City Council - Regular Meeting

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e e e e iell call to order the meeting of the Bristol Virginia City Council today is Tuesday February 25th 2025 this time we'll have a moment of Silent prayer

please join me and stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Al 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 well good evening it's great to see everyone out uh tonight um I feel like it's been some time since we've been together um about a month um since we've met um a couple of things I wanted to um just say about our um High School sports team so we're really excited that the Virginia High beads are playing tonight in in the region quarters uh the girls score when I was coming in it was in the third quarter and they were a little bit behind so I'm hoping by the time this meeting's over we will here that they came through and and won uh and then the basketball men starts right after that game so if we get uh done in time tonight maybe we can all head on over to the basketball game um we also have our swim and D dive team who are in the um State U meet so we wish them a lot of luck and this weekend um the we are hosting at Virginia High School the vhl wrestling class 1 and two uh state championship that's a really big deal it's supposed to be in Salem so we're excited that um it's going to be here um in Bristol so just letting you know that because I expect there will be a lot of people here uh in town and so if you're wondering where all the people are coming from they're coming in probably for that state wrestling uh Championship that's on Saturday um so I will open it up and see if any of the council have any other comments uh thank

you madam mayor um one thing that I will just uh acknowledge is that uh the Virginia General Assembly has uh largely completed their work for this session and um we do appreciate the work that our legislators do locally uh as well as uh the support from legislators across the state on certain bills that have been very important to the City of Bristol um including the vacant properties bill which will hopefully help us address the problem at bi and uh appreciate delegate o Center ailion as well as uh as well as members of both committees that handled that bill that I think you and the vice mayor had discussions with and I did too and yes we appreciate their work yeah thank you for that reminder on that and I also have to point out that our own city manager uh Randy eids put a ton of work into that he was in Richmond uh many times I would pass him uh in the hallways up there um where he was up there advocating for that bill and I know he had a a lot of input in that and worked with Senator Pilan and delegate O'Quinn which we do we uh greatly thank them as well so thank you uh Randy eids for your work on that and and having the you know I that wasn't on the agenda or in the thoughts in the beginning and that was an idea that came from you and I appreciate you putting a lot of thought into that and working hard then to now see that through I believe it passed unanimously if I'm not mistaken so that's huge so thank you for your work on that uh just a just a quick thought a uh request almost um it's it feels like springtime it's warm and it's getting lighter later which is nice and I was downtown today at a a local restaurant in downtown Bristol and and they had mentioned that uh it had been a little slower all throughout you know the

winter January February so just a uh a plea to anyone here anyone watching as it warms up as we're out and about in the spring and the summer always try to remember to support our our local businesses here in Bristol uh especially our our small businesses especially that are in our downtown area uh we really we love our downtown and we want to try to make sure that's always a a great area to be in so uh just to just to remember them as we as we're out and about yeah well um thank you for that reminder that is a great reminder and I should have mentioned at the beginning that the vice mayor um is out of town for work so he is joining us uh virtually tonight so I would like to see open it up and see if the vice mayor Holmes has any comments thank you mayor Nave I just wanted to to jump in real quick um kind of reiterate a few comments that were said um first off I hate that I can't be there as you said I'm out of time for work so I wanted to join how I could to thank you for that opportunity um but I do also want to reiterate the thanks to uh Del oin our legislators for the work they did on the the the bill to health RBI property thank you to Mr Eid and his hard work and his many many trips to Richmond that's not an easy Drive um so thank you for doing that and the dedicated work you put into that also congratulations to all our our sports teams that have done so well that are doing so well and those that are about to compete again and then finally too we had another round of flooding in our region in our um we have so many local First Responders from our fire department or police department that are part of the Virginia Task Force 4 that stepped up and served the region um they did Swift waterer rescues I don't know how many hours they were active but they were over in uh tazel County and maybe other places too but I know they were definitely there serving saving and just doing a fantastic job looking out for our neighbors so I just want to thank

them for that thank you thank you and and thank you for that reminder as well um I was very proud to see the work that our task for uh team was doing and um I know I kept seeing numbers I'm not going to repeat them because I can't think and I'll get them wrong but um there were quite a few people that they rescued um it was amazing every time we heard about it so yes thank you to our police and fire that um Department that were working on that so now I'll pass it on to city manager comments me pull up some stats here real quick okay um so um yeah I have a couple of things to say um first um we haven't mentioned his name here lately but uh Chief John Austin as we all know retired um in December and um on February 18th uh Chief Byron Ashbrook uh took over the police department we're excited to have him here uh and work with our policemen and our citizens here in Bristol as he gets acclimated to Bristol I will be going out and introducing him to Business Leaders in the community over the next month or so as uh my schedule permits and his schedule permits uh as he gets acclimated to the new role here in Bristol um as far as the Swiftwater team they had over 51 rescues of people 17 dogs and eight cats uh while they were called out and after they were called out I believe the next night our HazMat team was called out and Glade for a uh liquid propane truck accident and there were 2,000 gallons of liquid propane that had to be dealt with by our HazMat team so our fire department was very busy um for a couple of three nights there uh lastly and definitely

not least I want to thank Senator trillian and Delegate oquinn for everything they did to help get that bill passed um as the mayor mentioned that Bill had not come to fruition until after the incident at VI and um filing time for bills was running uh short and they were very receptive to getting that filed and uh supporting it on our behalf um I'd like to thank all the legislators who supported that especially in the house passed 97 to0 and then in the Senate it passed 30 to5 and I hope Governor yunan supports that bill as well and not only will it help the City of Bristol but it will help a lot of other communities across the state that are dealing with similar problems that we're dealing with um so that's all I have for tonight all right thank you now move in looking for an adoption of the agenda uh I move for the adoption of the agenda with the following changes uh that we table items D4 and E1 to a future date to be determined all right we have a motion on the floor to table d 4 and E1 until a later date uh to be determined um do we have a second second all right we have a second clerk please call the rooll faram yes Holmes yes Osborne yes Pard yes Nave yes okay moving into the first item on the regular agenda D1 proclam recognizing multiple sclerosis education and awareness month staff report Randy uh multiple sclerosis is a chronic often disabling disease that attacks the central nervous system which is made up of the brain spinal cord and optic nerves the severity and symptoms of MS

are unpredictable and Vary from person to person there is currently no cure for MS but there are treatments that can help to control the condition and ease some of the symptoms research is ongoing to develop new and better ways to treat the disease with an attempt to achieve the goal of everyone one living their lives free from the effects of Ms uh March is Ms awareness month and we have a proclamation uh for Ms awareness month we do have um an employee here who is impacted uh with MS and it's important uh that we recognize what can be done and um to bring light to Ms and uh the treatments that are necessary for people all right thank you reading of the Proclamation you me to go ahead with it I can do it or you okay um a proclamation of multiple sclerosis education and awareness month whereas multiple sclerosis is a chronic often disabling disease that impacts more than 400,000 people in the United States affecting twice as many women as men and whereas Ms can be mild or can cause individuals to lose their ability to write speak or walk and whereas most individuals experience their first symptoms of MS between the ages of 20 and 40 and whereas the exact cause of Ms is unknown and there is no cure but there are treatments for initial attacks medications and therapies to improve symptoms and recently developed drugs to slow the worsing of the disease and whereas the MS Alliance of Virginia provides programs and services for anyone in Virginia whose life has been affected by Ms and whereas through education assistance to support groups special programs and events and the dissemination of information the multiple sclerosis associate Alliance of Virginia provides a better informed general population and the means to improve the quality of life for those in Virginia with MS and whereas the M multiple scoris Alliance of Virginia is a 100% volunteer organization formed to

fill the needs of support groups provide educational programs activities and events and help others start upbeat groups in their communities and whereas raising public awareness of Ms will lead to increased support and Services for Families in our region impacted by the disease now therefore be it resolved that Becky mayor and the city council of the City of Bristol Virginia do hereby recognize the month of March 2025 as multiple sclerosis education and awareness month adopted this the 25th day of February 2025 all right thank you we Ling for a motion in second uh I move for approval of the Proclamation as presented second all right we have a motion in a second um any Council discussion it's nice toar year that progress is being made it's a u difficulty that affects a lot of people and it's nice to have periodic updates we were talking about the proclamations before the meeting um it seems sometimes that we have a lot of them but it's nice to know in when we have the opportunity for these proclamations to hear that we're not just doing it again there's actually progress being made and it's nice to hear that all right thank you all right clerk please call the rooll Barnum yes Holmes yes Osborne yes Pard yes Nave yes and um is anyone here tonight for the proclamation I don't think so but I'll accept it on uh Mike Martin's behalf okay

thank you [Applause] all right uh next item on the agenda is the first public hearing for py 2025 HUD Community Development block grant cdbg annual action plan and 5-year consolidation plan now open the public hearing and we will ask uh Daniel Shu no sorry I'm on the wrong one we will not go back to what you were doing we will now open public hearing and I will turn this over to um Ellen as we do not have anyone signed up for public comment thank you and good evening the City of Bristol Virginia is an annual recipient of federal funding through the US Department of Housing and Urban Development better known as HUD this money is awarded without competition to entitlement cities Across the Nation including Bristol Virginia HUD provides this entitlement amount based on a nationwide formula which uses several objective measures of community needs including the extent of poverty population housing overcrowding age of Housing and population growth lag in relationship to other metropolitan areas the entitlement monies may be spent to develop or sustain viable urban communities by providing decent housing and a suitable living environment and by expanding econ economic opport unities principally for low and moderate income persons all entitlement monies received are dispersed through the city's cdbg program this year's allocation is unknown at this time but it should be

comparable to last year's allocation allocation which was approximately $260,000 home funds are also unknown at this time these funds are used for reconstruction and down payment assistance and these are administered through the Tennessee Virginia Home Consortium of which Bristol Virginia is a member every five years the city develops a 5-year Consolidated plan which informs the next five years of annual action plans each year the city develops an annual action plan that provides a blueprint to HUD as to how the city will spend its cdbg funding for the year the annual action plan is developed by the city's Department of Community Development and planning and is based upon identified needs of its low income residents and communities within the city all activities must be part of the city's cdbg 5-year Consolidated plan which is being to uh submitted to HUD this year HUD allows the total amount Avail available for allocation to be split into three funding C categories the first of these categories is Administration the city incurs costs associated with the administration of the cdbg program and is allowed to utilize 20% from the total amount available for allocation to cover these costs the second category of funding is public service projects this category may not exceed 15% of the total amount available for allocation the third category of funding is dedicated to community projects which can be housing related Economic Development and improvements to public facilities these projects include housing rehab and sidewalks Demolition and code enforcement accessibility and safety this is the first of two required public hearings to gather Community input on the use of these funds both for the the 5-year Consolidated plan and the 2025 annual action plan the city invites and welcomes all suggestions and comments

from residents and local organizations on the proposed uses for this plan staff will be requesting at a later date that the mayor appoint a council subcommittee to review and approve staff's recommendations for the program year 2025 cdbg annual action plan allocation this subcommittee will include two appointed Council memb MERS thank you all right thank you Ellen and we will now close the public hearing and move to item number three and this will be a joint public hearing concerning updates to section 50 hyen 136 agricultural use on a residential property I will now open the public hearing and ask chairman shu to please come and do this thank you madam mayor I now open our meeting thank you um we do have someone signed up for a public comment um as I call your name if you would come forward um you have three minutes if you will state your name and address and you have three minutes you'll have a green light and then a yellow warning light and then a red light means your time is up so first up we have uh Stephanie scal how are yall my name is Stephanie scal and we live on Buckner street in Bristol Virginia um we wanted to bring it to the attention obviously because we have a couple chickens and you know the the ordinance basically makes it to where we can't have them um I'm a little disheveled tonight I had surgery yesterday but was still important enough for my kids to be here thank you um you know outside of the joys that the kids

have and learning the responsibilities and you know learning what you should do how to take care of things how to keep things clean you know we kind of feel like it's important that other people should be able to share in this too most residence Parcels that we have as homeowners or even you know rentals whatnot property lines are not big enough for us to have you know a couple chickens at the house and you know we're basically here to say you know it's a pretty great thing you know obviously some things need to be in place keeping things clean sound obviously no roosters which does unfortunately happen happen to us you buy pullets you end up with a rooster um we did rehel him but you know just wanted to ask to bring the lines in a little bit closer so that you know families can enjoy this not to mention the cost of eggs right now is just crazy and I think that you know a lot more people would enjoy it if they were able to do so um hopefully just bringing it a little bit closer in so that other families including us can keep Our Feathered Friends you know and others can enjoy the experience too I'll make it short way thank you thank you all right now we'll move into the staff report from June hello so um I believe this is the second time I've shown up at Council my name is Jud mwam I'm the city planner um it's a the mess of L of constants that shouldn't go next to each other but um June is just fine so this is our agricultural use on Residential Properties um the reason this came up is because we received early in around mid 2024 a number of complaints regarding this uh ordinance what initially had been a noise complaint due to there being a few roosters in the city quickly became an issue regarding the property lines as

were there roosters they were also chickens and as the ordinance stands there isn't the space to keep them so those violations then became appeals and then has uh led us to do some research into the ordinance itself to see if perhaps what was quickly rising to six or seven potential violations and then six or seven potential appeals might need a a second look so this is the section in particular that we found was the cause of all of the violations regarding the chickens roosters are a separate issue and we're don't think that that's something that needs to be updated but the property line boundary is quite large um 100 ft from every adjoining property line is quite significant in a city that does not have many properties that meet that requirement with or without chickens many are most are under 100t in width total this would require them to be 200 feet minimum to have chickens so this is 904 Buckner um the first case that I looked into uh you can see from the coupe to the nearest property is 75 ft um this is the nearest house on the property the proper line distance was about 20 ft now it's nestled in a way in which you you can't really see it from the outside uh the this angle is from the sidewalk itself but it's nestled into a little Nook can't really see it too much there's certainly no smell I an ATT test I walked by there um with the new ordinance this would not be a violation um there was no sight no

sound issues at the property itself um um second property that was looked at was 681 Glenway Avenue this is from the street um the additional screening requirements that are in the ordinance as per the zoning administrator being allowed to require would prevent this from being seen and again I can attest no smell would was noticed or any other noise complaints um the only reason these came to staff attention was because both properties had a rooster at some point that led to the initial noise complaint um neither one of which still has the rooster so again this is the existing ordinance and highlighted in green it's a little easier uh to see than the garish yellow I chose initially but also it's highlighted in red on your paper in front of you um highlights the changes that I I think or staff thinks would be best fit for this so uh the first one would be removing the r1a R1 and R2 requirements um and just replacing them with uh single family residential lots uh we had a couple of cases where they were in an R3 District that would otherwise meet the requirements um and staff did not and Planning Commission did not necessarily think that that would be a problem um section two see um this is a part that commissioner or councilman Pard has talked to me about beforehand but as required um the city would be able to inspect these properties to ensure that they're in compliance as the code is written this was request by the Planning Commission that we thought was a good idea just to make sure that we can go and check and see should a complaint arise that we can

go and investigate um it was recommended by Council and Par to consider adding a part that states that should count should uh request arriv to look into that that might be needed um section five of this would be the removal from 100t to 10 ft to the adjoining property line and section six being added to state that it must be still 25 ft from the nearest non-owner occupied structure so it still has to be a decent distance from a house or a business but the property line boundary is a bit more uh is a bit shorter um last but not least section 9 and 10 um 9 A and B both set a specific cost for the permit which was not there previously and then a recurring fee set at $25 per year this lets us keep track of how many people are keeping these animals and lets us review their coups every year to make sure that they haven't changed anything or otherwise would be in violation and the last one being that we have the zoning administr administrator has the authority to require conditions um to meet these permit requests such as additional screening or um other improvements to reduce impact on neighboring properties so maybe a fence maybe some bushes anything that would prevent the neighbors from having decreased property values because of activities of the property owner and then the zoning administrator may require periodic updates to the Cooper structure should it become a nuisance as needed so those are the changes that we thought might be fitting and open to hear any comments or concerns that the council has yeah does anyone have any questions I'm just wondering um I'm sure

we don't have any idea how many are in the city do we I mean and I think if we start looking at doing a permit I'm not sure to to look into what others do around us I'm just curious if it they require permits or um what that looks like all other tri cities cities require permits um with varying conditions uh Johnson City does a permit on basically on a caseby casee basis through the animal shelter um kingport does it off of I believe 35 ft and Bristol Tennessee does it by uh that it should not create a disturbance with no specific guidelines whatsoever when it comes to other cities in Virginia in the Commonwealth um it varies wildly but the general consensus I found was somewhere between 10 and 25 ft and somewhere determining whether it's property boundaries or whether it's the the occupied building we felt that having these requirements of 10 ft from property line 25 ft from a building was a good compromise between the general Trends um as to the number of people who have chickens in the city it's hard to say um more than you think is the answer I found uh I know of of course I've been here I've gotten six specific calls for people who I know for sure have chickens many of which have alerted me that their neighbors also have chickens or otherwise uh raised questions why their particular situation was being looked at and not so and so down the street

um should that Trend hold true I would guess maybe 50 to 60 properties have chickens but again that's a rough estimate yeah I think it's interesting that you bring that up because just in the past two weeks I've had two different families in the city reach out to me and ask me if if they could have chickens and I don't know if they already have them or not but but um they were asking me about it so then when I saw this coming up on our agenda I thought it was really interesting so it must be something that um maybe more people are looking into getting chickens or just it's the conversation going on in the city right now I think it's it's one it's a bit little column a little column B um especially with you know price of eggs rising and stuff and and it being a Bristol being a somewhat rural community or in a rural are area um a lot of people like to raise chickens they keep them as pets um they also make eggs so it's something that's very attractive to a lot of people in the region I found which surprised me since I started here Y and I think as Miss scal said also in teaching children about them teaching you know part of the educational part is important so it's true you know I'll say that um I was in a very similar boat when I was a teenager we had CH mhm um and I don't know Madame mayor if you know where I grew up but I grew up off the king Mill Pike in a on a dead end Street where we were absolutely in violation of every single requirement that we currently have so I think it's great I mean I think this this loosens it a lot I mean my only suggestion might be mightbe lower the permit for the first year fee you know down a little bit because you know people you know like you said maybe some people are getting chickens because they want them as pets or they just want to be able to teach their kids how to do stuff but some people may be getting them because it produces eggs and egg

prices are going to continue to go up you know with inflation and all that stuff so you know if if they're concerned about the price of goods maybe we don't want to impose a $100 fee right up front that' just be my off the bat suggest yeah thank you I like that too um because you think if they're doing it to save money then that might eat up all the money and that's why my question in the beginning was how many do you think we have in the city or do we have any idea because it's not so much about I don't believe it's about the city making money off this it's more about just keeping track of who who has chickens in the city basically that's something we can definitely look into right and Madame mayor it's also about staff not having to spend hour after hour after hour going out on zoning violation calls for something we think could be corrected easily with an ordinance change you don't want to spend a day every week hunting down chickens correct that is more accurate than you think yeah I would I mean that's kind of my reasoning would be you know like I know that there's a pet license fee and it's a very small amount of money and a lot of people just ignore it I I worry that if the if the first year permit fee is $100 that might be cost prohibitive and people might ignore it anyway you know so so you know if it's if it's a more reasonable amount maybe they'll say oh I'm supposed to pay a permit fee and it's not a crazy amount so I'm going to do it absolutely yeah any other comments all right all right thank you June thank you um we will now close the public hearing and I will ask chairman Chu to come forward thank you madam mayor I'll close this hearing all right thank you all right uh next item on the agenda presentation of the December 31st 2024

financial information and staff report from Tamara thank you mayor Nave and members of council this is the general fund financial information for the quarter ended December 31st 20124 this information is prepared on the cash basis and is UN audited to our general fund summary with a budget of 91.1 154 million revenues of 46.3 23 million 51% of budget expenditures of 4.42 million 44% of budget for a um a fund balance Surplus at um December 31st of $5.8 million I just want to point out that um 5.86 million of the Surplus is um from beginning balance funds that we rolled over from the prior fiscal year so that's almost the entire amount of the the Surplus at December 31st this is what our general fund Revenue looks like um local revenue is made is shown here in the blue and it makes up 76% of general fund receipts it is 77% of our budget the state revenue is shown in red um 20% of general fund receipts through December 31st and it's 19% of the budget and the federal revenue here is shown in Green at 4% um of collections through December 31st and it is 4% of the budget so that's what our Revenue composition looks like the first six months of the fiscal year so our financial data graphs these graphs compare actual revenues over um period of time fiscal year 21 is shown in Gray fiscal year 22 is shown in yellow fiscal year 23 is shown in red fiscal year 24 in green and the current year in the blue so um local sales and use tax up across all periods um this is good news for the city of Bristol and

you can see just a year ago 12 months into the fiscal year the sales tax was just down slightly but this shows an increase over all periods presented cigarette taxes are down from all years except 2023 so we have a decrease um in that Revenue there lodging taxes are up across um all years presented um even backing out a rate increase that we had um in the previous fiscal year a meals tax restaurant meal meal taxes are up across all periods as well the general fund expenditure update if all expenditures were paid evenly throughout the year The Benchmark at December 31st would be 50% government Administration is at 51% so just up slightly over that Benchmark judicial Administration is at 47% um Public Safety is at 43% Public Works is at 31% % due primarily to the timing of certain Public Works expenditures Health welfare and Social Services is at 42% education is at 48% parks recreation and cultural at 46% Community Development is at 41% non-departmental is at 74% and that's due to the timing of our insurance payments we pay um 100% of our insurance payments um in July of each year so that's what's driving that category up there our debt is at 74% and once again that is just due to the timing of when our debt payments are due and transfers are at 51% so total expenditures for um halfway through the fiscal year are at 44% of budget our financial data graphs contined this is what our general fund expenditures look like how the city's money is spent um 21% of expenditures

year-to date have been on public safety Public Works which now includes solid waste is at 19% of total expenditures debt is 16% and once again that includes the solid waste debt as well health welfare and Social Services is at 12% education is at 11% government Administration is at 7% transfers is at 5% parks recreation and cultural is at 4% judicial Administration is at 3% Community Development and non- departmental are both at 1% and prior to us bringing solid waste into the general fund um the one two and three were normally Public Safety Health welfare and social services and education sometimes education and health welfare and Social Services switched places but that was really the one two and three so clearly the um decomposition the composition has been um changed since um bringing the solid waste into the general fund FS phases two and three upd budgeted revenues um for Falls phases 2 and three is at $1.18 million um the actual through December 31st is $728,000 per of the debt which is budgeted at 2164 million has been paid through December 31st so we've budgeted for a deficit of 98399 and through December 31st we're actually at a budget of um $1.4 million as we continue to earn revenues throughout the year that deficit will um decrease and um the deficit that we budgeted for in fiscal year um 25 is significantly less than in Prior years and that's because um due to the amortization schedule of the debt there are no principal payments due this year on the debt only um interest The Debt Service presentation

this is the city's planned Debt Service schedule this schedule does um include include the 2023 General obligation Bond anticipation notes paying off in fiscal year 2028 without being refinanced and that certainly is something that the city needs to um be aware of um will present a challenge you can see here um the debt escalation from funded debt expenditures they will rise to um 8.97 four million in fiscal year 2027 you can see the excess or I'm sorry the shortfall of the funding and the plan in place in fiscal year 25 and 26 um to accommodate that um with committed debt Reserve funds um being fully expended in 2026 and additional funding needed that being said we will continue to monitor the um revenues and expenditures for the current fiscal year and um if we don't need to pull the committed Reserve funds in the current year we won't um thereby making that last just a little bit longer so this is the city's written debt service plan that we will follow Council that concludes the presentation um please let me know if you have any questions thank you all right thank you so much for that any questions or comments at this time one of those items was transfers now that the uh Solid Waste has been Incorporated in the general fund what's the general uh uh idea of those transfers we transfer um some of the drri monies out they have to go to the um Ida so as they come in um we transfer those out we also transfer money to local capital projects for funded local um funded and budgeted local capital projects small transfer to the transit fund there as well so those

are the three large items thank you we certainly appreciate want to say thank you to you and the finance team for all the work that you do I I just have one question I know that we um we were awarded the M funding you know through the governor for um landfill expenses and I was just curious on where we stand on we haven't started receiving that and I know we've got a lot of debt a lot more debt coming with that so in um December we were able to finalize the umou with theq and January 31st we submitted the first reimbursement um um 14 around $14.1 million and we're waiting on DEQ review of that we've not received um the funding yet um we have the second reimbursement request ready which Catches Us up through January of 2025 and it's approximately $1.5 million um so once again we have not received um any of those monies yet but we anticipate as DQ finalizes its review of requisition number one that we will have significant revenues coming into the city wonderful and I know it's greatly needed and we certainly appreciate your work on that I did see U when you were working on um submitting the paperwork needed for this we're not talking about a couple sheets of paper we're talking about Stacks this high so thank you for all the extra work you've put into that I know it's going to be worth it so thank you thank you mayor Na and the finance department worked collectively hard on that um Solid Waste stand public Works Jake Chandler have worked on that as well so thank you very much absolutely all right um moving in to item F matters to be presented by

members of the public non-agenda items first up we have um Reverend Jackie nlin you will please come forward been a beautiful day but it's been a long day um Madam mayor and the other councilmen city manager and his staff and Mr dedri and his staff um I'm Jackie nlin uh 143 mcaa Circle Bristol Virginia um I have three uh items I want to uh make mention of I sent an email I don't know if you got it m madame mayor uh on EV charging stations um and I I went into some detail with some research on the need for EV charging stations I also send it to you um um uh Mr McGee uh and I hadn't heard anything back from it so I'm going that encourages me to keep pushing uh on these things Virginia received $16 million in federal funds for EV charging stations and I thought maybe we you might want to tap into that I also researched where they are located on the map as far as rues Virginia is concern I think their travel is about 350 miles you know before they need charging again I know we have one that sheets and that uh stays packed you know full and uh even my seven-year-old and 10-year-old can depict and point out which is which you know just in traveling so there they're all over the place uh it may be something and I wanted to be an oped because I wanted some feedback on it I needed feedback

from you because uh you're in the tourist business and so forth um we're going to move into 36% uh in 2025 of increasing of Ford Volvo and other car dealers uh producing U uh these vehicles so the change is coming fast and I didn't want to to lose out on that money the other thing and there's more detail in my email I might should have Su it to you Mr E and I'll just uh let you know I did receive it and I did send out some fillers cuz I was trying to find gather some research on it before I got back with you okay and I do have some things that I have sent to Richmond asking for info on um but I I will respond okay I got most of my information from richond anyway so and Miss Nolin uh our economic development director and bradin they have a meeting with an EV station sometime Friday good and I don't have to be present but I'd like to know the outcome some of that U hope that didn't take up my time you're good yeah and the other thing uh is um the doors U now you know I'm here and I'm going to be here and I'm here for the Ida meetings you know and uh I complained about the IDE U uh or the door uh for entr in up on the platform uh it literally damaged my cute pink chair and uh but I kept pushing and uh we finally got that change that door is easy access but Amy always makes sure she's there you know just in case easy entrance and out uh uh door it looks like a storm door it should be extra heavy but it's not these doors out here I beat and bang on that little do watchi there to try to get the it never works the inside door sometimes it works going out you know but it

doesn't work I don't know if that's in the budget or so forth but it's a federal building and it should be accessible you know uh with accommodations uh the other thing U uh I want to make mention is I just caught this uh councilman foran you was um um um comp complimenting and supporting the uh uh small businesses you know and I appre appreciate that I really do now you may not need a wig but I have a small business and when you said the word especially those in the downtown area that that kind of rubbed me wrong and I you know me I'm going to tell you about it um because you have bris Tennessee also businesses there and we want to promote Virginia up from exit 7 all the way down if the if if the small business is boycotted then we wouldn't have a downtown so not that I'm going to start one but I just wanted you to know that that word especially downtown all of our businesses are just as important as one is another I know while we're promoting downtown though um and I do but we really should be careful on our you know word and how we're going to compliment one another thank you thank you okay next person on the agenda is Daniel Shu thank you madam mayor I've got all kinds of notes here because I didn't print something that I was supposed to print and I printed something extra since there's not a huge crowd here okay so um I'm here to talk about old stuff as all of you know um my name is Daniel Shu I'm also known as the old house agent I work at Prestige homes of the tri cities in Bristol Tennessee and my wife and I Ren dilapidated properties

in Bristol Virginia and I wanted to come here tonight and give you all an update um about great things happening in Bristol in the realm of historic preservation uh and its economic impact on our community uh I would like to uh present these things hopefully if things continue on with this type of um progression I can come back once a month or every other month to give you some updates on stuff some of this you're going to know about some of it you're not um Monica and I have worked very very hard in the Virginia Hills area of town which is right here around us I've contacted owners of vacant properties over the past 5 years and I've sold these properties to investors and families just 10 years ago you could buy a house on Lee Street for $35,000 and just four years ago you could buy a house on Spencer Street for $25,000 I'm happy to tell you all today that our efforts and the efforts of the stewards in the area has paid off and brought about some incredible changes to the neighborhood in December I closed a house on Lee Street for $435,000 shattering the naysayers opinion of home values in town then last month another property that I sold to a man from Florida who saw value where locals did not had an appraisal come in on his property on Lee Street for $660,000 that is huge an investor client of mine has also remarked model two extraordinary houses uh one one of the first ones he uh did he bought from the city across the road uh but these two houses are on um Highland Avenue on one block and fighting junked up porches and front yard public displays of aggression uh this gentleman has breathed new life into these houses saved one from Demolition and sold them for record-breaking amounts on Highland

Avenue he is now working on property um uh that is the largest House on Highland Avenue I think uh to bring two luxury units to a once ravaged apartment building so he's reducing those from I think six to two and they'll be sold separately so it's a it's a true duplex like a townhouse um the Bristol Redevelopment uh and Housing Authority has received a $500,000 Choice neighborhood planning grant for the Virginia Hills area they have reached out to me for help with plans to incorporate historic preservation in their plans create Workforce and market rate housing and inform all of those involved in the progress that they are not only interested in renovating existing low-income housing but helping create a better Community for all income levels and if you want to if you don't mind I have a little bit that rich panel sent me about that he said the choice uh the purpose of choice neighborhood's planning Grant is to create a trans transformation plan for the Virginia Hills neighborhood just north of downtown containing VI and all public building all public housing in Bristol Virginia this transformation plan is intended to be holistic and to provide a road mapap to a thrilling Community um the three main areas of focus are neighborhood people and housing neighborhood uh aspect is plan including Economic Development Parks and Recreation and Public Safety people covers Healthcare employment education the Arts and the history of the area the the housing part of the plan will address the deteriorating public and private housing in the neighborhood the transformation plan is required to include mixed used mixed income development and they are required to include the state's historic preservation office in the process the grand old houses in the Virginia Hills area need to be preserved and renovated new housing needs to be built and public

housing needs to be renovated or replaced concentrating po concentrating poverty can be detrimental to both the city and to the people living in the neighborhood as part of the purpose of the plan is to attract families with higher incomes to the T to the Target area this will require Workforce and low middle and upper income housing utilizing both the existing housing stock and new construction so that's pretty cool news from them and thank you as we've talked about tonight already Mr eids Council delegate O'Quinn Senator pan and anyone else involved in the vi C campus uh Bill uh now we have some hope of preservation after that devastating fire and I know that great care will be taken in the consideration of a buyer and that preservation and economic development are at the Forefront of that decision the Bristol Virginia historic preservation awards are coming up in May the program is designed to combat blight while rewarding property owners who have engaged in preservation and maintenance um nominations are being taken until March 31st Heather Moore says nominate someone you like or nominate someone you don't like um more record-breaking home sells are happening on solar Hill with houses on Oak Street now selling in the 300s Oak Street's very small smaller houses and houses on solar Street starting in the 500s we are truly looking at a major shift in values due to Restoration and preservation efforts we are also seeing desirability rise in that neighborhood a neighborhood once I was told was dangerous on March 10th at the library Whitney mon manahan will be speaking on examples set by the city of Knoxville and Knox Heritage in promoting historic preservation in that Community she is the director of Agri of architecture and

design for Burwell construction company and is also the advocacy sorry the president of the board of directors of Knox Heritage and serves as the chair of the advoc advocacy and engagement committee I promise I'm almost done all right spearheaded by Mike mcer a team of over 60 architecture and landscape architect graduate students and faculty from clemon Egypt and China visited Bristol from February 19th to the 25th as they have been studying our Central Appalachian region with the center of their radius pinned to the vi campus Bristol Virginia and Bristol Tennessee it's run by Dr Holland and it's called the world Design Studio she visited Bristol and met with mayor Nave and several staff and many stakeholders in preparation for this team in early November the studio is producing Visions based on gigabytes of historic and contemporary data stakeholder and guidance materials will be adopted for use by the brha and VI forward as the HUD Choice neighborhood planning Grant commences for the next 2 years it was fully funded by generous sponsors at no cost to taxpayers so I just wanted to give you all an update tonight in response to anyone who thinks there is nothing going on pertaining to Historic preservation in Bristol Virginia and that way are and and the people think we're still a blighted community these buildings that have been plaguing bristolian for decades are turning around and proving that there is real value in preservation not only intrinsic value but monetary value that Ben of property owners here and the city thank you very much thank you and thank you for the work that you're doing all right next item on the agenda uh the consent agenda I move for approval of the consent agenda as

presented second all right we have a motion in second clerk please call the rooll farum yes Holmes is not oh no Osborne yes Pard yes Nate yes and now we're looking for a motion to adjourn I move that we stand adjourned second all right clerk please call the rooll farum yes Osborne yes Pard yes Nave yes we areour