Music I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I We'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. Let me welcome everybody to the Tuesday, November 11th meeting of the Fairfax City Council. If you'd please stand for the invocation which will be presented by Council Member Cross and remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We bow our heads. On this solemn day of remembrance, we are mindful of the veterans who have served this nation for many decades. Not only those who need the ultimate sacrifice, but also those who left children, wives, brothers, sisters, and parents behind to commit their lives to go through the process. To be trivied also to the campus, we greatly believed goodbye and then carried on the business of daily living. Though their hearts work heavy and their minds preoccupied with thoughts of a loved one far away in a dangerous place. Make us worthy of these men and women, committed ever more to the principles for which so many have given them their lives. committed ever more to the principles for which so many have given their lives. I believe it's good to flag the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God and the visible with liberty and justice for all. We are now down to there are no presentations or proclamation tonight. We're now down to item number four, which is presentation by the public on any item that is on tonight's agenda, but does not call for a public hearing. If you hear to discuss items number 7A, B or C, those public hearings actually will come at a later date. If you're here to talk about items number any other item, then this would be your opportunity again that does not call for public hearings. First, to sign up as Page Johnson, Commissioner Revenue. Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Members of the City Council. I'm not here in any official capacity today. I just wanted to share a few thoughts with you on this veterans day. Veterans day. Today is Veterans Day. On this particular day, I'd like to take a few moments to share with the Council and my fellow citizens, the actions of a former resident of the city of Fairfax, Mike Balser. This individual and his contribution have only recently come to our attention, which is not surprising when you realize when this occurred. Mike grew up in the Old Lee Hills neighborhood. He lived at 3511 Brookwood Drive with his mother and father, younger sister Sharon, and brother Kim. Mike's dad worked in the defense industry following his service in World War II. Mike's mom worked as a cashier here at our local Safeway. Mike attended late- and hall elementary school, now Daniel's run, and graduated from Fairfax High School in 1963. He loved cars and girls, but not necessarily in that order. He also loved hanging out with what he called the gang at Topstrivin at Fairfax Circle. To pay for such necessities as gas, cheeseburgers, and judging by his picture, hair tonic, Mike worked at Virginia Press after school. Mike was gentle, compassionate, caring, intensely loyal, and funny. He was not perfect though, just asked his sister Sharon or his former boss, Lehman Young, who was now 91 years old. If you were to ask Lehman, Lehman would tell you about the times that Mike fabricated excuses so he could get off and work to hang out with his friends at the drive-in or get his car ready to go to Old Dominion Speedway in Manassas. Or about the time he dropped something in the press and nearly destroyed this expensive piece of equipment. In September 1965, 20-year-old Mike was drafted into the United States Army. After completing basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, Mike was sent to Fort Lewis Washington for advanced infantry training. He was assigned to 4th Platoon Alpha Company, 3rd Battalion, 22nd infantry of the 4th Infantry Division. Mike was a prolific letter-writer, especially to his best friend Bob Lucas. Mike's letters to Bob are honest and direct. Probably more so than those he wrote to his family. In January 1966, just after arriving at Fort Lewis, Mike wrote to Bob complaining about the army, and I quote, now about army life, Bob. It eats it. There are three ways to do things. The wrong way, the right way and the army way. Here are a few of the dumb things we do. We have to be embedded 9.30 highlighted and underlined and up at 5 a.m. and you do have to work your ass off every day except Sunday, which so far we have had off, but that will not last forever. We get 10 minutes to eat, the food is most of the time bad, bad, bad. You change your clothes about 10 times a day from wet weather clothes to work clothes to dress clothes, etc. One more thing. Since I have been here, we have had about 10 shots, one for everything you can think of. I must be lucky, I guess. One thing I don't like about being here is that we are being taught nothing but how to kill with guns, knives, hands, and feet. In May 1966, Mike wrote to Bob again, well, everybody, we finally got the word, we're going to Vietnam. They can't tell us the date yet. It's top secret. Ha ha But it will be either September or October. I have put in for leave in July, but don't know when I will get it They will probably tell you they will probably tell me the same day it starts We will be in V.C. Land for one year so I won't be able to be there when your child is born. I sure wish I could But obviously the other night you were going to take off for a week when I came home. Well, I don't know when it will be for sure, and we'll definitely have the nights to raise hell. But I want to spend the day at home with mom and Kim, as who knows what may happen next year. Love Uncle Mike. Mike arrived in Vietnam in September 1966 as part of the massive buildup of American forces, but he was fortunate. He was with his buddies, friendships cultivated over many months of unit training. This cohesion was something that replacement soldiers did not enjoy. In October 1966, shortly after arriving in Vietnam, Mike wrote to Bob, got him scared, and I'm scared about killing a man. For the remainder of 1966, Mike's battalion was assigned to interdict enemy sand pans, varying supplies up the river delta south of Saigon. The men of Alpha Company set up ambushes during the day and lay in wait until nightfall when the enemy plied their waterways. These missions were difficult and dangerous as the men spent a lot of times in the swamps, as they called it, which were a myriad of salty-dirty tidal waterways leading out into the ocean. Several men actually drowned. In December 1966, Mike's unit was moved to Tainan Province, South Vietnam near the border with Cambodia. Their new mission was to seek out and destroy the enemy and interdict supplies coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Briefly, Mike and his buddies were just happy to be out of the swamps and on hard ground once again. Helicopters were used to establish fire support bases inserting men and artillery deep into the jungle. Defolience, we used a clear way to jungle to make landing zones or LZs. The enemy was aware of this and would weigh that the edge of these LZs hoping to ambush the Americans. The Americans countered these tactics by clearing many LZ sites that were never actually used. It was a game of cat and mouse. Sometimes however however however the enemy guessed right. On March 19 1967 the third, which included Mike's unit, ordered to a new ELZ designated ELZ gold or fire support base gold, located near the destroyed village of Sui Tre. They were to provide security for a forward artillery base. Ammoniously, as the first half dozen helicopters attempted to land, the enemy detonated and improvised explosive device downing three of the helicopters. Dozens of Americans were killed or wounded. Undeterred, the Americans continued to unload artillery and supplies. By the next evening, March 20th, the Americans had established a small fire support base consisting of three bonkers with approximately eight guns each. Supporting the artillery were the infantry of Alpha and Bravo companies of the third battalion 22nd infantry, about 450 men. Mike, with the rest of Alpha Company, spent that night in the open defending the perimeter against an anticipated enemy attack, which usually came at night. At dawn, Mike and the rest of the men of Fire Support Base Gold started to relax a bit. At that precise moment, the enemy launched a surprise daylight attack. Rockets, mortars, and grenades rained down on the surprised Americans. 2,500 enemy soldiers came running out of the treeline in a human wave assaults, firing small arms as they advanced. Under this pressure, many members of companies A and B were forced to fall back to the safety of the inner perimeter. However, Mike Balls were remained at his position. Wilding an M60 heavy machine gun, he inflicted dozens of casualties on the advancing being caught fiat con until he was overwhelmed and killed. First Lieutenant John E. Jack Swini, Mike's platoon leader, had the unenviable task of identifying Mike's remains and also writing a letter home to mom and dad. I have a copy of Lieutenant Swini's letter to the ballers which I will not read, but suffice it to say that his sentiments towards Mike reflected in this letter. Jack also was also sufficiently moved by Mike's actions to nominate him for this nation's third highest award for valor, which I will read. Headquarters 25th Infantry Division, APO San Francisco. Balls are Michael A. Specialist IV, Company A, Thurbertaian, 22nd Infantry, Thurbergate, Thurbergate IV, Infantry Division, awarded Silver Star, 21st of March, 1967, Republic of Vietnam. For gallantry and action, Specialist IV, Balser distinguished himself by heroic actions on the 21st of March, 1967, while serving as a machine gunner on a combat operation. At 0630 hours, heavily reinforced Vietcong regiment, a heavily reinforced Vietcong regiment, attacked the perimeter with human-wave assaults, rocket fire, and mortars. Specialist Ballzer was located in a bunker near the heaviest assaults. As the bunkers in his sector were destroyed by rocket-rocket fire and mortar fire, the enemy forces began to overwhelm the entire sector and were attempting to mass toward the center of the perimeter. Specialist Ballzer, saying this critical situation, nevertheless, refused to leave his position, placing his machine gun directly between the advancing enemy and the artillery position he was defending, he continued to inflict heavy casualties on the enemy force until he fell mortally wounded. Specialist Ballsers' extraordinary heroism in close combat against a numerically superior bearded con force is in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflects great credit upon himself as units in the United States Army by direction of the President of the United States Jasper J Wilson-Colonel commanding Several weeks ago, I was able to locate now Colonel Jack Swini United States Army retired I called him at his home in Springfield one morning unannounced He had this to say about Mike Springfield one morning unannounced. He had this to say about Mike. Quote, Mike was a fantastic soldier. He was in line to be a sergeant. End quote, Jack paused a moment. His voice quavering a bit with emotion and started again. Mike was a hero, you know. And I indicated that I did know. After 40 years and without benefit of notes, Jack Swini then went on to relate. Nearly verbatim, the actions I have just shared with you. He then said this. I put him in for the Silver Star. I should have put him in for the Medal of Honor. He deserved it. I have been walking around for 40 years regarding that I didn't. It has been said that uncommon valor is a common virtue. While I certainly believe this to be true, some acts of heritism rise above others. I have had the privilege of getting to know Mike Malzer some 40 years after his death. As you now have, Mike and his accents in Vietnam moved and inspired me as I hope they have you. Mike's enduring legacy is the power to continue to move and inspire others, future generations of our community. On this Veterans Day, a day reserved for thanking the men and women who have served and sacrificed so much for our country, I would ask that you, the City Council, the City of Fairfax, set aside some future time to deliberate and consider an appropriate honor for Michael Arlen-Balzer and establish a permanent memorial to his memory and in doing so thank him and his family for their supreme sacrifice our hometown hero. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Johnson, for that important message on this Veterans Day. Next to sign up is Gene A.G. It's somewhat difficult for me to talk after listening to what has been said about a service man and I think we all honor our service man on this day. I am Gene A. the Arts and I represent its members. I'm speaking briefly tonight to share with you the reasons for our support for concept A of the Stacey Sherwood community center. As the commission of the arts and Prab work together to plan for what we would be needed by the various groups in a community center. Our goals were to provide rooms large enough for good use by the visual and performing arts, vocal, instrumental, music, and dance. We also wanted these rooms to be multipurpose, so that they could be used for other functions in the community. We wanted to provide visual artists a place to display their art. We envisioned a performance space that is larger and better than any we have now. It is important that this performance area be separated from the rehearsal area so that different activities can occur at the same time. Because of the national SOLs and other educational goals that must be met, our schools cannot provide our children with all the knowledge and creative opportunities in the arts that they once did. This building can give us the opportunity to have programs in the arts as supplement what the schools can now offer. We must take this opportunity now to build it right so it can be used not only at the present time but for many years by future generations of all ages. Mrs. Sherwood, through her generous gift, has given us the opportunity to do just that. Given the economic constraints that are imposed on us at this time, we believe that concept A provides the space we need for now and for the future. Thank you very much. Nobody is free to see signed up. Anybody like to address the city council? Hearing none, we will go to agenda number 5, which is the adoption of the agenda. Moved by Mr. Rasmussen, seconded by Mr. Rehnefield. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd just like to ask council support for one slight change in that as to the work session items that we move up the discussion of the financial results and the budget updates to 12a. Without objection? Well, include that. Mr. Restmussen, is that okay to include? We'll include that in the motion on the floor. Then all in favor of the motion, signify by voting aye. Opposed? In a passing annum, say now, in favor of the motion, signify by voting aye. Opposed? And it passed unanimously. Now, it goes to item number six, which is the approval of the consent agenda. Mr. Greenfield. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I move adoption of the consent agenda for agenda item number six, eight, introduction of an ordinance, amending and re-adopting chapter 110, section 110-3, 110-57-C, 110-102E, 110-152C, 110-155B, 5A, 110-184B, 110-366. Subparagraph 1, 110-369, subparagraph 1, and 110-920 of the code of the City Fair of Vax Virginia pertaining to certain fees required. Agenda item number 6C, introduction of an ordinance amending chapter 86 of the code of the City Fair of Vax Virginia to add a new section 86-13 pertaining to subdivision fees. A JETA Item Number 6D, Introduction of an Ordinance, Amending and Readopting Chapter 102, Article 2, Section 102-32, the Code of the City Fairfax Virginia, pertaining to Water Connection Fees, Availability, Infrontage Charges, JETA Item Number 6E, Introduction of an Ordinance,ending and re-adopting chapter 110, article two, divisions 12, section 110-343, the code of the city of Fairfax, Virginia pertaining to erosion and sediment control, review and inspection fees, and agenda item number six F, introduction of a resolution of proposed changes to the 2009 schedule of rates and levies, and agenda item number 6G, introduction of an ordinance authorizing a standby line of credit of up to $5 million in anticipation of the collection of taxes and revenues for the current fiscal year. And for agenda items number 6A3G, I moved away the first reading and set the public hearing for November 25, 2008. Moved by Mr. Greenfield, seconded by Mrs. Cross. Does anybody wish to object or do the same from the handling of any of these items on the consign agenda? Hearing none, all in favor, the motion signify by voting aye. Aye. Opposed? And it passed you the item, see, that now brings us down to item number 7a, which is a public hearing and counsel action in the request by Kevin Ferris, owner for a special use permit to allow enlargement, extension, and structural alterations of a non-conforming use and site in the C2 retail commercial district for special exceptions to reduce the amount of the acquired off-street parking from 194 spaces to 90 for a special exception to reduce the driving lane and parking separation from a structure to zero feet for a special exception to reduce the parking area permanent landscaping requirement adjacent to the right away from 25 feet to zero feet to reduce the ground mounted sign height from 6 feet to 10 feet for a special exception to decrease the ground mounted sign setback from 20 feet to 6.8 feet for a special exception to increase the maximum sign area from 50 feet per side to 91.4 square feet per side and for a special exception to reduce the opening space requirement from 25% to 3.4% at the property known as 9610 Fairfax Boulevard. Is this been properly advertised? Yes. Staff report, please. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening to the City Council. The subject site is located northwest of Fairfax Circle. At the intersection of Rone Oak Street and Fairfax Boulevard, They are two existing structures on the site. Little project history. The application for the site modifications were filed in March of this past year. The work session from City Council was held on July 22nd. And at the work session, the City Council requested additional landscape opens face and confirmation of architectural quality similar to the recent addition at the Subaru site next door. Since the work session, staff has worked to get plans with additional open space and revised architecture. Staff does apologize that the packets got too low weight, the plans actually came in this past Friday. The applicant is requesting three special exceptions to permit the proposed ground-mounted signage and would include an increase of sign height to 10 feet, an increase of the maximum sign area to 91.4 square feet, and a decrease in the ground-mounted sign set back to 6.8 feet. The requested location for the proposed sign would be in a proposed landscape open strip that would be filling in a current entrance off a Fairfax Boulevard, circled in red. And again, the proposed sign would be 10 feet in height. Additionally, the applicant is requesting a special use permit to allow the enlargement modification of an on-conforming use building lot in location. And five associated special exceptions that would reduce the parking, drive lane and parking separation from the building, the open space, the number of parking islands, and the number of parking area perimeter landscaping. The existing building is outline two buildings, our outline and blue located on the site. The red indicates, and there's three, this one's hard to read, the red indicates the three proposed additions on the site which total 2895 square feet, bringing the total onsite buildings to 15,977 square feet, which would be an 18.1% increase in building area. This slide shows the existing open space area indicated in blue down along Fairfax Boulevard. Again, this area here is a current entrance. Proposed that the work session was a plan to fill in the existing entrance as indicated in red and five street trees were to be planted along the landscape strip, fronting Fairfax Boulevard. The current proposal from the applicant includes two additional landscaped areas, one along the the entrance of Forenox Street, one further north of Forenox Street, to act as a landscape violin. Staff has suggested that the applicant look into the following five landscape areas, which would add open space and trees along the front of the property between the building and Fairfax Boulevard. This would have resulted in 88 parking spaces, a reduction from the 90 that was requested, however, there are 86 legal parking spaces on the site currently. And in a goal to maintain the 90 proposed parking spaces, staff has identified two key locations that would add much needed open space to the site, and trees between the building and Fairfax Boulevard. The on-site open space that currently exists is 3% proposed at the work session 3.4%. What is currently proposed is 3.7% and as recommended by staff 4.3. Again the C2 district requires 25% open space. The existing architecture is primarily a Stucco-Claude, a critical building, little modifications in the last 50 years. In the early 90s, the Board of Architecture Review did approve the Mansard parapet roof detail along the building. And the current proposal, staff does apologize. This was the only illustration we did get. It's kind of hard to follow, but would carry the criminal or stuck along the majority of the additions. The front projection, the applicant has indicated it could be a metallic material. Therefore, staff recommends approval of the three special exception requests to allow the proposed ground-mounted sign with the following conditions that would ensure that the location would be in general conformance with the plan, and that the existing billboard located at 3712 RONOX Street will be removed prior to any permits being issued to construct the proposed sign. Staff recommends denial of the special use permit and other special exception requests because the proposed site layout and building design are not consistent with the comprehensive plan and other adopted city goals and policies as the request would provide an increased building size without providing quality design and materials. And the site design does not provide adequate landscaping between the building and Fairfax Boulevard. The comprehensive plan emphasizes design quality along the corridors. The use of significant landscaping that provides an attractive accent that improves appearance. And the use of brick stone, traditional materials, and plantings for longevity and quality. Should the City Council choose to approve the request, staff recommends that the approval carry the following conditions, which the applicant does not agree to, that would ensure that the development is in substantial conformance with the plans, that the parking would be modified to accommodate the landscaped, shown on staff recommended parking and landscaping attachment, that additional landscaping is provided along Fairfax Boulevard, and that the front projection to be added to the building entrance should be stone metal or a traditional material to match the quality of the Subaru site, subject to review and approval by the Board of Architectural Review. With that, I will come any questions or defer to the applicant. Questions, staff? Mr. Greenfield? Like it was worth it. You know, this deal should have been there for a long, long time. And this is a difficult site. And I don't know how we could ever get anything on this site, unless you consolidated parcels, it would ever be consistent with a comprehensive plan. I mean, their goal was to clearly sell cars. They're on the corner there. It would be interesting to see a picture of the dealership before they made changes to it, because Grievous Council is actually commended, Mr. Ferris and his mother for trying to make some efforts to change that corner back in the early 90s. I think the Subaru dealership came last. I think the Korean market was second changes to the existing building came up first. Is it great? No. But I guess I'm concerned about a very busy corner and we're wanting more landscaping. And when you say landscaping, I'm assuming a buffer of trees or something there between Fairfax Boulevard and the parking lot. Don't we, what's the what's the middle ground here that gets some of the additional landscaping, but doesn't go so far that we're creating a situation where it's difficult for somebody if they're on the westernmost exit to the dealership that they can't see to actually get out and try to merge into traffic on the perfect boulevard. And then secondly, as a result of this, you've got two yellow areas here. Those are currently parking places. Yeah, they would propose parking spaces on what reflect on the plan. How many beyond what we worked down at the last work session, how many additional spaces would they lose? I mean, this is tight now and it was, we talked about maybe one or two, I think at the work session, if I remember correctly, this looks like maybe one or two I think at the work session if I remember correctly. This looks like maybe three or four more. What happened is the work session proposal proposed 90 parking spaces on the site. In redrawing the plans between the work session and the current date, the applicant has added three parking spaces to the site for a total 93. The two parking spaces that staff are coming, running here and here, we're bringing it down to 91 and the additional parking space would be lost. We're going to hear and hear again for the audience. Yes, I'm sorry. One landscaped island here and one there and this parking space proposed to be removed as it would block total access around the building. So it brings the total back down to the requested 90 that was part of the work session. And then can you talk a little bit about your landscape buffer long here? Sure. What's happening is the existing area along here would be modified, not in size, but with plantings. The applicant has proposed five trees that was part of the work session here. So nothing's changing along the front. The applicant is considering reducing the 60 foot entrance off Ronex Street down to the 26 feet as required by current city standards and adding some landscaping here. Along with taking a parking space that wasn't counted last time, but it was substandard in size. It was only six feet wide at the top, trying that into a landscaped area. So those were the two additional places the applicant had proposed. The staff had identified two areas that would not reduce the number of parking spaces that were requested at the work session, but added a landscaping and trees at the corners of the building. In lastly, maybe this is a better question of the applicant, but how do you recommend on the improvements that they want to make to the building denial based on what they want to do? But if we wanted to grant them an approval that we require them to be done a specific way, how does that balance against you? This is a franchise. I would imagine this is Subaru's next door. You've got Dodge and Jeep, and I don't know what else here. I would imagine that their franchise requirements want them to look a little different. They don't, we might want them to have some similar features to what's next door because the Subaru building looks nice, but Dodge may not want that. So how do we balance what their requirements are and what they force on the applicant versus what we want? Right, and I think the applicant could probably better speak to that. No, the design and discussions with the applicant is driven from a corporate standpoint. What staff was looking at up until recently was 100% stucco finish on the building. The applicant has indicated that the metal on the front projection is a possibility, something that I believe that corporate would accept, but I could have the applicant address that further. Okay, and I think though at some point we're gonna have to weigh in here on what's going to work from the city standpoint because you showed a slide with some things that you wanted to see us do or if we approved it that you wanted the applicant to do, but those may not fit with what the manufacturer may require. So somewhere in between here, we've got to both be on the same page. I'll hold on there. Thank you. Any other questions, the staff? If I could just very quickly, you know, when I read down the agenda item and all those special exceptions, it sounds just brutal. I mean, because there's so many of them, but I'm assuming most of them are because this building was built 50 years ago or whenever it was built, and it already is in non-conformance and part of this process is if you add anything you bring the non-conformance up to conformance. Is that in general terms correct? I mean can you share with us the things on that list that just simply exists today that will probably exist forever assuming we don't allow it to be remodeled so we have kind of a comparison in terms of what we're really dealing with. Right. And looking at this building, which is over 50 years old, it's the best slide to look at here. You know, some things like the required 25 foot landscape set back from the public ride of voice isn't met now. There are parking spaces that currently exist in the nonconforming status. The open space, which is required to be 25% by code now, is only, I think it was 3%. The general building position doesn't lend itself to having enough area for parking drive aisles and maintaining the today's current code required landscaped areas. So yeah, it does exhibit numerous knock-of-formities now. Parking against the building currently exists. The drive aisles are not the full 23-foot standards currently today. Are there things in the staff's recommendation we'd be getting from a proposal like this that would be a benefit or a value added to what the existing structure is? I mean is the new sign the reason you're recommending that better than the existing signage and that's why you're recommending approval of signage but not other things and can you sort of share with you your insight into that. Sure. From the standpoint of the site, we've been gaining a, it is a modest amount. I think it went from three to four point, three percent of open space, but it's in an area that is most visible from the Boulevard, edge trees to the site and you know, doesn't really deflect from the face of the building or advertisement from the building from that standpoint. The proposed sign that would be located here is coming as a result of an entrance modification for consolidation. There are two entrances currently, one off of the Subaru site, one on the subject site. The proposal is to consolidate into one entrance from the Subaru and then onto the subject site, the proposal is to consolidate into one entrance from the Subaru and then onto the subject site. There's an existing sign that's located here which would be relocated onto the subject site and I believe that coming down from the circle it would add a visibility standpoint of knowing where the locations are especially with no entrance coming onto this specific site from Fairfax Boulevard. As far as the building proposal goes, I think that staff has looked at, you know, having a structure that would be primarily 100% stucco, and the staff report was written at a point in time that the applicant had not committed to the metallic finish on the front of the building. So it would add some architectural interest to the structure itself having the metallic finish. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Meyer. On the picture that you have on my monitor, you, with the blue and the red. Put that back up there. If you look on the right hand side of the picture, you'll see these gray diagonal lines on the pavement of the existing road at Fairfax Circle. Those are planned V.O. improvements to improve pedestrian safety. Would the staff agree that in conjunction with that initiative that the closing of that entrance is indicated in the red section and the improvement of the, particularly the red section. Would that enhance overall pedestrian safety in this area of the circle? Yes it would. Because I've noticed over the years, probably many of us have, that there are a number of persons who walk along this in front of the Toronto Fairish Business, pedestrians, particularly women with strollers, they may be doing shopping at La Di Plaza, whatever. And traffic moves at a pretty fast clip along this area. So I see this is actually a positive element in the submission in conjunction with what's planned. And I think for those residents who may not be aware that there is a major upgrade intended for the Fairfax Circle area to improve pedestrian safety. But you would agree with that. Yes, sir. Okay. Okay. Miss Cross. Let's talk about the other entrance as well. I would be have a concern here for pedestrian traffic. This is a real quick turn after you come around, if you have to exit for a fix, Boulevard. Does the site, I didn't see this, I didn't think to look, but does the sidewalk extend? I know why I didn't think of it, is because this is solidly parked with cars, but is there a sidewalk along This the side street here. I believe the sidewalk stops about right here and it does not extend up wrong street Okay All right, thank you All right, thank you. Other questions, the staff. If not, thank you very much. This is a public hearing. I'll open the public hearing and bite the applicant to address the city council. Kevin Farish, 96-Tanley Highway or Fairfax Boulevard as it's known today. An awful lot of work is gone into getting where we are today. And at the last meeting, it was indicated by a few members of council, Mr. Drummond, and his cross in particular, that we should take a hard look at additional green space. take a hard look at additional green space. We did. My M and automobile dealer, my business is to sell and serve us automobiles. So of course, that is foremost in my mind. But at the same time, the people we serve, our customers, are the folks that drive by us all the time. And we want to be a clean, inviting business for them to conduct, hopefully, their business. So we understand that. We understand the need for doing everything in our power to try and promote the safety of our facilities and everything we can do around us. And I think the plan certainly accomplishes that as Mr. Myers pointed out, I believe earlier, that's probably the number one most important improvement as far as the city is concerned. My customers when they come to our dealership, they're not concerned. Their number one concern is to get into our facility to look at the products that we have to sell. They're less concerned over the green space, candidly. And there's a lot, as you pointed out, because of the stage, it makes it very difficult to operate. I mean, if money were no object, we certainly could come up with, I'm sure quite a few other options, but money is clearly an object, and it's something that we can't lose sight of. But our customer's concern isn't necessarily the green space. So my objective was to try and get the very best use out of every green space area we can to improve the overall city. With this plan, as the traffic goes down through the circle, they're seeing green space entirely in front of my properties. space entirely in front of my properties. The dramatic improvements over what has been over the years and what it done, what it has been. I appreciate the fact that staff has worked with us and in concert with us to try and come up with a good solution for the front. But when you get into the building a lot itself around where the buildings are, because of the difficulty of the buildings, the way they stretch out in different areas and kind of evolved, it didn't just all of a sudden, you know, we would all construct it at one time. It makes it challenging. And if you, if you have walked the property with me and you'll realize that there's some great issues with regard to putting additional green space, can you, would you mind putting the slide, one of the slides up where you recommend a different space? Okay, if, on the right hand side, the first yellow space on the interior of the property, there's a grade issue with that particular property. Yes. Where by putting that green space area, it would stop all the water that's going down towards the front of the, or towards the boulevard and actually force the water towards my building. That's one item. As far as the item on the left hand side, that doesn't have the same concern, but nonetheless, I would ask the general purpose, when you look at an overall plan that says we should have 190 spaces, and we're reducing it to 90 spaces or 93 as it would be. The gain of having one parking space for green space, to me it looks out of place. It brings about all kinds of other issues internally for me from snow removal to safety and just customers walking around our lots. I really did try and work with staff to come up with some good solutions. I think narrowing the opening at the first opening at the Rhonux Street, if you're on the lot, you'll notice there's a stormwater or well or if you will. And I've had numerous customers actually hit that. I think an ex-counsel member hit it with their vehicle. And it popped or chired. That's the only reason I remember it because she brought me out. But the point of that is, you know, we've even addressed that concern and we've narrowed it down and had additional green space. The one item that I don't believe has been mentioned to you, and I want to make sure it doesn't go without mention, is we also in this plan have a filtration system. Plan so that you know in addition to the safety improvements, the pedestrian improvements, the, you know, the like, we're, we're cleaning up some of the water that's coming off of our property. Which, again, I think it's important. Prior to the meeting today, it was asked of me to commit to a stone entrance to the facility. If you recall, when we had our work session, you said, am I open-minded to some other type of feature there. I indicated absolutely I was. And it makes sense to me to have Subaru with that beautiful stone out front. I think it's very attractive to carry that forward and ties in with the city. And I made every effort with the with Chrysler to get that approved. Unfortunately, they have two options for approval. One is Stucco, one is Metal. I communicated that to staff. Staff indicated that they would like to see Metal as opposed to Eiffus or Stucco. And prior to the meeting and prior to the handing out of all the paperwork to all of you, I committed to that Metal. And so that's where that stands. Between every one of those light poles, I didn't actually take count. But between every light pole, it actually makes sense to have a tree. So if it means more than five trees in the front, then it'll mean more than five trees when we do it. Because it makes sense to have a light pole tree, a light polletry, and keep the uniformity of that. So that much I can tell you, and I think there might be an extra tree or two in there. But one major concern when I was reading the information, I don't know exactly what this is called, to properly staff report. Thank you. It indicated as a staff recommendation if council were to go forward to approve under certain concerns, some of which, or one in particular, hadn't heard till tonight or till I read this, but that had to do with a 30 inch tall evergreen hedge along the entire front of my property. As an automobile dealer trying to merchandise my product, I don't have a window that says, here's my products, look into the window and hopefully you'll be enticed to drop by. My window is my front line. Blocking that front line from view with a today 30 inch tall hedge or any hedge for that matter because they grow only serves to hide my facility and the product that I'm there to try and sell. I truly want what's in the best interest of the city but I need to be vocal and honest to you that I need to be there for what's in the best interest of the city, but I need to be vocal and honest to you that I need to be there for what's in the best interest of our business, the folks that work with us and our families. Are there any questions I can answer? I'll be more happy to. Questions of the applicant. This cross. This cross. I jumped the gun a little bit and visited your property ahead of the tour group. So I wanted around by myself and that was fine. But I have to say it is so heavily parked. I don't drive a very big car, but I had some qualms about where I was putting it. And most of the parking was new cars or cars waiting for service. It seemed to me. And all along the side street, it was like an extension of your showroom because it was all new cars along along there so there's no place for customer parking there so I I want to be sure that if if approvals are given for the for the buildings that you want to put on the property or the addition to the building. Somehow we're going to manage this traffic on the property so that people have an adequate place to park and that we don't have any pedestrian endangerment here in the parking lot. Okay, so you're going from 130 parking places to 90 something like that. I Don't know the exact numbers. Yeah, it's certainly a reduction 194 to 90 Well the 194 isn't what the site has before I touch it that's saying I believe what You the city staff believes I should have to operate with that building size. Is that correct? Yeah, based on your proposal. Based on the proposal, it'll be 194. I think there's 86 what's legal spaces out there today. We do put an awful lot of our inventory on the lot. We do have outside storage of additional parking spaces. And candidly, so many of our customers, they come in, say, I want to look at a particular vehicle. It may not be the vehicle that we have around the facility. And we have literally within 10 minutes, if we don't have that vehicle front and center they leave. So there isn't a genuine concern when you're here to take care of retail to have as many vehicles store a great representation of our product line available for access. Now we have a lot of things have changed in the automobile business with the advent of the internet for instance. It used to be that, you know, in a given Saturday you'd have 30 people come through your doors. Now, because of the internet, we have more scheduled times when customers are expected. So much of the shopping is actually done, literally done on the internet. So it's a much more managed system today than it has ever been in our industry. If right in front of where this new entrance school will be here, and it is now, is where we have customer parking for new vehicles. And it's on site, it's not from the street or access from, they drive into the property, they park right in front of the dealership. And I police it all the time, as all my management team and other employees do, we have more than adequate customer parking out front. From a service standpoint, the second the customer comes into our service garage, we valet park their cars. So it's not a situation where they park on the street. They might night drop a vehicle overnight, put the keys in an envelope and park their car on our lot, but that's handled before we even open our doors. And those are parked in the upstairs parking on a different facility than what we're talking our doors. And those are parked in the upstairs parking on a different facility than what we're talking about today. So customers coming to the dealership their cars are part valet park from service yes ma'am. Oh the service customers. From service customers yes sales customers they're parked right out front and we have I don't know if you can count it on the screen but at least eight or ten parking spaces so at any given moment we could have up to ten parking spaces. Well, I didn't count them. Oh, front. Mr. Fairhs, but I, but I, most of those that seem to me were full of new cars. At times, you know, it just depends on day. And we'll bring down a vehicle to show the vehicle right in the front. Again, we'll try and bring it as close to our customers as we can. They don't always get put back right away, as most businesses have that issue that we struggle with. But there's always a parking space out front. And that's the key. We run our body shop down Ronex Street the same way. We police it heavily because obviously, a customer cannot pull in our lot and stop. They don't stop. And we understand that very well. I think I'm a little more concerned if people and families walking through your life to look at cars and having cars circling the building trying to find a place to park, but you say that doesn't happen. No, I really, I can look at you and I tell you, I truly do not believe that happens with any regularity or even I can't tell you the last time that I saw every one of those spaces taken up. I wish that were the case because that would imply that businesses is better than it is today. But I think to your point, I think any plan that we go forward with has to take today's economy into account, but also has to take a's economy into account, but also has to take a thriving economy into account. And, you know, I understand that. And that's why we have the additional offsite storage. Right now, I have some overs, Ellis sales managers that want to keep every possible vehicle on the lot. And I need to do a better job of that. But that's for me to do. And I think the regulations are pretty clear that I need to do a better job of that. Great. And thank you for rethinking the, number one, for looking into the facade, the front facade. And it's unfortunate, I think, that Christ there is not willing to see the light. Christ there is not willing to see the light. But. Well to that point they all have certain criteria. I hate to use this example because I know how council feels about fast food. But they want the McDonald's approach in that they want everyone to recognize a particular look. And I think a lot of manufacturers, not just automobiles or fast food, want to try to achieve the same thing. They don't have any stone. And their fear is that that element will completely change the look and feel at the site. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't get it done. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Oman. Thanks for preparing tonight, Bruce. And thank you for your continued investment in the city, especially in these trying economic times. I understand that your business is one that is both struggling, but also I do appreciate it, and the golf us appreciate you continue to make investments here in the city. Just to what's the clarification? This across is brought this up, which is the issue of the stone aside. If the council was actually to approve this application, but with the stone, even though the Christ are saying they will do it, what's the practical effect of that? Well, most manufacturers in order to entice their automobile dealers to do facility improvements, and they attach a monetary amount to it. We share in some of these costs. They will not share in any cost. So it all but eliminates my ability to do the project. The second thing is, can you explain for the audience as well as for the council and go into a little bit more detail what exactly the addition is going to do? You mentioned a lot how it's going to be providing a handful to the community. It's going to provide some additional space. But what specifically inside that addition are you going to be providing your customers as well as the community? Well, just as we've noticed here, I mean, we have some safety concerns on the exterior. We have some safety concerns in the interior. In my showroom, we have three different floor heights. Again, the building, if you go way back, it was a garage. It did service work in the first couple of windows that you see now as showroom. So I've actually had some customers slip and fall before it's been an ongoing concern for the family. That's one item that gets addressed. What the manufacturer hopes to achieve is taking the existing showroom and completely on the inside gutting it, creating a whole lot more open space so that more of our vehicles, even though we couldn't show them as parking spaces, the reality as an auto-emobile dealer, we can fit four cars in our showroom today and we can fit seven vehicles in our showroom when this is completed. And that alone will make it so that the whole environment as the customer goes in and sees different products, they can see more of the vast product line up that we have without being in the elements. The addition on the right side as you're facing the building, the larger of the two additions, that addition is really for the offices that we're eliminating in large in the showroom. There's no additional personnel that is really expected to be working. So when you look at the guidelines of how to do a ride at 193 parking spaces as a requirement, that takes into consideration general retail. Auto retail, by its pure nature, an awful out of the space interior, is to park our display vehicles. It's not to house personnel. And that's largely why we don't feel we have needed, and I think up till now, you know, for the most part everyone agrees with that thought process. So you know, when it's all said and done, I don't expect to have any additional staff. So I don't see any additional need for additional parking spaces. I just want to try and make everything as pleasant as I possibly can both inside and out. So that when I'm done spending a lot of money to improve the facilities that I will actually achieve that goal. Does that answer your question? Thank you. Mr. Meyer. If you were to receive approval to make these building additions, what is your anticipated schedule for beginning the construction and completing it? Well, that's a great question. They've all been good questions for that matter, but in light of the current economic conditions, it's a terrific question to speak to that. My initial goal was to do the green space immediately. I would like to close off that entry way. I'd like to improve the signage as quickly as I can accomplish those two tasks. As far as actual breaking ground of the facility for the two additions, candidly we would have to have architectural drawings, mechanical drawings, structural drawings, and all sorts of work would need to just begin. It's kind of been a moving target because we've changed a lot of what we've tried to do from day one to where we are today. So I don't anticipate breaking ground to a minimum before June of next year. That's a minimum. To a maximum of the, I believe there's a two-year limit upon approval to a maximum of two years before we break ground. And as many have been reading recently with the difficulties that some of the automotive domestic automakers are having. I'm not slowing down the process by any stretch, but I think it's probably a good business judgment to make sure I'm on solid footing before I do anything. I happen to believe Chrysler is a terrific brand and terrific manufacturer, but I need to just as I'm going through and getting these plans I need to see what's going on with that company. But at a minimum I would like to do the green space very quickly. I think that actually shows confidence that I have in our industry and the manufacturers I represent. in our industry and the manufacturers that represent? Mr. Greenfield. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Ferrisch, do you have any pictures of what this metal finish on the building will actually look like? Are there any dealerships where this is, I don't believe there's any in northern Virginia, certainly not that I've seen, but have this look. Is there anywhere in the country where we could, you can get pictures where we can see that? Sure, I believe I've sent some to Jay. I could put them on the ground, and call the dry, if you want to come here. They need to email the board. We didn't use it because it was all glass on the first floor and it had a good look at what it was supposed to be. I think you're going to have to probably come up to the microphone just so the audience and the television can pick up. I'm sorry. He did email a drawing, a series of drawings to us. We didn't include them in the package because they don't, none of them look like what his building would look like it because they were all glass on the first floor and the metal was a band across the top, which is not what he's proposing. He's proposing only the metal entrance. But I could put this on the common drive and it could be picked up down here if you do want to look at it. That's not like it would be much use. The best way I guess to describe it, if I could, is a lot of us have a stainless steel, if you will. And it's that stainless steel laminate that we see on an awful lot of appliances. If you can envision that on the front of the entire archway and entranceway, this particular new section. I don't think it's solid by any stretch, but I think when it's all said and done, it does add an element of quality compared to Stucco. I certainly wouldn't want it if it wasn't that you met something of quo. Any other questions the applicant? Thank you. Anybody in the audience like to address the city council on this item? Sir, please. Good evening, Gary Perryman, 1-1008-1-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5- to what they want the buildings for everybody else, but yet fair issue is going to get a buy on it. By polling what you guys have said tonight, you're coming up with mediocre excuses to let this go through. And nobody's, Mrs. Crossy, on one of the real major issues, and that's the parking. What are you going to tell Laughty next year if they come up here and say, hey, we want to reopen our business fully when they don't have enough parking? That's required. Can you turn around and tell them no? You've got to stay with what you got because the requirement says you have to have parking for X number square footage. Yet you're going to let the dealership go with this already substantially reduced parking and allow them to take out part of it, put an addition to take out all this other stuff. And you're right, Miss Cross. I've been to that dealership three times. My nephew has a Jeep and he's had it up there to be serviced and I go to pick him up and there's not a single parking space open. And we're either four times the unluckiest people in the world are the parking up there's inadequately. You've gone out of your way with these new businesses, the Walgreens and the AutoZone, to require them to come up to our standards. The Walgreens come back and said, no, we can't meet your standards. Yet you stayed firm with them. How can you do that and turn around and not do this? I mean, I'm looking at a city council that standing here saying that this is what we're going to require, this is what the route 50 quarters going to look like, excuse me. And yet we're going to reverse that. And you're right, that is an old facility, it has looked that way for a long time. And it's a damn time to have a change. You know, you guys are the ones that got to make this happen. If a dealers says no we won't do it. You can hold out as long as they can, but you have to put your foot down sometime and now as good a time as any. If you're going to make, if you're going to make this project you won't work on the corridor, then you got to do it with everybody or nobody. What are you going to tell these older buildings that you're calling blinded that are more than 50 years old that if they're still inhabited by businesses, you're calling blighted that are more than 50 years old, that if they're still inhabited by businesses, you don't tell them, no, you don't have to update because you're building's old. I just don't see the reasoning behind this and hopefully you'll have some explanations to the public later as to why you approved this, if you do. Thank you. Thank you. But anybody else like to address the City Council? Yes, please. Christine Gaines 103.02 Confederate Lane. I may just not have understood this, but I use Fairfax Circle all the time to access my house because I live in most of the woods and it makes me able to take a right turn instead of left turn into my development. And there are quite frequently accidents or potential accidents of people coming off the circle heading into their building. So any change to that entrance off of the circle and I couldn't really tell from the drawing whether that would help or hurt the situation. But there's been a lot of screaming breaks and, you know, I rate people because they cut across as people are coming in that right hand laying to avoid the circle. And if it makes it worse, I think we're in trouble in terms of accidents there. But like I said, I couldn't tell from the drawing if it's going to make that problem better or worse. And I hope that you've considered that and or will if you didn't already. Thank you. Anybody else like to address the City Council on this item? If not, we'll close the let me see if the applicant has any last comments you would like to make. Can we get staff to comment on the safety aspect of the question that was just posed? The question that was asked was, I don't know if it would improve the safety or decrease the safety. And I know, I believe it to be a dramatic improvement over safety. Well, excuse me, when public work reviewed this plan, we had a concern with the fact that if vehicles, if more than two vehicles are trying to leave the site, it might block vehicles entering the site. So we do feel that there is somewhat of a concern with that entrance. With the concern of leaving the site. So we do feel that there is somewhat of a concern with that entrance. With the concern of leaving the site from that location? Well, since that entrance is in and out, vehicles can come in, vehicles can come out because one of the entrance is as closed if there's a backup of vehicles trying to leave the site and might keep people from being able to enter the site. Okay. Would you mind putting that back on the screen? You know why he's doing that? I mean, that's an interesting concept. I've always listened to staff talk about we need fewer entrances and x's along around 50 quarters opposed to more and argued the opposite side of that argument. I'm curious as to how this would be different than any of the other. The outlet mall one, we did that or any of the things where we've attempted the Walgreens application, where we've actually closed entrances under the argument that one is much safer than two side by side. Is that, is, are you saying that the concern on site for the second car or? There was a concern with the stacking on the site. If the area is a good photo, if one entrance is closed, the more of the right entrance is closed, and there's a backup of cars trying to leave the site. As you can see, if there are two cars trying, more than two cars trying to leave the site, then if it's blocking the entrance, the car might have trouble. One or two cars might have trouble entering the site. And that was our concern. I don't know how to logically express my views on that, but other than to say having drove them that twice a day for the last 15 years of my life and having gone by the first entrance into where the Subaru property is today and taken the second. I can't tell you how many times that the screeching breaks that the nice lady came before me indicated were actually screeching not to hit me. So I can't help but to understand, you know, to try and understand how reducing it to one would do anything other than improve safety. That being number one, number two, by having the sign on the right side of that entrance makes it so that there's no way you could miss someone pulling out on that street if you envision leaving my Jeep property on the entrance that I'm proposing that we close off. When you go to leave, you have a big sign to your left. Yes, it sits off. It's not, I can still see traffic coming in, but I don't see traffic until the very end. And now, by closing that all and having the entrance way into the Fairfax full of art, I have no nothing in my way to stop me from seeing these cars going 40 and 45 miles an hour around that corner despite the fact that it's what a 25 mile an hour area. And it does happen right currently and I think we all can agree to that. We felt that public works felt that a safer traffic pattern would be if that was a right in only. And then vehicles would exit out of the entrance off a roundabout. When that's typically how it is, the vast majority do exit out of a roundabout. But it's allowed, vehicles are currently allowed to exit. Oh, sure. We feel it would be safer, It was a right and only. That's the first effort. But thank you. The other comment I wanted to make was you all have a daunting task all the time with old facilities. And I do respect the gentleman who said, you know, we do need to hold the line on things. It's apples, truly apples and oranges when you compare a retail space for groceries and you required spaces to an automobile dealership, yet the code clearly does not draw attention to automotive in its own category and changing the requirements. If we don't approve it, then I'm subject to leaving the facility as is. And I think that's what an awful lot of us have really struggled with over the years is how do we do the right thing by the people in the city? How do we do the right thing by our customers and our employees and make it all work? And it's a very difficult thing. So I'll leave that to you all to make the final decision. OK, but thank you for your time. Thank you. Mr. Ferris, we have one more question, Mr. Greenfield. Mr. Ferris, can you put up the aerial photograph on me, please? Garage that's between the Subaru and your Dodge, I keep wanting to call it, Ferrisch Olds Mobile, the Dodge dealership. You used to use that for inspections, and you don't currently. No, we do. You just still do inspections there? OK, so there wouldn't be any possibility of taking down that building as a tradeoff for adding the additional square footage it would give you additional parking. That was my original plan. Was to take it down and to do an addition on the back service garage to where we pull the cars in for service today. And we encountered a lot of difficulty because the two lot lines I couldn't build a, I can't remember the exact terminology that was used but that would have added building right up to the edge of this site. Well, 9610 is its own site. 3163 Rowan Oak Street, which is the Parks and Service Center in the back is its own site. The Parking Grudge. The Parking Grudge, the Parks and Service Center. And by adding an addition to that, to handle the state inspection, would have allowed me to tear down the state inspection. And that was my initial plan from the beginning, but found that I couldn't do it with the guidelines that are currently established. So that's one of the things It just seems to me that if you got rid of that building and you did an addition off the side there, that would be far better than leaving that little two-car garage there, which I don't know what is that. Four, six, seven parking spaces you can probably get there. If you should finish the parking and put more of the service, that way you're not conflicting here with sales and service. Everything that service related is on the back side, which you've come to off of Roanoke, and you're only dealing with new car sales on the front. But I can tell you that was, again, that was our original plan. I couldn't agree with the logic behind it more. I mean, that makes perfect sense to me. That's why we were trying to get it done. But after the first six months of going through this process, I can keep in mind we've been at this for two years. And we had, I can't remember her name, Marilyn or, and it was Michelle. Thank you. She was in on it on the early stages and it was explained to me that that part of the process will take at least six months to a year to get through that issue alone. So we thought of best to try and get the things that the manufacturer truly wanted and required of me and after that's completed to rethink that. We just didn't have the time to devote to it, but I think it's a very good point and something we wanted. Okay, thank you. We will now close the public hearing and I'll place the matter in the hands of the council if there's any interest in the series of motions I believe the first Recommendative motion would be found on page 37 I believe or 30 36 of our staff report It's great though Tried to do something here. I'm, some ways uncomfortable about doing it because it, the way's a process a little bit longer, but in other ways, you know, we've been at this for two years and there's some options here that maybe we should take one more crack at before we absolutely say no. I think we should defer this until I think our first meeting is December 9th, 2008. Could you put that in the form of a motion? Absolutely, Mr. Mayor. I move that we defer the request by Kevin Verish for a special use permit to allow enlargement, extension and structural alteration of an on-conforming use to December 9, 2008. Is there a second? Second. Moved by Mr. Greenfield, seconded by Mr. Stambe. Thank you, Mr. Murad. I'm not, I haven't been involved at all in any of the discussions back and forth between staff and the applicant, but this, I'm certainly interested in some of the comments that have gone back and forth and I both from the public as well as the applicant and staff and it just seems to me that I'd like to make sure that we, if this is in fact a potential option to tear down this building and move everything that's service-related to the back off of Roanoke, and free that space up for some additional parking so that doing the additional landscaping on the corners as staff is recommended, could certainly be easily adapted by having that additional parking there. I'd like to make sure we explore that. So allowing additional time to have the dialogue between staff and the applicant seems to make sense to me. Other discussion? Question from President Smith. I think it was from here. Perhaps a question to Mr. Greenfield and the City Attorney. It appeared, I don't know whether this is, it could be agreement among the council to approve the sign part of this tonight. It doesn't seem to be as much controversy on that. And Mr. Farish said that that would be the first thing that we're going to go ahead with anyway. Could we separate that out and take action on that tonight and defer the rest of the application? Yes, they're discrete items, so yeah, you could do that. I would be a manable to that. It's out of order, obviously, in the staff report, but can we assume there would be nothing we're violating to deal with the motion on the floor which would be defer. Oh yours was defer the whole application we'd have to get a why don't why don't I pull that off that okay and deal with Mr. Restmusson's recommendation and come back to it if that's acceptable to the senator we'll go ahead and withdraw that motion from the floor and now I'll entertain a motion. I assume it would be related to the sign area, which is on page 3637. No? 39. Page 39. Okay, Ms. Cross. I move that the City Council adopt the attached resolution to approve the request of Kevin L. Perry's agent for fairieship fair fax ink for a special exception pursuant to City Code Section 110185 to increase the ground-mounted sign height from 6 feet to 10 feet for a special exception pursuant to City Code Section 110185 to increase the maximum sign area from 50 square feet per side, the 91.4 square feet per side, and for a special exception pursuant to city code section 110185, to decrease the ground-mounted sign setback to 6.8 feet on the premises known as tax map parcel 48391, and also known as 3610 per-ffex Boulevard with the following conditions. The proposed sign shall conform to the general location indicated on the plans by the RBA group, Stampton data July 7, 2008, and to the existing billboard located located at 3712 Rowan Oak Street. Shall be removed prior to any permits being issued to construct the proposed sign. Second. Moved by Miss Cross, seconded by Mr. Meyer, any discussion? All in favor of the motion signify by voting aye. Aye. Opposed and a pass unanimously. Soon now in the spirit of the discussion, we'd entertain a motion for deferral of the rest of the application. Yes, Mr. Mayor, to December 9, 2008. Second. Mr. Mayor. If the maker just so we don't have to re-advertise this, I think that's everybody's desire and have to incur that cost. In reading the motion, if you could look at the front page of the staff report under issues. If you could just read that to defer the request by Kevin Farish and then read that language starting with second line, especially use permits to allow the enlargement extension. See that? But halfway down, all the way to the end of that provision. Absolutely. Especially to defer the request of Mr. Kevin Farish for a special use permit to allow the enlargement extension and structural alteration of a non-conforming use in sight in the C2 retail commercial district and five special exceptions to allow for 2895 square feet of additions to the automobile dealership showroom by service building into the construction of a new freestanding sign. Actually not the sign. Service building to December 9th, 2008. Second. Moved by Mr. Greenfield, seconded by Mr. Stonebeats. Any discussion? Mr. Drummond? Yeah, I thank you very much. I agree with Councilman Greenfield and the VIRRING. A couple of reasons. One, I think we've had a very obligated session tonight about some of the needs that the applicant has, but also some of the needs in terms of the Council as well as the public have. A couple things I just wanted to bring up though. When we go back and start looking at this, this is really directed to staff and the applicant discussions. It was brought up that the issues of parking spaces you don't want to do one for others, and not going for another. We want to make sure we're consistent. Which I agree with, however, I think that we also have to recognize the product that's being sold here are cars and the reality of it is is that they are very different than say a retail shopping center where you have a different kind of traffic flow. And with that in mind, I would like to staff the positive take a look at also, I think it's related in his domain to the code that's sort of underlying and causing some of the issues we have here, which is Section 110-155, that governs the proportion of parking spaces to the number of cars which are on a lot or in storage or in service. The thick Mr. Ferris made up a good point, which is that the market for how people buy cars today is very different than how it used to be. People do it on the internet. I'm going to put the newspaper that I drive by. So we have to ensure there are codes and what we're doing here in terms of land use as it keeps in with the changing market place as well. So I would ask the staff to look at that as we're considering this on December 9th, is that section 110-155, which does govern the proportion of vehicles to spaces. And lastly, I think if anyone in this room, Mr. Ferris is recognized as a value of the changing face of Fairfax Goldberg, having been involved in the partnership for a very long time and has expressed some interest in continuing that as well. So I believe that when the staff and the applicant go back, they should work together in that spirit to ensure that, as they're designing this and as they're working on this, we're keeping in mind for the long term. I think Mr. Greenfield makes some great points that actually might help with that discussion as we talk about how we can logically use the space. So thank you very much. Any other discussion? All right. All in favor of the motion? Signify by voting aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? And a passing annum. So we'll now move on to item number 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? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any The transition overlay districts on the premises known as 10560 Main Street. Is this been properly advertised? Yes. Staff report, please. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, Mr. City Council. This application is for a renewal of an existing special use permit number SU-1518-06-1. For a restaurant with dancing and entertainment as an accessory use that included a condition for a term limit of one year. Last year in its original approval, Council also approved a concurrent special exception for reduction in parking and a waiver of the 200 foot minimum setback distance between restaurants with dancing entertainment and residential districts. The name of the applicant is black, almond, and raised, incorporated, doing business as bridges, billiards, and grill. They are located on the first floor west side of the Mosby building at 10560 Main Street. The Mosby building is a mixed use office building and the subject site is in front of the Main Street green residential condominiums. Truro Church is located to the east on the right side of the graphic up on the screen. The applicants current requests to simply to renew their current special use permit for a restaurant with dancing and entertainment. The dancing and entertainment is limited to a 22 foot by 23 foot dance floor, and the entertainment includes bands and live music. The staff report before you contains a copy of last year's staff report analysis and approval conditions. The approval conditions are summarized on the screen. In our analysis, staff has noted no issues or objections to the current operations. In conclusion, staff recommends approval of this application since the operation appears to be operating within the bounds of the previous conditions and without adverse effect on the surrounding neighborhood. Staff recommends the approval of this application with conditions that vary slightly from the current ones to reflect the renewal. Staff suggests a three-year term until the next review for possible renewal. Questions of staff? Here. Ms. Cross. I thought Mr. Hudson maybe you would like to introduce your new staff member because I believe it's the first time you've been before us. Is that correct? Well, welcome. Thank you. Well, my apologies. You're exactly right. This is Mike Jaskowitz. He's a senior planner. He comes to us from various public and private sector positions throughout the country over the years. He has background in both architecture and in urban planning, has worked in Virginia extensively in a private and public sector, as well as out west in Colorado and most likely other places. So he has just very recently joined us and we'll be working land use applications for us. I'm a board. Thank you. It sounds like we're be working land use applications for us. I'm aboard. Thank you. It sounds like we're very lucky to have you. Thanks. And I don't have any other further questions. Okay. Any other questions or staff? Very none. Thank you. We'll open up the public hearing and invite the applicant to address the city council. Good evening. I'm Carlos Reyes. I'm partner in Black Amon Incorporated. Well first of all, I'd like to thank all of the City Council members, Mayor Letter, the City Manager at my Jazz Plates for taking time with meeting us today. I'd also like to state that in the past, bridges is fully complied with all requirements set forth with our current special use permit. In the past 12 months, we've held a healthy relationship with both the police and the fire department. We've read over the staff recommendations for our renewal and we're willing to comply fully with all conditions. We look forward to continuing our positive relationship with the city and its residents. With our reinvestment and everyone's help, bridges, bridges, billers and grills has made the list for the top 50 things to do in northern Virginia. So we just want to thank everyone and that's all. Questions of the out. I'm Mr. Rasmussen. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So we just want to thank everyone and that's all. Questions of the out. Mr. Rasmussen. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. It appears from the application that we have before us that as of September 19th, you were delinquent on your 2007 personal property tax. Can you tell us whether that's been paid or not? Yes, everything has been paid and full. Thank you. Any other questions of and full. Thank you. Any other questions in the out? Thank you very much. Thank you. This is a public hearing with anybody like to address the City Council on this agenda item. Good evening, Council members. My name is Julian Melendez. I'm the on-site manager with Main Street Green Condominium directly behind the Mozby Towers Building. I represent 110 units. The association is not opposed with this. They just want to make sure that they basically are still looked after in the sense that they are, bridges will be required to meet with them. So in case the association has any issues and also the issue with parking. We want to make sure that because we share during the evening hours between 5.30 p.m. and 8 a.m. the visitor parking in the back of the building, we want to make sure that that is not taken up by customers of bridges and those are our only concerns. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else like to address the City Council? Very none. We'll close the public hearing and like the council for a motion. Anybody want to step forward? This cross I move the City Council approved the request of black a man Reyes Incorporated for a renewal of special use permit issue one five one eight oh six oh one pursuant to section 110 72 a one to permit dancing and entertainment in the C2P, retail commercial and old-town pairfacts, transition overlay districts. On the premises known as 105-6O Main Street and further defined as tax map parcel 57-4- 42001. Subject to the following conditions. One, dancing and live entertainment should be limited to 10 p.m. to 1.30 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday, accessory to the restaurant use. Two, dancing and entertainment activities should be restricted to the 22 by 23, 506 square foot area depicted on the proposed floor plan. Three, the applicant shall maintain a parking agreement from the building owner, management guaranteeing 121 parking spaces, dedicated to bridges, buildings, and rail from the hours of 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. For the application or the applicant shall restrict patient Victorance to parking in the 157th space is provided in the parking lot adjacent to Main Street. Five, the applicant shall document monthly meetings with representatives from both Mosby Towers buildings to include the residential condo owners association to discuss and resolve issues that arise from the restaurant's operation. Six, the special use permit will expire three years from the date of renewal, and the applicant shall apply for another renewal at least 90 days prior to the expiration date of this first renewal. Moved by Ms. Cross, second by Mr. Starreridge. Discussion? Mr. Mayor. Ms. Cross. Congratulations to you folks for really blending very nicely with your residential community, but the business community seems to you're whatever you're doing, it's working very nicely, and I have to credit the monthly meetings that you're having with these people so that you can address issues immediately as they may arise. I wish you continued good fortune, sounds like your business is doing very well. And I urge my colleagues to support the motion. Any other comments? None all in favor of the motion signify by voting aye. Opposed? And it passed unanimously. Thank you. We're now down to item number 7c, which is a public hearing and council action on determination of blighted properties and review of a plan for blight remediation. The property located at 10532 cedar avenues. This has been properly advertised? Yes. Staff report, please. Good evening. Mayor and members of council and your Wilson Billing Official Environmental. I have a very brief PowerPoint just to show you some pictures of the property that we're talking about. As you're aware, this is 10532, Cedar Avenue. We've spent quite a bit of time and energy on this property, as you know, in 2002, the Planning Commission recommended and City Council approved a plan to evade a blighted structure on this property, which was the main residence which had been damaged by fire. This structure remained on the property at that time because while it was non-compliant with the zoning ordinance, it had not deteriorated to the point that it was unsafe, which is one of the requirements for it to, for the city to take action on it as a blighted structure. for it to for the city to take action on it as a blighted structure. Since 2002, the property has not been maintained and it has now deteriorated to the point that it does meet those criteria. We have we had notified the applicant of the preliminary determination of the owner of the preliminary determination of blight and requested that he submit a plan to evade the light. He did not respond to that. We refer to the Planning Commission. He did respond to the Planning Commission notice. You do have a copy of his handwritten response toward the end of the package. And he does note his item number 12 that he will not oppose appeal or generate legal fees and that we should do whatever we do necessary. Our plan at this point would be to demolish the structure, seed the ground and then just continue with our oversight of the property and move the grass whenever it exceeds the city ordinance regarding grass. We have received already three estimates for the demolition and we have already obtained the utility cutoff letter. So we're prepared to move fairly quickly if council approves the plan. This shows the backside of the property where you can see the deterioration of the roof. This is showing the bottom of the soft. And in this picture of the side of it, you can see that the roof is starting to sack. And I'll answer any questions that you might have. Questions this staff. Very none. Thank you very much. We'll open up the public hearing. First to sign up is Stephen O'Fill. Good evening. Steve O'Fill, the 10530C. I'm the immediate neighbor. This is a long story. Some of you are very aware of it. You're driving past it all the time. I think this is one of the most glaring examples of blight that I've seen in a city. Nobody has lived on this property for 10 years. And this is an example where the property will still be owned by the current owner after demolition. I believe the demolition will increase the value of this property and the owner actually does have the property for sale. So whoever would actually purchase this property eventually would obviously need to demolish this property to do anything with the property. So all we're doing is just doing what will eventually be done anyway at some point in time. The deterioration with the building, the property has just occurred with rain, sun, natural deterioration over the years so I know I've already communicated with you over the years about this property And I would urge you just to get the job done. Thank you Anybody else like to address the city council on this matter. Yes, please I'm here to voice our support to uphold planning commissions recommendation that the 10532 Cedar Avenue property constitutes polite. Wenders are open and broken, animals have been seen entering the structure, hasn't been any maintenance since the late 90s or early 90s. Waters coming in a roof, it's unsafe to the health welfare of our neighborhood. Could be a prime target for vandalism and vagrancy, of course. You're aware of the history of this property goes back to the 80s. 1986, when a property owner remodeled the top. One of the artist studio turned it into living quarters in an accessory structure, which isn't legal. A series of motions and violations and court orders and jail time and a lot of other things have happened with this particular piece of property. I serve on the Board of Zoning Appeals as well and this property has been before us many times and we have always appelled his zoning administrators ruling and the courts have appelled us as well. The neighbors have had to look at this, walk by this property in its deteriorating condition for so many years now. Bottom line is the property owner has been given so many opportunities over many years to rectify this violation. Simply his choice is to do nothing. That's what he's always been doing. Please rule in favor of this plan, commissions, finding a blighten recommendation for blight abatement. Thanks for your time. Thank you. Anybody else like to address the city council, yes, please? I believe in again, Gary Perryman, 1-1-0-0-8. I just have two questions. Who pays for the demolition? I'm assuming that'll be tacked on to the owner when he sells it. And is this property condemned? And if it's not, why isn't it? Because I just looking at that back approach there, that is definitely an unsafe. And why are we so long taking this down? And the reason I ask that is living in Westmore, we have seven or eight houses that are now condemned. And some of those are unlivableivable and how long do we have to wait before something will happen to these properties. Thank you. Thank you. And just the quick answers I believe is that yes this would be tacked on as a link to the property when it sells in the city would get their money back and the second issue is I think we all share your frustrations and over the years that we've all dealt with this property. There actually was a house in front of it that got torn down by this same process. It was determined at that time, if I recall right, that the structure we're talking about now was not quite at the level that we could declare blighted, but I'm assuming from this report that over the years since we've done that, it's now gotten to that state legally. And so it's sort of a process part, and certainly not a will part. But anybody else like to address the city council? If not, we'll close the public hearing and I'll entertain a motion. Just cream fill. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I move that the city council affirm the findings of the planning commission at the property at 10532, Cedar Avenue was blighted that the owner has failed to cure the blight or present a reasonable plan to do so the proposed plan for the disposition of the property described in the staff report dated October 27th, 2008 is in accordance with the comprehensive plan zoning ordinances and other applicable land use regulations and that the property is not located within an area listed on the National Register of Historic Places. I further move that the proposed work plan described in the staff report be adopted in the city place of lien on the property to recover the cost of executing a work plan. Second. Moved by Mr. Greenfield, seconded by Mr. Meyer. Any discussion? Mr. Greenfield? Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Mayor, just briefly want to thank the residents in the neighborhood for working with us and being patient. This has been a long, long road. This blight ordinance is actually in place because of this property. That's really why we went down the road of trying to do a blight ordinance back in the late 90s was as a result of the front house that has been gone and it has been a constant battle struggle both from a staff perspective as well as a council and I know several of us have been on the phone on a regular basis in terms of what's going on when are we going to see some additional results. So I want to thank you. It's not easy to go through this process. It's not something that we take lightly, but I believe it is in the best interest of the community to get this building down. So thank you very much for your patience. And I'm sure we'll all be out there when the building comes down. So thank you. Any other comments? when the building comes down. So thank you. Any other comments? All on favor of the motion signify by voting aye. Aye. Opposed and it passed unanimously. We're now down to item number nine, which are presentations by the public and any item that is not on tonight's agenda. This is any item that is not on tonight's agenda. Nobody has previously signed up with anybody like to address the City Council. Mr. Perman. Sorry about that. I didn't mean to come up here this many times. Very soon you're going to be approached by the people that are in Westmore School. They're going to want an extension if they haven't already approached it of another year. And they're going to be asking very if they haven't already approached of another year. And they're going to be asking very soon because one of the problems they have is they need to advertise where they're going to be when it opens. With the foreseeable future, I don't see a great jump in our economic resources. So the question becomes the same one as it was last year. Do you leave the building empty? Or do you allow the tenant to stay there and pay a reduced price and try to pay back some of the money the city owes? If they have been making their payments and I'm not sure they have and has made the attempt to pay the money they owe, our community is very much in favor of seeing them stay another year. Because the alternative is for that building to be empty. And right now they're seeing quite a bit of vandalism out there and that would only get a lot worse if it was empty. So our community has asked that if things stay the way they are to go ahead and try to renew their lease for another year and allow them to stay in there. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else like to address the city council and any item again that is not on tonight's agenda? Yes, please. Thanks, Mr. Member and members of council. My name is Brian Napp and I'm at 3, 4, 6, 5 bears just keep circled, but I'm really here tonight as Chair of Prab look everyone today knows officially that we're not able to do the staffer dedication this weekend Which is a great shame and it's something we were all looking forward to but I mean the reality set in that the park Just wasn't we're gonna be ready in time and it wasn't appropriate therefore to do the dedication Having said that though did want to note that, you know, for the past couple of months, actually more than past couple of months, years of work have now come to culmination. We've got draper in place and everyone's been there and seen how it's been used and how it will continue to be used, not only with athletics, but the playground, the walkers are using the trail. And if you haven't been to staffer yet I urge you to go it will just knock your socks off. The field itself is just spectacular the very free playground looks wonderful both entrances off of Stafford implantation and so while we're not going to have the dedication as soon as it's ready it's going to be starting to be used it will be used through the winter and into the spring and we'll just get a new date. So I just wanted to, you know, to command Bob Sisson, Mike McCarty, all the members of the Parks and Recreation Department that this has finally come to reality. We'll look for a good day in the spring, but until then let's acknowledge how wonderful it is that we've been able to get this project done along with Draper. Thanks. Thank you. Anybody else like to address the City Council? If not, we'll close the agenda on the room. 9 and go to 10, which is the approval of the October 28, 2008, regular meeting minutes. Second. Blue by Mr. Greenfield. Second and by Mr. Rasmussen. I'll be in favor of the motion. Signify by voting aye. Aye. Opposed and a passionate and we'll now recess our regular meeting and go into our work session. We're actually going to go next door to accommodate a setup for primarily the discussion on our financial and budget and then we'll go into the other items immediately after that. So we'll move as quickly as we can next door so we can get started. Music I'm going to be a little bit more careful. Music I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. 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And Mr. Greenfield, this is a certainly a work session item on kind of an update of where we are financially and our kind of a forecast of where we're on the future as we continue the discussions with the budget committee and staff and I'll turn it over to you if you'd like to set the tone and we'll go from there. Thank you Mr. Mayor. I call for having a cookie in my mouth with Mr. Walter's fault. I mean, Mr. Mayor. I apologize for having a cookie in my mouth. Mr. Foster's fault. I mean, everything is still right. We appreciate the opportunity to jointly brief the Council tonight. This will be a joint presentation between the Budget Committee as well as staff. I'm going through some of the current financial results for 2008 as well as staff. Going through some of the current financial results for 2008 as well as where we are for 2009. I appreciate the support that the council has provided. This is a new process for the city with respect to having a budget committee involved in looking at both solving shortfalls for last year as well as being involved and engaged in looking at the tremendous shortfall that we are facing not only as a council but as a community for FY 2010. With that I will turn it over to Mr. Hodgekins to go through the presentation and it will be a PowerPoint presentation. Is that not correct? Mr. Hodgekins, that is correct. You should have a copy, a hard copy in front of you. Mr. Hodgekins, thank you, Mr. Greenfield. And what I'd like to do is first go through the financial section. We'll speak briefly on the 2008 results. fiscal year 2008, moving on to our revised estimate for fiscal year 2009, and then our revised projections are fiscal year 2010, and also go into the budget committee had put together, had revised, proposed budget guidelines and financial policies along with a 2010 budget calendar that we will review, and then we will end up with information on our real estate market. If I could take you to our fiscal year 2008 actual results, fiscal year 2008, we won't go into detail. We actually did in the year with a balanced budget. We actually had a slight increase in revenue over what we had originally anticipated. And if I could move. anticipated and if I could move. Oh, I'm sorry, that was page three of the balance budget. We'll be moving to page four to review the revised fiscal year 2009 estimate. We started off, or are starting point for this, is our estimate as of October 7th of 2008, which we had at that time projected a deficit of close to $850,000. And from there, we have actually since then, we have actually experienced changes in estimated revenues of about $228,000 in additional deficit relating to additional expenditures of about $167,000, netting to a deficit, estimated deficit at this point of $1,243,000. And obviously, this deficit is something that will work on over the next six and a half months to bring this deficit down to a balanced budget for fiscal year 2009. And we will be coming back to the budget committee. We'll be coming back to the council with those recommendations. If you move to page five, this is a detail of the changes in revenues and expenditures to come to that $1,200,000 and nearly $50,000 deficit. And the major items relating to that change includes a nearly a million dollar increase in personal property taxes, which the Commission of Re revenue may want to go into a little bit of detail about that. That was something that obviously very helpful. And John, it's just a little bit like that. Real quickly. This is the match that I think we, we, I came here and spoke about back at the end of the budget, last budget cycle. The county, for FX County, as you know, has eliminated the decal and they have, last year, started to build their personal property database solely on the information available in DMV, which we have found has been wrong with respect to the garage jurisdiction. So essentially what we did was an audit, a full audit of all vehicles registered in Fairfax County ran them against our real estate street address database and did the same with our own street address and the extent of it thus far is a million dollars in the plus column that Personal property revenue that had previously been paid to Fairfax County. I don't want to mislead anybody. This is not a million dollars annual recurring because we're allowed to go back three years plus the current year. That is four years. This would be four years worth of additional revenue that had previously been paid to Fairfax County. On an annual recurring basis, my estimate will be much, much lower. It will be approximately $150,000 per year. And we'll be coming back to you as that number changes if it changes. The next couple items I'd like to point out, the next one line, as a matter of fact, is the real estate taxes, which actually they held up a little bit better than we anticipated over the last month. And we're looking for slight increase relative speaking in real estate tax revenue for fiscal year 09. The next item, Meals Tax, is actually up. And the reason for that, we have had a lot of restaurants in the city open up. And Meals Tax, which is not the norm, is going up where we have sales tax projections going down. And the sales tax, which is one of the major items that has hit Perfect City in the surrounding jurisdictions. It's not just the city that is suffering from a slowing economy. It's all northern Virginia and most of the country quite honestly. And our B poll tax is we're projecting a big decrease in the B poll tax and that the B poll typically follows the sales tax trends. So as sales tax we use Tickley as a barometer and also other indicators for the future we do anticipate with the slowing economy that not only the business license but the sales taxes will continue to decline. Other items such as license permits and fees have been affected, affect the city along with other local jurisdictions. There is not as much construction and building and renovation going on in the city and those fees have dropped along with other local taxes. Under the expenditures there haven't been great many changes. The major change is a supplemental appropriation that we plan to bring before the council relating to contracting funds for the Fairfax Boulevard Master Plan. for the Fairfax Boulevard Master Plan. And on page six, we just, for the items that we have just gone over, these are some of the basic assumptions that came along or actually support our projection. And I do want to point out that our original estimate back in October was based on consensus, the adjustments were based on a consensus with the budget committee and the City Council. I could take you to page 7, in which we are illustrating our revised fiscal year 2010 projection. We originally, meaning on October 7th, we had an estimated deficit in the amount of $9.6 million since then with the changing economy and other factors. Our estimated deficit has ballooned to over $12 million. Nearly $2.5 million in reduced revenues and a slight change in expenditures. Mr. Hodgkins, I just want to make sure we point this out here. I know the numbers are bad, but I don't want you to fall out of your chair at this point. This $12 million just to put it in perspective for the council because there's at least 50% of us are new and then the community as well. This deficit isn't over the full budget here that we're trying to solve. So we've got about $116 million budget. This $12 million shortfall, which is equivalent of about 22% shortfall, is only on the discretionary side of the house. So that's about $54 million that we've got to try to, almost 55, that we've got to try to find a savings between now and when we actually adopt the budget next spring of the $12 million $187,000. So the task is very large and that number, as we already have noticed over a month, is grown. It's likely it will continue to grow. So I just want to make sure everybody understands that. This isn't over the full $116 million. It's over a much smaller piece of the pie that we've got to be able to find that saving. So that is correct. The percentage that we will have to find is a much greater percentage than it would be if it was, could be shared over the entire budget, which that is not, the majority of the budget is not available to budget cuts. That is correct. And if I could bring you to page 8, which gives you a little bit of detail, or gives you the detail on the changes, and there are several changes in the revenue categories. Once again, the real estate tax revenue was a little higher than originally projected, which has been good news so far. The Meals Tax also because of increased Meals Tax in fiscal year 2009, those that base tax has gone up and we anticipate and receiving, projecting higher revenues in Meals Tax for fiscal year 10. The big number is a personal property tax of a reduction of about $1.5 million, which what that relates to is a drop in a couple of things that the word not just, the city isn't the only jurisdiction that is feeling this, the surrounding jurisdictions are going through the same thing. And that ever represents about a 15% reduction in the assessed values of our vehicles with the city. Again, the B poll is gone as projected to go down significantly, which follows the trends of the sales tax. And again, the license permits and other local taxes are anticipated to go down as well. And at this point, the expenditures are minimal. Changes in the expenditures are minimal. And if I could take you to page 9, again, these are just some of the basic assumptions and highlights relating to our fiscal year and budget. And again, just for everyone's understanding of how we put this projection together for fiscal year 10, it is based on the same assumption operating assumption that we operate under currently. Meaning we are, we are not at this point, injecting a change in the tax rate or change in compensation or any other changes in our operations. So our base projection includes operations as they exist today and is a starting point for the staff and the budget committee in going through the process of actually balancing the budget and this is a starting point for that. And I'd like to turn this back over to Mr. Greenfield to go over the proposed budget guidelines, financial policies in the budget calendar. Thank you, Mr. Hodgkin. The next few slides will walk you through the committee recommendations for the budget guidelines, the financial policies as well as the FY 2010 budget calendar. I'm not going to read the slides that are in front of you. You can do that. What I am going to do is just draw your attention to those items that have changed compared to last year. Dealing first with the budget guidelines. The first item that will no longer be there talks about a no reduction in the quality of services. Instead, we have added a bullet that says that the city will continually review city government programs and operations to achieve the most efficient and effective delivery of community services possible. Current programs should be evaluated and new programs should not be added. Moving further down, the next bullet that has changed from previously is Adze Sentence, and it is the maintain the General Fund CIP transfer at the City Council financial policy level of approximately 5% of proposed expenditures. This transfer percentage incorporates the city's use of annual debt service payments toward capital projects. Next bullet that has changed over previous guidelines is no additional personnel unless it would result in a net reduction in anticipated city expenditures or a net gain in city revenues. And then lastly, for the budget guidelines, the council consider a fair and affordable market adjustment for employees to retain parity with other local governments and if the economic environment allows. As we talk about both the budget guidelines and the financial policies, these are not items that only one or two of us came up with the changes, nor did we put those forward without full support. The entire budget committee, and let me just take a moment to recognize all of them. Bill Foster, our citizen appointee, Janice Miller, the chair of our school board, Paige Johnson, our commissioner of revenue, Steve Maloney, our city treasurer, and then of course David Hodgkin's assistant city manager and Bob Siss and our city manager, as well as Joe LeHate, who is sitting over here hiding behind the computer. Joe has done a great job of responding to concerns, questions, comments, requests for information. Some cases with little or no notice and we certainly appreciate the support so far that staff as well as the committee has provided. While we were not unanimous in our recommendation for the budget calendar, we were unanimous in our recommended changes for both the budget guidelines and financial policies. If there aren't questions on the guidelines, we'll move over to financial policy. Yes, Mr. Grumman. I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor. I'll let you. You know, we gloss through the first section of this as well. I mean, maybe before we even ask the question on the budget guidelines, were there any questions on the 2009 budget projection highlights or the 2010 projection numbers before we go into the policies, Mr. Stonebreys. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just so that I make sure I have it right in my head from when we met in our earlier in the year at our retreat. We were looking at about a $3 million shortfall, give or take, through the budget committee's recommendations we went through a series of cuts and deferrals that brought that down to 847. That is correct. And then, with changes of revolutions and changes in expenditures, now, Eversett for this year is 1.243 million. Is that right? Projected. Projected. Still have six months, seven months. Thank you very much. Would there other questions on that regard? The good work that the community's already done. Okay. Are there any other questions on just the revenue expenditure side of the 09 or 08? Excuse me, the 0910 discussion. I'm Mr. S. Moussen. I'm just saying, the situation is not right. Acting County contracts are increased by 3.5%. It seemed to me Fairfax County is in terrible position that we are, that their expenditure should not be increasing a whole lot. Why do we think our contracts would continue to go up? Well, we are hoping that that is a conservative number. We like to think we are hoping it's going to go down. We have received indication, which we are checking on, that some of these costs and some of the services are not going to go down. Which we do believe they should, but as of this point, we have not been able to get confirmation that we will achieve the savings that we would like to achieve. So we have put in the more conservative number at this time. Thank you. Could does that include, and probably ought to look at this in the other, does that include projections? I've been getting emails as a parent of a student in a Fairfax County school system recently, and none of them are very happy in terms of, I know we pay a percentage of whatever their approved budget. So does this increase include what we might anticipate in terms of the school side of our contracts? The estimate that staff is included in here at the estimate for school contract is 5% and actually we've been billed on a 4.1%. That's the estimated tuition that we've been given. So actually there's actually a little savings in that area already. The Fairfax County is projecting a $220 million deficit on fraud for schools. And there's of course a large deficit on the other side. There have been a program review committee made up of half a dozen county school board members that have met. The full school board met on Monday to go over those that information and they will be meeting with the board of supervisors. We do expect to see some savings in the current school year because we are expected number of Fairfax City students, first of all, is lower. And we would expect with a looming mass of deficit and for Fairfax County schools next year, that they will be putting money away. Additionally, we could expect some savings, but until we see what is the outcome of this meeting on Friday and what kind of budget that Dr. Dale puts together. We won't have any real information about O10 until the middle of January. Well, the timing obviously works for us anyway in terms of our time. So the good news is that a lower cost per pupil will be good for our city budget, but it will not necessarily be good for our school children. Got you. Mr. Roman. Actually, you asked, sort of asked the question I was going to ask, and maybe Mr. Medical could have fired a point on this. Some reason I read the county school board was going to, as part of their reduction, accept a certain percentage of whatever the county. That's correct. Whatever the county deficit is. So is there a sort of a pass-through in other words, if we're a certain percentage of those county school boards budget, and they reduce it by certain percentage, do we think that we can expect, we can percentage? That's correct, we can expect a reduction if the county school board spends less for people, we can expect to spend less for people as well It's it we don't we the the budget will jack dr. Dale is putting the budget together now with guidance from the program review committee and The outcome of this meeting between the board of supervisors in the County School Board on Friday and then the budget will be put together. But we're talking about real cuts here. We're talking about a reduction of 1,000 staff members. Some directly in the classroom as well as at all administrative levels. So it's a big, deep that that they can expect to come and her effects County School Board may have a $2.2 billion budget but anyone who has to cut $200 million or $220 million out of their budget is going to expect is going to experience some real issues. Mrs. Cros. On page 11, I wish somebody would clarify a little for me the bullet that begins maintain the general funds VIP transfer at the City Council of Financial Policy, approximately 5% of proposed expenditures. This transfer percentage incorporates the city's use of annual debt service payments toward capital projects. Can you go over that? Yes, sir. We have, in the past, we've had a policy, the city council had a policy of a transferring 5% of the budget, the general fund budget to the CIP fund for capital projects. And over the years, we have funded a great many of those capital projects through financing, as opposed to just pure cash transfers. And so because of that, we've actually reduced, for many years, we reduced the cash transfer from the General Fund below that 5% amount. Yet we were, or I should say, the General Fund was contributing over 5% because that part of that 5% amount, yet we were, or I should say the general fund was, contributing over 5% because that part of that 5% included that financing for CIP projects. So for example, when we developed the ball fields around the city as opposed to sending out or actually paying for upfront of over $5 million for these improvements. We actually financed that and we, and we're paying an annual debt service, but we're including that annual debt service as part of our contribution to the CIPA. And what percent is our debt service? It is our debt service. Our debt service of the total general fund is it's over 13% right now of our annual expenditures. But that isn't all for CIP projects. No, But. Well, but traditionally your staff draft budget is always included a CIP budget of somewhere in that range of 5%, it's been 2.5 to 3.5%. Most of my political career here based on, I assume, that 5% figure. Is that? Yes, and it's, and again, we're just want to make a clear that when we do finance capital projects, we take that in consideration when we're looking at the overall in meeting that policy number. Is that always been the case? That has been, I don't know, I know if I could say that's always been the case, but that has been the case? That has been, I don't know if I could say that's always been the case, but that has been the case for many years from my experience it has been. But if we do not take on any new debt financing and we continue this policy over time, the percentage of that 5% that is for debt financing will decrease. That's correct. So it depends on the will of this council to continue to be disciplined in the regard. If indeed the objective is to reduce the percentage of that money that's for finances. Well, and I just wanna make sure, I mean, we've always, the CIP has always been paid for primarily by cash out of the annual general operating account, not by debt. You're just simply suggesting when we calculate the 5% number that incorporate the traditional cash CIP, which we go through a separate process on the CIP budget, plus the existing debt that we have in place. Is that correct? Okay. With the CIP project. Okay. Traditionally, what's always been the budget has been cash. That what we've spent cash on our traditional CIP budget each and every year, with the exception of schools and city halls and things like that. That's true, because when the budget is adopted, anything relating to debt services, it's a different line item that is getting adopted by the council. Yeah, and it may have always been the policy. I don't ever, I mean, I think this is a much more disciplined policy and certainly agree with it. I don't ever remember the policy being 5% and that includes the debt. That may just be something you all have done informally or maybe I just missed it. Again, I agree with it. I've certainly under these times, but I'm not sure that's always at least in the time I've been on council. That's already always been part of our that's the IP. That is a change in policy. Okay. That's what I had asked earlier, but okay. Oh, I'm sorry. Then that is, that is a change from what we should do. And I think it's great because it shows discipline, but it's not been how we've approached the CIP budget before. That's correct. That's always been cash-based or pay for out of the annual operating budget each and every year. That is correct. Okay. I'm sorry to be a little tense here. The debt service is over 13 percent of total annual expenditures. General fund that's been this for a second. That's the service across the board. That's, yeah, that's all. I think what's confusing here is we've suddenly taken the CIP budget, which has always been based on 5 percent transfer and now have included debt on top of it. And I think that's what's the confusing fact. It's always been, our CIP has always been included in our annual budget. It's always been paid for out of cash. And that number has always been included in our annual budget. It's always been paid for out of cash, and that number has always been 5%. What I'm suggesting, what I think is being done here, is been that the estimate would be 5% minus whatever debt we've incurred on things like City Hall and the library and the two schools and the things that have gone through the bond. Is that primarily what would be included? Well, I think that what the Budget Committee looked at was that because of the budget constraints we've had in the last few years, we haven't been able to maintain that full 5 percent transfer and that it was not giving a complete picture to the citizens about how much we were investing in our infrastructure with that reduced amount so that we should turn and look at what the full spending was for schools and everything else, which are certainly capital projects but just not funded. So it was looking at whatever that percentage of the transfer is, but the communities should feel confident that we're addressing the larger needs with debt financing and look and show what that is in addition. That's the big difference, I think, that from what we're used to seeing, at least for those of us who've been on council. Okay. Well, should I assume that there aren't any other questions on the 09, 2010 numbers of objections at this stage. If there's not, then we're back down to the question, Mr. Greenfield asks, which is the budget, or excuse me, which is the proposed budget guidelines. We'll talk about the financial guidelines in a second. Are there any questions, concerns, thoughts on the budget guidelines, Mr. Revan? Thank you. The first I want to come in, Councilman Greenfield and Councilman Meyer and all the rest of the budget committee. This has been a lot of hard work and certainly appreciate it. And on bullet number one, you could go back to the first page 11. Just continuing to review city government programs and operations to achieve the most efficient and effective delivery of community services possible and that goes on saying current programs should be evaluated in new programs should not be added. This is obviously the change from the previous policy guidance, which was to the reduction of the quality of city services. I would like to offer a recommendation and that is that second Senate's be edited, changed and said to say programs should be evaluated an ongoing basis period. In the reason I am making that recommendation is twofold. First is that I think that the budget committee has been doing. We've been ongoing reviews of the bug programs. I think it is a policy of the council who always continues to review those programs and make sure they're keeping with the community once but quite frankly keeping with them budgetary guidance. But the second thing is when we say no programs should be added, I think to some extent we're constraining ourselves to some extent if we want to add something that doesn't have a budget impact at all or a significant budget impact. So I don't want to constrain ourselves and just say we're not going to add any programs, even if it's something that says we'll add programs that are, sure, it's revenue neutral, I will be fine with that as well. I just don't want to constrain ourselves from a policy standpoint to say we wouldn't add any new programs at all as we go forward. Those would be my two recommendations in terms of changing the language. That's all I had. But that's all I had. Well, it's certainly up to the council to debate that item, and I'm happy to be a part of that. I think, at least from a budget committee standpoint, we felt very strongly that we should always evaluate current programs and that under these, this budget that we're getting ready to work through for FY 2010 and the 2011 budget is going to be a budget of need to have not nice to have. And that's what this policy and this bullet here is about. It's a need to have budget. And I agree that maybe, you know, if no new program should be added, there might be something that you want to debate. But I think is a rule, and I don't think that what you're suggesting prevents that from occurring. But is a rule we're not going to add any new programs because one, we don't have the money to pay for it. And two, we might not have the ability to hire staff to be able to staff whatever that new program might be. So I think we can still do what you're talking about without changing this, but this is the basic premise here to reflect that we're in difficult times as we go forward. And that's what I think the premise of this board, the budget committee debated it. I think, yeah. Well, I think the guy, if I could, please. The other thing I think it's important to add to that is that this really, the guide, the budget guidelines has always been a document to give direction to staff and the development of the budget. It's not necessarily a guiding document to the policy board, which is the counsel, which then has the ability to add and take out as we go through that. So Mr. Meyer. Well, that's exactly what I was going to say. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You were right on point there that these are the guidelines that the council, the budget committee is suggesting to the council to give to the staff and the development of their budget. And it's obviously if there was some unforeseen public health and safety emergency that would require us to do something, we would do it. But for the development of the budget for FYO 10, and only for FYO 10, we can certainly revisit these guidelines in every year that this is what our best thinking was in our principles to put some parameters around how they proceed forward. That's really the alpha and omega of this. It wasn't anything more or less. Well, that's fair enough. And I don't disagree at all. I think it was one of the clarifying points that was directed to staff in the P2, which was, I agree on that, suggesting we have programs because right now we don't have the money to other staff. There's more of making sure there is something we do. I think you alluded to it that might cause excessive adding something we wish weren't tied ahead. But considering it's going to staff as much as from a positive point of comfortable, that's fine. Any other questions on the budget guidelines? I'll just move on. That's fine. Any other questions on the budget guidelines? If not, I'm going to assume, and Mr. Sissin or Mr. Greenfield, I assume these will these formally be approved at some point in time. So this is really just the work session. We'll have a motion or whatever the meeting to formally proves. So it sounds like there's a consensus based on this dialogue to move forward with the budget guidelines. And it now brings us to the financial policies, Mr. Brinkel. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The first change for the financial policies, the council's financial policies is under budgeting policies, and it is number two E. It says here that the change is that the mayor and city council shall conduct a quarterly review of the implementation of the budget. Previously, we've done a midpoint review. The committee discussed this, and we feel that at the very least we should be doing a quarterly review and implementation of the budget and that is why we are recommending that change to you. Next is number four and that's language is the target. It really just deals with what we've done in the guidelines that says that this transfer percentage incorporates the city's use of annual debt service payments toward capital done in the guidelines that says that this transfer percentage incorporates the city's use of annual debt service payments toward capital projects. So it really, we had to make sure we're mirroring what's in the budget guidelines as well as in the financial policy. So that incorporates that change that we discussed earlier. Next is under reserve policies. The new number one here is that the target for the general fund balance will be at a minimum approximately 10 percent of the general fund expenditures. That is the policy as it stands right now. It certainly will be more than that, but at a minimum that it would be 10 percent. Next under revenue and cash management policies. I'll go through all these and then I'll go back and take questions. That's okay with everyone. Yeah, the problem is the PowerPoint that we're all looking at. It's not tracking with your bullet points here. That's why you're getting some confused looks. But go ahead and go ahead. Okay. Well, we should have been reserved. We were okay up until then, but go ahead. Okay, I'm quite sure what under the change. Okay, the next one is under revenue cash management policies. So we've dealt with the reserve policies, which was changing the general fund balance, which is delete the reference to the upper limit. And make sure that we're a good one. Then the next is the revenue cash management policies. The first change is that the city shall develop an aggressive economic development effort in order to lessen the impact of any future real estate rate increases. We are dropping the line altogether to the city's show manage cash in a manner designed to prevent the necessity of utilizing short-term borrowing to meet working capital needs. The reason we are dropping that bullet item is because we are implementing a line of credit for short-term borrowing back and forth. That is all the changes under revenue cash and management policies. And then the next one deals with accounting and auditing financial reporting policies. And the only change here is that the city shall take necessary action to ensure receipt of the government finance officers association, annual accreditation for the budget and for the comprehensive annual financial report for the audit. Questions on the financial policies? Okay, assume silence is for the circumstances to move that document forward. Okay? Okay, the next item is the 2010 proposed budget calendar. I'm going to turn that over to Mr. Meyer to walk us through the calendar that the council was proposing. All right. Before we go through the specific calendar, I do want to note that this is an issue that's been discussed by a number of councils, previous councils over many many years. And a couple of times this issue has come up and has been seriously considered but only during the budget season itself and there really was not enough time to permit a more reasoned and deliberate discussion about the pros and cons of changing the budget calendar. So we saw this budget committee as an opportunity to when we're not in right in the heat of the budget season to look at the issue. And the recommendation that comes to you, and I will say this very forwardly, we did not have consensus on the committee to do this. But it was the belief among a majority of the committee that in fact it's worth trying to do once. Now this is our recommendation to the council, obviously the council can make its decision. So I'd like to walk through these milestones that we're proposing and discuss the differences between what is here and what would have been. Normally, and I'll start with the first one, March 30, 2009 is the work session and the city manager's presentation of the proposed budget. Normally this occurs the second Tuesday in March, so this is actually an earlier date in that process. Followed by March 9th, a public outreach meeting, March 17th and 18th are back-to-back staff presentations and first major action by the council to advertise, to consider advertising, attacks rate for the FY 2010 budget. This would be followed on March 31 by a public outreach meeting and work session and then an April 7th City Council work session to discuss the budget. April 14th would be the public hearing on the advertised real estate tax rate and the work session and followed by the adoption the proposed target date to adopt which would be April 28th 2009. Normally this would occur on the second Tuesday in April. It is now a later date. What is the bottom line of this change? And that is that if we adopt this schedule, this wouldn't enable the city to know two key variables that affect our budget. One is the county's tax rate and two, the any proposed cost of living or other compensation decision relative to county employees. The county tax rate of course is significant benchmark for the region and also we compete for the region and also we compete with the county for a talent to provide services to our citizens. If we were to move this date to April 28th, this would result in our need to change the tax collection date from June 5 to June 28. And that delta of 23 days, we have an estimate that we would lose approximately $35,000 in interest income on tax receipts that would have normally been received on June 5th. And then, of course, this would be followed by the July 1 publishing and the beginning of the actual budget. Mr. Greenfield, if I had any omissions in that presentation, you can fill them in. But are any comments from the council on this? Just one little tweak. I think you misspoke when you said June 28th. It's June 26th. We couldn't. I'm sorry. That was just a- That was just a- Waiter than June 26th. Correct. I couldn't read my own hand writing. June 26th. In the other thing I would just add to that, Mr. Meyer, is that while we may not have been unanimous in debating this particular issue, we were comfortable in going forward because this is the only option that gives us the ability to go back in the event that we find that this does not give us what we are thinking that it will, about as why we are recommending this particular calendar. If we were to do this, as Mr. Greenfield said, when he is going back, you're making reference to in 2011. If we go through this for one cycle, and we're uncomfortable with it, or it doesn't work, or there's some structural problems between the staff trying to get their work done, we could in fact go back to our traditional schedule that I referenced earlier. This is cross. Several references to if they're not having been unanimous concurrence on this. Would it be useful to have a minority report to just know what the issues are that were contended with? I don't want to single anybody out in terms of who may have been on the majority side and who may have been on the minority side. I think it's a place to say that it really just comes down to the issue of is this going to give us the ability to adopt a better budget with tighter numbers by pushing it back to April 28th. Majority thought that it was worthwhile to move forward with that. There are some that were concerned that this isn't going to be worth the effort. And so therefore, didn't think that it was a good idea to do it. I think anyone disagree with that summation? It's a fair assessment. And the loss of the money. The $23,000. The revenue. 35,000. 35,000. 35,000. I mean, there are variables in this budget process, even if we were to adopt this, adopt this, this proposed calendar, you're not going to eliminate all the uncertainties in this process because it's just the way that no one can predict exactly how receipts are going to turn out. So it is a best guess process. We were simply thinking that at least for two important variables, we would have that information with this schedule. If we do a post mortem on this after another year and discover that it really didn't add a whole lot of value to it, we're not wedded do it forever. It would seem to me that we're going to have to have a lot of flexibility then with our advertised tax rate. We're going to have to give ourselves plenty of room to work with on that. That affair. It is fair and actually that's a great segue into a point I was going to hold off but I will bring it up now. It's something that staff will discuss later, and it is a recommend nation in our legislative package to make a change to something that Richmond has forced upon localities and that deals with the advertising, the real estate tax rate. And what the current requirement is right now that started actually this year effective July 1. Mr. Hodgkin says that if for any increase in an assessment of more than 1%, you have to have a public hearing on that 30 days before you would actually establish what the advertised tax rate would be for that budget cycle. That really throws a wrench into our entire budget calendar if we have to do that. The good news is, because assessments are going down, it's not an issue and probably won't be for the next couple of years. But the other way. The things turn around, it will be a real problem, not just for the city, but for any locality. And so for that reason we have an inter legislative package to ask that that be abolished. Well, and I'll just echo, I mean it seems like if there was every year for us to do this and to make sure we're at least after the approval of the county budget. This certainly would be the year to do it. I mean, we're talking about our $12 million. And certainly, that's a huge number in our small community. But, you know, we're tied directly for a very large sum of our budget to Fairfax County who's talking about starting. There's no further process with whatever it is, a 500 plus million dollar might even be more than that by now deficit. And we are so dependent on that. Last year was a great example. It's the first year that I've been part of in such a large number, but on the Friday before the Tuesday, we got wind that, you know, that there were going to be changes in the school contract that hadn't been approved I'm guessing and what always happens on this side of where we are in 2008 is they wait to kind of launch all the expenditure cuts to the very last minute and if we followed our old schedule this year for example And if we followed our old schedule this year, for example, three weeks before they get there, if you watch what happened this year, that last three weeks of the county process was a pretty key point of where they sit there tax rate, or they approve their expenditures and their revenues. And this year was such a staggering deficit they're facing. My gut reaction is the same thing's going to happen, and we'll be sitting here if we're not doing it this year, possibly tied to a budget that could change dramatically in the last two or three weeks of their process. So, you know, whether or not this is the right thing long term to do, I think certainly is the debatable and fair, but boy, it sure strikes me if there ever was a year to make sure we've got the real picture of what we're going to be tied to on county contracts that have such a huge impact both at the school level and at the general contract level. This certainly would be that year to do that. Mr. Stonebees. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I am somewhat concerned about, I understand the points that you're making, but a little bit concerned. And maybe you can clarify for me when we talk about Mr. Hodgkin's 35,000 hour loss in tax receipts. Is that a loss or is that a deferment into the future year? Can you interest? Yeah, actually what that is is because we would delay the time that we'd actually receive tax revenue. So we're not really losing tax revenue. We will come in, we'll just come in a little bit later. It's actually the interest and investment interest that we would receive by holding that money for that additional couple of three weeks. And it just equates to about depending on what the rates are, $25,000, $35,000. And so it's not a lot, but that would be lost investment revenue. That is a pretty steep price to pay for some clarity, but maybe this is the year to do it, but I am concerned about paying that price just to know what the county's doing. Well, I am too. I understand both sides of the issue, and we're looking at 53% of our entire budget is fixed. So it's more than half, and that has a huge impact. It's not everything, but it's a lot. Mr. Roman. Mr. Rare, I mean, I think Mr. Steinberg brings up a great point in terms of the cost. You know, one thing though that leads me to support this change, however, is the fact that especially with a large deficit that the county has, would we be in a disadvantage to approve it? After they approve their budget, and we don't have any leverage to go back and fix things. In other words, if we know what the budget is from Fairfax County, we at least might have some ability to adopt our budget per those changes, because I think it was from my abrupt with 53% of their budgets connected to ours. And also, at $35,000, I mean, you tell me, is there an advantage to doing it later in terms of the money side? In other words, as we try to tweak the numbers given that the county affects our budget so much, I mean, there's a there's going to be a larger sum of money that will be affected than a $35,000. In other words, if we go back, for example, well, we couldn't go back, I guess, because we've already adopted the rate tax rate. That's correct. I think what the real problem is is at that point, we adopt the tax rate. That's correct. I think what the real problem is is at that point we adopt the tax rate and so we can't make a change to the tax rate the only way if we had to make up money would be through you know typically budget cuts. So we then might have to go back and cut more than which could be more than that $35,000 for the council choose to not adopt this kind of budget formula. Or budget schedule. And I think that's the premise behind this is if we do get better numbers by waiting, having additional time to see what the county does. We'd be able to adopt or the council would be able to adopt a tax rate that would, you know, that actually would cover expenditures if we had a better idea of what those expenditures would be relating to the county and the school contract. Right, because I think as Mrs. Miller spoke before, there is a pass through from the county, not just from the school side, but also from the, you know, the health of human service side where we contract with. Thanks. Thank you. Other comments in regards to this? I have just two on different items that we haven't talked about. And one had an opportunity to talk to us staff and Mr. Greenfield this afternoon on. And that's the March 17th and March 18th work sessions. You know, every year I've participated in the budget work sessions. And the staff presentations at the end of that process. I think we've all collectively at once you leave that process. It's absolute a marathon. It just strikes me as not the most productive way. We end up always way behind our schedule. We have very little time at the end to ask the real questions, which is what are the budget document changes and what did you want that got cut out of it that didn't make it to this level and the various issues about that. I would just suggest, and I think we talked about this collectively, at least the last counsel, that we just changed the staff presentations to ask staff to highlight their differences in their budget requests from the previous year. And avoid, and I know they do it because we've asked it over the years, but the organizational chart and the background and history of the department and the number of the staff, all of which is available in the budget document. But I think this year more than ever, we really need to make those an interactive work session sort of environment where we can question staff on the really important parts of the budget, which is the changes either up or down and what they wanted that they didn't get and the various questions that we just never seem to have time for. So I don't know if that allows us to do that in one day versus two, or it just makes it more productive in a different way. But I would just share that for consideration by the committee as you kind of go forward and organizing this process that I think for those who have gone through it, there's a much, much more productive way to use that time than three quarters of the presentations being something that's the same PowerPoint year in and year out that's in the document itself, Stombries. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I may be responsible for part of this and I can clarify I think because my sense is a new newly elected member of the council that that would be helpful for me to hear those presentations. If you believe in hindsight, if it is a more productive way to do this where we highlight that so that it's a better exchange for the public, I can certainly make time to sit down with the staff so we can accommodate at least my need for their presentations. Sure. And then we can do it so it's more productive for the community. So I'm well, I'll clarify my earlier concerns on that and you know if that's the most productive use I'll be okay with. Well, and certainly what we could do is ask for the full power point to be provided in a hard copy, but we use the one on one time for the important stuff, which is the changes in their budget requests and again their wish list that did make it which are traditionally more important questions. The other and I may be wrong on this and I'm just looking at this you know my concern in the budget process is it's always been clapped down to a two and a half week period where you know we have you know the one work session is on the tail end of a public session that we have somewhere else out in the community and then we have one or two. I think we've always had one in reserve and one mark up what I'd call a markup session and it just never seems to be enough time. And my gut reaction this year with the sort of magnitude of what we're doing. And am I, I'm not seeing the difference. Is it the March 24th meeting, which is the additional? We've always done the March 34th meeting, maybe not on that day, but we've always done the public outreach work session. And we've always had two markups that I recall. Maybe we always had a third on hold and just never did it, or maybe we never had the third, is it the March 20th though? Is there one extra quote work session plugged into this from previous years? There's a total the the ability to have the total of five Where would the fifth be we have the 24th the 31st the 34th 7th and the 14th and April 28th? Well, yeah, I mean the 28th. And if you wanted it, again, you know what we've always said. We've also kind of consolidated some of these in the past. We've never taken an advantage, or at least last year, we didn't take advantage of one of the additional work sessions. We thought that we didn't need it. And so we don't afford ourselves that last. No, last year we actually called a special work session which on a Saturday morning that we plugged in. Previous years I think you've been right last year because we got the bad news in the 11th hour we plugged in the extra one. But so I guess at the very least not worth debating the 28th there's at least one additional work session from tradition in here. Is that okay? Any other comments thoughts? I assume based on the spirit of this conversation, we're okay with the budget calendar as talked about and outlined here. Please, is that? The last item I'll turn it back to staff is to go through the real estate numbers Mr. Hodges. Excuse me. This cross. Just one question before we go on under on the first bullet here Mr. Greenfield it says moving the budget adoption date from the second Tuesday in April to no later than the 1st Tuesday in May. And I was sitting here kind of thinking about we get we get word from the county of their budget adoption on a pair of 27th April and then we come on 28 behind them. 7th of April and then we come on the 28th behind them. But that's just not very much of a reaction time for us. If there are impacts, some very major changes and this year anything goes, I think. But if we would move back to the first Tuesday in May, are we still OK to get our tax bills out and have our tax due date on the 26th? It is, and I'll let Mr. Muloney backstop me here if I miss anything. It is very tight where we've had wiggle room in the past with the current process to adopt some different changes. I think in the one previous cycle we did a split tax rate, and that gave him the ability to accommodate that. If there are any hiccups in the process, it will be difficult. Mr. Moloney, you want to pick up there? It would be if we could go back to you on that. Oh, sure. You're going to move it back one more week. Well, I'm just a little concerned that we're just not going to have enough reaction time. I think the reason we were, one of the reasons we were comfortable with this is, you know, we are going to be working in concert with the county staff and what's going on with their numbers. And I think we're going to have a pretty good idea of what's going on before they adopt their budget. There may be some changes, but I don't think we're going to see huge surprises that they adopt their budget that we could not come back and make additional changes to our budget. I just remember I held the scramble last year and so I would like they have your input on that if I could. Please I said a follow-up question to that which was in your discussions with the county have they indicated that they might be looking at Changing their schedule around at all. They they I'll speak to that They cannot go further than the first Monday in May Okay, they are required. It's not a code requirement. It is a Virginia Virginia code requirement, but not their internal processes. They have to adopt a budget by May 1st. So we're not concerned about them pushing back on the right. Exactly. By May 1st, they must have their budget adopted. Okay. Is there any other dialogue or discussion? We're going to go. I'm sorry into the real state, please. Okay. I'll be quick. On page 18 is a value summary comparison that basically shows 2008 assessments as compared to what we project for 2009, broken down by our major property groups which are residential, commercial, and multi-family or apartments. We're showing a minus 8.2% is what we expect in residential. Go up a little bit in commercial, 3.6% multi-family going up a little bit of 3%. The overall impact on the tax basis is a negative 3.7%. The next page will break it down a little bit more for you so you can see within those major property groups, at least within residential and commercial, where we're expecting to see the changes. Right now we're showing a zero percent on land for residential. There's a possibility that could change. Right now we're considering leaving the land the same and reflecting the reductions in the building values. You know, that may be a decision that changes, but the overall values will be what we're showing here. all values will be what we're showing here. Page 20 shows you just residential sales information. These are arms length sales and we'll talk a little bit about this in the next couple of slides. We've had several sales this year. Unfortunately, a good portion of the sales we've had have been for closures. So we'll get into that just a little bit. But this does show you the median and average sale prices for various categories. Point out to you too that I also handed out a list that will show you sales by neighborhood. So you have that for informational purposes and also a list of foreclosures. The next slide, which is number 21, shows you the foreclosures. You can see the progression of that. In 2006, we had four foreclosures in the city. 2007, that increased to 33. Thus far, in 2008, we're at 85. 33 thus far in 2008 where at 85. Comparatively speaking to our total property count of 8500 that's not a huge number compared to the total number of sales we've had which is 279 it is a big number. So we're looking at approximately 30% that have been foreclosures of those 49 single family 32 condo 4 townhouse. You'll see those on the list. I handed out their mark on their 4u. The good news is that of those foreclosures 59% of them have resold already. So they're not sitting on the market. For extended praise periods of time, they are turning over. Some of them are turning over at quite reduced prices, but at least they're moving so we don't have a large stock of empty houses out there. Of the remaining sales, 46 of them, or what we call sales after foreclosure. As I said, some of them are market transactions. Once it have stayed on the market for some period of time. Other ones, banks are turning them over quickly, so the prices are not reflective of market value. We're spending a lot of time going through these this year and trying to make determinations about what's a good sale and what isn't because it does have an impact on the market values in the neighborhood. Can I answer a quick question there on that? Sure. That's what I would, is called the short sale, I guess, is, is the terminology that's used where there, it's my understanding on a foreclosure, you automatically dismiss that, but on a short sale, you don't, and it could have those kind of sales are not necessarily good for the community. Is that? Well, there are actually, that's one more category. There's a short sale, which is actually a sale that occurs just before a foreclosure. Right. In million-final-final-final-final-final-final-final-final-final-final-final-final-final-final-final-final-final generally are distress sales so we wouldn't use them. You don't have to use them. Right. Okay. The foreclosure transaction itself, all that dollar amount reflects is the note. It's, you know, the paper, it doesn't really reflect the value. The sales after foreclosure, as I said, sometimes, you know, the banks will put these houses out on the market themselves, or they'll sell them to a real estate company to put out on the market. They'll sit out there for 30 or 60 days. Other houses in the neighborhood will have to compete with them and they become you know a market transaction. Other times the banks want to turn them over quickly and they'll reduce the price. We've seen it happen by as much as 40% just to move the property. So you can generally tell by the number of days it's on the market and the condition of the property whether or not it's a good sale or a bad sale. But each one of those that occurs after a foreclosure transaction itself, then you have to really look at closely. So you have the foreclosure when the bank actually took the note back and then you have a transaction after. And do you have any feelers or any way to judge when a house goes up for foreclosure and sells way below market? Is that traditionally and become an investment property or is that more likely to become a rental property or a group home property versus an owner occupied? Is there any trend we're seeing in that regard? We're seeing a lot of the same folks who were scooping up houses back in the 90s, you know, when the market was bad, scooping them up again. So I think there it is a lot of investment property is what we're seeing now. That would traditionally then become rental property? Yeah, potentially so. Yeah. So that's bad. Let's see. Anything else on this? The next slide, number 22, just shows you our new construction totals over a period of years there. The estimated 2009 new construction totals over a period of years there. The estimated 2009 new construction, we're looking at some commercial things along Fairfax Boulevard. We're looking at picking up the remaining value on some things that were partially complete in Old Town Village area. Residentially, we're still picking up some completed houses and pick its reserve. We have some new homes coming on in Yorktown Drive, Judicial Drive area, and various ones, you know, different neighborhoods throughout. New construction is down quite a bit, you know, we're estimating as compared to last year, but we do anticipate we'll be picking up a few commercial projects hopefully along the boulevard. Is the property on judicial drive, they've only built two units, is that going to turn into the only build additional ones as they sell as opposed to the original plan which has built the development as a whole and then sell them? That's my understanding. Yeah, is that they'll build that first little stick, they call it and see if they can sell that. And some of the other little developments are trying to do the same thing. They're trying to do one and see how it flies in the market and then do more after that. We'll do more after that. Slide 23 is just a little snapshot of our partial tax exemption programs on the residential side we call this home pride. You can see that people still are improving their houses out there. We're estimating, picking up some additional participants for the next year. In the commercial side, we've had a couple of applications. One that we anticipate will affect us in the coming year. And that is the boulevards, which is over the addition at party city. They have applied for tax exemptions. So what that means under the program we currently have is that we won't realize real estate taxes on that improvement Full real estate taxes for a number of years and The potential for you know this program for other people to get into it is out there looming So this may be something that we want to I mean if that's something that we want to discuss. Is that something that's on the horizon for discussion at the Budget Committee? Or, I mean, that's stunning to me that saw properties when we've been over backwards to allow them to improve and increase the size of their structure within turn around. And that's a stunning number of money that's going to come off the tax rolls. Well, you know, the program is out there originally to stimulate renovations and rehabilitation. You know, and the thought was that we would offer this wonderful incentive where the property owner would pay no additional taxes on the increased value for the first five years of the program. And then for the remaining five years, that amount would change, you know, 17 percent a year until they were finally paying full taxes in year 11. So it's something that's out there. Anybody who, you know, redevelopes along the Boulevard or in the downtown is, you know, it's a program that's available. So maybe something that we wish to revisit. But that's something we can get out in front of. I mean, let's just, for example, look at, you know, North Facts, Camp Washington, all of which projects are going to move forward with or without this. This is just going to be a tool that saves somebody money. But I mean, we're talking about, you know, especially the dialogue and increment tax districts and everything else that this could just totally change the dynamics of the tax revenues for economic development. If we're not careful. And I don't know what the timing is or, you know, we've got at least two of those projects that are going to be coming through the pipeline year within certainly the next year. And is that something we can get out in front of? And is there a priority that should be placed on this? To take away that or to at least evaluate it. Right. Well, the Budget Committee has discussed that. And there's, again, that's one of those things that has a split opinion about whether or not. Well, that shouldn't mean that it doesn't come forward to the council with a split opinion, but it needs to move forward. I mean, whether it's a good thing or a bad thing or whether it's something that's supported or not, it's too big of a number, especially in today's times to, I mean, that's $80 million. Just for the record, Mary, you would gain, what you would give up temporarily and really lost real estate revenue or real estate revenue. So aside, you'd gain potentially in business personal property, meals, tax. But that's assuming that it wouldn't be built without this incentive. True. Or $ 79,000, but even, but that's, I'm really referring to the North Facts and the North Facts, West and the Camp Washington, which are going to be development numbers that we've never seen before in terms of overall size. That number could accelerate tremendously. And I get what you're saying, Mr. Johnson, but to me, if it's used as a tool to invite and encourage redevelopment that wouldn't normally take place or renovations or remodeling or older, that's great. That's sort of the concept of the Housing Renaissance Corporation. But if it's going to be used, this as a dollar savings to a developer who's already going to move through the process with or without it, then I think it's at least something we need to have a discussion on. Okay, please. Mr. May. On page 23, where you have commercial estimate 2009, seven properties, total value exempted $10 million. That 10 million is a one would assume assuming there were no participants in 2010. This 10 million in 2009 would at least a portion of it would be exempt in 2010. Is that correct? Yes, it's a 10-year program. So some of the people that are in there that make up that seven have been in the program for a number of years. And you know the amount of their exemption, it stays stable for the first five years, and then it reduces by 17% a year through the last five years. So picking up that number seven in 2009, that'll also affect 2010, 11, 12 all the way out till the after the 10th year of the program. So the seven participants represent a total investment of $10 million. It's $10 million of assessed value that will be exempted. And then the $79,000 under that is the tax money that comes off that $10 million. But we're only getting a one-time investment that is then exempt for five years. Right. Now the value on the properties, the way the program set up, the value on the properties can continue to increase. It's just that the exemption amount actually reflects the difference between the value of the building before the exemption and right after the exemption. I mean right after the renovation, I'm sorry. It's the value of the building before the renovation and immediately after. And then that amount is set. So that's the exemption amount multiplied by whatever the tax rate is from year to year. I think it was probably a great concept in good times to encourage more investment, but now we're in a situation where this represents a significant cost. It does, and maybe I'm having second thoughts, you know. There hasn't been, I think, probably historically only maybe 10 or 11 people that have ever used the program has been in place since 1990. Well, it strikes me that the major redevelopment we're looking at on the boulevard, for in one case, there is no improvement on the property, other than the cost of the value of the land. And if you're talking about adding, I think if I understand this right, I'm not talking about renovations now. I'm talking about new construction. There's no distinction in this program. Isn't that correct? You know, I want to go back and look at that. I know that it is says something in there about it. I don't know that you can just, it can apply just to new construction. Right. Well, my point is I don't think it was ever set up for new construction. Right. We're about to really embark from all practical purposes. There's some structures there on a major primarily new construction, although it could be considered re-updating. If you put a high density project on a parking lot, that's hundreds of millions of dollars in value which is what we're talking about doing in the three nodes. This number could accelerate dramatically in one single project. My only concern is everything we've talked about in terms of even let's look at downtown if it had happened downtown all of our projections for infrastructure cost all of our projections on everything was based on the tax revenue exceeding what we had currently and I'm sure it won't offset it but it could make a real dent on a major improvement based on something that's really under improved now. It seems to me but I don't we don't need to have that discussion now But I sure think it's when we need to frame and at least have a discussion or the budget committee have a discussion and if They can't come up with a consensus then pass on the The reports minority and majority and let the council talk about it, but Okay, that's all I had. So unless you have any question. Mr. Restman, sir. Do you know if the property is just north of Rust Kerr, where there was a small development of, I think it was five houses that were going to be built? Is that informal for closure? Not that I'm aware of. I know that they are right now have one of the lights listed for sale. They've gotten to a point. I think it tried to go to auction on the courthouse steps previously and had no takers. So I think now what they've done is take one of the lights and list it for sale in the way the listing reads. It says you can use our builder or bring your own. Here's a great lot with all the public amenities. in the way the listing reads, you know, it says you can use our builder or bring your own here. It's a great lot with all the public amenities. It's been on the market since about May, I think, and hasn't moved. Okay. Thank you. Well, and, you know, what that means is we're going to get a cookie cutter development. I mean, what I understood, and I know there was a lady sitting in a chair out there with a clipboard last weekend with balloons saying You know open house on I guess the lots because there's no houses there and I it's my understanding what they're doing is they're not redeveloping it. They're selling the lots off now to anybody who will take it and then if you want to use them as you said or you got your own builders that they're really into the lot Selling business, but I would assume they still will be obligated to even if they're built individually for the approval that we approve, which was a certain brick and certain sightings and certain sizes. And, you know, I'm not sure we would ever approve that project if it, you know, and it was gonna go this way, obviously we couldn't have predicted that, but the same predictions that the community had because there was a lot of concern on the community that's in the rezoning would apply whether it's now going to be individually owned versus a developer dev- is that? Okay. That would be interesting. Okay. Okay, and we, if there aren't any, thank you. The report, are we pretty much done with that report? Well, but let me echo two things. One of, this is sort of the first time publicly we've had a chance that, all collectively, we met at our offsite, but to the entire committee, you guys have been meeting around the clock. I don't know that there's another cash force or entity right now that's meeting weekly and with the intensity that you guys are. I know it's not fun at times. I know it's all very delicate issues in some cases, and I know it's a prelude to what will happen at the council level. But to each and every one of you for your time, your energy, your dedication to staff and support Mr. Greenfield, Mr. Meyer for your role as a leadership and at the council level, you've done a great job and it has not gone unloved and I feel very, I for one feel very confident that while this certainly will be the toughest budget we may have ever collectively approached or individually, We certainly have the team put together and the infrastructure put together to help us guide through it and I certainly appreciate that to all of you. The last thing I'll just say and it's a big number. I mean, $12 million, certainly a big number, a million 1.2 where we are now on the 0.9 budget is a big number, but I think we need to put it make sure we put it all in perspective We are not unique in fact we are in a lot better shape both commercially revenue wise and everything else and many of our Counter parts we talked about it, but I don't think it should go without saying even though there are much bigger Community I mean the county starting off this dialogue with a $550 million shortfall in the county level and another quarter of a million in the school level or whatever it is. I know in my dialogue with my counterparts, there's nobody who's skating through this process. And I mean, the good news is in all the projections of oh nine at least from real estate. We're still hold okay Certainly in sales tax and people and some of those. That's the big hit But so I hope we put it in the right perspective is the challenge huge Absolutely are we were unique and no way shape or form and I would suggest we're probably in better shape Did many of our counterparts and many of our community? So with that, thank you all for your time and your energy and your leadership. All right, now move on to the work session. Yeah, another easy topic, which is our continuing discussion on our community center floor plans. This is if the team can sort of approach the table as we're moving in transition because we're not going to take a break here although we're about to lose. I think we probably ought to take a break if we just lost four of our... Okay, go ahead. We'll just take a three-minute break. Here? here You have to bring change. He has white chain or right left right Okay Do you want to run it? Yeah, hit it. Oh, here. Yeah. I Yeah. Yeah. Huh. I know it's seven. It's 20. Then what's on budget? You went to a breakfast school. You hiding the cookies? No, I'm not. It's dinner. Heading the cookies? It's dinner. I hear you to do it. I'm going to do it. Music I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm gonna go back to the I'm gonna go back to the I'm gonna go back to the I'm gonna go back to the I'm gonna go back to the I'm gonna go back to the I'm gonna go back to the I'm gonna go back to the I'm gonna go back to the I'm gonna go back to the I'm gonna go back to the I'm gonna go back to the I'm gonna go back to the I Yeah, I got it, yes, but John, you. I'm close to you. I'm going to go ahead and get started. And we're going to continue the work session discussions. This is actually a continuation of a discussion. We started at our last City Council meeting regarding the various community center floor plans and I'll turn it over for staff, whatever words of wisdom and follow-up action items. I know we had several items left for you all to come back to us on and we'll build from there. Sure, Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council. Thank you very much. We tonight is Wayne Hughes and LL Alphon from the Hughes Group. And they do have a presentation with a series of slides answering your questions from the October 28th work session. So your permission, I'll turn it over to them to go through their presentation and hopefully address the evidence at the end. Very good. Thank you very much. Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. It's a pleasure to come back to you and based on your good council at our last meeting. We did pull out all of the stops and we investigated that we think each item that you had asked us to do. So again, I wanted to choose my partner, Elial Alphan. Elial is the artist in the family. He is the architect who is primarily responsible for the beautiful design that you see before you. And I purposely put the design in front of you for some reason, it didn't make it into the PowerPoint. And I want to use it as a segue from your last deliberation. I ask that we all try our best to exercise all of the artistic sensibilities that we possess in each of us and in evaluating the issues before us. We have spent a good deal of time with the design and I'll proceed rather directly through the process here but we learned a lot and I want to convey some of that learning. You know when you go through an artistic enterprise like architecture is you're always learning and with Ali and I just about all of our designs get better with time. And with your good counsel, I think you're going to see that. One of the things that became very apparent and reassuring for us is the size of the building that is proposed. That the size of the building and its associated parking are really ideally suited to the sensitive park site and the adjacent police station. And I think that the rendering you see before you hear really illustrates that fact that the scale, the proportion of the facades, the details correspond with the adjacent structure, the site context, and most importantly, the city's self-image. We truly believe this will be an iconic image consistent with the intent of the gift and the intent of the city. With that being said, I want everyone to be keen the aware of the constraints of the site itself. We have backed the building up on the right of way to the south edge of the property. And we really cannot violate the line that aligns our building and the front facade of our building with the police station. We don't want to build in front of the police station. So we are very tightly constrained in the north-south dimension and as well on the east-west dimension. Can we push? Can we pull the answers yes? But please understand the real constraints that are honest here. We have tried to illustrate on this particular site plan the impact if we should go up in the future. And that would be future parking spaces of approximately 48 spaces that would completely eliminate the civic green that we are planning in the initial development. The comparison floor plans, we've tried to compare them the very best ways that we can. I won't go through all of the words here only to tell you that again that they are both 12,000 square feet. This is going to be an item of discussion so that I will not put too many thoughts on the table here other than the fact that the Scheme A provides six community rooms, central location of the core spaces, direct kitchen access, et cetera, the Scheme B for a community rooms, larger rooms, more capacity, but we are going to have to enlarge the toilets. When you do change the size of the community meeting room, please understand. It's not a direct comparison. It's not just adding a thousand square feet. You've got to add the requisite toilets, etc. Support spaces. Ski May, again I won't be labor, the point, but one of the dotted lines that we have put on this plan, and I believe Mrs. Cross, this was was your suggestion and we think it's a good one. Is the notion of considering a basement space. And in this particular scheme we're showing 1500 square feet of basement space and we're showing outside access to that space. And at 1500 square feet this could be space that we use not just for mechanical space, but also for storage space. And considering the functionality of the building, I think that's a very important consideration. I want to compliment you for your insight there. That's something we hadn't thought about. Scheme B, as we have considered it, a divisible into three major spaces. The lower left-hand corner space is, again, all of these spaces should be regarded as multi-purpose space, some small differences. The gallery, the corridor element, is much longer. However, the warm-up kitchen and all of the storage space is on the north side of the corridor. And we did take your suggestion, Mr. Mayor, and we moved all the toilet spaces to the southwest corner of the building, from the front so that we could in fact have symmetry there of windows that will present a very nice facade on the north entry facade. Okay, I'm not getting any response here. What's happening? Okay. Capacity wise, we're talking very similar capacities. Total of 332 for Schemei, 328 Schemei. Let's hope this is working. It is not. Did we pull the, it is not. Did we pull the, here we go, let's try this. Performance, we compared performance event space capacities. Obviously, Scheme B is a larger capacity of 608 versus 430. And the banquet seating likewise, a significant increase, 376 over 272. And I'm just going to have to suffer with this. OK. And we tried to show you a seating layout of both of those numbers. And again, these are very flexible issues and very flexible layouts. Again, for the banquet seating. again for the banquet seating. An item of discussion last time was the height of the vaulted ceiling. And here we're showing you the 14, 14, 8. This would be the scenario if we decide, if the council decides, to build in the capacity for a second level. So we have taken the time now to develop a cross-section to show you what that cross-section would be. And this again was a learning exercise and I'm going to point that out to you in just a moment. If we decide not to build in the capability or the capacity for a vertical expansion, we can in fact do what was observed, increase the height of the voltage ceiling, and really make it a better proportion for the performance space itself. We took the time to look at the scheme A and scheme B elevations. We drew the scheme B elevations. And I think they're both very dignified. They would both present an image. I think we would all be very proud of. And then we went a step further. And we decided to take a look at what, in fact, would happen if we added a potential phase two vertically. And we realized a potential phase two, vertically. And we realized a couple of things. One is that the space on the upper level would be predominantly an eight or nine-foot ceiling height. And I think we all have to ask ourselves if in fact that space would be appropriate for recreation expansion. It is certainly appropriate for other uses, office, for a wide variety of uses. But if in fact this is going to maintain its iconic character as a community center dedicated to the arts, one has to ask about the utility of those spaces upstairs. That's a subjective judgment. Total project costs, we're hoping and praying that they're remaining the same. And we have estimated and updated semestimates. The future expansion once again has not changed from the last time we met you. We're estimating at this moment the basement space to be about $150,000, a lead compliant building, about $100,000, and then a lead certified building at $122,000. And we're going to answer your question, Mr. Stommer, just here in a moment, about the payback involved. In fact, we're looking about a payback of about 15.6 years. Now, one of the things we did do, Mr. Stommer's, in reaction to your council, is that we had all five of our lead architects, certified lead architects, look at this building independently and come back to us with a recommendation. And we would like to suggest that you task us with designing an environmentally sensitive building, but not a lead certified building. We really do not believe that the size of this building has the order of magnitude required to achieve a lead rating. We also do not believe that the traditional design that we are proposing lends itself easily to the lead rating. And we are happy to also with you on both of those statements. So key decisions to be made. Floor plan layout, which option to go with? Future vertical expansion on this site, yes or no? And you asked us last time, Mr. Meyer, you in particular, if we had opinions on these things. As the result of our study, we have concluded, as your professionals, to recommend to you for consideration that the vertical expansion on this site would stress the site environmentally with additional parking, additional stormwater management, and give you some very questionable square footage on the second level as it applies to recreation space. So we would recommend that this time that that money be saved. It's always good to plan for the future, And we clearly understand that. But what we would recommend is that a study be commissioned to develop a needs and demand study for recreation space and that alternative sites in the city be investigated to solve those needs. We really believe that by adding 12,000 square feet to this site and its associated parking would be a stressful, visual, and environmental situation. So with that, we will end our slideshow and open it up for questions and further counsel. We want to assure you that whatever direction you decide to go in we will continue to study, we will continue to refine the plans with you. But as you know we are under a deadline and so now we welcome your questions and your counsel. Well let's let's fight off some of these issues. And the one you just last put on the table, I think we've discussed it in dialogue, but certainly we can have the dialogue again. The future vertical expansion option. Yes, sir. I know early, I'm actually talking to my colleagues here first, is that I know early, I'm actually talking to my colleagues here first is that I know originally I certainly was supportive of keeping that expansion option alive. I think if I've read the T-Leaves right over the last several weeks of discussions, we sort of went to let's not keep that option alive for all of the good reasons that were just outlined in others. Is that where we are as a consensus that we would not pursue the vertical expansion option at this time? And if we ever did it, it would be on the property somewhere else or somewhere else in the city. Is that where we are or is there? You're saying yes? Mr. Cross-Thodts? I have the same saying no to a burden of exclusion. Okay. Is there anybody who feels differently? I still do, but I can see that that's not flying. Okay. Okay. So I guess then certainly with all due respect, then it sounds like there's still a consensus that that comes off the table. We're not going to design the bill for vertical expansion. At this point in time, the just backing through these and trying to hit the easier ones. First, the lead compliant option that was forecast. I think if I heard your recommendation, it was basically to design the building, to be environmentally sensitive where possible, but not quote to a lead compliant certification process. That is correct. Let's use that as sort of the talking point and move from there. Of course, please. Yes, sir. On the presentation slide, it says that you have a $100,000 cost for a lead complying and a $120,000 for a lead certified option. Right. When you build to an environmentally sensitive manner, is there an expense associated with that? No. That's just, that's, that, that, these are things that we would, we would do normally. Okay. These are things that we would do normally. Let me assure you that you are going to get 90% of the issues that you are striving for. Very specifically, low-e glass, high performance mechanical systems, a lighter roof than the darker roof to eliminate heat island effect. And so just common sensibilities. Yeah, I mean, if it is the professional opinion of your lead architects that this is all five of them, independently analyze this building. Mr. Meyer, did you want to, I know this is kind of, well, I've put it in my campaign literature too. I understand that given the size, yes or function, yes or the sighting of this building, it probably doesn't, from a design perspective in terms of how you place it, what kind of materials, with it being brick, traditional rather than having lots of glass that's right angles. Right. You're really stretching out the years to get any kind of payback. Yes, sir. And there have been significant advances in continuing advances in HVAC systems, electrical systems, and the monitoring systems that go with them. Yes, sir. So I would encourage us to use the state of the art best equipment in terms of the mechanical system. Well, to make it as efficient as we will. I think Mr. Stombrie's intent here was noble as well as mine. And we'll look for another opportunity. I think that's very, very wise. I want to point out, we will do something for you. We just did this for Virginia Tech. We're doing a very large building at Virginia Tech and just adopted the same policy. Design and... It's good enough for the Hokies. It is tough, I care. And what we did just recently is we took the building to they have a lead fair you know they do every year. We actually took the building there exhibited it and pointed out all of the design sensitivities we will do that for you too. So the city will have something to show to the community that says these are the measures we have taken to do this. We just have an opted to put a trophy on the wall. Okay. Well, I'm glad to see the Virginia Tech has flushed toilets. They do. They will. Is the Virginia Tech building the one that's under scoutening right now? No, no, it's an existence It's a addition to McCommus Hall and it's it's gonna be a beautiful building and This is the philosophy they have adopted Okay, so it sounds like We've eliminated that and where our goal is to to our mentally strive to that and strive for it, but yes, sir, not apply to it. Okay, the mechanical basement option and I got what you were doing on option A, is there, does that apply to option B as well? Well, you know, I think it does, Mayor. I think, you know, the idea was brought up in the context of the vertical expansion of the building. That's where the idea came from. But the more we think about it, and the more we think about the functional utility of the building, and the fact that storage space is always at a premium. We think it's just worthy of consideration. And we'd like to study it just a little bit more. I think that the key pick-up would be two things. One is more storage space on the ground floor, on the operational floor. And the more we look at the functionality of that floor, the more we clearly understand the functionality of that floor, the more we clearly understand, we need piano storage. We need storage for musical devices and support musical stands, things like that. So the more we think about the functionality of the building itself, the more it makes sense. On either option. Yes, sir. And on the option where you did the floor plan for comparison on the scheme B, I assume the mechanical is what would be moving down into the basement. Yes, sir. And that would be picked up again, a storage space on this level. A storage space, I mean, which strikes me also, and maybe you can't get there without, is there'd be another nice place to be contiguous to the performance multipurpose space for the kitchen. Well, certainly, however, again, that's a great consideration. I hadn't thought about that. It was just this woman. I was going to say outside access is very important for the kitchen, controlled outside access. And so maybe we look at that. Well, I mean, what strikes me for this discussion is it's consistent whether we're looking at option A or option B. Yes. And the question is whether or not, and I don't remember what the cost was, was that a hundred thousand? 150,000. I mean, I guess the question is to pick up the flexibility of space is it worth $150,000. And so I'll throw that out on the table for discussion. And that's regardless of whether we're talking option A or option B or something in between. But any jump in? Yes. I have a question. If you had a mechanical room in the lower level, you would design this so that you would have access from both the interior and exterior. No. You're getting up in the $200,000 range there because if that's the case, then we need to provide interior access. It's a brilliant idea. We need to provide internal access and an elevator. It would only be practical to have an elevator to move things up and down. And don't get me wrong. I think it's a wonderful, wonderful idea. Yes, ma'am, Miss Cross? Is that something that could be accomplished later on? Can you put an elevator in later? Not really. No, never. I mean, we could certainly provide a knockout panel in the floor and try to anticipate that in the future. We could certainly try to do that. But I'm just trying to design this building holistically. No. Yes, sir. No, no, no. I can't. Okay. Okay. So the concept of the mechanical room in the basement is you would access it at the end of the room. Right outside stair. And I'm trying to think of the downsides of that versus quote the elevator in the inside access. I guess the elevator where the electricity went off or the heater went off in the middle of the night or during a- Well, let's talk very practically speaking here. And imagine your home. I can't think of a long time. Well, let's talk very practically speaking here. And imagine your home. I can't think of a better analogy. And having an outside stairwell going down to a basement. One of the difficulties of this site is the fact that the stormwater, it is a relatively level site on that plinth that we're building on. If we put in an outside stair, we're going to have to get water out of that stair. It's a mechanical system. But the utility of an inside stair, I think, would be enormously effective for this building. The convenience of having an elevator would also be very important. With that runs the numbers north of 150. Yes sir, 50,000 dollars for an elevator and enclosure. That's the rough number. So you're at 200,000? 200,000, yes sir. Yes sir. Yes sir. I hate to keep piling costs on after your last meeting. But these are realities. Timing life is everything. Well architecture is a product of its time. Well, I mean, but we were having some serious considerations of lead compliance. Yes, sir. And a second floor. Yes, sir. I have to defer to my colleagues on the price point here. You know, what strikes me is the demonstrating 150 and 250 and 200,000 over the life of a building is not an issue. So, and I think it'd be far preferred to have the inside use as opposed to having to run outside. I think the decision really is whether or not we want to spend, I would suggest that we narrow the discussion on whether we want to spend 20000 or zero for the option of that more space upstairs and put in the mechanical underneath. I would agree. I think to effectively store some of the just chairs and risers and those sorts of things downstairs. Without the service of an elevator to bring them up for use is a lot of strenuous men hours. So said. So I think the obvious conclusion is that we need to have that freight elevator to get things up and down. Yeah, and that's maybe a good way to look at it is that maybe it's not a full personnel elevator. Maybe it is more of a dumb waiter, freight elevator option. But I'm still not going to back off the cost. I just do. Well, and the issue is really it goes, still goes back to, do we want a basement with an elevator or no basement? Right. It's kind of the thinking. I had to 200,000 dollar decision. Mr. Esmeralson. I think it makes a lot of sense to have the basement because you free up the mechanical space and storage space. Yeah, you can make it big enough to you could do it. It's a domino and the functionality of the main floor plan would improve significantly over and this is an attribute that is short term and long term. It's for the life of the structuring. I think the consensus here is to I think the consensus here is to go for it. Okay, we got a basement. Moving forward. And an elevator. And an elevator. Wow. Okay. All right. All right. Now that brings us to the last discussion. And I'm going to just make a statement or some comments and then encourage everybody to jump in. And I have to say before I do this, you know, never in the life of me as I went through this process over the last several years that many of us have gone through. Did I think the most controversial discussion we would have on a community center would be the meeting space layout? I would do, I've gotten the discussions on the location and the gotten the discussions on whether we accept the money or don't accept the money, gotten the discussions on the location and the gotten the discussions on whether we accept the money or don't accept the money. Got in the discussions if we build two stories or one, understood the discussions on 32,000 square feet versus 12,000 square feet. I must admit, I've learned a lot more in the last week, but I never saw this issue becoming as controversial and potentially divisive as my sense is it has the potential of becoming. I will also say, and I'm going to say some of this a little bit in defense because I've been privy to some of the dialogues and have been privy to some of the dialogues second and third removed that, you know, from day one when a discussion community, his center has been discussed in this community, I have always been supportive. I was the first to jump in line with the supportive of when we tore down John C. Wood by the Bell Willard site and spent a lot of time in energy trying to help negotiate that when that fell apart, I was always supportive of back in the good days of building a community center out of newfound funds and certainly supported that and said it publicly and said it privately as we went through that and very supportive of this process and have never wavered into that support. And I feel a little bit that I need to frame that issue based on some of the dialogue that's led up to this discussion that we're going to have and obviously need to have. But I'll say a couple of things. First of all, you know, for the two years that we've had this dialogue and talked about our first vision, which was the 32,000, but designing phases and all of those dialogues and discussions, the smallest multipurpose space was 5,000 square feet, and the second room and the largest was 6,000 square feet. All the way up to about a month ago, all the dialogues and discussions that we had at Johnswood, all the things that I have focused on, we are always talking about, and all of those dialogues are 5 to 6,000 square foot facility. We made the decision that we were going to only go with phase one, and that certainly then led to discussions of 12,000 square feet. We made a very important decision, which I supported, that we were going to build a building that stayed within the $5 million overall cost. All very supportive from my perspective in terms of being the right, right decisions. But that should, to me, have triggered and should trigger as we go forward a different dialogue. We've now made another very important decision that we just finally made tonight that we're not going to build this with expansion space. And quite frankly, up until tonight and last two weeks ago, we always talked about we were going to build this building with expansion space, which allowed us for future what I call meeting space and performance space flexibility is we built it and realized maybe it's too small or not the right space is we went up in phase two, we had the option of correcting whatever we did. That's off the table now. And I support that, and I think it's great. But it to me just pinpoints the importance of making sure we get this right. Because we're not going to have the flexibility, at least in this location. And on top of this building for phase two. And I'll just say it, and all the dialogue in my head of five or six thousand square foot is what we had been talking about until we made these other discussions. So we've now defaulted to the minimum in the discussions that we started out, which was outlined in the the contractional relationship if I can use that phase or the requirements that went with the deed. My only interest, sole interest in having this dialogue is for those reasons and to make sure that we've changed some of these things that we do this right. I have always concluded being in the meeting planning business that for performances, a bigger space is more important and very important than a smaller space. As I look at the layout of those rooms and look at the dimensions of those rooms, you know, to have performance space that you really have to set it up and a long gated on the long side of a rectangle is not ideal. And the more ideal location would be to have enough space that you can set it up in a hearing bone. In the meeting planning business, we call it a hearing bone setting. So everybody's as close to the stage. We started our dialogue as, I think it was called the theater in the round sort of space as we went through. My concern, and let's just talk for a second, only performance space, is the 4,000 square foot space. Is the absolute minimum and it's not the best space for performances that I heard. A week or two ago, one of the testimonies says, boy, we need a stage big enough for 50 coral people in there. You take that space of 4,000 square feet. I'm just promising you that stage that you have laid out in this diagram is a tiny, tiny, little stage. There's no dance floor in front of it. It's, I don't even know how you do much of anything on the size stage that we've used for demonstration purposes. You know, stages come in six and eight-foot sections and if you put two or three of them together, you're twice the size of that layout. So this is just my opinion. I know there's going to be a whole lot of room for dialogue and discussion and differences. So to me, having better performance hall space now that we're not going to have the flexibility expansion, having what I call meeting space, and you look, and I'll say this, I guess it's easy to dismiss, but having the flexibility that will be used by the most in our community and yes, weddings and rent, I can't walk away from the dialogue that we had and you know, the thing that we all breathed this sigh of relief many months ago, where we were making the tough decision and whether or not to even move forward, was, by frankly, the staff input that said, boy, if we rent this place out, and whether or not to even move forward, was, by frankly, the staff input that said, boy, if we rent this place out, and that was based on the options of the old layout, five and six thousand square feet, we're going to generate enough revenue that our annual cost and subsidies only $58,000. My concern is, and it's at least something we should be talking about, is it isn't going to be close to that, if we don't build this space right with us enough flexibility as we can. And we're going to be talking about a subsidy of a couple hundred thousand dollars a year, if not more. And maybe we're talking about that already. I don't know. So those are my issues. The only thing that I ask and have asked and tried to articulate two weeks ago is, you know, we've made decisions tonight. We really had our first dialogue on 4,000 square feet versus option B, which was a request of the Council to look at what an option B would look like before the dialogue got started two weeks ago. And I just will urge us to make sure that we talk to the stakeholders. I know we've done it individually. Some of you all have. I've tried to do it this week and learned a great deal about it. I personally would like a little bit more time to work those issues and make sure when we get the product, the end product, it's the right product. Whether it's 4,000 square feet after a dialogue in discussion, whether it's 6,000 square feet after a dialogue. There's another discussion that was laid on the table this week of 5,000. We've picked up some more space by the basement, which we just decided and discussed the first time tonight, so that we get this thing right, because we're going to get one shot at it. And that's my only request. I have no hidden agenda here. I have no illusions of grandeur. I understand that in some circles and stakeholders' minds that first and foremost, this should be performance-based and the concern that if it gets too big, that it then competes with more community use, I get all that. I will just suggest for those of you who have not had a chance to look at a 4,000 square foot room or a 6,000 square foot room that neither of them are huge. We're talking about the different, small and a little bit bigger than small. We're not talking about big, at least in my judgment. And I'll just say, again, meeting space flexibility, performance space flexibility, herringbone layouts, I think are going to be preferred then long, elongated theater set outs and all the things to go with that. So that's my only request. I will just share with you. I know there was concern expressed, boy, if we don't make this decision tonight, the family, we won't be able to meet the agreement. I, on my own, reached out to the family into two Tom Yates and the folks that represented it and it got a strong feeling back that as long as we're moving in the right direction with the right spirit, the right heart and which I believe we are that certainly another couple of weeks in dialogue and discussion is not the end of the world. So that's what I'm asking tonight. I think it's the right thing to do, but certainly I understand that there's going to be differences probably. Impinion has been shared with me over the last couple of days. So with that, certainly we'll open up the dialogue and discussion on the meeting space. Comments, thoughts, questions on the dialogue on the meeting space? I am. You're dead wrong, you're little wrong, you're okay, whatever, Mr. Drummond. I would echo the mayor's comments, I think we do need a little bit more time. We have one opportunity to do this right. I have met with many members in the community. I have talked with many members of staff, work with Mr. Hughes, and mayor alluded to the 5,000 square foot plan. And that is sort of the compromise that I have tried to look at here. Excuse me to look at here and another alternative between the 4,000 and the 6,000 and all my colleagues here have a copy of that and I believe you have that. You can present it as well. But I think it's just time for us to take a step back and get some more input. You get to recognize that plan A, which I commend the Chairman NAB of Prague and all the numbers of the arts community FPYC all the various groups and community organizations that came into this That's a starting point That's not a finished line And I think that we need to take a step back and look at the options and you know, I look at possible this third option which Might be you know, minimal to some folks so that we can find common ground because as I've said since the beginning of this discussion I have two concerns and the mayor addressed one of them which was the cost the operational cost of this We're about to face one of the toughest budget situations we've ever faced in the City of Fairfax's history. Yet we were talking about possibly adding operational cost to $200 to $500,000 a year for the facility. That's one to one and a half cents on the tax rate. Have we had a discussion with the community about whether they want to support their not? Yeah, maybe they do, maybe they don't. Well, we need to have that discussion. And that discussion is related to the layout of this facility and how it's used. And the second part of this is the use of the facility. This is a community center. And there is a focus on the arts, obviously. I think it's a contract which I've read and reread several times indicates when you have performance space, need to have space for the arts. Without a doubt that is a primary importance at least in my book. But as someone who comes from a background of theater and music and drama, I know that performance space needs to be bigger in my personal view. And I think I echo that Mayor's comments in saying and asking people to go and look at 4,000, 6,000 square foot facilities and just have a judgment. For an example, I think linear cafeteria with its low ceilings is about 4,000 square feet 6,000 square feet. And even that can feel a bit restricted. Now, granted, the stealing height has something to do with it. But I just urge the community to go out and look at facilities and look at other places. And this just, you know, continue the dialogue. If the Sherwood family, who quite frankly, have bestowed us a wonderful gift to have this project go forward in the here in the city that we've talked about for 40 some years. I think we owe it to them to continue to discussion, to do it right in a bear honor, because if we don't do it right and we don't do it the way we want to, we're going to look back and say which we wanted to add something differently. I don't think any of us wants to have those feelings that we should have had a forward discussion. So I'm asked I would concur with the mayor and would support continuing the discussion on decisions so that we can have that discussion. Thank you. Mr. Mayor. Well, first off, I'm sure most of us are familiar with Winston Churchill's famous statement that we shape our buildings and afterwards our building shape us. And I think that that comment bears repeating. If anyone designed and involved in the design of space, it's a principle that we need to keep in mind. And trying to think about this for myself, I was doing a little bit of reading. There's a young virtual architect named Joe Bouchard, who has an interesting blog called The Arch. And I want to share with you something that you wrote recently online. And you see, you know, physical architecture has a static artifact. And it continues to transform us long after the construction's done. But most part buildings as a whole are relatively static. And they don't change as a result of budget constraints and physical limitations. But if we imagine a 30-year time lapse video of a typical building, we would see that the building may experience occupant turnover, changes in function, renovations, and additions and more. In any case, the physical characteristics of the building as a whole would appear fairly stubborn, while the systems and people using the building would appear to flow through the building like water. I thought about that comment in light of this discussion today and we're struggling with the design of a determine how we relate to each other and how we express those relationships artistically, whether it's through creative arts or performing arts. And I want to say that I want to commend the stakeholders and our volunteer citizens who have been involved in this process for a long, long time. For many people, their hopes of this building have existed for literally decades. And this is a unique situation where our commission on the arts and crab together worked to reach a consensus about what is the best that we can do given the resources that we have. a consensus about what is the best that we can do given the resources that we have? There are some significant constraints, both financially and the footprint that we're dealing with here. And I believe that the proposal A is a, reflects the balance, both physically and programmatically to try and accommodate all of those needs. Yes, it would be nice to have a larger space for performing arts, but I will take issue with the statement that you can't have a good performance unless you have a large space. Performance is performance and yes, it ought to be sized to the room that it's in, but great performance can occur in any venue and outdoor, indoor, larger, small. And I don't believe that larger performance space is necessarily in and of itself better. There are some some serious comments that, there's some comments that I think we need to take seriously from our professional advisor here. And that is that if we expand the event space and the event use of this building, it will have some serious impacts upon the entire site, not just in parking, but when a facility is being used for a large event and the preparation for that event is occurring sometimes that building can be out of pocket for pretty much the entire day before the event and Oftentimes these events will occur either on Saturdays or Sunday nights or Saturday or Sunday afternoons which would preclude the building from being available to citizens for pretty much the balance of the day. I also, as I said in my last work session, small rooms as a part and in conjunction with the larger areas of the building, are where community can occur, whether it's community groups, scouts, clubs, civic associations, et cetera. We do need that space in the city, and we needed in this part of the city. And I think that the first proposal accommodates that. So I support proposal A because it is a support for balance. The building is not everything for everyone. Most certainly it isn't. But I do believe it's the best that's reasonably achievable. And that's not something not only to affirm, but to celebrate. And for a community of ours to be having this discussion in the first place, and these economic times, in and of itself is a remarkable situation and I think we should be thankful for that and For all those reasons I wouldn't I would encourage my colleagues to move forward with the proposal of Option A is presented by the architect. Thanks other comments Miss Cross Thanks. Other comments? Ms. Cross. Thank you. I strongly concur with Mr. Meyer and I think his comments are very tough. very moving frankly. We are in a very luxurious situation here for the times that we're in. This is a great gift and I think as the mayor said, we should make the very most of it. But we began this process almost a year and a half ago and signed a commitment with the family almost exactly a year ago. And we have a responsibility to those folks to move ahead and get this underway. I don't think that there's anything to be gained by putting off a decision and everything to lose because we can't go forward. We're paralyzed. Our architect absolutely cannot move until he knows the footprint of this building. Is plan A an absolutely perfect building in my opinion? No, it's not. But until we decide a footprint and can then be able to tweak and talk about, you know, cabinets and flooring and all of those other things, we can't we were paralyzed until we make a decision. I favor plan A because I think it suits our needs beautifully. It provides a lovely performance area with a very acoustically designed and accommodating ceiling. It accommodates our performance both vocal teachers, the instrumentalists, the dance, and our painters and crafters. All of those things are accommodated so nicely with with Plane. And my complaint with Plane B, frankly, is that it takes too much out of the building. It's a very large space that causes us to have to enlarge the bathrooms and causes us to enlarge the parking lot and takes away space that other art groups could be using. So I am very much in favor of a, I'm also very much in favor of getting off the mark, you know, in June we had a wonderful presentation by four different stakeholders, the Commission on the Arts, FPYC, Parks and Recreation, and the Senior Center. These are, this is the nuts and bolts of our city and certainly stakeholders in this enterprise. enterprise and I am ready to move forward. I think we've examined this upside down and back and forth in any way shape or form. We could study it. And it's time to take action and I would urge everyone to strongly consider plan A when we take a consensus of council. Thank you. Mr. Talbys. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. When we take a consensus with council, thank you. Just on. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd just like to briefly comment on two sort of the two aspects of the discussion. I think we're talking about here. One is plan A versus plan B and two, the decision whether we're going to go forward or continue the dialogue for a short period of time further. I've met with all the stakeholders, I think, like everybody else has. And I am inclined at this point to support Plan A. I think in any situation when you're dealing with a 12,000 square foot box, there are tradeoffs involved. And while you, I do think you could, we all want to have a acoustically pleasing performance space, but not at the expense of some of the other rooms that are part of the plan that I think are going to be more frequently used, albeit by smaller groups. But on a regular basis, you'll have classes in there and art classes and rehearsals or practices. If you, to make a bigger space, if you have to, you know, if those small rooms have to sacrifice, I think you lose some of the ability for the attractiveness of those types of activities in the community center. Having said that, in the spirit of the decision that we have, you know, at least come to tonight and move forward, I think there may be some opportunity. I've met with everybody that I think is in this room, or talked everybody in this room about this, as far as, you know, if we can sit down and figure out what this means to have mechanical room in the basement and that frees up some of the rooms, so we're not expensing the smaller rooms and maybe we can get to that. I don't want to stand in the way of dialogue that I think is in the right spirit. I do not believe that means much longer because I really do. I'm very anxious to get started on this. And I go into that with an open mind, but with a strong inclination that if you can make a performance space bigger that doesn't sacrifice the utility of the smaller rooms, maybe we can come to consensus with the people who are going to be using this. The only way to know that for sure is to continue to talk. And so knowing where I am at this point on plan A versus plan B, with a willingness to continue talking, I think we can at least delay for a little bit. Particularly if that is, if there's indications from the Sherwood family that that is not an impediment to their overall goal and vision. So thank you. Mr. Rasmussen. I have always been in favor of the larger performance space simply because I thought that was what we need in the city. But once we became constrained at 12,000 square foot footprint, I feel that we have to go with option A because, as Mr. Stombrist just said, the impact on the rest of the space, I think, is really dramatic. And it ends up, I believe, not being a really well-functioning, or at least from the Scheme Acts we've seen, does not to be as well-functioning, building, and space with option B as with option A. So I'm clearly in favor of moving forward with option A. And I would, I would urge just to go with that because we've had a lot of discussion with a lot of people and I'm not sure that more discussion is going to change it. more discussion is going to change it. Mr. Mayor. I do want to point out that this has been a learning experience for me and I appreciate the comments by those who are interested in a larger space. I truly looked at this with an intellectual honesty to try and figure out whether there was some other way to accommodate a larger area. And it wasn't that I latched on to the first proposal that came along. But I do think it's important to the council and for the citizens to know that I asked the staff to give us an estimate of what it has cost us to continue to come up with additional drawings. And it's about $11,000. Now, $11,000 out of 5 million to get it right, I think is probably money well spent. But time is money and we need to, there's a lot of work to be done once a decision is made in terms of the building schedule and getting it phased in and doing it when the weather is appropriate. And so consequently as much as I want to support Mr. Stomberies' comment about continuing the dialogue. I think that we can, if we could reach a decision this evening to move forward with Plan A, recognizing that there could be some minor adjustments to the floor plan by our decision to put the mechanical room downstairs. We ought to do that and make sure that the stakeholders are part of that discussion, but I don't think that precludes us from going ahead and making a decision this evening. Particularly since we've already spent an additional $11,000 on design costs. Mr. Greenfield. Thank you. I think, Mr. Mayor. I'm sitting here looking at Mr. Drummond's option here and trying to analyze this versus the other two options, the 6,000 square foot performance hall versus the 4,000 square foot performance hall. A couple of questions for staff or the architect. Do we have any sense, as clearly we won't use this solely for performances. Do we have any sense as to the need for this size space for other purposes in terms of income that we could potentially receive from renting this? Do you mean for the 5,000 or 4,000? 4,000. 4,000. I mean clearly we know we use Old Town Hall a lot, and there's limits with having everything on one floor. You're gonna have that building, you're gonna have this building, and you're gonna have a room with a full kitchen, by the way, at the interpretive center, just 300 yards north on Oedley Highway. I'm just trying to understand before we jump into the water. A very quick analysis was done a while back and it clearly showed that the smaller spaces actually generate more revenue per square foot than the larger space. So if your question is about pure wholesale revenue, that's an analysis that's very clear. Does the big space have the capacity to handle one event or the other? That's a very subjective and that's judgment. If I may, I think you were asking for, if the need obviously for all town, considering all town hall, we have a number of rectals that we can't accommodate based on size in a square footage that it's at all town hall. So wherever the option, whether it's 4,000, 5,000 or 6,000, there is a definite need. Also with all town hall, with a number of uses that we have, art free uses, whether it's community uses, community groups that use that venue, whether it's the Jubilee Airs, the Art League, and so forth, it will free up. There is a need to free up some space and to have larger, rentable space for events. Again, that's at any option,,000 5,000 6,000 and when people leave the city if you will because they can't do it at Old Town Hall do you know where they go do they go to a waterford I mean clearly you know this can't solely be if we're gonna pay for this and we're gonna be able to cover what are operating costs are gonna be we're going to pay for this and we're going to be able to cover what our operating costs are going to be. We're not going to do that solely on the performance side of the house. That's presumably going to be mostly free except for maybe covering the keeping building monitor there and covering the cleaning costs. So you know, you throw some estimates out there that it might be $100,000 or $58,000 a year, which I would probably double that at least, and what the operating costs are gonna be. I mean, it is, I guess what I'm sticking on, I'm just trying to work through this on the fly here, as you know, I thought, you know, when we started talking about this, the initial discussions of putting in the footers to allow an expansion up made sense because we could get rid of another building, potentially we'd green acres that we are doing a number of things over there and maybe consolidate everything into one building. Listening to you tonight, that's not going to work. And I don't like the idea you've got a beautiful looking building here and adding a second story to that. Changes the look of that building dramatically. And it makes it, in my mind, look like we have a police one and two side by side here. Exactly right. And so for that reason, going up doesn't make sense to me. But now we are forever, unless we go out the back at some point and we get the county facility, we're going to have this building and we're going to have green acres. And I know we've had, I've been on the Prab when we've had these discussions about community space and doing the assessment that you described. And I recognize back then that we talked about maybe we're a city that can't do everything in one building and we have to have more than one building, and that's fine. But it comes back to making sure we're doing the right thing here. Correct. And I don't know if it's 4,000, 5,000 or 6,000 square feet. I think there's some merit to, do you want to have a performance hall that has a stage down at one end and everybody is lined up all the way down like you are in a movie theater? Do you want to have a, you know, I think I think one of the things that has to that we've got to come to grips with too as a as a group of people. We also do performing arts centers. We're doing a very large performing arts center, 60 million dollars center for George Mason University. We've done small community theaters. And we've also done very flex theaters, theaters in the round. And this is not a theater. This is a space for voice and instrument. It is a space for recitals, ensembles, for dance performances, and for social events. It is not a proscenium theater. And as such, it is a very flexible space. So I think that that's the one thing that I urge you to try to become comfortable with. That didn't try to be all things for all people. And focusing on that space alone, I think Mr. Myers' comments were terribly sensitive and terribly important to the overview of the balance of the building as a whole. Mr. Greenfield, please. We know we're not going to have larger than the 12,000 square foot building. Yes, sir. Is there anything that prevents us from moving forward tonight while still affording us the opportunity to figure out what the internal way out is going to? Oh, absolutely. We will continue to work diligently to do that. I think though that in order to do that, we can no longer keep knitting two dresses. Nitting to dresses. Screenful, can I just quickly? You know, one of the things that we haven't really talked about is I know Mr. Drummond last week and I assume I have seen it. I'm Mr. Greenfield, just had it. You're calling scheme 8.2, which is in essence a 5,000 square foot room instead of a fourth hour. I'm not really sure how it did it. Well, it's sacrifice. It's just not finished. It has a multi-purpose room that connects into the performance room. And scheme A does not have. It has, if you take the mechanical space and put it in a basement, which we've already agreed to do, you could pick up your classroom space there, because it's virtually the same. It's 18 by 16 or almost 17 by 18. And the only real difference in the layout is somehow, you know, quite frankly, a 82-foot-wide room versus a 62-foot-wide room, just from my experience, gives a world of additional flexibility. It's almost a square. It's almost a square, but is there... We haven't talked about this option 8.2. Is there... Is this a viable option that we ought to at least be talking about here? I think it is. I think it is. And I think there are some things to be learned from this option We design this by the way over the internet Without totally devoid of any human contact In doing so again, I point out how we learn from when we draw things, things always look different when you draw them. And I think the adjacency of the multipurpose room is something that should be considered. I think here and the way Elio has very artfully included glass doors from the gallery side and to the outside to let natural light come in to that to the gallery space is brilliant. I think this is a consideration. And so I think here, but and here's what this plan does. I think this plan preserves the the the intimacy and the singular identity of the spaces that is so desired by many of the stakeholders. And at the same time makes the big space a thousand square feet bigger. So I think it's worth studying. Well, it just strikes me that if the concern was this multipurpose room that opens up in his overwhelming and the individual rooms, this does it all and it gets another thousand square feet in the big room. I'm struck as why wouldn't that be a preferred plan to a, yeah, we're keeping in tact the theme of the independent rooms and the separate rooms and the mechanical room now can become the classroom Yeah, I think I think that with with with with further study for their work This is a very good plan to go with I think another thing that it does very artfully is that it captures the square footage of the corridor in the original Scheme a space we have that corridor going down captures that square footage of the corridor in the original scheme A space. We have that corridor going down captures that square footage. So that is another benefit. So I think that by voting for scheme A, it will allow us to pursue this scheme. This is essentially scheme A. I'll bet with a larger community meeting room, but I think it deserves the council again of the stakeholders. So I think that by going with approving Scheme and I hate to be an advocacy role here. We too. So. Okay. Let's stop there. Mr. Gratiel. Thank you. If we're looking for a vote tonight to move this along further, I would go with a point two. I think one of the things that concern me with the other option, if you look at Scheme V, not so much the size of the room, but kind of the layout of the building, the change, the inability if you ever wanted to expand out the back because we picked up the property from the county, you can't do that with this. Well, no, I, yes. You could do it. Yes, you could. Because while you have a multipurpose room here, you still have the ability to change that for a lot less than you would if you have a Format's room. I was the entire back of the correct buildings. Yeah, I see this as a I see this as an iteration a further iteration of scheme a So I would you know, I'm not totally Sold on point two because I think there's some little nor are we nor are we I'm you're the expert nor are we okay I would do I would do this all right I am if what I'm hearing you say though is you would like to noodle this a little further does that mean you want to noodle it further and we should wait a couple of weeks or you want to go forward and noodle it while you're going forward. I want to noodle it while I'm going forward. Well can I make a suggestion? Please. And I'm trying to just get this thing off of Dead Center. Why don't we throw Scheme C out? Okay. And continue to noodle or whatever the right words and the expert. I mean, I'll gonna just say it. I had not really studied this, Mr. Drummond. I certainly applaud your efforts in trying to find a compromise here. But I would move a two to sort of the first line and then default to A, if A2 for some reason just didn't get there and then and then try to move the dialogue for that way. Get rid of C and see if we can't get much closer to an in-game here. Everybody have? No. Yes, actually, Mr. Almanquale is aware. I sent this out to the Council of late last week for a right to consider. I want to applaud Mike McCarty for working very hard on this and trying to provide digital interface, if we will, with Mr. Hughes. The attempt here is to provide for and find common ground. And I've already met with some stakeholders. I've already provided some great suggestions for how we can improve on this. But I think Scheme, each Scheme point two as we're talking about, provides a foundation. So Mr. Ewskin-Nudel. But it allows for consensus for us to move forward tonight in a way that will provide, forward that consensus for which we need to move forward in the orders. That's what I'm afraid. But it's we have the foundation which 8.2 would provide we can at least move forward and As Mr. Stombrace so artfully said we can build that consensus with some of this take over and get more deep Yeah, sort of get down into the new doling of it I think the impact of the basement too also Without it down but some of the but the general structure of this the 5,000 square feet the performance the rehearsal space being connected to it and such You know those are the basic foundations basic foundations, the art room and such. I think it would provide that foundation for which we can go forward. So I'd encourage the council, if this is what we put on the table, go forward so that we can get resolution and we can allow Mr. Hughes to continue to do the wonderful work. You know, his the member doing. All righty, can we shoot that down, support it, thoughts please keep it on the table for dialogue. Get rid of C, keep A and A2 alive, emphasis on A2. in A2 alive emphasis on A2. We have an ability as we're noodling it to. But that Mr. Greenfields were noodled, yes. Got it? Is noodling include getting noodling with our key people in our community? Should, absolutely. I would hope so. I think that's, well, let's just deem that. I mean, I would be hopeful that here's what I would say I know you're missing we have one or two missing the twenty-eighth why don't we just agree if we not put words and assuming we get a consensus That we're gonna put this back on for final action one way the other on whatever the first meeting is the first we could December the second week. The 11th? When's the meeting December the 11th? The 11th? 9th? 9th? What? Oh. We do have one on the 2nd? Right. But for sure the 9th. So why don't we just agree no later than the 9th and if we decide we're having a meeting on the second, we get this out in the community. We ask for feedback. We keep A or A2 or reditions of that alive and throw out C and see if that doesn't get us. Well, colleagues, I would like to put a little finer. Thank you. I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to put a finer point on this. let's let's remain this back to the Commission on the Arts and Prab to consider this and Come back with a recommendation Well, I would hope we would do that as well as the entire community I mean, this is a community center. I think that would be a given and certainly was the spirit of saying that but shouldn't be limited to just no. Okay, but there I think that the the staff ought to coordinate that citizen input with those two key constituencies as well as FUIC seniors who are you know I think brought all agree to that. I think we're all agree to that. Mr. Mayor, one thing I just want to provide, Mr. Mayor, clarity on is, because I think this is what, if I understand, and Mr. Riccardo, Mr. Huda are looking for is, A and A point, A and A point, two, are two different schemes. So the question is, do we want to to come are we coming out of the recommendation tonight for them to using Mr. Greenfield's words noodle that one specific one so that then we can take a final judgment on December 9th because I feel like if we give them two things to work on and to Mr. Myers point as we're trying to get community input. That's gonna, we might wind up going back to square A. No pun intended. So. Well, square point A is already been done. A2, I think if I heard you right, there's a few minor improvements. We put the mechanical room downstairs. We turn that into a sum of classroom or whatever we didn't have to Yeah. I can't imagine that's $11,000 project between now and the next couple of weeks to move some lines around and look at it. We are devoted. I was hoping you would say that. So we're moving forward they point to. I guess. No. Let us for clarity please. This is an artistic enterprise. This is a figure ground exercise, where the figure influences the ground in vice versa. I would advocate that you instruct us to be very candid with you, I view Schene A and A.2 is the same. They accomplish Mr. Myers very sensitive observations about community and diversity of use. That's the key decision you're making here tonight. That's the directive you're giving us here tonight. That you want more diversity within the spatial framework. We understand that. So I urge you to give us direction to work with both Scheme A and A.2 in light of the new basement concept to come up with a scheme working with the community and all of the stakeholders involved to come to you with a recommendation that everyone is in favor of. And we are in the business of building census. Okay, thank you. I think we can get to a consensus that A and A2 or what continues the dialogue. We set up, I don't want to say a drop dead day, but I can't think of it. Hour of tonight, I can't think of a better word. We're going to make a decision on no later than the 11th and maybe sooner and that you will be willing to help us move some walls around in SMA2 and get that into the community. Mr. Sisson and continue the dialogue. I wish I could say that's the last time for the agenda night but we're not even close. We've got close meeting and others. So thank you for your time and energy into the community. Appreciate it. We're going to now go to the discussion of the 2009 legislative package. Mr. Sisson. I mean, do we have a package that we can do, everybody's looked at that we can just say all in favor or don't take us through something that we don't need to, but this will be brought to the Council again on the 25th with the Council actually to approve. So this was just the work session to go over what we have so far in Mr. Drummond also had a couple items that he wanted to discuss. We can go through this. If I could, we're still in session and we're picking up all the noise evidently on the TV camera. So if the community dialogue, I'll do respect it throughout my hallway. Thank you. Please. Thank you. Mr. Mayor again, what we do have in front of us is the proposed legislative program. This will be brought back for council on November 25th for approval by the council at that time. We have a couple different sections in this one, which I think is the most important to the city, which are city initiatives, which we have three listed right now, which I think we can spend. Those are going to be the items of the greatest concern to the council. There's also the school board, the joint position with the school board, which right now we just simply have a draft. The school board has to approve their legislative item. We also have support items and we have the regional package and then Mr. Drummond had three items also that he wanted to discuss with the council. Okay, so before we get to the three new items, is everybody okay with the items is recommended by staff? Yes. Okay, Mr. Drummond. I will. Brevity is key here. So I'm going to go through them fast. You have a letter that was on your desk on the dies that summarized all three pieces of things I like doing for the council's consideration to include in which is attached to the supporting documents. To get the City of Fairfax you see it on the Northern Virginia, soil water conservation district board. Specifically, what this will do is add one seed to the board, which concernedly contains just membership from Fairfax County. The board and the district provides many services, education, outreach and environmental issues. Technical assistance to homeowners who have drainage problems, some biological monitoring, the spiraling environment of water resources management. What a range of the district and having membership on there is that we would also be able to obtain grants from state and federal resources and programs that benefit the city for which we are not able to get to you now because of some staff shortage, not staff shortages, but just because of the lack of staff resources. They also provide technical expertise on environmental issues and what I would consider relatively minimal cost. And I think, you know, Miss Cross, myself and some others have encounters in situations where we're having some of the expertise. Is, can I just not mean to jump in here, but is there any objection to any of these three? What would it cost to be for? 10,000. The, it would probably be 10,000, possibly 10,000 dollars of contribution to the board. Right now the county contributes $470,000. As we were only contribute 10 to 15, and it might even be that high that we would contribute. As it's written now. The other thing to do is it also provides for one person elected as he's elected, I believe, every three years. I mean, also we're asking at this stage is for the legislative authority. We're not asking whether we want to support it. That's correct. If we get it, is that correct? That's correct. Is there any objection? Certainly the autism one, certainly sitting in the top of the resolution here. What was the third one? And the third one was just to have legislation that would amend the certificate of compliance statute for housing rentals to cover tenant activities and pretty much mirrors the city ordinance that we have previously. And again, that is sponsored by Delegate Day with Boulevard. Miss Cross? Just kind of on the soon what a conservation board. Do we not get the benefit of those services already? Not to the extent that the having to see it on the board would provide us. For example, there are a lot of technical assistance on water drainage issues that the board has a separate staff board that's utilized. They also do a lot of biological water testing, a lot of environment, they do it's environmental testing as well. The also from education standpoint and outreach standpoint is really where they're truly valuable. And because at the end of the day, perfect county and fair and fact city are, even though we're separate jurisdictions, we're still one body, we're still one of the just big bay watershed, for example. We really are providing a collective and holistic voice to some of the environmental issues that affect us regardless of boundaries. And I think that's one of the most important things that would help us as well. Because we do have, I think, as we've seen a strong environmental community in the city, and I think they would appreciate that as well. Mr. Mayer. What is the ditch that's being scratched by the police? Mr. Meyer. What? I don't think there's an itch being scrapped. I think it's serving the public policy purpose which is as I just mentioned the city and the county represent one body one landmass while we have political boundaries. We're still on the same watershed and I know you are concerned with environmental issues. So-on-water conservation board was created by the general assembly and their separate subdivisions all across the Commonwealth, which the intent is to focus on protecting our soil water as well as educating our citizens on a way to conserve and ways to help staff, quite frankly, when it comes to environmental issues. And we are a small jurisdiction. I mean, you have a city of Alexandria, for example, which has its own environmental resources department. We can't afford that. This provides that if we choose to go forward and we just need a legislation to have it, this provides a vehicle for which we go to go forward and we just need a legislation to have it. They're supported. This provides a vehicle for which we go. They go forward. I don't miss interpret my question. I just wanted to make sure I understood. I wouldn't want the board to be addressing issues that David Hudson staff might be addressing in response to a value issue. Those are asking. Based upon the delegate and I's review of this and based on the staff review, they would not be competing. It would be complimentary. That's a valid question. They would not be competing. It would be complimentary. Mr. Mayor. Mr. Cross. Let me just say that I represent the city on the Potomac watershed roundtable. And I also go to the NVRC meetings for the city. Both organizations obviously are very environmentally involved. I don't have an objection to us being part of this board. I do object to the $10,000. It seems like a lot of money in these times. And we're already involved in two other bodies that are leading the way environmentally in the region. Frankly, the Potomac watershed roundtable is in my opinion that's sort of a questionable involvement because we have no exposure to Potomac River or we're not in you know, and I go and he have my box lunch and I you know listen to the speakers and that's interesting, but I don't know exactly why the city is involved in it. It Mr. Mayor, I can respond. I think that's exactly the reason why I think we need to see it on the board. Because some of these other groups are what I would say advocacy groups and do very good job advocating for needs, educating elected officials, working as a liaison. The difference here is that the board provides technical assistance and staff. They're actually staff that can provide the assistance that's needed as a vote and can actually work with home owners, for example, on drainage issues. You can work with city residents on environmental issues that they might have. They go beyond and don't do not conflict with what existing city staff is doing. So I think that's a very valid point. I think it's, you know, the other, the other situation, the other difference here is this isn't actually separate, you know, as a separate elected official who actually serves on it. It's nonpartisan keeping them from the city, but if somebody who represents our interest specifically on environmental issues, I mean, it's a very novel concept, but it's one of the things that I think makes come more special in that regard that we're able to do that. So, you know, this is a piece of legislation that, you know, we at least need to have the first step of having included in the package and being introduced and seeing where it goes from there. Well, I assume that from the, we don't have any problems on the first two issues, it sounds like there may be. Let's just see if we can get a consensus. Is there a willingness to allow the legislation to go forward or we want to just pull it from our legislative package. Mr. Drummond obviously you would like to to keep it in the package. Mr. Meyer any thoughts? We're talking about well how much does the county pay into this? $170,000 and is that how what's that based on population? Is it a population? The other resources that they have Primarily it's it's roughly for us. It's like 50 cents a person or 45 cents a person roughly So it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $12,000 for us. Yeah, if you're basing on that exact number, I don't have the exact calculation of the format for which they use, but based upon that, back to the napkin. Sure. Mr. Russ, you feel strong? We won't win the other. No, I don't feel strongly, but I do agree with Mrs. Cross. And we can do it of a void cost this year. We probably ought to do. And this is maybe one we could defer for another year or two. Mr. Greenfield. I would defer it. And the reason I would defer it is because I would not. I mean I could sit here tonight and say go forward and give us the enabling legislation. But I'm not going to support spending the money. I mean we've got an original commission that has environmental staff on board. We have staff here. I mean I'm just not quite sure I'm completely on board with how this would work and interact with a jurisdiction which they've never done anything before. I mean, I think we've done a good job here in the city over the years and we've never had a seat on this board and I'm not quite sure the true benefits aside from costing us some more money here to be involved. So, but the other two. I'm fine. I'm sorry Mr. Grumman, but this is I just can't fight this one. I'm sorry. I keep my the cost. I mean the enabling legislation I wouldn't be taking effect and that hasn't done half the day on it. So I don't think next election anyway is until 2010 or 2011. So in other words, to Mr. Greenfield's point, I guess the concern I have is we talk a lot about wanting to participate in being involved on a regional level in the sense of having the expertise. I mean, we've missed cross, you know, and I just found ourselves in a situation where that could have been helpful. And not staying in the cost, which I think is actually a second point. I mean, I put that in here as a matter of full disclosure. You know, we just spent an additional $1,000 to put a elevator in for a community center. So I mean- Well Mr. Drummond, I understand- I understand- I just what I'm saying is though, I think that I just don't want to be short-sighted in this regard. That's all. Because the cost factor can be pushed out to later. Mr. Dummeries. I don't necessarily have a problem with moving it as long as we're not inside and spending money. Right, we're not exactly. Okay. Mr. Meyer? I defer another session. So there's four to refer to to keep it in so we'll defer to this point. All right. I think that's the end of the legislative package. We're not headed. All right. We're now recessed. Re-community or regular meeting. I move the City Council convene to close me in an intersection 2.2, 3,711A to discuss appointments to boards of commission on intersection 2.2, 3,711A7 for consultation with legal counsel for legal advice. I saw council members in favor of the motion signify by voting aye. Opposed? And a passing, an animacy went into city council and a closed meeting at 1150. I would suggest we just all turn off our mic. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go back to the old town. I'm gonna go back to the old town. I'm gonna go back to the old town. I'm gonna go back to the old town. I'm gonna go back to the old town. I'm gonna go back to the old town. I'm gonna go back to the old town. I'm gonna go back to the old town. I'm gonna go back to the old town. I'm gonna go back to the old town. I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go back to the city. I'm gonna go back to the city. I'm gonna go back to the city. I'm gonna go back to the city. I'm gonna go back to the city. I'm gonna go back to the city. I'm gonna go back to the city. I'm gonna go back to the city. I'm gonna go back to the city. I'm gonna go back to the city. I'm gonna go back to the city. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna to play a the next one. I'm going to go to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna to go to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to go to the beach. I'm going to go a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more. I'm going to man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not go back to the place where I'm gonna go and I'm gonna go back to the place where I'm gonna go and I'm gonna go back to the place where I'm gonna go and I'm gonna go back to the place where I'm gonna go and I'm gonna go back to the place where I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going a bad guy. I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm gonna go back to the school. I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not to go to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to go to the next one. I Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. come on. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh I'm a little bit more careful. I'm going to go to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going a bad guy. I'm gonna go home. Oh I'm gonna die, yeah. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, I'm gonna go back to the old town, I'm gonna go back to the old town, I'm gonna go back to the old town, I'm gonna go back to the old town, I'm gonna go back to the old town, I'm gonna go back to the old town, I'm gonna go back to the old town, I'm not going to be a good guy. I'm not going to be a good guy. I'm not going to be a good guy. I'm not going to be a good guy. I'm not going to be a good guy. I'm not going to be a good guy. I'm not going to be a good guy. I'm not going to be a good guy. I'm not going to be a good guy. I'm not a bad guy. Thank you. I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna a bad guy, I'm not a bad guy, I'm not a bad guy, I'm not a bad guy, I'm not a bad guy, I'm not a bad guy, I'm not a bad guy, I'm not a bad guy, I'm not a bad guy, I'm not a bad guy, I'm not a bad guy, I'm not a bad guy, I'm not a bad guy, I'm not a bad guy, I'm not a bad guy, I'm not a bad guy, I'm not a bad guy, I'm not your man I'm gonna go back to the old town. I'm gonna go back to the old town. I'm gonna go back to the old town. I'm gonna go back to the old town. I'm gonna go back to the old town. I'm gonna go back to the old town. I'm gonna go back to the old town. I'm gonna go back to the old town. I'm gonna go back to the old town. I'm gonna go back to the old town. I'm gonna little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more Wow! I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. you I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm I'm a go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. Okay, I move the City Council, or on the wrong side, at 12, 10 p.m. the City Council concluded its close meeting, discuss appointments to boards and commissions. Excuse me, and for consultation with legal counsel for legal advice, I moved that each of us certify to the best of each council members. Now that your only public business matters lawfully exempt from the open meeting requirements and the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and only public business matters identified in the motion. Communion closed meeting were heard, discussed or considered. All council members in favor of the certification motion signify by voting aye. Aye. Opposed and a passed unanimously. We're now down to appointments, the boards and commissions, Mr. Rasmussen. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I move the appointment of Val Morgan for the remainder of a three-year term extending through November 20, 2010 to the Community and the Care and Community. Second. Boobby, Mr. Rasmussen, seconded by Mr. Meyer, all in favor of the motion, signify by voting aye. Aye. Opposed? An impassioned anemously. Comments by Council, Mr. Drummond. At 12.15 AM, I hate to to do this but I do have a cup of We do so. I tell you that the love I feel of this body is Everwhelming. First I do want to say thank you to our veterans today to Don Veterans Day. Specifically to Councilman Stombray. It's served our country admirably and he soon will be exiting the armed forces and will be A retired Army officer here within a month. So thank you Steve for all you've done. I want to say congratulations to our new Congressman elected Jerry Conley, who won election last Tuesday. Jerry is definitely a well public servant and I personally look forward to working with him to ensure that the city of Fairfax is represented at the federal level. My appreciation for retiring Congressman Tom Davis, for his dedication to the city in his years at Public Service as well. I'd also like to propose that we approve the Mayor of Presented Resolution honoring Congressman Davis for his efforts on behalf of the city at an appropriate time. I'd also like to say thank you to Susan Gray over historic resource department. She provided an excellent in-depth toward the new Blenheim Interpretive Center to my family, you with her in Wisconsin. And also I was there and Susan gave a great presentation and showed the link which is between our city and the state of Wisconsin. So that's off to her. Speaking of Blenheim, I have spoken with many of you as well as members of the community. We would like to see Blenheim open to the public for events such as wedding, acceptance, reenactments, and other events where we could showcase the city's latest attraction and our most prized historical asset. However, I understand from staff that in order for us to truly enjoy this site, we, the council, need to review on a brew of a special use permit and use policy governing facility as the one we do hat now as I adequately address the use of this facility. I'm actually passing out the existing policy so all of you have a copy of that. So with that in mind and with the consent of my colleagues I like to have staff or culinary advice SUP that they could bring with the council that would cover three filing items. The first is rental of the Blenheim Interpretive Center. It's grounds for such events as weddings, resettlement meetings, historical occasions, reenactments, and other events, but a facility would provide for an ideal setting. Number two, a fee schedule that ensures revenue generated by the rental to a cover or come close to covering related operational cost. And finally, established hours of youth for rental or the property to ensure that it large remains open to the public. Could I know that there are some members of the community who are with us as well. So I'll pause there before I go to my last thing if anybody has any comments. Mr. Sisson, I thought we are, is it the key here before it was an interim policy? Yes. Because we've had weddings there. We had weddings there. I mean, Mr. Carney, I know had a wedding there and we proved it in advance at the council level. I think that's it. Okay. So, all we have to do is take off interim and say permanent, is that? No, we have to have a special use permit and it has to be here for the council. Every time somebody wants to have, oh, I know. My only point is the work's there. It's just we just need to update this and get it in front of the council to continue what we're doing under the interim. And to a special use permit, which was never done before that was adopted. That wasn't, we just did it? Is there any objections at least working this through the process Okay, Mr. Drummond the last I'll hold on maybe we should say no if you're gonna continue to talk Mr. Drobbling go ahead the last time I promised him, and then I will go on to do the work. I understand that the city does have some sort of committee for the hundred fifth anniversary of the Civil War. That's this, I can never pronounce this correctly. That's that's the Quintennial Committee that actually the Commonwealth has a special committee for. And this is something that's got interest that Mr. Meyer, Mr. Steinbray, and others have. And I was just curious that now that Blenheim's up and running, if we can get that committee up and running in some way, because my understanding from the website, which, oh, is a vertical website, it's VirginiaCivilward.org, they actually, the way the committee, the local committee, or the structure, actually has elected representatives, representatives from websites, VirginiaCivilWord.org. They actually, the way the local commuter structure actually has elected representatives from historical groups, you know, other people who are interested academics. And I just don't know if that's already been firmly established, but now that we have it set up. I don't know that we do have a set up. I think it's council's determination of what the complexion is. Okay. There are guidelines on that website. I think that would be the best. Right. Is this an HFCI process we can rely on or is this something that is beneficial? This is an issue of course, but it's not necessarily for the council to determine. Okay. Do you want to stand up your own committee? Yeah, there was, the, the, the city is already part of it. If you go to the website, you're already part of it. We've already indicated that we're going to have a committee. But the next step is, as Mr. Systems said, as a standing it up and having the involvement, I spoke with you. Standing it up, meaning making appointments, making appointments, getting people on it. I actually spoke with Speaker of the House, how, who serves on the committee. And so he was just mentioning that we should probably try to get that going sometimes just because we've got one and a lot of other activities here in the city. So I was going to respond to this discussion. Yeah. 1961 they created the National Centennial Commission. And then there were state commissions, and then there were Fairfax County had its own commission to observe it. So that is still a model that the state decided to emulate this time around with the state commission. And it's nothing that precludes us from doing something locally. And what I, I have asked you put some thoughts down on paper. I just hadn't shared it with anyone yet was that we of course would bring the HFCI into this process. But what I was envisioning was something that would be much more than just HFCI would include all the different constituent groups within the city of AirFacts to be part of the observance, and that it would be very inclusive of everyone, and it would sunset in 2016. Well, can I suggest Mr. Drummond and Mr. Meyer get together and share your notes and come back with the recommendation to the Council. Okay. Fair. Sure. And actually, Mr. Myers, I was actually correct. And in fact, the guidelines on the state website and talking to some of the folks specifically how this is what Mr. Myers said. Okay, well let's not do it tonight, but if you guys take the lead and go to the website or add any words of wisdom and come back to us. Yes, Mr. Myers. Come to the council. I'm done. I think it's important to note that 90 years ago today at 11 o'clock, on the 11th day of the 11th month, the armistice was signed and stopped World War I, which was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Unfortunately, it was turned out to be a century that was most violent in history. And I do want to recognize and remember all of our servicemen and women who have served our country and most especially those who gave their lives to ensure our freedom. Last week we experienced a democratic election of a new leadership and that process occurred peacefully. Nobody was aroused, nobody was shot, nobody was bombed, that doesn't happen in all countries. So I just as a reminder of what we went through last week, that was a process guaranteed by great sacrifice by many and many different situations. I would also like to share with the voters and not the voter but our citizens that an email that we all received from all stallers who lives in the city, over on Plantation Parkway, giving compliments to our staff in the city's electoral board and our registrar. He did the staff did a great job of handling and tremendous volume of absentee voters. And again, he's continuing our tradition of integrity in our voting process. And lastly, I wanted to call your attention to a new initiative by a teacher at Fairfax High School, Sarah Hardenberg, who is working with the leadership team for a new program called Fairfax Food Frenzy and this will be an initiative among our high school students at Fairfax to collect food during the holidays and the students are asking groups within the city to participate in this. Sarah Hardenberg is actually the daughter of our chief of police. And I talked with her this morning and I will remind our council colleagues and others of an opportunity to support this as we get closer to the holidays. Thank you. Mr. Mayor. I just like to echo Mr. Myers' comments about the City Election. I wasn't here. I was out of town and serving as a Federal Election Observer, but everybody I've talked to since I've been back has been very complimentary about the way the City Election went. And I would just like to compliment the staff and thank the volunteers who make that possible for our City elections to run smoothly. And then secondly, a question for staff. There is a federal program now to give money to states and locals for purchasing foreclosed properties. And have we looked into whether we can qualify? We are we are doing that we We did get that information and and I know some jurisdictions get direct Grants and we'll have to compete for it, but we'll bring that to you the deadline is Coming up December 1st. I believe so okay. Thank you December 1st I believe so okay thank you. Thank you. Very quick. Get back to us on and that's the status of the judicial drive property. I think it's crushed from the courthouse. It's the one that was going to be an office building. The developer went bankrupt and it's now a pile of dirt with no real activity would be nice to find out if we had made contact with the property owner to see if it's either being foreclosed on or what the status is so the weekend. I'm hearing that there's some interest out there in the community, but nobody knows. No judicial drive down the street from. Cross from the jail. It's on the left hand side. It's across from the jail. It's like it's the site where they came back to us to talk about doing the undergrounding utilities versus above ground. Okay. We went through great lengths. That's our way we're going to, we did the sidewalk and for the residential house. Right. Thank you, buddy. So, no, actually I didn't support that, but thank you. And anyway, the guy went bankrupt and now the building is, the property is just sitting there and there's all kinds of construction debris around and it would be nice to know if we can move that along. And then the other thing, well two short things. In case it is a very strong potential I will not be here on the 28th so I want to wish all of my colleagues and staff happy Thanksgiving. And then also to congratulate our city clerk Melanie Burrell. I happened to notice a ring on her finger, and I took a guess that she was engaged and she is. So congratulations. Hey, great. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. And with that, I am done. Thank you. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. I'm going to ask you to ask me a question. I'm going to ask you a question. I'm going to ask you a question. I'm going to ask you a question. And we were talking with Ferris about his safety issues and David Summers indicated that public works had a concern about the safety of that new intersection and Mr. Ferris repried. This is the first I've heard of that. So why wasn't that part of the staff report and we didn't have to? I took note of that comment. Yeah. didn't have to know to that comment. Yeah, I'll be finding out tomorrow. Yeah, I think we need to follow up on that because I think it's a safety issue right there on that thing on the circle. All right, next was I would like staff to look into impact fees. Apparently a lot of jurisdictions in our area and led to believe into impact fees. Apparently a lot of jurisdictions in our area and led to believe have impact fees which we don't we don't have and I think it's time we look into it. Just as an aside a lot of people use a percentage of the impact fees for their fine arts programs which I think would be a great use other than, except that we have a lot of other ways to use that money. So if you would, it would be great. I had a question from Mr. Hudson about the signage that's supposed to be up downtown. Where is that? The designs were delivered to the public works department about two weeks ago. The designs. The designs. And they are moving as quickly as they can to get them fabricated and up. I thought when we were on our retreat that he said they would be up momentarily. Who? David. Well, wrong. Okay. And I don't want to overlook what page suggested that seems that was very moving account he gave of the Fairfax soldier. And I don't want to slight someone else by acknowledging this fellow, but certainly he served his country well and maybe we need to recognize him, but we need to be sure that he's not the only one that was so effective. And that's all I have. Thank you. And I probably won't be here next meeting as well. Thank you, Ms. Mayor. I have no comments, say, of the joining. Today is actually now November 12th, so I was no longer Veterans Day, but I did want to join my colleagues in honoring our nation's veterans and the veterans in the City of Fairfax with particular mention to my great grandfather, my grandfather, my father, my uncles, and my brother who all served this country in the United States Army. Oh, you didn't have a choice. That's true. Okay, my turn, I only have 10 or 11, I'm sure that I won't bring out. I'll be willing to accept the motion for a tournament. That's that. Move, move, and second is Mr. Greenfield, seconded by Mr. Restmus and all of favor, sing a five-minute hi. Hi. Opposed, a passionate person. I'm not just a hero to my daughter. I'm not just a hero to my family. I'm a hero to everyone. Become a hero to your community. Become a hero to your community. Join the City of Fairfax Volunteer Fire Department. The City of Fairfax Volunteer Fire Department. To become a part of our family, call 7033528945. Thank you.