City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Monday, June 8th meeting of the City Council. I wanted to call the meeting to order. Let's start with roll call, please. Madam Clerk?

Mr. Agin?

Here.

Ms. Conley?

Here.

Ms. Downs is absent. Ms. Flynn? Is absent. Mr. Snyder? Here. Ms. Underhill? Oh, there she is. I'm here. Okay, thank you. And Mayor Hardy?

Here.

Thank you.

And we have a motion for electronic participation for Ms. Underhill.

Council Member Underhill, would you identify your remote location and reason for participation by electronic means?

I am in Falls Church, Virginia, and I am participating remotely due to medical reasons.

I move that the City Council approve electronic participation by Councilmember Underhill in this meeting for medical reasons pursuant to the City Council's adopted policy.

Second. The call roll, please. Is Snyder on the second?

Mr. Agin?

Yes.

Ms. Conley?

Yes. Mr. Snyder? Yes.

Mayor Hardy? Yes. Motion carries. Thank you, Council. Great. Let's everyone rise for the Pledge of Allegiance, please.

Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you all.

Is there a motion to adopt tonight's meeting agenda? I move to adopt the meeting agenda.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Any agenda adopted? Well, welcome, Delegate Simon. We have a special evening tonight where Delegate Simon is presenting not only service awards, but also giving us a quick briefing of the 2026 session, which is not quite over yet, but we will hear from him nonetheless. Welcome.

The never-ending session. Thank you, Mayor Hardy, members of council. It's my pleasure always to join you all this time of year, particularly to honor some very special Falls Churchers and some folks that have dedicated their lives, their livelihoods to serving others and serving the city in particular. So we've got a number of these that we'll go through. I'm gonna start with a committee resolution for my good friend and all of our friends, Renee Bergman Andrews. Renee, are you here? Come on up, Renee, yeah, come on up. So as many of you all probably know, Renee has retired from the Electoral Board because she's left the City of Falls Church, moved a little bit further away, but we prepared this proclamation for you. I'm gonna go ahead and read most of it because I think there's a lot of good information here. So whereas Renee Bergman Andrews retired in 2025 from her position as Secretary of the Falls Church Electoral Board after 27 years of dedicated service to the administration of elections in the City of Falls Church. And whereas Renee joined the city of Falls Church as an officer of election in 1998, quickly became assistant chief officer and then chief officer. And in 2003 was appointed to the Falls Church electoral board where she served for more than 22 years, including as chair, vice chair and secretary. For those of you that don't know, there are only three members, they only have three positions and it sounds like you got a chance to turn to do all of them. Whereas Renee's accomplishments with the Falls Church Electoral Board included guiding the transition of city elections from May to November, leading the consolidation of voting wards from five to three, and twice overseeing acquisition and implementation of new voting equipment. And whereas Renee spearheaded the creation of the City of Falls Church's High School Page Program, I remember working on that legislation with you on that, it consistently championed recruitment, bipartisan balance, and high quality training for officers of election. And whereas Renee's leadership extended statewide to the Virginia Electoral Board Association, where she served in various leadership roles and nationally as she represented the Commonwealth on the United States Election Assistance Commission's Standards Board from 2009 to 2014. And whereas Renee has been deeply engaged in strengthening the election administration by serving on the State Board of Elections General Registrar Electoral Board Work Group, contributing to updates of the State Board Elections Statement of Results and Commonwealth's Help America Vote Act Plan. Whereas Renee's longstanding involvement in civic organizations includes the Metropolitan Washington Council of Government's Election Officials Technical Committee, the Falls Church City Democratic Committee, and the League of Women Voters. Whereas in recognition of her leadership and legacy of service, Renee received a Making Democracy Work Award from the League of Women Voters in 2014, and they created an inaugural award for you, a Community Impact Award in 2025. Whereas throughout her career, Renee has demonstrated extraordinary commitment to the democratic process and election integrity in the City of Falls Church, the Commonwealth, and throughout the United States, something that we really need right now. And whereas Renee has been steadfast advocate for fair, secure, transparent, and well-run elections, and her attention to detail, integrity, and dedication to voters and election workers alike have left a lasting mark on the City of Falls Church. Now, therefore, this means we're getting to the end. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the House of Delegates, the Senate concurring, that the General Assembly hereby commend Renee Bergman Andrews as she concludes her service on the Falls Church Electoral Board, and be it resolved further that the Clerk of the House of Delegates prepare this copy of the resolution for presentation of Renee as an expression of the General Assembly's admiration for her contributions to Falls Church and the Commonwealth, patroned by Delegates Simon and Senator Saleem, and that passed unanimously, Renee, so congratulations.

I don't really have very much to say. You all honored me when I retired back in November. spoke with you in December, so I really have very little to add to that except a couple of things. I would like to, of course, thank Delegate Simon and Senator Saleem for this huge honor. It's just amazing, and I would also like to say that it is yet an additional honor to be here tonight with the family of ted trott as he is also honored ted was there the first day i walked into the election office and he was always a friend always had a lot of wisdom to share and kind words to share as well so it's just wonderful that you've done this together so thank you everybody thank you

We're gonna do a photo of everybody together afterwards. All right, do you all wanna come forward? We're gonna go ahead and stick with the elections office and the theme here. And so we've got a commending resolution, as Renee just alluded to, honoring the life of Edward A. Trott Jr. And I know we've got some folks from the Trott family here with us. So welcome, and it's great to be here with you. So we prepared this resolution, which was agreed to by the House of Delegates on February 23rd earlier this year, which reads, whereas Edward A. Trott Jr., a devoted public servant and highly admired member of the Falls Church community, died on January 6th, 2026, leaving behind a legacy of service, friendship, and genuine care for the city he called home. And whereas Ted, we'll call him, grew up in Washington, D.C., where he graduated from the Gonzaga College High School and Georgetown University. And whereas Ted proudly served the city of Falls Church for 28 years as Deputy Registrar in the Office of Elections, where he was known for his deep knowledge, reliability, and commitment to ensuring fair and accurate elections. And whereas throughout his many years of service, Ted consistently performed his work with care, professionalism, and pride, earning the respect and appreciation of colleagues, city leadership, and the residents he served. And whereas Ted was not only an exceptional employee, but also a valued colleague and a true friend remembered for his kindness, sense of humor, and the warmth he brought to the workplace each day. And whereas Ted took great pride in both living and serving in the city of Falls Church, and his dedication reflected a deep belief in public service and community, and whereas even into his later years, Ted remained deeply committed to his work, setting an enduring example of dedication, integrity, and love for the job he so greatly enjoyed. And whereas Ted Trott will be fondly remembered and greatly missed by his wife of 65 years, Jean, and his children, Barry, Mary, Judith, Anthony, Matthew, and Emily, and their families, and numerous other family members and friends, now therefore be it resolved that the House of Delegates hereby note with great sadness the loss of Edward A. Trott, Jr., a respected member of the Falls Church community who touched countless lives over the course of his distinguished career as a deputy registrar. Be resolved further that the clerk of the House of Delegates prepare a copy of this resolution for presentation to the family of Edward A. Trott, Jr. as an expression of the House of Delegates' respect for his memory. Here it is for you. Thank you. Did you guys want to say anything?

thank you all for this honor for ted he loved this job and he loved you dave especially stacy he loved you all even Even at 89, he did not relinquish his optimism for getting back to this job. He wanted to come back to the office. He loved Falls Church. He loved you all. He enjoyed this job immensely. He would sometimes come home. He said, I'm sorry I'm late, but somebody left their driver's license on the desk, and I just went by and dropped it off on the way home. And that's the sort of thing, you know. He just loved being here. So thank you. Thank you so much.

And thank you all for sharing, Ted, with the City of Falls Church. Thank you so much. That is one of the great things about the little city, is that kind of personal service. You don't get that everywhere. I remember the first time I walked into the registrar's office in the city of Falls Church, and Dave Bjerke knew who I was before I knew who he was. He said, I know what you're here for, so. As opposed to Fairfax County, like, let me see. We don't know how to do that. Let me go find somebody who knows what they're doing. So it was trickier. All right, Veronica Prince. Veronica, how are you? All right, so Veronica is celebrating 25 years here with the city. So whereas Veronica Prince, Deputy Clerk of the City of Falls Church has greatly served the citizens of Falls Church for more than 25 years, more now, this is because it's already June. Whereas Veronica started working with the City of Falls Church in 2000 as a part-time employee in the Human Resources Department and became a full-time administrative assistant in the clerk's office in 2003 and later transitioned to the position of Deputy Clerk in 2007. And whereas as Deputy City Clerk, Veronica serves as the main point of contact for staff liaisons to the City of Falls Church's 21 advisory boards. You keep everybody straight?

Okay.

21 advisory boards and commissions and manages the city council's appointments committee processes for appointing resident members to boards and commissions. And whereas Veronica has demonstrated extraordinary loyalty, professionalism, and compassion as she actively promotes the City of Falls Church and encourages residents to become involved in matters impacting the locality. And whereas during the COVID-19 pandemic, Veronica worked tirelessly to coordinate and track more than 500 virtual board and commission meetings, while ensuring the meetings were in compliance with state law and accessible to the public. How many times did you have to tell people to unmute themselves? And whereas in recognition of her exceptional effort and dedication, Veronica Prince was named City of Falls Church Employee of the Year in 2021. And whereas with the aim of guaranteeing the City of Falls Church's public bodies would be transparent and available to everyone, Veronica helped establish the locality's first public meeting assistant position And whereas Veronica has often gone above and beyond the call of duty in support of the City of Falls Church, serving as acting City Clerk between City Clerk appointments in 2014, and assisting with the City Council's temporary relocation to the City of Falls Church Senior Center in 2018. And whereas as a mentor to staff members and a trusted supporter of the City Clerk, the City Council, and all of its advisory boards, Veronica Prince has become an integral part of the City of Falls Church's governance and operations. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the House of Delegates that Veronica Prince hereby be commended for her more than 25 years of service on behalf of the city of Falls Church and its residents, and be resolved further that the clerk prepare this copy of the resolution for presentation as an expression of our admiration for your contributions to Falls Church and the Commonwealth. Congratulations. Great to see you.

I don't really have much to say other than thank you very much for this, and I truly enjoy connecting the community with the government, and I look forward to continuing to do that. So thank you all, and thanks for working with me all these years.

Joe Carter? Joe! Okay, very good. Joe, welcome, how are you? Good, how are you? Good to see you. This is one of my favorite, this has got a turn of phrase you guys will recognize. I haven't seen in one of these resolutions before, so we'll see if you guys figure out which one it is when we get there. So it says, whereas Joe Carter has ably served the city of Falls Church for 25 years as both a law enforcement officer and the city's director of emergency management and security, demonstrating an unparalleled expertise in crisis management through a wide range of natural disasters, public health emergencies, and other adverse situations. And whereas Joe joined the Falls Church Police Department in 2000, which is now more than 25 years ago now, and quickly earned a reputation as a consummate professional and a trusted mentor, he ultimately provided leadership to the Police Operations Division, where he ensured that the department upheld a responsive, community-oriented public safety philosophy. Whereas Joe retired from the Falls Church Police Department as a captain in 2018, and was appointed as the Emergency Management Coordinator for Falls Church in 2019, subsequently promoted to Director of Emergency Management and Security in 2023. And whereas in that capacity, Joe Carter has planned, coordinated, and directed the response to major snowstorms, floods, prolonged power outages, and public health emergencies, earning him the nickname Master of Disaster. You guys got it now? And whereas for many years, Joe Carter has served as an instructor in the city's rape aggression defense course, which empowers women to recognize and avoid dangerous situations and effectively defend themselves against aggressors. And whereas Joe works with community members and city staff to ensure that special events, and we have a lot of them here in Falls Church, that's not in the resolution, that's just me saying that, are planned to ensure that all who attend have a safe and welcoming experience. And whereas Joe Carter was selected as the 2020 Falls Church Employee of the Year, so we've got back-to-back employees of the year, in recognition of his outstanding leadership in helping staff and community members plan for, respond to, and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. And whereas over the course of his career, Joe Carter has demonstrated calm, steady leadership under pressure, and has earned widespread appreciation for his professionalism, empathy, and dedication to public service. Now therefore, be it resolved by the House of Delegates that Joe Carter hereby be commended for his professional achievements in the service of the City of Falls Church, and be it resolved further that the Clerk of the House of Delegates prepare this copy for presentation to Joe as an expression of the House of Delegates admiration for his legacy of contributions to public safety. So, congratulations.

So I know now why Wyatt called Mike and asked him some things about me, but told Mike not to tell me. But does he know that we're very transparent in my department? This is a great honor. I really appreciate it. Not needed, but definitely deserved. This is a unique community that I really love. And obviously, you can tell that because I stayed around for a little bit more after my police retirement. So thank you very much. I always appreciate your support and everything we do. And thank you, Wyatt. I appreciate it, sir. Thank you.

All right. Congratulations. We've got one more. for our longest, so this is for Joe, or for Daniel, I'm sorry, just did Joe. Daniel, how are you?

Doing well, how are you?

Good to see you.

You as well.

All right, so whereas Daniel J. Schlitt, am I saying that right? All right, careful. Director of the Department of Recreation and Parks in the City of Falls Church, admirably served the citizens of the City of Falls Church, and this is for many years. I think we get to the end and we know exactly how many, for many years. Whereas as a graduate of the Belmont Abbey College, Daniel Danny J. Schlitt joined the Department of Recreation and Parks in the City of Falls Church as a part-time recreation leader in 1990. And whereas Danny Schlitt demonstrated exemplary professionalism and a commitment to excellence upon joining the department, he was quickly promoted to a role as a full-time recreation program supervisor. And whereas Danny proved himself to be an invaluable member of the Falls Church Department of Recreation and Parks over the years, earning promotions to senior recreation program supervisor in 1999, deputy director in 2007, and director in 2011, Whereas Danny's accomplishments during his tenure as director include a scholarship initiative to improve access to the Department of Recreation and Parks programs, various park and playground improvements, and support of the Falls Church Farmers Market, which received a gold certification from the Virginia Farmers Market Association in 2024, and has been named Northern Virginia's Best Farmers Market multiple times by Northern Virginia Magazine. And whereas in recognition of his efforts in service to the community, Danny was named employee of the year for the city of Falls Church in 1998. So a little bit of a break there. All of y'all have been employees of the year at one point or another. And whereas Danny has worked tirelessly to enhance the parks and recreational activities available to the residents and visitors of Falls Church, helping to make the city a wonderful place to live, work, and play. Now therefore be it resolved by the House of Delegates that Daniel J. Schlitt, Director of the Department of Recreation and Parks in the City of Falls Church, hereby be commended for his 35 years of service on behalf of the citizens of Falls Church, more than 35 years, and be it resolved further that the clerk prepare this copy of the resolution for presentation as an expression of our admiration for your contributions to Falls Church and the Commonwealth. Congratulations. You made it 35.

Thank you very much. I greatly appreciate it. The bottom line is this is a very special city. I think I'm preaching to the choir when I say that, but I kind of came here in 1990 in a pair of shorts and a pair of flip-flops coming up from the state of Florida. I made Falls Church my home as well as my workplace home, but said to myself I might be here for maybe three, four years at most, and it just kind of sticks with you. But thank you very much. Very kind.

We would love to invite everyone up for a photo. And any family members who would like to join is welcome too. Thank you all for joining.

Feel free, I mean, that way if I filibuster, I get fewer questions from council members, right? So I guess we're onto part two, which is a little bit of an update from Richmond, where things stand. So, Normally, and I know that Cindy's going to give you guys later in the agenda, she's going to go through a more detailed list of where everything is. I'm not going to get super specific, unless you guys have questions about specific bills. I wasn't going to go through everything. But normally by this time of year, I'd be able to tell you all where the budget was and how that had all come out. Unfortunately, the update for you this year is we still don't have a budget, a two-year budget, a biannual budget for Virginia. We have a special session scheduled. We're in special session to work on the budget. We've been called back. The House is called back on June 18th. The Senate is going back on June 22nd. So that's how far apart we are. We couldn't even decide to come back the same day, which gives you a little bit of an insight about what's going on. The big hangup is not generally over spending priorities. I think for the most part, the House and the Senate agree on the big issues and things that need to be taken care of. I think there's, you know, the House budget has a specific line for $153 million for Metro funding. which I know is really important. Without state funding, that falls back on the local jurisdictions. And I think it would cost the city here over a million dollars out of your own revenues if you had to close that gap. It's a lot more in Fairfax, but it's a big chunk percentage-wise of the budget. I think there's a commitment to getting that funded. There's a commitment to increasing funding for schools, for teacher pay, for paying for things like our new paid family and medical leave program. and other things that we've funded. And funding to make sure that we have enough money to fill gaps that the federal government has left as far as SNAP funding and Medicaid funding. So there's money to backfill some of those programs in the budget. The question is coming down to how we pay for it exactly. And the biggest hangup that you've probably read, over the way the tax treatment for data centers in Virginia. The Senate has proposed essentially just an early sunset to the sales tax exemption that data center operators get. It was an economic development proposal. It's set to sunset I think in 2030 something. Anyway, And the Senate sort of reached the conclusion that we can go ahead and sunset it early. The data centers love Virginia and they love our broadband and our infrastructure and everything else. And they don't need the incentive to come here anymore. The House's position is we made a deal with them and we've signed up for it. And... we see that the data centers do need to pay their fair share and contribute to the Virginia economy. And so in the House and the governor's proposal is that we provide some sort of a energy consumption tax for data centers. So the Senate funds a lot of their programmatic spending, a lot of the backfilling of federal programs and things by saving about, you know, saving about $2 billion or gaining about $2 billion by canceling the sales tax sunset. House folks have proposed and the governor's office have proposed an energy consumption tax that would be, depending on how you do it, anywhere from one to one and a half billion dollars. So there's still about a $500 million delta there Although we did get a new revenue forecast, which said we found an additional $1.5 billion in anticipated revenue for the state. So that could help bridge that gap. So I think there's plenty of money sloshing around to make this happen and get it together. It's just a matter of the principal negotiators getting their heads together and deciding how we're going to move forward on this. There is some talk that we could delay a decision on this by funding something called a skinny budget where we fund core services. It's never happened in Virginia before. We haven't had to do that to meet our deadline. I don't know what their definition of core services would look like. I don't know if Metro funding, for instance, would be part of that or not. And so there's a lot that's sort of hanging out for us to wait and see. So that's sort of the status. of the budget. Again, I think there's a broad commitment to a lot of the same spending priorities. There's mostly questions about what the revenue is gonna do. So other big themes from the session, I think some big successes came in the area of housing and affordable housing in particular. And there's an interesting intersection of state and local government where housing in particular is concerned. Housing, elections, public safety, there are a couple of issues where The General Assembly, everybody here I think understands. I know folks online understand. Virginia is a Dillon rule state. Localities have the authorities that are explicitly granted to them by the General Assembly. And in an effort to sort of address some of these things, basically there's, and Cindy will get into more detail, but there's three sort of categories of things that we did to you or for you or with you, right? There are certain authorities that we granted localities to give localities more tools and more flexibility around things like adopting a portable dwelling unit ordinances and things like that. But there are also some requirements. They said you're gonna mandate that you have certain kinds of inclusive zoning. And then there were some prohibitions. So there's some things you can't do. For instance, parking minimums near transit corridors. And of course, by this definition, the entire city of Falls Church, because of its bus lines, are transit areas. And so we limit some of your authority to do parking minimums. So that, by way of example, sort of the three approaches. There's things... You must do, you must change your ordinances to accomplish certain policy objectives. There's some things you can't do because we think they inhibit housing and a drag on housing affordability. And then some new authorities, which are things you usually ask for. Here's some flexibility for you to use these tools as you see fit. I know from a local government's perspective, you'd prefer more of that third category. Like just give us lots of tools and let us use the ones we want. Easy on the mandates, please. And certainly ones that you don't fund. And please don't stop us from doing things. I understand that interplay. I spent the first, part of my public service career working in the chairman's office in Fairfax County with Kate Hanley. And Richmond was the bad evil stepmother, was being mean to us all the time. It's a different role when you're sitting in the General Assembly. But that's sort of the category of things that you're going to see. I talked a little bit about some of the housing things that you're going to see. Transportation, again, we've got strong support for WMATA in regional transit in the house budget. And so we're going to continue to see what comes out of that process. Some of the things you've asked for as far as authority on pedestrian safety. So we're going to have more opportunities for automated enforcement. Not everything I think that you all probably would like, but certainly in... work areas where workers are present, some of the school bus things. And so there's more opportunities for automated enforcement that's again geared towards pedestrian safety. Gun violence prevention, I know it's been a big priority of the council and your legislative agenda year after year. We were able to make some significant accomplishments where gun safety is concerned. Particularly, we have an assault weapons ban now, which is being challenged in court. My bill to prevent the sale and ownership of ghost guns, these unserialized plastic, often homemade firearms, that one doesn't seem to have been challenged, at least not yet. Maybe we shouldn't talk about it so much. And then we've worked also on environmental, the environment. I know it's a big priority for the city council and making sure we have good, reliable energy and flood resilience and things like that. So we've done some things on that. And then fair administration of elections, right? We just honored some of our elections officials. And so we've done some things that do look like, I mean, everything we do with elections is an unfunded mandate because we locally administer So anytime we require you to do anything, we do expect you to continue to pay for it, but there's never really been a elections administration fund that the state has done. But these are things to make sure, frankly, looking prospectively, that our election process is sort of bulletproof and unassailable. We want to make sure that everybody's vote is counted here and that we have a good paper trail and that we don't have anybody coming in making claims of a stolen election and not being able to document that process. So those are sort of the big issues. I'm happy to take questions from you all on anything sort of specific. And if it's too specific, I'll defer to Cindy's presentation later and that'll be my dodge.

Great. Well, thank you, Delegate Simon. We appreciate the overview and your work in Richmond on behalf of us. We have questions or comments for Delegate Simon? Mr. Egan?

So a broad question. What didn't get through that you're thinking about for next year?

Yeah, that's actually a great question. So there's a lot of talk about things that didn't happen, and a lot of things were carried over this year for more studies. So we finally have this trifecta of the House, the Senate, and the governor all in Democratic hands. There's a backlog of about five years or six years worth of things that we were very anxious to do. Some of the high profile or big headline grabbers, for instance, was an adult use marijuana marketplace. And we thought we had had, we'd been working on that and fine tuning it for four years as a general assembly, sent it to the governor. It turns out she was also had some fine tuning of her own that she wanted to do. And so we weren't able to come together. So she ultimately vetoed the adult use marketplace bill. But I think that that's something that will come back certainly next year, if not sooner, there is some talk about trying to put some of these things into the budget, if we ever come out with a budget that would implement some of these things, because I think the adult use marketplace is sort of overdue. I think that we legalized marijuana, decriminalized it in 2020, but we need to have a safe, reliable, regulated marketplace and we need to get that done sooner rather than later. So that's one that I think we'll come back and we'll see that. For you all, something I think matters a lot to the city is public sector collective bargaining. That was a bill that I think we thought was ready for prime time at the House and Senate level and passed a bill that would have had that move forward. The governor continued to have some concerns about the implementation. And listen, frankly, a lot to local government concerns. I think her position was that the General Assembly had been a little too dismissive of some of local government's concerns about the the specific implementation and making sure that we could implement these collective bargaining ordinances in a way that made sense for every locality since we're trying to sort of put a one size fits all solution together. So that will be back next year for sure. There was a lot of heartache about that. And frustration, I think, mostly that we didn't hear back from the governor sooner about that in time to try to fix that this year as opposed to having to wait until next year. And then personally, I had a bill that would have allowed, Virginia and Mississippi are the only two states that you currently can't file a class action lawsuit in state court in, so us and Mississippi. And so I worked on legislation again for about four years that would have Mississippi is the only state where you can't have a state level class action. The governor had some substantial rewrites of that bill and ultimately ended up vetoing it because we couldn't come together on her amendments. And so we'll see that next year. So those are some consumer protection things. We did do some consumer protection. We did also, I guess it's worth mentioning, since you made me think about it, landlord-tenant is going to be another area, in addition to housing, where the scales we've tilted a little bit, right? I think that there was, under Republican control, a much more deference to landlords and property owners. And when in doubt, we sort of, you know, erred in favor of the landlord. And I think that you've seen a sort of a shift in attitude towards that. And I think that a lot of the changes you see are more concerned with protecting tenants' rights, protecting tenants from junk fees, from very quick evictions. So we're going to go from a five-day notice to pay or quit to a 15-day notice to pay or quit so people can get that next paycheck before they're forced out of their homes. And gives localities the authority to do some enforcement on behalf of tenants. A lot of times, and this sort of is on that theme again of class actions and consumer protection, a tenant who's having a problem with their landlord not fulfilling their maintenance requirements doesn't have a lot of recourse. They can go hire a lawyer to sue their landlord. Well, if they're barely making their rent, where are they going to get the money to sue a landlord? On the other hand, this will allow, if it's a true health and safety issue, this legislation would allow somebody, a locality to set up a program where somebody could say, hey, listen, my landlord is not maintaining my home properly. They're allowing mold to fester in places. It's causing health problems for me. Can the city please go in and do an inspection and require the landlord to make these health and safety fixes? And so that's an authority that the city of Falls Church will have, I think, starting this year. And again, that's just one of a number of things that we've done to look towards tenant protections, consumer protections versus landlords. And we're getting there on class actions and trying to give consumers a little bit of a leg up on big corporations as well.

Ms. Connelly.

This is not specifically related to Falls Church, but in general. I'm just wondering about with the murder of Serena Fairfax and other things related to divorce, is there any effort in the General Assembly in the future to really look at Virginia's divorce laws and how women are treated as second-class citizens?

Yes, the short answer is yes. So I chair the civil law subcommittee on our courts of justice committee in the house. And so we do a family law comes through my subcommittee and we've been working for a while on sort of modernizing Virginia's family law and divorce law in particular. Virginia doesn't have no fault divorce, right? Which adds a lot of friction in a lot of cases, unnecessary friction to do these divorce proceedings. So somebody needs to, you have to have a reason there's almost, And it certainly incentivizes if not requiring some finger pointing and somebody to be the bad actor and somebody to be at fault for the divorce. And again, that, and then we also have this lengthy period of forced separation before divorce can be granted and not real, no real exceptions. Again, we passed the, legislation this year to expand what's called a divorce from bed and board, which is a sort of archaic legal term, but it would allow you to short circuit some of the separation things and would allow some people that were in that Fairfax's situation where they were living in the same home on different floors during this period of estrangement not to have to do that for so long. And I think there's gonna be a movement towards Virginia allowing truly no-fault divorces where people can just file for divorce and if there's agreement from both parties that this is over and it can move fairly quickly and streamline that process. We also have done some things to strengthen our red flag law here in Virginia and to make it more useful. We have these emergency protective orders that allow a court and the sheriff's department to come remove firearms from a residence. And so we've also made it easier and also put some money in for educating sheriff's departments and Commonwealth's attorney's offices and the bench about the availability of these so that they get used more often. I know anecdotally, I've heard that there were some warning signs of the situation deteriorating in the Fairfax household that the court may or may not have been aware of. And so this would sort of, there's some more training to help those issues rise to the surface before things spiral out of control. So the long answer to your short question was yes.

Ms. Underhill.

Hello. I'm guessing it doesn't seem like my camera is working, but if you all can hear me, that's that's fine. Thank you so much. There's a lot that's happened. The sessions. Thank you so much for giving us this overview and also representing false church, our interests in the in the state. Could you give a little bit more information on what the ranked choice voting legislation actually provides? So we did have the authority for ranked choice voting. What was the intent behind this latest update to that? This is something that I'm particularly interested in to see if this might make sense in Falls Church. And so could you give a little bit of background on what this update was for and what the intent was from the General Assembly?

So Cindy's, I think, looking like she's got a little more detail on that. I'll be honest with you, I'm no longer in the Privileges and Elections Committee. I know that we've expanded it and made it more flexible, and we'd like to see it used more in cities and things like that. But I couldn't get you deep in the weeds on what the background was on that. But do you have something on that? Cindy's going to get to that later. So I'm going to defer. I told you I would punt on some of these questions to Cindy, so there you see it happening.

That's all right. Okay, I'll save that question for later. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments? Mr. Schneider.

Yeah, so I just want to underscore the comments that you made about the Dillon rule. And from my view, this was... an extraordinary session on the extent to which the legislature reached down to local governments, both with the negative, you can't do this, and you must do this. And I hope that as we go forward, we'll continue to have good dialogue with you to minimize that impact. And it really was an extraordinary amount of that this time. That's what I hope for in the future, and I look forward to working with you to try to minimize that in the future.

I appreciate that. Again, as I said earlier, someone who comes from a local government background, I try and be sensitive to that. There is sort of a growing view, I think, among some in Richmond that localities are a real hindrance, obviously the villain, but almost, in this fair housing crisis. contest that we have to try and bring more affordable housing, not say fair housing, affordable housing and more housing stock and so forth. And believe it or not, we actually defeated a lot of fairly severe legislation that would have been a really sort of one size fits all, very sort of punitive approach to a lot of this. So, you know, I always believe that dialogue works better working together As I've said, I'm very pleased. I think the City of Falls Church does a great job with its land use and have done a great job with development. I can even say my parents love the City of Falls Church so much that they are moving here. They're gonna move to the reserve in West Falls. They've already signed their lease. They're just waiting for the building to get finished. We watch every time we drive by to see how the progress is coming along. I think they love the city. They also said, incidentally, they want to be constituents of mine so that they can have an even stronger bit of sway over my voting and what would I do down in Richmond now that they're actually be constituents of mine for the first time. So we love it. We love what you guys are doing here. Look forward to continuing to have a great relationship with the city as these things go forward.

That's great. And let us all be the first to welcome your parents to the City of Falls Church. Thank you.

Thank you for that ringing endorsement from your parents as well. I guess a more moderate view on kind of the collaborative approach on especially on housing. I think especially in Falls Church we understand that housing is a top priority and I think when you now talk across the Commonwealth it's actually a shared priority and so I think the request is to be at the table for the discussions. I think unlike VML and I will say this even as a member of the VML executive committee that we want to be more collaborative. We can't just say no to everything because we know this is a top priority for all Virginians and so We'd love to collaborate with you and the rest of the General Assembly on housing legislation to come.

Well, I think that's absolutely right. I mean, coming to the table requires both sides, right? Actually being willing to be at the table and coming with an open mind and a willingness to work and not just be an obstacle to things is a key part of those types of negotiations.

Great. Well, thank you for always being accessible to us and being a great representative for Falls Church.

Thanks. And this is like, yeah, this is one of my favorite days of the year. I love to do the presentations. I think this is a tradition sort of evolved from a time when I was a part of a 34 member minority. I couldn't pass any legislation except for commending resolutions and things like that. So you guys were kind enough to give me a forum to present those. And now I think it's become a nice tradition. I'm happy to come back and look forward to doing it again next year. Great.

Thank you.

Thank you guys.

I think moving on to the next in the agenda, we have oaths of office for new board and commission members.

Anyone in the audience here to take an oath? Is there anybody here to take an oath? No, we did a few today at City Hall for people who couldn't make it tonight.

It's a good plug to join one of our 25-plus boards and commissions. Okay, let's move on to receipt of public comment. Can we start with a summary of written comments, please, Madam Clerk?

Yes, we certainly can. These are a summary of the comments received since the last regular city council meeting. Matt Adams did provide his comments that he made at the May 26th meeting in favor of thoughtfully redeveloping Virginia Village as affordable housing. Nader Barouk wrote to ask that council adopt the Virginia Village zoning ordinance sections before selecting a developer, warning that the current sequence would undermine meaningful public input and may constrain council's flexibility. And then Nader and Bernadette Baruch wrote to support affordable housing at Virginia Village but urged council to complete and publicly share full planning analyses set and adopt calibrated zoning standards and only then issue the RFP. Mostafa El Nahas wrote to support issuing an RFP to expand affordable dignified housing in Virginia Village with protections for displaced residents and consideration of bonds or mixed use sustainable growth to finance expansion. The Environmental Sustainability Council wrote with green building certification recommendations for the Virginia Village RFP to ensure it advances affordable housing and CEAP goals together, reduces operating costs, and aligns with up-to-date green building standards. Amaya Lambert asked that the new Virginia Village have clear community standards and strong property management, enforcement, and reported current problems with clutter, trash, and unattended pets and shared spaces. Maria Belen Calet, a Virginia Village resident, wrote to support the city exploring reinvestment or redevelopment of the property to preserve and expand affordable housing, and said that residents have been meaningfully consulted and their views incorporated. Catherine Williams asked for meaningful resident participation in the Virginia Village RFP Selection Committee, asked for regulation of short-term rentals and use of other tools to increase private housing options, and supported redevelopment that preserves some existing Virginia Village buildings to retain neighborhood character. Regarding the sidewalks at Whittier Park, Colonel John Gonda wrote to oppose replacing the brick sidewalks with concrete, saying that it violates the site plan, harms property values, is less cost effective than repairing the existing brick sidewalks. and was decided without resident input. John O'Connell from the neighborhood wrote to object replacing the brick pavers with concrete and said it would harm the neighborhood's character, diminish property values, and should be accompanied by reduced property taxes if the city proceeds. Dave Rifkin also wrote about the sidewalks. and said that the city must repair or replace them with four-inch brick pavers in accordance with the official site plan documents. In other comments, Larry Little wrote to a vice council of his call to dispatch to report the writing of high-speed electric motorcycles on Park Avenue, the bike path, and West Street. Richard Doyle on behalf of the Great Falls Street Neighborhood Working Group requested a clear update and firm commitment from the city on implementing promised traffic calming measures on Great Falls Street, citing ongoing speeding, unsafe driving, limited enforcement, and a concern that a tragedy may occur if action continues to be delayed. And finally, the Falls Church Climate Action Network wrote to explain that rising electric bills for schools and city buildings likely stem from electricity price inflation, demand-based utility charges, and higher than expected uses in facilities like Meridian High and the community center and urged the city and schools to jointly review usage and rates of ahead of 2026 pricing changes to target the most cost effective efficiency and solar investments. That was it, thank you.

Great, thank you. Let's receive public comment live or in person then.

Yes. First, we have Bella and Colette, and then followed by Cassandra Cloud. Oh, thank you.

Oh, it's a short comment. Okay.

So good evening, my name is Belin. I live in Virginia Village. I live in one of the city-owned apartments. I do feel privileged to have been able to access affordable housing, but I don't think housing should be a privilege just for a few. So I am in favor of the city looking to explore how to expand and preserve at the same time. I understand this is a process and you have brought us into this process, so if not with us, You can't do it without us. So I appreciate that you brought the community in. We conveyed our concerns. We conveyed our desires. And that was brought back to us from the city, which was a hard task. But they did a pretty good job in understanding what we needed and what we feared. and what we're looking forward to. So having said that, I don't want to take for granted that this city is involving its citizens and its community and its neighbors, not only the residents, to see what can be done. I'd rather know what can be done than just say no to something that we don't know could be. So I'd rather have an informed decision and I'd rather be involved. So thank you for having these conversations and continue us to have them because I think it's the only way And I do think it takes a village, so thank you.

Thank you. Next we have Cassandra Cloud followed by Bernadette Baruch.

Hello, I'm Cassandra. We met last meeting and I live in Winter Hill, very close to where this redevelopment is happening. I'm actually in favor of affordable housing. I used to live there, as I said last time. I just want to make sure that the setbacks and the step downs from whatever is built there is going to be enough that we are able to preserve the light and the feeling of both Virginia Village and Winter Hill. I like living in a little city. I don't wanna feel like I live in Clarendon. And so really what we're asking is just that we thoughtfully think about what restrictions we wanna put when we send out that RFP. And we do a shadow study to make sure that we're not blocking out the light to both my lovely backyard where my kids play and raise their plants, our solar panels in our neighborhood that help reduce those rising Virginia electric costs, and then also don't mitigate the amazing amount of money we have poured into water abatement in the time that I've lived both in Virginia Village and in Winter Hill. There is a lot of water challenges in that park and the surrounding neighborhood. Other than that, I'm very excited about doing something there. But I'd like the city to also think about where else we can build. The space that's behind me is Shirley Street. It's not a major road. There may be other places or other things that we can consider for affordable housing. Even if we did it up to seven feet, it wouldn't have 700 units. And we still have a great demand for affordable housing. So I'd like to do it where it respects the existing neighborhoods, but also thinks about what else we have to do. So this isn't just a one and done. Okay, thank you so much.

Thank you. Next, we have Bernadette Baruch followed by Nader Baruch.

Hi, Mayor and members of Council, Bernd Deperuch, 243 Gundry Drive. I'm here to provide comments on Virginia Village. After attending and watching multiple Council and Planning Commission meetings, I've repeatedly heard that the RFP is intended to encourage creativity from the development community and that developers are the experts who can provide valuable ideas. If that is the case, why are proposed zoning amendments being incorporated into the RFP before they have been approved? This has been one of the primary concerns raised about running the RFP concurrently with the zoning changes, including unapproved zoning amendments limits the opportunity for meaningful changes later in the process. At the last planning commission meeting, staff stated that only minimal changes could be made after first reading because additional revisions would require extending the public notice period. That effectively locks in decisions before the public process is complete. This project should not become an example of development first and public process second. If the RFP continues to move forward, the proposed transition to the existing neighborhood remains inadequate. Reducing setbacks from 40 feet to 25 feet and removing any building high cap is inconsistent with how other developments, such as Pearson Square and Lawton Street, particularly where this project borders Whole Foods, transition to adjacent neighborhoods. I ask that the council refer to the petition previously submitted and signed by nearly 70 residents asking for stronger neighborhood protections. Virginia Village is an important opportunity for Falls Church, but it needs to be collaborative and respectful of the surrounding community. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next we have Nader Baruch followed by Robin Ramey.

Good evening, Mayor and members of council. My name is Nader Baruch, and my wife and I have lived in Winter Hill for, I can't believe it's been 21 years, and are raising our 13-year-old there, directly adjacent to the Virginia Village site. We bought in, as I mentioned the other day, knowing that we live next to affordable housing on one side and also next to affordable housing on the other, and we're proud of that. they are part of our community and it makes for a great cohesive whole i want to see virginia village redevelop but at the same time the city should hold the project to the same transition standards it has been required for other projects elsewhere in the city i have two concerns about where we're headed on the zoning first the 45 degree bulk plane along the winter hill edge needs a height cap I understand the purpose of the bulk plane is to help shape the building and create a transition in scale at the edges, and I think that's an important first step. But a bulk plane without a ceiling doesn't substitute for an actual height limit. A developer can still work within that building envelope and produce a building taller than what was expected by residents. For a site that directly abuts Holmes and Big Chimneys Park, that is not enough. The 45 degree plane angle should be paired with a clear, meaningful height limit. Second, the proposed 25 foot setback is simply too narrow. There's been other examples where that has not worked well. Virginia Village having two sites of that where that has not worked. One on Broad against Whole Foods and one on Pearson or rather Tax Analyst and Winter Hill on the other edge. In other comparable transitions where things have worked well, including Lawton Street at the Whole Foods site, which is nearly a 40 foot, 42 foot setback, actually, in places, and the rear of Pearson Square in South Virginia in Rollins, which is also nearly 40 feet. The city has required more separation in nearby homes. Those projects set an important standard. Virginia Village borders existing homes, parkland, and established neighborhoods. Winter Hill deserves the same level of protection. I understand that this is a complex project with real constraints. I'm asking the city to get the transitions right adding meaningful height limit at the Winter Hill edge, and increase the setback so this project can be strong and a long-term neighbor. And I don't mean that it necessarily needs to be 40 feet, but 25 is not enough based on what we've seen work in other project sites. Thank you.

Next we have Robin Ramey followed by Dylan Haynes.

Good evening. I'm here tonight to support an ambitious affordable housing vision for Virginia Village. I do first want to say that I do think that the residents of Winter Hill and other neighboring communities have brought up some important considerations and those things should be and have been taken into consideration I think by council and staff in this RFP. Their voices are important in this conversation. But for many people who bought a home many years ago, it's hard to appreciate how dramatically the housing landscape has changed since then, particularly in the city of Falls Church. Today, even people with good jobs and deep ties in this community often find that home ownership or even just stable rental housing within the city, it's increasingly out of reach. Those aren't strangers, they're our children, they're our coworkers, they're our grandchildren, they're neighbors, they're people that you already know. And their voices matter too. As this process has unfolded, I found myself thinking a lot about the people who aren't in this room and you will probably never see here speaking on this microphone. The restaurant workers who are serving dinner tonight as we're talking and having this meeting, the young families who are juggling work and childcare, the grad student who grew up here and would love to come home but can't afford it, and the senior who is wondering whether they're gonna be able to remain in the community that they've called home for decades. Most of those people, like I said, you're not gonna see here at these meetings. Trust me, I've tried to get them here. They have legitimate reasons for not being here. They don't have the time or the flexibility to participate for the months or maybe even years long process that this is gonna take. Yet the decisions that we make here are gonna shape their futures just as much as those like myself and others who you see here today. And that's why your leadership here matters so much. For years, Falls Church has repeatedly adopted policies and plans prioritizing affordable housing. And the current council even has consistently affirmed those affordable housing as a core city goal. In 2025, the city unanimously adopted the affordable living policy and incorporated into the comprehensive plan and set clear goals around preserving and expanding especially affordable housing. Virginia Village process itself was initiated because the city recognized a real and urgent need to preserve and expand affordable housing. Virginia Village is where those values I think are going to be tested. So it's easy to support affordable housing in principle, but it's harder when there's a specific site and there's going to be difficult trade-offs between the community who lives here already and the community that we could have, we could support. And as we know, opportunities for creating more affordable housing, particularly at this scale, are extraordinarily rare, and we should, to some other people's points, this shouldn't be the last of it, right? We could continue to see what opportunities we might be afforded after this, but this is a very important one. And you are elected to make decisions for the entire community, not just for us who can be here. So if we want those commitments to be reflected in more than just paper, it's this project that we're gonna have to do it on. Thank you.

Thank you. Next we have Dylan Haynes.

Good evening, Council. I would like to start off by saying I am a teacher here in the city, so the views that I'm about to express are those of mine, not of Falls Church City Public Schools. I'm here to support aggressive redevelopment of the quadplexes at Virginia Village. My wife and I live just across the highway in Fairfax County, but we do hope to make our home here in Falls Church City. At the current market rates for rentals and homes to purchase, we would never be able to do so. I support the redevelopment of Virginia Village because it would add more much needed units to the stock of affordable dwellings here in the city. Units such as these make it possible for people like me to live in the community that they serve. I will teach this community's children for the rest of my career if I can afford to do so. Please make it possible. Thank you for including me in the public process so that we can get this project underway.

Thank you. And that was the last signed up speaker for public comment. Thank you.

Well, thank you all for the comments and continued engagement. We actually don't officially have Virginia Village on the agenda tonight, but we welcome continued discussion and public comment. I appreciate everyone coming out on a Monday night when I know you have other things you'd be doing through time. But you're welcome to stick around because I think we will likely bring up Virginia Village as part of council requests and the city manager's report, which is coming up next. Mr. Shields.

Thank you, Mayor Hardy. And we'll start with Virginia Village and then the majority of the city manager's report will be turned over to Julius and to Cindy for the General Assembly update. But for Virginia Village, I did want to just note that on Monday, June 15th, before the City Council work session, staff is proposing to have a walking tour at 6 p.m. The idea is we would gather in Big Chimneys Park. We'd be able to discuss setbacks. We put some markers out on the ground so people could see setbacks at different points of the backyards of the Virginia Village properties. And then circle around to be able to sort of see the view from the Winter Hill neighborhood as well. That was a suggestion from the neighborhood so we can get both perspectives. And in addition, staff is putting together a packet just so people can compare, you know, comments were made about other projects that are nearby that people can put eyes on and sort of feel what the experience is in terms of how buildings relate to their neighbors and to the environment. and we'll provide the numbers associated with those projects so people can have that context as they're looking at those on their own. The walking tour won't go to Pearson Square or to Lawton, for example, but we'll make sure those numbers are available so people can do that on their own time.

One quick note on that. Given that this bulk plane concept, which we started talking about with transition zones, but also it's talked about clearly here, if we can include that analysis and apply it to those other like properties, that'll give us a sense of how that might apply. Just because it might be new for council to think about. That's a good idea. Great. Thank you.

And there are two other meetings that I'm really, just for the council's information, we haven't advertised them as public meetings because they were done at the invitation of neighbors, but staff will be meeting with the Winter Hill Homeowners Association tomorrow, Tuesday, and then on Thursday, there'll be a meeting with the Virginia Village residents. And so I just wanted council to be aware of those ongoing conversations and happy to share any further information on those if requested. So that is what I was going to report on tonight, and then we're going to shift to General Assembly. But before we do that, are there any questions for me?

Let's pause in case there's other requests or comments on Virginia Village while we've got audience here. Mr. Snyder.

Thanks a lot. One of the concerns I have is that And I think it was mentioned that the draft zoning somehow restricts our ability to be creative with the RFP. And the concerns relate to both the height, the setbacks, and the need for shadow studies. These are all things that we ought to be able to work out and have a win-win, so I'm the relationship between these two. I don't want the zoning to prevent us from getting to a win-win through the RFP and the final outcome. So could you comment on that, particularly this issue about, and I know we've heard it before, that on second reading, if you make major changes, then you have to go back to first reading. That's a general rule in Virginia. So... Can you help us a little bit with the interplay between these two so that we don't end up with a situation where we unnecessarily have to pick winners and losers where we can get a win-win?

So I think on the 15th, we'll talk through some of the graphics associated with the concepts that we're proposing for the zoning. The zoning rules that we are proposing will be different than what the council is used to seeing, and they're kind of more form-based, and the intent is to provide some more flexibility. But I think as the council assesses that and looks at those graphics, like there's a question tonight about having a ceiling, not just the bulk plane. Those are good comments. We can talk about that in the context of the graphics so people can sort of understand how these things would interplay with each other. The goal of the zoning language though was to provide flexibility to allow basic rules that would protect adjacencies and have the buildings fit well within their context and give some flexibility and so that is what we're trying to do and I think the council will have the opportunity to assess how well we're doing that I think on the 15th.

And as I think I've asked, we are having JLL join us in work sessions. I think we've hired them to be our experts and I think I want them to apply a critical eye of how well do we balance that and how well would we actually elicit that creativity or do we need to relax some things because we think it might be too restrictive, right? Because I would hate to put an RFP out for actually not to be getting any responses because we've been too restrictive on what we're asking for. That's right.

So I'm glad you talked about the zoning because as I'm sure you're aware it was discussed at the Planning Commission last Wednesday. Unfortunately I'm probably going to be a little bit more extensive because I won't be here next Monday for the work session. The zoning that was presented and keep in mind This is the basis for the RFP. The RFP can be more restricted, it can be broader, it can be different, but zoning comes before the RFP. That is an absolute. And if we can't get to sign off on first reading, With the zoning by the 22nd, I don't think we should even have a vote for the RFP if the zoning hasn't been voted on for first reading, because zoning has to come before the RFP. I mean, the RFP vote could be a minute later, but the zoning first reading has to come before. My concern with what I heard on Wednesday, and the Planning Commission also had this as a significant concern, is that the zoning as proposed does not protect affordable housing on the private properties. We can protect it through the RFP of saying, hey, anything we own, it has to be affordable housing. We're going to do that. But we also need to ensure that the the half of Virginia Village that is 40 units of affordable housing doesn't turn into eight. And the zoning that was proposed, that's exactly what was potential was there, wide open to flexibility. So is planning taking another look at the zoning? It feels like they took the the standards that were in the SEs and just plopped them in. And it's a different environment, it's a different context, it doesn't work. Is the zoning that's gonna be presented next week going to be significantly different from what was presented to the Planning Commission and ensure that any private development is going to be affordable housing forward and a majority? if not all affordable, naturally occurring workforce housing. What is going on?

So I was also in the planning commission meeting and watched it. Mr. Reagan's referring to the 12% that's in the zoning overlay. pretty sure that the Planning Commission and Planning Director committed to following up and reevaluating that.

That's what I'm trying to confirm here.

We'll let the City Manager speak.

So we are continuing to work and I think the Planning Commission meeting was very good. That was a good discussion and so there will be changes from that.

Because I think it's absolutely critical that we keep Virginia Village as affordable housing. Even if it's not, you know, 30% AMI, it needs to be workforce, naturally occurring, naturally affordable housing. I also have comments about height and I can share that. My plan, just so you know, is I'm gonna send notes to the council prior to meeting on Monday so that you all have those. My biggest one was around that. Also a couple suggestions on the walking tour. I did my own little walk through Winter Hill. I would suggest look at Rollins just to see how the shade or the protection It backs up to Pearson Square and Tax Analyst. And right now it does a great job, but there's actually two different versions. One is deciduous, one is evergreen, and you can look at it and see, okay, they both work during the summer, but it's clear one of them will not work as well during the winter. And then the other area I would suggest is actually the parking lot in front of And I think I had the addresses here. It was around 540... Yeah, around 240, 250 Gundry, the parking lot there. I definitely would suggest the walking tour go through there. It is... Virginia Village definitely... is very visible from that parking lot. And it gives a good insight into that 40, what the 40 foot and what the elevation change is actually looking like right now. Although it could use more shielding, more vegetation. And then the last one, just real quick, this is going all the way out to September, October. I noticed on the schedule that the second reading of the zoning was a month after we accepted, we were anticipating selecting a developer. And I would suggest that we shouldn't be taking that acceptance of a developer until we've locked down, fully locked down the zoning. So if it's possible, I mean, there's a long time of the zoning. If it's possible, I would suggest we pull the zoning forward. And so that we're voting on second reading prior to voting on accepting a specific developer. Again, zoning ahead of RFP.

I think we can talk more about that. The reason that is, is that once the council uh... selects the top ranked and has an interim agreement the procurement process is over and so it becomes a much more public process and so the thinking is it would be good then for the public to really engage with the specific plans and and how the zoning interacts with those specific plans and have that be a have there be enough time for that to happen. That's the reason why the zoning would be after interim agreement, at least that's the thought behind it. But we can continue to discuss that schedule.

Yeah, I mean, there's some, I think we had talked about maybe are there aspects of the proposals that can be public and influences on obviously financials cannot be anything along those. I think we're going to stay closed. But we know where the details are. We know where the concerns are.

Yeah, I think the RFPs will certainly have concepts, so we'll have good ideas. But I think there will be value in the public seeing those concepts and the councils having the chance to consider them in a public forum before you get too locked in on those concepts. Those concepts should have some room to breathe and to evolve after interim agreements.

But I think the zoning can be, I think we can make it work that they come in at the same time.

Okay. Anything else? Didn't really mean to have that much of a detour on Virginia Village, but appreciate your comments, Mr. Agin, and I think I appreciate the Planning Commission digging in on zoning and giving us their recommendations in work session next week. Okay. Let's move on to the report of the General Assembly and the briefing.

All right.

Good evening, council. It's our honor to do our traditional post-general assembly briefing for you this evening. And I am joined by Julius, who's been interning with us this whole general assembly session and very, very helpful on the amazing tracking log that the legislative committee saw throughout the session and was attached to this evening's staff report. I'm gonna do a quick overview and then turn it over to Julius to do some specific bills. And then we look forward to your questions and follow up. There is no formal action, of course, required this evening or requested, but it is an opportunity to know what's been mandated, local policy review, that staff will continue to triage and look at for work plan and activities over the next year. It also will give us a sense of council priorities as we start developing the legislative program for FY27. and we have been talking in the legislative committee and different council subgroups about starting that earlier this fall so we can have, as you have that conversation with Delegate Simon earlier, that collaborative dialogue prior. So that is the goal. There were over 3,600 bills filed in the General Assembly this year. And as a delegate, Simon noted, 447 were carried over. That's one of the largest numbers of carryover. So there'll be a lot more work that we can plan for. There were a little over 1,100 approved. So there are a lot of bills that were approved, a lot of good impact pro and con for the city for us to look at. And I will note that in the tracking log, we had a little over 300. So we were only tracking about 10% of all the bills. And that was because they were most tied to the legislative program and of most interest for the city this evening. We are not covering all 300. We're gonna highlight the ones that we talked about the most in legislative committee or we testified on the bills. All of the log and the work is color coded, as you saw, so that as we work with the city manager and the staff team, we can prioritize and look to implement. Of course, ones that are mandated, we will be implementing. There's a lot of local authority options. And then some awareness ones that are really important as we look at our inter-jurisdictional agreements, especially in the human services, social services side. And as Delegate Simon noted, there's a lot of good tenant rights improvements. There's one that Julius will talk about that's local option, but most of them, we just need a good awareness as we're helping tenants and residents, rental residents in the community. So with that, I am gonna turn it over to Julius. I guess I will highlight, he's gonna highlight the categories that the tracking log is coordinated in. And Delegate Simon kind of touched base on that. State mandated, local policy, And those will be the main focus. The other categories are policy review and awareness. So with that, Julius, thank you very much for joining us this evening.

All right, thank you so much to Cindy for your kind words and introduction. And thank you to the city council for allowing me to present the 2026 post-legislative council staff briefing. The governor signed 75 laws this session that included new mandates for localities. All of these are flagged in the tracking log and I will be focusing on a couple of few that are the most important and that relate to our city priorities. So starting off with House Bill 1279 with identical Senate companion, Senate Bill 388, these bills require localities to approve affordable housing development on land owned by tax exempt religious organizations and qualifying nonprofits on an administrative by right basis. This means that there needs not to be a special use permit, a special exception, conditional use permit, rezoning or discretionary review of any kind to build this type of housing. To qualify, at least 60% of the development units must be affordable, which is defined as 80% of the area median income or lower for rental units, or 120% or lower of the area median income for for sale units. And additionally, affordability must be maintained for at least 30 years. The law also requires that localities to permit at minimum building height of at least 45 feet for these developments or the height of the tallest existing building within 500 feet, whichever one is greater. Completed units remain subject to local real property tax taxation unless the locality specifically exempts them from doing so and the law will take place on January 1st, 2027 and will expire on January 1st, 2031. Moving on, the city also identified parking compliance as an area requiring attention this session. House Bill 888 limits the minimum parking requirements localities can impose on residential and mixed-use developments near transit areas. Localities cannot require more than 0.5 parking spaces per unit for multifamily developments and no more than one space per unit for single-family and townhouse dwellings. This applies to any parcel of land within half a mile of a fixed bus route. So because the city of Falls Church is served by the F50 bus route on Washington Street and the F20 bus route on Broad Street, as well as the future BRT lines and the East and West Falls Church Metro stations, this half mile radius covers essentially the whole jurisdiction of the city. Now, moving on, we also have some additional bills such as House Bill 994, which expands photo speed enforcement for Plain District 8 localities, specifically which is Falls Church. It also includes a safety red zone. Specifically, a safety red zone is a highway with a speed limit of 45 miles per hour or less that the VDOT has identified as a priority pedestrian corridor under the statewide pedestrian safety action plan. Senate Bill 84 also authorizes local law enforcement to place and operate pedestrian crossing violation and stop sign monitoring systems in school crossing zones, highway work zones, and high-risk speed corridors. Additional laws enacted this session add new compliance requirements to existing photo enforcement programs covering sign placement, data retention, public awareness campaigns, file limits, and personnel certification. Now, a favorable development on tenant rights is, as Delegate Simon mentioned, two bills, House Bill 14 and Senate Bill 290. Now, these two bills relate to tenant rights. If a landlord fails to maintain a unit in a condition that is fit and habitable, and that failure poses a fire hazard or a serious threat to a tenant's life and health, and the landlord has not corrected that condition after receiving a notice from the city, then the city may now institute legal action on behalf of affected tenants for injunction and damages to remedy the violation. In terms of gun control, Senate Bill 749 bans the sale of assault firearms and certain ammunition-feeding devices in the Commonwealth of Virginia. In the same category, House Bill 702 requires every city and county police agency to establish a gun sell back or give back program and hold an annual event once that program is in place. Additional legislation such as House Bill 40 by Delegate Simon, as he mentioned, makes it a class five felony to manufacture, sell or import plastic untraceable firearms and strengthens the requirement for safe storage and firearm transfers. In terms of solar generation devices, also known as balcony solar, Senate Bill 250 and House Bill 395 prohibit localities from banning the use of small portable solar generation devices on residential structures. And landlords are also restricted from prohibiting tenants on installing them in certain circumstances. These provisions will take place on January 1st, 2027. Moving on to state authorized local authority bills. This is on line 190. There were 39 pieces of legislation flagged on the tracking log under this category. Starting off with House Bill 282. House Bill 282 specifically authorizes the cities of Falls Church, Charlottesville, Fredericksburg, and Newport use to levy a different tax rate on improvements than on the underlying land. The rate on the building cannot be zero, but cannot exceed the rate on the land that it is built on. Moving on to House Bill 549 and Senate Bill 589, these will both expand local authority to require the conservation and replacement of trees during the development process. Localities may now set a higher canopy replacement percentage based on density per acre, and localities may also monitor tree canopy coverage at development sites for up to 20 years post development. I would like to point out that this bill also allows any town within Plain District 8 belonging to an eight-hour non-attainment area for air quality standards to require by ordinance that a subdivision or development provide for the preservation or replacement of trees on the development site, such that the minimum tree canopy or cover 10 years after development is projected to meet specific criteria. However, because Falls Church is not categorized as a town, it is excluded from this specific section of the bill. Moving on to House Bill 55 that authorizes cities and planning district 8, 9, and 15 to operate and place noise abatement systems on highways for the purpose of recording and enforcing exhaust system violations. The civil penalty is capped at $100 per violation and violations are not reported to the driver's record or insurance. Revenue does go towards locality in order to cover program administration costs and transportation safety initiatives. Annual reporting is required and authorization will expire on July 1st, 2028. House Bill 681 and Senate Bill 75 will expand on the definition of what is a law enforcement officer for the purposes of emergency custody and involuntary temporary detention transport. THE DEFINITION NOW INCLUDES RETIRED OFFICERS WITHIN 10 YEARS OF ACTIVE STATUS AND AUXILIARY POLICE OFFICERS. FINALLY AS MS. UNDERHILL ASKED ABOUT HOUSE BILL 630 AND SENATE BILL 176 EXPAND THE OPTION TO USE RANKED CHOICE VOTING AS AN OPTION ON ANY LOCAL GOVERNING BOARD NOT JUST CITY COUNCILS AND COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS. SO NOW SCHOOL BOARDS CAN HAVE RANKED CHOICE VOTING. expiration of the option is repealed, making it a permanent authorization. The State Board of Elections is required to provide standards and approve tabulating software for rank choice voting systems before implementation. For the last category, there are 18 policy review bills flagged on the tracking log for review, but for the sake of brevity, I will not be going over any of them right now. Feel free to ask questions about these bills. So this review covers the key bills across the three categories. The full tracking log will be transmitted to city departments for review, and we are glad to answer any questions and take any comments, especially about the policy review bills. Thank you to Cindy and, of course, to Council for allowing me to give this presentation, and it has been great working with you all this year.

Terrific. Well done, Julius. Thank you for that very comprehensive update. Super impressive and appreciate all your diligence, because we know that Richmond is fast and furious. And so not only were you there in session with us when we visited, but obviously you stayed in touch with all the bills and the status. So appreciate all your hard work. Questions and comments for either Ms. Mester or Julius? Should we go by... Should we go by the bills that you listed in the staff report, or what do you all prefer?

Whichever way you want to do it, we'll find the bill. Okay.

I mean, let's go in the order that I guess you laid out, because we probably all have some questions, and then rather than jump around, that might be hard to track. So starting with housing bills, who's got questions or comments about either parking or the faith and housing bills?

That would start line 67, Taya. Okay.

So let's start with the parking one because you know I'm big on parking. I think so I'm confused here because I went and looked at 888. It is not within half a mile of a bus route as it was passed. It is within the designated areas within a half mile of the entrance to a mass transit or public transportation station or facility which it defines as a building or enhanced structure now obviously the metro stations meet that definition but we don't have any bus structures other than the bus shelters so is a simple non-powered bus shelter an enhanced enhanced structure, and if so, how's it enhanced? I think this is critical because if it's an enhanced structure, then yes, it pretty much covers the, except for a few little spots, all of Falls Church. But if they're not enhanced structures, then we're just looking at half a mile of the metro stations, which is some of Falls Church, but not the majority.

There's two things. Definitely the definition of the enhanced structure is the two West Falls and East Falls. And it was reduced to the half mile. So it did reduce because if you recall, we started out at three miles and one mile and we got to the half mile. I think when staff is looking at it and when certainly the planning staff is adding this to the conversation with the whole parking scoping that you all are looking at. we'll make sure we confirm the definition, but rapid bus transit was one of the things that they were trying to capture as an enhanced service, but not a facility as you're describing the transit station. So we will definitely follow up to ensure on the definition.

Yeah, because that would be the other piece of it is when BRT finally comes, if it comes, does it actually have to have BRT facilities or does it have to be There's a lot of pieces there that I'm very unclear whether this really does apply to us fully.

Line 104 did have fixed bus routes, so that's where we'll tie that to the facility.

Yeah, I think fixed bus route was the key definition.

That's the definition that is not accurate. is what I'm saying, is that if you read 888, it does not say within a half mile of a fixed bus route. It says within a half mile of a designated area, and the designated area is within a half mile of the entrance to a mass transit or public transportation station or facility. And the enhanced... structure is considered that. But it does not say anything about within the route. So and I think that was an earlier version. We need to take another look at this because I think that might have been off an earlier version of the bill.

Are you looking in the definitions?

Looking at the yeah.

The version that the governor signed on April 22nd does have fixed route under the definition section, but let's take it offline.

Okay, this may not be the right one.

Anything else on housing or parking? Can I ask a question about the faith in housing?

Thank you for that one. Are there properties in Falls Church that would fall under this? Are there church properties in Falls Church that this would apply to?

Yes, I believe that the faith-based facilities on Broad and Washington will fit in.

Will fit within there.

North Washington and East Broad in particular and then over to Fairfax will fit into the definition and then there'll be the discussion with them if they're going to pursue it and then the standards for height.

But it's actually all, sorry to interrupt, it's all tax exempt nonprofits. So for example, the American Legion, I think is a nonprofit tax exempt property, correct?

Yeah, the faith-based community is the strongest advocate, but that is a true point that it is other nonprofit tax exempt.

And they have to be owned within, like, they have to have owned it for several years. So no body can go buy a property now and take advantage of this.

Yeah, they will have had to own it for five years. And then this code was structured to expire in 2031 to try to address the buying the land, holding it for five years, and then rolling forward.

So because we know there are properties that this applies to, are there any ordinances we have to pass to have this go into effect or is it just in effect?

It is in effect. without action by the locality as of January 1, 2027.

Okay, so Robin Ramey was talking, or someone asked us a question tonight about are there other places at Falls Church where we could put affordable housing? Is this something the housing department can look into, can reach out to? Is it our role to do that or?

Well, this is an example, a great example of us looking at the tracking log and at least that targeted priority. and kind of figuring out where does it fit into the workload, both for staff and council and mandate. So the answer is yes, when and how. And we've had had conversations with at least one faith-based institution that has reached out in the past.

Okay, so a good tool to have in our toolbox, thank you.

It's a good tool, but it does have some pros and cons to it, because it will be by right, and there are, height permissions that are gonna be by existing neighborhoods. So it does increase the housing stock as an opportunity for accessibility and affordability.

I think where it got moderated though, I don't think we read this part of the staff report is that the height can't be the SC approved height, it's only as tall as the by right underneath zoning. So if you're within 500 feet of something that's 75 feet tall, or by right could be 75 feet tall, not the 85 or 90 feet that might be approved in an SC, you can only go up to that 75. Because that feels like a reasonable compromise.

That was a big outcome of the negotiations to keep the underlying zoning.

Any other questions on the housing section? So housing, parking, tenant rights?

Yeah, thanks. So I guess I have significant concerns about these mandates because they set a precedent for mandates that we really might not like significantly in the future if there were a change in state leadership. And it was often indicated that zoning was one of the last of the areas where localities really had a sufficient amount of flexibility. A lot of that's been taken away by this. A lot of this benefits the housing industry. That's pretty evident. But I'm concerned mostly focused on the fact that the non-profit tax exempt one was basically argued and sold as religious institutions, and so what tax exempt nonprofit organizations would comply? Is that any nonprofit organization that's real property tax exempt, so it's that broad? There are no limitations on what those are?

And have properties, and then will have had to own it for five years and to be able to do the affordable housing.

Do they have to own the property now or can they acquire it?

They have to have owned it for five years prior to January 1st.

Prior to January 1st.

There can't be some speculative buying now.

Because it expires in 2031, so you wouldn't have owned it for the five-year period. That was one of the other negotiations in there, even though we tried to get more clear language, at least at sunsets.

Yeah, and I note as well that only 60% of the housing is required to be affordable.

Mm-hmm.

And then on the parking, I think Council Member Reagan asked a good question. We need some clarification on that. That's another example, it seems to me, of one size fits all imposition by the state. And again, I'm concerned whether you agree or disagree with this. I'm concerned about the precedent this sets for future legislatures. Thanks.

Any other comments? So not surprisingly, I have a slightly different perspective. I think parking is precisely not one size fits all because it removes a mandate and actually lets localities and builders who best know the community what the right parking requirement is. So this is, I think, a step in the right direction. And already, with every special exception that I've been approving the past 10 years, we already reduced the parking requirements. So I think this helps lower not only affordable, lower costs for building housing, but also Helps actually create more space for housing because now you're not required to park it and actually hopefully use underutilized garages and asphalt parking and shared parking arrangements, which is better use of public space. On faith and housing, I guess I would make a request if even if we don't proactively reach out, I think it would be helpful for us to look at kind of the properties across the city and know kind of where there might be potential targets. And I guess where I would suggest we narrow it is where, for example, we might have large parking lots. I know many of our churches have, again, vacant parking lots that could be prime for housing. And while we clearly have a need for housing, I think this can actually be another one of those win-wins that we often talk about, right? Because many of these faith communities are losing their parishioner population. and often have trouble with their finances. And so I think when I've observed some of the testimony at the state level, I think there are a lot of churches that have talked about how this can be a win for their congregation because not only do they get a refreshed church out of it, but they also use the land more productively and is also mission aligned. And so I think there are a lot of actually groups, nonprofit or religious organizations that hopefully will take advantage of it. I don't know how many we have in the city, but it would be helpful probably to have a map of what we think might be viable. So we're prepared should anyone... take advantage of it in that limited five-year period we have before it sunsets. I did have a third question though on tenant rights. I know that that was something that we cared a lot about when we got public comments from some of our residents and buildings. What exactly is the enforcement mechanism now that we have more authority? Is it actually being able to find, because I remember we had the building inspector with us and it sounded like from an enforcement perspective, our hands were pretty tied between whether it was rodents or mold. They said the definition of the code made it so hard that we couldn't actually enforce any of those things. Has this change actually made it easier for us to enforce and advocate for our residents?

That is my understanding that the locality can by action now enforce those. You'll have to get some policy and resolution and I haven't had a chance to work with the city attorney as to whether it's resolution ordinance under city charter and code. But you would actually be able to once the parameters are set to enforce if the landlord doesn't respond. and remediate. Whereas in the past, because of the health department building code and the lack of this, it was, the city didn't have any leverage. A specific example that I'm recalling where we were able to work with management, but if that hadn't solved it,

I guess what is the enforcement?

Is it issue a fine?

It's probably not take away their CO, right?

We need to sit down and understand it a little bit better. We're kind of digesting it right now. As Delegate Simon said, it allowed us to bring a lawsuit against the landlord. That's one way to go. clunkier than issuing a fine so we want to understand that a little bit more clearly and we'll we'll get to the bottom of it okay that would be helpful because again i think as we have more residents and multi-family buildings we want to make sure we can represent their points of view and their interests too and that's clearly one that needs to be triaged into a work plan

Anything else in the housings section, or can we move on to transportation?

Just really quick, I was just looking at the previous versions of 888, and it looks like that section which has the enhanced structure, that's where the governor's comments were primarily. So it looks like she's the one who put that wording in and took out a whole bunch of other stuff, so she may have caused the confusion. But, yeah.

Okay, I guess let's move on to the transportation section. I know Delegate Simon and Julie's report, we talked about getting more authority with SB 84 and other things and 994 and photo speed enforcement and stop sign monitoring. But I think I had heard from Ms. Mester previously that we actually don't get as much as we think.

It's definitely an improvement because now stop sign video enforcement is included as well as this photo red and the speed cameras. The concern and where staff will need to do some work is with the Planning District 8 new authority, It's a safety red zone, as Julia said, with the specific mileage or priority pedestrian corridor by VDOT, which is the fatality from 2014, which fortunately we don't have, so we don't meet that criteria. And then the next thing is to be in the statewide pedestrian safety action plan. So that's where we'll need to do some analysis on what those criterias are. Are we in there? Or is there a way to get in there in order to be able to use the stop sign? It also has some restrictions for where you can do them around schools and work zones. So my initial read of this legislation doesn't help us address some of those residential streets where we have stop sign running or stop sign intersection concerns by school bus stops. So I think it is a positive step forward, but I think it needs some more refinement in a future General Assembly session so it can be A little broader application. Got it.

The way I understand what you just said, Ms. Mester, is we get it as a tool, but where it can be applied may not work for us. Yep. Got it. Okay. Any questions or comments on this transportation section?

So I didn't know what a pedestrian safety action plan area was, so I did some looking. It looks like there's a map. that shows statewide top 1% corridor, statewide top 5% corridors. And I gotta tell you, it covers Falls Church really nicely. Hopefully this map actually does cover it because the top 1% are both state highways. And then the top 5%, I mean, it's Park, it's West, it's Lincoln, it's Great Falls, it's got the major roads in the top. So I'm hoping this is the definition because if it is, we just got a whole bunch of authority. But I don't know.

It's on the follow-up list.

Okay. Moving on to the next ones, I think. Then we talked about there's Balcony Solar, Gun Buyback, which I know we had started a voluntary program a couple of years ago, and now I think every locality has to have a Gun Buyback program. If I read it, that was correct. Okay. Anything else in the next section on public safety? Okay. Ms. Underhill, if you're still with us, I know you wanted to talk about RCV.

Can I just talk about the town?

Go ahead, Justine.

Go ahead, Justine. Yeah, I had a question about both the highway noise as well as... Actually, maybe I can just ask a quick question about... highway noise I think it's line 260 around there there it is 240 there it is um so what counts as a highway around us it does I guess does Lee Highway count as a highway um does that include Broad Street um or would this not be specifically within our uh the jurisdiction of the city

This would be in the jurisdiction of the city. Highway would be Broad Street and North Washington. And then if we can get any further down, we need to confirm the definitions. You know, if Hillwood would, for example, or Great Falls pick up, but for sure, Washington and Broad. This was an initiative of Fairfax County. They tried it last year to do it as a pilot. It didn't succeed. It came back as a broader because more localities wanted to participate, but it is, as Julius noted, it's going to expire July 1 of 2028. So it's a short turnaround to stand it up, test it, and see if it's valuable, extend it. We did support this through the Ledge Program process because of the complaints and issues that council has heard and the community has responded to.

So just so that I make sure that I understand, because it talks about enforcing exhaust system violation. So that's basically people that don't have mufflers or are making excessive noise, whether it be a motorcycle or a regular automobile.

And you could have equipment catch the noise and record who the violator was so that you can issue the fine. The problem now is you'd actually have to have a police officer observe it and catch it, and usually by the time they respond, the offending vehicle is gone.

Okay, but I guess if there is a known nuisance on Broad Street at around 9 p.m. on certain nights, like on weekends, then that would be something that we could potentially set a police officer out to monitor the situation.

This actually would allow you to, if you had identified priority areas, have the monitoring system, which doesn't require personnel, but the monitoring system there too.

Okay, so then I guess the next question is we don't currently have that monitoring system in place.

That is correct. So it's both implementation operating and Fairfax fortunately has done a lot of research. So we have a peer that we can get into, but once again, we'll be assessing it and triaging it into the workload, but at least for Two years, you have local authority to do it.

Gotcha. So basically, I guess the main issue here is if we were to pursue this, we would need to have some sort of budget set aside for whatever equipment we would need. And we don't even know if we could use that equipment beyond 2028.

correct and i have not researched it enough to know if it's you know at least equipment purchase equipment we would need to do that and the violation fees can be used for covering the program costs but whether it's sufficient to actually cover the initial stand up

Okay. Well, just from my perspective, I'm very interested in this one. And I think it would be, I mean, just from complaints that I've received from residents, I think this is something that I'm particularly interested in, I recognize that it might not, you know, we might have to be leaning on fair facts or it might not make sense for us to get too far into this. But I would be interested in pursuing this a little bit further to find out more. And then just briefly on the ranked choice voting. So my understanding for the ranked choice voting legislation, the main... thing that came about was that it's for all local elections. Therefore school board could also be ranked choice vote such that it streamlines the process and makes it a little bit less confusing so that every local election could be ranked choice voting rather than

just city council or board of supervisors is that correct yeah that's my understanding as well and i know in the past when council talked about there's pros and cons of doing rank choice vouching but it was would be very confusing if the council was elected by rank choice vouching and the voting and the school board wasn't so that inconsistency would be a concern that Theoretically, this solves and then gives you the option whether to consider pursuing it. Also needs the State Department elections framework and criteria, and then obviously working with electoral board and looking at the voting equipment to accommodate ranked choice voting. And it's been several months now, but the Director of Elections, Mr. Berkey, has put together a detailed memo provided to council on what would be involved in implementing it.

It does not include, though, the sheriff or the commissioner, the reverend, or the treasurer, right?

I believe so, but I would want to verify the constitutionals.

That would be good.

Okay.

I thought it was all other positions. This just says any local governing body.

This is a summary, and so the summary is always...

It would be good to know if constitutionals are included in that.

Thanks. Okay, so then I guess if this is something that we did want to learn more about, what would be the process for that? Would we have Dave Berkey come before us? Is that something that's planned to happen? I know that we will need new voting machines in the next year or two. And so I'm just curious as to what next steps are for getting more information on this.

I don't want to sound like a broken record, but we are triaging and trying to identify this and get to the next steps. One initial thing could be to re-circulate Mr. Berkey's very informative memo, but it would need to tie into timeline, elections, and budget.

Okay. Yeah, I would be interested in pursuing this and maybe having a discussion with counsel and Dave Berkey on better understanding how rank choice voting is done in Virginia versus rank choice voting in other places. And I guess just getting a better sense of it. But yeah, that's all for me. Thank you.

And I would say that your League of Women Voters will be a good resource, because it's a couple months now, but they did a good webinar presentation on how it works.

I was also going to ask whether our electoral board would be able to help give us an opinion about it too, especially knowing that I think Charlottesville, Arlington, and maybe one other locality has used RCV for a couple years now, so there's some experience to be learned that we can consider as well, because I would be supportive of looking into it further.

Okay, anything else? Quickly, you put the towing board in here, but from an appointments committee's viewpoint, we've got three members on the towing board, so it's an equal representation. So this really doesn't change how we would be doing things, right?

That is generally my understanding. Okay. And Becky was going to look at it in terms of, you know, how the staffing and the chair. It gives them flexibility as to who's the chair and the vice chair, so that may be advantageous.

Okay.

And then the real property tax, the classification of land and improvements changes?

Yeah, that's the Senate Bill 282 at line 193, or House Bill 282. That was the one that council had submitted a request to delegate Simon for a study. And because the other localities at Charlottesville, Fredericksburg, and Newport News had bills in, It just rolled in instead of a study to give City of Falls Church the local option. There's a lot of pros and cons and a lot of research. This would be one of the probably big heavy lifts for research and policy decision if council wanted to. So we have to do our own study.

That's the split taxing that I think only gives us half of what we really need.

So now you have the option and then applying it into your priorities as to when and what staff resources to execute and you would need to change how the tax bills and munis, that wonderful discussion when we try to add a new line and then how the assessor would you know calculate administratively it's possible it just has some implementation challenges but first is the policy decision of changing.

Okay so that's a vacation that's definitely a work item.

Okay.

Their final thoughts.

Mr. Reagan. Two more questions one is the EV stuff I saw it in here is that different from what we've basically been doing in i know from cict we were pushing for 50 percent ev you know ready or piped with new pro new buildings is this really any different from what we've already been doing or does this if somebody comes up if there's another special exception I'm not clear, does this change much for us or does it really just force the rest of the state to do what we've already been doing?

Is there a specific bill you're looking at?

The 222, that section.

Yeah, those for the ordinance, that's one that Mr. Lawrence is aware of and was gonna look at to see how it would change, because this would actually, and it's a planning item, it would actually allow you to put it into your subdivision versus the FC negotiations.

Okay, which we don't really do much. And then the other question I had was on 285 with the trees. I know it includes towns, but not cities. Does this affect us at all? or?

At the 20-year count and what some of the other broader language and criteria is, yes, not majorly. council had in the ledge program and your urban forestry commission wanted was to get down to that 10 year canopy and we thought we almost had it in the final edits to get that language so it's any locality and not a town but it didn't come out in the final edits so it is one that i anticipate will be in the ledge program for next year

Towns got it. We didn't.

Yes. The legislation was initiated by the town of Vienna, and they pushed really hard. So, of course, they wanted town. The rest of us tried to get cities and towns or at least any locality. But as we know, the General Assembly moved really fast, and this was just one of the editing errors at the tail end.

Trees are confusing, so I wasn't sure.

Mm-hmm.

Mr. Snyder, do you have final comments? Sure, thanks. Clearly, the budget's important. The funding of Metro is really important to the City of Falls Church and the region. We're very hopeful that something will come out of that that addresses those very bottom line financial needs. Considering the amount of tax revenue that's provided to the state as a result of transit in Northern Virginia, the kind of support we're asking for is just simply an investment, not only for Northern Virginia, but more importantly, perhaps more broadly for the rest of the state. So I'm suggesting that we begin looking at some dates for a legislative committee meeting to take into account the comments that have been made tonight and begin to sketch out with staff how we will pursue various of these issues, as well as consideration of the issues that were mentioned by Delegate Simon is coming up next year for sure. So I think we've got a full plate. And of course, these are public meetings and all counsel is invited, but I think we ought to get legislative committee meetings scheduled here in the next couple months. That's all I had. Thanks.

I had one thing that didn't make the summary, but I know was on our legislative agenda, and I don't think it died, is regulating gas powered equipment. It died, correct?

It did. Yeah, for this report, we did things that passed. We didn't do ones that failed or were vetoed. But it did die.

We continue to get comments about it. I expect that our environmental groups will continue to advocate and will continue asking. That said, Arlington and Alexandria decide not to wait for the General Assembly, and they are using the authority they think they have based on the Attorney General opinion. opinion that they can enforce via their noise ordinance authority. I know when we talked about it last, we decided that we did not want to enforce via noise ordinance because that would essentially require police going out with noise meters and measuring, and that didn't seem like a really great use of resources. I guess two requests. One, we can discuss further in the ledge committee whether we want to advocate again, whether there's any hope of it in the 2027 session. Second, though, is I continue to think that we should lead by example. So whenever we have our next round of updating our contracts with our lawn contractors or whoever we use in the city. I know that Alexandria actually started moving in that direction already with their in-house fleet. And so whatever equipment they're getting, if we can ride those contracts, that we upgrade our own fleet and change our contracts, I think that's a great move that we can start within the general government and not wait for authority to do things in the community.

ACKNOWLEDGED NDPW HAS BEEN LOOKING AT THAT IN TERMS OF EQUIPMENT WHEN THEY'VE BEEN REPLACING WHEN IT'S AVAILABLE CONTRACTS IS MORE OF A TIMING ISSUE.

YES AND KNOWING THAT YOU KNOW NOTHING IS GOING TO BE INSTANTANEOUS WE'RE NOT EXPECTING THAT THINGS ARE GOING TO BE BANNED TOMORROW THAT MOST OF THESE WILL HAVE PHASE-IN PERIODS I THINK IT'S REASONABLE FOR US TO EXPECT THE SAME FOR GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS AS WELL THAT WE PROBABLY COULD PHASE INTO IT

And that's usually the question we get when we testify on asking for authority is, are you doing it if you're gonna require it of others, so. Great, okay.

Well, again, Julius, well done. Thank you for all your work on this. And thank you, Ms. Mester, as well. Thank you. Great job. I think we're ready to move on to council requests before we get to business on the agenda.

Ms. Connolly. Mr. Shields, do you have any update on the Whittier Park sidewalks? Last week, when we asked about it in work session, you said staff was working with the board.

They are. I think I've got a meeting this week to go through some options with staff, and so I'll learn a little bit more, and I'll get back with council on it.

council requests mr snyder two quick follow-ups the great fall street um question i think they wanted more communication from staff um on the great fall street um traffic calming And if you could just make sure that happens with that group. And the second one is, and this is maybe for the city attorney, some clarification on first reading versus second reading of a zoning ordinance and what can be changed and not changed in a second reading. Thanks.

Ms. Ray?

Well I would just add to that, obviously that you're talking about for the zoning for Virginia Village, I would also ask what would be the impact of a second first reading if we needed to, if the changes were greater than what we could do, how would we adjust and do a second first reading, how would that work?

It's really not terribly onerous. I mean, certainly you don't want to do it unnecessarily, but if there was a good compelling reason to do it, it would add about a month to the process and I think that would probably be okay.

In this case, would it add a month or would it just be done during that? the period between the, because we have an extra long period between first and second.

It depends on when you decide you want to make the changes. So if you did it, you know, early, it wouldn't affect the critical path at all. If you did it late, it would add, you know, a month. I think that would be good to know.

How late could we make, do something that would then throw everything off.

Other council requests. Building on the traffic calming request, I think in general, because the NTC programs paused, I think it would be helpful if we haven't done it already to let all the projects that are in the queue know the status and the next updates they should expect to receive. NTC requires a lot of care and feeding, and I know that we only have one staff person on it, so we appreciate all the work that's done. But I expect that other people in the queue are wondering, like, what's the status of my project? And I don't want to just play whack-a-mole. So if we could proactively communicate. And then knowing that the CACT is discussing it this week, could we get an update how that conversation goes so that council's aware as well? yes thank you uh and then still on the topic of transportation i know we got public comment about this but i also got a separate video over the weekend about those i won't call them e-bikes because they're illegal mopeds i think so they're actually riding through cherry hill pretty flagrantly it's not even just on streets and trails but just literally through the park back and forth weaving around people and the police have not been able to Catch them or enforce. And so I think it probably merits at this point probably more public communication. I know the schools have been a good partner with the police in trying to let parents know not to buy these illegal mopeds for kids. But now that school's out and kids have a lot more free time, we probably will see more prevalence of this. And I worry not only about the kids' safety, because they're often riding without helmets, but two on a bike, going high speeds, but also for everyone else trying to use parks and trails and sidewalks. So I don't know whether this can go out in a focus or... some other broad communication about them so that whoever's reading it knows that they're not legal, they're not street legal, they're dangerous, and kids certainly under the driving age should not be on them.

I suspect, because I've seen them several times on the path, I suspect it's one set of kids that's most of our issue.

But we'll continue to work it. Great, thank you.

Okay, I think that's it for council requests. Let's move on to business on the agenda. Madam Clerk, can you call the first item?

Yes, we have a second reading and public hearing on TO 26-14, ordinance to amend ordinances 2-090, 2-103, and 2-107 regarding the budget of expenditures and revenues and appropriating funds for the fiscal year 2026 general fund and capital improvement program.

Before we have the staff report, Ms. Connelly, do you have your disclosure?

The City Council is discussing tonight an amendment of the City's FY26 budget. I am an employee of the Falls Church City School Board, which will be affected by the proposed budget amendment. Because I am only one employee among many who may realize a reasonably foreseeable direct or indirect benefit from the proposed ordinance, I am allowed to participate as a council member in this matter under the Conflict of Interest Act. After consideration, I am electing to participate in this transaction because I am confident in my ability to participate fairly objectively and in the public interest.

All right, I'll give a brief staff report. This is the final budget amendment for FY26. It's before council for public hearing and final consideration. AND THE BUDGET AMENDMENT INCLUDES AN APPROPRIATION OF $301,000 OF NEW FUNDS THAT HAVE COME IN THROUGH THE CITY THROUGH GRANTS OR DONATIONS OF OTHER REVENUES. IT TRANSFERS DOLLARS BETWEEN DEPARTMENTS AND IT DEPLOYS THE REMAINDER OF THE COUNCIL CONTINGENCY OR THE CONTINGENCY THAT WAS IN THE APPROVED FY26 BUDGET. provides for $238,000 of additional funding for the capital improvements program. So that's a quick summary. The council has had a work session and some brief discussion at first reading, but I'd be happy to answer any questions about it.

Questions or comments on the budget amendment? If not, I'll take a motion.

I move to adopt TO 26-14. Is there a second?

Second.

Is Agin on the second?

Call roll, please. Yes. Mr. Agin?

Yes.

Ms. Conley? Yes. Mr. Snyder?

Yeah.

Ms. Underhill?

Yes.

And Mayor Hardy? Yes. Motion carries five to zero. Thank you. Let's call the next item. Yes, we have TR 26-18, Resolution to Amend Comprehensive Plan, Chapter 5, Environment for Everyone, Environmental Sustainability, Resilience and Natural Resources, Chapter of the City's Comprehensive Plan to Add Required Elements of the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act Program.

And if we could also maybe read the second ordinance as well, if we maybe could do both staff reports.

Yes, there are actually three more related ordinances that we have for first reading tonight. Did you want me to read all of those?

We'd like to do our staff reports for all three together as a unified whole, and then we'll need a separate motion for each item.

All four, okay. Let's call all of it, yes. Okay, thank you. We have TO 26-08, Ordinance to Amend Chapter 35, Stormwater Article 1, Stormwater Management, Section 35-2 Definitions, Section 35-12, Water Quality Impact Assessment, and Section 35-24, Fees of the Code of the City of Falls Church, Virginia, to comply with the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act. We also have TO 26-09, ordinance to amend the Code of the City of Falls Church, Virginia, Chapter 38, Subdivisions, Article 2, requirement for plats, Section 38-30, preliminary and final plats required, and Section 38-34, general regulations to comply with the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act and correct city code references. And then we have TO 26-10, Ordinance to Amend the Code of the City of Falls Church, Virginia, Chapter 48, Zoning, Article 5, Supplementary Regulations, Division 7 Site Plan, Section 48-1134, When Required to Comply with the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act and Section 48-1135, Preliminary Survey Documents, Section 48-1137, Required Information, Section 48-1141 Considerations and Division 8 Landscaping Sections 48-1179 Intent and Objectives and Section 48-1180 Tree Canopy Coverage to Correct Typographical or City Code Section Reference Errors.

All right, so these four items are before the council for first reading tonight. We'll have a brief staff report, starting with the comp plan amendments from our senior planner, Emily Bazemore, followed by the code amendments from our senior stormwater engineer, Bahailu Kifle. The council did get a good detailed briefing on these at work session, so we'll keep this at a little bit of a higher level just for the community's awareness of what we're doing. But in short, they're all coming about out of an audit with DEQ and the changes are technical in nature and really don't have major impacts in terms of how we administer the code or how our property owners in the city would experience sort of working through these with us. With that introduction, let me turn it over to Ms. Bazemore.

Thank you. Good evening, council. Council has requested to amend chapter five of the city's comprehensive plan, environment for everyone, environmental sustainability, resilience, and natural resources. The draft amendments to chapter five incorporate maps and narratives, which can be found on lines 56 to 67 of the staff report required by the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act. On May 11th, 2026, the city council adopted an initiating resolution, initiating these amendments to the chapter, which specified that the required maps and narratives related to the CBPA would be included in the amendment. The resolution also indicated that formatting would be updated throughout the chapter to enhance accessibility and that clerical updates would be made accordingly if they could be completed without impacting the amendment schedule. This item was reviewed at the June 1st, 2026 city council work session and is now before council for referral to the planning commission and scheduling of a city council public hearing as required by Virginia state code and the city charter. Staff recommends that, or staff recommends referring TR 26-18 to the planning commission and scheduling a public hearing for July 13th of 2026 and advertising the same according to law. In the background section, there is a comment response table, just noting our discussion from our work session. I do wanna highlight under community engagement, there was a request to distribute to both the ESC and the Urban Forestry Commission, which we will be doing following referral tonight. Now I'm gonna bounce right over to the schedule really quick on page seven of the staff report. So tonight we're with city council for referral to the planning commission on June 8th. We'll be going to planning commission on June 17th for their work session on the draft. And then we'll be going to planning commission on July 1st FOR A PUBLIC HEARING AND RECOMMENDATION TO COUNCIL, AND WE WILL BE RETURNING TO COUNCIL FOR A PUBLIC HEARING AND FINAL CONSIDERATION ON JULY 13TH. NOW I'M GOING TO TURN IT OVER TO BAHAILU FOR HIS PRESENTATION. THANK YOU.

um good evening mayor aleti hardin members of city council uh tonight uh council is requested to amend city code chapter 35 section 35-2 definition section 3512 water quality impact assessment and section 35-24 fee uh chapter 38 requirements for blood section 35 38 34 general regulations in chapter 48 site plans section 48 11 34 when required to make a relative minor technical amendment intended to address three state mandated mandated amendment identified under the ordinance consistency review during the Department of Environmental Quality or DEQ audit of the City of Fulchers Chesapeake Bay Act program. Tonight, staff is recommending grant for reading to TO 26-08, scheduling a public hearing and a second reading for July 13, 2026, and advertising the same according to law and granting first reading to TO 26-09 and TO 26-10, referring both to the Planning Commission and scheduling public hearing and second reading for July 13, 2026, and advertising the same according to law. I WILL JUMP TO THE SCHEDULING. SINCE BOTH OF THE ORDINANCE AMENDMENT AND THE CAM PLAN IS ORIGINATED FROM THE DEQ AUDIT, WE ARE PLANNING TO HAVE THE SAME SCHEDULE STATED BY EMILY. SO I DON'T WANT TO REPEAT THAT. SO THE TIMING IS STILL FOLLOWING THE SAME TIMELINE WITH THE CHESAPEAKE BAY CAM PLAN AMENDMENT. THANK YOU. AND IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS.

GREAT. Thank you, Mr. Keeflay and Ms. Bazemore. Do we have any further questions or comments since work session last week? And thank you for capturing our comments in the matrix. So we have one resolution and three first readings of the ordinances, so each one of those need to be separate motions, correct? Correct. Quick. Okay, the clerk said correct, yes. Go ahead, Mr. Agin.

Just real quick, I saw your comments. You said that the the Walden Court stormwater pipe that we talked about at the previous meeting. So based on your comments, that was never a stream. The current stormwater pipe was never a stream in the past.

Yeah, so the greening of Lincoln is specifically a flood improvement stormwater project. It's not a stream restoration project.

Oh, so that pipe that's there is for flooding. Yes. Okay. And the other thing is you mentioned ESC and UFC. Are you going to them or are you just distributing it to them? Because I didn't see them on the schedule.

Yeah, that will be a digital distribution through the staff liaison. So a memo will go attached to the draft for their review.

Okay, anything else? Okay, I'll take a motion for the resolution first.

Anyone? I move to refer TR26-18 to the Planning Commission, schedule a public hearing for July 13th, 2026, and advertise the same according to law.

Is there a second? Second.

Is Egan on the second? Call roll, please. Mr. Egan?

Yes. Ms. Conley?

Yes.

Mr. Snyder? Yes. Ms. Underhill?

Yes. And Mayor Hardy? Yes.

Motion carries 5-0. Thank you.

Okay, let's move on to the first ordinance, TO 26-08. Is there a motion for that?

I move to grant first reading to TO 26-08. Schedule.

Oh.

Which one is it?

The first one, and that is not a zoning code amendment, so there's no referral with that one. No referral to the planning committee. Yes. Okay. Yes, the first one. Thank you.

Schedule a public hearing and second reading for July 13th, 2026, and advertise the same according to law.

Is there a second? Second.

Egan on the second.

Call roll, please. Mr. Egan?

Yes.

Ms. Conley? Yes. Mr. Snyder?

Yes.

Ms. Underhill? Yes. Yes. And Mayor Hardy? Yes. Motion carries five to zero, thank you. What about TO 26-09?

All right, move to grant first reading to TO 26-09, refer to the Planning Commission, schedule a public hearing and second reading for July 13th, 2026, and advertise the same according to law.

Is there a second? Second.

Connelly on the second.

Call roll.

Mr. Egan?

Yes.

Ms. Connelly? Yes. Mr. Snider? Yes. Ms. Underhill? Yes. And Mayor Hardy? Yes. Motion carries five to zero. Thank you.

Okay, last one.

All right. Move to grant first reading to TO 26-10. Refer to the Planning Commission's Schedule of Public Hearing and second reading for July 13, 2026, and advertise the same according to law.

Is there a second?

Second. Is Connolly in the second?

Call roll.

Mr. Agin?

Yes.

Ms. Connolly? Yes. Mr. Snyder?

Yes.

Ms. Underhill? Yes. And Mayor Hardy? Yes. Motion carries five to zero. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll see you soon. Let's move on to urban design guidelines. Can you call the next item?

Yes, we have TR26-19, resolution initiating an amendment to comprehensive plan chapter three, community character appearance and design to create new urban design guidelines.

And we're joined by Kurt Lawrence, who's going to give the staff report tonight. I think at work session, we heard from Cameron Garris. And so we're double teaming on this one. Kurt, it's great to have you. HERE TONIGHT. THANK YOU FOR YOUR WORK ON THIS.

GREAT. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. SO THIS STAFF REPORT IS LARGELY THE SAME AS WAS REVIEWED AT THE JUNE 1ST CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION. SO TONIGHT COUNCIL IS REQUESTED TO INITIATE THE AMENDMENTS OF CHAPTER 3 OF THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN, COMMUNITY CHARACTER APPEARANCE AND DESIGN TO CREATE THE NEW URBAN DESIGN GUIDELINES. SO WE APPRECIATE ALL THE COMMENTS FROM JUNE 1ST AS WELL AS ALL THE COMMENTS FROM previous meetings from boards and commissions that we've gone to. And we'd like to receive this initiating amendment so we can move forward with public engagement and draft of the plan. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Mr. Lawrence. Do we have questions or comments since our discussion last week? Mr. Reagan.

So I'm looking at the key table of this, which is the three columns. And I'm concerned that during last week's meeting we had there were some concerns about some of the old concepts that were still in the no change. And I still have those concerns, especially around architectural preferences. And there was some around storefront design. Primarily the stuff that was in the document from 2001 and predates the comp plan revisions, they're 25 years old. I THINK THERE WAS CONCERNS THAT SOME OF THESE NEED TO BE MOVED OVER TO THE MIDDLE COLUMN, BUT IT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE ANYTHING GOT MOVED OVER.

YES, SO DURING THE COUNCIL WORK SESSION AS WELL AS THE BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS REVIEW, WE'VE HAD INPUT ON ALL OF THESE TOPICS, INCLUDING THOSE, AND I THINK CAMERON DID WELL AT THE WORK SESSION TO SAY THAT IT'S NOT A TRUE COPY AND PASTE OF EXACTLY WHAT'S IN THE 2001 DOCUMENT. ANYTHING THAT is in there that has since been updated in an adopted council document like a comprehensive plan or small area plan, we would ensure that that gets carried over. I think what we're trying to convey is that we don't want to open it up and restart that conversation. We just want to take the gist of what was given in 2001, apply any changes that have already been agreed on, and then move forward. And in the event that there's anything that still isn't working, we can certainly open it back up for more discussion.

Yeah, just some of these are, they are pretty far, they are pretty old. Architectural preferences is definitely a big one that, in my mind, if you look at the document from 2001, it's so big. It's like, in my mind, if we're going to be cutting that down to probably a quarter of what was in there, because that's what makes sense, tighten it up, clean it up, To me, that's more than a minor revision. But from what you're saying, it sounds like they're not really no change, they're more minor changes. And I'm just trying to understand with the first reading, How locked in does that level of revision get on some of these where we're not going to be looking at them?

So tonight's not first reading or it's the initiating resolution. So we're saying staff, please go.

Yeah, please go work on this.

Why was I think it was first reading?

Yeah, I think in the schedule, if we could bring that up, we have a long ways to go on this one.

Yeah. All right. Well, initiating is a different beast.

That said, though, I think you heard comments from work session again tonight about scope. And I know we're sensitive to not letting scope creep. But I know that any time you get in front of council and boards and commissions, we're always going to ask you to do more. So I appreciate the tension and you kind of pushing back and saying, hey, let's not like over expand this thing because it'll make this project a lot bigger than just going to winter 2027. But know that a number of things we talked about, whether it was, you know, accessibility, the car share deliveries, architectural preferences, like as we see the drafts of this, you may hear more comments that certain areas in that right hand column may need a little more work while we're at it. But we are very sensitive to not reopening big conversations because this will probably be bigger than what you all have planned for then.

Agreed. I think that's the goal of the initiating resolution is to fully give staff the green light to work on these items and really hammer out what needs changing and what needs more work than might be anticipated.

Maybe what might be helpful, Mr. Reagan, is between the AAB and if you have certain comments, like within architectural preferences, if there's certain pages you're like, these are the things that really feel like they could use a refresh and that would then limit, like we're not taking that entire concept and trying to update it.

Oh, I think the AAB can be extremely helpful here because essentially this is, the people who are going to be using this are the developers who will take that section and hand it to the architects And so it'll be helpful if we've got architects writing for architects. I don't think we have any architects on staff, do we? I'm not an architect. All right, that was wrong. So we do, okay.

I was not aware.

All right. Okay, Mr. Snyder.

Yeah, during the work session, I'd asked for some consideration going forward on resilience issues in view of climate change. I think we constantly need to keep that in front of us. And I'm wondering if that's still, there seem to be some nods for that. And I'm wondering if that concept is still in the scope.

Yeah, so resiliency will be in the scope and we'd like to have a whole section on sustainability and one of the highlights for doing this new plan is to put some sustainability and resiliency concepts in the plan that were not mentioned in the two previous plans. So that's certainly gonna be a cornerstone of the new document.

Right, and understand that sustainability generally refers to steps taken to prevent or reduce climate change. Resilience is adapting to climate change. So the two are complementary. So what I hear is that there'll be a discussion on both of those issues. Yes. Thank you. Thank you.

Mr. Connolly? How about in that chart, the new concepts, old concepts, can we take out the parentheses no change? That would probably just make us all feel better.

Just that it's old concepts. Is that in the legislation or the staff report? I was just curious.

It is in the staff report. It's in the staff report.

Okay. So you're not adopting.

But just as you go forward, if it's not no change, because you're saying that there could, you're not intending to change, but there could be reasons to open up some of it, so.

Yes, I'd be totally okay with that.

Thanks. Especially if the intent is to shorten and tighten it and make it actually usable. We would encourage you to actually, like, decrease the length of these sections. And if architectural preferences is way too many pages, like, it would probably be helpful to everybody to shorten that down, right? So I would encourage you, even though it says no change, that if the goal is to make it usable and actually used, then the sections that are too lengthy and long could be tightened as well.

Understood. Thank you.

Okay. Any final comments? If not, I'll take a motion.

Madam Mayor, I move to adopt TR26-19. Is there a second? Second.

Is Egan on the second? Call roll, please. Mr. Egan?

Yes.

Ms. Conley? Yes. Mr. Snyder?

Yes.

Ms. Underhill? Yes. And Mayor Hardy? Yes. Motion carries five to zero. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Lawrence. Thank you, Mr. Garris. I look forward to the work. Okay, let's move on to consent. It's just that one contract for oil purchasing. I move to adopt the consent agenda. Is there a second?

Second.

Call roll, please. Mr. Hagan?

Yes.

Ms. Connolly? Yes. Mr. Snyder? Yes. Ms. Underhill?

Yes. And Mayor Hardy?

Yes. Motion carries five to zero. Thank you.

Okay, I think we're done with all the business on the agenda. It's 10. Do we want to get to schedule or save it for Wednesday morning? I did want to briefly talk about the city manager recruitment process. I have a meeting with Raph Tellis tomorrow, and so I was going to share kind of topics I was going to bring up and then ask whether you all have questions or topics to bring up as well so I can represent council in it. So I wanted to add that to the other business at the end, but up to you all whether you want to do schedule tonight when there's five of us. I guess just there'll be five of us on Monday anyway.

Right.

People want to just talk about the search?

I'd kind of prefer to do it now just because Wednesday I was going to be there, but then later in the day I'm flying out.

You could use the time on Wednesday, okay?

Yeah, maybe.

Okay. Well, let's do schedule then. And then we'll talk about the search thing. Sorry, Celeste. Oh, okay.

All right. If we could scroll down just a little bit. So June 15th, we will start at 6 p.m. The thought is a 6 p.m. walking tour and end that at 7 so that people can make their way back to council chambers for the work session. We would meet at the Big Chimneys Park for that walking tour. For Virginia Village, we have a comp plan amendments, the small area plan amendments and the code updates. We would discuss all of those with the planning commission's recommendations. And then from there, we would transition into a discussion of version four of the request for proposals. We will also have a briefing on our tenant relocation policy. So that would be accompanying the overall Virginia Village discussion. From there, we'll talk about personal property tax relief and the Tenor Hill rezonings.

I think we settled that we were going to extend an invite to the Planning Commission, or at least the members who can come THAT WAS SENT.

GREAT. ALL RIGHT. THEN SCROLLING DOWN, JUNE 22ND ACTION MEETING, PROCLAMATION FOR THE NORTHERN VIRGINIA ASSOCIATION FOR STUDY OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN LIFE. IF I WERE A MAYOR, IF I WERE MAYOR CONTEST WINNER RECOGNITION. AND THEN THE VIRGINIA VILLAGE ACTIONS. Um, for the comp plan amendments, the code updates and a motion to authorize the release of the RFP. Um, and then first, uh, then an initiating resolution. Now, yeah, initiating resolution and referral of the Tenner Hill rezoning. And then, uh, first reading on personal property tax relief and, um, a series of consent items, a closed session for personnel reviews and a closed session for compensation.

I'm going to be remote for that meeting.

So that's a, uh, that is a big, uh, big night, big agenda. Um, but we'll, uh, endeavor to work through that material. And then, uh, We would have a budget and finance committee meeting on June 26th, and that would be discussing revenue share with school board, among other things, but that'll be the main thing on the agenda.

Sorry, going back to June 22nd, the big one, I think we have the attorney and clerk compensation at the end. we'll check with laura whether she wants the closed session at the beginning of the night and then we take action yeah or whether we go into closed session and then come out immediately and take action what do you all prefer in terms of i i have some suggestions maybe we could just talk about it okay let's just asterix it and yeah for the closed sessions because it yeah we might want to just move that to the next the action to the next meeting but i can talk to you too about that okay

I think the problem with moving it to the next meeting is that pushes the action past the beginning of July 1st.

Yeah, and generally that's fine. Finance just has to deal with that.

Yeah, it's not ideal, but we always try to shoot for the fiscal year, but we've done that before.

I will say the resolutions do say that the reviews have been received and the revuees have had time to consider them. So that's just something to think about as far as timing. Okay, thank you.

Sorry, please continue. Sorry, Wyatt.

Okay, so on the 13th, we'll have the affordable housing annual report. We'll also have the police annual report. Second reading on personal property tax relief. And then I believe we'll have second reading on the Chesapeake items. So all the Chesapeake items will be done on July 13th. And then July 20th work session, series of non-Virginia Village items on the work session, including Conflict of Interest Act, snow removal on commercial sidewalks, NTC, follow-up, snow emergency routes, clean streets, vision zero, and a scoping discussion for an initiating of the BZA approval authority of parking and landscaping mods. Then on the 27th, we would have initiating resolution for the BZA approval of parking and landscaping mods and modifications and public hearing and second reading on the comp plan and small area plan amendments relating to Virginia Village. August 24th, CNI tax analysis and options, revenue sharing principles.

One comment on that. If we're looking at taxes and options with CNI, I think maybe we need to be taking a look at what are some of the other ones we might be considering. Kind of more of a broader discussion about structure of taxation structure. And I'm particularly thinking about BPAL and the other ones that will cause controversy.

In some respects, you know, I would make a little bit of a case just for focusing on CNI, just because that is so targeted and so specific. It really kind of feeds into capital planning and kind of how we think about transportation funding, which we need lead time for. Other revenues, you know, it's good to review them, but I'm not sure what the council is going to have to say about them so far in advance of the budget.

I think it's understanding what... we might want to adjust to incentivize small business, you know, benefits to small business, help restaurants or gain revenue from outside of the city. There's also the, we do have the split taxing authorization, although in a direction I don't want to go, but understanding that, I think it would be good to have, that's going to take a while to figure out. And so it'd be good to understand how our real estate assessments split up between land and property and improvements. We really haven't looked at that because it didn't really matter for tax purposes. And now it can.

You're exactly right. It's always been sort of an academic exercise that had no real bearing on anything and now it potentially would. And it's too big to start talking about during budget season. Yeah, it might be too big for us to even have anything intelligent to say about it by August 24th also. I find that whole issue to be very confusing.

But I think it might give us some insight into whether we want to push for that to go in the other direction with the legislative agenda.

You mean around land value tax now?

land value versus improvements. Yeah, we've shifted to that topic. Yeah.

That needs a lot more discussion that I don't think we can be ready for before August 24th, nor do I think we want to consider for the FY28 budget. I'll just put that marker out there. I think there's some people who are fans of it, and I know that it has merits in some communities, but I think it actually might have some really difficult implementation, and there's a reason why all the cities that actually have authority in Virginia have not actually taken advantage of it yet, so we should probably learn from them why they got the authority.

And that's why I want to get started on it, maybe for the FY29. We probably need that much time to figure it out.

I mean, I think the way you would even consider it would be budget neutral, so it wouldn't actually really be a... on critical path budget discussion. But anyway, that's kind of a tangent.

I think we should wait until we have a new city manager. I think it should not be why it's finishing.

Yes. Oh, let everybody blame him.

I think wrestling with CNI probably is, you know, enough maybe as a primer before August 24th. I think Sally might have sent out a chart that's like, hey, here's all the other authority you have on taxes. And so Art, maybe you want to pull that up as kind of the primer before this. Think about, like, what are the levers?

I looked at that. I have more questions beyond it, so.

But I do think wrestling with kind of a new tax like CNI probably will take up all hour and a half of the time we want to spend in work session.

And revenue sharing also can be a good deep topic. August 31st so far is pretty light agenda. I have a feeling there will be things that will populate that meeting, but we don't have them listed yet. And then shifting into after Labor Day, September 8th. So September 8th, receiving the evaluation committee's rankings and recommendations. Consideration of the 2027 government holiday schedule. And if we keep scrolling down, so the September 28th, if you get the briefing in early September, then there's a negotiation of an interim agreement with the top two respondents under the procurement rules. There will be that discussion on terms with the top two. And so then the council, We'll do work between that initial briefing, but we're targeting the 28th is where the council would choose the top ranked by voting to approve an interim agreement with the top ranked.

Can we cancel the September 24th work session? You have cancel question mark.

I'll say right now, if we have it, I won't be there.

I think we should officially cancel it.

Very good.

All right. And then scrolling down a bit more. In October, some code cleanups relating to law enforcement, building permit update on green building and small business incentives, reviewing code for the BZA approval for parking and landscaping modifications. And then the zoning code updates for the Virginia overlay. So as noted earlier in this meeting, that's sometime, it's a month after action on the selection of the top ranked.

The way, October 5th, there's the permits update, green building and small business incentives. I know the ESC keeps trying to go into their agenda, green building standards as a thing. Is that?

part of this conversation or is this separate from this is different this would be for certain uh you know like solar panel installations having a a different lower fee for those types of green buildings i would make the case that in the initiating resolution you just adopted that that's a good vehicle for the city to be considering green building standards for the urban design principles that as part of that scope of work, kind of in that column to the left, included our green building.

It said biophilic design, yeah. Just rename it green building standard, so that's...

I thought biophilic was more bringing the outside in, so like opening up the doors and having outdoor rooms and stuff like that, so...

But the resilience and sustainability that Dave was talking about is the Green Building Center, so that's where that would go.

Okay.

And like I said, I'd like to see the Virginia Village Code brought forward.

All right. October 9th, report on accessory dwellings, T-zones, and cottage housing. October 28th, second reading, I believe, on the code updates, and first reading on the BZA approval, and then final action on the zoning code updates for Virginia Village. Objections noted by Mr. Aging.

I think he said it enough now that Mr. Shields knows to anticipate your objection to that.

It's a soft hint.

And then by then we will be under a new city manager. So we will all, everything after August 31st subject to change a little bit.

That's right. Yeah.

Madam Mayor, I'm sorry. Probably need to build in the legislative program earlier.

That's right. We need to get a date for that in that October timeframe. Is that what we're shooting for, Cindy? Okay. We'll also plug in the year-end financial report and generally the carry-forwards budget amendment. That is typically in October.

So we had a number of items that were pending the FY26 budget closeout.

That's right.

Okay. Anything else? Okay, we can cancel Wednesday's meeting then. So business not on the agenda. I was gonna talk briefly about topics I was gonna raise with Rev. Telles and see if y'all have input or additional questions for me to add. So the, Brochure was published probably at this point 10 days ago or so. I think we got it out at the end of May. So things I was gonna ask and we were gonna discuss. One is the focus group that happened back in mid-May as well as the feedback form that we collected input from. I think Raftelis has not provided that to me but they said that they've summarized the feedback and so they plan to share it with us. My questions are how does all that input then shape the questions we ask during the interview stage as well as the rubric? And I presume given that they're the recruiters, they will have suggestions on how all the input we collected will feed into the process. That's kind of topic one. The second is the timing as well as makeup of the interview panels. Last I'd heard, Raftel's proposed second half of July is when we'd be doing the two rounds of interviews and so I was gonna get more details from them on specific dates so we could start blocking them off on calendars and then identify additional people besides the seven of us to be on the panel. I was thinking a mix of some board and commission members as well as city employees so that it's not just the seven of us giving the interviews. I think in the superintendent process, I think Laura might have mentioned there were like 10 or 15 other people outside of the school board who helped interview, so having more, people at the table was helpful.

I'd like them to understand how that will work is, you know, even some people On a panel is a lot.

I think there were two groups. I think it's like the city has conducted other interviews that I've sat in on where there's two different groups, two candidates, everyone interviews and then switches. So it's a smaller panel interviewing the person. Not 20 people interviewing. That would be messy. But it's seven to ten.

I think what would be the recommendation? Should it be... Two, should it be three at a time? I don't know.

Well, we don't interview the candidates at the same time, I guess.

I don't know.

It's one candidate, and there's two rooms. So candidate A goes in here, and candidate B goes in here. And maybe there's a candidate C and D also. And then everyone gets interviewed by both panels. No, I understand that. And one might be a community panel, and one might be a city council panel, or however Ref Tellis and Sharon Gibson recommend. Yep.

That's the question, is what would be their recommendation?

That's the details I'm going to get. I presume it would be something like that, and maybe if we end up having seven of us plus ten, that's 17, maybe you end up needing three panels, so it's more manageable. Right. I'll try to get more details on what they recommend as well as timing. And that's just the first round of interviews? I think the first, well, the very first, they were going to do some filtering, but I think we had asked to know everyone that wasn't filtered in case we have any suggestions that people would be filtered out. And then the first round would be virtual. to remote so we could meet with them remotely. And then the second round where we would do in person, we would have people not on site, but in Falls Church.

So when we talk about the first round being remote, obviously the candidate would be remote. Do we think the panel would be in one room or we would all be coming in remote too?

Ask, ref, tell us.

Exactly. We will ask and see. So I will try to get those details, so.

Mayor, I think it's really important because we're doing this over the summer that every time the city council has a role to play, that that be virtual as well as in person.

I assume that the rules of the city council would apply where we'd have to have an in-person quorum first?

That was my question. If you're all seven going to be there, that will be a meeting of council. We'll have to do a closed session and all the rules about electronics. So we'll have to work around that schedule. Yeah, understood.

As long as we have four people in person. And I'll be glad to help with that.

Great.

Well, once we get dates, yes. Yeah. And then the frequency of updates. So I think right now we've been kind of ad hoc as we were getting the job description and the brochure out, but I think now that we're in, you know, eight days into this, it'd be nice to get regular updates on how we're doing on the recruitment process, so I'll ask for that. So those are the three main topics. Do you have other questions or things I should bring up? Wyatt, do you have suggestions of things we should bring up?

Not at the moment. Okay. Thank you for asking. The only thing I can think of is as we go through it just does she, what their feeling is about us being able to get somebody on board when we would be able to? Because as they're seeing it, they might get revisions to that.

Yeah, no, I think as I definitely would like a mid-month check-in because I think the job closes at the end of June. And so if we're feeling like, hey, we're getting a really healthy pipeline of candidates and we're feeling good, then we'll feel better. But if halfway through, we're like, gosh, we think we need more time, then we'll have to revise timelines. So obviously we'll have to remain flexible depending on how the month will continue to go.

Yes. We also will have to think about if you'll be appointing an interim, we'll need to do the legislation for that and vote on that at a meeting. So we can get that on the schedule too when you have a better picture.

Probably wouldn't know until... July or August, after July, I assume.

Well, we'd need all of August just because of the meetings.

Yeah, and it'll be a resolution, so it'll just be something you can do at your regular meeting.

Well, that's why that August 31st meeting is going to be so empty right now. We hope we don't have an interim. We'll see. Or maybe we get to keep Wyatt a little longer.

Sorry, I didn't mean to have a lack of faith in your ability to hire somebody.

Okay, anything else I should bring up? Okay, I'll report back when I get the summary of the feedback from the focus groups as well as the form I'll share.

Okay, any other? Thank you for working with them.

Before we get to minutes, council liaison reports, anything to mention? Okay. Council member comments.

I had a question about the city council salary increase. I was under the impression that that has to be a separate action and that the budget simply provided for it if we acted on it. If there's disagreement, I'd ask the city attorney to just opine on that so that those who want it will be able to have it and those who may oppose it will be able to vote on it.

I thought we did vote on it. We did that already.

We did a vote last year, I think, already, a separate stand-alone vote.

It was, though, right?

I think the city attorney... Oh, there she is! She just answered that question via email.

I did. So, yes, the vote that was taken requires no further action. So the ordinance will become effective with no further action by council on July 1, and those salaries will go into effect.

So if someone wanted to refuse the increase or not, they would work that out privately with the HR office? That's right.

Okay.

They actually can work that out with me. I'm working on the personnel action forms now. So if anybody has any questions or changes you'd like to make, just get in touch with me.

So just to clarify, so the city attorney, you're saying the vote that was taken in 2025 was the only vote that needs to be taken?

That's correct.

I thought we did one previously.

Yeah, let's see. We did one before.

Did you write us a memo about this, Sally?

Yeah. I thought it had to be voted once, an election, and then voted a second time.

So I'm pulling up the ordinance that was adopted, 2095 is the number. The operating language says, now therefore the city council ordains that effective July 1, 2026, the salary for the mayor will be 17,000 per annum and the salary for each of the other council members will be 16,000 per annum in accordance with state law. And that is the vote that... will become, that action becomes effective this July 1.

But didn't we vote in 2024 also? I thought there were two votes and one was prior and one was after.

We can get that information to you. I think there is an MMO there.

We could. This vote that I just recited was adopted June of 2015.

And it was an ordinance, it would have required two votes. I mean, the budget also included funding it, so.

I'll check that down tomorrow and get it out to everybody.

So work with Sally. Thank you. And as Mary Beth said, if I guess there are people who don't want the raise or don't want at all to work directly with Celeste on it. Thank you. Thank you. Anything else? before we get to minutes. Kelly, we have two sets of minutes.

Any comments or motions? I thought these minutes were very well done, so I vote to approve the minutes of April 13th. Is there a second?

Second.

Is Egan on the second? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Abstentions? Minutes are approved. Thank you. Yes. I didn't see the April 27th minutes on the agenda. There's not a link to them.

They got linked late. Do you want to just hold them till next time? They didn't get linked till Friday afternoon or?

I think you just made a motion for both. Do you want to copy?

All right, I move to approve the minutes from April 27th. Is there a second?

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed or abstentions? Okay, minutes from April 27th are approved.

Thank you.

Any other business? Is there a motion to adjourn? I'll move to adjourn. All righty. Good night, all.

Thank you, Council. Good night.