City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome. This Pocosin City Council meeting is called to order. We have another good crowd tonight. We really appreciate y'all being here. It's encouraging to us when people are interested in what we do. And we've seen a pretty sizable uptick over the past couple years in attendance. So that's a good thing. We very much appreciate that. I'd like to call on Mr. Wayne Moore. He has a special introduction that he'd like to do tonight.

introduce to you Scott Herbert. He's a new attorney in our office. He'll be in the Newport News office, hopefully keeping me straight and bringing me into the 21st century with all the computer knowledge he has. He is a graduate of William and Mary Law School, and he Clark in, I think, the Sixth Circuit. He's been practicing for a couple of years with the attorney general's office and practicing privately in Richmond. And he's now, he's from Newport U, so he's come home. So I'm glad to have him. And he's helping me with covering some of the council meetings and some of the planning commission and other meetings in the city. So I'd like y'all to please welcome him. And hopefully, he will be welcome at all of our meetings.

very good thank you mr. Moore appreciate the introduction mr. Herbert pleasure to have you here with us seems like you're very well qualified I'm sure we'll be in good hands when it comes to legal guidance so thank you very much moving on to item B on our agenda is the invocation and Pledge of Allegiance which will be led by vice mayor Debbie button please stand please

Dear Lord, we enter your presence with thanksgiving and praise for the blessings that you have bestowed upon us. I ask that you would give us clarity and wisdom tonight as we make decisions on behalf of the citizens that we represent. Give us open minds, respect for each other, respect for each other's opinions, and most of all, respect for those citizens in our city as we try to represent them to the best of our ability. Lord, we ask all these things in the name of your son's name, Jesus. Amen. Now if you would turn to the flag for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands,

Thank you, Debbie. Item C is a proclamation in honor of National Constitution Week, and we're pleased to have with us tonight Ms. Charlene West, dressed in appropriate attire from 1787. So Charlene, if you could please join me at the podium. Good evening. Welcome. Thank you for being with us. The proclamation reads as follows. Whereas it is the privilege and the duty of the American people to commemorate the 239th anniversary of the drafting of the Constitution of the United States of America with appropriate ceremonies and activities, and whereas Public Law 915 guarantees the issuance of a proclamation each year by the President of the United States of America designating September 17th through the 23rd of each year as Constitution Week. Now, therefore, I, David A. Hux, Mayor of the City of Pocosin, do hereby proclaim the week of September 17th through the 23rd, 2026 as Constitution Week and urge all citizens to study the Constitution and to express gratitude for the privilege of American citizenship and in our republic functioning under the superb body of laws, the Constitution of the United States of America. And witness whereof I have set unto my hand and cause a seal of City of Pocosso Virginia to be affixed this 14th day of September 2026 thank you very much yes ma'am you you are welcome and did have a few of my own comments just to add to it and I know you have a speech prepared for us very short one very good and mine's even shorter As we know, our Constitution guarantees the God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We are forever grateful for those who have fought and sacrificed and died in defense of those rights, lest we forget. Charlene, the floor is yours. Thank you again for being here. Pleasure having you.

Honored gentlemen, honored gentlewomen of the Pocosin City Council, Honorable Mayor Hux, I stand here before you this evening as a patriot, as an ancestor of our newly formed nation, celebrating 250 years of existence. I speak not for myself, but for my 11 children, my husband, who formerly a Brigadier General, the Fourth Governor of Virginia, most important, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Nelson, Jr. For I am his beloved wife, Lucy Grimes Nelson. My lineage is associated with other important relatives who had a hand in forming the basis of the structure and freedoms of this country for which you have the privilege to live. To whom I am referring to as relatives, you may be astounded. My heritage begins with my grandfather, Sir John Randolph of Williamsburg, a Speaker of the House of Burgesses, Attorney General for the Colony of Virginia, my uncle, Peyton Randolph, Speaker of the House of Burgesses, President of the Virginia Conventions, and the first presiding President of the Continental Congress. Most important are my two cousins, for their contributions to the doctrine for our country, for the formation of the freedoms from tyranny from unjust power, also the freedoms of liberties for each individual citizens to express their right to live life, to speak freely, to worship in their faith, and to be governed by the choice of the people and not to be ruled. My first relative, Cousin Edmund Randolph, he was the seventh governor of Virginia and the first US Attorney General. and the first appointed delegate for Virginia at the first session of the Continental Congress, who then was appointed later, after the Revolution, as a member of the Committee of Detail, which was in charge of the framework of our Constitution, in which he proposed the structure of this document to be based on the Virginia Plan, the foundation of the Commonwealth of Virginia's state constitution, and written by fellow Virginia James Madison. My other cousin, from which you all have knowledge of, is Thomas Jefferson. He was the third president of the United States, the second vice president under the administration of President John Adams, the second governor of Virginia, Virginia House of Burgesses, the first U.S. Secretary of State, then was appointed as Minister of Negotiating Treaties for Annuity and Commerce an appointed delegate of Virginia Confederation Congress, Colonel of the Continental Army for Virginia's Militia of the County of Albemarle, and I believe the most significant contribution to our country's establishment was of which Cousin Thomas was noted for, for his entree as one of the youngest delegates to the Second Continental Congress, where he wrote and presented the Declaration of Independence. Cousin Thomas, who was absent from the Constitutional Convention, held in Philadelphia on May 25 through September 17, 1787, as he was representing the United States of France. And while serving in France at this time, he had some concerns about the standards on which this important document would set the whole basis on which our country gave to be free, to have a voice, and to have liberties. It was through correspondences from John Madison asking of Cousin Thomas' views on the structure of the Constitution. And his thought and concern of viewing the very first original draft of the Constitution is that it gave the central government too much power. He wrote of this in his correspondence back to James Madison, and he voiced his comment as to add a Bill of Rights to protect the personal freedoms of each American citizen, and this was the beginning of the Bill of Rights. My ancestor lineage is only a small fraction of the population of patriots who gave over their land, their possessions, their family, reputations, wealth, and some the most precious contribution of all, their lives, for the creation of this country that we call the United States of America. In closing, I thank you, gentlemen, gentlewomen of the Council, on and on behalf of the Charles Parrish Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution for this all-important proclamation for Constitution Week for September 17th through the 23rd and Constitution Day, which is on September 17th, 2020. 26. Please take time to read your rights and your liberties. During this proclaimed week, remember to learn from your country's history, for which history is the making of the past, to set forth the pattern for the future and not to be repeated, only to embrace it and learn from it, and use this knowledge for the betterment for the future, not only for your country, but also for the world. And I thank you again for your, this prestigious proclamation and to all, I wish you all a restful night and good evening.

Thank you very much for your inspirational words. It's always good to get a reminder. of the sacrifices and the hardships that our forefathers endured. And for me personally, it's a reminder that helps me keep things in perspective that what we have to deal with today so often are very, very minor in comparison to what they dealt with and what came out of the contributions. So thank you for the reminder. With that, we'll move on to a special presentation. And I would like to ask Ms. Crystal Bright, Mr. Greg Boyce, and Mr. Matt Hirshberg, please join me at the podium. Ms. Bright, Mr. Boyce, Mr. Hirshberg. Thank you. Thank you all for being here tonight. Everybody, we have invited these fine folks from Dominion Energy here tonight to recognize them and to acknowledge them and express our appreciation for what they did for this community. If you all recall, five weeks ago tonight, we were sitting right here at 630, just starting a council work session when we had that microburst storm come through here. It did some pretty serious damage. Thank the good Lord we didn't have any significant injuries. that I'm aware of. But as a result of that, just about half of the community was without power. And I know that Dominion Energy descended on the community in full force. Mr. Krajeric actually stopped by my house when I was outside the next morning and said, I think there were about 10 Dominion trucks just down on Bayview Drive in Sandy Bay. So that's pretty impressive. But the bottom line is, we went from about half the town being without power at 6.30 Monday night, 14 hours later, about 8.30 on Tuesday morning, we were down to just a very small percentage of the population. So we thought that was impressive. And it's similar to what we do in public service. I know oftentimes y'all hear the things that people are not so happy about. So we wanted to take an opportunity to praise y'all and acknowledge what you did for us, let you know how much we appreciate it. And we'd like to personally introduce y'all. Ladies and gentlemen, to my right, this is Ms. Crystal Bright. have a beautiful name that is so well suited to what you do. I've gotten to know her over the years. She serves as a local affairs advisor, and she keeps us well informed. So, Ms. Bright, thank you very much. Mr. Greg Boyce. He is the manager of operations and construction in the Peninsula office. And we have Mr. Matt Hirshberg. He's the manager of the Eastern Regional Operations Center. And just some points to note, Matt is the proud son of Nancy and Don Hirshberg. Nancy, one of the sweetest ladies that I've ever known. She has quite a legacy, as does your father. But Ms. Nancy Hirshberg, she was a retired Coastal educator. Mr. Don Hirshberg was assistant superintendent of schools. so thankful for their contributions and it goes further than that Matt's the grandson of Mr. G.S. Forrest he's a former town mayor so he comes from a family of public servants but we're certainly glad to have y'all here tonight and as some small tokens of our appreciation we have for each of y'all these are our brand new cups with the Pocosna City seal so we have one for you and this is a 50th anniversary commemorative coin for the city of pocosin and on the back you'll see our 50-year logo and this was designed by uh that lady over there in the corner so this will be something for y'all to remember us by yes thank you so much mr boyce yes you're welcome yes sir and mr kershberger

Thank y'all. Yes, yes. You're welcome.

And I understand y'all have a video. Yes. Outstanding. Well, I'll turn the floor over to y'all. And thank you so much for what you did for us. Thank you for being here tonight.

Thank you so much. Thank y'all again. Appreciate it. Thanks, sir. Appreciate it. Do you want me to? Okay.

worker farms, skyscrapers, and national defense. But if you want to know who powers us, stop by a community park and watch a black quarterback shine under the lights. Drop into a diner just before dawn and see the smiles that come free with a coffee. Or ask the entrepreneur on Mainscape about her plans to open another location. Go anywhere where everyday people are putting energy into their dreams, their families, their communities, and you'll see what motivates the people of Dominion Energy to do everything they can to make sure that energy you need is reliable, full, and increasingly free. Oops. Okay. We're good.

Thank you so much, Mayor Hooks. We appreciate this. It's certainly not the reason why we do the work that we do. Just like the video says, we do it because we're a part of this community. We live and work here. So we are very appreciative for the acknowledgement. But it's something we do every day. And really, it's not me. I'm just a vessel. It is going to be Greg Boyce, who has the crews that he sends out, and Matt Hirschberg, who controls the analysts who look at the jobs and dispatches the crew. So they are truly the minds. I'm just a mouth.

So

The storm that you're referring to, a lot of people think that, to me, energy employees get free power or discounted power. We don't. They also think that when the power goes off, we're the first ones to get the power back on our locations. We're not. And for the storm that you're referring to, Matt was the very last customer to be restored.

I asked him for more crews, and he said no.

So thank you so much for this. We are very appreciative.

Yes, thank you again for being with us. We appreciate it. Thank you for what you do for us.

Thank you.

Moving on to item E is our audience for visitors. this time we will open the floor for public comment related to the city not to include the three topics to be addressed later during the public hearing we'll get to those shortly anybody would like to speak during the audience visitors oh actually I have miss Baldwin have a speaker card for you for that that's one of the public hearings Yes, ma'am. We'll get to those in just a minute. Thank you. So we'll close the audience for visitors. And we will move on to item F, approval of the minutes from the work session from April 10, 2026. Do we have a motion and a second, please?

So moved, Mr. Meyer.

Second. Thank you. Any questions or comments? Kristi?

Vice Mayor Bunting? Aye. Councilman Fye?

Aye.

Councilman Southall?

Aye.

Councilman Freeman?

Aye.

Councilwoman Hubbard? Aye. Councilwoman Emmett? Aye. Mayor Fuchs?

Aye.

Mr. Mayor, the motion carried by a vote of 7-0.

Thank you, Christy. Do we have a motion and a second for approval of the minutes of the regular session from August 10, 2026?

So moved, Mr. Mayor.

Second.

Thank you. Questions or comments? Christy?

Councilwoman Emmett? Aye. Councilwoman Hubbard? Aye. Councilman Fy?

Aye.

Councilman Southall?

Aye.

Vice Mayor Bunting? Aye. Councilman Freeman?

Aye.

Mayor Huff?

Aye.

Mayor, the motion carried by a vote of 7-0.

Thank you, Christy. Much appreciated. And at this time, we will move into the public hearing portion of the meeting. We have three topics tonight. So we'll have three separate public hearings. We'll open and close each one before we move on to the next. And what I would like to do is provide some context. And I think I can provide some comfort and peace of mind for some of the concerns that I'm aware of that people have. So I'll start with number one, which is the public hearing to receive bids for a lease agreement for 17 Park Street. I'm sorry, tax map parcel number 20-01-00-0025. This is related to the Pocosin Little League complex. We had a presentation on this during a previous meeting. Mr. Taylor Sherrill and Ms. Allison Dye from the Coastal Little League, they were here to speak to us and give us a presentation. Since then, we've heard from some of the neighbors their concerns with the location of the building, the proposed location. Tanya and I, our assistant city council, our assistant city manager, excuse me, Ms. Tanya O'Connell and I met with a group of neighbors a couple weeks back, and they shared their concerns with us. What came out of that was Tanya and the manager, Randy Wheeler, and I met with Taylor Sherrill and Allison Dye down at the Little E Complex. we have we looked at an alternate location and for anybody that's familiar with that area the alternate location is the area next to the two storage chairs that are in the back directly adjacent to the flagpole and a small group of trees that was the original location that the little league folks desire to construct a building originally we thought that location would not be acceptable But because of the concern that was expressed, our outstanding staff, in particular Mr. Paul Phelan and our engineering staff, they have looked into it. And although we're not 100% sure, we are highly confident that that location, which was the original location that the Gold Week folks wanted to construct a building, is workable. What we need to do is give our engineers and staff a little bit more time to verify that. So what this means is this will negate the concerns that we heard. So where the building was proposed to go during the presentation, that's not being considered right now. And this is a great example of what happens when citizens express their concern. We listen. We dig deeper into it. We employ our staff, get different perspectives, get some professional opinions on this. And we try to get things worked out in a manner that is satisfactory to everybody. And we go to great lengths to do that. We're very confident we've done that, but not quite. What I'm going to do in just a minute, and we're going to have the public hearing, so everybody will have a chance to speak, but I thought I would take a few minutes to share this, and hopefully this will provide some comfort and peace of mind. But when we get finished, I intend to make a motion to postpone council action until the October 13th meeting to give our engineer and staff time to be certain that the alternate location of the building is acceptable. And if we get that passed, that's exactly what we'll do. So there will be no action on this tonight. But with that, I will open the floor for public comment since this is a public hearing. So that's now open.

Yes, sir. It would be appropriate to ask the city clerk to read the bids we've received as part of the public hearing. Yes, please do.

Christy?

I received one bid, so I will go ahead and listen to that now. and the one bid is from the Pocosin Little League bid is just to propose to lease property at 17 Park Street PURPOSES TO CONSTRUCT AN INDOOR BATTING FACILITY. THE LEAGUE ATHLETES AND THE PECOSA HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL.

Thank you, Christy. I would also like to recognize and thank Mr. Moore and Mr. Wheeler. They put forth a good amount of effort to draw up this lease, and we had discussed that previously. So thank you all for your efforts related to that. I do have one speaker card. I'm sorry. I have three speaker cards related to this. The first would be Mr. Jesse Wyatt. Welcome, Mr. Wyatt. Good to see you again.

Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, council. I had come up with a, I was going to talk about the location and had a bunch of issues that I was going to talk through. But in light of the new news, I see no reason to speak right now. I mean, I can go on with it, but that's exactly what we'd like to do. We love the little league. I was a little league coach. I've been a player, played college ball, you know, and I want to look at the whole how that facility is coming along. We have the four sheds. It is a place that people come for the high school football, basketball, well, not basketball, but field hockey and all that. So I love when people come to town and say, yes, see what we got out here. I'm a move-in, but I'm really proud of this town. My daughter went to school here. And just thank you for the consideration of maybe looking at putting that plate in another location.

Thank you, Mr. Wyatt. Appreciate you meeting with us before, expressing your concern. And I might add that the meetings that we've had have been very positive and very cordial. There was by no means any confrontation or anything like that. Everybody was looking for something that works for everybody.

I was on a little league board in Northampton. We literally put lights out there. So we had neighbors that were a little aggravated with us. So I definitely understand. But we were able to work with them. We turned the lights off at a certain time. So I think all that can be addressed. And we all still enjoy it. That's what we love. That's why we bought the place, to be able to watch all those sports and stuff out there. So again, thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Wyatt. Appreciate you being here. And we also have Ms. Laura Wyatt.

Who did that?

OK. Would you like to come speak at the podium? And also, if I can, Miss Wyatt is a professional educator. So we have a lot of respect for that profession in this town.

I ditto the co-homeowner at 16 Weston, my husband. And thank you for your consideration. That's really the only thing we wanted to talk about. We are 100% behind the Little League. The fundraisers and the hard work that is put in at the Little League should be commended. Tons of hard work put in out there, and we see you. We see you guys putting in the hard work. So thank you for the consideration. We truly appreciate that, and we're glad to talk about it any further or help in any way. The relocation plan sounds like a good one.

Very good. Thank you, Ms. Wyatt. We also have with us Mr. Jonathan Hirsch. And Mr. Hirsch is a proud member of our planning commission. Jonathan, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me.

Yes, sir. I'm going to mirror a lot of what they just said. First of all, I really appreciate everyone on council and everything you do. I appreciate your service. And I think I really appreciate the fact that

um how proactive you were about planning that meeting listening to what we had to say and coming up with an alternate alternative solution that was amenable to everyone so um just thanks thank you for being here mr hirsch appreciate what you do for us and we'll talk about the planning commission in just a little while so thank you for that but those are all the speaker cards that we have for this topic do we have any other speakers This public hearing, we have Ms. Allison Dye and Mr. Taylor Sherrill. Welcome back. haven't participated in the leadership of another youth sports program in town I can certainly relate to what y'all do and appreciate that appreciate y'all's willingness and desire to work together with everybody and I think that's very representative of the spirit of this community and what we do but I think y'all have some some more good news for us that people will be glad to hear so thank you for being here

yes thank you we want to thank you all for because i'm short right yeah uh we just want to thank you all for working with us we appreciate the neighbors with their concerns and everything and like mayor huck said this other location was our original thought so hopefully it works out i want to thank mr moore for helping out you know doing all the legally stuff um we know that we had concerns about If EMS comes, like if we move it to this location, they can quickly pull through that lane and get there. If it's in the other one, they can pull up as far as they can. My work just had EMT come today, we're on the second floor, so stretcher had to come up, truck can't come all the way up. But if we have this one, it would be easier access for EMS to come in. I know you had some concerns about fifth building so the old equipment shed we talked about the one that's right next to the city shed we can take that one down it only has like a couple nets in it so we can get that eyesore out of the way We are open to any location on the complex, so we can have this for not only our little leaguers, but our high school baseball and softball. I was just at the PTO meeting for the high school right before this. I talked to Dr. Winchester about it. She's on board with having them, you know, working together. And, you know, aesthetics, our building would either match our equipment shed that's gray with a maroon roof or our concession stand that is, Off-white with a maroon roof, right? Yep. I'm too short to see that. Aesthetics, we want it to look nice. So we want it to be appealing. We want to appease everybody. But we just want this so that our kids can get better. And we can have hopefully more Chad Pinders and Crockett. You know, all the good stuff. And Chase.

Oh, I said Pinders.

Yeah, just to piggyback all of that, we do appreciate all the continued support and assistance for everything. We're looking forward to continuing to work with you on everything that we can do, providing all the baseball and golf opportunities for everyone at the high school and college, as she mentioned. I also want to thank Allison for all of her hard work that she's done with the fundraising. Without this, this could not even be a thought in anybody's mind, so I do appreciate all of her hard work for that, especially for a volunteer. So we're definitely looking forward to making this happen. We definitely appreciate everybody's assistance and support on that. And if there's anything that we can do, or if there's any questions, just let us know.

Very good. Well, thank you all again for being here. Councilmembers, did you all have any questions for Taylor or Allison? thank you for sharing with us about the aesthetics of the building so that that's good to know and something else that I like to to make note of every chance I get for all those that might not be aware Allison Dye's grandmother Miss Frances Grafe was the elementary school principal when I was in elementary school back back in in the mid 70s so it got deep roots so and Principal 1968 to 1982 That is quite a tenure. And the Pocosin Little League, I think, goes back to 1959, if I'm not mistaken.

Yep. They were move-ins, and they moved in in 1959. Yep.

Well, very good. Thank you all again for being here. And let us know how we can assist.

Okay.

Appreciate it.

Yes, ma'am. Do we have any other speakers on this topic?

Everybody's talking to me.

Okay. Well, with that, I'll go ahead and make this motion, and then we'll close the public hearing, and then I'll make the motion, and we'll get a vote, and we will move on to the next public hearing. I move. council pass a resolution to postpone council action until October 13th meeting to give engineering time to be certain that the alternate location for the building is acceptable okay thank you any questions or comments okay yes sir yes sir October 13th Christy councilwoman Hubbard

Councilman Southall aye Councilman Freeman aye Councilwoman Emmett aye Vice Mayor Bunting aye Councilman Fein aye Mayor Hooks aye Mr. Mayor I have a vote of seven to zero very good thank you all very much appreciate everybody's contributions to what we're confident is going to be a positive outcome for all involved with that we will move on to public hearing number two

This is a resolution to approve an amendment to the 2018 2038 comprehensive plan to address the north side of Victory Boulevard as I did before I want to make some comments while he's here to give us a presentation. So I'll get those comments done, and then I'll invite you up to the podium. And thanks in advance for your presentation. But I thought I would take a few minutes and provide some context. and some history on how this started and how we got to where we are now and what the intentions are. Again, to try to provide some peace of mind and comfort to people that might be anxious about this. After my comments, after Wiley's presentation, then we'll open a public hearing, and we'll go from there. I have one speaker card for this topic, and of course others are certainly welcome and encouraged to speak as well. This proposed amendment to the comp plan, began on January 4th of 2025 during our first ever strategic plan and retreat. Council in our ongoing efforts to be proactive and foresighted developed four strategic initiatives in no particular order. The first one was to conduct a careful review of the city's comprehensive plan and supporting ordinances prioritizing the north side of victory boulevard followed by an evaluation of the city's central business district please note that that initiative says to conduct a review we started doing that January 4th of last year and the review continues it does not require us to take any specific action now if we do if we can do something to make things better then that's what we'll do but action is not necessarily required what was required is that we conduct a review and that's ongoing so I would like to recognize planning commissioners mr. Hurst thank you for being here and of course chairwoman miss Heather shot and all the commissioners on in the Planning Commission for their efforts their diligence and their development of the proposed amendments We welcome their guidance and the effort continued in June of last year. The council had a joint work session with the planning commission. That was to further expand and share our thoughts from the council side with the planning commissioners. This has transpired over the last year and nine months and as humans, With that amount of time, as we become better informed and we're able to talk with others, our perspective sometimes changes over that amount of time. There is no schedule pressure on us. This is something that we started as a council initiative. Nobody's rushing us. We have no intention of rushing through this. We intend to take our time, do our due diligence, and we'll expand a little bit more on that later tonight. But that'll give you some idea of what we were motivated to do. just to restate a little bit since there is no schedule pressure and with the complexity the broad scope and the potential for confusion holding the joint work session with the council and planning commission would be in our collective benefit prior to any council action once we complete The public hearing and everybody is finished sharing their thoughts with us. I intend to make a motion for the council to pass a resolution. The recommendation would be to table the council consideration until sometime after the joint work session can be held. We will work over the next two weeks to find a mutually convenient date with the planning commission and announce the date and the time of that joint work session at our September 28th meeting. That is the next meeting. We've had numerous opportunities over the last three or nine months for folks from the community to come and share their thoughts. I know the planning commission has had public hearings and audiences for visitors as as the council has had of course we always have our audience for visitors that people can come in and speak to any about any any topic going this route and i was able to speak or to communicate individually with with council members today because i i do my very best to avoid any any surprises to anybody during the council meetings and to include staff try not to surprise any anybody But we'll have additional opportunities for people from the public to come and speak with us. The information will be in public for a longer period of time. And as always, we welcome people's comments. That's what we're here to do, is listen and represent folks as best we can. At the conclusion of the joint work session, council will then decide if it is ready to place the action item back on the agenda, formal consideration, and if so, should designate the date and time at which the matter will be considered at a future city council meeting. Those are my comments. So at this time, I'd like to introduce Mr. Wiley Horton. He is our director of community development, and he has a presentation for us. So, Wiley, thank you. The floor is yours.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. It's a pleasure to be here, as always. This is a very active thing, so I'm trying to get a hold of it. I want this first slide to sort of reframe the conversation of what we're talking about. I've heard it sort of called the shark fin, but it's that shape of parcels and you can see the wooded area on the left and you can see the actual zoning. We did show a zoning map on here, even though this is a comp plan. I want to defer to this point to explain that while that is the zoning districts, we are not doing anything as part of this plan to change the zoning. It is a comprehensive plan designation only. uh obviously to do a rezoning we'd have to go through all kinds of public notices the planning commission and the city council would be involved in and that would be a whole different process so it is comprehensive plan comprehensive plan the difference being the comprehensive plan is basically guide whereas the zoning ordinance that's sort of where the rubber hits the road that's that's actual regulation right there Okay. I think the mayor summed up this slide very well. Thank you. I would just say the Planning Commission did hold a public hearing on July 20th, 26th, and August 17th, 2026, and did vote unanimously among the members that were there, 6-0 to recommend approval. I want to go at this point, and you've got a staff report with you, and if you've had a chance to read through that staff report, it basically provides a lot of information on all of these five tenants, but I want to cover those just briefly to kind of let you know where we are at this point. The distinction that the proposed language elaborates on Big Woods, basically Big Woods residential, Big Woods commercial. There's no longer a distinction between Big Woods east and west as was in the original comp plan because that really referred to the commercial development and here we included the R1 development in an effort to incorporate the entire area. And of course, distinctions are made apart. Different distinctions in the big woods themselves. Aside from the EDA properties, which have to be cohesively developed, or developed together in accord with the zoning ordinance, the city encourages, whether this happens or not, we don't know, because this is the guide, remember. The city encourages private property owners to develop the area in a complementary design rather than a series of independent developments. Now, of course, that's going to be up to the private property owners whether that actually happens or not. Any traffic into R1's own property is the residential section, Big Woods Residential.

for by-right development in accord with all zoning regulations should be off of existing public streets.

The three access ways envisioned to access the R1 property would be Big Woods Drive, City Hall Avenue, and yeah. Well, okay, that's more of a general. We'll get into more specifics on the next slide. In cases where all one properties are landlocked and there's no other way, basically, to get to those properties, we want the property to be in the ownership of the development at the time of the proposal, be limited to the new public street, be focused towards existing intersections, City Hall Avenue, Legacy Boulevard, Big Woods Drive. and require traffic impact analysis for review. That's something that we're really trying to accentuate now, is the traffic impact analysis, because that allows us to take all the different factors into account and determine whether essentially it's going to work or not. and the fifth one is we are recommending we and the planning commission are recommending that the research and development area not be resumed but re-designated in the comprehensive plan future land use map to general commercial so that whole area will be general commercial That would be the vision of the comp plan. Like I say, to actually carry that out would be a rezoning action, and that would entail a whole lot of other steps other than just redesignation of the comp plan. But to give you an idea of how that looks, that's the proposed comp plan map. And this is basically Wally's draft. But you'll see the purple area, which is all general commercial on the north side of Victory. And then of course the more yellow R1 zoning in the back. But it is a, not to confuse matters, let me state that it's a designation only. It's not the actual rezoning. We did get rid of the cross hatches because Of course, the PUD MU district no longer exists. So that's gone. And at that point, anticipated steps, I think the mayor's outlined that very well. It'll be a little bit different than the steps that I've outlined here, but we'll make that happen. I'll be happy to take any questions you might have at this moment, at this time.

Thank you, Wally. Council members, any questions for Wally?

Excuse me, Wally. Could you kind of elaborate what it means? Folks may not know what PUD means and what that action means.

Very, very good. Thank you. That's really the zoning overlay district that allows the legacy building.

And that overlay district was removed. Yes. Yes. Thank you.

And just to restate, the PUD overlay district no longer exists.

That is correct.

So just to make that crystal clear.

Right. Exactly. Wally, some concerns that I have heard, okay, not directly on social media, okay? Gives people concern that supposedly the city is planning on developing roads through the north side area okay that is not true we have no that's not true we don't have any plans we have no plans to put roads in that area okay the other one that's running a rampant on social media is what we're planning another high density housing development over there and that's not true either most of the residential area and that development area is not high descent density it's individual residential correct okay I want that clear because those things are going out in social media and There's no basis to it, and it's back to it.

Right. There's nothing that's been submitted in any of those categories.

We're not going to put a road in any road. We came up with a plan that we recommend the owners of the property should develop it this way to match the comprehensive plan.

We make a recommendation. We encourage them.

All the social media poo-hoo is not true.

Wally, and can I just clarify on that, too? all of the zoning over there are prohibited. There's no high density allowed in any of the zoning districts as it is right now.

No, when you switch gears and look at the zoning, you're absolutely right. R1 is a single-family residential district, and general commercial is, and R&D as it is now, is more commercial or industrial oriented.

Some commercial property, most of it's residential or non-high density. And we're not developing any of it.

No. No. And if I can elaborate a little bit on those comments, just one other point that I would like to make. The vast majority of the property in Big Woods North is privately owned. The city owns a very small percentage of it. The largest portion being the eight acre EDA property. So a very small percentage. And also, I want to make it clear, I've spoken about this publicly before and just wanted to restate it because what I said earlier is still accurate. city has not received any rezoning application conditional use permit application or site plan for any of the big woods north property during this council's current term nor are there any pending old applications that are still active I just want to share that to try to help People have some peace of mind there. But that's the facts as of today. also councilwoman Emmett she and I've talked about this previously Angie has the unique distinction as councilmember she's the only one amongst us that has served on the Planning Commission and she's also a former chairwoman of the Planning Commission so she has some pretty unique insight into this and I just want to call on Angie to to share her perspective

So I do appreciate this and I appreciate this as part of the legwork of going into the next comprehensive plan update which is going to be occurring here in the next year or two and one of the purviews of the Planning Commission is helping to facilitate and generate that update and they have been working really hard to kind of come up with these I don't know if I want to go best practices or guidelines of saying, hey, we're not changing the zoning. That's a whole different process. But they're saying, hey, in our comprehensive plan, looking forward, here are some guidelines that we should incorporate when we're thinking about these areas in the future. And that could be traffic management. That could be traffic flow. That could be just the verbiage on it to differentiate the residential from the commercial to help it with the readability. And I think that all of these, the proposed language changes, I think that it's just really helping to help set up those best practices or those guardrails for the future And we're not saying that there's any imminent development, but they're saying there is development by right right now. And in the future, we should just make sure to have those guidelines in place. That's my perspective.

Thank you, Angie. And just a little bit of reinforcement there. I want to elaborate on one of the words that you used, guidelines. The comp plan is there to provide guidance. And Mr. Wyatt, I'm sure, can relate to this. Coming up through the shipyard, There were things called non D drawings. It had to be exactly like that other drawings were guidelines You know make it work and but it's this document is required by law that we have to have a comp a comp plan It goes out 20 years hard enough to project a year in advance much less two decades so it's it's there is guidance is not chiseled in stone it's what this is doing right now trying to look forward and be proactive on that so hopefully that will help provide a little bit of peace of mind as well do we have any other questions from council members look for Wiley

I would like to say, Mr. Mayor, along those lines, while we are coming up with those guidelines and approving those guidelines, making those amendments, I think we also need to be mindful as council, those guidelines, the amendments that we approve or not approve or whatever, need to line up with the vision of our community. and what we've discussed at work sessions and whatever, and not to add any verbiage in that that would refer to maybe allowing high density when that's not what we're to do. So just know for the community that as we're looking at that, even the amendments in the comp plan, that should be the vision reflecting the same thing if we were going to evoke the next five years that we knew about you know for a rezoning change or something you know not to leap towards something that we are not intending it to be read into if if that makes sense no it does make sense yeah the amendments that we make or not make needs to kind of line up with with that vision and you know zoning that we would not change or might change to allow something that we know the citizens and even council are not on board for. We just need to make sure that it all lines up together.

Thank you.

Thank you, Debbie. Any other council members? OK. Wiley, thank you very much. Appreciate the presentation, you being with us. At this time, we will open a public hearing. I have one speaker card for this topic. So I'd like to welcome Ms. Jamie Baldwin. Ms. Baldwin, thank you for being here. The floor is yours.

Thank you. I can't believe I'm the only one here tonight to talk about this. But thank you for the chance to speak to you guys about this. I just think that I add maybe a little bit of a different perspective as a busy mom who doesn't always come to these things or join any councils or anything like that. Anyway, again, my name is Jamie Baldwin. I am a stay-at-home mom to four kids aged five to 12. We moved here five and a half years ago when my oldest was seven and my youngest was two weeks old. Pocosin is their hometown. We chose to put down roots here over surrounding areas due to the compact small town environment Pocosin offers. That environment is changing. I'm a volunteer with the Pocosin Women's Club, the Pocosin Museum, the Friends of the Pocosin Library, and I sit on two PTO boards. I'm an active and invested member in this community, and I believe I have some good insight that maybe your surveys, statistics, or other documents don't show. I want each of you to think, if in recent years, I'm talking the last two or three, if you have attended a Friday night football game. They're pretty packed, right? Parking is full in all surrounding lots and down all neighboring streets. And we as experienced townies have it easy. Imagine how difficult it is for our new citizens or the fans on the other teams to navigate around. It's not very inviting. Again, think. Have you attended a Little League game during a peak spring season? If so, you know to expect both the complex and middle school lots are gonna be full. If there's another sports event at the football field, the elementary lot will fill up as well as both sides of the bus lane. Have you attended a youth soccer game at Lawson Park lately? Those are really fun. You get to drive into the park and there's parking on both sides of the lane and then you circle around hoping to find a spot only to see that they're all full and then you have to circle back around because your kid's now gonna be late only to drop them off and then you get to park on Pocosin Avenue and schlep in your family of six and their chairs to the field. How about the pickleball courts? Have we used them lately? On a nice weeknight or Saturday morning, you can expect to have to wait for a court to open up. Or have you simply tried to take your family on a safe bike ride on a street that has no sidewalks or shoulders? We live off past your road. It's pretty difficult. We don't only care about our sports here, though. Have you attended an event at the primary school? Parking is on every inch of grass, all the side pull-offs, even across Odd Road into the Parks and Rec lot. A middle or elementary school event has similar situations. All lots in the surrounding are full. Obviously none of these are life-ending, earth-shattering problems. I'm just giving you these examples to show you how engaged our families in this community are and how we just want the best and safest environment in which they can grow up. I'm also giving you these examples to show you that our town is at capacity as far as being able to maintain our current standard of life. How can we in good conscience think to add zoning for more residential units before we first invest in expanding our current infrastructure? And 97 acres, maybe not dense residential, but it's still a lot of houses. If we are determined to plan the development of the rest of the big woods, which by the way, we don't have to, nothing has to be done. We don't have to continuously grow. We can maintain some of our natural beauty. But if we choose to develop, we should at least consider something that would enhance Pocosin and not further strain it. A sports complex would be nice. We could have more fields, more courts, and more parking. Perhaps it could even host outside events or tournaments that could generate some outside revenue for local businesses. You could add a nice big bike path. Or, my dog Mel told me to pitch this, a dog park. I think these are some things that would enrich our town while also increasing the value of the property that we currently have. I've heard the proposed plan would have commercial space. I think that is a benefit, but only if it actually comes to fruition. Legacy did not see any businesses. More business or office space would lessen our personal tax burden and potentially fund future enhancements. I do not think jamming in more residential areas is a wise choice in regards to improving Pocosin. I'm simply here to ask that we choose to enhance our small town charm.

Ms. Baldwin, thank you very much. Appreciate you being here to share your thoughts with us. Do we have any other speakers on this topic? Of course you can. Please do. If you wouldn't mind sharing your name and address with us, please. Welcome.

Good evening. Thank you. My name is Rachel Wood and I just wanted to share the same sentiment with this lovely lady here who's so eloquent and I am not prepared whatsoever, but I just didn't want her to feel alone in this. I live at 16 West Wainwright Road Drive over there at Town Villas. Since 2018, have two little girls. Moved here, my mom was at the assisted living. before she passed away. I have a lot of family here. I love Pocosin. Lots of friends. I want to stay here a long time. I'm happy to hear that these are guidelines and I am not very familiar with the whole process of how it all works, but I am also concerned that even with businesses and residential, I think what I love about Pocosin and many of the people I speak to really are concerned about it even growing anymore with what the lady said before me. Just with the infrastructure and a lot of people are here because of the small town charm. We like that it's safe, we like that it's small, we like that we know everyone. And I know there are things that are above my head, maybe with taxes, and I know you all know more about that than I do, but please just know that the majority of the people I speak to are very concerned and we do not want it to change too much. My family and I are talking about, what are our plans if it changed? Are we gonna move to Florida? I don't wanna move to Florida, all my family's here. But we are concerned if it changes anymore, we might have to. We want to be in a safe place. So please just listen to us before any major changes. Somewhat related, I'll just drop this in, is that Hampton has a new ordinance as of April. Unfortunately, with unhoused people, they're sleeping on public areas. And I just want to put a little note there that some might be finding Pocos and also their home as well. So I don't know if there are any ordinances here, but that might be something we might want to look into. And I'll just leave it at that. But I thank you all for your time. Thanks.

Thank you, ma'am. Appreciate you being with us tonight. Yes, sir. Come on.

I have a card.

That's OK. What's your name and address, please, sir?

My name is Troy Wojewoda. I live on 56 South Emmys Road. My property is one of the ones that are up there, just right outside of the boundary of the North Loop.

Yes, sir.

I've been in Pocosa nearly 30 years. I've coached my kids in Little League, soccer, Odyssey of Mine for over a decade. I've been coaching that. WHERE I LIVE NOW, MY WIFE'S FAMILY HAS BEEN THERE SINCE 87, SO IT'S REALLY NICE. WE LIKE TO LOOK BACK IN THE BACK AND JUST SEE THE NICE LIFT THERE. MY CONCERN WITH THE RESIDENTIAL STUFF, I FORGOT THE TERM THAT YOU USED. IT WAS SOMETHING ALONG THE LINES OF YOU WANT TO ENCOURAGE THE RESIDENTIAL OWNERS TO JOIN THE COMPREHENSIVE, WHAT WAS THE EXACT LANGUAGE THERE? What was the exact language for the residential?

To develop in a comprehensive way.

Does that mean instead of just having one house on several acres to try to encourage lots of houses? Is that what that, what is that? Yes. Okay, so it sounds to me a little bit when I hear that is a little bit of a development, right? I believe the area and that the zoning area was a minimum of one acreage. I'm not sure if that's changed in that area. My main concern is several times just in regular rainstorms, we have the apartments, my yard floods. And my biggest concern is if they develop further in there, it's going to get worse. So I just encourage and ask that you all consider all the residents that are adjacent to that property that are probably going to see a change in the land mass and impact there. That was my first concern. My second is I'm on septic. And it's not very easy. I would really wish to not be on septic. It's about a fifth of a mile for me to go from my house all the way down South End Means Road all the way to Yorktown Road. So I'm really interested in knowing if there's going to be opportunity for when that does get developed that maybe I might have an opportunity to get off that septic and get on to City Sewer. That'd be great, probably for many of us back there. Those are my two main concerns, just to keep those things in mind when you're considering these things and the impact that we're going to have when this eventually does get developed. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate you being with us. Yes, sir. Welcome. Can you share your name and address with us, please?

I'm Aaron Roberts, and I live at 26 Smith Street. My family is owned... approximately 10 acres of land in the North Big Woods for as long as I can remember. My great grandfather went hunting there. My grandfather would go hunting there. He took me there many times. It's a fond memory of nature. I take my kids there and with what was built with Legacy, it was a nature, a place of the big woods. I would hate to take the last big woods that we have in Pocosin and use it for some kind of development instead of actually preserve the nature and the peace and quiet that is there and how it has been for i don't know forever so i i agree that there's way too many people in the city and that it's getting overrun but um i also think that the big woods holds a very sentimental uh heart It's very sentimental for me and my family because we have had that land for so long. And I just wish that when you do develop that land, which it will come, that it is developed for all of Pocosin and that we cherish what it is and what it was.

Thank you, Ms. Roberts. Appreciate you being here. And I know that you are a descendant of the namesake of Messick Point and the former Messick, Virginia, as is my wife. So your family goes way back. So appreciate your comments tonight. Yes, sir. Come on. It's in no particular order. I'll just...

choose the first one who raises their hand uh my name is rob carter i'm at 11 oakmore drive hey mr carter i wasn't actually going to speak because i think i know that these points almost as well as wally does at this point but i wanted just to make a comment and that is that the planning commission spent year and a half working through these points that were just presented briefly tonight. And some of us have been at every one of those meetings trying to have input and make sure that there are even more safety measures in the North Woods. And so it's a little concerning to me that you're now talking about, you know, tabling these changes. So I just want to say, you know, please give good consideration to all the efforts that all of us have spent over a year and a half before you just sort of toss it and start over. So thanks.

Thanks, sir. Appreciate you being here. Sir, would you like to speak? Thank you. Welcome back.

I'm a physician, retired colonel. And I live at 7 Oakmore, which borders .

Thank you for that.

We've had at least 13 deer in our backyard, and they're less now.

I haven't seen them in two months.

We've been here really a year and a half, and we've all heard everything that you're echoing. I have not heard people come forward and say develop it. I haven't. I've heard people say we moved to this community because it's a community and it's small and it's friendly. You can call and talk to the fire chief the very same day. You can't do that in other places. If we wanted to live in Hampton, Newport News, we would. We wanted to live in Pecos. You have something special here. In terms of the comments to echo that you've said and others, traffic is huge. VDOT has not expanded Victory Boulevard. Victory Boulevard is your one artery in here right now while they're working on the bridge. The bridge that'll have three lanes, not four. You have genuine evacuation concerns and you also have genuine traffic management issues. You've done a traffic management survey but I don't know if that truly incorporated all of legacy especially now, I mean just looking back, that was a field even six months ago. It's completely developed. That's our fear, is two years ago, legacy was much smaller than it is even now. If you talk to your police or fire, you'll find out a lot of their calls go to legacy. Now that's probably a factor of the density of the population, but That's still a factor. You've had more service calls now than you did before. I think you've lamented that the tax revenues aren't as big because, and if I'm wrong I apologize, but I don't think they met what you expected to get out of that residency. In terms of big woods, I know you don't want high density developments, and you're zoning for that. Legacy started as a scientific development, zoning, and ended up with legacy. So obviously the population is a little concerned that zoning will be changed. And that is where you control everything. You've got to really look at zoning, you have to do it right. Traffic management is really where you control everything. And I don't know if your plan is to overdevelop and then tell VDOT we have a problem, expand Victory, or if your problem is or if you're going to reverse it and say let's expand Victory and then we can expand Pocosin. But I hope in terms of a strategic plan you take that in consideration. Every dealing I've had with you all has been incredibly professional. You are hearing us. Also everything that I've seen over the last year and a half is we're all saying the same thing. I haven't heard a difference there. So I hope you're listening and hearing us. And we heard you. But you're our mayor now. Legacy is when you weren't our mayor. and there'll be a mayor after you. So your strategic plan really means a lot to us. It's your ability to hopefully listen and implement a plan that all Pocosin wants. So to recap, I would definitely look at your traffic impact statements and surveys. If you're gonna survey one, I would definitely model in for the development. If you're gonna develop Big Woods and you're gonna have a survey, you need to at least have a calculation as to how many residents and what that traffic flow would look like. I hope you could look at that. And then in terms of zoning, that is where you control things. Finally, I heard that there's a lot of owners in Big Woods. I think we're finding that a lot of those owners, the ownership is getting consolidated into three or four factions, and that also concerns us. So thank you for listening.

Thank you, sir. I appreciate you being here tonight to share your concerns with us.

And our praise. You've always listened.

That's what we're here to do. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.

they're joined would you like to speak yes sir cook it on top of it excellent uh... that here since two thousand eight uh... for military uh... and so my family and i would decide we wanted to live in the coast we've lived in hampton many years ago before that he said coast is that There's been some discussion tonight about nature and all of that, and I am a big nature guy, and I hated to see all those trees come down. I know that's not how you all make the decisions, but that is definitely a factor. The young man over here, his grandfather owned the land and so on, and he has a great appreciation for it. You know, the more trees you take down, the animals have nowhere to go. And to me, that's a big thing. That is pocosin. Pocosin is trees and water to me. But the other thing is that the gentleman just before me hit was traffic. I'm retired, thank God, so I don't have to deal with it anymore. But my wife, I hear every night, traffic getting out here is crazy every morning. If you leave just five minutes later, she has 15 or 20 minutes to run. so you know traffic studies and all that kind of thing all the terms about traffic and widening victory and all that i think probably 95 of the folks behind me deal with that every freaking morning right is that traffic and it's gotten worse in the last three years i'm not going to say legacy and blame it on legacy or whatever but i will say it just seems like when uh covet kind of died down a little bit that the traffic is just crazy leaving here and then of course uh coming back into town is not as bad per se but getting in is i know really rough for my wife and having only two exit excuse me exit points out of town basically uh kind of hurts folks and so they have to add 15 20 30 minutes to their community just to get out of town so between the traffic the trees um that's that's what the big thing is for me so thank you thank you sir appreciate you being with us tonight anybody else like to speak okay uh then we will close the public hearing

And I will make the motion that I referred to earlier. I move that council pass a resolution to table council consideration until sometime after the joint work session can be held. That would be the joint work session between the council and the planning commission. We will work over the next two weeks to find a mutually convenient date with a plan of commission and announce the date at our September 28th meeting.

Second.

Thank you. Any questions or comments?

Councilman Pye? Aye. Vice Mayor Bunting? Aye. Councilwoman Emmett? Aye. Councilman Freeman? Aye. Councilman Southall? Aye. Councilwoman Hubbard? Aye. Mayor Hook? Aye. Mayor, the motion carried by a vote of 7-0.

very good thank christy appreciate that uh... council members thank you for working through this tonight will continue on working with uh... the planet commissioners and thank you all for your comments uh... i've commented before uh... what a blessing it is and that this goes back to what charlene was sharing with us uh... this is the way the government would was set up to where we can come together and have civil respect discourse to work it out as best we can in a manner that pleases all so that's what we strive to do so We've opened and closed the first two public hearings, and now we'll move on to the third. And I would encourage everybody to remain while we're talking about the constrained capital improvements plan. That'll provide very good perspective on the enormity of the expenses that we're faced with to sustain the community. One item in there is the New York Pocosin Courthouse. By court order, we will be required to support that project. Right now, the proposal for the New York Pocosin Courthouse is $150 million. the cousins part yeah right so far we'll mean we all know what can happen with projections but that's the projected figure right now a cousin is a 15% partner in that project which comes to twenty two and a half million dollars That by itself most likely will include a seven or eight penny real estate tax rate increase. So that's why we are dealing with this and preparing with it now. We're about three years out. But I'll circle back to some of that, but this public hearing is resolution to approve the constrained capital improvements plan or ccip for fiscal year 28 beyond fiscal year 32. this is another planning document goes out five years it is developed based on input from council to our professional staff and our staff does a great job at projecting trying to plan all of the capital projects that will be needed in the city most of them aren't funded now but it's a projection so we can plan for it and deal with it as best we can The CCIP is a 70-page document. I would recommend that people pay close attention to page 4, which provides a very thorough overview with an excellent, excellent explanation of what the CCIP is intended to do. So thank you to staff for writing that up very well to make it easy for people to understand. Also, pages five and six describe how the CCIP is prepared. So please focus specifically on those pages as you review the CCIP.

Tony's prepared to make a brief presentation, sir.

Very good. I'd like to welcome our assistant city manager, Ms. Tanya O'Connell. She has a presentation for us. Thank you, Mayor.

You basically summed up. I'm seeing what I could cut from saying this, but I'll start at the beginning. Mayor Hux, Vice Mayor Bunting, City Council Member, City Manager, good evening. We'd like to thank you for allowing me to present the City Manager's Recommended Constrained Capital Improvement Plan for fiscal year 2028 and beyond fiscal year 2032. If you call back in June 26 to 26, the city manager sent you an information that we did skip one year of the CCIP that was 27 due to shortage. So we do apologize that we did not bring that forward, but we're back on track. No more shortages in the finance department. Going forward, you'll receive one each year. So in the past, the city manager recommended including utilizing debt service for one to two larger projects, as well as cash funding for a few smaller projects. This presented CCIP has provided for schools division request, the city department's request, which for five years is 26.6 million. And the beyond years is 21.6 million for a total of 48 points. $2 million of the needs of both the city and the schools. If we were to recommend the request of schools and city departments, and based on anticipated dentures, we would be looking at equivalent to $0.16 on the real estate tax dollars.

We didn't do that, by the way.

No. I saw everybody's eyes pucker up there. We also have to be mindful, what the mayor mentioned, we do have the York-Pocosun courthouse coming on board. We are looking to a potential of 22.5 million right now, which is the equivalent to seven and eight tech cents. So therefore, the city manager has not recommended in this CCIP any projects that would require a tax increase to support debt issuance. His recommendation is to support revenue from the state, revenue generated by sewer, and any cash funding that we have available for smaller equipment. If you recall in the 27 budget, we took away some of those smaller projects, which are MDTs, life packs and stuff. Our hopes is that potentially to put those back in for public safety. Looking at the upcoming budget for FY28, the recommendation will be $980,000 for state revenues to do our streets. $730,000 for utility, which is supported by sewer revenue, and the following cash funding items. $259,800 for public safety, $205,567 for Phase II of sidewalks on Pocoson Avenue, this along with $647,000 from the Congressional Community Project Grant that was supported by Congressman Rob Whitman and Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner. So in your package, you do have a resolution to consider. I thank you for being here tonight. Available for questions, we have the school division in all departments that submitted projects. So if you have questions, we can bring any one of them on.

Council members, any questions for Tanya?

Keith? I know you said no tax increases. Some people in the audience are probably thinking, if my property assessment goes up come this spring, with it will come a potential increase in the payments I have to make for taxes because of the increased value of the properties.

So, correct. They will have an increase if assessed values go up, but we will not recommend the tax rate go from 115 to an equivalent of 120.

Could I also clarify that decision on what the tax rate is next year has not yet been made?

Thank you, Keith. Any other questions for Tonya? Tanya, thank you for your presentation. And while you're at the podium, I'd like to elaborate just a little bit. I think this is important for people to hear, but just to restate something you just said is the city's CCIP also includes school systems capital improvement projects as well. The way we're set up in the city is the city covers those capital projects for the school. So that's all included in this document and would also like to offer a little bit of insight the level of debt that the city can incur is governed by the debt policy approved by city council and what i'm going to do is make a very positive point that reinforces the strength of our financial position the city's tax supported debt service at the percentage of general government expenditure should not exceed ten percent the tax supported debt of the city shall not exceed three percent of the total assessed value of the city and show retire at least fifty percent of the principal amount of the city's tax supported debt within ten years those policies are self-imposed by council And because we are able to strictly adhere to our own policies, those are the things that the credit rating agencies such as Standards and Poor and Moody's look at when they award us our AAA bond rating. I talk about it every chance I get, and I'll take advantage of this again. That AAA bond rating for a small city such as us that's a bedroom community, is somewhere between rare and unique. We work towards it from when Randy first became the city manager in 2009 through I believe it was 2018 when we achieved the AAA bond rating. And we guard that like we would a brand new baby. That's how important that is and it benefits every single citizen individually. So I just wanted to share a little bit about the city's debt policies, the importance of it, and the fact that when we are awarded that bond rating, one of the biggest things that the credit rating agencies look at is efficiency. We are extremely lean and extremely efficient, and we do that to make certain that people's tax dollars are utilized to the fullest positive extent. And we have a wonderful professional staff great depth to include our city manager assistant city manager finance staff and even our city attorney that's a financial guru as well so we're very well suited to manage the city financially so again thank you and if there are no further comments or questions yes school yes everybody's aware schools cannot issue debt right there's any debt that needs to be issued it has to come through the city to support schools very good good point Thank You Tanya appreciate you being with us and with that I'll go ahead and open the public hearing for anybody that would like to speak on this topic all right very well seeing none we will close the public hearing on this this topic and I'll ask for a motion in a second accordingly

Mr. Mayor, I propose a resolution to approve the constrained capital improvements plan, CCPI, or CIP, I'm sorry, for fiscal year 2028 beyond fiscal year 2032. Second.

Thank you. Christy, call for vote, please.

Councilman Freeman? Aye. Councilwoman Emmett? Aye. Councilman Southall? Aye. Councilman Fye? Aye. Councilwoman Hubbard? Aye. Vice Mayor Bunting? Aye. Mayor Hux?

Aye.

Mayor, the motion carried by a vote of 7-0.

Thank you, Christy, and thank you to our staff for developing this CCIP for us again this year. So with that, thank you, everybody. Thank you all for your patience. and for your comments and for your presence here tonight. So we will move past item G, the public hearing phase, and we will venture over into the new business. I think these will be a little bit easier than the last three. The first item under new business is the resolution making appointments to the Board of Zoning Appeals. I would like to make a motion to postpone making the three at-large nominations for appointment to the BZA until the October 13th council meeting. Do we have a second? Second. Thank you. Any questions or comments? Kristi?

Councilwoman Hubbard? Aye. Councilman Southall?

Aye.

Councilman Freeman? Aye. Councilwoman Emmett? Aye. Vice Mayor Bunting? Aye. Councilman Five? Aye. Mayor Hooks?

Aye.

Motion carried by a vote of 7-0.

Thank you, Christy. Moving on to topic number two. Under item H, new businesses, a resolution making an appointment to the Library Advisory Board. Do we have a motion and a second?

Mr. Mayor, I propose a resolution appointing Mr. Chris Claude to the Library Advisory Board. His term will expire 31 January 27. Second.

Thank you. Any questions or comments? Christy?

Councilman Southall?

Aye.

Councilman Freeman? Aye. Councilwoman Hubbard? Aye. Vice Mayor Bunting? Aye. Councilman Fyde? Aye. Councilman Emmett? Aye. Mayor Hooks? Mr. Mayor, motion carried by a vote of 7-0.

Thank you, Christy. So that concludes new business. We'll move on to item I, comments of the city manager.

Randy? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Only one thing, really. For the folks who are still here, if you would like to see where the proposed alternative site is for the building at the Little League Complex, if you go in the area as was previously described, It's actually in white spray paint, which I think is there. So it's not completely exact, but it's 99% or so. So if you'd like to see it, it's out there for you to see.

I hope more will stay. I'm sorry, sir? What?

What, bud?

What did you say, sir? There were people leaving. I said, I hope more will stay to finish that comment. That's all I have, sir.

Thank you. And just to elaborate on Randy's comments, when we were down there with Allison and Taylor, Tanya actually brought a can of spray paint, and we stepped off that 75 by 30 footprint, and it fits pretty well. So, again, thank you, Paul and Sean, for working towards that. So I look forward to bringing that back pretty soon. So thank you, Randy. And we will move on to Council Directives. Keith?

Yes, the only one I have is next Tuesday on the 22nd of September. The food bank is going to be hosting their local elected officials day. That's where we go to go down and help bag stuff up. I know that Angie's been there and so has Ben. I'll be there again next week if anyone wants to join me. It's off of I-664, just as you get into Hampton, go in that.

yes thank you Keith and I do intend to be there like I was last year and I look forward to seeing you there thank you Keith the genie thank you first I want to say Jamie I'm so pleased to see you up there she's one of our Western people and you know so many of your thoughts and those of the others who spoke after you see you're not alone right this is a community and I so many of the things that you mentioned and I'm just gonna throw them out there you know you said you know dreaming right sports complex community focus type things park bicycling for the kids things like that when we met when I first joined council and we had that retreat those echo exactly when we when they said if you could just dream about what you want more like that's what we want So that's, and there was no disagreement up here. So we're all on that page. I don't think anyone, there's no, and I've used this phrase before, there's no appetite for us to increase boots on the ground, so to speak, or butts in seats. So I think that what you shared is very encouraging because it means that we do think much the same way, despite what social media would like to suggest. I do want to make a comment that multiple people shared you know when y'all develop the land remember we don't develop the land it's we own eight acres a little triangle and and things like that um but what i really wanted to say is that i'm grateful for the community of the people willing to serve in your home community and you're serving exactly where you need to be serving right now with your kids serving on pt2 ptos the women's club all those things that's exactly right you know I had three you have four and I remember seeing them when your little bit was just a little little bit and and she's growing here and I love that And there's going to come a time when someone like you who's willing to get up and talk and think and engage your community to come up here. And I hope that you continue that kind of involvement so that you can be someone sitting up here. Because, you know, mine are 22 to 30, right? And that's going to happen to you before you can blink. not just the community of people who are willing to serve in the community but you guys who's been those who serve on boards and commissions the employees who live here those who live in neighboring communities but you to work and serve here We are surrounded by that community of people that allow us to serve. We get elected to these positions because you trust us. And then we end up with an adversarial relationship when a certain small percentage of people want to view anything that's happening at the city hall through a lens of distrust or suspicion. And I am deeply encouraged by the fact that we've got people who are willing to come and talk to us. Those who, you message me on Facebook, others message me. And those are the conversations that I think are so very useful. Instead of being someone who wants to print a very lens-specific interpretation of what they're reading such that they're shutting down conversation. I love Facebook. I don't go there anymore unless I want to share information because very few people have shut me down to the extent that they don't want to hear. They don't want to engage honestly. Thank you for engaging honestly. Every one of you guys, thank you so much. When I was out there, it was the big chicken debate. I don't know if you guys remember the big chicken debate. my comment from sitting out there was hey guys the question isn't why you want chickens my question is why don't you right and so it was a conversation let's understand where those differences are you know the coast and is a group effort it's a family effort and I've used this phrase when I first came on board that we talk about move-ins and Bull Islanders, but my best friend's mom used to use the phrase, from here's and come here's. That was what she was using. And I think that it's the promotion are those who choose to be stay here's. And we want you all to be stay here's. I'm a stay here. I came back. I'm a boomerang. We were in Pittsburgh for about seven years. But I came back here because I wanted to raise my kids here. And we moved here when I was six months old. And we haven't gone away. And we don't intend to go away. I want you all to get promoted to stay here's.

Thank you, Jamie. I appreciate that. Debbie?

I would like to thank Charlene for coming and participating in the meeting tonight. The folks from Dominion Energy, it was very nice to finally get to meet Crystal. I've been emailing her for a few years now and it was the first time I actually met her in person so I was excited to do that and very proud to have one of our own serving in that capacity. at Dominion as Matt Hershberg is doing. And thanks to all that are here tonight. We have some of our school representatives here, a lot of people in the audience. Love when people come and voice their opinions and get up and speak so we know exactly how you feel when Jeannie was speaking about the community center rec center ever how you want to title it whatever but a place where citizens can go and you know you can preserve the nature use the wetlands to preserve that use it as an outdoor classroom for kids and all of that is is just wonderful it's a dream of mine I would love to see that happen over there one day and a pond for I have two grandkids who love to fish and you know they're constantly being shoved away from different ponds that they end up you know they get on their bike they end up at a pond and you know it's you have to have a good pond that's designated for others to fish you know if there is a place for kids to do that all those things so kids could get out and be kids and have a place to go a safe place to do that that would be a dream of mine I would love to see that come to pass one day Um, I'm don't know that it would ever happen in my lifetime, but I would love to, um, have a legacy that someone would say, or maybe even one of my grandkids, one of these days, you know, up here on council saying, you know, that was an idea that my grandmother had or whatever. I have so many, uh, remembrances of folks who have been on council before me, what they did for this community that are no longer here. That mean a lot to me. So I think all of us up here want to leave that kind of legacy, make the coast and better. for the time that we served up here on this dais during our tenure on city council. In the last meeting that, I think it was the last work session that we had with the planning commission, it was over in the fire police administration building where we were saying we had to come up with what is our vision, what are our dreams, whatever, or what would we like to see in 20 years over on that side of North Victory. And one of the last things I said was, you know, it wouldn't bother me one bit if in 20 years it looks just like it looks now, if it stayed the same, if nothing happened. So thank you again. And it's encouraging to have you all here. And please come when you can and support the council. We're here to represent the citizens of this city. That's why we're here. You put us here. We want to represent you in the best way we can. And thank you all for being here tonight. We do appreciate it.

Thank you, Debbie.

Mr. Freeman? Well, just the same thing. This is a very nice crowd, and we're happy to see you. That's all I got. Thank you, sir. Angie?

I think, unanimously, we are also grateful to have such a large crowd tonight and thank you all for coming and taking the time and please come back, please come back. I'll say also I think all of us up here love information dissemination and any mechanisms that we can get information out And one such way is the new updated city website that has been updated. The user interface is a little bit more approachable. If you go to the new municipal website, there are some buttons just right on the front page and one of them is to Click to sign up for the newsflashes and the agendas, calendars. So please, please take the time to sign up for that. You'll just get them right to your inbox, your email. And then you'll have all the agendas and any events or news items that the city is trying to convey. that will just be sent right to you. So I appreciate that new website and good job for everybody to make that happen. And one last thing on the information vein, one thing, one service that our library has is free daily press digital editions. To anybody with a library card, I think that this month is national get a library card month or something to that effect. But one of the services that you can do with your library card is get a free subscription, basically free access, I should say, to the Daily Press. It's a digital edition, full color. It's through News Bank. You don't have to do it at the library. You can do it from home on your phone. That's just one of many great services that the library has. And then lastly, you can see we have, for those in the room, the little voting booths set up. I think that early voting starts Friday. Yeah, the 18th. We'd love to have everybody come out and vote. That's all I have.

Angie, thank you very much. And to your point about the new website, I'd like to recognize and thank our library director and public information officer, Ms. Jessica Hartley, along with the EDA board member, Ms. Tricia Almas, for all their efforts along with other staff members in developing our new website. So kudos to them for that. Very well done. We had a good website. Now we have an even better website. So thank you to those folks. Mr. Salmo.

OK. Thank you very much. I'll try to keep it short, but I've got a few words to say. First, I'd like to thank everyone here. It shows me that you care about our city. Encourage your friends to pay attention to the city government. I hate when my wife tells me about things that are on social media, because I don't do social media, that look what they're doing now. And they don't have a clue what we're really doing. Most of the things we're doing now, we're not doing. And if you pay attention to your city government, you know how it got there, the real reason why it got there. I love this city. And my name is Southall, and it's not a precocious name. But my mother was a Messick. Messick's Point was named after my great-grandfather. I've been on city council 17, 18 years. I've been here all my life. I'm glad that you care about this city. I do. It's still a little piece of heaven and all that's around us. That's why I stay here, that's why my kids are here, and most of my grandkids are here. And we talk about the big woods, okay? Well, let me tell you about the big woods, okay? When I know the big woods, the big woods extended from Yorktown Road all the way to, um, Wythe Creek. There were no developments there. Forest Park wasn't there. There were no developments on either side of Wythe Creek Road, as a matter of fact. Victory Boulevard did not exist. Neither did Withwick Road beyond Smith Street. And so when you talk about, let's not cut down trees, I can tell you about trees that have been cut down since I've been here, a lot of them. And we didn't want to see it, and we said, why do they cut down the trees? Well, the city doesn't cut down trees. The people who own the property either do it themselves, or they sell it to somebody else who does it. And it's not the city's place to tell anybody in this city what they can do with their property. Now, I don't want to see any more trees gone either, okay? Would I rather see trees where a leather casee is right now? Yeah. But you know what? I didn't have the money to buy that property. And the people who owned it wanted to sell it because some of them wanted to build a house there. But they couldn't because they couldn't have access to it. So they sold it to somebody, and then they sold it to somebody, and lo and behold, they developed it. And so we can't say we're not going to cut down any trees. We don't own the trees. The people who own the property own the trees. But I am proud that you are here and you care. Get your neighbors to pay attention to the city government. You continue to come or you continue to watch it on TV. Encourage your neighbors to do that so you know the real reasons why things get done the way they get done. It was appalling to me that we recently had some people appointed to city council. I'm not going to be on city council next year. I'm going off this year. I've been here for 17, 18 years. Time for me to go. But do you know in the eastern district of Pocosin, there was no one in this city who even volunteered to be a candidate for the city council? And you want the city council to keep Pocosin the way it is. You know, I wouldn't mind Pocosin being the way it was back in 1959, okay? But if I did, a whole bunch of people in this room and the rest of the city wouldn't be here. It changes. Pay attention to your city and encourage your friends to do the same.

I'll quit, Dave.

itself all thank you for your comments uh... before make my i think he's had some else to share yeah heavy alibi here high appreciate and so i didn't say this earlier looked out and saw the uh... superintendents to include the to return to the back of the party uh... that's i couldn't get the spot that i know i i support the sports programs in the city my children participate in when they were younger um but there's one thing that even though there's maybe three or four hundred in baseball and youth football and chilean and stuff like that there's about 20 2050 or some of those children that are in schools public schools here in pocosin uh recognizing them i know for a fact that we've had two individuals that graduated because high school won the class of 94 when the class of 97 when the class 94 was micah schwartzman awarded a Rhodes Scholarship when he went to the University of Virginia. That's one of only 32 people selected out of the whole country awarded a Rhodes Scholarship. We also had in the class of 97 a Marshall Scholar. There's only one of 60 across the entire nation that are awarded the Marshall Scholarship. So we don't just put out baseball players and football players and things like that. We have some pretty smart people. It's funny that both of those children grew up in the house I live in now. One, we bought the house from the Schwarzmans, and the other one's my daughter, Karen Pye, who went to Georgia Tech. So we do more than just play sports here on the coast.

Keith, thank you again. We'd just like to give a brief update on our sidewalks. The first project that we're focused on is Little Florida Road from CVS down to Gayland. I have received one bid on that, so staff is reviewing that bid and hopefully we'll be in the process of building sidewalks in the not too distant future. That has been a long and arduous task. The second sidewalk project is Upper Pocosin Avenue from the garden atriums back down to Woodland Road. We are working with Congressman Rob Whitman's office and Senator Tim Kaine's office in hopes that we will receive a grant from the federal government that will cover a very large portion of those expenses. So we're waiting to see how that's going to go as soon as we get the bid worked out. We intend to start construction on some sidewalks on Little Florida Road. To Keith's point, an indicator of how closely the city and the school system works together is indicated by the fact that the school leadership is here tonight. Thank you all for being with us, and I cannot overstate how close the working relationship is. I've described it before, is that, looking at it already back there, that symbiotic, mutualistic relationship. I mean, how goes the school system, goes the city, and vice versa. So we work very closely together to do the best we can. for our citizens. So folks from the school system, thank you very much for being here. We're so thankful for that close working relationship that we have. And always looking for ways to make it even stronger. My final comments, as I typically do, I'd like to thank the ladies that help us out with IT support. Tonight we have Ms. Jennifer Cannella and Ms. Allison Kroll. So thank you, ladies, for what you do to help us. So with that, that will conclude the council directives. And we'll move to item K, the closed session. And I'd also like to share with everybody, Randy's announcement to retire after 17 exceptionally good years with the city. I mean, we're way better off now than we were in 2009, and that's due to, of course, grace of God, Randy Wheeler's efforts along with extended staff. But before the council right now is what I would describe as most consequential decision that we've had to make I'm in my tenth year on council and 15th year overall and this is the most consequential in my in my opinion the first step in the decision before council is to decide on the process that we're going to use that's what we will go into closed session tonight to talk about after we decide on the process then we'll get down to business after the process runs its course of making the decision on who's going to be the next city manager so a little bit of context there as well The Disclosed Session is pursuant to Section 2.2-3711 of the Code of Virginia from 1950 as amended to discuss personnel matters related to the selection of the next City Manager and Section 2.2-3711 of the Code of Virginia from 1950 as amended to consult with legal counsel obtaining pending litigation. Do we have a motion and a second? So moved, Mr. Mayor. Second. Thank you. Questions or comments? Christy?

Councilwoman Emmett? Aye. Councilwoman Hubbard?

Aye.

Councilman Fyde? Aye. Councilman Southall? Aye. Vice Mayor Bunting? Aye. Councilman Freeman? Aye. Mayor Hooks?

Aye.

Mayor, the motion is passed by a vote of 7-0. Thank you.

We're now in closed session.

Thank you.

Thank you all. Moving on to item L on our agenda is to reconvene and certify the closed session that was just held. Do we have a motion and a second?

So moved.

Thank you. Any questions or comments? Christy?

Councilman Fai?

Aye.

Vice Mayor Bunting? Aye. Councilwoman Emmett? Aye. Councilman Freeman?

Aye.

Councilman Southall? Aye. Councilwoman Hubbard? Aye. Mayor Hooks? Aye. Mr. Mayor, the motion carried by a vote of 7-0.

Thank you, Christy. And before I call for the adjournment, I want to express publicly to my fellow council members, staff, thank you for being here tonight and thank you all so much for working together to achieve a positive outcome. I cannot thank you all enough and not compliment you all any higher. So well done tonight on everybody's part. Again, thank you all. With that, We move on to item M, adjournment. Do we have a motion and a second? So moved.

Second.

Thank you.

Christy?

Councilman Freeman?

Aye.

Councilwoman Emmett? Aye. Councilman Southall?

Aye.

Councilman Fyfe?

Aye.

Councilwoman Hubbard? Aye. Vice Mayor Bunting? Aye. Mayor Hooks?

Aye.

You may have the motion carried by a vote of seven to zero.

Thank you. We're adjourned.