We'll go ahead and call the March 11th meeting in the City Council to order. Let me welcome everybody to this is really a continuation. We had a work session item in the work session room on the community center prior to this. If you'd please stand for the emication, which will be presented by Councilwoman Lyon, we're remaining standing for the pledge of allegiance. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to ask everyone to bow their heads and join me in the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, who aren't heaven, how are we going to do that? Thank you. I will. Thank you. I will. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you I see three of those who trust applicants, just can lead the dogs to communication, but deliver us to evil. With an honest claim that our end of the glory grew up, amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One in this, one under God, and give, and individual with liberty and address for all. If I could ask Kurt Holly, please come for it. We have three presentations, the first of which is our annual community appearance commercial awards, and I'd like to turn it over to you. I'll just say a few notes and our comments and share with you a brief presentation. Each year, the Community Appearance Committee makes annual presentations, noting outstanding properties in the city, residential properties in the spring time and commercial properties in the fall. I'd like to share with you the winners for the 2007 fall awards for commercial appearance. 2007 fall awards for commercial parents. As I mentioned, each year the Community Appearance Committee on behalf of the Council and the Mayor reviews properties in the city and looks for those that are particularly outstanding in appearance and they contribute to the betterment and the appearance of our city. Nominations come from the community and are judged professionally. The properties are judged based on these five criteria which include landscape quality, building, signage lighting and advertising, the maintenance of the properties, and sense of unique or contributing character. We look also at five different types of properties. They would include the corporate areas, commercial retail, churches and institutions, industrial auto establishments and municipal. Each year we did not necessarily receive nominations for each of the types, for instance, this year, we did not receive any nominations for churches or institutions. The winners this year, there are two. I'd like to identify the Mosby Woods Sonoco property and Lee Highway are familiar with those at the interest of the Mosby Woods of Plantation Drive. And the court side type cuisine restaurant there on Route 123 near the heart of downtown. The Snoco Station is particularly well-capped as you are where it recently changed ownership and the judges noted that it was clean and well-maintained. They added that the landscaping provided some screening and the planter had year-round interest. It's attractive and pleasant, as well as convenient to get your auto services there. The courtside tie restaurant, again noted as I commented, which I'm Chain Bridge Road, was complemented by the judges for several things. It has a welcoming sense of place. The landscape is well maintained and the decorative flags are very colorful. And it has seasonal lighting which adds a nice touch in the evening. We feel that it complements the businesses in Old Town Fairfax and believe that it will thrive in the new business environment. And with that, I want to congratulate the winners. The showhouse could join me, Jack and June. I think I saw you in the audience earlier. See you all for the representative for the court side tie. Guizui, we give him a hand. Thank you. Thank you. Not only does the restaurant look good, it's one of our favorite as a family. So congratulations. Did Representative for the Snoco could not be here this evening? I don't believe, let's just send the audience. So on his behalf, I'll accept his award, and I want to thank them as well. Applause. We're done with the awards for this year. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yep, because there's actually two more proclamations that I would like to present to you and your capacity to share the community appearance committee. Whereas the City of Fairfax Community Appearance Committee desires to continue in 2008, the high standards of community appearance established throughout the city. And whereas the city has won numerous national and state awards for programs to improve the appearance of all segments of the community. And whereas the community appearance committee is once again sponsoring a cleanup campaign during the month of April and whereas this effort will begin with numerous community organizations taking part in intensified citywide cleanup and beautification effort. On Saturday, April 26, 2008, now therefore I, Robert F. Letter and Mayor, do hereby proclaim April 2008 is spring cleanup month in the city of Fairfax and hereby encourage all residences and businesses to participate in making home improvements, cleaning up shopping centers, parks, and highways and in tyberant neighborhoods. And maybe you could just take a second to put in a plug for this activity. And whoever year the list gets bigger and bigger, and it's really kind of a neat activity. The city has done a terrific job, but on both sides, both from the city staff, as well as the citizens, and taking the opportunity in April to clean up yards, areas, open spaces, adopt the spots and just generally some of the private and public areas in the city. We used a whole month of April but specifically, no April 26 as an incentive to go out, work with your neighbors and clean up your properties and clean up the areas you share with your neighbors. The city helps us by asking those who have organized activities to call in on that day. They can arrange for a pickup. They can help with delivering trash bags. And in general, they can take away the debris that overall just improves stuff as part of your spring cleanup efforts. And if you're there with me, we have one more proclamation in honor of Arbor Day, whereas in 1872, Sterling Morton proposed the Nebraska Board of Architecture that a special day be set aside for the planning and trees and whereas trees are a renewable resource, giving us paper wood for our homes, fuel for our fires and countless other wood products, and whereas trees in our city increase property values, enhance the economic vitality of business areas, and beautify our community and wherever they are planned at our source of joy and spiritual renewal. And whereas the city of Fairfax has been recognized as a tree city USA by the National Arbor Day Foundation and desires to continue its tree planning ways. Now therefore I, Robert F. Letter and Mayor, do hereby proclaim Friday, April 25, 2008, as Arbor Day and the City of Fairfax, and urge all of the citizens to support efforts to protect our trees and woodlands and urge the planning of trees to gladden the hearts and promote the well-being and present to future generations. So let me give you both of these populations as our city representative. And thank you for all the hard work that you and the community and the Appianist Committee do on behalf. Thank you. Okay. That now brings us down to on agenda. This is agenda item number four, which are presentations by the public and any item related to the City Council agenda March 11, 2008 that is not call for public hearings. So if you're here to address items under 7a, b or c, those opportunities will come in just a few minutes. I should also announce, and I think probably the words gone out, but Agenda Item Number 7a, which is the application of the Army Navy Country Club has the applicant, has requested deferral of that action, and so that action item will not be coming up tonight for a public hearing, assuming that there is a motion that's successful to defer that. So we are now under presentation by a public. Two people have signed up. The first is Harry Wilber. Thank you. I'm Harry Wilber of one oh two two nine asked when will it drive Fairfax. Mr. Mayor and members of the council. A few words regarding our plan new City of Fairfax Community Center. First, thank you all for your efforts to date, and thank you, Miss Sherwood, for your great generosity. All in the recognition of the importance of the community center to our city, to serving the needs of our citizens as a stimulus to our city's economy and to filling a long-standing void in what our otherwise are widely admired city amenities and services. My earnest hope is that each of you, Mr. Mayor, Council incumbents, those of you that might be running for Council seats, not only to support the principle of a first-class community center, but will also actively demonstrate vision, ingenuity, and political courage to find the way to fully fund the complete 32,500 square foot version of our community center. Detailed studies and surveys as well as thoughtful input from our city's commissions, users groups, and our community at large support the 32,500 square foot community center. Building our complete 32,500 square foot community center now rather than doing it piecemeal over many years makes obvious sense. It avoids escalating cost, it gets it done faster, and it gives our city the community center that best serves our needs. The first class community center we've all waited for these many long years. So speaking not only for myself, but also for many other city residents and voters, I urge you to do the right thing. Be proactive, be creative, be positive. Your constituents stand ready to help. Let's together find a way to make the 32,500 square foot city of Fairfax Community Center happen now. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Don Lederer? My name is Don Lederer. I'm 36-14 Embassy Lane. Mr. Mayor and council members, the City of Fairfax is fortunate. And we thank the Sherwood family for having donated such a large amount of money toward the community center to be placed in the E. Calvin Van Dyke Park. As some of you know, I have had 28 years working for the Fairfax County Park Authority. I have designed and supervised the design and construction of county parks during that time. During that time I have worked with staff and observed observations, operations in county park buildings. In several instances staff from one division or section had been spread among a few buildings because the lack of room in one building our headquarters. I support one community center, one that will serve all city residents, everyone, young adults, young and old, a mobile-purpose community center located in a park where a multitude of recreational needs may be met. I refer to a community center that will house preschool, banquet room, fitness area, teen center, model-purpose area, gymnasium, craft room, office area, rest rooms, and necessary support areas. I urge you to put all the functions of green acres into one community center. Splitting these functions means more money for operation and staff, more money to be spent on an old building, and I feel some discontentment among the staff. More than 40 years ago, a Fairfax City Council in a young Fairfax City elected to form a committee, quote, Fairfax City Committee, Community Center and Recreation Planning Committee, unquote, to review and report their findings back to them. Part of the findings were accomplished. The acquisition, master planning and basic construction of E. Calvin run the FanDike Park. As to the community center, nothing has happened until now. I have hopes that somehow the people of the city of Fairfax will be able to see the construction of one community center located in a park. And I hope to see the accomplishment in the near future. Thank you. Nobody else is pretty good to see sign up. To address the City Council with anybody? Yes, please. If you'd come to the microphone just so. My name is Ann Powell and I live at 3517, Queen Anne. When I heard about the proposal to cut 550 trees on the golf course, it sounded like a lot of trees to cut. And I know there are many reasons not to do so. But I watched the hearing and not until I went went to the February March 6 meeting led by the mayor did I realize that the golf course plan calls for renovating all 26 holes and this will involve a lot of grading. One of the areas to be graded extensively borders Daniels run park. We can't know looking at the plans what the outcome and effects of this grating will be. And more questions need to be asked by you about their plan. This is a hilly area. It's the area where nine, well last nine hills were added. Do they plan to remove more of the hilly terrain? Will they flatten the fairways in this area? If the terrain is removed, a tank farm may be more visible than it is now and there are steep slopes in this area Grading will cause erosion of these slopes while it's being done and the runoff may run into Daniel's run We saw extensive runoff at Farcroft Development after a heavy downpour where sentiment came down from their property across the soccer field behind Daniel's front, Daniel's front school and into the creek and it was very extensive and that soil had not been seeded. seated. According to the plans, the total area of the course to be disturbed is 73 acres out of 231 acres. That's one third of the property. That means a lot of grading, including some in the RPA along the tributary of Daniel's run. On March 6th, one of the attendees noticed that the 113 trees which hide the tank form during the summer are to be cut. I also wanted to mention that Mrs. Lion asked about the monitoring of the water quality in Daniel's run. And I understand there is monitoring going on. And I think the city should have access to any monitoring data and put it up on the website. Because this is very important information. The monitoring data indicates the stream health and I think citizens in the city want to know about that and I think you all should want to know about it too. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Powell. Would anybody else like to address the city council? Again, this is on any item that is on tonight's agenda but does not call for a public hearing. Please. You're going to have to come up to the microphone because of the TV feed. And if you could give us your name and address for the record. Okay. I just signed up under item number nine to address the City Council, but I'm getting some feedback that perhaps now is the appropriate time. What topic? About the appropriate time. What topic about the community center? You can discuss it now, yes, and so it was in the agenda, please. Okay, so my name is Katie, back to Regaygan. I live at 3508 Pinehurst Avenue. And I have a couple things to say, actually, not just about the community center. First, I wanted to thank you in our Meenavy Country Club for postponing your decision. I think that that was prudent. I hope that it'll lead to a wiser choice on all parties, parts, and the long run. I also want to thank you for having an open work session tonight and for having the presentation as it was. It was very informative and I think helpful to put a lot into perspective with the community center and the issues. My neighborhood is out of country club hills so hopefully everybody knows where that's located between St. Leo's and Fairfax High School right on the other side of, well we're very close to Van Dyke Park. And I just wanted to share with you that I did a very informal survey with my neighborhood and I gathered some very interesting information and I wanted to share it with you. First of all, there is a lot of concern about putting a community center at Van Dyck Park. There is also significant support for community center and several people are even okay with the proposed placement and design. However, they still had concerns with traffic and parking which would impact putting the community center at Van Dyke. We wanted to make sure that we recognize the priority established from the Northern Virginia Regional Park authorities May 2007 survey, which apparently noted that Open Space Trails Parks and upgrading older parks in recreational facilities is a top priority. So I understand that there may be some room for negotiation with the Sherwood family who's been very gracious and generous and with this donation and we want to make sure that we're appreciative of that. But we'd like to ensure that the city exhausts all options of choosing a different location for the community center. We'd like to also make sure that the city considers the several buildings that are underused or vacant and that could be turned into a nice community center. I realize that may prove tricky to secure some of those locations, but please consider the Bel Willow Elementary School and the old library as possibilities. We would also like to see the city pursue the lead certification, which I noticed was in the presentation, and we're appreciative of that. And we'd like to see it on any additional construction, including the renovation of any other world buildings. We'd like to see our city be leaders in the area for environmentally smart design and construction. And just some notes that I made during the previous presentation, it seems to me that there may be options that the city can pursue for funding the community center, different from there's already suggested, maybe in addition to the gift or if the gift is not recognizable in the form that it was given in different, you could pursue funds in different ways. I also wanted to suggest the potential of not having one building for all of these community needs. I think that every room that was presented in the previous presentation sounded fabulous, but maybe not necessary to all have in one building. I think that the impact on traffic and the impact on parking could be avoided if a couple of different locations were considered. And then lastly, or not quite lastly, but I hope that when it comes down to design decisions for the actual community center that you will have additional outreach meetings so that the community can be involved and understand what the expectations are. And lastly, the children's areas of Van Dyke Park are extremely important to my neighborhood. Our residents enjoy the playground, the skate park, the basketball court, the tennis and volleyball courts, the open fields, and both pavilions are regularly used for birthday parties or other group gatherings. And we definitely don't want to see any of that lessened in any size or equipment. So thank you very much. Thank you. size or equipment So Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay Anybody else like to address the city council? Yes, ma'am, please My name is Judy Fraser and I live at 35-14 spring like Terrace. And I'm here tonight to talk about the community center as well, just a couple of other points. I do, I was going to recommend that in the, with the request for proposals that you also look for a firm that can give you facilities planning help because I think that in this planning process you really do need to consider the other spaces that you have available for use and get somebody to look at and say well it makes sense to reuse this part of green acreage for this purpose or maybe it just ends up being bathrooms with blank deals I don't know but somebody who can actually take a look at all those different spaces and make the most sense out of what you have What resources you have, what resources you have to work with. And also in the comp plan there was a mention of community schools approach, which is a great thing for communities and it really is basically just making the most out of the school properties and allowing adult ed and other things to use those schools. And I think you do that already, but I think that should also be taken into account when whoever looks at all these numbers and the spaces that you have to use so that maybe there doesn't have to be quite this huge building if you can make smart decisions on those other things. The other thing that I did want to point out is that Bandai is a very successful community center. It just doesn't have walls. So I think you need to keep that in mind too, that it is actually a community gathering spot and does a lot of those great functions on its own, even in the state it is. And lastly, whatever you do, I put in a plea for making sure that these spaces are usable during the construction, so that we don't just lose the park completely for several years. And I think that, you know, build a new skate park before you dismantle the old, that kind of thing would be much appreciated by the neighbors. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else like to address the city council? Mr. O'Dowell? Do you have a question? Can we fix a clock? Jury O'Dell 3920 Bread Water Street with regards to the senior center. I stand by my earlier comments at a modular approach is preferable, it's more financially prudent. Would not strap us with so much debt and help us protect the bond rating, which I think is still at the highest possible. If you would jeopardize a bond rating, it might not be so clever to build it all at once. I did hear the person who said it's been 40 years now. This is land. We have 40 days to contemplate those 40 years, I suppose. Now, if only $5 million was donated and you contemplate building more than $5 million worth of building. How can you justify putting the names of only two donors on the building when in fact it will be paid for by all of us? Perhaps then the modular approach would accommodate putting the names of two people if you don't go too much beyond five million. You don't want to be giving any money back, of course. So little over five million, maybe six. And after that, put the taxpayers of the city of Firfax on the remaining modules as you build them so that the full truth will be known. Can you tell me how much time I have? Why can't we fix a blessed clock? Item 6A, I thought the idea with regards to the traffic cameras you want to buy was to rotate the locations so motorists are never comfortable knowing that they know all of the locations at once. I mean you've commented on that yourself in the past. But this document lists specific locations, existing and proposed. Can we not buy these cheaper or better? It runs on our own rather than going through the state, which has a terrible track record in building our roads. Why would they be believed to be a good source for buying our cameras? Quantity purchased maybe, item 6B. The regarding pedestrians, soliciting rides or business. Maybe you could modify page one where it says, permit as detailed in section B. Maybe you could add and candidates for elected public office and their staff members. That's not necessarily tongue in cheek. On page two, that paragraph insisting on insurance, proves that the city thinks it's dangerous for people to solicit money in our streets, even if they happen to be wearing firemen's uniforms. In paragraph, page three, after paragraph F at the top, you might want to suggest, you might want to suggest, I would, you might want to consider adding a paragraph that says G, in the case of fire department vehicles, they must be permanently based in the City of Fifthex, not outside the city. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Endell. Anybody else like to address the City Council under this item? Hearing none, we'll close the agenda item number four and go to agenda number five, which is the adoption of the agenda. Second. Move by Mr. Sereuthorn, second by Mrs. Winner, any discussion? All in favor of the motion, please signify by voting aye. Aye. Opposed and a passing annum see, agenda number six, which is the approval of the consent of agenda, Mr. Greenfield? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I move adoption of the consent agenda for agenda item number six A, consideration of resolution, authorizing the city manager to enter into an agreement between the city of Fairfax, Virginia and the Virginia Department of Transportation. For the purchase and installation of seven additional video traffic monitoring cameras, agenda item number six B, introduction of an ordinance to amend chapter 98, section 98, that's 18 pertaining to pedestrian soliciting rides or business. And for agenda item number 6A, I move to approve the suggested motion in the staff report. And for agenda item number 6B, I move to wave the first reading and set the public hearing from March 25th, 2018. Second. Moving by Mr. Greenfield, seconded by Mr. Rasmussen. Does anyone wish to object or abstain from handling of any of these items on the consent agenda? Any thoughts on this? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? As for support for the approval of the consent agenda item with items number 6B only. All in favor of the motion the second by voting aye. Aye. Opposed and a pass unanimously. We're now to agenda item number 6A, which is a consideration of a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into agreement between the city of Fairfax Virginia. The Virginia Department of Transportation for the purchase and installation of seven additional video traffic monitoring cameras. Staff report, please. Mr. Summers. I have Alex here also. This is a project to add some video cameras at seven additional locations. We currently have nine, which will feed information to the nerve center, the traffic control system at the property yard. And these seven cameras are paid for by the state. This cross? Thank you. I just had, I have some questions about it. The V.Dot funds that, in the amount of $120,000, are they intended intended to cover the installation and maintenance of these cameras? They cover the installation. There's approximately $20,000 of that money is for the engineering and the cameras cost about $15,000 each. So they would be installed, designed and installed with this money. I guess what I'm getting at here is I don't want us to pursue this if it's going to be of any increased cost to the city. The other thing that I wondered about is the personnel at the property yard who monitors these cameras. It's my understanding we don't have someone there at all times. And so there's not a lot of monitors and those sorts of things at that location that aren't being viewed by anybody. Well, the majority of time we do in fact have somebody in that room monitoring the cameras. We are short our traffic engineer at the moment, so we don't have as much coverage as we would like. But most of the sign in signal staff knows how to monitor the cameras and they rotate shifts. So there's somebody in that room 24 hours a day monitoring the traffic? I wouldn't say it's 24 hours a day. Alex, do you have a number of hours at their monitors? Usually when they arrive around 6, 13 in the morning up to around 6 in the evening. Do we have a camera that shows us what's happening on I-66? The cameras are on 24 hours, yes. Well, my point is that when we get things tied up on I-66, that's when the biggest crunch comes into the city. So if we don't know what's going on on I-66, how can we effectively manage the traffic on Route 50? We have a website that's called trafficland.com that have cameras on I-66. And we have it on our saved page in our monitor at the sign-in signal and they're also able to view the trafficland.com cameras aside from our cameras. We have a long perifax boulevard four cameras already to monitor because that's the first road that really gets affected whenever i66 is congested. Is is there any way that you can foresee that this this Is there any way that you can foresee that this new equipment is going to increase cost to the city in terms of personnel maintenance installation? There will be a slight increase in maintenance costs, just like any other equipment that you install they have to be maintained. So yes, there will be an increase in maintenance costs. Thank you. I'll need a motion to continue the dialogue. Mr. Mayor. Mr. Cross. I move to approve the resolution authorizing the City Manager to enter into an agreement between the City of Fairfax, Virginia and the Virginia Department of Transportation for the project known as the purchase and installation of seven additional video traffic monitoring cameras, including any amendments there to provided that the agreement and the amendments are acceptable to the city manager and approved as to form by the city attorney. Second. Move by Ms. Cross, seconded by Mr. Silverthorn, any discussion? I'll end with the motion, signify by voting aye. Aye. Opposed? And the passed unanimously. That now brings us down to item 7a, which is a public hearing and council auction and the request of Army Navy Country Club. As I said in my opening comments and was alluded to by several in the audience earlier tonight, there was a dialogue between the community and the country club about a week ago as a result of that very informative and educational exchange of information the applicants did contact the city and asked for deferral. I certainly applaud their efforts in that regard. They have agreed to hire the tree-safe consultant that the city was using as they go through the process and to reach out to both the staff and the community as they attempt to address some of the issues that were raised during that process. And so at this time, I'd like to entertain a motion for deferral. Mr. Mayor. Mr. Silverthorn? I moved to deferred again. Item 7A to February 12, 2008. Second. Moving by Mr. Silverthorn. It's April 8, 2008. Is it April 8? You said sorry, I have my motion for something different. I apologize. You know what? I'm looking at something completely different. I'm sorry. April 8th, that's what I meant. Thank you, Mr. Greenfield. Oops. Sorry about that. Okay. The motion then is to defer to April 8th. It's paid by Mr. Seventh, who are in seconded by Mrs. Winner, any discussion. All in favor of the motion is signified by voting aye. Aye. Opposed in a passion and say that now brings us the item number seven B which is a public hearing and council action on an ordinance emitting the code of the city of Fairfax by adding a new chapter 33 pertaining to emergency management. Is this been properly advertised? Staff report, please. Thank you. This is a continuation item from the work session that was held to discuss some of the particular Developers to who would act in the official capacity under our code as the director of emergency management. Through that work session the council did decide that the city manager would retain that responsibility. Essentially the ordinance has been corrected with that language to retain the city manager in that role. And I believe we are now ready for the public hearing portion before council act. Any questions or staff? Harry Nunden, thank you very much. This is a public hearing. Nobody's previously signed up to address the city council when would anybody like to address the City Council on this item? Harry Nguyen will close the public hearing on entertainer motion. Mr. Winter. Mr. Winter. I move to approve the ordinance to add Chapter 33 emergency management to the Code of the City Fairfax Virginia. Second. Move by Mr. Winter, seconded by Mr. Silverthorn, any discussion? All in favor of the motion, signify by voting aye. Aye. Opposed and a passionate annulacy. We're now down to item number 7c, which is a public hearing and counsel action. On the proposed capital improvement project cuts for fiscal year OA. Does this have been properly advertised? Staff report, please. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. This is an item that we had a work session on March 4th to discuss various items that the staff has identified to help in balancing this fiscal year 0708 budget. We had the staff had identified $572,552 in savings in its general fund operating account and also a million 62,358 in savings in its capital account. In addition, staff has come to Council and has recommended or proposed cuts to a program in its operating account and several items in its CIP account. And today we'll bring those to the council, forward to the council, with their consideration and approval to help balance those seven and eight budget. And these are items again because we did have a shortfall in revenues this year. We need to cut certain items or weeks of host or items to be cut so the budget will be balanced. If all these items are not cut and we do not find offsetting savings or cuts to replace those, we would actually create a deficit for the following year, which we'll be discussing the 0809 budget a little bit later, but it would carry over into the next year if we did not identify the cuts in this year. And if you could, on the second page, we have a schedule of the recommended cuts. Items 1 through 8 are the cap on improvement projects that city staff is recommending be cut. And item 9 is the community grant Program, which is an operating item of in the amount of 26,000 that the city staff is bringing forward for consideration. Most of these items, though we are recommended they be cut out of the budget, it's not something that staff is recommending never be brought back to Council for future consideration, but to have, we feel that they can be taken out of the budget for this year and the next year. Questions and staff? Hearing none, this is a public hearing. First to sign upEard Masters. I live at 3909, Tucson, replaced Fairfax. Mr Mayor and members of Council, I'd like to take a few moments to address three major concerns on behalf of Rustfield Association. And the first has already been mentioned tonight in the Chain Bridge Road sidewalk pedestrian bridge. We in Rust build it directly affected by the proposal to cut this project from the budget. We appreciate the courtesy of the staff in notifying us of this action. We accept the need to reduce current expenditures and so to show this project temporarily. We appreciate the staff and particulars to Hodgkins' assurance to me earlier this week that at an appropriate time we will be able to participate in further discussions with staff and council about the future of chain bridge. The second item that I'd like to raise is under the operating budget reductions for item 7C and that's in relation to the civic homeowners community grant. As I said in a letter to Council and staff of 7 February this year, Rustfield is a strategic entry point we believe to Old Town Fairfax. For those approaching from the north on Chain Bridge Road, we have greatly appreciated the generous grant that the city has been able to provide to us over the past three years because it has enabled us to beautify this entrance by planting a variety of flowers. Those flowers can be seen as you crest the hill if you're traveling south on chain bridge road. The proposal to eliminate this grant without very much prior warning has taken us completely by surprise. Otherwise we may have been able to adjust our own bunch of accordingly. Without the grant for 2008, we will be unable to plant flowers and so beautify the approach to the city and to Rustfield. So we urge you strongly at this point to reinstate this grant as part of the operating budget reductions to reinstate it either in whole or in part. The third point that I would like to make while I'm here is in relation to Railroad Avenue and this is not part of the present item 7 seems to me but with your indulgence I would like to speak to it because it's in the CIP. Rustfield brought this project which is to install curb and gutter on both sides of railroad avenue to the attention of the Planning Commission as far away as 2002. Subsequently, the Commission recommended its adoption, but it was deferred twice at least in 2004 and 5. Rustfield residents and many of the independent homeowners and the commercial businesses in surrounding streets, urged action through a petition presented to Council on March 27, 2006. The project was included in the CIP, the current CIP for 2006 through 2011. Improvements on the west side of Railroad Avenue were included in the FY-0708 budget. It's now proposed to understand to defer this action until FY-2009-, 2010. The improvements to the East side were scheduled for FY 2008 and 2009, but these two are being deferred to 2009, 2010. Recognising the financial constraints that the city is facing currently, we nevertheless urge Council to reconsider this project and ask that both sections, east side and west side, be included if possible in the FY0809 budget and certainly in the 0910 budget. The safety of residents in the area is paramount and for any of you who drive railroad avenue, cars parking on both sides of the street caused congestion. This makes two-way traffic and emergency vehicle movement very difficult. So, like the petition presented in 2006, we seek your urgent attention to the curb and gutter improvements for railroad avenue. Thank you very much for giving me the time. David Pumphrey? Mr. Mayor, Councilmembers, I'm David Pumphrey, I live at 101 and I'm Forest Avenue. I'm currently President of Historic Fairfax City, Incorporated. I'm here to speak to items one, two, and three on the list of the CIP items for the sheer that are proposed to be cut. For items one and two, we recognize that those are items that would be reasonable to be cut from the sheer Fairfax Museum maintenance, we believe, can be deferred and the Radcliffe Cemetery. The funds there really reflect a decision that was made at a previous time and a decision that was made later not to proceed in the direction. I do think this is an item of continuing interest to us so it may come back but I think the money that is allocated there is not needed for this year. The Radcliffe House maintenance item though, we would like to ask that consideration be given to retaining that those resources. This is not really a maintenance item in the true sense of a really an investment in this property and the presentation of the history represented in the Radcliffe House and House. The UV protection and the windows is designed to protect the interior and the contents of the house and make certain that it's preserved properly. The display cases that are being talked about in the proposal are really specially designed display cases that will significantly improve the presentation of the objects associated with the history of this house. In addition, it will allow for greater protection from the sun by re-orring the displays and allows for greater flexibility by allowing the changing of those displays to make it a greater interest. Gratica-Thousand House, as you know, is one of the most significant historic assets in the city. As an important, its location in the downtown is, we think very important in, as the city moves forward with revitalization of the downtown area. Therefore, we think it's important to keep the presentation inside this building up to the level that will draw a repeat visitors for the future. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, Council, I'm here representing the Coddill Civic Association and I want to address the potential cut for the grant competition. This has been a just a wonderful program. I think we participated in the grant competition, census it's inception, and been longer than three years. We have a park. We take great pride in our park. We've had a long-range plan. We've had professional plans provided for us to help that park. We've seen the park grow and use. It's actually a very nice park and and we love it. But the grant program cut is one of the reasons that we're able to plant flowers, keep it up, do other things and maintain our long range plan so that it continues to be the park that everybody loves to use. It is also being used by the fair chestored community which comes over and a lot of those folks really like the way we've up-kept or kept up the park and take an active participation. We have spring cleanup and fall cleanup and it's really just a wonderful thing for our community. I would not be opposed or our community would not be opposed to some adjustment in the grant program. Again, it's not a lot of money. It's almost like a gift and we really have to sometimes try to figure out what we want to do in the park. And that's not a bad thing. But if there was some kind of jury or application process where all of the communities could apply, some may choose not to apply. We might not apply this year because we have money to spend. That would be a good thing. And I think it would show our commitment to the city's budget process and being able to maintain the funding that you all need to run the city. Thank you. Thank you. the funding that you all need to run the city? Thank you. Thank you. That's all that is previously signed up under the sit-in, but anybody like to address the city council? Yes, please. Thank you. I didn't sign up, but I meant to. So I'm Katie Baxter-Gagan. I live at 3508 Pinehurst Avenue in the President of Country Global Civic Association. I just wanted to briefly say that we've appreciated this grant money and as I noted in my email to you all this weekend, we are happy to acquiesce and be understanding if you need to put these monies elsewhere. But I noticed on looking at the other items on the budget that you're intending to cut, that number six says dead ends, so stub street improvements. And I'm just wondering if the path between Country Club Hills and the high school was the proposed maintenance to that path was going to be done within that budget issue. I don't know if that's the money that you were going to use to fix the cracks and crags. And we have a volunteer who's put trash cans up in that area, but the city said that they were gonna maintain that for us. Sorry, this is actually different item. It's the sub street or the dead end at Queen Anne. Oh, so it doesn't include the one in my neighborhood. That is correct. Okay, sorry, I didn't really notice of that line item. Thank you. Thank you, and we love your enthusiasm. Thank you. Sorry. Nobody else is, yes please. Good evening, I'm Daniel Drowman. I was at one zero four years at Cleveland Street and in Green acres. And I wasn't planning on speaking tonight, but one of the things that I wanted to talk about was, is asking for the re-instate of the $26,000 in community grant funds. While these monies may not be a large and grand scheme of things, they are a huge investment for our communities. I belong to the Southeast Fairfax Citizens Association, which is a relatively rejuvenated community group. And we're just talking about how we're going to use these funds if we got them. And it's a huge investment to these communities and it's what makes Fairfax City so special. So I do ask that as you look through the budget and I understand times are tight that you restored these funds and that you were in some way restored them. Even if it's a little bit I think Councilwomanwoman Cross mentioned before me, be cutting the amounts down somewhat too. But these investments do pay off in the communities and keep the city special. So I ask these funds to be reinstated. Thank you. Thank you. Who else would like to address the Council on this item? Mr. Adel. Gerry O'Dell, our also known as the GRLT Gerry O'Dell. I think the remarks of the Historic Fairfax Association Rep. Mr. Pumphrey are worth taking into account. With regards to all three of the top there, those are historic things and they ideally should be done when the coffers are full, but if you don't do them, then the bill is later higher because of the added deterioration. The video overhead video detaches is that something you already just approved. I will say that if they're not, we are an economic downturn and crime goes up. The theft of property types of crimes particularly go up in such a downturn. The light of crosswalks, although safety items are, I think, of low priority, as long as you maintain good paint that's visible in the lane on your crosswalk. The community grant program, I said before, I think it constitutes something of a program of bribes. And you would probably get fewer votes if you would cut that. So I urge you to cut that because we shouldn't be trying to buy votes even by subtle means, such as these. That goes as well for the businesses. May I say that in my view, not everybody in the city lives in either a civic association or a homeowner association. And therefore not everybody is entitled to participate. But if I'm wrong, please embarrass me publicly. I guess I'm about out of time. Thank you, Mr. O'Dell. Anybody else like to address the city council under this item? Hearing none, we'll close the public hearing and place it in the hands of the council. We miss this cross. I'd like to return to the comment that I had from our work session. I really do feel that the community grant program is something. Mrs. Cross, if I could, what we need is a main motion on the floor. All right. So if you could read that, then we can start talking about the various line items. All right. I move to approve the proposed budget cuts to the FY 2017-2008 General Operating Fund in the amount of $26,000. And the capital improvement program in the amount of $534,214. Second. Move by Ms. Cross, seconded by Mr. Soverthorne. Now, discussion, Ms. Cross. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is only the beginning. I'm afraid of some very painful decisions that the council's going to have to make over the next few weeks. And whereas I sincerely regret that we're not going to be able to fund some of the projects on the CIP last, I am very concerned about cutting the or about the discontinuation of the community grant program, I would propose that we reduce the maximum amount of awards to the community associations to a limit of $500. Whereas that is not a great amount of money, it doesn't buy very much, I appreciate that. But it does say to the community, we care very much about how you're using these funds and the pride that you're taking in your neighborhoods. So I would make that change to the proposed budget cut list. See if we can get some discussion on this and I in the spirit of full disclosure I can't believe I'm going to say this but I don't want to throw the staff under the bus on this. And I, in the spirit of full disclosure, I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I don't want to throw the staff under the bus on this particular item in my dialogue and discussion with him a couple of weeks ago, and we were going through a whole variety of issues. This item came up and, and in the spirit of sort of talking through the various issues, I suggested that maybe we, it was time for us to reevaluate that program and lay it on the table. Having said that, I have to tell you, it's done my hard good and I'm sure Mr. Greenfield as well on listening to the community actually demonstrate support for that grant. We've done it for a number of years. It's one of those sort of things you think it's doing good, but you never really know until you get an opportunity to put it on the table like we have just done and I certainly having said that and and caring so much for this program and have seen the impact on it, I certainly would support Mrs. Cross action in this regard. Mr. Greenfield. Thank you, Mr. Spire. I both there's two two items that are still out there, the remnant of the livable task force. This is one of them and the Renaissance House in Corp. is the other, everything else is fallen by the waste side because budget cuts. I would be a little more specific tonight and ask that we cut this in half to $13,000 if we use the $500 maximum that would allow 26 civic slash home honor associations to be able to take advantage of this program. It is an important program out there in the community and while this is going to be a very, very difficult budget and we are going to see a lot of things deferred and cut. I would hope that this is one thing that could continue. Smerafee is making that in the form of emotional second. Well, let me see if I could since Mrs. Cross made the motion. I believe Mrs. Seventh would have made a motion. I actually was speaking out loud. I don't think it was. She actually did offer an amendment to the main motion. Or if the mover would accept that as part of her main motion and the second or would we could get to it maybe quicker if that's. Thank you. Okay. So now included in this motion would be an expenditure by right or right of $13,000 and a maximum not to exceed $500 per gram. Okay. Other items and points of discussion? And that's accepted now as part of the main motion. It is. Okay. Just a general comment, Mr. Mayor, I just want to thank the staff for taking the lead. I actually think that this was the first one. It came about when I was out of town on my parents' anniversary cruise. And so I'm sort of getting back in the swing of things and a little slower than I have. But let me just say that that, you know, and I'm certainly supportive of Mrs. Cross's approach to this, Mr. Greenfields. I just think that it's just as Mr. Greenfield has said, this is at the front end of this process. But one of the things that we have heard repeatedly tonight from folks in the community and also even from those on this diias is that how tough this is going to be. But I don't think anybody is fully grasping it yet. And so we are about to- They're about to. We're facing a lot of increase in the city's history. So I just want to remind people of that because it's going to be very difficult to balance this budget. And by the way, and we'll get into this with the city manager when we talk about discretionary areas where we can actually have an impact beyond contracts with the county and schools and personnel costs. We're talking probably a very small sliver of our overall budget. So we're in trouble. And I love the statement by one of my friends in the audience earlier about having the political courage to do bigger and better when it comes to the community center. Well, the reality is just like we all preach about saying, we should live within our means and our personal budgets. We should do, we should govern the city in the same capacity. But I'm afraid that we're not quite there yet, and I look forward to Mr. Assistant presently. Excuse me. In about 30 minutes, I'm sure we'll hear some wonderful news on that front. So thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Espos. Thank you, sir. Actually, I was willing to support the Court. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We're willing in support of the full cut of 26,000, because I think when we see the next budget, although I haven't seen it yet, we may find out that it's been zeroed out again. And as Mr. Silverthorn said, the efforts we went through to balance this budget are nothing like we're going to see with a budget that's coming in a half hour. And we may have to cut things like this and much more to survive. Thank you. It's very. I had a question regarding number three. Mr. Pumphrey's, he might have the answer. You have to correct it for staff. Okay, sorry. He mentioned three things within the Red Clefton Maintenance. Almost the UV-V windows and then there were display cases. The fact that yes, the sun does do lots of damage. How much would the UV protection on the windows be? The other thing, the objects can go into storage someplace else where they can be protected where the windows, I Miss. Runaway actually had put the UV windows back in so that the cost was $6,800 and that's still in the budget. Okay. Thank you Any other comments? Hearing none call the question all in favor of the motion, signify by voting aye. Opposed? And it passed unanimously. That now brings us down to item number 8, which are items, there are no items under 8, so we're now down to item number 9, which are presentations by the public and any item that is not on tonight's agenda. And there are several who have previously signed up. The first is Janice Murray. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of council. My name is Janice Murray. I reside at 3533 Cornell Road in Uldley Hills. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I strongly oppose building the community center at its current proposed site on top of the playground area at Van Dyck Park. I have three major concerns I'd like to address tonight. Location, traffic, and funding. When the residents voted yes on the Open Space Initiative, the spirit of that referendum was to reserve existing open space. Vandike Park is one of the most beautiful parks in the city. The playground attracts children and families because of its open space and its shade. It's central location and walkability from nearby neighborhoods, and especially the community atmosphere. Many children and families living outside of the city make the end like their regular park because it is the best park in the area. The construction of a 32,000 square foot building on top of the existing playground area seems diametrically opposed to the expressed wishes of the community as affirmed in the open space referendum. It would be a travesty to wipe out the tree-lined view from Old Lee Highway and more disturbing to displace children and families who use the park. I'm going to start it later. Play, let's go ahead. Contrary to the notion that traffic will not be an issue, traffic will most certainly be an issue. I drive on that stretch of road daily at different times of the day. Traffic in this location continues to increase. We have a redeveloped downtown designed to draw in more people. Add to this a potential senior center, teen center, parks and rec programs, sports facilities, theater and rehearsal space all in a 32,000 square foot building combined with parkgoers and a farmers market, the traffic will most certainly be impacted. With the current budget pressures using current resource assumptions, it's clear that the city does not have the money to fund an $11 million building. I am strongly opposed to raising taxes, increasing user fees, or creating a bond to put this bill. There has been one community outreach meeting to discuss three options for the center. People voiced legitimate concerns. Yet according to the city scene and RFP has already been solicited for a plan to build the biggest most costly option. City departments and community groups seem to be providing justifications for the proposed location. In this case I would ask, rather than immediately try and justify the location, please consider the reasons for objection and try to understand the concern my neighbors and I have, that our park that we use every week is possibly going to be gone. The momentum is evident. Established groups supporting this project at this site have a strong voice. A lot of the groups in the city that are formally organized to meet and communicate about the new center, constituent including young children and families who use Vandike, need to be equally represented and involved in further discussions. I advocate saving Vandike Park. Once you remove this open space, you can never get it back. Please carefully deliberate on this decision that will impact the park and the surrounding communities. Please preserve the city of Fairfax that we have all come to appreciate for the next generation of city residents. Preserve this open space that currently exists at Vandek Park. Thank you. Patrick Murray. Thank you, Councilor Mr. Mayor. Good evening. My name is Patrick Murray 3533 Cornell Road. I want to take this opportunity to express my objection to the proposed location of the New Community Center at Van Dyke Park as well. My remarks will be brief. It's only been a very short period that the community who used Van Dyke Park have been made aware of the proposed impact of the new community center. That is simply the impact of being the removal of the existing Van Dyke playground. A single community outreach meeting on the proposed community center has been held with significant issues raised. And according to published accounts, the city is moving ahead with the design process. It appears the accelerated build schedule may be the reason for bypassing more rigorous and transparent site selection process. However, it is troubling to not have solicited more input from the neighbourhoods affected by the proposed Van Dyke location. Van Dyke is the largest and most used park in the city. The attraction of the park is the location, the view of the trees, single-level parking, accessible by strollers, the basketball courts, and more importantly, the community atmosphere of people who play there every day. There is concern the city is not taking into account the role of Van Dyke as the central park for Old Lee Hills, Country Club Hills, and University Drive neighborhoods. In all honesty, it seems in reading public minutes of meetings and information published the senses the city groups seeking to locate the community center on the Van Dyke playground do not have children that play there each week or go to the farmers market or ride their bikes on the trails. As previously said, once Van Dyke is gone, it is gone forever. There is also alarm at what appears to be a lack of overall planning for the Old Lee Hills Old Lee Highway corridor. There has been vigorous debate about the new development coming in across from the Army Navy Country Club. The eventual loss of the trees from that development will change the entrance way to the Old Lee Hills Country Club Hills neighborhood from Fairfax Circle. The beautiful tree canopy to another iron brick, iron and brick fence with houses on top of each other just as we see elsewhere in Fairfax County. The introduction of the Blenheim Visitor Center and the New Police Station have seen the removal of a significant mature landscaping and open space from this corridor. It is critical the City Council acknowledge those projects and their impact on the Old Lee Highway corridor as part of overall evaluation of the Community Center location. We are a city of 23,000 people with two newly rebuilt schools, a new police station, a new city hall, and have spent tens of millions of dollars on open space initiatives and the construction of new ball fields. Macro economic conditions are creating enormous financial pressures on this community. With costs of the smallest option presented at least $5.4 million, potentially growing to $11 million, with the construction of a 32,000 square foot facility, this council should exercise extreme caution before overcommitting the community to a project we cannot afford. Finally, definitive plans regarding the ultimate disposition and use of green acres, old town hall, and any other city facilities should be included as part of an overall plan. As citizens are informed of the entire project costs, capital and operational expense estimate. The merits and expenses of the project in its totality can be understood. In closing, I want to express my appreciation for Mrs. Sherwood on her generous gift. I appreciate the opportunity to share my views and hope this body does not underestimate the concerns of many residents in these neighborhoods. I look forward to a vigorous debate on the presentation, preservation of Van Dyke Park. Thank you. Okay. Good. High school already. Okay. Judy Frazier. Gee, also. Okay. Moving right along. Allison Vess. Good evening. I am Allyson Vess of 9-811 Hampton Lane in Old Lee Health. Hello Mayor Letter and members of Council. I am speaking here tonight to express my concern for the proposal occasion of the new community center within the Van Dyke Park area. My husband and I moved to the city seven and a half years ago with the hopes of making this community our home and raising our family here. We love so many things about Fairfax City as opposed to the other areas of Northern Virginia. We love the small town feeling, the character, and the overall beauty of the landscaping and mature trees. Since we've moved here, we've noticed how Fairfax County seems to build upon every piece of open land with no regard for receiving open space. We noticed that Fairfax City didn't seem this sort of place, and they worked to preserve open space. And this was further cemented in our minds when in 2001 there was a referendum passed to preserve open space. However, just in the past five years it is alarming at how much development in the city has taken place much to our chagrin. Even though we still do have beautiful park land and space, this seems to be disappearing rapidly with many projects such as Far Cry, Blenon, Stafford Roadball Fields, the new police station, and now the discussion of putting the new community center in the city's premier playground of Van Dyck Park. I truly understand and sympathize with many citizens on the need for a community center. I think building a new community center could be a wonderful amenity for the city. However, I am completely shocked that the city would even consider putting the center within Van Dyck Park. As a frequent park goer, I am always amazed how many people use this park. It's such a beautiful park. It's a testament to all of you how beautifully it is maintained, both in cleanliness and with the wonderful upkeep and installation of the playground equipment. I can't think of a more hurtful thing to do to a community that to consider putting yet another large building in the most used park in the city. One of the most important things to accomplish within a community is attracting new residents and retaining them for a long period of time. And that target group for this type of marketing is young families. What message does it send to young families when the city puts a new building within the premier playground in open space area? It sends a message that development is more important than the environment. That buildings are more important than open space. And that children's needs for open space are disregarded. This is not the message you want to send to families who are considering making Fairfax City their home. I am here tonight asking all of you to please consider other locations within the city for the new community center. If the center has to be put in the Van Dyke area, I am asking to please put it in the site of the former John C. Wood building without encroaching on a single parcel of land within the skateboard park, playground, green space, volleyball courts, and pavilion area of Van Dyke Park. I believe building and containing the center in the site of the former Johnson Wood Building and sharing parking with the police station would be a wonderful compromise. It would preserve the open space at Van Dyke, still be located in the Van Dyke area and have a much less environmental impact to the community. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Mayor and Council members. I'm just here supporting my neighbors and our concerns about the NDI Park. I believe in preserving open space and giving children places where they can run freely where I don't have to worry about them. I don't have to worry about them running into the street or disappearing into the woods. We don't watch much TV in my house, we actually don't have cable. When my kids get restless, I tell them, go outdoors and play. And go down and freak, stay behind, stay where I can find you, but go outdoors and play. Van Dy Park is also so large we can actually spend a couple hours there. Other playgrounds are smaller and we're done with them in 30, 45 minutes. At Van Dy, we can go there and play playgrounds, kids run around, we walk down through the trails, play the other little playground below and we come back up and run around some more. And it's wonderful. And I've noticed on many beautiful days the park is crowded, and I'm not sure how we can preserve all that space for all the people who use the park. And with a big community center there, I do realize a new modern facility for parks and recreation and all the other activities we want community center for will be wonderful. And if I worked at parks and rec, I'd be a static. I'm on a new modern building to work in. It'd be great. So I do realize there's so many different things to consider. I just hope you guys can make every effort to minimize the impact on the park and the communities. Thank you. Thank you. That's all that's previously seen signed up to address the City Council again on any item that is not on tonight's agenda. Anybody else like to address the City Council again on any item that is not on tonight's agenda. Anybody else like to address the City Council? Mr. O'Dell. Mr. O'Dell, can you please extend my time for 45 minutes? You, City Council, wasted $9 million to redirect traffic on North Street and Main Street a couple of years ago. At the several public hearings, you held the people were overwhelmingly against your stupidity. Nationwide studies show that the one-way streets are better for one pedestrian safety two, vehicular safety three, vehicular volume flow, and for air pollution reduction. Mayor Letter publicly on the air television, April 24, 2006 admitted it was developer pressure that led to ignoring the will and the safety of the voters and the two-way streets. Shame. But your gullible stupidity didn't end there. You made the escorts at Main and E Street or Oli Highway and at Oli Highway and North Street so absurdly sharp that you cause more, not fewer, traffic accidents. You touted how sharper curves and squared off instead of rounded curves would slow traffic, promote pedestrian safety. Nothing like that has happened. There still are seldom any pedestrians. Their safety was always assured by traffic lights and crosswalks, but now the cars must navigate insanely sharp terms while avoiding protruding islands and far more cars than before leave their lanes, crowding cars alongside them. Cars in a case in plane. Saturday morning, March the 8th at about 8 a.m. I came across a car at the front of the library that had completely jumped the curb onto the sidewalk against this library and the pickup truck was straddling the curb a few car lengths away. A couple police cars with flashing lights presented attempting photo opportunity. But I drove on to my target the abortion mill that besmirches the not so fair city of Fairfax. After we finished our prayers at the abortion mill, I mentioned the accident at the library to a woman prayer warrior at the abortion mill, one Ruth Kuh. She told me she has twice hit the career back that library. First thing, two tires, the first time and a third tire, the second time. You idiots on this council should be permanently barred from any more of your long history of failed traffic engineering experiments. It's obvious you don't know what you're doing. You instituted the Thursday night television show Let's Talk City in November just before the elections in May of 2004. So insecure with you about your prospects of re-election. I'm talking to the three women and the mayor. The, the, the, the, okay. The Mrs. Lang, blightly, explained how these curves would help. And the mayor had to personally correct her that the curves, the turn, the Esther was going to be, that the curves are gonna be squared, not rounded. And there's more to be said, you'll hear it next time. We can't wait, thank you Mr. Edel. Can he give my hell a case? Anybody else in the audience like to address the City Council? Yes, please. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I am Diane Han. I look at 41-22 evergreen drive in a city of Fairfax. The people that have spoken regarding Bandai Park development have spoken much more eloquently than I can speak and they have covered my concerns very adequately. I, one of the big things that concerns me is I do not understand why there is a time frame on when the wonderfully generous monies that have been dedicated to the city, why why they have such a short time frame attached to them to put the city under pressure to do something with those funds. Perhaps it would be possible to negotiate with the Sherwood family and make it easier for the city and the residents of the city all the way around to have more time to think about this project and the impact it will have on the city and have a result that it satisfactory to everybody. I am concerned is the people that have spoken have all been youngsters speaking as a grandmother it is a favorite place so That's all I can say So that's all I can say. Anybody else like to address the City Council? Hearing none, we will close the public hearing and we will move to agenda item number 10, which is the approval of the February 26, 2008 minutes. So moved. Second. Moved by Mr. Greenfield, seconded by Mr. Rasmussen, any discussion? Mr. Mayor. Mrs. Cross. On page 13, line 18, I think I was the one that made the statement regarding the Department of Social Services and the inspections. If you would just change that name, thank you. Okay, with those amendments included in the other comments, all in favor of the motion signify by voting aye. Aye. Opposed? Any prayer? One abstent from please. With one abstent, you Mr. Silverthrone was not present. That now brings us to our work session, and it's my understanding, Mr. System, we're going to stay in this room for the budget presentation. We're going to take just a short two or three minute break so that we can change over the room and set up the power points. And we'll get started in less than five minutes. Thank you. Actually, it's one. It's titled The Perfect Storm. No, wait a second, I'm sorry. It's titled The City Managers Recommended Budget for 0809. Mr. Sisson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Appreciate the opportunity to make this presentation this evening. Mr. Hodgkins is making some distribution of budgets to those who choose to stay in the room and listen to the presentation. Would also say that copies of the budget will be available in the finance office. From Mr. Hodgkins or Mr. LeHaite beginning tomorrow. The members of the City Council have the rather dubious distinction of getting the first copies of this document and we will proceed tonight to kind of walk you through it. I would like to proceed by going through the executive summary tonight which begins on page A1. Usually we have a series of handouts that we give to you, but I thought we'd do it a little bit differently this year. And instead of having a summary of the summary, having kind of we're going to walk through several pages of this document so that you're kind of exposed to all of the sections as we go forward. I cannot think of a community anywhere that has had such an exciting past three or four years. It has just been incredible, the progress that we have made citywide. And I won't name all of the buildings that have been constructed and problems and opportunities that have been addressed by the city. And it's been a wonderful time in the city's history. And I just I thank the mayor and council for the vision that was has been demonstrated during this period of time and coming such a long way. That certainly has been marvelous to watch in the last year or so because of largely because of the National economy that has been suffering a bit The city's fortunes have waned a bit and so Our challenge this evening as we walk through the budget is to So our challenge this evening, as we walk through the budget, is to balance those two views of life. We have kind of the best and worst of times in a way, although I think the work saying the worst of times is not really fair either. So we have put together a budget document that does represent some challenges. And I want to thank the Director of Finance, Dave Hodgkins, and the Budget Director, Joe LeHate, who's sitting here to my right. All of the department heads who work so hard on this, the constitutional officers who have been very involved in the process. There's a lot of work putting together this document that you see in front of you and you all know that you have you've seen all of you as a team have watched this document evolve and have participated in these discussions for several years and you know the complexity that it represents in the background. So I have sent you a budget transmittal letter and I'm not going to go down the list of those items. It kind of sets out some of the landscape that we are looking at. And so I hope I recommend that to your reading. And so I hope I recommend that to your reading. There is another document that before we actually get underway, it's contained on page A58, way at the other end of the budget message. And feel free to turn there if you would with me. A budget is a snapshot in time that we have to make decisions about what revenues we're going to recommend. We have to make decisions about what expenses are in and out. And that has to be in effect beginning today. And the council has the opportunity to look at that over the next several weeks. But as you fully understand, better than anyone, there is a lot of things that are occurring in the background and in the foreground and on all sides, that impact on this document that you see this evening. So what we wanted to do this year and a little bit different framework and it's really because of the complexity of the issues that you do find yourselves in the midst of right now is make sure that we put on a piece of paper in the budget document potential revenues that are out there that we for one reason or another did not include in the budget and potential expenditures that for one reason or another are not in this budget document. And I'll point out a couple of them. For example, monies that the school board has been able to save in the construction of the middle school and high school. And they've indicated that these monies may be coming back to the city for other purposes. The school board has yet to vote on that specifically, and we felt like it would be a little presumptuous of the city staff to include those additional revenues in our budget. Another item on the expenditure side, for example, we have something like the completion of the Blinum site. We have for several, for a couple of years, been working on the renovations at the Blinum site to include the construction of an interpretive center and doing some other things. That need to be done, for example, like grandma's cottage and at the Blinham house itself. And we know that we're going to be short a little money to complete that work. I felt it would, if we have not bid that project out, I thought it would be presumptuous of us to put that money in the budget quite yet. And so far as it may require borrowing to complete that work. So this page is filled with those kinds of issues. issues and we are looking for your leadership as we go through this budget discussion process in the weeks ahead to help us clarify what of those items should be part of the budget. The budget team looked at the normal set of revenues and expenditures that we normally see a year and a year out basis, and that provided the basis for the budget document in front of you. It, as we looked at a number of items and issues, we found very quickly that we felt like that there was probably not going to be enough in the current revenues going forward to pay for the expenses that we would identify and we set about to look at various ways to solve that problem. So the first thing I'd like to do is turn then to the proposed budget highlights and point those out to you. In the general fund, as the council is well aware, we have a number of funds in the city that handle kind of discrete income and expenditure items that pertain to those particular funds. The general fund is kind of what it says. It handles basically everything else that's not in one of the smaller funds of the city. For example, capital improvement fund or water fund or sewer fund or an open space fund or any number of other funds. It is by far our largest fund and it comes in at a total of about $129 million or an increase of 3.7%. We're not one of the larger communities around, but certainly $129 million is not an insignificant sum. The, I'm sorry, already have confusing the numbers. The total for all funds is $129 million. The sum of the General Fund expenditure is $116 million, $97,000. As we looked at the comparison between expenditures and revenues after everything that we looked at and we'll be talking about on the revenues side how we had declining revenues and a number of sources, we had increasing expenditures in a number of areas and we compared those two figures. We had a substantial shortfall of about $9 million and we felt constrained for a number of reasons to recommend any other sources of revenue increase to close that gap other than the real estate property tax. And from where I set and from where you set, there's probably no more unpopular thing to do than to recommend a real estate property tax rate increase. And on the less, that is what we were left to do. We had in taking a look at our real estate tax. During this year we have found that as we all know from what's been happening nationally and certainly in northern Virginia, there's been an average decrease in the assessment of residential properties in the city of 6.6%. On the other hand, the other largest component of our tax base is the commercial assessments and they have gone the other direction with an increase of 14.1%. When you combine those two together, our assessed tax base in the city, the real estate tax base in the city increased less than 1.5% or 0.38%. And that's relatively flat. And when you have seen increases over the last four, five years of double digits for several of those years, it has provided additional growth in revenues that have come screeching to halt this year. And that particular large tax amount, or that particular revenue account. That accounts for some 38 to 40 percent of our entire general fund comes from that particular source. We'll talk about other components, other revenues in the general fund that have had a shortfall in just a moment. Other data points which the council is frequently interested in is once in on the real property tax rate is about $566,000. We are also recommending an increase in the water and sewer service rates of 7%. You all have participated in several work sessions with us recently in which we talked about the future of the city's water system and we all know that the Loudoun County Sanitation Authority has by and large determined that they have to fulfill more of their own needs going forward that is going to impact our water and sewer funds a bit and that's one point. The other point is is that we're looking at a long-term capital construction program in our water and sewer funds and those two major components will indicate that going forward we're probably going to have increases in our water and sewer rates more frequently than we have in the past and probably a Little bit higher maybe in the 67% range Going forward for the foreseeable future to pay for those to address those issues that have had a risen This general fund balance is going to be right at This general fund balance is going to be right at the minimum of council's comfort level of where the city's cash balances should be. So those are some of the highlights of the proposed budget. We're going to turn next to a section of the executive summary that is really just background materials. It deals with a guide to the budget document and this is really for maybe those who have not looked at this budget before or don't know a lot of the background of the city. And for about the next 15 pages of this budget document from page A13 to A18 is materials related to the economy of the city, the economic outlook of the city, community profile. It contained therein is very important items related to number one, the council's goals for this two-year term that's wrapping up in June of this year and also the Council's guidelines that you pass every fall in which guides the staff preparation of the document in the next several months. So that's a section that I recommend to you reading. It is very similar perhaps year to year but certainly those who are not familiar with the community will find a lot of enriched information in that. And I would also say that the first page of this budget document is an award that we get on the presentation of this document and the preparation of this document and this section is required to get that award. So we want to make sure that those documents are in there. Turning then to page 18, it's an overview of all of the funds of the city. As I mentioned to you earlier, the total of those all funds, total of all of those funds is 128 million, $872,000. At Pyshart chart just shows you the makeup of those particular funds. There is not much fluctuation in the percentages that comprise the total this year than in past year. Next is, breaks down the general fund revenues and expenditures. I would say that this, too, has not changed that much from year to year. I would note because of the shortfall that we have had in the budget and we did recommend a real property rate increase, a substantial rate increase, I would say, the amount of the real estate piece of that chart, though, has risen to 41% from about 38%. And that has caused some of the other numbers to change just a little bit. Personal property has gone from 10% in last year's budget to 9 percent now, last year's sales tax was at 13 percent this year, is at 12 percent and so on. On the general fund expenditure side, there's just this particular, the relationship between last year and this year is roughly almost identical. The numbers have changed therein, but the numbers are about the same. On page A20 is a summary of what has gone up in revenues and what has gone up in expenditures that brings us to the new level of the total in the general fund. We had increased revenues or adjustments to revenues at which total $5.7 million. We had increased in expenditures or adjustment to expenditures of the same amount obviously, so that we can balance this budget. Just pulling a few of those out. The real estate taxes that you see there is 11.5 cents will generate $6.4 million of new revenue in fiscal year 08 budget of half of that amount so that when we pick up 6.4 million in FY09, we're going to pick up about 3.2 million in FY08. And that is something that I think the council is pretty familiar with. Every time we have a rate increase, that is the phenomenon. This year, I want to make sure council understands that the money that we have picked up in fiscal year 2008, we have taken that money, whereas that would have made our budget in a surplus this year. We have taken that money and placed it in as a revenue source in fiscal year 09 to help balance the budget. Ambulance fees are now collecting an ambulance fee. As you know, and this represents the change from last year, I'm sorry, from the current year to next year, of the increase in the ambulance fee. We only implemented that for a partial year this year. We estimate that we'll collect about 200,000 in FY08 and FY09 will collect about a million dollars hopefully and so the net difference is 800,000 and that's what you see as the second item there. Parks and Recreation fees I want to law the efforts of our parks director in looking very carefully at what the city can do to generate additional fees. And we're not prepared to discuss every one of those, but certainly when Mr. McCarty makes his presentation, we'll want to go and look at those. Missilaneous changes will provide you a list of those. There's an anticipated increase in the classroom rental fee and the B poll tax is the only remaining substantial source of revenue which has a positive figure for FY09. Then we get into one of the real stories of the budget. As you can see, all of the remaining revenue items on that chart have brackets around them or parentheses and that means we're receiving less by that amount than what we received in the budget or that what we forecast in the budget when the difference between FY08 and FY09. Meals tax, bank franchise tax, and our commission of the revenue was giving us a tutorial on this last couple of days. And apparently there have been some consolidations and some buyouts of various banks in the community and that has resulted in some has impacted the budget here. And I'll leave that to his expertise to fill you in later. Interest revenue is declining because basically we have had the benefit of a large amount of money from the school bonds that has been invested and the city was the recipient of that interest money and as the school schools have progressed towards completion, that money has been drawn down, less investment, therefore less interest earnings. Rental income at Westmore, that's one of those issues, really, that it appears here here but it also appears on your your other issues about what are we going to do with that property going forward. So we just highlighted that for you to review. School aid will be down, personal property tax will be down and sales tax down substantially we're estimating. So the sum of all of those figures then is 5.7. On the expenditure side, I don't know that I'll go down all of them, but we have the old town fund that represents the ramp up for the expenditures of the money that's being spent for under grounding of utilities and transportation changes that were made. The school tuition contract will go up. This is actually a decline from what we're used to seeing. So this is sort of good news. 1.3 million. The transfer from open space, again, we're paying, we're beginning to pay the debt on open space, so that's going up a bit from what was budgeted last year. Employee compensation increases. This is a smaller figure than you're used to seeing on a year-to-year basis. And the reason for that is one, we overestimated some of the expenditures last year. Frankly, so our year to year is going to be less. However, we are not forecasting a full year of employee cost of living increases and that has reduced the budget by about $700,000. Capital Eases and Euces, these are other borrowings that the city has made for things like ball fields and the like. And that's going up a bit. City County contracts of about $300,000 transfer to the volunteer fire department for their purchases of city fire equipment is going up based on a new contract that we have with them about 160,000 senior citizen tax relief. That's based on the fact that we are increasing, we have recommended to you to increase the property tax rate of 11.5 cents. And those extra tax bills that are going out would correlate to this additional expense. Blinem Interpretive Center, we're bringing that facility online later this year and that doors have to be opened on that facility. And then ending with a little bit of good news, the transfer, the transit fund is dropping a bit. Anyway, the sum of all of those expenses is 5.7 million. That will leave us then because of the, we basically, we backed into the calculation of what the real estate property tax rate would have to be basically because we knew that we had to maintain a minimum cash amount in the general fund of 10 percent and this chart kind of tells the story of how challenged we are to do that. We didn't have sufficient funds to keep that fund balanced any higher and we had to turn to other sources of revenue to do that. Then moving on to the components of the real estate, I'm sorry, the general fund revenue revenues, a-a-26, I believe, the residential real estate tax base, just to give you some data points about how that is comprised. And again, this is, as I mentioned earlier, we've seen a decline of about 6.6% in this component of our tax base on the residential side. The single family makes up about 79% of those fluctuated, various amounts, and we'll discuss those with the council in the future. But all told, we have a proposed income from our real estate tax base of about $49 million up from $45 million, which is our estimate for 2008. The commercial tax base, just on that side of the equation, not much has changed there except overall, as I mentioned earlier, if it were not for the commercial tax base increasing about 14%, we would be even more challenged than we are. So again, the combination of the two put us just about zero of an increase. The chart on the historic call representation for the last 10 years of the city's total taxable property value in the city. You can see it's right about $5.6 million dollars increase of about 21 million this year. As you can see in the last 10 years our total tax base is almost tripled in the city. Usually moving in the opposite direction of how our tax base is moving is the real estate tax rate that the council adopts each year as we are seeing flat or declining rates in our real estate tax base. You see an increase in the property tax rate and vice versa. This year we're again recommending going from a rate in calendar year 2008 from 72 cents to tax rate Caliro 9 of 83 and a half cents. Then looking at the comparative, what's happening in our sister jurisdictions around us. It's still largely a good news for city residents. This has been the case for a number of years. We were, I think through the early 90s about the second lowest tax jurisdiction, at least from a real real estate point of view of all of the jurisdictions in northern Virginia. And then sometime in the mid 90s, we actually were able to cut under every one of our sister jurisdictions. And that has been a prized factor or characteristic of our local tax base for a number of years. This year we have some challenges and as you can see these numbers are all current as of yesterday about noon and you can see that there would be one community on that page that would have a higher tax rate than the City of Fairfax and again I'm fully cognizant of the fact that this is the staff's recommendation and the mayor and Council may have other thoughts in mind, but at least this is a kickoff of the discussion. I think it also obviously represents the phenomenon that the close-in suburbs really have had a less of a decline in their real estate assessments. And the farther you go from the core city that you find there's been more the market has been softer and therefore those communities are facing lower revenues and therefore are recommending higher tax rates. Then turning to what we all want to see and that is the impact of the proposed real estate tax rate on properties that we want, and this is the silver-thorn chart, last time we'll probably call it that. The, this is just meant to give you a representation of the value of three different priced residential properties of $400,600, $800,000. What the tax payment was in 2007 at $72, which is $2,880. What the new assessment of a $400,000 house would be at the new assessments, which it has declined an average of say 6.6%. Then applying the new recommended rate to that same property and what the new tax bill would be and it would come up to about 8.3% average for all three of those properties indicated. Would also point out that and this is the point at which I know the council is all thinking at what point is does the, would the tax rate have to be if that increase would be zero and that figure is about 5.5%. If I, I'm sorry, 5.5 cents, of course. We represent that, represent that in sense and not percentages. Looking next at another large component of the general fund, the personal property tax rate. As you can see there, the city is still represented by the third lowest tax rate in the region. And that's just for comparative purposes. No further comment on that. Turning to the Meals Tax. As Council knows, we increased our Meals Tax last year from 2% to 4% so that puts us among the majority of jurisdictions that have adopted that higher rate and that that has performed for us nicely, although there is somewhat of a downturn in that figure. Then turning over several pages to looking at another large component of our general fund education. And Superintendent Mundi will be making her presentation. I don't mean to walk on that at all, but just wanted to point out to you that the education is probably our most important expenditure, along with public safety. It is a smaller percentage of the city's budget than it is in most other jurisdictions. About 41% of our general fund or $47 million. Now that $47 million includes not only cost of the contract, but includes other administrative expenses of the school board and it includes interest that is paid on the school bonds as well. Anyway, the new and approximate rate for the cost per pupil in the city of Fairfax is $13,800. Next, just again, this is just a gross overview of many of the areas of the city's budget. And we can talk about a lot of this in detail. This chart, though, does represent the amount of principal and interest payments for all borrowing of the city. It's not just general obligation bonds, but it includes payments for open space for synthetic turf at the high school and soccer field development and blend them and the 11 Oaks property. All everything is in this chart that the city pays for with borrowed funds from year to year and you can see the challenges that that represents. The red tip of the match sticks there, if you will, is the amount of the library debt. And since that is essentially paid for by our annual library payment or fees at about the same level, we wanted to break that out separately because that really has been paid for with no substantial increase in the city's budget. So, whereas we have reached the pinnacle this year in fiscal year 2009, that is the largest amount of principal and interest that the city will pay is in that year and then we'll start stepping down the debt of the city. But as you can also see that debt does not step down very much money. And so, and if we elect to assume any other debt over the next four or five years, then obviously those payments will perhaps increase and not stay stable. Looking again, and the reason why we do want to pause a little bit on the debt structure of the community is that it is such a critical factor when the city is having its debt rated by the financial institutions and we've been so fortunate to have a strong story to tell them and that story will continue but that's the reason why we do a lot of comparisons and analysis and so we've chosen to show you a couple of others in so far as how we stack up with our other fellow jurisdictions in northern Virginia, the first is the outstanding general obligation that is a percentage of the assessed value in the city. The good news here is that by law jurisdictions in Virginia can borrow up to 10% of their assessed valuation, the city is only a little over 2%. I would tell you that because we have chosen the year 2007 to pick up these numbers so that we can be assured that all of the jurisdictions are reflected accurately, we did not include on this chart the $8 million of school board borrowing or city borrowing on behalf of the school board. So that would push out a little bit the percentage there, but not very much. And then, similarly, on the next chart that we have for you, a per capita education debt in the city. And this is where you take all of the debt for education purposes and divide by the number of residents in the city. Again, that does not take into account the $8 million. We are a little high, obviously just having taken on a significant program. But the phenomenon there is that you're dividing by a smaller number of residents and it looks be worse than it is. Then moving on to the other components of the budget that have seen some increase, the increase in the city, county and regional service contracts. And again, this includes the school tuition contract. Next year will be approximately $38.8 million, and that will rise then from about $44.6 million to $46.2 increase of about $300,000. Turning to the capital fund, the sources of the capital fund, we have a total estimate in our capital fund of about $8.6 million. Only 2.8% of that fund is transferred into the fund from the general fund. This year, because of the budget challenges, we've only transferred in 2.5% of the budget. And that is a lower amount in the average of the past few years, although I would be quick to tell you that we are spending a tremendous sum of money in capital projects in so far as paying off the debt of the city. I mean, those are obviously capital projects that we're spending. This 2.8 million that's being spent is what we call more of our traditional capital improvement projects, the smaller items. And whereas we are spending a tremendous amount of money on paying off our debt and paying $2.8 million a year, the needs that the operating departments will tell you about next week that are not funded are substantial and are growing and we are not funding them and we have to come to grips with that at some point. Then turning to the city's enterprise funds, which is as council is fully aware, we set up our water and sewer accounts in an enterprise fund and that basically means we operate these funds on a business basis, everything that is generated in water rates and sewer rates goes into an account and that is supposed to theoretically and we've been successful in this is supposed to pay for everything, all of the expenses of those utilities. We have had, by looking at the charts here in the sewer fund, we have had some challenges with our fund balance, and we, as I mentioned earlier, we have a program that will return those balances to a reasonable level with adoption of a more aggressive sewer rate and water rate going forward. Similarly in the water fund that chart is also from a fund balance point of view lower than we would like to see it. And the recommended rate structure going forward is meant to correct that. And we will be bringing you council, remembers I think back in September we talked about a needed capital program for the water and sewer fund. Believe it or not, we are probably one of the more fortunate utilities in the region, perhaps in the entire state because we've just about paid off all of the more fortunate utilities in the region perhaps in the entire state because we've just about paid off all of the debt for the system. And it's time to re-assume debt because obviously when you pay out those bonds over 35 years, then about at the time of the pay out of those bonds, you have to think about making substantial renovations to your plant, water and sewer plant or facilities. So we will be bringing to you a plan to do that in your future. It's really a refinement of the plan we presented to you back in the fall. Looking at the comparison of our sister jurisdictions, and again, I know that doesn't always tell the whole story, and that's not always the way that you should look at approaching decision making. But I think we are fortunate that this chart does show that for a small system, and a system that went out 40 years ago and purchased land in Loudon County and Pikeswater to the city over about a 25 mile pipeline and has a small population base for its customers. In other words, a small basis upon which to spread these costs to be the second lowest in the region is I think a significant achievement. And as you can see there, those are the quarterly bills that have been announced by the jurisdictions. One or two of those may not yet have announced what their rates are going to be for next year. If it's anything more than zero, then we are going to be for next year. If it's anything more than zero, then we're going to look even better than we do on this chart. Finally, not much needs to be said about the Transit Fund, except that we do have some exciting things on the horizon there with Mr. Versosa's success and obtaining a grant to buy some new hybrid buses we will try to meet our commitments of placing additional focus on being a green community and we will save substantial dollars with the fuel savings that we will see in the transit fund. And we are not recommending any adjustment in the fees that are being paid there. With that, Mr. Mayor, members of Council, I will pause. I will obviously want to go back to the chart on page A58 just to remind you again that we certainly understand and look forward to participating with you in a discussion about how those potential revenues on that page should be applied to this budget, how those potential additional expenses, if any, should be applied to this budget. And that's a, that will be a complex decision and complex decisions are not unfamiliar to you. So I look forward to participating in that. I would like to, Mr. L'Hate, do you have the budget calendar that you can go to? There it is. I wanted to make sure that we just end with advising the community that we have several opportunities for them to get involved in the deliberation of this budget. Tonight's presentation is the first kickoff and then next week, I believe on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, March 18 and 19, beginning at 6 o'clock. We'll have, we'll go into each of the operating budgets, departments of the city, each department ahead, we'll stand before you and give you as much detail as you need to understand what's going on with their piece of the operation. And then there is an outreach plan on March the 25th. I believe is that at Daniel's run? Elementary school? Is that right? April 1st. I'm sorry. Oh, there it is. I skipped ahead. The council will have a public hearing on March the 25th in these chambers and in April the 1st at Daniels Run and then a planned adoption on April the 8th for the FY09 budget. So a lot of good news in the budget, a lot not so good news. And so it's going to be one of the more interesting annual discussions, our annual ride of spring is going to be perhaps more entertaining than it has been in the past. So with that, I'll answer any questions. If there are no questions, I'll sit down. Well, thank you, Mr. Sissin. And traditionally, tonight has been sort of a ceremonial, if I can use that phrase, passing the budget from the staff side of the equation to the elected body of the equation and has never really been set up for us to roll up our sleeves and start to actually work on the budget. I will give the Council an opportunity if they have any general questions on the executive summary that they saw obviously our opportunity to start diving into it will be during the budget work sessions that I start here in the near future. I also like to every year at this time to remind the community that this is very much the start of the budget and not the end of the budget. This is this is as I said, delivering the staff draft budget to the council, and then we will roll up our sleeves and start the process to see where we start from the recommended increase. And the tax rate to where we'll end up as this process unfolds. Let me just pause and see if there are any general questions on the executive summary that we just heard. Mr. Orther. Mr. Mayor, thank you. I think, first of all, I just want to thank the City Manager and his staff for what I know has been a difficult process to go through. It's never pleasant after, and I've learned this after serving 18 years in office to have to deal with these kind of budgets versus some of the previous years we've had where it's been a little bit better news or a lot better news. Frankly, it makes me all the more happy I'm retiring. But let me if I, just ask a question about, and by the way, I wanted to, I'm sorry, I'm going through my notes here. I wanted to also just thank Alex Fersoso as well for his leadership on the grant with the high rebuses. The opportunity there, I think, is a terrific one for the city to take advantage of. And the more we can do of those sorts of things, obviously the better off we are as residents of this community. The one question I have and you know and again I don't want to as the mayor is outlying get into a debate or discussion about the specificities but obviously the one area where I have seen over the years a little bit more of a challenge on the part of the staff and the council to come to some terms with his area of water, the water fund and sewer funds. And the fact that we have gone, you know, several years with large increases, then we've gone no years and several years with small increases and large increases. And I don't feel like there's any sort of rhyme or reason to it and I, I'm gonna go back to my old colleague and friend, Tony Cogland, who served on the council. And I didn't always agree with Mr. Cogland, but in this case, when he said that one of the ways to help with water conservation was sort of economics 101 here was to raise water rates, and therefore you get people to cut back on their water usage. It seems to me, and you and I talked about this, Mr. Assistant, in other areas, but with technological advances, it seems like we're still pretty far behind in terms of some of our metering and so forth. And I know we've been taking steps in the right direction there, but with modern technology and time of use, and time of use in this case would be the actual demand of water system and on the water system. People who use less water I think should pay less and those who use more and I could sometimes aside from right now where I am conserving as well but those who use more might end up paying more who water their lawns, that sort of thing. Are there opportunities here? And are we exploring them? And I mean, I know some of the metering issues you and I've talked about already and the staff is moving and has been moving in some of those directions, but seems like there ought to be more we could do. Well, you've asked a lot of questions. Sorry. And I don't think we'll appreciate it if I launch into trying to answer all of them tonight, but I know Mr. Borsch's presentation, we will get into that in detail. Would tell you though that with Loudoun County probably trying to assume more of their own more responsibility for their future use instead of buying from the city of Fairfax. We are going to be have very adequate supplies in our own water treatment plant such that maybe even we're still at an average using 50% of what we can treat out of the water treatment plant. So if we have remaining capacity in the water treatment plant. So if we have remaining capacity in the plant, it's to our advantage to sell more water. And so conservation except for rare occurrences and we've come through one now, hopefully we're nearing the end of that, is not always in our economic benefit. There may be other reasons to do that, but maybe we can get into that in detail when we have that present. And that was the actual second piece of my question, which did seem counterintuitive from an economic standpoint. If we're losing water customers, the whole issue of pricing and everything else that goes into that equation. I will yield, Mr. Mayor, I just one area that I know that we have seen large increases over a large number of years. And even though generally speaking we're still at the low end of other jurisdictions, those who have been looking at their water bills, which I think most residents do in the community, have seen a pretty steep increase those who monitor that. And I've gotten some of those questions over the years, and it just seems like every year, there's another bite at the apple here. Well, it's like running any other business. You have to pass it along to your customers. And when you, you know, it's the cost of chemicals is always increasing, chlorine, electricity, sending the water to the city, paying the employees, all of those things are reflected in every one of those utilities bills. And so we stay, what I'm thankful for is we don't move up the scale so that we're in the middle of the pack. Every year we're next to the cheapest and it's somewhat of a miracle and it's it also probably represents we have been almost too aggressive and cost-cutting in some cases and now we're you know we're going to find ourselves launching into some very expensive renovations. It really wasn't necessary to start those before this time period, but the bills are going to go up. The bills are going up nationwide for all utilities. There's a lot of references to that in the press now, and we're going to be similarly impacted. Our economy of scale is very small. Okay, two last points I'll be brief. One is that business week ran a story about three weeks ago or so that talked specifically about the real estate market. It was rather troubling to those of us who actually spent the time to read it. Where some economists are predicting an additional, an additional 25% correction and overall real estate market prices nationwide. Who knows if that's true? There's an analyst that'll tell you whatever you want to hear depending on who's paying them. But having said that, I'm just wondering from our own practice here, are we thinking worst case based on some of these numbers that you presented here tonight. And then the last piece of this question is when are assessments actually be mailed out? Did you say that I missed that if you said it for the residential community or for everyone in the city? They have started to be mailed. We put yours last. Thank you. But I would- I'm delighted. I would on your first comment though, as part of the budget deliberation process, we want to try to forecast FY10 for you as best we can from this timeframe. Perfect. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You have the floor. Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I yield the floor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you for, I guess, this budget presentation. I'm taking it back quite frankly because you know this really hits the gut of the community. And I know that we've had many wonderful prosperous years over the last couple of last six or eight years, and it's very exciting, but this is rather disturbing. And I also, when you look at the charts here, realize how much control we don't have on some of the things that we'd like to look at. And I was concerned about when the assessments would go out because people are asking for those daily. I'm getting calls daily about, where's my assessment? Fairfax County has them already. So that was one of my questions. My second question really is more about salaries. That's usually the one I usually ask about. And if we know what the county is doing with their salaries this year, and secondly, normally on this, I usually see a step increase and then I see a percentage increase. This year I'm only seeing a 3.8% and I don't see any of the step increases in this. I'm sorry. Good points. We do sometimes call that out and the steps are in the budget. However, the companion piece that we have always awarded for the last 16 years that I know of of a COLA, we have cut that in half this year and are awarding that or implementing that January 1st. Employ employees would not get it as normal in July 1st. I see. So this 3.8% is... Actually 1.9% I guess, for a full year. For the full year. Okay, first, okay. Thank you for that. I do have a lot of questions I'd like to ask, but because it's a late, because it's kind of late, and we need to go through the budget a little longer, I'd like to hold some of my questions for later, but I have one more question that is about the retirement fund. I think there's a health line that we have decided to always spell out in the budget, and I didn't see that on this proposed highlights. We usually, I thought put it in the highlights. It probably is not a substantial increase from year to year and it's contained in one of those groupings, but we'll make sure that we disclose that. I'd like to see how that looks. I haven't seen that. Okay, well, I look forward to the next couple of weeks, I guess, rolling up the sleeves and getting down I have a question. I have a question. I have a question. I have a question. I have a question. I have a question. I have a question. I have a question. I have a question. I have a question. I have a question. I have a question. I have a question. I have a question. I have a question. I have a question. I have a question. I have a question. I Just a quick information if I might. The city owns many assets at the present time. Without ever intending that we would hold that property for very long. If the city turns those properties, sells those properties, obviously there's going to be a cash influx and there'll be a reflection in the interest due on the loans that are paid off. How are we, is there any way to reflect that in the budget or because I would assume that most of these, well not most, but some of these properties will be disposed of in the next fiscal year. Right. Well, it kind of depends on how they were acquired and where the money was borrowed or the money was paid for out of the fund balance. For example, the amaco lot, the city paid cash for that. There's no accrued interest on that. If the city chose to sell that, we would have that amount of money come back to the city. Some, I think, $900,000. On the 11 Oaks property, the city borrowed that money and is paying and we've spent money on the site. We're paying money for an interest. If the city sells that, for example, more than it paid for it and all the better for our budget and that can be brought back and that becomes part of our fund balance and it would also be available for expenditure. That's one of those items that we could not really estimate within Eclarity so we did not address it in the budget. I have one more question in this back to the hiring. So are we increasing our employees at all this year and we haven't let any how many new hires and I saw the blend of the state was coming up and there may be something there and maybe a police or fire. My concern is are are we gonna freeze hiring with this type of budget that we're looking at? We are not. I wish that we felt like that we could do that or reduce and we just did not feel like that that was inappropriate. We are, as you know, a smaller organization and we don't have a lot of depth in various positions that we have. So if you, typically if you, for example, on police or fire, if you were going to reduce those positions, then you would have to pay overtime for people to backfill. Yeah, I wasn't, I'm sorry. Other positions, it's similar. Everybody kind of has certain tasks to do. And if we freeze positions, then you either double up on employees or it doesn't get done. And that way it has some impact on services. Are we adding positions? We have added five and a half full-time positions to this budget. We've added one police officer. We have added one full-time person for the Blenem Interpretive Center. And that really doesn't allow enough personnel hours to keep the doors open for full week and on Saturday and on Sunday. And we're going to probably have to rely on volunteers, although that may not be enough to keep it open. Let's see. Because of the additional square footage that the city has added to, for example, this building and a larger police building, we've had to add an additional custodian position. because of state requirements that we maintain more duplication of operators on duty than what we have been providing. In other words, there's a requirement that you keep certain number of staff hours in a backup position. So we have to do that. Otherwise, we will just be paying overtime, which is more expensive. So that's really an essence of trying for a cost cutting mode. At mid-year we added three employees to take over the city's recycling program, which was a cost savings and that cost savings to the city and better service. I'd like to see that. I think the last position there was, oh no, half a position in the fire department to handle the billing for the ambulance program. And then finally, because it's my view and I think a lot of you share that point of view the Fairfax Boulevard master plan and how that is going to be implemented we have recommended taking a half a position increase from the city side a half a position from from the city side, a half a position from the bid. And we don't know for certain that amount is forthcoming, but we anticipate having those negotiations with them. Half from their side, half from our side, for a full time position in the community development zoning department to get that underway. We need some dedicated resources to do that. Does that happen, have? Okay, I just did a last little comment. You know, Mr. Sovrithran, I remember when we first started taking a look at changing city hall and the police department, one of your worries was that we would be increasing our employees. You said, I watch, mark my words that will be increasing employees. You said that I remember six years ago I sat on the skies and heard that. So I'm marking your words here. I've counted quite a few employees that we've just hired in addition to what we used to use. So okay, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Well, let's make sure we didn't hire anybody. These are just recommend additions from the staff. It'll now be up to the council of the term. And then we'll find them. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for that clarification. Okay, if there are not any other comments or questions tonight, thank you, Mr. Sisson. We look forward to rolling up our sleeves and working through this together. That now brings us to item number 14. I would anticipate this to be a very, very short executive session. I move the City Council of Camino closed me in intersection 2.2, 371181, the code of a genuine discuss, excuse me, the only one we need to do is to discuss certain real property for public purposes and for consultation with legal counsel for legal bias, all council members in favor of the motion, signify by voting aye, opposed in a past unanimously, went into executive session at closed meeting, excuse me, at 9.45 p.m. . . E2, discussed that position of certain real property for public purposes and for consultation with legal counsel. I mean that each of us certifiedify the best of each council members. If knowledge only public business matters lawfully, it's in from the OpenMini requirements and the Virginia Freedom River Information Act, and only public business matters identified in the motion, competing in the closed menu or herd discussion considered. All council members in favor of the motion, please signify by voting aye. Opposed? In a past unanimously. That now brings us down to comments by the City Council. Mrs. Winner. No comments tonight. Thank you. Mrs. Lime. Comments tonight. Mr. Sutherland. Mr. Mayor, just very briefly, I, like many of you, I spent a good part of my weekend in downtown as more businesses seem to be opening and I just want to encourage our residents to find a time open the next few weekends as the weather improves to spend some time as well. I'm very pleased about some of the new restaurants obviously they're opening and others that are hiring, but also some of the there's a new shopping establishment as well. and it seems to be coming alive. So I think real credit to you, Mr. Mayor, for your leadership on the downtown and this council for its vision as well. So that's my only comment this evening. Thank you. Mr. President, miss Greenfield, just a couple quick things, Mr. Mayor. One, I'm sure my council colleagues would share condolences and passing on to a March, Bartoglio's family. March was a resident of Mosby Woods for a number of years active block captain there. She passed away two weeks ago after battling a long illness, but I'm sure she will be missed in the community. And then effective March 1st, one of our chiefs retired Don Markwoods who have been with the city for 30 years. He is one of three members of the police department. Three members of the fire department that are the longest career members of the department to retire. I for one remember Don teaching first aid to my boy scout troop long time ago and certainly I want to wish him well in his room there is a long time ago. You're right I know. At least I don't die mine. All right you opened it up back I did. Back my phone and hand. There are this year, in fact, later this month, another member of the Department of Fire and 30-year-members will retire January 1st. And I would hope that the Mayor and City Council would agree to doing something formally to recognize those three members of the party partners. I'll leave that perhaps in staff's hand to look at fact Wilson. How best to do that but hopefully there would be no objection from the council. Thank you. Thank you. So moved. Mrs. Claus. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Two things. I am speaking of people who have served the city for a long period of time and served service very well. I would like the council to acknowledge the service of Kathy Comforty as member of our planning commission for 12 years. So I too would leave that staff to prepare appropriate document to express our appreciation. And the other thing is that congratulations to the George Miesvetskball team for their conference championship colonial athletic association and good luck in the NCAA. Just I have two very brief comments. One is I had the opportunity last night to participate in the winner sports banquet. I believe that was the winner sports banquet at Fairfax High School last night, along with school board chair, Janice Miller, and we had an opportunity to participate in congratulations to the Fairfax High School swim team, which is the first state-camping state champion in the history of the high school, which is quite a feat. One, I know they were very proud of, and certainly the parents, but I know it's one we're all proud of. That's quite a statement. When you look at how long Fairfax High School has been in existence, And this is the first team sport championship at the state level. That's quite a feat. And I know you all share my congratulations to the team in their wonderful accomplishments. The other issue is tonight we had our kind of second serious dialogue regarding the community center. I was very encouraged about the presentation and Mr. Napier, a great job in framing the issues and then we heard from a number of folks tonight as we did in our outreach meeting that was held at FIFIX High School. I believe this is all in the spirit of it, but I just want to make sure, and I don't want this issue to get out in front of us. And I think what I heard both from the presentation from the various folks that made the formal presentation during the work session was their willingness to keep an open mind in terms of the exact location of where it would be most appropriate in the Van Dyke-Slash-Johnsywood site, the site the building. And it's my understanding, Mr. Sisson, and I just want to make sure that the current process is set up to do just that. That once we hire the architectural team, if that's the right way to describe them that one of their first tasks will be depending on obviously the direction that we give them would be to look at what is the most appropriate site location taking the consideration, all the feedback we've got. It may be in its exact location that the draft plan developed or we may find out that it's a there's a better location but I just want to be able to assure the community and I think I heard that both from Mr. Napp and from all the dialogue that that is a direction that we're going to be giving to the team early on is to look at the entire park including John C. Wood to look for are there other alternatives and if so, what are the pros and cons of those alternatives? So, if there is no objection to that, I just want to make sure we capture that from the dialogue so far. With that, I have no more comments. In a, in a, in a motion for German, Mr. Silverthorn, seconded by Mrs. Winterall in favor, signify by voting aye. Opposed and a passed unanimously.