City Council - Regular Meeting

Ms. Lawson, before you go, I wanted to just quickly address you. One, I'm very sorry to hear about the disturbing incident and interaction, and I share your concerns about surveillance. For the record, the city does not employ Pete's Towing, and so I think what he shared with you is inaccurate. We will follow up. If you leave your contact information with the clerk, I'd love to follow up.

Absolutely, and I can understand that. But if you don't mind leaving your information, I'd love to follow up, because I think in terms of what we can require Pete's Towing to do or not do is actually probably at the state level. But we'd be happy to follow up and get more information. Thank you. Especially when they're misleading public about what they're doing. That's really upsetting to hear.

I don't have that information. Mr. Barnett, welcome.

Thank you. Is that it for public comment tonight? Great. Thank you. Well, let's move on to now the library annual report. Ms. Dotser, thank you for your patience. Absolutely.

Thank you, and I think you kept it in five minutes, so thank you for that. So congrats on all the accolades, Ms. Dottler, and thank you for the members of the library board who are here. I really personally love seeing that, one, you're continuing to innovate and make sure the library is not just a traditional library in all the sense, but really a gathering place and that kind of third place that was really important and appreciate how you've been so open to the community for various gatherings. So with that, any questions or comments? Mr. Snyder.

56:13 – 57:30•JUJustine Underhill

Just a few quick comments and then a question for you. Absolutely. So yeah, as everyone else has said, the library truly is a gem in our community. I'm actually having family come to Falls Church next week and one of the things I'm excited to show them is our library. We hear about the decline of third spaces and so this truly is that sort of place where people can gather. And I think about how I just stopped by on a random Saturday and there was a Lego convention happening downstairs and then there was a book sale and just all these wonderful things and events and programming. And now as a ne

58:13 – 58:29•JUJustine Underhill

Yeah, I was just wondering if people should be aware that there is a cost to it. And so if I was genuinely not planning, if I rented Moby Dick and then I was like, oh, I'm not going to read it. And then I still ended up checking it out anyway. I don't know. But maybe it's so insignificant that it's not worthwhile.

59:22•JUJustine Underhill

We will be good citizens and return them early. Thank you.

Absolutely. So again, congrats on all the accolades and echo all my colleagues' comments. I personally love seeing trend numbers. So while this is a really great infographic and poster for your FY26 results, I would love to see kind of how things were looking over time without me having to pull up last year's report. So I think you had one stat in the staff report, but would encourage us to... look at trend data as well. And then second is, given that all of our new residents have come from our multifamily buildings, if we haven't already done outreach in those buildings, I know that's often l

Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you members of the library board. I think we are ready to transition to the report of the city manager. And while we're transitioning, I just wanted to make a quick comment in response to some of the public comments. Thank you for all this data, I love it. I just want to make sure that for any members of the audience or people who may be watching at home that I want to reiterate our values of being welcoming and inclusive, especially for public commenters as well. I think that extends that regardless of where you live, your citizenship status, whether you're a v

First Wednesday in City Hall and last Wednesday is around the community. So we really mean it when we say we want to hear from everybody, regardless of whether you can come in a Monday night.

Mr. City Manager, we're ready for your report.

Great. Thank you for that very thorough report. Do we have questions or comments for the manager, or we can move on to council requests at the same time? Mr. Reagan.

I will second that. So if I could put a finer point on it, one, it sounds like the comments were pretty misleading, given that we don't have a contract with Pete's. Second, I guess I would ask the city attorney and staff to look into what authority we have to actually limit the surveillance and privacy concerns. And if it is something that we actually need to escalate to the state level to add it to our legislative priorities, if we don't actually have authority locally, given that we are at that time of year where we're putting together our package, if the ledge committee would consider that.

Other council requests or comments or questions for the manager? This one.

Good idea. Thank you. Others? Okay, I have one. The Oak Street Elementary principal and staff had reached out asking for the crosswalks be refreshed. I had sent something to staff last week about getting a community effort to paint the colorful blue and orange stripes. But I think a good first step could just be refreshing the white thermoplastic. I think some roadwork had happened over the past year that have eroded some of it. And so the minimum would be great to get the thermoplastic redone around those crosswalks. I think there've been a couple examples where there've been some unsafe driv

Madam Clerk, can you call the first item?

Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Arsenault. Would the applicant like to say anything, or would you like to just move on to council questions? Yes, if I may.

Thank you. Do we have questions for the applicant or for staff? Ms. Downs.

I'm sorry, this is not so much of a question as it is just a show of support. I mentioned this when we last spoke about this, but I am in complete support of this and agree that this should move on to planning commission and move on to the next steps. I live at that end of town and we don't really have any sort of exercise or facility that we can walk to at that end. So this is the east end of abroad. And in addition, if you think about, we've got Little Beast, we have Thompson Italian, we have Claire and Don's, we have Wonder. We have four P's, we've got lots of restaurants right in that litt

Thank you. Other questions or comments for either the applicant or staff?

That was my broader point, I think, in work session last week, is that in general, I think the prohibited useless is a bit outdated. Like, I personally would love to see an arcade or a roller rink on any of our ground floor uses. I think it's a more modern and interesting entertainment use. But I don't know whether we should... revisit that whole discussion here as part of this application if we don't wanna hold it up. And I would just ask that maybe economic development and planning staff look at that as a broader topic.

Out of curiosity, has this space already been built out with kind of restaurant ventilation so that it could have been a restaurant or was it never really finished with?

That'd be worth knowing, especially if it could revert back at some point. It'd be nice to know whether the, because you can't really revent a space easily.

And on that theme, I guess I would encourage, again, I mentioned it last week in the work session, that the Whole Foods parking also be considered shareable. I know Whole Foods closes after nine, so there's already an informal agreement that people can use it as public parking. But if Insight were open to it, I think it'd be great to encourage all that parking be utilized as well. If anybody goes to Pilates after nine o'clock, I guess at night.

Okay. If there are no further comments, I'll take a motion. I'll

1:22:20 – 1:22:37•JUJustine Underhill

Sorry, can we scroll down to the motion? Thank you. I move to refer Tier 2630 to the Planning Commission and Economic Development Authority, schedule a public hearing for November 9th, 2026, and advertise the same according to law. Egan on the second. You call roll, please.

Great, thank you. Thank you for tracking that very thorough discussion last week. Mr. Treanor, I guess before we open up for further comments and questions, I think given that a lot of the public comments we heard were about people being concerned that we were walking back things that were done in July. I think for members of the public who are still left, we've lost some people. as well as refreshing council's memory. Can you talk about kind of how we've intentionally parallel path, the RFP process and the zoning process, because we really want it to be informed by the response from the devel

Thank you. Okay, I'm sure we're ready to dive in again. Who wants to be first? Mr. Hagan, you look like you want to go.

Maybe to organize the conversation so we're not jumping all over the place, are there other comments on heights around A and B since Mr. Egan led and then we can move on to different parts of the heights? Mr. Steiner?

And the public doesn't have the benefit of seeing the Q&A doc that I think staff put together based on a lot of the questions that we've been discussing. Could you talk more about why we think 48 is important? Because I think previously we talked about 50.

Specifically, I guess, I think I recall from work sessions, several of us were interested in the concept of two over twos, like stacked townhomes. And we had asked for some light research, if possible, in between last week's meeting to now about what have we seen in the region when you actually put two over twos? How much height do we need? Do we think that 48 does not preclude that from happening?

I just want to make sure we are not excluding that possible housing type, given that we've talked about wanting that.

We're talking about the little notch of C?

Thank you for addressing that. While we're talking about shadow studies, just a comment. As I was looking at lots of shadow studies, what I often find me toggling between is actually the current conditions or existing conditions page with the proposed conditions. And I actually find it more helpful to actually have them side by side rather than have them on separate pages because I find that I keep going back to the previous one or holding up the other one to compare what's changed. So just in case other people are doing the same thing, I thought I'd mention that here because I'm literally hol

This is the poor man's version where I hold the phone up and then compare it. Okay. Other, let's keep it to height for now and then we can move on to other things. Ms. Downs.

Thank you. And thanks so much for the presentation. If we could, that's the one I want to back up. Thank you. And Mr. Matusik knows that I had sent this earlier and Ms. Connelly just brought it up. You know, it doesn't seem like there's support, but I would prefer to see that B zone extended down all the way down to tax analysts. You know, I know that we talked with Winter Hill about, you know, keeping it to 40 feet, you know, within 150 feet of the property line. And so I just feel like that would be, you know, following more of that commitment that we had talked about, you know, and I unders

Second. Second. That was Mr. Snider on the second. So there's a motion on the tables. Let's open up for discussion. Ms. Underhill.

1:55:14 – 1:57:56•JUJustine Underhill

Yeah, so I just had a few questions looking back at, because a lot of this came out of the shadow studies. If we could go back to the shadow studies, I guess it would be the page on what is allowed by right right now. So the maximum by right shadow at 3 p.m. shows like pretty much already by right shows that entire area already in shadow. And then I guess at 10 a.m. the shadow extends further. just by right already to the backyard. Maybe not quite as, and then let's go down to the what's proposed. So actually you need a third one side by side. By right, existing, and then proposed. And so I gu

If I could refresh my memory. So without divulging details of the RFP responses, I think in the past when we've talked about kind of preserving maximum flexibility in terms of the size of the building, I think staff has said that the sweet spot for affordable housing developers, they hit a certain number of units. It was kind of 100 to 150 units per se, I think is what you said generally is what gets financed. And so anytime you kind of constrain the building envelope, and if you want to make number two smaller, given all the other constraints we're trying to deal with, which is again, protect

I think besides obviously what's financeable and buildable is obviously the city contribution and part of it too, right? Like I think that's been an important factor for us is how much are we willing to subsidize? And if the market won't naturally go there, I know that that's something that will weigh on us as well is how much are we willing to put towards the project?

I think I've heard from everybody. So there's a motion and a second. Is everyone clear on what the motion and the second is before we, can we refresh what the, I think I heard Ms. Flynn's motion was to extend the B zone down all the way the length of Shirley. That was her first motion, which I think Mr. Snider seconded. So it would change this map that the orange would extend into the pink. Any other questions before we call for the vote? Let's do a roll call.

Is Snyder on the second? Discussion? Madam Clerk, could you repeat the height caps again?

I guess thinking out loud, I wonder whether we haven't seen two over two state in the city because we haven't had the heights that allowed for them.

2:10:54 – 2:12:57•JUJustine Underhill

Ms. Underhill. I mean, I guess, is this something that during the process we can, it's tough doing the zoning alongside the other process, just because it'd be nice to have the other thing laid out and to have a sense of like what we are looking for and making sure that we have all the flexibility that we need. And so anyway, this is just very difficult. And so, I mean, I don't know if we can encourage two over twos because that would provide a really great sort of middle housing option that we don't really have in the city. I'm not sure, but I don't know if that's feasible or if that's someth

2:14:58 – 2:15:11•JUJustine Underhill

Can we encourage, I mean, so I guess moving forward with the development community, can we encourage that sort of housing type? Is that something that we can, I guess, as we're going through this process, specifically ask for?

2:16:15 – 2:16:36•JUJustine Underhill

Great. And so I guess my thinking is that this is the first of several first readings. As we go through this process, we can bring things down. But I guess, and this gets to my frustration, which is it would be helpful to see how the process goes before- cutting things off right now.

To be clear, this is our third first reading, but we have an interim agreement, we have a comprehensive agreement, and we have site plans, and I think what staff said, and I think what Mr. Agin said really resonated, is that we'll have more opportunities to refine this, and this is not the only chance, but I think between wanting to keep flexibility.

2:16:54•JUJustine Underhill

I meant first of many first readings, but many more meetings to come on this. Yes, yes.

And again, I think that was intentional in terms of that order, but I'll let Mr. Matusik and Ms. Messer comment on that. The order of that, the reason why that we are not finalizing second reading on zoning until after the IA or MOU is done is intentional as well.

So I'm hearing lots of support from council, the idea of a concept of a two over two, so more affordable, smaller, middle housing that can be owned. So separate from this conversation to the extent that we can channel that to urban Atlantic is something that we're really interested in exploring. I think that would be helpful. I think I'm in the camp where I'd hate to cut off a zoning option where that could make it possible. So again, the reason maybe we don't have any two over twos in the city is because we haven't allowed for zoning for someone to bring that forward. So there's a motion and

Just a quick comment, so Mr. MacCusick, when you presented this kind of parallel process to us, gosh, about a year ago, it should have come with a warning label about the angst caused. The fact that it has to run parallel path and inform each other clearly, I think, is difficult for all of us, especially the public, as we try to be informed and try to remain flexible in what's feasible, so. Okay, I think there's a motion and a second, so let's call for the vote. Mr. Egan?

Any more discussion on heights while we're here?

Okay, if there's no more discussion on heights, I'm looking. Does council have other comments based on what was discussed last week and the tweaks made by staff?

Other thoughts on the back of the house?

Are we comfortable with giving staff that direction or do we actually want to amend it from the dais again?

I assume the rationale for it to be completely enclosed is not to have headlights into the neighbor's buildings?

So back to the question about, I know Ms. Flynn offered some language and we've all conceptually kind of centered around kind of some tweaks to this, but between first and second reading, are we comfortable with staff refining the language to get to the intent of what we're talking about versus trying to write it from the dais? That would be my preference, but I wanted to confirm. Any more discussion on this section? Okay, now Mr. Agin wants to talk about parking.

2:42:33•JUJustine Underhill

Sorry, it's .6 for the affordable, .9 for what?

2:43:27 – 2:43:52•JUJustine Underhill

So I guess what I will say is that I do know that last I checked 455 Tinner Hill, which is right across the street. And so this is from the building itself cuz they actually know how many units they have and they know how many parking spaces are filled. They have a 0.8 utilization right now at 455 Tinner Hill. And so that includes the mix of units that they have.

I guess on top of that, I think there was data that affordable housing units usually have less than market rate units. Yeah.

We do have that listed somewhere. I'd have to go back into one of our documents. I can try to pull that up. We have that data for essentially all nine of our mixed-use buildings whenever we last did a parking study, I think.

2:44:19 – 2:45:00•JUJustine Underhill

I guess my only, like, I guess my, because I hear what you're saying, Art, I guess my, you know, the code that we have was written in the 1950s or 60s, and so I guess, like... It could be a 100, you know, we could do a 99% reduction, and maybe that's the right level. I mean, so it's almost like the code that we have written was such an arbitrary number to begin with based on, like, false church in the 1950s. So saying, like, oh, my gosh, that's a 90% reduction versus, you know, a 40% feels better. But I hear what you're saying overall. I just wanted to flag that the original numbers were almos

2:45:33 – 2:47:08•JUJustine Underhill

And this is just the general tricky thing about parking is that we have what I would consider a tragedy of the commons, which we have free street parking. And so if there's not enough parking that's provided in a building, then people park on the street. And so the ultimate way to solve everything is that people, like you pay for a house, you pay for parking. wherever it is. So it's like you're putting your property somewhere, you're storing your property, it gets paid for somewhere. I guess a few things that come to mind is that there's also, to all of this, there's a cost. And so it's crazy.

If I can jump in on shared parking because I think it's probably an agreement where something where all seven of us agree is that we want to encourage a shared parking arrangement. So similar to the two over two concept, to the extent that Urban Atlantic is listening, I think we want to push very strongly on that because besides the George Mason Square garages, I actually think we have three garages within a block. So 301 West Broad, Tenner Hill, Pearson Square and Tax Analyst, actually four garages that from the data that we've seen are all pretty over parked. And so there's economic incentiv

2:52:43 – 2:53:08•JUJustine Underhill

So I agree with you there where like the size of the unit absolutely probably does change what the, and the mix of units probably does change like what the parking situation is going to be. I guess, I don't know, is that something that we absolutely have to set right now? Is it something that we need to decide? Because I feel a little bit weird being so prescriptive about it at this exact point.

2:53:21•JUJustine Underhill

I mean, is this something that we have flexibility to shift at a later stage?

2:54:08 – 2:54:55•JUJustine Underhill

I guess this is where, like... Data would be... I know you already looked at some things. I mean, I would really be interested in like 455 Tenure Hill is right there. And like if we could just get that data of this is what it is right now. I guess we can't find information from... The other tricky thing is like especially for affordable units, we're selecting on for... Specifically like people who work in the city and seniors so that's going to be a different maybe mix of people and so I guess We can't fully know the numbers, but it would be nice to at least maybe compare this to 455 tenor hil

Well, let me just see if there's other people who want to chime in on parking, because I feel like it's just been three of us debating this point. Other thoughts on the staff proposal of 0.6 for the affordable units, one for townhomes?

Okay, others who would like to chime in on one per townhome or 0.6 per affordable unit?

So just to jump in, I think I heard five of us okay with one per townhouse and 0.6 for affordable. And then the side conversation that we wanna encourage shared parking arrangements as part of the interim agreement with Urban Atlantic. So given that there's five of us comfortable with it, do we need to debate how much is actually gonna be offsite versus onsite, or we just leave that as part of I think that's a different piece. Because I think while we're on zoning, I just want to try to contain the conversation a bit. That if there is a majority of council that's comfortable with 1 and 0.6, an

3:02:48 – 3:03:09•JUJustine Underhill

To go off what Mr. Snyder's saying, I think that's where it would be helpful to, you know, as we continue this conversation, maybe to get the Tinner Hill numbers and mix of units and get that, like, as our city manager mentioned, having that as part of the discussion so that we have, I think that would be a nice concrete thing to do.

Do we think the concept of on-site versus off-site is really zoning? Or is this because of we're negotiating with a... developer and we think that they're going to have parking needs that, so let me rewind. So developers often come in asking for relief from parking requirements because they don't want to over park. They think our parking requirements are arbitrary and they don't want to pay for $70,000 of space. In this case, we are partnering with a developer. We also should not want to pay for $70,000 of space because of the economics of this deal. and so we're going to want some parking rel

In my opinion, if they were able to negotiate all their parking in Tenner Hill and they were able to rent their units with all the parking that's at Tenner Hill and they think it's buildable and financeable, I think that's a good idea, especially if they're meeting the affordable housing requirements to access the overlay. Right, like the builders have an incentive to build the right amount of parking. If they think I can lease or sell these units with all the parking being down the street at the Tenderhill building, and they think that it is still marketable, why wouldn't we let them do that?

This zoning district applies everybody, right? Whether it's city owned or not.

Which is why I don't know whether we want to put a percentage right now.

Okay. So I heard a majority okay with 0.6 for affordable units and one for townhomes. With the encouragement that we do shared parking arrangements in our negotiations with Urban Atlantic and a future conversation on how much should be off-site versus on-site, but for now not putting anything in the zoning. Is that an accurate summary?

3:09:22 – 3:09:41•JUJustine Underhill

Yeah, and I just wanted to say that at 455 Tenner Hill, it looks like it's a majority one bedroom and they don't have any studios. So it seems that that would even be... Anyway, so I think it would be good to look at these numbers later.

Okay, so we've covered heights and parking and the back of the house stuff. Other broad topics...

And Mr. Marczewski, as you're coming up, I feel like I remember that in the RFP, we had encouraged the market responders to consider all the different available federal or state kind of financing options, including historic tax credit. So I feel like we did at least point people that way, but you please go ahead.

Well, the bulk plan applies here as well, right?

Because the bulk plane governs this edge as well. Okay, anything else on zoning? We've covered heights, back of the house stuff, parking, park. I had one question for staff. So what came in public comment was a request for handicap accessible units. That feels like an IA discussion as opposed to a zoning discussion, but wanted to confirm that with staff, make sure that didn't get lost.

So again, not the zoning discussion in front of us tonight.

If there are no further discussions on zoning, is there a motion? Do we have any amendments to... My note said that both amendments failed, and I don't... Okay. People are welcome to make more amendments. There were things that we had just discussed that would be included, but... I think the main thing that we directed staff was around the back of the house stuff that we didn't want to... try to wordsmith on the dais. And so we asked staff to take the thrust of what we were discussing and come back with more refined language by second reading. So do we need to say that in the motion?

I assume we'll get check-ins when it's to the Planning Commission and back.

3:25:07•JUJustine Underhill

So I guess for the motion, though, do we need to... change the wording to say to incorporate. I mean, I can just say to incorporate the discussion tonight at the city council meeting.

3:25:54 – 3:26:09•JUJustine Underhill

Okay, so it would be to amend the, well, it would be to draft language regarding the back of the townhome section. I mean, is that clear enough or does it need to be more specific? Draft.

Is there anything else besides that? To be clear, they're not like substantive amendments, because I think the intent of what we want is largely there, and I think there were some tweaks, and so I'm just a little hesitant to outline that for that reason, but...

3:26:25 – 3:27:19•JUJustine Underhill

I'm mostly worried we're going to forget something that was in this discussion, but I feel like staff was... Staff will have... Okay. Okay, so it's... I guess maybe we can have a general thing to draft language and make amendments based on the discussion at... THE SEPTEMBER 28TH CITY COUNCIL MEETING. OKAY. THAT'LL WORK. THAT'LL WORK. OKAY, SO I MOVE TO GRANT FIRST READING TO TO 2615. With revisions, including the draft language and suggestions proposed at the September 28th, 2026 city council meeting and refer this to the planning commission, set a public hearing and schedule second reading fo

Is there a second? Second. That's Connolly on the second. And call roll, please. Mr. Agin.

I think we all struggle with not being able to disclose more things because of the NDA and the RFP responses, right? And so we've been anxious to kind of get to a point where we can actually talk more openly about the proposal. So if you delay zoning and don't do first reading tonight, then the applicant can't actually figure out what the building is going to look like for us to be able to talk more openly about it, to get more community feedback, to get to a comprehensive agreement, and to get to a site plan, which is when we have a lot more opportunities to talk further. I get the angst on i

I'd like seven more brains at the table. So I appreciated the planning commission's comments. And so I think I'm at a point where I'd like the planning commission's comments to noodle this because clearly we can spend a regular meeting as long as we do in work session. And so the seven of us certainly debated this and we probably would invite the planning commission to help us.

Do you wanna call me? I guess we're gonna call the roll now then, if we're done with comments. There was a motion and a second. Call roll.

Just hold that thought for a moment. Sorry, I'm texting her. Thank you. It's probably the really inopportune time when your computer decides to restart. She's logging back in.

Ms. Downs, there was a motion, a second, and the clerk was in the process of doing the roll call. Ah, there you are. If you can hear us. I'm texting to see whether she can hear or see us.

We are at the 11 o'clock mark, and so I'm going to propose we take a 10-minute break before we get to tenant relocation, if that's okay? Okay. Or would staff like to power through? Sorry, staff who's waiting in the audience, but I think we all would like a quick break. That's okay. Thank you. At 11.15. Let us know when we're back up, please. All right, we're ready to go. Great, we are back. Hopefully the last item before we get to consent. Let's call it TR 26-22.

Welcome, Ms. Lewis, and sorry to make you wait another 10 minutes. No worries. It's better than last week, so that's good.

Great. Do you have any questions? Thank you, Ms. Jones. It looks like Vice Mayor Downs has her hand up. Yes.

Yeah, thank you. I just wanted to thank you for listening to the feedback. I mean, I knew you would, but just having the tenancy, I think that's a great way to utilize that is just if there's a tie. And I just wanted to make sure if I was reading it correctly, So once when we're relocating residents, if they don't qualify for what there's a number of reasons, as I read it, that they may no longer qualify for a new housing or a particular unit, does we will help them find a different type of unit? Is that right that they would qualify for?

Any other questions or comments, Mr. Schneider?

I mean... If I could chime in, I think for service workers, they would most certainly be at 60% AMI and below. And in this matrix, they're getting two points for that.

Yeah, so if there are service workers who work in the city, they would have three points, assuming they don't have any other factors. But I think in the discussion last week, I recalled that we thought the most vulnerable considerations were the disability and the low income. And then the other we thought being senior, having young children, having been displaced before receiving rental assistance were kind of comparable.

And this is a relocation policy beyond Virginia Village.

So what we have in parallel with the policy is our prioritization process and system for ADUs, which prioritizes people who currently live and work in the city, seniors, disabled. obviously meeting the income bands. And so, Mr. Schneider, to your concern, I think people who are generally prioritized for affordable dwelling units, there's that priority process as well. This is mostly for displacement.

Other questions or comments? Okay, is there a motion?

4:01:10•JUJustine Underhill

Can we scroll to it? It's a short motion.

4:01:19•JUJustine Underhill

Sorry, you need to scroll to it. I can't read it. Oh, is it right there? Oh, sorry, it's very short. Oh, it's very short. All right, all right. I move to adopt tier 2622.

Thank you. Thank you for saying this, Jones. Have a good night. We have consent up next. Any members of council wish to pull any items up of consent?

Okay, so pulling TR26-32 off consent. Is there a motion to move the consent minus TR26-32?

Is Egan on the second? Call roll for consent, please.

Thank you for that additional context. Questions or comments? Mr. Snyder.

I think if you scroll up in the staff report, it kind of lists out, I think, who the grant review committees were, which I think were vetted, and volunteers who have experience in this domain.

And I think one out of the three of them have done this before as well.

So none of the three members of the grant review committee have affiliation with any of the grant recipients, obviously. Correct.

Thank you. This is a tough one for me. I'm the city council arts and humanities liaison and I'm very conflict. Well, first I want to just acknowledge that I appreciate the work that Ms. Mester and And Holly did to reach back to specifically Catch Foundation in Turner Hill to sort of go through what happened and why they were not granted any funding. So I do appreciate that and that next year there might be a workshop to help applicants know understand the process and complete it um you know i i did receive an email about with some complaints about the process um which if but if that email is a

Okay. um yeah you know and it is it's tough because for me again i i donate to creative cauldron i support their mission um but to me the thought of okay so you know and again i know there were some issues with the applications from the Catch Foundation in Tenderhill, as was discussed at our last meeting. But to me, not having a Juneteenth celebration and then just making Creative Cauldrons that one performance a little more affordable, I don't know. To me, it's hard for me to wrap my brain around that. And I don't want to second guess, I guess I am second guessing the work of the committee, b

4:23:06 – 4:25:13•JUJustine Underhill

definitely it's it's yeah it's very difficult i i completely understand that thank you and i guess echoing cindy's point yeah i think it's wonderful to see so many different ideas um coming to us um and something that I strongly support is place making. And so this is just, it's wonderful to see all these different things that are coming to the city. And it's almost like for a little bit more, we could have even more wonderful events and place making opportunities. And so I know that the Arts and Humanities Council has been asking for a very long time for more funding for some of these grants.

I mean, I guess, yes, it's really unfortunate to fund. I guess I intend to not want to undermine the grant review committee's work. I think we all agree that Juneteenth being a city holiday and a federal holiday is something that we want to recognize and honor. And so to the extent that staff can look at creative options, whether it's budget amendment, increasing the pie in FY28's budget in the future, or offer staff resources, I think we'd look to staff to kind of come up with options. But I'm inclined to not undermine the GRC's work on this, given that from what I've heard from staff, it did

I'll second. Ms. Underhill in the second. Call roll please.

Thank you for that discussion and the next steps to come on that as well. GIVEN THAT IT IS NEARLY MIDNIGHT, LET'S NOT DISCUSS THAT SCHEDULE. BUT I DID WANT TO BRING UP SOMETHING THAT I EMAILED TO ALL OF COUNCIL THIS MORNING UNDER REGIONAL COMMITTEE LIAISON REPORTS. I SENT SOMETHING FROM NVRC ABOUT THE 2030 CENSUS. So NBRC is advocating, one, they're writing a letter actually to the Census Bureau because of the proposed changes are quite concerning. And the DEC will do a better job than I will at midnight explaining all the changes. But they're also recommending that all member localities, whic

Yeah, the linked organizations are nonpartisan.

Yeah like a basic one is like when you get counted so versus like January 1st it proposes like a window. Like it changes things pretty significantly from how a census is normally conducted as well as obviously asking for citizenship status and other things that will make people less likely to actually fill out the census. Those are two out of many changes in that deck.

I'm hearing support to do a letter from all of us in council. I will circulate a draft until we have it together. And then I just sent it to Mary Catherine, the clerk as well, so you all have a copy of it if we want to decide whether the city wants to help inform the public about it. Okay, thank you.

Maybe a suggestion on that is if the registrar could brief us on the plans on kind of maintaining safe and fair elections in Falls Church and the regional response in that.

Yeah, I think the Commonwealth's attorney, I've heard her speak as well as kind of preparing and they're kind of in defense mode to prepare for that as well. So I guess if we could ask the registrar for either a briefing as well as the Commonwealth's attorney.

4:32:52 – 4:33:37•JUJustine Underhill

Just a council liaison report. So I've been working with the CACT. One of the topics that's come up is that they've been wondering how to be most effective. The issue is that CACT just, I mean, transportation is just such a huge subject. And so trying to narrow down what they're focused on and how many things come up, it almost feels overwhelming because these meetings can go on for a very long time and it still doesn't feel like we're accomplishing. a lot um and so i'm just giving a heads up that this may end up coming to council at some point in terms of what we expect the scope of cact to b

I know that's always been one of our most ambitious boards and commissions, and so it would probably be helpful to have a discussion with staff as well about kind of how we're staffing it and what's realistic.

4:33:49•JUJustine Underhill

Yeah, I think that would be... I would suggest that as kind of the first step.

Sure. So that we're realistic before we... Because if you bring it to us, we're going to say, great, let's go make CACT all these things. And staff's like, well, actually, we can't staff all those things, right? Yeah, okay.

Thank you. Any final items of discussion before we get to minutes and then we can adjourn? Okay, has anyone reviewed the August 24th minutes?

All in favor? Aye. Minutes are adopted. Okay, it is now exactly midnight, so I say we should adjourn. Good night, all. Good night.