheet with a S on top of the plan. Yeah. And it goes through the system.

That's paper and pencil right here. I I I hear you. To your point, the there could be just exceptions for specific just fee exceptions. So to your point, putting in a car charger, obviously that's a greater than 20 amp circuit. It's a whole stuff. It's Yeah,

maybe we could be waving those. That's something I've looked at. I got to be careful. I don't want to mislead anybody and think that we can wave fees or reduce certain fees uh based on Virginia the 36105 Dakota Virginia. I can't wave fees for your car charger and then charge Akita for her car charger. That for me it falls into the fees of my job and I I got to be careful on how I do that. If I reduce your fee or wave your fee, I've got to explain to the state why I did that.

No, I was talking about a 240 volt line for a car charger is waved for everybody, but a 240 volt line for another for an oven is not. Yeah. Yeah. So,

yeah. And I just threw out those examples of like small business, green energy upgrades. There may be other ones that would make sense based on council priorities and public policy goals that we have. But I just want us to be thinking about what things could we accomplish and then also use the opportunity if we are rolling out a new fee schedule to actually promote those and say, "Hey, these are specific changes we are making so we are more competitive on small business, we are promoting our green energy policy, we're trying to promote or childare options in town, you know, whatever it may be." Um hopefully staff can kind of give some thought to what other fees I guess out there that might help accomplish those goals. Understood. Great. Well, thank you very much. This was a really good discussion and we appreciate all the work.

Well, thank you. I do too. I really look forward to it. The fee adjustment, as we're calling it, the fee catch up. It's something that I've been a strong advocate for for a long time now. I appreciate y'all's guidance and assistance with it. Great. Thank you for joining us tonight. Okay, I think we're ready for How are we doing on the audio part? Is staff still having a hard time listening to this?

I think they are having a hard time through Teams. However, I believe they're watching on YouTube. Um, Joe Carter is on the line for the snow event after action, which will be a verbal report. And Joe, do you want to test if you can?

Yeah, I'm on teams. Can uh if you guys can hear me, can you just wave at me or whatever? Oh, I appreciate that. Thank you. So yeah, so um I I do apologize. Um my every intentions on being there yesterday, but obviously the weather didn't cooperate. And also I have every intention on answering all your questions, but my audio for some reason is terrible. YouTube is like a minute behind. So, not to frustrate you, um, if I if I don't get to your questions tonight, you can, uh, I'm sure Jenny or, uh, or Wyatt, um, can answer those or you can just reach out to me through either one of them and I'll be glad to answer everything. Although, I will be touching on a few things tonight that uh, you know, gave us some some issues. So, uh, hopefully maybe that'll address some of it. But uh uh let me just have a good evening, Mayor Hardy and uh members of council. My name is Joe Carter and I serve as the director of emergency management and security. I've been asked to provide council with a brief overview of the city's preparedness and response actions to Wintertorm Fern that impacted our region between January 24th and January 26. Um, as a recap, Storm Firm brought approximately 8 inches of snow, several inches of sleet, and freezing rain across Northern Virginia. Uh, these conditions, along with subfreezing temperatures, contributed to prolong hazardous uh, conditions. Uh prior to the storm, city staff, including the false church city public schools, uh conducted coordination meetings to review forecasts, align city staffing plans, uh identify operational needs, and arrange accommodations for essential personnel remaining on duty uh throughout the event. Um at this time, I just want to go through some of the highlights as I noted already uh for the

departments who were involved in this uh preparedness and response efforts. Um, I will not touch on everything um because there was so many things in between what I'm going to tell you that we did that if I went through everything, we'd be here all night and I know you guys don't want that. So, uh, I will start out with the Office of Communications. Um, every incident I've ever been involved with, whether with the police department or emergency management, the number one issue, good or bad, that comes up is communications. and our uh communications team did an outstanding job uh prior uh during and after this event with communications uh internally and externally. Uh some of those were they created a storm web page uh containing weather and uh personal preparedness information on the city's website and also on several social media platforms. uh the city's website received approximately 5,400 visits um at the peak uh during the height of the event and on social media u platforms they received several thousand more. Uh also we understand that not everyone has social media in that way. So, uh, also before the event, uh, for our most vulnerable residents, Housing and Human Services, police, and the Office of Emergency Management, uh, conducted outreach before, during, uh, uh, before, and during the storm, uh, to inform, uh, those, uh, residents, uh, of resources that the city could offer them. uh the Department of Public Works, who was really the heartbeat of this whole response, uh uh used really two crews to do this. So, one crew would sleep at the hotel and the other crew would work uh for 12 hours and they did that several nights um away for their families because this really did bring challenging to us. U so some of their highlights were they pre-treated roads um in advance of the

storm. So, they really started on January 22nd. uh and they uh used four 5,400 gallons of brine uh application on January 22nd and an additional 4,000 gallons on January 23rd. So they did a lot of pre-treating to the roadways to help with the preparedness uh and recovery efforts. Uh they did this by utilizing 10 trucks for salt application, applying approximately 142 tons of salt. Uh they conducted continuous snow removal and road treatment operations throughout the event uh just in order to maintain uh passable travel conditions. Uh they also hauled snow from priority areas across the city including 14 school locations and 39 loads were taken from Broad Street and Washington Street corridors. Uh additional snow removal uh included areas of City Hall uh and Park Avenue. Uh and in total, the crews removed approximately 360 tons from residential and main streets. Um and additionally, crews removed approximately 300 tons of snow and ice from sidewalk ramps and bus stops to maintain pedestrian safety. So, it's really really obvious that they stayed really really busy and uh they had really really good leadership and uh they all did a really good job. uh from our community center staff uh really for three people uh they cleared snow from uh walkways and city hall community center and the library to maintain safe access to those facilities. I want to stop there because this storm like I said brought challenges and some of those challenges was their equipment broke. So, uh these three individuals who were removing the snow were doing a lot of it by hand. Um so that was uh they were tired uh but they did an outstanding job um in their efforts of making all of these facilities clear for uh public access. Um and also the community center operated the uh the

city's designated warming station for any of those who needed it uh during this event. Uh the police department and emergency communications center uh they maintained 24-hour operations throughout this storm. Uh they handled more than 200 calls for service during the storm period. Um and they also conducted 21 welfare checks on housed and unhoused residents to ensure their safety during this this uh severe weather storm. Uh my office, the emergency management, uh we you know really just coordinated all of these efforts. Uh but we did that from the emergency operations center. uh we did it internally and we also did it externally through web EOCC which is a communication platform uh with our regional and state partners. Uh we also supported residents at Winter Hill and the Aurora House to ensure continuity of services during the storm. So we are small but we are mighty and we don't do things like normal people do. So sometimes we have to be flexible uh which you know shows you like a normal emergency operation center those individuals just kind of stay where they are and that's where they coordinate from. But for us we get out and we help support um DPW the PD any way we can and part of that was uh supporting Winter Hill our residents there and uh the Aurora House. Uh so some of the additional community support services that we had was uh human services, housing and human services maintained 24-hour shelter operations uh throughout the storm and the subsequent cold weather events. You guys know that they do not usually do 24-hour shelter operations, but they were flexible and uh saw need and uh did that for the uh individuals who stay there. Uh the false church library remained open during the operating hours and adjusted programs uh as needed uh to support the community's needs. Um, and uh, we had two Department

of Public Works staff, KathyRandle and also Scarlet, uh, who uh, took 170 community service requests uh, during the during the storm, which was uh, it was a lot of work and effort that they put into and they they took them, they answered them, and they did their best to to keep up. But, uh, hats off to both of them for all of the work that they did um, during this storm. uh and the city coordinated uh with approximately 30 local businesses prior to the storm to support preparedness efforts and removing snow. And that came from, you know, the work that we did before this uh even took place, the storm. We uh we we noticed that there was a need for some of these uh businesses that that did not remove snow in the past so quickly. So, uh, our, uh, DPW crew, our PD, um, they got out there and, uh, spoke with those individuals ahead of time, um, just, uh, updating them on what the expectations were. Uh and then finally I just want to say so after this this incident we we conducted an afteraction and I think it's important for council to know that after every significant incident in the city whether it's man-made or natural disaster uh when we have a a pretty big response or you know some issues that we need to discuss we we always have an afteraction and at that afteraction we talk about the things that we do well but you know um the thing that we try to do more than that is really find the gaps of of where we need to improve and I think you know we've been doing these for several years now and I think our response efforts and our preparation and all of that stuff that that leaded up to you know how we did during this storm uh really shows the efforts um in those afteractions. So, you know, you would like to say, "Hey, look, you know, everything went great." But there were a few things that we found in the afteraction uh that, you know, that

we're going to have to address and we actually, uh, city staff is addressing now. Uh, one of those is is shoveling. uh which you know we decided during this storm uh that was going to be one of the things that we were going to have to kind of focus on because last year uh we had a similar storm and we we we understood and realized how difficult that was when you add ice on top of a lot of snow. Uh so we were we were doing more uh outreach efforts rather than any type of enforcement efforts uh because we found that you know when people were shoveling their snow DPW was having to come through and snow was like getting blown back on their their sidewalks and and stuff they had already done. So uh you know it was a it was a it was a problematic situation you know because this this isn't something that we have all the time. So, we tried our best to do as much community outreach as we could. Um, and and you know, as far as that goes. Um, and the other thing that we we found was that our city ordinance, our snow removal ordinance or snow ordinance um has to be updated to meet uh state code. Right now, it does not meet state code. Uh so, internally uh we're going to be doing that um so that we can uh get it to where it needs to be. And some of that has to deal with enforcement. Um, it'll always be our number one priority to do outreach first, uh, to give warnings first. Um, but we have to have an ordinance in place where those businesses or residentials or whatever that refuse to remove snow that make it unsafe, uh, for pedestrians or for the children or whatever, then uh, you know, that we can uh, take action on that. But I would like to just say once again that's not the whole goal of it. The whole goal is to get people to cooperate. Um, but having something like this, um, does give the city, um, you know, a little

bit of, uh, I guess you might want to say, uh, uh, it g it gives us enough, it gives us something to get the thing, uh, get the snow removed so that it's it's safe for everyone. Uh, so I just want to stop there. I know I went through that pretty quickly, but once again, I couldn't touch on everything. Um, if I can hear you, I will do my best to answer a question. Uh, but like I say, I don't want to frustrate you. um by not hearing everything that you have to say. So, I'll stop there and I I appreciate your time and mayor, if you can't hear, I can call on the cell phone and we'll put them on the speaker phone depending on how much questions you have.

I I think we will probably have things that people want to discuss and so maybe we can direct it to Andy and Jenny in the room rather than try to have a minute delay with Joe.

Okay. Uh thank you Joe for that report and all the work. I know that that was a really long like two weeks I guess of snow event, snow and ice event. So we appreciate all the work of staff and I think as many of us have noted the fact that we were one of the first school system to reopen and our sidewalks. I mean while there's always room to improve like if you actually ventured out of false church you could see that we actually did comparatively really well compared to the region. Everyone had a really hard time with the event. So we appreciate all the work of staff and the community for pitching in too. Uh so with that I'm sure people have questions and comments and things to bring up. So Dave,

thanks Madam Mayor. Um, a couple comments. First of all, I appreciate uh the work that was done. Um, um, a couple areas that I'd like to see is address. One is the enforcement area, and this was mentioned, particularly businesses. There were businesses that did not shovel their walks at all until they finally melted after two or three weeks, creating incredibly hazardous walking conditions. that's just not acceptable. So, I'll be interested to see what we we can do in terms of enforcement. And obviously, the work before the fact is just great, but we had some real serious violations in the commercial area. The second area is more technical. When you're plowing the streets and you have a sidewalk next to the street, what happened a lot was literally rocks of ice were dumped onto sidewalks that people had just shoveled. Is there something we can do about maybe not cleaning the entire width of the street so that you're not dumping everything on the street onto the sidewalks? there's something that just didn't seem right. And I've seen this before, but it was particularly aggravated in this case. And finally, the um the intersections uh when there was shoveling on the walk, you'd come right to the intersection and there was like a wall there, a wall created by um by the plowing that had been done in the streets. So, is there a way to better balance the need to keep the streets clean, but also to keep the p the street pedestrian friendly, which really was not the case for days on end in the city? Thanks.

Staff have response or we just keep going.

I mean, I um couple couple thoughts. I think Mr. Snder, the three things you talked about. So, the enforcement of sidewalk clearing that that'll be something we'll come back to all kind of um with a work session potential initiating resolution for some code changes this summer. I think on the other two things, the um conditions of this storm were particularly challenging. I think kind of for everybody, right? like as we were talking about earlier, the uh I think as you were talking through it and and I think the um the issue of of snow or ice being pushed up over onto the sidewalks, you know, so um I think that created some frustration and then I think partly to not do as much of that, the teams were prioritizing just clearing one lane on the streets and that frustrated other people, right? and and so so I think we you know and then the conditions deteriorated to the point where the only way to clear the rest of it was with heavy equipment which you know was a particularly timeconsuming work and so I think the team was trying to balance the impacts of all of those things and just the particular instant or conditions of this storm made that difficult. I think um I think staff heard and understood the kind of desire for us to do a better job prior you know prioritizing and taking care of pedestrians and um while we didn't do it first because we had to get the roads clear to be able to get you know people and equipment around I think what you saw here in the city is the teams and I think Joe quoted however many tons of truck 39 truckloads of stuff like we had crews out like mo like every night for a week clearing um you know the the um those big snow piles at the inter at the at the corners of the street where where where folks weren't able to walk. So we

got to it. It just took a little while, right? And and I think we'll continue to iterate on kind of the sequencing of all those things and get better at it over time. Madame Mayor, just to follow up, the the issue of streets being plowed, dumping huge amounts of snow onto sidewalks is not specific to this incident. It's happened repeatedly. And I don't know if there's an answer to it. I don't know if we need to say we're willing to have, you know, uh, a lane and a half on the road cleared as opposed to two lanes. And I know that can create its own issues depending on where that is. I respect that. But um this is not the first time that that issue has been um is something that that I've witnessed. And then the the clearing at the intersections. I'm not saying all the snow has to be removed from the intersections, but at least the ability to have a pathway uh through uh connecting the different parts of an intersection might be extremely useful. And then finally, is there any way you can help citizens in terms of group contracting so that there's a list of contractors available if citizens need to pay somebody to do it? Uh who who would be readily available? Um and I know that would be an evergreen thing. Um uh or is there a community-based organization we ought to approach about that, but um that would be another thing that could be helpful. Thanks. Appreciate it. On that last note, there was a great like startup community, I think the snow angels that was kind of pairing people who needed help with ready volunteers. And so I that was a great, you know, bottoms up effort um in the community. And so if we could help spread the word for the next hopefully next year storm, not anytime soon, um that's a nice way that we can get help to those who need it. Others on

the side, Justine,

I just wanted to follow up on some of Mr. Snider's points. um specifically, yeah, for this storm was particularly a difficult one. And so I think what a lot of us are interested in doing is troubleshooting for future storms, even those that are not quite so bad. Um, and hopefully we don't get one that's this bad for quite a long time. Um, and so just put as long as this one was so egregious and we we um had to to deal with the sidewalks and all these things for such a long time, it just really brought it to front of mind. And so it's almost like something terrible happens, then we take action. And so um this is sort of a good jumping off point, but again, it's as as Mr. Snder mentioned, this is an issue that's happened repeatedly with sidewalks or whatever else, crosswalks. And so I did want to flag one thing which is um Jeff Pearson who's in a wheelchair uh he had to ride on Broad Street to be able to get out of his place that is unacceptable. Um so having somebody in a wheelchair on Broad Street because they couldn't use the sidewalks because the sidewalks were completely inaccessible and the crosswalks were inaccessible whatever else. And so that is a case where you know that's that there's a twofold issue. one is uh we had all sorts of snow piled up on the sidewalk and then the other part is a lot of the businesses didn't clear their their sidewalks. Um and so to Mr. Snider's point, having a lane and a half cleared, people can still drive where they need to drive. It just takes a lot longer. Not having the sidewalks cleared means that some people cannot get where they need to go at all. And so my sense is from this council um as we're going forward with planning for future storms that we are willing to take a little bit of heat from people

saying hey like uh traffic was slower knowing that pedestrians are safe that people can walk or wheel where they need to go or that kids can get to school safely that they can get to the bus stop safely. I think there's a whole a whole list of things. Maybe this comes up in our vision zero discussion. Maybe this comes up elsewhere. Maybe it's just part of a snow discussion and we keep it here. But um what I would like to see is just rather than um I think a lot of our snow clearing uh focus is is has been car first and totally understandable. Um our roads are are major thorough affairs. This is like how people get from point A to point B a lot of the time. Um, and we also did get complaints that some some roads weren't cleared fast enough. So, um, from from um, some people who who were um, on culde-sacs or wherever else. Um, but at least from my perspective, I would be willing to take the hits on some of that um, knowing that pedestrians are able to walk around safely on our streets and get to school and other things. Um and so have I would it would be nice to have some sort of um plan going forward for how we can I guess shift the balance or prioritize things that maybe it's you know we have x number of people working on snow and we take two of them to work on making sure that sidewalk or that crosswalks are clear or whatever it is but I think having a different balance is something that I would be interested in seeing. Um, and then just to be clear, so our for in terms of the ordinance regarding businesses and people clearing their sidewalks, that's something we'll discuss this summer as part of a code cleanup. Is that correct?

So, I think I Yeah, I don't know if they call it a code cleanup, but like I think what we've talked about is the current stuff on the books needs to be updated to be in, you know, in alignment with state code. And so, um, so we would bring, you know, that we're not going to we're busy for the next couple of months, but I think that that would be something we would target to bring to you all for discussion this summer. Okay. Because then I guess like as part of that, you know, or like separately from that or maybe relatedly is also um like messaging businesses again and especially the repeat offenders. I feel I think Lety took copious notes on all the all the places that had had failed to do it. Photo journals for people who

Yeah. I mean, yeah. I almost want to have like a photo be like is this you? Like you will be fined next year if you do this again. Um, and so let you know then I guess the other question is what do we have email addresses for them where we don't necessarily have to physically go to their address but we could email them and say hey you're facing a x fine x amount of fine or whatever else um if we have to send our our city um team to clean up your uh sidewalk or whatever else. So let's actually pause there because I want to make sure we all have the same understanding. So what we have authority from Richmond for is actually charging them for snow removal. We can't just levy a fine that they didn't do it.

Right. So is that correct? I guess what I want the attorney to that's been an important thing that I think we've gotten a lot of comments like why can't you just slap fines on people? Yeah, that is correct. The fines are not authorized.

Right. So it would be this is the fine you would face if our team has to go out. I guess I don't think we can unless we can hire a contractor to do it. And maybe this is the other thing, maybe as there are predatory towing contractors, could there be predatory snow removal contractors that the city works with to make sure that businesses actually do clear within it could be a 48 hour period if we wanted to give more grace or whatever it is. Um, but they go and do it and then um we pass along the fine to the the business. But I that's where like I don't know if that discussion needs to happen here or that would happen over the summer, but figuring out like how we can be better set up for that would that would make me feel a lot better.

That would be the discussion we would have this summer.

Okay. Okay. So I can table that for now. Um other things um I did see that um actually I'll leave it there. I I can bring up uh you know my my wish list would be wouldn't it be nice if we could have the WOD trail um clear and wouldn't it be nice if Howardy Herman Okay, maybe I bring it up. Uh so uh we don't one of the things that Wyatt had mentioned is we don't have anou uh with Nova Parks to clear the um the WOD trail. Um, and this is that would might be a whole other ball of wax, but at least getting theou can give us the option to be able to clear it and have like some sort of understanding with Nova Parks. Uh, the Leburg does have aou with Nova Parks. And so if we could just copy that basically, I would be happy to send that along to you guys uh to see if that's something we could just copy and use. um Nova Parks would be happy for us to to go down this path and then we can decide at a later point, do we have the equipment, do we have the people, do we have the money, do we have whatever else, but at least having that legal basis in place would be a really good start that I would like to see. Um and then yeah, I tried to walk down the Howardy Herman trail just to get to the south area of the city and that was really scary, too. And so I mean

that's gravel is probably really hard to shovel. That's probably that I I recognize this is almost like a wish list. I What I will end on is um yeah, so it's really crosswalks, sidewalks, the ordinance, and then our trails. Um what I will end on is I know how incredibly difficult the storm was. I I rec like staff was working so hard and so um I am so grateful for everything that um staff did um and and the DPW team did and it was just an incredible effort and like I was even trying to like clear my area and it was insane just like a tiny sidewalk. Um, and so, um, overall I'm I'm really grateful for for the work, um, and that that the DPW team put in, that emergency team put in, that everybody put in, police put in. Um, and I went to I went to DC, like oh, DC didn't have trash collection for two weeks. That didn't happen here. Like I I guess I do want to stress things were a lot worse in other places. And so I'm really proud of the job that our team did. Um, I just want to push us to be like, um, I guess in my view as best we can and as best we can means also prioritizing pedestrians and so just taking a little bit of the effort and maybe shifting it slightly to another location would be would be my preference and that's all. Thank you.

Other thoughts? Do you have more or

Yes, I have some I have some. So like justina, I mean I'll acknowledge it was a hopefully once in a lifetime storm. We've never experienced anything like that to most of our memories. So thank you for everyone who did a great job and we talked about that continuously. Um just a couple things. Do we need to invest as a council in sidewalk snow removal equipment? We have plows. How much how much? So that's just a general question for the future is that's something that we feel that if we're going to really focus on pedestrians, we should probably have more equipment to get that to happen. Um part of it is kind of an economic development piece, too. You know, I fielded a phone call from the new grocery store that was they moved from California. They've never experienced they didn't know how to plow snow. And I said, "Well, contact you're in a building." and the building had done like a little thing all the way around and and so they ended up finding someone to clear out their driveway to get their deliveries. But there there's an econom not only is there the there's an economic development portion to this that we could also work with the economic development office to to get businesses to cooperate. Um and then my last thing is the most important and there was a memo that came in this evening from the CAC. it just came in tonight about their strong concerns about Oak Street Elementary School and that is my number one concern. Um the parking lots were cleared but Oak Street itself was not cleared and that needs to be get up to the top priority list in the future. Um Park Avenue was cleared end to end because court was coming but those teachers and buses Oak Street was not cleared end to end until it melted. Um it was three weeks. We had teachers parking in the fire lane for three weeks because that didn't happen. And we can't let that happen again. That's got to be on the number one list of, you know, what are our top priorities of what gets

plowed and the area of Seatan Lane and Oak Street has got to get plowed um for any snowstorm. We can't put it off. There's a hill back there. There were people stuck on the hill. There was numerous times. So I just feel like that when we kind of said, "Okay, the schools are open. this is great. We're going to be the first school system to open in all of Northern Virginia and then stop focusing on that. And it was it was a I mean, ask any teacher who had to park there and many many parents who they had to change all the uh pickup and drop off and the buses. So, it was it was really dangerous around Oak Street for a long time even as we were patting ourselves on the back about what a good job we were doing. So, I do think that that was a huge miss on the part of everyone as we thought about that. Um, one note to be fair because I think this is um that balance we talked about, right? Because the sidewalks were actually really cleared and I'm guessing that DPW was trying to balance how to not replplow the street and then shove all the snow back near the sidewalks which would then impede the sidewalks because I live near there too. I walked there probably three times a day. And so I took photos of all of Oak Street and saw it. I know it was inconvenient for the buses and inconvenient for the parent loop to go around. But the sidewalks were prioritized and I know that our staff did actually help school staff do that. And so it's again tricky to find that balance of like

how did you clip the streets clear but also keep the sidewalks clear and keep all the tiger trails and all the different ways to to clear it. So I do think that the thing about Oak Street that's different is that's parking for staff. So we cleared the parking lots but there's another 35 staff members that park on the street that didn't have parking. So we just like what do you do with them? Um, we've went to the the high school secondary parking lots were amazing, but that one just Anyway, that's why I feel like it needs to get up there.

Yeah, I I'll just piggy back on that. I first of all, staff did a great job. I mean, it's that was the craziest storm, but and and if all you know, I thought maybe not, you know, playing the what is it? Monday quarterback or whatever that term is, but um maybe schools opened a day too early. I don't know. like I I was glad that we opened so fast, but I feel like I I was a little surprised that we opened um that fast because um the I think Oak Street in particular. So if you think about I was thinking about all the schools, you know, so you've got Fakery, which is little kids, so they're not walking to school, right? And so they're, you know, and you've got Oak Street, which is a dead end. I'm sorry, Mount Daniel, which is a dead end. And then but Oak Street, you know, then you have a campus, secondary campus, but Oak Street is the one that has all these bordering streets. Teachers are parking on the streets, not necessarily in the lot. Um, and so that might just be something for the future that we in terms of schools when we're working with the schools, that's the one maybe we take a look at first to say like how are we do with the sidewalks? How are we with the surrounding streets and all that because it's it's that is I think the most difficult and and even on a normal day, they've got speeding issues around there. You know, it it is it's a tough area where Oak Street is um for pedestrians and students. So, um, yeah, I I think just to piggy back on you, I I agree with you. I think that that would be definitely one that raises rises to the top, but in general, I thought the team did a great job.

Beth, do you have others? That was it. Laura, y Aaron, and then Art.

Um, so I don't have much to add. I'll just echo the comments that everyone else has made. I thought it was pretty incredible that we passed by Larry Graves Park on Friday afternoon and it what is March now, mid-Marchch and there is still like snow piles in Larry Graves because of all the snow that staff moved over there. Um and sort of being kind of central downtown and seeing the work at the intersections and seeing the dumpster on park and seeing the roads cleared. It really was a heroic effort and and I understand you know prioritizing roads because there are like people who work in emergency services and don't can't teleaw work and they have to go to work every day and they have to get to hospitals and they have to you know like be on site to do things. Um but it is important to make sure that we're circling back especially to intersections and making sure that crosswalks and sidewalk um at the intersections are kind of uh clear where it is more of the city's actual responsibility in that space. I don't I think that the you know the complaints we heard or the frustrations we heard were with the lack of enforcement mechanisms and with you know private property whether it was business owners or sort of you know private homeowners who had not cleared streets and so I I want to be careful about sort of we all want the pedestrian goal but I don't want to shift that work onto staff when they are private property responsibility. and have an expectation that after staff is sleeping in hotels for four nights, you know, to keep the city clean that we expect staff to be the ones who are also clearing sidewalks from businesses. And I think in emergency like situations, they do do that and they try to do that. But I think that's why the summer conversation is important to determine, you know, do we need to have a standing contract in place and after two days, do we have that contractor go out there and we just

have our billing, you know, service send those letters and that's the city's practice so that the pedestrian areas are actually clear, but it needs to be a, you know, like we're passing this cost on and we're going to make sure to recoup our costs. um and that you know we say that mechanism is in place but I don't want people to have the um either the expectation or the understanding that staff isn't doing their job when it's really private property owners that are not clearing their properties like like they should be under the obligations that they have. Um, so I I guess I'll just leave it at that point, but appreciate all the efforts and also understand, you know, why people are frustrated in the way that they were. Um, and I guess when we did the tiered system, it would be helpful, you know, people were calling in to understand those 170 calls, right? and if we could kind of get them categorized or cataloged as to you know when we are getting that many calls we know that it's because of frustrations in the city and and both during the event and after the event what were you know the nature of those calls I think we generally understand what they were but for people who were in the culde-sacs and maybe needed to get somewhere or you know didn't know are we in priority level three and when is the you know snow clearing going to happen for my street you know Are there ways to kind of um communicate that even though OKCOM was doing a very good job of pushing out information and trying to explain in the moment what was happening given the extreme kind of circumstances that we faced where normally like it wouldn't be whatever it was you know 36 hours before you get to a tier three street.

Uh I have to piggyback on that one now. Um do we the other one the other in addition to the businesses were churches. So there you know we have if you think about you've got two big churches on Broad Street, you've got Columbia Baptist and then you've got St. J. We've got a lot of big churches that have a lot of sidewalks and um almost none of them cleared their sidewalks. So I don't know um you know if we treat them the same as businesses, but I definitely think we need to reach out to the churches and say, "Hey, this is the expectation. Maybe you should have your congregation, you know, have a list of congregants who can help. But I remember specifically a good 10 days after the storm, someone was finally doing in front of false church Presbyterian on broad. I mean, this was not a little street. This is sidewalk. This is on broad. Um, so that that's I think another one that we need to to treat you maybe a little bit differently than the businesses to keep good community relations, but we need to reach out to the churches.

I think they should treat it the same way. they're a private property owner and they should maintain their sidewalk.

And I agree with that. Uh the churches, the businesses, I I think we need to be very clear over the summer our expectations. I think the expectations in the past have been kind of vague. You should chvel your sidewalk. We should be out there very clearly saying we expect if it's a streetscape street, we want six feet. That's our minimum. If it's a regular sidewalk, we want four feet, which is ADA or the width of the sidewalk because some of them aren't. Uh, but we need to be very clear. And when you are shoveling, you need to connect to your neighbors because what'll happen is they'll stop a foot short and the neighbor will stop a foot short and you have this massive pile of 2 feet of snow that you had to then deal with. It's like no you the expectation is you are connecting to your neighbor you are connecting to the street you are making it wide enough so that it is ADA compliant if it's a streetscape it's six feet that is the the standard um I like the idea that was put out there about let's have a contractor who's go that three day two days in we're going to call them up and they're going to come in with their equipment and they're going to plow it and we are going to send that price that charge back to you. And by the way, it's going to we're not going to uh discount it at all. It's going to be the most expensive option out there. Just like with um when you rent a car, the most expensive option to get gas is when you drop it off. If we have to do it, that's going to be your most expensive option. So, you should probably get out there and start shoveling. Um, same thing with um residentials and and maybe we should invest in a few snowblow snowblowers just in case. Um, we don't have I don't think they're that expensive. Problem is

they'll be sitting around a lot of times. Um, the other thing I would suggest is one of the effects we had was everybody slowed down because the the roads were narrower. We know that there was a natural traffic cominging. Until we've got everything kind of out there, I don't see any need to plow beyond 10 foot wide paths to, you know, lanes. Let's keep let's keep that natural traffic calming. We don't have to go to the edge. Um, and that gives us a couple feet to avoid piling up on the the sidewalk. So just you're kind of getting that double benefit there. Uh

except on Oak Street though. Street apparently. Oak Street. Well, Oak Street end to end and the sidewalks, the whole thing. Not not end to end, just the part near the school. Farther up, slow them down. We want that traffic slowed down. Um the other thing I want I wanted to touch on WOD. Even if we don't really have anou, I'm sure we've got a pickup truck with a blade. We don't have to. When we think about plowing the WD, we don't have to think about plowing the whole thing. Actually, that's the thing. They don't allow us to plow it. They said the plows can't be on the WD. They actually have to blow it by hand. Well, that we don't Are you sure? Because that's what theou says.

Oh, okay. That would Okay. So, that's maybe the Leburg one. What What Nova Park said is just as long as it's um not metal and scraping up the um what is it? whatever markings are on the WOD trail. Yeah. As long as as long as it has like a blunt tip so that it doesn't scrape up the

We'll have to work through that. But really, we don't have to be Look, we've got dual trails. We don't need to be plowing both of them. Um people are not too upset. If we went through with one plow, 10 feet wt wide and just did that. I think the complaints about WD would go away. People would be fine with that. Yeah. It's a shared trail at that point. It's not a high volume trail at that point. So shared trail would be fine. Um and we got a request to keep it snow covered for the crosscountry skiers. And I would say okay, you use the other trail. It's still snow covered. I think that that comment was ingested, but yeah, I don't think it was.

I I I know the person. It was completely inest. He was saying Yeah, he was saying that we needed to keep it for the skiers. It was it was a joke.

All right. Well, I thought it was kind of serious, but we don't we don't have to plow the whole thing. One pass with one plow and I think the problem is solved. So, um that was my biggest things. Uh the pedestrians I think but I would like to point out you guys did do a fantastic job. I want to close on that with we were the conditions of our roads and our sidewalks were better than our neighbors and I think that's a testament to the crews. Um to the point about maybe the schools opened to that we opened way ahead of the other schools. I would like to point out that part of the reason we opened way ahead of the other schools is it got pointed pushed to the point where they were going to be closed anyway. the the timing of it was that like Thursday and Friday was their end of quarter and they were going to be closed. So why open on Wednesday when they were going to be Yeah, I think Arlington was Friday. They were already planned to be closed. So it was just one of those. But yeah, maybe we were a day early. Okay, so to wrap up, um I know the intent of having this after action was have it like well after the snowstorm and clearly like two months later you still see that we have lots of opinions and passion around this topic. So, uh, I think if you asked this in June, we'd still probably have all these opinions. Um, so overall, I guess my thoughts kind of sum up this on plowing. I think you're hearing kind of a marked shift from council of prioritize pedestrians, uh, and how to balance that between cars and pedestrians, making sure we don't, you know, replplow it back into the sidewalk. I think an idea I had is, you know, could you shove it into a parking space? And the compromise is we're just going to take two parking spaces on the street and that's where the snow mound's going to be instead of, you know, having it close to the sidewalk, the curb ramps. Like could that be, you know, something that we try out with DPW should we have another sizable event? Um because that might be a trade-off that people were willing to make of like we're just going to have mounds of snow in a parking space and yes, a little inconvenient to not park right there, but uh instead of having it

close to sidewalks or curb ramps, that could be a good compromise. Um, second, I guess when we revisit this uh discussion in the summer, I guess I heard four options. Um, I heard one, leave it as is, but maybe we can pair people up with volunteers to kind of clear sidewalks. Two, hire kind of a contractor on hand and essentially charge people the fee. Uh, third, which I think we've talked about in the past, is go back to the general assembly and ask for the ability to have different authority to levy fines. Uh, and then the fourth one is, you know, should the city actually take on equipment? Um, that's the one that's least palatable with me. I think like Aaron, I am hesitant to actually take on accountability for p for private spaces. But given that these are the options that I think I've heard so far, it would be helpful to understand from staff like level of effort, cost, and then frankly practicality because these are once every 10 year kind of storms. And so I want to make sure that we have that lens in mind. Is are we really going to buy a snowblower when this is the kind of storm that's going to happen once every 10 years, right? Um, is it really practical to have a contractor on hand? I don't know. Maybe we can sign a contract. I don't know. But this for I guess all the options being discussed, um hopefully these are once every 10 year storms. Um I just want us to keep in mind that we want to figure out an option that is reasonable for staff to implement and is practical um for the frequency of events that we see as well. But with that, we look forward to the next discussion on this. And again, thank you to staff and thank you to Joe and everyone else um on the team for

Well, it sounds like in June or summer, you're going to come back with recommendations on what to do about the authority on sidewalks. we'll come back and have a a work session and then based on that work session if we do you know um then whatever kind of there's code changes we'll we'll set up that process if there's other things we can kind of talk through that

so those four options maybe there's a fifth option I don't know it just be nice to enumerate what those options are and then the staff consideration again of those maybe there's other ones out there uh one that might not be popular but that you could add to the list of four that you recited. Um we are uh authorized to create service districts that don't, you know, encompass the whole city. And so if you want to provide snow removal service to, you know, kind of the more pedestrian intensive areas, um and and figure out, you know, what kind of tax would need to be imposed in order to that every, you know, five, seven years, you have enough money to do, you know, one whole swoop of clearance of that district. um that's an option.

So similar to like business improvement districts where the tax you tax the businesses there and then you use that money to beautify or clear streets and that sort of thing, right? The service is limited to the tax district. Okay. Okay. Well, thank you. We look forward to the next steps and fingers crossed there's no more snow events this year. Thank you. I second that. Okay. Uh, do people need a break before we get to the last item in the close session or should people just do the break between? We have one more item. Um, and I'm not I think some of the the opioid one is what I meant, right? That's the last item. Opioid is the last item and then we have a close session. Yeah.

So, can we hang on to do that and then if people need to use the restroom between that and close session? Okay. Okay. Let's take the last one then. Opioid. Okay.

Um, I can do it. it seems to be difficult to to have this done um with what's going on with our audio visual. Um so with the staff report for the Virginia Opioid Abatement Authority Cooperative Partnership Agreement, uh this was brought to council, not the cooperative agreement, the funding for this was brought to council in February. uh the $10,000 to pay for a regional uh project uh related to or opioid abatement um in which um let's see Fairfax, Lowden, Arlington, Falls Church, uh Fairfax City, Prince William County, and Alexandria would all be participating in this regional program um that would provide and I'm losing the word um a campaign uh for use and misuse of opioids. Um so the appropriation was made um in February in that budget amendment. So this is the cooperative agreement uh that is being put forward as part of the grant application to the Virginia Opioid Abatement Authority. uh Lowden County is going to be uh the fiscal authority and or not the authority, the fiscal um agent for uh this particular project. Um and so this is basically asking council uh per um to authorize signing off on the cooperative agreement and then also to provide the city manager with the authority to sign an operational agreement that will happen later on. Um it is a bit of a a urgent level um as they are putting the grant in. I believe they're submitting

the grant this week. Um the application uh there are several other jurisdictions that are also having to go to their council or board of supervisors uh to have the this particular cooperative agreement approved. So it's basically authorizing us to enter into what we've already set aside the money for. Hopefully I said that concisely enough. Dana, did you hear all that? Yes. And do you want to add anything?

Yes, you said it perfectly. You know, all of those localities, we all are receiving a distribution from uh from the, you know, from the um settlements, but we're also applying for this pot of money that the state has that we can apply together collaboratively. It's going to be outreach campaign. Um it's going to talk about it's going to provide um it'll be a campaign, a communications campaign. It'll provide regional training and they'll also have an advisory committee that we can all use. So we're pretty excited about it.

That was all I wanted to add.

Thank you, Dana. Art. So dur and Dana during the February HSAC um board and commissions I mean there was some discussion around Unity Club and at the time um there was discussion about funds from the settlement were already being earmarked to Unity Club in the city for um opioid um treat not treatment um opioid anonymous support um very appropriate. and everybody was and very excited. I want to understand is that different money from this $10,000? Is it the same money being allocated differently? How how do those two things relate?

Uh it's a total it's a different pot of money for FY27. We have funds set aside that are going to go to um we have three projects identified that are in the budget. Um and one is Unity Club. Um and then the other one is the schools are looking to do substance abuse groups with parents and youth. And then the other one is um I believe it's training for um Aurora House. So those things are already submitted in the budget for FY27. So this is separate. This money has already been approved. So yes, you're correct. Those things will be in the FY27 budget.

All right. Thank you. Anyone else? Erin, I just Yeah, I guess it's just a followup. I was a little lost reading the staff report, but I think that So, what are you you're saying that basically the $10,000 that we are taking of what would be our dispersement. We think that the value of putting the $10,000 into this cooperative agreement that we're getting kind of more than $10,000 in services or marketing or outreach or education kind of out of it. Is that fair?

Yes, because the total amount that that we're requesting is 400,000. So 200,000 is the match between all the localities and of that 10,000 is what the city of false church is doing and then city of Fairfax which is similar to us is also doing $10,000 and the other localities are putting in more and uh there's a chart that's attached to um your staff report that you can see what everybody's putting in.

Yeah. No, that makes sense to me. I'm just saying that we believe that the value of our contribution is better spent being paid into the cooperative agreement because of what we anticipate getting out of that cooperative agreement in terms of like the the value of what the co-op is going to provide to us, I guess, is my is my question on it. that it's not just like, hey, we're collecting the money for the co-op and we're the fiscal agent and you should all pay into it and here's your share, but that we're being that we're reflecting on like the use of that $10,000 and whether it we are getting value out of the agreement as opposed to just sort of like paying

I think I think value that we're getting because we're going to have a whole campaign that we'll be able to use through the schools and however else we want to use it. We can work with OCOM. I mean all of the localities will be able to use that campaign and the advisory group will have city of falls church representatives along with everyone else. Uh and in the training I mean school staff can use it, Aurora House staff can use it. We can have somebody from Unity Club on the advisory uh club you know group. So I think that it's going to be a really good value that we're okay for the $10,000. Thank you Dana.

You're welcome. Think we're good. Okay, there's no other things. We can go into close session and take a break. Can I do one thing? Just a council request. Cindy, actually, I think we do have the schedule. Uh council schedule and if we could actually review the agenda tonight versus doing that tomorrow morning at 8:30. Okay. Okay. Do you want to do schedule now or schedule now?

Sure. No, go ahead.

So, um, so we worked through, um, a number of updates today. So, maybe it, you know, happy to answer any questions, but hitting a few highlights. So, um, budget season kicks off next week with the 23rd. We're off the 30th. We have a work session for the budget on the 6th. That focus will be on uh CIP DPW. We'll bring back the the uh code administration fee updates we talked about this evening. April 13th, we'll bring the city councilou for the Virginia village back. um as well as a contract authorization for the real estate consulting services.

Real quick, um the 25th, do we have gov ops? Yes, we do have gov ops. Um and I believe it's the boards and commissions discussion and the council office hours. So that needs to be on there. No. Well, the office the office hours are on the first. Yes. Yeah. He's the first. I think I'm the only one. It may or may not. We'll see. Don't pull an April Fool's on me.

But yeah, we need the 25th now.

Okay. um additional work sessions, you know, on the 13th we'll uh on the 20th will be the school budget and the public safety budget. Um on the 27th for probably just budget Q&A. I think starting on May 4th is where like you know we're starting to flush out some new work. So some of this you've you all have seen before, some of it's new. So, um, we'll start the discussion on the Chesapeake Bay state law compliance work that we need to do. So, we'll bring some kind of initiating resolutions and start that discussion on May 4th and continues on the 11th on uh May 18th. We've got a series of uh law enforcement city code cleanup work that we'll be introducing to you all. And at that point, we'll be coming back to uh close the loop on Virginia Village, talk about the selection committee for the RFP. Um that work continues on May 26th. On June 1st, um we're proposing a scoping discussion on the topic of the BZA and parking and landscape modifications and waiverss. And so I know that that's a topic that's been out there for a while. So um so we've had a good discussion here over the last week. And so the the initial work session for that will be on June 1st. Um and then you know and then work to follow the uh

I guess a question on that one. Um given that the state has sent parking legislation to the governor and might likely be signed and it'll probably be effect July 1st or Cindy, what is the effective date? Okay. Does it that impact what we might talk about June 8th and would it make sense and then to sequence it so that we don't actually waste time talking about something that change at the level? Um I have provided that legislation to the working team and if it's signed we'll know the signature by the governor on April 13th because that's the deadline. Okay. So we'll know before June. We'll know and can be taken into consideration.

Okay. And then um then we have Virginia Village work potentially like as a placeholder we've got uh that June 15th and continuing into July. So um there'll be a few other things kind of you know sprinkled in there but that's a a big chunk of the work I think that that you all see uh with us between now and and beginning of the summer on Virginia Village. Could you let us know when those community meetings were scheduled because I think March and April had several? Yes, I believe there's one Saturday.

Yeah, there's one online is the 21st that has like location time TBD. So, that one would be good to know if something's actually happening on Saturday. I've gotten some inquiries about it. And I had one question on tomorrow's the Eden Center police substation. Where in the mall is that? Oh, he was at the uh we talked about it at the Chamber of Commerce lunch today. It's in the one closest to the arch. When you go on the left, when you go on the left, yes, there was an address, but I think it's where Bon meet Oi is. And along Wilson Boulevard, the part that's closest to Wilson. The address is Wilson Boulevard. Yeah.

So, it's outside versus that inside hallway. So, the arch is not near Bio Arches, but it's not next to the grocery store and it's not in the corner. It's closer to Wilson Boulevard. So the car dealership closer car dealership but it's in Eden Center. Yeah, the car dealership the sidewalk that you Yeah. But bomby is on the outside based in Wilson. Is it on the outside or is it then because then there's a hallway where the It's in that building. This is the mall inside the hallway. So rather than us solve it, maybe staff clarify for us where we should. I think it'll be apparent. And on the invitation, it says in the Saigon West Mall at Eden Center. I don't know if that clarifies.

No, no, it didn't clarify, but that was the question at the Chamber of Commerce lunch. Alan Frank was there and he was describing I think it's when you turn when you So that makes it seem like right when you turn in the first entrance. I don't know which way you're coming. Like the one where you turn in and then you're in between the standing restaurant on the right and the mall and the mall and the storefronts on the left. It would be the mall entrance on the left before you get to the giant parking. Yeah, it's where you would expect it to be. Okay, thanks. Yeah, I just wrote down the address. I was going to just put my GPS tricky at Eden Center. Um, also speaking this week, there's the chamber gala on Thursday night. Yeah, I I sent that out to everyone. Okay.

Yeah. So, okay. Sorry to interrupt Manny. I just had one question and I was interested potentially in a legislative committee uh meeting at some point before the governor takes action just to do a deeper dive on whatever may be out there. We appreciate the status reports, but I think the legislative committee ought to meet. When is the deadline for the governor's signature? I'm trying to remember

the governor's deadline for the bills that have already been sent is April 13th. Then we'll have the April 21st veto reconvene session of the general assembly to look at the vetos from the governor and then April 23rd is the budget special session. Right. I'd like to do a leg then if there's something we need to report out to the whole council, but that would be good to do. And then of course there is the budget. Yep. And there's some work going on that. But so I'll I'll work with the leg committee, all three of you sitting right there, um and see what we can schedule before April 13th. Right. Thank you.

Other things on the schedule. So the request was So those was what I was going to hit on. So any questions you'll have? Yeah, mostly the Virginia Village ones just so we can get them on the calendars. If you can email them out to us, that would be helpful. We'll follow up. other things on the schedule? No,

I'll just throw out there um Art referred to it, but um for gov ops, we are looking at um boards and commissions and you know, possible streamlining just talking. We're just talking now and and so I'll update the c, you know, nothing will happen without updating the council. And then also I am going to um have a proposal on how we can do um some additional office hours once a month in the evening um you know at a local restaurant two of us. So I'll um work on that and then send that out to council get your feedback.

Thanks for working on that. And mayor, since you all were talking about some more community events, I just wanted to flag uh the May uh March 20 March 21st is the buyer resource fair and the city clerk sent that email out today. Everybody's welcome. There's no formal presentation, but if you wanted to support the regional effort, March 26 is the next Eden Center workshop for the businesses and the commissioner, revenue, treasur, and building safety are going to go up and talk about taxes and permits. You all are welcome for that. Um there was one other what was March 28th? Oh March 28th is a no Kings rally and from 9 to 12 and then at 1:00 at the community center will be Dr. Eie Henderson's portrait unveiling in the gym to go with the naming on the wall. So uh those invitations will be coming out from city clerk as well.

What what date is um Henderson's unveiling? March 28th, 1 p.m. Okay. Because that's spring break. Yeah. But that was the best day for the Hendersons and the family and folks coming into town. Okay. Anything else on schedule? So, I'll send a link out to the uh Virginia Village web page for the city. So, it's got So, we have uh two meetings on site visioning. The uh the first one's Saturday the 21st, the second one is Tuesday, March 24th.

Does that Saturday one have info on the web, but it doesn't have like a information yet, right, Andy? Or did it get filled in with actual information because the dates there and it has no information as to where anyone should go. Uh you you can click through it. It's at Oak Street Elementary. Oh, great. Okay. From 10 to 12. So, I'll send it I send it out, but and there's two more meetings in April. So, so we'll send the details.

Mayor, I just have one thing under the other discussion items and that is um recently there was a walk around Oak Street Elementary with the CACT and the police and public works. One of the things that came up in that walk was the uh Greenway Downs construction has taken a huge break this winter, which is understandable because there was so much, but it's really dangerous. There's big gaps that are open. There are community members now that are contacting me and just wondering what the plan is. The public works staffer who was there said, "Yeah, it's on track to be done by May, but they're doing zero work on that project." So, it I would I'm just asking for someone to check in with that contractor, figure out what's going on and when they actually expect it to be done because there's a there's about five or six corners that are all torn up. There's an area on Seat Lane where they have giant um concrete pipes that are going in for storm water that kids have been seen climbing on. The neighbor there said she's yelled at kids who are using them for playground equipment. They're not really well roped off. And the again, it's been weeks on end. We see a contractor one day and then they come back three weeks later.

I know they ran into some issues beyond the weather. Yeah. Yeah. You know, with with the project, but I'm not up on the specific. Right. It would just be good to let the people who are dealing with it every day know and also to get that contractor to actually secure the spaces better than what is there. Thank you. Okay. And just to confirm, mayor will cancel the agenda meeting tomorrow at 8:30. Sounds good. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, we're ready to go into close session. Okay. I'm going to read the motion of there it is. Okay. Upon a motion made by bounds and seconded by Connelly

and passed by a vote of city council, council went into close session pursuant to Virginia Code 2.2-3711.8. A8 for consultation with legal council employed or retained by public body regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such council for litigation related to Pearson Square at 410 South Maple. Council member Aen, yes. Connelly, yes. DS, yes. Flynn, yes. Snider, yes. Under Hill is not here anymore. Hardy, yes. We're going to go in at 10:45. Thank you.

Okay, let's come out of close. Upon a motion made by DS and seconded by and passed by a vote of the city council, council reconvened in open session. Aen, yes. Connelly, yes. Downs. Yes. Flynn. Yes. Snider. Yeah. Under Hills not here. Hardy. Yes. We are coming out whatever time it is 11:13 p.m. Now for the certification upon a motion made by Connelly and seconded by

Glenn passed upon affirmative roll call vote in open session. And it was certified that one only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements and two only such public business matters as were identified in the motion by which the closed meeting was convene heard discuss or considered in the closed session or meeting by the body. Aen yes Connelly yes. DS yes. Flynn yes. Snder. Yeah. Under Hills not here. Hardy yes. Is there any other final business? Okay. Well, we're journed. Good night council. And we are canceling tomorrow morning.