City Council Meeting, 9/8/2026

Welcome all. I call this meeting to order. Mr. Dhaney, let's get going.

All right. So, Mr. Mayor, members of council, the first briefing will be provided by Emily Leose, director of cultural affairs. It will be a briefing on the recommendations coming from the mayor's advisory panel regarding 2200 Parks Avenue, the former Mocha building.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of council. Today, I'm pleased to present the findings and guiding principles developed through the mayor's advisory panel process for the 2200 Parks Avenue property, which is the former Virginia Mocha building. Over the past several months, the panel has spent time learning about the property, considering its opportunities and constraints, listening to the community,

and ultimately developing a framework to help guide council's future consideration of this important site.

Today, I'm going to briefly walk you through the process, what we learned from the community, the panel's guiding principles, and staff's recommendation for moving forward.

This work grew out of the focus action plan initiative to assemble an advisory group to advise regarding a recommended path and future for the former Mocha site. The intent was to take a thoughtful look at the property, bring together a range of perspectives, engage the community in considering qualities and priorities that should help inform its future.

The ad mayor's advisory panel convened in in June. The panel reviewed the building site and surrounding context, engaged the community to better understand priorities and interests, considered practical, financial, and operational factors, and ultimately developed a group of guiding principles for council's consideration that I'm going to share in a few minutes. The important distinction through this

process is that the panel was not asked to select an operator or recommend a specific use. Instead, its work ultimately focused on establishing principles that can help guide council as future opportunities for the property are considered. Before I walk through their findings, I want to recognize the wonderful panel members. Uh, Steve Harrison, Clay Dills, Donna Spelleller Turner, who is here with us, Elliot

Jones, Eric Kipinger, Kim Webb, and Charlotte Zto, along with many, many staff um, who supported our efforts.

Our community listening session was held on July 27th and brought 162 people to 2200 Parks Avenue as well as 73 written comment cards submitted. Rather than a traditional public meeting, we used an openhouse format that allowed people to explore the property and participate in several different ways.

Participants could identify priorities through dot voting, take part in facilitated discussions and provide written comments and ideas.

It's important to note that this was a community engagement exercise and not a formal community survey. The purpose was to provide the panel with a meaningful snapshot of community priorities, interests, and concerns to consider as it developed its principles.

The DOT voting helped us understand relative priorities while the facilitated conversations and written comments provided context and perspectives.

When we looked through all the input, several consistent themes emerged, there's a strong interest in maintaining arts, culture, and creativity as a meaningful part of the property's identity.

But the feedback did not prescribe one particular arts model or use.

We heard a desire for an active multi-use destination, a place for people to visit throughout the year as well as community benefit and public access were important and opportunities for the youth education and partnerships.

It was there was considerable interest in preserving and reusing the existing building and grounds and maintaining a connection to the Vibe Creative District.

We also heard a desire to protect the property as a long-term community investment.

There there was significant concern particularly in the written comments about residential development. We explained through our information provided to participants that the property is subject to AUS restrictions associated with the Naval Air Station Oceanana and that residential use is not permitted during its current zoning. The panel also considered these restrictions in its discussion about the site.

Importantly, the community did not identify one single preferred use.

Instead, the engagement helped identify the qualities and priorities people would like to see carried forward into the property's next chapter.

The panel considered this community input together with its own discussions and guided and developed these guiding principles. First, arts and cultural identity. maintaining arts, culture, and creativity as a meaningful and viable component of the site's identity.

Second, community benefit, public access and connectivity.

Ensuring that the property continued to provide community benefit and welcomed opportunities for participation while considering how people access the site and connections to the surrounding areas.

Third is financial and operational sustainability.

This principle reflects an important consideration in the panel's discussion.

The goal is a financially sustainable operating model that at a minimum breaks even and does not require an ongoing city operating subsidy.

The principle also allows flexibility on how that could be achieved through partnerships, private investment, complimentary revenue generating uses or other approaches that help the property sustainable over the long term.

The fourth principle is active multi-use destination.

Both the panel and the community expressed interest in creating multiple reasons to visit, supporting year-round programming and allowing the building and grounds to serve a variety of purposes.

The fifth is building preservation and site activation.

The existing building and grounds were consistently viewed as assets. This principle supports adaptive reuse while respecting the property's distinct character and strengthen its relationship with the Vibe Creative District and the surrounding area.

The fifth or sorry, the sixth and the final principle is partnerships and community connections.

The panel recognized that nonprofit, private sector, arts, culture, education, business, and community partnerships could bring programming, participation, expertise, and resources that could contribute to the property's success.

So taken together, these six principles provide a clear overall direction without prescribing a specific use.

The panel's direction is to build upon 12 2200 Parks Avenue as we as a distinctive community asset with strong arts and cultural identity, meaningful public access, active and adaptable uses, and a financially sustainable operating model.

So with the panel's work complete, staff recommends city council consider initiating a request for proposals process that incor could incorporate the advisories panels guiding principles into the review and the ranking of the submitts.

The RFP could either consider the sale or lease or both. But in either case, arts and culture would be be required to remain a meaningful part of its future use or council could choose to take no further action or provide other direction to staff. So at the time I am welcome I'm happy to take questions.

Thank you mayor. Thank you Miss Lavose for the presentation and also especially the seven member panel. uh we all met.

We toured first the the building and then we had our meetings there. And so I think I attended all of these meetings and I was reminded as I sat there and heard people speak how beautiful this building is, this campus is in close to the resort in our city. It's it's just fantastic. And so that being said, um page seven and page eight, the principles, they really reflect the community meeting was really well

attended. It was almost like a party, social hour party. um it really does reflect the community around it that's been asking us to move forward with this with a decision but I think these principles are tough to meet and they are the right principles and they're uh page seven and eight right there's six principles here so to remain in the arts remain tourist related to remain community oriented and financially and

operationally sustainable those are high bars to meet and I think this council has uh we've talked talked about this and that's why we are where we are. We have not landed on our place and so this panel uh listened to the public and talked among amongst themselves and all six principles are really good ones. So I do think at this point I would recommend that we move forward with an RFP again and see what's what's out

there. And also to speak to the lease or the sale to me I'd say I would be open to either one as long as it makes again the final or the f the third principle financial and operational sustainability. So a lot there you got a auditorium you got classrooms you got beautiful outside space you are parking challenged. So there's there's a lot of bars here that we need to meet and we

can do that but I'm I'm glad we were taking our time and making this decision.

Hey Michael Cash and Josh. Well, um I agree with everything that W has said and you covered a lot. Um but uh in addition to that, I I really just want to offer my own appreciation to the um to the committee and I know that there are some members of the committee here today. Um hello and welcome and and also to the professional staff who facilitated this process um along with

uh the committee members and the public.

you all have done a really outstanding um job of uh capturing the um important topics that are fundamental to this conversation and to um facilitating this important dialogue. I really want to emphasize though that we made a commitment a long time ago and that commitment was affirmed by the work of the committee to maintain this building and to maintain that location that property as for a community and benefit

that includes as you noted a um arts and culture component and um and and that's a really important thing to to highlight and and to call out because there are alternative uses on that site and we have decided collectively as a as a community and that's been supported by the council that um that that site will continue to provide a community benefit with that includes a cultural and

artistic benefit for all of Virginia Beach and for the region and and that's a really good thing. I think um in addition to the things Mr. Remick uh said um or or complimentary to it's hard for any one respondent to meet all of those sort of six principles. you know, you might be really strong in one, which necessarily means it might be more difficult in the other. Um, but uh but I

think that what these six principles really reveal is the complexity of any decision that we make as a community for the for the future site of that use. But we should all I I feel good and and I hope others feel good too that um we've decided as a community and to maintain it for for the community and cultural benefit and that really reflects our principles and our values as a city and

um and for this council and staff and and community. So I think that's really good. Um I support the uh next step which is to issue an RFP that puts everyone on the on on an equal playing field. So whether it's a sale, whether it's a lease, we know what the guiding principles are and we'll have a chance to review uh what comes back um transparently and through an an equitable process and and I think that's

very uh important and and I'm um I'm glad that it's obviously included as part of this process.

Okay, Cash, Josh, and Rosemary. Yes, I'm I'm thankful that we've got a panel that uh really put some hard work and community engagement in it. Uh which made it where I'm in district 7. So, uh that made it to where we felt like it was community. It wasn't just about one particular section. It was for all of us. And so I'm I'm in agreement with moving forward with the RFP because uh like Michael said, Council Member

Beluchcci, that this is Virginia Beach community asset and I really feel that.

So I'm engaged for the next level.

Okay, Josh.

Thank you, mayor, and thank you, Emily.

Um I I you know, agree with everything that's been said. I also want to lend credence and acknowledgement to the process that came before this because we've been discussing this property for, you know, quite some time. Um, and there were people that came forth with ideas, many of which look very similar in some respects to to what we see in front of us. But um but but but in that same

vein, I want to thank the people who have um made sure that we've we've got community input and we've got community support around um what what our folks see as priorities for for this property.

Um and and I think that um you know that those those prior efforts really inform this one um in a lot of ways. And so I I do want to um just just acknowledge the fact that we we've gone about this as carefully as we possibly could. Um and and for good reason. Um that that being said, when we communicate and I do support the issuance of of an RFP um you

know, in line with these guidelines so that we can give respondents um some rules of the road or at least some expectations around what what the community wants. Um but the site constraints in particular. Uh so I I hope those are communicated out as part of uh whatever package we send out to the public to to just hone in on we we make sure we get responses that are actually achievable on on the site. Um

and and otherwise uh great work for everybody for your efforts.

Okay, Rosemary and Amelia. Well, I think the committee and its wisdom came up with a great suggestion putting forth another RFP, but as both liaison to that worth and Michael both said, there's six criteria that may be difficult to hit all of them.

So, I think instead of having it those as a requirement, there should be recommend a recommendation in the RFP. these are things that we recommend that we're looking for and that may open it up to more applicants because if they if it's a requirement they may feel well I may not quite fit that one. So and then we can like everything else you sort of have to sift through and look at what what's the

maybe have those as not requirements but recommended guiding principles so to speak.

Thank you again, Emily, and the entire staff and group that worked on this. If you notice, number one says arts and cultural identity. And I think that's overall drives this entire guiding principles.

But we also need to look at number three, how are we as a city going to help for that operational sustainability?

Because as an artist myself, the artist road can be tough and they have to go through a lot of struggles to get to where they are. So we need to discuss how is the city in any way going to help for this part that says operational sustainability.

To me that is very important that we kind of look at it again so we can give them you know a lifesaving rope because all of these arts and culture anyone in the arts and culture please raise your hands just so you get a feel of how important that they've taken their time to come they've been on this they've been asking questions so now we have something to move forward with and I thank you all

for this there's one group that texted me about what happens to us and that was a religious group.

I wasn't aware sometimes this building is used that way. Is that true?

Yes.

Yes.

So they wanted to know what happened to them.

So the current group I think moved to a different location when the lease was up.

Okay. And the only other concern was um that we had quite a few homeless going in and out of the building. All of these need to be brought to the table so we know there's transparency when we move forward and also maintaining because if they go into that building right now, they need some repair, but we want it to be the best possible opportunity to continue for the arts and culture.

So, I approve the RFP and I'm adding those little bits of are we as a city going to help them prepare for moving forward with this?

Thank you.

Anybody else at this point? I want to commend the panel, the advisory panel for doing this because I really think that they made this no-brainer at this point. Uh Marine Corps motto is improvise, adapt, overcome. And that's what we will do going forward. Does anybody object to going forward with your RFP?

Let's get it done.

And recommendations, not and recommendations, not requirements.

Yep.

All right. So, Mr. Mayor, members of council.

Okay.

Thank you.

THANKS.

All right. So, Mr. Mayor, members of council, the next presentation will be provided by fire chief privates and this will be a presentation requested by council as part of budget reconciliation process. It'll be an overview on the feasibility of the 48 hour work schedule.

Hey, welcome county.

Thank you.

Mayor, vice mayor, council members, Mr.

Drew Haney, Mr. Styles, thanks for allowing me to be here to speak today.

It's an important uh important subject, important to the department. Uh I have many many members of my command staff with us today and many members who participated in the study and the evaluation that we did uh to make this proposal ready for you.

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As you may may recall, during the FY27 budget process, the fire department expressed an interest in reducing the scheduled work hours worked by firefighters. Over the past few years, city council has approved significant investments that have improved staffing, firefighter wellness, and during reconciliation, council directed the city manager to evaluate the feasibility of transitioning to a 48 hour work week.

That assignment is what brings us here today.

I'm here to present the analysis, specifically what it would take to move the Virginia Beach Fire Department from its current 56-hour schedule to a 48 hour average work week. This presentation will outline the staffing required, the operational impacts of adding those positions and the associated costs and timeline for implementation. At the end of the briefing, I will also address the recent

lateral firefighter recruitment effort made by the NOFK Fire Department and their announcement of adding a fourth shift. Finally, we can talk through some decisions city council may consider when looking towards the FY28 budget process and beyond. My job as fire chief is to staff, equip, and train the best firefighters to protect the breast city.

I am absolutely convinced that moving in this direction is appropriate. I feel that we need to move beyond this first phase and align with the industry trend to develop a plan to build out a fourth shift and get to an average of 42-hour work week for our operational personnel just like NOFK is doing.

Just as the city must a act uh to control the rising waters that our city faces, if we fail to act to this fire industry change in the same aggressive manner, it will be much harder to staff this organization in a way that we have come to expect.

VBFD continues to operate under the 56-hour average work schedule used by fewer departments across the country.

Our firefighters are scheduled 161 168 hours in a 21-day work cycle. While that schedule has served us well for many years, it creates unique operational and workforce pressures. To be clear, this is the average number of hours employees are scheduled. Due to staffing shortages, most employees are working beyond the agile sk the schedule.

Locally, our staffing environment reflects the reality seen in many metropolitan fire departments. We manage vacancies. We force forced overtime and periods of limited duty or loss time that place additional strain on our workforce. Our call volume continues to grow. Our lost time continues to challenge our ability to staff the department. Our community is changing.

Housing is increasing density.

Population is shifting and aging. We are not a regular city. We are a resort city. All of which increases the demands on emergency services. Over the last several budget cycles, city council has made substantial investments to support the organization, including additional FTEEs, apparatus replacement, and wellness initiatives. Those investments have strengthened our operational capacity and have been critical to

reducing our demands for overtime. Even with those added positions, however, the schedule pressure remains. The current 56-hour structure limits how much relief can be recreated. That is the context for the feasibility we are presenting today.

Across the country, fire departments are reassessing their traditional 56-hour work week. Our agencies, many agencies are exploring ways to better align with today's workforce and operational demands. A growing body of research has examined the long-term health effects and wellness impacts associated with extended shift schedules. The fire service has operated under these schedules for decades. The cumulative

fatigue and recovering challenges have become significant concern in the industry. The exposure to hard physical work in immediate dangerous to life and health environments as well as repeated exposure to traumatic events put the brain in a state of hypervigilance. High levels of cortisone are being released.

This stress hormone has detrimental impacts on the body and the brain.

Changing the work schedule is a way to reduce this exposure and provide recovery time for responders to get out of that cycle. Recruitment and retention are also influenced this trend. The recruitment problem is directly related to the retention problem.

departments are finding that candidates are comparing firefighter schedules to other municipal and private sector workers. Higher the higher weekly hour load can be a barrier to attracting new talent and contribute to mid-career transition. Another factor driving this discussion is compensation structure.

Firefighters annualized salaries are the same as their peers in public safety.

However, the hourly rate is calculated lower because our firefighters are scheduled for more hours. Today's workforce places a high value on sustainability balance and predictability. As those expectations evolve, more fire departments are evaluating scheduled models that support long-term health and retention. The broader national movement provides important context for the feasibility

analysis we are presenting today. The general assembly has also weighed in on this matter. They passed legislation last year that directed the Virginia Department of Fire Programs to encourage fire departments to evaluate and explore 42-hour work week schedules.

This chart shows the comparison of the annual hours worked in orange, and the column represents those scheduled hours spread over a 25-y year career. You can see that our current schedule has our employees scheduled the equivalent of spending nine additional years at work over a 25-y year career. They get reduced hourly rates, the same pension benefits as compared to the rest of the

public safety professionals, but are at work considerably more. This is nine years of exposure to the physical and mental demands associated with this career. This is nine years away from family, nine years of missed birthdays, sports events, and holidays.

If you look to the columns to the right side of the chart, as we phase into a schedule schedule change for our firefighters, we can restore the balance of a more traditional hourly work schedule. Column three, the 48 hour schedule, has our employees continuing to work 10,000 additional hours across their career over the public safety peers. That brings them down to an equivalent of five additional work

years. In column four, the 42-hour work week, our workforce will still be scheduled more than most city employees, but gets the workforce down to a reasonable difference.

The health and wellness context is one of the reasons many departments across the country are exploring adjusting traditional schedules. Extended hour schedules limit the amount of recovery time firefighters have between shifts.

The cumulative effect on operation within 56-hour week can contribute to fatigue and physical strain or worse.

Industry research has focused on long-term health impacts associated with extended hour and rotational shift schedules. The data now we have with the data we now have highlights connections between insufficient recovery cycles and increased risk of injury, illness, and loss time.

Scheduled sustainability is becoming significant factor in retention.

Firefighters entering the profession today place a high value on predictability, balance, and long-term health. Departments have had evaluated or adopted modernized schedules often site improvements in workforce retention.

City council asked for an assessment of what it would take to the transition the VBFD from a 56-hour to a 48 hour work week. The numbers I am about to walk through represent a fully vetted model developed with human resources, budget, and management services. To achieve a 48 hour schedule, the department would need 63 additional FTEEs, all hired within a single fiscal year. This is because the

schedule change requires us to be able to continue to maintain full shift staffing. Phasing in smaller groups would not create the relief necessary to achieve the 48 hour ch transition. These positions ensure that VBFD can maintain daily minimum staffing while reducing the average work weekly hours. In short, we will be adding to each shift so that all employees can be scheduled for one

less shift per work cycle. This will be daily staffing neutral. I want to clarify a point the council has asked about. The fire department has received additional FTEEs over the past several budget cycles and those investments were critical for stabilizing operations.

These positions were needed because our staff were working significantly more than their scheduled hours, 72 to 96 hours per week. In many cases, those positions were focused on reducing overtime. These increased the staffing factor to account for all the loss time we're experiencing. They were not structured in a size or way that could change the underlying work schedule.

As promised, when we were given the additional positions, there was relief.

Staffing overtime hours were reduced by about 40% and mandatory overtime was down approximately 80%.

At one point it is why even at those additional positions the average schedule work week remains at 56 hours today.

Adding 63 positions creates several operational benefits that directly support the transition to a 48 hour average work schedule. By increasing the staffing on each shift, the department can maintain daily minimum staffing while supporting the additional schedule relief days needed to reach a 48 hour work week. With more personnel available per shift, the part department can better absorb vacancies, limited duty

assignments, training needs, and leave without placing additional burdens on the remaining workforce. This helps ensure that units remain in service as expected even when unexpected vacancies occur. These positions also reduce the frequency of forced overtime.

Departments that have added similar staffing to support schedule adjustments report improvements in both operational stability and fatigue management because firefighters have more predictable time off and there is reduced loss time when we have the next large-scale emergency or natural disaster. These additional personnel will also be available to help manage the emergency. Our staff is

always subject to recall. Increasing the workforce adds to our capacity to handle mitigate large-scale events. This will improve service delivery to the community.

I would like to go over some numbers with you, but before we get to the fiscal cost, let me share the real cost.

Since I became fire chief, and I'm in my fourth year, we've had two line of duty deaths, firefighters that left their spouses and four children behind. 29 employees have been diagnosed with cancer. Seven fire department retirees that lost their life to cancer. Seven members diagnosed with cardiac disease, six disability retirements, three suicide attempts, and nine trips to inpatient treatment for mental health

support. This human toll is reason enough. Changing any one of these numbers is worth the investment we are asking you to make. Our vacancies from resignations and disability retirements cost us millions of dollars a year. Loss time due to resignations, injuries, limited duty, FML, etc. is expensive. A very conservative estimate is about$1 to $150,000 per vacancy per year. With our

average of 40 plus people on limited duty in any given year, we're about $5 million in that area alone. There will be some cost avoidance with this transition, such as the elimination of FLSA cycle pay, and I fully expect our loss time to go down. We are requesting $3.6 6 million and since it is partial year funding you will see that the following year increases $1.9 million.

We have been very aggressive in our use of shared positions to overhire for vacancies and our academy attrition rate typically is about 30% dropout. We are working with the prep academy program to make our recruits more successful. We're also working with Virginia Beach schools to advance our apprentice and votech programs to hope increasing our candidate pool if funded in FY28. We do

not anticipate adjusting the work schedule to 48 hours before FY29.

Our timeline will be directly connected to our employee retention and attrition rates in the next fewmies.

Our plan is to hire in October and April this fiscal year and October and April next fiscal year. If council gives us the go- ahead for funding next budget, we will continue to use the overhire methodology to try and maintain the highest level of staffing so we can implement this change as soon as possible.

I want to briefly address the recent action taken by the NOFK fire department. NOFK has implemented a plan to begin a four shift schedule which aligns with the 42-hour work week.

Following that decision, NOFFK launched a targeted lateral recruitment campaign aimed at attracting experienced firefighters from departments across the region, including those in Hampton Roads. It is my understanding that NOFK has allocated vacant positions from across the city and have given modest increase to the fire department's budget this fiscal year to hire additional personnel to begin their transition.

Nonetheless, the recruit recruitment effort has generated significant interest and questions locally.

I believe many of our employees are giving us some grace and waiting to see how Virginia Beach responds before exploring alternative employment. I am concerned that if we fail to signal we are moving in a similar direction, members will begin to explore alternatives. Most organizations in the region are in the same pension system and very competitive in wages. If our members begin to leave, we will see

considerable increases in our overtime, recruitment, and training costs.

A few other communities worth mentioning, Alexandria, Prince William, Orange, Laen are all exploring schedule changes. It is already the standard in the Northeast fire departments. Also, others that have shared plans include Greenwood, North Carolina, uh Charleston, South Carolina. In Florida, most of the career departments are in the transition process and Plano and Allen, Texas are also implementing.

Today's presentation focuses on analysis city council directed the 48 hour work week. It is my hope that city council gives the staff direction on the next phase to explore 42-hour work week or four shift model which is where the industry is headed.

The future fire service scheduling what I presented today is what I hope is just the first phase of a multi-phase effort to align our schedule structure with the direction of many fire service organizations moving nationally. It was a significant source of conversation at the International Association of Fire Chiefs conference a few weeks ago. This step provides meaningful schedule relief

for employees while maintaining our current three shift model. This phase positions us to remain competitive in recruitment and retention as the profession evolves. Our goal is to continue to pro progress towards a 42-hour work week. By taking deliberate steps now, we can support our workforce, maintain service levels, and prepare for a transition that many fire service organizations are planning for the long

term. Doing so requires strategic growth and a phased approach. As other departments have noted, successful implementation relies on thoughtful planning and adequate resources that let us maintain operational readiness.

This is a visual of the benefits of a 42-hour work week. Implementing this change is good for this city. I fully expect our retention and recruitment to increase. I fully expect us to have less loss time. This will allow us to improve staffing and service delivery.

Maintaining trained employees is critical to our operational performance.

Our crews perform best when they are at full staffing and working with members of their team. As mentioned earlier, having a larger emergency response force is critical to being prepared at the local level for the next major event.

These changes alone will help us avoid significant costs. Moving forward is good for the city and the city council and the fire department. It shows you as leaders and that you're willing to take bold steps when supported by research and data. It shows you're committed to providing the best public safety workforce. As demonstrated by the slide, this change will also be good for our employees and their families. Less

exposure to carcinogens, reduced cortisol levels, improved brain health, a more balanced availability for employees to be present with their families, reducing the stress on the family unit. All of which are good for the city as a happy, healthy employee and engaged employee.

To fully implement the fourth shift, the cost will be 12 to$15 million annually.

If we move forward with the ask that was placed before you today, we are one-third of the way there. The final cost will really depend on the actual return on the reduction in loss time and increased recruitment and retention. It will take time to bring on the associated staff and do the professional development to have the supervisors and technical skills distributed across the organization.

As requested, we presented options for the next budget year. My recommendation is to move forward with the $3.6 million to add the 63 FTEES. And I also hope you provide direction for us to plan to move beyond this step. It is important for our recruitment efforts to be able to say city council has endorsed us moving forward with a schedule change. Before we close, I want to express appreciation

for the continued support shown towards our department. Your presence at our ceremonies, moments of loss, and times of celebration have meant a great deal to our members. The investment made in safety equipment apparatus and wellness initiatives have strengthened our ability to serve the community with excellence. Thank you for your ongoing partnership and commitment and I look

forward to any questions or comments you may have at this time.

Hey Hutch, why don't you get things rolling and then we'll go to Stacy.

Okay. Um well, I was going to bring it home, but that's all right.

Well, you can do that, too.

That's all right. I'm just going to get a little probably teary eyed here. Um I want to apologize to all of y'all. Um, none of this should have been y'all's decision. Uh, a long time ago, uh, Councilwoman Ralph asked me, "Why why have y'all been doing this for so long?"

Um, and there's no excuse other than we thought we were had to tiger by the tail. You worked one shift, you got off two. What What in the world could you ask for anymore? you know, um, my buddy up here, retired deputy chief Grizzly Adams, Vance Cooper, he started telling us a couple years ago, he's the one that rang the bell first, that, hey, the numbers are out of whack, like way out of whack.

Um, and it's uh, not good for us and we couldn't wrap our heads around it at first, you know, and then KP got a Chief Pravitz got a hold of it and uh, said, "Hey, we gota we got to really try to do something about this.

But the um the number of hours that we're talking about here, y'all, who who here like if we work late on a real estate deal or at the farm or wherever, we we we think 6:00, 8:00, maybe dark on during the crops coming in. I get it. But you're working on something. That's only half the time that the shift personnel are on duty in our in our department. you know,

it's like a late night is they still got 12 or 16 hours left to go. Now, I know there's some of us that work way too much, you know, um and and they do great things with that. I will also say that I can close my eyes at any given point and see some of the worst things you could imagine from the calls that we've been on. It's not one a month. It's not like

Chicago fire and any of that crap. It's it's real. You know, like you have a car accident and people are ripped all apart or you have a 13-year-old having twins and her mom didn't know she was pregnant and neither one of them were viable. Um, the Ches Peak fire where the two firefighters died, the jet crash. I mean, there's a bunch of us in here that can go on and on and on about those

calls that we see. Ned just retired, so he's he's got a lot of them in his head. So, that that does wear on you. So adding that to the extra time plus the plus the extra hours right now, new mom, if you were in the department, you would miss getting her on the bus. I know she's not on the bus yet, but you'd get her on the bus. You can't get them on

the bus the one morning. You don't get off in time to get them on the bus the next morning. You're not there to to do a bath. You're not there to feed them and help out. Just being part of the team. 10. Oh, what's it's 10 to 15 shifts when you start talking about getting there in time to do other things. You know, we always talk about the baseball games and the basketball

games and all that. Yeah, that's true, too. But you're really missing out on a lot more. Um I worked a part-time job when I did both. Uh I was a long shoreman in the fire department for 5 years. There would be times when my boys were going up, but I swear when I got home, they were a little taller than when I left. And I wasn't kidding, you know? It was like it sounds cute but in

reality it was what it was for me cuz one shift going to the going to work they were already in bed I was getting off going to the waterfront and then coming back it could be 72 hours that was on me. I didn't nobody asked me or made me do it but it it was reality. Um this is the last thing and I'll be done.

Um there's two folks that I personally know that are uh in the NOFK process because they've got a guarantee that they're going to the 40 to the fourth shift. It's in writing. They're recruiting for it. So two people that I feel very certain would be in our VBFD process are in the north. They're they're in the hire. They're they're hired. They're that that far along. So it's good chance if they were hired

there, they'd be hired here. So, that's just two that I can speak to uh empirically. So, anyway, okay, I'm done.

I'm glad you started it off.

Thank you.

We're gonna go with Stacy, Josh, and Jennifer.

Chief, thank you very much for the presentation and a lot of great information. And just want to start off by saying, you know, I'm totally in support of moving in this direction. I just want to be I just want to make sure that it's successful. I don't want to get caught um you know starting a program and then finding out that we can't make it work. So that's the reason

for this question. I hear I heard you say and maybe I got it wrong but that it's pretty much it's 63 FTEEs are not we don't have 63 program doesn't work and I I accept that. My question is and and you I guess you started to um explain about how we're going to get to the 63, but uh my concern is is that we fall short of getting 63 and we're not able

to get the program started up off the ground. So, uh are we sure that we have a program in place that's going to allow us to recruit the people that we need to make the program work? That's that's our goal is to recruit uh and actually to get council to say we endorse this so we can recruit very aggressively that we're changing our schedule because I think that will bring more candidates in. Our

process is open right now but obviously we can't say that we're changing our work schedule until council gives us direction but we believe that if we put that into our recruitment efforts we will see uh higher numbers that will give us the ability to recruit the higher caliber candidates so that we can have successful graduations. And as I said, the the timeline for when we can

implement will really depend on how many people we retain that were on the bubble and decided to stay and how many people we can get educated and through the training academy and graduated. Uh and then we will have the ability to start um changing the work schedule. So it's it's very dependent on us having successful candidates and keeping our employees employed. But we believe that

the plan that we have to get to 63, we'll divide them through the shifts. We divide the shift divided by seven by the number of days and that gives us the coverage that we can give to schedule everybody one less shift per cycle.

So m so chief privates um say for some reason we try to overhire you try to go year round recruitment and you don't get to 63. I think what you were saying is you probably can't go to 48, but additional bodies do help with um with with shifts and giving additional bodies, right? And limit the need for like mandatory overtimes and stuff like that. So, say for some reason, I think

what Mr. comes with getting that say worst case scenario we tried council supports this you get the authorization to do it but because of factors outside your control like not enough people passing if you get this authorization but you don't get 63 you might not be able to go to 48 but does that help anything yes I mean the staffing we've even the 30 that we've got in the last fiscal

year and the 30th fiscal year have had significant impacts on our overtime our staffing overtime and our mandatory overtime so every little bit helps and then if we had if we couldn't get to the full shift transition, we would still have more people on shift that would cover the load for when people are off and limited duty and things lost to that time. So, our staffing would be maintained. Um, we wouldn't be able to

change the work schedule until we got enough of a group to be able to divvy up the work groups into smaller uh work cycles. So, I think to clarify, chief is saying every little bit help. If he gets 63, he can go to 48, but if for some reason he only ends up with 45, it would help, but it doesn't he can't push the button to say to go to 48 because he

won't have enough people to cover all the different um I'm misspe all the different the drivers, the specialties, the boat operators, the technical rescue, hazmat, spect, you know, we have to divide that across the workforce to make sure we have coverage on every shift every day.

Okay, Josh, Jennifer Rose.

Um, thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Chief. Um I I really hope we can find a way to make this happen. Um because um when it when I when I hear that your folks are working on average nine additional years uh tacked on to their career and even if you get to where you're asking us to go that would mean five additional years uh working um and I mean considering and we have and thank

you for acknowledging our you know the priority we we've given to um fire and EMS uh but but that was long and late probably too um as especially since you were working somewhere between 72 and 96hour work weeks then. Um, and if I've learned anything about the fire department and EMS and our public safety um, professionals is that if you're here asking us for something um, that means

you probably should have asked for it three years ago, but you've been trying to make it work for three years since.

So with without coming to us for that ask. So um, and y'all are first responders. It's whether it's police or fire or EMS, you get there first and you've got you're you're on the line and you're you're protecting our our residents and um and and I think we you know how we pay for it. I'm sure we can um I don't I don't know the answer to that. you know, that's a really

important question and trying to find vacancy savings and other creative ways like Malik had done, but um but uh it is it is a a significant expense, but it's one it's one worth um meeting you at and and trying to figure out how to get it done for the sake of your uh workforce and their and their welfare. So, thank you, Jennifer Rosemary. Thank you for this presentation. Like my colleagues have

said, I'd like to see us move forward with option one and see what we can do.

Um particularly what is I'm thinking of this as like a workforce a workplace condition issue. So I know the general assembly has already given funding about cancer screenings and I think if we're trying to recruit people we have a presentation coming up about workforce but if we're trying to recruit people into a career you say hey here are these risks not only you know psychological

and physical with fire but the lingering aftermath of the equipment and the the chemicals and all the things that you're inhaling. If we're able to reduce contact in that way, even by a shift and ideally more than that going forward, I think we have to move in that direction to be good. I don't I don't even know if stewards is the word, but these are human lives, human resources that we

really need to be sure we're protecting.

So, I'd like to um have that serious conversation for this budget as we're having this looking forward. Thank you, Mayor.

I know for everybody around this table that public safety is our number one priority. Number one, not a safe city, you don't have anything. So, I'm sitting here. I'm trying to figure out how we get there.

I mean, last time we had this, we did 30. We did 30. And it was not easy doing that, but we we got there. We I I remember reading in the newspaper when, you know, Norfol was going in this direction. It seemed like they hired 23 new people. Was that how many?

They're they're aggressively hiring. Uh I don't know that they've given How many was it to for them to hire?

Well, they gave him $1.8 million in the budget. I don't know how they spread that out, but I also know that the police department in Northolk has a lot of vacancies that the manager is using to cushion the fire department's vacancies. So, I don't know that Chief Carol has been given a stop at this number direction. I think he's been told to hire as many as he can. And uh and

that's what I think is going I talked to him the other day about some applicants and uh he's just hiring uh as many people as he can support through the next educational class and then they're planning on another class in February.

So they're um they're filling their roles as much as possible.

So what does their membership in the fire department as far as sworn firefighters?

They're very similar in size because they staff ambulances as well. So they're five 63 that we have.

They're very similar size. Yes.

So they have about 563. Mhm.

And they budgeted for 23.

I know you're saying they're trying to hire more, but that was what they put in their budget. So, they had to have a plan 23 how they were going to maybe baby step this in. Vice Perford, Vice Mayor, um, as the chief tried to articulate, they didn't they didn't add a significant amount of dollars because they also gave them authorization to pull from the other vacancies within the

cities to do it, right? So, from what I got from their leadership is that they've given them authorization to do all things necessary to move towards a Ford shift and they'll figure it out, right? So, I think they only appropriated about $1.9 million, but they're also banking on additional vacancy savings throughout the city to be used to give the additional um people if they hire them at NOFK and then they'll sort

it out along the way. For example, if they take a vacancy vacancies from a public works department, they may sort out adding those vacancies in future years, right? So, it's kind of like they're using the vacancies that they have in the organization in addition to the additional money, little bit of money that they added in the budget to kind of get to their get to that direction. It'll take them probably

three fiscal years to ultimately get there as well. But they are using a different model than we would probably use because our vacancies numbers is not as high as NOFK at this time.

I may think, if I may, there are also argument on all of this and and so I'm just I'm trying to figure out how do we get from where we are to where we need to be.

Another nuance that NOFK is doing is they're actually splitting their existing workforce into four shifts. Um and then they're going to use a procedure called debit days to actually make them come back. So they're going to be in the four shift rotation, but they're going to use a tool called a debit day where they'll actually come back and be scheduled an additional day.

Kind of like a reverse what we're trying to accomplish. Um, but that way they're going to divide their workforce in four and then trying to fill in the gaps across the four shifts.

One, one clarifying point is the two people I'm talking about that I know, one is hired in October and one is hired in February and they're both 40 person classes.

So, I don't know about the 23, but I know that that's 80. And I'm pretty sure they're everybody's been saying they're using the ex lap salaries from the other departments to do it. And the other question I guess is this is for either uh Kevin or you Mr. Dhaney. So last year we had 19 million of almost like CIP money for the fire department going forward. Was that just a big year or are

we going to have those kind of years going forward?

Generally and then chief I'm probably going to say this wrong. Um it's the reason so we do anticipate we're probably going to need the additional 7 8 9 million for the fire apparatus because as you all know fire apparatus are going up 7500 or 150% 300% sometimes. So we do anticipate that's going to be needed. The big anomaly this year was an additional $10 million because every 5 years or 10 years you

need to um buy all the rebreathers, right? And that's a fire um fire tank, oxygen tank that the firefighters use when they respond. They have they come do it one time every five years.

They're they're 15 year lifespan. So we plan to replace some about the 15 that's $10 million of that was committed to that.

So we're not going to have to make that for some time.

At least another we not probably want another 10 years plus. Yeah.

I mean these are important things for us to know as we have to figure it all out. So there could be some money that comes from Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. So pot current that's kind of that's generally a CIP pot. So we would we we need to figure out a way to have ongoing support to cover this because that as the chief mentioned it's going to be 3.6 year round and 5.5 when you put it into

fiscal year.

Um do want to say though we did check and chief there isn't there isn't going to be any real capital needs associated with these position ads. So if you add these positions, it's not necessarily that you're going to need to add like additional apparatus or significant facility changes associated with that.

Correct. Yeah. This this includes their gear and uniforms.

You look at the facilities and and we're we're good with that area, right?

Correct. Mhm.

Okay. Well, but it's like you said, it is a big ass, right? And that's kind of why we need to get direction on the front end of the budget because if we need to work it in, we got to consider it with all the the totalities of all other things that we may possibly need to provide.

No, I I think we'd like to get there.

It's just trying to figure out the path how we get there.

Okay, Barbara, then we're Well, I assume what you're asking for us today is whether or not we're agreeable to trying to move forward, but there are going to be a lot of steps along the way before we can get there.

Yes, Vice Mayor, assign government, but you're correct. So what we're asking right now is is council okay with the fire department putting in this request in a fiscal year 28 forthcoming budget for us to work out a path for your consideration when we deliver the budget to you in around the February time frame with all of the positions that we have and we still have vacancies that we're

not able to fill. You really think we can fill all these vacancies with people without reducing our standard?

We're not going to lower our standard. I I think if we could say we're changing our work schedule, we'll we'll be able to fill it. I think if we stay status quo and we're still waiting, um it's going to be harder for us to recruit the people that are looking at NOFK and knowing that they're in the transition, Prince William, Loud, and all the others are already making the transition. So,

what what I'm hoping is to hear the council say we're going to move forward in this direction so that we can put it in our recruitment and advertising and then I think we will achieve uh success in filling those positions. But um we won't see till we see Well, I I I think this is similar to what we talked about a couple weeks ago with the police. It's important that our citizens understand what our need is

also. So, we certainly want to have an awful lot of conversation with our public because this is all going to come with a price tag and our people are going to have to be willing to pay the bill and and I think as long as they know what we're doing, we can have more uh support. And so it's going to be very important that we make this a complete explanation to not only us but to our

citizens as well. And and I think uh as Rosemary said, if we don't have public safety, we don't have anything. And I think that's where our support is for the public. But but we really have to make sure we're explaining all of this in a fashion that understand that people understand we know that there's a price tag coming at the end of it. And so we're going to have to make a lot of

choices along the way because there are going to be other things that in order to do this, we're probably going to not be able to do because of that. So we really have to make these choices all along the way.

Okay. Thank you, Patrick. So Mrs. Henley, you made a you made a good point and um it's something that the fire department and HR are navigating as well. Just because you give the bodies, as you mentioned, doesn't necessarily mean you're going to get to that. And that's why the chief tried to articulate we do have a process where we overhire for our recruit classes. Like if you give us a 30 person

class, sometimes we go out for 60 because we know we may not graduate that many. And then with the with the average attrition for the fire department, we probably would always be able to rightsize it in the budget process. So they do go over what we authorize um to to ensure that we get close to that number. And even when we do that, they never get close to the number. they

never get the exact number of folks that we authorize because it's just you never know who's going to pass and whoever is going to leave the fire department for any particular reason. The other thing that they're working on is that the chief mentioned they are trying to work with the schools to create a better more resilient pipeline and they are trying to move towards a more yearround

recruitment model. It's one of the things that the police departments and several other departments have done like waste management where they're always recruiting and hiring. Right. The fire chief I think is working on a proposal on how they can do that as well to help ensure that we get to that number.

The one caveat that is helpful on this is that even if you even if authorizes this and they actually they don't get to the um 63 it does help with um with providing relief for the workforce. As of the chief said everybody counts, right? Yeah. But if council authorizes this, my goal would be to come up with a plan on how we could bring this in the budget, knowing that when we go to the

five-year forecast, you're going to be hearing a bunch of other needs and through the budget process, you're going to be hearing a bunch of other needs. So really want to see if council wants us to start to explore bringing something bringing this in the proposed budget for your consideration.

Carrie Worth.

Thank you, mayor. Thank you, Chief Pravitz, for the presentation. I agree with uh what everyone's saying. option one if we can make it work and I do think that public safety is one of our priorities as well as from what what I hear from the public their priorities it starts with public safety police fire and EMS 911 so I would fully support this because it does help with uh recruitment but I also think it helps

with retention and pay me now pay me later so I hope we can make this work okay how'd you give this a cap you know Um, I think I've said enough as far as and y'all have backed it up um with some good questions and the manager is showing I think good faith on how we're going to get it. Um, I do think that as the chief said that once we once

we make the announcement, once we put it on a on a flyer and stuff like that that it will help our recruitment um, immensely. Um, it's important. I I do thank you for giving me this because I I failed to mention we've got the chief of EMS up there and this assistant city manager um and the police chief both you know the the big three of public safety are um are a head and shoulders uh above

in my humble opinion of most in the country. We've reacredited and accredited and and everything else and their calls EMS, you know, we've run I've always said one one arm in one side of the coat and the other arm and the other with EMS for us and PD is there usually protecting the scene or clearing stuff for us. Um then the what they see day in and day out as well is uh very

tough and it's a it's it's the psychological part that sometimes we we've becoming better and better at recognizing, but it's been a while. you know, we don't we don't we didn't do that for a very long time in any of them. Um, so I think that's it should be a tip of the hat. But I would say that 90% of our police and 90% of our EMS um are on 40hour work weeks and that's the

hours they work. It's time to just get the FD moving that direction. Not asking for it all at one fell swoop. I I feel very confident in uh confident in the manager and our budget director to get us there. Um I don't I think we'll get overwhelming support from any citizens that are asked. Um so I'm all in. Thank you.

Hey, let me just say uh the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step and public safety is critical to us. And if we want to maintain the quality of life that we have, it really starts with public safety. No company is going to come here if it's unsafe and we have proven time and time again. But once again, Neo, it is an investment. Public safety is a fivelegged stool police fire sheriff EMS 911.

And the other thing is to and the challenge. But once again, you know, I used that saying just recently, improvise, adapt to overcome. And we have been known to do that over the years. But one of the things as we weigh this priority and give the blessing, the other thing is, and I think Barbara touched on it, you know, we have police vacancies that have to be tackled also.

And I really think we should give equal priority to that, too. Now, does that increase our challenge? You betcha. But once again, if we're going to maintain the reputation of the safest city uh in the country, uh it's going to take an investment that um is going to be worthwhile. And uh so, you know, Michael, I know you were trying to wrap it up, mayor, but you said something

that made me want to chime in. I support all the comments that were were made here and very grateful to the fire professional firefighters and um and all public safety professionals throughout our city. Um, in addition to the police that need staffing, we received a letter recently from the sheriff's office expressing the same. So, we sort of have this public safety personnel challenge uh throughout the

the city and also as we know throughout the country. Um, I think we need to do two things or maybe three. Um, first thing we need to do is make sure we express loudly and solidly how how much we appreciate and support the professionals who risk their lives every day to protect and ensure our safety.

One small thing we can do is just to thank them. Uh, thank them when we see them out and and doing their job. Thank them when we run into them. I know I when I'm at Waw Wa or some other place, I see people buying lunch for professionals all the time just doing nice acts of appreciation, but I know that doesn't make up for uh benefit and workplace conditions and salary, but at

the same time, we we really needed to do our best to make sure we're expressing our appreciation because I know we do.

Um and and the other thing is uh we need to make sure that they're paid fairly, that the conditions are good and fair, and that they have all the tools they need. And I think we're doing that and that's what this conversation is a part of. And the third thing I think we need to do is to find new pipelines of opportunity and that's what I want to ask you about. Um there's a new

partnership with the schools and police and fire and I don't know if that includes sheriff and I wonder chief if you could talk a little bit about that.

Yeah, we're partnering with Dr.

Robertson and the schools. We're uh we're breaking up the public safety vote tech program at the um North Landing and we're actually going to specifically create a fire uh based program. It's going to we're going to teach them firefighter 1, firefighter 2, hazmat ops, and EMT in high school. Um and we plan on starting next school year. Our staff has been working with the schools.

It's the program is coming together very nicely. um we will be probably seeking some support to get some part-time positions to help facilitate that training program, but we um we're excited about it. I think if we can capture people and let them understand the value of public safety career in high school, um it'll it'll help feed into us. We're also working on um um candidate prep program as well because

we see in our can in our in ourmies, we're losing people because they're not quite ready physically conditioned. So rather than lose them as an employee, we'll get them into this prep program and let them have six months or something to work with us to be either earn their MT and get physically ready to complete fire school. Um, and we're we're excited about both of those programs. I think both of them are going

to increase the success rate, increase the candidate pool, and increase the pipeline uh coming through our our career portfolio.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you. But let me just end you a note on this. You know at regent university I teach a course in human resource management and the thing is there is competition among cities you know that you know that go back and forth and that's how you get a big pay raise jump to another city and the other thing is we're also in competition with other cities we're also in uh competition with the private

sector for a lot of this stuff and I remember if I'm not mistaken after 911 happened you know there were a a lot of public safety people went on to federal agencies uh you know to work at significantly higher pay. Uh so this is going to be like the frame oil commercial. Pay me now or pay me later. So okay, we can give the chief the blessing to move forward.

Anybody object?

Get it done. Kenny.

Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you, you mentioned September 11th. for having a really nice ceremony at the training center uh on September 11th at 8:30 in the morning and you're all welcome to come. I appreciate you. Thank you.

Okay, moving on.

All right, so Mr. Mayor, members of the council, the next presentation be provided by one of our directors of human resources, Monica Copen. She's going to give city council overview of our workforce development program as well as our internship program.

Let me see when she cues it up.

Good afternoon.

Okay, if you can hang on a second, we're missing a few folks.

And the fire chief queued it up so nicely.

I just ran away.

Somebody on fire ended at exactly the right point.

I tell you what, let's just go ahead and get going.

Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, council members. My name is Monica Copen. As the manager said, it's been a minute since I've been in front of you, so it's nice to see you all again. I'm excited to be before you today and talk to you about something that I'm passionate about, the city is really passionate about, and that is our workforce development uh programming.

Workforce development encompasses a lot of things. Um, but today we're going to talk specifically about internships, apprenticeships, and our skillbridge program. So, we wanted to talk a little bit about recruiting talent and growing talent.

Um, the internship program at the city of Virginia Beach has been around for a while, but we have definitely expanded upon it in the past few years.

Internships and apprenticeships have evolved over time in the workforce from uh studentbased experiences and trade training to really strategic talent acquisition pipelines. And that's definitely the direction that the city of Virginia Beach is moving as well. Uh registered apprenticeships have expanded beyond your traditional construction trades and they are now in almost every industry. Um in the city of Virginia

Beach, we're investing in the future.

We're investing in internships for high schools and college students. uh the skillbridge transition program from military to private sector and public sector employment as well as we're very excited to move forward with an apprenticeship program and I've got a lot of great details about that here in just a minute and it aligns with your um focused action plan that DCMsky brought up about a couple of I guess two

councils ago um to explore opportunities to implement trades apprenticeships between the city and local educational partners as well as increase the city's awareness uh with Virginia Beach public schools and to pursue a partnership in transitioning students from schools into full-time employment.

So before we talk about the city of Virginia Beach, I did want to just go back and give you a little bit of an outline in terms of um how the workforce has changed in the past 25 years. I originally was going to go back a little bit further because you automatically go back to when you entered the workforce, but I realized early 2000s was probably long enough. So the early 2000s though

when I first came to the city, internships were really uh student-based. The internships for college students were volunteer. We did not pay interns. People wanted to come and they wanted to volunteer for the city. So they could put something on their resume and say, "Hey, I worked for the city of Virginia Beach." Um and they could have been doing anything. It didn't necessarily have to be within

their major. They could have been painting walls, filing uh anything. They would have done it. uh the city didn't necessarily have an apprenticeship program because in the early 2000s apprenticeships were really more aligned with construction and trades. Uh the federal government, the shipyard, they might have had some apprentichip programs, but it wasn't really as broadspread across the workforce and as

many occupations as it is today. And then in 2008, a little thing happened uh relative to the recession and employers started putting greater emphasis on utilizing internships as an entry- level pipeline to employment. At that time, we recognized that the workforce was getting older and that people were not going to be as available. There wasn't going to be as many resources or people resources into the future as the

workforce aged. So, we started looking at how do we strategically place interns into full-time hires. Um, but what's interesting is that the apprenticeship participation kind of declined at the same time. And I'm sure it has more to do with the recession. Uh, we have a lot of information from the Department of Labor and the Bureau of Labor Statistics saying that, you know, we went from 450,000

uh, registered apprenticeships in the early 2000s down to like 380,000 right around 2008. So it it did drop off but then it rebounded between 2010 and 2020. Um at that point employers started saying okay not only do we want to create a pipeline but we want to create some metrics on how do we convert internships into full-time hires and what does that look like? Um and at the same time the apprenticeship resurgence

uh expanded a little bit beyond construction. Um and then 2020 happened and you might have thought that we would have a similar thing happen as 2008 but actually the opposite occurred because we were a little bit further along in that continuum of the workforce or the available labor force shrinking. So employers they got more inventive and they started introducing hybrid internships. Um and we have really as a

uh employers we expanded beyond just the traditional apprenticeship programs as well and we started to see more uh apprenticeship programs in healthcare and in IT and when you get to right now you will find that there are apprentichip programs in almost every occupation and they look very different and we've got a couple of different we've already started here in the city and I'll talk to you about those in a

second as well. So that's that's the last 26 years in a nutshell. So why do you want to invest in developmental programming? Well, it's easy. Employers cannot purchase what they need in the external market. There's not that available workforce anymore. Um, also it provides you a better quality of hire and that it gives you insight when you have uh students come in through internships and apprentichip programs.

You have a better idea of what technical skills they have. You have a better idea of what their communication skills are, maybe their reliability.

um you just have a better they have a better insight for you as well. They know what kind of employer you are and what you bring to the table because we are competing for a commodity. And then also the developmental program it helps with retention. The Department of Labor says that employees that come in through an internship or a apprenticeship program are more likely to stay with

that employer for longer period of time.

Um, and this is what I find really interesting is the reduced dependence on more traditional credentials. When I entered the workforce, um, I remember my father directly saying, Monica, it doesn't matter what kind of degree you get, it's important that you get a degree. That's not necessarily the case anymore. Employers are asking more, what do you bring to us versus what degree do

you have? Um, I don't think it's any less important, but it is a different question that we are asking people when they come to work for us.

And then also um kind of align with the better quality for um of hire, we also have early access to talent. So um we need more access to talent because again shrinking workforce. So we have employers that are getting into the high schools as you know early as 10th grade to introduce students to their um their companies. And the city of Virginia Beach, we have a great opportunity. I'll

just put a plug here now. since we have such a diversity of occupations. I mean, we have everything from librarians to public safety to um finance people to um uh motor equipment operators. If there's an occupation that you can name, the city of Virginia Beach has an opportunity for somebody to pursue it.

So, we have a we have an opportunity there to really introduce students um and transitioning military, transitioning career switchers to uh the city of Virginia Beach and the occupations that we offer. And then also when you do developmental programming, you also have an opportunity to give people employer specific skill development. You know, I hear sometimes that's the Virginia Beach way of doing

things. I think it's a little bit more than that, but uh the Virginia you can develop someone specifically or you can give them the skill set specifically to succeed in your organization.

So, so where does that leave us? That leaves us asking four questions. Where can we find qualified people today? How do we compete for qualified people? How do we retain them? And then how do we build a qualified workforce that we're going to need for the future? And that's the mill million-dollar question. We're not alone in asking it, but we do have some specific items that we're doing to kind

of help prepare Virginia Beach to meet those needs.

One of the most basic things is that you build the pipeline before you have the vacancy. That is not a new talent acquisition philosophy, but that is one that's being adopted across the nation right now. So for City of Virginia Beach, we have grown our college internships from 20 participants in 2023 to about 48 in 2026. Um that was in large part to the $50,000 that Vice Mayor infused into the budget a few

years ago. And we had an opportunity to create internship positions, paid internship positions um across the organization. We saw how successful it was and city manager Dhanei has been very generous and allowed us to continue that funding throughout the organization for the past four years. This summer we also had 13 skilled trade interns. It was a combination of high school and TCC

students. It was like 10 high school students and three TCC students. Um and they worked with public works, public utilities, and parks and wreck. Um and I will say that internships have historically been in the summer, but we're really pursuing creating internships as a more yearround. So, I'd like to see uh not just 48 in the summer. I'd like to see 48 in the fall and, you know, 48 in the in the spring

semesters as well. We certainly have higher education institutions around here that can facilitate that. Um, but as we move through our partnership with Virginia Beach public schools, I think we're also going to have an opportunity to have more high schoolers. So, and I know the fire chief mentioned the expansion of his uh prep program, but there's also an existing police patrol

aid program. We used to call them police cadetses. Um that group or that um academy or pre-AC Academy acts very similarly to what the chief fire chief described in that we have people that maybe they don't reach the 21-year-old minimum requirement. So they start doing uh patrol aid or they work with the um police in a different capacity while they prep for becoming police officers.

And we've been very successful in that too. I know that the um there was a kid in my court that wants to pursue criminal justice and he's applied and he starts his patrol aid position next month. So, so how do we how do we reach people? How do we get people in the door in Virginia Beach? So, we average about 20 to 24 college career fair and internship fairs annually. So, that's just not an HR

endeavor. That's also a departmental endeavor because we can speak to what it's like to be an employee with the city of Virginia Beach and all the wonderful things we offer. Uh but we are not engineers and we are not accountants. So we have engineers from public works and public utilities come with us to Virginia Tech. We have um planners come with us to George Mason.

We have people uh human service uh employees come with us to ODU. And we have because the kids that's who they want to talk to. They want to talk to people that are in their major. They want to talk to people that know what they do. So we attend many many career fairs throughout the year. Um and we also participated in 24 community focused fairs and what those are fairs through um the DAV through um regional

workforce the Hampton Roads workforce council um workforce Wednesdays. These are just areas where you are going in and you're planting seeds. you're saying, "Hey, we're here. The Virginia Beach, the city of Virginia Beach is a viable employer, and we'd love to have you come learn more about what we do."

Um, and I'm proud to announce that we have been named the Virginia top employer for interns every year since 2023, uh, by the State Council of Higher Education. That's in large part to a town acquisition, um, member that we have, Melinda. She's over here. If you're not friends with her on LinkedIn, please, please connect with her. She has great great uh post all the time. Very very good connection with student

interns and she's also on the ODU um employer advisory board. So just a great resource for us and for students. Uh she hosts the Virginia intern day annually which is something that uh we have at the end of the summer. We have a greet we have a a mixer in the beginning of the summer and then we have a very big um graduation if you will or an end of the year Virginia intern. um celebration

too where we get all the interns together, they talk about their experiences because as I mentioned before in the early 2000s students would come here and they might do any number of things. Now they're really looking for direct experience in their field of study and we want to make sure that we provide those opportunities for them.

So So what kind of things do we offer beyond just the student experience?

because I don't want you to think that workforce development programs are only geared towards those individuals that are in school. We also have skillbridge internships. They have grown from one to two participants in 2023 to we have 15 this year. Um of the eight that have been completed so far this year to I'm sorry.

Oh, what's Oh, I thought I'm sorry.

Skillbridge is that transition program from the military. uh the military allows on the actually it's on the DoD's um dime. They get to the transitioning military member gets to spend a specified amount of time working for the city while they pay their salary. Um and it gives them an opportunity to explore careers uh through private employers for the city of Virginia Beach. And we have

them in IT. We've had them in public works. You're going to see a video of a Skillbridge participant that transitioned to a full-time employee a couple years ago uh in occupational safety.

But these internships give um again military members an opportunity to uh explore careers with the city. Uh we've had a lot of interactions with the military community. We've fostered relationships with them. We've always had some inter um some interactions with the military and some recruitment, but we've really kind of stepped that up a little bit and we were doing everything from taps classes to serving on panels,

helping with resumeéumés, getting involved with fleet family services. Um, and we have on here 24 military spouses have been hired to date. I think that number is a little low because it's a voluntary disclosure and people don't, you know, they don't get anything from it. They just if they fill it out on their application. Um, but I do feel very confident that we have had at least 80 veterans hired to date in 2026

because we offer a veterans preference when people apply for jobs. So, we're very proud of that number. And then spouse works partner is a it was a former military employment spouse partnership that we utilize with the DoD that provides military spouses independents with opportunities to work with employers. And so they're kind of the conduit to meet for employers and for these individuals to um connect and

see if there's opportunities within their organizations. And we've had some real success there as well.

So I want to Hi, I'm sorry. You said double click it, but I have a feeling I'm doing that wrong.

My name is Dante Ali and I completed a skibridge internship. Now I have a full-time position in city of Virginia Beach occupational safety.

What I like about my time in the program is I got to go out in the field, get my hands on with uh different types of um equipment, work for different people and meet all the different divisions of the city. Some of the projects I worked on where I participated the program was working with the bucket trucks um learning how to operate and safety protocols for them. uh AEDs running the

whole entire city program for that uh monitor and um pretty much keeping them operational throughout the city. The skill bridge is a perfect opportunity for military members to uh expound on their skills. We learn multitasking and um how to prioritize and manage at an early age. So coming to a program like this would those skills would definitely put you a step above. I would recommend

100%. Uh, not only this set you up for success. Um, it builds and fosters a relationship with the city and the military which uh is very important.

Pretty much guides you into a path that we all as military exiting are looking for. It's kind of like a win-win.

And then also we have a student internship experience.

Hi, I'm Sam Dellardino and this past summer I was an intern with the information technology department at the city of Virginia Beach.

I am entering my junior year of college.

I'm finally beginning to take more technical courses at my school and my internship this summer provided me with an early hands-on experience with a lot of the coding languages, a lot of the frameworks and a lot of these skills that I will need in my upcoming classes.

I worked on the flood vision AI project for the city, specifically testing out whether or not we could have our AI model process data on site instead of sending all of our data back to the cloud. The hope of this project was to save money for the city. I thoroughly enjoyed how invested everybody was with me. This is my very first internship and I came in expecting to get people coffee

and do whatever the IT equivalent is of tightening bolts. Instead, I was given the both autonomy and the trust to work on projects by myself, to check in with people, and to really feel like I have a measurable impact on the city. One piece of advice for people who are interested in joining the program but are maybe on the fence is look into the city of Virginia Beach and what it is investing

in. It is not just a plain municipal city that collects your trash on a Monday. It is a city that is actively investing in not only its community but also being a city that is very technologically forward and a lot of pushing those boundaries and working with those companies. You will get actual experience on real engineering projects if you come here.

Hi there. That was just a couple of testimonials that we wanted to make you aware of. Those are very recent. Like I said, Dante works in our occupational safety um division. And what was the gentleman's name? Who's in it? Samuel.

Samuel works in IT. So, what's next?

Apprenticeships and beyond. Again, with the focused action plan, we had indicated that we were going to start focusing some more on uh apprenticeships. And we go back to those four questions I asked earlier. And we we drill down a little bit further than that. How can we impact the staffing challenges in areas of high vacancy counts and a history of being hard to fill? And then what talent do we need

three years from now and beyond? And how do we start developing that today? So the first thing that we're going to start doing is we're going to start focusing on skilled trades. That's somewhere that we definitely have some vacancy counts that we need to impact.

Telecommunicators in the 911 center. uh technical occupations, surveyors, inspectors, those are historically some difficult to fill positions. And then also in IT, there's a high uh instance of success successful apprenticeships across the um the nation in IT. That's actually one of the more quickest growing, I should say, um apprenticeship programs that we're going to also explore.

And to that end, we're going to go ahead and we're going to hire two apprenticeship coordinators. We've already hired them. They start September 17th. very excited to welcome both of the individuals to the city of Virginia Beach. Um we had initially approached uh ACM Straoud to get a position because we didn't have any vacancies in HR to devote to this and the talent acquisition team is is a very busy team

as you can imagine. So he was gracious enough to say, "Hey, we've got these vacancies. Let's go ahead and use one of them to help us fill the rest of the vacancies." And when we went to go do the interviews, uh, Jada Lee, director of ECCS, was on the panel and we had a couple of great candidates and she said, "You know what? I have a lot of vacancies and I would devote my other vacancies

to hiring both of them so that we can make sure that we really cover some ground hiring these apprentichip coordinators." So, never had that happen in my life, by the way. That was awesome. So, um, we wanted to solidify or we want them to solidify and formally partner with high school and trade schools, community colleges, and post-secondary schools. And that's not to say that we don't have some

relationships now. It's just it's we want to really really make it a formal relationship. We want to make sure that we dot all the eyes and cross all the tees. Um, for example, I didn't know that a 17-year-old welder, there's some legal things that we have to work through before we can cut them loose down and fleet.

That's what these people would do. they would make sure that we do that appropriately and we're not we're not doing anything uh that we shouldn't be doing. They're going to also create local partnerships with each high school to provide students with these meaningful experiences. Uh kind of envision there's 12 high schools, each of them being a a primary point of contact for six schools each. Um we want

to make sure that we start offering opportunities not just apprenticeships, but we want to do job shadowing. We want to get in the high schools and we want to do career days. We want to go and have um part-time on the job training opportunities for these individuals, career mentorship opportunities and information sessions. There's a lot of work that we can do across the organ across the city in terms of making sure

that we are kind of developing tomorrow's workforce today. And then the the coordinators will also be helping uh develop the curriculum and training specific to students and uh transitioning employees which is no small feat. there is a quite a bit of work to do in terms of actually formalizing apprenticeship programs. Um there's also quite a few grants out there in support of apprenticeships

through Virginia Works. Uh the state has got a lot of incentives through their economic development workforce development programming that we want to make sure that we tap into if they're applicable. Um we want to work with the departments to develop apprentichip programming. What we find is that everyone likes the idea of an apprentice, but sometimes the actual idea of going through a formal program,

writing the curriculum, overseeing the student, and making sure that that partnership is really working together is a little bit daunting. So, we want to make sure that we remove any barriers like that that we can. Um, and these and these coordinators will help with that.

They're going to also register these apprenticeships with Virginia Work so that we make sure that we have an ongoing um presence. And then they're also going to serve as man uh resources for the managers and apprentice is a na apprentices in navigating that programming. Um the kind of second piece of this is is retention. You want to make sure that when people start an apprenticeship program that we are able

to retain them. So we want to make sure that they have a point of contact at all times. Not just the supervisor but that that coordinator that is really kind of there for them. Um, and then ultimately we want to create new entry-level positions and classifications that are a pathway for students to gain employment.

Um, and that would ultimately solidify our future workforce pipeline. This combination of activities, quite a few different activities that I've described today.

So, I won't read you these um quotes, but I will say that in a nutshell, what students tell us is that the work that they do, the meaningful work that they do when they're an intern and the relationships that they make with the people that they work with in the city of Virginia Beach is what would bring them back later on. So, we want to make sure that we are absolutely fostering

that. Um, and to that end, I just added this today. So, this is our applicant office, which is not an applicant office anymore. that it's like a throwback to when we used to have to, you know, physically write applications, but it's still that word because that's when I came here. But this is the front office and it's where people come to get their um fingerprints. They get their first

day, they get their badges made, they might do some um online hiring paperwork that you can't do, I'm sorry, some paperwork that you can't do online. And it was very stark and if you come in and you're getting your fingerprints done and you're getting your picture taken, it's almost like, you know, you're getting a mug shot. So, we wanted to make sure that this was a lot more inviting. We wanted to make sure that

we're improving that onboarding experience. Lee O is a 17-year-old graduate of Salem High School. He had a summer internship with us before he went to the Chicago Institute for the Art and he created this beautiful mural for us.

We told him we wanted to combine kind of the essence of Virginia Beach and occupations that are exist in Virginia Beach. And so, he created this beautiful picture of the oceanfront which wraps around to libraries. And then we wanted to give an ode to the agriculture business in this city. These are strawberries, by the way. So, we wanted to go ahead and and make this as welcoming as possible. So, I just

thought that was a really neat um example of how we already are partnering with the high schools and some of the beautiful work that they can do. Uh we also have a student from VCU that is redoing some of the work down our hallways as well, taking pictures that we already have from um our city photographer and just making the whole building a lot more welcoming. So, and with that, I will take any questions.

Well, yeah, Jennifer, please.

I don't know if I'm silly or tender. I just want to applaud y'all. Virginia Beach has been named a Virginia top employer for interns every year since 2023. And I felt like that was the moment to clap, but we didn't. I would LIKE WELL, this is cool to hear. And I've already shared an announcement with my students thinking that's the internship page. So, more.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ar.

So, it's kind of funny you showed that picture at the end because, you know, when I was there, we were in and out of that room a hundred times working on applications together. Um, that was a very busy spot for a lot of years in HR.

You're right though, it does look a lot better with with the painting and all. I could see the elevator behind in the door. I was like, "Oh, I know right where that is." Um anyway, um I I have a I have a a question in a statement. Um the TAPS program, I I was a big part of that for a number of years for recruitment for the fire department. Is that still ongoing? Is it under another

name now or is it still taps? It's a transition program for the military off for those. I don't know the exact acronym. That's what it is.

It's something trans is transition something. You're right. I don't know what the acronym. It's always been as far as I know. Yes, we are very engaged in that. There's multiple transition programs now um that we engage in, but yes, we go and we speak to TAPS classes um in preparation for people when they're leaving the military. The military does a great job trying to prep them for their return to the private

sector. Um and that's one of the one of the avenues.

Yeah. I remember one of the problems for for me personally there was is that it'd be somebody headed back to Alabama. They wanted to talk about the fire department, but they were still going back to Alabama. It was like, "Okay, I only have so much time here, buddy. I got to get to these other folks.

Yeah.

The the other um the other part I was going to say is is I know uh in the uh fire department gym, you know, they're doing some they pulling interns through the year and I would think that is going to be a great mindset to have as far as being able to pull people that are in their semester or working in between it or a semester off to do an internship.

Anything we can get along those lines is bound to be helpful putting them in the position, right? I mean that's just absolutely OJT is there's no better there's the book and then actually doing it right so there are and we you know I neglected to mentioned too speaking of the OJT the apprentichip programs can be structured in multiple different ways public utilities already has three apprentices

and it's an there's a formal electrical apprenticeship program registered with the state and it's a multi-year and it's a partnership with TCC that we currently have where they do OJT part of the day and they also take classes. We also just had a apprenticeship program um approved through the state for our forensics folks over in police and but that one's much different in that the candidates

have already graduated from college and in some instances they already have their master's degree but they're getting a skill set of lay latent fingerprinting and so that's like a six-month apprenticeship program that we're exploring there. So the OJT um opportunities like you said like you described with the fire department and the apprenticeship program are really handinand and the benefit.

And then the the last thing is just to say is that it doesn't surprise me with director Jada Lee her doing something like that. Um I'd like to take a little small credit. I was on her promotional board to the director position. but um she's uh she's smarter than most and she proves it every day on what she does and her department is always at the top and she she's constantly working for the

greater good of Virginia Beach and I just a shout out to her.

It was very wonderful surprise.

Yeah, very lucky and it's great that you got the positions. Okay, Ameilia, thank you so much for sharing what you did with us because that talent and retention for our city, we hear that going out on the stump. People saying, "How do we keep our young people to go to college? What is included? What makes them come back?"

And this whole program is really an excellent program. It's Gucci brought the two young ladies back there, but I want to give kudos to one of our council women because you mentioned she insisted on getting that first funding.

Councilwoman Wilson.

Yes, ma'am.

for a program like this.

And not only that, way back she did the same for swimmers when she saw African-American kids didn't know how to swim. she put that program and I believe in getting your flowers while you're alive. So, let's give her a clap for this.

Okay. Anybody else?

Yeah. Let me say you know the last presentation I indicated I you know teach HR management and I'll tell you what when you look at the history of HR management how we've progressed over the decades you've really taken this new high level high techch multiaceted thing it's just it goes beyond hiring firing and benefits it it is it really takes a whole uh semester to teach you know the

course and as I mentioned mentioned before, you are in constant competition with the other cities and especially the private sector for engineers, attorneys, and things of that nature, and it's really uh rough uh to follow.

Um and then when you talk about the apprentice uh programs, a number of us mayors went to Germany a couple years ago and they have apprentice programs there and they actually start pretty much sophomore year in high school. And once again, I think with the OSHA laws that we have here and everything, I think is something that we really seriously got to take a look at uh because uh you know, a lot of folks are

not opting for college these days. And you know, the real you know, payback immediately is in the trades and I know Rosemary's been a championship of technical training for you, you know, a long time. And the other thing is too, you know, the you do anything with and you know I'm on the board with the workforce council with Sean Avery and everything that's another way but once again you know uh you know

vibrant internship programs and apprenticeship programs you know are an entry way but I tell you what we get some of these you know kids in high school uh you know able to you know get into productive work and they can come out you know especially such a demand need for trades that Rosemary at the development authority was meeting this morning to this that they talked about especially with um acoustical sheet

metal and then there's another company that's going to be coming in they've got to have skilled labor and it's not a college degree thing either and there's a huge shortage of welders they can't seem to get enough welders and I know we have the program down at um uh Vag H vote.

So yeah, we have that program down there and and I think they've tried to increase it, but there's a real shortage of any young people out there and they pay a lot of money.

It's very highpaying jobs, these welders. So there's a huge shortage. So might want to look into that. You know, when I from what I understand was we built the Lesnar Bridge that had to import welders from Baltimore, you know, because we didn't have enough skill here. Was there another hand up here?

Okay. But once again, thank you. Really appreciated it.

So, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, at this time, we'll be joined by Peter Wallace, our information technology director. He's going to give city council a briefing on our AI initiatives and also an overview of a partnership we're doing with Baton University as it relates to AI.

You're welcome, Peter.

Thank you, sir. And thank you, mayor and vice mayor and council, city manager and staff. I appreciate the time as we had things pulled up. Matter of fact, the last presentation I probably could have used for myself. So, I mean, it talked a lot about AI and it's about empowering the future workforce as well as our current workforce. So it I could see where make a lot of sense. So So I'm

going to Thank you, Tracy. So we're going to talk about our AI vision for the city. We're going to talk about the benefits to the city as also getting our works our current workforce upskilled to learn this new disruptive technology and also what it mean for the city. Um and I'm going to be um joined by Tracy La who's our business engineer. She's actually business architect engineer.

That means that she look at anything got to be built to ensure that we have right people in the right place to ensure that their skill sets are in place and that's why she's part of this um AI governance model as well that we have here.

Sure we go this. Okay.

So as we take a look at make sure that we have yeah I go on over as we take a look at AI a lot of AI is considered technology for us really it's about a business operation efficiency it's not about it it's about the business that's where we always take a look at how what can it do for the business operation. All right.

And we know that having a cross collaboration of departments to ensure that we are using all of it, not just a few, but everyone have a chance to use it in their departments to see the benefits that they could have from it is really the key. It's also about using the right tools because AI there's several tools that you can use and a lot of people start looking at their favorites, but frankly it's changing so

rapidly.

So so much stuff that's added every week that we want to make sure that we take a look at all of them, not just one. And the case in point, we use Microsoft um for our co-pilot. That's what we use because we already have it. It's been licensed. It's our shop. And so AI is by far the biggest disruptor since the internet.

If you take a look at it, actually the internet, it took three to four years to reach 50 million people.

with AI three months and a million is added every week. That is how fast the pace of change is occurring that we need to be ready for this because it's disruptive like I said before. So with that we got to establish guard rails around what we do a governance we don't want everybody to start playing with it in our shop because we know with that also come cyber risk and along with data and how

you train it. So therefore that's our biggest thing when it comes to AI.

So with that said um we're talking about the guard rails and the benefit of it is also making sure that our our workforce like we said we had about 50 licenses that we started out with. We co-pilot it. We had them use it for the department. they came back provide feedback and then once we did that we figure out okay what's the next step in evolution of upskilling our um our workforce

so with that we um created we started talking to um that university um and Tracy was very key in making sure that we it was about a year conversation and we didn't want this to become a a Microsoft thing because Microsoft could also come here and talk to class we want to be very generic when it comes to yeah you make the best thing since sliced bread but I want to know how can it be

utilized in the business world not from your perspective because Microsoft is going to sell more licenses we don't want that we want from our view how can it work for the city and that's why we want an independent review of that and that's why we went to Baton Universities so with that Tracy I'm going to pass it on to you and you can come and talk about our engagement Great day everyone. Thank you Peter.

Thank you mayor, vice mayor, council and the city manager. My role here today is to discuss our future ready VB which Peter just stated. It is our AI development program around innovation um and around training. So let me move to the next slide. um relative to the benefits and opportunities, you know, why is it a benefit to us? Why is AI a benefit to the city? Number one, we want

enhanced opportunities for efficiency.

We want to make sure that we're accelerating our decision making um moving our organization because with any type of innovation, right, we want to make sure that we're grounded and that we're moving forward. we don't have to be the bleeding edge, but we want to make sure our city and our employees are congruent with what's going on. And then as he stated, the adjustment in our workforce.

So with future ready VB experience, um what we wanted to do is make sure that we responded to AI, right? So AI is rapidly moving all the time, right?

something new is always coming out is not steady like previous um softwares or previous technologies. So what we wanted to do how we wanted to respond is number one we wanted to make sure that we're laying a strong foundation with any strong foundations there's always strategy and then there's always governance but not only that preparation and planning along with education for everyone within the city. So, how will

we do that? One of the things that we wanted to do was make sure that one of our goals is to implement a safe space for learning and development. Not only that, building an innovation lab dedicated for our people or our members to actually develop the technology. A lot of times we'll go elsewhere to develop technology, but we want to bring that inhouse. And as you had heard Monica had stated before, that will

allow people to want to stay with us while we're partnering with them, while we're growing them with AI. And due to the rapid change with AI, this model allows us to commit to launching AI pilot programs, right? And providing learning settings that build our workforce. Why do we want to build pilot programs? because of the rapid change, because of the standards, because of the guard rails, because of what we see

that's going on with technology, we want to make sure that people have responsible AI usage and that they can build these models here within the city.

With that said, how will we do that? So our strategy what we did was we said let's look at our strategy and let's this time make a heavy emphasis around training and heavy emphasis around building our workforce. And what did that insist of consist of? We want to make sure that we have AI apprenticeship. We just heard about that opportunities and partnerships not just within the city but with other entities.

which brings us to our um partnership with Baton University which I thought was very wonderful. So what can strengthen our educational pipeline? As we stated earlier, we want them to continue to grow with the city. So with us partnering and talking with Baton University, we came up with a curriculum that would meet not only the needs of the members but our executive team as well. So what did we come up with? We

had classes such as AI fundamentals, essentials for the professionals, workplace tools because that's necessary because there's so many tools out there.

We wanted to focus on what we have and then talk a little bit about also what's out there and then give them the opportunity to understand and work on what we currently have. How many times do we come to a workplace and we was like, I would love to hear more information about this tool, but we just don't have the time. This program is building in time in their workplace because it's necessary to what they're

doing, right? The other thing we wanted to make sure of is responsible AI as we stated and we cannot reiterate you know a lot or enough is that we have to be responsible when using AI. How many times do we have um situations where cities or whatever is being hacked. So we want to make sure our employees and our executives have that foundation there that's necessary to implement AI.

The other thing that they taught on is AI and data analytics. That's so important. how analytics can um marry the um the the the tool with AI, bringing us better decisions, not better decisions, but more informed decisions in a faster way, but yet we're vetting those decisions as well. And then last but definitely not least is cyber security. Looking at the cyber security and understanding the risk associated

with AI.

So with that said, I can say the program was great all day long, but this is what the students experienced, right? So with the participants, they were able to gain practical experience using city approved AI tools. They develop departmentspecific use cases, right? So they came to us, we were saying, okay, what do you have in your department? We want it to be as real as possible. It

wasn't just Baton University saying hey you implement this thing right here but we talked to them about what are what are some efficiencies that you can make in your department and they did so they brought those use cases in and then this wonderful thing happened during the training. It was a lot of interdep department collaboration. A lot of times when tools are brought in, there may be

overlap in departments because we have a vast amount of departments here that do many things. But what we saw was a lot of departments were collaborating say hey I do this over here maybe you could look at this as well. They also learned, remember we just talked about it, they learned strong, responsible AI principles and usage. And then not only that, when we had questions, we were

able to bring in direct access from the cyber team, from our data governance team in the developers to assist them in moving forward. And then this is the one that I really love is we're participating in a team-based AI project together based on one of those use cases. This is so important because not only are we learning, but we're now putting it in use and we're making it say, you know what, this is working for

me. I'm not scared of it. So, with that said, let's share some of the comments that the um members made. I'm not going to read all of it, but one member said, "This training was incredibly helpful to me as a reluctant user." Right? I'll say that again. As a reluctant user of AI and co-pilot, the next person stated, "My experience with the course was very educational, I have been able to teach

my team and encourage the use of COVID copilot." And that was one key thing, right? It can't be everywhere. So this person actually took the time to say you know what they stepped up as a leader said let me go back for what I've learned let me go back to my department and share the principles that I learned wonderful thing and then the final comment not the only comment but the final comment is the

overall experience with the class was great was glad there was plenty of demos and discussion periods and not all instruction of course materials. So what does all of this mean to us? And we would put it in a nutshell as AI is just not an information technology thing.

It's a service platform that enables the city to drive efficiency and innovation.

And what will that do for us? It'll give us increased cross departmental collaboration.

It's given us the idea for forming an AI users group internally where we can keep that knowledge internally, right? where if someone needs something, they can go to this user group, not just from it, but they can go to this user group to get information on how they can do AI a little bit better. Greater participation in the in the engagement process. It gives them a sense of ownership.

It gives them a sense of ownership. I don't know when you're working and you're doing day-to-day things, you want to feel like you are a part of something. This class here is allowing them to feel like they're a part of something, right? Leadership opportunities. Just like that participant just shared, they went back to their department and shared. That's a leadership opportunity. Maybe they'll be

the lead for their department. And then it's inspiration for new departmental AI use cases when they know it's actually working. So with all that said, these are the efforts that bring together automation and efficiency especially around training. And at this time I want to open it up for Q&A.

Anybody? Okay. Rosemary and then work.

Can we take that class too?

Oh yeah.

Yes, you can.

What's your AI?

It's so fantastic that you're doing that and making everything much much more efficient. And so just want to just comment that it's very impressive and there's so many different tentacles of what it touches and uh really appreciate y'all y'all showing the leadership to do this.

Okay. Thank you. Uh who else do we have of worth?

Thank you, mayor. Thank you all for the presentation because to me this is a very fascinating topic that I know nothing about but I'm so inspired by because it could I mean efficiency inspiration as you said. So just the question is um you're leading this for the city. We have so many departments.

Can you comment yet? How does this affect like parks and wreck, public works, um public utilities, um economic development? I mean every 7,800. How many employees we have? 7,800 employees.

I mean this goes far and wide. And I applaud you all for getting this trying to get this started because I do think this can do exactly what you said inspire but also educate but also effic make things more efficient and better quality example. I just think I just did chat GBT. How can we better uh read our water meters every month and spit back something that I really didn't we could

anyhow what do you think? Can you answer that?

Well, let me just start with the public the public your water meter for a second.

We had probably the most students come from public utilities. So, I'm glad you you said that. And also, it was a cross collaboration like I said. So we had about maybe eight or nine different um agencies that that showed up and they're the one who are we we're planting disciplehip if you will right um to make sure that they find what best works for them. So all departments you just

mentioned have some kind of tentacles regarding their thing that we're going to help develop. That's and that's the capstone. That's the product plan to ensure that we tap into their ideas how they could improve their own operation and continue to learn.

Okay. Anybody else? Amelia.

Well, thank you so much.

I noticed the student experience mentioned reluctant at that sentence and it took me all the way back to try to get seniors to get it adjusted to the mouse.

all the way back that they thought it was like a real skill.

So with what you're doing is important and all of us can learn from it. Now with you working with Baton University, are you working with any other like TCC or any other groups?

Yes. So we we um Baton was the first we we reach out to to several and Batton was the first to really I would say scale they want they understand our needs and are able to do that. We also work with ODU. We had years of communication with ODU about au innovation lab and we're still talking to them. But yes, um we also recognize that when it comes to the trade side,

right, we definitely need to have more engagement there because um AI is really that biggest disruptor like I said and I want to make sure that people are not afraid of AI of losing their jobs to AI because you're always going to have the human in the middle, right? you without the human to train it, it does not work very well. So that's really what we're trying to make sure that we we uh reduce

that fear to what the people are talking about.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

Yeah, let me just say back in the 90s um when I was doing home care rehab, I had a mapbook and a beeper to get around.

And now how far we have come. And Peter and Tracy, I just want to commend you and Patrick uh a couple months ago. You had a seminar at uh H uh Old Dominion University campus at Town Center and you had some of the top industry leaders there and did a tremendous job on ed educating them. So I just want to say kudos to a magnificent department. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right. I think we're ready for council uh comments. Yeah. Rosemary.

Uh we have a special guest in the audience today, a young man that has been shadowing me. Uh he actually lives in district 6. Uh and he goes to First Colonial High School and is in the legal studies uh program. and he is a fine young man. If Nicholas Rabbino would you stand up, welcome.

I tell you, we went from economic development to the jail today. So, that's quite a diverse diverse uh time that and then of course in the city council. I don't know which one is better or worse, but we'll find out later. But it's been a joy to have Nicholas and he's he's got a bright a very bright future ahead of him.

Okay. Anybody else? Worth.

Thank you, mayor. I've got a sheet of paper here. I'm not going to read it all, but um this past weekend um was the book end of starting with East Coast Surfing Championships prior weekend to the Supergirl Virginia Beach Supergirl inaugural festival. Um, it's estimated a 100,000 people were at our oceanfront this weekend from the Supergirl Girl Festival, surf festival that Rosemary's

holding up. Is that a cape or that is a cape or a um that was surfing. It was also sports, sporting activities, 22 concerts. I was at the um one of the parks that was also engaged at 17th Street Saturday night.

The fireworks, there was the place was packed Saturday night. I've heard a lot of good things about this past weekend.

Um, a lot of locals were down at the oceanfront this weekend. But I also want to tie it back to Labor Day itself which we had um um celebrated yesterday because our own staff from I want to congratulate and thank the labor that was done this weekend from the CVB commission and visitors bureau, public works beach operations, public works building maintenance, public works traffic operations and parking

operations, public safety, parks and wreck landscape services, the beach ambassadors, beach events, the Virginia Beach life saving service. there. A lot that's a lot of labor this past weekend to host this first event. I'm very happy with it. So, thank everyone who was involved.

Okay. Anybody else? Jennifer, just a friendly reminder, it's zero waste awareness week. So, you remember the presentation last week and Christy Ryan put together those wonderful posters. They are now going out across social media. So, the uh public waste and management Facebook and Instagram account have been sharing them. Um, but so far it's been reduce, repurpose, re something else, reuse. Thank you, Miss

Henley. So, be sure um just as we're just highlighting efforts to um create a more sustainable planet this week for the city.

Okay. Oh, Amelia.

Yes. I forgot to mention last week that we do we have hired a new president and CEO for the Hampton Rose Transit and his name is Brian Smith. He had been like a vice president before where now he was hired as the new president in spite of the fact that he was a steward of mine in the early 2000s. He turned out to be a success.

Yes. didn't know that.

Okay.

Oh, thank you, mayor. I just want to pile on uh Supergirl was fantastic. Uh we we went down there as a family on Sunday, spent all day. The vibe was just so positive. The mission, you know, supporting um female athletics and empowerment and making sure we're raising courageous and fearless young girls uh and and active women. and uh the vendors uh that vendor uh area the the I mean they make it kind of just

look like a a streetscape almost of uh and and the community partnerships uh at another was down there. Uh she scored sports was down there. Um and uh I it just it was so good that my my kids actually dragged my wife back two more times on on Monday to go watch the uh watch the watch the concerts. I think there was like 21 acts that played. I mean, it was the the

entire production was extremely well done. Um, and just the the positive family-friendly atmosphere that was uh was was spectacular. So, anybody else? Let's go Michael and then work.

So, just pile on. I forgot to say the organizer for Supergirl Festival said that our staff was the best he had ever worked with and he's been all over the world. I mean, he's Friday night. I didn't ask him. He offered that straight up. So, that's good point. Thank you.

And we agree, Michael.

Yeah. Well, I I'll just briefly say I was there, too. And um it was really, really wonderful. So, and you know, our staff and that includes all the people you mentioned, all the departments worked throughout their throughout their Labor Day weekend while so many other people were relaxing to make that experience possible for for us and for our community. uh and for our visitors. So that was really great. But

in addition to that, mayor, I have report that's kind of a dual report both as a liazison from economic development and um for the agricultural advisory commission, which I have the pleasure of being a new appointee and share that with council member Henley. This morning, um the development authority approved a matching grant uh to Creepmores Place. Creek Morris Place is um one of the vendors in the farmers

market and they've been operating a farm in Virginia Beach for more than 55 years and um it's there's an amazing history it's amazing history at the farmers market. They're really incredible people. They received a grant from the Commonwealth, which the development authority matched uh which will expand farm-totable uh food options and um locally grown fruits and vegetables for Virginia Beach residents. And this this

grant along with their investment will make it possible for more people to receive fresh local food and that's a good thing for all of us. It's healthy.

And I bought peaches from them just this afternoon before this meeting and I think they may be the last peaches of the season. um left.

They're in my office, mayor. So, I'll give you a couple, but they're um they're open. You can drop by. They got some beautiful peaches, but you want to get them before uh you get a cold. She was I was talking to Sharon this morning. You want to get them before it turns a nice a cold and they start to turn mushy. So, they're still getting and we haven't had that yet, especially

in South Carolina where they're from.

So, get yourself some peaches. They got one field of corn left to pick. She got beautiful butter beans in there. Um agriculture report.

That is what makes us unique. So, if you want to stop by the farmers market, uh, and not only the Creek Morris, but everybody. But isn't that neat? More than 50 years that they've been at at the farmers market in that location.

The kitchen also have tomato pie. Jennifer likes you don't like it. You look like a tomato.

go down there and get some tomato pie.

Yeah, let me just uh finish with this if you don't mind.

Yeah, you I we got to give a tribute, you know, to a lot of our staff and working staff into Virginia Beach of what makes Virginia Beach the city that it is. You know, we had some challenges before the summer season. Look, when we concluded business yesterday, I would have to say that we had a very successful summer season and when you look around the country that there were all kinds of other problems and

everything. I mean, when we were talking earlier about public safety, but we when we talk about the integration of staff and how all the departments that work just read that makes an event happen, Supergirl came here because they knew that Virginia Beach could handle events of magnitude and we also have multiple events where we can have people come here and uh you know and it was amazing.

And even, you know, the vibe of positivity that was there the past weekends uh between the I mean, you go from Jack, you think about everything from the bull bowls and barrels to everything all year, you know, Point Break, there was something for everybody all year. And we are a true destination that is, you know, where people want to come. I mean, I I'll say it again. New York Times said we're one of the top 53

destinations in the entire world and it takes a lot of effort, Patrick, by your staff uh and a lot of moving parts to get it going. So, please pass on our kudos to everybody.

Okay.

Can we thank Nancy back there?

Yeah, please.

Oh, yes. Always Amanda Jarrett Amanda and Tiffany Jason, how about this? Multiple kudos.

Yeah. Okay, folks. Here we go. Um, okay. The chair will entertain a motion to recess into a closed session pursuant to the exemptions from open meetings allowed by section 2.2 3711A code of Virginia is amended for the following purposes. Personnel matters, discussions, considerations or interviews of prospective candidates.

Employment, promotion performance promotion salaries, disciplining or resignation of specific officers, appointees or employees of any public body pursuant to section 2.23711A1 and that's appointments to council boards commissions committees authorities, agencies, and appointees.

Do I have a motion?

Second.

I

hi Wilson.

Hi.

Hi.

Okay, we are reestating.

Back to order. I'd like to have a motion to certify that close session.

Second.

I

session.

Thank you all. We are returned for today. Thank you all very much. I'm sure.