City Council Special Formal Meeting, 1/13/2026

Welcome one. Welcome all to our meeting.

And Mr. Dhaney, we're ready to get going.

Letter.

Okay. Uh, okay. But first, I got to uh read a letter because we're going to have a little bit of a special session. Um, honorable members of city council, in accordance with the Virginia Beach City Code 2-2 2-21, and by authority vested in me as the mayor of Virginia Beach, I hereby call for a special formal session of the Virginia Beach City Council on Tuesday, uh, January 13, 2026 at 1 p.m. uh city

council conference room room 2034 uh building 1 second floor 241 courthouse drive. The purpose of this special session is to conduct public briefings on the city council comments discussions and listed in the attach and public agenda. At the conclusion of the uh public briefings, the city council comments discussion council will uh convene into a close session where the following matters will be considered.

publicly held property in district 2 and district 6 and personal matters uh council appointments of boards, commissions committees authorities agencies, task force and appointees. At the conclusion of this close session, uh the city council will reconvene into an open session uh for the purpose of certifying the close session. The special uh formal session will be broadcast on uh cable TV and Virginia

Beach and uh Facebook live and signed by Bobby Dar. Okay, we're ready to roll.

All right. So, Mr. Mayor, members of council, the first briefing, but before we get going to the first briefing, just want to make um note of a slight change on the agenda. One of the items, agenda item D, the disparity study update, for logistical reasons, going to have to move to another date. So, that one will be rescheduled at another time. So that's a slight change on the agenda,

but the first item will be a briefing regarding starting Hampton Roads and this will be led by Nancy Girden, president and CEO of Hampton Roads Executive Round Table. So at this time, Nancy will um come to the stage and come to the podium and kick off the presentation.

And Nancy, I got several people listed here. Is who's uh so Lauren and I are arguing. Okay.

So, it'll be Nancy Girden, president, CEO, and also Lauren Roberts, who is the vice president of marketing communications for Hampton Road Chamber of Commerce. So, Nancy, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Well, to both of you.

Thank you, Mayor Dyer, and thank you, members of city council. We we are truly excited uh for the invitation today. And uh Lauren and I are actually going to tag tag team this, but uh two things.

We'd like to update you on a really exciting uh inforce activity starting Hampton Roads. uh a little bit of background of how it happened uh what's happening with it today and where we want to go and then obviously u entertain any comments or questions uh that you might have. So I I just want to say a couple things. Number one, this is truly a regional activity. Um it literally started uh well over a year

ago when we um number of us who are regional organizations uh the alliance, the workforce council, the chambers, others uh looked around the region. And obviously we are seeing data that concerned us about out migration and retaining our talent. And so uh that really precipitated uh a study well over a year ago now between the Hampton Roads Workforce Council whom I know you know

and the round table to really understand sort of what what what was what was the thinking behind it? What why were people staying? Why were they going from Hampton Roads big picture? And so we started with that. Um and we're fortunate enough to get some seed funding from VEDP Virginia economic development partnership that is now complete. So we'll give you a little background on what happened with that,

some of the amazing results that happened uh way beyond anybody's expectations and then and then we'll we'll roll forward from there. So u again just as just a little background as I mentioned uh we wanted to understand a little bit more about what was happening in Hampton Roads. Um and so we we we engaged an organization called Fahrenheit who did some work for us to really help us understand uh what

was going on um in the region. Fast forward to today. We didn't present a lot of statistics. We know that's really not the purpose of the meeting, but we can tell you a couple things. Um, the good news is Hampton Roads and Virginia, broadly speaking, are doing better in terms of not losing as much uh out migration and talent, but we are not uh we are not attracting enough. And there

was a recent U-Haul study, many of you may look at it. It's kind of like an early warning signal for data uh that the census does. and a number of the regions that we compete with across the country, the the Raleighs, the the Jacksonvilles, the Nashvilles, and so on, we're continuing to gain population, and we are a little flat. So, we don't want to be flat, we want to grow. So,

there's no no change in the rationale for why this is so important um for the region, broadly speaking. So, a little bit of why we learned at the time why people were concerned about leaving Hampton Road. Some of it probably wouldn't surprise you. a little bit about cost of living, uh, safety, and again, safety is more of a perception, generally speaking, issue, not just around city A or B, because again, we

weren't really testing city data at the time. And, um, I wanted to know more about career opportunities. They they they weren't as widely known. People weren't knowing about these opportunities. Uh, so they said in the survey and they also had some concerns about healthcare. So, these were these were some of the things we wanted to really understand. And so, a couple things jumped out at us. number one um

no no surprise uh younger non-military remote workers were the ones um really who were the most likely to leave. But the other really amazing thing are we learned about boomerangers. People who had grown up here, gone to school here, maybe left town for one reason or another, um really came back and we we didn't really mean to study that, but that came out loud and clear as a really

amazing thing. And the reason they came back were some of the reasons that we thought people were leaving, cost of living, job availability. And so we we really realized we have a communication problem here as much as anything, not so much um um a data problem. So that really led us to the program and I'm going to turn it over to um Lauren at this point. But what happened here was

we were fortunate as I mentioned to get Virginia Economic Development Partners to fund a pilot which is this landing page that we started called Start in Hampton Roads that we ran from July to the end of December. And u Lauren's going to tell you about what happened there and why this is so exciting. So Lauren over to you.

So like Nancy said we worked with the organization called DCI. They are a talent and marketing um and economic development a agency and they did a fantastic job of working us through our core campaign audiences as well as I'm going to show you a map here in just a few moments through their target market ID exercise. But obviously we were looking at our audience of our job seekers, the talent in our key

industries here in Hampton Roads. We walked them through that so they knew exactly who we were looking for for our region. Our quality of life chasers. Um, I am not originally from Hampton Roads.

I love Hampton Roads. And I love Hampton Roads because of our quality of life here in Hampton Roads. And that's a story that we need to tell far and wide.

And so we're telling that story to those quality of life chasers. Those folks that want to come somewhere where they have the beach, they have mountains within a few hours, they have city, they have rural, they have everything that they could be looking for. And of course, we would be remiss not to focus on our veterans. Our transitioning service members are a target market for us. We want our military members and

their families who remain in our region after their tours of duty are over. So, of course, we looked at how we could really capitalize on keeping them here.

[snorts] Our target markets, again, this was done through a target market ID exercise with the organization DCI.

You'll see there are the top seven markets that we were uh advertising in through our paid media campaigns. Um, one of the things that really struck me on this is the cost of living in many of these other locations. Think of California, think of DC. As Nancy mentioned, we are finding that our boomerangs, those folks that lived here once, went away where they thought the grass was greener and quickly learned

it's not, a lot of those folks are going to these other states, but then coming back to us. They're realizing that DC is not all that affordable and that they can get a whole lot more in their quality of life here in Hampton Roads.

So certainly targeting those folks.

These are four of 30 plus media samples.

I hope when you first look at these, some of the things that jump out at you is our industries, our quality of life, our veterans. So these are things that were going out across both social media and on Google. So that our uh talent, those that we were looking to attract through talent, we're looking at these media samples saying, "Well, I want to know more about that location. I want to

be part of that. That's a story that I want to learn. So again, capitalizing on the storytelling aspect of this fantastic region. So now I get the privilege of showing you my very exciting part. I am a data nerd. So pardon me here as I give you some very quick data points. But what has been absolutely u exceptional from this initiative is that in five months, in five short months, we were able to reach

1.8 8 million people. So the impressions ranged at 1.8. We had 25,000 visitors coming to a landing page. We use the word landing page because it is not a full buildout website intentionally. We built a small landing page where people could land and then find more information about many of our other organizations and departments. We've had 1300 plus leads. Um those are job seekers. Those are folks that found our

landing page, went to a form, and said, "I want to know more. I am interested in Hampton Roads. I like what you have to tell. I want to potentially come there."

So again, we have this ability to connect with leads all across the country, and I'm going to show you some of the places they're coming from in just a moment.

[snorts] Um, our top performing ad groups, probably no surprise to you, cyber security, en engineering, energy, maritime, a top metros, again from our target ID exercise, Los Angeles, New York City, DC, Raleigh, Charlotte, places where we have been losing talent to for many years. Those people are looking at this landing page. They're saying, "I'm interested in Hampton Roads." And now it's time to get those

people back. Uh, [snorts] jobs in Virginia Beach. We thought you would all would love to absolutely hear that they were the top searched keywords with more than 13,000 impressions and a thousand clicks. So that means these are people going into Google and they are searching for jobs in Virginia Beach. They want to live in your city. They want to live in Hampton Road.

Mentioning we're not saying that because we're in front of you.

Micro microphone. Nancy microphone.

Oh yeah. Sorry. I was just saying uh it's it's worth saying we are not pointing that number out because we're in front of the council of city of Virginia Beach. This is the top set of data and and we tell it to you because you are clearly as a city uh and you know it what better than anybody the mix of the incredible assets quality of life to live here and jobs. So that's what's

exciting about it.

Thank you.

And then one other quick data point for you there. Uh 52 cents the cost per click for our Google ads which generated 450,000 impressions. And again, keeping in mind that this was just a pilot amount of money. About $30,000 was used to get these numbers. So again, I'm not going into incredible detail here for you. You do of course have this in your packet. Um but if you look at our funnel

there, really working down from the impressions to the visitors to the folks that were spending more than five minutes on the landing page and the number of leads we were able to capitalize on. Uh looking here at our Google search performance, very excited to see these top performing ad groups.

Again, looking at the amount of money that was spent for what we were able to actually produce with that money. Um and again, because this was a very targeted campaign that was looking at our industries and at u cities and states where those folks are and we want them of course to come to Hampton Roads. And then we felt this was incredibly interesting too looking at our top performing metros. The reason there's

two of them on there is one is um for the Google uh paid search and one is for the display ads. So looking again at those top cities and looking at the impressions and the number of clicks that are coming through from those cities as well. Um Nancy and I were very excited to see that uh Raleigh, Durham, and of course Charlotte were on there because we've heard those cities for

quite some long quite some time. As you know, both of those cities have very strong marketing campaigns as cities themselves. Um, where they funnel a lot of money into this. Um, so again, very little dollars. We're able to really kind of show you that we can target and and play game with these folks as well.

And the top performing keywords, as we said, um, we were not just putting this in here, um, because we were in front of you today. Uh jobs in Virginia Beach was our number one keyword phrase there. Um according to our data, of course, jobs in Virginia there u being a very strong second. So there is an interest in Hampton Roads. There's an interest in jobs in this region. Um and it's

certainly something that we want to capitalize on. I think it's also important to note there are affordable places to live. um engineering careers, housing affordability, many of those other keywords that we talk about in many capacities all of the time.

Again, just another Google display ads performance. I wanted you to see here that the total cost for this one over five months was $3,300 and we were able to get impressions of $474,000.

Um which gives us that 52 cent um cost per click, which is incredible.

Uh there are four of our top performing ads for you. Um based off impressions, the clicks and our click-through rate.

Again, looking at our coastline, looking at our beautiful beaches, looking at the quality of life that we have here, and of course, looking at capitalizing on keeping our veterans and their families in this region.

And then finally, we wanted to show you some top engaged companies. Um Nancy and I and the team were very happy to see that we are playing game here with folks from Google and Meta and Apple and Amazon Web Services. These folks are looking at our region. Uh many of them are looking at our region because of the high quality of life and the story we have to tell in that aspect. Um and then

again looking at our top engaged job titles from software engineer, project engineer, technician um and the whole way down. Um so we know that there is great interest in this region. Um we know that we are um able to fill some of those workforce gaps that we have seen in some of these targeted industries.

It's just telling that compelling story that we have.

So Nancy is going to tell us briefly about our 2026 next steps that are in the works.

So, a couple things. As I mentioned, uh we we were fortunate to get some of that pilot funding from BED. Um it ended on 1231. These are the dollars that yielded this result. And uh as many of you know, BED typically does not fund marketing, uh job prep placement, that sort of thing. So, they really were not a source. So, where we are is two things.

Number one, um there's an active application to go Virginia region 5. Um, right now, uh, we actually have a council meeting coming up on January 29th and then it would go to the full board in March. And the Go Virginia request is to really continue to build out the job board component parts of this application. Um, as you probably know as well, Go Virginia typically does not fund what I'll call direct

marketing, but they do fund all of the assets. They certainly fund um, job placement in key industry clusters. So, that's a live application. And um I I think this is also a good point to even though the round table and the workforce council we led a lot of the early work um the Hampton Roads chamber and the chamber foundation is the lead applicant for go Virginia they would manage this

um project on ongoing basis on behalf of the region. I think that's really important to note just in in charge of the chamber but the entire region we have an advisory group that has representatives of uh organizations the geography the companies and so on. So that is number one. Um we are not here today to ask you for match money for go Virginia. We are not here for that. Um we are fortunate to have the Hampton

Roads workforce um commission council to be our key match dollar. So this is for information so that you know that that's where this is moving ahead. Our goal is hopefully to get that passed by the council um state state council in March.

And what that would allow us to do is to continue to build out the capacity.

Separate from that, separate from that though is we really want to take this to a whole another level. We want to actually continue to push out the marketing and to do that not only in state but out of state. As you could see from some of those um really early sets of data, we have some key markets to push. We have some key messages to push and we obviously have job openings. And

so our goal is also to have a parallel set of of dollars that we can use to really amplify the marketing message, build uh build this out from a landing page into a full website. And again, that's down the road. So, so that's literally where we are here. And you know, I know this had come up as one possibility at the economic development um meeting here in the city of Virginia

Beach as is there a way that there could be some funding from the city. We would certainly welcome that. But again, we are not looking for go Virginia match money. We have got that covered. We're set. Uh but we want to think ahead for how do we really want to amplify this.

Final comment I will make. Um the even though the VEDP dollars have ended, that that landing page is out there. It's out there right now and we are continuing to push on it through all of our partners, our cities, our companies and as a matter of fact uh co Friday night we got an inquiry from Forbes magazine very interested in guess what the wave wave park what's happening there

interested in the housing interested in the community so we immediately got it to our colleagues Amanda and Natalie no you know immediately they jumped on it and as a matter of fact I think there could be really some interesting followup just from Forbes so there's a lot more follow-on interest here way beyond the landing page that I think is worth pointing out. So that in a nutshell is really where we are. Um

there's again an active go Virginia application right now which we're excited about. Uh we're continuing to think about further ways to amplify it.

We've got a great partner in the chamber to really lead and build and grow this for the whole region and um we're happy to answer any questions and again appreciate all of your support along the way. So thank you. Well, if it's okay if I can, you know, just start things rolling. Nancy, I just want to thank you and the chamber, but the thing is there's also a collaborative effort going on with other organizations

like you know, we're also in the alliance together and uh you know, they're really working on a synergy about you know, really bringing the 757 together and when you think about the potential that we have and Nancy, if you could do me a favor, you can switch a little bit to the, you know, we're a little part of the alliance hat. Couple months ago at the Sandler Center, there was a presentation

by the Alliance about a very exciting program that identified the strengths of our region. Can you touch on that a little bit?

Yeah, I'm happy to do it. Um, first of all, this slide literally illustrates what Mayor Dyer said. I mean, there are 11 organizations. Uh, we we meet, in fact, we just met this morning. Uh, we really try to align our activities. Um and again that's how this project started a year and a half ago is who should lead it, who takes the lead, but again it's on behalf of the whole the

whole region. And so um another exciting uh activity is you know at go Virginia and Hampton Roads um we're um executive round table we take a look at our growth industries and probably wouldn't surprise anybody what they are. you know, their advanced manufacturing, defense maritime logistics aerospace.

And so the beauty of what has happened with the Hampton Roads Alliance is they have really as our business attraction and development entity for the region have really picked up on this had a lot of outside work done and have created something called the Hampton Roads Investment Playbook. In fact, I'm happy to share that link um with with members of the council if you would like. And

really what it talks about is taking these industries and leaning into them as a region for a couple reasons. is number one, you look around the globe, look around the country and think about all of the uh challenges and opportunities if you think about that and all of the assets Hampton Roads has and the city of Virginia Beach. So, what the alliance has done is said we're going to focus in on four industries deal

defense energy aerospace and logistics. Great idea. It's all the key industries. And what we're going to do is we're going to lean into them for a couple things. We're going to lean into them for building out more supply chain and companies, for building in talent, and for building in innovation. And that is a regional effort. It is led by the alliance, but many of us are involved in

that. And it's a it's really a very important implementation blueprint, if I can say that. And frankly, starting Hampton Roads is part of the the outreach of that playbook. In fact, we're envisioning uh an application right now with the Navy uh to be honest, which will be obviously a great partner with the the alliance, the workforce council, and using start in Hampton Roads as a way to kind of build some of

that outreach. So, there is a connection here and thank you, Mayor Dire, for bringing it up and we'll make sure we get those that information.

Yeah, I think there were what about 400 people showed up at the uh Sandler?

Uh they would say 800 people at the Sandler at the Sandler Center.

Quite a few. Yeah.

Uh but let me just say before we get to Worth and Josh, I think one of the things that we have to underscore here as a council and as a city that that we do, we have been lauded for having one of the highest qualities of life.

Companies are not going to come here without the Q. They're not going to come here without the good schools, you know, and the things to do, uh, the rec centers and, you know, the many things that, you know, you know, the safest city, um, and things of that nature. And uh you know when we think about you know you know what we bring and u you know I'm very proud of the fact that you know

I always say to my friends that oh yeah they got NATO in uh Norfolk but everybody at one of them pretty much lives in Virginia Beach and they cite the schools and the quality of life and uh you know so once again you know as we go forward I think it's our duty as we go forward any budget process to make sure we keep the quality of life and the other thing is too to create those

opportunities. I love saying saying friends don't let their friends kids move to Northern Virginia anymore. You we'll get you a job down here. And so I think that is also part of this equation. And the other thing when you talked about we have we have such a vibrant military community here and when you think about skilled people that are retiring and we just got designated as one of the top places for military

retirees to stay and just people getting out the plethora of opportunity. You know, if I could just say one thing either back back to that original study, one of the pieces of information for people who live here in the region is that they themselves don't realize all of the amazing communities and locations and quality of life and things to do and jobs. So there's as much value on what

I'll call internal to the region marketing about how great the region is to stay, grow, build from as well as external. And I thought that was an important takeaway that we we had not anticipated in the study.

Thank you. Worth and Josh. Thanks mayor.

Thanks miss uh for the presentation and for the work. This is to me very exciting having kind of been in this space for number of years now because to hear about the out migration that's not good but to me to stem that or be stagnant in our growth. We do have to get a better and and louder message out there. That's not to say HRA is doing a great job but that's for business

recruitment chambers for business. But we don't have a regional message like in my opinion like Charleston or Charlotte or Raleigh or Richmond. And the more we and because we're 17 or 18 localities and reach on our own, but I always say rising tide lifts all boats. It's so appropriate to Hampton Roads. And the more we can get this behind this to to give our message out to the world of how

great a lifestyle we have here of all the assets and economic development is workforce. So this is go great and I fully support Josh and Mash.

Thank you mayor and thank you both so much. Um and it it was it's wonderful work you're doing number one but it and number two we can see the results because of the um the eyeballs and the clicks and the interest um that your site is driving. And um and many years ago, as you as you know, I was involved with that regional marketing initiative in 2018 and 2019. And one of the one of

the takeaways we had from that was um before we could be effectively marketing ourselves outward, to your point, Lauren, we got to we got to know who we are and be united within um and and to be able to tell and walk that story. Um, and and the other thing I know we learned was that, you know, the the old economic model of a company, you recruit a company here and then the

workers come is flipped upside down on its head these days. you've got to have the the talented workforce in place um in order to attract the companies and and so um a lot of that boils down to um affordability and housing. Um but um you know that we we we need to do and and are doing a better job of of going after those job seekers, those quality of life

chasers, the veterans as a mayor as a mayor was saying. Um because I mean I'm here to tell you I grew up in a cold weather state and it was 70° here this past weekend in January. And I mean we are extremely fortunate to have um the the the climate we have the the outdoor amenities, the investments in parks and and uh and our rec centers and all of the other community amenities that we

have. But but these I mean if you look at each one of those jobs and that the people showing interest in our region these are the highpaying jobs that everybody is talking about that we want to we want to try to attract here. So um so thank you very much for the work you're doing and look forward to seeing more.

Thank you cash.

So I'm grateful that you gave uh such a wonderful presentation. I'm a big fan of the deal right the acronym for deal. I think its message is timely. It's right on job fairs. We [clears throat] need to have more job fairs um because that's marketing uh in its highest form, right?

You can do it from television, you can do it from a podcast, but job fairs really plants in the community. So, I'm I'm looking forward to staying connected with you with job fairs.

Absolutely. Um, I I told uh district 7 that we would like to have a a job fair every 90 days and we did that because I went to the Sandler Center and we got the message about the deal which we were inspired right defense energy uh acoustical and logistics. I mean we need u to feel not just have them as jobs but to feel them right and so with the right messaging uniform messaging we can be

effective and so I'm on board. Thank you for your presentation today.

Thank you for that support. That's great. Yeah. And you know back to the partners um that's exactly what what that's exactly what's envisioned. Um uh we didn't even mention our uh higher education community colleges. I mean obviously all those amazing students and all that amazing talent we want to keep in in Hampton Roads. Uh so that's another angle and certainly these job fairs they are really critical. There's

no question about it. So thank you for that feedback and we will actually share that back also with our partners on the on the team. Thank you.

Thank you.

Can I also share too um we are doing this in tangent with our Hampton Roads Workforce Council. We actually just had a call right before this with them today. They want to use the momentum of this really being the outreach um and an open door to get more eyes on Hampton Roads and be able to take that and and escalate that from a workforce standpoint. So whether that looks like

job fairs or whatever that may be. Um Sultan Camp does a fantastic job with our veterans employment center. There's a lot of opportunity there and so we are working handinhand with the workforce council to get that done.

Okay. Anybody else? Okay. Let me say thank you, but you know, let me just finish on another note, too. Uh, you know, I'm on a number of the things up on the board and one of which is the workforce council. And, you know, this gives so many people opportunities. Not every child is geared to college. A number of years ago, five mayors went to Germany and looked at apprentice programs, internship [snorts] programs.

Uh, and then you know, Nancy, you're acutely aware of the, you know, the ship building industry needing what, 5,000 skilled workers. What an opportunity for somebody to get into a trade and maybe come out of high school making up to 75,000 or more. Uh, you know, when we built the Lesnar Bridge, we had to import welders from Maryland uh and some pretty big bucks to do that stuff. But

we have the talent here. And I just want to thank you because I think it's important people know what what's going on regionally and what we're doing, you know, to make this a better and stronger uh region. And I just want to thank both of you for what you've done.

Thank you.

Appreciate it. Appreciate the invite.

Thanks so much.

Right. So, Mr. Mayor, members of council, at this time the next presentation will be provided by Andrew Lockach, who is the chairperson of your cannabis advisory task force. He will come and give city council a briefing regarding considerations for preparing for administering adult use of cannabis programs in Virginia Beach.

Andrew, go ahead. Floor is yours.

Thank you.

[cough] [clears throat]

I may be the tallest speaker you have today.

Okay ready?

Thank you for allowing the Cannabis Advisory Task Force or the CATF to uh speak to you today. I'm Andy Lockach.

I'm the former chair of the task force and in the audience today are uh a number of members of the task force and I thank them for their uh their time and their volunteerism.

The purpose of the task force is outlined on page two of your packet is to advise the city on issues relating to the implementation of a recreational or adult use cannabis program.

I'll use the terms uh recreational and adult use interchangeably in this presentation and they are one and the same.

The timing for this presentation is appropriate as we believe the proposed legislation will pass into a law and implementation of an adult use program may happen rapidly. Given the limited time we have today, I'll refer you to the pages in the presentation while I focus my comments at a high level on the selling points for your consideration.

So to give you some background on pages six and seven provide information as to where we currently span stand with respect to cannabis legalization and prior legislation currently in place. So, first, cannabis remains illegal at the federal level.

However, the federal government has deferred to states on cannabis programs, citing states rights issues. Second, medical cannabis is currently legal and operational in Virginia.

Third, adult use bills known as the Rouse bills have been approved by the legislature in each of the past two years only to be vetoed by Governor Yncan. Governor Alex Spanberger has indicated support for a well- reggulated cannabis marketplace and has indicated that she will sign a bill if brought before her.

The new bill currently being negotiated is expected to be similar to the Rouse bills previously submitted and those bills are what the CATF has based its work on. In 2025, the legislature, state legislature performed a bipartisan joint commission referenced in the document before you as the JLC.

In late 25 2025, the JLC made recommendations for changes to the Rouse bills. These recommendations are be consider being being considered now.

Note that the black text boxes in your presentation are the JLC recommendations that are different from the Rouse bill.

You'll see an example of that on page eight.

There you go. Right there. You see on the bottom there, the bill and the JLC recommendations anticipate that a majority of the administration oversight and enforcement of an adult use program falling under the cannabis control authority or CCA, which is a state entity. However, the specific permissions are provided to localities. Examples of this are zoning, signage, the ability to object to applications,

taxation and fees, etc. These permissions are outlined in in part on pages 7 through 12, and we'll touch on them in our recommendations.

Assuming the bill is finalized, approved by the legislature, and the governor signs, adult use could go into effect as early as the end of September of 2026 this year. Just over nine months from today, the CATF has made 17 recommendations for the city to consider. I'll go those go through these at a high level and be happy to answer any questions you may have.

So recommendations have been broken into three categories. Public safety, community outreach, and zoning.

Public safety page 14.

The Rouse bill had a provision for localities to opt out of adult use cannabis sales. If opt out is allowed, the city should consider whether it wishes to do so and understand the process and ramifications for opting out. The JLC, as you see in that black text box, has recommended not having an opt out provision, and we believe that localities will not be allowed to do so.

So, this may be a non-issue.

on page 15. The city should consider setting up a review and approval procedure for applications.

The process is when applications are received by the CCA, Cannabis Control Authority, they will be forwarded to the city, which will then have three days to accept or object to the application. So, multiple different departments may have to review in an expeditious manner.

Please note final procedures regarding this process are being negotiated at the state level. Also, and this is important, uh we expect there to be a first wave of applications that will be substantial and the city should plan for this from a resourcing standpoint.

Pages 16 and 17, uh the city should consider allowable operating hours as well as ordinances as to where cannabis may be consumed and associated penalties.

Page 18. The city should consider what fees and taxes to charge. The Rouse bill allowed localities to tax up to 2.5% on retail sales, while the JLC is recommending 3.5%.

Other fees should be considered as well.

Finally, the city may want to consider the use of the proceeds such as economic development tip to reduce the loss of toa tobacco tax revenue, funds being allocated to schools, etc.

Community outreach on page 21. The sh city city should consider implementing youth prevention and general health risk campaign campaigns, advertising, social media, collaborating with health departments schools etc.

Next page. The city should consider providing workplace education to main safe and compliant workplaces and resources for employers.

Page 24 uh very important. The city should provide adequate training to law enforcement and first responders, including enforcement considerations such as drug driving training and responding to those experiencing uh distress from the use of of cannabis products.

Also, communicate uh clear rules regarding where cannabis can be consumed, particularly public spaces.

Consider how to communicate such rules so as to educate the pro the public.

Page 26. Consider uh if and how to prioritize social equity and micro business licenses through technical assistance, reduce fees, grants, etc.

The JLC has recommended roughly 50% of retail licenses to be reserved for micro businesses.

[snorts] And finally, within so uh community outreach, consider within the parameters within the parameters of the legislation whether and how to allow and provide oversight to private consumption permits and adult-tononly events, including farmers markets. It appears this may not be a day one issue as no clear legislation is currently in place uh allowing such venues or events, but it's

something that uh the localities will need to plan for.

zoning.

Consider text amendments to current city zoning ordinances regulating various land uses within the cannabis industry.

This includes cultivation, processing testing retail, and also the consumption venues.

A special note here, the the Rouse bill set a minimum distance between retail facilities at 1,000 ft. JLC recommended one mile. It appears that after negotiations are done that 1,000 ft will be the minimum. Uh but localities may require more if desired. Need to consider this in in the context of such areas like the ocean front. You know, do we want a cannabis store every block?

Thousand feet may may allow for that.

Pages 30 and 31 consider whether different zoning districts should allow or restrict different cannabis related uses. For example, is processing an allowable use for secondf flooror buildings at the oceanfront? Also, should there be any additional city permits, registration requirements similar to short-term rentals.

Page 32, consider whether any additional signage restrictions should be required above and beyond stra state restrictions. And there will be verbiage in the uh bill regarding uh uh signage.

the signage language in the current bill is currently being negotiated but is con considered to be in alignment with what what we've seen in other uh other states.

So in summary uh we expect a bill similar to the Rouse bills to be signed into law during the next legislative session. Certain fine points are still being negotiated and the city should review the final verbiage. If the bill is signed into law, adult use may start as early as September, maybe November of 2026, 9 to 11 months from now. We expect a large first wave of applications that will

require the city to have processes and procedures for city review uh across a number of departments. The city should consider affected departments and workflows in order to meet that 30-day response period, the accept or object to an application. The shi city should consider tax and fee schedules and appro and and application of the funds received. The city should consider operational issues for uh for the for uh

the uh uh participants uh such as days and hours of operations, signage limitations, etc. Uh city should consider outreach programs including youth prevention, first responder training, and any social equity micro business initiatives. And finally, the city should consider zoning issues and any text amend amendments to ensure that cannabis is uh cannabis related businesses are appropriate for the

zoning and zoning districts. Uh thank you for your time. Uh happy to me to answer any questions.

Michael, please. [snorts] Um thank you very much, Mr. Lock.

Appreciate you being here and thank you for your service um as a member of the task force.

Thank you.

for years. And um I just want to acknowledge the other members of the task force who are here um including the newly elected chair Lata Warren. So congratulations uh Miss Warren and thank you for being here. Um there's a lot to unpack here, but I just thought I would share um some of my thoughts. I don't really have a question, but I'm curious what other questions that um other members of

council may have. But going back many years, um I think the city of Virginia Beach was very wise to create this committee and this task force and we did so gosh about 5 years ago I think now. And we were anticipating changes in cannabis laws that we knew would be coming and then those changes were kind of delayed or um caught up in the legislative process for years and it

seems like changes may be upon us very soon now. Um, and that's certainly the expectation that um, I think most people who are paying attention have and it emphasizes the I think the wisdom that the city employed in creating this task force to best position ourselves to mitigate whatever downsides could exist as part of moving to a um, adult use, recreational use model and also optimize any of the [snorts]

um, opportunities that that present themselves, economic development opportunities. these um opportunities for small businesses in Virginia Beach.

I think the committee has been working very hard um to do that. I also think these changes are going to catch a lot of people by surprise. Um people have very mixed uses about cannabis, but not only on the topic, but how it's used, how it's sold, where it's used, where it's sold. Um, and those are all issues that that [snorts] the task force has sought to address and I thank them and I

and I compliment them. I think the community engagement that you noted is going to be critical for Virginia Beach um in terms of both um sharing awareness about these changes and um and also creating an an understanding about what power or what influence localities have versus what the state is going to authorize. And I'll give you an example of how it's played out just in in the last few years because obviously um

people can consume um cannabis in their homes, right?

And um a lot of people don't consume cannabis in their homes. They consume it in their hotel rooms and they consume it on the boardwalk. Um but even within people's homes, if you live in a town home, we've seen how their neighbors can be impacted and and we've seen, for example, um the limitations that a municipal municipality has to enforce these things and um and that has caused tension between neighbors and it has

also caused tension between the municipality and some of the people [clears throat] the city of Virginia Beach in our case and people who live here. So there's a lot to unpack and I think the task force has done a really good job. I think we're the only locality in the Commonwealth with a task force and I and I really think that it's really smart that we did that we have been laying this groundwork for a long

time because as [snorts] you can see there's a lot of things to figure out here. Um I really want to say I think on our zoning side we've got to get smart and we've got to get um I do have one question about that. We've got to get smart and we've got to get prepared um to think about where um sales and manufacturing might occur in Virginia Beach, sales, manufacturing and

processing and what control if any the city would have in that and how those permits would be issued and what you know the mechanics of all that. Um so I'll be interested to hear more about that if you could but before that I just have one comment. same time I have a concern about how this rolls out with public safety. There were a lot of recommendations here and a lot of them

involve our police department as you know for reasons some of the reasons that are beyond our control some of the reasons that are within our control. Um, Virginia Beach is experiencing, like many other communities, a deficit in um, in filled uh, police officer positions in our city. And yet it feels like every time we meet on a Tuesday, we're seem to be having greater and greater expectations on those police

officers. Um, and I have a concern about that. And um I have a concern about you know uh laws are on the books but there's only you know that police officers have to make decisions about how they prioritize enforcement in the name of public safety. And I think we need to be mindful of that as we're contemplating providing direction to the police department. Um, first things first and um, I I know we

have a an excellent police department here and and I have every expectation that the we'll be able to, you know, effectively make those prioritizations to keep our community safe. So, I just want to make a note [clears throat] about that. But any thoughts on the zoning and how we can be uh, positioned and prepared to respond there?

Well, uh, the CATF has done some work on the zoning. uh wasn't ready to present it to to today uh has uh has some recommendations that uh would be glad to share in the in the near future but uh we do believe that zoning is critical and uh need to need to have a well you know well thoughtout zoning plan there.

Uh I do agree with uh your comments about uh it's critical to get ahead of it and to roll out your program both at the at the state and the local level in an organized manner. Uh you can look at the New York state who went through a roll out about two years ago and it was very disorganized and it created a lot of problems and it opened up it opened

up a space for uh what's called intoxicating hemp products. You may be familiar with those uh to to come in and fill the void. And once you get this intoxicating hemp products was a gray market area, you know, really bordering on elicit. Once you get these gray market illicit products into your market, it's really hard to get them out. So, so to have an organized roll out, uh, it it it sucks out that air for

those, uh, you know, illicit gray market companies to come in and it makes for a, as as, uh, you know, Governor Lex Spanberger said, she supports a well- reggulated market, which includes, you know oversight enforcement regulation, all those things. Uh so I think that is critical in in rolling out a program at both the state and the local levels.

[cough] Okay. [clears throat] Uh go cash and then Stacy.

So I'm always grateful for this conversation. I think we need to have this conversation is is very important for us. It it's kind of like um when I started looking at cannabis as a revenue source for Virginia Beach. We we can't look at cigarettes anymore like we used to because that's declining. Vaping and cannibid is becoming more uh prominent than cigarettes. Um but with that being

said, education, I think you have done well by placing Lata Warren as the chair. Um she is all about education. Uh she educated me and in return I've educated my community. So, I think there's two parts to this that I'd like to stress is education um canvoid or uh cannabis is not going away. Right. Those those are facts.

That's my assumption. Yeah.

Right. But as a municipality, we have the power to capitalize on that. We can either do nothing or it continues to have a revenue source that we can't tap into and then we'll put that on the taxpayers. And so very wisely, we should get ahead of it and put in education and protocols. We've got a task force which I think sets us apart from other localities. And so with us being a resort

town, a resort city, I think for us the wise thing for us to do is education when it comes to our police, our schools, youth organizations, but most importantly, it's parental education, right? And so we are a governing board, but without our parents, then we have really uh no power unless the parents empower us. And so we've been elected by the parents. We've been elected by the community. And so

with that being said, we will push it back education to the parents. Right? So with that being said, once you have education in the homes, then we can make for a very productive conversation. One of revenue, right? If we don't do anything about the revenue, then it just goes away and it's on the taxpayers. So my uh two points I like to make on this is thank you for your presentation.

I'm grateful for the task force because I do see the educational component of it. Um, two is we've got to capture this revenue source before um before we transfer it to the taxpayers.

Thank you.

Okay, Stacy [clears throat] and then Jim.

Jennifer, thank you very much for your presentation. Um, I just this [clears throat] is not my bailey wig and this is normally normally I don't speak about things I don't understand, but I'll give it a shot.

Um I guess some time back and I'm uh I had heard that um there's one of the early proposals was to give priority to people that had marijuana convictions and uh as far as establishing retail establishments and do you have an idea of where that is in the process? to to my to my knowledge that's that's not in in the uh the Rouse bill. What is uh in the Rouse bill is the micro businesses.

Okay. Not quite the same.

Um then I guess this will be set this will be determined at the state level if it hasn't already.

[snorts] you know, impaired driving that, you know, it's a to from my understanding it's a more of a complex issue because not only would [snorts] somebody um be smoking uh cannabis, but in many times it's in combination with either uh drugs or or alcohol. So, makes it more of a complex issue. And I guess that's just something that our uh police police chief and the city manager are going to

have to be out in front of about how do we deal with that and giving the res giving them the resources to be able to address that issue up front. So comment well well certainly uh uh driving under the flu influence of of cannabis is impairment. Uh the difficulty is unlike with alcohol, you can't just take a breathalyzer and say, "Oh, you know, you're you're high, you're impaired." Uh

cannabis, unlike alcohol, stays in your bloodstream for up to 28 days. So, you could potentially test positive for cannabis that that you used uh you know, the previous night uh and you're not impaired. So it's it's a real challenge for for uh law enforcement and uh and you know there's certainly companies that are working on that. I would expect you know in the next whatever few years

that there will be a solution to give that you know to give that test similar to with alcohol but right now there there isn't.

And then just one last comment as far as zoning goes. Um I in your presentation you talked about having overlay districts and um you know I would just see if there if we could explore the possibility of not only having overlay districts but restricting the number of establishments within within an overlay district. you know, to to say within a mile of each other or a thousand feet of

each other um is one thing, but to you know, if we if there was a way to cap the number of establishments within a certain area, I think might give more community acceptance to the process.

In in other states, there are certainly localities of that have done that. So, that is an that is an option in in my understanding.

Thank you, Jennifer.

Thank you, Mayor. So, I I thought I would be like really familiar with this presentation. So, I was, you know, catching off on some things. And then you kept saying the Rouse bill. And that was the first time I've ever heard it called that. And I was kind of like, why is it called the Rouse?

So, [clears throat] um, I'll just say that I thank you for the work you're doing and that the task force is doing for localizing it because I know what the state lift has been. And I know um you know the the Rouse bill does not legalize marijuana broadly but it does create a framework for adult retail market. That's right.

And the idea behind it I know is um Aaron wanted to capture the revenue. So to say hey if this is something that's already happening let's create a framework so we can get some education revenue is his goal and we can ensure that there's some public safety efforts now. there's a framework, we can regulate it and we can create some rules that will hopefully promote public safety. Um but I know that um because

there are so many stakeholders involved and it's a statewide issue that um Aaron wanted to ensure perhaps through the micro business way that smaller actors can get involved as compared to the big organizations or groups that might already be able to come in and corner out the market to make sure there's room Yeah. there's room for um whether you have prior convictions or you're a

smaller business kind of person, you can get your foot into this market. So, um trying to accommodate the different interests around the issue, but um I I thought I knew about this issue, but I learned something about this Rouse bill.

So, well, I'm always happy to give a shout out to the locals as well.

Jennifer, maybe we can call it the up and smoke bill or something.

work work. [clears throat] Thank you, mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Lock, for your uh work work on this. It's very good. I know it's been some time and that's um but it sounds like the time is now and so I ask uh Councilman Beluchcci and the body, you know, there's some issues I think you brought forward here that I think we need to address locally or start thinking about addressing here. And is the cannabis uh advisory task force the

place to take this up or how do we move forward? Assuming this is going to happen. I think it is going to happen in the next three months. I think we should be ahead of this and not behind it.

The session start is going to started or and they're already down there now. So, we'll know probably in the next coming weeks if this is going to be something that they're going to take up this session and what timeline they're going to give us. And I think with the work that they've done there, we already would have a good head start in terms of being able to jump it up in in terms of

getting it set up. So, Brent's going to actually start his um weekly briefings.

the city council starting next Tuesday, you know, and this is going to be top of mind, probably top of whatever he presents to council as it relates to track how this thing is progressing to give the council the time to figure out when this is going to come and then we can start to activate some of the recommendations to bring back to council for consideration.

Okay. Uh you know let me just say you know I am mixed on this for a number of reasons but that being said uh you know you know in government we have to play with the hand uh cards that are dealt to us and if we're going to deal with it let's deal with it in a very effective way but I but I really take seriously and Patrick if you correct me if I'm

wrong Chief's Nudig thing that a large degree of youth violence that is going on now is over the sale of marijuana.

And I think this is, you know, um, you know, something that we really have to factor in, uh, you know, what's going on because if if we can, you know, do it right and turn it into something that would actually be a public safety, uh, you know, uh, you know, condition and you would say say so often. I know we had some, you know, homicides dealt with this trade. Correct.

Correct.

um you know so you know once again it's going to be controversial no matter what direction we go but once again you know uh you know it it's it's a situation that we just have to come to the table and deal with and I think with the recommendations and I and Michael I think there was wisdom in uh putting this task force together uh because when when the time really does come we we'll

be far better prepared Yeah.

Hey, thank you.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Good work. Thank you for your effort.

All right, moving on.

[snorts] So, Mr. Mayor, members of council, the next presentation will be provided by our process improvement steering committee and it'll be given by the our chairman and former council member Brad Martin. He's going to give city council a review of the budget considerations that Pisk is um asking council to possibly consider as part of the fiscal year 2627 budget process. Do you want to Hey, welcome.

Thank you so much. I'm sorry to come after the cannabis. I'll ask you to stay focused please.

It might be hard.

Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor, Madame Vice Mayor, members of city council, Mr.

Dehaney and Mr. Styles. I am Brad Martin. I'm the chair of your process improvement steering committee, and I appreciate the opportunity to be here um and present the task that you gave us um which was to look at your budgeting process and and some of the items that you all go through every year. I don't have to tell you all how difficult that is. I am joined I'd like to acknowledge

the two chairs of this subcommittee, Sarah Welch and Bruce Johnson. They brought a ton of talent to the table here and we did quite frankly a heavy lift over the last six months. We also have a couple of um committee members in the audience, Clint Platt and Donna Turner and Larry Dodelo. So, thank you all for being here and thank you for your work. Um just as far as the background goes real quick. Um you all

tasked us with this um when you came through your budget season uh this past spring and you gave us the task of looking at the budget and seeing could we find some better processes and some better opportunities for potentially cutting some of the city budget. We did two things really. We are going to recommend a longer term methodology, but we also bring to you a couple of options um for your immediate consideration.

So, I don't have to tell you the um dictation that you gave to us that we were to collaborate and coordinate with the city manager's office to identify efficiency opportunities and costs savings measures. We started this um project in July with a briefing from Kevin Chattalier and some of his staff um after receiving your direction. We don't want to wait till this coming August when we would submit our formal

report for the committee. We wanted to get going on this as quickly as you all wanted us to. So, like I said before, we see this as an ongoing project, but wanted to deliver these recommendations today, perhaps in time for your fiscal year 2027 budget deliberations that are obviously right on the horizon.

After your original direction, we received further clarification from Council Member Cummings that the real effort today was going to be to find $16 million in the budget. And obviously, you would know that equates to about 2 cents on the real estate tax rate. Seems like it should be easy. We're talking about less than a half a percent of your $2.8 billion budget. But I want to tell

you, and I don't have to tell you, there is a lot of work that went into this.

And I'm proud of what we did.

So, as far as our position goes, we do not opine on the appropriateness or the need or where the city budget should be.

we were just given the um requirement to come forward with this thoughtful, collaborative, and hopefully objective process. I do want to shout out and thanks very much to our city staff. They have been wonderful to deal with.

Specifically, Kevin Chadelier and Caitlyn James in the budget office are your two deputy city managers, Amanda Jarrett and Monica Crosky, and certainly our PISC staff support who are Ed Feny and Susan Salafrana and Peter Wallace.

Before we get to the immediate considerations, I want to fast forward to what we consider a long-term um operation of this where we would potentially or somebody would some committee that you all decide would potentially coordinate with two to four city departments each year and do a deep dive into the particular budgets that they are considering. and then we could really come with some strong

recommendations as far as targeted opportunities for savings.

Um things we did not consider at this time just because the time frame was too short. There is so much and again I don't have to tell you all how difficult this budgeting process is. But there's options like do we charge a fee at the city dump for somebody to go dump their trash? We had a wonderful presentation by your public works director LJ Hansen on the capital improvement projects and

where there could be some cost savings with that, but we didn't touch that at this time.

One thing is clear, I don't have to tell you that this city is a remarkable machine. We have a $2.8 billion budget.

About 800 million of that or 30% is generated from the real estate revenue tax income.

And I do understand we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, but there really is precious little of the city's budget that can be identified as discretionary after we extract out the schools, federal and state obligations, and other things that you all have to fund.

Shortterm, like I said, we were directed to focus on $16 million in cuts of revenue or excuse me, cuts and/or revenue. And again, that equates to about 2 cents on the real estate tax rate. Our deliberations were strictly monetary. We have an understanding that every single line item in your budget, whether it's parks after dark or the horsemounted police unit or the aquarium fees or lifeguards at Sandbridge,

everything is an ox that somebody might see is getting gored. So, we understand that there are difficult decisions to be done here.

A consideration for you is is really which of these programs are core services that the city deserves to provide and real impacts in our citizens lives.

So as far as recommendations for additional exploration, we were given the task of $16 million. We actually came up with $20 million.

One idea that kept coming up was for us to ask the citizens,"Well, what programs would you like to cut? We understand you want to save on your real estate tax rate, but what are the city programs that you're willing to cut?" Because we don't think that's ever really out there on the table. So, we do want to gather the public's feedback on some of these important um financial decisions.

So, as far as the $16 million, it's kind of small there, but you have it in your package. I do want to hit on a couple of these. Um, again, thinking about things that we didn't consider.

We got $1.2 million up there in economic development.

I see Natalie and Emily over there.

Cash, are they burning holes through me with their eyes?

A little bit.

We had identified a 25% expense reduction in economic development. We didn't even consider where would that $1.2 million turn around and become revenue for the city. So we understand that with cuts there may be impacts to revenues as well. So, we are it's it's hard to stand here and recommend any of these individual cuts without going the second and third steps of understanding where those cuts are going to have

impacts as far as the aquarium goes, which is down there further. Does an increased ticket fee lead to reduced visits at the aquarium? Is there a net loss there or is it a net positive in terms of revenue and expenses?

or do we have some difficulty in logistics of whether there's a resident versus non-resident price at the aquarium? So, um the early childhood services item up there, it shows as a basically a $1 million expense item, that's about a $2 million program. It's got about $1 million of revenue. So we are spending as a city a million dollars in that program to affect by our numbers 121 families.

That is probably a very important program for those 121 families. And I don't want to stand here and say we need to save a hund a million dollars by shorting those 121 families. But is that a costbenefit analysis that you all want to consider?

Moving to the next page. Um, we talk about parks and wreck. Did I move to the next page or not? I did. Um, parks and wreck. We talk about some something as simple as adjusting a few days on the mowing cycles in the medians and in city parks. Is that going to have a bigger impact on more bags of trash, more bags of cut grass that have to be there, more difficult maintenance on our machinery?

So again there are second and third and fourth level impacts of all of these items.

Um finally one another this is the last page and this shows the total of $20 million of Kel reductions. We look at just a 5% expense reduction overall across human services which would be about $1.1 million. Is that pens and pencils and paper clips or is that personnel that would then not be able to make their mortgage in the city? So, I want to tell you, and again, I don't

have to tell you what a difficult job this was for us to even take your $2.8 billion budget and find $20 million of possible reductions to it. Everything has a downstream effect. Everything probably has a multiplier effect. um especially for what's going on in economic development. So that's our report. We do have $20 million of potential savings in your package for you. Um I just I want to thank you

again. You all know that the process improvement companies process improvement steering committee stands ready to do whatever you all choose us to do and we appreciate your thoughtfulness and your faith in us to pursue this project. So happy to stand by with any questions.

First of all, Brad, I want to thank you Sarah Bruce the entire u uh process improvement committee.

We were uh Councilman uh Schuman and I were the liaison to this project and I I think except for the initial uh direction [snorts] giving [clears throat] took a very hands-off approach. We did not want to be seen as the ones, you know, leading you down the trail. Mhm.

Um I want to emphasize that the the um committee used the resources that Brad referred to. They used the staff, they went to department heads, they uh took input.

This was not something that um they went through the budget and picked out items themselves off the top of the bat or off top of the hat. uh he they they did work with city staff and got recommendations and there were items that uh uh they went through their process and decided to pursue.

So, uh it's been well thought out. Uh I will say that and I think Brad hit on this. Every dollar that's spent in the city has a champion. There's not one dollar that you can cut out of this budget. Not one single dollar where 454 people are going to stand up and say, "That's a great idea. Why did we do that years ago?"

Every dollar, as much as you may think that it's unnecessary or wasteful or not productive, there's somebody that really feels as though that's an essential city service.

So, as Brad said, it's this was not an easy process. It's not easy going through and making these recommendations because some of them hit home and I'm sure that well, some of them hit home for me that I would tell you I I could probably make the argument, you know, let's find let's find it somewhere else.

But again, that could be said for every single dollar that was made in this recommendation. The point of this process is to uh bring to council so that we can um recommend to the city manager that these items some of these items if not all of these items be pursued further. It's not this is not a you know here do this. It's let's look and see if there's a way or if there's something to this.

Uh and again it's a $2.8 8 billion budget. And I in giving directions, Sarah Welsh asked very early on, are we are we hunting or are we fixing?

And so I said, make no mistake, we're hunting. You know, if we can fix along the way, that's great, but we're hunting. And they did. They really rolled up their sleeves. And um the $16 million was not an that was not an accident. As Brad said a number of times, the $16 million equals about two cents in our real estate tax rate. So, that was a conscious goal because to

come out here and say, "Well, let's find a couple million dollars." You know, why waste the effort? You're not doing anything um to reduce the cost of living in the city or to address the the issue of uh government spending. So 16 million was I thought an aggressive goal and boy they took it to the next step to come up with $20 million of recommendation. Um I [clears throat] I feel confident that uh

this will be taken to heart that it will be further pursued and hopefully we can see some results in this year's budget and that the citizens will see that the folks on this council we hear you. We understand the cost of government is accelerating at a pace that um over the last several years that we can't continue uh to have it accelerate. And this is a very conscious goodfaith effort to bring some hard um

recommendations to say let's look at these items. Let's start here. And as Brad said, I think this is an ongoing uh ongoing process. There's no way you can take a a budget that's literally uh as thick as the old yellow pages for those that can remember those days and go through it in a period of 6 months and come back with some um with every recommendation that could possibly be done. [clears throat] But this is a

great start. Um you have a lot to be proud of. You guys did a fantastic job.

took it very seriously and I think that um this council has something to to look at and to get to the city manager and say, you know, we'd like you to proceed or like you to pursue where we can.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. And m Mr. Mayor, I I apologize. I did not acknowledge Councilman Cummings and Councilman Schulman who have just been absolute champions whether it's connecting us with city services. Josh, three years ago, after you were elected, but before you had even taken office, asked us if he could attend a meeting, and he did.

And then Councilman Cummings did the exact same thing last year. And the amount of engagement, and not to disrespect any of you other nine, I apologize, but the amount of engagement that these two have had in the process improvement steering committee, whether we're talking about wonderful results in the planning department or this project or other ones, have been fantastic. Cash was was a prior member of our process

improvement steering committee. So, thank you for that.

Okay. Jennifer Josh Michael.

Thank you, mayor, and thank you for the presentation and for the work that your uh committee did. I agree it's a it's an important conversation and it's complicated by the different demographics of our city. So, my mind went to three places with no clear. So, forgive me while I try to like work it work it out. So, the first place my mind went was the emphasis on property tax reduction, but like in my district,

there are a lot of renters. So, I know this is something that's come up in a few budget cycles that when we look to reduce the real estate tax um to benefit property owners, what benefit do renters get in our city? Are they seeing also something that's helping them um with their um budgets? which then makes me think of I'm looking at U. Miss Kroski when we had the presentation on the

demographics of our city. So the population the out migration of young folks and um I'm just going to say what Mayor Dyer has said. I'm only repeating what he said about the gray I'm only repeating what I've heard him say which is the graying of Virginia Beach. So then it would make sense that perhaps some of our uh folks who have been here longer own their homes and younger folks are trying but

there's not the inventory to buy or they can't afford to buy so they're renting but then some of the programs I would assume benefit kids and that would be the younger. So when you say you know we cut services to the library or to parks and recck for after school and how do you weigh the balance of uh all the different constituencies? So, like when I'm out in my district and it's like,

"Hey, what's what's important? What do you need?" And for the most part, people are okay, but they mention their kids. I I want something for my kids to do to keep them out of trouble, to keep them, you know, involved in something positive. So, outside of school that doesn't cost a lot of money, I know that, you know, public or excuse me, parks and wreck and our library, um, it's not their sole responsibility, but

some families rely on that. Um, and then finally, the human services cuts. And I know some time ago we got a presentation because there's federal cuts. So already they are under resourced because of the cuts in federal dollars and who's to say whether or not they'll capture any state money. So you know considering the funding sources. So y I know y'all know but this is where my mind is going as

we're considering this um you know renters um kids or young adults or even adults who are trying to raise their kids in our city. um how our city services what's core but what's also maintaining the quality of life that we like to boast about. Um so thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um Rad, uh thank you very much to you and to the rest of the committee for your hard work on this. Um and as Council Member Cummings said, we sat in on a couple of these and it it's not easy. and and uh you know we we sit through it every year the myth of the $2.5 million budget um because we we we see that um just as as Brad said uh

each as you as you kind of strip the layers down um you know each of these programs impact people and lives um and so I appreciate the sensitivity there. I I was very supportive of the the process and the um and the work that you all did. Um knowing of course that some of these some of the recommendations might be um you know difficult to kind of reconcile um and and also full- minded that um we

have an entire half of our city government basically not at the table being our schools. Um and and um we we can't I guess force or require schools to go through a similar exercise, but but I think um but I but I think it would be it would be something um worth worth um worth opening those kinds of discussions about. Um, and you know, I mean, just a couple of

the I mean, we could each each one of us do this, but I mean, and and uh but the I know mount patrol, for example, um you know, has a really important role in community policing, um oceanfront crowd control, our festivals, and um you know, and I I just I met with the um sergeant there who said, you know, that that that's one of the only times where they go into a neighborhood and and kids get

excited to see police officers. um you know and and uh and of course we all have National Night Out in our in our neighborhoods and and they seem to be all over the place and um you know uh cutting the grass I think we'll probably get a bunch more phone calls um no doubt uh because people will see the grass longer but um and that's only a couple hundred,000 but um and and you know

something that we had we had talked about when when we were together um and you were meeting as a group was you know some of the things that we offer like our rec center memberships, our after our out of school time and and child care, those those have you you got to pat your head and rub your stomach in circles to get on a weight list to maybe get all your kids into one of those

things. And um and for somebody like me, I've got three and if you get two in and one out, then you know, then you're in trouble. But um I [clears throat] I just think a lot of these things where we have where the demand is out outpacing the supply we're able to offer, maybe we're off on pricing. And I was I was glad to see that that you had you had made those recommendations. Um but

recognizing of course that, you know, there are going to be families that are not able to to absorb those cost increases should we, you know, choose to move forward with some of those. And obviously we have to be sensitive. Um to Councilman Rouse's point or Councilwoman Rouse's point, the real estate tax benefit, we've been talking about this for years. um you know especially when you when you look at um um you know

people who own larger um more valuable pieces of property, people who own businesses thereby um owning multiple pieces of property through their businesses I think see an outside um benefit um when we focus on the real estate tax um uh without without considering other things like personal property tax, vehicle registration, other other things that that hit hit people who are are [clears throat]

renting and who don't own their homes.

Um, and then lastly, like Councilwoman Rouse, I I was concerned a little bit, well, a lot of it about um, you know, just kind of across the board, the 4 million in human services cuts, just knowing like the council woman said that um, a lot of a lot of those [snorts] monies are um, then then placed along alongside federal and state monies and those are matching. Um, so, so knowing

what may or may not be coming. Um, and then and then we we wouldn't want to we wouldn't want to take a dollar off the table when it meant we lose out on like $4. Um, so I I was can you maybe clarify a little bit on that front, Mr. Manager?

So, um, Mr. May the council as the council knows a lot of the human services budget is predominantly state and federal pass through money and a lot of that is tied to different um local matches and the salaries and the and the comp and the the budget the budgetary monies and resources are used to trigger and meet those match requirements. So in some cases if you take a a local dollar away you may lose

$4. And currently right now what's being contemplated is not approved yet, right?

Going through Congress, the Trump administration is proposing to increase the local match requirements on on um different states, especially as it relates to their ability to meet certain error rates, right? And the error rates isn't just for the city of Virginia Beach. The error rates are for the entire Commonwealth. So, if the entire Commonwealth misses out on an error rate, it could mean that the local match

requirement goes from 25% [snorts] to something like possibly 50%. These aren't approved yet, but these are things that are being contemplated as the federal government looks to tighten its budget as well. They're pushing down requirements on states and the state is in return is going to push down those requirements on local governments and we may need additional dollars to help meet a higher local match requirement.

Thank you. And just lastly, um, on the item number one, the economic development piece, I I really appreciate you recognizing the the potential revenue hit as a as a as as a consequence of of of a expense reduction, particularly with um with with the people who are overseas trying to get new businesses here um who are then, you know, just opening up Virginia Beach to new markets and and and new

industry. So, um, I I just those those those have got to be really carefully thought through and hopefully we can take this and just kind of input it into the budget process and and and see see what what can stick and and what makes sense Michael.

Thank you. Thanks, uh, Mr. Martin and all the members of the committee who are here and and who worked on this. Um, I think this is a very important exercise and it's a really vital discussion and and I think you summarized it really well and Josh said a lot of what I was going to say um, including some comments on some of those individual line items, but for the most part I'm going to try

to just focus on the process and the and the exercise which is which is aimed at um, enhancing efficiency in our municipal operations and um, protecting the Virginia Beach taxpayer is something we all agree on. I'm very supportive of that. Um I I think it was noted about the schools participation or lack of participation.

I don't think we could have a meaningful discussion about um creating efficiencies and government and spending and stewardship of tax resources without including the schools somehow in in that conversation. acknowledging all the challenges that the schools face as well as um the city of Virginia Beach faces in um contending with rising costs, the impacts of inflation, uh the affordability crisis that people are

experiencing. But in order to have a truly meaningful conversation about efficiency and process improvement and um affordability in Virginia Beach, we have to include the schools as part of it.

and and I would request that we um and we can have happy to brainstorm, happy to talk further um with you about how we can somehow incorporate the schools into this process. Maybe it could be a joint committee actually um and maybe we can't require them to alternatively actually I'm not sure that we we would have to require them to but but if we we did we might be that might

be within our purview. I think they should be part of this conversation and [clears throat] they're they're making some big decisions as well and I actually think based on my conversations with members of the school board that that I think that's something that's on their mind as well. Um you're talk we're talking about building schools.

We're talking about school expenses.

We're talking about the changes in enrollment in Virginia Beach City public schools. But also at the same time there's changes in enrollment which is has shown to be declining to some degree. The expense of educating students is going up and um and the needs of school employees as well as city employees is is going up as well.

So these are all things that we need to be thinking about. But anyway, it's a long way of saying schools should be at the table and I hope they will be. So let's talk about next step of that [clears throat and cough] if possible.

I think that's a great idea, Michael.

Yeah, thank you, mayor. And if I could just say a couple other words. Um I have some concerns with some of the specific line items here. Um but anyone would um you know looking at those things we're we're going to into a budget retreat where the topic of what is an essential service is going to be discussed um and different people have different ideas about what is essential um and their expectations about that. As

you noted um there's a champion for for everything that's in the city budget and we're going to have to we're going to have to work through that very carefully. Um, one question I do have that. So, I will resist the urge even though I'm dying to to uh to talk about some specific items in here. I'll resist the urge to do so. Um, except for a couple of questions. The first is on the

topic of the aquarium. It says um increase fee, reduce expenses to break even, and you have that number listed at $2 something million. My last understanding of the analysis was that the break even number was closer to 8 million.

Do you have a recollection of that?

I think we've only got Yeah. Could you go to the microphone, please?

Thank you.

I stood up here and stumbled through this presentation. Bruce and Sarah have done five times as much work on this than I have.

Thanks.

Thank you. Um, so the point with the aquarium that you made, um, I don't know if we we looked at a comp compartmentalized component of the budget and the line item difference we had between the expense and the revenue for that particular line item in the aquarium was was $2 million. Now, there may be an overall that we didn't see. I don't know if Kevin can comment on that, but we didn't see the overall. So, we

saw the 2 million. We took that.

Thanks, sir. And and then um sorry, I know you're probably chomping at the bit, but um where did the discussion about cultural affairs come from? And and where did you come up with that number?

I' I'd like to say that came from my ser my previous service on the Arts and Humanities Commission, which this council appointed me to 20 years ago.

Um, and I made the case that it was a critical $430,000 at that time and probably $460,000 now that the city funds arts performances and other arts um opportunities. But we saw that did we just take a 25% cut at that or something?

some of this stuff. Councilman Beluchcci was quite candidly a wag like like I said on one of them where we asked them to trim their expenses by 25% just because it was a big number. Um I mean it's a huge number and and this is an area that this is the one thing that I will just drill down on further.

The we we're we're on the verge of losing major cultural organizations within the city because of the cost of inflation. And so reducing the budget would only exacerbate that. But at the same time, we've heard from residents over and over and over again that they uh appreciate, respect, and value the types of cultural investments, and it's not just charity to arts organizations.

We're talking about, for example, the creative neighborhood grants that bring people together um and uh the project grants that provide access to uh cultural programming and education to people who would not otherwise have access. So, you know, you talk about to me that is an essential service. it also employs people and other things like that. It may not be uh al I mean I could

go further than that but but it it it's a concern to me because time and time again um creative expression arts culture is seen as expendable when it comes time to tighten a belt and actually um you know studies performed by [snorts] organizations such as Americans for the Arts to name one and many others show that actually uh public investment and partnership with the arts produces a positive. just one of the few

that actually is known and demonstrated to produce a positive economic imp impact on a community. And so we're not we just need to be I'm not saying we shouldn't take anything off the table because it's our responsibility to um leave everything on the table. And at the same time, I just want to make sure that we're not falling into that trap of including um of of including things um that are historically viewed as

expendable when in [snorts] fact they are essential and are positive for our economy and our culture and our community. And I would say I live in the five district.

Okay. I need you at the microphone.

On that topic specifically, Council Member Luchi, again leaning on my service on the Arts and Humanities Commission, there were $51,000 grants that that organization did to Bissma to put on a ballet show and it turned into a 500 uh person in the audience um performance that we wouldn't have had in the city of Virginia Beach. They may have done it in Norfick [clears throat] or somewhere else if that $500 or $1,000

was not coming as a grant from the city of Virginia Beach. Thank you.

Okay. Can we Patrick first and I'll I'll go after um after the council members, but I just wanted to address Mr.

question. Just want to let council know the where um the cost improvement steering committee started off of was actually from the fiscal year 2425 budget. Um at that time council asked us as part of the operating budget billion dollar budget to give the council and the public an example of what it would look like for the city to go towards a revenue neutral rate. So some of the work that they used came off

of that as well. So there were there were suggestions from council that said if from staff to council that if council wanted to go to a revenue neutral rate these were some of the reductions and what they would look like as part of the operations of the city. So that is some of the base ground floor of what the process improvement steering committee used to come with some of the options that they brought here to you.

Okay. [snorts] Thank you.

Thank you mayor uh Mr. Martin. Thank you and the committee. This is great work that I think is a very healthy exercise in my opinion that we do put everything out and this and here it looks like it's not everything to your point Councilman Muchcci I think cultural arts but everything on here is going to touch a lot of folks a different way and local governance is making choices and

priorities what is what what is the role of local government and what is not and folks families have to are sitting down at their kitchen tables almost every day or every month or so and looking at their own personal budgets. And so I I think there are ways to reduce spending um painful or not. Some of them are not painful. I do think there is some here and I think we between all 11 of us we

probably could find different ways to to get there. But um so that kind of brings me to kind of of a question and that is another way of potentially saving money is across the board 1% reduction no increase from last year and I know you you can't necessarily do that. I know a few years ago Mr. manager, you all and the budget office did produce a document that showed if you didn't do this,

savings would be here. If you didn't do this, savings would be there when that was might have been the we reduce the the mill rate.

But I think all of it's a healthy exercise because it's part of the making of the sausage.

So, um I really applaud this because the cost of government, we've got to watch what the cost of government is. [snorts] Okay. Anybody else? Yeah. Now let me just say this uh started the process improvement back I guess about a dozen years ago ago and my thought was that sometimes in government we stand in a forest and we don't see a single tree.

You know we're not aware of you know the whole big picture. And the idea was to bring in respected community members through [snorts] a broad spectrum of expertise that takes an outside objective look to take a look at what's going on and see things that sometimes we don't see because how many different issues do we deal with on a weekly basis that we can't be totally grasp uh and expert on everything. But

we have a plethora of experts out in our community. We got retired generals, community people that ran multi-million dollar corporations and things of that. So it was really, you know, important and, you know, probably the most important and probably the most challenging things we do at this table is the yearly budget.

And the thing is what we're talking about is our people. So when we look at all the figures that come up on the board and I agree with Jennifer that you know what we're looking at we're not looking at figures we're looking at human capital we're looking at value uh to what's going on. An example of that was that we committed to an experiment a a you know a pilot program called

parks after dark a little while ago and that cost some money but we have proved that that is something of value. Okay.

And then when you talk about parks and recrecks after school programs and things, parents depend on that because they may have to work an extra job or two. Uh so everything that we look in terms of a number eventually comes down to, you know, somebody and realizing that we got 460,000 people within this city. And yes, we get criticized a lot, but you know, when you think about all, and I

think you brought it up, Brad, in the beginning, how much discretion we really have until you really start delving into a budget. It seems like 2.8 billion is a lot of money until you come to all the things. You talk about schools, uh, you talk about 30 cents of that being unfunded or underfunded mandates. Uh when you talk about we're obser obser uh um observing 4 cents for the bond referendum and I think a couple

other cents for uh you know uh bond rep centers and things of that nature.

Yeah. You know and there are certain things that we are just committed to that we we're not flushed with um you know discretionary income. What we are flushed with are capital improvement needs of the future that we're going to have to confront. Whether it be storm water, whether it be roads, whether it be infrastructure, uh you know, new schools, we're talking about we need Alita, uh you know, we got

we got work to do with the uh the aquarium and things like that. We're talking about astronomical uh you know you know conditions we're facing in the future. But once again I think the ultimate and I really want to focus on what Jennifer said. This has [snorts] got to be about our budget's got to be about people. It's got to be about our quality of life and somehow finding that balance is going to be the

great challenge. But guess what folks every municipality in this country is going to be fa facing the same. Brad, thank you. Thank you also very much.

Thank you. Good to see you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Life savings museum director will email text or call me.

Oh, thank you.

[snorts]

How are you?

Good to see you.

[snorts] Okay, welcome.

All right, so Mr. Mayor, members of council, this next presentation will be a briefing from our planning director, Kathy Warren, also with support from Hag Morrison, who is our comprehensive plan administrator. This is a this is a presentation about the service plan and a proposed service plan from HRT for fiscal year 27. And also there's going to be some additional items that we want

to run by council to kind of make sure that we all are on the same page as it relates to next steps with a couple of key items that are running towards expiration. So go ahead Kathy, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor, members of council. Thank you, Mr.

Duhaney.

As was mentioned, we are here to review the FY27 HRT transportation service plan. I'm going to do the first few slides and then hand it off to Hank to do the details.

So, the overview for today's presentation is we'll talk to you about what the act what the transportation service plan is and what the process is.

We'll review the current HRT Virginia Beach routes and cost. We'll go over our requested changes for FY27 and HRT's response to that request. And then we want to discuss Route 33 and a change that was made last year that you may want to consider reinstating.

We'll also just do a uh revisit of the Bayside micro transit program and then we'll discuss next steps and have discussion.

So what is the transportation service plan and what is the process? This is the annual budgeting process for HRT partner cities. It's a four-month process which begins in October. It starts with HRT providing proposed service hours via a letter to the city manager.

City staff then reviews that proposal and provides a data supported request for changes in service and cost estimates back to HRT. HRT responds with feedback and cost estimates and then the city resubmits a final request for service for the next fiscal year.

HRT finalizes Virginia Beach's state and federal funding percentages based on the service levels requested by all of the partnering cities.

HRT Management Finance Advisory Committee or MFAC holds a January meeting to review all of the city's TSPs and then finalizes the TSP for the coming year in February.

This is just the regional uh systems map showing all of the routes with HRT in the various cities.

And then for our current routes, just to review here, and our annual costs, this is for last year, we had 11 fixed route bus lines, three seasonal trolley routes, paratransit services, and microtransit in Bayside.

Virginia Beach's FY26 TSP program cost was just at $8.6 million. Of that total cost, 7.5 was paid for out of the general fund. One point just under 1.2 2 was paid for by the TIP fund and the city received a reliability credit of just over 700,000 that was applied to get us to that final dollar amount of 8.6.

And now Hank is going to run through the details of the upcoming year.

Welcome.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh members of council, good afternoon. Um my name is Hank Morrison. from the comprehensive planning administrator. Um so going into the FY27 uh draft TSP, this is what we receive as staff um based off of the service hours and then the uh um cost of service as well. So the total uh proposed uh TSP is $9.5 U million and here we go. So, this is a comparison

of FY26 to and FY27, breaking it down by which uh which items were paid for by the general fund and which were paid for by the TIP. Um that this $9.5 million number is an increase of about $950,000 um over from last year. Uh and that's mostly contributed to kind of an increased cost of service hours. um increased service on regional routes in Virginia Beach like the route 20 uh and

then also a new collective bargaining agreement with the HRT operators union.

So after we received the proposal, staff did request three changes for FY27. Uh the first was to reinstate a circulator route uh route 34 in the resort area uh with the idea that it would be deployed during event days. Um, we also requested a seasonal express route that would connect the airport, uh, town center and the resort area, thinking that could be a pilot program. And we also requested a

new route to serve the Amazon facilities on Dam Neck. Um, staff got a response from HRT. HRT unfortunately is unable to program the requests for Route 34 as well as the airport due to an ongoing driver shortage that's kind of that's hitting particularly the south side of Hampton Roads pretty hard. Um, however, service to the RF4 Amazon facility uh will operate between downtown Norfolk,

New Town Road light rail station, Virginia Beach TCC and as and then finally at the OF4. Uh, but this this route will be fully funded by the Hampton Roads Regional Transit Fund. So, no additional city funds are going to be required for this.

So, one item that did come up recently was the route 33 that Kathy mentioned.

Um, this route connects Virginia Beach TCC to the resort area. So, last fiscal year, the length of the route was reduced because of poor writership numbers and poor reliability. Um, however, that change did end up impacting workers abilities to get to the uh get to their work via bus in the north end, especially. Um, and so we I put offseason and scare quotes up there because we kind of operate as a we don't

really have an offseason anymore. So, it's important for us to remember that we should be serving our the the workforce as well all year round. Um, so last week, city and HRT staff, we have Noel Pinker and Karen Kitsus in the audience and Mr. Herrell as well. Um, so we met with HRT and the uh Virginia Beach Hotel Association u to discuss the issues that they were experiences due uh

due to that change. Um, so as a result, staff has requested a quote from HRT to reinstate Route 33 back to its original terminus at 68th in Atlantic. Currently ends at 19th in parks at the moment. Um, so after we get a quote from HRT, council can decide whether or not uh to reinstate that original route um as part of this FY27 TSP.

And then lastly, we have the Bayside Microransit program, which was also operated by uh HRT. This program operated through the end of 2025, and it's a it's funded between a split between local funding and state um through the state's trip grant. Uh city council can direct HRT uh to pursue a two a second year of the trip grant, and that associated cost is approximately $700,000.

Um if that occurs, service would restart in that um area in May. And just as a reminder, transportation planning staff is currently in the process of drafting an an RFP uh that would for microransit service throughout the city.

Uh so next steps, we're we will await direction um on the microransit program.

Uh the deadline for the trip grant is fairly soon. It's it's in uh the beginning of February.

Um, and then we'll also await cost estimates from HRT and provide you with those costs um, to aid in your decision on whether or not to reinstate the route. Um, the final deadline for any changes to the TSP is February 13th.

That is a hard stop um, for us or at least for staff. Uh, it's very important to note that if any if Virginia Beach requests any changes after February 13th, the city bears 100% of the cost associated with the service um, right now. whereas normally through the TSP it's around 40%. So we definitely want to avoid um or I definitely want to avoid us paying 100% of the service cost and so

any questions Josh and then worth and then cash Mr. there. Hank. Um, thanks very much for the presentation. Um, I have a question for you about the microtransit service. Um, I see it's year 2700,000.

Um, and remind me what the the the total the total grant is and then that's a match. Right.

Right. So, it's a it's you can reapply for up to you can apply for up to five years of microtransit service and each year the split goes more towards this the cities. So it starts off with a 20% local match. The next year is a 40% then 60 or 80 and then 100%.

So so so that that 700 roughly a million [clears throat] and then 1.5 in year three. So and I and I I I think it's a tremendous service. I mean there there are people I I see them all over and and they they do people do rely on them. The drivers are very courteous. Um I I I just I wonder and I think a previous slide you said you were looking at

microtransit zones in the you know throughout the city. Um I just I worry in a sense about creating a um that that expectation in the public's mind that that we're we're going to be providing the service as as costs continue to increase. Um, and and again, I'm not saying that it's a it's it's not a service worth having and looking at, but I I do think that we need to think holistically citywide.

And Mr. Mayor, Council Member Schulman, that's what the council said um when we first got this grant. And the council also said that again last year. When we first got the grant, it was around $350,000 for a local match. The council expressed the concern about setting an expectation that it couldn't achieve citywide, right? And then last year, the similar thing was said that, you know, as it increases, it's going to

be 1.1 next year if we were to do it now and then 1.5.

Set an expectation of something that we can only do in one geographic area of the city. when this could be a need that's done in district 7 and district 10 and other districts in um the city, it'll be become difficult to do because then you'll be creating a a moral obligation in a sense to provide it for other districts when the cost because of how the local match is set up puts more

of a onus of the city over time.

Well, sure. And I and I say that recognizing that my colleague from district 4 takes up, you know, a decent part of the the [clears throat] service area along with me. And um but but I mean regardless of whether or not um Councilwoman Ross Edmond is here, I mean that that those are resources deployed up in the Bayside that that may may be more smartly deployed on a on a holistic and citywide level, especially

considering the needs of the resort um and um and and maybe private sector involvement potentially. So, so thank you Worth T and Rosemary.

Thank you, Mayor Dyer. Thank you, Miss Warren and Mr. Morrison for the presentation and the work. Could you go to slide number eight, page eight?

The route 34 circulator uh is not in the program is and it may well let me go ahead and finish the question. So is staff considering right now a circulator program to replace this?

What we are considering is the a microtransit program and that could take care of that.

That's a question too.

Yeah. So this was the one that we were trying to reconstitute and see if was possible to come back but obviously because of staffing shortages HRT isn't able to bring that. So, as Kathy said, as part of our exploration for micro transit for the resort area and also to see if there's city-wide options as well, we'll be looking at that as well.

Okay. Cash and Rose.

Yeah. So, thank you for the presentation. Um, transportation is very important, right? Um, last time we talked about HRT, there was there were some discussions that I think left me as a city council member saying we are a sportsdriven community, right? We are on the verge of rolling out our playbook about jobs, right? Uh, deal, right? We just talked about that. So, we've got to have reliable

transportation, not just for uh the people that come here to vacate uh vacationing, but for our citizens, right? So, microtransit was never meant to be a sustaining transportation. It was meant to be short-term. Is that correct?

Yes, it is correct.

Okay. I'm I'm in favor of transportation. I just need it to be looked at. And I think uh city manager Duhaney said it. Uh yes, in the areas of Bayside and the oceanfront, but if there is a sliver where it could go past district is 710, then I'm all in favor of that because I advocate for i.e. my district as well as the city at large. But I know we have to

have this discussions because if we don't then transportation is halted then um people are going to begin to be depressed and then we have uh public safety on our hands.

Okay.

Yes. No, that is exactly we're on the same page.

Okay.

Where I think the the RFP process will be helpful um as we get through that. we can focus in on certain zones or or citywide. We'll just have to we'll be working through that over the next couple of weeks.

Okay.

Thank you, Rosemary.

Well, we just had a presentation on how to save money, cut funs, and we'd all like to have transportation everywhere, but I think this whole Bayside microransit, I think it's really brought to light how expensive and unsustainable it really is. I mean, $350,000 was one thing, but that was only 20%. So you m you multiply that times five which would if we continued it every year would be

our responsibility. So that one little area would cost us $1.7 million and with probably more because as you read your CCSR this this past week the cost of HRT went up is going up almost a million dollars. Part of that increase in cost is because they have collective bargaining now. So, so that [clears throat] $1.7 million in five in five years is probably going to be $2 million. We have 10 districts.

It's a lot of funds and it's [snorts] I don't see how we're going to be able to cut costs when we're adding those kind of costs [cough] in them. So, as much as we would like to help people and do things, maybe we just need to find another way. Maybe there's a way I'm just thinking out, which is very dangerous to think out loud. Uh, but maybe there's some other

alternatives that we could look at to be more creative than to use these these systems because it's just not affordable.

Our folks, I don't believe, can afford it.

Okay, here's Stacy.

I have to agree with the vice mayor here. Um, not that I have to, but I want to, but that's a good point. I, you know, here we we have we have collective bargaining, driving up costs, we have not enough drivers, and I mean, to me, this is just a whole program that's just spiraling downward.

There may be an answer, but I just don't think this is the answer.

Okay.

You know, I guess since I've been uh mayor, one of the terms I often use is confrontation with reality.

And the reality is Virginia Beach is not really geographically or demographically set up for effective transportation.

The effective transportations are in the big cities that are on a grid system. Uh back in the day when I was living in the People's Republic of New Jersey, I could literally walk one block, get on the 25 Springfield bus for a quarter, take a 5minute ride to uh Central Station, get on the 107, stop by North airport, go through the tunnel, and get into Manhattan. You know, in about a half an hour.

And then once in Manhattan, I could take a bus or a train. You know, it depends on what the grid system is.

Virginia Beach got too many round neighborhoods. I would where I live on Lake Christopher, I have to walk a half a mile to get to a bus station. And then the other, you know, challenge is would a bus be able to take me to where I needed to go? Because when you think about, hey, you know, we got Amazon asking now for a bus stop at a time where they're cutting buses back.

They're going to have thousands of people there. Steel is asking for a, you know, a bus route to drop people off on land paid. Uh, you know, the thing is right now, and I think Rosemary touched on it, uh, the cost would be astronomical.

And, you know, you one of the things I had problems with nice light rail.

People would have to drive to get to, you know, station to jump on it. And it may not. Then when people are working in corporate landing, if people are working at Oceanana, if people are working, you know, uh all over the place, you know, getting an effective system, you know, with will cost billions of dollars and, you know, I think Rosemary is right, you know, we got to somehow innovate, adapt,

and overcome and find out something. But traditional um you know, bus service is is a challenge.

And you know, we just got to accept the challenge and come up with plan B, whatever that might be. Okay. But, you know, but at least it's on the table.

We're discussing it and uh you know, once again, it just goes on a list of uh things we got to think about going forward. Thank you all very much.

Thank you.

All right. Moving on.

All right. So, Mr. Mayor, members of council, this last presentation is a is a exciting opportunity to celebrate our military heritage and our military partners and um all the military staff and personnel that live, work and reside in in Virginia Beach. Um Amanda Jerry, deputy city manager to give city council an overview of this event and it's reallyformational overview to kind of

let you know about the program, what we plan, and afterwards we look forward to any questions or discussions that you all may have.

Good afternoon, Mayor Dyer, Vice Mayor Wilson, members of city council, city manager Duh Haney, and city attorney Styles. Um, the following slides will cover activities that will be taking place during the weekend of April 24th through 26th. And we're thrilled to tell you about our newly planned uh, United States Military Appreciation Weekend.

So, the purpose of today's briefing is to inform you of this exciting partnership with three organizations that have come together to create a way to honor and recognize our military community and celebrate the VA250 here in Virginia Beach. Additionally, we'll provide you an overview of the marketing strategies for this newly highlighted event, as well as our communication strategy related to the good vibes

behavior and expectations campaign that was launched last year.

So, in partnership with the USO, Mid-Atlantic Area of Operations, beach events in the Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Stars, Stripes, and Spurs, Virginia Beach Military Appreciation Weekend will take place along Atlantic Avenue, as well as in all of the parks, 17th, 24th, and 31st Street, kicking off Virginia Beach's celebration of VA250. I would like to take a moment and thank uh members of the USO who've been a

long-standing partner as well as beach events for being here this afternoon as well um for this important announcement of our stars stripes and spurs weekend.

So the Bulls and Barrels Beach Rodeo will again take place um during this weekend, same location as in previous years on the beach at Third Street. This year, the rodeo has added additional seating and a new element of the running of the bulls along the beach. Um, on the evening of Friday, I will plan to be there.

Um, the best bull riders and barrel racers in the entire country will be competing for the best of the beach belt buckle. Again, this year, the event will be sanctioned by the Southern Extreme Bull Riding Association. Um, tickets will be on sale for this event beginning February 13th.

The USO will have military displays along Atlantic Avenue between 17th and 21st Street as well as a vendor and sponsorship village.

And not to go into too many details in this presentation, but this gives you an order of magnitude of the entire tenative schedule of events for the weekend that are taking place in our oceanfront parks as well as Atlantic Avenue.

Um, it is important to note that we do anticipate this event to attract in excess of 10,000 people. Um, and to conduct the displays as planned, we will be closing Atlantic Avenue between 17th and 21st Streets. That closure will begin Friday morning to allow for loadin and setup of the displays. Um, and the road will reopen on Sunday evening once all the displays have been removed from Atlantic Avenue.

In addition to our new celebration, I also wanted to make you aware that this same weekend, both the convention center and our sports center will be active with both national and regional events that will take be taking place that entire weekend.

The convention and visitors bureau will be actively marketing and promoting um our new celebration. Um the will be creating a landing page that will be um pushed out through our various media outlets to drive guests to both the USO and beach events websites as well as clearly indicate how you can t purchase tickets for the ticketed portions of the weekend. There will be paid digital media ads that will be featured on

multiple channels that'll be targeting both visitors and residents. The CVB sales team will share event information with travel agencies. Um, from the public relations standpoint, Virginia Beach once again will host an international group of media writers that weekend um, as a prefam tour in conjunction with Travel South Global Week, which is an event that brings international media from all over the

world to our city to experience the southern United States. Additionally, the event will be included in CVB's weekly um, newsletter as well as our what's new for 2026.

A standalone branded release will be distributed to job market and niche outlets um 60 days in advance of the event as well.

So as you may recall last year we launched our 2026 behavior and expectations campaign and so this is just a reminder of what that campaign looked like last year. Um our city comm's department is working on refreshing this for 2026 and this should play a video. There we go.

Virginia Beach, where families gather, locals thrive, and memories are made. We welcome kindness. We embrace joy. We keep the vibe positive. This isn't a party town. It's not the place for chaos, harm, or bad energy. If you're here to disrupt, this isn't your scene.

But if you're here for real fun, real memories, and real good vibes, welcome. Virginia Beach is open to good energy, not bad behavior.

So, as a reminder, this was last year's campaign strategy. Again, City Communications is working to refresh um and tweak this initiative, but that will also start to be uh pushed out soon. Um, combining these efforts lets us reinforce safety, quality of life in Virginia Beach. It sets clear expectations of how we would like our peak season to proceed. Um, these two campaigns position the city to

proactively manage some challenges that we've experienced in the past um while maintaining our own identity and being a family-friendly destination. So, in conclusion, um the city looks forward to an incredible 2026 resort season.

Activities start very soon. Um, as was mentioned earlier, it's difficult to say um, peak season anymore because um, we are busy 12 months out of the year. Um, we are excited to partner again with USO Beach events and our partners at VA250 um, to celebrate our country's anniversary and the military community which is such a big portion of the city of Virginia Beach um, and announce our

new um, weekend again, star stripes and spurs. Great.

Rosemary.

I love it. I really love it. This is no wonder New York Times put us on their list because of things like this. This is absolutely fantastic. And I I think the people are going to love it. And I don't know who came up with this name, Star, Stripes, and Spurs. The trip S.

It's very clever. It's very clever. And I I don't know what else to say other than it's just going to be wonderful. And you know, people love besides loving our public safety, they love the military and really wrap their arms around the people who do keep us safe every day. And [snorts] I I just think it's fantastic.

So, thank everyone who has put in time to this cuz they deserve a huge shout out.

They're worth Thank you, Mayor Dyer, and Mr. Chair and everyone. uh beach events.

Everyone who worked on this, I agree totally with vice mayor. This is very exciting.

The the first presentation we had today was about start and this plays right into that. This is part of our um what we're trying to do as a city to to market the city and the and the region to the military to that part of our the playbook if you will. And so this helps that. It's also the two 250th anniversary of course of our country. A lot going on. This is in April. So this

is a great time a shoulder uh time of the season of the year. So um this is very exciting. Thanks to everyone. So any I didn't hear anything about cost here.

So um previously the USO did already conduct an event um during the resort season. It was just a different date as well as Bulls and Barrels. So, what we've decided to do because we had this theme, we've just combined it, moved the weekend um so that it's one larger, more cohesive event. There was um some additional cost for the programming of the parks, but that was able to be absorbed um within our existing budget.

Great. Were you asking about cost of the public?

Yeah, I mean, so so the USO is picking up a lot from what I'm hearing. And so bulls, barrels, and spur others that will be out of the tip fund because that's part of our programming with beach events.

Yes. So there will be portions of the events that are completely free and open to the public. Um and then there will be some portions of the weekend that will be ticketed. We'll follow up with the complete event schedule. Um I didn't want to get too far in the weeds um in this presentation, but we can follow up with you on that to clearly indicate what events are again completely free

and open to the public. um and then those that are ticketed. The other thing that we are working on um is to provide an area for veteranowned businesses to set up their displays and also partner with both our public safety, public works and public utilities departments to display some of their equipment as well.

And public safety.

Yes, please.

Public safety, public works and public utilities in addition to the military displays.

Fantastic.

Anybody else? Uh yeah, last year Worth and I attended the rodeo and I'll tell you what, it was a blast. It was a lot of fun and I'll tell you what, they had quite a crowd with a couple thousand people sitting there that were really energized and but here's the thing that you, you know, really impresses me that we got so many different types of things throughout the summer at the oceanfront

that appeals to a multitude of people.

And I, you know, I think that, you know, it's really kind of cool. And the other thing is, you know, this what a tremendous launch in the mid, you know, midappril, you know, to get the season rolling. [snorts] You know, once again, I think one of the goals we have is to get rid of the shoulder seasons and, you know, go year round. And I think this really helps, man. Thank you and the crew, Bill,

everybody. Uso, appreciate everything.

Thank you.

Okay. All [snorts] right, moving on. Any council discussions, initi in initiatives, comments? Rosemary, a couple years ago, I brought up the idea of instead of our num districts having numbers one through through 10 that we name our districts. And I I think it was it was still in flux with our election system and also the staff came up with a beautiful plan but it had kind of a high price tag which I don't

think we really need to spend that kind of money on it. But just recently I've had several people come up and say I just can't remember the number this this number system. It's just very confusing and these are people who are pretty engaged and pay attention. And so I'm going to mention it again. So that and the timing might be really good. Um that instead of having district 8, you could

have a name for it like we used to. We used to have I'll take Lyn Haven.

Okay.

You know, and and uh you know, Kimville, we used to always have names, Rose Hall and and all that. And it was a lot easier for people to remember. So I just thought I would bring it up again and see if there's any interest in doing it.

And wouldn't wouldn't want us to do anything until after [clears throat] November because we have elections and all that. Maybe something could come up for next year and we could depending on everybody's interest for their own district. You know, you can get creative about it. You could have a contest, name your district and have school kids get involved and just different, you know,

each council person could kind of be in charge of the naming of their their own district. But I don't know.

Does this sound like a crazy idea? Does anybody have any interest in this?

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah. I think we should go ahead and, you know, you know, talk about it and everything and, you know, maybe even, you know, there were discussions, you know, have it like a a park with a very nice sculpture that represents the identity of uh, you know, what's going on. But somehow I think uh, you know, cashes can be stuck with District 7.

What?

[clears throat] Patrick.

Well, it could be name seven.

That could be your name.

I like it. I like it.

Mr. Mayor, um, yeah, staff, um, we initially briefed council and then council made it pretty clear that they wanted us to figure out a way to do it budget neutral. And then we came back with some options, but around that time there was another situation that kind of delayed that effort. We can bring that back to council at at another briefing for council kind of get give a quick overview to see if council's okay with

us moving forward and come up with a proposed timeline that we can work to initiate that process again.

Okay, great. Okay, anybody else?

Michael, thank you. I'm I'm going to um try to make this as abbreviated as possible since um I since I'm not sure I can recall from memory everything that was in the briefing uh or in the in the um materials that we received, but um you've heard me before talk about the implementation um or the necessity for a process for street renaming and honorary street renaming. Um it's really

important in my view that we initiate that process outside of any particular request so that it doesn't reflect on [clears throat] um so that doesn't reflect on any individual organization that a street is being contemplated to be named or renamed or honorary named for. Um I believe that you asked for direction around that. Um and uh I I um maybe you could fill us in a little bit more on

that would look like and and also um if you're looking for direction, I would like to request that we move forward with starting that process to um I'm not in a position to evaluate the aspects that were included or not included in the particular um information that you share with us, but I do think we need a process and I hope the council would agree with agree with that.

Mr. Mayor, coming out of um your last retreat in um September, city council asked us to do some research, environmental scan and provide update to council. And we did that in probably one of the most recent packages we sent to you all. And then the next step from that was to take it up in the upcoming retreat. Yep. So, we do have it on the as a day two on the half day item under

governance for council to talk about um where it wants us to go next with honorary streets um street namings as well as also election signage is one as election day signage is also there and a couple other things as well. We got air mark for the governance section of your retreat.

I would even include any honorary namings.

Thank you.

Okay. Anybody else at this point? care council comments. Um I don't know how to say this but to say it [clears throat] um you know I care about our firefighters and a lot of that comes from my uh background of being classroom certified by uh the fire department in California. So I have a great deal of respect for our firefighters. With that being said, I heard and I need to say it

in this venue [clears throat] that uh Norphick is looking to hire 140 firefighters to fill a fill out a fourth shift with a transit with a transition date of July 2027.

Now, the reason I'm saying something about this, and I think we need to have it needs to be on the table, is because what I've seen since I've been in government is that [clears throat] employees go from Norphick to Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, and I don't want Virginia Beach to be left high and dry, especially since we have so many great events coming up for the summer. And when I mean great events,

we [clears throat] can't afford a deficit. And so, Mr. Manor, as uh Mr.

Mayor, as being one of the newest council members, I may not know the protocol of what to say, but I just want to sound a little alarm so that everyone knows that I care about this city and I do and uh our fire our firefighters I care a lot about.

Cash, let me say that and I appreciate uh but let me put it this way and uh you know, let me put it this way. This council has been and always will be responsive to you know, public safety.

Uh last year, fire chief came in said he needed 60 new people and we gave him 30 last year, we gave him 30 this year.

They said they needed more money for cancer screening. We gave them over a million, another million dollars.

Uh they need another ladder truck. We gave it um police came in asked for a survey salary survey. We did that. What what do we get? 15 16%.

About 15%.

About 15%.

We have been reactive. We're very in tune of competition and you know whether we like it or not because every time we bump up the other cities bump up too.

But the thing is we have been there. But I'll tell you what, if you take a look at the investment that we have, we have a state of the-art fire academy. Uh, and then we have excellent leadership in there. Um, and you know, the cost of, you know, constant equipment, uh, you know, you know, we got to buy them new gear all the time. And I tell you what, you know, we have, you know,

one thing if we have a point of pride that we can point to. We take care of our public safety and we take care of all of our employees, but once again, we take care of the people that take care of us. We realize that it's an essential 24/7. They save lives of the amount of training they go through. But, you know, you know, be be assured that

you let me put it this way. A lot of people like working in Virginia Beach.

Yeah, Josh.

Mr. Mayor, I just want to let the council know and the public um I I will be unable to attend the uh meeting next Tuesday. I'll be out of the country. So, if you could circulate letter. Thank you.

Yeah. I hope it's not a witness relocation program.

I'll be I'll be back.

You know, we got acknowledged recently by Waller Hugs be one of the most caring cities in the country and to me that and I think to us that's a big deal you know that sets us apart from you know so many other things and um on the ETH I went to a thing and I did a proclamation for a group I never heard of and it's called the faith works uh you know uh coalition

it was a Catholic St. Nicholas Church up on uh Little Neck and everything. And you know what these folks do? They go around to elderly and disabled people's homes and fix it up, you know, when they get bleaks and do things. And they just did their 2,000th home that they did. And how many micro groups do we have in this city out there doing stuff like this? I mean, it's positively amazing, you know. I just

think that, you know, the, you know, these are the groups that should be highlighted and everything. And I just, you know, wanted to bring up, let me know. And the other thing is, uh, Patrick, we got, um, you restaurant week coming up. Do we have any type of uh, special uh, announcements or anything we can do to really push the for?

It looks, you want to come to speak to it? Okay.

Absolutely. So, we're excited to kick off restaurant week in just a few short days. Um, so we'd highly recommend that all of your New Year's resolutions stop for that moment. We have um a 25% increase in participation by our restaurant community. There's a very significant marketing blast um going out across the entire Mid-Atlantic um with support from CVB, our city communications office, and the

restaurant association. It's again another wonderful partnership and they have a really incredible website um that I would recommend everyone take a moment and check out.

I knew you were doing stuff. Now everybody knows, but I'll tell you what, we truly value, you know, the restaurant we and the businesses, our tourism, and you know, we just value uh, you know, the businesses that we have in the city.

And I'll tell you what, keep it coming.

One thing I enjoy doing is the ribbon cutings. That's a good thing. All right.

Anybody else at this point? All righty.

Uh the chair will entertain a motion to resource into a closed session pursuant to the exemptions from the open meetings allowed by section 2.23711A code of Virginia is amended for the following purposes. Publicly held property discussions or considerations of the acquisition of real property for public purpose or of disposition of publicly held uh property. uh where discussion and open meeting would

adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body pursuant to section 2.237 to 371 11 A3 and that's District 2, District 6 and personnel matters discussions, considerations or interviews of the respective candidates for employment, assignment appointment promotion performance the motion salaries, disciplining or resignation of specific public officers,

appointees or employees any public body pursuant to section 2.2 2 um 3711 A1 and that's boards commissions, committees, authorities, agencies and appointees. Do I have a motion?

Second.

Yes.

Iman

Wilson.

I may zero.

Okay. Uh we are recessing to close. Do we need a little break coming up?

Uh we're going to reconvene. Do I have a motion to certify the close session?

So move.

Second.

Roll call.

Council.

Hi.

Hi.

Hi. All I s Thank you all.