City Council - Regular Meeting

please call me, the parent, and let's talk about it. Now, it's possible that somebody will still report it, But at least that reduces the chance.

Well, the tide has started to turn in at least a dozen states that have reformed their child neglect laws to protect unsupervised child play. Some experts argue that changing the law could make it harder for authorities to step in if a child is legitimately in danger or being neglected. What do you say to that?

Yeah, I've actually been part of that change. I've testified in states where these laws are being considered. I've heard some child protective services people say, basically what we're pushing for is what are called reasonable independence laws, which basically state that it's up to the parent, not up to the state, to decide what is safe or not safe for their child, unless any reasonable person would look at that and say, no, that's not safe. So, of course, what do you mean by any reasonable person? Now, the lawyers have fits about that. But nevertheless, a lot of our laws, a lot of our policies involve a kind of judgment call. And basically what the law says is if there's grounds for judgment, the parents should be the ones who make that judgment. The parents know the child. The parents know the neighborhood. The state does not.

So, Peter, for parents listening now who want to step back, but they may be feeling anxious about their kids safety. What is one simple, practical way to begin transitioning to trusting our kids with more independence?

So one thing I regularly advise to parents is this. For any child, maybe age five and above, sit down with your child and say, so are the things that you would like to do independently, without me right there doing it with you or watching you, are the things you would like to do independently that you aren't? And I found that parents who do this are often surprised by the things that the kids come up with. And even the kids maybe haven't thought about it, but now they've come up with a list. And the parent and child sit down together and talk about, well, of those things on this list, What am I going to allow you to do, the parent says. Or we may need to modify the list. Maybe I needed to go with you the first time. You do this yourself. But it breaks into this cycle of restricting of what children do and starts a new cycle of saying yes to what children do.

Peter Gray is a research professor of psychology and neuroscience at Boston College, and his upcoming book is called Restoring Childhood, How to Set Kids Free in the Age of Anxiety. Peter Gray, thank you so much. Thank you. This is Hearing Now.

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It's here and now. Country artist Ashley Monroe's latest album is both strikingly candid and surprisingly tender. It reflects how her time as a musician has strengthened her love for country and tested her tolerance of the music industry. WPLN's Julie Height reports.

It may seem like Ashley Monroe is contradicting herself when she sings these emphatic sentiments back to back. The outside world tends to conflate Nashville with country music and country music with the country music business. We seldom hear country singers and songwriters distinguish between their abiding passion for the genre and the pain of feeling devalued by the industry that presides over it. It took Monroe 23 years of toiling in this town before she articulated it herself on her concept album, Dear Nashville.

I've never really let myself feel it until now. I think it just took a lot of time and observation and how things are and how things aren't.

What Monroe's sure of is that her devotion to the music started early and proved life-giving.

My dad died February 2000, and then my mom ran off soon after for a while. I have a clear memory that I was sitting on the edge of my waterbed holding on to my guitar. The hope that Nashville gave me in that time and country music and a dream and escaping pain that was unimaginable, especially for a 13-year-old girl.

It was big. By 10th grade, she dropped out of high school in Knoxville and headed west to Nashville. Right away, her grasp of styles and forms steeped in Appalachia impressed country elders.

I've been trapped and there's a scar where my heart was broke before. But in the end I'll be worth a whole lot.

After signing her first major label deal, a still-teenaged Monroe went around performing for radio programmers, trying to persuade them to play her songs. And one guy's reaction to hearing her sing about being seasoned by hardship taught her a lesson. Moving music wasn't necessarily hit material. He was wiping his eyes like this.

And he goes, oh, it just doesn't fit our format. I'll never forget it.

I like took a picture in my mind of that like, oh. Soon after, her label merged with another and she lost her first deal before her debut album had even come out.

That was the first time where I'm like, okay, this isn't all the way reliable.

Monroe included another loaded line in her new song reflecting on her career so far. She wrote on Music Row and kept charming her elders. One of them, Vince Gill, produced two of the albums she made for her second label before it dropped her. She also formed the playful and popular trio Pistol Annies with Miranda Lambert and Angelina Presley. At the same time, Monroe made her way from adolescence into adulthood and married. Both her pregnancy with her son and treatment she underwent for a rare blood cancer were so taxing that she didn't sing for a time. And those experiences brought new insight. Giving your life to music is a physical thing. Her body had no doubt registered feelings of professional rejection, too. But she moved on to independent projects.

I know what's going on. I'm not stupid. I'm bummed about things that are going on and have gone on. But I'm really good at, like I say in Dream Enemy.

Maybe it's a lie, but I love delusion. Maybe it's a lie.

It is like being so hyper-focused on just keeping on making music and knowing that's what I'm born to do and staying inspired that I just can't let it get me down for long.

Monroe hasn't stopped putting herself and the plane of elegance of her singing and songwriting out there, clamoring to collaborate, trying to generate buzz again. Still, it caught her by surprise when watching others get recognized at an industry function left her brooding. The next morning, she decided to put her thoughts into words.

And I flipped over my laptop and I was just like, oh, this makes me so mad that they don't acknowledge me more. I started writing down, I hate Nashville because I've tried and tried and tried.

Monroe considered it merely a therapeutic exercise to get out of the way before the day's writing session with hitmaker Luke Laird. I wasn't even going to mention that song because I thought it's probably not a hit. Why would anyone write this? But Laird got where she was coming from. That one song, I Hate Nashville, grew into a fully formed song cycle that addresses the music business as a callous and fickle lover.

It's almost romantic to me because the whole point of it is like, I wish you loved me like I love you. That is how I feel.

For Here and Now, I'm Julie Height. I can't take this anymore. I'm thinking about it again.

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From WHYY in Philadelphia, this is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley in Los Angeles. Today, writer Casey Gerald. A decade ago, he was a rising star, a Yale and Harvard graduate running a celebrated nonprofit, giving TED Talks and on magazine covers as proof the American dream still works. Then he put it all down and disappeared. And now in a new book, he turns his leaving into an argument, one that speaks to a generation of young people grappling with the promises and limits of the American dream.

They offer a dead-end bargain. They say, we'll give you the keys to the kingdom. But you got to leave parts of yourself outside.

The new book is called The Great Refusal. Plus, TV critic David Bianculli reviews the Canadian sketch comedy series SCTV, which is now streaming on Netflix. First News.

Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. Lonnie Bunch, the first African-American to lead the Smithsonian Institution, is retiring. The 73-year-old historian took the helm in 2019 but spent decades with the organization that is tasked, among other things, with accurately chronicling American history. Since President Trump's return to office, the administration has accused the Smithsonian of promoting radical ideology and has threatened the institution's federal funding. Bunch has said in media interviews that disputes with the administration did not play a role in his decision to retire, but that he would continue to fight for the Smithsonian's independence. The Israeli prime minister's office has termed a newspaper report that he was warned ahead of time but did nothing about Hamas's planned October 7th attack on southern Israel an absolute lie. Israeli opposition leaders have also reacted to the report, which NPR has not independently confirmed by labeling the prime minister, quote, unfit to serve. NPR's Carrie Khan reports.

According to Haaretz, the UAE leader warned Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of an imminent attack 10 days before October 7th. Citing multiple foreign sources, Haaretz says Netanyahu's response was muted. The Prime Minister's office dismissed the claims as a lie. Thousands of Hamas-led militants broke through multiple border barriers on October 7, 2023, killing more than 1,200 and taking more than 250 hostages. Israel responded with a destructive three-year-long military offensive in Gaza, killing more than 73,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials. Netanyahu's opponents have long criticized what they say were his security and political failings to thwart the Hamas attack. Carrie Conn, NPR News, Tel Aviv.

Authorities say all five people who were killed in Sunday's Amazon cargo plane crash in Miami were inside a cleaning crew van. NPR's Joel Rose reports the cause of the collision is still under investigation.

The Miami-Dade County Sheriff says all five of the people who died in the crash at Miami International Airport were in a van.

Good afternoon and welcome to the 2 o'clock p.m. session of Roanoke City Council. I'll ask our clerk, Ms. McCoy, to please call the roll.

Mr. Nash. Here. Mr. Vollison.

Here.

Ms. Powers. Here. Mr. Hagan.

Here.

Ms. Sanchez-Jones. Here. Vice Mayor McGuire. Here. And Mayor Cobb.

Here. And we are all present. Thank you. I'm going to invite the Reverend Joanna Pesor, who's the pastor of Green Memorial United Methodist Church, to lead us in our invocation. Then I will lead in the Pledge of Allegiance. Before we do that and after we stand, I'm going to ask us to pause for a moment of silence. Before we hear from Reverend Pesor, I wanted us to take a moment of silence to reflect on 9-11, this being the 25th anniversary, and the impact of that on a lot of lives and certainly upon our nation. So let's take a moment to commemorate and honor and remember that day and its anniversary. And then at the close of that, I'll say thank you, and you can go right in. All right.

Let us pray. God of all people and all places, we pause this day and pray in specific. For the work before this room, may it benefit every member of our community. For each person in Roanoke, their dignity, their safety, their ability to thrive. Surround us with hope, guide us with wisdom, ground us in a belief in unity. Be in places where hearts are breaking, healing is needed, and reconciliation is required. Do the work only you can do in our midst. Go before each, beside each, and remind us you dwell as God-light in each person. Be with those who show up and serve in times of need, for our great help, and for the least of these. God of the doorway and the hearing room, of the sidewalk and the high rise office, of the coffee shop and the gym, of the AA meeting and the Greenway, of the school board meeting and the shelter intake line, God show up where we need you for these are all your people. Steady us all when we are tired. Surround us by your grace when we feel all alone. And make us, this place, our home, a place that reflects a love that never fails. Grant us imagination. determination, and passion for the call to love you and love our neighbor. We pray by the power of your mercy. Amen.

Congratulations to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation,

Thank you.

I want to thank Vice Mayor McGuire for leading our last council meetings and doing so very ably. I appreciated the opportunity to be out of town to deliver our daughter, Jenny, to university. And she's doing very well. And for all who are going to transition and part of that journey, our blessings to you all. A couple of announcements today. The Council of the City of Roanoke is seeking applications for various vacancies on Council-appointed authorities, boards, commissions, and committees. A selection of those are not only found on the website, but also included in today's agenda. To fill out an online application, you can go to roanokeva.gov to the City Council's page and fill out the online application there. or you may contact the city clerk's office at 540-853-2541. As we move into our presentations and acknowledgements, I'm going to invite our council members to share shout-outs. These are opportunities that we have between meetings to highlight special events, things that we've been a part of or been able to witness in the life of our community during that time. So I'm going to start with Councilwoman Powers today. Put you on the spot.

You did put me on the spot. I want to do a shout-out to the Friends of Mountain View. We had an event there this past Thursday night where the next months, the first Thursday of each month through December, they're having a music presentation there, and the Friends of Mountain View are able to share in selling some tickets for beverages and to raise money for the projects, the renovations of the Fishburn home. So if you have an opportunity to check those first Thursdays out in the next three months, I think you'll see that it's very beneficial to our community.

Thank you.

Councilman Waldson.

I want to shout out to America Works and the local labor unions that put together our Labor Day parade this past Saturday. And I hope everybody enjoyed their long weekend and the sadly unofficial end of summer.

Thank you. Councilman Nash?

So much. I don't. It's hard to narrow it down. I know.

Oh, God.

So I think we haven't had a meeting since the Festival of India, have we? The Festival of India happened. That's what I'm saying. We do so much stuff. It's like, where do you start? So the Festival of India was always, you know, it was a success. And I always enjoy going to all of the festivals at Amwood and around all the various parts of our city that celebrate our culture here in the city. So I'll shout out that particular festival.

Vice Mayor. You all passed today, Mayor. Okay.

Machara goes to the Noble Neighborhood Association for the great event and for all the staff that attended there. And also to the organizers, I want to say thank you to the organizers of the Labor Day Parade as well and the staff that had to work that day. So thank you.

One shout-out, Mayor Cobb, for the State of the City, because giving a speech at 7.30 a.m. is not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination, much less to, I think it was sold out, right? Like, yeah. So that's one. Also, the Bayer Theater, they just wrapped up their third, I think, second season or third season, or just had their first show for the third season, something like that. That was Cat O'Hontan-Ruth, and I was able to attend with Sandra Sudoling.

Thank you. And just to add to that, I was able to present a proclamation at the Overdose Awareness Day, which I think this is the third year we've done this at the Taubman Museum of Art, and it grows every year. It's an opportunity for community members to gather to remember loved ones who've died of overdose. We heard three very compelling stories and how the lives... were too short, but their legacy continues to live on, not only through their family members, but through the community. And it's also an opportunity for all of the organizations in our valley that work together to make a difference. Their efforts have led to about a 40% decline in ER visits related to overdose over the last several years and a close to 60% reduction in overdose deaths. So I think those are important data points for us to remember and grateful to the Roanoke Valley Collective Response and all of our community partners who were a part of that. At this time, I am delighted to welcome representatives from Virginia Tech Foundation. There's Elizabeth. I was looking for you. It's good to see you. I'm going to ask Elizabeth McClanahan, Chief Executive Officer, and anyone you want to bring up with you. Mayor Cobb, point of order.

We have our certification of closed meeting.

We haven't finished our closed meetings.

Okay, all right.

Yeah, but thank you for that. We'll do that after we finish our closed meetings. No worries. Sorry about that. Thank you. Elizabeth, welcome.

Thank you very much, Mayor Cobb, and thank you, members of council, for allowing us the opportunity to be here with you today. I have two points of personal privilege I would like to take. One is to thank Ms. Webb, who helped so well and efficiently this past week, getting us all ready to be here and showing us the ropes. So thank you to her. And then also Ms. Kimberly Beamer, who is your city attorney, one of your city attorneys, I think, is here. And she's a former law student of mine, so I just have to say thank you for hiring one of my former students. But officially today, we are here to celebrate the renovation of the building that now houses RoboLabs. But today is much more than a building. It is about the continued growth of Roanoke's Biotechnology Innovation Corridor and the power of partnership. For more than three decades now, Virginia Tech and the Virginia Tech Foundation have believed in and invested in the future of Roanoke, and we are proud to have been a very small part of the collaborations that have helped build this momentum in the region's biotech ecosystem. We are confident that Rova Labs will strengthen that momentum and contribute to the continued success of the corridor. This project began a number of years ago with a community that recognized a need and chose to act. Haywood Fralin, the City of Roanoke, Carilion Clinic, Virginia Tech, Virginia Tech Foundation, FBRI, RBIA, and Virginia Western Community College all came together around a shared vision. Carilion Clinic leaders Nancy Agee, Steve Arner, and Don Halliwell identified and made available the 40,000 square foot building at 1030 South Jefferson, creating the opportunity to actually bring this project to life. And together, all these partners worked to secure legislative approval and a $15.7 million appropriation to pursue the project, creating the foundation for what we are celebrating today. After the appropriation was secured, the Virginia Tech Foundation was hired by the city to manage the renovation and delivery of the facility. The foundation team, led by former COO Ken Smith, coordinated the services, contracts, and construction needed to transform the building into a fully functional laboratory and office environment. The project also benefited from the expertise and commitment of many local partners, including, again, Carilion Clinic, AECOM's Roanoke office, which led the design, Roanoke-based MB Contractors, which carried out construction, and many other local construction firms, tradespeople, and vendors that brought the vision to life. The programming and design of the laboratories and office spaces were managed by Daniel DeMarco of AECOM's Roanoke office. The design process benefited from the insights and expertise of a broad group of community and industry stakeholders, including Aaron Burcham with RBIA, Brad Boettcher with the City of Roanoke, Carilion Innovations, Dean Amy White with the Virginia Western Community College, and Sally Elaine with FBRI. Their collective contributions helped ensure that the facility would effectively serve both scientific research and Roanoke's growing startup ecosystem. Construction of the project was awarded to MB Contractors, a Roanoke-based company led by Todd Morgan. In addition to submitting the winning bid, MB Contractors brought a proven record of successfully delivering important projects for both the foundation and the university previously. Throughout construction, Sterling Smith with MB Contractors served as the on-site construction lead. Project management was provided by Chris Hemp and Raymond Hunt of Core Group. Budget management and financial reporting for the project were led by Terry Harris and Elizabeth Reed of the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center. Together, all of these individuals helped move the project forward. Early in the renovation process, the team discovered additional exterior work that was necessary for the building, and in response, Daniel DeMarco, Chris Hemp, and Sterling Smith carefully evaluated the situation and developed a cost-effective solution to reclad the building. Recognizing the long-term value of the improvement, Mark Nelson and Brad Boettcher of the City of Roanoke supported the expanded scope of work and successfully negotiated with the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development to secure the additional time to complete the exterior improvements that you see today, significantly enhancing that final facility. As construction entered its final months, the selection of shear partners as the operator of Rovalabs facility helped ensure a seamless transition to occupancy and opening. Equipment procurement installation and setup were coordinated closely with Devin Zeidelman of Shear Partners, enabling the facility to be ready for use on day one. At the same time, the construction team successfully transitioned building maintenance and operations back to Carilion Clinic through close coordination with Curtis Mills and the Carilion Clinic facilities and IT teams. The individuals I've mentioned today, and I know there are many, there are lots others along, including hundreds of local Roanokers who contributed as construction workers, inspectors, equipment vendors, landscapers, and skilled professionals across many trades. They all played a very important role in delivering this facility. Their dedication and craftsmanship are reflected in every aspect of this building. But ultimately, the measure of this investment will be what happens inside these walls. And we are already seeing that story take shape. Luminary Therapeutics first came to our region from Minnesota through a quick fire challenge sponsored by Carilion Clinic Roenick Blacksburg Innovation Alliance, and the CRC. Winning that challenge brought Luminary to Blacksburg, where the company established an R&D presence in our Cogro Labs, while Rova Labs was being completed. Along the way, Luminary actually attracted investment from Hokie-led LunchPail Ventures and has now successfully moved into Rova Labs, a great example of how partners, programs, capital, and infrastructure can work together to help promising companies put down roots here in Roanoke. The momentum continues. Today I have with me Dr. Lana Waheed, who many of you know as a Carilion Clinic physician, but she's also an accomplished entrepreneur and a graduate of RAMP and co-founder of two companies. She has moved one of her new ventures also into Rova Labs, and this is exactly the kind of activity that we want Ross Mason, Manager of Carilion Innovations, and Chris Turnbull, who's the Chief of Staff for Carilion Clinic, is also here. It has been the Virginia Tech Foundation's greatest honor to serve the City of Roanoke and the broader community in delivering this project. We are confident that Rova Labs will continue to create momentum in this biotech corridor, and we look forward to strengthening our partnership with the City of Roanoke and Carilion Clinic. This brings us to the particularly meaningful moment where we give you back money from all the money that you gave us to build the building because we actually didn't spend it all, which is great. And these funds represent the money remaining after completion of the interior renovation, full equipping and furnishing of the labs and offices, and the completion of the exterior facade. So I want to make sure that all of you Our partners that I mentioned today can stand up. And we have a check to present to you on behalf of all of us. So if all of you will come up with us. Everybody had a piece in all this. This check looks a little big to cash. We don't cash checks anymore, right? Okay. All right. I'll come up with it.

All right. Good.

One, two, three. Thank you.

So I want to thank Elizabeth and this amazing team of people for their work and their continued investment in the city. I'D LIKE TO INVITE ANY COUNCILMEMBERS THAT WOULD LIKE TO SHARE ANY COMMENTS TO DO SO.

I'D JUST LIKE TO SAY THANK YOU FOR ALL OF THE WORK THAT ALL OF YOU PUT INTO THIS. IT'S GOING TO BE A GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR NOT JUST THE CITY OF ROANOKE, BUT FOR OUR REGION. AND I APPRECIATE EVERYTHING THAT YOU'VE DONE.

I JUST WANT TO SAY THANK YOU. I REMEMBER WHEN IT USED TO LOOK LIKE THE DARTH VADER BUILDING. THAT'S WHAT WE CALLED IT. SO I WAS KIND OF GLAD TO SEE THE CLADDING GO AWAY AND CHANGE INTO SOMETHING MORE MODERN. But thank you, because that's going to be this, the Rova Labs are going to be a huge help with incubating and creating more biotech jobs here in the city, and look forward to more announcements coming out of there soon. Thanks.

I'll just tack on to that, that I'm very thankful for the help and having good regional and community partners like you all. And we can hope to continue to do business with you. And the future of Roanoke is always bright. So I'm very excited for the future of our city and our region.

I would say congratulations and thank you and super excited to have you on Franklin. That's kind of near my neck of the woods. And I know that that's going to be a really important driver in continuing to see progress on that corridor. our innovation corridor. So thank you very much.

I just want to say thank you for your vision and also thank you for the money.

Thank you all for everything you all do. We really do appreciate it and always great to see. She actually took what I was going to say. So I really do appreciate it. Thank you.

Now we're going to move to item three on our agenda, the hearing of citizens upon public matters. City Council sets this time aside as a priority for citizens to be heard. All matters will be referred to the City Manager for response, recommendation, or report to Council as she may deem appropriate. If you have not spoken before Council before, as you come up to, as your name is called, just come up to the podium. The mic is live. Introduce yourself and Every speaker has three minutes to speak. There's a little box in the corner. Green means go, yellow means you have a minute left, and red means stop. So, Madam Clerk, do we have citizens signed up to speak today?

We do. We have four speakers. I'll call the first two. Barbara Dirk and Tyler Breeding.

Welcome, Ms. Dirk, and I see Ms. Canova is also with you.

Yes, I am pleased to have Nancy Canova with me. We are members of the Colonel William Preston chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and we are here to say let's celebrate. Let's celebrate America made in Virginia. It is 2026, the 250th birthday of our country, and backwoodsmen, people from this side of the mountains, said we are not going to take orders from Britain and stood up and said they were resolved to live or die. So we are celebrating Constitution Week, which is a federally recognized week, September 17th. Nancy, can you hold that? September 17th through the... right here, September 17th through the 23rd usually, but this year we're extending it to the 24th. On September the 17th, we are recognizing patriots from this area who died in the line of service. We're going to be using Freedom Plaza, ringing a bell, and calling out their names. We're asking you and everybody else here, at 4 o'clock on September 17th to ring a bell, because that's when the bells rang in Philadelphia to signal that the Constitution had been signed. So at 4 o'clock on September 17th, wherever you are, ring a bell for one minute to recognize the Constitution. Then on September the 24th, we're having a free movie at the Grandin Theater. We've asked each of you to be part of the ribbon cutting that's going to be at 2 o'clock. We're having the movie at 3 and again at 7. Again, it's a free movie. It's a documentary. Documentary, this is my sign holder, documentary on the American Constitution. Again, it's free. We're asking everyone to come. There is a conflict with the Raleigh Court Civic League at 7 o'clock that night, so for those that are participating, come to the 3 o'clock movie. We'd like to have you there. Let freedom ring. All of us are responsible for continuing the 250 years that we have so far of the United States of America. And let Roanoke shine. Let Roanoke shine red, white, and blue. And if there's a way that we can get the star to be red, white, or blue to Constitution Week, we would appreciate that. Thank you very much. Celebrate America made in Virginia.

Thank you, Ms. Derrick. Thank you, Ms. Canova.

Oh, I presented each of you with a constitution, and if you will look, and I gave Ms. Santos-Jones some that were in Spanish, so that's done, and that if you will read on the back part that talks about how the school systems are supposed to talk about Constitution Day on September 17th. And this copy of the Constitution includes the Declaration of Independence, but it also includes an index back here, so you can find things really fast. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Who is the next speaker?

Tyler Breeding.

I'm not sure that speaker is here, so we can go on to the next.

Janice Smith Welcome thank you for coming good afternoon Honorable Mayor Cobb city manager members of council My name is Janice Smith, and I represent the Wilmot neighborhood group I'm somewhat disappointed as we have been requesting curbing of since 2004. I received a grant to put curbing in front of my property, but the city told me that I would have to do my side neighbors as well. Now, if my neighbors choose to put their investments into large SUVs, cars, I understand that. That's their prerogative. The city of Roanoke told me Why not wait in 2004 and 2006? Because we will be putting in curbing since 85 to 90 percent of Wilmot is curbed. The new lots are two, three, and so on. So I waited from 2004, 2006, already having grant money in hand, and it never happened. Now we're at 2026, almost approaching 20 years. We still have no curbing in the last few areas of Wilmot Farm. I have over this time saved my own money. The only thing I was able to secure from the grant was a driveway. The rest of the money went for not. My neighbors on either side, one working for TAP, the other working for the city of Roanoke, did not bother to come across the street to the neighborhood meetings. 2000, we had Honorable City Manager Darlene Burcham, who was a very strong fighter for the city as far as neighborhoods. She had a plan for every neighborhood. She came out to our meetings. We requested lighting. When she came out in 2000, she said, mine is really dark out here. You guys need lighting. And we got it. Since City Manager Burcham and Honorable Mayor Smith left, we've seen nothing with neighborhood support. I've been trying for weeks, months, just to try to get, at my own expense, curbing in front of my property. I'm given the runaround. I'm told C-A-B-G-Q-R-F. This is very frustrating. The way the street is slanted, the water comes right down into my property and into my crawl space, which is why I wanted the curbing. Considering, again, 85% to 90% of Wilmot, beautiful neighborhood, is curbed. After City Manager Bertram left and Mayor Smith, our neighborhoods stopped going to meetings. They're hopeless. These people are born and raised here. I'm from Columbus, Ohio. So I'm having a problem. I spoke with Mrs. Payne of Transportation. Excellent lady. I was disappointed to find in trying to reach transportation, you can call and call all day. No one answers the phone. City Manager's office, the same thing. That was quick. Bottom line, we're trying to get something done. I think that it will be, with the budget we have, it's pitiful that Mrs. Payne is the only one that answers the phone for the whole city of Roanoke for transportation. Thank you. That's all I've got.

Thank you.

Our last speaker is Danny Goode.

Welcome, Mr. Goad.

Hello. My name is Danny Goad, and thank you, Mr. Mayor, and the rest of the city council for allowing me to speak. I want to speak to you about the risks and vulnerabilities that Roanoke City faces as a result of the data centers, the Google data centers in Botetourt County. I do reside in Botetourt County, and I have attended the Board of Supervisors members for at least the last six or seven years and also closely follow the budget and the history of the budget in Botetourt County. Thank you. First of all, I want to give you just some facts that maybe you can hang on to. This is a clamshell. It came from the bottom of Carbon's Cove in June. I was up there three weeks ago. I couldn't get to the same point because there's three and a half feet of grass too thick to walk through, and I wasn't really interested in picking up a bunch of deer ticks. So... Our water situation is getting dire and is not going to improve with Google data centers. Also, a 16-inch pipe has been installed from Corbin's Cove to Botetourt County. The capacity of that pipe is 8.6 million gallons a day. I have performed... A FINANCIAL ANALYSIS OF THE GOOGLE DATA CENTER. I FOILED THE COUNTY'S FINANCIAL ANALYSIS AND RECEIVED BASICALLY EIGHT LINES, TWO COLUMNS, INCONSISTENT NUMBERS, NO ANALYSIS AT ALL AS FAR AS THAT GOES. It's been claimed that the data centers are worth $30 million a year in Botetourt County. When you do a close analysis of it, what you end up with is $8.6 million a year per data center. You say, what's the difference between $8.6 million and $10 million? A lot when you factor it over a number of years and you look at the type of investment that Botetourt County is going to have to make to have enough water, not only for Botetourt County, but for Roanoke City, Roanoke County and probably even Franklin County at this point. So the payback for that project to Botetourt County is 17 years. There's no project that anyone would ever undertake with a 17-year payback, municipality or not. Seventeen years is a tremendously long period of time. What's the history of spending in Botetourt County? Now our budget's at over $120 million a year, much less than yours, but a mere 10 years ago it was $50 million. We just recently had a... Is that the end of it? Well, let me just conclude. Thank you. I ask you, and I'll give you some more information, I ask you to pass a resolution... and state your opposition to the Google data centers, and also include in that resolution a demand from the Western Virginia Water Authority that they do a thorough water assessment. Our survival depends on it. Thank you. Mr. Good.

Thanks to everyone who came out to speak today. Move now to item four, which is our consent agenda. All matters listed under the consent agenda are considered to be routine by members of city council and will be enacted by one motion. There's no separate discussion of items unless discussion is desired and then the item can be removed from the consent agenda and considered separately. At this time, I'll ask for a motion and second on approval of the consent agenda.

Move the consent agenda.

Council Members Hagan and Sanchez-Jones. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Mr. Nash? Aye. Mr. Bollison? Aye. Ms. Powers? Aye. Mr. Hagan?

Aye.

Ms. Sanchez-Jones?

Aye.

Vice Mayor McGuire? Aye. Mayor Cobb?

Aye.

And the consent agenda is adopted. Thank you.

Moving on to our regular agenda, we have no public hearings this afternoon. For petitions and communications, we have one item. the acceptance and appropriation of funding for a drug prosecutor. There's one measure in ordinance, and I'll entertain a motion and second on the ordinance. Move the ordinance. Second. Thank you, Council Members Vollison and Hagan. Madam Clerk, will you please read the title paragraph?

An ordinance authorizing the acceptance of funding from the Commonwealth of Virginia Compensation Board for the multi jurisdictional special drug prosecutor for fiscal year 2027. amending and reordaining certain sections of the 2026 and 2027 grant fund, appropriating grant funds detailed more fully infra, and dispensing with the second reading of this ordinance by title.

Thank you. Ms. Turner, anything to add to that? I know I also see our Commonwealth attorney, Mr. McNeil. Anything either of you would like to add? I don't have any comments. Mr. McNeil, welcome.

Just briefly, and I appreciate you all entertaining this. Again, I'm John McNeil. I'm the elected Commonwealth attorney now. This is the first time I've been able to make this presentation as the elected Commonwealth attorney. This is essentially the second of the important grants that we receive from the Commonwealth of Virginia. The first was the Victim Witness Grant, which was approved at the last meeting. And this is for our drug prosecutors. And this is a very important job that we take on. We prosecute every range of drug crimes here in the city, from the lowest level addict all the way up to violent dealers on the streets. We try to treat them as best we can. The low levels, we try to get into treatment and do the best we can for those, but there are a lot of violent offenders that we have to deal with. We have two full-time drug prosecutors as well as an administrative assistant that work on these cases. And at the urging of Councilman Nash, I think we may be expanding their role a little bit into trying to deal with some of the illegal and dangerous vape products that are affecting the community. I do appreciate that, and if anyone has any questions, please let me know, but I would ask that the matter be approved.

Thank you, Mr. McNeil. Any discussion by counsel? Oh, Mr. Hagan.

I do have a question. So as we go towards legalization of adult use over 21 recreational cannabis, yes, I have to say all of that, how are you all planning on handling people who would be operating outside of the legal market for that?

Well, that's a tough, tough question. We were very on the cutting edge of this office for many years, We were kind of on the cutting edge of decriminalization of low-level possession of marijuana. So really in Roanoke City, we've kind of been hands-off with the prosecution of simple possession of marijuana. So get that kind of out of the way. But what has happened now, what we are seeing, is that there is a strong demand for marijuana now, and there's no legal market to get that. There's nowhere to really purchase marijuana. So you've got the demand, and you've got nowhere to get it legally, so it creates this huge illegal market. So what that creates next is a lot of violent crime. There's a lot of money, people trying to buy drugs, so it leads to a lot of violent crime. So what we are generally doing, this may not be answering your question, Councilman Hagan, but we're trying to focus on the violent crime that may be associated with that. We don't really have a capability of addressing violence. We don't really know what legal markets are going to be there. So if there is an illegal market and it's leading to violent crime, then that's what we'll address. We're kind of waiting to see what legal avenues are there before we step into trying to address what the illegal markets may be.

I understand. All right.

Thank you. Yes, sir.

Other questions or discussion? Mr. Nash. I'll just add on. This is not really for you, Mr. Commonwealth, but for Councilman Hagan, one of the concerns that I have and something that us as a council have to talk about is the local option for the taxation portion of it. Because my fear is, yeah, now we'll have a legal market for it, but if you know anything about dispensaries, They're expensive when you buy your stuff from there versus your guy on the street. And a lot of times the stuff on the streets a little more high octane. And so that's a real conversation we're going to have, because this could, even though it's legal, I think it could also help fuel or drive some people into the illegal market.

Well, I ask because I know that when Prohibition ended, there was a big marketed push to stamp out, especially in our region, moonshiners, which I anticipate something similar provided that we have those tools and abilities, which might be well beyond the scope of what we're about to vote on.

No, but that's what my folks will be doing. And if the example is the ending of Prohibition or you have that, If you have the legal market, but the legal market is way more expensive than the black market that you can find, then you're just going to have the same problems. And if that's the case, then we'll step in. We kind of wait to see how it develops.

Indeed.

Thank you. Great questions.

Any other questions or follow-up? All right. Thank you, Mr. McNeil. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Mr. Nash? Aye. Mr. Vollison?

Aye.

Ms. Powers? Aye. Mr. Hagan?

Aye.

Ms. Sanchez-Jones? Aye. Vice Mayor McGuire? Aye. And Mayor Cobb? Aye. And the ordinance is adopted. Thank you.

We'll move now to our reports of city officers and the city manager. And we have a number of briefings. I'll call on the city manager to introduce the briefings.

Thank you so much. If you would allow, I'd like to call Davenport up. Mr. David Rose will be doing a briefing on our 2026 general obligation bonds.

Welcome, Mr. Rose. Good to see you.

Good afternoon, Mayor, members of council. I really appreciate your letting me go early here. I've got another board meeting a little bit later this afternoon. So I will wait for this gentleman and then... Again, David Rose from Davenport. I know you've all seen me before. Appreciate the opportunity to be here. I will not be too long. I know you've got a number of things today. That said, for those in the audience, we serve as your independent financial advisor, which means we have a fiduciary responsibility to be sure that any recommendations that we make are in your best interest and and not ours. It's basically a situation where we are trying to be a protector of your good financial standing, and as a result, when there are issues that we know should be addressed, we will certainly let you. We've done that before. All that being said, I'm here again which is planned. Hard to believe it was a little over six months ago, back in February, we talked about the multi-year capital planning. We do annual borrowing and we do them strategically so that we don't pay needless interest on outstanding debt and we borrow on a time-needed basis. And so as a result of that, we're here today as education only. If you'll have me back in two weeks, almost two weeks on Monday night, I will be here for the planned public hearing on these bonds that, again, really started that whole process back on February 2nd. So there's nothing new to report here, and that's the good thing. You continue to enjoy very good credit ratings, and as a result of that, our goal and objective is to continue to maintain those as best as we can. So with that said, the 2026 general obligation bonds, the ones that, again, will be on a public hearing, particularly for the new money, and you can see here we really have several components. All what I did back in February, trying to be strategic, take advantage of very solid overall interest rates. I point out that for those that are fortunate to have a home or a car, those interest rates are not nearly as strong as what we're able to borrow, we meaning the city, on a tax-exempt basis. And so those rates are strong. They have moved up somewhat over the last few months, but still in relative History, interest rates are very, very good. And again, since we do this on a yearly basis, we're really averaging, if you would, what the markets look like. So it's not like we do it once every five years and we have to hope we time it right. We're able to do this every year. I would also point out that when we borrow this money, All of these bonds have the ability to be prepaid, typically after about 10 years, because we've typically looked at the average debt of about 20 years. We pay our debts off rapidly in the city, and again, no interest in changing any of that going forward. So, again, you can see the purposes here, fleet projects, fire engine, school projects, stormwater, all of those things that are traditionally what you'd expect a local government to do prudently as part of the overall CIP. Our schedule. Here I am today on September 8th. As we said, authorizing that notice for the public hearing, that will be on Monday the 21st, 7 p.m. We'll be here. Any questions, any things that you all get, obviously going through the city manager, and I would want to shout out that the staff at the city manager has been tremendous support to us, really well positioned. I want to hopefully continue to get some more support, though, for the for the manager, particularly the finance area. So I want to see that happening, and I know that's part of the plans that the manager has so we can continue to make the progress. We're planning on calls with the rating agencies, which are required basically the week after the public hearing. And so all of this allows us to basically be in a mode to have money in hand sometime in the very early part of November. It's not an absolute date. It's planned for the moment. That can move around a little bit. So I'll stop here. Any questions, though, about our timing and our planning? OK. OK. The next page or two, just want to give you a sense of we have debt policies in the city. and just wanted to provide assurance that this debt in no way broaches those policies. We continue to keep within our policies. That's very important for the rating agencies. And you can see here, particularly the one on the left-hand side, we call it debt service versus expenditures. Think of that as your credit card. We have a policy that says no more than $0.10 on every dollar will go to debt service, and we're literally at half that level. SO FROM A PERSPECTIVE OF DEBT AND OVERALL BUDGETING, THE CITY IS IN VERY SOLID SHAPE. AND THAT DOESN'T APPEAR TO CHANGE ANY TIME SOON WHEN YOU LOOK AT OVERALL THE DEBT THAT WE'VE GOT AND HOW TO TAKE CARE OF IT. THEN WE DO DEBT TO ASSESSED VALUE. THE ONE THING I'D POINT OUT HERE, WE'RE STILL UNDERNEATH BUT WE ONLY ASSUME A GROWTH RATE OF 1%, WHICH IS NOT REALISTIC. WE TRY TO BE VERY, VERY CONSERVATIVE. Your history of assessed values have grown higher than that. And as a result, this policy will look even stronger in future years. But we've only assumed a 1% growth rate. That's not what we believe either. But we purposely just try to count it. So with all of that said, happy to answer any questions, Mayor and members of council. Appreciate this opportunity to be here. And I don't know if the city manager wants to add anything that I may have missed.

Mr. Rose, you've done a great job. Thank you so much for your assistance and support.

Additional questions or comments? All right. Thank you, Mr. Rose. Mr. Nash, go ahead.

The fire engines that are on here, is that separate from the fire engines we talked about or had to take out? Are these the fire engines that were ordered like some time ago and now they're on the way? That's correct. Okay. Yes. All right. Thank you.

I guess I do have one follow-up. I know that we're back on page two. You talk about terming out the 2024 C-BAN and restructuring portions of 15 and 16. And you've probably reviewed this before, but when do we anticipate reaching that level of accomplishing that goal and then being able to restore potentially some of our deferred capital items?

So that's a great question, Mayor. I think really there's two questions in that, if I can say that. Number one, this debt is part of that 27 to 31 fiscal year capital program, which has been pared back because of cash flow issues. And we know that we've got some real challenges down the road. So I don't want to make light of that. What we do know is the way this debt is set up with this very modest restructuring what we're doing is really shaving the peak if you would on very small amount but it makes a good impact so it allows us to smartly layer in both the existing debt. You may recall the reason we did the ban in the first place was going back several years earlier when I first started working with you folks maybe eight or nine years ago, what we saw that a lot of debt was being borrowed, but it wasn't necessarily the proceeds weren't being used efficiently. So you were sitting there. So we made a recommendation that we slow down, if you would, our permanent financing, set up some short-term approach, and we did that. And then five years later, we realized that worked so well, that we did a second wave of that. And this now is the takeout, if you would, of that second wave, that 2024 bond anticipation note. So we moved to what we called a just-in-time financing permanently, and that was how we set all this up. So we saved a lot. If you may recall, Mayor, I know you were then vice mayor, some of you also on council, we were able to show that we saved millions and avoided losses. interest. So again, here we are now as planned taking that out permanently now that that ban is fully done. So that's our approach here. And I think the second question you asked, if I'm, I say second, you asked one question, but I think two parts. And that is IN TERMS OF GETTING CAUGHT UP WITH A NUMBER OF THE PROJECTS THAT WERE REALLY TIED TO SOME OF THOSE CAPITAL ASSETS, YOU KNOW, THINGS LIKE, IF I'M NOT MISTAKEN, MAKING SURE THE ELEVATORS WORK AND SOME OF YOUR BUILDINGS, WHAT HAVE YOU. WE TALKED ABOUT AT THAT TIME LOOKING AT A RECURRING MECHANISM THAT WAS IN FOR TWO YEARS WITH REGARD TO THE MEALS TAX. clearly, I would say that if that is not continued or is not able to be renewed, then we're going to take a step back, we meaning the city, in terms of being able to meet those pent-up needs that have been there for, as I said, pent-up, so they've been there for a long time. But again, that's separate from this right now in terms of the the two programs if you would and i don't know hopefully mayor that's an advance yeah that's very much you wanted thank you thank you very much your time today thank y'all

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to invite Aquanetta Harris, who's our interim finance director, to come up and do a presentation for our July finances. And this is, the report will be slightly different than what it has been, hopefully providing some additional information. If you have any additional questions or you'd like to see something different, just let us know.

Welcome, Ms. Harris.

Good afternoon, Mayor Cobb, Vice Mayor, members of Council, Ms. Turner. This report presents the monthly financial results for month ending July 2026. And as Ms. Turner stated, please note a slight format change in the report. Each month, Council will be provided with an update on these five categories. This will give Council a consistent high-level view of of where the city stands financially on current spending and tracking against the adopted budget and where the city may need any additional attention. And the five categories would be our revenue, expenditures, overtime, temp wage, and deferred maintenance commitments. Beginning with our revenues, one month into the physical year, general fund property taxes is at 1.6 collected compared to budget. Other local taxes is at 7.6% collected compared to budget, and non-local revenue is 1.1% collected compared to budget. Please note the actual year-to-date amounts for the next few months, July through September, are expected to change as the finance department completes the physical year-end accrual process. The numbers may change most significantly in areas affected by timing differences. For example, the sales tax current reported is at approximately 2.5. This represents May collection and this will be accrued back to the appropriate fiscal year. So your actual amounts will change in revenues. Moving to our non-local revenue, just wanted to highlight permits, fees and license, actual is higher than normal in physical year 2026 compared to 2027. Just wanted to note that, again, this is the Carilion Cancer Center building, so that's why you see a huge variance in permits and fees. And again, these numbers will change for FY27 year-to-date as items will be accrued back. This next slide highlights prepared food and beverage base sales alongside prepared food and beverage tax revenue collected for the fiscal years of 2025 and 2026. Tax revenue collections increased by 4 million, or approximately 19 percent, from 2025 to 2026, and base sales increased 7 million, or approximately 1.9, from 2025 to 2026. The increase, again, primarily reflects the 1 percent in the rate change. This slide, the next slide just highlights the prepared food and beverage by month broken out in detail. Physical year 2027 will be added and finance will continue to track and compare the three physical years. The next slide continues to highlight prepared food and beverage timeliness discount. For fiscal year 2026, total discount was $382,000 for the year. Please note the monthly lag in reporting. Finance will continue to track and report timeliness discounts each month. Moving to our expenditures, target benchmark at one month into the fiscal year should be at 8.3%. General fund expenditures are approximately tracking at 13% of the annual budget. And the next slide just highlights the expenditures in detail by each function. Again, please note that the actual year-to-date amounts will change for expenditures due to accruals. The next slide represents our deferred capital maintenance. Our elevator replacements includes municipal north and south buildings, the courthouse, and the pedestrian walkway bridge. Work scheduled to begin October 2026. Estimated project cost is 3.5 with current expense to date of 1.8. Our capital maintenance includes HVAC mechanical and electrical maintenance. Completed items so far are the rooftop units at the police building, police academy, new trailer installed at the municipal south building, and air handler controls at the main library. Current expense for capital maintenance is 1.6 to date. Moving to our overtime and temporary wages for the first month in the fiscal year, overtime and temp wages are tracking at target for the overall budget. And the next two slides will represent our overtime wages in detail and also our temporary wages. Departments continue to monitor overtime. Again, some overtime may be due to special projects or staffing limitations. And with our temporary wages, the overages will be offset by personal savings within the departments. This concludes my report. Are there any questions?

Thank you, Ms. Harris. Ms. Powers?

This doesn't include on the revenue side or clawback for the 60 days, you know, revenues that we pull in in July and August? Correct.

It does or it does not? It does. So they will need to go, yes, and that's where I stated where, yes. For example, on there, I think it's the sales tax, that will need to go back to physical year 2026, and we are working to make all of those adjustments. Yes, ma'am.

Mr. Mollison?

We normally get the kind of adjusted, I guess it'll be 2026. When do we expect that to be done?

So typically that hasn't been done, but I can absolutely add that to my report in September where it will show the final accruals for our expenditures and revenues and highlight that. I can do that. Thank you. Yes.

Other questions? I would just like to say that I like this format. I think it's a lot greater detail. And I also think one thing I've said in the past is any citizen that is seeing this on their YouTube screen or if they go and Google and look at it should be able to piece it together and kind of have a grasp of what they're looking at. And I think this definitely does a better job of doing that.

And I'm sorry, it wouldn't be our September report because we're in September now. My apologies. Yes.

All right. I thought we were in August, too. Thank you.

Any questions down here? Thank you, Ms. Harris. We appreciate it.

Thank you.

And, Mr. Mayor, I'd like to call Mr. Eumanns, who will be providing an update on the Planning, Building, and Development Assessment Report.

Welcome, Mr. Youmans.

Good evening. Mayor Cobb, Vice Mayor McGuire, Members of Council, Ms. Turner, Ms. Carini. I'm going to walk you through a brief briefing as it relates to the building assessment, planning building department assessment, which you saw probably last week slightly different than what you will see today. I made a few edits and changes. Just for context, this assessment was a system improvement effort focused on service, accountability, staffing, technology, communication, while maintaining adopted codes, safety standards, and ordinances. What you see in front of you here is a brief roadmap. This briefing is organized around five topics. First, why the department matters. Second, where the current operations stand. Third, how the assessment was conducted. Fourth, what changes next. And finally, how progress will be reported to council in the future. Planning and building department is one of the key offices where residents and businesses most directly experienced city government. It affects a homeowner trying to improve house, contracting schedule inspections, a business planning to open, and taxpayers who expect safe buildings and responsible growth. The final assessment states that residents improving homes, business owners opening storefronts and developer weighing investments all depends on this department. So this is absolutely a critical assessment. The assessment confirmed outside consultants with great experience identified how we can operationally improve across the board. The process was internally broad. It included employees, senior staff, partners, developers, architects, and many others to arrive at a conclusion. The assessment arrived at 25 recommendations, which you see in front of you. They're themed around leadership and culture, compensation and staffing, permits and operations, technology and reporting, and funding and services. This slide translates the recommendations into three lanes. The first lane is permits and reviews. This includes sorting projects by type, improving intake, and reducing avoidable back and forth in the review times. The second lane is staffing and support. Staffing needs leadership, clear roles, training and support, and enough capacity to address the workload. The third lane is guidance and customer service. This is about simple instructions, easy to read processes that everyone can navigate the process. Actions underway that we've already rolled out. These slides show that we've already moved into an action space. Operational stabilization includes interim leadership, outside review support, and focus attention on older permits and remaining building review workload. Hiring leadership and remain central in the permit department position we are currently advertising and we hope to fill that position soon. The process improvements includes completeness checks, pre-submission guidance, and review consistencies. When I came in a couple months ago, there was a backlog in permits. We can now say that there's steady progress made. That five-week window is now down to a one to two week. And we've accelerated in a lot of the process improvements over the past few months. We have an engagement roadmap. Key spaces of engagement, of course, is employees. uh... partner departments the support functions we also going to reach out engage planning commission board of zoning in architecture you boards to bring about to speed on the assessment this kind of walking through the implementation how we track it uh... we have uh... miss beverly who is the internal operations lead this for the rest of war who is primarily a change for in future Director that we hope to hire pretty soon will inherit all these different recommendations to drive across the finish line Before I start I want to acknowledge a few folks in the crowd miss Katherine She's done a fantastic job Helping us navigate and and move forward also miss Beverly. Could you please stand?

And miss Vanessa

Great team to help us move forward. I'll pause and see if you guys have any questions. If not, that concludes this briefing.

Thank you, Mr. Eumanns. Ms. Powers.

Yes, can you tell me how you handle the situation like when people call in with, you know, trying to find out where their permit is or where their plan is? What is your process for getting back, a timeline for getting back with those people who call in?

So in the space I see, it would be immediately. But Ms. Beverly, she's very active in reaching out to constituents. Since I've been here, we've got several emails asking for status updates. So we reach out readily available to those folks and try to give them the updates that they need pretty immediately.

So am I hearing right? You would rather have people email than call? I mean, that's what I've been told. So I'm just trying to figure out what to say to people when they ask me. you know, what to do, because I don't know what to tell them.

I would actually say whatever that person is comfortable with. We take calls, emails, and we hope to respond in a timely manner.

Thank you.

Questions?

Mr. Nash? With the... With the, you know, I know we need a, you know, kind of a structural reorganization of that department, which I feel is our most, I mean, I love our police, we've got our police in the back, you know, all our public safety folks, but all that aside, I feel like, you know, the planning department is not just about keeping people safe, but it's also a part of money-making for us as a city, right?

Absolutely.

And we want to be a place where housing builders, business builders, whatever, want to do business here. And so I know a piece of making money sometimes is spending it. And so when it comes to our technology systems we use, the softwares we use, I know in the report that it said that ours was maybe not the best, and there's need for some improvement. And one of the things we're looking at is potentially like a contractor getting someone to the table new. So what's the timeline on that? Do you have any information on that or?

A timeline?

Potential price tag?

I'm going to speak to my IT expert.

Okay, Miss Moore So right now we have already started doing the requirements and so we don't have a vendor in mind So we want to kind of look at the various vendors so during the next Fiscal year like this fiscal year. We will be looking at vendors issue the RFP look at vendors and The bond funding becomes available July 1, so close to that time frame would be when we would want to be trying to sign a contract, ideally. After that, implementation generally takes, I've seen, anywhere from 9 to 12 months.

No, and I'll just add this last piece. So let's please not have an Oracle redo of this new software. Let's make sure that we're really, really, really approaching this the right way. So thank you.

Is this to replace TrackIt?

It is to replace TrackIt. Yes. Unfortunately, that vendor got bought out several times, and it's landed with a vendor that doesn't get a lot of support. So it is time to replace it. Okay.

Thank you.

I HAD JUST SOME FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS. I REALLY APPRECIATE THIS PRESENTATION. IT'S GOOD TO HEAR THAT PROGRESS IS BEING MADE. I KNOW I HAVE HEARD JUST FROM A LOT OF PEOPLE IN THE COMMUNITY ABOUT CHALLENGES, AND, YOU KNOW, YOUR REPORT TELLS US THAT THERE WAS ACTUALLY A PROBLEM, THAT DELAYS HAD GOTTEN TO A FOUR-YEAR HIGH. And I echo what Councilman Nash said. We have allowed this situation, this situation has been allowed to get to a crisis point, and that has cost us millions of dollars, I suspect, in lost revenue, and then also in relational, you know, relationships with folks around the Valley, builders, developers, real estate agents. And I think that's going to take us some time to repair that. And I think that one way we will know if this is working is if we stop getting those phone calls from constituents telling us that they don't have their certificate of occupancy or they can't get their fence built. So I just want to make sure I heard you correctly. I had a couple of questions. One, do we have a contract in place for permitting assistance while we're working to get restaffed up? Do we have... someone on contract that is assisting us as these come in to make sure that that backlog doesn't start to pile back up as we get into the fall?

Yes, we previously had an entity helping us with the permit reviews. That entity is no longer there. We do have Ms. Beverly with the Berkeley Group. She's still with us in the leadership capacity.

Are we contracting with any additional contractors? No, sir. That's it. Have we throughout this process?

From my knowledge, we've only contacted with the Berkeley group, so they were helping us with the permit process review, and then from a leadership perspective.

And are we sending them on like a weekly basis, like permits for technical assistance to help us dig out?

We were. We no longer do that as of probably about three or four weeks now.

Yeah. Great. And so right now you're saying that the average delay is about one to two weeks? That's what folks in the community can expect. Are there different types of permits that might be a little longer, or is that just like a general message that we can get out to the community to expect about one to two weeks?

That's a general message that we can shop. We hope to kind of drill down and identify permits that we can review and approve one to two days, 24 hours, and kind of get to that detail, but we're not quite there yet.

Great. And then final question was how many outstanding or delayed permits are there today, as of today? Because I imagine that the number has improved from what we have in our report is 404. Maybe it's still 404. But then I was also wondering if we could start getting, until this is resolved and we are in the phase where this is being implemented and we have our new director in place, if council could get at each of our meetings, updates on just where we are with permits, just checking in. I don't expect that we would get every single item, but just a check-in. Are we on track or are we getting a little behind? Just so that we have a heads-up before we start getting those calls again from the community.

When I started about three months ago, I think we had about 400 and some odd backlog. Now we're down about 214, which is a significant gain. Ms. Beverly may be able to provide some additional context as well.

Welcome, Ms. Walker. We probably have a handful of permits that maybe lag over the one- to two-week process, and that's because of the complexity, and sometimes it's just because of the staffing. We may have an inspector out, and we may have to have our Plans reviewer back up that position. But generally we are caught up and we plan to remain caught up. We do have a fairly large project with Ryan Holmes and those permits come in a group at a time. So sometimes that may backlog some of the other permits. New construction can do that, and particularly with the Ryan Homes project. But everybody, all the plans reviewers and inspectors and planners are engaged, and they are looking forward to keeping these deadlines up to date.

Thank you very much. Just to help me make sure I understand, so we're one to two weeks behind on average a new permit coming in, and then we have about 214 that are still backlogged.

That's not a backlog. That is the actual permit applications that are in the system. In the hopper. In the system, yes. And our planners and our plans reviewers are up to date on their reviews. It may be, for example, a commercial review. We may have one or two of those that may be five days behind the deadline. So, you know, I didn't want to be too specific because when you're too specific, then folks look to that. They look to that exact date. They'll count those permits. And so I don't want to be too specific. However, we are up to date and generally trying to keep those dates from getting past a week.

Thank you. So if someone is listening and they're in that 214, they know they have something submitted, they can roughly expect one to two weeks, and if not, you know, check in. But give us about that.

They can roughly expect that we are on target.

All right. Thank you so much. You're welcome.

Yeah, I appreciate those questions. I think one of the things I was curious about is not only being able to report the progress that's being made, but what expectations people seeking permits can, what, you know, the range of time involved. And I know, to your point, Ms. Walkup, there's, for those that are more complex, it might require a little longer. But, you know, ideally it would be nice to start hearing that people We love coming to the city because we get those permits approved as quickly as we can considering the complexity of certain ones. So I don't know if that's a measurable goal, but it's certainly an optics goal to be able to hear from people in the community that not only to recognize the progress we're making, but that we're seeking to expedite as much as we can.

The 25 recommendations, you know, we really need to hire a director for that position to really execute all 25 of those, but there are some components we will be working on in establishing a better customer service, and those are a few times you're talking about.

Thank you. And I agree with the Vice Mayor. To have that kind of monthly update is very helpful for us. Thank you. I think we have one more briefing.

We have one more. I'd like to invite Mr. Winter. He will be providing an update on our consolidated annual performance report, our CAPER.

Welcome, Mr. Winter.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Mayor Cobb and members of council. accordance with the federal regulations found in 24 cfr part 570 the city of roanoke virginia has prepared the consolidated annual performance and evaluation report often referred to as the caper for the period of july 1 2025 to june 30th 2026. the purpose of the caper is to describe the activities undertaken during this period with funding provided That's not the right one. I'm not presenting today. I don't have a presentation today. I'm just talking from a narrative.

Okay. So you don't have a PowerPoint presentation? I do not have a PowerPoint presentation. Okay.

All right. Thank you. So bear with me, please. Sure. The purpose of the CAPER is to describe activities undertaken during this period with funding provided from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under the Community Development Block Grant, CDBG, the Home Investment Partnership Program , the Emergency Solutions Grant . There are three basic purposes for the CAPER. It provides HUD with the necessary information for the Department to meet its statutory requirements to assess each grantee's ability to carry out relevant CPD programs in compliance with all of their rules and regulations, all of HUD's rules and regulations. Number two, it provides information necessary for HUD's annual report to Congress as statutorily mandated. It provides grantees, the City of Roanoke, with an opportunity to describe to citizens our success in revitalizing deteriorated neighborhoods and meeting objectives stipulated in the five-year consolidated plan. For 2025, we received $1.8 million, just over $1.8 million in CDBG funds, $576,000 in home funds, and for the ESG, $159,000. The CAPER is due to HUD September 30th, 2026. A summary of our priority goals and expenditures. For the seat of Roanoke, fiscal year 2025 to 2029 five-year consolidated plan established six categories of priorities and goals to be addressed using CDBG funds, HOME, and ESG funding. The following goals and strategies were identified for the five-year period of 2025 through 2029. One, effective administration and planning strategy. Two, increase and improve social services. Three, create and maintain quality neighborhoods. Four, create and maintain safe and accessible infrastructure. improve supply of affordable housing a high priority for the city and six improve supply of affordable housing another high priority for the city the progress we've made for the community development block grant program public services continues its success by assisting households through rental assistance in both CDBG and ESG preventing prevention and rapid rehousing programs through the prevention and rehab rapid rehousing programs. Funding generally supported vital support programs such as on-site counseling services, not only for Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority tenants through the Family Service of Roanoke Valley Block Program, and supported services coordinated to help abused and neglected children through the Children's Trust CASA program, Children's Advocacy Center programs. Our challenges. Timeliness. The timely performance in accordance with CDBG regulations at 24 CFR 570-902, Roanoke City must have a balance of no greater than one and one-half its annual remaining in the line of credit, 60 days prior to the end of the program year. This means compliance with the requirement that the City of Roanoke must carry out its program in a timely manner. Measured by the rate of expenditure of funds from our line of credit the seat of Roanoke Housing and Neighborhood Services division which I manage is reviewing program policies and operating procedures to ensure funds are awarded to projects that are ready for implementation moreover the city is re-evaluating internal procedures for efficiency and effectiveness and policies and procedures and Overall, the CDBG program for the city of Roanoke met its national objective requirements of principally benefiting low- and moderate-income persons. The city spent just over $3.4 million in CDBG funds during this K-per-period. Including in this amount was $475,000 for planning and administration. The balance left of over $3 million was expended for project activities. $3 million was expended on project activities that benefit low- and moderate-income persons. This produced a low- and moderate-benefit percentage of 9.6%. And with that, I will open with any questions that you may have. Please pardon my sniffles.

Thank you, Mr. Weiner. Questions from counsel? Thank you, Mr. Winter. Thank you. Appreciate the update on that. I believe that concludes all of our briefings.

It does, thank you. All right.

All right, we'll now move into our items recommended for action. Item A is the authorization to request Virginia Department of Transportation or VDOT Transportation Alternatives program funds in reference to Salem Turnpike 36th Street to Westwood Boulevard. We have one measure of resolution. I'll entertain a motion and second.

Move the resolution.

Second. Thank you, Council Members Vollison and Hagan. Madam Clerk, will you please read the title paragraph?

A resolution authorizing the city manager or designee to submit an application to the Virginia Department of Transportation, Transportation Alternatives Program for funding of pedestrian improvements along Salem Turnpike Northwest and authorizing the city manager or designee to take such further actions and execute such further documents as may be necessary in connection with this application application. and funding.

Thank you. Ms. Turner, anything to add?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. We'll actually be applying for $1.3 million, and the total project cost is $1.6. 20% will be local match, and it will be provided through the city's annual curb, gutter, and sidewalk program.

Any questions or comments from members of council? Ms. Sanchez-Jones.

really happy that this is being done because I'm always concerned about the safety of all the children living from the apartment complex to Fairview Elementary. You know what would make it a lot safer as well would be a traffic light right there. So maybe one of these days we could find the funds to get a traffic light there.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Sanchez-Jones. Any other comments? All right. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Mr. Nash.

Aye.

Mr. Vollison.

Aye.

Ms. Powers. Aye. Mr. Hagan. Aye. Ms. Sanchez-Jones. Aye. Vice Mayor McGuire.

Aye.

Mayor Cobb.

Aye. And the resolution is adopted. Item B is the acceptance and appropriation of the fiscal year 2027 Virginia Department of Transportation annual street payments for the city of Roanoke. We have one measure in ordinance, and I'll entertain a motion and second. Move the ordinance. Second. Thank you, Council Members Nash and Vollison. Madam Clerk, will you please read the title paragraph?

An ordinance authorizing the acceptance of the fiscal year 2027 Virginia Department of Transportation maintenance allocation of the annual street payments for the city of Roanoke, authorizing execution of any required documents on behalf of the city, appropriating funds detailed more fully infra and dispensing with the second reading of this ordinance by title.

Thank you. Ms. Turner, anything to add?

I do. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. While we are excited to accept the additional funding, I do want to point out that this FY27 allocation is approximately $865,000 below the amount that we initially budgeted. So we are, again, recommending accepting of the VDOT maintenance payments along with making certain reductions to our Transportation Division FY27 budget to reconcile the difference.

Thank you for that point of clarification. Any comments or questions from members of council? Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Mr. Nash. Aye. Mr. Vollison.

Aye.

Ms. Powers. Aye. Mr. Hagan. Aye. Ms. Sanchez-Jones. Aye. Vice Mayor McGuire. Aye. Mayor Cobb.

Aye. The ordinance is adopted. Item C is the authorization to accept and rescind Virginia Department of Transportation revenue sharing and execution of agreements for multiple projects. There's one measure in ordinance, and I'll entertain a motion and a second. The ordinance. Second. Councilmembers Vollison and Sanchez-Jones. Madam Clerk, will you please read the title paragraph.

An ordinance authorizing the acceptance of the Virginia Department of Transportation Revenue Sharing Program funds through the Stormwater Utility Fund for multiple drainage projects. resending and disappropriating VDOT's funding associated with the Hollands Liberty Drainage Improvement Project, authorizing the city manager or designee to execute VDOT agreements and to take such actions and execute such documents as may be necessary to provide for the implementation, administration, and enforcement of the VDOT agreements, appropriating funds detailed more fully and dispensing with the second reading of this ordinance by title.

Thank you. Ms. Turner, anything to add?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. This item represents council authorization to accept approximately $11 million in VDOT revenue sharing funds for seven projects, including several drainage improvements and the Cove-Peters Creek intersection improvements. These projects represent significant investments in infrastructure and address stormwater and roadway needs throughout the city, with the required local match already identified in the capital improvement plan. The item also rescinds approximately $217,000 in VDOT funding for the Holland Road and Liberty Road drainage project as the city was unable to reach improvements and unable to reach an agreement with the affected property owner on the required drainage improvements and easement.

Thank you. Questions or comments? Yes, Mr. Vollison.

Ms. Turner, with the A rescinding of the money, we don't get that back, or does it go into another pile, or how does that work?

No, we actually have to give it back. When Mr. Campbell is here, he can speak directly to it.

Thank you, Mr. Turner. Yes, Council Member Wilson, that is correct, that that money will go back to the state and then be used for overall state grants. So, unfortunately, that's the case, but the right thing to do as we could not reach an agreement with the property owner.

Another question I had is I know that we're looking at Liberty Avenue for the realignment, I think, with Williamson. Does that get down to that area or not really?

So different location on Liberty, so that was more up towards Hollins Road. We're looking specifically through SmartScale around seven applications for realignment of that intersection at Williamson and Liberty.

Okay, so it wouldn't go over to Plantation in Hollins. All right, thank you. Other questions?

All right, Madam Mayor, will you please call the roll?

Mr. Nash. Aye. Mr. Vollison.

Aye.

Ms. Powers. Aye. Mr. Hagan. Aye. Ms. Sanchez-Jones. Aye. Vice Mayor McGuire. Aye. And Mayor Cobb.

Aye. And the ordinance is adopted. Item D is the acceptance and allocation of a cost of living adjustment from the Virginia Department of Social Services. We have one measure, an ordinance, and I'll entertain a motion and second. Second. Second. Thank you, Council Members Hagan and Nash. Madam Clerk, will you please read the title paragraph?

An ordinance authorizing a cost-of-living adjustment to the annual salaries of the Virginia Department of Social Services employees in the City of Roanoke for fiscal years 2027 and 2028, authorizing the city manager or designee to execute any necessary, well, any documents necessary for such increase, appropriating funds detailed more fully infra and dispensing with the second reading of this ordinance by title.

Thank you, Ms. Turner.

Yes, these next three items deal specifically with the Commonwealth's final budget. So this particular item, as you're aware, we gave a 2% cost of living. The state gave a 3.5%, and so we are reconciling the additional 1.5%.

Questions or comments from council? I see Ms. Coleman here. Thank you for being here today. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Mr. Nash? Aye. Mr. Vollison?

Aye.

Ms. Powers? Aye. Mr. Hagan? Aye. Ms. Sanchez-Jones?

Aye.

Vice Mayor McGuire? Aye. And Mayor Cobb?

Aye. The ordinance is adopted. Item E is the acceptance and allocation of funding for the pay band salary increase for family services specialists from the Virginia Department of Social Services. We have one measure, an ordinance, and I'll entertain a motion and second.

Move the ordinance.

Thank you, Council Members Hagan and Nash. Madam Clerk, will you please read the title paragraph?

An ordinance authorizing a pay band salary increase for the family services specialist from the Virginia Department of Social Services for fiscal years 2027 and 2028, authorizing the city manager or designee to execute any necessary activities any documents necessary for such increase, appropriating funds detailed more fully infra, and dispensing with a second reading of this ordinance by title.

Thank you. Ms. Turner, anything to add to this one?

This particular item establishes a $55,000 minimum salary for family services specialists and positions within the occupational group.

I'm curious, how many specialists of this type do we have within our department?

Good afternoon, Mayor. Welcome. Ms. Turner, members of the City Council. We currently have 64 family services specialist positions with the city.

Questions or comments? Mr. Vollison.

I notice that we have several DSS-related things that we're accepting right now. I just want to say thank you to our Department of Social Services. They're very much overworked. There are a lot of high caseloads, and so I'm glad that we're able to help with supporting those staff and keep more of our staff in retention.

Thank you.

All right, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Mr. Nash.

Aye.

Mr. Vollison.

Aye.

Ms. Powers. Aye. Mr. Hagan. Aye. Ms. Sanchez-Jones. Aye. Vice Mayor McGuire. Aye. And Mayor Cobb.

Aye. And the ordinance is adopted. Item F is the acceptance and allocation of a one-time bonus from the Virginia Department of Social Services. We have one measure and ordinance, and I'll entertain a motion and a second. Move the motion. Second. Thank you, Council Members Vollison and Nash. Madam Clerk, will you please read the title paragraph?

An ordinance authorizing and approving a one-time bonus of 2% of their fiscal year 2026 salary to full-time local Department of Social Services employees, authorizing the city manager or designee to execute any documents necessary for such increase, appropriating funds detailed more fully infra and dispensing with the second reading of this ordinance by title.

Thank you. Ms. Turner, anything to add?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. This particular item provides $230,000 as a bonus payment, and we are accepting that, and it's fully funded by the Virginia Department of Social Services, so it does not require a local match.

Questions or comments from council? All right. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Mr. Nash? Aye. Mr. Vollison?

Aye.

Ms. Powers? Aye. Mr. Hagan?

Aye.

Ms. Sanchez-Jones? Aye. Vice Mayor McGuire? Aye. And Mayor Cobb?

Aye. And the ordinance is adopted. Now we have one more item for action, and I'm going to turn to our attorney to bring that before us. All right. The walk-on item is an ordinance, and it's one measure, an ordinance, and I need a motion and second on the ordinance. Second. All right. Thank you, Councilmember Nash and Sanchez-Jones. Madam Clerk, I'll ask that you read the title paragraph, please.

All right.

An ordinance providing for the acquisition of certain real property owned by Valley Lands, Inc. and located at 1112 Tinker Creek Lane, Northeast. and 0 Tinker Creek Lane Northeast, authorizing city staff to acquire such property by negotiations for the city, authorizing the city manager or designee to execute appropriate acquisition documents and dispensing with the second reading of this ordinance by title.

Thank you. Ms. Turner?

No comments from me.

No comments?

Would you like me to comment?

I think it would be helpful to give some context for this. Oh, okay. Well, I can do that. I'm sorry. It's just an address, but there's much more to this than just the address.

All right. The City of Roanoke is seeking to purchase certain real property owned by Valley Land, Inc., or also known as Old Monterey. located at 111 Tinker Creek Lane Northeast. It's 236 acres. The city is considering using the property for purposes such as expansion of the Roanoke Center for Industry and Technology from future manufacturing industrial site. construction development of an additional school for Roanoke Public City Schools, future housing development in conjunction with a future developer, and or future park and recreational space for Roanoke City Parks and Recreation. The city is proposing to purchase the property in fee simple, free and clear of all liens and encumbrances for $8 million. This amount is based on negotiations with the property owner.

Anything you would add, Madam Attorney?

No.

All right. Questions and comments? Mr. Ollison.

I just want to say that I am very excited for this purchase. This is something that we've been looking at for a little while. It's one of the largest open areas that is available for development. And so I'm really excited to see the possibilities that can come from this land. I think that I want to thank our staff for negotiating. I think this was a great price for what we're getting and the opportunity that it opens up for our city is tremendous. I mean, we're here working on our last tract in the RCIT, and now it may not be the last tract in the RCIT. So there's a lot of opportunity from that area, and I just want to say thank you to the staff and everybody for getting this together, and I am so excited to vote yes on it.

Questions? Mr. Hagan. For the purposes of the public, how large is this property? Just because I don't think it was actually said anywhere until...

236 acres. Okay.

So that provides for, like you said, a potential use of industrial future school or housing development and or future parks.

So, yeah.

Vice Mayor?

Thank you, Mayor. I would just like to say that I can be supportive of this, but, you know, we do have an existing comprehensive plan, of course, and I hope that it is the intention of city staff and every member of council to be collaborative and engage with the community and get feedback on on what the future of this site might look like. I understand we have a lot of different needs and interests, but I think it's really important that if we use public taxpayer dollars for it, that the public has some input and there be some transparency in this process and that the decisions be made in a transparent way with public input and best interests in mind.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. All right. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Mr. Nash. Aye. Mr. Vollison.

Aye.

Ms. Powers? Aye. Mr. Hagan?

Aye.

Ms. Sanchez-Jones? Aye. Vice Mayor McGuire? Aye. And Mayor Cobb?

Aye. And the ordinance is adopted. Thank you all. We'll move now to our comments of the city manager.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have three comments for today. On September 2nd and 3rd, I had the opportunity to bring our department directors together for a two-day leadership advance at Roval Labs. Very nice facility, by the way. It was a great opportunity to step away from our day-to-day work to strengthen our leadership as a team, share perspectives, and focus on how we can continue working together to the to deliver the best possible services to the community. Number two, the Wacina Bridge Replacement Project is now approximately 95% complete, with the contractor focus on final bridge and roadway improvements. We're excited to see the project nearing completion and look forward to reopening the bridge and reconnecting the Wacina and Old Southwest neighborhoods in the coming weeks. And my final comment for today is September is National Preparedness Month, and our emergency management and stormwater teams are working together to help residents be ready for emergencies and severe weather. Throughout the month, staff will be sharing preparedness tips and connecting the community to encourage everyone to sign up for emergency alerts, understand their risks, build an emergency kit, and have a plan. And those are my comments for today, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Ms. Turner. We'll move now to item two, which is our city attorney. And we have a briefing for a code amendment briefing related to our youth athletics review board. So I'll turn to Ms. Carini.

Thank you, Mayor. Kimberly Beamer, assistant city attorney, is going to be giving the briefing with any assistance from Angie O'Brien. Thank you.

Welcome, Ms. Beamer.

Thank you. This is my first time to the podium, so I'm a little nervous. But good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of Council. Before you today is a proposed code amendment. And just to give you some context, if you recall or maybe you might remember, in February of 2025, we did a code amendment to give all of the advisory boards to council a place to live in the code, and that included the Youth Athletic Review Board, commonly known as YARB. So that is one of the boards that falls under that advisory board, and that is Section 2-316, which is the proposed code amendment before you today. That board plays a unique role in shaping public input, recommending policy, supporting programming and community involvement and engagement in regards to youth athletics. The proposed code amendment seeks to reform board membership. All of the rest of the code section in relation to the board will stay the same. The change will just reform how the board is composed and currently There is no restriction in serving in any capacity in a zone provider, which, and I guess to give context on that, in the city there are four zones that handle programming for youth athletics. So currently there are no restrictions in serving in a capacity for a zone as well as on the board. We want to propose a change that will... give a little more criteria in a member that they may not, if they are going to serve on the board, that they may not serve in a capacity for a zone, whether it be an athletic director, a coach, it spells it out in the amendment. Coach, coordinator, athletic director, board member, regardless of title. The goal in doing that is to establish equity and fairness throughout the city in relation to what sports are offered to the youth and to make sure that the board is giving a fair and inclusive representation to the city in what the community might need and what interest there is out there in terms of sports for youth athletics.

Thank you. And remember, this is a briefing. We're not taking action on this today. We'll come back before us on the... September 21st. September 21st in the evening.

Of the 2 o'clock session.

2 o'clock session. Yes. All right. Any comments or questions from Council? Ms. Powers.

So the employees that act as scorekeepers and that type of title, do they serve on the... Zone part or no? Are they strictly just an employee of Parks and Rec? Or do you know?

Well, I'll let Angie answer. She probably knows better than I do.

Those are typically employees of Parks and Recreation, part-time employees.

So they don't serve on the boards or get involved in the zone section stuff?

No. I mean, they may have a child, say, participate, but by their work necessarily with the city, they are not related or connected to any of those zones, at least not intentionally.

And with the change, they wouldn't be able to either write? No, absolutely not.

They just wouldn't be able to serve on the board. Right.

Other questions? Oh, yes, Ms. Sanchez-Jones.

Ms. Carini, why the changes in the code?

Why are we making this change? Please help if you need to. I think there's been some conflict of interest in the past, and so we are providing a framework to prevent any conflict going forward.

Thank you very much for bringing this to us. I think that this could help us avoid some of the conflicts of interest but I just want to kind of throw out there for us to think about this is not going to address all of the issues that we have so just so that council is aware of that if you have not had a chance to meet with some of the different teams and coaches and folks that work with the zone providers do that because they all have very important perspective and feedback that I'm sure they'd be glad to share but I think this is one piece of the issue but we can perhaps discuss it more later, but just so that everyone is clear, you know, the youth sports program is kind of falling apart right now. And if the expectation from us or in the community is that this is going to fix it, it will not. Just moving forward right now because Southeast has left, I think, and I think GSA is leaving for one of their footballs. And so that is all happening right now. And so we sort of have like a crisis before us with our youth athletics unfolding. Again, I just think this, I don't know that this is going to solve it, so I don't know what I'm suggesting, but if we move ahead with this at the next meeting and don't do anything else, we're not going to address the problem. So I'll give that some thought, but just wanted to throw that out there for you all as well, that this is not going to fix what needs to be fixed.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Are there questions or comments on this brief?

If I could just add one more point. Our proposal is to make this change effective January 1st of next year. So that shouldn't affect some board members.

There are several vacancies on the board as of right now. So making it effective January 1st would make it effective after their term expires.

All right. Thank you all. for the briefing today. Right. We'll now move to our Director of Real Estate Valuation. I'm pleased to welcome Mr. Casey Bratton, who is bringing us a briefing on general reassessment results, and every council member should have one of these at your desk. Welcome, Mr. Bratton.

Good afternoon, Mayor Cobb, Vice Mayor McGuire, Honorable Members of Roanoke City Council, Madam City Manager Turner, and Madam City Attorney Carini. What this is is an update from January. In January, we did proposed reassessment. This is the actual, so this is the results of the informal appeals and the formal appeals. Also, quarter three and quarter four, your building permit cycle. Back in January of 2026, the proposed reassessment was 5.99%. New construction was 0.56%. We projected a total of 6.55% increase. Your actuals as of July 1... is 5.93% in increase based on reassessment, .58% increase based on new construction, and a 6.55% increase. These are actuals. So our projections actually met our actuals. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my team back in real estate valuation for the wonderful job they do in not only doing the reassessment process, but also in projecting new construction. If you think about it, two ways to expand a tax base. That's through general reassessment and then also the new construction. So just keep that in mind as we go through the presentation. Looking at our assessment trends over the last 15 years, we're beginning to see the market moderate. We've experienced four quarters of the strongest reassessment periods in 15 years. Supply, choices, while a factor, today's market is also being influenced by higher mortgage rates, affordability, inflation, and broader economic uncertainty. So I wouldn't characterize this as a declining market. I would characterize it as a transitioning market. The appeal results or assessment appeal results are based on just the informal process. We've had 253 appeals in our office, roughly resulting in $6.1 million in reduction. And the official appeals process, the appeals to the Board of Equalization, we were looking at approximately $1.98 million in reductions. When you think about the fact you have 46,000 properties and roughly $12.3 billion in assessed value, that's not really that significant. You see this slide every year, too, as part of our projections. I would just point to 2025 and 2026. If you look at it, overall volume is down. Volume of valid sales are down. And then prices are stabilized. Median sale price is stabilized. Not too concerned about the 393 of valid sales. We have about 700 sales to review. And that usually happens this time of year when we start to close out the reassessment process. Things pick up a little bit, and we start to see some of that normalize. But it's still concerning the 393 sales. Multi-family, same deal here, you know, with that time of year where pretty much things are starting to pick up on our side of it and we're starting to review. So the volume while down, prices are stabilized across converted houses and apartment sales. I mean, it's not too much of a jump or transition. Commercial sales activity. In the commercial sector, sales are an important market indicator, but they're not the sole determinant of value. For income producing properties, we also consider income performance where appropriate, the cost approach, reconciling those indicators to develop our assessments. From a sales perspective, our industrial and office sectors continue to perform well. Mixed use properties remain the most complex to evaluate because of multiple uses. And overall, the commercial market is showing stability with performance varying by property type rather than moving uniformly in either direction. So we're really encouraged by what's going on in commercial. It's kind of stable. And you would expect that. As I said in the beginning, our tax base is heavily influenced by reassessment, the appreciation of value in the reassessment category, and new construction. This chart right here goes back to 2020. It just shows you that we are actually doing pretty well as far as new construction, especially in this last half between 2023 and 2026. So what I want to talk to you now about is development activities. We have a lot of strong development activities throughout the city. You know, there's not every project, every opportunity here, but just some benchmarks, some things that will benchmark where we are right now. And we'll talk a little bit, allude to our development partners and talk a little bit about, you know, where we're headed from that perspective. Again, our tax base can heavily be influenced by new construction. Wilton subdivision, there are 44 lots left to build. Current list price is between $860,000 and $1.1 million. And that's the Ryan Holmes product. The development at 22nd and Richelieu recently discovered that Avis Construction has been board on board, and they recently passed a permitting process. They're getting ready to start to develop this. What you see here is you're going to see 11 townhomes, but they're going to be 22 apartment units. Brandon Village Townhomes, located in the Towers area, a Robert Fralin development. Currently, these are listed around approximately $330,000, and they're going to be 30 townhomes completed there. Keggy Way townhomes located in the southwest Roanoke, they will be offering 25 townhomes between $359,000 and $420,000. Walker Foundry. This is another Ryan Homes. I'm sorry, the last couple have been. This is another Ryan Homes product. They are projecting 136 townhomes at this site, coupled with workforce housing assistance for qualified buyers. It transforms an underutilized industrial property into new housing, home ownership opportunities, and neighborhood investment. And one of the most attractive things about this project from Talking to the pre-developers in advance was their proximity to the Greenway. They felt like this would be an opportunity to leverage the Greenway and provide commercial opportunities as well as living so that people can access the Greenway in the evenings when they get off from work. This is Broadlawn Subdivision. If you look to the map here to the right, you'll see Cove Road and Petersgroup Road. This is in Northwest. This is also a Ryan Homes project. What they're proposing here is 48 new homes. They hope to start this fall. And if you look here, the model, this is actually the streetscape, and these are the homes that are going to be built in that area off of Cove Road. Real positive development over there, especially when you think about the new company we have coming in. It's probably less than three-quarters of a mile from where Ringana is going to be. New single-family residence by Quadrant from 2024 to 2026. We pulled this internally through our analysts, and one of the things you'll notice is that Between those years, if you just take Northeast, there's $24 million in value that's been realized from 2024 to 2026. In Northwest, it's $6.2 million. In Southeast combined, it's $7 million. And in Southwest, it's $24.3 million. The biggest thing you can get from this slide and then in the background, we've built 557 houses single-family residents in the last 10 years, 40% of them have come since 2024, 53% since 2023. So those are real positive elements for us as far as recognizing that there's some challenges housing-wise. Now I want to go through a couple of these slides and just kind of show you secondary units, dwelling units. This right here is a project that started off as a duplex and then they added another UNIT TO IT AT THE VERY BOTTOM, IF YOU LOOK AT THAT. SO WE HAVE THE PRIMARY DUPLEXES, TWO BEDROOMS, ONE BATH, LEASING AT $1,300 A MONTH, AND THE ONE BEDROOM, ONE BATH IS LEASING AT $1,200 A MONTH. VERY AFFORDABLE. THIS IS ANOTHER ONE. THIS WAS BUILT WITH A GUEST COTTAGE IN THE BACK. IF YOU LOOK TO THE BOTTOM RIGHT HERE, YOU'LL SEE IT CAME ONLINE THIS YEAR IN 2026, BUT YOU HAVE A PRIMARY RESIDENCE, A GUEST COTTAGE, AND A TOTAL VALUE OF $1.3 MILLION. And then this one here is 1230 and 1234 Hobart. Really interesting project. It was built by Prescott developers. Total units on this site is six units. So what you have among those six units is you have a two-bedroom, one-bath cottage in the back, and a four-bedroom, three-and-a-half single-family house up top. And then on the basement, it's a built-ass apartment. So combined... You have six units. Before this project was done, the city was assessing those two lots at $86,000. Current assessment on those is approximately $1.2 million. I'd like to see more of those. East Point, we talk about this, the largest apartment complex in the history of the city of Roanoke by TBP Properties out of Lynchburg. They have over 2,100 properties in Lynchburg. But what's great here is there's 16 buildings, 768 units. The rental rate per month is $1,600 to $2,200 per month. This image in the foreground is actually the first building of 16 buildings that's been completed. And over here is just the other buildings that various states are ready in phase one. Riverdale Development, Phase 1 has started. We're talking about $102 million in Phase 1 between the hospital and the 266-unit apartment building. They were not able to give me the hospital because the plans are still being vetted by Carillion, but they were able to give me this rendering here of the apartments. That's what the 266-unit apartment building is going to look like. It's considered under the financing terms with HUD. IT'S THE LARGEST ONE IN THE REGION AND THE FIFTH LARGEST ONE IN THE STATE OF VIRGINIA. I'VE BEEN ASKED A LOT ABOUT THE SUCCESS OF THE HOTEL ABATEMENT PROGRAM. OF COURSE, THE PROMISERY WAS THE FIRST ONE. 27 ROOM BOUTIQUE HOTEL WITH RESTAURANT EVENT SPACE. I DON'T KNOW IF ANYBODY'S HAD A CHANCE TO GO BY. REALLY BEAUTIFUL FACILITY. AND THEY'VE DONE AN AMAZING JOB. AND IT'S SORT OF WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT WHEN YOU GUYS GAVE US PERMISSION TO GO FORWARD WITH THE HOTEL ABATEMENT PROGRAM. WAS TO RETURN SOME OF THESE ROOMS BACK TO THE CITY, BUT ALSO TO CREATE UNIQUE OPPORTUNITIES LIKE THIS. BECAUSE IF YOU LOOK AT 27 ROOMS IN A BUILDING THAT SIZE, IT PROBABLY WOULDN'T WORK. BUT IN A BUILDING THAT SIZE WITH WHAT I CONSIDER TO BE A CONFERENCE CENTER OR EVENT SPACE AND A HOTEL, I THINK YOU HAVE A REALLY GOOD UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY THAT, WELL, I THINK THE HOTEL ABATEMENT PROGRAM HAS FACILITATED. We have 120 rooms residents in by Marriott at 1809 Franklin. This, too, is a part of the hotel abatement program. As of today, we're right a little bit over a year, 30% of the program is committed. We capped it at 500 rooms, so we're excited by the fact that it's tracking pretty good. And so your five-year sunset or 500 rooms, whichever comes first, and as you notice, with that commitment there, we have 30% of it committed. Town Place Suites, this is not inside of the, in the hotel abatement program. This is located in Blue Hills. It's mid-scale, extended stay with 92 rooms. What's most exciting about this and everything along 460, you just see where a lot of the critical mass is starting to happen there simply because, you know, some of the things Amazon and some Coca-Cola plant purchased the Orvis building. And so you're starting to see a lot of synergy there. And these things happen when you start to see a lot of synergy. So this is a great, great project for that area. Town Square Shopping Center, Academy, Academy Sports and Outdoors, new facility coming online. But here's the thing, there's something special going on out there. I've said it before. You have that. You have HomeSense that's going in there. That shopping center recently sold for $43 million in advance of these two projects. So on the backside of it, too, don't forget you have Audis, BJs, and then you have the prospect of advanced auto. That's actually been under contract a few times. I think that when you see that sort of critical mass, you're going to start to see people come out and start to ask questions, why is this happening? And then you're less than three-quarters of a mile from Valley View Mall, and I think it's a retail cluster. So hopefully, you know, the folks that come here to do this will understand that we do have something special going on in Roanoke along that corridor. And that brings me to Kickback Jack's at Valley View Mall building right next door to Buffalo Wild Wings. There's 19 restaurants out there. I told you before, there are four more planned. There's some cinnamon da cabas coming, raisin canes, and a first watch. I don't know what's going on. I mean, between there and Town Square, we have a lot going on in that area. And from a retail perspective, it's just really encouraging for us to keep supporting these areas and actually look into those as being areas that we're going to be able to count on in the future. Downtown Roanoke, your number one assessed neighborhood in the entire city. At $821 million, one of the things I wanted to talk about is the return of the rehab program. There are $39 million in abated value right now. That's roughly 4.7% of the entire neighborhood. Between now and 2033, those will come off. That's comprised of 32 projects at $39 million in abated value. The biggest return is going to be in 2030. with $11.4 million in abated value returning back to the tax rolls. The other thing that's important, the reason why I have the Norfolk Southern Tower here, just found out United Healthcare has 300 employees in there. They're taking a floor and a half of that building. And the top floor, by next year, this building should be 100% occupied. And there's another tenant searching downtown with 250 employees. I think there's a big endorsement of downtown and the progress has been made on behalf of rehab programs and a lot of the other things we've done to encourage it. Also, crime is down in downtown. I think there's a lot of encouraging things going on. It's a really great time for us in downtown Ronald throughout the city. I mean, if you look at some of the development You don't get a national builder here like Ryan Holmes committing to build 500 homes. You don't get some of these employers coming back. Think about it. Offices, CB, Central Business District, has typically been between 15% and 20% vacancy. This building will be 100% occupied, and it is part of the rehab program. So there's something to be proud of. Those people are going to come down here, work, shop, hang out after hours. That's good encouragement. That's 500 people, 550 people. Finally, I would like to close by taking this opportunity to thank each of you for continued support and engagement. I think it is important for our constituents to understand just how engaged you are as a council, especially when it comes to our real estate portfolio, and more importantly, in finding effective ways to address the challenges and opportunities before us. Whether it's assisting in our unhoused community, expanding affordability housing options, understanding the impact of zoning amendments, improving the stewardship of unattended railroad assets, Addressing blighted and derelict properties or making thoughtful decisions regarding the acquisition and disposition of real estate, your involvement matters. Your engagement has also challenged our office to grow. It has pushed us to provide better information, stronger analysis, and more effective resources to support your initiatives and the decisions you are called upon to make. Thank you. Any questions? Mr. Bratton.

Ms. Powers.

Earlier presentation, you talked about a qualified and unqualified sales. Yes. Can you just address that to the audience? Sure. Because I think some people don't really realize what that means. Yes.

So when you look at sales, we actually vet sales from a standpoint of whether or not they're valid or invalid. A valid sale is something where there's an arms lease transaction and both buyer and seller are informed. There's some typical market exposure time. And that's important in how we vet things because that's what the standard is. That's the standard statewide. It's not just me. Invalid sales are sales where there's some sort of transaction that a related party transaction typically they come into play with divorce cases or let's just say a property is a tax sale or a tax lien sale. Those are invalid sales. We vet sales primarily to make sure we have a healthy sample. Our trailing ratio this year based on assessment ratio is at ninety two point three percent. If you just think about us if you think about you know getting a hundred on your exam we're at ninety three point two percent in our trailing ratio. So we're pretty solid there. But a lot of what goes into that are our sales and how we vet them. And the state just comes, they collect them, and they look at our sales to determine how effective we are as a team.

And, you know, just one thing that I'm seeing as I'm watching the market myself, I see a house that will go on the market and, say, for example, it might be $650,000. And it sits there for, you know, 60 to 90 days or whatever. There's an awful lot of houses that I see that keep saying price reduce, price reduce. What kind of effect is that going to have on our next reassessment?

Well, I think that's just what I said early on. There's a moderate, the market is starting to moderate a lot. I mean, it's just the economic pressures right now are there. I mean, when you have the mortgage rates are high, you know, economic uncertainty, the challenges. And here's the thing, housing prices are not correcting fast enough Even for people to say, well, you know what, if it lowers a little bit at this rate, I can buy. It's just a challenging market right now. And you're asking people to give up 3.25%, 3.5% interest to go at 6.5% interest, and that's pretty tough. So I think you're going to start to see that, especially on the residential side. That one slide where I showed you was 390 sales that are valid right now. That is concerning just from the standpoint we've not seen it that way. Because even with the 700 sales that we still are reviewing, there's a mix or match. It's probably about 60-40 where some of those sales are kick-out valid or invalid. It just depends. And we're looking at a market, too, that's been heavily impacted by just a lot of what we consider house flippers. They go out, they don't take out permits in some cases. And we're getting that information late. So those are valid as well. So we don't really always have a good barometer in the market. And these guys are going to have to dig a little bit deeper this next cycle because what helps us when we have a volume of sales, we can actually start to isolate neighborhoods in a way that we can value them based on specialized size, quality, and condition. We just aren't in a position to do that. I don't think right now it's pretty unique.

Follow-up?

Great presentation and way to go, predicting almost on the money what the assessments were going to be. I think it's really important to think about the new construction aspect. I think you showed us that we have a lot of projects in the works. which is great, but I want to go back to 1230 and 1234 Hobart Avenue, which I think is a great example of how the rezoning that we passed created more missing middle housing and also increased the revenues that our city's taking in. So going from $80,000 for those two lots to $1.2 million, and the city didn't have to spend a dime incentivizing it. just changing in policy. And that's what's so important about the zoning that we have, because it allows these missing middle, it allows for those vacant lots to turn into things like these beautiful homes on Hobart Avenue. And so I hope that the future councils will keep that in mind when they're thinking about how to redo the rezoning. We have to make sure that we increase our revenues, and that's one of the best ways for us to do it.

Other questions or comments? Mr. Nash.

You know, I just want to say that this is, you know, it's good to see development going on. I think sometimes when we turn on the TV here locally and look at the news, we see a lot of negative. And don't get me wrong. I mean, we definitely have to focus on the negatives, right? We have to strengthen those areas of weaknesses, the areas of opportunity. We have to do that. But at the same time, and in the same breath, We have to acknowledge the wins. We have to acknowledge, you know, like we're going to build ourselves. This is something you always talk about, that we can build ourselves out of this hole, right? We can literally build ourselves out. And so seeing all these homes, and I know there are some more to come that aren't listed on here, but more stuff in the works, right? So I'm very optimistic and very excited to see all this good building going on, especially for kickback jacks, just in time for football.

Thank you, Mr. Nash. Other questions? All right. Thank you, Mr. Brasser. I appreciate this a lot. We'll turn now to Item 8, Reports of Committees. And we have a report of the Roanoke City School Board requesting appropriation of funds for various educational programs. and a report of the city manager recommending that city council concur on the request. Before we move to this budget ordinance, I'll ask our two colleagues that need to make statements of conflict of interest to enter those into the record.

Thank you, Mayor. I, Stephen Terry McGuire, state that I have a personal interest in item number 8.1 relating to the Roanoke City School Board requesting appropriation of funds for various educational programs. Because I am an employee of Roanoke City Public Schools and as an employee, I have a personal interest in this transaction. Therefore, in accordance with Virginia Code section 2.2-3112, I will refrain from participation in this matter. I ask that the Clerk accept this statement and ask that it be made a part of the minutes of this meeting.

Thank you. Councilwoman Sanchez-Jones?

I, Vivian Sanchez-Jones, state that I have a personal interest in item number 8.1 relating to the Roanoke City School Board requesting appropriation funds for various educational programs. Because I am an employee of Roanoke City Public Schools, and as an employee, I have a personal interest in this transaction. Therefore, in accordance with Virginia Code Section 2.2-3122, I will refrain from participating in this matter. I ask that the clerk accept this statement and ask that it be made part of the meeting.

Thank you.

Now we'll turn to the budget ordinance. We have one measure, and I'll ask for a motion and second. Second. Thank you, Council Members Hagan and Bollison. Madam Clerk, will you please read the title paragraph?

An ordinance to appropriate funding from the Commonwealth, federal, and private grant for various educational programs, amending and reordaining certain sections of the 2026-2027 school grant fund appropriations for fiscal year 2027, and dispensing with the second reading by title of this ordinance.

Thank you. Any discussion by members of council? Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Mr. Nash. Aye. Mr. Vollison.

Aye.

Ms. Powers. Aye. Mr. Hagan. Aye. And Mayor Kopp.

Aye. And the budget ordinance is adopted. Thank you.

Mr. Hagan.

Colleagues to come back in.

cats.

We'll move ahead. Our next item are comments on certain authorities, boards, committees, and commissions in which city council serve as liaisons or appointees. Do we have any liaison reports today? All right. We don't have any unfinished business or Consideration of ordinances and resolutions. We are going to recess to finish our closed meetings. And then once we do that, we will reconvene in here, certify our closed meeting, and then conclude business for the day. So we are in recess. Thank you all for coming.

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And I'm Sasha Pfeiffer. When we think about success, we usually assume it takes hard work and tenacity. But journalist Lindsey Krauss says all that pushing, pushing, pushing can actually be counterproductive. She's out with a new book called The Case for Quitting, The Surprising Benefits of Opting Out.

We think of the quitter as a failure, whereas that marathon runner who finishes despite the injury, that person is inherently noble. And what I'm trying to do with this book is show that quitting and perseverance are actually complementary actions.

Kraus writes from personal experience. She was a distance runner who tried to power through an injury, and it didn't go well. In her book, she interviews people who found success and satisfaction from giving up. She told me that sometimes involves destigmatizing what it means to be a quitter.

If we treat quitting as the enemy of success, we lose. It's often the courageous first step to something better. It's a pivot. It's a break. So I'm not saying that that marathon runner who is pushing through and finishing is doing something wrong. But what I'm trying to do with this book is propose to the person who thinks of perseverance as the only option. and quitting as absolute failure, I want them to see stopping as an option as well so that they can focus on efforts and paths where they truly do want to persevere.

Although for some people, quitting may actually not be an option, whether it's the reliance on a paycheck, the need for health insurance, a lousy job market. So what about, I mean, is there an argument that in some sense being able to quit is a privilege?

There is, absolutely. And I don't want to dispel that. I am not with this book trying to tell everyone out there to go and quit their job. What I am trying to get people to focus on is to look at where they actually do have options and to think of continuing as a choice as well. But I think just that actual question. question that we might ask ourselves of why am I still doing this? Sometimes the answer is for a lot more passive of a reason than we might think. Sometimes it's because I've been on this path for forever because when I was 16, I started studying math and just kept doing that. When I was in college, I was pre-law and just went to law school and I'm still doing that.

And by the way, it's not just jobs you're talking about, it's relationships. You write about what you call the cost of staying. What are examples of the cost of staying outweighing the costs of leaving?

Sure. So in the book, I talk to a guy who met a woman and it starts being, you know, are we hanging out this weekend? But what time? And then you move in together and then what choice is there but to get married? After a while, he started to realize, I want more. And so for him, the cost of staying wound up being almost sleepwalking through his life. And so in quitting, well, of course, he first tried to talk to his wife about his reservations. But part of what made their relationship so appealing in the first place was the comfort, was the sort of stasis, was the sort of like avoidance of bigger questions and And I think that's the cost of staying. It's choosing comfort over possibility. And quitting can help you reframe that and seize the possibility that you want from your life.

But quitting obviously can be extremely frightening. You don't know that things are going to work out better. Will you find a new relationship? Will you find a new job? So how much sympathy do you have for people who say, I'm just not comfortable with that level of uncertainty?

So when we contemplate quitting, we are easily paralyzed by fear. I mean, this is our brain protecting us. We naturally hate uncertainty. But usually our fear around quitting involves judgment. There's this idea called the spotlight effect. It's a bias that observes that we often think of ourselves as going around our lives under an imaginary spotlight where we assume other people are paying a lot more attention to us than they actually are. In reality, often no one cares, especially the people who matter most. And so that's really important to keep in mind. The same people that supported you when you went down, whatever you want to quit now, are going to support you when you want to walk away.

This is a certain type of person, but I'm thinking back to when Simone Biles, the famous gymnast, was criticized because she withdrew from a bunch of her Olympic events a few years ago. She said she was focusing on her mental health. She had a lot of negative backlash. Now, again, she's essentially a celebrity.