City Council Meeting - 09/02/2025

And I hope everybody had a nice restful Labor Day weekend. And I'll tell you what, the weather couldn't got better.

Ava, listen. Thank you and welcome.

We need some rain now.

Okay. If you can get The farmer needs rain. Okay. Well, since I get blamed for the weather, I'll see what I can do.

All right. if we could go ahead and get get rolling.

All right. So, Mr. Mayor, members of council, at this time we'll be joined by our colleagues with Hampton Roads Transit. They want to give city council a briefing on the system optimization plan. We'll be joined by Ray Amaroso, the chief planning and development officer for Hampton Roads.

Welcome, Ray. How you doing? Thank you, mayor, for that warm welcome and good afternoon, members of council, city manager. Um, it's nice to be back again.

Um, I'm here today to talk about uh our system optimization plan, which actually is something we're very excited about um to share with you. We're we'll be doing this for the six member cities uh that we serve. Uh your city council is the first one. um and let's talk about an effort that I I believe um is extremely important for the future of transit in this region. So the system

optimization plan by its very nature is looking how HRT can put its limited resources to their best use by reducing low ridership local bus service and reinvesting those savings in routes with high ridership demand. Why is that important?

You have heard before how we are struggling as many transit properties throughout the country in getting enough bus operators to operate the 68 bus routes that we put out on the street every day. We simply just don't have enough. So when I talk about limited resources is not just typically you put it in the uh characteristic of financial resources but it's also human resources.

Uh why is the SOP needed? A really good question. Um, as you all may recall, we get funding through a variety of sources, but our biggest funders in addition to the six member cities are the federal government that helps pay for operating costs and capital costs and the state government, Commonwealth of Virginia. And uh they award funding very much so the state by uh looking at productivities of bus routes and how

many people they carry on hourly basis or per trip basis. So the goal of the SOP is to increase ridership by putting service where it's most needed, not most needed. Sorry for that typo. Improving reliability by having enough operators to support the schedules that we put out and the number of routes we put out. And therefore the net effect of that is reducing costs for the local member

jurisdictions by making the system more efficient.

So a little bit of background and context of the system optimization plan.

We have an ongoing operator shortage that pretty much manifested itself at the start of the pandemic and we've been struggling like a lot of transit properties around the country. We're currently short about on any given day of the week 50 bus operators to get back to preandemic 2019 service levels on southside routes to fully implement our regional transit or RTS network. On top of that, we need a another 45 bus

operators. For those that may not recall, the regional transit service network, the uh high frequency backbone routes is something that was identified in the legislation passed by the general assembly back in 2020 to deliver 13 regional backbone routes that serve all six cities with 15minute highfrequency service with a consistent span of the service week and the service day.

Doesn't worry about uh what city pays for what. Um but that needs to deliver 15-minute service. You need more operators for that.

HRT needs to match its service to its resources. Plain and simple. The lack of bus operators means we cannot reliably put out on the street um all the trips that we publish for our customers because of the ongoing shortage of operators. Right sizing the network, the local bus network means our HRT can keep its compact with its customers and not miss trips due to the fact we are lacking bus operators. Again, we're not

alone in this. This is happening all over the country. Everyone's experiencing bus operator shortfalls.

We've talked about microtransit or demand responsive service in the past.

It gives us another mode of service in our portfolio of services that can better serve lower demand markets. HRT can use microtransit to fill in gaps where we might eliminate some services due to low productivity and still meet the demand transit demand for customers who rely on transit. Uh and then finally uh fully implementing the remaining highfrequency service on the regional transit system routes

requires freeing up bus operators. Uh without freeing up the operators it could take almost a decade to implement the remaining 10 routes that get 15inut service. There was a total of 13. We have three in place today. Two in the north side on the peninsula and one on the south side along Virginia Beach Boulevard.

some guidelines for service planning guidelines or principles about optimizing service on low performing routes. Since the merger in 1999 and and even before the merger on some of the older cities like Portsouth and NOFK, there hasn't really been a touch of bus routes and a hard look in the mirror in terms of system performance. We're we're operating rubber tired solution on some

old uh street car lines in downtown NOFK that in its day perhaps had a reason to exist but now are carrying fewer and fewer passengers due to uh different um it's not just NOFK but due to different development patterns. So streamlining or consolidating routes to remove duplications or nearby routes is pressing into our mind that frees up operators and preserves financial resources. modifying or realign

realigning some of our high performing routes to maintain fixed route coverage is equally important and also taking a look at adjusting levels of service and service type based on ongoing land use changes employment density and demand.

The Virginia Beach Town Center if you look back is very different than it is today uh in Chesapeake if you think about Summit Point in that development and what was there just seven years ago.

We're a changing region or Oyster Point in Newport News. We're a changing region with development patterns that are uh creating more jobs or residential concentration, but we have routes that have been in place literally for 25 years. So looking at that is also very important and guided our principle. I have three graphics. I tried to make this this is the 34 local bus routes. We have 34 local bus routes, 13 RTS

highfrequency routes, five peninsula commuter routes on that serve Huntington Engle shipyard, and nine max commuter services. For the purposes of the SOP, we're looking at the true local bus routes. So, as you know, um each of the cities decides how much or how little service they want to fund every year and consult with HRT staff. Sometimes you fully fund a route, sometimes you share

that funding with another city if that route crosses into the other city.

That's a function of the cost allocation. So, I've got three key route uh three key graphics I want to show you that uh the state measures how they award funding to us. Every dollar more we get from the state is a dollar less the cities have to put in. So, they look at operating cost per passenger. So, I put on this the 13 regional backbone routes which are shown in green and the

benchmark uh that almost all of them fall at or below which is a good thing.

And then in blue, dark blue, and light blue are the local bus routes. And because I know you're not familiar, as I am with uh the local route structure, I highlighted in orange those routes that you either fully fund on your own or share in funding with either Chesapeake or NOFK. With either Chesapeake or NOFK, those are the other cities that co-und some of these routes. You will notice um

as you move to the right uh that operating cost per hour. There is a benchmark line that we like to achieve a local average of $1963 of operating cost per passenger. But you see some routes uh way out on the end is the route 58 on Bainbridge Boulevard in Chesapeake. You don't find that but that do uh much more poorly at almost $35 cost per passenger. Those are financial drags on the system. They're carrying

three or four passengers per hour of service in each direction. We tend to like to see uh routes that carry 12, 15, 20 passengers per hour of service.

Remembering that a lot of our routes run hourly, some run 30 minutes, and right now only three run 15 minutes. But I've highlighted uh the 33. It starts out at Virginia Beach TCC Community College, and it's a very long route. It runs around Princess Anne, past the old Kellum area, and then up General Booth Boulevard all the way to the Virginia Beach Convention Center. uh it tends to

and it runs hourly service. It tends to have lower performing characteristics such that for every uh operating cost per passenger, for every cost per passenger, it's almost $20 an hour for that service to carry that passenger.

The next measure that the state looks at is how many people do you carry per hour? If you have hourly service, you run 12 hours a day, that's 12 hours of surf uh service. And they're looking to see productive uh passengers per trip. So you can see here the regional backbone routes do much better on average of almost 14 passengers per hour of service. And again it's is more or less the same

routes you see at the end the 24 which starts out at the Virginia Beach Town Center Pemrook area and runs down Witchduck Road and then on to Kempville Road down to Chesapeake. You share that in a 50/50 manner with the city of Chesapeake. Not so much. It's a relatively newer route. Never really got it. Came online 3 months before the pandemic started. never really got a chance to prove itself. Um, but it is a

low performance since we started in 2021.

Then finally, how many the state asked how many passengers you carry per mile of service? And again, here we're looking for uh anything that goes above those benchmark lines and poor performance uh below that benchmark line. And you can see there's the 33, the 26, and the 24 again as lower performers.

So as a purpose and need recap, I believe HRT needs to match its scheduled service to the existing resources that we expect. As an example, and resources is a nice way of saying bus operators.

Just this past June 2025, we missed approximately 1,200 trips that month due to operator unavailability. That's about 40 trips per day. Now to put it in context, we put out about 2,000 bus trips a day. So 40 is a very small percentage, but if you were one of the users of those 40 trips, you'd be pretty upset if your trip was missed and you had to wait another hour for the next

bus to come. I believe our compact is we should not miss any trips. We just have too many buses um to bus routes that we need to look really hard at which are the good performers, put the resources toward them, and then which are low productivity routes that perhaps we can serve a different way. So the SOP impacted local bus routes on average cost $643 more per passenger to operate

than the RTS regional backbone services.

Right sizing the network enables HRT to sustainably operate a reliable service in the long term.

Uh for each city, I put together some maps that help familiarize yourself with uh each of the routes that we're talking about. So, in Virginia Beach, you participate in funding either wholly or partially eight local bus routes. We're proposing two routes for elimination.

Um, and these are just proposals. It's just a draft plan at this point. It's for your consideration. Four routes to be maintained with alignment or some frequency changes. Two routes maintained with no changes at all. We're talking about adding two microransit routes or zones to replace the two routes that are proposed for elimination. And of course, you operate presently three V Virginia

Beach or we operate for you three Virginia Beach wave routes that are no changes on the 30, 31, and 35. the two routes, the route 23 is at 22 primarily goes up base in the Bayside community um up Independence and the 26 is a route that starts at Virginia Beach TCC and runs uh to Linhaven Mall via Rosemont.

It's a little bit of a convoluted route.

We'll look at the maps quickly. So the route 12 you there's three funding partners here. Uh Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, and Norfolk all share in funding this route. The only thing we're recommending does not impact Virginia Beach is extending the route 12 to directly connect to the downtown NOFK transit center from its term terminal point that presently is at Liberty at Seabard in Chesapeake. It has moderate

performance and and a unique geographic coverage to justify maintaining its service mostly as is. Uh we believe Radisha can be improved if we make it a seamless connection where 14 routes come together at downtown North transit center. It also will cover uh a segment of a proposed eliminated route six in the city of Chesapeake.

The route 22, this came online.

I remember when in 2012 when the new Bayside uh community center, the rec center came online. I remember God rest this whole Vice Mayor Jones and I had many dialogues about the need for this.

But in all honesty, since 2012, it's always been an underperforming route. uh not enough in my opinion to justify and by the numbers to maintain service. Uh we this is where the microtransit zone through the trip grant has been operating for the last year and a half.

We believe looking at demand on microtransit we can better serve this community by maintaining microtransit eliminating the route 22 and uh you can see providing coverage with the route 27 and 36 on most of its alignment. The beige or orange line is the only portion that would be uncovered by fixed route service. Uh but the other uh parts of the alignment of the 22 would continue to be served either by

the 36 or the route 27. And that blue shows the um footprint of microransit service which is demand responsive service that you do through your phone.

And in 15 minutes, there'd be a small vehicle, usually a minivan, that would pick you up at a bus stop, uh, virtual bus stop to take you to your destination within the zone or connect you to a route that's going to go beyond the zone.

The route 24 um service changes, uh, we're reming removing a deviation, and you can see it in that lighter blue. Uh our customer surveys have shown that they want a more direct connection into Pemrook and we believe if we turn right on coming north on on Witchduck if we turn right in the boulevard we can get into the corporate center corporate park area quicker without delay of going up and down. So

the only thing we're proposing here is eliminate a small deviation.

The route 25 there's no changes. This is a route that pretty much runs from the end of light rail um all the way down to Princess Anne, Virginia Beach TCC and the hospital area. The route uh is vital in my opinion to southern Virginia Beach as it connects to the tie but also provides a lifeline service along the southern portion of Princess Anne Avenue uh Princess Anne Boulevard.

The route 26, this is our other route um that we're proposing for elimination. It has very low ridership. Now, prepandemic numbers when I look at it in 2019 and 2018, not so much. I suspect, I don't have evidence of this, that enrollment is down a little bit at Virginia Beach TCC campus. Lynhaven Mall and the number of employees there are also down. It had a little bit of a convoluted root

pattern in that uh the you can see the uh orange represents underneath the blue the alignment uh running up Rosemont and then kind of in a Vshape going back down till it gets to Linhaven. Most of this alignment will be picked up at the route um the route 29 and a little bit of 36.

Um so again this is a very low ridership route. one of the poorer performers in terms of financial than the amount of revenue that's collected per passenger and one of the lowest passengers per trip in the system.

The route 27 um there's only a small change here uh where uh the route stays in place. It will terminate at a shore and pleasure house instead of a JB Little Creek. The US Navy the they stop at JB Little Creek is actually in Navy property. there's no room with what we're doing with the route 36 and bringing that up there to accommodate all these different routes that come in.

The route one comes in there as well from NOFFK that uh we need to alleviate that pressure um at the base property by bringing one uh and that would be the 27 over to uh Shore Drive and Pleasure House instead of JB uh Little Creek.

We're also looking to restore peak period frequency. It's a good It's a good moderately high perform in terms of ridership. And the route 36 will cover that lost portion between Shore Drive and JB Little Creek.

The route 29 uh this runs between Pleasure House Road uh and Linhaven Parkway. Um we're proposing extending from Linhaven Mall to cover the LO lost portion of the Route 26 uh to TCC. uh even though it has a moderately low performance, it has such unique geographic coverage as not much other fixed route service in this territory that it requires maintaining that service.

So the route 33 uh this year was the first time the May service board that uh city staff directed us to truncate. It was a very long route. It used to run all the way up to 68 and Pacific or Atlantic. uh we were instructed for fiscal year 26 due to low ridership in the upper portion to drop the route 33 back to park at adjacent to the convention center. It emanates from TCC

um and then as you can see does the loop down Princess Anne and up General Booth Boulevard uh serves uh Redmill shopping area Upton Drive a lot of a lot of commerce and retail there a lot of new development um so we're maintaining that again unique geographic coverage so let's talk a little bit about uh microtransit and and the mitigative strategies for those two routes so this is your exist existing Virginia Beach

trip grant. There was a six-month pilot and then we applied for another year of funding and got awarded from the state.

You agreed to provide matching funds for this. It's 18 square miles. Um the purple represents the zone that you can be carried by a minivan on on demand to anywhere within the zone or be connected to another fixed route service like the 20 on Virginia Beach Boulevard if you have a destination outside of the zone.

its performance has been pretty good and in comparison to what you're paying for fixed route service on that route 22, it's half the cost in terms of a weekday compared to what you're paying for fixed route service. So we believe this would be a good mitigative strategy if we move forward with the elimination of the route 22.

We're proposing a new microtransit zone to serve a community that has seen a lot of new residential growth and has very little almost no fixed route service. So you have the route coming down Princess Anne, but it's 16 square miles would provide connections between region university and access access to retail destinations all along Indian River Road and would support those routes you see

uh the 12 the 24 the 25 and 26 27 and 29. Um it's not a mitigative strategy.

It's not connected with loss of service but rather we think it has great propensity looking at the demographics of the people that live in the zone the household income to have a healthy wrership on that.

So the SOP what we expect out of the SOP recommendations and outcomes overall and of course we have to as a regional authority we look at all six cities. So grouped together there's a recommendation to optimize or eliminate 12 underperforming local routes across the six cities. Two of those 12 are in Virginia Beach. Those local route service reductions will free up human resources to implement the 15-minute

peak period service very quickly within a year and a half. Um it also reduces approximately 90,000 local service hours and drops our demand of peak vehicle needs by 14, frees up 65 operators. Uh what it does is uh if if we move forward with this plan is the SOP and the RTS implementation would have enough operators to bring us up to the full workforce of 461 operators with 242 peak vehicle needs.

The customer impact by increasing regional backbone service over 300,000 additional Hampton Roads residents will be within walking distance of a route that operates every 15 minutes. If you recall, I said most of our routes operate hourly or 30 minutes.

Uh so you might ask the question or how many people um on those 12 routes would lose um because there's such low ridership routes there's a limited loss of service bus stops losing that service on the SOP account for less than 3% of all boardings and alignings in the HRT system. If we carry 35,000 people a day which is what we do on an average weekday 3% of them might have to either

use microransit or another route. It brings down lower weight times for almost all customers, replacing hourly service either with microtransit, which is every 15 minutes or 15 minute service via via the regional backbone service.

But most importantly, improves reliability matching hours published service with operate availability uh thereby practically reducing or eliminating misrips.

Operational impact very important here.

You know, um we often get the questions by members of the commission. Some of them are council people say, "Well, what are you doing to bring operators in?"

Actually, we're doing just fine hiring operators. The problem is retention.

There's a unionized workforce. Those newest in to the system uh are required to do mandatory overtime if we don't have enough operators. So, what happens is those that we spend a lot of time to get a commercial driver's license, bring them in and get them going. We lose them in the back end 12 to 18 months because they're just burned out. They have a family life. they're supposed to be off

and they're being told they have to work uh mandatory overtime because we don't have enough operators. It also helps us to manage our operating costs. frees up local financial resources provided by the state and federal government that can then be uh reinvested into microtransit service without the expense of fixed route service. And most importantly, it speeds up RTS, those 13 regional backbone routes implementation

where we believe in a year and a half we can get the remaining 10 routes of which the city of Virginia Beach also has the route 36 in its community that would have 15-minute service up on Holland Road.

So, the schedule and next steps, you're you're the first of the work session briefings. Uh, next week I'm briefing on Monday the city of Portsmith, on Tuesday, city of Chesapeake, and then on the 23rd, City of NOFK, October 14th, the city of Newport News, and shortly thereafter, Hampton, City of Hampton. We intend to gather input, hold public open houses on the draft SOP recommendations,

refine the plan later in the calendar year, come back for city council briefings on the final SOP recommendations, brief our own commission in February, and look toward our commission to adopt the SOP in April. We'll do a little bit of implementation planning of how you do all of this in May or June of next year.

and then target the October service board of 26 and the two service boards in May of 27 and October 27 to bring the SOP to fruition. The payback will be better state funding which reduces the city's contributions. Every dollar you get from the state or the federal government or through the fairbox as a dollar less the cities have to put in.

That is the goal for the SOP and I put a lot out there, but I'd be happy to answer questions. This is a learning session. That was the intention of this briefing today.

Questions?

Okay, Josh and Jen and then more.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, Ray, nice to see you and thank you very much for the update.

question for you on and what you what you just put forward makes a lot of sense to me with route 22 recognizing the um level of demand that exists though at New Town Road the light rail station um seeing that I guess route 27 will continue to serve that that that that stop and still take people up to the base and then you've got route 36 covering the independence corridor um

included in the outreach will you I'm assuming uh be reaching out to the base, Little Creek. Absolutely. And making sure that we've still got adequate service connecting our service members to the base.

Absolutely. The military installations throughout the region are very important to ensure we have that connection. Um and um they're really good partners with us. So, we'll make sure that they're included in the outreach effort.

Great. And I'm uh something in the back of my mind as you were presenting that the CDL uh operators and how I guess before you mentioned operator burnout the perception in my mind was that you didn't have enough people to hire but that isn't necessarily the case because how you're set up. So um I'm just wondering among regional partners because I know we're suffering shortages for CDL operators and I'm sure other

localities are too and then the private sector is paying them outrageously.

We're reading in the news. So um is there efforts to coordinate I guess number one on on a regional basis uh you know with respect to the CDL issue if it is an issue um and it's not just the burnout issue. And then lastly I'll just uh inject that um the new service area that you're proposing um looks great and I know that that is a high meat area and um and I certainly support that.

Um I would say that we are in partnership as almost every city in terms of uh where we can reach out to uh for looking for bus operators is a lot of workforce development and partnerships in the private sector. Uh the retention issues we really do bring them in at a decent clip. It's the retention issue that's really um driving us. It's not a we the collective bargaining agreement was renegotiated

last June and it's not a salary, it's not a starting wage rate. really is about the quality of their life. They bus operators have a choice of a what they call a 52, 5 days on, two days off, or 43 work week, four days on, longer work day, 3 days off. But when you tell them you have to work on that day off, that's that's when they get upset and

after 12 to 18 months, they tend to go find work elsewhere. We do help them get the CDLs. We pay for the training and and walk them through the process with the DMV, but it really is about retention. we just have too many routes and they've been in place for such a long time um that it's time to look at some of these and say they're not performing as well as they should be.

There's a better way to service that.

Hey Jen and then worth thank you mayor. Thank you for this. Um so I'm trying to make sure I'm following. So where you all are proposing to eliminate a route you're replacing it with microtransit. Is that what I'm hearing? It's a mitigative strategy for microtransit zone. It's not a route. It's a geographic zone that has so many square miles in which a passenger through their cell phone would

make a reservation and they'd be directed to a virtual bus stop and a minivan will meet them there and there might be one or two other people that have a similar destination because it's a ride share matching. Um, if they need to leave the zone, if their destination is in Northolk or Chesapeake, we would bring them to a connecting fixed route service to complete their trip.

Okay. So the idea is with this plan, it's going to make writership more accessible. So you're saying like some of the routes are low performing. So eliminate those to, you know, restructure resources, but it's not going to create a gap for writers. If they're trying, if they're saying, "Hey, my route got eliminated and this was very accessible for me. I know that there's another route nearby, but I I

just want to make sure there aren't any gaps happening." And and that's a really fair question. So if you have hourly service, it means one bus an hour. And that couple of those routes I had the graphics on are carrying three or four passengers per hour of service. So that's per trip because you're running hourly service times 12 hours. So you can do the math.

12* 4. That's not a lot of people for a lot of money. An hour of revenue service costs this agency roughly $124 an hour to um Microtransit is delivering based on our two pilots at a cost of around $69 for that same hour service. The difference is you have four opportunities within that hour cuz we're running it 15 minutes apart. You will have to transfer. You might have a one seat rides. That's the only difference.

Today on the fixed route, you might be able to get from point to point to one seat here. You'll probably have to transfer unless you're staying within the zone.

Um, finally, if you haven't already, I'd love to uh connect you or make sure you're talking with the campus dean at the TCC Virginia Beach campus because that's TCC came up a lot and I was I sent a text. I was like, is it rolling down at the beach campus? And I haven't heard a response back yet, but I'm wondering uh because we have whether it's a shift to students are online or

we have late start classes. So, some students that may rely on these um routes may not be on campus until later this month or October because their classes don't start till later. So, um I'd love to I I support what you're trying to do with the resources. Just want to make sure that the full picture is there. So, um, if you haven't had that conversation yet, TCC, right now we're in partnership with the

TCC to relocate our transfer area because there's a limited number of buses can stop where it is today and uh, the sidewalk ends. So, uh, ADA accessible passengers having a hard time. So, we've worked it out with TCC if we follow that loop road, uh that there's a parking lot they're offering to us that we can build it out using RTS money to accommodate up to nine bays with uh eight routes servicing it. So,

that's and you'll have customer restrooms and operator restrooms.

Really, we're really excited about that.

That sounds good. Okay. Thank you, um Mr. Mayor. customer. Um Ray, you mentioned the microransit. Are those microtransit programs I know my staff and HRT staff, they're working together to identify if there's um capacity that could be freed up to help support and fund some of these. Right. So, we're not 100% certain on the microransit at this time. So the uh trip grants are state discretionary grants that we've been

winning that has an 8020 split for year one which the city puts up 20% match to the 80%. But you're right um the re elimination the optimization of these routes frees up the financial resources to put into supporting the microtransit zones. That is the philosophy. So the money you're programming to support the route 22 on an annual basis there is enough more than enough money to support

the operation of the microtransit zone in 100% that covers the route 22 territory. Um and with the other route elimination we're able to bring in the Salem crossing microtransit area. So that that is the philosophy of that as a mitigative strategy.

Okay worth thank you mayor. Thank you Mr.

presentation. I'm in agreement as well with your plans. Just kind of a related question that to me I'd love and that's the impact. Has HRT done any studies or reports on the impact of fairs versus ridership? Let me go a step further.

What would wrership look like if it were no fair?

Not that we have the money to back up.

So, so it's a fair question that a lot of properties are either tried it out and Richmond's the nearest one and and here's the thing. Every agency funds its service in a different manner and Richmond certainly is different than us.

Our cost allocation agreement and I'll paraphrase here pretty much say the payer of last resort for anything you don't get from the federal government, the state government or the fairbox are the six member cities. the six cities more or less are about 40% of everything um of of the cost comes from the six cities you know maybe a little bit more Virginia Beach maybe you know 38% but

every dollar you don't get from the fairbox is going to be picked up by the city so to give you an example last fiscal year that just concluded fiscal year 29 we collected $9 million as a system in fairbox revenue that means the cities collectively would have to pick up that missing revenue to keep everything whole. So that's the trade-off that that is within the purview of the six cities, but it has to

be unanimous decision. It can't be bulcanized. One city does and one city doesn't. FT has very specific rules about that. So we've tended not to talk about free fairs because that revenue has to be made up somewhere.

But if it were I'm just asking the question just yes ridership would go up there. I don't I can't tell you how much, but by and large, those that went fair free see see increases in ridership.

Now, think about that. The more people using the system, the heavier the wear and tear is. Uh things have to be cleaned more frequently. I'm not complaining because I love to see better ridership, but that increases your operating costs as well in terms of state of good repair.

Okay. Anybody else?

You know, I think what you have here, you know, I tell you what I, you know, but I feel for you because you have a dilemma. You got some problems, you know, going forward. And, you know, I've read about, you know, the, you know, with the black drivers, you know, service to the airport and, you know, things of that nature. And, uh, you know, you know, what's the answer? And I think it's eventually going to be

microtransit you know because once again um I I think you know part of the barriers to success that you have are the fixed routes and times people got to be able to get to them and then people that you know and if it doesn't end where their businesses are uh you know it it has a logistic problem. But if you go with micro, you can pinpoint. You could actually get into congested culde-sacs and get

elderly and maybe get them to their doctor's appointments, you know, where right now, but where I live on Lake Christopher, it would be a half a mile to walk to a bus place.

And then once again, it's the timing and people work shifts and everything. And then we're also um I've had some uh conversations with people at Steel Corporation. You know, they would said they would like it, you know, some kind of dedicated uh group, but then also we got Amazon coming in and I know that's a, you know, situation.

Yes, sir. Dare I say another challenge and uh but once again uh you know let's hope for the best but I think the future of microtransit and you know things of those nature because that way you're not time dependent or location dependent or location fixed and uh I think that's the way to go. Any other questions?

Okay. Thank you all very much.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Mr. Mr. Mayor, members of the council, at this time we'll be joined by Caitlyn Alco, planning administrator. She's going to give city council an update on the pending planning items that'll come to you at your next future council meetings.

Right. Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, members of council. As the city manager just stated, I'm here to brief you on the items on your September 16th agenda. So there are a total of 11 items on that agenda.

Item one is a subdivision variance request for a property located at 970 White Landing Road within District 1.

The subject parcel was improperly created by deed in 1968 and has a substandard lot width of 10 ft where the ordinance requires a minimum lot width of 75 ft for parcels in the R7.5 district. A variance for lot width is required before a plaque can be recorded to legally create the parcel. No new parcels or structures are proposed with this request.

The subject parcel which is shown on the in blue on the slide there shares a driveway with the parcel to the north which is shown in yellow. That parcel was granted a subdivision variance back in 2007 for a substandard lot width of 10 ft. Staff is unaware of any opposition to this request and the planning commission did vote 10 to zero to recommend approval.

Item two is a change in non-conformity request for 1689 Laskin Road in District 6.

The specific request is to allow the existing BP sign to be relocated to the intersection of Alaskan Road and First Colonial. The sign was previously located at the corner. However, since a portion of the subject property was acquired as part of the Alaskan Road project, the sign had to be moved to its current location, which is seen in the photo on the slide. The sign is legally non-conforming with regard to both

height and square footage. While the ordinance limits the height of a freestanding sign to 12 feet, the subject sign is 22 feet and 7 in.

Similarly, the maximum sign face allowed by the ordinance for parcels with a lot width between 100 and 200 feet is 32 square feet. However, the existing sign is almost 100 square ft.

The applicant is requesting to place the sign 3 ft from the right ofway rather than the 7 foot setback required by the ordinance, which does constitute an expansion to the nonconformity. While the sign appeared to meet that 7- foot setback at its original location, since a portion of the property was acquired with the road project, and there must be adequate clearance between the existing

fuel canopy, the applicant is now unable to meet that 7- foot requirement. Staff from public works did confirm that the proposed location will not pose any infrastructs with infrastructure or visibility at the intersection. Staff has not received any opposition to this request and the planning commission recommended approval on consent.

Item three is another change in non-conformity request. This one for 311 35th Street, also in district 6. The specific request is to allow an addition an addition to a legally non-conforming single family dwelling that was developed in 1940 prior to the adoption of the city's first zoning ordinance.

Several non-conformities exist on the lot, including a single family dwelling on an apartment zoned parcel, deficient front, side, and rear yard setbacks, deficient lot width, and a lot coverage greater than the 30% maximum established by the ordinance.

The applicants are proposing to add a front porch as well as a second story addition with a balcony at the rear of the existing structure. With the proposed additions, the front yard setback will will decrease to 9.6 6 feet and the lot coverage will increase to 35%. No changes are proposed to the side or re rear setbacks with this request.

The entire exterior will be refaced with cement board siding and board and batten accents in coastal colors. Staff has not received any opposition and again the planning commission recommended approval of this item by a unanimous vote.

Item four is a modification of profer's request for 1276 Baker Road and the part parcel immediately to the north. This is within district 4.

This item was deferred at your August 12th hearing. As a reminder, the current request includes the development of 375 multif family units.

Since you have been briefed on this item previously, I'm just going to quickly go through the slides which show the proposed building elevations, landscaping, detail the requested deviations, and the parking reduction.

So since this was before you, the applicant has added a profer that 7% of the units would be designated as attainable housing units. Those would be for households with an annual income not to exceed 100% of the area median income. That designation is profered to remain for a period of at least 10 years. Staff has not received any opposition to the request and the planning commission did vote to

recommend approval of the item at their July 9th hearing.

Item five is an alternative compliance request for 4554 Virginia Beach Boulevard sweet 100. This is in district 9.

So the applicant Funny Bone is seeking to relocate the existing sign from their current location to their new location at the redeveloped Penrook Mall. The central core district formbbased code limits wall signage to 60 square ft.

However, the subject sign is approximately 91 square ft, thus requiring the alternative compliance request be approved before a sign permit can be issued.

The new location will face a private interior road and will not be visible from the public rightway. At the request of the Central Business District Association's design review committee, the applicant did agree to remove the existing raceway mount. With that removal, the committee did vote to support the request. Staff has not received any opposition and the planning commission commission recommended

approval by consent.

The next few items are conditional use permit requests for short-term rentals.

The first one located at 2134th Street in District 5.

The applicant is seeking approval for a two-bedroom short-term rental within the Winward Landing condominiums. Two parking spaces are required and can be accommodated on site.

While a zoning complaint was previously received for the operation of an STR without a CUP, the complaint was resolved when the listing was changed to a 30-day minimum stay. Staff has not received any opposition, and the planning commission did recommend approval on consent.

The next short-term rental request is for 423 21st Street in District 6. The applicant is seeking approval to operate a four-bedroom short-term rental. A total of four parking spaces are required for the use, two of which are provided on site, and the applicant has submitted an intent to lease off-site parking spaces for two spaces with the within the 25th Street Municipal Parking Garage.

Again, there was a previous zoning complaint for the operation of a short-term rental without a cup, but staff was unable to substantiate that complaint complaint, and the site is not currently advertised. Staff is unaware of any opposition, and the planning commission did recommend approval by consent.

The final short-term rental on the agenda is for 30428th Street, unit 206, again within district 6.

The applicant is requesting approval for a two-bedroom unit within the Plyar Arena condominiums, which has 12 previously approved conditional use permits for short-term rental use. Since a historical exemption for parking was granted, only one parking space is required for the unit.

As was the case with the previous request, staff did receive a complaint for operation without a cup, but were unable to substantiate that complaint.

We did receive one letter of opposition with the opposition noting that there was a lack of affordable forale housing in the area. They also noted concerns with impacts to parking. Ultimately, the planning commission did vote to recommend approval on their regular agenda.

Item nine is an ordinance to amend article 24 section 2404 of the zoning or ordinance pertaining to the development standards within the western campus overlay district and that is part of the penrook SGA.

This amendment would modify the building form standards for the district specifically allowing a minimum ground floor height of 10 feet for residential buildings. Mixed use and non-residential buildings would continue to require a minimum ground floor height of 14 feet.

This change would allow greater design flexibility for standalone multif family developments and better align the development standards with common design practices for multif family developments that are not a part of a larger mixeduse project. Staff has not received any opposition to this request and the planning commission again recommended approval by consent.

Item 10 is another text amendment. This one is related to the city's flood plane ordinance specifically for functionally dependent uses, residential construction requirements, and grandfathering.

The amendment proposes to allow the floodplane administrator to grant an administrative variance for functionally dependent uses as defined by the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA. So those are the types of uses that require water in order to operate. Additionally, it would clarify the processes and appeal procedure for administrative and city council variances and provide

relief for proposed developments that submitted plans for review prior to March 16th of 2022 when the ordinance was previously amended to remove exemptions for Phil for all p public road projects and only allow exemptions for public works or DOT projects within the flood plane subject to special restrictions. staff has not received any opposition to this request and the planning commission recommended approval

on consent.

The final item, this is um a little bit different than what you're used to hearing, but this is an an appeal of the denial from the historical review board or the HRB for the Northlanding Estate Subdivision located off of Peaceful Lane in District 2. The site lies just across Northlanding Road from the municipal center and is within the courthouse historic and cultural district.

More specifically, this is an appeal to the HRB's denial for an after-the-act certificate of appropriateness or COA for the construction of a 6-ft tall white vinyl privacy fence.

The subject slide provides a general timeline for the various actions taken by the HRB related to the subject development. The first in 2022 allowed for the demolition of the existing structures on the site and then another was granted in 2024 to allow for the construction of se seven single family homes. In June of this year, staff did notice a white vinyl privacy fence had been installed on the site. One was

behind in the rear yards of the subject parcels and then another was entirely within the peaceful lane right ofway.

Staff advised the applicant that the fencing would require the review by the HRB. issuance of a fence permit for the portion of the fence that was located on lot one of the subdivision and then approval of an encroachment agreement for the fencing that was installed within the peaceful lane right ofway.

The applicant did promptly file for the after the-act COA. However, the board did deny the request at their June hearing.

And this denial by the board was based on the fact that the design guideline guidelines for the historic and cultural district explicitly prohibit the use of vinyl material for fencing. Um, article 13 of the zoning ordinance establishes that an applicant may appeal the decision of the historical review board to the city council, which is why it's been placed on your September 16th agenda. And mayor, that concludes my

briefing and I will stand by for any questions.

Any questions? Stacy, Councilwoman Henley, have you heard anything at all about this last was there any reason given by Ashton Builders why they're not in compliance?

They were under the impression that the 2024 approval included the vinyl privacy fence. Um there was a checkbox on the initial application submitted that did say if fencing was to be installed it would be vinyl fencing. However, they didn't the concept plan didn't show any proposed fencing. We didn't get any typically you would get some sort of cut sheet or um material specs that was not

submitted with the application. So there was some confusion as to what they were initially applying for but it was not included in the presentation to the HRB or in the approval letter.

Okay Patrick.

Kaylin, isn't isn't there also the neighbor next next door to them initially wanted to do vinyl fencing but was told no. So, they've done a historically relevant one and it's on their it's on their radar as well. Right.

Correct. So the property immediately adjacent as the city manager stated um the new veterinary facility proposed asked for white vinyl were told that that wasn't appropriate and cho or were recommended to do a composite material instead which they have since installed.

with which I'm familiar the appeal would be to the circuit court and it would be for you know an an abuse of discretion which is a very high standard to meet.

Thank you, mayor. Uh, thanks for the update. Um, in the absence of our colleague, um, I just wanted to ask about item four.

Um, and that 7% of attainable housing, that commitment is not accompanied by any density bump or any other ask.

Correct. That's just because we asked them to do it.

Correct. Um, so I just want to give our colleagues some some kudos for going back to the applicant and asking that they incorporate this priority item into this application. So anybody else? Okay, thank you very much.

Great job.

Okay, folks, any liaison reports at all?

Okay, we're going to go Jennifer and work.

Thank you, Mayor. I have two. So, I missed the day two of the council retreat, but I did watch it back. So, well done everybody. And I saw that there was a conversation about the legislative agenda and e- scooters. I didn't hear if the ATC proposal came up, but uh the active transportation and advisory commission did send a letter with their thoughts about e- scooters and what language to include in the uh

legislative agenda. I just want to read it for the record and you know invite your feedback either now or at a later point. Um so just the first uh opening paragraph says the Virginia Beach Active Transportation Advisory Committee met this past Monday, this was August 11th, discussed language related to micromobility, ebikes and scooters that we believe is important to note in the 2026 General Assembly legislative

agenda. And here's the language, so I'm quoting. The city of Virginia Beach supports efforts to promote micromobility options while also improving safety and user education related to ebikes. So, this is language that they want to see or that they support um us putting forward in the legislative agenda as it relates to this. So, um I'm happy to reforward it to everyone if you want to take a look

at it or if you want to have a conversation about it now. And then finally, it's zero waste awareness week.

And this evening at the formal session, the Clean Community Commission chair, Terry Stevens, um will share some comments about not only the importance of zero waste awareness week, but how Virginia Beach and really this commission is leading not only the state, but the country on this effort.

So, she'll she'll share some updates that the commission is doing and um educate us and the public on some things they can do this week.

Okay, that'll be great. Next, Rosemary and you were on quue. I'm sorry. Worth and then while we're so I want to wish uh our vice mayor Rosemary Wilson happy birthday today. I've got something after this but anyhow all the attention's on you. Happy birthday vice mayor.

Yeah she caught me today three quarters of a century a mile. So yes. Um this morning the planning design review commission committee, excuse me.

It's a subcommittee of the rack met and we got a presentation from Emily Archer on the central beach land use plan which this body has been seen several times.

And so the discussion ensued and we talked about it last week briefly at the retreat about the central beach land use plan and pass forward. What's going to happen? How can things be financed and paid for? We do have an RFP out for a parking deck on 19th Street at Parks Avenue. Some other things in that area, the convention center, of course, sports center, some other things, excuse me,

that are happening. So, there's some potential things that could come out of this that could help finance and pave the way and make it more clear for the public and for us to to do some tools to pay for parking, to pay for infrastructure. Um, so that that question came up and that committee is going to be sending us a letter through the rack on some recommendations. So I just bring that up because I think we

don't want to be styied. We don't want to put this Central Beach master plan on the shelf and just let it sit there. Um, so I think we need to look at ways to and we should start consider paying having people pay for parking to use for the sports center and at times maybe the convention center. So all of this I think needs to be taken into account by staff or some group or something or us.

Just bring that up for discussion.

Yeah, I think eventually it comes to us.

Oh yeah.

And worth you can um these comments too.

The uh the Atlantic Avenue task force met on Thursday and we did a very nice field trip. We had the police department was really nice to let us use their little souped up golf carts and we toured Atlantic Avenue to really get a bird's eyee view with all of us together of what we were looking at and came back and we talked about a lot of different ideas. So, this group has really got

some good ideas and things like like branding came up and art and lighting and lots of good things that I think that's code enforcement.

Pardon me.

Code enforcement.

Oh, code enforcement. Yes, code enforcement. So, a lot of good things we're going to eventually get to, but I just want to give you an interim up of what's happening.

wanted to add to it.

That's a great task force, a lot of great ideas. Um, and we've given at the end a matrix to use where we could say we like this, we don't like this, we like that, don't do that. And we're very conscious of the $35 million that's been set aside as a placeholder, if you will.

Um, we're trying to advocate for less is better than more, but um, I think I really am excited about what could come out of this that, um, will enhance Atlantic Avenue, but not cost what had been 48 to hundred million, but a lot less than that.

Great. And and Stacy, Jennifer, I just like to address what you were talking about on cuz I like to you said we talk about it now, we talk about it later, but I just think that uh if we're not going to talk about later, we talk about it now. But um there was an article in the paper today that addressed the ebike situation that we address at at on at the retreat. And um

one of the concerning things to me on that article, I thought it was a pretty good article. Um, but there was one of the members of the workforce task force that's looking at this ebike situation and the quote was, "My thoughts and most of the working group's thoughts is that ebikes should be treated just like regular bicycles.

If we allow them on the bike path or Atlantic Avenue, we'll get them off the actual boardwalk where people are wreak wreaking a lot of havoc." And I don't know that that's the general sentiment of the citizens of Virginia Beach. I think that we're looking for ebikes to be treated um in a different category because some of these ebikes are self-propelled at over 30 m an hour. And I don't think

anybody wants an ebike going 30 m hour down the bike path on the boardwalk. So I that language I think we need to have more of a consideration for you know how we treat ebikes than just to treat them like regular bicycles. And I hope that's in what we put into the legislative package to um this year.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Let's go to council comments.

um the um law enforcement training academy uh project. Uh did it did that I had asked for a transcript of the March 11th meeting of council when we talked about where to locate it and we talked about the ITA. Did Did all of you get that transcript or only me? Well, I if I guess I was the only one who got it.

Rereading that, I'm I'm just very concerned that we're not considering the cost of the site development with the Lita. Uh we're only looking at the structural cost and where we locate this is going to be extremely important because it's going to that's going to determine the the site cost. And I know reading the transcript, I have particularly from the very first day when we said we'll

put it in the in the ITA, I said, "Well, you're going to have to extend. You've got to build a road. There are no roads." if we put it in the ITA, which is what we're looking at, and that's a pretty broad area. So, I guess it depends where in the ITA, but we know with all this time we just spent at the retreat talking about the ITA, it does

not have a good road system and it has extremely poor drainage with a lot of concerns as far as the soils and so forth. So we could double the cost of this facility if we have to. I mean once we start looking at where we're putting it and what the site costs are. So I think it's a mistake for us to only be looking at the structure and not giving any concern

for the site and what that's going to cost us. If we if we have to build a road that's applied to this cost and we have to build a major drainage system, we could easily double the cost. And you know, one of our priorities is that we've got to watch our spending. So I really think as we're looking at the Lita, we really need to consider the site cost along with the structural

cost. I think it's a mistake to only be looking at the structural cost because that's a very important project and we don't want to to get there and find out, hey, we've got to double the amount of money and double the time if we've got to for some of the the costs, the potential costs that we could be looking at. So, I would really recommend all of you rereading this transcript and and

and giving some more thought because I I don't want us to get down the road and find out that that we've got a project that we really need and and it's a $200 million project instead of a hund00 million project because it could easily double. So let's rethink whether we're going to look at the site slight site cost along with the structural cost. I think we really have to look at it all.

I am sure with the direction we gave the manager all things are going to be taken into consideration the total cost and you know we're looking at we're looking at 400 million plus you know sometimes for you know to to make a high school these days. But the point is we gave explicit directions to the manager to explore the site and the cost and I'm sure all of that's going to be taken in consideration.

I don't think we did.

Yes, we did.

All right. Well, you sure we have something to come back with a plan.

We'll talk about we'll look at this and we'll see.

Rose mayor, I just wanted to mention everyone about our colleague Dr. Millia Ross Hammond on Friday. She she had hip replacement surgery and I talked to her when she's leaving the hospital uh in the car. She sounded great and I talked to her several times including today and she's she's doing really well and starting physical therapy today and she's going to be you know about that uh participating remotely if all the

technology works out. So she wanted to make sure she didn't miss a vote tonight. So I knew everybody would like to know how she was doing. No, that's great. And you know, just let me say they got the uh you know, for hips and knees, they got that technology down and it is a far quicker recovery time than it used to be. So, we'll pray for a speedy recovery. Hi, Amelia.

Okay, Cash.

I was saying hi to Ameilia.

And then that's usually the sign, too.

So yeah.

All right. Anybody else?

Uh, you know, a couple things. I want to thank everybody. Um, you know, I got tremendous positive feedback on the retreat that we we had and a lot of the comments were uh, you know, a number of people noted, you know, the chemistry that we had. You know, we we covered on some, you know, challenging topics and everything, but the respect and the dignity and the cordiality, you you were

noted. And that's how a city moves forward during the challenging times you know for there and uh you know then a couple other things uh what was really good that uh which we missed um you know I just want to compliment uh the city on its preparedness you know for the potential storm that we were going to have. It was really good and we were able to really get the East Coast

Surfing Championship in and it was very very successful and uh let me just say this uh we all went through a uh basically an 8-year odyssey, you know, getting Atlantic Park open, but now that the dome is open and getting favorable reviews and I'll tell you what, if you take a look on YouTube now, uh that park already is getting international notice. And there was one 24 minute segment by a professional

surfer and he started off the his interview in Knack Head and the waves were like a foot tall and then he said, "Oh, we're going to take a ride up and then it you know was it was really some spectacular stuff that they going on out there and it's generated a great buzz.

it's generated an interest. Um, and then more and more, if you haven't seen it yet, definitely, uh, you know, go out and take a look. You know, we took some heat about it, you know, over the years, but I think when people see the wow factor of what what was going on with the dome and what's going on there, you know, surfing is going to be we we're going to be the ultimate destination on

the East Coast for surfing. And I mean year round and I think that was part of our intent. So I tell you what, you know, it was a courage and conviction that we had to, you know, to start this thing and now that it's done and uh I tell you what, we wish them nothing but success and um you know it also brings a lot of people to that part of the uh the

ocean front. So when you think about the sports center, convention center, the vibe district, uh the you know the wave park and developing Rudy Lou, this is going to be a destination not only for tourists but the people, everybody that lives in every district in this city. So you know you know kudos to everybody involved.

Okay. Um okay. How about agenda review?

Okay. Well, amazingly enough, except for open mic night, we have no speakers.

We have three for open mic, right? Except for open mic.

Except for open mic, we have no speakers. So, um I think everything can go on consent if everybody's okay with it. Um, number three.

Uh, Dave, they for some reason your name was not on here, but I let I let I let Mark know.

Okay. I let Mark know. And also I do Dr.

Ross Hammond and number four, which is the Timberland. She want to make sure that she was listed as a co-sponsor as well.

Oh, that's wonderful.

Okay. And uh Jennifer, you wanted to vote no on number three.

Three.

Okay.

By the way, uh when we um adopt the consent agenda, I do want to make a couple of comments about the uh the third item. Um, as far as Will being um the park being named for him, I my name is not on this list and I want everybody to know that I said I just want to make sure he knows about it and he's okay with it and he does know about it and

he's okay with it. So, I said definitely support it and I don't want anybody because my name's not on here to think that I don't support it. Would you like us to add your name?

Yes, please.

Oh, and be sure we did not put his name in. We We always check with folks first because if you don't, you got to be careful.

Worse than Michael.

Vice Mayor, just wanted everyone to note on item number five, an ordinance of deferral to October 21st.

I circle that to say thank you for Michael. Um, thank you, mayor. I just wanted to make a comment on number two, which is the recognition of International Overdose Awareness Day on each year on August 31st and just provide a little background to the public that um each year this really amazing uh informal coalition of moms comes together uh families that have been impacted um by losing a loved one

to overdose and requests that certain city buildings are illuminated in purple just to remember their loved ones and raise awareness about the impact that um those loss has on their families and on many families throughout Virginia Beach and the country. And each year we kind of scramble a little bit to to make sure that we're catching up with August 31st.

And so this just designates that day um as an ongoing um awareness day much like um occurs throughout the country and in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It's it's very nice. is very meaningful to this group of moms and I know they express their gratitude and so do I and thanks to all who join me in sponsoring but I know that all support and I'll tell you what if you want to

bring that up you know again you know at the time of the vote and you know Mrs.

And we get, you know, we I will make room, you know, for people to mask off.

Also, I was thinking right after the vote we um former mayor Cess and his family will be here for say a few words.

Okay, that would be okay. Yeah. Uh that would be good.

Good. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Um, just really quickly because this kind of came up quick and I appreciate the quick turnaround and everybody's support, but um, item number one relative to uh, amending our city code regarding um, elderly and disabled tax relief. Um, for the benefit of the public, just so you you know what this is, um, this was a phone call I received from somebody who

qualified under the elderly and disabled tax relief program. Um, he was looking to sell his home and purchase another home. Um, and the way the the way the code works is you have to own the property on June 30 of the preceding tax year. Um, and when you close on a new home, we all know that you got to escrow for mortgage insurance and uh uh you have to escro for insurance and um and

such and real estate taxes and then you've got to pay a settlement agent at closing for those those taxes as well when you're exempt. There's really no way for you to avoid having to do that.

So that's um so the these are for people who qualify for the program who will remain um qualified for the program after they purchase their new home, but it allows um the city to recognize their tax exempt or tax-free status in connection with the closing so that they don't have to cough out money for um for real estate taxes that they won't that that aren't due from that. So um anyway,

thank you for your support on that.

Okay, thank you. Okay, there we ready uh for closed. Um chair will entertain a motion to recession to close session pursuant to the exemptions provoke the meeting allowed by section 22 3711A code of Virginia amended for the following purposes. Legal matters consultation with legal counsel employed or retained by the public body regarding specific legal matters requiring provision of legal advice by such

council pursuant to section 2.2 371188.

That would be beach encroachments.

And then publicly held property discussions for consideration of the acquisition of real property for public purpose or the disposition of publicly held property where discussion in an open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiation strategy of the public body pursuant to section 2.23711 A3 and that would be district 2 again.

District 2, District 3, District 6 and personnel matters, discussions, dis consideration or interviews of prospective candidates for employment, assignment appointment promotion performance demotion salaries disappointing or resignation of specific public officers, appointees or employees of the public body for section to per se uh section 2.2 3711A1.

And that would be council appointments for boards, commissions, committees, authorities, agencies, and appointees.

Do I have a motion?

Second.

There we go.

I

10 to zero. Okay, we are recessed into

one. Welcome all to our meeting and we're going to have a good meeting today. And uh to get things rolling, I'm going to I'm going to call the meeting to order. And if we if you are willing and able to stand for the invocation, please do that.

Okay. Heavenly Father, you are always with us and beside us. Be with us this evening as we consider the affairs of our great city. Give us the patience to listen, the wisdom to decide, and the strength to act.

Amen.

And if I may ask for a moment of silence in honor of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our great city.

Okay. Pledge of allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you all very much.

Hey, we have a roll call.

Yes, your honor. All present. Um, including Council Member Ross Hammond, who is participating remotely via WebEx.

Okay. Outstanding. Uh, could I get a motion for the certification of the close session?

Move.

Second.

Okay, we'll get the vote open on that.

The vote is open.

And Council Member I'm sorry, Vice Mayor Wilson, may I have your vote?

I Thank you. Um, Council Member Ross Hammond, may I have your vote, please?

Um, Epstein.

Thank you. By vote of 10 to zero, noting council member Ross Hammond's absention, you have certified the close session be in accordance with a motion to recess.

Okay. Thank you. Uh do I have a motion to approve the minutes of the informal and formal sessions of August 12th, 2025 and the informal and formal sessions of August 19th, 2025?

Second.

Okay.

The vote is open.

Sorry. Vice Mayor Wilson, may I have your vote again?

I I thank you. And um Council Member um Ross Hammond, may I have your vote?

I.

Thank you. By a vote of 11 to zero, you have approved the minutes as submitted.

Okay. Uh now we have a mayor's presentation and I'm going to ask my friend and colleague uh council member Jennifer Rouse.

Thank you mayor. Uh good evening everyone. So it is the first week of September which means it's zero waste awareness week and we have the chair of the clean community as well as some other members Terry Stevens who's going to come to the podium and share some information about this week and some really cool things that Virginia Beach is doing.

Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor Dyer, Vice Mayor Wilson, and members of city council.

Before we begin our remarks tonight, I want to personally thank each and every member of the Virginia Beach Clean Community Commission for volunteering their time to serve on this commission.

They genuinely care about our community.

I especially want to thank our student commissioners, Miles Pullman and Anna Orchard Hayes, for being leaders in our community at such a young age.

Welcome.

Hello. On behalf of the Virginia Beach Clean Community Commission, I want to thank you for your support of Zero Waste Awareness Week, which started yesterday and runs through Sunday, September 7th.

In August 2023, at the recommendation of this commission, you passed a resolution acknowledging the first full week of September as zero waste awareness week in the city of Virginia Beach. In 2024, you made this a priority and put it in your legislative agenda.

It was championed by local delegates Michael Fagens, Alex Ascu, and Kelly Converse Fowler. In 2025, the entire House of Delegates and State Senate unanimously passed HJR446, which recognizes the first full week of September as zero waste awareness week throughout the entire Commonwealth.

Our amazing and talented, hardworking staff leaison, Christy Ryan, created a zero waste logo for the city of Virginia Beach, Commonwealth of Virginia, and an unbranded one that can be used anywhere by all jurisdictions across our nation.

The share logo will ensure consistency with zero waste messaging, including refusing to purchase products that generate excessive or non-recyclable waste, reducing dependence on single-use and unnecessary items, including plastic bags, and reusing, recycling, or repurposing items whenever possible.

We are excited that the city of Virginia Beach will be a catalyst to reduce waste across our nation and we encourage each of you to continue with your steadfast support of maintaining our green line and efforts to keep Virginia Beach beautiful. Citizens who want to learn more about this initiative may follow the city of Virginia Beach Waste Management Facebook page for daily tips throughout the week. Thank you.

Thank you all.

Thank you all. And let me say before you go, you know, we often say Virginia Beach is a great place to live and for many, many reasons. And we are a very clean community and we get acknowledged for that. But as I say, and I will always say often, the strength of Virginia Beach are the people that live here, work here, have their businesses here, but also devote their time,

talent, and treasure to do so many good things for their for love of the community. And for that, on behalf of the council, we thank all of you. And then thank you, Jennifer. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, Madame Clerk, are there any speakers?

No, your honor.

Okay, let's go into the consent agenda.

Yes, Mr. Mayor. And um former mayor uh Will Cess's in the house, so we're doing a rocket docket in his honor.

Okay. We'll be on five minutes. Will uh number one, these are all ordinances and resolutions. Number one is the ordinance to amend section 35-64 of the city code Ray general prerequisite for elderly and disabled tax relief program requested by council members Belaluchcci Hutcherson and Schulman. Number two is a resolution to designate August 31st each year as international overdose awareness

day and that's requested by the mayor Dyer and council members Ruchi Cummings and Shman. Uh number three is the resolution to name the 31st Street park as the William D. Cessums Jr. Neptune Park requested by Mayor Mayor Dyer, Vice Mayor Wilson, and council members Belaluchcci Cummings, Jackson Green, Remick Ross Hammond Schulman Hutcherson, and Henley with Council Lady uh Rouse voting no. Number four is the

ordinance to authorize city staff support ray the Timberland dedication day celebration at Salem High School requested by Mayor Dyer, Vice Mayor Wilson, and council members Hutchinson Jackson Green and Dr. Ameilia Ross Hammond. Number five is the ordinance to declare city- owned property at 933, excuse me, 333 Alaskan Road to be in excess of the city's needs and authorize the city manager to enter into a

purchase agreement for the sale of the property to VB Alaskan Road LLC redevelopment into a multif family residential commercial and structural parking facility. Um, we're requesting a deferral until October 21st, 2025.

Number six is the resolution to approve the city's anticipation proposed settlement of the opioid related claims.

Number 177 is a resolution to approve the FY 2026 performance contract with the Commonwealth of Virginia and accept an appropriate $124,650 from the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services to the FY202526 human services operating budget re mental health development and a substance use disorders. Number eight is a resolution to support the city's application for the Virginia Department

of Transportation uh alternatives set aside program for FY2728.

Number nine is resolution to support revenue sharing project number 101 123 Cleveland Street Improvements number four and to authorize the city manager to execute a project agreement with the Virginia Department of Transportation.

Number 10 is a resolution to support revenue sharing project 10564 Holland Road phase one and to authorize the city manager to execute a project agreement with the Virginia Department of Transportation. Number 11 is a resolution to support revenue sharing project 1482 Independence Boulevard Edwin Drive intersection and to authorize the city manager to execute a project agreement with the Virginia

Department of Transportation. Number 12 is the orthize or ordinance to authorize a temporary encroachment to a 5- foot city owned property known as Lake Wesley and a drainage and utilities maintenance easement at the rear of 509 Kerry Lane.

Reconstruct and maintain number floating pier uh aluminum gang gang way timber pier four timber piles vinyl bulkhead channel a ward to existing bulkhead with return walls concrete patio and timber piles and that's in district 5 number 13 is ordinance to authorize temporary encroachment to a city-owned rightaway known as Virginia Dare Drive at the front of 525 Virginia Deare to construct

and maintain a 48 in metal fence with six masonary columns and that's at district 5.

Number 14 is the ordinance to authorize temporary encroachments into a city-owned ride ofway known as Oceanfront Avenue and 63rd Street adjacent to 6300 Oceanfront Avenue ready to maintain existing trees, landscaping, retaining walls, concrete and stairs and install and maintain landscaping and that is district 6. Number 15 is the ordinance to accept and appropriate $7 million from the Virginia Resources

Authority Virginia Community Flood Preparedness Fund to the FY202526 public works department budget for capital project 10516 Boow Creek Stormwater Park redesign and construction of drain improvements in the Bo Creek Stormwater Park. Number 16 is the ordinance to accept and approve 1,911,9119 from the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Development Services, Virginia Department of Social

Services, and the Virginia Crisis Interventional Team Center to the FY202526 Human Services Operating Budget RA Workforce Development and Clinical Programs. Number 17 is the ordinance to accept and appropriate 426 668 from the Virginia Department of Emergency Management to the FY202526 Department of Information Technology Operating Budget Ray, replacement of outdated infrastructure and radios to

support the region's radio system. Orion number 18 is the ordinance to accept and appropriate $60,000 from the fund balance of the police federal and state seas asset special revenue fund to the FY202526 police department operating budget. Ray repurpose the unused lockup space at this third precinct into a dedicated office area for the crime suppression squad. Number 19 is ordinance to accept and appropriate $43,4847

from the Tidewater Emergency Medical Services Council, Inc. to the FY202526 Department of Emergency Medical Services Operating Budget Ray Medical uh kit transition support adjustments.

Number 20 is the ordinance to accept and appropriate $35,000 from the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services via the South Southern Virginia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and the Bedford County Sheriff's Office to the FY202526 Police Department operating budget rate overtime and supplies equipment. Number 21 is the ordinance to appropriate $296,787 from the fund balance of the technology

trust fund to the FY202526 clerk of circuit court operating bud budget race support the technology needs and upgrades. Number 22 is the ordinance to transfer $446,15 within the FY202526 public works operating budget rate purchase of capital equipment for the concrete crew. Move for approval.

Okay. Do I have a second?

Second.

Okay. Mrs. Henley, you had a comment.

Uh yes. In the U session before, I asked that my name be added to this list of folks who support the naming of the 31st Street Park for Mr.

uh Cessums. I just want to clarify, will all I said when I was asked if I supported this was as long as it's okay with you and you know about it and since it meets those rock uh that criteria, I certainly am supportive. So, I didn't want you to think that I wasn't supportive of this. But I also don't want you to think that now that you've got this nice honor of having this park

named after you that you've done your thing and you can just go on your way.

This is thank you for what you've done and keep up the good work.

Mrs. Henley, be assured he was and he did. Okay.

Okay. Great. Let's open the vote.

The vote is open.

Um, Council Member Ross Hammond, may I have your vote, please?

I Thank you. By a vote of 11 to zero with Council Member Ross Hammond's verbal vote, you have approved a consent agenda as read by Vice Mayor Wilson.

Thank you. And Will, will you be so kind to step down and bring your family or Yeah, bring your family up, too. They're part of it. And uh Yeah. Come on.

Whoever you want. Who you want. Yep.

You're not going to believe I know Mr. R just had his new child Douglas was born one month.

Will we need you on We need you on Mike.

You know that.

Awesome.

No, it it's unbelievable that she was born one month and the elections were in May and she was born in April of 1988 and golly, now she's got two children.

Oh yeah.

Well, you know, let me just say, will uh you know, I I had the pleasure of serving with you and I was on council as a district guy for 14 years, but it wasn't until I got this gavvel I figure out what a mayor is about. you know, we're one of 11, but once again, uh, you've been you served not only as a council person, as a vice mayor and

mayor and got the, uh, city through some incredibly challenging, especially fiscal times. And your steady hand on the tiller, let me put it this way, when I took over, I was handed the tiller of a very well-run ship, and I just wanted to say thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. Yes, please.

So such a delight to have you here with us tonight. And I too served with Will.

Not quite as long as Barbara, but I'm the second longest time they're still up here.

But you all really have nice nice facility here now.

Yes.

See what you've missed. But um Will, your your leadership on as as our mayor and as our vice mayor uh was just fantastic and it was just a real joy to serve with you. But one things that I like most about Will is outside of this job and what you've done outside of this job with with what you did with the rescue squad and how your dedication the rescue squad and then after you left

office when 531 happened, you stepped up and you helped the victim's families by raising money so that even though you couldn't bring their loved ones back, it would hopefully make their future a little bit better. And then just recently, the police officers that you stepped up to help those widows to to raise money to help them so that even though they couldn't bring their loved

ones back, you could try to make their life a little bit better. And so those are especially the things that I love about what you've done. Well, very kind. Thank you.

Okay. Anybody else?

Barbara, if I could just say again, how many times have I heard you say how much you love this city?

I hope a lot. Is there something about the greatest city in the world I might have heard before?

That That's right. That's right.

Well, it's that love for the city of Virginia Beach. I know. I mean, there's nobody. You and Myra might be close to there together, the two of you, but it was it's the love for the city of this or love for this city that is just come out so much and all that you've done.

And of course, you're a good partner back there and all the crime with Jim Spore as city manager. Y'all made a great team and you did bring this city into the very top the bestrun cities in the in the nation and that's why we have this honor today and I think we owe it to you too gentlemen and I really appreciate it and I loved serving with you. Thank you so much. You did a great job.

Thank you very much.

Okay, Stacy.

Well, uh, we've heard all the great things you've done for the city and all the positions you held.

What you got?

You're going to get sold to car.

What you got? I've been jabbed before, but we do know the great the greatest accolade you could possibly have is being King Neptune. And you were a fantastic King Neptune. You've done wonders. Uh you've been very supportive of Neptune Festival. And it's only appropriate that formerly Neptune Park now be named after Will Cess.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Good point. Okay. Yeah, Josh. And then cash.

Um thank you, Mr. Mayor. And Mr. Mayor, nice to see you again, sir. And I've said this to you privately, but I definitely would love to just say it out loud because having moved here from um a worse off economy than ours and saw opportunity here and found it. Um you and the people around you while you were mayor um helped build things that um change the landscape of our city that attracted new business here, that

attracted new residents here. without you uh and the people you work with, we wouldn't have the amphitheater, 31st Street, um sports center, um and lots of other things that have come to identify us um and that we're proud of as a city.

So, um, thank you for your efforts in creating a a place where people can come to, businesses can come to and thrive, and that, um, and that you've, rest assured, you've offered inspiration to people like me to to go back and and give back to our communities. So, for that, I thank you.

Thank you, Cash.

Mayor, I want to thank you for your belief and confidence in me, right? uh you knew that I love this city but didn't know a lot about local government and you took the time to meet with me and I was very impressed. I called my wife. I said, "Mayor Cesimus is going to meet with me and we had breakfast." You remember that?

I did.

So, as he's talking to me, I can't really hear anything. I'm just in awe that he took time. He was on his way to work. He took time on his way to work to stop in and to pour energy and time into me in his morning that was being rushed and he was receiving so many phone calls. But he made it personable and special to me, which I have endeavored to do for our residents since that

moment that you created a template for me.

Well, I'm I'm glad I'm glad I supported you today.

Thank you, mayor.

Thank you.

And thank you. And uh Mrs. Henley brought up Jim Spore uh who served the city, I believe, as ma as city manager for 24 years.

Way too long.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. But I'll tell you what, it was a quality time.

It was.

But will I just want to give our sincere thanks please?

What? Very, very quickly, cuz you know, I believe, remember, you're on the clock. You know, my name wouldn't be going up there, first of all, without my wonderful wife and my children, now their husbands and their u their children, my grandchildren.

And for that, I'm very, very grateful.

At the same time, I had the pleasure of working with great councils and great people on those councils. And you know I you've already mentioned that you know Barbara you and Rosemary serve and we had a lot of others and I thank you all for allowing us to get some things done and the support you always gave me and I work with a great city staff and how that son of a gun end up being here

tonight. gyms for I don't know. And I mean that honestly and because I didn't I wanted to keep this very low-key but um having the family support, having great councils to work with and having a great city staff, I was blessed. And Mark, you and Les and Dale were part of that staff as well. And we have a wonderful bunch of people over there. But uh I must say when Rosemary called me a little over a

week ago to tell me the possibility of this happening, I was speechless.

And I don't know if y'all ever know me to be that way, but I was. And I I just want to say quickly, thank you. I'm honored. And let's all continue to do what we can to make this city stronger and better and keep it the greatest city in the world. Thank you so much.

Okay, thank you. Um I think we're ready for appointment.

Here we go. on the Agriculture Advisory Commission to reappoint Brandon Horesley. On the board of building zone appeals to reappoint John David, the development authority to reappoint Eric Kepinger. The Health Service Advisory Board to appoint Sarah Cully. The housing advisory board to appoint Kimberly Denton. The Minority Business Council to appoint Agu Emuru.

Reappoint Carla Gregory and Cavella Molino.

The Open Space Advisory Committee to appoint Lauren Bland. The parks and wreck commission to reappoint Clinton Mills. The personnel board to appoint James Yoast. And the resort advisory commission to appoint Dorcas Hellfent Browning. Move for approval.

Okay. All right. Let's open the vote.

The vote is open.

Mayor Dyer, may I have your vote, please?

Thank you. There we go.

Council member Ross Hammond, may I have your vote?

I thank you. By vote of 11 to zero with Council Member Ross Hammond's verbal vote, you approve the appointments as read by Vice Mayor Wilson.

Okay. Thank you. At this point, is there any unfinished business? Yes.

Earlier, we got to wish Vice Mayor Wilson a happy birthday today, and uh we learned later off camera that yesterday was Councilwoman Barbara Henley's birthday. So, can we offer some happy birthday claps to our two council colleagues?

Uh, great. Thank you very much for bringing that out. Any new business?

Okay, let's adjourn and we'll get ready for open mic. Thank you all.