coordinate for people who are online how they can ask questions and participate as well. But Mayor Hardy. Thank you for joining us. So in life we also have Council Member Downs and Council Members Snyder and likely a few other Council members joining us. And so I always say that this is one of the most important decisions we make each year is to ensure we are being good fiscal stewards of taxpayer dollars and that the budget reflects the priorities of the community. And we are just at the beginning of the process so we invite everyone to tune in along the way. We look forward to hearing your comments. I think as why we'll talk about we have you know certainly good news locally but what's top of mind for all of us is obviously the backdrop of what's happening at the federal government and what that means for our businesses and our community members and so planning for that will be an important part of the budget process over the next six to eight weeks. So thank you. Thank you, Mayor Hardy and I'll make a few other staff introductions as well. We have Caitlin Sobsi who coordinates our capital improvements program. She is here. Our Treasurer, Jody Acosta is here, our Finance Director, who really leads the whole City staff for computing the budget together, is here a Director finance director who really leads the whole city staff work on putting the budget together is here, our director of community relations, Cindy Mester is here, and our PIO, our communications director is Mary Catherine Chase. So Mary Catherine, maybe if you could just help those who are participating virtually, understand how they can participate. Thank you so much, Mr. Shields. Participants online, you can put your questions in the chat at any time throughout the presentation. You can also, at the end of the presentation, raise your hand, and we will call on you as well. For those participating online, you can see we also have captioning that is available. And if you need any accessibility requests, please post that in the chat, and we'll be able to help you out today. Thank you. All right, thank you, Mary Catherine. And I notice we, I count some of her flinges just walked in. Welcome. So I have the cover slide of our budget book on the screen and it's the theme of this year's budget is sustaining momentum together. And thematically the mayor addressed this in her comments, but we're as a national capital region and as a country going into a very unsettled time in terms of our economy in terms of impacts to households in our community who are impacted by federal budget cuts and by layoffs. The city of Falls Church about 16 16% of our workforce in the city, residents who are in the workforce, 16% of them work for the federal government. That's just kind of one metric in terms of how impactful these changes that are happening in the federal government impact this community. We're very mindful of that. And at the same time, we are a growing city. We have new households that are coming, that are joining the city right now as West Falls opens up, as Broad and Washington opens up, and over the course this fiscal year as Madera Falls Church opens up. So, two kind of conflicting ideas as we build this budget and you'll see in our budget numbers the budget is growing even with that economic uncertainty that is facing us as a community as a region as the nation because we are a growing city. And we're trying to sustain momentum towards some of the key strategic initiatives that the City Council has initiated really in the past five plus years and try to continue to make progress on those. Today's budget town hall meeting, let me just put it in the context of the process. It all is sort of geared towards a final vote by the City Council on May 12th. So we have a month and a half or so where we'll be engaged with the community and the City Council on this budget plan for the coming year. The budget goes into effect on July 1st of this year. That's the way our fiscal year works and all local governments and the state government and Virginia works. We have a budget work session on Monday and we're gonna talk about what I'm going through today, including the Capital Improvements Program. We'll do a deep dive on that with the City Council and we'll discuss some concepts for potential solid waste, some options for financing our curbside solid waste services in the city as we move forward. A couple other key notes on April 14th is when we'll have first reading on all of the ordinances associated with this budget and then again May 12th being when the city council will wrap up its work and is scheduled to take action. The public can access all the information. These presentations, the videos, everything right here at falsechurchva.gov, backslash budget. And if you'd like to put comments in and writing, if you think of them outside of today's hearing, send it to budget and we'll read them, they'll be part of the record and we'll engage with you that way. So, I said I had about 20 slides. We're going to organize it first. Just a quick overview of revenues. We'll discuss some of the strategic priorities that the city council has laid out. I will talk about at a high level our capital improvement investments and we'll have kind of a very high level conceptual discussion of solid waste financing options. So here's our revenue picture for the City Falls Church and Tina and others who are long veterans of these budget presentations will recognize this pie chart. About 57% of the city's budget is driven by real estate taxes. And so 38% comes from residential property owners and 19% from commercial property owners. Then as you go around the pie chart, we have the personal property which is our car tax along with business property taxes and then a series of business taxes like the sales tax, meals tax, people and other taxes. So all in commercial revenues comprise over 50% of the total revenue picture for the city. But let's talk a little bit more about real estate because it's a really important part of the city's tax base. We are a growing city, as I said, in the introductory comments. Overall, 10 and a half percent growth and assessed value in the city. Half of that is coming from the new construction that you see around the city right now. Five and a half percent of that is coming from normal market growth. And I've highlighted in yellow for homeowners in the city that market appreciation of 6.9%. So in the next slide we'll talk about a tax rate reduction to try to mitigate some of the impacts of that market appreciation that homeowners are experiencing in the city. So what is the budget is built around as a real estate tax rate of $1.18.5. That would be a decrease of two and a half cents relative to today's rate of $1.21. The budget does not propose changes to other tax rates, but it does propose some increases in our storm order and our sanitary sewer fees really just to keep up with inflation. So for the median homeowners tax bill, that would be with the reduction in the tax rate about a 3.4% for the median homeowner in the city or about $400 for the median homeowner in the city. The chart shows some trend lines on that. To the tax rate, have been able to reduce the tax rate in four out of the past five budget years because of the growth that is happening in the city and because of increased assessed value of property that's just been driven by market forces. And with those rate reductions there still has been a steady impact. It was usually between around $300 to $500 per year on the median homeowner's tax bill. So other key taxes for the city, the personal property tax, we do forecast healthy growth in that, but that's entirely driven by new households moving into the city and joining the tax rolls. The sales tax, about a 5% increase is the forecast, and then meals and beephole were projecting just to stay flat in the coming fiscal year, noting some of the economic uncertainty that we discussed at the outset. Hotel taxes were still recovering from the pandemic and we are seeing positive trends in our visitors to the city who are staying at city hotels. Now we're going to shift to the expenditure side and here's a pie chart that just shows kind of the big picture. The overall budget is just under $134 million, so that includes the schools and all the other general fund expenditures. So the schools education is 42% of the city budget. Debt service is 8% and then going around the horns and some of the other kind of the key ones. Public safety is the next largest area of spending for the city that includes police and air fire services contract with Arlington County. Public works is next at 7% rec parks and the library 5% and then so on around the horn. So in terms of kind of the big numbers in the budget, the bottom line is that the budget is decreasing by 2.8% next year. But that is largely due to some reductions in our reliance on cap reserves and our payments on debt service. Our operating budgets for the general government are growing six and a half percent and the school transfer are growing 5.6 percent. I do propose in the budget for the council's consideration a $500,000 revenue contingency in the event that this has been a very difficult year to make revenue projections and this is to provide some buffer for the city and for the schools as we go through the fiscal year if our revenue forecasts were overly optimistic. Dead service, $1.8 million decrease, and that's because the Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School debt is coming off the books for those of us who have been in the city for a long time. You remember when that debt issue was made, and that was a really big step for the city that debt is being retired. Lower reliance on capital reserves and pays you go in the coming budget. We'll talk a little bit more about that with the CIP. So that's an overview. The city council does a lot of advance work in terms of working with staff on strategic priorities, providing budget guidance, and adopting amendments to our comp plans, all of which go into budget planning. The City Council has laid out five big areas of progress for the City on environmental sustainability, improvements to a transportation network in the city, particularly to improve safety for all users of our streets, cyclists, people on foot, transit, as well as people and vehicles. Economic development, growing our tax base, providing housing for all who want to live here, and a lot of initiatives and good governance. And so that helps organize air work on the budget and trying to sustain momentum together towards these strategic initiatives. And that comes in sort of three big areas, investments in people, advancing safety and investments in core infrastructure. The budget in many respects is a pretty simple budget this year. There are these big sort of five new things in it, funding for compensation. We do have a heavy lift on some of our inter-gearstictional contracts, 903,000 for those, street maintenance and increase of 700,000. Some investments in our IT and our financial systems, 150,000 in the 500,000 for the revenue contingency. That's kind of it in terms of the new money in the budget and where it's going, but a little bit more detail. In terms of compensation, what the budget proposes is a 5% increase for employees that includes our public safety employees and our civilian positions. Investments in our IT and financial systems. This is investments in people who do business with the city. We want to make those transactions more seamless use technology so that people can pay their taxes or get building permits more seamlessly and efficiently as they do business with the city and also make investments so our employees can do their work more efficiently. We have a $500,000 investment in affordable housing. That's the same as last year, so we're sustaining that level of funding in the proposed budget. Investments in safety, the city moved to body-worn cameras about five years ago. We need to upgrade and refresh that technology, so there's 133,000 for that. We sustain the $200,000 for neighborhood traffic calming. We're sustaining the effort to provide new fire hydrants and areas that are underserved throughout the city. We are asking the Council to support a position that we created this past year to help the police department move towards reaccreditation. The professional standards managers really crucial position for our police department. And one of the big increases our inter jurisdictional contracts is our fire services contract a $500,000 increase there. The key investment in the operating budget for core infrastructure is in paving. We have heard from our community survey and from comments from the public we need to do more on paving our public works department knows that and has been fighting for more money for that. This budget provides a $700,000 increase for a total of 2.2 million for roadway maintenance. Every time that we do pave a new street that's when we implement the bike master plan and other pedestrian improvements with lane markings and other safety improvements that are associated with the paving. And then the remainder of that really is just for core maintenance for sidewalks and crosswalks, et cetera. Investments in the capital improvements program. I'll focus on the FY26 because that's what's kind of here and now before us, but taking the full six-year plan, it's a $148 million investment plan in this community. And the CIP is where a lot of the action is and where the City Council spends a lot of its time focusing on our plans in this area. Transportation is the largest part of our CIP with nine million proposed and investments in FY26. Public facilities, one million with Oak Street School being an important part of that. We have investments in our sanitary sewer system and specifically to help manage some of the flows that happen when we have heavy rains and that water gets into the sanitary sewer system and then goes to Fairfax County and working with our partners in Fairfax County we're going to invest to manage that at a higher level than we have in the past. And then on stormwater I'll just note that we're in the process right now of administering about $21 million of storm order improvements across the city. We've been very successful in getting state money with the help of our elected delegation of the state to help us with that big lift. And those are projects that you see underway right now. Two recent ones were the Tramble Branch Project and the Hillwood Project that was just finished this fall. So we have 600,000 in the six year emergency program, but we're already working through that 21 million that the council's already appropriated. Where's the money come from for the CIP? We do have debt proposed in the CIP in the out years. So no debt that would be supported by general taxes until FY28 with the big one in the CIP as a reinvestment and the Robert Golf Operation Center, what we call familiarly is the property yard. And so we're still in the planning phase for that, and we're gonna engage with community on kind of what those concepts can look like, but that's a really important investment in the capital plan. Sanitary sewer fund, that 22.6 is both for new capacity purchases and this rainfall out of the sanitary sewer system problem that we're trying to address. That would be financed through the sanitary sewer fund. We've been successful as I noted in getting grants. So 46 million of the CIP is funded with federal and state grants, with the federal things that are happening right now. We're monitoring those very closely, but we have no information right now that indicates that any of the grants that we have been relying on in the CIP will be negatively impacted, but obviously we're watching that very closely. And we do propose just under $10 million of capital reserves, a money that we have built up over time, and we draw those down as part of the CIP as well. So we're gonna do a deep dive with the City Council on the CIP on Monday night, and look forward to that discussion. So I'll close with just a few words on solid waste financing options. So the city has a curbside service about just over 3000 households in the city are served with that curbside service for recycling, trash, and some voluntarily sign up for the compost crew service as well and pay a little extra for that compost service. And so the question before the city is should we replace, currently that is all paid for out of the general fund. So sort of all the general taxes that we've discussed tonight, cover curbside services well. Should we replace that tax support with a new fee? And in our Solid Waste Management Plan, going back to 2003, it has called for considering a fee to send sort of a price signal to customers and to incentivize reuse and recycling and to have people use the service really see what the direct cost is when it gets transported to change the strategy to change the strategy to change the strategy to change the strategy to change the strategy to change the strategy to change the strategy to change the strategy to change the strategy to change the strategy to change the strategy to change the strategy to change the strategy to change the strategy to change the strategy to change the strategy to change the strategy to change the strategy to change the strategy to So it's a complex topic. I want the public to be aware that the City Council is asked that this be taken up and considered because and implement a fee instead. And so it's a complex topic. I want the public to be aware that the city council is asked that this be taken up and considered because it is in our Solid Waste Management Plan that we should consider this in the future. And so we'll be doing that and we'll do a detailed to exploration of those options at the work session next Monday on April 7th. So again, here's where we are in the process. This is our first Town Hall on the budget. I want to provide just a high level overview of what's in the budget and and we'll be working together of the coming month and Again, this is where people can can find information about that and if you pause let me just turn my phone, which I should have done at the beginning of this meeting. There we go. So that is the slides that I wanted to share with you all this afternoon, and I'll stop there and open it up for your thoughts, your questions, your comments, the city council is here, and we'll be listening very carefully to your comments as well. Yes. And I will, because we do have folks virtual, I think what we'll ask people to do is to speak in the microphone and that really is just for the people who are participating virtually. And we do have this meeting taped as well, so it'll be re-broadcast. Thank you, Mr. Shields. I hire one of Laura Downs. In the presentation, gave the city council, I just wanted to clarify, you had talked about today the 2.7% increase in storm water in Sanitary, but the actual dollar amount isn't much. Right. That's right. So for the storm water fee, that would be about a $7 increase for your average homeowner in the city and for the sanitary sewer that would be about a $14 annual increase in the sanitary sewer fund. So we've been thank you for that question and comment and that is we've been recommending that the city council do essentially a CPI based adjustment to rates every year and and we've been recommending that the City Council do essentially a CPI-based adjustment to rates every year, and we've been doing that for the past five years. And that avoids sort of a shock to rates that, you know, when we fall behind. And so for those who would like to ask questions or ask that you come forward to the just for the for the microphone so that it can be captured. Yes, Mr. Thompson. That's right. The... Broadway is about the stormwater. And we're concerned because we've had a history of problems which we've addressed mostly on our own. But the latest concern in what drives becoming to the council and to this meeting, particularly today, is the T-zone development behind us. In the case of Arlington, when they did major rezoning from missing middle citizens protested, they went to court, the basically the court ruled that when the city makes a zoning when the county makes or any group in the state of Virginia makes a major zoning issue they should look at things like stormwater sewage capacity etc. It should be part of the analysis. It wasn't part of the analysis in Arlington and they stopped development there and permits for missing middle development. It wasn't part of the analysis in Arlington, and they stopped development there and permits for missing middle development. It wasn't part of the analysis here either. I would like to see the city conduct a study. There's not money in the stormwater category now for such a study, but to conduct a such a study to look at what the impact of that is and to come up with some mitigation strategies for it. The property behind us is an example of being graded and planned for a 50 to 100-year storm, which means to me they're protecting themselves against a 10-year, 15-year, 20-year storm that they think is likely because they don't think the system behind us is able to candle it which we agree It's probably not able to handle us which means the bulk of that problem of the transfer to our property So I would like to see the city include in its budget Funds to actually study what are the impacts of Tzone because there's more proposals to do more by right Tzone development throughout the city Now there's a proposal on Lee Street, no and so forth. And I'd like the city to study this and to and plan for it and and put money in the budget to do that kind of analysis. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Yes. Where is this from? From the north. Yes. I think it's from the north. Right. That's where we are. We're at 502 West Broad Street. It's the Broadway condominium. So we sit at the confluence of multiple streams. From East Broad, West Broad, and then behind us on Lee Street, it goes out through Trips Ron. If you know Howard Herman Park, that's where the Exodus are building empties into that already overloaded system. It backs up. When there's a major storm, Woodward doesn't flow into the system. Water flows out of the system onto the street. There's a choke point where we are. And so there is flooding down below. There has been serious flooding down below. The city has addressed some of that as it affects private homes, but they haven't really addressed it as a way to limit it. There have been some efforts. The greening of Lincoln was we were told that was going to be an effort that would have an impact on us, but we haven't gotten any, in fact, for input from that. Yeah. So the new town houses is what I'm talking about in terms of the TZONE property development. Right, I went through the process of a site plan and the only analysis in the site plan is the water coming off of that site. There's no analysis of what happens to the water after it gets off of that site. And whether the city systems are capable of managing it, that's not part of the site plan development. So I'm suggesting the city needs to look at that issue to determine whether it needs to upgrade its infrastructure to handle the water coming off of these sites as they're developed. So, let me just speak just a little bit about storm order and thank you for the question and thank you for the question and thank you for the long engagement we've had on these issues. So the storm order is a crucial service that the city provides and the city through the 2000s, 2010s did a lot of studies on our stormwater system. We had the Army Corps of Engineer Command. Engineers come in, we've measured all of our pipes. We filmed all of our pipes. We have good data in terms of the assessment of our system. And we know that there are deficiencies throughout the system. And the response to the storms on July of 2019, in particular, that was one of the biggest floods that we've had in the city, but we've had recurring floods of real extreme rain events. And from that, we took that modeling data, but we also used the expertise of our residents and our city staff and identified the areas that where we have the most frequent flooding concerns and that resulted in what we call sort of the big six stormwater projects that We've been using funds to address right now that includes the Hillwood project the Tramble Bell branch project Just just as two examples of those. Broadway, or Broad Street, is an area where we know that there has been surface flooding. It did not make the high priority list because generally that flooding was constrained into Broad Street itself. And the Broadway has some sort of particular issues relating to the drainage of that building, which I know that the Broadway Homeowners Association has taken a lot of pains to address. And so it is a real concern throughout the city. What the city tried to do is prioritize those areas where having the most frequent property damage due to flooding and that's where the first efforts were. We'll continue to assess that. The City Council is also provided direction to provide more green infrastructure and that's where the greening of Lincoln project comes in. That will also decrease stormwater flows towards the Broadway and towards that whole co-branch watershed. And then one last note in terms of redevelopment that happens when you have some of the townhouses that are being built on Park Avenue. Each one of those does go through a process where they have to do water quality improvements and associated with that water detention improvements. And so those projects do for the 10-year event, which is the modeled and that's sort of the state code world that we live in, it does improve the situation relative to way it is today. But for the major events like that 2019 storm, all those systems get overwhelmed. The whole city is overwhelmed with flood water and property damage will continue to occur. And so that's just a, you know, and a warming climate. The city council is very concerned about the frequency of that. And that's why we're making these investments in the stormwater system to try to mitigate that risk. Hi, Matt Adams, Park Towers. So I'm glad to see that the solid waste proposed change is now being incorporated into public comments. I think that's been overdue. So I'm glad to see that now. So that's one kind of second comment. There's an important point on your slide there that I thought was missing and that is you noted that single family residences and townhouses Receive service what's omitted from that slide is that multi-family Owners owners and multi-family buildings Also pay the tax but do not receive the service which I think is important to include in that information to the public so that it's clear why there's a proposed change. Let's see. So I also have two questions in the past I think in the fall there were four options for the Solid Waste proposal. You today I think mentioned reducing the real estate tax and charging of fee. Is there currently only one option on the table? So I say today at a very high level just to let the public know that this conversation is going to be happening as we as the council debates the budget, but I also didn't want to get ahead of the presentation on April 7th. I will say the state that the materials for that April 7th work session are going to be posted online so people can see those and read those and essentially what it's going to be is taking the fall discussion and updating it with some additional thinking and some more up to date numbers. And that's what we'll be discussing on April 7th. But I don't want to kind of get ahead of that discussion before the city council has had a chance to review it with staff. OK. And you said, we were going to be online before. The work says, yeah, we're going to post the packet, so we think that, you know, those materials will be available for review. So, I'll try to project better, and if, yes indeed. And if you do have a comment for those who walked in a little bit late, we're asking people to come and use the microphone, and that's principally for the benefit of people who are online. Okay, thank you. The second question is I've heard some of the comments and councils made it meetings. I know there's much more conversation that goes on that I haven't been able to observe but I'm curious, I'm trying, we're trying to establish the people who are in favor of this solid waste proposal making this change to be more equitable to the people who live in the community is, and maybe Council can speak through this, I don't know about now, but maybe later. But we're trying to figure out who would be covered by the proposed change and who would not. And I know council's probably still wrestling with that. But it would be very helpful to know these buildings or these homeowners would definitely be covered. These would not be covered for whatever reason. Maybe there's a contract with a city or these are still so that we can the the people who are affected by the change can be informed that there is this change that is being discussed and that it does affect them and then they can voice their opinion to the city. This is our way we can get that information. So I think the best way would be to to tune into the work session and session and walk through all the options and I think it's the story. You know, the options are complex enough that it's not great for me to sort of add a little bit and instead rather to walk through it in an organized way. And that's what we plan to do on April 7th. Okay. and April 7th, are you suggesting that that definition of buildings homeowners that would be covered by that and ones that would not will be covered at that conversation? Good, so, you know, right now the curbside service that we provide is for generally speaking, for townhouses and for single-family homes. And there's some rare exceptions where there's a condo, where it is feasible for there to be a bin that's similar to the curbside service that's provided elsewhere. But as a general rule, that's who's served by the service today. We will have one option about expanding that service, but I will say that staff is not recommending that option because that gets into whole levels of complexity and serve the business model that we're not prepared to take on. So really, you know, where I think this will be going is really discussing the fee option or just keep it in the general tax rate. But I think again, I think April 7th would be a good organized discussion for it and we'll go from there. So are you saying that some of those options would obviate certain identifying homeowners that would be covered and not covered? Well, if we go to a fee, the ordinance will be very clear about who pays that fee and who gets that service. So that is one thing that is part of the whole, you know, as we go forward, that would need to be clarified in the ordinance as well. Okay. All right. Thank you. I might see you. Somebody at Thunder Art. Hi, I'm Andrew Wilson. Sorry. Hello, geez. We'll do transportation now since we do in stormwater. We've done solid waste. I want to say first of all, I'm really glad to see the increase in repaying funding. Having been on CACT and heard from public works, their trials and dervails of repaving. It's great to see that money come up. I actually went back and read through all the old budgets and sort of repaying and it's fascinating to see starting in like 2012. There's this constant line item of we're not spaking enough on repaying, we're falling behind and if you don't repay in time, it gets more expensive because the road to grades and we do have fixed it's even more expensive and so this is a compounding problem. So my question on repaving was where we are now over the proposed 2026 and no one likes it because it's not a sexy topic. It's paving the street But is that it we do have enough money in the budget now to be on that sort of 12 to 15 year cycle and Is there a bigger bill coming down the road from like catching up on all the work we didn't do since whatever 2009. So we do need to catch up. This is a good, I think, very strong step in the right direction, but we will be committed to continually trying to build that number so that we're taking care of our streets. And I will also note that this was discussed on Monday night that we are using some cap reserves to help pay for this and we need to transition that ultimately into the tax rate so that is sustained. That's the other transition that we need to make through multiple budget years. Okay. Yeah, that really made good to hear and I a great to see the change. As I read through this budget, my focus was very much on like the ROI of transportation investments because in my, you know, goings on, I've seen that we only have so many engineering staff and obviously there's other priorities in the budget. So transportation isn't, it's what I focus on but not obviously everything. So the paving really concerns me because if we don't repave, it just gets more expensive and it's going to sprout out other things in the future. So I think it's great to see this step. There's a couple of other things in the SIP that we can talk about later. But the other sort of ROI question I really have, and I really have more of us to comment. I think to Newtalon is we've retained the 200,000 for the NTC program. And through my three years on CACT, I just really start to question the value of that program. I know it's popular. We've we've retained the 200,000 for the NTC program and through my three years on CACT I've I just really start to question the value of that program I know it's popular, but if you go back and look at the projects Most of the moron streets where no one has been hurt in the last five years like before doing the projects And we have other streets where people get are getting hurt regularly that don't get our car by NTC a lot of the projects we do sort of a quick light solutions, paint some stuff, and we're coming back now on Nolan's Tree. We're coming back now on Nolan Street. We're coming back now on Lincoln Avenue and other streets and like redoing new projects because those first projects didn't deliver really with the neighborhood. The goal of the neighborhood wanted, to figure out what they voted on the project. So I just, I don't know. We're gonna spend two year and a year, I hope we can spend it on places where people are actually getting hurt and we can spend on things that prevent them from getting hurt in the future. I'm not sure it's always the goal but I think it helps. to spend to earn a grand a year. I hope we can spend it on places where people are actually getting hurt and we can spend on things that prevent them from getting hurt in the future. I'm not sure it's always the goal, but I think how we met that program and where the money goes, isn't actually lining up with getting a good return on that. Food for thought or comment. Yeah. I think it's a great comment. And for the public's awareness, Andrew has done a lot of work on the city in terms of analyzing data that is publicly available to evaluate street safety. And we as an organization are strengthening that function or that ability in the city to do that data analysis on a sustained basis. where my preference would be as an organization is that we move towards database decisions and that's where it would drive the dollars in terms of safety improvements in the city. The NTC is designed to be grassroots citizen-activated requests and that's a very positive thing as well but it it can be a very frustrating process. I think probably for everybody. And ultimately, the goal is to make our streets safer for everybody who's using the public right of way and using data to make the targeted investments to produce that outcome. And so we'll continue, I think we're moving positively in that direction and comments like this, I think will help accelerate us in that direction. Hi, I'm sure you're aware I'm Arthur Egan. I'm the current chair the CACT. I've joined same time as Andrew. I had a couple of comments and Andrew stole some of my thunder. I am here as myself, not as a representative of the CACT. One of the things I noticed was the 700,000. I applaud the increase. It's a significant increase. However, looking through the budget, concerned because the unfunded element that the staff has requested was another 1.1 million, which says to me that there is, we are really in a hole on the paving. And I would ask that if possible council could increase that even more, even though it is a significant increase, we're in a depot on the roads and the paving. The other piece of that is looking through the transportation element. I'm not seeing an increase in funding for sidewalks. So the walkability is of course critical and key for the community. I think that came out pretty loudly and clearly in the community survey. Right. Our sidewalks, we're working on small projects because that's the funds that are available, the larger projects with where we're trying to put in a sidewalk on a road that's a heavily traveled pedestrian through Ferrin doesn't have one. Problem is the cost on those they get complex, they get expensive and so they don't get done. I would ask that maybe we look at that a little bit closer for the sidewalks in addition to the paving. Those were really my two biggest things. We really just need to, you know, we need to go a little crazy with that, I think, because we are in such a deep hole. I believe that's actually the largest unfunded element in the budget. And it's a great comment. And... I believe that's actually the largest unfunded element in the budget. And it's significant. It's a great comment and we do want to continue to make progress of building that into the tax rate, building that into the base operating budget. Right now we're using grants like shown on the screen here and cap reserves to help grow that investments in that core infrastructure. Transportation is the biggest part of the CIP. Those projects are almost all sidewalk projects or intersection safety improvement projects. And so I would say in some respects the city is really ramping up. I mean that is $60 million investment in six years on basically walking, biking, improvements on our streets is a big deal. And so that's kind of when I say that the CIP is where the action is, I think this is an example of that. And I would agree that the effort is there. It's just we're in just such deep hole. It's kind of like how much can we do? In these CIP projects, they're also complex and they're slow. And that's a thing that we all get frustrated by. But a big one that is we're still in right-of-way phase four is, for instance, the Broad Street project where we're going to be, if you think of like, Along parts of Broad Street where we have the old four foot wide sidewalks that project Is going to expand those sidewalks maybe not to the full 20-foot streetscape standard But they're gonna be ample sidewalks all the way down Broad Street Using some federal grants that we've gotten and so that's It's going to be very disruptive as we do that construction, but it's going to be I think a really significant walkability improvement for the city. Just as one example, that's an incentive. I applaud that. I know there's other project. What's also a little, has always been along clear, is how much of the hole that we're in is going to be addressed through CIP projects. So for instance, we know that park couldn't wait, little section of park couldn't wait, but the rest of it is slated for some significant development with the Great Streets project. Basically, it's going to get redone. Greening of Lincoln has got to redo Lincoln, which is in horrible condition, underneath the beautiful skin coat that had to go in for water main breaks. But it's, it's a little unclear how much of this art roads are in terrible conditions. How much would be addressed through some of these CIP projects? I applaud finding other ways to address them and be good to see a little bit more of that. Yeah. So we'll keep making progress on it. Maybe just some other examples like West Street when we did repave West Street maybe now six years ago, that years go by fast might have been more than that. But that was a complete road bed reconstruction and and that we did get some state money so the state paid for half of it and the city paid for the other half that's generally what we have to do for those road bed reconstruction to be affordable for our tax base yeah it's some of the sidewalks don't always fit their non-nosed. That's a good point up there. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I was talking about the facing. And it was a basic idea of like, facing like, like, air insurance talking about, like, this is walking around. I'm sure I was talking around the city, but you know, something specific in mind. You're sort of thinking as far as the facing. I'm primarily basing it on the reports from DPW. There have been studies. They've done and looked at our roads. A significant portion of our roads are considered poor or very poor. If you look at a road and you see a lot of very fine cracks, kind of spider webbing, it may be fine to drive on, but it's an indication that it's a symptom of that underneath. The road bed is at end of life. And there have been instances where, and Lincoln is a good example last year, there were, if you go and look at it, there was a huge patch near Meridium. And the reason that patch happened was because there was a pothole, and DPW came in to repair the pothole, and they discovered that underneath it, there was nothing. It was in such horrible condition that they had to do a major dig it up, patch it, just to fix a pothole because the underlayment, the road bet was in terrible condition. And so the spider webbing that you see on a lot of the roads is a symptom of that. The furnished parking comes when you have that. Then water gets down under that base and starts to do the base. There it starts to accelerate itself and gets even more and more and more. So it's going to get you before it gets. Yeah, we're just in the deep hole on this. And we're solving a whole place in the deep. I think we've stopped getting deeper. But getting out of that hole is going to take, take I think more money. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, it says, option should the city replace tax support with a new fee. And I find that wording curious because it suggests a clear answer. You're removing support and adding a fee, which doesn't seem like a neutral way to phrase the proposal that's on the table. But I'm curious when you say tax support, what does that mean? It means that that service is funded through general revenues. Okay, good. So when you say tax support you're saying that like when I pay the city for real estate tax and I don't receive that service and I'm subsidizing people who do receive that service, is that a fair character relationship? It is what it is. If you're buying a meal in the city and you pay meals taxes, you're paying for it. Anybody who's paying any tax in the city because this service is sort of bundled in with everything else, that's what that sentence means. Sure. Okay, so that's tax payers who are paying the tax but not reserving, need the service, but don't receive a service or subsidizing residents who receive the service. So I just want to be clear that that's what we're talking about because I'm not sure that if people look at that at home or on the slide that that would be that that would be clear and also the new fee it would be replacing subsidization with a fee but yeah I see your point. But thanks for the clarification. Yes. Raise your hand and then make your way to the microphone. I'd like to talk on that briefly about the sidewalk issue. First of all, thanks to you and thanks to the council for broadening the sidewalk in front of a pido leather, leather near the spectrum. We've been dodging bicyclists and scooters and everything for years. And we were plotting the workers there, physically applauding them. So thank you basically for doing that. I would say a lot of the attraction for people living in our building and in our community is the walkability. And the sidewalk capabilities, I'm also glad to hear that you're talking about expanding the sidewalks in Broad Street, because that's great. But the sidewalks around here are, they seem to start and stop for no reason. Once you get off of the main streets and you go back into the communities, you'll walk halfway down the street and then the sidewalk will end and you have to go into traffic and across the street to walk the other half or there may or may not be a sidewalk on the other half. So it doesn't see, we talked about bike master plans and all that, I don't know if there's consideration for a sidewalk master plan to understand how to get from point A to point B without having to cross the street four times, because it does seem for those of us who for exercise purposes or even going to market or whatever that it does seem like we're bopping in and out and on and off the street multiple times. Thanks. This is work. Well excuse my regular voice. Why? Thank you. Is this work? Well, excuse my regular voice. Why your explanation to Matt left me in the dark a little bit? The recording. Thank you. And he asked about the tax, you know, that would be replaced by a special fee, the statement you said, well, if everyone pays a meal tax and falls church, the people who are in park towers are paying the meal tax, but we're not getting the meal. We're not getting our trash picked out. And when you say it is what it is, that's what you said. That left me sort of, what is it? What are we getting? Please tell me. Well, I don't think there's any need to be argumentive about it. I'm not. I'm just asking a question. But it is. Solid waste has been paid for out of general revenues since the service began. And so that goes back to the 1940s. And that's the way it has been financed. And so what the Council has asked to consider is that are alternate ways to finance it. And that could include a fee. We'll also present, you know, some, at back in the October presentation, we provided a range of options. A fee is one of the ones that I think, I think the council will be looking at. Okay, thanks. That was just clarified. Okay. Thank you. We will get that. Right. There you go. Thank you can't do. Tina. I think every thought that was on the go, these years were working. Sorry. I was going to start with the one thing because I was looking at it. We will have a party at the end. And at the beginning, he said, nobody ever thought that it was ever going to happen. It's going to be done very soon. 47,000 years. There was never ever been any incidents in the right place. We'll schedule a party. It's a good idea. The council had the same idea. We just kind of said, hey, this is good news. But yeah, it is. That was a really important achievement by the city to finance that middle school and so it is a celebration that what's that? It was a $25 million debt issuance and so at that time I believe that at that time it was the largest debt issuance in the city's history. We've since reset that mark considerably, but that's right. Mr. Schneider. You might want to add a little project in under budget and on time. That's correct. Yes. As did the high school project. Yeah. So our school staff have been really tremendous in taking care of the capital plant for our schools over the past 20 plus years. And that's a really just talk about core infrastructure. This school staff has done an excellent job with that. Absolutely. I'm only kidding. Let's do it that way. Yeah, this worked really brilliant. Anyway, yeah, go for it. Hi, Joyce Gallovich. I'm at 2009 Great Falls Street just around the corner. Been a resident for quite some time. I just have a few items and I might be jumping here and there. But on the meals tax, I understand it's only applicable when you go out to eat. You're not proposing putting one on in the budget that will affect us so. And a good way to explain it too is anyone who's coming in the city and eats out or I guess too is even if you purchase well purchase something at the grocery store get the chicken for take away items you're paying a meal's tax on that so maybe not everyone is aware that some of these guys are walking out but I was here also, as mentioned, pavements and not so much the side. Well, yeah, that could be because they're related. But it was good to see other people getting up here and talking about repafing, resurface, whatever you want to call it. And excuse me, the sidewalks. I do walk a lot around the city, but on the pavements, I've noticed that we do have some narrow ones, and then you've got the utility poles right in, not in the middle, but close to when, if anyone who needs accessible or carriages this sort of thing, it'd be them again around I'm not suggesting Whiting the pavements in this area because it Such down as where just St. James school is whatever that street is is it oak that comes down There's some areas there that are narrow and even down in great falls street Where I live there's one and we do have a person that is wheelchair bound that he still makes his way around there. But this broad thing, I'm just first hearing of this and I can't imagine us doing that and narrowing the street. I mean, I think they seem wide enough, and that's major traffic street there emergencies. And when they're just thinking. The plan, we're in right-of-way acquisition right now, so we're working with all the business owners along West Broad Street to acquire additional right-of-way to be able to put in wider sidewalks. Wow, but you're going to have to take up the street, part of the streets? No, the street won't be affected, it's just the... Yeah, I mean there's probably some areas where you could tighten them a foot or so if that's appropriate, but that's kind of an engineering decision. We're not reducing the lanes on bridge. Right. When the weather gets better and people like to sit out, but when I walk by yesterday, by the Beatles, yeah, nice, whoever does the brick lane, when they do it, is they do a nice job that whoever the city employs. But then I went on down and if the restaurants have the right away and if it's what their property, do they pay a fee or anything to put tables out benches because I noticed on the solace, betos looks nice and wide and then solace has tables going all the way down here and planters and then up along the right-hand side in where the little shops are. They're still room to get by there. But when you're going to have two-way and strollers and whatever, I guess the question is, I know we're talking about budget, but I'm sort of getting on other things here is the does that Can they just put out these planters in this sort of thing without even? Now they need the city's permission to do it. I know our needs are something Regulated, but we have to get out there frequently. They tend to creep Yeah, I mean that's what I thought when I saw it said well the city because you know we have Providenceidence and a lot of other restaurants that are out there. And if it draws business, sure, why not? There's still enough from there. And that's a very attractive thing. People love to eat outdoors, and it's very enjoyable, and good for business. And so the city is very supportive of it, but we do need to maintain through way. Yeah, and I've also noticed on the pavements,s where yeah, you do have one going and then all of a sudden it comes to a stop and you have to cross over. I don't know if I'd want to see the budget going in and having to do major sidewalks because then I think you're also going to have to take right of land or whatever you call it from people's personal property to put a pavement in there. And I won't be funny, but yeah, we're this small city, the village, and I'd still like to keep it somewhat quaint in this sort of thing without. And I know people talk about they want walkable, rideable. The other thing on that too, where the other fellows mentioned is on the well, the cracks, the ruts in the street, as we all know, if public works could do maybe just expedite or pick up the work on those and that sort of thing, that would be great because when you talk about people walking where it's safety, ruts in the roads, the bicycles, the wheels will get stuck and all let's say the other thing so if they could maybe expedite that and I just look at potholes and this sort of thing. A place in point is I just don't get why at great falls and little falls when they resurfaced great falls they stopped that one part of the little falls and then picked it up on the other side. Why they just didn't take it through then to wait for little falls to be done. I don't understand that if someone could get me an answer I'd really appreciate that and to me that has shouldn't have anything with the budget they should have carried on. And then with the storm drainage, where when public works or whomever it is is driving around, they see the grates are covered with leaves and everything. We we don't want storm this leaves and dirt going down into the drains. It's make a note and let your people know. I want to say communicate or whatever. This tracking, I don't know if people know it's there. Online is tracking system that public works has if you see things and suggestions they I haven't asked them to get back to me but you can request that to get back to you but when I put in requests and I've then walked around mostly with potholes you will see something being done on. My other one too on that is we need to keep up the streets clean and so all this isn't going down in there. And I'll look that up on the solid waste too because I'd be interested in that. And so we're looking to pay a fee and not have it come out of taxes even though. But whether you use it or not, you're going to be charged, which makes sense if you're in a house or a townhouse, this kind of thing. It's this so they can't come in. That's that works. The Ms. Galvich, I'll just, the report of concern, feature I've shared it up on the screen on the city's homepage on the bar to the left. There's lots of kind of your most frequent links that people click, including access to our treasure's office or here in the room. But report of concern is where people can report. There's a need for any of the things that you're mentioning, but our city crews are out there right now throughout the month of April, and throughout the spring months to repair our roads, to fill in potholes. There's a rough winter. Those plows really tear the streets up. And so we're in pothole repair mode right now. So it's good time to hear from you if they're out doing their own assessment assessment but it's helpful to get the feedback from people as well. Yeah on on the budget I know on that the the fee on the storm yeah it's gonna keep going up but maybe if you could get that down to $5 instead of 7 and even on the 2.5 if you can round that up to three on the personal property tax, that would be brilliant. Why it on that, bringing our personal property taxes down. There's something I saw some not too long ago, but I know when we're talking about doing the golf center up there and making improvements that sort of thing, I thought I read behind there on Shrieve Road, there's a piece of property there. Is somebody who owns that? I don't know if it's the Shreve property or whom, but who owns that? If they're planning on developing something there and when they do that, would that have any major effect on the planning on doing the golf area? Not that they're going to come in and take it away, but the golf area, but have you heard of anything on that? I think I know the properties that you're referring to. They are in Fairfax County and so City doesn't actively plan what the future land uses for those. But I think you're talking about the ones on the other side of the. So, but is the golf area on Fairfax County also? No, that's all in the city limits. But the part that I'm thinking of is right. Yeah, that's right. I'd be Fairfax County. I'm just saying if they start doing something and they're doing it, I'm sure there'd be planning there on that. Well, that's all I'll do at the moment. As I said, I like to see the real estate go to 3 versus 2.5. And if we can keep that storm fee down rather than using it to go up like we do with the decal, it keeps going up and up and up. And then we're doing the decal, but I want better to see on the roads and that sort of thing. And as I said, and I'm reiterating, people have been talking about the pavements and this sort of thing, but they also have to think of the streets too. And the crosswalks, crosswalks have big, big ruts in, so that all has to come together. But the two chaps that were here would have been nice. Well, they can hear me, watch me later. But anyway, thank you. Thank you. We'll get your comment, then we have in the back of the room. We'll be next. Why all this talk about streets and sidewalks reminded me that city is going to straighten North Maple Avenue. I believe is that right? In front of park towers and as it comes down to park avenue, it's gonna take the, you people are gonna take the band out, aren't you? No, that's not currently. Oh, okay. All right. All right. Now with the park avenue project Mark, I'm sorry. I'm talking North Maple. Yeah, now I'm North Maple. I thought that you people, you people, we're gonna straighten that and we're gonna lose a couple oak trees there. Yeah, now that's not in currently in the plants. No. There's no plant at all for that. For now. Well, I've been misled then. Yeah, I've heard that that's gonna happen Yeah, so Park and Maple the part of the great streets project is to tighten up that intersection But there's no plans to have Maple Avenue have a different configuration. I guess I was misinformed then by people around me. Okay. No, okay. I apologize. I was going to suggest. If and when that ever happens, I might be dead by the time it does. But cars speed along North Mabel. In fact, it would be quite a horse a worse rating because we've lost a lamp in front of the building a couple times people come boom over that hill and take it out. Yeah, it would be great if that intersection were sort of squared up a little bit with 90 degree corners. That's the goal. That would be a great goal. When we talk about tightening up that intersection, that would be a great goal. And there might be some interim measures that the mayor was just referencing. Because the great street project is still several years out. That's a complex project. I'll probably be dead by then. But if you could, could you put a memorial sort of sleeping policeman out there in the street? Because those cars whipped past our building pretty fast there. Why? Ever thought of that? Okay. Have you? You mean like just park a vehicle there? No, I was thinking he actually raised the, you know, those speed bump. Oh, okay. Got you. All right. What's that? Yeah, because... Right. People do treat that as kind of a hymn. Okay. Okay. Thank you, why not? I. Hi, I'm Anthony. Sir. Yes, ma'am. Hi. Gilwadsworth, 200 North Maple Avenue Park Towers. I do want to go on record. I'm glad this is being taken. This is now, we're coming to my 38th year of coming to talk about the issue of trash collection at Park Towers and other multifamily dwellings. So I'm still vertical and I'm hoping to have this solved equitably before I am no longer vertical. Okay. The one thing I did as I apologize for not being here on time, maybe this was already addressed, I understand that our surrounding jurisdictions have figured out their own solutions to this to be more equitable to multifamily dwellings. Is that information in some sort of a chart? Does the council have this? It could be shared with the rest of us, other than our having to out and do the individual research on all of these ourselves. Yeah, we'll touch on that with the presentation on the seventh. And it is a mix. You have Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax. They have a separate fee for Solid Waste Services, of Fairfax, Vienna, Herndon, it's just built into the tax. General tax is the way the city does. So the way the city does it today is not atypical. There are many jurisdictions to do it just the way we do it. And there are other examples where there is a standalone fee for curbside pickup. So that's kind of a quick answer to your question, but we'll have some of those examples in the information on this stuff. I would very much look forward to seeing that information, yes, because, as I said, 38 years. OK. Yeah, no one's addressed schools. I would like to say with the school budget. Maybe I read it incorrectly, but I'm seeing where they've come in with the budget, but I've read something online, the nice printout that you all have online on the financial budget, something about, we have a surplus, and with the surplus, we're giving the schools an additional $500,000 in addition to what we're already getting or if we have a surplus we give it to the schools. Yeah I'm not following I'm not quite sure I'll find it and maybe let them know but it was it was online where I saw with the budget for 26 or maybe it was last year or something like this, where any surplus we had, you all divvied some goes to CIP. That's right. So at the end of the year, usually in September, we do it. We have all the numbers for the prior fiscal year. And if there was extra money, principals of revenue sharing that the general government and the schools have, the schools get a share of that. While we give it back to the taxpayers or give it to public works and expedite getting our streets done in the sort the drain water, stormwater. And those are all things that the council does consider. And that's generally a fall discussion, not a spring question. Right, yeah. But isn't it in this budget we do what we allocate to the schools? Because I also read something which I sort of, well, I don't know if it's there or not, but with the principal going out noon and then I guess requesting, although I don't know if it's in the overall amount, can we get another additional, whatever, let's do six, nine, and then let's jack it up to seven, something. So I know we have this every year with the schools and the budgets and maybe we can cut back a little bit there and just take a second glance at what the schools want and you know always these wish lists and we just seem to give them whatever they ask for and not question. So anyway, there we are. Thank you. All right. Well, we advertise this to end at 1 o'clock, and it's 1.15. And thank you for coming today. Thank you for your engagement. And thank you for, as we asked at the the beginning for your suggestions, your advice, your comments and we'll continue this engagement all the way through budget final consideration on May 12th. Everybody have a great afternoon and look forward to the next meeting. I'm Levy. April 7th. Got you. Yes sir. you