City Council Meeting, 4/21/2026

meeting and we're about to get started.

Mr.

At this time, we'll be joined by Director LJ Hansen and your company will brief city council over about our um a request that we have to city council for concurrence as it relates to next steps regarding the coastal storm risk management project. And as you all know, this is the Army Corps project that the city is partnering with to help deliver solutions for controlling the Atlantic

Ocean's impacts as it relates to sea level rise in Virginia Beach. Towards the end, we're going to seek council guidance on concurrence on which phase to initially start out this um very important project. So LJ, go ahead. The floor is yours.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of city council. I apologize in advance. You're going to get a very heavy dose of me today. If you saw the agenda, uh I have several presentations. I'll try to be concise though.

Uh the uh first presentation, as the manager pointed out, I'd like to give an update on where we stand on the coastal storm risk management or the CSRM feasibility study that's being conducted by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Um, our agenda will start off with a little bit of background to uh remind council and the those viewing exactly what we're doing, why we're doing it, a little bit of an overview of our storm water program, and uh go over a recommendation that we have for city council. Uh, as the manager pointed out, we're looking for city council to either concur or give additional guidance if if

you don't concur with us. and then talk a little bit about funding and what that recommendation might meet. Uh, as we get to the end and even timeline and next steps as we get to the end.

Um, council has seen this slide before, but I I think it's u beneficial to point out that when we talk about storm water in public works, there's really four elements that we're talking about. And sometimes they all get conflated. And when people talk to us about storm water, uh you may not think of them in this way, but all the time when we're talking about storm water, I am all the

time dividing it up into these four different buckets. And the first is storm water operations in the upper left. That's where we talk about taking care of the infrastructure that we already have, cleaning the ditches that we already have, maintaining pump stations that we already have, cleaning pipes, uh that type of thing.

uh the flood protection program. We're all very familiar with that. That's the new infrastructure that is being built and we have several large-scale projects that are going on around town uh around city rather. Uh the flood protection program though is focused on recurrent flooding. That is rainfall events that are coming into the city. Uh they might be related to a noraster, it might be

related to a hurricane, but it's the rain that we're trying to deal with on the flood protection program. In the lower left, we have the regulatory aspect of storm water. And that's where um our staff make sure that we're in compliance with the laws, that we're discharging clean water from an environmentally safe standpoint. Uh the city maintains an MS4 permit and we make sure that we stay in compliance. And

then the lower right, which is what we're going to talk about today, the coastal storm risk management component, uh I'll talk a little bit more about that uh as we get to the next couple of slides. I also think it's important that we recognize how we pay for the different elements of storm water. Um the storm water eru or the stormwater fund currently funds aspects of regulatory operations and some of our

FPP projects. Reminder, some of our FPPP projects were there before the bond referendum. So we still have some flood protection projects that are funded by the stormwater eru.

We also have a 2.5 cent real estate dedication uh called the stormwater lockbox that pays for stormwater operations and regulatory. In large part it pays for staff and some of those staff work on the FPP. So the dash line around the FPP that 2.5 cent real estate dedication doesn't actually go towards uh the construction the capital costs of the FPP but it does fund our operations

and making sure that we can administer it.

And then the FPP itself is the 4.1 cent real estate dedication and that goes entirely 100% to our new development for our um flood protection program and again that is for rainfall events. The one item that I haven't talked about is the item we're talking about today and that's coastal storm risk management.

And if you'll notice, none of the boxes circled around coastal storm risk management. And that's because we don't really have a bill payer. But up until this point, we've largely been focused on the study behind what we're intending to do and looking ahead. So the the costs in comparison to the other aspects have been relatively low.

So today's briefing, we're going to talk a little bit about where we stand in the CSRM study and uh some new requirements that we got from the Army Corps of Engineers. We're going to talk about the need to select one early actionable element from that study and and the importance of us selecting that that component so that we can stay on on uh schedule. And the study is a first step towards us

being able to get federal funding assistance on these largecale capital projects. And again, if you recall, these are projects that are going to protect us from coastal storm inundation. That's where I caut kind of jokingly say it's where the ocean's coming to get us. It's where there's a storm off our coast. Could be a noraster, could be a hurricane, but typically we're talking about tidal

surge events where the tide is coming up uh usually because of a of a storm. Um and it is coming into the interior part of the city and stealing our capacity to be able to handle with flooding uh additional flooding events. uh it also just the tide itself can cause coastal uh inundation and we do see that in some of the communities.

The study it looked at the whole city and it divided the city into six planning areas. Uh it developed strategies for each of those different areas um and it looked at a 50-year horizon. So thinking out about 50 years into the future, what do they anticipate the storms to be like 50 years in the future? What do we see from historic past in terms of sea level rise um and

storm surge modeling? And so that is the the time span that they're looking at as they're looking at at the development of this study.

In 2022, we entered into an agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers and it was done under the SMART framework. Um, we historically called this a 3x3 by3.

It was a three-year limit to complete the study. Had a $3 million cap of which the city share was half of that, $1.5 million. And then it had three levels of core engagement. Now, this is very similar to what Norphick did when they were engaged in this process. that is the historic way that that this was done. Uh but of course after the pandemic and what we saw in terms of rising costs, inflation and how that

impacted a lot of these large-scale projects, they made a couple of changes in January of 2023. They changed it to what they called the complex style. And so instead of smart, it went to complex, raised the budget up to 5.5 million, and extended the schedule to spring of 2026.

So it extended it by another year, raised it another 2.5 million of which we we bore the half of that 2.5 million and then later in 2023 they revised it yet again at the direction of Army Corps of Engineers headquarters. They wanted to make sure that they had better estimates that they felt a lot more confident when they went to Congress and asked for the amount of money that they

were looking for. So they went to a more robust model where they were looking for additional geotechnical work and stronger cost estimates that bumped the cost up to about 13.5 million. Again the city share 6.67 million which is 50%. It also bumped out the time to complete it and they com so the new time to complete was spring of 2028. And when I say complete when it's done it goes before

the chief. The chief signs off on it.

Once he signs off on it, uh, then it's able to go to Congress for additional appropriations for design and ultimately for construction.

The core has come back and said they're still not confident in as far as what that class three estimate was going to give. So what they're now asking us to do is to take one element out of all of what we're doing across the entire study and move that advance that element forward. They want to take that one element and advance it to 35% design maturity. That will allow them to have a

much higher confidence in what the actual estimate is going to be. So they're not stopping the report by any means.

they're going to continue to do to identify the elements across uh the city in all of the six planning districts, but they're asking us to identify what is the element that we think would be the most beneficial to the city and to uh the residents of Virginia Beach. And so they're asking us to design or or to designate that one um element. They're going to move forward with a class 3

cost estimate after 35% design. Now in the after that's done, all remaining parts still are available. We are still able to keep moving forward. We don't have to go back to Congress and ask for additional appropriations to move those forward, but we do have to advance them forward on separate ind u individual paths.

So, as I mentioned, there are six uh candidate planning area locations. Uh Backbay, Elizabeth River, Little Creek, Linhaven Inlet, Rudy Inlet, uh to include the Ocean Front and Westnet Creek. These correspond to the threat u threats that we suffer from coastal inundation. These are water uh waterways that allow coastal flooding to get into the city, into the heart of the city.

And so those are the six elements that we particularly identified.

Staff have come up with a recommendation and we're recommending the early actional early actionable element. That is not an easy thing to say by the way. I'm going to I'm going to trip over it a couple times. The early actionable element of the Linhaven Inlet surge barrier. Now this is this comes from the Linhaven Planning District. Um, and what's shown here on the screen is the entirety of what was

planned in the Linhaven district or uh division.

What you see are surge barriers uh at the at the Linhaven Inlet, but you also see um enhanced dune protections and and uh walls that span all the way from Fort Story to the uh to the west. And then you'll notice that there's a little piece that runs from Fort Story South to about I think it's about 38th Street if I remember correctly.

What we're actually going to look at as the element is not necessarily all of the walls and all of the barriers, but they're looking at particularly putting the gates at the Linhaven Inlet. And I want to take just a moment to talk to you about what they're proposing. They have um three sets of gates. So on the outside gates there are two sets of uh tainer gates that are about 120 feet on both sides

and then in the center is a rising sector gate. And don't worry that you don't know what a tainer gate or a rising sector gate are. I'm going to show you pictures of those in just a moment. But what this does is it it allows us to keep the channel open to certain types of uh vessels. The rising sector gate doesn't have a horizontal threshold. So that means that vessels with larger clearances requiring larger

clearances, things that can go under the current Lesnar bridge, but they won't be impaired by anything from the gate. Uh whereas the tainer gates go over the top and they would have some horizontal uh issues.

Um flood walls and fortified dunes would tie into for the most part what's exact what's already there. Now ultimately what we're trying to do is create um the barrier from the Chesake Bay Bridge Tunnel all the way to Fort Story.

We're still trying to figure out what the cost estimate is going to be and the core has been unsure whether they're going to be able to do all of the protections at one time, but this is the part that they absolutely want to focus in on. And we think that we're going to be able to get some of the improvements on the dunes and walls as well.

Now, um, as I mentioned, the the reason that we identified, uh, that site or that particular element, it has a lot to do with how we can protect what already exists and what we already have problems with flooding. Um, representatives from this part of the city will know that we have problems under title events today in Ocean Park, Linhaven Colony, and Bay Island. We see recurrent flooding in these areas pretty

regularly. Um we believe that just the presence of the gates today we could make an active would make an active difference in how we manage water today.

So we feel like this is a this is an actionable element that would be able to go into use and would have immediate impact. But it's not limited to just these areas. I would point out the uh the element in the lower left that shows what the elevations are and you can see that a lot of the elevations are are relatively low. We're talking about three, four, five feet of elevation. We

see tidal surge in excess of that um pretty regularly. Not not monthly, not even yearly necessarily, but we do see it fairly regularly.

But it's not just limited to what happens right there at the mouth of the at the Linhaven. The Linhaven has a large expanse. It affects a large part of the city. Uh it is the source of tidal flooding across much of the city.

In fact, it it affects areas in Central Resort, Bay Colony, Great Neck, uh Town Center to include Windsor Woods, Princess Sand Plaza, and the Lakes. Um you can see the areas that are brighter colored. Those are areas that are low.

Those are areas where we experience title flooding today. And we know that as time goes on, the flooding is going to be a greater threat to us. This is why we picked that early actionable element.

So I I told you I would show you what the gates look like. So on the outside, remember there's two gates on either side on the outside. So it looks sort of similar to this. Uh on the left hand side, the tainer gates are open. Uh water is able to flow through. uh smaller boats can go through the tainer gates uh just as they do today. In the right hand side you'll see when the

tainer gates are closed the gate is down. It blocks water. So what would happen is as a tidal surge is coming in the gate would be closed. The water level inside the gate inside Linhaven would stay at the level it was when the gates were closed and water on the outside would continue to rise.

The next gate, which is the gate that's in the middle, this is a rising sector gate. Um, this is actually pictures from London, but you can see that on the left when the gate is open, there's no horizontal um restriction. So, the horizontal restriction would still remain the Lesnar Bridge U, but it doesn't have that gate that's overhead.

Um on the right hand side you can see how well in the center you can see how the gate changes from its flat position to its upright position. It kind of rolls out of the water kind of a half horseshoe shaped thing there. Uh and when it's closed the same thing holds true. So the tainer gates would come down the rising sector gate would go up and on the whole you would have that

level of protection that you're trying to maintain. water on the outside will go up and then when when the threat has passed then we would open the gates and everything would would return to normal.

Now I want to show you this but I really want to caution this is a very preliminary analysis.

Um I wanted to show you this because I think it's important to understand how the gates will get used.

At the top is a windspeed map. It talks a little bit about how the wind speed would might affect our operation. And on the bottom is the title surge itself.

You can see the red lines where the gates would be opened, where the or where the gates would be closed, and then where the gates would be opened back up. Now, the reason I'm saying this is very preliminary is if you look at the left, it says if we're anticipating an event where we might have 4 foot of rise, that 4 foot is a very preliminary number. Has not been settled on yet.

We're not sure if that's the right number. It might be a little bit lower.

It might be a little bit higher than that. So, I I don't want anybody to get too terribly excited if especially if they happen to know what the property elevation is and they say you're not going to protect me. We don't know the answer to that yet because we haven't settled on it. But for purposes of this discussion, let's say that that's the threshold. When we're looking at our runup on the storm, if we're

anticipating a title surge of 4 foot, we would look for the low tide event before that. close the gate and then we would let the event occur. And after the event, when the water got down to an acceptable level, you don't just throw it open with the water higher, you have to wait for the water to get back down.

We would close the gate. And this is similar to what we do at Windsor Woods.

It's a little bit different because what we're talking about here is right on the on the coastal edge. And so we're talking about a lot more wave action, a lot more robust uh of a of a facility.

And the area that's circled in green there, that's the area where the time frame when the wind uh when the gates would be closed.

So, how might this be used? Well, we could tell you a little bit about the 10 events, the 10 biggest events that have happened to us u since the early 1900s.

Um it's a combination of hurricanes and norers. And if you can see the bottom part of the chart on the lower left, what you actually see is that hurricanes average about 26 hours for closure. Uh, but norers would actually average about 45 hours for closure. That's almost two full days. But that has to do with a lot to do with how the storms come in and how they roll across. But that does give

you some indication of how long this the the gate would be closed. And of course, when the gates closed, that would prohibit the ability for boats to go in and out. Um, so we are working with the pilots association to figure out how that would affect them. And of course, we would always be working with the community, letting folks know that we're anticipating an event, that we're

anticipating making a closure, letting folks make the those decisions that they need to make before we get to that action point.

Um, a little bit about uh closure frequency.

Uh again looking at that estimate if it's in fact 4 foot uh over the course of the last since the 1930s you can see the chart on the lower right hand corner we would have closed it say four times uh excuse me seven times in the 1930s but if you look at 2010 you can see that we would have closed it probably 19 times in the 2010s and this is all recorded information. This is

this is based on what we have recorded at Su's point and what we've seen from actual measurable data that comes to us from the coastal um uh from the USGS.

Um at this point today uh the city's not asking for any additional uh funding other than what is programmed in uh our budget for 2728.

But the study as it's currently um underway, that $13.5 million in the city share of 6.67 million um is is covered or we we have a plan for that. But after the 35% design and the chief's report, then they're going to want to move towards design and then ultimately towards cons construction of the selected early actionable element.

So this chart gives you a little bit of an understanding of where we are and what we would be talking about in terms of funding and timelines. So again, today we're we're pretty well set. When we get to the second quarter of 2028, that's when the chief's report would be signed and they would be moving towards uh the design element for the early actionable element.

It's going to last about 24 months.

That's what that time duration shows there. The city would be required to have a 35% share of that design component. Today, we're estimating estimating because we don't have that 35% estimate yet, but we're estimating that that is probably the city share will probably be about the 10 to 15 million range in the second quarter of 2028.

in 2029, the second quarter of 2029, we would be looking at the second actionable element. So, if council agrees with our recommendation and wants to move forward with the Linhaven uh barrier as the early actionable element, what's the next item? We don't have that recommendation for council yet. We have some ideas. We know we have some thoughts about what make might make sense, but we're not at that place and

we're we're really actually going to wait until after we get the chief's report and make sure that we're all in concurrence. Um, I will tell you that the Army Corps of Engineers and city staff uh are in agreement on the early actionable element that was selected at Linhaven. Um, we have not come to any kind of agreement on the second actionable element yet. that would require a 50% city share. But again,

we're talking about in the same vein of of element, in the same vein of funding as what we're paying for the first study. We don't have to do the whole study all over again, but it could be another, I don't know, maybe $5 million in that in that era area. The big ticket item, the one that I I really know is going to grab all your attention is that third quarter of 2030 when the

um design is is wrapping up from the early actionable element. That's when the Army Corps will be asking Congress for appropriations for their 65% of the construction of the Tide Gates. And that's where it's going to be a much larger number. I can't give you an estimate today. it would be irresponsible of me to do so. I will say it's it's going to be in the hund00 million plus range. I don't know what

the number is though. Um I will know more as we get closer to that May 2028 date and I'll be able to to give council an understanding. I know the manager uh wants to do some strategy sessions so that we can advise council on on possible means to look at that funding, but we're not there yet today.

So again, what we seek from council today is only concurrence on the selection of the Linhaven surge barrier and the associated infrastructure or if council is not uh approving with that solution any alternative direction that that you would give us.

And if council does concur with us, uh the next steps are to complete the 35% design for the selected early actionable element. um plan and program the local matching funds for the design and uh explore feasibility of section 203. And that's where we're talking about other ways that we could advance other elements forward if uh we don't like the way that that the core is programming it

out if we wanted to advance them in different ways. We still have a little bit of uh of uh exploration to do on that front.

And with that, I would take any questions that you have for me.

And I went out to Win Haven College. And I'll tell you some of the pictures that I saw were horror shows. People were literally trapped in their homes and couldn't get out. It was bad. It was deep. It was dangerous. just getting it going. Anybody else? Rosemary and then just one quick little comment of when you show the impact of what it's going to do not just along the shore drive but

all the way into big colony and central bees. It's I think that this these floodgates are really a lot of bang for the buck for what to how much of a difference they're going to make. So I think you are wise in choosing that as the first element because I think it's going to make a huge difference.

Stacy, there's been, and this is not a criticism necessarily, but there's there's not been a lot of um information put out to the public um on this project.

And um as it gets closer, people are starting to focus more and more on it.

And the idea of these floodgates is going to have an impact on on people in that area. Uh not just the navigable waters, but the property values and what it's going to do to the area around it.

And it could be a I think it would be in our best interest. I I would like to for us to have a major public engagement to let people know what this whole decision at this process or at this point in the process is. and what the effects of that are because for us to say we're going forward with this and then take it out, you know, it's already done and with no public input,

I think it's going to have an adverse effect, especially at district 8, maybe district 9. And I think if we can let people know upfront before the decision's been finalized that it it may not make any difference, but at least people will know that they have had a voice and uh it'll be easier to swallow. I'm not sure that um I'm not sure that, but I know from from the people that I've been speaking to, there

is a lot of concern. And I'm not saying this is a bad project or we're not going to do it. I' I'd probably actually be in support of am in support of it, but I just think that getting the public upfront to at least understand what all of this means would go a long way to um making an easier pill to swallow.

Yes, sir. So um the Army Corps of Engineers is actually the one that is actually the agency that runs this this project. They have been responsible for outreach and a number of outreach activities have already occurred and a number of outreach activities will still occur. Um we have worked with the city's uh media department and they have put out the information. I think the engagement has been,

you know, for for a city our size. I think it's been not as engaged as as where people see this all the time. I don't know that everybody sees this as something that's that that they're really engaged in, but nevertheless, the engagement from the core side, they're happy. They're saying they're getting more engagement from the citizens of Virginia Beach than they do from most of the studies that they that

they do. So I I do think there has been an effort to make an outreach. I don't know how to get people excited about that effort.

Okay. And that might be the challenge for me.

My concern is not necessarily the over the overall project.

It's now we have something specific that people can focus on. And when you're talking the overall project, it seems like okay, that's years down the road and blah blah blah and it may never happen. Now, we're talking something very specific to a very specific part of the beach that's going to have an impact on a a tangible impact on some people that I just think that we would be better um

better off letting them know upfront exactly what this means um versus, you know, we got this project, it's going to be years down the road, blah blah blah. It's the whole city. I think that if we engage the people that this is a specific thing and this is what it means at this point in time, I I just think it it would do us well to do that.

Yes.

Okay. Patrick and then Josh and then Mr. I think you're right. So um this only becomes a specific thing once you all concur because it has not been a specific thing and the informal briefings we have given you all was as um army corps is getting ready to do their first initial public engagement on it. So with this right here this is basically going to say it's going to become a specific thing and then the

army corps's chief's report that will basically highlight this doesn't really come till sometime in 2028. We do meet quarterly with the army corps. So we'll take this feedback to them that once we're basically saying this is where we want to go as a early initial action. We need to ramp up efforts in partnership with the Army Corps to get the word out more in a more robust way so that when

folks see the final chief's report in 2028, sometimes they're not feeling like they didn't have an opportunity to be part of the conversation. So I hear what you're saying and we'll make sure we communicate that to the Army Corps.

Okay. Uh Josh, thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the for the report. Um if I understand what you're saying correctly, this is um there's a whole bunch of obviously priority projects. Um this is one that they've identified. Um that is a pri is is is a priority, but also is a as a validator for um trying to figure out whether or not what they've, you know, budgeted in the first place comes close

to what it actually might entail. Um and then it it benefits I guess um I would say the most um you know in terms of land area and the and the a number of districts and the watershed that that um is impacted by the Lynhaven and and title events and such. So um I I think people and to your point I agree with you completely that people need to be

educated uh if there's a way that we can help them understand the the investments that we're trying to protect behind these gates. I think a lot of the concern especially up by us is going to be view shed aesthetics. Um we got a be beautiful new bridge up there. How is that going to look and impact? Um but I think the more people um that understand that um you're not going to be able to

look at any of those things because none of that none of the land's going to be there if we don't do something about um what we know the imminent threat is. So um so thank you very much. Um I assume this is one that we can look at from a this is a it's a reach and it gives us an idea of bill idea about the variability of those costs and what that

will inform us on the other investments that we have to make behind it.

I think so. Yes sir.

Okay. We're going to Barbara and then thank you LJ for the report. I remember us seeing this before, especially when you mention about the design for London that you have up here with the gates.

Two questions I have. Um, aesthetically, how is that going to look? And the second, you mentioned about the opening and the closing.

How much warning time are you going to give the residents there so they'll be aware?

Um, so the the aesthetics part, that's a design component. We're going to do what we can do during the design component.

That that doesn't start again until 2028, after after 2028. Um, it will have an impact to aesthetics of the bridge.

Um, and that has been something that we've been very mindful of and we've we've had those discussions. Um, but there is a there's a engineering component to this that you kind of have to go outside the gate or you have to go outside the bridge. Um, the location is is kind of has to be predetermined to be there because that's the narrowest spot. Um, in terms of the operation,

uh, a lot is left to be done on the design component and how that's going to work out, but I would say you're you're probably going to get some advanced notice and we're working on some really interesting stuff. I'll tell you about it during our my operating budget talk here in a few minutes. Um, but we're working on some interesting stuff that's going to tell us a little bit about how

we can know in advance when these storms are coming and we can start to communicate that information in advance, maybe days in advance of what we're seeing and how it might shake out.

Thank you for the historical data that you gave which is driving this based on what you showed the hurricane and northeastern so Yes ma'am.

So that's good. is our staff that came up with this final decision.

So, in concurrence with the Army Corps of Engineers, again, remember the Army Corps of Engineers is the ones that are they're the ones doing the study itself.

We are the non-federal sponsor and ultimately we'll be the ones that are responsible for operating this like we do the boardwalk. Uh we'll be the ones responsible for operating this after it's completed. So we're we're a part of the team, but they are the driving force. Um they had their recommendation.

They kept it to themselves. They asked us what we thought. We kind of we came to the same conclusion. We compared notes and we all said we think this is the we think this is the element that should go first.

That shows our expertise.

Thank you.

Barber. And then what were the other candidate options?

Well, as I mentioned, ma'am, there were there were six districts. So, uh the oceanfront, there's also a barrier at Rudy Inlet. Um there is um an element at Little Creek. Um that one would be a little bit more challenging because of the Navy component and also it's on the boundary with Norphick. Um there uh was an element that was under consideration on Elizabeth River. Um, those are all

still elements that stay in the plan. By the way, we just didn't advise to rec to move those ones forward first. We do have some elements that are in the southern part of the city. Um, a lot of that is is problematic and we're still struggling with with it because of the presence of the refuge and how it impacts the refuge. So we we're still doing a lot of work on that, but we did

not have an element from the southern part of the city that we considered moving forward with as the early actionable element because of the refuge constraints.

So these other projects are still potential for a future time, but just not at this time.

Oh yes, ma'am. That's exactly remember when I said in 2029 we would start to look at what the second actionable element is. That's when we're going to look at the next which which project makes sense next. That was a I think basically if there's six different watersheds to this thing and I could be wrong on that then basically what the Army Corps is saying phase one would be wershed one Linhaven that's when we want

to bring 45% the remaining projects would go to 10% right yes sir sort of not exactly and and the only reason I want to caveat that is it's not the entirety of the Linhaven um basin that that we were talking about remember that there were walls that came from Fort Story and went down to 38th Street. Those are not in consideration for this early actionable element. Um they could get constructed as a as

another element, but um they're not in this in this part.

Right. Of course, the the fees and the and the costs are ongoing for everybody anyway. So, but just to assure people that we are not overlooking their concerns. That's my concern at this point.

Absolutely. Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

I yield back my time just for safe time and I'll have years to ask questions.

Okay. I think the prudent thing to do is, you know, let me put it this way rather to make it full commitment now.

Make it a priority and, you know, just work with the Army Corps. Let's get the information out uh and you know, kind of fuel test and get the temperature of of you know, what's going on. But I think even in terms of what you're talking about, this is only a piece of the puzzle going forward. Uh when we're talking about a whole bunch of other um projects that are going to be needed in

the future, is it fair to say we're talking not millions but billions, you know, over the next, you know, whether it be 20, 30, 50 years. Uh you know, this is, you know, this is the first step of a long journey.

Is is that okay?

Yeah. So, Mr. Mayor, so basically is council council okay with LJ and I letting the army the army corps for the north district know that this is the first initial early action that you want us to move forward with is the Linhaven surge barrier. Is that correct?

Yes, sir. They're looking they're looking for either you or I to sign a letter stating that we understand and that that we're comfortable with our with the money that we've got in the study moving towards that 35% design for the early actionable element. They they want to know if we're comfortable letting them move forward with the 35% design. That's what they're I would just like to see some expedited

communication with folks. Yes, sir.

There's going to be a lot of misinformation out there.

sooner we can get on it.

No, no, I agree that should Yeah, that should be, you know, a not only a priority, the priority at least getting it going, but you know, immediate engagement.

Yes, sir.

Hey, Barbara.

Uh, going back to the cost on pages of slides five and six when it talks about the 2.5 cent real estate dedication and the 4.1% real estate dedication. Could you explain just what how this funding is working?

The funding for what? Ma'am, I'm sorry.

This project, this project doesn't have an identified fund uh identified funding source.

Slides talking about these slides are to point out that we have several means of funding for the stormwater program, but that we do not have a specific funding source for coastal storm risk management.

These are not really specific to this project. is just our overall Yes, ma'am. I I know that our residents are mindful that they pay a lot of money and they pay a lot of money towards storm water. I want them to know that we're putting their money towards good use. But even having said that, we do not have a fund payer for coastal storm risk management.

And so that's where this federal project is going to come in to have that happen.

Okay.

Yes, ma'am. So I was clear.

Yes, ma'am. And you know, basically, you know, just to reiterate that our $567 million bond referendum now cost pretty close to 1.6 billion.

And those are still on track. Correct.

Yeah. Okay.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. So, Mr. Mayor, members of council, we're getting ready to start the budget briefings and the first budget briefing for county. We're just going to give the department's operating budget for 627.

Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, members of council.

I am here to present planning department's budget information for fiscal year 27. I'd first like to offer special thanks to Hunter Anderson and Dave Couch for helping us put our budget package together this year.

Are you at the end? Are you moving it?

Okay. So for trends and issues, so following the state's lead, we continue to work closely with public works to streamline the combined erosion and sediment control and storm water programs. For VBat implementation, we continue to collect data for the department regarding review times for our site plans and permits. As you know, we presented to city council recently our stats for department reviews and our

efforts to continue to improve process where we can as we meet the state's new review timelines. And again, newly in the last few months, we publish all of this information on our web page for citizens to review. The comprehensive plan will be considered for adoption this evening. This plan is streamlined and is much more userfriendly. As you know, it focuses on redevelopment in appropriate areas of the city while

continuing to protect areas to the south. As we move past the comprehensive plan, we will be working to update the shore drive corridor plan and begin the process to pursue a citywide microransit program, starting out in some of our underserved areas. And again, when we say microransit, think of point-to-point vehicular service as opposed to something like ebikes or lime scooters.

Adding microtransit can be a big positive change for our transportation options here in the future in our city.

For staffing, we continue to focus on timely advertising and selection of qualified candidates to join our team.

We're hoping to fill some of our vacancies with new college graduates this time of year. The short-term rental program continues to improve with added changes recommended by the STR task force last year. This includes the addition of our three additional FTEES.

And for the VA250 commission, they continue to plan events in honor of the Commonwealth and Nation's 250th anniversary in the coming year.

For customer service, we continue to review data for incoming calls and visits to our department to ensure that we have timely responses for all of our customers.

And historic highway markers, a condition assessment for each of our 26 historical highway markers has been initiated and will continue to coordinate with the historic preservation committee to refurbish any signs that may be in disrepair.

And for our major budget changes this year, as you know, the comprehensive plan recommends a muchneeded update to our zoning code, which was last amended in 1988. This will likely take 18 to 24 months once we begin the process with a consulting team. Two of the items we will focus on in this update is how to make it easier for affordable housing development and redevelopment within the eight SGAAS.

Finally, the Northlanding River Albamaro Sound Estuarian Symposium that takes place each year will now formally be included in the planning department's budget as a planned and funded event.

And that is all I have. Happy to take questions and thank you for your continued support.

Stacy, thank I guess it's my understanding that the governor signed the ADU and the nonprofit housing bills.

Yes, that's correct.

How does that affect your department going forward?

So, those will be two additional items that we will be taking up in the zoning update, but we will follow the state's requirements, but now we'll memorialize those in writing and if we need to do that in advance to meet timelines with the zoning code, we will do that separately in advance of the total zoning update.

Thank you very much.

So, thank you. Mine's not necessarily questions, but more of just a couple compliments to be honest. Um, the short-term rental, you know, the task force taking the 19 uh recommendations and moving forward, that's like almost unheard of, you know, all 19. So, and having and having some of our uh constituents that have checked with us and that y'all have helped us with to work through the issues that were all

legit, just trying to get through them.

I just want to say thanks because the professionalism and helping them and reaching back out to them and making it work um for me anyway has been a real positive as well as for them. I know they don't always come back and say that but uh but following up with them a couple of times on at least three of them for me they've said that. So, um, also with the builders, um, I went to that I

forget the name of it now, the builders association thing in NOFK by the airport. Um, just to see if there was any nuggets I could pick up on and I think I came back and spoke to you about the zoning, you know, that they were hoping, you know, that'll be next and they're they're happy for it. But I also asked some pointed questions as far as like, hey, what how do you think we're

doing and everything else and they said that no, y'all have been really receptive and that we we are trying to cut red tape. They understand that some some of it's necessary. We you know it's a necessary evil. Not going to say the other two cities that they said were train wrecks, but they they gave us they gave us great.

No, we did not. No, we did not. It was in like Newark or somewhere. I'm not even like I I kind of thought that I was just playing there. But anyway, they were very uh very nice about it. One thing I did want to say too is that and has also having dealt with you, I've had had several this year um with the residents and like we've said nine times out of 10

when we get a call, I got one today that I'll be talking to you about is it turns out that it's really it's really on their side. you know, once you say, "Have you dotted the eye and crossed the tea is and they hadn't or they hadn't come forth with the permit or done whatever that, you know, they sometimes it's just frustrating. I think they need to complain. That's part of

what happens. I get it. But from what my dealing with has been working with y'all, your whole team, it seems to be working really well." And I'm looking forward to the ADUs uh coming in and helping us. I actually got asked about it last night at a civic league meeting um about how far out they were. So, I was going to be asking you about that.

So, just just thank you for everything y'all are doing.

Thank you.

Hey, anybody else? Amelia, thank you again, Kathy. Um, two things I want to mention. I'm happy to see for staffing that you're going to look at some of the young people just coming out, which is good for retention in the city.

Yes.

And then the second to do with the VA250, I'm on that. And even when I was out at a dedication recently on Saturday, that came up hoping that we will continue or extend this. Has that been decided?

To my knowledge, no, it has not been, but I believe that city council that would be something that city council would need to consider.

All right.

Okay. Anybody else at this point?

You maybe somebody touched on it just you know been a little thing know we've been appro approached by some companies like ECPI and a few other things uh they're coming up with you know is a software or what you know AI uh to help uh you know they think just which would hopefully expedite things. What's your thoughts on that?

We've actually already had staff look at demos to see if there's anywhere specifically in our plan review where that can be helpful. So, we are looking at that now.

Okay. You know, you know, that's good.

Yeah. But, you know, anything to help.

We're not looking at one child or anything, but uh you know, any tools that we can help, you know, would be great. Okay.

All right. So, Mr. Mayor, members of council, as LJ Hansen, director of public works mentioned, it's going to be the LJ Hansen show. First presentation will be the briefing of public works operating budget. Then followed by the briefing of the roadway CIP and also the building asset CIP as well.

It's been a while, sir.

Try it again. Still doesn't work. Okay.

Uh so it is my pleasure to give an update on the Department of Public Works operating budget. Um under trends and issues we have the the first item is technology implementation and improvements. And when I started here five years ago, it's been five years now. Uh we had more spreadsheets in the department than I think anybody could have possibly imagined. We also had a number of outdated um access databases

that it told us we were no longer allowed to use. So when I tell you that over the course of the last five years we have gone through a technology uh renovation in the department that is no small feat that is no small statement. We have really seen a lot of changes in technology. The the blessing of that though is that it allows us to identify um trends and we're able to

kind of get a dial in on our specifics a little bit more better. We can start to identify how to be more efficient with the data that we're we're collecting. Uh we're just now coming into the to the part where we're actually having enough data that actually starts to make sense.

But it's really starting to pay dividends and that is uh that's a really great thing for us. But you you may notice across uh some of my comments, I'm going to talk about an IT person for this and an IT person for that. It does take people to manage that data, make sure that I'm using that data in a way that benefits the rateayers.

Um tied to technology is our parking initiatives. Um we have changed a lot in parking in a very short window. Um folks at the oceanfront will definitely notice that there's a lot of changes that have happened. We've we've changed the rules about uh parking on the street. We've changed our fee schedules. We've implemented the voucher program. We have made a ton of improvements at the convention center

and we continue to make improvements moving forward. One of those improvements or many a couple of those improvements actually are tied to the technology that we use down there. So those two play really well together. I will tell you that on the voucher with regard to the voucher program, we have received, I believe I was told, 6,400 applications, we've approved a thousand so far. Um, that's since uh April 1st.

Uh we have more to approve. I I know that folks would like to see that. Uh there's there's a lot of folks out there that are wondering where their approval is. It's coming. I promise. We're working on it as quickly as we can. Uh but 6,400's a lot of a lot of applications to process.

um market conditions. Uh I feel like every year I get up and I tell you I don't know what to tell you. This is unprecedented times. My daughter says it all the time. What would it be like to live in precedented times? Um but but when we when we talk about market conditions, this is unprecedented. We have gone from one set of uh circumstances to the next and the market conditions continue to be a challenge

for us and we continue to work through them and I very much appreciate council's support as we work on our CIP costs.

Everything is definitely intent.

Yes, sir. Uh and then the last item that we had listed here is SIPA. Uh as council will recall, we expanded our use of support agreement agreement with uh SIPA uh to expand it to 25 years. SIPA themselves have made some changes to how they're processing waste and those exciting those changes are rather exciting. It's uh it's going to increase the amount of recycling that our region

does. It's going to uh reduce the amount of waste that's actually going into our landfills and expand the life of our landfills. um past 2028, I expect that we will probably not have blue cans on the streets anymore because it just doesn't make sense. We're actually pulling more recyclables out of the out of the refues uh than we did with the with the blue cans. Right now, today,

our waste is actually being processed as it always has. The blue cans are going to TFC, our contractor. The black cans are going to SIPA, but after 2028, we probably will not have that same understanding. um and also tied to technology. We're looking to see what we can do to try and make things better for the rateayer at that same time. So stay tuned. I'll have more to show.

Uh major major budget changes uh in the general fund. Uh we've asked for additional funding for building utilities. Um as council and all of our residents are aware, utility rates are going up. Uh we have a lot of buildings.

So when your utility rates go up a little bit, you can imagine how much our rates go up. We've asked for an additional 2.15 mill 2.185 million uh to cover additional building utilities across the city. Uh we've also asked for some additional funding on our custodial services. We did increase the number of custodial uh workers because of employees coming back to campus. It required additional custodial services.

It also requires additional um custodial supplies and so we've asked for an additional $200,000 there.

And then we also asked in this year's budget uh to create a special event support group and you'll see up there that we're asking to add three FTEEs.

We're going to repurpose three FTEEs to make a crew of six. And that should help us be able to deal with some of the special events citywide. Not this is not just at the ocean front, but this is citywide. Uh that's it's about a million dollar change, but uh we're also asking for about $800,000 one time to help us provide some equipment uh to get that group crew off the ground. And that's

important. Uh we've been pulling people from other priorities to try and tackle these special events. And as council's fully aware, we're trying to be a year-round society or not society, a yearround um city city. Thank you. uh a year-round city and and so it just takes more and more time away from workers that should be doing other other jobs. And so we we think this is a real uh strategic

investment in how we handle special events.

Uh major changes to the tip fund itself.

Uh we're asking for $1.4 million one time. This is to help us uh purchase another large tractor and a cleaner for the uh for the beach. We have one today and it is it does an amazing job, but when it has to go down because it has to be serviced, that's a problem. Um, and then just the possibility of having two would allow us to tackle more events, more and be able to turn around between

events uh even faster. We've also asked for an increase in recycling funds of $40,000 and that's to handle the increase to our our contract that we have uh as a result of the fee increase that we did at the rateayers, but we didn't do anything at the oceanfront.

This just helps us to offset the recycling costs that we have for the recycling um disposal at the oceanfront.

Uh major changes to the storm water fund. Uh these are both net zero. We're not providing, we're not requesting any changes to the storm water utility.

We're following the Jacob's report as we said we would do. Uh Jacob's report had a number of incremental investments in personnel over time. Um at this point, we think it's appropriate to hire three FTEEs to help us with uh pump maintenance and electricians. Bear in mind all of the FPPP projects that we're bringing on on board, uh those require mechanics to maintain it, electricians

to be able to keep them running and and to take care of all the essential components. Um by the time we actually get these folks onboarded, they'll be in place. They'll be here while the construction is happening. They'll be integrated into that process. And we think that that makes a lot of sense. Um, we're also asking for one person to do technical support for the stormwater operations

control center. We are still a few years away from that building actually being built, but the software itself is is coming online very soon. It's it's really exciting. I hope that I get a chance to show council what it can do um probably a few months out. But again in that same vein, we want to have this uh support person online as as the software is getting developed so they understand

how it works, how it connects to the infrastructure that we already have in place, how it connects to the sensors around the city and and ties it all together. And then that person will be responsible for helping us to maintain it, make sure that it works when we absolutely positively have to have it.

Uh budget changes in the waste management fund. Um we're asking for additional operators to FTEES uh at the landfill. We have had um some vacancy or not vacancies. We've had some temporary workers out there for a number of years and we think it's time that we convert those temporary positions to full-time positions that help us to make sure that we have a little bit more continuity and

a little bit more coverage. Again, no change to the refuge fund. Um, so it's a net zero, but it would be adding two more employees to the landfill. We are proposing two changes though in terms of of cost. Refuge container fees uh currently cost uh $75. We're proposing to change that to $100. That helps us to cover the cost of the refuge containers themselves. The administration of the

just, you know, somebody says, "Hey, my container is broken. I need a new container." uh we have to order one, put it together, ship it out to them, the whole thing. Um so we're we're asking to increase that. It has not been increased since 2004, so it's not like we we don't touch this very often. We just feel like it's appropriate to touch it uh after 212 years. Um, and likewise the yard debris

trailer fee increase, we're proposing to change that uh on the daily rate from $40 to $50 and uh the weekend rate from 75 to 150. And and again, that's a heck of a deal at twice the rate, I would tell you. Um, you have a very large container that comes to your house, we drop it off, you fill it up with debris, we haul it away. Um, that's a really good deal. And, uh, again, we haven't

touched that since 2008. and it was it was time to touch it to make sure that we're we're covering our costs.

And then additional funding uh that is being touched uh parking management technical support um business application specialist. This is again tying to what we're trying to do on the technology side of the house, making sure that we can keep uh keep on top of all the the data that we're getting. Uh, I will tell you, uh, John Crawford, our new parking administrator, he calls me every day. He's geeked out every day

about some new piece of information that he's learned about how we do something or how something is changing. And he's he's really very excited, but we need to be able to to maintain all that data and put it in a format uh that both leadership and council can make sense of. Um, so it's not going to change the parking rates at all. Therefore, it's net zero, but we are would be adding one

person to that. Um, and then Land Sound fuel tank replacement, a one-time uh request of $ 1.5 million. Uh, that's just necessary for us to maintain uh a safe uh fueling depot at the Lanstown uh site. That's on Concert Drive over across the street from Zipsa. Uh and then uh Town Center SSD reorganization.

That's really just a reorganization that is currently in uh economic development and we're going to move that from economic development over to public works.

And that's all I have on the operating budget. Do you have any questions for me?

Okay. Any questions?

I think you got it together. Oh, there we go.

I apologize. No, I just have a Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um can you give us just a general idea of how many events on the basis that your team has to go down and service down at the ocean front and elsewhere.

No sir, I don't I I I don't know that I could do that be because it's just it's so wide and varied.

It's a lot. It it really is a lot and and it's it's different folks coming from different things. If you think about uh hosting an event, we have electricians that go down there and make sure that the power is turned on. We have folks that make sure that the traffic control is set up. If it's an event that requires some security measures, we have folks that do that.

And oftentimes they might be down on Thursday, getting everything pre-staged, setting it up on Friday, monitoring it Saturday and Sunday, taking it down on Monday. And if they have another job doing something else that doesn't allow them a lot of time to beach, all of the accessways and everything that you do. Um, so you and I have talked about this once or twice before, but and I noticed that you're

bumping the fee for the waste container replacements.

Yes, sir. Um, and and I know this is a new idea, but uh well, not really a new idea, but I we've not talked about it before, but just thinking about it, you know, we charge people for an extra can, but we but because people are like, say they've got two or three cans, we don't charge them the the two or three times as much because they're sending two or three times as much waste to our

landfill. So, um, and I understand that that it's really difficult with like you got to get into technology and you got to weigh the trash and like all of that stuff and that's tough, but but as as uh as as as as our landfills and and capacity shrinks or whatever, when we have people using more of the resource, I think we need to kind of position ourselves around the well, if people are

using more of the resource, they got to pay for it.

Yes, sir. Uh, and and when I said stay tuned for exciting stuff, you you just stole my thunder, I really hope I can bring that back to council.

I would like just to hear a little bit and thank you again for little bit about that change. You just showed us um how center is now the public works.

Yes, ma'am. So, um, economic development has been the agency inside the city that was responsible for managing the town center SSD. And that had a lot to do with the fact that economic development used to have parking in it. And parking has a significant component of the SSD because parking moved from economic development to public works. We're now a couple years later just moving the SSD

responsibilities to the Department of Public Works to oversee it. And just for the public, give us a few examples of that responsibility.

When uh for instance, if for cleaning the garages, we have we have bills that go associated with that. There are bills that are associated with uh some security elements that are tied to the garages and the and the town center area. We have some special there are some special amenities that are in the town center areas. uh the fountain for instance, all of those things come with

a cost to operate, maintain, clean, and so that gets funded out of the town center SSD. And those special amenities instead of uh going to economic development for Emily to write a check that's going to come to public works and LJ's write, but I don't really write the check, but you understand. It's going to get processed through my department instead.

But thank you. Just for others to know.

Yes, ma'am.

Know how much goes into Yes, ma'am.

Okay. Anybody else?

Good stuff.

What's next?

Next one is the roadway CIP.

Okay.

Okay. So, we talked about storm water earlier, but I really want to stress how big of a program our roadway program is, too. I think Dave Gar, and he's out there. I saw him. Dave Garman. Uh, he he skates by. He he he has a very large program and he does not spend the amount of time up here that Tony used to spend talking about the stormwater program.

So, I just wanted to call him out. Um we we have 58 total pro projects and programs in the roadway um sector of engineering and most of them are tied to congestion and and that's that's relevant because it all goes back to how we get our funding. A lot of this funding comes from state and federal funding. And you'll see uh in our next in our next slide here exactly how much

of that comes from federal contributions and state contributions. If you if you look at the two of them there uh a lot of that comes through smart scale and smart scale as I mentioned before is tied to congestion. Um the general fund uh we are you know obviously we're a very active participant in in what what it is that we're doing but we do receive a lot of money in terms of state and

federal contribution. Total program is um about $ 1.5 billion. So that does rival what we're doing on the stormwater program. Our total six-year program is about 341 million and our balance to complete is about 543 million. Now, I will say that excludes the I264 Independence Interchange. And the reason we excluded that is because actually that's a VOTE project. We're kind of in the middle of it, but it's not really

our project. It's a it's a weird dynamic uh that you're going to hear a lot more about as we continue to move forward on that on that project.

So, uh newly funded fully funded new d newly fully funded projects. Uh I'm going to talk about Holland Road and Independence Boulevard at the same time.

They're both uh smart scale projects and uh they're being designed and constructed together. So um Holland Road is phase one is going to widen to six lanes between Independence and South Plaza. And then at Independence and Edwin, you're going to see median U-turns. Uh so similar to what folks uh along uh Ferrell Parkway and Indian River have seen for uh for quite a while there. Uh the design contract is

currently being executed and the construction is projected to start in 2031.

The Woodstock Road and Lookout Road sidewalks both are fully funded at this point. Um and they're being funded with speed camera revenue. um both are in their preliminary design and the construction schedule uh will be confirmed and and it will be coming along shortly.

Um, other major changes, uh, Alaskan, well, as I mentioned, I264 Independence Interchange, um, we did receive $10 million in a congressional, uh, earmark.

Um, that came through the city, but as I mentioned, it is a a VOTE project, so it's tied to that project. However, um, Alaskan Road phase 1B and also Alaskan Road phase three. The 1B is the eastern end of the project. What exists out there today at Red Robin uh to Oral, I think is what it is. Um we have about $30.1 million in RSTP that'll be arriving in 29 and um construction is

projected to start at roughly that same time around 2029.

Alaskan Road phase three, that's the western end of the project from about where it ends today towards Republic. Uh the design will be beginning in 2027 and the construction is projected to start around fall of 2033 at this point.

Um this was this one is I apologize.

It's a big program and uh trying to show this information in in a font size that makes a lot of sense is is really difficult. But we wanted to include this and I know that that council has the slides. Um, we wanted to include this because it's kind of reminiscent of what we do on the stormwater side where we show the projects moving from the left to the right. And I want to show that

the roadway program is doing exactly the same thing. We're moving projects from the leftand side from the lefth hand column to the right hand column. Now on this one on the on the left hand side you have an on hold. That's where we've gone back and we've tried to rescope some of the projects that we just felt were just getting too expensive. And uh so we we do have a couple of projects

that are over there. Rosemont Road, Indian River, uh Lanstown. Those are currently on hold while while they're either being rescoped or we're looking to see if they make sense. We have number a number of other projects that are either in preliminary or in active design. And then um projects that are in site acquisition.

And then the uh Centerville 2 is especially there. I know there's a lot of interest around when we're going to get going on Centerville 2. And then we do have a fair number of projects that are already under construction that are actively engaged and those are on the right hand side of this.

And um with that, that's all I have on roadways.

Okay, Michael.

Um thank you. Could you go to slide four? I just have a couple of one question and then a comment.

um on the Holland Road phase one.

I It's hard for me to tell from that graphic.

Yes, sir.

I want to take this opportunity and I think Council Member Rouse will appreciate this uh to highlight the fact that there are there's a lack of sidewalks on Holland Road. And I find this troubling on a number of u points.

First of all, and this is actually on the district 10 side of Holland Road, but it doesn't matter. The connectivity is an issue for everyone. U Holland Road connects areas and including um areas where people live who um are not as economically as advantaged as other parts of the city. There are people there who regularly avail themselves of public transportation. I see a lot of people with um wheelchairs

um on Holland Road. I see a lot of people using bikes and other means of transportation and walking not for recreation, not to walk to out to go out to dinner or to take a stroll. I'm not pointing my fingers at any other part of the city, but these are people who are actively using these areas to to do daily ne necessities.

And I also want to note the fact that, and this is where our job comes in, um there are other parts of the city that are demanding connectivity and sidewalks, and I'm all for that. Um but this isn't part of the city that doesn't have that loud of a voice. always. And so it's our job to elevate the need for this connectivity in settings like this and that's what I'm doing. So I hope

whether or not I don't know exactly if this project is in the area where there aren't sidewalks, but I hope moving forward that we um prioritize the completion of those sidewalks on Holland Road uh for the members of that community. Um, and if if that's not possible as part of this year, I hope it does come forward next year.

Yes, sir. I I I appreciate that. Um, I I will say Holland Road phase two is is a separate project from Holland Road phase one. Uh, that'll go from South Plaza to Rosemont. So, that area that you're talking without the sidewalk.

Yes, sir. Uh, that one is uh Super Street project. So, um, it's it's anticipated to go to construction in 2027 and or excuse me, design in 2027 and construction we're hoping to move about 2030. So, we are aware of that issue. Yes, sir. And and that super street is the complete street everything with sidewalks and everything else.

Well, it's long overdue.

Yes, sir.

Um, but I'll I'll leave it at that. Um the other slide that if you go to slide five, I just want to say a word about the independence interchange improvements if that's what we're calling them. So there it's actually in district 4, but it connects directly to the district that I serve and I don't know. I think we probably need a briefing about this. Um there's a couple

of issues that I that I have. Um, but I want to stop short of offering a broad critique uh because I haven't heard the whole V do plan. Um, but a number of uh folks have come to me and expressed their concerns about this project as I know they have with you. But there are other concerns. Uh, for one thing, I think what's contemplated is kind of that elevated roadway that they have a

military highway, and I'm not sure that's a good fit for that area. For one thing, kind of looks not attractive. It's not aesthetically pleasing. Maybe a better safety, but I think there are some other alternatives we could look at. Also, there's a historic black church that's directly adjacent that while not in the um direct area is directly adjacent to a realignment and they have not been engaged in any

form or fashion uh from VOTE and I think they need to be there's it's actually a really robust and rich history that exists there uh that needs to be included and I've talked to to both of you about that um and then there are some other concerns that were raised that I think the merits of which need to be evaluated and um considered by this body and by members of the public. So, I

think may maybe I'm requesting a briefing, but in any way, I'm just going on record now as expressing concern about the plans for this interchange and the um connection with the critiques that I've heard and uh the needs of that part of the city which is connected.

There's a lot of us connected there. I think district 10's connected there, district 4, district 8 and nine. So, we should all have a concern about that.

Mr. May customer blue jeep will set up something for um LJ Manda and um talk to you to kind of let you know where we are. Here's a here's a stakeholder group that's been working through some of those issues and um I'll bring you know where we are and then from there you we can make a determination where to go next. Sir, if we can go Amelia, Barbara and H.

Well, I was just going to mention that you summarize just now because we have been having meetings and had the VO people come in and that included and I know the union church that you're talking about Union Baptist. So, we have been having different conversations and maybe bring you in so you can be updated.

And the second thing I wanted to ask um to do with the bridge crossover to Cleveland.

Yes, ma'am.

How far down are you going on Cleveland?

Yes.

It it goes all the way to Independence, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But that's going to be covered.

Yes, ma'am. So, we we we've had some delays on that project, the Cleveland 4 project. Um, we've had some delays uh as a result of the environmental review, but I I think we've just about cleared the hurdle and we should be getting back on track with our design.

Great news. Thank you, Barbara and I look at this. Of the six projects that are on hold, four of them are in the southern part of the city. Um, looking at Indian River Road phase 7 A and B, both of those are on hold. And I mean, that's still a two-lane road and it's a major project access way for the southern part of the city. Now, this just doesn't look quite right when

I look across all the projects around the city that are moving forward, but in the southern part of the city, they get put on hold. So, I think we're going to have to do some talking about that. Um, just what is the driving force here?

That's at least I see that we still have some safety improvements for Indian River Road and that the bridge is still in preliminary design, but Indian River Road is two lanes with deep ditches on each side and it's a major access way to the southern part of the city. And I hope this can be reconsidered.

Yes, ma'am.

It's primarily funding, right? You know, I think a lot of these projects, some of them compete well for federal and state funding, some of them do not. And when they do not, then it puts a strain on the general funds. Yeah. So, the ones that we bring forward are ones that we can get a decent amount of funding for.

But Sally, but we hear you and we'll we'll have a conversation about it. Of course, Lancetown Road improvements are also on hold and uh Upton Drive, extended dam neck, those are on hold.

They're all the major roads to the southern part of the city and it just seems a little bit out of balance here.

Maybe we've got to talk to some of our federal and state funding partners to do a better job with the southern part of the city. Unfortunately, we lost our main man. A lot of it, Miss H, as you know, is how they rate the projects for competing or some of the um the competitive grants that they give at the state and federal level.

And I think we got to make them up. We got to get that roll 7B.

Okay.

So, uh, changing gears just a little bit when you were talking about the super street just trying to understand that or when you're fixing any of the major major roads. I'm part of the ATAC committee now. And one of the things that we were talking about and one of the things that I said I would like to help champion is is are bike lanes included in that or a path? And when you

talk about a super street or like when we go to do things I'm just kind of as as council Maluchcci said just like letting it be known that for me I'm going to be bringing this forward more and more and that we don't do a lot to put in bike lanes when we could like maybe it's just a fourlane road and we take 18 in and put a white line you know

something to give a little bit of a lane especially I don't think it's going to last forever but with gas prices being $4 and some a gallon As Councilman Baluchcci also said, you have people that are not as well off.

They're having to choose how to do things. If they can ride a bike safely, it would be u I think a better better way of doing business. So, I just wanted to start to come in our mindset. I'd ask everybody to help me is is that I think it's important. I know VB Trail is going to be incredible, right? But as Councilman Belaluchcci has said again, I'm not meaning to keep giving you the kudos

here, but but it works. Um, but like we talked about, you know, from Trashmore over and the different things if we don't if we don't think about it or at least, you know, have some conversations about it, I don't know that it'll ever get to the forefront of it happening.

And one of the one of the promises I made to ATAC is that we are going to start at least talking about it and where we can you know it might not be continuous 100% but if we can get some lanes it does make a difference as you well know I'm not saying you don't know that. So for what it's worth.

Yes sir. Um I don't know the specifics of the design because I I haven't haven't been involved in it. I I will tell you that to create a bicycle lane though you can't have 18 in. have to have a specified 4T.

Sure.

And that's 4 ft of rightway that you have to purchase. That's that's on the bike path. I'm talking about on the road.

That's that's what I'm saying. For a bike lane, you have to have at least four feet. Yes, sir.

Um and then of course you also want to consider the speed of the road that you're that you're putting it on. And I I I I hear the point you've made though. I I understand the point. I on Holland Road though I'm not 100% sure.

Yeah. I'm just getting it out. You just gave me an opportunity.

Yes, sir.

Thank you. Hey, anybody else at this point?

Hey LJ, what's next?

Talk about buildings.

Yep. Buildings and assets.

All right. So, the building uh part of the CIP, we have 37 total projects and programs. uh as you can see uh from the graphic up there uh the large majority of those are renovations and maintenance on existing infrastructure and and that is what we're really trying to do is focus on infrastructure that we already have. We're necessary. We're constructing new facilities or doing

replacements but we would really like to take care of the infrastructure that we already have. Uh you can see 15% of the program is actually public safety equipment. So we're talking about fire trucks um which falls into the buildings and equipment area. Uh we're also going to talk about uh some other stuff that that comes into the budget this year.

Uh so major budget changes uh for existing projects that we have. Uh the first one is beach maintenance facility.

We've asked for $250,000 in fiscal year 27 to help us continue to design and study the beach maintenance facility. Uh that beach maintenance facility as as you will recall is located on parks and 14th in the middle of a neighborhood. Um it is way undersized for what it is. It's really located in a terrible spot for what it is. Uh we're trying to identify a better location. Um it is it is going to be a

little bit expensive, but we think it's the right thing to support the community and also to continue to support the events that we need to do at the beach.

Um, we also have asked for 2.7 million to be programmed in fiscal year 27 to support the replacement of major equipment for all public safety departments. Included in that are replacement of the courthouse security scanners. And that's been a that's been a weird device. Uh, nobody knows who bought the original security scanners, uh, whether it was the sheriff's department or whether it was the city or

whether it was a grant or whatever. But we know that they need to be replaced.

And so trying to to find that funding to replace it in our operating budgets just wasn't really working real well. So we're grateful uh for the that this has gotten advanced. Um we've also asked for additional funding to be put in 27 and 28 uh for critical core facility safety and ADA accessibility. Um these are investments that we're going to make into the uh existing um court building

to add two ADA courtrooms and also to get started on some elevator replacement which is really needed. Uh for those of you who were there when the escalators are down, which they're not anymore. The escalators are working great. Uh but when the escalators were down and the elevators were breaking at the same time, we had very upset judges and uh the public was upset and rightfully so.

So, we want to take this opportunity to reinvest in that critical infrastructure.

In terms of new projects, uh we have some investments to make into the human services building and into the juvenile detention center. Um $4.1 million being programmed between 27 and 28. And that will allow us to do some renovations and maintenance at the human services uh building and also to do a roof replacement at the JDC.

Um, we've also asked for additional funding for library building renovations. Uh, this is to support renovations for various uh needs across the public library system. So, various facilities. It's not going to all go to one. Uh, it is going to be spread out to tackle a couple of of needs across the across the whole system. And then lastly, uh, we've asked to create a municipal center building renovation.

Um, I don't want to call it a fund, it's a project. Um, but we're asking to establish a $5 million carveout that will allow us to start tackling some of these needs that we have largely here on campus. And if you think about uh building the these buildings may not mean anything to you, but building 17 um which is where it was, that building is currently sitting unused, but it's not

programmed very well. It used to be a a school's building. So trying to just put anybody in there, it doesn't work real well. So we'd like to reformat it, make that work a little bit better. Building 14, which is where the registar just came out of and where agriculture is currently, we'd like to look at programming that in a much more usable format. So there's a couple of buildings

that are similar to that. Uh there's some needs for lighting and other improvements around uh the campus. We really just think that this is a great way for us to start reinvesting in the infrastructure that we have, making it some extra capacity because when we do get uh into real um aggressive construction at the courts complex, we're probably going to need to flex people out into some other usable space.

And this will allow us to do a couple of things, you know, um get make sure that we have room for the staff that we have on campus, but also give us a little bit of flex space so that we can accommodate these projects as they come forward.

Um, we also have asked for $300,000 uh to be programmed in fiscal year 27.

Now, this $300,000 is going to be supported by VOTE funds uh for us to work on our public yard public works yards. So, this will come out of our urban maintenance funding. This is not going to be supported necessarily by uh the mill rate, but the uh funds will allow us to start looking at some of our yards. We have some overcrowding. We have some issues uh where we could use

some shelters to try and protect the gear that it sits out in the rain and the and the sun. Uh you would not imagine how much damage gets done to a snow plow when it sits out in the sun for nine months out of the year. So what winds up happening is then we have to spend a lot of money on that snow plow to get it ready to go for the snow event

that winds up flying. Uh there is additional funding programmed uh for the Virginia Aquarium. Uh this is not uh design money. This is really more kind of programmatic money looking at how to uh move move this project forward. Uh we know that there's still a lot of hurdles that are ahead on the aquarium, but we know that there's a lot of work that has to get done for engaging with uh some

consultants and helping us to move the project forward and getting it all uh kind of set up and able to do so. And then uh we've asked for additional funding for dome maintenance and uh future maintenance is going to be covered through the operating agreement, but we do need to establish a fund to help us kind of get started, get on the right foot, make sure that we're taking care of this valuable resource uh that

that council uh has just helped us uh construct. We want to make sure that we're keeping it in good shape so that it doesn't it doesn't fall into a state of disrepair and then we're trying to get caught up. Uh, so there is some funding that's put in here for that.

And that's it. I think that's the last slide I have for the day.

LJ, you did stellar work. Thank you.

Thanks, sir.

We're going to go into council discussions and everything. And if it's okay, we're going to if we could hold any comments or questions on the curfew as we're going to talk about it in detail. Michael, thank you, mayor. Well, that makes it easy for me because I had a couple points of um good news that I want to share. Uh the first um is that we dedicated on Saturday morning um a

public art project called Harbor of Stories. And this project was created by the Washington Glass School in partnership with our cultural affairs department and I think most importantly the members of the Chemville community.

The work itself was created by for and with the members of the Chemville community who came together um and actually created the glass panels that are installed on the work of art. So I hope everyone has a chance to see it.

It's at Witchduck and Princess Anne Road. Um, and I really want to once again acknowledge the work of uh the Kempsville um citizens action committee advisory committee, the uh our cultural affairs professionals and that's from Emily Leose and um and her whole team that included supporting the fabrication and site selection and I could go just on and on but it's really nice not only to see public art that connects the

community and beautifies it but also um public art that's created by the community where it exists and it tells the history, the culture, um, and connects the people of the country community. So, it's really amazing. Um, and I also want to thank and really acknowledge that council member Ross Hammond and also Hutcherson were there for the dedication and all the members of the community who were there too. It

was really great. In continuing with our arts and cultural scene, Virginia Mocha where I serve as a co-leazison with council member Remik uh open to the public on Sunday. Um and um we've talked about that uh many times here, but finally after years of planning and um and work uh the new uh museum is open.

So compliments to everyone at Virginia Mocha, to their board, to the uh generous philanthropists who made it possible to Virginia Wesleyan University. They opened with an art exhibition by Nina Chanel Abney. Um it's it's very uh interesting work and so um the museum is free. It's in a new location. It's now open and I hope everyone takes the opportunity to go visit.

Thank you. and uh you know the artwork both at the location in Kensville and the new Mochco is really stunning.

Rosemary, I want to give a big shout out to our volunteers. We got this nice little brochure uh in volunteers office and and it's really important for the citizens to realize and how much savings this creates for our city. And I just I know all of y'all know, but I just want the public to know that it saves us $384 FTEES that we don't have to hire. It saved us 27.7 million, which is 3.54

of the real estate tax. And we've always been, especially since Mary Russo started this program, a city of volunteers. And it's just worked and been fantastic. And when I was president of the Virginia Municipal League, that was what I that was my theme of volunteerism to help create that across the state. And I can't imagine anybody does as great a job is as our office of volunteers. All the people that really

step up and help our city and it saves us a lot of money. So sometimes when we're talking to people and we're going to hear about the real estate rate tonight, this is a program that does save us a lot of money.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Dyer.

Um, so this weekend, thanks to the CDB and our staff and IMG beach events, we have Star, Stripes, and Spurs, which we ask for 17 uh to be programmed. It is a fantastic weekend starting Friday night with entertainment Friday afternoon with a dedication of the 24th Street stage to Bobby Melotti, but then the rest of the evening, night, and uh the next day is a fantastic um weekend plan and invite the entire

city to come to the oceanfront. The Atlantic Avenue Association has um solicited and gotten the support of 75 businesses on up and down Atlantic Avenue to support take our beach back that theme for SHA all day Saturday. So I ask the public to get behind this come down enjoy a great weekend. It's also to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our great country. Uh it's a star again star

stripes and spurs. And then secondly um mayor I respect not talking about a curfew um because we are going to go into close but I do think that we ought to at some point uh talk with the public about that.

I think we do it in the process of having it in close first so we know what we're talking about.

That's fine. I just ask for we we go to public.

Yeah, we will definitely go to the public. Okay.

Okay. Thank you, Jennifer.

Uh, yesterday I um got to read the mayor's proclamation at the TCC Joint Use Library for National Public Library Week. So, um it's this week through April 25th. So, good opportunity to renew a library card or check out a book or surfboard or anything else um of the many things that our library services have to offer.

And thank you for covering that. And uh this Friday also at 4:00, Virginia Beach is a city of heroes. you know, whether it be our uh public with safety or military, but there's also certain individuals that really define a hero. And one of them was Bobby Matti.

And uh you know, the man was an icon that put in decades of service to us.

And uh on Friday at 4:00, we're going to be naming the 24th Street stage in honor of him. And I can tell you that his uh wife Eva is there and she's delighted.

and the family and everything and uh it would be a tremendous tribute to Bobby and uh just anybody else.

Okay. Agenda.

Okay. Agenda review.

Agenda review. Um under ordinances resolutions I think number five. Worth did you have something you wanted to do about number five?

Yes. Um colleagues at the request really of staff um staff is will be soon um hiring a consultant to conduct a a revised and upgraded and new modernized um tourism um plan for the the city. And so as a part of that conversation and that study, uh we'd like to ask the consultants and other stakeholders and citizens to uh cooperate and participate in that study.

Uh we're not trying to kick the can down the road. This is an important topic.

Don't want to make a mistake on the naming of the sports district and how we do that and what it is. And ultimately it's our decision, council's decision on this, but we want the input of the consultant and the study. U so I ask for an indef indefinite deferral. So indefinite means not no time in the future. It may be up to a year 6 to9 probably 12 months before we get that study uh completed.

I'm very disappointed. Um, of course it was two years ago at the budget when I asked for the first about what we needed to do to that area. And so now it looks like we're talking about another year. I don't know why it's taking so long, but to all the people who wrote in support of what I had been doing, I want to let you know I appreciate it. I've kept all those

comments. It's a right thick stack of comments now and I really appreciate it and uh we'll still keep working on it but I still think Virginia Beach should be the sports tourism capital of the east coast and I hate to see us keep putting it off because there's no reason why we have to not build a um system of uh opportunities for our youth who need to to have a place to do their

running and uh things that we could be doing and and I'm just so disappointed to have it put off again. So, this my comments.

Yeah, worth tell me again where we're putting this off.

We've got two different sports areas.

We've got the pavilion I mean princess athletic complex sports center and then you have the oceanfront sports center as well. Sports plex sports center got a lot of different names to different parts of the city. We're all this is all about sports tourism. We as a city council as city for sports tourism and so council's ask I mean staff is asking us to defer this and make it a part of

the the plan and the conversation.

Can we do it quicker than a year?

Mr. Mayor, we'll do whatever council wants.

Okay. Can we do it on expedited basis?

Mr. Mayor, we can we can vote on it now.

But what we've heard from stakeholders is that the stakeholders would like to incorporate this as part of the tourism okay plan. But if council wants to name it, we can we can name it. But they when council took it up last, you defer to you asked us to talk to stakeholders and the stakeholders have said maybe we should take this up as part of the tourism um strategic plan that we're going to develop.

Yeah, let let's go ahead and uh do that then. But you know, I just Yeah, I don't want it to wait excessively. Great.

So, we're going to defer it indefinitely. Correct.

Yeah.

Okay. Um, can I just ask a question on item six?

I'll be voted no.

Okay. What you want? on item six, there's a there's a map showing the effects of um this whole ordinance uh included in the package and it's supposed to be in color and it's kind of tough to read. Can we just get a can I just get a copy of a readable colorized map so that I would be able to explain and you need be? That's all. And maybe worth might want to because you've been

working on this.

Sure. This is uh at the request of a lot of folks who live in the Old Beach Resort area. That's a residential area.

It's also where the Vibe is. This map to your point covers the sports uh center, the convention center, the Vibe, and the Old Beach Resort neighborhood. So, you've got houses, you've got apartments, you've got retail, you have convention center, sports center, you've got a lot of o um zoning there. And so I think this puts it before the planning commission to evaluate where this map

should start and stop and protect that neighborhood. At the same time, respect the o uh zoning. That's that does allow STRs and hotels.

God bless you, mayor. I'll have that color map of each of your seats as well.

Oh, thank you.

Anything else on ordinances?

Correct.

Everybody else.

Hey, what's next?

So, planning um there's three items that have have speakers and so we're going to be pulling those and that's five, 11, and 13.

speaker.

Okay. Well, we don't have to pull it if everybody's okay with 13.

Just have number 13.

Just one speaker. And then item three um is in my district. There is an alternative version. The the staff and all agreed to it.

So you should have that and there's there's no speakers. There's no opposition.

Okay.

Offer this alternative.

That's it.

Okay. Okay. The chair will entertain a motion to recess into a close session pursuant to the exemptions of the open meeting allowed by section 2.2 371A code of Virginia.

as amended for the following purposes.

Legal matters, consultation with legal counsel and briefing by staff members or consultants pertaining to actual or probable litigation where such consultation or briefing in an open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or litigating of the public body pursuant to section 2.2 3711A7.

That's Lawrence versus City of Virginia Beach, Dylan atall versus City of Virginia Beach, and other potential curfew litigation.

Publicly held property, discussion or consideration of the acquisition of real property for public purpose or for the disposition of publicly held property where discussion and open meeting would adversely affect a bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body. Uh, pursuant to section 2.23, 23711A3 district 2 and personnel matters uh discussion consideration of

interviews or prospective candidates for employment assignment appointment promotion performance demotion salaries disciplining uh or resignation of specific public officers appointees or employees of any public body or pursuant to section 2.237 to 371 11 A1 and that's council appointments, boards, commissions committees authorities agencies and appointees. Do I have a motion?

So moved.

Second.

Hi.

Council. Hi.

Council.

Hi. Counc.

Hi. Council Jackson.

Hi.

Council Ros.

Hi.

Hi. Councilman. Hi just a question church. We did do the indefinite deferral that the council asked for. Is that correct?

Yes, we're going to defer on that.

Yep.

Okay. Thank you. We are re

evening everyone. Thank you all for coming today. I'm going to call this meeting to order. And if you are willing and able to stand for the invocation.

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

And if we could have the pledge of allegiance.

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

Thank you all.

Okay, Madame Cler, do we have a roll call?

Yes, your honor. All present.

Okay. Um, do I have a motion for the certification of the closed session?

So move.

Second.

Okay, we got a motion in a second.

One second.

The vote is open.

All righty.

By a vote of 11 to zero, you've certified the closed session and made in accordance with a motion to recess.

Okay. Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes of the informal and formal sessions of April 7th, 2026?

Special formal session, April 14th, 2026.

Special formal session, April 15, 2026.

And the special formal session, April 16, 2026. Do I have a motion?

So move.

Second.

Okay.

The vote is open.

Oh, sorry. By vote of 11 to zero, you have approved the minutes as submitted.

Okay. At this point, we have uh, you know, the mayor of San Council's presentations honoring the people that deserve to be honored. Uh, the first one is off autism acceptance month. And do we have Tyler Tyler Williamson, CEO of Families of Autistic Children at Tidewater, and Cameron Malone, Hero Internship, Families Autistic Children of Tidewater, please come forward if you're here. And then we're ask my

friend and uh colleague Michael Buchcci, if you'd be so kind to do it. Come on up, folks. All of you.

Welcome everybody.

Thank you, mayor. Well, it's a very special privilege for me to read this resolution on behalf of our entire city council. And it's not the first time we presented this resolution, but I'm sitting here and I'm looking at some really amazing people who do incredible work. uh throughout our community every single day of the year. And so I hope you'll just enjoy this moment as recognition of the impact that you have

and um of the importance of your work and of our community's appreciation for your efforts and for all the families who you support every single day. So thank you very much. And now mayor, it's my privilege to read this very special resolution.

Autism spectrum disorder affects an estimated 1 in 31 US children and one in 45 US adults and is a complex condition that affects every person differently resulting in unique strengths and challenges. And whereas autism results in differences with verbal and non-verbal communication, social interaction, and repetitive behaviors, and can affect anyone regardless of race, ethnicity, gender,

or socioeconomic background. And whereas autism is often accompanied by medical conditions that can impact quality of life. And whereas a comprehensive collaborative approach will help promote connections to support services to support services, community, and resources that individuals on the autism spectrum need to fully live across their lifespan. And whereas early identification and intervention tailored

to individual needs can have lifelong benefits, easing the transition to childhood and fostering fostering greater independence. And whereas each person and family affected by autism should have access to reliable information and support. And whereas individuals on the autism spectrum should have opportunities to reach their full potential. And the whole of society stands to benefit from this. And whereas

eight of the organizations located in Virginia Beach providing services to individuals on the autism spectrum as well as family members affected by autism are fact families of autism coming together the Autism Society of Tidewater aid another Commonwealth Autism Easter Seals Port Health Lighter Counseling and Consulting Cantara Therapy Centers and the Social Butterflies.

Social butterflies club. Now therefore be it resolved that the city of Virginia Beach City Council pause in our deliberations to recognize fact Autism Society Taiw Virginia aid another Commonwealth Autism Easter Seals Port Health Lighter Counseling and Consulting Centa Therapy Centers and Social Butterfly Clubs for their efforts to address the diverse needs of individuals on the autism spectrum and their

families and recognize April 2026 as autism acceptance month in order to create a kinder, more inclusive world for people with autism spectrum disorder. And this is presented by the city council in Virginia Beach on the 21st day of April. So congratulations.

We're going to come down and take a photo with you and then after that we invite you to uh say a few words and I know um there's some preparation for that. So I'm excited to hear that and thank you all very much.

Congratulations. Thank you for your outstanding work.

in here.

Shameless photo.

Have you guys come around, please?

Almost there.

I think I love it. Everybody get in.

You want to put one or two of the kids?

Greg has done this before.

This is correct. This is correct.

All right. Uh, hi everybody. Uh, my name is Tyler Williamson. I'm the CEO of Fact, Families of Autism Coming Together. Uh, and I just want to thank you on behalf of FACT and all the other amazing organizations that are part of the Autism Resource Center for this proclamation uh, or resolution and recognizing April as autism acceptance month uh, here in Virginia Beach. And on that note, I wanted to introduce uh, my

friend Cameron Malone. Uh, Cameron is an autistic adult who recently moved to the city of Virginia Beach about a year and a half ago and he's going to tell you a little bit about what autism acceptance means to him and his experience here um, in the great city of Virginia Beach. So, Herman, you ready? Yes, sir.

All right.

Welcome.

Thank you for having me today. And to be honest, I was a little nervous doing this because I never done something like this before. But growing up on the spectrum provided a lot of challenges like learning and basically how to handle situations. But if it weren't for the people at FACT or Cantara or all these other organizations that help people on the spectrum, I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be a lot of things that

there wouldn't be a lot of opportunities for people like me on the spectrum to give back to this wonderful community.

And to be honest, everybody who's on the spectrum is just as human as everybody else in here. Thank you.

Hey, thank you.

Thank you all for coming, but most of all, thank you for what you all do.

Okay, next uh resolution for month of the military child. Laura Barnes, executive director, are you here?

Oh, come on up.

And I'm gonna ask my friend and colleague, Jennifer Rouse, if she would be so kind.

Thank you, mayor. I'll allow the group to gather. And it's a typo on the agenda. It's Laura Baxter, executive director.

This is what we like to see.

Hey, get me one of those shirts, will you?

Absolutely.

Come on, guys.

Come on in.

Talk about a full gallery. This is good.

Y'all may want to come this way, too, for the folks that are coming in. Shift this way a little bit and then we'll get going. Plenty of room down here.

Get a few more folks from here coming over there. There you go.

Yes, I do.

Thank you.

Hell hell. The gang's all here.

Okay.

All right.

So, we are here in purple today to celebrate April, the month of the military child. So, we've got the best representatives of that in front of us this evening. And so I'll read the resolution that's been signed by all members of city council and it reads, "Whereas the month of the military child is observed annually in April, serving as a time to honor the sacrifice and resilience of the children of service

members who proudly serve in the United States Armed Forces representing the branches of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and Space Force. Whereas military children are integral members of military families who endure unique challenges and demonstrate remarkable strength, adaptability, and courage in the face of frequent relocations, deployments, and the demands of military life. And

whereas Virginia Beach, situated within the Hampton Roads region, is home to a significant military community, including active duty service members, veterans, and their families with numerous military installations, including Naval Air Station Oceanana, Joint Expeditionary Base, Little Creek Fort Story, and Naval Station Norphick, making the city and region a proud and essential hub for military personnel and

their families. And whereas the city of Virginia Beach acknowledges the invaluable contributions of military families to the community, recognizing that their dedication to the nation's defense extends beyond the battlefield, positively impacting local schools, businesses, and neighborhoods. And whereas to celebrate the resilience and unwavering support of military children, Purple Upday will be observed annually

on April 15th, 2026, where citizens are encouraged to wear purple as a symbol of unity, recognizing all five branches of the military and honoring the children of those who serve. And whereas Purple Update provides an opportunity for the entire community, civilians, educators, business owners, and local leaders to stand together and recognize the importance of military families as well

as the broader efforts to promote their well-being and recognize their sacrifices. And whereas the Armed Services YMCA of Hampton Roads plays a critical role in supporting military families, providing programs and services that enhance the levels of uh the lives of military children and their families, offering recreational, educational, and wellness resources to ensure their well-being during times of

transition and separation. Whereas the Armed Services YMCA is one of only 12 branches across the nation and the only location serving all branches of the military and its mission supports active duty military members and their families with a special focus on junior enlisted members. Whereas the Armed Services YMCA consistently expands their programs and services and achieves expert status as

evidenced by achieving national accreditation, Purple Star School status, recognition as a United Way Mission United Community Champion for outstanding work within the military community. Guess what y'all? We're almost done, little ones. Now therefore, be it resolved that the city of Virginia Beach does hereby recognize the month of April as a month of the military child, encouraging all citizens to take time to

recognize and celebrate the extraordinary military children in our community who demonstrate courage, strength, and resilience as they support their parents' service to the nation. Be it further resolved that the city of Virginia Beach encourages all citizens to participate in purple day on April 15, 2026 to wear purple and demonstrate their solidarity with military children and their families recognizing the vital

role they play. Be it further resolved that the city of Virginia Beach expresses its sincere gratitude to military families, their children, and all service members and their commitment to their to this country. Um, so I have a copy of this that I will bring down to you. So, we'll take a photo and then um I would love to hear from you, Miss Baxter. And two little ones. Guess what?

That's it. Well done. Y'all did a great job. You did a great job.

And I think our esteemed photographer is going to have the biggest challenge he ever had.

Okay.

gonna have to try to squeeze it in a little bit. So, ready? Are you going in front or behind?

I like what you say to Casey. To Stacy.

Hey, you. I thought it was so cute.

All

right, we're going to take about a thousand photos cuz we have way too many eyes.

I agree completely.

And I don't see any, so we should be good to go.

We need audio.

We should have audio. Be careful.

Oops.

Ready?

All right.

What a wonderful c good group of people.

Oh, feel the energy.

I'll let I'll let you in on a little secret. We bribe the children with ice cream afterwards and maybe some of the adults.

Um, thank you, Councilwoman Rouse. Um, good evening, Mayor Dyer and council members. On behalf of the board of directors, dedicated staff, and the thousands of military families we proudly serve, thank you for this meaningful recognition and for once again honoring us during the month of the military child.

Being recognized for the by this council for a second year is especially meaningful and a powerful reminder that our military children and families are truly seen and valued here in Virginia Beach.

At the Armed Services YMCA of Hampton Roads, we are deeply committed to standing alongside our military families, especially now during times of uncertainty when the challenges of military life can feel even heavier.

Every day we have the privilege of supporting those who serve our country, often at their great personal sacrifice.

Behind me, we had representation from our board members, our staff, and program participants. Nearly 90% of our staff have personally experienced military life, giving them a deep understanding of the unique challenges our families face. Many of our team members have loved ones currently deployed, including a above aboard the USS Ford and the USS Bush Strike groups, which makes our work not just

professional, but deeply personal.

While our mission at the AS YMCA of Hampton Roads is to serve all active duty military families, we do focus our support on the young junior enlisted families who have the greatest need by providing no cost and lowcost programs that help create stability, connection, and a true sense of belonging.

What many of you may not realize is that we receive no funding from the Department of Defense, nor from the national or local YMCA's. Our work is made possible entirely through the generosity of this community and compassionate donors who believe in our mission. For over five years, our core programs have grown by over 300%, delivering more than 110,000 points of service. We meet the need by providing

highquality early childhood learning for military children so they can thrive alongside their civilian peers. By offering safe, supportive before and after care that understands and embraces military life. By helping children and families navigate the emotional challenges of deployments and frequent moves and long separations, especially during missed milestones like birthdays and holidays,

and through our Patriots Pantry, ensuring that no military child or family goes hungry. As we look ahead, recognition like this not only honors the work being done, they strengthen our ability to expand these life-changing programs and reach even more families who need us. Thank you again for this incredible honor and for your continued support of our military children and families. We are proud to be part of the

Virginia Beach community and look forward to continuing this mission together.

Thank you.

You know, let me say um I've had the privilege of working with the armed services YMCA for some time now. And you know, as a former Marine, I can't tell you uh the value that you bring. And I often say, we often say that Virginia Beach is a city of heroes and a nation of heroes. And whenever uh we give a shout out whether it be the state of the city or anywhere when we acknowledge our

uh neighbor we also acknowledge the fam the spouses family members who also make you know a great great sacrifice uh you know to our great nation and the fact that you're doing this and you know once again our military community is uh very respected but also uh they love living in Virginia Beach for a reason is because folks like you help nurture them and things of that nature. I can't thank

you enough and God bless you and keep on doing God's work right here in Virginia Beach. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

All right.

And then uh another uh resolution is the birthplace place of American cuisine day with Pat Patrick Evans Hilton's uh Hilton uh Debbie Lou Hey and Martha Davenport. Please come forward if you're in the audience.

Hello.

And uh reading today is my friend and colleague Worth Remick.

Thank you, Mayor Dyer. Good evening, everyone. Debbie Lou and Martha, thanks for coming forward. It's a pleasure and a honor to read this resolution. We're honoring the first meal in America. Uh, American cuisine, therefore, was born here in the great city of Virginia Beach. I won't say which district it was born in because we don't know that. They didn't have districts back then. Uh, and

there are two, uh, everyone else who's in this industry is not down here tonight because they're back in their restaurants cooking and delivering great meals. So um this does highlight to our geographic location. We have the Atlantic Ocean, the Ches Bay, Lenhaven River, Back Bay for seafood. We have our agricultural community here in the southern part of the city and also in Hampton Roads and from Suffach and

Smithfield we have peanuts and uh pork over that area and then down here in the county. So we have so many ingredients to uh formulate our meal. So let's get started. Whereas on April 26,607, three ships of the Virginia Company, the Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery dropped anchor at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, and the first English settlers in the New World came ashore

near what is now Cape Henry. And whereas on April 27,6007, the next day, just one day following the landing at Cape Henry, while exploring the area, a small group, including George Percy, a future governor of the Virginia colony, marched eight miles up into the land, which is present day Linhaven Bay, where he happened upon a site where Native Americans had been preparing a meal. And whereas the scene

was described by Percy as finding a great fire where the indigenous people had been roasting oysters.

Upon seeing the English explorers, the Native Americans fled, leaving behind many oysters, which Percy described as large and delicate in taste. This encounter is what is now considered the first written account of prepared food in the United States. And whereas this occasion served as the genesis of American cuisine. And while the roasted oyster remains a staple of the American diet up and down the east coast, it is

but one component of the beginning of American culture. And whereas long before the arrival of the English colonists, the Chesapean Native American tribes relied on the land and surrounding waters for sustenance, focusing on seasonal availability. Early settlers adopted these practices, incorporating seafood, corn, beans, and game into their diets. And whereas the English colonists brought with them

wheat, livestock, and European preservation and baking methods, while other enslaved American Africans introduced the use of rice, Malay or millet, okra, yams, and other crops. As European colonies expanded to the Caribbean, new ingredients such as sugar, citrus, and spices were introduced as well. And whereas the English colonists learned to harvest seafood such as oysters, fish, and crabs

from local waters while using their cooking traditions laid the foundations for what is now recognized as American coastal cuisine. And whereas Virginia's coastal region is widely recognized as the birthplace of American cuisine due to its early blending of indigenous English and later African influences.

Ingredients such as corn, shellfish, cane, game that is, and local grown produce form the basis of early colonial diets and remain central to Virginia Beach menus today. Whereas today, agriculture, aquaculture, and commercial fishing businesses employ tens of thousands of Virginiaians and produce high quality products enjoy enjoyed across the Commonwealth and the world.

And whereas as the Commonwealth commemorates VA250, it seems only fitting to formally recognize the birthplace of American cuisine by celebrating the people who sustain it and highlight food, travel, and hospitality as powerful drivers of tourism and economic vitality across the Commonwealth and more spec specifically Virginia Beach. Now, therefore, be it resolved the city council of the city of

Virginia Beach does hereby recognize and proclaim April 27, 2026 as the birthplace of American cuisine day. And it is further resolved that all people are urged to enjoy a wide range of cuisine offered in Virginia Beach restaurants, showcasing the diversity and depth of Virginia Beach's food scene.

given by the city council of the city of Virginia Beach the 21st day of April 2026 and presented this resolution duly signed by each member of the Virginia Beach City Council. Thank you.

Congratulations. These two women here are dynamic promoters of our local restaurants and cuisine. And I want to recognize Martha. you might want to I don't know who's speaking but you have started a a local cuisine council of various inundry leaders in the cuisine industry. It's early in its infancy. You have some soon to have some um good news to just tell us maybe not tonight but uh

look forward to that. Not tonight. Okay.

But anyhow, congratulations. Thank you all both for what you do.

more manageable.

There we go.

Please say a few words.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, city council members, and city manager. I'm very excited to be here. Thank you so much for the proclamation. We truly have a unique a very unique opportunity in Virginia Beach with this recognition which has been 400 years in the making.

One thing we can agree on is that Virginia Beach has some great history and delicious food. Our city is filled with great restaurants, but there are so many other cities that have that, too.

Our strength is not only our food heritage, but how the heritage still resonates in our cuisine scene. We are truly the edible American dream here.

bringing together a fusion of food and food ways from Native Americans, English settlers, African slaves, trade from the Caribbean, and throughout the centuries, others who have made this place their home. Food doesn't just help our bodies and souls. It adds to the community cultural identity. It opens up opportunities for businesses, for travel, for spotlight. It is a force for elevating a city from good to great.

Patrick Evans Hilton is not with us tonight, but he has been tirelessly working on this, researching and respecting the food and food ways in the area for 30 years. And the recognition is a stamp of approval personally for him, but also one for all chefs, bartenders, restaurant tours, distillers, wine makers, brewers, farmers, watermen, and specially food producers in our city.

Thank you for putting Virginia Beach on the map of America cuisine. Now, let's sit at the table and enjoy it. Thank you.

Oh, thank you. And uh if I could say uh this morning, I was proud to uh welcome the Interstate Seafood Seminar right here in Virginia Beach. And it looks like they had over a 100 people there.

But thank you so much. Okay, moving on now to the public hearings. And we're going to start off with the proposed real estate tax increase.

The first speaker is Jackson Kazir, Jackson Casier, Janet Meyer, and after Miss Meyer will be Terry Scott.

Good evening.

Good evening.

I'll pull the mic down a little bit.

There you go.

Okay.

Uh, I can't imagine how hard it is to come up with a budget for a city this size, a community this diverse that benefits all of its citizens and still fulfills its mission statement of making Virginia Beach a community for a lifetime.

We have lived in Virginia Beach since 1971.

We bought our land and bought our and built our forever home on Spot Lane in Sandbridge in 1977 where we still live. We started with a mortgage payment, taxes, and insurance of $312 a month.

Now we are faced with yearly taxes that have risen over 800% from an estimated total worth in 1977 of approximately $100,000 to our current total appraisal this year of $860,900.

Same house, same lot. I realize the city provides a way to reduce property taxes by following a strict formula. However, that doesn't work for us. What allows us to stay in our home are investments we made decades ago, which provides dividends to supplement our social security.

According to your formula, we don't qualify for a tax break. I suggest the city cap real estate tax assessments for senior citizens who have lived at the same address in Virginia Beach for a predetermined number of years or have reached a certain age rather than how much money they have saved or dividends they receive.

What has caused this problem for us is you, city council, by allowing Sandbridge to become a community of condominiums and homes containing 12 to 14 bedrooms.

Your tax dollars should come from those rental properties and investment properties, not the little beach box sitting at the end of a culdesac. We are not in the same class as absentee landlords and shouldn't be taxed as if we were. I don't want you, city council, to tax me out of my forever home. It's time to stand behind your words, not just for the investors, but for people who live here. Not for the super rich

who build summer castles, but for loyal citizens who have paid taxes and contributed to our community through public service and volunteering for a lifetime. We're good citizens. We need your help to stay here. We are the ones who make Thank you very much a great place to live.

Thank you for coming. Appreciate it.

The next speaker is Terry Scott. AFTER Miss Scott is Ray Beard.

Good evening. I stand again before um the mayor, vice mayor, city council to ask um that you reconsider um increasing the property taxes.

um the percentage that you're asking for is um it's too much. Um I started purching purchasing my home in uh 2014.

Um over the course of 12 years, each year the property taxes has steadily increased. Um given the time that we're living in now, the economics when it comes to gas prices, groceries, this is a significant amount that you're going to um that you're asking for. It is too much. Um I purchased started buying this house in 2014 and each year it has increased.

Um if you pass this resolution, if you pass this proposal, the numbers for me looks pretty bleak.

The current percentage would increase my property tax. So, since 2014, it would have doubled. Um, it would have it would include or increase what I'm paying now by almost $400. For me personally, this is very significant. So, I'm asking you to dig deep to find another way to deal with budget budget shortcomings. In fact, as I was just driving here and um even when I drive through the

neighborhood, I can see some things that are happening that looks like a waste to me. For example, street lights.

I don't know if you've ever noticed how many different street lights we have even coming up um Princess Anne Road to the municipal center. Too many. Um it's unnecessary. It's an unnecessary waste.

Here's another example of where you might want to kind of, you know, reconsider some things like public buildings. I understand that during um co 19 there were some things that were put in place to um protect our safety when it comes to health. Some of these things are wasteful now. And I'm being a little graphic, but when you go to these public bathrooms before you even sit down, they start flushing.

While you're sitting, they are flushing.

you stand up, they are still flushing.

The Bible says it is the little foxes that spoil the vine. We've got some small things that are going on right now that if we take a close look at them, they can help to make a difference in the budget shortfalls. So, I'm asking you once again to please find other ways to deal with budget issues because there are some families like mine who are pretty much struggling with this economics that we're living in right

now. So, thank you so much for allowing me to stand before you and to express a concern and I just hope that um there's another way.

Thank you very much. Appreciate you coming.

The next speaker is Ray Beard. After Mr.

Beard is Courtney Pritchard.

Good evening, sir.

Good evening. Uh, I've uh I purchased a house back in summer of 1986 and uh retired from the Navy in 2002.

and I I have stayed here and each year I've noticed that the assessment keeps rising on my house and and what drew me here today is that I read the the uh real estate assessment notice and it said it was an increase of 5.17%.

That figure is incorrect.

When I looked at what the assessment was and what my tax is for this year or from last year is $3,743 and now it's going to go to $4,13123 which recommen uh which equals an increase of $426.80.

And when you put that over the denominator of last year's assessment, that comes out to 12.0% 0% not 5.17.

And I don't know anyone, there may be one or two people in this audience that have a cost of living increase of 12%. I didn't get that. Again, I've had this house since 1986 and I retired in December of two. And knowing what I know now, I may not have retired here even though there's a lot of Veterans Administration support around me.

Um, and and I'm just starting to get the feeling that homeowners here are being treated like the golden goose to help fund wealthy invest uh developers when instead of charging the wealthy investors the full cost of whatever they're developing instead of taking care of the citizens that that have lived here.

uh and uh again the whole way of uh doing the assessment on houses I feel is incorrect. A house is only worth what someone's willing to pay for it. What you should do is look at what that house cost and apply the inflation factor. I did that for my house that I bought in the summer of 86 and it cost $99,900.

Based on today's uh inflation that my house should be getting taxed at 300,987.71, which it hasn't been it's been well over 300,000 for quite a number of years that it's been getting taxed over. So again, I'm just just, you know, I don't know where I'm going to go from here. You know, when you're on retirement, you have a fixed income and it only increases by whatever the cost of living and inflation is. And

I'm just I just don't see it. And I don't see that, you know, the real estate tax is supposed to, you know, primarily Thank you. Thank you for coming, sir.

Really appreciate it.

The next The next speaker is Courtney Pritchard.

After Miss Pritchard is Jamie Moss.

Hello.

Good evening, council. Uh, my name is Courtney Pritchard. I am not here to chastise you tonight. I think I let my frustration get the better of me last week and I think I missed um my main points. I am here tonight to plead with you guys like these past couple people.

I mean, we don't have anything left at the end since co everything has gotten more expensive. You know, y'all see you're out in the world. I hope you know it's the groceries, the gas, anything that you buy. I mean, it's everything is so far up. And I think a lot of us were hoping, you know, okay, when CO passes, you know, things will get better. And a lot of people, you know, put things on

credit cards or overextended themselves or whatever. I live very within my means and I still I don't have enough. I work 40 hours a week. I do things on the side to try to get extra money and it's still not enough. And with this real estate tax, you know, that's causing my house payment to go up every year. And you know, we are not getting 10 and 20% raises at our jobs every year. We're not

even getting three and a half% you know, raises, most of us, unfortunately. And you know, it's just it's gotten really really hard. And we need you guys to find some things in your budget to either put on hold or maybe cut some trim some fat from it or something. But we need some relief. We can't keep giving more and more every year. You know, it's not a profit margin. The

money is coming from us. And I'm open to hearing things about, you know, taking get making money off of some of these projects, the dome, the wave park, whatever else. you know, we shouldn't just be funding things, you know, if we want to run it like a business, I'm open to that idea, you know, but we got to be getting some money back in because it can't all keep coming from us because

eventually there's not going to be anything left and then we're going to have to go somewhere else and, you know, the locals are what makes this place home. We love Virginia Beach. You know, we want to stay here and we want you to hear us. Please hear us that we need help. You know, we need relief. We don't need more parks. I love the parks, but we we need relief and we need help so we

can, you know, take care of our families. So, thank you.

Hey, thank you for coming.

The next speaker is JB Moss. After Mr.

Moss is Jimmy Rogers.

How you doing, JB?

Still good. How are you, Mayor Dyer? Uh, good evening, Mayor Dyer. City Council.

My name is JB Moss, lifelong Virginia Beach resident, Cox High School, Virginia Wesling graduate. I own a few restaurants in Virginia Beach. I sit on the Bay Advisory Commission, the North American Sand Soccer Board of Directors, Beach FC Board of Directors, and lastly, the Virginia Beach Restaurant Association. Um, thank you for the award tonight. Super cool. We appreciate I wish more people could be here, but as

Debbie Lou touched on, we're working right now. Um, and I'm I'm here to speak on a lot of people's behalf. Um, I'm here to speak in opposition to the extremely high national outlier of a meals tax we have in Virginia Beach.

You've heard all the evidence, statistics, and calls for fairness when it comes to this destructive tax. Again, the best way I can put this is what if I told you you had to raise your prices by 6% across the board. You would deal with the same customer outcry. you would deal with the customer outcry, all the same hurdles you must cross when running a small business, but you and your staff

wouldn't see a dime or just a quarter um of it. It's the definition of damaging and unfair. To repeat, we as the restaurants are not asking for handouts or special treatment. We're asking to be taxed at the exact same rate as all the other retailers in our city. And we're even here offering to be taxed at a 60% higher rate than them in the interim.

while your very capable staff finds path a path towards fairness and the eventual elimination of the unfair meals tax. I know this will happen. I have absolute faith especially in you newer council members. So much faith that I've written you the speech where you announced the initial reduction.

Here it goes. We, the Virginia Beach City Council, stand here today proudly offering relief to an industry that has shouldered a disproportionate amount of tax burden for well over a half a century. We are speaking of the largest business sector in our city. We are speaking of the most diverse workforce in our city. We are speaking, of course, of the restaurant and prepared meals industry. We have seen the statistics

and heard the outcry. We're doing this for the residents who enjoy human interactions that the restaurants provide in an increasingly digital age.

We're doing this for local musicians, artists fisherman farmers, and trades people who benefit from a healthy restaurant industry. But most of all, we're doing it because it's what is right and just. Thank you. So, if whoever wants a copy to do the announcement, you let me know and I'll get it to you. I appreciate your time.

THANK YOU, JB.

THE NEXT SPEAKER IS JIMMY ROGERS. After Mr. Rogers is Diana Howard.

Hey, Jimmy.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor. It's good to be a regular thing with me.

Uh, Mr. Mayor, uh, madame uh, Vice Mayor Wilson and members of the city council, my name is Jimmy Rogers.

Uh my city councilman Stacy Cumins was very kind to invite me and others to attend the very first working workshop uh with councilman I'm going to say Michael B because I can never pronounce his last name correctly. I butcher it. I learned it in Italian a couple weeks ago. Uh and delegate Anne Frell Tada also in attendant was your budget director and the person in charge of the real estate assessment and personal

property tax. They were fantastic and again thank you for inviting me sir. Um if I would have met them when I was in private business I probably would have recruited them to join my company at the time.

In my opinion, don't anybody shoot me.

You have a product before you with the budget that's very good. It's a finish.

They worked hard. Could have been worse.

It's solid. I can remember somebody telling me it used to be a $1.17 years ago regarding the meal tax situation. Too many millions of dollars at risk for both the hospitality industry. That gentleman I just hugged, he gave me my break for Red Bull. We took a private plane to Philadelphia. Had a good time.

and for the city of Virginia Beach, a lot of millions of dollars at risk to enact a decision either for this upcoming budget cycle.

It's a short window, folks. I have experience in Richmond General Assembly.

I would suggest if procedurally to table the situation and have everybody start over for the next budget cycle.

An economic study needs to be completed.

I left my phone and what is economics is pretty definitive.

Yes, I can feel it. Jimmy has deserted us some restaurant owners and the word will spread. I haven't. I just want what's the right thing to put in practice. My company used to do business with every restaurant in town since 1961. My father founded it. So with that being said, uh I'd be more than happy to help on what a economic study is. You all have a department a department and the

restaurant committee not to spend their money. But I've done the math. Me and the math is I don't know how many I know how many restaurants in Virginia meets, but $100 a restaurant you can get$25 $30,000. There are CPA firms that would do it. And and let's get it right. Let's get what's right, what's right. I've been to Chesapeake, I'm telling you. And you're a parody at 6%. I don't see any

restaurants not going out there because of the 6%. I don't hear restaurants closing. Thank you, Jimmy. Really appreciate you coming.

Oops.

You're good.

The next speaker is Diana Howard.

After Miss Howard is Holly Martier.

Hey D.

Good evening. Nice to see you all again.

I'm Diana Howard and on behalf of the Virginia Beach Tea Party and all the taxed enough already residents of Virginia Beach, we oppose the um real estate tax increase. And it is an increase. It is not. We're keeping the rate the same. So, we're not raising taxes. It even says in your announcement that you're increasing the taxes, and you should have to reduce the tax rate to 92 cents to get the same amount of

money this year as you did last year. So, we would request that you look at the budget and especially pay attention to all the stuff I told you last week that we could save money from so that we can reduce the tax rate because you are not entitled to the increase in the assessment on my house. I'm not selling it. I'm not making any money. I'm spending money to keep it upkeep and to

pay the, you know, the fees on everything I use, right? But it's not money in my pocket. This is money I have to take from others other sources. You know, reduce my spending elsewhere. So, just like everybody else said, I bought my house at $90,000 and now it's being assessed for $250,000.

It has increased so much. And now that I'm retired and on social security, this is just eating into my budget and as it is for everybody else and you're taxing us out of our homes. So, please don't raise our taxes. Thank you.

Thank you for coming.

The next speaker is Holly Martier. Then after Miss Martier, we'll have one WebEx speaker.

Hi, Ali.

Hello, Mayor Dyer and city council. I'm just overwhelmed. I just cannot I barely afford my house. Enough is enough. You raised it last year. You want to keep raising things that do you want to raise the water? You know, the fees for that.

You want to raise the taxes. Enough is enough. I am done. If I didn't own my house, I'd probably move to another state. I'd be out of here. Like North Carolina, my best friend moved there.

We're just sick of things going up and up and up and it's just unaffordable.

And you're going to have people foreclosed. Is that what you're trying for? are trying to afford people to lose their houses. I mean, like they said, it's just too much. And I'm a single mom. I work a part-time job. I don't make a lot. And these taxes are going to kill me. And I really don't want to be foreclosed. So, if you have any heart at all, you will not raise the taxes.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming.

The last speaker is Aaron Sandwell.

You are unmuted and may begin.

Is that a boy?

Aaron Sandwell.

you walk over here for a second. Is there a phone number on there? Okay, mayor, that's all the speakers.

Okay, thank you all for participating.

Really appreciate it. Uh, next public hearing is acquisition of a agricultural land preservation ARP easement installation purpose agreement for 138.36 acres at 5853 Blackwater Drive. Any speakers?

No speakers, sir.

Okay. The next one is declaration of sale of excess property and that be at 1372 Alaskan Road to Foreman Services LLC.

No speaker, sir.

Okay, great. Okay, at this point, can we do the uh consent agenda?

There was one um item that had a single speaker.

One item does have a Okay, let me re read the speaker script. them. I want to remind everyone that the city council speaker policy that allows certain representatives of groups to speak for 10 minutes applies only to planning items. All other speakers, whether speaking individually or on behalf of a group, will have up to three minutes to speak on a single item. Speakers are reminded that comments during the formal

session of the meeting must be limited to the subject of the item you are called to consider it at the time you are called. For items placed on the consent agenda, a speaker will have up to three minutes to address any single item. If a speaker wishes to address multiple consent agenda items, uh the speaker will have a cumulative total of six minutes to address those items.

Again, the speaker must limit his or her comments to the subject matter to which the items they have signed up to address. And finally, I call upon all speakers, all persons in the chamber to be civil in their discussions and decorum whatever views you hold and wish to express. The city council wants to hear from you and to ensure that all viewpoints and all persons are respected. The best way to do this is

for all of us to strive for civility and respect.

Number 13.

Okay, we have a speaker for number 13 that has to be pulled. 11, 12, and 13 are the three items that have to be pulled.

Oh, that was one of the items to be pulled.

That's one of the items that needs to be pulled and held heard separately.

We'll call them when we call the item.

Okay.

All right.

Okay. Uh consent agenda under ordinances and resolutions. Uh number one is the ordinance to grant uh 20 franchise agreements in the resort area. Number one is CEDA Inc. Ray Sidewalk Cafe at 221st Street number 103. Number B uh is Calibra Management Group Inc. Ray Sidewalk Cafe at 221st Street number 105. Number C is Molar Liquid Assets 2 LLC, Ray Sidewalk Cafe at 2012 2022 22nd Street. Uh number D is

Cury LLC, Ray Sidewalk Cafe at 706 Atlantic Avenue.

Uh E is Ingga Mitt, Inc.

Sidewalk Cafe at 812 Atlantic Avenue. F Planet Pizza Inc. Ray Sidewalk Cafe at 812 Atlantic Avenue. Grow Crowley LLC The Sidewalk Cafe at 11:02 Atlantic Avenue. H. Anishi Inc. Sidewalk Cafe at 1516 Atlantic Avenue. Uh I K&M Inc. Residential Cafe at 1718 Atlantic Avenue. Number 103. Uh J.

Happy Meals LLC. Ray Sidewalk Cafe at 1814 Atlantic Avenue. K. Uh, Phoebe's Raw Raw Bar Inc. Ray Sidewalk Cafe at 2014 Atlantic Avenue. L uh Lee Inc.

Sidewalk Cafe at 2200 Atlantic Avenue.

M. Virginia George Company resident uh uh sidewalk cafe at 2410 Atlantic Avenue in Grill Virginia Beach LLC a sidewalk cafe at 40519th Street Suite 115 O M Vista Virginia Beach LLC Ray Sidewalk Cafe at 332 20th Street Suite 120 Uh P. Nice Palmus Boardwalk Corporation.

Ray Sidewalk Boardwalk Cafe at 1601 Atlantic Avenue. G Boardwalk LC uh Ray Boardwalk Cafe at 2607 Atlantic Avenue. Uh R 3001 Atlant Oh, excuse me.

Beachside Ray Boardwalk Cafe at 257 Atlantic Avenue. R 3001 Atlantic LLC.

Right. Boardwalk Cafe at 3001 Atlantic Avenue. S 3315 Atlantic Avenue LLC. A Boardwalk Cafe at 3315 Atlantic Avenue. And uh Harrison Virginia Beach uh LLC Boardwalk Cafe at 3900 Atlantic Avenue.

Number two is an ordinance to u authorize the acquisition of property fees simple and the acquisition of temporary and permanent encroachments either by uh agreement combination uh and Lake View Drive channel of improvements Uh that is project CIP405 and 16562.

Number three is the ordinance to authorize the acquisition and property and free uh simple and the acquisition of temporary and permanent easements either by agreement or condemnation.

the uh Rosemont Road and and Plaza Trail.

Uh four is a resolution to designate driving east to Celeste Kellogg as the as the official song of the city of Virginia Beach. We're very excited about that. That was uh requested by Mayor Dyer and the and Vice Mayor Wilson. Uh number five is is going to be deferred indefinitely. A resolution to establish Virginia Beach Sports District and authorize the city manager to take action to support requested by Mayor

Dyer and council members Henley, Jackson Green, Remick, and Schulman. This is going to be that was deferred from February 17th. Number six, and this is with uh Council Lady Henley voting no.

the resolution to refer to the planning commission the proposed amendments to the city zoning ordinance to amend the artic the official zoning map to reduce the oceanfront resort short-term rental overlay district and amend section 2303 of the city zoning ordinance CZO ray parking requirements and amend section uh 241.2 two to the city zoning ordinance um raise short-term rentals requested by Vice Mayor Wilson and

council member Remick and Shman. Uh number seven is the ordinance to adopt the 2026 housing choice voucher annual agency plan and administration plan and authorize the city manager to execute and submit plans to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Number eight is the ordinance to connect four long-term vacant part-time positions equivalent to 3.2 to FTEES to three

full-time addition um positions within the FY202526 Police Department operations. Number nine is the ordinance to accept and appropriate $30,248 from the Virginia Crisis Intervention Team uh coalition, the FY202526 Human Services uh operating budget in support of the crisis intervention team.

Number 10 is the ordinance to accept and authorize and appropriate $26,477.75 from each of the uh following cities, Norfolk, Portsouth, Suffach, and Norfolk to the FY 2025 26 human services operating report. uh regional discovered uh high school, the regional Discovery High School. Number 21 is the ordinance to accept and appropriate $21,43625 and $6439 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Number 12 is the ordinance to accept and accept to accept and appropriate $18,46951 cents and $56058 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Number 13 is the ordinance to accept and appropriate $11,500, excuse me, $2,500 from the office of the attorney general for the 202526 um sheriff's office.

And now we have planning.

Okay. Uh open the public hearing on planning. Number one, uh, number one is Virginia OPC Land LLC, Northampton Development, and that is in district four. Number two is Northampton of Development LLC, and that is in district 4.

number three and this is uh there's an alternative version for this and this is uh Jeff Burkowitz and Paul Brown Family LLC and that is in district five.

Number four is 5644 Parliament Drive LLC for conditional use permit and that is in district one.

Number five, this will be pulled. Number six, uh an Eagle and and Philip Eagle for a conditional use permit and that is in district one. Number seven is the Remy Corporation uh Witchduck and uh One Associates LLC uh AK aka Witchduck One Partnership and that is in district 4. It's a big night for you.

Number eight is the Outer Banks Beach Buggies and that is in district nine. And number nine is 21st Street Properties LLC and that is in district 6. Number 10, the ordinance to remove GPEN 241450844 and a portion of GPEN 24145491200 from the Nemo Church Historic and uh that is going to be um deferred indefinitely I believe.

So, uh, number 11 is to be pulled.

Number 12 is to be pulled. 13 and 14 are all to be pulled. Move for approval.

Yeah.

I'm sorry. Did you read number 14?

Yes.

You read 14?

I don't think 14 was pulled.

It's not pulled. It's on 14's not pulled. Sorry. Um, I had it as pulled.

Uh, number 14 is the ordinance to 400 city zoning ordinance. Uh this is about the uh roll off containers.

Now move for approval.

Okay.

Any comments? Vote is open.

Do we have a second?

Oh, we have a second.

Second.

Okay.

And I just want to clarify, Council Member Henley, you were voting nay on uh ordinance or the resolution number five.

Is that correct?

Correct.

Okay. Thank you.

The vote. Can you open the vote? The vote is open.

By a vote of 11 to zero, noting Council Member Henley's NA vote on resolution number five, you have approved the consent agenda as read by Vice Mayor Wilson.

Okay. Uh thank you. And resolution number four to designate a Driving East by Celeste Kellogg as the official song of Virginia Beach. Uh, we're going to ask Celeste Kellogg to come down here for a special recognition.

Mayor, do you want to go ahead and start the video? She's coming down.

Start the video.

Go ahead, Caitlyn.

I've seen the Cali coast there I got in that wild wild show, Tennessee.

I'm driving driving east where I find my peace.

Yeah, I'm driving east.

Yeah,

I was born and raised beneath the sweet.

I spent my childhood summer driving.

Where my soul feels free.

Yeah. Drowning drowning at the land meets the sea.

I'm driving.

When I'm feeling

I' got my pointed east Virginia Beach.

I'm driving driving where I find my driving to the landsc Baby driving

back to Virginia.

I'm driving.

I'm driving. I'm driving driving east driving east driving east.

You know, talk about putting a city on the map. And uh Celeste, I just want to thank you uh for recognizing Virginia Beach and uh a lot of Virginia Beach was on that video and let me tell you what a spectacular job you did singing the national anthem at the state of the city. Uh so you are to be commended and so the council uh has given you a resolution. And whereas the song Driving

East by Celeste Kellogg captures the spirit of the city of Virginia Beach with references to the coast and moving forward with anticipation and clarity.

Whereas Driving East embodies both the city's heritage and its future and includes lyrics about the city's coastal characteristics. Driving east until lands meets the sea. Finding a place where my soul feels free. and the call back to Virginia Beach. Whereas Celeste Kellock performed Driving East at the 2026 State of the City address on March 5th in 2026. And whereas the song resonates deeply with attendees and

council members. Whereas in recognition of the song's powerful reflection, identity and aspirations, the city councils desires to designate Driving East as the official song of the city of Virginia Beach. And now, therefore, be it resolved, the city council of the city of Virginia Beach hereby designates Driving East by Celeste Kellogg as the official song of the city of Virginia

Beach. Be it further resolved, the city council directs this designation to be entered into the official records and encourage the use of driving east at civic ceremonies, community events, and other occasions celebrating the people and promise of the city of Virginia Beach. Thank you.

If anybody else wants to come down.

Okay, cool. We'll come back.

You don't have to.

I need to stand.

and don't like

say a couple words.

Oh my goodness. Um, okay. Honor Mayor Dyer. Honorable I'm sorry. I'm not a uh speech writer. I'm a songwriter, so I'm not very good at talking. Um, honorable Mayor Dyer, Vice Mayor Wilson, City Council, City Attorney, and City Manager. Um, this is such an honor and a blessing and I'm so grateful. Um, when I began writing this song, it was about all of the places that my music journey's taken me from the West Coast,

California to Nashville to Texas. But my favorite view is when I would see that welcome to Virginia sign and I was coming back home. And uh Virginia Beach in particular has been a place that's raised me um both, you know, in real life and in musical life. I've performed here since I was a a 12-year-old with a Radio Disney group um here locally and it's just been such a hu huge part of my

journey and my love for this area has been the reason why I've stayed here when I've had opportunities to move elsewhere and uh out of the state for, you know, musical things. But uh I'm just so grateful and never in my wildest dreams when I wrote this song about my home. Um from my heart did I ever expect first of all the city to hear it and it to become the official song. So thank

you. Thank you so much. And uh I want to leave you with my favorite words in the song. When I'm feeling lost, you know where I'll be found. I've got my jeep and we're pointed east. Virginia Beach found. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Okay. Uh, moving on. Thank you and Celeste and your wonderful family, George Alcarez and uh, you know, but I'll tell you what, you you you done us proud and put us on the map even better.

That is a good thing. All right, moving on to uh number five, South Rosemont Rose Storage LLC, Monarch Properties Incorporated for a continue uh conditional use of zoning from conditional 01 office district to conditional B2 community business and conditional use permit Ray Mini warehouse at 1756 South Rosemont Road District 10.

Uh the Hi Eddie.

Oh, Mr. Bdon is representing the applicant.

Mayor Dyer, Vice Mayor Wilson, honorable members of city council. For the record, Eddie Berdon, uh, Virginia Beach attorney representing the applicant, Jonathan Spate, who's one of the principles in the applicant, is uh, in attendance this evening. The subject property is a 1.86 acre uh, parcel uh, located on Ro South Rosemont Road just north of uh, Dam Neck Road. And it's at the starts at the intersection with

Chandler Creek Road uh which is an industrial park entrance and it's AC directly across South Rosemont from the uh public works and public utilities um operation yard bulk storage yard on I2 a large I2 uh industrial zone property.

property. This property is in the 65 to 70 and the 70 to 75 DB noise zone um AUS zone uh in sub area three where um residential reszonings uh for any residential use are not uh permitted under council's policy adopted after B.

Back in 2015, the property was conditionally reszoned for a medical office building, three-story medical office building. um in possible the owners at time in anticipation there might be demand with the Centa uh uh medical facility over on Prince San Road but there's you know not been a demand for it. Centa's got a lot of office space over there. Uh so there hasn't been the ability to develop that. So

this is an application uh to uh conditionally reszone the property subject to profers as well as subject to conditions of the conditional use permit uh to uh B2 for this specific use per this specific plan. The um uh the the project is set back uh 60ome feet from South Rosemont. We've done a reservation some additional uh rightway for the um widening of that road which will be coming. It's really to

accommodate the uh 11 foot wide um trail on that side of South Rosemont when that uh day comes. the we met with the um residential neighbors directly behind us back in December and that resulted in a number of the profers that are in this um application. Uh all HVA's heating, air conditioning um will be any of it that's on the roof has to be within the front 20 ft of the building. Those that

are on the ground if they're in the back, they're in the corners as far from the uh fence and the landscape buffer as they can be. Uh there is no lighting in the back of the building other than um motion detecting security lights. And of course the whole thing is fenced and and and secured. There's no no one would be back there. But if somebody for some reason was back there, they're motion

detecting lights that are only 8 ft above ground pan uh pointing down. So there won't be any uh light pollution into the backyards and the properties of the homeowners to our um northeast, excuse me. and the windows that are depicted. There's no windows or faux. Uh all the building materials, brick and um uh ephus, the um uh we've got no freestanding sign, just a building mounted sign on the property. Uh

significantly less traffic than an office building would uh produce. It's it's a quiet use. Everything is secure.

Everything's inside. You can't get in unless you have a a code uh to get in like all the um the more recent uh multi-story air conditioned heat heating and air condition storage facilities.

The application comes before you with a recommendation unanimously on consent by the planning commission and a positive recommendation from your city staff. I believe it was on the uh consent agenda, but I understand there's um there is a speaker or or speakers, and I'll be happy to uh respond and answer any questions that council may have.

Any questions so far?

Okay. Thank you, Eddie.

Thank you.

The first speaker is Dorothy Carile.

After Miss Carile is Jason Carile.

God bless you.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is Dorothy Carile. I live on 1729 Bergens Way, Virginia Beach, Virginia for 19 years. I'm a homeowner there directly adjacent to the proposed site. I strongly oppose the proposed threestory storage facility. A facility of this size will increase vehicle traffic, including moving trucks, delivery vehicles, and customer traffic throughout the day.

Our neighborhood roads were not designed for this type of commercial activity.

More traffic means greater risk of accidents for children, pedestrians, and residents entering the and leaving their homes. The city should not approve this without a full traffic safety review.

Um, security concerns that I have, storage facilities often have limited staffing and extended access hours that raise concerns about theft, trespassing, and activity behind our homes that residents cannot easily monitor.

A three-story building also creates visibility into private backyards and removes the sense of security fam many families currently have. Residents should not bear the burden of increased security risks.

I respectfully ask the council to deny this proposal or at minimum require a more appropriate plan that better protects the surrounding homeowners such as at minimum if this resoning is approved. We respectfully request strong protections for the surrounding neighborhood along major Virginia Beach Road projects such as nearby Linhaven widening sound absorptive pre-cast concrete walls typically around

12 ft high are used to help reduce traffic noise and security purposes for accident resident areas. I ask that similar sound absorbive barrier walls that is minimum of 12 foot high as the minimum height such as a soft sound technology commonly used in the tidewater area be required here for privacy and to protect nearby homes from increased noise lighting and commercial impact. Our

neighborhood deserves the same level of protection and our neighborhood deserves development that is compatible, safe, and respectful of the people who already live here. And thank you for your time.

Thank you very much for coming.

The next speaker is Jason Carlilele and then Daniela Baron.

Good evening.

Hey, good evening.

Hello.

Put your readers on here. Good evening, members of council, city council. My name is Jason Carile and I live at 1729 Briggins Way directly behind the proposed storage facility. Uh I've lived in this community in that particular home for 19 years. I'm speaking today to express significant concerns regarding the impact this project would have on the charter safety and long-term planning vision of our community. First,

let's address the incompatibility with surrounding the land use. The South Rosemont Road Corridor is not currently home to commercial developments of this nature. The surrounding area is primarily residential, cohesive, family orientated neighborhoods, intentionally designed to promote a high quality of life. Introducing storage facility represents a massive departure from this established character and sets an

undesirable precedent for future land use decisions. Furthermore, this proposal requires that the existing tree line and natural buffering on this parcel be removed. This removal will result in a direct loss of privacy for adjacent homes, diminished noise mitigation, and the total erosion of natural character that currently defines our neighborhood. Many of us, including myself, back up to a well-maintained

greenway area. This greenway is essential asset that enhances the residential environment and provides a natural quiet buffer. a storage facility introduces an industrial sty style use that is completely inconsistent with the intended purpose of the screen space.

Secondly, I have severe concerns about the traffic safety as well. Storage facilities generate frequent vehicle traffic including trucks, trailers, moving vans which are not aligned with current traffic patterns of this residential corridor. We are already dealing with notoriously dangerous intersection at Dam Neck and Rosemont Road. This area is known for congestion and unfortunately a notable number of

traffic incidents.

Adding commercial level traffic to this exact intersection is a formula for increased accidents, safety risks affecting not just the immediate neighbors, but everyone using this corridor. Finally, this goes against long-term planning. I mean, we moved here, we stayed here, we've lived there 19 years because of the quiet residential nature of this corridor.

We're asking that you respect the established residential atmosphere, turn down this proposal to maintain the integrity of our neighborhood. You know, a development should not enhance a developer's assets at the expense of the established residents quality of life. I urge you to vote against the reszoning development proposal to protect the safety and character of South Rosemont Road Corridor. Thank you.

Thank you for coming.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Daniela Baron.

And then we have two WebEx speakers.

Good evening, members of city council.

My name is Daniela Baron and I'm a neighbor on Bergenski. Um, I lived at 1717 Briggins Way for nearly eight years and I'm here to respectfully request that you oppose the proposed resoning and storage facility on South Rosemont Mo Road. Excuse me. Um, due to a number of concerns that I'm hoping to share with you now, largely the incompatibility with the neighborhood character and unsightly view. Obviously,

it's being presented as a mini warehouse, but I think we could see from the plans that it's not many being a three storage facility, three-story facility, excuse me. Um, again, it's not compatible with the existing character of Rosemont Road. The corridors defined by established neighborhoods, treeline buffers, and adjacent greenway space, not a commercial structure. A facility of this scale would introduce a stark

visual presence, large metal building, security fencing, lighting, frequent vehicle movement, and it would fundamentally change the view of our residential homes and the greenway from natural neighborhood setting to a commercial storage complex. In general, the loss of privacy, noise buffering, and natural screening. The existing tree line and natural buffering on this site would be largely removed to accommodate

the development that currently provides privacy reduces noise, and visually separates the homes from the roadway and open land. Without it, us neighbors would experience direct line of sight into the facility, increased noise from vehicle traffic and unit access, and a permanent loss of the natural screening that defines our neighborhood.

A big concern is the lack of security and continuous oversight. Um, these type of facilities are typically low staff and intermitt intermittently active creates concerns about limited oversight during off hours and reduced visibility of activity on site. For property directly adjacent to this neighborhood, it lack of continuous presence raises a legitimate concern about safety. Um, I'm

a mom of two elementary age school children. My kids are frequently outside. We utilize the bike path. So, not only is this a concern being an adjacent neighbor, but use of the bike path that runs directly in front of the proposed facility. Um, not only our neighborhood, but the neighboring Buckner neighborhoods. Um, as expressed by my neighbor, the huge traffic and safety impact. I think we all know that

there's already large concern for um crashes at that intersection, the T intersection there, Damn Rosemont. Um obviously introducing another variable into this location presents a huge concern um not only for cars but obviously pedestrians utilizing the pathway. Another huge concern for me personally um storm water drainage and environmental impact as it currently stands when we get large rains

especially in the spring season that water stands. Um it's obviously a permeable surface right now is natural land but um the water doesn't drain. So what's going to happen with an impermeable surface? So I ask you to reconsider that.

Thank you very much. Appreciate you coming.

Thank you.

The next two speakers are by WebEx. The first one is Ariana Stokes.

Miss Stokes, you are unmuted and may begin.

Hello. Can you guys hear me?

Go ahead.

Okay. Um Okay. Okay. Well, most of my neighbors have already touched on um all of the important points. Uh the safety being our main concern. Um you know, with the tree line being removed and the privacy, my home is directly, you know, along with all my neighbors, our homes is like 8 ft away from the fence line that would separate us from this narrow piece of land that would house this

threetory unit um storage unit. Uh so that's our biggest concern. is just so close uh for such a large structure. Um as my neighbors have stated, we have a lot of small children that play right in this culde-sac. Uh and that would just add on to all the anxiety we already have with, you know, the safety and all the traffic that's already coming in and out of our culde-sac. Um but they've

touched on all the points uh with the Rosemont and DM neck accidents that we've had right there in that corner. um you know the it turns right into um the traffic that comes right out of Damneck goes right into Rosemont into a single lane um road and we've had several accidents over there and that would be you know just adding on to all the traffic and accidents that are happening

right in that corner. Um so many of us are very opposed to this. Um, we, as they've stated, we, you know, we would want some kind of a barrier. You know, our fence are already like, I think they're only like 8t tall. Um it would be such a huge um safety concern and just all of the privacy loss without you know we just have so many um just wouldn't contri have any positive

contribution to our community from you know where we can see. Um we just hope that whatever is built in that area um you know would have some kind of contribution to our community and um yeah like I said they've already touched on every single thing that I was going to say. Um, but I agree with them uh wholeheartedly on the situation and I hope that the council reconsiders just for the concern of our community here.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you so much.

The next speaker is Al Alexander Stokes.

You're unmuted, sir, if you want to begin.

He actually got called into work, so I don't think he's going to be able to have access to it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Berdon, if you'd like to come up for rebuttal.

Well, appreciate all the comments. U we didn't expect this whatsoever after the meeting we had in December. Uh but the um first of all, what's approved for the property today was a three-story medical office building with no conditions whatsoever regarding lighting from the windows that would be facing the U properties behind us. The properties behind us, the minimum setback from the

shared boundary line for the homes is 20 ft. uh and we are set back 20 ft. They asked us to and agreed it's Crawford that we would replace the 8ft cedar fence uh along the property line. It's a very nice fence and we put a new one up the same material. They're brick brick columns and we'd fill those in. We have a landscape buffer that will be u planted and grow on our side of the

fence. There is zero benefit visibility from the building to to anybody's backyard or anybody's property. There will it's totally fenced in and secured. There's no entrance or exit into the rear of the property.

There will be no one in the rear of the property and there'll be no lighting back there other than the packed lights at a 8ft elevation pointed down that are motion detecting lights only. So there's no lighting. the um Rosemont Road sound issue. This building will be a sound barrier much more efficient than an 8-oot barrier wall would be. Uh the but in terms of the the effect on privacy,

there's nothing but a private situation with this versus what the office building, but there's not a market for the office building. As far as traffic, it's a very very low traffic generating business and not tractor trailers or people in their pickup trucks, their cars or for individuals. Uh it's not a place where moving vans are moving people's material furnishings and what have you. It's it's

self storage. I'm not aware of any statistics that would reflect that these are any in any way a security risk or a crime producing use. It's the exact opposite of that. The only entrance is right in and right out only. There's no median, no uh crossover traffic. Uh again, don't see any um any substance to the argument about security. the um it's a it's a very good use compared to the

industrial use along Chandler Creek and of course the city's bulk storage yard across Rosemont which is not right in their backyard agree with that. But the but the point of it is it's a perfect use to block noise, light, you name it.

And the traffic is is about as low as any use that you have, especially during peak hours. It's extremely low.

extremely low traffic and it's a very small parking lot. There aren't going to be car gatherings and whatever going out on out there. It's a very small parking lot.

Be happy to answer any questions.

Okay, we got a question.

U Mr. Berdon, one of the speakers mentioned that the tree line was going to be removed. Can you address that?

The my I cannot hear and hear the tree line.

The tree line is the tree line. There'll be there there there's a there is a tree line on this property today and that that has to come down in order to to do the development and get the drainage to work. And there'll be a new tree line that'll be planted. It's a it's a landscape buffer that will grow up to be, you know, 12, 15, 18 feet in height in addition to the fence and it's a

solid fence, but the there isn't any the property is and going to be totally landscaped. got a landscaping plan, but we we we will only be taking out the the trees, you know, in the area directly behind the building, not further to the north where there's it gets too narrow.

There's nothing going on there. But we cannot build the building and and there would have been it wouldn't have been the same degree of landscaping with the previous use either that the medical office building, but there's just no market for a medical office building.

Okay, Jennifer. Thank you, mayor, and thank you to the residents who came out.

Um, if you saw our council package, it's very thin on this item because it was on consent agenda. So, I had some conversation with the planning commissioners and this is some of the first opposition that I've heard on this. So, I do want to reiterate some of their concerns and point to what you said to see if if we're if we can kind of close that gap. Um, so some of the

concerns are safety and trespassing from this new um, structure to their neighborhood. You're saying there's a fence um that will go behind the building where you can't it'll be a barrier there. Whoever is using this facility won't have entrance or access to the neighborhood.

Yes. Yes, ma'am. And you see on here is from the on the corner.

You have to go to the mic.

I'm sorry. You have to go to the mic for the public.

The from the corners of the building. Um the on the south side it comes over to the property line. Fence goes all 8ft fence goes all the way back. That's adjacent to another property that's zoned off to the south. And then on the back it's the it's the solid fence and brick columns that the neighbors have that they asked us to. We agreed to to replace the cedar fence between the

brick columns all the way along the back. When you get to the far corner, again, fence comes down to the corner of the building. It is completely enclosed with fencing and there's no access back there whatsoever. And again, there's only pack lighting at 8 ft height pointing down. If there's motion, it comes on. Otherwise, it's completely dark.

Thank you. Can you speak to the concerns about um visibility into the yard? So, privacy. Reiterate what you said about Yes, ma'am. their their ability to maintain a sense of privacy in their homes.

There are there are faux windows on the back of the building. There are no windows on the back of the building. In other words, it's solid. There is no visibility whatsoever from this building back into their yards or anywhere. It's a it's a it look doesn't look like a complete wall because of the foe, but it is a complete wall. There is an office building. You have windows and lights

from people's offices that can spill out. There's none of that with this.

Um, can you describe the outreach that you did on this project in the community?

We we um went door to door, gave invitations that I think everybody who spoke or most of the people who spoke came to a meeting that we had at Tyler Community College back in December. Very we I think we were there an hour and a half. Had a had a good dialogue back and forth. We asked them tell us anything that we can do to make this better. And that that's what we've I've been

describing. And we we left that and there was there was one couple who, you know, had um concerns and you know, they just said they didn't want it. But the the rest of the community and some of the folks who weren't here, at least one couple that's not here tonight, um thought it was much better than the office um use in terms of privacy, security. You know, no one's going to be

you can't you can't break in. There's there's the only people who can get in have to have a code. It's all totally locked down and just and you come in and get your stuff or whatever you need to do, but there's no and these the restrictions on these are, you know, very tight. And there's security cameras inside and out as well. And you can put security cameras on the back, but we

don't want to invade anybody's privacy because there won't be thing anything going on back there. But it's it's about as and I think the police will tell you there's not a crime problem in in these facilities whatsoever because they're totally secure.

Any staffing?

I'm sorry.

Will there be any staffing?

The the the hours of operation when they're staffed there um 8 to 5 and on Saturday um I believe it's um 10 to 4 and and but but people can get into their units. They have to go the entrance is in the front, you know, so it's totally visible from, you know, Rosemont Road and and you you you have to have a code that it's particular to your unit in order to be able to get in

and it and once you're in, you know, and you leave it, it's relocked that the doors don't stay open. So, it's you you it's totally secured and controlled entrance to the building. So then what we have in front of us in our uh materials we have the application but also with profers and recommended conditions and the recommended conditions are what you've described after making changes based on

the input you've received in working with that neighbors and we did everything and and um the second gentleman who spoke was kind of the the leader and he's been down this before when we were doing the the uh office and everybody took very good notes and I there's been no one has suggested that that Jonathan and Travis didn't do everything that we agreed to do and and we've been open to further dialogue but

and and we again we believed uh based on there not being any opposition at the planning commission there was one letter from u one of the same couple who had problems with it but no one else suggested they had a problem with it.

So, we we weren't aware of this um opposition, but we we believe we've done everything that more than what I've done on for other clients on similar uses.

And I I haven't heard any suggestions of what we didn't do. there just there's concerns about you the the height of the building but that that helps with the noise, but I I can I I appreciate the the concern with change and that's that's but that's going to happen here one way or another to some use. And I think if I I honestly believe I've done other other facilities

like this, not as not quite as nice as this adjacent to um including over off of um uh Wish Art. There's a one and the folks over there thought you know it was a good use and that was a you know one of the oldtime uses but they still don't have any problems.

Okay. You ready for a motion?

Okay. Thank you Eddie.

Thank you all. Thank you.

Thank you. So, I thank the folks who came out tonight. Um, I can't So, I'm going to make a motion to approve and that's with the recommended conditions here. So, it sounds like at least the concerns I've heard about privacy, about um lighting that it's going to be motion sensored as opposed to a continuous um and safety concerns in terms of accessing into your neighborhoods that there's a a solid

fence that's going to prevent any kind of movement in between that property and your property. um based on reading the report and I talked to some C uh commissioners who shared their thoughts about it and um so with that in mind I'll make a motion to approve.

We have a second.

I'll second that motion.

Any discussion?

Okay, let's open the vote.

The vote is open.

Mrs. Rouse may have your vote. Thank you. By vote of 11 to Z, you have approved the application.

Okay, thank you. I guess we're moving on to number 11. And and uh ordinance to adopt.

Yeah, Mark, is are these all could these are these a bundle or do do them individually?

You need to do 11 first, but then you can do the remainder uh together if you approve 11.

Okay. Um, item number 11, ordinance to adopt the Virginia Beach Comprehensive Plan, uh, image VB 20U 40, which will supersede the Virginia Beach Comprehensive Plan of 2016. Any speakers?

Yes, the first speaker is Jessica Wendish after people like talking about it ahead of time. Sorry.

Hello. How are you?

Great. How are you guys tonight? Good evening, Mayor Dyer and members of city council. Um, in addition to several previous communications from the transition area and inter facility traffic area, I recently sent a letter via email to you all and the planning commission containing some recommendations regarding the February 18th uh, draft of the comprehensive plan called Imagine VB2040.

as a result of the TAITA comm uh citizens advisory committee meeting on March the 5th, the results of the planning commission meeting on March 11th, and then the TAITA CAC meeting again on April 2nd. The committee compiled a list of four recommendations for city council to consider. We encourage you tonight to postpone voting to ensure that those four recommendations are um reviewed and

considered with fidelity. As I review the four recommendations, I encourage you to reference the draft plan. I'm sure you have reviewed them thoroughly um and maybe have a copy in front of you and I will reference page numbers. So that might be helpful for you to take a look. So the first one is to ensure that the comprehensive plan is corrected to include effective support for all of the

goals set forth in the plan. On page 23 of the draft, the document states, "Imagine VB's overarching goals originated from the initial focus group sessions and evolved over subsequent engagements include economic sustainability and diversity, housing attainment and diversity, environmental sustainability, rural and agricultural land protection south of the green line, infill urban development and multimodal

multi multimodal access north of the green community identity and connections and neighborhood well-being and safety. So those were those seven. In addition to those seven goals listed, there were also six big ideas listed in the comprehensive plan. Despite the clear importance of the green line and land use plans in the area south of the green line, as the term appears in two of

those seven goals, the subsequent pages, pages 23 to 28, contain detailed descriptions of only six of the seven goals and only five of the six big ideas. The goal of rural and agricultural land protection south of the green line and the big idea continue the green line and blue line and plan based on the unique context created by those lines have been completely left out. They are additionally left out of

pages 129 to 131 of chapter 5 which specifically lists the green line context area goals and objectives.

the emission of specific language to achieve the goal and big idea associated with the green line, the blue line and the currently named green line context area is a significant deficiency in the current draft. Number two that I listed is to ensure that maps and graphics throughout the plan are accurate and usable. The most egregious examples related to usability and accuracy are the map depicting place types on page

37, which contain an excessive amount of information for one map to be useful.

There are a lot of new pieces of terminology in this um document that a lot of the public may have a hard time with and putting them all on one map makes it very difficult. I'm sure it would be difficult just in casual conversation to talk through the context areas, the place types, the neighborhood types, the cores and the edges. That is a lot to consume and all of that appears

on that one map. The second is the pie charts depicting land use across the context areas on pages 80, 114, 127, and 142 as they do not create an accurate picture of land use in Virginia Beach.

They indicate that large amounts of land in Virginia Beach are labeled as vacant and they do not describe the other large amounts that are labeled as other. They do include agriculture uh but only in the rural context area despite the fact that agriculture does exist in small portions in other areas particularly in the area of the green line context area which is named there oftentimes referred

to as the transition area. This paints a picture that large amounts of land are serving no purpose and possibly are in need of development. The third item that was listed is that it's important to maintain consistency and accuracy of nomenclature used in the comprehensive plan when referring to geographic regions within the TA and ITA.

Specifically using those terms transition area, green line, and blue line. Throughout the public input process, the public regularly noted the importance of the space between the green line and the blue line by regularly using that nomenclature or terminology. It was clear that there is an expectation of maintaining the space between the green and blue lines as low density transition or buffer between the

more urban and suburban north and the rural south of the city. These terms are clear, they are well known and the public uses them regularly. There is no need to change these terms. As a matter of fact, posted on the be in the no section of the city's website on September 9th, 2025. I do like that, by the way, that section. Um there's an article noting the importance of the transition area, the blue line and the

green line. And there's an accompanying map identifying the entire transition area labeled as transition.

Sorry, moved ahead too fast. Um it is also important to note with all this change in terminology from the 2016 comprehensive plan to this 2040 draft um and change in terminology that there can be added confusion, frustration, and sometimes inaccurate decisionmaking as a result. So it's important to note that the 2016 plan used some commonly used terms urban area, suburban area and rural area but it additionally used

princess commons and transition area as a fourth and then as a fifth it was military installations and support. Uh they were named using common terms to indicate the density of development within those areas. Two were specifically named for the purpose that they serve transition and military. So these terms did become quite helpful for decisionmaking. The current draft includes two terms that relate to

proximity of water inland and coastal.

We all know that water is significant here and can see the value but they do not indicate the uses of the land within those areas and the possible resulting density. Another new term references a boundary of a transition area. That would be green line but not the entire nature of that area. Um they term rural does stay in the new uh the new document. The new collection of terms has already caused some confusions as

citizens are trying to digest this very very lengthy draft. The vote of the planning commission on the second item to note with that section is the voting of the planning commission on March 11th to move this draft to here tonight um was not a unanimous vote and it came with three conditions again not unanimous to add those three conditions that have been made public on the city's website. It is clear from publicly

available communication between city council and the planning commission as well as evidence in the video of that planning commission meeting that the three conditions the commission added were actually requested by city council.

Um these are uh these items are counter to the public sentiment collected during the public input process that were previously conducted the public that you all serve. two conditions related to this public as uh to this topic as they are renamed to rename the green line context area to the courthouse context area and rename the blue line to the rural area boundary. Although it was

noted in the media that these conditions were uh designed to reduce conflict surrounding the term green line, there is no evidence of such conflict. In fact, there's greater evidence from the public input that the term green line is actually preferred. There is however greater conflict regarding the change to courthouse context area as this terminology inaccurately indicates that all of the space in this area between

the green and the blue line is associated with the very small area known as the courthouse and home to our Virginia Beach Municipal Center. The TI TAITA TACAC discussed concerns related to this recommendation and it seems that there is some desire to remove all references to the green and blue lines and that buffer transition area between the fourth item on the list is to ensure

that the current guidelines that are in place for the TAITA as referenced in the associated documents are maintained.

Although there has been significant influx in industrial development in the ITA as a result of the Virginia Beach Development Authorities's activities on land purchased by the city of Virginia Beach and there has been movement on an update to the ITA vicinity master plan.

It is the expectation of the committee and the public that the most significant needs in this area are low density and low impact development on sensitive land in a space between two military airfields.

The recent developments along with these terminology changes where it seems that there is a push to remove references of these terms make support for uh the current guidelines even more important.

Additionally, on page 24, the plan references the need to identify and promote areas for business growth that offer urban settings and regional um multimotal access supporting sectors such as light industrial. The TITA is not an urban area. Therefore, it is a buffer area and it should not include anything industrial.

It is the recommendation that the term light industrialism removed from page 129 of the green line area goals. And my time is now up. Thank you very much. I really hope that you guys make the right choice and postpone and review this fidelity.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Melissa Dout.

Yes, Stacy.

Excuse me. Miss, I have a question.

Miss Miss Windish, come back down, please. Okay.

I didn't see who the question came from.

Going to be from Council Member Cummings. He hasn't asked it yet. The Council Member Cummings has a question.

Okay.

I'll try for an answer.

Thank you.

Two questions actually. One is um were these recommendations that you had, the four points, were they made uh to the planning commission before their vote?

No, they were not made to the planning commission before the vote. So, we had our meeting on March the 5th and then they had their vote on the 11th, which was only six days later and then our next meeting was on April 2nd. So, from our conversations on the 5th and then our time to digest the information on the 11th and then our conversation on the 2nd, that's where those four things

came from. So it's a combination of the two meetings and then that information in between. Yeah.

Okay. And it might so was when was this was this information presented to or I guess developed by the um TA ITA committee in the interim or so I will say that everything that was a part of those four items had been communicated by the TAITA throughout this more than two-year process. So it was not new information.

Okay. So yeah, it was just clarified at each point and then with the planning commission's approval and the conversation that happened at the meeting, there was clearly an urgency to say it one more time.

Okay. And then so there was a discussion on this at the meeting your April second meeting.

April 2nd meeting. Yes.

Okay. So that was developed at that meeting or approved at that meeting. It was so on at the U May 5th meeting it was approved to share our uh our comments to write a letter and then the meeting on the 11th happened and frankly I was out of the country for a little while and didn't get a right to write the letter and then we met again on the 2nd and so the 11th meeting of planning

commission gave us something more to digest and discuss. So, uh, at the April 2nd meeting, that's when we that's when we discussed those items. And then I did send that letter just uh on Sunday to you guys so you'd have it for record, but I knew I was coming here to say to share it. So, Okay. But that So, that's a letter that was approved by the whole committee.

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

Thank you.

Yep. Thank you. Anything?

Yep.

And I think you mentioned it, so I think I'm okay to mention it. One thing that really bothered me was that and I have a transcript of the planning commission session was that the planning commission was told that the city council had asked that the name be changed from green line context area to courthouse.

Correct. That is what we saw.

I said I remember that discussion very well.

The city council did not take a vote to that. It was just discussed in a workshop and I think three or four council members did say that they liked the green line concept better. Although they the council has not discussed the planning the comprehensive plan at all which is an extremely different change from the way previous comprehensive plans have been done.

Sure.

But I at that particular meeting said oh no this is not all the courthouse area.

And so I objected. So I think it was totally wrong for the planning commission to have been told that the city council had asked them to do to change it to the con. Yes, some council members said they preferred it, but it was not a vote of the council and no public input. The council to this point has had no public input with the public about the comprehensive plan even as of tonight.

So, I am going to address these things in my comments, but that I think is an important point because the planning commission was clearly told that this was something the council had requested and I think the only way a council takes a position is with a vote and we certainly didn't have a vote and there was no public input.

It was a concern to us as well, the flow.

Okay, Michael.

Thank you, Mayor. Miss Windish, I don't have a question for you, but I do have a question that's in the context um of this conversation for Miss Warren, our planning director.

So, I will step aside. Is there anybody else that wants to ask me a question before I walk back to Thank you. Um, it's been presented here as part of this conversation that there was an effort or direction by city council to to as it was asserted change the green line context area to the courthouse context area and that was a direction that was provided by city council to the planning commission. But

Miss Warren, could you share with us is there such a thing uh in the comprehensive plan as the green line context area?

So in the initial drafts of the plan, excuse me, uh it was referred to as the green line context area. Originally it was the courthouse context area.

Planning commission in the workshop asked to change it to the green line context area. And then when I presented to city council and Hank Morrison, our comprehensive planning coordinator, uh, we were asked after discussion with city council to take it back to the planning commission and we did clarify that as direction that there was a desire to change it back to the courthouse context area. But just

because I think words matter and the characterization that if any member of the viewing public would see from this conversation would be an impression that somehow the council directed a change from green line context area to courthouse context area. But in actuality in the comprehensive plan that's existed since I think it was 2016.

Yes sir.

Or the Yeah. when was the last? So, the comprehensive plan that we've been using from that point forward up until today makes no reference to a green line context area. That's a designation that was um that was provided, as you noted, during a planning commission workshop and has never been adopted or used in a formal way by our planning department.

Is that correct? So would a more accurate statement be that our city council asked the planning commission to continue to use courthouse context area?

Sorry.

So no, if I may. Courthouse context areas are a new concept with this comprehensive plan. There have not been context areas. Yeah. There's never been there's never been the use of a green line context. We use the green line. use the blue line. Correct. But in terms of establishing a context area and that um terminology being used or the inference or suggestion that somehow council is requesting a change from that

terminology, the terminology has never been used.

Correct. It's a new concept with this plan.

Okay.

Okay. uh Barbara and then uh no the important thing is the comprehensive plan document that has been out to the public and got public comment and you got this in your packet and I look at if you look at page 127 this is chapter five I believe of this document it's the green line context area all of this that the public made their comments on is the green line context area. This is what was out to

the public. It's chapter five in the draft document.

And so this is this did go out to the public and here it is. And this is what the public made all of their comments on was this document with this com this chapter called the green line context area. So all of the people who live in that area which is essentially the old transition area think that's what they are getting. They didn't know that on the day of the vote of the council of

planning commission that they were going to get a recommendation to have it go back to the courthouse conflict. So the people who live in this area don't even know this has happened. But here it is. It's in your document. the green line context area with all the goals and objectives and everything in the draft plan that was out for comment to the public and that's what the public that was the

comments that the public had.

Okay, Hutch, Director Warren, I think I think I'm the one that started this when we had it when you had your presentation. Um because I had asked in the original and you know you've met with me on a couple of occasions and your staff to go over the comp the comp plan. I wanted to I wanted to learn it wanted to see how it was and I met with others as well. Um

and I said I think this was called this was called the courthouse plan and you said it was it got changed somewhere along the way. So that was my first thing as far as wait a minute why did we call it the green line and this doesn't have any uh for me this is not like a political thing or like we're trying to work with somebody. Nope. This was just

simple for me when you see coastal and you see inland and you see southern or whatever we called the other is why would we call something then by two colors? You know it just wasn't descriptive of what we were talking about. Now, I do remember that afternoon having discussion where we said there were several other names that could have been chosen. That's how I know we didn't we didn't direct anybody to do that

part. It was it could have been I think I think Council Member Luchcci said something about the sports plexes. I mean, there was a lot of a lot of talk back and forth. I happen to say is growing up here, the courthouse complex, I know it's not exact, but I think it's better than the Green Line. and I said five mile stretch. You know, there was lots of things that we could have could

have picked as far as a descriptor in my mind that would have been better. I just wanted to say that to make sure that that's how I remember it and I'm asking is that basically how you remember it.

I do believe a lot of discussion took place at the table that day and then we did ask for clarification at the end if the message to go back to the planning commission was to consider going back to the courthouse context area.

Yeah, that's what I remember too.

But the important thing is the public commented on what they had been given. And so all of the public comment has been as the green line context area. And so that discussion that the city council had in that workshop had no public input. And so the public didn't even know that courthouse had been considered. And so all of those comments and I think the comment period from the public was

closed. what October 30th or something like that. So the public has not had a chance to come to know that the proposal now is not what they saw but is another name. And so I think it's the important thing is what was out to the public that they commented on. And so it it's confusion because of the manner in which this was done. Anyway, uh I'll make my comments later on, but I just

wanted to comment if you read uh the in your document 127 to whatever page it is, you'll see that all of this is that's when it was called the the green line context area and then the rural complex area is chapter six. So, chapter five in the draft in in what went out to the public called it the green line context area.

Okay.

Mayor, I just be really brief. I think also from from my understanding that there was controversy amongst the planning commissioners as to what it should be called. Not everybody wanted the grain context. Some people wanted the courthouse and I I think and I think Hutch kind of touched on this.

Courthouse was what has and Michael as well. Courthouse is what it's always been and in all of our planning documents in the past and people they know where the courthouse is. they know where the municipal center is and I think there was a feeling to kind of keep things the way it's been done in the past and I get the overwhelming feeling like you must have Miss Warren that that was the direction that the

council wanted to take.

Okay, at this point can we get a motion?

We still have speakers.

You got speaker?

Yes. Okay.

The next speaker is Sorry, I lost my place. Melissa Dout.

My apologies. How you doing? No worries at all. Um, so my name is Melissa Drought and I'm here representing Ma'am, if you could speak into the microphone so they can hear you.

Thank you. I'm here representing Responsible Growth VB and as a representative of that group, Mr. Mayor, I'd like to respectfully request a little bit of additional time if available, but I will be concise.

I've given her 10 minutes, Mayor.

Okay.

Okay. Um, I'm speaking today because residents across the city of Virginia Beach are paying close attention to this comprehensive plan and they're asking for a few specific reasonable changes before it's finalized. Before I share their requests, I want to acknowledge two things. First, we recognize that significant time, effort, and public input has gone into this version of the plan, which is exactly why getting the

final details right matters so much. And the second thing, residents understand that growth is coming. Potentially tens of thousands of new residents are expected to join us and all of the residents here support that growth, but they're very clear about how that growth should happen.

Residents across the city want to see growth prioritized in the places already designated for it through redevelopment, infill, and existing strategic growth areas. and industrial areas where infrastructure already exists to support those uses, not in areas that require building entirely new infrastructure.

Over the past several weeks, more than 100 res residents representing every city council district across the city submitted messages to you on this issue.

That matters because where and how we grow affects quality of life citywide, not just in one area.

Residents generally support the plan's direction to concentrate highintensity development in the appropriate areas of the city. There's one critical issue that stands out. The current draft leaves the door open for industrial and highintensity development south of the Green Line, an area that has long been planned for low impact uses. And that's a problem because development in that

area increases flood risk, requires expensive new roads, utilities, and drainage systems, and shifts long-term costs to taxpayers, which diverts resources away from other priorities like schools, public safety, and maintaining infrastructure in the areas with where residents already live.

The Green Line context area, as it was named during the public comment time frame, um is aptly named because the Green Line is widely recognized by residents across the city, across this area. They believe in what the Green Line represents for our community and all residents understand that the Green Line exists for a reason. It has guided smart, fiscally responsible growth for decades. And it also supports key parts

of our local economy. Agriculture, tourism, and the military are the three most important economic drivers in Virginia Beach. encroaching on agricultural lands, increasing density in areas where our military partners have specifically asked us to keep development low, and reducing opportunities for recreation and nature-based tourism is not aligned with that reality.

Protecting this area is not just about limiting growth. It's about directing growth in a way that strengthens the industries that already sustain our city. What residents are asking for tonight is not a rewrite of the plan.

They're asking for clarity because unclear language today becomes precedent for tomorrow. Specifically, first on page 213 in appendix A, we are asking to remove industrial zoning codes I1 light industrial and I2 heavy industrial and remove highdensity apartment place types A18, A24, and A36 from the green line context area.

Secondly, on page 129, revise the green line goals to remove references to industrial development and instead emphasize low impact uses that fit this area. And third, restore the two names that were changed in March without public input. The green line context area, which was renamed to courthouse context area, and the blue line, which was renamed to the rural area Boundary.

These are small targeted fixes, but they matter because without clear language now, future decisions will be made on a case-byase basis. And that shifts influence away from the public and toward developers. And once development happens, it's almost impossible to undo.

So, this is our opportunity to get it right, to better align the plan with its own goals, which um were stated earlier.

Residents are engaged. They're paying attention and they're asking for clarity, consistency, and responsible growth. Please postpone your vote tonight and allow time for these small adjustments to be made. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you for coming.

The next speaker is Lisa Murphy.

Lisa Murphy is next, not you, ma'am.

Hey, Lisa. How you doing? Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, members of council, um, city attorney, city manager, and staff. Um, for the record, my name is Lisa Murphy. Um, and I'm here tonight to speak in support of the comprehensive plan as it was amended by your planning commission. I was at the planning commission hearing, but I did want to say um in sitting through the speakers

tonight who spoke about the taxes and about the meals tax and the and the personal property tax and the real estate tax um you know, it's hard not to be a little bit sympathetic, but you all have a big job. You handle the budget.

My job as your volunteer uh and as the chair of the development authority is to do two things for the city. It's to increase the tax base and it's to bring jobs to the city. And those two things help to help you to keep your costs under control. Um, obviously if we're not increasing the tax base through commercial uh development and we're not bringing the jobs to the city, number one, your development authority isn't

doing its job, but number two, it's going to impact services across the city. You can't you'd have to do more with less. And I think it'd be tough for the the speakers and anybody sitting here as a citizen to say where you should cut services. You know, everybody wants to keep the services, the excellent school system that we have.

And so there's, you know, a rising tide uh raises all boats. So that's our job.

Um and so the reason I'm speaking in support of the planning commission's recommendation is is is a couple. I understand um you know some of the stated concerns of the ITA. I will tell you having lived here over 30 years um the average citizen in most throughout the city if you stopped them on the street and said tell me where the green line is on a map they'd have a hard time

showing you. They could tell you and show you where the rural uh where development ends and you know the rural part of the city, the agricultural parts of the city begins. Um, and that's why that the the context of rural area boundary makes a whole lot of sense, a whole lot more sense than that blue line. Um, and that's why, frankly, it was mentioned uh at the planning commission and it was mentioned tonight

this concept of courthouse or the municipal center. All of this already exists. I mean, we've got development, we've got commercial development, we've got a a massive municipal development.

Um, there is development. Now, as you all know, the city owns thousands of acres in the transition area that were purchased in part because of Brack. We were trying to to keep the Navy here.

And part of that is that it couldn't and won't be used for residential development of a high density. Um, and what we're saying in the comments that the development authority provided on the comprehensive plan um back in October before the window was closed was that there's plenty of room in the ITA for LITA. There's room in the ITA for parks and recreations plan and there's room to expand Innovation Park which has

been incredibly successful. Uh we've got businesses that have grown tremendously.

We've got a business now in the park that's I think number five or number six citywide as far as number of employees that that are employed there. So, it's important that we support the businesses are that are there and give our existing businesses and businesses that want to come here the opportunity to grow and to expand. And in order to do that, we have to have some additional land for

Innovation Park. Um, I know that the some of the speakers tonight are suggesting that you delay. On the heels of the Thank you. Oh, can I just say on the heels of the adoption of the comprehensive plan, staff's already had consultants perform a study of the transition area and that's going to kick off a whole new I got to be fair to everybody, Lisa.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Happy to answer questions.

The next speaker is Usula Elsaru.

That's the last speaker on this line.

Good evening.

Hello. My name is um Usha Elis Swarapu and I had no intention of speaking but after listening to all of this um it really bothered me because I have a PhD in geography and here we are talking about geographic regions and um today I teach at I've been teaching at Rutgers University for a long time and I teach um online since I moved here six years ago and in the geography department. And

I've also been in the planning department in the city of Plano, which is a suburb um of Dallas.

My you know my problem with all of this is that when you talk about geographic regions, there are two reasons you have geographic reasons. One is because of the physiography of the terrain like mountainous, hilly, etc. Okay? Or the other reason you have it is because of the land use. rural areas, suburban area, urban areas, coastal areas, all of this makes sense. If you want to have an

area named because of a building, a courthouse, that makes no sense. You have to you cannot have a coastal area where you call it Cavalier Hotel area.

No, that makes no sense. So, my suggestion is that call it a transition area because you're really transitioning. This is a compromise. I'm trying to you know think about that you know all of you can and offer it to you so you can think about that the transition area is a transition area is an area that is transitioning from the more urban areas to the more rural areas so between that you will have a

transition area so that makes a little bit more sense than calling it after a building so I'm asking you to at least consider that as a compromise instead of calling it a courthouse. Now this is very important. It is not just a name because when you call a rural area or urban area or you know you cannot call the townhouse um you know the uh that's town center area you know call it like a

town area townhouse area or something like that. Uh so the names are very important because it indicates especially in your comprehensive plan it indicates the intention what you're going to do in the future with this area. So that is why all of this controversy is coming you know coming up and if you call it courthouse that makes no sense. What is what is the purpose of that area? What is the intention? What

are you going to do in that area?

Because a comprehensive plan is a plan for the future. So it is aspirational uh needs uh and all of the people who actually you know said that this should be a green line or a blue line. All of that went into the comprehensive plan when we all made comments and we gave feedback. So if you can make it a transition area which is a compreh you know which is like a compromise I would

ask you for that. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

That's all the speaker sir.

Okay. At this point do we have a motion?

Mr. Mayor I'll move for approval.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Okay. Comments, Mrs. Henley.

Well, I would like to um do what has been requested and have uh a deferral because this is the first time the city council has even seen the comprehensive plan, much less had a discussion about it. In the past, things have the comprehensive plan would come to the council after it's been to the planning commission and then the city council would take it out to the public. We haven't heard at all from the public.

This is the first time it's been before us and the public has not had an opportunity to look at this document and com and comment on it since the planning commission acted on it. And I this is important and and I think we're rushing this thing through if we're going to get it and vote on it the same night without any opportunity to investigate any of these things that you have heard here

tonight and to see what the public has to say. So my my preference would be a deferral, but I know that I've been making motions that maybe I couldn't even get a second on. So, I don't want to um do this unless someone else is willing. If if you're really interested in deferring it, I I then move that we defer this for uh 60 days. I'll second.

Okay. Any other comment, Michael?

Um thank you. Well, I do have some questions, continued questions for Miss Warren, but I do want to say this.

One aspect of these conversations, especially related to the adoption of the comprehensive plan, is that I've noticed that there's a presentation or even among some of us a tendency to pick the facts that support the narrative that a person is trying to advance. And I saw a lot of that happening here tonight. Saw a lot of that happening with the discussion about so-called names and renaming

public engagement. What the public was able to comment on, what the public wasn't able to comment on. And nothing that happens inside the operations of this body or with public staff or the exhaustive um process that was used to support the implement the development and implementation of the comprehensive plan was done in the in the dark. that were and and and let me say this too. Uh a

lot of the folks I was quite critical of some aspects of the comprehensive plan and the process at some point and the professional staff who are here will affirm that. Um the plan as presented is not one that has every aspect of you know what I think the people who I have the privilege to represent are looking for in a comprehensive plan. I think it's been sort of a a fair compromise where a

multitude of perspectives have been very um considerately accommodated and that's actually what you look for in a document such as this. So I have a few questions for Miss Warren. I want to clear the record, but I want to state again in no uncertain terms this tendency that and it's not nothing new in a city council chamber, but this tendency to select facts and present uh incomplete

aspects of information in order to advance your narrative falls short of the responsibility that we carry inside this chamber. If you don't, this is my just my suggestion. If we don't like something, say why we don't like it.

Explain uh why you prefer one option or the other. But to suggest a lack of public engagement, to suggest that uh people have been kept in the dark, to suggest that our staff has been anything other than uh engaging and accommodating and proactive in terms of seeking out public engagement diminishes the the discourse that occurs inside this room. And that's my view of it. And um as a citizen of lifetime resident of

Virginia Beach, I'm entitled to that view. I'd rather have a conversation to the merit rather than this narrative that we're directing things and changing things back. I think that isn't fair to the professional staff and to the public who has been engaged. So I have a few questions, Miss Warren.

First one is just for all those who might be tuning in for the first time, what is a comprehensive plan?

So the comprehensive plan is a guidance document that tells us how we anticipate growing over the next several years.

Thank you. And um would you be willing to describe I'm not asking you to speak to the specific sort of allegations or whatever assertions that have been made about public engagement, but would you be willing to describe just in the broadest strokes um what uh type of a public engagement um has occurred as part of the development of the comprehensive plan? So, as you know, council member, we've worked on this

plan for over two years now, and we have had over a hundred uh individual civic leagues, business groups that we've gone to uh to meet with and and talk about the comprehensive plan. We've had several public meetings starting with focus groups in the initial stages, went to larger groups, and then to larger public engagement meetings. And then we had two most recently in the past year

larger public engagement groups. We had over seven or seven planning commission workshops where the public was invited to come to the meeting or uh view it on WebEx or view those videos later. We have posted everything, all of our meetings, all of our documents on our web page and every time there's been an update to the comprehensive plan, we have posted that as well.

Thank you. Because I could go further and and I know uh other people have other things to say, but um this is an opportunity for us at this point at the end of the road as it comes to the development and the engagement on the comprehensive plan. This is an opportunity for us to have a conversation about the merits. This is our moment. But instead of having conversation about the merits, we're

having a conversation about false assertions about a lack of engagement.

And that's the part I think that bothers me the most. Um, let's have a convers if you don't like the aspects. And there are certain things that that I would prefer were worded one way or the other, but to suggest that we're we haven't done our job, that you haven't done your job is problematic. and and I think it again diminishes uh your work and I think it also intentionally diminishes

or attempts to diminish public trust um in all of us. Thank you.

Hey, anybody else? Jennifer, thank you, mayor. Yeah, for me I um am fine with the content of the plan. there seems to be in terms of how do we get to the name courthouse. It just makes sense to me this idea of finding a name that is um we can just work a little bit more on how we frame it because once we stamp it, it's going to be this, you know,

going forward. So, um I'm fine workshopping something that is we can all agree to um courthouse if it's not going to work, green line if it's not going to work, something that will fit the plan and move it forward. So that's my um reason for seconding.

Okay. Thank you. Yes.

Okay. Hutch and then Barbara.

Hey. So I didn't mean to be at the center of attention for the name there, but uh I I believe when I was saying it, I was saying like the courthouse complex area is what I was thinking. Not the courthouse as in one building. Um but but I'm not um married to it. Um, if we have some other name that can be picked that is agreeable to both sides, um, I'm

happy to have that as well. Um, I just meant growing up we called it the courthouse complex, courthouse area along those lines. And I think a lot of people, whether you spoke about this or not, you're going to know the area that we are generally talking about. Um, Miss Warren, I'd ask for your comments.

The only comment I'd like to make is uh the speaker mentioned calling it the transition area. We already have a transition area named and the ITA is right next to it. And those two areas make up what right now we're talking about would be the courthouse context area.

Okay. Barbara, can I follow up?

Yeah, sure. So, with that one little piece, I I I don't want to keep believering this. If we could, if everybody could live with it, the courthouse, well, most of us courthouse complex area. To me, you're you're getting the best of both worlds. She's shaking her head. No, but whatever.

That's what I'm suggesting. Thanks.

Okay, Barbara.

Well, I I think we've kind of gotten off on a bad foot here tonight. And that's why I'd really think we should defer this so that we can talk about it in a a manner that we're not accusing each other of things. It's just a matter of I know since the area that's in question is my district, I think it's my responsibility to let you know what the people in district two,

which is below the green line. And by the way, it's almost half of the city.

I I think it's my responsibility to let you know what these folks think and I I went to many of the presentations that staff made to various groups as they were going around to get the feedback about the plan. And what staff would almost always start out by saying is that citywide people want to keep the green line. I heard that several times and Miss Warren is agreeing. And so I'm

not just making this up tonight like it just came up. This has been an important part of what the people have been asking for during this two years that we have been looking at this comprehensive plan.

They know what the green line is and they know what it means to them. And if we pull the green line out of the comprehensive plan and we substitute something else, then the people in that area want to know, well, are there design guidelines for that? What are our design guidelines? They know what the green line brought them, but now if we're going to something else. So, if we're going to switch it at this last

minute, we're not doing anybody any favors. So I I think it's important and I I think the comprehensive plan is one of the most important things we do. And by the way, if you look at our uh survey on how the city citizens rank the council on all the items, the one at the very bottom is always don't do very good with planning. Well, I think we need to we can correct that and we need

to correct it with a comprehensive plan and we've got that chance because we've been working so hard for so long. But another thing that and one of the speakers mentioned it, one of the things that I marked in my draft document was this including industrial development in all these categories because industrial development south of the green line doesn't work. But I think that's that's now one of the recommendations.

And even the work that the development authority came out with about a year ago mentioned how many hundreds of acres would be necessary to be put into uh storm water ponds if we develop this area in industrial and and heavily because it's poorly drained soils and with a high water table. So, we're not looking at what we know if we don't take the time to do it right. And and I just really

think we need some more time to look at what's in this draft that has come to us from the planning commission and now, you know, has been out to the public again because the planning commission changed it from what the public had been commenting on. And it it's not I I think at every step along the way there needs to be a public comment period. And and that's what I'm saying. We haven't had we haven't had

the public comment period since the planning commission acted to send it to us because at each point along the way there have been changes made. Gosh, we've got what four or five different drafts that have been done in the past two years. And so every time you get a new draft, you have to look through it and see what's been changed. And that's that's why we're we're looking at these

different things. So I'm I'm certainly not trying to accuse anybody of anything. I'm just saying we need to get it right. And uh this this issue of the green line is has been one of the most important things to the people who've been commenting all along the way because if we're going to do away with the green line now that changes decades of our planning. Now you're saying oh the green line is still there. Yeah on

the map it is but the policies have changed. Uh yes it has because there have been some develop look at all the development that has been approved below the green line that is much more intense than the green line intended it to be because one of the things that the green line was supposed to do was to prevent sprawl and prevent us from getting in an area that doesn't have infrastructure.

That's why the idea is to have the development infill north of the green line where there is infrastructure.

But when we have approved these major projects below the green line, we've approved them where there's no infrastructure. Now we've got to go back and build some roads. And what did we see today? Indian River Road is not is being on hold. And that's the road to the south because we don't have the infrastructure in the south. So we don't want to put development out there when we don't have anything but two-lane roads.

That was the purpose of the green line was to help us know where to put the infrastructure.

And so if we're going to now put intense development below the green line, we've got to go back and put in the infrastructure that's needed. And that means the money that maybe was going to be spent in another district is going to have to be spent in district two because we've got two lane roads now, but then we're going to have all of this intense development.

I I'm just very much concerned and I'm not accusing anybody of anything. I'm just saying this is important and we need to get it right and we need to all be on the same page when we do it so that we're not thinking different things. And if I've given any intent, any any indication that maybe I'm trying to um uh blame somebody for something, I'm just saying I know what my folks and

the district two, the people below the green line think of the green line and I just think it's my responsibility to let you know and that's what I'm doing.

Okay. Thank you. Kathy, did you have something?

Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor, if it's okay.

Council member, just a point of clarification. We want to make sure this is clear for the public. The green line is absolutely remaining in place with the policies that have been there in the past. Where we came up with the courthouse context area, just as a reminder, was this area was referred to as the courthouse sandbridge planning area from 1975 to 2004. So that was where we actually came back with the

courthouse context area, but the green line still remains there as well as the blue line or the rural area boundary line.

Okay, Rosemary and then Michael, that was what I was going to ask. I said the green line is still in there. So we have not the green line has not been removed. The blue line has not been removed. And this was just a traditional of going back historically this area has been and everybody knows where the courthouse is and it kind of lets you know but the plan this document has been

looked at as you said you've had over a hundred different engagements. It has been delayed. It's been deferred so many times. I think it's time now to just move on and send it back to the planning commission. So I think we need to go ahead and okay do that.

So Michael then Stacy and then uh if possible let's get to a vote. Oh.

Oh. And then uh we'll get you later.

I'll put you on quue. Okay. Okay. We're going to go Michael Stacy and then you.

Thank you. Well, I'm glad the issue about whether the green line is there or not has been addressed because that was yet another uh incorrect assertion uh that I think inaccurately um or that the that misleads the public.

Whether it's intentional or unintentional, I I'm not here to position to evaluate. But yet another example of the type of discourse I was describing um in the context of uh what we just talked about before being the definition of a comprehensive plan.

Um I wonder well sorry I want to go back to one other thing. This notion about developments being this has to be said.

this notion about development being approved below the green line. I've seen the District 2 council member recommend for approval developments below the green line. It's a very careful selection about which ones are offensive and which ones are acceptable and that is subjective as it is for all uh each each and every one of our residents. So the the notion that no development can occur below the green line um is not

accurate and uh and the notion that um any one individual has been the protector from development below the green line is also not accurate because I've seen many developments approved for recommendation by that district representative. So, uh I also wonder um Miss uh Warren if you would share with us there's a separate um public engagement and planning process specifically for the transition area

because what ultimately is at dispute here is the um different opinions that exist about the appropriateness for land use in the transition area. And I know that there's another intensive and comprehensive process that's underway as part of that and I think the public should be aware of of what that looks like and what the impact of that planning process would be. So could you share that with us and

enlighten us about that process and how it relates to this conversation?

Yes. So the inner facility traffic area and vicinity master plan uh the latest date on that is 2017.

We are working based on city council's direction to update that plan to include options for sports tourism expansion potentially of innovation park and then municipal services.

We will be having our first public meeting on the 29th next Wednesday at 6 p.m. at building 19. I believe you received a city council staff report last week about this. And then we'll continue a series of meetings with the TA ITA uh committee uh agriculture uh open space or the um active transportation. There's there's several groups that we'll be meeting with.

Thank you. So just just a quick followup. It's very safe to say that uh the conversation about this particular area of the city and the debates and um and and this is totally fair debates.

You know, this is normal for any community. How do what's the appropriate use of these resources and and zoning categories and how do we envision the future of our city to look like and what are our priorities and how are they reflected in our land use decisions.

That process will continue. No final decisions are made. This is a comprehensive plan and we'll continue to have robust discussions or as I characterized earlier even debates about those uh matters in the months and years to come. Right.

Yes sir.

Thank you.

Okay Stacy and then Amelia.

Thank you.

I guess at one point I was sympathetic to I guess the confusion or uh about the naming of the courthouse context area or the green line context area. Uh I'm not wed to either necessarily, but this idea of deferring this and opening opening up the entire um comprehensive plan to public review after we've been through what Miss Warren has painstakingly pointed out was a long, arduous two-year process.

There's been plenty of public input.

planning commission has heard, reviewed, voted, and yeah, I I I for one am not willing to reopen the entire comprehensive plan uh to be reviewed again. So, you know, I I would urge us to move forward.

Okay Amelia I agree with what uh Stacy was just saying, Councilman um Cummings, but the reason I wanted to mention you give a different name, you said courthouse planning. So that area as we're talking about ge geographic still comes in there instead of just courthouse, you said something else. as you said courthouse planning.

So this this area was referred to back in 1975 through 2004 as the courthouse sandbridge planning area courthouse. Repeat that one.

And that's where we sandbridge courthouse sandbridge.

Right. And that's that's where we came up with the courthouse context area name when we were defining these areas throughout the city.

So we just kind of shortened it because like council well this area no longer includes sand bridges right so we shorten it. Anyone comfortable with the shortening with the longer because that brings the word in area planning area. That's all that you know really caught my eye when you mentioned it the whole name instead of just saying courthouse.

Right. But Sandbridge is no longer part of this area.

So it would just be the courthouse planning area.

The courthouse context area is the name that was suggested.

I think that would be good.

You think that's that's what it is now?

Yeah, that's what it is now.

So, it's not far from where it was before. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Uh let me see if I can bring this to a conclusion. Uh you know, Kathy, isn't it true that the courthouse was located there, the municipal center, because it was kind of central part of the city of Virginia Beach?

Yes, sir. And that's why a lot of people recognize, you know, the center of Virginia Beach is there. Uh the other thing is, you know, the talk about, you know, uh the comprehensive plan goes against the Navy. We do not do anything unless the Navy gives us their blessing.

Correct.

That's correct.

Okay. Um and then the other thing is too, you know, um you know this thing about politics, you know, we're a representative government. We take public input and we've got two years of public input, but then it gets to the point where we are the decision makers.

It goes to the planning commission and then it comes to us. And then once again, we value public input, but by goodness, we've had it for two years.

And I think, you know, you know, I think um a lot of quite frankly, some of the IT uh a uh folks over time have been inflexible and you know, they have their way and we're not going to make everybody happy with a comprehensive plan. And I think one of the reasons we have them what what every you know 10 years or so uh you know because situations change and we have to adapt

to those changes accordingly. Uh but at this point, you know, I think, you know, what we're arguing with over essentially is semantics.

And you know, once again, I'm I'm sure if we had a deferral, uh we would be back to the same place because, you know, some we just got a lot of people that, you know, have their interest in and they're going to lobby for them and that's it. But, you know, in government, you know, when we vote, we make some people happy and make other people, you know, not happiest times. We go through

that all the time. Uh so my recommendation is I think we have to go forward. I will be voting against the uh uh you know that you know deferring it and uh you know let's bring this to a conclusion tonight because if that's what I think the public wants. Okay. So at this point let's open the vote. The Oh yes Mark.

So ju just to make sure that procedurally we know where we are.

Okay. We're going to vote. There is a motion and a second to defer. Well, you have the the first motion was a motion to approve as presented from the planning commission and that had a second.

So, the motion to defer is a substitute motion.

So, you vote on whether or not to make the substitute motion, the main motion, and then depending on the outcome of that, you know what the next vote is on.

Okay. So, we're voting on to make the uh deferral the primary motion. Correct.

Okay.

Yes. Okay. Jennifer, just a clarifying question. So, the 60-day deferral, it's is it to examine the contents of the plan or is it to consider the naming of the area?

I mean, yeah. You know, Jennifer, I'm going to be honest with that is a semantic thing. Yeah. With the idea, let's get the thing done. Maybe you know Mark in the future if we want to make some you know uh recommend uh you know tidying up of it is that a possibility once the plan is passed we can amend it.

You can always amend the plan.

Yeah. So I you know we can have further discussion on that. But when you think about the broadness and the magnitude of the you know this you know this is a point that you know that you know we can hash out in the future. Okay. So let's open it up uh you know to make uh you know the deferral the primary.

The vote is open and this is to defer for 60 days.

A yes vote would be to support making the motion to defer 60 days the primary motion. Yes. A no vote would be to revert back to the originally made motion.

So by a vote of 3 to8 that motion has failed.

Okay. Now do we have a motion to go with the primary? No.

You don't need a new motion now. You have the motion on the table is to approve as presented.

Okay. There we go. Let's open the vote.

One sec. One second. Please. You have to give us just one second.

Okay.

Give us just just procedurally we have to get this new vote in.

Okay. So, the first motion was um just was motion by council member Beluchcci, seconded by Vice Mayor Wilson to approve the plan.

Okay.

Putting that in now and we'll open the vote in just a second.

The vote is open.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Oh, no. We're good.

This is the changes district.

Um, Council Member Henley, I need your vote please.

We need your vote. I need your vote, Miss Henley.

I'm not.

We're voting on the motion that was on the screen. M.

Thank you. By a vote of 8 to three, you have you have approved the ordinance to for the comp plan.

Okay. Do we have speakers on the next two?

We have one speaker that is TL Tal Roser.

Okay. Could we combine uh is there a tale roster?

Okay. Um I'm going to go ahead and uh read, you know, for both 12 and 13.

Number 12, ordinance to amend the city zoning ordinance sections. CZ oath 235.0528340500500 052834500,500 1501 1502507 1520 1521 1524 1526 1806 U 1810 21106 to 2211 and 2401 Ray reflect the image of VB 24 comprehensive plan then also number 13 ordinance to amend and city code sections 16 through 43 ray reflect the image of VB 2040 uh comprehensive plan.

Uh I called the speaker. They didn't respond. So you can make a motion.

No other speakers.

I had one I've called him and he didn't respond. So no speakers. No other speaker signed up.

Okay. At this point, do we have a motion?

To approve, mayor.

Do we have a second? Second.

Okay. Any discussion on these?

Okay. Open it up.

The vote is open.

Mayor, I need your vote. And Vice Mayor Wilson, I need your vote, please.

By a vote of 11 to zero, you have approved numbers 12 and 13. Okay, thank you. Any appointments?

Yes, Mr. Mayor, we do have appointments.

And hang in there, Boy Scouts. We're going to acknowledge you in a minute.

Thank you for your tenacity.

Yes. Well, they got to see government at work. Okay. Okay. The Bayfront Advisory Commission, John Krauss. The Beaches and Waterways Advisory Commission, uh, for District 3, Lynn Henry, the Community Criminal, uh, Justice Board, Dr. Donald Robertson. the Community Services Board to reappoint Brianna Dempsey.

The Independent Citizens Review Board to appoint FA Silverman. The Minority Business uh council to reappoint my district for Rhonda Alexander. Chaita, excuse me.

I got I got I'll come to another one.

I'm Are we Can I get through these?

um Chaquita Clark Thompson and Tara Jones, the public library board to appoint Matthew Adolf and the Senior Services of Southeastern Virginia to reappoint Barbara Booker Williams. Move for approval.

Vote is open.

Council member Henley, may I have your vote please?

By a vote of 11 to zero, you've appointed those named by Vice Mayor Wilson.

Okay. Thank you. At this point, I'd like to ask the Boy Scouts, and I think I see a Cub Scout there. Come on down. We're going to give you something FOR YOUR PATIENCE.

THERE THERE WERE A COUPLE THERE thought they wanted to be mayor one day, but we took care of that.

Welcome to Hey, go to the microphone one at a time, say your name, and come on up and I'll give you a pen.

Okay.

Um, and what's your troop?

Pull pull the microphone, sir. Can you pull the microphone up so we can hear you?

Okay, there we go.

Say your name, buddy. Say your name.

I'm Benjamin Curtis.

Come on up, Benjamin.

Hi, Arrow. What's the National?

That's cool.

I would have never had that.

I'm Caleb Yanetti.

Hey, come on up.

Way to go, buddy.

Thanks for hanging in there. A lot of merit badges. Good.

Hey, what's happening?

Hi. Well, I hear you, Eddie.

Hey, come on.

Good job, buddy.

You got it.

Thanks for hanging in there.

I'm Charles Smother.

Thank you.

I think you should take us for ice cream.

There you go.

My name is Gavin Martelli.

Hey, come on up.

Way to go.

Thank you.

My name is Ben Beard.

Hey, come on up.

Good to see you, man. How's it going?

Thanks for hanging in there.

My name is Carter Garfalo.

Come on up.

Yeah.

Hey, how you doing?

My name is Frank.

Welcome.

Thanks for being here, buddy.

That was a boy scout. Wound up.

My name is D.

Hey, come on up.

Would you like to come be at Thursday night?

Thank you, sir. I'm Brian Eddie. I'm the scout master for troop 378 and the cub master for Pack 350. Hey, doing good.

Come on up. I'm going to give you stuff and give some to the other scout masters. You put your time and talent and treasure into these kids. Hey, that's the future of our country. Thank you.

From what I've heard about that crowd.

Okay. Uh at this point, is there any unfinished business?

Any new business? Thank you all. We are adjourned.