City Council Formal Meeting - 09/23/2025

Welcome all. I call this meeting together. Mr. Dhaney, I think we have some informative stuff here. All right.

So, Mr. Mayor, members of council, at this time, we'll receive a presentation about the update regarding the I264 Independence Boulevard inter interchange project. the the members that's going to be presented will be introduced by Dave Garman who is a member of our public works department. Dave, the floor is yours.

All right. Thank you, um, city manager.

Appreciate that. Uh, Mr. Mayor, members of city council, we thank you for the opportunity to come today and talk about the I264 Independence Boulevard interchange access project. Um, as you may recall, we previously briefed council on this back in May of 2024.

Seems like such a long time ago. And at at that point in time, we were kneedeep in the interchange access report that actually started in August of 23. It's scheduled the work is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year with um reviews to be done by V. FHWA to follow. So during that time, we've uh looked at alternatives. Our the team has a consultant team. Um reviews have been

done, modeling's been done, and we've brought that to a point where we can recommend a preferred alternative. and uh VOTE recommended today or asked today to uh brief council before we go out to the public and get feedback on the on the uh preferred alternative. So council is going to get a chance to see kind of the the end product here. Before we get in the presentation, I do want to

acknowledge we do have VOTE staff here with us today. Um let me introduce my camera quick. Bruce Dval is the acting deputy district engineer for project delivery and development. Um, Caleb Brooks is the senior transportation planner and Angela Afas Ampasa is the transportation planning director. Um, that's our VOTE representative here at the Hampton Roads um district. Here locally, we also have our consultant

team WSP. They're based in Virginia Beach. Um, John Hendrickson is a senior vice president of transportation group.

Tim Rener is vice president uh as and well as a traffic engineer. And Kristen Bellfield is also vice president as well as traffic engineer. and Kristen is going to be giving our presentation today. I'm going to go ahead and hand it off to her. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Thanks, Dave. So, we're just going to get right into it.

All right. The agenda for today, we're going to discuss a little bit about the project history, what's been studied on I264, talk about our study area, alternatives that we had assessed, um the evaluation criteria that we used, and the then the preferred alternative that came out of that. We'll discuss a bit of the phasing uh for funding and the schedule.

All right, a little bit about the project history. There have been uh instances of uh several studies along I264 studying different areas. So back in 2016, VOTE did a study along 264 from uh city of Norfolk line to Birdneck and that studied all of the interchanges along 264 um for a planning study. Then in 2020, uh, VOTE did a STARS project on Independence Boulevard, the interchange

as well as, um, Independence Boulevard itself. And STARS is a program that enables us to identify shorter term um, this uh, targeted like affordable uh, improvements. So lower scale, you know, smaller scale, more affordable uh, projects as a intro to this one. Then in uh 2021, VOTE completed a the I64 264 their phase 3 IMR for interchange improvements at the I64264 interchange. Then what we're going to be

discussing today is the interchange access report for uh Independence Boulevard and the study area for that project.

All right. All right. So, I'm going to go into interchange access report. And what that is, that's the official process that VOTE and FHWA use in order to document and identify the traffic operations and safety improvements of any interstate or interchange modification. So, it has to be done before the design of the interchange.

So, we're in that process right now.

It's a couple year process and we are nearing the end of it process. Uh HR Tech has funded this IR study and they'll be funding um a good amount of the improvements.

So our study area is from Witchduck Road to the west to Rosemont Road to the east. Um but our improvements are primarily focusing on the Independence Boulevard interchange and improvements at the interchange and then on Independence Boulevard itself.

are hot spots of congestion and safety are primarily between Witchduck Road interchange and the Independence Boulevard interchange, but then also the signalized intersections and pretty much all of the intersections along Independence Boulevard really are congestion hotspots.

All right, our analysis process. I'm not going to go into complete detail on this whole flowchart, just give you a overview of uh what our process is. It's um about a couple year process. So, we're nearing the end of that. We started with uh analyzing our existing conditions to identify what are the issues out there that we want to address. Then we project out the traffic volumes to analyze the no build

conditions to identify if there's any, you know, potential upcoming issues that we want to um plan for. So then we took those um conditions and we identified some improvements for our for our study area. Took those at a high level and kind of narrowed those down with our study group, with VOTE, with um FHWA and with the city of Virginia Beach.

narrowed down what we really wanted to study in more detail. And those were the three alternatives that you see um in the tier 2 build uh column there. Uh so I'll talk a little bit about that process in uh future slides, but where we are right now, we're in tier three build, which is um the preferred alternative.

All right, I'm going to go into um just a little bit of detail about the three alternatives that we um assessed in more detail and then we narrowed those down and selected alternative three as the preferred with some additional refinements. So I'll just talk a little bit about uh alternatives 1, two, and three. And I'm going to talk in terms of the interchange itself, but then also we

have the signalized intersection to the north which is Bonnie and Uklid. and then the signalized intersection to the south which is Baxter road. So for alternative one we have a grade separation at Bonnie and Uklid where independence goes over Bonnie and Uklid that signal and then the turn movements are made um at you know a different level. Then at the interchange itself, we removed two of the loop ramps and

then rerouted those movements. And one of them goes on a flyover that goes from the northbound movement to the westbound movement. So like Mount Trashmore area over to Witchduck Road area. Um then we have a grade separation at the intersection of Baxter Road as well. So then alternative two was a different grade separation at the intersection of Bonnie Road and Uklid and then at the

interchange itself we removed one of the loop ramps um and then did some atgrade and intersection improvements at Baxter road. So this was like a lower scale uh alternative um not as extensive of improvements.

Then for alternative three, that was a grade separation at Bonnie and Uklid where independence goes over Bonnie and Uklid. And then at the interchange itself, we've removed two of the loop ramps and added the flyover similar to alternative one. Uh the difference here for alternative 3, we um we have the ramp to I264 is relocated down to um the Baxter road intersection and there are

atrade improvements at the Baxter road intersection. We found um like in assessing these that for alternative one that grade separation at Baxter Road the benefit that we got out of that just didn't really justify that additional cost of the grade separation. So we ended up with alternative three as our preferred um but with some additional refinements to make it um work quite well. So the next slide we'll talk about

our evaluation criteria that we used to assess those three alternatives.

So we assessed them with traffic operations. Did traffic modeling for each of those um to identify, you know, where there's queuing at signalized intersections, how the ramps are operating, how the interstate's operating. We assess safety on a high level. We assessed multimodal accommodations, so like um accommodations for pedestrians um through the study area. We assessed the costs of the alternatives. So not

only the total cost but construction cost, ride-of-way costs, rideway impacts and we took the cost of those and then I also identified the benefit savings which the benefit savings is basically people time delay. So when people can get through there faster, they save time. And so that is considered the benefit part of the benefit cost ratio.

So we compared the benefit of the people's time savings versus the total cost. So we collaborated with VOTE, FHWA, TPO, city of Virginia Beach, and we had meetings to discuss all the alternatives and then we had meetings to come to an agreement on the preferred alternative.

And that was alternative three.

So this is a highle look. We're going to look um a little closer detail. This is our preferred alternative. And just wanted to show you on a high level what it looks like and we're going to walk through each of the aspects uh the major aspects of the alternative. All right. for this.

I'm going to start to the north and then we'll just kind of work our way south and we can answer questions about any of the movements um you know that you want to look into in more detail, but I'll just kind of walk through each of the um each of the aspects. So, starting at the north um everything comes back together to at Columbus Street. Columbus Street is as existing and everything will come

back to grade and everything will come back to Columbus Street as it is for existing. So, as we're walking further south, um the intersection of Bonnie and Uklid is a grade separated intersection.

Independence Boulevard goes over Bonnie and Uklid. And then the turn movements are all made at grade. Then as we're walking further south, we have some ramps coming in and out of Independence and the ramps. And then we have at the interchange itself, we've removed two of the loop ramps in the northeast and the southwest quadrant. And what that does is that eliminates all four weaves

within the interchange. There's two weaves on Independence Boulevard itself and there's two weaves on the interstate. And the weaving movements are, you know, the movements to and from the loop ramps to the main line. And that's really um a a safety benefit to remove those loop ramps and reroute the traffic.

So with that, we have implemented a fly over for the northbound to westbound movement. So like Mount Trashmore to Witchduck Road. And then we have also replaced the um bridge on I264 over Independence Boulevard. So what that enables us to do is widen out the interstate at that location, but it also enables us to open up that pier structure that's underneath the interstate to be able to widen the road

to what we need to to accommodate all the different movements.

So then um as we're walking further south, we have South Boulevard. Um, South Boulevard currently comes in at Baxter Road and what we've done is we've relocated that just a little bit further north and made that a ride in right out movement. Uh, then at Baxter Road, we have a new ramp connection where South Boulevard was and that ramp connection brings us to I264 West towards Witchduck or I264 east towards Rosemont.

So, and along with some other signalized intersection improvements at Baxter Road, this improvement also adds sidewalk in areas where sidewalk has not previously been able to um be implemented. So, this will actually provide uh a sidewalk connection all the way from Holland Road all the way into Town Center continuous on the west side of the road.

So, and then finally, the last uh major improvement is the two-lane ramp. If you're traveling eastbound on 264 and you want to go south towards Mount Trashmore area. So, currently that's a two-lane ramp and it merges down to one lane, we're going to extend the two lanes all the way to Independence Boulevard so that that ramp doesn't back up onto the interstate.

All right, I'm going to turn it over to Tim. He's going to talk about our assessment of this preferred alternative and then what it means in terms of dollars and in terms of uh funding scenarios.

Thank you.

All right. So, you heard Kristen talk about uh the the preferred alternative and some of the details of that. So, now we're going to get into a little bit of the the money and uh how we might break this up to to build this type of project. Uh so, we we've done an assessment, a reassessment actually on the refined uh alternative 3 based on uh some of the the refinements we made uh

since the alternatives were were selected. So, it's not quite as extensive as as we did on the other alternatives, but you can see we included traffic operations, which tells us uh benefits in terms of time and and uh how much that might cost in savings.

Um safety improvements, cost estimates right away. uh we de redeveloped a benefit cost ratio and then we're we're going to get a little bit into how this type of project might be phased and funded uh to get it built in a reasonable manner.

All right.

So this is where we talk about the the cost and the benefit. Um it's a big number. You can see the the cost of the entire project. Uh we're estimating currently at 665.6 $6 million. Uh that includes construction. It includes uh ele uh inflation over time of the money. It includes rightaway acquisitions, utilities, includes everything that we need to build the entire project. Uh this is projected out into 2032. So for

the b for the purpose of this analysis, that's our construction date. Um, currently HRTAC has been uh they've been identifying funding knowing this type of project was coming. They're currently at $27 million. Um, that's money identified. Uh, so there's there's a little bit of room between that 665 and the the 207. So, we're going to talk a little bit about that in a second. The

second half of this equation is the the time delay savings. And this is really the the time that we anticipate the traveling public will save after the improvements monetized, right? So we take the time savings between the what would happen if we didn't build it, what would happen if we did build it, calculated the time savings of every vehicle going through that modeled network, turning that into

a time over a 20-year period, and that would be equivalent from 2032 to 202, which is our that's basically our analysis period. So based on all of that calculation, uh we estimate that the benefit to the traveling public is in the $15 billion range. So that's a pretty good benefit to cost ratio even for a project of this size.

All right. So let's talk a little bit about how we can break this up and and build such a an extensive project. So we've this is a little bit all over the place. We're going to break this slide down. This shows three phases of construction and is I'm sorry it's three phases of projects. It's not phases of construction. Each phase would have its own construction phasing. That's totally

different. This is just an effort to see how we can break this project up into smaller pieces for the benefit of funding.

So for phase one, we would start on the south side of the project. We would uh do the Baxter Road interchange. We would do the flyover from uh Independence to both eastbound and westbound towards Norphick and towards uh Rosemont. Build that big flyover. And really what that does is that allows us to get rid of those weaves that Kristen talked about on independence and on the interstate.

And I'm I'm sure you all have experienced that and understand what a what a huge benefit that is to to the traveling public. Uh so this is something that we can come in, we can build. There's there's some rightaway involved. Um it would include the two-lane ramp that Kristen talked about uh south towards Edwin. So this does a lot of nice things in the short term.

Phase two, we would then come in and build the bridge and the ramps uh along 264. And this would be to clear out that space that Kristen talked about underneath the bridge, getting rid of those peers so that we can put more lanes in uh and prepare. we we have to do that before we can do the north section uh because of the lanage to that. So this would be uh to prepare for

that inevitable north phase that would complete the entire project and then we would come in and we would build that north phase and the project would essentially be complete.

So, generally it there's there's some phases that could be moved around, but generally you have to do the bridge phase before you can do the stuff to the north and you can't do the stuff to the north or you can't do the stuff to the south if you do the north stuff first.

So, there's a a logic to the sequencing to make sure that all those puzzle pieces fit. Um, but there are some ways that this project can be combined. it can be phased a little bit different but uh that was the logic behind this phasing and and as we move further into the process and more into a detailed design type of effort those types of issues would work themselves out.

All right so one last thing just for a scale each phase is approximately a third of that overall $665 million. Uh, so that's just how it kind of broke up with what we wanted to do, which is actually pretty nice. So, compared that with the the amount of funding that's already been identified, the first phase would be in the $240 million range compared to that $27 million that we've already got identified.

So, moving forward, this is the executive meetings on the schedule, uh, talking to you all, talking to VOTE's leadership, uh, about the project. Uh we're intending to have a citizen information meeting coming up. October, November time range. Um my understanding is early November is our target date. Uh we we've got to submit the the report uh in its final form in November December

time frame so that it can be reviewed by VOTE and FHWA uh and all the folks that need to do that. Uh and then we're scheduled to be in front of HRAC uh talking about funding and some of this phasing uh in April uh to see if we can have a better handle on funding. And then of course the construction, we're we're still to determine when the construction might happen.

That's our presentation for today. So ready for questions?

Thanks, Mayor. Thanks for the presentation.

Uh if you could go to um page 11.

So alternative three just when you're removing the loop accessing interstate 264 going east if you eliminate that loop going south on Independence where is the is do you have to come down to Baxter and get on if you're coming south from maybe this is too much south that link right there. What what is replacing that?

Yes.

So, you go down the back street, turn left and get onto the interstate that way.

And just a follow-up question on page 13.

Who pays the difference?

That's that's to be determined.

A big not a big gap.

It is. It is. But those are we have to get here before we can get there.

Thought it was an obvious question, but it is.

It is.

I think that's why it's phased.

You're awesome.

Okay, we're going to go with Josh, Michael, and Amelia.

Thank you, mayor, and thank you all for the presentation. Um there's a whole lot to unpack here and I would love to since we're seeing this for the first time right now. I would love to kind of have a moment and and and and you know present questions later. Um but just maybe some themes I think and I'm sure you probably have heard as much like as you've gone through the engagement

process and these these iterations and alternatives but um I know one concern generally speaking is if we look to say military circle or military highway and Virginia Beach Boulevard when you bring the road up you kind of create dead corners and really uh difficult if not non-navigable uh pedestrian and and and other kind of connectivity uh opportunities. So, um I know that there

was some concern about that. So, um and and in that in that vein, I'm really interested on how and when it comes down to grade at at Columbus and Cleveland.

Um especially considering we we've got um you know, a community priority before us with the Virginia Beach Trail, right?

and preserving uh access and opportunities going forward for for you know cross connectivity in our city. Um so a lot to unpack. You don't have to answer any of um the duration of construction uh I'm sure will be very long and painful. Um the timing of these phases I'm sure will be dependent upon funding and all of that but um opportunities for the public to engage and understand exactly what the what the

movements will be. Um, and you know, you've done a great job. And I, you know, the HRBT, I mean, you can basically, you know, those 3D kind of renderings and and videos would be really helpful. Um, and then, um, and that that's it. Um, I'm I'm I'm glad to to see that it's it's a little less um up up in the air, literally speaking, than than what the the other alternative

I've seen before because I think, you know, there aren't very many, if any, opportunities to safely traverse from north to south and vice versa. And our city and the interstate has served as a barrier in that regard in in many different respects. So, preserving the connect connectivity north south is really important.

Michael, thank you all. Thank you so much for being here and um for this presentation.

This is one of the I think areas that is of the greatest interest to people who drive every day in Virginia Beach and use 264 and it's how I get to work every day. So, it's of great interest to me as well. Um I I really don't have a question about the different alternatives. Uh, frankly, as Councilman Schulman mentioned, I've got a lot to sink in. There's a couple things I'm thinking about here, okay?

And may be a little unconventional, but just bear with me and maybe maybe someone can get back to me or we can talk later. Uh, but the first one is um you mentioned something about that one option will provide sidewalks where there aren't any. And I wonder if as part of this process we could look into greater detail about all of them could include sidewalks uh where they need to be because this is

one of the most dangerous areas of our city for pedestrians and bikers. You've heard me say this in the uh meetings before that almost every time you open um social media and see a news article pedestrian struck. It's almost always within this vicinity. Um, so I'm interested in including the possibility of including more pedestrian safety and bicycle safety aspects in all in all of

them. I frankly I think they should all be included. So I don't know if you have any thoughts on that or something we can continue to work on and and maybe include in the city's um in the city side of this as it moves forward. But this is a dangerous area for people that don't aren't driving.

It's dangerous area for people who are driving too. Um but it's really dangerous for people that aren't in a car.

Yeah, that's question number one or thought number one.

Okay.

So yeah, sidewalks are definitely incorporated in this and the continuous sidewalk was a very important part of including that in our preferred alternative and there were sidewalks included in all three alternatives. It's um the assessment was more so like sidewalks that are crossing those loop ramps. the loop ramps are uncontrolled and so that's where you can see a better safety benefit when you're removing

those loop ramps because the pedestrians aren't they don't have to cross that uncontrolled loop ramp. So the final preferred alternative is the higher safety benefit for pedestrians crossing those because the loop ramps and the waving movements are removed from there.

Um, and yeah, sidewalk improvements are they're critical for for any of our alternatives. We consider the traffic, you know, vehicles the same as, you know, with pedestrians. They everybody needs to be able to have movements through there and to be able to connect completely from Holland Road all the way to Town Center is really the the intention, not just for vehicles, but also pedestrians.

If I may, Councilman just add one uh piece of information outside of this uh process. We are engaging with VOTE uh as part of our next round of smart scale to see if there's a possibility of doing a flyover uh a bridge across 264. Now, I I can't guarantee anything, but we are investigating that as part of our grant analysis. I know that was something that you've championed in the past.

That's a perfect segue to my number two.

I thought it might be.

Thank you.

I know. It's amazing. Um, are you talking about the the fly over that could potentially connect VB trail or connection to the VB trail with a connection to Mount Trashmore? Because that's that was my number two.

Yes, sir. I' I've heard you express that desire in the past and that is that is an option that we will be pursuing in the next round of smart scale. it that because this is a VOTE controlled corridor, it's something that we'll have to partner with VOTE on uh to to determine whether or not that's possible. Um and that window's not open yet. So, I I don't have a lot of

information. I just wanted to let you know that we hadn't forgot that you'd asked about that. It is not however part of this particular process and I appreciate that but I just was that was what my curiosity is could be part of this process or maybe it's concurrent or adjacent to this process but you know I people are excited about the VB trail and Mount Trashmore is our number one

most visited um public space in the city of Virginia Beach. More than 1.6 6 million people visited last year and there's festivals all the time constantly happening and um we I just I know I hear from people who live south my district people I serve live south of 264 so they're very concerned about a safe uh way to um move across that u interstate that doesn't involve a car thank Yeah, Mr. Pali is correct. Sometimes

when you get off that interchange, you feel like you're on a figure eight racetrack, you know, trying to get over and everything. And whoever designed that, I hope they enjoy their retirement.

Okay, we're going to go with Amelia and then Stacy.

Okay, thank you so much. I'll look this way for um this project area study. I'm the council woman where this comes to this and remember when I first came back on board it was 400 and some million so this was a shocker to suddenly see you know 655 and I'm glad to also notice that um besides this one of the things you mentioned is you do have starting funds

through the HR tax I did jot down a little about the congestion hotspot.

Now, when I asked about this two about two years ago, because people constantly ask about what's going to happen there, you mention about traffic volume. What have you estimated today?

As far as road, yes, because each of those interchanges have different volume and this is the largest. What are you all looking at?

I would have to get back to you on the exact traffic volumes for Independence Boulevard. Uh the area though um for Independence is growing at we have a agreed upon a growth rate of 7% per year. And so that's higher than maybe the outlying areas that are growing closer to a half a percent a year. So, Independence Boulevard itself and the areas off of Independence Boulevard were grown at a higher rate

and we can get back to you for sure on the traffic volumes.

Okay, thank you. And then on page um 11, I jotted down about the all four weaves eliminated. Can you speak a little bit more on that?

Oh, sure. The weaving movements are the movements to and from the loop ramps and the main line. So when you remove the loop ramps in the northeast and the southwest quadrant, uh basically if you're trying to get off, say you're traveling eastbound on 264 and you want to go north on um Independence, you don't have to compete with that oncoming loop ramp. So you just get off on your

own loop ramp. Then um the same as when you go on that loop ramp and then you're traveling north on Independence, you don't have to compete with the the other loop ramp that's in the northeast quadrant because all of that traffic is relocated.

So because you know people always have to be alert coming off that. I remember several years ago a car went just straight over for the people.

Couple of fractured bones where they lived. Wow.

And um yeah, because you're coming another's coming from this end and you're trying to make it in any curve to the right over. Um you also mentioned about I was happy to see about the sidewalk because we still have people trying to walk under that.

Yep.

Along the side and there's not, you know, enough space for that. So you have it going on independence from Holland to Town Center because Town Center again we do a lot of people come for the different events and so forth that happens in that area. So it's just as popular as uh Mount Trashmore shoppers and so forth and other events that we do. I think the last one we talked about that time we may save this.

Can we just go over that last time?

Sure. Do you want to go?

Sure.

Either of us could, but yeah. So the the time delays are based on modeling. So after we grow all that traffic and we put it in the future models and in this in this case we're looking at traffic we've projected out to 202.

So we we take all of that traffic in the model and that model tells us how much time how much extra time it costs all of the vehicles together to get through that that area. So every car that goes through and it gets stopped at a light or it has to slow down because of merging traffic or it's trying to get on a ramp that's got congestion on it. It calculates in the

model all of that time. So we add all of that up together for all of the cars that are in the model and then we compare that to the same model that projects what would happen if we didn't build anything. So we call that the no build and we use the same traffic volumes and we just test it versus what's already there today. And so the difference in the time that that the

model tells us for the no build model and the new model with all the improvements, that's the amount of time that that people save overall.

Time is money.

Your time is money. And then we take that and multiply it by the number of days per year and uh how often we expect that condition and multiply it by an occupancy for the vehicles because some people have or some cars have more than one p person in them. And then we multiply all of that by a dollar value.

And when we do all of that, we get to 15 billion dollars over 20 years.

Thank you. Last question.

I know this is VOC, but also VTA.

Are you all working at all with them for informing people Virginia Transit Association? Are you all any with that section as well?

We have not.

We have not.

We have not.

President of ETA. That's why you're here.

Okay.

Okay.

Consider it.

Absolutely.

To be good advocates for what you're moving forward.

Thank you.

Okay. Stacy and Josh.

Thank you. Um question about the cost and the financing of this whole thing.

Um, do we have the costs broken down by phase?

We do. Can we get that?

I can tell that tell you what they are.

They're again about a third of each other, but phase one was 240 million.

Uh, 241 million. Phase 2 was 179 million and phase 3 was 247 million. Now the 207 is that all from Hampton Roads TSA is that all available for phase one or does that have to be broken down in some way?

I don't know how the funding I don't I don't know what the funding is. We've been told uh through VOTE and through HRC that that's how much they've identified. I don't know any more detail than that.

Um Mr. Mayor, Council Member Cummings.

So, they're going to have to take this to HRTAC and update them on these numbers and then HRTAC is going to determine if it fits or doesn't fit within their projected program for funding this project.

So is this a project that could be approved and moved forward by phase or is this like we have to identify the entire we have to approve the entire thing at one time and come up with a funding for it all up front or can we start phase one and then worry about phase two in the future?

That's up the that's a VA question.

Yes. phase one, each phase was determined so that it could be built on its own so that what's left over that we hadn't gotten to yet still functions. So when you come in and you do phase one, we show that picture of phase one. Uh when you build phase one, even though the rest of it is existing, there's still benefit to having just phase one and it will integrate into the existing to provide a complete system.

And I'll add one one thing to that. The IR itself is for the whole project and that's that needs to be approved by FHWA and VOTE for the whole project. So the interchange access report the study that we're doing right now.

Okay Josh. Um, thank you, mayor. And I'm sorry to take another bite at the apple here, but um, I think it's really, really, again, I'm just going to stress it again, critical to think about the north half of this project and especially considering the community priority investment we're making and I'm sure you're aware of Virginia Beach Trail.

Um, I'm sure you're aware that we're contemplated if we're contemplating a a um, a bridge over independence.

Yes. Um then and then to to be able to get get that down to grade either before that happens. Um and then and then contemplating I mean I know I know the community spoke about the last iteration of what mass transit might look like in Virginia Beach, but there's a you know hundreds of years in front of us or whatever that we may want to you know utilize that corridor in a in a more

efficient way. and and whether that's, you know, a train or a bus or lime scooters for all that matter. I I I don't know. But, um, I just I want to make sure that that is a priority item that that we're we're focused on that.

We did we we coordinated with city staff on that crossing in particular, that ped crossing in particular, to make sure that we weren't building anything that would preclude that.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Um, I've been on HR Tech, you know, basically since I was elected in 2004.

And back then on the long distance radar was the Witchduck 264 Exchange, the Hampton Roadsbridge tunnel and things uh things have a way of getting done. Uh we got the Greenwich fly over done and you know you can tell that you know the Witchduck uh it took a long time to get there but once it got there it turned out to be to be pretty well done. And then with the with the massive cost in

the billions for the Hampton Roads Bridge tunnel, HR TAC can find a way. Uh so what I'll do is every time I go to an HR TAC meeting, you know, during council comments, I'll keep you up to uh speed, but based on my comments a couple years ago with a representative from VOTE, uh they they're giving this a priority. And I wish I could say that road projects didn't take decades. uh you know you can

take a look at Senate Bill 3 uh you know things take time especially uh even with Alaskan road and you know things of that nature but the fact that it is on the radar and V dot said they do consider this a priority uh it's going to take some time it's going to take some effort but they also have a you know history of getting things done okay thank you okay thank

All right. So, Mr. Mayor, members of council, the next presentation will be a briefing on the draft 2026 general assembly legislative agenda for council's feedback and consideration.

This is based on items that we've gotten from the departments from feedback we received from individual members of council and also from council during the retreat as well as some additional items that we've gotten since we given you the packet. Right. So the purpose of this is to start the process and Brent will give you a timeline for the legislative um agenda approval process. So go ahead. Go

ahead Brent. The floor is yours.

Thank you. Good afternoon Mr. Mayor, Madame Vice Mayor, members of council, Mr. City Manager, and Mr. City attorney.

Uh, as the city manager mentioned, I'm here to present this year's draft legislative agenda for the 2026 general assembly session. Uh, today we'll provide a brief um preview of the legislative session, go through our proposed timeline for adopting the legislative agenda, and walk you through the package. Uh, at the conclusion of today's presentation, we'll be looking for u some guidance on three items. uh

one uh anything you would like added, edited, or removed from the recommended package here today. Uh we'll talk a little bit about some options on ebikes.

Um and we'll talk about our legislative reception a little bit.

So the 2026 general assembly session is uh is what we call a long session. It'll be 60 days per the Virginia Constitution. Uh it's the time when they will build out the next bianual budget.

Governor Yncan will introduce his last budget on December 17th. Um session begins on January 14th. Uh like I said, it should last about 60 days. Every now and then they finish a day or two early during budget season. Sometimes they finish late. We'll see how it all kind of uh shakes out. Um a lot of that will be impacted based on this year's elections. As you all know, all three of

our statewide offices and all 100 seats in the Virginia House of Delegates are up for election. Um, one thing we know for sure, a major theme of this legislative session will be the response to recent federal government actions from um, federal employment loss to uh, cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. How the state responds to that um, is really still kind of up in the air, but that will be a major thing.

Um so our timeline uh we are here today September 23rd presenting the bud the draft agenda. Uh October 7th we will hold a public hearing on the legislative agenda and on um a charter amendment that we'll talk about here in a moment.

uh on October 14th, I'll come back before you just to get any last um uh guidance from you, answer any questions you may have, and then we'll bring the package back to you on October 21st for your adoption. Uh after that, we will go to work to get the legislation um uh patroned by members of the general assembly, introduced, and then hopefully passed.

Uh you will recall the city's uh policy on adopting a legislative agenda. Um to get something into the draft agenda, it's the same manner in which you get things onto your regular city council agenda. It takes either um uh the um sponsorship by the mayor or three members of council or for it to come up through the city manager and the department directors. Uh it takes twothirds of the members to approve the

legislative agenda and requires three4s of a majority of the council for any charter amendments.

Um so the first section of the draft legislative agenda is our policy priorities section. This is a section that we added last year to provide us some authority to lobby on a um kind of large set of issues. Most of these items are overarching themes and um uh some of them are are specific items as you will see. Um it's very famili similar to last year's uh we've taken out some things

that we accomplished last year and then items that are new you'll see here kind of marked in red. So the first policy area is in affordable housing. Um here you're going to see this recurring theme throughout the policy uh um section of let local governments make their own land use decision. This is mentioned in here three or four times. It's a u a a big issue that we're always discussing

with the general assembly. Um, this year in the affordable housing section, we have added in support for the Virginia Housing Trust Fund, eviction reform, rental assistance programs, and first-time home buyer programs. These are all issues that we anticipate coming up. Uh, second area is an economic development. Here we've added a clause showing support for the sports tourism grant program. You'll remember that this

program got created last year. They didn't fund it. This year, we're going to be going back to the general assembly seeking funding for the program.

Um our education section is very similar to last year's uh asking for greater support for our K12 education. Uh you'll recall they had that JARK report that came out that showed that the state is grossly underfunding local schools and they did a um they made a major investment last year based off of that report. We're really looking for them to continue that process. Uh and then the

second bullet here um talks about the importance of investing in school construction in particular looking to dedicate a larger portion of those lottery funds towards school construction.

Uh the energy section again you'll see here uh we're asking them to make sure that they leave land use policy to local governments. Uh there's been a big push in the general assembly the last two years, last couple of years, few years to um try to take some of those decisions out of local government hands as there have been a bit of a struggle to get local governments to approve some

renewable energy projects, especially on the solar side. So there's um pentup frustration there um that local governments and state government has been kind of butting heads on, but we'll continue to advocate for local government to have those decision uh that decision-making power. Uh we also expect there to be a large discussion um regarding um just energy policy in general. There's a concern over how um

the clean economy act uh data centers um just uh the the increased use and energy is impacting everybody's power bill and all how all those different policy elements intersect. And so we anticipate there's going to be a robust discussion about that this year.

Uh in the fiscal responsibility and budget impact section, uh you'll see here we added a clause dealing, as we talked about earlier, just asking the general assembly to partner with local governments as they look for solutions and to filling some of the gaps on the Medicaid uh cuts and SNAP cuts. We want to make sure that local governments are part of that conversation and that those

uh any of those fiscal impacts aren't just passed on to local governments. Um in addition uh so we delivered this package to you guys on Friday. Uh since then we had an additional request to add in this clause. You'll see here at the bottom about maintaining the local option regarding collective bargaining for public sector employees. Again wanting to um retain that ability at the

local level. Uh not having it um uh you know depending on who's in the majority in the general assembly and who's in the governor's mansion. This issue could go one of two ways. It could get rolled back to where you don't even have a local option. There's no option at all.

Or it could get uh further eroded in the manner of which um taking local governments out of it in general. So this clause is just asking us to maintain the current process that we have on flooding and storm water. We are once again asking the general assembly to develop a state funding program to support non-federal match requirements for federal grants. You'll remember last year we were successful in getting a

study scheduled for this. Unfortunately, JARK's uh schedule for kicking that study off is um been kind of kicked down the road a little bit down to 2026 or 2027. We're working to try and get that pulled back to uh being conducted sooner, but we all know that um there we need a state response to flooding issues.

Um we've also added support for reforms to the community flood preparedness fund. This is the state's largest uh grant program for investing in flood protection projects. Um, and so we'll be we're looking to try to make that more attractive for localities like Norfick and Virginia Beach for our CSRM projects.

Um, on land use, as we've discussed, you know, the major theme here is let local governments make their decisions. And then you'll also likely recognize from last year, you know, preserving the local authority to regulate short-term rentals.

On public safety, we've added a couple of clauses here. one including the um the enabling the use of noise abatement devices. These are like the noise cameras that we had some discussion about a few weeks ago. Uh so we included that here in the public policy section or public safety section. And then second um a recommendation from the cannabis advisory commission where they would like to see some additional

resources and education materials regarding intoxicating hemp products.

And then our last policy section here is on transportation. Uh this is very similar to last year. We're uh supporting funding for highway and secondary road funding, support for HRT, um especially for microransit, asking that BB trail be included in any discussion about trail funding. Um and we have also included the request from the active transportation committee regarding ebikes, uh which you'll see

here at the bottom in red. Um, and we're going to discuss ebikes a little bit more here later in the presentation.

Uh, so this year's draft legislative agenda includes one charter request and eight code amendments.

So our first charter request um is a request that came from um from Delegate Knight and Vice Mayor Wilson. It was sponsored by Mayor Dyer as well. Um, this idea here is that if there are any future changes, any future land use decisions south of the blue line, it would require 3/4s of the city council to approve um to to approve that uh land use application.

Uh, you can see here the recommended language for what would go into the charter is included there. So, it' be section 2.03 and that's included in your package as well. Um you'll recall for charter amendments uh it will take three4s of the council to approve this to end up in the final legislative agenda and it also requires us to hold a separate public hearing um for this separate from the legislative agenda. We

can do it on the same night but um but it'll be uh separate from the reg the other public hearing. Um, with all due respect to those of you who asked for this, I didn't and I don't um because I don't think this is that actual protecting the blue line at all and I think it's misleading. Um actually uh what we have now is a very hard stop and our policy

since it started was that and this was public has been public works is that there won't be any water and sewer south of of the of Indian River Road and it's held and but this is a path for allowing that to happen. It says, "Well, you could do it if you get uh a supermajority vote of council." And we saw that a supermajority vote of council didn't stop the green line from being

removed. Uh they got it easily. And I think the same thing would happen here.

I think instead of a hard stop that says it won't go now. You've got a path to get it there. All you've got to do is get the same people who voted to break the green line to break the blue line and the blue line's gone. So I think this is very misleading and I just would not want people to think that it was any protection whatsoever. I am very concerned about the future of our a

reserve program and I think this would I mean if people think that it's going to be this easy to keep going south nobody's going to be willing to sell their development rights. I mean we'd be stupid to do it. So I am very much opposed to this.

Okay.

Okay. But you know we'll have further discussions on this and you know ending for you know further. Michael in reference to um Mrs. Henley's comments and the insight that she shared. I guess I just have a question about a procedural question because um as it stands now it would not that I'm advocating for this. I want to be very clear, but if a council member in the future wanted to extend those

services below the blue line, it would require six votes or a regular majority, not a supermajority. Correct. So, the path already exists. So, I think, and I know you understand it, Miss Henley, I'm not I'm not I just want to make sure the public who's watching understands that the um and we my mind is very open on this. I'm I'm not sitting here advocating for or against. I just want

to be clear. The path to do it, the legal path to do it already exists. This this proposal would actually make it more difficult than it currently is.

Yes Barb.

Well, I I I think to this point, we've not even had anybody that's even thought about moving it forth because we've just had a hard stop. We've just said it can't be extended and people have respected that. Uh but well, I mean I think the green line is gone. The blue line is probably gone as well. I don't think there's too much in effect right now as it stands. So, but I I don't

think this is going to protect anything and I don't want to give our people that illusion and so I will not be supporting this.

Okay. Thank you. But once again, you know, this is just a presentation and, you know, when it gets time to get to a decision point, you know, once again, it's going to take what super majority to get it on. Right.

That's right, Mr. Mayor.

No, thank you, M.

Go ahead and proceed.

Uh, as I mentioned that we have eight code amendments included in the draft legislative package this year. The first one is a repeat from last year. This uh proposed piece of legislation would basically allow local governments to notify an accommodations intermediary, which is like an Airbnb, and let them know that a listing that they have on their site is not uh properly uh um permitted by the city and to please

remove it from their site and the legislation would require them to remove it. Last year we had some mechanical issues dealing with the legislation just in how that process would work. And so we'll need to work with legislative services to uh get the get the language kind of tightened up and in a better place for this year if this is adopted by you uh by the council.

Our second amendment uh is a request from the fire department asking for the creation of a grant program to assist local governments with providing cancer screenings for public safety employees.

Uh similar to uh the previous one, last year we had this uh recommendation, we were able to procure $200,000 from the state to help with uh providing cancer screenings for some of our employees, but now we're looking for more sustained funding for our uh public safety folks.

Uh EMS has requested legislation that would expand the category of allowed expenses from the four for life program.

Currently, uh, $4 dollars of every car registration is earmarked for EMS funding throughout the Commonwealth, but they restrict how those dollars can be used. Um, right now it's restricted to just training or equipment. And then, um, this legislation would seek to expand the use to maintenance of equipment, new facilities, vehicles, and other operating expenses.

Uh similar to the EMS request over the last couple of legislative sess sessions, the general assembly has expanded the use of how fire program funds can be utilized. Uh now our fire department would like to see the next step taken and increase the uh increase the funding. So today the Virginia fire programs fund is derived from 1% of fire related insurance coverage. Things like

your car insurance, your home insurance, rental insurance, things like that. Um the contribution to the fund was last increased in the mid 90s but as we all know uh in that time the expense of providing fire services has increased tremendously. Um our fire department is asking for an increase to one and a half% or even 2% past two sessions.

There's been an effort to do this by increasing it uh a quarter percent a year for over a period of years four, five, six, seven years. Um but that legislation has failed due to concerns over how this would impact uh people's insurance premiums.

Uh this next request was a request by many of the members on city council dealing with utility markings. Um I think we chatted a little bit about this and so what I'm proposing is that we require the utilities to do spot marking in the tourist districts. Um right now they are required to use what they call spot marking in areas where um the markings are considered to do damage to the property. So we would add tourism

districts to um the list that includes driveways, landscaping and historic locations.

Uh our next piece of legislation is a response to our challenges with the marsh terrace project in the back bay.

Uh what we're proposing here is basically to try and create a formula where uh you're measuring the uh environmental benefits of your project and if the benefits outweigh the uh negative impacts then we should then it would require the uh VMRC to uh issue the permit for the project. Um we've been chatting with some of the environmental groups about this concept.

There's some hesitation and concern about the precedent this sets. Uh we've drafted it in a way where it would only impact our project. It wouldn't impact other people's projects, but once you do it for one, uh you somebody will come back and ask for a similar request. Uh so there is some hesitancy there, but we're continuing to have those discussions and hoping to gain their support.

Um, so many of those same environmental groups have reached out to members of the council asking for support of legislation that would call for a study of the impacts of menhaden fishing in the Chesapeake Bay. Uh, this is an issue that's been around for a long time. I've been active in the general assembly since about 2006 2007 and I can remember this issue being around then. Um there's

a concern that uh the the fishing of the menhaden is impacting the health of the bay and the wildlife that depend on the menhaden. Uh so this request uh came from many of the members of the council here today. Um and what they're asking for is to undertake a multi-year study and then during the study to put in some uh a series of restrictions to keep uh the level of menhaden fishing down.

Um, our last code amendment request came uh spurred from the discussions that we had with uh from Chief Nudigate and some of our oceanfront safety issues. Uh, this legislation um mirrors uh some of the proposals that we've seen or legislation that's been adopted in Maryland, Washington DC, and in Florida.

It would allow the chief in coordination with the city manager and the mayor to designate a special zone, I'm calling it a pop-up zone, uh for enhanced enforcement and mobilization when there is an unpermitted event where the crowd is expected to exceed 50 people. Um so we've built in some uh requirements on the locality. So the locality would be required to provide a minimum of 24 hours public notice before a pop-up

event zone is activated. uh create and post a public information web page with all the regulations that would be in place. Post clearly visible signage at all entrances and exits informing the public that the zone is active, that traffic violations carry heavier fines, and that there is enhanced enforcement.

And if speed limits are reduced within the zone, additional signage should clearly indicate that the speed limit has been reduced.

Uh so those were some of the requirements on the locality. And then we have a section that would be some of the enhanced enforcement that would be available. So it would be enhanced traffic fines, uh temporary speed limit reductions, uh localities can establish and enforce occupancy limits on both public and private property within the pop-up zone. Uh we could try to recover costs from event organizers and then um

institute a curfew for unaccompanied minors.

Our next section is on budget requests. We have five this year for your consideration. Um first one is a request from the Virginia Beach Fire Department requesting $1.7 million for the urban search and rescue task force. Uh there's a growing concern that with the federal government looking at cuts to FEMA and reforms there that uh some of these um emergency response may fall back onto

localities. And so we're just looking for the state to um help fill some of those gaps and start to make sure make sure that they are aware of what's happening at the federal level here. Uh Virginia Beach Police Department is requesting $1 million to support gun violence prevention. These funds would be used for programming like parks after dark or other programs and to upgrade

equipment needs that will support safety in neighborhoods.

We have two requests uh dealing with the Virginia Aquarium. The first was one that uh the council brought up at the um council retreat seeking funding for uh the stranding program. We've uh having done a little bit of research. Uh looks like the city spends about $450,000 on this program. We're just asking the state to split that um at $250,000.

Um and then the second um request here is to support the aquarium's efforts for renovation and expansion. They're still kind of undergoing what that strategy is going to look like. We know from years past they've asked for up to $10 million. So we've included that here in the package and um once we have more uh more clear direction on on where they're going with that, we'll make sure to bring that back to you then.

Um, and then the last one, this one was added as since you received your package on Friday, and I apologize for that, but uh, this one we're asking for support from the state to um, for the cost of renovating the courthouse office space for a new judge.

Um, so our last request here is um is a section we kind of have come up with. You know, over the last couple years, we've talked a lot about trying to find state funding to cover a lot of the unfunded mandates that the federal and state governments place on us. Um, and so over the last couple years, local governments across the Commonwealth, we've kind of banded together and we've

been lobbying for basically an annual earmark to try and cover some of this gap. And while we've made a little bit of progress on that and folks are listening, we've had no success in actually obtaining any of those dollars.

Um I am proposing that we take it in a different direction and instead of asking for an annual earmark that we'd have to go back every budget season and fight them for uh especially during tough times and when they would rather spend the dollars in a different manner is we're looking for uh more sustainable funding stream. Right? So um we know over the last two years there's been legislation that would institute a

cannabis marketplace. That legislation has included about a 2 and a half% local tax. I'm proposing that we try to get that up to 5%. Um the numbers you see on this chart are statewide numbers. So a 2 and a half% local tax would create about $20 million commonwealth wide for localities. Obviously 5% would be double that. Similar with skill games. The proposals have included the way it's

worded is they tax it at 15% and then of that 15% 15% would go to localities. So using my iPhone, the math on that is about 2.25%.

Somebody smarter than me could probably double check that. Um but that's what about what I think it is. Again, if we could get that up to 5%, you're you're you're increasing the funding. Um there's a study going on right now dealing with eye gaming, which are basically online casinos. And um whether you're a proponent of that or not, if they're going to do they're going to institute and uh allow online casinos, I

would like to see there be a uh a local tax included in that. There's clearly a local nexus and um dealing with some of the social service and security issues.

So I think we have a good argument to be made there. Um and then on the right side of the chart, these are some existing revenue streams where I would like to uh try to advocate for uh getting local governments kind of either uh injected or enhanced. The first one's online sports gambling. When they uh authorized that a few years ago, they didn't include a local government tax on

that. It's taxed at the 15% level at the state and um 97.5% goes into uh I'm pretty sure the state general fund and then like 2 and a half% goes into the problem gambling. So they didn't include local taxes in that. Um they're looking at uh daily fantasy sports which are similar to uh online sports gambling but they are today kind of categorized in a different way and taxed differently.

Um, and then our our long-standing discussion on vaping and tobacco taxes.

Again, looking to advocate for local government to have the authority to tax vaping products. And there's a whole separate category of what they call other tobacco products that again don't have a local government tax on those either. Um, and then the last item on that chart is um modernizing the sales tax to include digital downloads and streaming. You'll likely recall two years ago, Governor Yncan had uh

proposed doing this. Um, his proposal included expanding the sales tax and reducing the income tax. The our argument here is similar as to what I'm making with the eye games, right? If they're going to move in this direction, we want to make sure that local governments aren't left out in whatever process they move forward here. They're going to modernize the tax code at the state level, then the local government

should be included as well.

So, um, so we have very clearly heard your concerns over ebikes and safety issues regarding ebikes. Um, as I mentioned earlier, we've included the ATA tech language in the policy section, and we're still kind of looking into this uh this issue. And so, we're going to be bringing a separate presentation to you here in a couple weeks and a couple meetings that has some information on existing authority, uh,

some things that are in our local code that you may want to take a look at. And um I think once you get that update, we can uh see which direction you guys want to take. Whether that's seeking additional authority or changing the authority that we have from the general assembly or using the authority that we have this year and then maybe seeking a change next year. But I think that that

conversation is um is fairly robust and and uh will provide some clarity for you guys. So we'll have additional discussions on this uh in the future.

Stacy, on that issue, I I hear what you're saying. I just want everyone to appreciate how big of an issue this is.

It's like the number one issue I'm getting from constituents and it's becoming more and more of a problem every day and our local people, our police chief and is telling us that this is a state issue and it seriously needs to be addressed. it's out of control today and if it continues to proliferate like it is um you know by next year it's going to be even even more uncontrollable.

So, I just ask that we take this very seriously and Councilman, I think I think you will see that we are that we're bringing an entire separate presentation to you that will um you know, we're still looking into it, but there is there are areas that the state has given us some authority today that we're not currently utilizing and I think that that um that discussion will help us kind of move this in that direction.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, what we initially what we found is that there's additional authority that's granted to the city that the city council would have to opt into that could allow us to further regulate it.

Our goal would be to brief you all on what the existing authorization is that council's already authorized. then let you all know about this additional authorization that you could authorize and let you know the process for how you could limit that ebikes based on different classes throughout the city and to get your feedback on how you want to go on that. The requirements from the

state law for some of those is that if you want to make an amendments to some of the classes, you'd have to do a public hearing process first, you know, so we want to brief you on some options and then get your okay on how you want us to proceed. It could mean that you decide to take advantage of that local authority in lie of asking the state for additional authority. But the local

authority will allow you to restrict the place of of how um where um these bikes are able to navigate in a significant way that I think may meet the um the aims of some of the members on council.

Okay, that's good.

Anybody else on this? This is an important one.

Yes sir.

Um and then finally uh so we have our annual legislative agenda or legislative reception planned. I previously survey surveyed the council for some proposed dates. Uh we checked around um some of the general assembly members and some of the general assembly calendars to try and avoid any of the uh major meetings and events coming up. and then I didn't uh so I apologize for that. So um the

Senate finance retreat starts the day after our reception but there are some events that are being added for that day that they just weren't published or um that when I talked to general assembly members weren't aware of. So now our choice is either we can keep the date but our state senators won't wouldn't be able to attend or uh you have a um a new survey uh in your package today for uh a

few other choices of a date. So uh you will see on there four choices. One of them is you can we can keep it as it is and that's no problem or you can give me your availability for three other date choices and we can we can move it into December. Um I I apologize for that. I'm I'm honestly uh embarrassed that I've made this mistake two years in a row. So

um third time will be a charm. I promise. But um sometimes the realities are what they are. So, we're going to reservey you guys on the legislative reception and we will uh do our best to get that uh get that fixed. Again, I apologize for the mistake.

No, but Brent, we uh sense your frustration and it's stuff that it might just be prudent to wait until after the election. You know, given, you know, the fact that maybe some changes or status quo, we didn't know until then and all the members of the general assembly are preoccupied right now. That is true.

Yes, sir. Um, so that concludes my presentation. As I mentioned at the beginning, uh, we were looking for any guidance you may have on issues you would like added, changed, or removed.

Um, we talked a little bit about the our ebike plan if there's additional feedback there. And then, as I mentioned, our um, legislative reception and surveying, your availability for that. So, uh, Mr. Mayor, I'll turn it back over to you. Um, work.

Thank you, Mayor Dire. Thank you, Mr.

McKenzie for the presentation. Just two quick questions I think on popup event zones uh request. Are you are we going to collaborate with other localities on that to get more for that or others interested in the same type of u Mr. Mayor members of council. So the mayor is hosting the mayors of the seven cities I think next week and we're going to give them a similar presentation that

we gave the council and that we gave our um our stakeholder groups. The mayor has talked to them individually to garner their support. So the intent would be to see if they'll be interested in either carrying something in their city's legislative packet similar to this or the mayors doing something together.

Mayor, I don't know if there's anything you want to add to that. No, but but you know but gen you know once again uh you know public safety is you know doesn't cross you know it crosses borders and you know once again I think if we go in there unified uh you know the hoax is that you know if we're a single ask of one city but I think if we have more cities it would be

you know more compelling to the general assembly but be assured that all the mayors in the 757 share our concerns said, you know, we're all getting along. We're working together and let's talk about it because, you know, public safety is the one thing. Yeah. One of our top priorities.

And just a followup question on the city of Virginia Beach budget requests. U the 200 both are 200 the $250,000 request for both the aquarium and the city manager's office. Um should we ask for more? Just I mean I know we settled on 250. I don't know how we got to 250, but you know, is on both is uh is that enough for both or is that just a something we can we hope we can

get cuz should we ask for 500 and settle for 250?

I for the the the courthouse for both courthouse and the aquarium.

The courthouse the state's already covering 250 of it, which is, you know, I think it was $450,000 of cost of the project.

They know the cost of the project. So, if we ask them for that, I don't know if they'll actually acquies to giving us more than that.

Yeah. Um, the one for the aquarium council could ask us to ask for the full $450,000.

You know, just assuming the fact that the the stratic program does hit the entire east coast. You know, good portion of it happens in Virginia Beach.

So, we figured this is a starting point.

If council wants to ask for 400 or 450, we certainly can.

Yeah. Yeah, I think we're going to talk about that because uh yeah, you know, I'll tell you what, it's these are pretty heavy ask and a lot of every city is going to be asking for heavy ass. So, you know, I think it's proven to be reasonable.

Anybody else? All right, Josh.

Um, thank you, mayor. Um, I I was really pleased to see Thank you for going after those uh tobacco uh the lost tobacco revenue through the vape funds and the vape tax. hopefully that they can figure out a way to do and um you know it's funny when council well it was not funny it's actually dangerous and horrible because when uh council member Cummings first mentioned the ebike issue a couple

weeks ago I was driving back to my house after a council meeting on Nemo you know Nemo Parkway out here and I was doing 45 miles an hour and somebody was literally keeping pace with me on the on the shared youth path on the side so and there were pedestrians present and a child and everything. So, uh I agree that it's certainly a priority. So, um and you know, one one thing I I just

want to bring up and and I'm only doing it because I'm I'm just seeing it now and it wasn't included in what we received on Friday was the the collective bargaining issue. Um and um how we're I guess requesting that it not be um uh that that the local option not be removed. Um, and I, you know, I I remember living that a little a little while ago and, you know, with the prior

council and I think it was kind of a, um, asked and answered kind of kind of issue and um, and I was really and have been looking forward to and enjoyed moving on into things that we can coales around and agree upon because it's um, you know, it's kind of a divisive issue unfortunately, but um, but one we've seen past and and um, anybody uh, Um I anybody who might have even supported

that issue I don't think um would have been supportive of the notion of a blank check so to speak. So um I I think I think the that issue might be covered by that third bullet in that in that slide if you go back to it. Um with the hey let's not ask for unfunded mandates. Um, and I I'd probably support, you know, the the language um and the notion that

um that a that a local option be preserved, but I I just think of some of the unintended consequences that something like that kind of an ask might entail. Um and and I also I'm also thinking about a general assembly who if they were really going to do something like that, they wouldn't really care if we asked them to do it or not. So, um, so I my my thought is why poke at the

issue? Um, and if other localities may are doing the same, maybe I I guess like that that'd be good information to have, but I just don't think it's a productive ad.

Okay, Michael and then Rose. Well, respectfully, I completely disagree with you. I think it's a very important and productive ad. Um, we know that conversations about um the imposition of collecting bargain on municipalities uh will likely be considered as part of the debate that occurs at the general assembly in the upcoming session. Um, and I think it's vitally important that the city of Virginia Beach retain that

control. And that's where we're stopping. Uh, I don't think it's a divisive ask at all. I think it's just as we're asking that localities maintain control over short-term rentals, just like we're asking that localities maintain control um as Mr. uh McKenzie pointed out over land use decisions related to affordable housing. um we have a fiduciary responsibility to the people we serve and the citizens we

serve and it is I'm sorry to say that um uh this issue can divide people unnecessarily doesn't have to and I can app certainly appreciate and respect your desire um to avoid issues that are divisive but the reality is that we're in a public service um position and there are going to be issues that people disagree on and that's why this request stops short of taking a position on collective

bargaining. Just simply asked that the state not impose that um that burden on us and it does so specifically because it will come up. It's been an issue in the gubanatorial campaign, the um campaigns for lieutenant governor and certainly in many general assembly races. Um, I think I think this is an appropriate and ask and I hope that it's one that we can coales around um as local um representatives, municipal

representatives, those of our neighborhoods that we um that we can all agree that that maintaining that local option on a variety of issues is important to us. Hey, Rosemary.

I I totally agree with Michael and spending a lot of time in with the Virginia Municipal League. We're always saying, "Let us decide. The localities know best. We We know what's best for our citizens, uh, not everything that's going on in Richmond." And this puts Brent and whoever else is lobbying in Richmond in a better position if if he knows what we're asking for when they go to him and say, "Well, what does

Virginia Beach want?" And if we haven't taken a position and and I think it's a very safe position, we just want to be able to let us decide, not for Richmond to decide and shove down whatever they want to do down our throats. Let us decide and you know, we faced this before and we could have to face it again, but let it be our decision and not somebody that lives in Rona to

decide whether we're going to do this or not. So, I think it's important for us to state how we feel because it's going to come up and I don't think we can just totally avoid it like it's not there.

Okay. Then we're going to go Stacy and Hush.

I'll just add on respectfully when we say when you say that the we thought this was a settled issue. Quite frankly, I thought it was a settled issue also. So I thought it was left up to the localities and as long as it's left up to the localities and we're fine with that to have again agreeing with uh C vice mayor to have someone else make decisions for Virginia Beach

um and to give up to give that up or to not even object to having someone else make decisions that affect this city.

It's just a position I don't think we should take. I think we should protect whatever the issue is. Um I I think we should protect our ability to make decisions for our citizens based upon their input, not based upon what people in Richmond or Northern Virginia think about an issue.

So I'm take a little different tack. Um so this first I heard of it. Um, we've talked about a lot of things. I There was nothing else in this packet and I think Patrick will back me up on this. I read everything we get. So, I didn't see it on there. It just showed up today in gold as opposed to another color.

It's more of an orange, but yeah.

Well, it's not gold as in money's coming here, right? But um so last year um we thought the 101 was going through and at this very moment at this very table at this very presentation is when some of us found out that it wasn't going to be supported. Um mayor, you talk about the table and us being very uh in sync in most things. I'd say 90% we are. But

when I was at the fire department table and I sat down here and there was nine of us, you wouldn't have a surprise like this two years in a row. So quite frankly, I'm bothered by it. Not saying I couldn't have got behind it or anything else. I'm also going to take another little divergent path as in that we did do very well uh by the employees last year. And I think if we continue to

do that, this becomes a mute point because they have to have so many signatures and it wouldn't happen anyway.

So, uh, we did very well last year. Um, but we have to continue that. We're Virginia Beach. I've stated it very, very clearly that everybody, educators, public works, public utilities, firefighters, police, everybody should be at the top of the scale. So, when we show that after a couple three years, then that will go away. And if we keep it there, it keeps us honest in doing that. So for those two reasons, I don't

support that being there. Thanks.

You know, Hutch, you know, trust me when I say I, you know, I respect your opinion, but you know, one of the problems that I've had with Richmond and you know, there are some people in Richmond just have a culture of arrogance and they impose things on us.

They imposed a 101 on us. I was never notified about it until after the vote and things of that nature. Uh but once again, I think we had of a process with all due respect that I think Brett brought up in the beginning that any council member to do an add-on. Uh whether you know asking me to sponsor it or three people to do it. And whether we like it or not, this is at the forefront

of the upcoming election. This is a major discussion and one way or the other we're going to go one way or the other. Now Brett, correct me if I'm wrong. Didn't the legislature pass a number of things that would have imposed things on us, including constitutional officers, but it got vetoed. Is that correct?

Uh, this legislation that we're discussing here specifically has passed the general assembly the last two years through a Democratic majority um and was vetoed by Governor Yncan. Yeah. So, but once again, it's the type of thing that, you know, my my fear is, you know, and I'm I'm being honest, but this is yet another unfunded mandate. Uh I believe Fairfax County, you know, pass collective bargaining and

I think their delta was $300 million u and you know, things of that nature.

and you know whether we like it or not and and maybe if in fact u we we are looking at potential of five bargaining units right now and then if we go with uh the constitutional officers we may be looking at potentially up to 10 bargaining units. Uh maybe all different payroll systems, maybe all different uh you're going to need attorneys for each and every one of them. And the point is

that we have the potential of being confrontational because you know some of the unions are you know Patrick tells a story about what happened in Cincinnati uh where unions don't want to do it and you can't really say right now oh but public employees can't strike that could change with an administration and we take a look and I remember living in New Jersey when they had the garbage strike up

there. Uh so once again I think it's a very tough emotional issue right right now but all we're asking for is hey let us decide and have the discussions but you know I tell you what and you know once again this is just the initial go through and don't forget we're going to have a final vote on it and we're going to need uh it we'll we'll be getting people's input. Okay

but Hutch you and I let's you and I have breakfast. So, I just want to be clear though is that there will be a vote on that one sentence at some point. That's all I want.

Okay. Yeah. And and we'll have a lot of time to debate it. I cannot imagine a scenario and I have a lot of respect for your perspective, but I cannot imagine a scenario when anyone who especially anyone who serves in local government would oppose that we the preservation of the right to decide for our own community.

Yeah, sorry for being the person that brought it up. Um, I I I what what what my issue with it was, if you don't mind going back to the slides, sorry about that. Um, is that I think it's covered by bullet three. And there are so many other things that we could say we don't want the general assembly to do and that would cost us money and take undue time, uh, effort, expense, and otherwise. But

I mean to call out the one issue that we've you know kind of asked and answered um just I don't think is a productive kind of thing to be doing is Michael again respectfully if it wasn't such a big issue with such dire consequences we would not be having this discussion.

Michael and then well if you could go back to the time first of all I don't think it's coonable bullet three I think it's a it's an important enough an issue and I think that the people I talked to the citizens of pro and against agree that it's an important enough issue to have its own um call out and if you go to the timeline there's lots of opportunities for continued public engagement on this

issue so there's this is not you know what is it September 23rd not voting until for a month. So, lots of opportunity for continued engagement.

Uh but it hasn't been and I just don't agree that it's been asked and answered.

There's um there's local organizations within Virginia Beach that continue to advocate pro and against the adoption of the policy. As I mentioned before, it's an issue in the governor's campaign that's happening this fall. It's an issue in many if not most of the general assembly um campaigns and we know that there is an an a push to make to impose collective bargaining across the

commonwealth and we know there's people who strongly oppose it. Um I I think the question has been anything but asked and answered. Um and so that's why I think it's important that we do this and again we're not taking a position on the issue here. All we're doing, I want to be exceedingly clear with all we're doing is asking to preserve the local option to make the decision right here at home.

Simple as that.

Okay.

Yeah. I'm thankful for the conversation.

Um coming into it, I I like what Chief Hutch said that um we have shown that we care about our fire department. We've shown that. Um my concern um is that I don't like the fact when someone imposes something on us, we are a local body that have uh done well with our police department, our fire department, and I think we've shown that. Um and so given up authority uh to a general cons uh

assembly that sometimes we I I don't even get a phone call from them that part. And so with that being said, u we have to maintain our uh integrity to manage our affairs in which we've shown we do well.

Thank you.

Okay. Yeah. Let me just say this. You know, I think once again, I think we prove that, you know, this current body of elected people can have a rational conversation at a good tone and get to know where each other is coming from. But don't forget, this is only an intro and we're going to mash this through u and you know that eventually we'll get it to where we need it to be. I got

confidence in that. Brad, thank you for your work.

Thank you, sir.

Brother Mary, I want to say something about the charter, which I know brought up at certainly not meant to be a path for more development. And anybody can think that. I just it's just beyond me. Um there's a big difference between the green line and the blue line. And there's a lot of misunderstandings in the general public about those two. Most people don't even know about the blue

line. The blue line is demarcation. That is our agricultural, our rural area.

We're not going to put city services down there. As Miss Em is a hard stop, it's meant to be a hard stop and we want to keep it that way. The green line, that's a transition area. It was never meant to be no development whatsoever.

Is supposed to be transit transitioning down there. And there's a mis a lot of misin information. People are thinking that nothing is supposed to happen.

Well, we're sitting below the green line right now and there's lots of houses and Paris ter and shopping centers and all that. So, it's not an area that is no development, but the blue line is where we really want to stop this. And, you know, night and I talked about it and thought this would be a great way to show the public how important that agricultural area is. And as as Michael

pointed out, nine votes is a whole lot different than six votes.

And we I have sat here in council and I've heard people say they'd like to develop all the way down the North Carolina line. Well, you get five friends. You could do that. That could change. Yeah, we could pay to have utilities put in work and all that, but with nine votes, it's going to make it a whole lot harder. And this is only to protect this is protect our rural agricultural area. So I'm really baffled

to think that anyone would believe that was a path for development when you want to make it harder. This is to make it harder. So u I I think it would be a good thing and it's a good sign to the to the ARP and the and all the folks down there that we want to protect the farmland that agricultural area. So I just want to have I'm sorry, Miss Henley left, but

have a moment to to speak to that and also for the public to understand the reasoning behind it.

Okay. H and then Stacy.

Well, yeah, and I'm really going to say a lot of what the vice mayor said from my understanding, I mean, Mr. Knight is is a delegate from down there and so if he feels it's a good idea, it kind of puts us in a bad spot is is that with Miss Henley being so vehemently opposed, but but Mr. delegate night is the right way to say it is he's been there a long

time too. Um and he you know so if he's supporting this and I I'm I'm with the vice mayor I when we were approached with this you I always say the the blinking light the pungo you that's we're not we're not headed down there right up here along Prince Road is the transition area that's what we've said but I think a lot of times people think and this is my diner stuff you know and

it's like they think we're talking about building at the Pungo light and I tell them Mr. manager. It's a half a million dollars for a half a mile or something like that a road. So, it's like we're not headed to the bungo light. We can't.

You know, I know anything could happen in 2530 years. I mean, that's part of the whole thing to me about a plan. You know, a plan is good for a couple years and it's got to be adaptable. So, that feels like what we're doing, but we're not advocating to move down there and making the voter hard votes harder. And I heard what Miss Henley said, and like you said, I wish she was still sitting

here is that We are we are guaranteeing because whether it felt like that could have be not not voted or whatever if there was a pot of money found they could get six votes and we could do stuff down there.

Now we're making it harder with the delegates helping to do this.

I it sounds like it sounds like the right plan to me. So that that was why I was a little little befuddled myself.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Just to be clear on something the vice mayor said, I've not heard anyone at this table advocate building all the way down to North Carolina.

This table there have been a number of tables before.

Okay.

Yeah.

I have I have several county friends too that I've talked about about this and they are thrilled that we are considering this. And I'm talking six or seven of them, not not just one. As soon as I started talking about this, they were like, "No, this that's a great idea because that guarantees our way of life." Was exactly what one of them said.

Yeah. You inspire Hud me to say this.

We're putting up a firewall.

Yeah exactly.

You know, I was I was reading in the um you know that the the packet from Friday and on this item and uh I didn't realize you know the green line is a it's I guess a defined term in our in our planning documents, right? So, but the blue line isn't it's a it it is a it was it was it was a public works uh administrative kind or public utilities

concept. So, I mean I I think I think it's very very important and probably in many ways even more important. Um and it and it's a good signal I think to folks that what our intention is is is is not to do things to make things worse. um by any means.

Okay, good. Good discussion, Brent.

Thank you. That that that took you folks water. Andrew, thank you, too.

Thank you. We appreciate your time.

All right.

All right. So, Mr. Mayor, members of council, at this time, we'll get our our typical update on the pending planning items that'll come before you at future um council meetings. The presentation will be given by Ka Caitlyn Alcott, and it'll be for the October 7th and October 21st council meetings.

Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, and members of council. As the city manager just said, I'm here to brief you on the planning items on both your October 7th and October 21st council agendas.

Looking first at the October 7th agenda, there are a total of 11 items for consideration, a couple of which include multiple requests within one project.

So, the first two items include a request for a subdivision variance as well as a conditional reszoning for the parcel directly southwest of 5945 Burton Station Road in District 4. The parcel lies on the Norfick border and it's immediately adjacent to the Norfick Premium Outlets.

The applicant is requesting to reszone the subject parcel from I1 light industrial to conditional A36 apartment district in order to construct a multif family development. Since the site does not have direct access from a public street, a subdivision variance for lot width and streetline frontage is required. The parcel is currently undeveloped, mostly wooded, and lies within the Burton Station SGA.

The proposed development includes a total of 180 multif family units, which equates to a density of 28.75 units per acre. A private access easement will be established to allow access to the subject parcel through Premium Outlets Boulevard and the adjacent parking lot.

Storm water for the development is proposed to be handled with a regional BMP expected to be installed on the parcel immediately to the south of the site, which is owned by Norfick Economic Development Authority. The applicant is aware that if this request is approved, they cannot receive site plan approval until all storm water requirements are satisfactorily met. All required parking

and landscaping is met on site to include additional landscaping and fencing along the entire perimeter.

A total of four four-story buildings with a maximum height of 58t 2 in and a clubhouse are proposed as seen on the renderings on the slide. Although the applicant is not requesting to establish a workforce housing overlay with this request, nor have they included a profer, they have stated it is their intent to set rents consistent with established affordability standards for workforce housing in the city. Staff is

unaware of any opposition to this request and the planning commission voted to recommend approval on their consent agenda.

The next two items include a modification of profers and a conditional use permit for an outdoor recreational facility for the parcel east of 3072 Signature Circle in District 2.

The applicant is proposing to develop two pickle ball courts on a parcel originally intended for a multi-purpose building as shown on the 2004 Proferford plan. The courts would be private and for the exclusive use of the residents of the villages at Westnneck.

While the applicant anticipates that many residents will walk or ride their bikes to the court, vehicle parking will be provided at the Westnet Community Hall located west of the proposed courts. Although this site is located within the transition area, the applicant opted not to present the proposal to the transition area interfacility traffic area citizens advisory committee or TAITACAC

since the courts are solely for the use of residents at the villages of West Neck. As I previously stated, the planning commission did vote to recommend approval of the request with an added condition that would limit the hours of for the courts to 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Item five is a conditional use per request for an automobile repair garage at 5773 Arrowhead Drive, Sweet 107 in District 1.

The applicant intends to provide general automotive services with within an existing suite on the site. The hours of operation are 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Monday through Saturday.

Adequate parking is provided on the site for the use and no exterior changes are proposed with the exception of a sign of a sign to be installed on the suite door. Since the property is located within the new town strategic growth area, staff is recommending a 5-year expiration should the cup be approved.

Staff has not received any opposition to this request and the planning commission did recommend approval by consent.

Item six is a conditional use permit request for a religious use located at 5263 Greenwich Road in District 1.

The applicant is seeking approval to construct a 10,500 square ft 200 seat sanctuary with a 1500 ft covered pavilion. As the site is just over 1 and a half acres, the applicant is requesting a deviation to the 3acre minimum lot area required for religious uses in our ordinance. It is the intent to reuse the existing parking lot on the site to satisfy the parking requirement for the church.

The two and a half story building will have a maximum height of 40 ft and will have proposed hours of operation of 10:00 a.m. to noon on Sundays and then 7:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. on Wednesdays.

Although a commercial entrance would typically be required to support the proposed use due to site constraints, the typical entrance design cannot be achieved and therefore will require a public works variance based on discussions between planning staff as well as staff with public works and the applicant. Public works does not foresee any issue or granting that variance should this request be approved. Three

speakers spoke in support at the planning commission hearing and staff is unaware of any opposition. Ultimately, the planning commission did vote to recommend approval with an additional condition that a five- foot wide sidewalk be installed west of the entrance with an ADA compliant ramp.

Item seven is a conditional use permit request for alternative residential development at 50 at 1524 Gumbridge Road in District 2.

Section 405 of the zoning ordinance allows the city council to permit residential density in the southern part of of the city at a density that is greater than what is allowed by right.

This allowable density is based on the suitability of the soils on the property with well- drained or moderately drained soils permitted a density of one unit per 5 acres and then poorly somewhat poorly soils allowed a density of one unit per 10 acres.

The applicant seeks to create two parcels. The first referred to as parcel A1, which is sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh shown in the pink color on the slide, will be approximately 37 and a half acres and will be retained by the

applicant. And the second referred to as parcel A2, which is shown in green, will be 10 acres and will be sold if this request is approved. The eastern 14 acres of this site are located within the AE flood zone as well as the flood plane subject to special restrictions and as such that area could not be used when calculating the allowable density based on the soil types on the site. A

maximum of two dwelling units are permitted. While elevations were not provided with this request, the applicant has indicated that each dwelling will be approximately 4,800 square ft in size. And then to ensure that the rural character of the area is preserved, staff is recommending a condition that would require any future home to adhere to the rural area design guidelines for single family dwellings.

Staff is unaware of any opposition. And this item was recommended for approval on consent.

Item eight is another conditional use permit request. This one for an outdoor recreational facility at 5917 Blackwater Road. Again, in district 2.

More specifically, the applicant intends to operate a dirt bike track and training facility on the parcel, which was originally created as a part of an alternative residential development CUP in 2009. As a part of that 2009 approval, the rear portion of the property was subject to an agricultural use easement, which limited use of that area to agricultural or passive open space uses.

Many of the conditions of approval recommended by staff are shown on the slide here. I do want to note a couple of the conditions, but I won't go through the entire list. So, a few to make note of. One, staff was recommending a limit of no more than 12 one-day camps per year. A limit of one individual or small group lessons per week with no more than three children, limiting the hours of operation to 8

a.m. to 8:00 p.m. And then a requirement to install a concrete apron as required by the public works design standards manual.

At the planning commission hearing, the commission recommended approval of the request. However, they did modify several of those conditions. The first modification being that no more than 20 one-day camps would be permitted, that two individual or small group lessons would be permitted with up to five children per week. They also removed the condition to require the installation of

the concrete apron. Um, I do want to note that if this is approved with those recommended conditions, the removal of that condition for the concrete apron would require a public works variance be granted.

Staff received 22 letters of support, one petition of support with 172 signatures, and then there were two speakers in support at the planning commission hearing. Conversely, we received two letters of opposition as well as one speaker in opposition at the hearing. And as I mentioned, planning commission did recommend approval with those modified conditions by an 8-1 vote.

Item nine is a CUP request for a firewood preparation facility for the parcel directly southeast of 1625 Indian River Road, still within district 2. A notice violation was issued in January of this year for operation without a conditional use permit after which the applicant filed this application.

The applicant intends to operate from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on a daily basis.

The applicant has end indicated that they only intend to operate the facility while cleaning up the site. As such, staff is recommending a one-year limitation if the CUP is approved, after which the site should be replanted.

Staff is unaware of any opposition to the request, and the planning commission voted 10 to zero to recommend approval.

Again, this one with an added condition that no off-site material should be brought on site for processing.

Item 10 is a COP request for a homebased wildlife rehabilitation center at 709 D Laura Lane in District 9.

The applicant is proposing to provide care to small mammals within the room within a room of an existing single family dwelling.

No more than 10 animals will be on site at any given time. The applicant is licensed with the Department of Wildlife Resources and will only receive animals from a parent organization. No animals will be brought on site from any members of the public.

Josh, what kind of animal?

Just out of curiosity, think squirrels, possums, several different varieties of squirrels. Um, generally she said under like 10 pounds or less.

Okay, I'll have to watch it. Thank you.

Yeah, we did reach out to the applicant and to uh DWR to see if there was any definition of small mammal. There really wasn't anything, but the license with DWR is for specific animals. I can get you the specifics.

I'll dig into it a little bit. Thank you. I appreciate that. No problem.

Once the animals are weaned from formula, they will be transferred to a secondary facility. So, no animals will be released uh into the wild from this site. We have not received any opposition to this request and the planning commission did recommend approval on consent.

The final item on your October 7th agenda is a cup for a short-term rental at 516 22nd Street, unit 300 within District 6. This is a four-bedroom unit and can accommodate two parking spaces on site. The applicant has also submitted an intent to lease off-site parking agreement for two spaces within the 25th Street municipal parking garage. And you can see both the straight line and driving distance

distance on the map there.

There are no prior zoning complaints, nor is the subject site currently advertised. We have not received any opposition to this request, and the planning commission did recommend approval on consent.

Moving on to your October 21st agenda, there are a total of six planning items.

Item one is a modification of conditions request for 2244 and 2252 Indian River Road in District 2. A conditional use permit for assembly use was approved in 2016 for the operation of an event venue on the site. The applicant is now seeking a modification to allow for the construction of a 3,880T greenhouse.

That proposed greenhouse will replace an existing pole barn on the site and will be constructed within the same footprint. Events for the venue will either occur outdoors behind the residence or within that event space.

Adequate spaces provided on site for parking. Staff has recommended a couple changes to the conditions. One, that no amplified music be allowed outside between 1000 p.m. and noon. And then no event shall be held between the hours of 11:00 p.m. PM and 9:00 a.m. The applicant did indicate that weddings are their primary event, but they do host baby showers, reception lunches that

typically happen earlier in the day than your typical wedding.

The renderings on the slide here show the proposed greenhouse. In addition to being used for an event space, the applicant has indicated that they intend to grow fruits and vegetables and raise quail, which will also be done within that greenhouse.

Since this site is located within the transition area, uh the applicant did present to the TAITA CAC in August of this year and did receive support from that group. We did have one speaker at the planning commission hearing. It was an adjacent neighbor. They were not opposed to the application. However, they did ask to be notified of events in advance so they can kind of plan according accordingly. Planning

commission did recommend approval by an 8-1 vote with the added condition that monthly notification of upcoming events be provided to all property owners within an eighth of a mile.

Item two is a modification of conditions request for 3909 Virginia Beach Boulevard in District 4.

A conditional use permit for motor vehicle sales was granted in 1987. The applicant now seeks to demolish the existing buildings on the site and construct a new car dealership.

A total of 108 parking spaces are proposed, 63 of which will be used for inventory display. Additionally, one ver vertical storage unit, which can hold nine vehicles, will be proposed behind the building at the rear of the site.

You can kind of see it in that light blue rectangle on the slide. Sidewalk and crosswalk improvements are proposed to provide connectivity to a parcel southwest of this site which is used as a maintenance and service facility for the dealership. A vinyl privacy fence is proposed along the rear property line which is planned north to the um plan shown on the slide there. That uh green

strip at the top is the phase two of the future VB trail. So that fencing is proposed to provide some buffering from this site to the trail. The applicant is also proposing landscaping within the trail rightway but abuing the property line of this site to provide further buffering that will be subject to approval of an encroachment agreement by this body.

The renderings on the slide here show the proposed building which will be a maximum height of 30 ft. This site is located within the Rosemont SGAA and while the use does not align with the recommendations of the plan, the current design is more consistent with the recommendations for the SGA than what exists today. Staff has not received any opposition to this request and the planning commission did vote to

recommend approval on consent.

Thank you, Stacey.

Just full disclosure, um I have absolutely absolutely no financial interest as we speak uh in this project or in uh priority, but I think technically I'm still an officer of the company uh which I've cleaned that up. That's just a cleanup issue um through resignation, but I've had no say, no um financial interest, but I am the uh trustee of one of the applicants, so I won't, you know, be involved in the

decision process. And I just wanted to let everyone know of that interest.

Yeah, sure. Have anything?

Yeah, I think it's important for me to say as well, I'm no longer employed by Priority Lexus and so I have no ties to the company. Okay.

Right. Item three is a C request for a bulk storage yard for three parcels along Virginia Beach Boulevard within district 4. The site lies within the Rosemont SGAA and is intended to store vehicle inventory and provide employee parking for the auto dealership that was discussed with the previous request.

There are two existing billboards on the site which are proposed to remain.

Aluminum fencing and landscaping are proposed around the entire perimeter of the site with additional landscaping proposed within the future VB trail rightway which is just to the north and again that will be subject to approval of an encroachment agreement by this body.

There was one speaker in opposition to the request at the planning commission hearing who noted concerns with incompatibility of the use adjacent to the VB trail. While staff is recommending denial of this request due to that incompatibility and the fact that this is a vacant parcel, um the planning commission did vote to recommend approval by 6 to3 with an added condition reaffirming the need for

an improved encroachment agreement for the landscaping that is proposed within the VB trail rightway.

Okay, Stacy and then Amelia. Again, I have no financial interest in this at all, but I was the signature on the original contract to purchase this property and it has since been transferred to another one of the Elmer entities that I have absolutely no interest in. But again, I am trustee to the applicant of of this project and will abstain from any votes or voice.

Okay Millia I've been and reviewed all of that area, so I was comfortable with what's going on there by my district.

Thank you.

Right. Item four is another cup request for a bulk storage yard. This one at 208 Hudome Way in District 2.

The bulk storage yard will be used for the storage of acoustical dampening generator enclosures as well as other materials stored rotationally as a part of the manufacturing process.

While bulk storage yards are required to be enclosed on all sides by a privacy fence and landscaping, the applicant is requesting a deviation to this requirement to allow portions of the bulk storage yard to be screened by the proposed building and/or the fencing, landscaping, and verming proposed around the perimeter of the site.

Since the site is located within the inter facility traffic area, the applicant appeared before the TITA committee in August of this year. The committee found the proposal to be inconsistent with the recommendations for the area and voted to oppose the project by a 72 vote. Due to the site's location within the Innovation Park approval by the Virginia Beach Development Authority is required. The

request received unanimous support from VBDA in July of this year and will be subject to additional review by the VBDA as the site and the building details are refined through the process and that's required by the innovation park design guidelines.

Staff has received 16 letters of opposition to this request noting concerns with the loss of open space and incompatibility with the area. There was one speaker in opposition and two speakers in support at the planning commission hearing.

Ultimately, the planning commission voted to recommend approval by a 7-3 vote with two added conditions which are seen on the slide here. One to require the installation of 11 foot wide shared youth path with landscaping conforming to the requirements of the public works design standards manual and to the satisfaction of parks and wreck and a condition that the bulk storage yard use

would be contingent on the commencement of construction of the building on the site. The updated plan shown on the slide here was received yesterday afternoon, a copy of which should have been passed out at everybody's individual seats. So, what this plan shows is a shift of the parking lot slightly to the west to accommodate that 11 foot wide shared use path and landscaping along the eastern perimeter of the site.

The final two items are a conditional use permit request, one for a motor vehicle sales, the other for an automobile repair garage at 245 Pennsylvania Avenue in District 4. The applicant intends to use the existing buildings on the site for the proposed uses.

Adequate parking is provided on the site to support the uses, not including the vehicle display area. The applicant is requesting two deviations with this request. The first to allow a minimum lot size of 18,620 square feet where the ordinance requires a minimum of 2 thou 20,000 square feet for motor vehicle rental and sales. And then a second to allow a 4ft sorry a sixft tall fence within the front yard

setback where our ordinance would typically require or typically set a maximum of a 4ft height.

Since the site is located within the central V village district of the Penrook SGAA, staff is recommending a five-year time limit on the request.

Staff has not received any opposition and the planning commission voted to recommend approval by an 81 vote. Mayor, that does conclude my presentation and I'll stand by if there are any additional questions.

Amelia, I just want to, you know, commend you all for always keeping that strategic plan in and the five years.

Thank you.

No problem.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, at this point we're ready uh for some council discussions and comments.

Rosemary, I just thought I would bring up election day, November 4th. That is also our first of the month meeting day. And sometimes we choose not meeting that day. And I just formal session maybe onto the next week and just I'm not proposing that we do it, but I thought I would ask to see what y'all would like to do. If you'd like to maybe not have a meeting that Dr. Vice Mayor, I think council already

handled that.

Yeah. So um three years ago you codified a change that if the first meeting in November was um on the same date as election day that you would then move your um your meetings back. The additional complication this year is that then the second Tuesday is Veterans Day. And so by operation of law that day would have moved to the 12th which is a planning commission day. And so back in

August we moved the date from the 11th back to the 25th. So, your voting meetings in November will be um 18th and 25th.

Okay.

Well, at least now everybody knows.

That's why we have council comments.

Michael, thank you, mayor. Uh I have a couple of things and I'd like to start with one that I is obviously the most serious and that's just to say a few words about the impact of the storm that occurred here last week and particularly in District 3. But we know there was flooding that occurred across the city in the wake of Hurricane Matthew and in the um incidents of flooding that have occurred since then.

People across the city and especially in the neighborhoods I serve are deeply impacted by recurrent flooding that happens in their neighborhoods.

was scary because people lost everything they had. They lost their homes. That your home is your castle.

Property was destroyed. Lives were interrupted. People had to spend months with their families in hotel rooms waiting for support from their insurance companies and the federal government.

Friends and family as they rebuilt their homes. contemplated how to rebuild their homes. Their cars and other property was destroyed. Their sheds were flooded, garages destroyed. All you had to do was drive around, and I wasn't on counsel then, but just drive around and watch.

Look at the piles of people's family belongings on the front lawn on the front lawn. It was devastating.

And the result of that experience, continued experience that people have had with rising waters, approaching hurricanes, you've heard me talk about this many times. It's traumatic and it deeply impacts our quality of life, the sense of safety that we have about our property and our lives.

And um I know this applies to people across the city, but this is especially concentrated in district 3. There's a sense of frustration when an incident like what happened on t last Tuesday occurred and there was flooding.

Cars were flooded. Cars were floating down south Plaza Boulevard and another South Boulevard, South Plaza Boulevard, many other places.

Um, people couldn't get home.

Took me a long time to get home. Um, after our council meeting only because I was only able to because a constituent called me to express his concern for the flooding and he told me how to get home cuz it took him two hours to figure it out.

And um and yet and so this is an this is a matter of the highest seriousness for our city and continues to be for our community.

And yet, as I was just saying, we got almost 8 in of rain in just an afternoon and early evening.

The storm water flood the flood protection program that's underway is just that it's underway. We know that it's scheduled to be completed in 2031.

And so while improvements are being made, projects are moving forward, a storm hit us. Uh the good news is that we didn't have widespread structure flooding. I'm actually not aware of anyone that I've spoken to personally um where we had um flooding in someone's home. Not saying it didn't happen. Um but it wasn't widespread in the manner that it was in Hurricane Matthew. The waters receded very quickly. So that's

good. That's a contrast with Matthew. Um we're better positioned. We have tie gates. We have pump stations. There's temporary pumps. I could get into great detail about all the different mechanisms that are underway. The Boat Creek Stormwater Park is emerging as we speak.

But in the interim, we need to do two things in my view.

One, and I think the city has done a good job in the wake of the storm by putting out a video by explaining that we did have a tide gate at Lake Windsor.

There are temporary pumps there that can pump uh 70 feet per second.

70 CFCs per second.

70 CFC's per second. the the permanent pumps when installed after permitted and manufactured, they're in the process, just for contrast, will pump 800.

So that's a huge it's more than 10 times the volume per pump that would that would create relief just in Lake Windsor. And we're not I said I wasn't going to get into detail, but we're not even we don't we're not even talking about the Tide Gate and pump station on South Linhaven that's not even that hasn't even begun construction yet. All of these things take time. Frankly, the federal government is in some ways an

impediment. That's a word I'm going to use. Um because we have to get the these projects permitted and designed and planned. Then they have to be permitted.

We know that there are um um economic and social uh factors that have caused increases in pricing, workforce challenges, um delays. there's only you there's only so much concrete out there and and qualified construction workers to do these projects. All of these are reasons for um what is a legitimate explanation of the challenges that are going on. But at the end of the day when

water is rising up and toward your home doesn't matter. You don't care about any of that. What you care about is what is the city doing today to protect my life and to protect my property. So I think in the interim we need to do two things.

We need to be more transparent about where we are with this project. I think our city staff has done a great job, but we really need to blast it out there.

Where are we? Where are we today? What can people expect for the future? And the other thing we have to do is to explore and prioritize additional shorter and medium-term assurances for people who live in those neighborhoods. These are they're we're talking about I know across the city and especially here hardworking people all they do all they want to do is send their kids to school who do well provide

opportunity go to work take care of their homes it's beautiful homes people take such pride and enjoyment in the lawns and the homes and they take beautiful care of it and then you see the waters rise and you see your car floating down the street. It's not acceptable and we have to make sure that we're explaining where we are and we cannot falter. That's why I'm sitting here looking at our legislative agenda.

We're talking about I'm not going to get specific, but we're talking about asking for things and we're and we're contemplating a variety of projects.

We need to make sure this project and you're going to see and continue to see and I promise can assure you continue to see me advocate as I as I have and will continue to in with with in in connection with with all of you and for the betterment of our community to make sure that these projects are funded and on schedule.

Cannot delay. We cannot falter and um people are counting on us.

Can I ask a question?

Yes ma'am.

So it's amazing the uh information on the pumps. Do we have any idea when the permanent pumps are going to be ready and installed?

I'm going to defer to Patrick on that.

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to get director Hans to come and give overview of timeline for the pumps for that project.

Well, Mr. Before LJ gets um gets on to say some comments, I do want to acknowledge basically after Hurricane U Matthew, I think this the city CIP budget, 8% of it was roughly flood protection and now I think it's safe to say it's about 25 30% about 25% of your of your um CIP budget is um allocated towards flood protection. Right. I think when we got here, we had probably one or two

crews for storm water maintenance and repairs in the neighborhoods. And I think we probably have, you think you all probably added about 20 to 30 different um individual people to join, two or three different crews, right? So, this has been a priority of the council.

You took around 37 million of the um American Rescue Plan Act money. You have around $37 million for neighborhood enhancements for storm water stuff and most of that money is spent, if not all of it is spent. So, the council has put the resources to get the stuff done. And just note as well with the flood protection program, the bond referendum, it's basically taken projects that wouldn't have started in Mr. um

Beluchcci's district to probably 2040s, 2050s and accelerated it. Now, obviously, as Mr. Guji said it's totally unacceptable that folks still have to deal with the trauma that they are um facing whenever the rains come at that level. But just imagine we're talking about projects that wouldn't have been able to come to the residents until probably about 20 30 years from now, but for the courage of this council and the

public for approving the bond referendum. But LJ, go ahead and give a overview of that project.

Yes. Yes, ma'am. So the the permanent pump station is part of the project that we have termed the mega bundle. It is a it's a suite of projects that are in the Windsor Woods, Prince of Sand Plaza, and the Lakes area. Um the the particular pump station that goes right there at the Windsor Woods Tide Gate. Um that's probably the first project that will that we'll see the most uh activity on.

Um that big me mega bundle project has been in design for the last uh 18 months or so and we are we are wrapping up the the design phase and then we go to it's a design build project. So the next part of this will move into the conclusion of the design and then the construction uh by the by the firm at uh I as we if we authorize the next part of this and we

anticipate that we will um what will happen is we'll start ordering some of the materials and we'll start having some pre-development um some pre-construction activities that will start to happen.

All of this is is a way of saying that you're going to see activity happening here again uh in in relatively short order. We expect that the pump station will be complete by 2030. Um potentially the opportunity for it to come a little bit earlier. All of the projects are anticipated to be completed of the mega bundle. All of the projects of the mega bundle are anticipated to be anti uh

completed by 2031. We just think this one might track a little bit ahead. Now, that's frustrating because that's that's still a number of years out. Um, so we're we're going to do everything that we can to accelerate it, but understand that this is a complicated project.

These are huge pumps. Um, and the infrastructure that has to be developed going into it is is quite significant.

Um we we spent uh four hours this morning. We'll spend four hours tomorrow and four hours the day after working with our consultant to talk about how these things are going to be implemented, how we're going to track it, how we're going to operate it, and the conditions under which that that they're going to operate. We'll continue to work on this. It is a it is a massive undertaking. And um and um I I just also

would like to say I am very much aware of of the difficulties that our residents experienced not just in this storm event. We had a storm event in September that impacted uh District 1 quite severely. Um and we know and and we're acutely aware of the issues that are going on. Um, and if I since I have the microphone for just another second, um, there are other projects that are

going on at the same time. We talked about the mega bundle and it's a big part of certainly would have had a huge impact on on what happened last week. We also have uh construction projects that are getting ready to kick off on the Shore Drive area, Eastern Shore Drive, and also projects that are under design for the Lake Bradford area for the uh for the areas at towards the um towards

that part of the city. So, I I just I really want you all to understand we're we're doing everything we can as diversely and as widespread as we can.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hans. and and and I would like to really follow up to that by saying there were a lot to be frustrated about last week, but there were also a lot of things to be um grateful for and um and take some comfort in because as I was meandering around trying to find a way to drive home without flooding my car, I saw yellow lights blinking all over the neighborhood. I saw um

professionals out in I don't know what you call them, wet suits. Um in the pouring rain and standing water, you don't know what's in it. Um uh don't worry, I'm getting to I'm getting to your team, too.

No, I agree with what you're saying.

I've been in that. I saw them out there um performing all kinds of different tasks and dealing with frustrated resident and and and traffic and pickup trucks causing wake on them. I saw the fire trucks out there too with the red lights uh all over and um and it was really amazing to see and and this is part of what I think we need to work on.

Um cuz I've been receiving a lot of frustrated folks who don't have as much information as I have and um in the confusion that occurs sometimes people create their own narratives about what's happening. And I think we need to find a way to be more um communicative about what the city is doing, what the city and even what are let's be honest even more so than we have been about what are our what are our restraints?

Um where are where are the challenges going to occur. Um but and and then and then also to be honest what if a storm was coming this weekend?

You know we just the ground is saturated. is giving me Matthew flashbacks and and actually a storm could be coming or two of them a some kind of combined storm. Um so on one hand I'm very uh grateful and and um and I'm aware that we have dedicated professionals and and that we have invested resources in those professionals to to do exactly what uh and you're and you're and you are doing

exactly what we've asked you to do. And then on the other hand, um, you know, I have neighbors who lost property and, um, experienced trauma and they they don't even they they're they want to have greater confidence in the city of Virginia Beach that they have safety in their neighborhood. This is got to continue to be one of our top issues and and we need to continue to explore ways to accelerate shorter term

solutions so that I don't know and you know we we got to work on something uh to to determine um ways to make these neighborhoods safer and and streets passable.

So, I'm I'm you know, just thinking about those people that continue to they call me and that rain's really coming down hard and their home flooded and um they're not they're very concerned and continue to be concerned. Um so, thank you very much.

The I'd like to segue to Thursday night upcoming on a different note, possibly more positive and more fun. We're having a public safety self-defense workshop with Sheriff Rocky Hulkcom at Bo Creek Rec Center. Um, and um, our former colleague and friend and outstanding sheriff of the city of Virginia Beach, Rocky Hulkcom, is bringing his team from the sheriff's office um, to help us um, keep our neighborhood safe in a

different way. Situational awareness, basic self-defense techniques, and um, I'm really looking forward to it. It's going to be fun.

That's a different kind of town hall.

Nobody's done a town hall like that before.

There we go. Good stuff. And Michael, you know, let me just say that I really appreciate your passion and concern. I was doing home care rehab then and I was actually treating patients and after their houses were cleared and the walls were wet and the furniture was on the lawn and but once again I think what we've done since then and maybe little consolation I think the difference

between then and now at least people can see the light at the end of the tunnel that something is coming. you see a lot of construction pro projects. I there's one part I drive on the highway on 264.

I look to the right and I see all kinds of big pipes hanging there. Uh you know, and we did make this our number one priority and I think we've been honoring this and you know, believe me when I say you Norolk has a very very similar flooding problem. We're not alone in this, but this is our highest priority.

And I'll tell you what, as long as people, if we see all the work going at Bo Creek Golf C course and you know the pipes on South Plaza and stuff like that, at least they see some light at the end of the tunnel.

Mayor, could I just add one thing? I apologize. I know I went long um but this is an an issue worth going long over and I I do want to make I do want to explicitly say this. The urgency of this situation is why this council made the difficult but necessary decision to move forward on the Pleasure House Point project.

um those wetlands credits in spite of what has been advanced and um distributed through the public were not available. And the only way that we would be able to unlock moving forward those those projects for district 3 and in other areas of the city was to advance a wetlands restoration project that um not only benefits Pleasure House Point and the ecosystem there, but provides the

necessary credits. Anything other than the action that we took would have been not only irresponsible, but it could have delayed the flood protection that residents are counting on all of us to work together to deliver by years. And so I want to emphasize that I hate to bring up a sub I don't hate to bring up a a subject. This is a very serious subject and it's one that we continue to

hear about. and the flooding that occurred last week, the potential for additional damage that would occur from future hurricanes necessitated our immediate action and we did the right thing and I want to thank those of you who supported that and I concur. Okay, go cash and then sac.

Thank you. Um flip um mitigation is very important. So thank you for your uh comments on that. Um following up with um uh protection and being concerned about our communities, uh the senior population in College Park is very near and dear to my heart. I.e. on Auburn Drive. Since being elected, I've worked on these three buildings and it's the Sands.

Across the street is Jamestown Commons and then across from Jamestown Common is my amenities or the village or the old Beth Shalom. To which I'm going to say this, I am in need of some help there um with all three buildings. Um, I can tell you based on my own poll that they are unaware of the city services that we offer for seniors. And and let me be clear, um, today, this morning, from 10:30 to 11:30,

I have my introduction of who I am. I do a listening session which council we need to think about having um I think we started a pilot program of listening sessions. I I I really think that that's very much needed again uh especially for our senior communities. Um and then I went over my roles and responsibility of what I'm supposed to do as their city council member. I think there's a large

confusion among senior services or senior facilities because it has a lot of state overlay and federal overlay.

And so you come in as a city council member and you know they go so how can you help us when most of us are on Medicaid Medicare?

Um I tell you how I've been able to bring some relief to them. most of their activity coordinators in all three facilities which are over 500 senior citizens.

Most of them are living where they can't make ends meet. Um and IE means food.

And so I'm grateful to have connected with uh Reset Inc. which is on Military Highway, which is about 30 feet away from their uh prospective buildings. But that it's very concerning to me that their program directors or activity coordinators are searching for food.

And so I'm I'm petitioning our city staff. I'm petitioning our my colleagues. Listen, I need some help with my seniors. Um, and I can only give them resources, but then I have to work.

And so I want to make sure on Auburn Drive if we have any access or any resources to help um the Sands, which most of them are living on Medicaid.

Um, and then Jamestown Common, they are doing independent living, so they have a bus and transportation, but the Sands does not have transportation.

So, I'm seeing my seniors, I'm watching them. I park and they're catching the bus by themselves. And so, I I'm in need of I've connected with Southeast Services, uh, Senior Services of Southeast Virginia. I've I've I've connected uh with him. They came out and spoke at Jamestown Commons, but they are um experiencing a driver shortage and uh so we need some help there. And this morning to end on a positive note,

I was grateful to really connect with the um with the residents of the village, which is the new name for Beth Shalom. When I talk to my community and I say, "Hey, I'm at um the village," they go, "What's the village?" If I say the old Beth Shalom, then they go, "Yeah, yeah, got it." And I think this is we we're beginning um the Jewish holiday as I'm correct. Is that correct?

Yes. Yes. And so it was very appropo for me to do that today and and celebrate uh the Jewish holiday. But what I I'm just going to end on this note. I've got 500 and so we are instituting a neighborhood watch along with their um with their coordinators. I'm in partnership where with their management, not against their management. I'm in partnership with the fire department. I'm in partnership with

Southeast Services or Senior Services of Southeast Virginia. I'm in partnership.

And so if you can offer any resources to those three major buildings that house a collection of wisdom, I'm open to it.

Okay.

Uh Patrick, any suggestions?

None at this time. Mayor will follow. I I tell you what, why don't we uh do this? We have the mayor's commission on the aging and we have some volunteer folks that you know, let's get let's get them engaged.

Okay.

Okay. And uh and then you also got the truckway building, you know, that they were in Providence that has a lot of, you know, seniors there. So that's it's an epicenter for what's going on. But I'll be glad to help you out.

Thank you, mayor.

Okay, Stacy. And then work. Thank you, sir. Um, just want to bring up that the construction, the CIP on Shore Drive has started pretty much in full earnest. Um, and the Councilman Schulman and I were at the Bayfront meeting last week and people were complaining about the condition of the road and um, the staff indicated there would be milling started and it was almost like there was somebody in

the room because as we left I passed and they were milling the road. People were like, "Okay, I know I complained but thank you." And but um to that end, you know, a number of people are saying, "Well, we had no idea. We were given no notice." And you know, I know I did a town hall. I went to every civic league meeting I go to. I know Councilman Schulman did the same thing. We went to

the Bayfront Advisory. They had a whole full briefing. Uh I mean the uh staff has come out to a number of the civic leagues and given briefings. So, uh, but to that end, is there a way I know when Dominion did their project on the, um, repair lines in the same area at the same time, they sent out a small little postcard to all the people in the affected area and

said, you know, we're going to do some major work in your area. Go to this site for more information. I think that'd be very useful if we could do that as a city to whenever we have one of these major projects just to send out a little postcard saying, you know, go to this website cuz it's a nice website for any of you that are watching and and have complained about the lack of

communication. The website is fantastic, but I think if we could just send out a little postcard to the people in the affected areas saying go to the website and sign up for your newsletters that will keep you updated, it would go a long way to uh you know, at least we'd be able to say you got a postcard telling you to where to go. So, I' I'd make that request that we look

into the possibility of providing that information, too. You know, another possibility I see around town where you're doing some projects, you see big signs that said ripple effect. We're working on it. You know, maybe along the corridors, you know, put up the sign so anybody that's riding the road from another part of town, uh, you know, that might be a possibility.

But good point, Stacy. At least you got short drive going. That's another project that was on the waiting list for a while. Okay. And Worth. Thank you, Mayor D. back on the flooding issue and last week, you know, recall last Tuesday we got a presentation from Jeff Waller and the oversight board and Leysa um with Jacobs Engineering. And so I did do a Facebook post on that and so a lot of

people don't really know back to Councilman Aluchcci's point, we need to blast it out more and I know communications office does, but the link for the slide presentation, the slide deck is a PowerPoint. if we could make that into a link and we all because we got a paper copy last week and really didn't you know I don't know if we took it home afterwards or not but if we had

a link to share with our constituents and on post or whatever it would be good because there's a lot of valuable information in that slide deck updates costs um schedules where we are engineering with all the projects around the city and I think that would really help because a lot of people when I did my post say you know we need know to know more information. So, and I will take this back to the oversight board

and we'll talk about more about how we can can blast this updates out to the public.

Okay, great. Amelia, yes. One thing as you mentioned just now about the fledge and I had someone call me up and he says, "Come on out so you can go and see it." I had to tell him, "Well, I can't come out right now, but we will look into it." But I noticed whichever television was here um watching that, they kept showing it over and over. If you had been there,

this is what was going on right at the same time at on council. So that was good to see that broadcast again. I don't remember which channel did that.

Um I also want to share that I put out Josh if I can borrow yours and show you.

Nope. The big Oh, sorry. that as part of because we let you know what we're doing across as we build with the Virginia African-American Culture Center. This is a new tour guide to do with African-American history tour. And if you look at it, it's called a trio of trials and triumphs and this is Norolk.

Uh Kirk Cross worked with me. This started when I told him what I was trying to do a little further. were able to go up to the general assembly and with some grant that I had already from the BTC I added 30,000 they um BTC added another 100,000 so we have these and it gives you literally day one if you are coming from Williamsburg coming down covering 11 cities Virginia

Beach uh also donated and several of the other cities all the way to Williamsburg So, it takes you through an itinerary of day one, day two, including, you know, Virginia Beach. And I know one person says, "Well, Virginia Beach has two pages." Well, Virginia Beach did put some good money and we were up and down with that. So, they made I think about 70 50 to 70,000 of these and they're now

at four of the welcome centers plus our welcome center in Virginia Beach. So you'll see it and I'll try and bring a few more. So a lot of people who would like to get a copy of that because it tells a little history of different areas in um got Hampton covered um all the way through Fort Monroe. We go on through to um Portsmith and on all the way up to uh

Williamsburg. And we hope one day to make another day that goes up through Richmond. But this is the first. So this is why I'm sharing it with you. We're really excited. It was well worth it even though I wore my joints out going up and down to Richmond. But just wanted to give you all a copy of it.

Thank you.

Thank you. Just two quick things. Um the uh we were invited I think all of us but it's open to the public and free is the uh Symphony by the Sea concert series.

Um I'm admittedly not a music person, not any style. Don't really listen, never have. My wife on the other hand, she's quite into it. Um but it was fun.

My point is is that for those of us like me, it's a pretty good evening. Uh especially the full fall weather had come in. So, for us locals that may not go down to the beach as much during the summer, it was a great uh evening to go down there and uh listen to some stuff that I would not normally listen to.

About the right amount of time, about an hour and a half, you know, and I was good. But I got to talk to a lot of different people. Um just mingling and being part of the crowd was really was really fun. So I suggest everybody to do it and I appreciate uh I appreciate Kit and everybody that is putting that on and Neptune and it was it was it was

quite fun. The second thing is I'm not sure if you're going to talk about it but the air show um I uh I tell everybody I was involved in like 10 to 15 air show practices right over the years. Um there all the time from EM for the EM standpoint and fire and and the whole nine yards. But um I never went to the air show uh until Sunday. So um it was quite astounding to

me and how much and how fun it was. And uh I'm the proud parent of an H60 pilot.

My son is a is a H60 pilot and so uh it was it was very interesting to see all the different airframes and what the Navy Navy brings to the fight. Um it's quite impressive and the air air force had a little bit of a show going on inside the show and there there was a little bit of fun about that but seeing all the different um different airframes was quite impressive. So I suggest

anybody that can go um should and also something to be very proud of is the the fifth grade on Friday. Um, we started that back Erin Sutton was still here when we started that and um, quite phenomenal. And now we include Chesapeake. So, we get uh, I don't know how many kids exactly, but it's it's a bunch. It's a whole lot. They use the back gate to bring them in and drive

them out onto the airfield. So, I'm sure it's pretty cool for them to be able to see that um, as well. That's on Friday.

They use it as kind of the practice day, but it gives the kids seeing something they've never seen. So, pretty neat.

Thank you. Yeah, John.

Um, thank you, mayor. And yes, uh, Council Member, Mike, my my twin girls are fifth graders and they got to partake in that, my wife's chaperon. And like, how cool is that to have an experience, not just as kids, but I mean, for all of us to be able to see what was on display and how how can you not be proud of our country and our city? Um, uh, Shaata is happy new year

in Hebrew. So uh happy new year to all my uh friends who celebrate Roshashana.

Um apples and honey is a tradition uh for a sweet new year. So if anybody wants to partake uh please do. Uh agree with um you know just notifying people especially mayor you mentioned on the corridors. I mean, I know we're really great uh communications office and and and everybody sending uh postcards out to adjacent properties that are immediately affected, but because these routes carry, you know, 30 40,000 plus

vehicles a day, um I and I know there social media posts and other things that we do, but um to the extent that we can make sure that everybody is aware that um it's going to be a nightmare on short drive for for a little while while we we get these much needed and uh overdue uh road projects done. Um, and last, I hope you don't mind, Council Member Remick, the the lights on the Greenwich. Okay.

Yes, sir. Um, we had a request uh from a constituent um to light up a city asset pink in honor of breast cancer awareness month in October. Um it is about to be October and I think we can only do that via a council ordinance and the next opportunity for us to vote and approve an ordinance would be into October since we don't meet formally again. Um I did speak with the public works director

mentioned that this was kind of a quicker turn. I know they prefer 30 days or more. Um, but I mean, even if it bleeds into a little bit of October, if it's somehow possible, if I've I think council member Remick and the vice mayor um mentioned that they would be able to co-sponsor. So, we I'll do it.

So, yeah, being a girl dad and you know, pink's my favorite color and um breast cancer means um something I think all of us uh I know. Um I I appreciate that.

So, thank you.

Okay. Thank you. All right, let me uh finish up and I'm going to Hutch, thank you very much for those comments on the the air show. You know, I think it means a lot. You know, you know, I always say that the Navy is part of the DNA of this city and it was a remarkable event and once again, I think over 300,000 people attended. We'll get the final.

Last year it was 325 Patrick uh you know and but uh it's a remarkable display of pride to see what our military actually does and all those wonderful toys that they have and it was a huge crowd. It was a well-managed crowd. But Patrick, I want to give kudos to all the public safety um and you know the traffic management. But I I tell you what, it couldn't get better when you talk about

getting all those thousands of people on a naval installation. And you know, once again, we're in a high-risisk thing, you know, terror attacks and everything. It takes it takes a lot of, you know, Josh, let me say this, hookah to be having, you know, events like that. Um, and but once again, the crowd was magnificent.

People were happy and, you know, a tremendous amount of pride. Uh the other thing I went uh also after that was um they had on 11th Street the Atlantic Wild Vow Wild Thou Heritage Museum celebrated their 30th uh anniversary and it's right next to the cottage there and I had no idea they were there 130 years and right in the middle of all these wonderful new buildings in there you

have a true uh you know piece of history right there about way back when Virginia Beach, you know, was, you know, was just budding and I think it's amazing. Oh, the other thing is, you know, I'm really proud to announce we like to celebrate many of our communities and a very vibrant part of our communities, the Philippine community, and we had a meeting today and they're getting ready to bring back Phil

and it's going to be on October 3rd, 4th, and 5th. And I'm going to uh pass these out uh for you to see. They have a wonderful events and just shows something about Rudy Loop uh you know that really attracts people.

District five.

Yeah. Uh but I'm just saying uh you know this is another point of pride and thought you point out the fact that we have so many events that really attract so many different type of people you know here in the city. I mean, we started off with a rodeo and, you know, barrel uh racing and everything else and uh point blank and all different kinds of events, hand soccer, you know, we are

indeed blessed as a city. So, I just wanted to pass that on. Okay. At this point, uh the chair will entertain a motion to recess into a close session pursuant to the exemptions from open meetings allowed by section 2.2 to 3711A code of Virginia as amended for the following purposes. Personnel matters discussion consideration or interviews of prospective candidates for employment assignment appointment

or performance de motion salaries disciplining or resignation of specific public officers appointees of any public body pursuant to section 2.2 2 371181 and that's for council boards, commissions committees authorities agencies and employees. Do I have a motion?

So moved.

Second.

Okay.

Councelor.

Hi.

Hi.

Hi.

Green.

Hi.

Hi.

Hi.

Hi.

Hi.

Hi.

I Okay, we are recent to close.

Do I have Motion to certify the close session.

So second I

Hey, thank you all. Great conversations today. We are returned.