City Council Meeting, 2/3/2026

Welcome one. Welcome all. M.

All right. So, Mr. Mayor, members of council, the first briefing will be provided by Brent McKenzie, who is our legislative affairs director, and Brent will be joining us live in action from Richmond.

Okay.

All right. So, Brent, go ahead. The floor is yours.

Thanks, uh, Mr. City Manager, and good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Madam Vice Mayor, and members of the council. Um, today we'll be giving you a, uh, thorough update on our legislative agenda items, providing you an update on some budget amendments, uh, including those from the legislative agenda, and then some that you just might be interested in. Um and then we'll be providing you an update on

some legislation that is um uh relevant to our legislative agenda and some things that we just want to make sure you guys are aware of that are happening up here. Uh then at the end I have u about five or six pieces of legislation for uh to get some direction from y'all on. You guys can hear me okay?

Yes.

Yep.

Just want to make sure. All right. So, our legislative agenda um has seen some mixed results uh here since my last briefing. Um seen a lot of action this week in particular as things are kind of moving past as we head towards uh crossover around February 18th. Um so our uh unfortunately our blue line charter amendments u both failed to report out of committee um one in the house and one in the senate. Um on the

opposite side of that, our 101 uh charter amendments have both passed their uh chamber of origin and so those were crossing over to go to the other chamber. Now um the Senate vote was interesting uh 2713 that was just enough votes to get it past the finish line. Um and there was some uh some consternation around a bunch of charters that day and so but uh cooler eventually prevailed

and the legislation moved forward. So we were happy to see that. Um the next one uh our cancer screenings for public safety uh just this morning Senator Rouse's version in the Senate uh had been sent in and Senate general laws sent to Senate Finance. Um like many pieces of legislation in Senate Finance as you'll see throughout this presentation um it was not acted on favorably but they did make specific

mention that they are uh the the funding for it was still under consideration in the budget which is really positive news. Um and we're waiting for the house version to be heard in house appropriations hopefully this week. um our EMS for the life funding. This was a request from our uh EMS expands um how we are allowed to spend the funds. It doesn't increase the funds or change the formula. Um it

unfortunately would continue to the 2027 in the Senate. Uh but in the House that version transportation 21, we're optimistic that we're going to be able to turn some of those in the separation goes across. We'll see how that goes. Um our fire programs fund.

Again, you will remember that this legislation would increase the percentage of um fee that people pay on their car insurance and home insurance.

Um and how that version was not successful, but the Senate version did find some success and is continuing to move on. Was sent to Senate Finance. Um so some there showing some progress but uh Senate finance is always a a tough a tough place to be.

Our SAV legislation has gone through multiple multiple changes and it's been really watered down. Um it doesn't provide direct um action on the SAP issue but it does ask this new commission to take a look at it. So we're hopeful that the offseason, we'll be able to use this as some leverage to get them to take a new look at these SAB um regulations and really start to put some teeth in some mitigation factors

and some additional planning that will help us get to permitting. We're not the only locality that's seeing this problem and so they're hearing it from more and more folks. So, um, again, incremental progress on that issue, but, um, certainly moving forward, um, our men haten fishing bill that was brought to us by the Ches Bay Foundation. Uh, this one really just kind of fallen apart

based on the cost of they estimated the cost of the study to be around $2 million. Um, that was a lot to ask for in these kind of constrained budget times. So, um, Senate version carried by Senator Jay Barsen was continued to next year. House version is still alive, but um you know, we say on here kind of caught a fever and um it's it's got some challenges for it. Uh our pop-up event zone legislation

has stirred quite a few conversations around here. It's been really interesting. We expect that to be heard on Thursday morning in the county cities and towns subcommittee number two. Um we'll see how that goes. could could go either direction today, but we're continuing to have those discussions and trying to find some common ground. Um, and then our 101 general law, just like the charter change, um, passed both of

its uh, chambers of origin and we'll be crossing over and will be, um, heard in the other chamber likely right after crossover.

Uh, since the last time I briefed you, all of the budget amendments, the budget deadline has come and passed and they finally been posted. Um, all of the requests that we had in our legislative agenda were filed. You can see them all here. Um, our fire department had requested $1.7 million to support their urban search and rescue task force. Delegate Asenator Rouse have filed that. Um, our police

department, parks and wreck, uh, requested some funding to, um, help deal with some gun violence prevention. Um, Bill Gatsby put it in for $250,000 to support our parks after dark program.

Senator Ross put in a million dollars to support uh, parks after dark, but also some uh, gun violence prevention program equipment. Um, so, uh, if that's successful in the budget, then we'll have to figure out some sort of compromise there. But we got a long ways to go on the budget. Um, Senator D put in, uh, the Virginia Aquariums, uh, I'm sorry, a request for additional, uh, stranding funding for

the Virginia Aquarium. Um, delegate asked, you put in the funding for the work group to review um, uh, ways that the state can better support the aquarium, including the expansion that they have, uh, been working towards the last few years. And then, um, delegate as you and Senator Rouse both put in funding to, uh, fill that gap that we had from some of the courthouse renovations that were made for, uh, the

new judge over there.

Uh so these are just some additional budget items that our members put in.

These are not things that we requested but obviously items that um may be of interest to to the council and to the city. Um the first one I will point out is a um ask you put in a $10 million uh budget amendment to support Atlantic Park. This is something between that the the developer requested. These funds would likely flow through the city, but again, this isn't something that we requested, but that happens a lot.

You'll remember last year we had funds that flowed through the city for the YW.CA, for Samaritan House. Um the year before that, we had a couple of others.

So, it's not unusual for funds to flow through a locality for um nonprofits and economic development um programs and projects outside of our purview. Uh, so we'll we'll keep an eye on this one. Um, Delegate Ascu and Delegate Knight both put in $500,000 budget amendment to support the historic Nemo United Methodist Church and some of the res uh renovations and uh work that needs to be done there to support them.

Uh, Delegate Fagens um has put in a budget amendment to continue the work the partnership between the YMCA and Virginia Beach schools uh to provide child care assistance in title one schools. You'll remember this was a pilot program that started last year or they funded last year um now they're looking to get that funding continued over the next uh pioneer. Then delegate data has put in a budget amendment um

that includes three million in the first year, 5 million in the second year to support the Virginia Military Community Infrastructure Grant Program. Um this is a grant program that we've utilized in the past and we're happy to see this funding and hoping that will be included in the final budget.

Uh continuing on this category, um Senator Craig has introduced two budget amendments that of are of interest to us. Uh first one provides some additional funding for the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission. They do a lot of great work for our region.

Um have been underfunded for years. And then she also uh put in a budget amendment that would fund $2 million for a solar interconnection grant fund. Um this is an important grant program that would assist localities with um installing solar on government owned rooftops and helping with the connection fees to the bridge. um it's that connection fee to the grid that often times that makes those projects cost

prohibitive. And so this would be a um a really helpful tool. And then Senator Rouse has um the same budget amendment that Wagens had on the um daycare program. And then he also has $500,000 uh to provide um to create a pilot program for our toxic exposure grant program that we have in our legislative agenda that would provide cancer screenings for our firefighters.

Uh the next couple slides are just some budget amendments from around budget later. from around the state that are things that we talked about in our legislative agenda or just may be of interest. I'll just highlight a couple of these here for you. Um so, uh the first one is Delegate McQuinn has some additional funding agency for our police departments. Um always, uh grateful for that sort of support. Um uh Delegate

Carr has a $2 million budget amendment to help with that, uh that mandating study that we talked about earlier. Um, Delegate Glass has a budget amendment to provide funding to the Up Center to uh provide mental health services for veterans. Uh, Delegate Lopez has $200 million for the Virginia Housing Trust Fund. Uh, Delegate Thomas has $10,000 to uh fund a study for general assembly to

look at some of these mandatory property tax exemption programs like the disabled veterans uh program that is impacting local governments.

I made some recommendations on how the state can support local governments better. And then the last one is uh really interesting and um has a stark contrast with the Senate version.

Delegate Train who is the patron of the collective bargaining and then uh legislation has put in a budget amendment for around $50 million and each year the bianium to um uh for to support the collective bargaining legislation.

So for the Senate, a lot of similar things. Different numbers were very similar. Uh Senator Evan has put in $112 million for each year the Bing for Virginia housing trust fund. Um Senator McPike has put in $3 million to fund cancer screenings for firefighters and EMS providers. And uh Senator Williams Grace from Norphick has two really important budget amendments on solid flooding program that we've been working

on. The first would provide $25 million and each year the bianium for a new Commonwealth match assistance program.

This would be a program that we're trying to get set up. Um, Senator Lock has the legislation that would create a program that would provide uh help the state would help provide matching funds to localities when we need matching funds with um federal grants.

Um, hold a drink of water here.

Sorry about that. All right. So, the next two slides um are just slides we're calling legislation of interest. I'll try to point out uh here where it relates to our legislative agenda. Some of this stuff doesn't, but uh most of this does.

Um so starting at the top with HJ26, you'll recall delegate asked you put in a budget amendment asking um the Virginia Department of Transportation and HR to look at expanding light rail to the ocean front. um they um they he requested that legislation be laid on the table, which means it's not going to pass, but it did take certain pieces of that legislation and had it incorporated

into another piece of legislation, which we'll talk about here at the uh towards the end. Um Delegate Adams and Senator Stewart have put in legislation that would impose a sales tax on um nicotine paper products. This is a idea that we've talked about for for years and has been in our legislative agenda and many other localities including BML. Um SB 297 and 306 uh is an interesting story. So Senator

Pete put in legislation that would have repealed all use of speed cameras and uh red light cameras. Um, we thought we had the votes lined up for that to get defeated in committee. It wound up sneaking out of committee and going to the House floor. Um but the cooler heads have kind of prevailed on this one and it um you know a large group of stakeholders got together and and rather than uh removing that

authority they were able to amend it on the Senate floor where now it uh required some additional reporting and um tries to reduce the authority for some of the vendors to charge any sort of additional fees. So, um, now that that those changes have been made, that legislation is going to move forward.

But this discussion about red light cameras and speed cameras is um we're really just kind of at the beginning stages. There are, I don't know, a half dozen pieces of legislation that do uh dozens of different things on this topic. And so we're in the mix on this and we're trying to continue to work on these pieces of legislation to make sure that they don't impact our ability to use these technologies for for public

safety.

The next three pieces of legislation there are all deal with um land use and there we kind of relate these to the land use provisions and our legislative agenda where they start to reduce our ability to make our own decisions at the local government level. Again, we are seeing some um the these pieces of legislation are making serious progress.

Uh the first one is what they call the faith and housing legislation. This legislation basically would allow um any any religious organization, any church.

Um and they've added nonprofit organizations this year into the mix to utilize their property to build affordable housing. have to do mixed use and I think it's 60% of the units would have to be offered uh for affordable housing. Um both of those uh pieces of legislation made it out of committee. Um HB 804 and SP488.

Um the House version of this passed the House and headed to the Senate. Senate version has been held up due to some of um some of some of our concerns uh local government concerns but this legislation would require localities to increase their housing stock by one and a half% for each year over five years. Uh and if you didn't meet that mark then you would have to show what they call a good faith

effort and they have this list of 10 things you would have to adopt real.

They're all very restrictive like completely eliminating parking um making uh all your commercial all your land zone commercial open for housing lots of things like that. So there's lots of concerns here. Um and then the last one on this list uh is legislation that would require locality to basically make by right um all commercial or business zone all property zone commercial or business uh zoned for multif family

residential. um we were able to get a carve out for uh Oceanana and our AQS on that piece of legislation and so we were able to make it marketkedly better than where it started but um still some some concerns with that piece of legislation.

Uh similarly this next one is a land use issue. We've had some success on this one. However, uh this one would have allowed the use of accessory dwelling units, ADUs, uh and any zone that's zone for single family. Uh the House version was uh continued to 2027. The Senate bill was headed to that direction, but then they started having some discussions about making it optional for localities rather than mandatory. So,

they passed a fight for the week to continue some discussion. So, um we'll continue to work on that one.

HP 569 and SP 518 come from delegate Dens and Senator Rouse. Uh in their original forms, these would have required all public works projects at both the state and local level to use uh federal Davis Bacon rules basically to use prevailing wage. Um Senator Rouse's version was heard in committee yesterday and he uh did remove local governments out of that one. So, we'll uh work with

Delegate Pagans to see if we can get the same amendments made on that side.

Uh HB 1333 from Delegate Pagans. This one was not something that was in our legislative agenda, but it was something that um Chief Kravitz wanted us to bring to y'all's attention. Um this legislation's um unique, something I hadn't really seen before. It basically says that the legislation would require the department fire programs to encourage um localities to work with their fire departments to restrict um work

schedules to 42 hours per work week. Um it doesn't require local governments to do that. It just requires the department of fire programs to encourage local to do that. So, I'm not sure what what real force it has, but it certainly has um stood lots of conversation, which which may have been the point on this one. Uh the next one on the list is the collective bargaining legislation. Um the House version has

not been heard in committee yet. The Senate version had its first committee hearing yesterday. It was um just a a commit a committee hearing the Senate from Commerce and Labor to finance.

finance is where this decision will get made. Um but that happened late last night. Um SB50 is a piece of legislation again not from our not associated with anything our legislative agenda but um certainly of interest to us. This legislation would require um folks who are paid to lobby local governments on something that is uh coming up for a vote through an ordinance or resolution uh to to

register as a lobbyist just like they have to uh for folks who get paid to try and lobby the state. So that's a a interesting new twist on that one.

Um SB233 is legislation that would change aid to locality funds for fire departments.

Right now those um funds are distributed based on population. Senator Head's legislation would turn it in more into a grant application process. Um this is something that I think relates to our legislative agenda that it would likely lead to reduced funding for us. So we're opposing that legislation. Um, and then the last one is another interesting piece of legislation and we haven't taken any

hookups to um you know store water whatever it is it would have to meet all the same regulations. So, um, this one, I'm not sure, uh, where the idea of where this came from, but there were literally like seven versions of this piece of legislation introduced this year, and it has been wildly popular with other legislators, and they're looking for ways to uh reduce housing costs.

Um, was there one more slide, Andrew? I think you skip the slide on accident.

Oh, no. You're right. I forgot. We did do two slides up. All right. So, um, apologize. So, my last slide here, uh, looking for some direction from y'all on a few pieces of legislation that don't fit neatly into our legislative agenda.

So, the first piece of legislation that we would like to support is HB189.

Um this comes as the recommendation from uh our department of emergency management and basically provides a legal framework for early activation and coordination during imminent emergencies. Um so the way uh that Topps described this to me was that it uh basically authorizes the governor to declare a state of preparness when safety and welfare of the people of the commonwealth require

it. um they think it will bridge the critical gap between routine operations and declared emergencies. So, this is a really positive piece of uh legislation that we'd like to support. Um the second one here is um HB1 1476.

This has to do with um independent civilian oversight uh boards. And this legislation would allow them uh access to juvenile records when a juvenile is involved. Um right now they don't have that without getting a court order. And it would allow them to go into close session for some deliberations, all votes and would still have to be public, but it would allow them a little bit

more freedom to to discuss some issues.

But we would like to see support for that legislation.

Uh the middle one, I'm looking for some direction from y'all. As I mentioned earlier um delegate asked HJ26 that would have studied extending light rail to the ocean front. That piece of legislation was um, what we we we say was killed.

And then he took a little piece of that legislation and he put it inside HJ28.

HJ28 was originally and still more like 99% of it is to establish a work group to study options for providing long-term sustainable and dedicated operations and capital funding for HRP. Um the amendment that he made was that he asked them to look at and study all modes of transportation and he included this long list of things for them to look at and light rail was one little tiny piece of

that. um our friends at HRT would would like our support on this still um you know we had included in our original legislative agenda um support for additional funding for transit and so we're looking for that here as well and then we have three pieces of legislation where we would like to provide some opposition from first one is uh there's a house version and a senate version of this that would

require prevailing wage for public transportation services again this is Davis Bacon sort of issue requires lots of um uh paperwork and uh regulations behind the scenes and um our public works folks are concerned that this may um may increase the cost uh for any future microtransit program that we may want to provide and provide some additional challenges with doing that uh independently. So we would like to

oppose that legislation.

HB1 1493 is legislation that requires um would require would change some of the um uh public notice and public hearing requirements around economic development projects. Uh this is opposition comes at the request of our economic development pro uh team feel as though that there's already enough um public notice and public hearing respon requirements involved. So, we would like to uh oppose

these changes. And then the last one is a piece of legislation from Delegate Josh Cole up in Fredericksburg that would um alter how our housing folks deal with um homeless encampments. You guys have heard from Ruthie and her team on multiple occasions on how they um they deal with those issues. This would um this legislation would uh severely restrict our ability to enforce um cleaning up those uh homeless

encampments. And um the ordinance that was passed by the city last year that wouldn't allow uh sleeping in cars in our library parking lots and places like that. This legislation would um supersede that and would not allow us to enforce those ordinances. So, we would like to add our voice of opposition here. From what I can tell in reading it, um it doesn't there's no carveout for it says you can't enforce any sort

of civil or criminal penalties um in public places. From what I can tell, there's no carve out for schools, for parks, for rec centers, for anything of that nature. And so hopefully I'm hopeful that there maybe there's some sort of compromise to be had on this one, but um we would like to add our voice to the opposition on that. With that, Mr. Mayor, I'm going to turn it back over to you.

If I Mr. Mayor, um just before council goes into discussion on any of these items, is council okay with granting um Brent and our lobbyists support authorization to support the first two items and and the opposition want to oppose those items. Council okay if we took that stance on those items.

Does anybody object?

Mr. Mayor, the one for direction that one. So, basically, there's a bill that supports capital funding and additional support for transit, public transit in Hampton Roads. Seems like um a study that's tied to expanding light rail has been added to that legislation. So, it puts um our folks in a quagmire, right?

Because there's a referendum on light rail in Virginia Beach and and what actions to take in that as well. So Brent is trying to get some guidance on should council should Brent continue to support this legislation because it's it's actually in our legislative package to support more additional funding and support for transit but with that addition of a study for light rail. Is council want us to take any action on

that as far as opposing or supporting it?

Okay, let's go with Stacy and then we'll go with Amelia.

Again, we had a referendum on light rail. the referendum came back and the citizens are opposed to light rail. So I think any re-examination of the issue would be contrary to public interest. So I would say we as long as light rails involved in that uh study that we should we should um not support it. and million drive.

Well, I was up there yesterday as part of HRT and the Virginia um transportation association and we would like to support it without light rail component because I even talked with HRT um CEO and he says no we did not ask for that. So the main thing we were doing for the study and went place to place was trying to have a study similar to what's went on in Northern Virginia.

So we will have that opportunity that will be simple and fair. But the entire time that we walked around everywhere did no mention of the light performance.

Josh, thank you mayor. Thank you Brent.

Um total agreement. Um, and as you all know, I was a supporter, advocate, and even spokesperson in favor of extending the tide from NOFK to Virginia Beach. Um, and that was 10 years ago before um, COVID, inflation, um, storm water taking up a third of our capital budget, sea level rise looming over top of us. Um, not to mention a federal administration that is not necessarily known to be friendly to um,

you know, transit uh, funding and initiatives. Um, and even if the state were to give us money to explore something like that, it would be nowhere near the amount of money that it would take to complete it. So, um, it certainly caught me by surprise when I read it in the paper, like I'm sure it did many other people. Um, and I think, uh, before we go down that route again,

if we ever do, um, it it it ought not be here before we ever have a chance to even talk about it amongst ourselves with or with the public.

Okay. Anybody else?

Okay, let me say this about that. Excuse me.

um you know this was a controversial you know topic back when okay but the people have spoken just like they did on the 101 vote and you know from what I understand we have alternative plans based on that for you know a trail system and things of that nature and if I recall uh going back into my mental archives the cost back then uh Josh was 1.4 4 billion go to the other front or thereabouts.

You probably double that now. And you know given our situation uh our our expectations you know came out you know recently uh you know about the army corps and the potential discussion of the seaw wall and so many other things. you know this just really doesn't meet the priority and you know I celebrate delegate ask you for really taking an active role in transportation but the fact is that light rail is data

technology it goes just east and west it's not part of the system very expensive to run and maintain so you got you know once you build it you got to maintain it and things of that nature and one of My major objections over the years, I rely on a a a system that you got to drive to get to it and it's doesn't take you to where you need to go

because of the limited route. So, um the advice and counsel that I think Ameilia and Josh had on and Stacey that um we can go forward with it, you know, sands the light rail.

So, Miss Mayor, just basically direction is that Brent is okay to support funding to support transition um transit options in in Hampton Roads with the caveat that he also expresses. We oppose the light rail study inside of that bill.

Yeah. I would also Is that helpful for you? Is that good good guidance you got?

Can you operate with that?

Yes, sir.

Okay, I got it.

Okay.

I appreciate the the additional thoughts on that one. I know it's a um Yeah, I appreciate the additional thoughts. I've got what I need here.

Just just one more if you don't mind.

I'm sorry to interject again, but um you know, and the mayor alluded to it. I mean, we've got $38 million of federal money um in in a trail project that is almost paid for um and one of the most difficult stretches that that trail is paid for. So, um, anything we do or talk about, um, alongside of any of that investment has got to be really carefully thought out and we can't be surprised by it.

And, you know, that's part of what I've expressed too, Councilman, is that, you know, we want to make sure that whatever they look at doesn't interfere with what we already have planned and that we're moving forward with. And I've expressed those concerns and, um, have received some assurances that that's not the intention.

Okay, just to be clear because I I could see how it could be confused.

I think we should take the position that we oppose this action until the light rail consideration has been removed.

Okay.

Yes. What I would like to say as I talk even with the different groups, I met with the secretary of transportation yesterday, talked with the HRT and they were hands off for the light rail part.

They said they did not bring it up and they wanted it to be clear. So the entire time we spoke only about the HJ um 28 to do with the study. We did not ask for any funding at this point. So I don't know how you can um divide that at all.

So say we don't want the um library study. That was delegate ascu's request.

He also serves with me on the HRT but they did not request that. But we will still like to do the study because Northern Virginia did that. It provided sustainability and you know something like that is important because I even one of the things we mentioned is that Hampton Rose is a major economic engine for the Commonwealth. We serve over 1.8 million residents and carry about 25,000

um passengers daily. So we still won that study because it's made a difference for Northern Virginia.

But we did not. How can you get that message across? We are not supporting the light component. We're only supporting the study.

Okay, Stacy.

With all due respect, again, if the question is if the bill goes forward and says that we're going to include light rail, do we support it or or not? To say that, well, we support it, but we don't like the light rail component. We may not be given that option.

Well, when did I change?

Bren, can you because I It was either yesterday. I'm sorry, Mr.

Mayor. Um, council members. The change happened. All the days kind of blurred together. So, I apologize, but it was either just yesterday or the day before.

Um, I don't remember which one to be honest with you when it was hurting committee and they made this amendment and they killed um HJ26. And I will say I mean again um the new language just asks them to look at a long list of of mobility options and light rail is amongst those options and no longer says taking it to the oceanfront or studying light rail in particular but it does mention light

rail. I think from listening to the conversation the guidance that I would take from this would be to continue to work with delegate as you and the legislature on some of that language. We can also check in with the folks who will actually do the study and see how they're interpreting what that means and um and kind of report back and go from there. Uh I don't think that um I think

we're in a much better place today than we were two days ago and um you know we can get some more information and I think I understand what the council would like to see and that we can continue to work towards that.

Okay Hutch he he did what I was asking. Yeah, thank you, Brent. I Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to sound like a wet blanket, but boy, I I just want to want to dedicate staff time or anything, you know, participating in this if it, you know, we don't want it to go anywhere.

That's my focus group of one. Okay.

So, Brett, do you got a direction?

believe so. Yes, sir. I I definitely have the direction. Yes, sir.

Okay. I do have another question.

Okay. Um, so unrelated to this subject, nowhere on that list did nowhere on that list did I see anything at all relative to school construction or re revitalization rehabilitation dollars.

And that I hope there's something that I'm missing um is that they're not talking.

Yes, sir. Um, you will recall in my first briefing I mentioned that there was legislation introduced that would uh give the localities the ability to hold a referendum on a 1% sales tax increase.

With that 1% sales tax increase um dedicated to school funding. That legislation is still making its way through the um legislative process.

There's been a bit of a hold up on um two issues. one dealing with um uh like your the uh the amount of of bonding and another issue dealing with um um um being able to pay debt services with with the new funds. And so they're still kind of working those out, but we we um believe that this legislation will make it to the governor's desk and the governor said she will sign it. what

that final form looked like today. I couldn't tell you, but that legislation is still very active, being debated, and um will likely be very successful.

My last and so you'll remember I mentioned that um that'll likely be coming coming y'all's way one way or another later this year.

Last question, I promise. Um the blue line charter amendment um help me remember. Did we pass that request unanimously?

Yes sir, we did it.

Okay. And um so this failed along um was it party line votes just out of curiosity?

Uh yes it was.

Okay.

Let that sit for a minute. Anybody else at this point?

Stacy Rick, could you maybe um elaborate on where where we are on collective bargaining and the reception to the mayor's letter?

Um yeah, as I mentioned, there was um its first committee hearing last night in the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee. Um it was heard there first with the intention of sending it to Senate Finance. Um it was about a six or seven hour long meeting last night with about 20 or 30 bills on the docket. Um it was um a little rowdy at times, especially on this issue. Uh the House

version has not been heard yet. Um at the end of the day, this decision is going to get decided in the money committees whether the state uh will provide the funding for it or for at the state level um or they will not. Um and then you know I think you can uh I think the the letter signed by the seven mayors of Hampton Roads I think um surprised a lot of people given the

bipartisan uh nature of that letter. Uh, I'm not sure it, you know, moved any votes yet, but it certainly caught some people by surprise and was a topic of conversation um throughout the day and in the building. I certainly got stopped by a lot of people asking me about it. Um, and you know, as we distributed it to to legislators and we still got some more we need to distribute it to a hard copy,

too. Um, but you know, this is I think it's early in the conversation on collective bargaining. I couldn't tell you today where it's going. I mean, I think you can, you know, it's been so far a fully um ideological debate, partisan debate. And so, you know, I think given that nature, you can guess if the vote was held today, what would happen, but votes not held today. And so

we have a lot of work still to do on this issue. And um you know, to be honest with you, we're going to have to kind of wait and get a better um better grasp on on where this one's going.

Amelia, on a different one.

We're still on this one.

Okay, I'll wait.

Okay. Uh, you know, let me give a clarification of things, you know, to clear up any misrepresentations.

The good news is all the mayors in the 757 are getting along amazingly in a very nonpartisan way. What we are looking for collectively is helping each other become better better cities to help ourselves and we have a wonderful degree of communication and but you know when we say when we started talking about this you know months ago everybody had a concern but let me just say you know I think it's remarkable

when you think about it that in a time like this in a in a um cauldron of division that's happening in our country where the mayors come together and say let's forget about partisanship and let's do the right thing and I can tell you some mayors are against collective bargaining others are advocates for it uh but we also all seven of us we realize that it's on the books and as it

stands right now localities you know you know are the option you know have an option uh you know in the in the equation And the concern all of us have that that we go ahead and mandate compliance with this, it's going to have a profound fiscal effect on every on felt that way. You know, we to take a look at Fairfax and you know what they went through and you know had and uh

they wound up with a $300 million delta.

you know, collective bargaining is going to cost money in staff. And if we're going to be looking at 10 plus potential bargaining units, uh, you know, if they include constitutional officers, um, you know, we just had a retreat, uh, you know, where we just said we have some, you know, you know, fiscal challenges ahead of us. And I think what we try to do and you know Brett I know

it was last minute and things like that but I think the intent was to to really have provoke a conversation that we haven't really had with our delegation yet on this you know and you know just convey respectfully you know where we say uh you know where what we see from our perspective on potential negative impacts and to discuss the potential landmines and ramifications. of this.

So, you know, my hope is even going forward with it whether it be um you know, discussions on uh collective bargaining or light rail or everything, you know, I think it would behoove us better to sit down and have those meaningful discussions, you know, with our delegations and the other folks, you know, to come to a you know, an understanding of the needs. But once again in these tough economic times uh

you know sometimes discussion mutual understanding is the way to go and that was the nature of why we decided to put that forward.

Okay Brent so any other Okay.

Yes. Thank you Brett. It was good seeing you yesterday briefly.

I have ma'am.

Yes. So no more clarity. the one to do with the um red the speed light. I think that's um SB 297 to do with full ma'am because again that is something between the different cities. I'm going to hear a lot about that on Wednesday and Thursday and when I'm back in Richmond about the plus and the minus about that.

Can you clarify a little bit? Yeah. So, there were or there are probably a half dozen pieces of legislation dealing with speed cameras in one form or another this year. Um, there's really just a stark difference in the perspective that our state legislators have versus how the local governments are viewing it. um from the state government perspective, they're looking at some of these

localities across the Commonwealth and the um they're looking at the sums of money that they have collected through these $100 tickets. Um and nobody could look at that and not be, you know, not be struck by it. Um, you know, I think Suffach is um Suffach is the the one that gets brought up the most and um they have collected about $10 million in fines and fees um from these cameras. um which is is

stark, but from the local government perspective, um you know, we keep trying to get them to understand that for somebody to receive a school zone speed ticket, you have to be going 11 miles or more uh through the school zone during the school zone during the school crossing time, which is only 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon. So, we're talking about five hours a week, 11 uh yeah, five hours

total or five days a week, you know, five hours. Um 11 miles an hour over the speed limit. This is excessive speeding where our kids are crossing the zone.

Um, you know, from our perspective, from local government perspective, we've followed all the rules and the part that f folks should be focused on is how many thousands of people are excessively speeding, not in the uh ticket collections. And so, um, there have been a lot of pieces of legislation, some to just eliminate the programs, some to put some pretty strict guard rails on the

programs. Um, at the end of the day, we believe all these pieces of legislation will find their way into one compromise uh piece of legislation that um we will continue to work on and make sure that it's something that provides the right level of um public safety first and then guard rails on um on the program itself and make sure that it's operating correctly. So, I'm optimistic that we're

going to get to a good place on these.

Um, I do have colleagues who feel differently, but I'm optimistic that we'll get to a good place on these that there is a lot a lot of work left to be done.

Okay. And one last one is to do with the faith um in housing that situation because we've had uh situation once to do with um land from the house and how much how many acres know is the right way to go.

Yes, ma'am.

This legislation, this legislation would supersede a lot of that situation. I mean, there are a lot of details in there on um administrative approvals and still needing to meet, you know, building codes and zoning requirements of some sort. Um, so it's not a a blanket approval, but this definitely is um um a huge step on local government authority to make our own land use decisions. And

um you know, the the general assembly believes that they have a mandate to uh to get more housing built and to reduce housing cost. And um this is the direction that they're currently going with it. We're going to continue to have these conversations with them and make sure they understand the ramifications and you know our situation is a is a good example um of of how this can go

you know depending on your perspective, right? But um you know again those pieces of legislation are are on the move um despite our our strict opposition from local governments.

Thank you.

Okay. Anybody else?

Well, keep up the excellent of work up there, my friend. You're doing good stuff. Thank you.

I appreciate that, Mr. Mayor.

So, Mr. Mayor, members of council, the next presentation will be provided by Police Chief Vitigate. He's going to give city council the annual crime update for the city. And then following his briefing, he's going to have another briefing to kind of bring council's attention, some intelligence that we're seeing as it relates to some unsanctioned, unpermitted pop-up events, and see council support for some

legislative changes that we will be requesting down the road. All right. So, Chief Gate, the floor is yours.

Welcome, Chief.

Mayor, members of council, Mr. manager.

Thank you for a little time today to uh discuss the great work of your police department in 2025. And I was going to introduce the staff uh individually, but you can see uh they've turned out in force. So, uh, all of your deputy chiefs, the vast majority of your captains, your senior command staff, chief communications officer, Ray Pearson, Ben, and probably the one that runs, uh, the police department that you

don't see very often, it's my executive assistant, uh, Michelle Ferranti, that keeps everything moving and keeps me on task. So, uh we're going to start off uh today talking about uh the crime stats and uh as we've covered in uh numerous other presentations, uh the major crime categories are broken down into part one violent and part one property.

And nothing much has changed in the beach uh from last year. uh violent crime is still a very small percentage of the crime that occurs in the city.

So, we're going to delve into all these categories, but I'm very excited and elated to get to the great numbers. So, what you're looking at is our waves report, and that's where we take a look at our crime conditions over a 28, 91, and year-to- date crime categories. And uh there's eight main categories. Uh green is obviously good. It means that we are showing reductions. If we're in

the red as we were in that 191 day period, uh then we're seeing increases and going in the wrong direction. But when we look at the end of year categories and the endofear numbers, mayor, members of council, that is a lot of green. and that is green in all of your major crime categories. So, um just taking a a quick look, homicides, we're down 6%, rapes are down 15%, robberies down five, all of your

aggravated assaults are down five, total violent crime down 7%.

your property crimes, commercial burglaries are down 37, residential burglaries down 29%, motor vehicles thefts 12%, lararseny for motor vehicles 12%, all your other lararsenies 10%. So that is a total property crime reduction of 11%. And when you combine those two together, total part one crime reductions in the city of Virginia Beach for 2025 is 11%.

So, I mean, I think if I was writing a a newspaper article, per se, and someone wanted to, you know, do you hear that, Stacy?

We wanted to read tomorrow that uh all major all major crime categories in the city of Virginia Beach are showing a reduction. I think that would be a very welcome and great article for all of us.

So, and this just gives us a little different perspective than when we look at that 11% total part one reduction and still significantly down from the three-year average of 8,400 part one violent crimes and we experienced 71 last year. So, it's been a lot of great work by the men and women of this police department, this community to get us there over the last few years. But, let's delve down into those property

crime numbers just to see how good they are and what it truly looks like.

Commercial burglaries down almost 40% compared to the previous year.

residential burglaries. We know we had a reduction, but what I really want to draw everyone's attention to is where we've come since 2022.

40% almost 40% fewer people are having their houses burglarized in the city of Virginia Beach. And uh you know, a couple reasons I think CO came out of CO. A lot of people working from home definitely played a part into it, but we can't discount technology.

uh everyone has cheap ready access to Ring cameras that is making a world of difference for alerting homeowners but also helping our detectives on the back end solve these crimes make those necessary arrest and I think that is one number that we should be very elated with that uh you know our residents do not have to worry about their their houses getting broken into especially while at work.

Motor vehicle theft had a year-over-year reduction.

But mayor, members of council, let's look at where we were in 2022.

We have a 52% reduction. And I think like many of you, you know, violent crime, it gets the attention, it gets the the headlines, but the vast majority of the complaints that we get from our community, it's the quality of life issues. It's the motor vehicle thefts. It's the theft from autos. And I think there's really two things that have played into this one.

Uh if you remember back in 20 2122, we had the issues with the the Kia and the Kia boys and uh the ability for them to steal those cars very easily. I think uh Hyundai has implemented some technology. We no longer have that issue. But the other one, it's a hot topic, but uh it is showing big results is our license plate reader technology.

So if you take a look at the timeline for me and you look back to early 202 and you can see for that one month period, we had almost 120 uh motor vehicle thefts when we implemented our first wave of license plate reader technology. And I think this gets lost as everybody talks about flock, right? Well, flock are our fixed stationary license plate readers, but the first wave was our Axon fleet

3es. So, every Mark car that you see out there has a license plate reader in it.

So, we implemented the first wave. You can see that we started seeing decreases in our motor vehicle thefts. And that's cuz it has been a while. But when I was a young man and I was out on the beat looking for stolen cars, it was a sticky with license plate numbers on the dash and we would look at the, you know, the the plate numbers and try to find those

cars very hard. If we found one, you know, once a month, it was a great win.

Now, we let the camera do the technology. So, while the officers are out there working hard, that camera is scanning all those plates. It's going to alert them to the stolen cars, the wanted individuals, the missing, and then the next wave council when we did implement the fixed flock cameras, you can see that we've had another substantial reduction since then. So, one, thank you. Thank you for your

continued investment in the technology.

It is paying dividends in the community for our citizens.

All right. theft for motor vehicles.

Also a reduction year-over-year, but also since uh 2022, over a 52% reduction in uh our citizens that are going out in the morning finding their windows broken and their cars broken into because this is what we really hear is, you know, what are you guys doing about the theft from autos in our community? And a couple reasons why we think uh theft from motor vehicles are down.

One is uh back in 2022, we implemented a strategy that was uh developed by the Institute of Crime Science, the University of Cincinnati. Uh it did work well back there. So I was not afraid to steal it, bring it to the beach. And what this does is it puts our officers in those identified clusters where we know we're having theft from autos. It provides that high visibility. And what

it does is it alerts our citizens that hey, you left your valuables in the car.

You need to do a better job or you're doing a really good job. Please continue.

So the strategy puts those cops in those high-profile areas. And last year they issued him a 6,000 vehicle report cards.

And this is just the breakdown by our precincts to give you all an idea of what our activity in your various council districts look like.

And I think the other thing that really plays into those numbers and not just the theft from autos, but any of our crime clusters, whether it's violent crime, property crime, or complaints from the community, is our hotspot patrol strategy. Uh there's empirical research and um out there that shows that a 15minute hotspot patrol strategy is empirically proven and we ask our officers to go to

these locations, spend about 10 or 15 minutes to be highly visible, highly engaging and we will see dispersement of crime. It's proven over time and it's definitely working in the beach. last year almost 20,000 hotspot patrols in those identified areas.

And just a breakdown by your by our individual precincts of where we're asking our officers to go spend their undedicated time to try to ensure that uh we decrease both property and violent crime.

And while all that's going on, while they're conducting those 20,000 uh hotspot patrols, while they're issuing those 6,000 vehicle report cards, we can't forget about the basis of what we do, right? And that's responding to 911 calls for service. And last year, they responded to almost 210,000 citizengenerated 911 calls for service. on average about 600 per day. And you know, I will tell

you that it's become a challenge. Uh staffing continues to be a struggle for us. Uh at one point, we were back up to close to 100 vacancies.

Um we started a recruit class a couple months ago. We're 26 people.

So, um it is a struggle. We started with 31. On the third day of the academy, we've lost four. and we've lost one additional since then. So we're at 26.

So operationally we have a hundred fewer officers on the streets right now than we're authorized for than we would like to have. But on but even with that vacancy you see the great work that the men and women of this police department are doing.

Uh other thefts 10% reduction.

So, when we look at our property crime numbers, 11.5% reduction compared to last year, down 15.5% compared to the three-year average. And if you'd like to say it with me together, lowest in five. So, I think that would be a a great uh headline right there. So, all right. Violent crime. Those are our homicides rapes robberies uh aggravated assaults. Uh just a reminder that all of our aggravated assaults are

those non-fatal shootings. Could be a knife, a bat, a vehicle, anything that someone uses against another person to attempt or cause serious physical harm.

We look at rape, we're down 13%.

Robberies down slightly at 5% but down significantly from where we were in 2022.

Those aggravated assaults are also down slightly once again, but almost a 35% reduction from where we were three years ago.

Total shooting victims.

When we look at the number of incidents where we had individual shot, uh those were up by five. But remember those those shooting incidents are just one category of our overall aggravated assaults which we are showing a reduction. But the number of shooting incidents uh up slightly but down significantly from 2023.

One thing uh wanted to point out is if you remember uh last April into May, we did see an uptick in the in the shooting incidents came before you all in June and we talked about what that looked like. But I really want to point out that even though we had this uptick uh at that time period, really need to take a look at the preceding quarter, those uh three months where if

you look at the red for 2025, we were under the previous year and significantly under the three-year average for those preceding 12 months before we saw that increase. And I think like many of you, we hear it, you know, it plays out, you know, we hear the news from Hampton Roads and we hear that, you know, there's a shooting in Virginia Beach, you know, all the time. Uh, hear about the shootings, but when you look

at the data, on average, there is one person shot in the city of Virginia Beach every 8 and a half days. So, it's definitely not the daily occurrence that some would like to believe it is. And you know, the one thing that I didn't see on the news last year is if you look at the chart that the first uh quarter of the year last year, we went 49 days

without having a person shot in the city of Virginia Beach.

total shooting victims. We did have an increase in the number of victims from 39 to 50, but still down significantly from where we were in 23. And uh one of the reasons for the increase is we did see an increase in multi victim shooting last year. We had one where we had four victims and we had five with two victims.

And these are your city citywide shootings uh broken down.

First precinct, second precinct.

The one thing that I would like to point out is Captain Wesler and his team do an outstanding job down there trying to manage the complexities of a precinct in a resort area. And we do have a clustering, but uh 90% of these offenses were committed week 17 or shortly thereafter.

Third precinct and fourth precinct shooting victim demographics.

45 of our victims were adults, five were juveniles. And I think some great news that everyone in this room will be happy about as we've had many conversations about this and uh juvenile involved victimization and suspects. Our juvenile victims were down 50% compared to the previous year.

Our shooting victim demographics.

All right. Shooting suspects 40 adults. Six of those were juveniles.

That is a 45% reduction in the number of juvenile suspects in our shooting incidents, our demographics and homicides.

So remember tell you that data can be changing, data can be fluid. So when I reported homicides last year for 2024, we were at 13.

Since then, uh, two of our nonfatal shooting victims from 2024 succumb to their injuries. So that increases our numbers. If you remember, we had a high-profile missing uh that was found down in Elizabeth City. Uh it was ruled that he died of homicidal violence and uh we do believe that occurred in the city of Virginia Beach.

So that elevated our numbers to 16. Uh the 15 that we had last year puts us one under. Uh I will tell you that uh that 15 does include our two fallen officers.

Officers Cameron Gervin and Officer Christopher Ree are part of that. And uh you know I just ask for your continued thoughts uh as we move forward is the one-year anniversary is rapidly approaching us on February the 22nd. Uh so we are going to have a memorial uh Captain Gervin front of the fourth precinct at 2 p.m. on the 22nd that's Sunday to remember uh Chris and Cam and everything that they gave on behalf of

this city. So please if you have time and you can fit it in, we would love to see you in attendance. And in addition to that, uh there's a many of us and uh the families of Chris and Cam and a contingent of your BBPD that will be making the the trek to uh DC in May for the annual police memorial when we put them on the National Wall and remember their their sacrifice forever.

homicides across the city.

Third precinct, fourth precinct, and we look at our homicide victims. Uh 14 adults, one juvenile.

Breakdown of our demographics.

Homicide suspect demographics, 18 adults, no juveniles.

Demographic slide.

And homicide clearance rates for the second year in a row when the national average is now 59% uh if you remember a couple years ago I presented uh it was 52%.

There has been an increase in the positive closure across the nation, but it's still only six out of 10. But your Virginia Beach Police Department, and it is a, you know, it takes a village, as we say. It's the community calling us, providing information. It's those zone officers that are responding and managing the scene. It's the forensics folks that are going out there processing these scenes before our

detectives and Deputy Chief Wilkerson's team uh take that on. But uh they are doing a fantastic job to be able to bring positive closure and some sense of justice to every one of those families that's impacted by a loss. So, uh I do have to she's not here, but uh Sergeant Jessica Hosang uh was in charge of the homicide squad for the last almost three years, and she has done fantastic work.

And as you can imagine, being on call all the time, uh when you do get an unfortunate uh offense, you're working 48 72 hours. So, she has given us everything that she had and asked to move on to something a little less taxing. uh she went to internal so I don't know if it's really a a better job but uh one that uh a little more structure but uh her and her squad have

done a fantastic job with bringing closure and solving these so I think uh definitely worthy of uh recognition.

So when we talk about regional comparisons, I just I know we all know it. I really wanted to take a look because you know we hear the comparisons, you know, what's going on in the beach versus one of our other peer cities, but at the end of the day, they're not like us, right? We are a much bigger city. Uh and that brings more complexities and more problems.

So when we look at uh homicides per the region comparison, we're at the uh uh far end or the the bottom of the scale with 15. But when we factor in per population, um very similar to last year, bottom of the scale.

And what I think is more of that apples to apples comparison are those other cities of our size of 400 to 600,000 residents. And uh as you can tell uh some of the other cities that we compare ourselves to have significantly more challenges. Uh Atlanta with 98 homicides, Minneapolis 64.

Um the one thing that uh usually I compare and ourselves to Mesa, Mesa is very similar to us in size and scope and have about the same uh violent crime rate and we did a little better job than they did. So I will make sure that uh I mention that to the Mesa Police Chief.

Gun recoveries. I know the vice mayor is not here, but I know she takes special interest in this every year. So, on top of the 28,000 radio runs, the 20,000 directed patrols, the 6,000 vehicle report cards, uh your officers of the Virginia Beach Police Department are out there grinding every day with reduced staffing and taking almost 1,300 illegally possessed firearms off the street. And uh they do a fantastic job.

And I just can't give them enough kudos and recognition for everything that they do under sometimes some very adverse circumstances and uh technology. This council has invested heavily. Um it is a force multiplier for us with reduced staffing.

We have to maximize every opportunity.

So, one, uh, I just wanted to to really bring this to your attention to show you all and the community, uh, where your investment in this police department is going. So, NY or the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network ran by the ATF. What allows us to do is take firearms that come into our possession or fired cartridge casings, put them in the system, and then it will tell us

whether what we have recovered is linked to other offenses so that uh we can do our diligent detective work. And uh here is one where it's too far to read so I'm gonna have to slide over. is uh this firearm was involved in a shots fired incident in Chesapeake. It was then used into a shooting into a residence in the beach uh an attempted murder in the beach. It was then used in an aggravated assault in

Norfolk and then ultimately recovered in some type of weapon law violation in Portsmith.

So, if you look at the map, same firearm used in five different offenses, four different cities. It's important to know because like we we say, our criminals go into other jurisdictions. They come into the beach and this is a regional initiative. So, we have to know what's what's occurring.

And these are our folks that are now entering our information into our own nyin machine. That's something that uh we have been working on for the last couple years that really delayed the process for us is we did not have our own facility to uh on the far end to shoot. So 5 years ago uh when we needed to send that out we were sending it to the lab in Norphick

6 to9 month turnaround. So obviously by the time they linked all these crimes together, there's nothing we could do with that intelligence.

With council's blessing uh in 2022, we bought our own machine, didn't have to rely on the lab in Norfolk. That cut that time down to about 35 days and we started entering our own shell casings into what we call the brass tracks. The problem we had is we had to take those recovered guns down to Moyok, sometimes once a week, every 10 days to test fire them, then bring them back. So on

average, we took that down from 6 to nine months to about 35 days. While we were building out our own test fire room out on Leroy Drive, uh we partnered with uh Freedom Shooting out on the boulevard who allowed us to come in two or three times a week before they opened to do our own test fires. So, we owe them a debt of gratitude and thanks for being those good community partners. But, uh

very recently, we have come to fruition that we have our own test fire room. And as you can see, we have went from 35 days to 48 hours on the vast majority of them uh to get those returns back and those high-profile ones, those homicides. It is not uncommon now to see those in a matter of hours. So, thank you. Thank you for helping us advance the technology that we need to keep the city safe.

And uh there's the construction and then the the new test fire room on the right.

So violent crime, we're at that magic slide.

If you want to say it with me, lowest in lowest in five years. So uh 7% reduction last year. That was on top of 20% uh the year before. So, we're looking about a 27% reduction in violent crime in the last two years and down significantly where we were in 2022. And uh I think if I was writing an article in the paper, that would be a great uh headline to carry. Violent crime lowest in five

years. So, and um traffic crashes down 18%. But I would caution it is hard to feel too good about the numbers because last year uh the state changed the reporting requirement. Uh it used to be $1,500 worth of property damage uh for a reportable vehicle crash. they changed that to 3,000. So there's no doubt that that plays into that reduction. So we're going to have to wait for a couple years of data to see

where that plays in. But uh at least on paper right now, we do have a reduction.

Fatal traffic crash incidents, we are up by seven compared to the year before, but uh down from 2023.

And one of the things that I kind of want to talk about um it's an opportunity to educate uh the community is some of the known fatal tra traffic crash factors. Of course, we think drugs and alcohol. We think speed. We always talk about the pedestrian related crashes and we had seven of them involving fatalities last year, but six out of seven of those the pedestrians had a causitive factor in those. And I

think it's a great opportunity for us to bring that forth. Continue to make that plea to our community that if you're jaywalking across the don't walk sign, you're uh going across four lanes of moving vehicles, uh what we continue to see are individuals wearing dark clothing, uh walking in the roadways late at night.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to continue to have uh adverse circumstances when that happens. And um it is very challenging for your police department to try to address this because we do not have an enforcement piece. If we remember uh back in either 20 or 21, General Assembly took away our ability to enforce jaywalking violations. So um there there's it's very challenging for us to address it

from a enforcement perspective. So we really have to rely on the educational piece.

Now I found this interesting. Um I think most in the room would have thought that those involved in our fatalities would be our younger individuals probably you know that 19 to 29 range that uh would be a little more reckless, a little less attentive. But uh actually when you look at the numbers uh those individuals 50 plus are uh the vast majority of our fatalities and our crashes.

So traffic stops by year. We continue to hear from the community how important traffic safety is. So, I will just add that on top of those 28,000 calls for service, those 20,000 directed patrols, the 6,000 vehicle report cards, the almost 1300 guns seized, your officers are out there every day trying to make the roadway safers by engaging by engaging in proactive directed traffic enforcement.

Of those 29 incidents, 31 fatalities. Uh so we are at uh when you look at just the non-apples to apples comparison um we're at the very left of the scale but when we factor in population we go back down to the bottom national comparison long beach 55 Colorado Springs 53 Miami 51 Virginia Beach 31 definitely room for improvement uh definitely a concern for your police department is traffic safety

and we will continue to address it.

I was asked to uh give a a quick update on our human trafficking efforts. Um human trafficking is not like most calls. We don't receive 911 calls for human trafficking. Most of our notifications come in through either Crimeolvers or the National Human Trafficking Hotline. But really where we develop our actionable intelligence is when we do make an arrest and the great job of our special investigations

detectives interviewing those individuals so that uh we can delve further into what that looks like. So uh last year one of the things the vice squad focused on were complaints about the illegal massage parlors across the city. Uh we did do several sting operations. Uh made several arrest. uh believe we identified several victims that uh we believe came down to the industry from the state of New York and

uh we got them the services that they needed. Um six search warrants executed, 49 arrested for their involvement and $132,000 seized out of those locations.

Uh real quick on technology, uh what you can expect to see as we move forward. Uh very excited that we are getting close to implementing our first installment I hope of the drones as first responder program. Uh we use drones now but uh they're mostly officers have them in their car. They respond out to a SWAT incident or a missing and they deploy them from that vehicle. But uh this council was very

gracious to give us money. And uh our very first installment, we are in the process of installing what they call hives down at the oceanfront. Each hive will encase two drones. Uh when we get a call for service down there, whether it's a shots fired, a fight run, maybe a missing person or a drowning, those drives will independently launch, uh start responding to the location. Uh

they will be controlled by our real-time crime center. uh who will monitor the situation and start relaying that actionable surveillance information to our officers before they can even get to the location. And remember down at the oceanfront, many of those officers, they're on foot, they're on trike, they're on bicycle, or they're in a vehicle, and uh we know Atlantic or Pacific's landlocked. It takes us a

while to get there. The drones can be there in seconds and start providing information. So, uh, one of those hives is going to be down near the Rudy Loop.

There'll be another hive somewhere between 17th and 21st, another one at the north end. And, uh, so we will have complete coverage of our resort area. I think something that uh is very neat that uh they have told me should be an option uh within months in the near future is not only will those drones be able to independently launch uh we get them on scene but if we have a drowning

victim uh they're telling us that at some point in the near future those drones can be equipped with personal flotation devices. So, if we have someone out in the water, before someone can get out there, we can maneuver a drone over top of them, drop them a PFR, keep them afloat while uh our marine patrol or lifeguards or whoever uh is out there performs that rescue.

And uh I think that is everything I have in regards to crime and technology before we get into uh what the the future looks like as we move into spring. Are there any questions on that one?

Crime stats or Okay, let's go. Stacy Michael, that's just that's incredible.

What as far as technology goes where where's our next step?

I think right now uh we are waiting to see if the DFR program is as successful as we envision it. And if it is, then uh I would imagine that we're going to want to consider what it would look like into expansions in some of our other locations.

And do you see the need for a fifth precinct in the near future for the oceanfront? Absolutely. I think that has always been a vision that I've had since I've been here is that uh we have a very vibrant oceanfront, 14 million visitors. We have a great economic development uh department that continues to bring uh and attract uh new events. Um the one thing that hasn't changed is our staffing. We're trying to

staff and provide safety and security for all the new visitors, all the new events, uh with the same limited number of personnel. Um the challenges, we're a big city, 460,000 residents.

We're not just the ocean front though and many times we are robbing Peter to pay Paul with pulling resources from those other areas uh during the summer.

So yes, I I do see a critical need uh if we could ever get there to stand up a fifth precinct that would be resort area based and that we would upstaff it so that we were not forced to pull from the outlying precincts year round.

Thank you.

Yes, sir. Okay, Michael. Uh thank you, Chief. and um really uh fantastic report and numbers. I I know we're all happy to see that. I have a question because in addition to the incredible men and women at the Virginia Beach Police Department who contributed to the success of the numbers here, we have public safety partnerships such as with the sheriff's office, emergency communications, fire,

EMS, and I'm just wondering if you could share any more about how the police department works with those other agencies to achieve the results that we saw here today. Just to Yeah. You know, Councilman, thank thank you for bringing it up because uh none of this happens in a vacuum and we do rely on our public safety partners. Without Jaden or her team answering those phones, we don't

respond to any of these locations. Uh the partnership that we have with the sheriff and our other entities, um that when we are short staffed, especially some of these events, you know, we're already in discussions like years past, they're going to augment our staffing uh down at the resort area. Um and without uh Sheriff Hulcom and his team, we would really struggle because we 100 operational vacancies is is quite a

bit for this police department and to continue to be able to bring these types of results and these numbers. Um we are wearing our folks out and uh a lot of this is done on overtime, but we know that's not sustainable.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Yes.

Chief, I I just want to say thank you.

Thank you for your leadership. I'm grateful for your team out here, uh, who interacts with the community. Um, and so your leadership team is one that is pro- community. So that speaks volumes to me.

and having um the council that we have, we are very pro- uh police, which means um you if we need to look for ways that we can uh help with, and I'm going to say it, having a hundred uh less um sworn officers is something that we should take to heart as a council. Right. Right. We've got the right counsel. So, um, I'm I'm looking forward to this council maybe having a a

nice discussion where we can aid or we can look for opportunities in the budget because the PISK um, uh, board members have found ways where we can save some money and that was their task. They were tasked with that job to find money, right? And so if the PISK board was able to find some money, then I think we can um look to um um relocate some of that money to the police department and help

with the deficiency. So Chief, I'm committed to doing that for you. Um I I can't speak for my colleagues, but I know that they are uh pro police.

Council member, thank you. I I think it's important to mention that, you know, we're not just sitting back waiting for people to come to us. Uh that uh within the last year that, you know, we have partnered with a local advertising firm, produced, hopefully you've all seen them, some very professional recruiting videos that I think highlight everything that this department and this great city has to

offer. Uh in addition to the social media advertising, uh the manager and the budget team were able to find additional funds and uh we have bought uh some advertising on our local airwaves. Uh couple the last couple playoff games. Uh we had uh advertising prime time. We are doing everything that we can to try to entice uh individuals to this police department, but we are still, you know, there's still a finite

number of individuals wanting to uh engage in this profession. And I think we're we're all trying to uh entice the same group. So, it's a struggle, but uh we're not sitting on our laurels um waiting for them to come to us. We are actively working.

Worth.

Thank you, Mayor D. Mayor Dyra and Chief Nudigate and all the men and women serving in our police department. Thank you so much. Congratulations. I don't know where to start on all the different facts and figures that you told us about. I was amazed at all the gun recoveries. I mean, that's a lot of guns and you're statistic on it every day or every week how many that is, but that's

that's amazing. That saves a lot of crime from our streets. Um just a quick question about the traffic stops and then um also want to make the observation is that you know you are known very well with us with technology and I'm glad we have approved of your request because it really is showing today and last year and in the future but also it takes your department to implement that technology. Just want to

make that comment. It's just you don't just push a button you have to operate it. So I think it's I really thank you for that. You really have done extremely well on that. But back to the traffic stops, 35,000. Does that include like speeding, running red light, um would that's a lot of stops?

Yes, sir. It would be both moving and equipment violations. So, speeding, uh reckless operation, uh red light violations down to expired license plates, it's all inclusive.

And just one more uh question, the mounted patrol, what's your comments?

How valuable is that? I think from being at the at the oceanfront, seeing men and women on horses on the Mount of Patrol is it's very visible and I think it says a lot and I'm sure it's used elsewhere in the city. Um, how valuable is the mounted patrol?

Council member, they're indispensable and I think uh as a resort city our size and the complexities that we have, they do an incredible job of helping us to maintain visibility and control. Um this is beyond their community engagement portion. I mean they are probably the most requested officer that we have more so than than us. Uh folks want to see the horses. But I will tell you that uh

they are worth their proverbial weight at the oceanfront when we have large crowds because uh you know some you know the horse with their size is able to encourage large groups to move without us having to go into the crowd put hands on. What I would tell you is my expectation is if we lost our mount of patrol and our ability to use them down there, expect to see an increase in

officer assaults, uses of force, use of chemical irritant, because that's that's going to be the result.

Okay, so I wasn't going to start with this, but um as have been a young man down there, growing up down there, Chichos and all of it, and had a great time. One of the things that I always had the most respect for was the horses, you know, down there. Plus the folks don't mean anything slight to you guys. But let's face it, horses and dogs, you know, so and seeing them just exactly what you're

talking about when they 1,200 lb is, you know, walking through it, it it moves people. But I was also going to say on a very positive is I've been fortunate to go to Buckingham Palace and seeing the pictures taken with the horses. I'd be willing to bet that over the summer months that our horses and officers are probably had the picture taken and the pets of the horses and everything else.

I would bet it's equivalent to what is worldwide known. You know what I mean?

We don't get that notoriety for that, but it's always it's happening every time you go down there. You'll see somebody standing beside them, somebody taking a selfie. You know, it's it is a true u I think force multiplier on a lot of different fronts. So, it's just I really wasn't even going to say anything about it, but I just I think it's important to note on a more of a sadder

note. Um, when you look at the when we look at the stats here, because that really just came to me when you were going over it, when we look at the rapes and the violent crimes and the stuff like that, would you say is it a is it a misnomer that um like you hear people and I, you know, everybody hears me talk about the diner, right? And they were like, well, you know, somebody was murdered

about the rates so much, but you know, they talk about that and you they make it seem like it's random, you know what I mean, in their minds or like the breakins, you know, it's a really low number of breakins. Yes. For the number of of houses that are locked and doors and everything else. So, my real question is to dig into this as it's it's an insidious thing, but like with

the rape, is it a is that family members? Is that separated? You know what I mean? Is that a you know, when you get to that? And the same thing with homicides, you know, how do we ever break that down that way?

We do. We look at every one of them.

Deputy Chief Wilkerson's team does a great job of really digging trying to dig into the why, you know. Yeah. Um, you know, we will tell you that if we have a domestic related homicide, have we been there before? Have we made arrest? Was there a way for us to pro possibly predict or intervene? Um, you know, did we miss something? Uh, for our sexual assault offenses, the vast majority uh individuals know each other.

Um, I was afraid not afraid of it, but it's more like so when you are when you are we are asked, you know, we we get talked about with it, you know, and they want to talk about these things is that it's such a weird way to say I'm not trying I'm trying to be careful here is that, you know, you you don't want it to happen at all. Right? that's that's our

goal and appreciate y'all's effort, but some people I think have an unwielding thing of what is going to happen to them in this city. And it's like that's just not accurate. Your numbers are proving that. And when you get to these ones that are violent crimes from your own sphere of people, it really does shrink down and makes it even so that we should feel more safe, I guess, is what I'm actually trying to get to.

Yeah. Yes, sir. Let me undig that for me. Yeah, you're exactly correct. Unfortunately, with our sexual assault offenses, many of them there is some type of relationship.

Unfortunately, in a lot of them, there's a familial relationship where there's a family member that uh is engaging in conduct with uh many times a younger family member. And I don't want to, like you, yeah, downplay any of these because we investigate them all with urgency. But I will tell you that when we do have one that comes in uh where we have a victim and then the suspect and there is no

known relationship, they don't know each other at all. I mean it it heightens it.

I mean that is definitely a red flag and those are very few and far between.

That's what I thought. I just wanted to double check when you said thanks. I appreciate it.

Yeah, Patrick.

Uh Mr. May, I just want to let you council know there's another part of this presentation that we' like to get to because we need some guidance on council on that one. Okay, let's go ahead and Yes, sir.

So, Mr. Mayor, so Chief's about to kick this off, but as you all know, um, when the weather changes, we get a lot of crowds, right? And sometimes we get unpermitted, unsanctioned events. And last year, we had several incidents that led to a lot of community concerns, media coverage, and also some business stakeholder concerns. And we presented to you all some options. One of those

options that we're currently working on is with the general assembly. And that would ideally give us additional additional policies and additional tools to police unsanctioned permanent events.

The police chief is seeing and the police department is seeing some intelligence to indicate that we're seeing some of those events likely to come this year. We want to seek council's guidance as it relates to possibly working to lower the um the minor curfew. Right. The chief's going to give a little bit more explanation.

We're going to talk about some of the exemptions and at the end of this presentation, we would like to see if it'll be okay for us to bring forward legislation to affect the minor curfew to make it lower from 11 p.m. to 10 p.m.

So, go ahead, Chief.

Thank you, Mr. Manager. So, uh, very similar. This is just to refresh us from the conversation that, uh, we had last year.

And if we remember, this has been a recurring issue for us when we get into the warm weather months. Uh, this was March 7th of 2022.

uh a single social media post attracted hundreds of young kids to the ocean front. Uh they were scattered and if you see what happened on the boardwalk, someone threw a series of fireworks. Uh many thought it was gunshots and uh as a result we had a mass exodus and I think we're very very lucky that uh there were no serious injuries for this occurrence.

More recently, April 5th of last year, um we had uh an popup event, a number of young adults showed up at the oceanfront, and we know that the DQ lot and 17th Street uh seems to be the epicenter. Uh on duty resources went down there to monitor the crowd. Uh while they were there to the left of the screen in Atlantic uh 17th Street Park, individual produced a firearm, began firing at other individuals.

And like I mentioned, this is just isn't a police problem. uh your police department is down there uh with as many available bodies as we can for this particular incident, you know, several, you know, feet away. You had 11 visible marked Virginia Beach police officers.

An individual pulled out a firearm and began randomly firing at will uh without a care.

same year um May of last year, you have a VBPD officer in full uniform on a visibly marked bike uh the individual that you see right there. Uh evidently, we believe he took offense to the car that did not yield to him in the crosswalk. So, his response was to pull his firearm uh even though that there's an officer right there. The officer ended up chasing him down while he was

uh chasing him. The individual with the firearm actually discharged it. We're very lucky that it discharged into the ground and nobody was hurt. And I would offer that this individual is very lucky that uh you know our officer did not get to the point that uh he had to use deadly force to protect himself or someone else.

We know that uh from April 25th to April 27th last year, we arrested 50 plus individuals. We seized 28 firearms. We had three individuals shot. And just going back to the second precinct shooting slide uh from earlier, the vast majority of those shooting incidents occur during uh our spring activities. Uh once we get into usually uh end of May or June, uh we have very few incidents of violence at the ocean

front. So this is really where we need to get our handle on what is occurring um during the the warm weather months for that week 17 and early spring.

So one of the things that we did try last year is when uh the postings for these unpermitted or popup events were occurring uh you know we tried to use social media to our advantage to kind of deter them from coming that uh they were not sanctioned they were not permitted.

uh try to use social media to our advantage. When we can identify the promoters, uh we do put them on notice with a letter uh telling them that it is not permitted that there are potential sanctions for those. But it's hard to identify these folks that are posting on social media to determine who is uh um going to actually uh host these. But uh already even this year, these are the

current social media post encouraging a college beach week that is outside the normal week 17. This is being advertised for April 9th through the 12th.

Uh April 9th through 12th beach shutdown.

And so that uh is the first one that has come to our attention that we have concerns about because the struggle that we have is whether this materializes or not, we have to posture up for it because if we don't and we have four or 5,000 individuals show up and we're not prep prepared to handle that, uh then we're going to have uh some significant issues at the ocean front. and if they don't

show up, um, you know, we're paying overtime, uh, we're canceling off days, and we're wearing our folks out. So, uh, it is a very delicate, uh, position for us to be in that we, you know, if something occurs and your police department is not down there prepared to handle it, you're all going to have uh, and rightfully so, questions for me.

one of the new tools that we do have in uh our toolbox for the year that we are going to use. Uh we thank Mr. Styles and his team for getting us uh the the right verbiage and the approval for our trespassing enforcement authorization form. And what this will do is it basically allows us to enforce trespassing violations on private property. So those locations where we've historically had problems, we can go to

the manager or the owner, they will give us permission and uh if we're having problems at a location and we have already warned someone to stay off the property on their behalf and they're back, we can issue a summon or make an arrest and we don't have to have that property manager with us. I know Captain Wesler and his team are already down there looking at some of those challenging locations uh at the

oceanfront, but this isn't just for the resort area. It's a tool in our toolbox that we can use citywide.

Curfew for miners. Uh something that uh we have used sparingly, but I think uh we are taking a hard look at uh what this looks like as a tool to help mitigate those crowds. Um, anyone under 18 cannot be out in the public view uh between 11:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m.

currently. I think uh this is an opportunity as well for us to remind the parents uh that they can also be cited and held crimly liable for allowing their children to be unsupervised in the public during those hours. And uh I mentioned it before and what we're seeing is um we see you know parents, groups, custodians drop off a carload of young kids uh down at the oceanfront and allow them to stay out uh during the

late hours and we you know de facto become their babysitters. And uh I think what we would like to do is send the message that we can no longer tolerate that because one it creates a challenge for us and two we're worried about their safety. Uh if we have uh these large crowds and incidents of gunfire and gun violence, we don't want them becoming a victim. Uh there are exemptions for

those minors that uh obviously we will uh adhere to.

So, as we move forward, one of the things that we have not done in years past is have a dedicated meth method for that curfew enforcement. So, we're partnering up with the sheriff parks and recreation. And uh as the weather starts to break, we're going to concentrate our enforcement efforts Friday and Saturday nights uh at least right now from 11 to 3:00 a.m. unless uh we do get uh uh the

okay to reduce that to 10 where the VBPD officers will identify and primarily focus on those young uh children, you know, those 12, 13, 14 that are out that are obviously underage. uh the sheriff's office will take them to a uh a wreck center or someone somewhere less confrontational than the police department. So, we wanted to try to not make it as a contentious of a encounter as possible and uh gives ability for a

warm handoff to the parents or guardians. And uh we're still working through working with parks and recrecks for some additional programming or something that uh while those juveniles are in our custody uh we're waiting for the parents that uh we can establish some type of positive relationship moving forward.

Uh a tool in our tool belt that we have not used that uh we are uh definitely looking uh for implementation if it comes to it is um it allows the chief with permission of the mayor and uh the city manager to empower a curfew for all persons if there is an imminent threat of any civil commotion or disturbance.

Um, so if we would need to use that tool, uh, we can enforce that for 24 hours. Gives us the ability to put a general curfew for everyone to regain control of a location or a scene. Um, and if we need to authorize that for more than one day, then we would have to come back to this body and ask your approval to sanction it to allow us to continue.

And additional optional responses for these uh weekend pop-up events is the early closure of the city parking lots.

Uh like many other cities that we talked about the dynamic pricing to increase uh the hourly rate in the city parking lots. Uh the pop-up legislation is under consideration, but even if passed in its uh current form, which uh looking at it would be very beneficial to us, it would not be in effect until at least July 1st. And then uh our request to echo what the manager said is I do believe uh

we have the ability to reduce the start of our curfew to 10 p.m. And I think that would be a tool that would be beneficial to us. Uh many times we see these large crowds. They form at 3 or 4:00 in the afternoon. The fighting uh uh the assault start. If we know that uh this is what it's going to look like as we start to get into those later hours,

then we can start that advanced notice uh that uh there will be curfew enforcement, we can use our PAO and our city comms to get that out and hopefully use that as a deterrent to get uh some of those young folks to leave. But then uh if we need to use it as a tool, we can start to help uh extricate some of those young individuals from that situation.

Patrick, so Mr. Mayor Council asked, we would ask that would council be okay with us bringing forward an ordinance to lower the unaccompanied minor curfew from 11:00 p.m. to 10 p.m. Ideally, we would want it to be lower, but you not afford that ability under Dylan rules, right? So, as part of the pop-up legislation, we're asking for the ability to be able to lower the minor curfew, unaccompanied minor curfew lower

than that, but all we can go is that's 10:00 right now. And if you look at the if you look at the information of cities that have struggled with this, they were able to become successful when they've been able to kind of create a separate bifurcated minor curfew. For example, DC with the issues they were having at the warf last year when they were able to kind of hit a curfew for folks that are

under 18 and unaccompanied. They were able to kind of turn that around as well. in some of the cities like Myrtle Beach, they were able to do that last year as well to kind of turn a corner after they started out with a really bad year with some violence that associated with these um unpermitted pop-up events.

So, mayor, if there's no issue, we would like to bring that forward and if council wants to discuss it, we're more than happy to take any questions and answers.

Okay. No, any questions for Patrick?

Yeah, Stacy.

Um I'm always 100% in support of our law enforcement. My uh question is have we run this by the rack stakeholders down at the ocean front with their m I'll mention that um or we can sir but I'll say there the exceptions on this allows for a lot of grace right so for example if a kiddo is working if they're running an errand or if they're doing an emergency if they're participating in a first

amendment protest they're allowed or if they if they got a family emergency or in an errand or a religious activity, there's a lot of space for them to still be out on the streets, right? So, for example, if we got somebody that's working in a 16, 17 year old working in one of our restaurants or being a lifeguard or something like that, they would be permitted to be doing those activities or leaving or going back and

forth to those activities. So I think it will benefit them as well, you know, but if the council wants, we could take this to the right to discuss it, but I think there's a lot of carve outs for those that are working and engaged in um activities appropriate down at the ocean front.

Yeah, Stacey, I think it would be appropriate to communicate with them, but ultimately the decision has to be with us. uh because what we're looking at is uh you know grand you know but we got to it's a public safety thing and uh you know sometimes other groups that they may have diverse opinions and everything I think we have to be guided by doing what's right and Michael if I

can bring up a number of years ago uh when Lynhaven Mall was having all kinds of problems and then we put you know certain restrictions in there and we got it taken care I wasn't I'm not asking for permission.

I was just saying okay, Mr. Mayor, I forgot to mention and Manny will come up and speak, but you remember last year after we had the presentation, council did give us direction and this is my fault. I forgot it to go talk to our stakeholders and we did that last year as well. And Amanda is going to report how that went. There we go.

Yeah.

Yes, sir. Thank you, mayor. Members of council, as the manager mentioned, last summer as a result of some of the conversations and experiences that we had last April, um, Deputy Chief Zelms and Captain Wesler and I did meet with the various associations, the RACK, the hotel association, the restaurant association, and the Atlantic Avenue Association to discuss all these tactics. At that meeting, we did very

specifically discuss the ability to lower the juvenile curfew from 11 PM to 10 pm and a result of the carveouts that the manager described, especially the ability to travel to work or be with another adult um or guardian for a school event. Um there was broad support across the associations to implement this tool.

Okay. And Stacey, you I'm glad you really brought that up because I think that type of community engagement, you know, is necessary. Uh but the other thing if I could also point out uh with the meetings that the 757 mayors have had uh we actually asked for their help and guidance you know because with best practices and everything and uh we actually they actually helped us get uh

patrons for the popup thing you know but once again it's not only working with our internal communities but the external communities because a lot of those folks you know come here too and you when you were very cognizant about that we're not targeting anybody at one specific group or anything but you know we want to get things under control and Michael I think uh Lhaven Mall was a a

really good example it you know Stacy was problematic there for a long time and then we put some uh you know dare I say restrictions on them I think it worked beautifully yeah Michael question for chief um and and also for Miss Jarrett if you're interested about the the type of advertisements that we're seeing because if my recollection cor is accurate for the first time probably last year we

saw these kind of graphics that look like they're AI generated graphics with no specific information it's like party on Friday party on Saturday pool party on Sunday doesn't tell you where doesn't tell you how to buy tickets doesn't tell you any specific information and other than what appears to me to be an AI style graphic portraying the beach or whatever.

There's nothing specific to it about Virginia Beach. So, I guess my question is just for my own awareness and I think the community would have an interest in it after seeing this. Is this unique to Virginia Beach or other communities seeing the same type of again what looks to me to be is it AI generated and and is it are they bots? I mean, who is a real person posting this type of stuff?

What what is this and and and is it is it in other communities that are similarly positioned?

Interestingly enough, last week um again, Deputy Chief Silms and Captain Wesler and I traveled to a gathering of resort city um police departments to discuss their challenges related to these pop-up events. And we are not alone. This is a trend across all resort cities. Um, we're seeing that these event promoters range in um, their backgrounds. Some that we have found have been like 16-year-old children um,

that are operating from their room and their parents have no knowledge of what they are doing. Um, and so during this event, we discuss a variety of tactics that would be helpful for us to um, pursue moving forward to try to stop these. But as the chief described earlier, when we become aware of it, until we can fully vet it, we have to prepare.

They don't seem like very good party promoters to me.

They are very know council member. They are very secretive.

uh they will post that and then not distribute the actual locations of the event till 24 hours before which makes it very challenging for us and you know we don't want to go too far into what we do to try to stay on top of it but uh makes it challenging to uh to get that real-time information but we know from talking to a few of them last year even

if they're looking to hold an event in Norfolk Chesapeake they use Virginia Beach because that's the attraction but I I guess what I'm asking is are they real or is there some element of scammers out there uh selling tickets to fake events or or you know generating engagement to promote something else? I mean this we live in a really evolving and rapidly advancing digital world and

and I guess what I'm asking is are are people really doing promotion this way or yes and yes scamming people?

Yes and yes. It's both. Some of these are legit that they're trying to entice people to come and uh congregate and have this big event. Some are advertising. You pay money for a ticket and uh it is it's not legit. So, it is both which complicates it for us because we don't know if it's a legit one or not. And we're forced to commit resources and do the intelligence work

to try to figure out are we going to have an event and an issue or is it fabricated? or they actually going to uh somewhere else in one of our neighboring cities and they're just using uh the beach because that's the attraction.

Thank you. Very very complex.

You know, it makes me think about parks after dark, right? And I know I someone asked me to do this uh and then I I thought about it and I said um this is one of the reasons why maybe and maybe you could tell me chief could this be parks after dark. Could this be one of the reasons why the numbers for juvenile shootings was down is because of that initiative that we

have during the summer months?

We would love to hope so and you know assume that that does definitely plays a role that we are seeing an increase now that we have invested heavily and that uh you know I I think it plays a part.

Okay.

Absolutely.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Anybody else at this point? Uh chief I just want to thank you for a magnificent you know presentation. you know, planning along what Hutch said, you know, I think some ways we're the problem is our success that we, you know, when we do have a crime, you know, it does make the news where unfortunately so many cities it's kind of turn on the news, it's routine, but uh you know, but I'm just saying that um

and then along the line what Cash was saying before, you know, you have vacancies, but I'll tell you what, it's a national problem that we have with vacancies.

And um I think a lot of cities I think you might have 80 to 100. And what what's your full compliment? About 850.

797, sir.

797. Okay.

It it should be at least 850 or higher.

I will I will throw that plug in. Yes.

So you and I are tracking, Mr. Mayor.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But I'm But I'm But I'm just softball. Thank you.

Yes.

Yeah.

The grand slam.

I learned from the fire department, Hutch or council member.

I swear we didn't have that work.

Don't hate the player. Hate the game.

Right. Uh no, no, but I'm just saying that that we and you know what we have done when we requested a salary survey last time we came through and you know we gave you you know the money that you need to recruit and retain. It's not that it's not but once again we have a national crisis that where police officers it's a tough profession now uh people going in you know into it and

everything but the thing is with I think we have the reputation of having such a stellar well-run police department that anybody that would want to go into law enforcement I've been over my years I've been to a n number of ceremonies in the basement of the old building uh where we swore in officers coming from other cities around the country. Uh but es especially now with the modern uh police

and everything. Yeah, you have the challenges, but I'll tell you what, God bless you and your crew and I really appreciate you're doing the job. You know, even though you're uh short-handed, God bless you for what you're doing. You make Virginia Beach strong. Thank you and for Yeah. Thank you, Mr. MAYOR.

LEGISLATION to lower the unaccompanied minor curfew and we'll shoot for at a February 17th meeting. But Chief, um I wanted you to mention and I think this number is right. The chief and I were talking probably about two or three weeks ago about the current recruit class and the chief mentioned to me, remember the cadet program that council authorized probably three or four years

ago and inside this cadet program inside this recruit class, I think there were six of the um six.

Yeah. Yes, sir. Six of the current patrol aid program metriculated into this current recruit class. And I will tell you that that has been a a great pipeline for us. Uh without that, we would have even bigger challenges. So I think we're authorized 28 patrol aids and at most times we are close to having all of those filled. Uh and one of the things we've actually mentioned it is uh myself and the

sheriff have a meeting with Dr.

Robertson tomorrow or Thursday about restarting the public safety academy within VBCPS uh that certain schools uh juniors and seniors will have a certain track for public safety so that we can even start that career pipeline earlier. You know the sheriff can hire them in 18. So if they go into that pipeline uh junior or senior uh then he can metriculate them.

We can either take them as a a patrol aid at 18, he can hire him as a deputy at 18, but it's a win-win for both of your public safety agencies within the beach.

Okay. Kev, I mean, could you start the pilot program in the uh district um 7 uh precinct that is Captain Gerven's? I mean, could you start it there?

I will mention that uh to the superintendent tomorrow that uh and and uh ask him to evaluate his staff and see if that's an option. Okay.

Okay. There we go. And uh count me on board with the mounted uh police. I've seen them break up massive crowds and very uh you know trying situations, but I also show a lot of love to kids and elderly and everything. I think it's really a good thing.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thanks.

Thank you. Thank you, council.

All right. So, Mr. Mayor, members of council, the next presentation will be a quick one by county department staff.

They're going to give us a glimpse of the items that are coming in before you on your February 17th city council meeting.

All righty.

All right. Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, members of council. I'm here this afternoon to run through the planning items on your February 17th agenda.

There are a total of eight items on the agenda, all of which are located within the northern portion of the city. Item one is a street closure request for a portion of Artic Avenue adjacent to 300 Winston Salem located in district 5 and adjacent to Big Sam's Restaurant. This request is related to the western half of the right of way which is equates to about 30 3750 square ft which if closed

would be incorporated into the property at 300 Winston Salem. The eastern half of the right ofway in this area was closed in 1976 and or incorporated into 200 Winston Salem to the east.

A viewers meeting was held on December 3rd during which it was determined that closure of this area would not pose a public inconvenience. However, it was determined that a public drainage easement would be needed over the entire closure area due to an existing storm water pipe that extends through this portion of Arctic Avenue. Additionally, if the Winston Salem CIP is not complete prior to the final street closure

approval, staff is recommending a temporary construction easement again over the entire closed area to allow for the completion of that project. Staff is unaware of any opposition to the request and the item received unanimous support from the planning commission.

Item two is a modification of conditions request for property located at 514 9th Street in District 5. This is a change in non-conformity that was approved for the site in 2024 which allowed for the construction of a rear addition um to the existing dwelling. During construction of that addition, an exterior staircase and deck was added but was that was not shown on that 2024 conditioned plan. As such, the subject

modification is required. With this request, the applicant is also seeking approval to construct a wood ramp in the future if needed, which would replace the existing exterior staircase.

Staff has received four letters of support for this request and the item was recommended for approval by the planning commission at their January hearing.

Item three is another modification of conditions request. This one for property located at 1500 Pacific Avenue, again in district 5. The applicant is requesting to modify the conditions associated with a 20 2001 conditional use permit for a commercial parking lot and church parking lot um which conditions the use of landscaping rather than fencing along the perimeter of the site. The applicant is seeking approval

to install a 6-ft tall fence around the perimeter in addition to the existing landscaping. Since the oceanfront resort district formbbased code limits the height of fencing to four feet when you're within five feet of the right ofway, the applicant is requesting a deviation to allow this six-foot option.

And the proposed fencing would be in the same general location as the existing 4ft fence that's out there now. While this site is used for both a commercial parking lot and an outdoor play area for the adjacent Star of the SK Sea Catholic School, the commercial parking lot does not operate during school hours. The six-foot height was recommended by the police department after a sec security

in incident during which an individual climbed over the fence and entered the premises.

Staff finds the proposed black aluminum fence to be an improvement from the existing chain link fence and the proposal receives support from the resort advisory commission's planning design review committee. We are unaware of any opposition to the request and the planning commission recommended approval on consent.

Item four is a conditional reszoning request for 901 First Colonial Road in District 6. The applicant is requesting to conditionally reszone the site from O2 Office District to conditional B2 Community Business District in order to operate a retail store within the existing building. The site was used as a chiropractor's office until 2025, after which it was leased for a retail

use as a balloon shop. When the business owner applied for a business license, they were told that the property would need to be reszoned to allow for the retail use.

Since the site lies within the greater than 75 decel noise zone, the profers have restricted any use of the property to those that are permitted within the B2 district as well as those that are compatible within the greater than 75 decel noise zone. The applicant intends to use the building and the site as is.

We have not received any opposition and the planning commission recommended approval by consent.

Item five is a conditional use permit request for 941 Alaskan Road in District 6. The specific request is for an indoor recreational facility utilizing the existing existing vacant movie theater.

The site is zoned B2 and lies within the 70 to 75 decel noise zone, accident potential zone 2, and the resort area SGAA.

The applicant intends to repurpose the existing theater and add an approximately 12,000 square foot addition at the front of the building.

The facility will include seven paddle ball courts and one pickle ball courts, all of which will be located indoors. As you can see in the bottom left of the plan on the slide there, they are proposing an 8,000 foot restaurant.

However, that is a byite use in the B2 district.

According to the parking requirements in the zoning ordinance, a total of 247 spaces are required to support both the recreational facility and the proposed restaurant. However, the applicant intends to re reuse the site as is and there are only 176 spaces provided. As such, a parking study was submitted by the applicant and ultimately approved by the zoning administrator to reduce the parking required for an indoor

recreational facility from one space per 200 square feet of floor area to five spaces per court.

Is this public use or it would be a public?

Any other questions?

The rendering on the slide here illustrates the proposed exterior changes to the theater. I will note that the mural that is seen there will be subject to the review and approval of the planning director once a final design is known. A letter of support was received from RACK's planning design review committee. We have not received any opposition and again this item went through on consent.

Item six is another cup request. This is for a bulk storage yard at 1361 Virginia Beach Boulevard in District 6.

The applicant intends to use the site to store towed vehicles and will utilize the existing building as an office for the tow business. While towing operations will occur 247, office hours will be limited to 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday. All existing structures located at the rear of the site, which you can see in the image on the right there, will be removed with this request, as will the

existing non-conforming sign, which is seen in the image on the left.

The proposed bulk storage yard use is considered compatible in both the greater than 75 decel noise zone as well as the accident accident potential zone one. Um while the applicant is requesting a deviation to the screening requirements for a bulk storage yard um requesting approval just to do perimeter fencing versus the landscaping, they are proposing additional landscaping along

the front of the building facade as well as along the edge of the parking area there.

We have received four letters of support including one from the residential property owner to the south of this site. We have not received any opposition and planning commission recommended approval by 10 to zero vote with one abstension.

Item seven is another cup request. This is for assembly use at 5193 Shore Drive, Sweet 108. This is within the Lakes Shores Shopping Center.

The applicant intends to operate an event venue for up to 90 guests within an existing 240 foot suite. Proposed hours of operation are Monday through Wednesday, 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. and then Thursday through Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m.

A new building mounted sign and window decals decals are proposed with the request and adequate parking is available within the overall shopping center to support the use.

We did receive two letters of opposition noting concerns related to a decrease in property values as well as an increase in noise and traffic. We did also receive a petition of support with five signatures from um tenants within the shopping center. Ultimately, the planning commission did vote to recommend approval.

The final item for consideration is an alternative compliance request for 4616 Virginia Beach Boulevard in District 4.

This is the existing Bank of America site. They are seeking to replace the existing monument sign that's located in the southwest corner of the site.

According to the central business core district or CBC um formbbased code, any freestanding sign does require city council approval through this alternative compliance process.

The current site doesn't meet the CBC's formbbased code requirements which recommends pulling bu buildings up to the street. Um if you have a building right up to the street, you don't really have the same need for a freestanding sign. However, existing site, existing building, it's about 60 ft from the right ofway, making the freestanding sign more necessary. Um, the top image there shows the existing sign and then

the bottom image shows the sign that they're proposing. The new sign is about 18 square feet smaller than the existing sign. This was reviewed by the Central Business District Association's design review committee and received support from that group and we haven't received any opposition and again unanimous support from the planning commission.

And that concludes my briefing.

Okay. Thank you to us.

Good afternoon, Mayor, members of council. Yes, we expect the planning commission to consider the comprehensive plan in March and then come to city council in April.

What about the ITA plan update? Is that underway at this point?

Yes, it is. So, that's a separate uh process and we are working with a consultant. We expect public engagement to start on that in March.

March.

Yes. I didn't even know that we had hired the consultant until I heard it through the great grapevine. And I'm really I think the public needs to be involved at the very beginning and I've been saying that from the beginning.

I'll just say it again. March is too late.

Okay. Anybody else at this point? Okay.

Thank you.

Okay. Is that it? Moving on. Okay.

Council comments.

Anybody? Stacy, Michael, Amelia.

Just real quick, Mr. Mayor. Um, on Bay Island, we've had a uh incident um over the last several months. Uh we had a sewer pump station that busted and spewed waste over the neighborhood.

Then we had a sinkhole that uh in the middle of the one road that leads in and out of uh Bay Island and uh the city came put a steel plate as a temporary measure. In the meantime, a second sinkhole started in the neighbor in the area. And I just want to commend the city staff, the public utilities for their hard work, especially in this weather to get out there and to address

the situation. And then on top of that, uh they the city the civic league called for an emergency meeting in order to let the people know what was going on. There was a lot of concern in the neighborhood and this you know like to thank the city manager who sent uh his representative RJ Matz who is a godsend for you're here for all of us here along with the people from public uh

utilities Don Pan Robert Wheeler Michael Vera they came to the civic league meeting last night did a tremendous job of answering questions and the people that live on the island had some really detailed good questions, but they they put everything to rest. And I I uh liken it to being on an airplane sitting on the tarmac and you're sitting there for an hour and you have no idea why you're

sitting there and then the pilot gets on the intercom and says we've there was a delay in Chicago which causes us not to be able to take off and all of a sudden now you go at least I know what's going on. So that's what happened last night.

And again, I just want to commend the the people at public utilities, RJ Max.

Fantastic job. Uh they came out in force and did just put the whole community at ease. So again, I want to thank the city manager and all the folks involved.

I'm not sure what the order is, but um I'm happy to mine's quick. Mayor, um I just wanted to say a quick word on behalf of our cultural affairs department that um on Thursday at 11:00 a.m. here at city hall, there will be a dedication of an acknowledgement of the contri contributions of uh American Indian uh folks throughout history within the city of Virginia Beach. Um this was create this process was facilitated by

cultural affairs but but led by Indian leadership from across Virginia Beach and the region. Uh to my knowledge it's the first time any such um acknowledgement has been made in a formal and lasting way here at city hall. And I want to commend first those who were involved in formulating it and also our uh cultural affairs department who um really led and facilitated that effort um in partnership with native

leadership beach. That's going to have it's going to be a very special um experience on Thursday morning. So, I hope you all can make it and I hope those who are Thursday at 11 watching in the public can can be there as well to participate to celebrate and to acknowledge uh the people who lived on this uh land that we do for thousands of years before us.

Michael, thank you for that.

Y um I just wanted to mention uh three things on this Sunday. As you know, it's been what over two years going to the third that we've done the signage, historic signage for the different AfricanAmerican historic neighborhoods.

And this time it will be SeaTac and of course we have Congressman Remick will be there and the mayor and we hope several of you will come out because Seac neighborhood are very excited about that.

So, what what time and where?

It's 1 1:30 and then afterwards we go to Michael's f favorite place for the reception leader.

I thought you were going to say Congo Boys Barbecue.

We had them all.

We'll wait for the dedication of your new leader.

Yes. Exactly.

Yes.

Okay. And then the second thing is um I already mentioned to you where I went up to um Richmond on Monday and we've discussed to do with the study that we're pushing instead of the uh light rail. And the third I will be going back up to Richmond on Wednesday and Thursday because I'm on the executive board for the Virginia Municipal League. So, I will share what happens then when I

return. I'll try and rest my legs tonight.

There you go.

Yes.

Worth.

Thank you, Mayor. And just address your colleagues last Friday in our package.

We had a CCSR about Route 33 and HRT.

And there was a meeting in January of HRT, the Resort Advisory Commission, especially the hotel association because this route 33 does provide transportation uh for employees that work at the oceanfront at hotels, especially going up uh to the Windham on 67th Street. AR's on 67th Street as well. So for $45,000 more, we can add back Route 33 to uh the transportation plan, and I seek you all's support for

that. $45,000. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you.

Mr. C, Mr. May, Mr. Mayor, members of council, if council wants us to add that back, we can add it back, we'll have to do it by February 13th.

February 13th and notify them. So, if council desires that, we could bring that forward for consideration.

Well, at least bring it forward. We'll consider it and uh yeah, we'll see what happens. Yeah. But at least we should hear.

Got it. So, Mr. Mayor, um February 13th.

Yes.

Right. A really if council and is the funding is there a reserve for it or something come forward if there is a voting meeting for that council wants us to do that we there is there's capacity inside the fund to cover it though right yes we would just ask for HRT to include it in the calculation for the uh transportation services plan for next year okay we'll go ahead okay thank Barbara, do you have something?

Yes. As liaison reports, as a liaison to the IGA committee, uh, which I think meets this week, uh, since there is a consultant that's hired to work on that plan, I very much would like to know what their scope of work is and their timeline and uh, when they do expect to uh, go out to the public. I know when we did the current comprehv

involved in this. So, uh, I do hope to know something about what this consultant is directed to do and what their plans are.

Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. Uh, Mr.

Deaney, I had some, uh, inquiries. You know, once again, we had the holiday lights which was a very proud and long tradition here and circumstances. Uh, you know, put a little uh hitch in, you know, the situation. if it was possible get a little update and talk maybe all you know what the situation is and what the plans may be going forward.

I'll ask Mr. Mayor I'll ask a manager to come and give city council a quick overview of the issues and what next steps looks like as it relates to the valuable and very important holiday lights program.

Absolutely. Thank you, mayor and members of the council. As the manager said, we absolutely value our holiday lights programming. Um, we're actively working with beach events to reinvent our holiday lights um and to enhance our holiday celebrations across the board while also protecting our invaluable seaw wall. Um, we look forward to unveiling the new holiday schedule and programming in the coming months. Um, so

we're absolutely focused on broadening our holiday celebrations at the oceanfront and working with beach events to have a new and reinvented programming. Um, as has been mentioned, um, the boardwalk, which serves as a seaw wall, um, has become stressed over time with the volume of vehicles that travel, um, participating in the holiday lights programming. And so, um, that's an incredible asset to our resort area

and a key part of our flood protection and coastal resiliency efforts. And so, um, while we value the program as it has been, we look forward to a reinvented celebration of the holidays in Virginia Beach.

Okay. worth and then Michael.

Thank you, mayor. Thank you, Miss Jared, for the update. A constituent called last week and asked if there was any engineers report or study about the boardwalk and the stress on it. And thank you, Mr. Manager.

Mr. Mayor, um, public works director LJ Hans can come and speak to that as well.

Hey, AJ.

Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, uh, Councilman, there are a number of reports that are done that are small in scope. So, there's nothing that's that's comprehensive necessarily. Uh, we do have one that went through and identified what the different thicknesses of the concrete are over the course. Um, there's not a particular study that was done for this exact purpose. In other words, what it means

for having vehicles drive on there. We do have uh studies though that have talked about the condition of the overall boardwalk and some of the issues that we are having with it and and discuss our need for maintenance.

Did that answer your question sir?

Yes.

Okay. Thank you.

Good. All right. Thank you. But yeah, once again you know a lot of people really value this and uh you you know that and the Christmas parade is uh you know part of a very proud tradition that Virginia Beach has. Okay. Anybody else for comments? And we'll just uh go ahead and miss Henley if we can do that.

Right. Looking at the agenda, we have uh seven items. Are there any items that anyone would like more information about or want to have pulled?

There are no speakers on any of these.

All right, then. It looks like they will all be on the consent agenda.

Thank you, Mrs. Henley. There we go.

That's the way to do it. Good job.

All right.

Uh, the chair will entertain a motion to recess into a close session pursuant to the exemptions of the open meetings allowed by section 2.23711A code of Virginia as amended for the following purposes. One, legal matters consultation with legal uh council employed or retained by public body regarding specific legal matters requiring provision of legal advice by such council pursuant to section 2.237.

237 11A88 Atlantic Park and legal matters consultation with legal council briefings by staff members or consultants pertaining to actual or probable litigation where such consultation or briefing in an automatic would adversely effective negotiating or litigating posture in the POG public body to section 2.23711A7 23711A7 Land Park. And then publicly held property discussions or considerations

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 2.23711A3.

And that would be districts district six. And then personal matters, discussion, considerations or interviews of prospective candidates for employment assignment appointments promotion performance demotion salaries, disciplining or resignation of specific public officers, appointees or employees of the public body pursuant to section 2.33708 11A1.

And that's council boards, commissions, committees authorities agencies and appointees. Do I have a motion? So moved.

Second.

Okay.

Council member Guchi.

I.

Council member Cummings.

Hi.

Council member Henley.

Hi.

Council member Hutchinson.

Council member Jackson Green.

Hi.

Council member Reik.

Hi.

Council member Ross Hammond. I and council member Shman I mayor Dyer I vote of 8 to zero you've closed session okay we are recessing to close and f

I call this meeting to order and if we will please Dave stand if you are able and willing for the invocation.

Heavenly Father, you are always with us and beside us. Be with us evening and 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. Amen.

And if uh we could have please a moment of silence for all those who have paid the ultimate price to keep our city and nation safe.

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

Okay. Thank you all. Uh madame clerk, do we have a roll call?

All present, Mayor with the exception of Vice Mayor Wilson and Council Member Rouse.

Okay. Thank you. Do I have a motion for the uh certification of the closed session?

Do I have a second?

Second.

Okay. Open to vote.

There we go.

Sorry. By a vote of uh 9 to zero, you certify the closed session in accordance with the motion to recess.

Okay. Uh can we have a vote uh for the approval of the minutes of the informal and formal sessions of January 20th, 2026?

So, Mr. Mayor, I have to abstain since I was absent that day.

All right. Thank you. Okay, let's open the vote.

Okay, great.

8 to zero. You've approved the minutes uh as uh presented with the exception of council member uh Shelman who abstained.

All right. Thank you. Now move on to a public hearing for the acquisition by agreement or condemnation of the Lindbrook Landing Sidewalk Improvements Project CIP 1000423112.

Any speakers?

Mayor, we don't have any speakers.

Okay. Uh at this point, um I can ask uh Mrs. Henley if she would do the consent agenda.

Items to be on the consent agenda. Uh number one, an ordinance to grant a franchise to the Virginia Beach Fishing Pier LLC for the use of city property at the Oceanfront and 15th Street regarding the operation of the Virginia Beach Fishing Pier. Second, an ordinance to dissolve the health services advisory board which was requested by the city council as action. Item three, resolution to approve the attainable

workforce housing performance grant to Concord Apartments LP and authorize the city manager to execute the grant agreement and support agreement. Item four, a resolution to request the Virginia Department of Transportation, VOTE, accept additional streets regarding the urban maintenance payments payments. Item five, a resolution to request the Virginia Department of Transportation, VOTE, accept corrections

and deletions to road inventory regarding their urban maintenance payments. Item six, an ordinance to authorize temporary encroachments into city-owned property known as Lake Joyce at the rear of 4417 Lee Avenue regarding and remove an existing gazebo, construct and maintain a new gazebo, walkway, pier, and maintain an existing concrete platform and an existing brick shed. And this is in district 9.

Item seven, an ordinance to accept and appropriate $961,962 from the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Development Services DBHDS to the fiscal year 202526 human services operating budget raise support the jailbased restoration pilot program and authorize within the fiscal year 2025 2026 operating budgets two and a half full-time employees. employees, uh, Ray Human Services, and two

full-time employees, Ray, the Virginia Beach Sheriff's Office. I move approval of the consent agenda.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Any discussion? Let's open the vote.

By vote of 9 to zero, you have approved the consent agenda as read by council member Henley.

Okay. Thank you. Now we have a just a couple of appointments.

Yeah, go ahead.

Uh Mr. Mayor, I would move appointing to the audit committee Robert Borman and to the Bayfront Advisory Commission reappoint William Hurst.

Okay, any discussion? Let's open the vote.

By a vote of 9 to zero, you've appointed those read by Council Member Henley.

Okay. Uh, very good. At this point, is there any old business?

Any new business? Okay, we are ajourned to open mic.