I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm has to be a success. Okay, I got it. Yeah. I know. We probably have to wait for the time. Okay. Okay. I'm off the confidence. Yeah, I'm not going to say that. Oh, I just want to hear you. Yes. So let me win. In the ring. All right, everybody. Right, right, right. I guess. Oh. Let's clean it. Let's clean it. Let's clean it. I morning, everyone. It is 9.31. So we'll officially call the meeting to order. Welcome to our Saturday public hearing. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. We have asking for the vice mayor, Bob Lee, Councilman Gary, Councilman Chatton, Councilman Elmide, Councilman Green, Councilman White. Okay Clerk, next item. The Chair. Approved by the Governor of the Petition Reservation of the Council. Okay, we have one member today who is participating electronically and that's a Councilmember of the Public Pai, I will entertain an motion to approve the electronic participation resolution. Oh, there's been a motion, sir, second. There's been a motion by Councilman Chapman and a second by Councilman Green to approve the electronic participation resolution. This is a resolution to it as a rule called vote. Madam Clerk, please call the vote. Councilman Chapman. Councilman Green. V. Avskins. Hi. Vice Mayor Baguille. Councilman Gaye. Councilman Moody. All right. All right. I can't believe it. All right. Thank you. Congratulations. Council Member Ruby. Council Member Cuype. Thank you, the evaluation passes. At this point, I want to make a couple changes to the agenda. I will entertain a motion to defer the item number 9. Is there a second? There has been a motion by Council Member GreenQueen and a second by Councilor McQueen on Ruby. Any discussion? Okay. Here I know to defer item nine. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Excuse me. Oh. Oh. I don't know if the date, okay. Um, Councilor McQueen, would you be willing to amend your motion to defer until the next public hearing? Yes, ma'am. And the date of that is May 17. Let's just triple check. Yes. Okay, so there has been a motion and a second to defer item nine to our wax public hearing, which is the date of May 17. All those in favor say aye. And the opposed, so may the eyes have it. All right. I'd also like to make another change to the agenda. At this time, I will entertain a motion to consider a document I represent 13 and 14 out of order. So I motion. Okay, there has been a motion by Councilman El Nubey and a second by Councilor Green to consider items 13 and 14 out of order. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? Say no. The eyes have it. All right, for those who are joining us today, the items that I I have asked him if I have asked him if I have asked him if I have asked him if I have asked him if I have asked him if I have asked him if I have asked him if I have asked him if I have asked him if I have asked him if I have asked him if I have asked him if I have asked him if I have asked him if I have asked him if I have asked him if I have asked him if I have asked him if I have asked him if I have asked him if I have asked. For those who are joining us today, the items that I have asked to move up are two proclamations that we're going to be presenting. This is a new thing we're trying. I think most people know we do our proclamations on our legislative meetings, but we have received so many requests. I think we're already up to over 30 this month that I'm trying to figure out new ways of being able to do those proclamations while allowing a broader group of the public to participate. So, now, include, please call item 13. Presentation of a population recognizing April as autism acceptance month. I have asked Councilman Chapman to present this population. If you enjoyed it as for autism acceptance month, please come to the front. One more, I'm gonna go ahead with my source, somebody, and leave the proclamation and then we can move. And then I'm a bit. Whereas the autism spectrum is a neurological difference, which can cause significant social communication and behavioral challenges, and whereas early identification, and the resulting appropriate education and intervention are vital to the future growth and development of persons living with conditions, and emanating, excuse me, from this complex environmental condition. And whereas the United Nations has designated April 2nd as well as autism acceptance day. And whereas the annual observance of autism acceptance month in the United States brings the rights and education of our autistic individuals while helping families, professionals, and the general public to understand the unique challenges. Now, therefore, our John Chapman, on behalf of the Gaskins, we are out of the city of Alexandria, and Virginia, and now on behalf of the entire city council, to hear by proclaim the month of April 2025 to be autism acceptance month. Throughout the city, and I call this observance to the attention of all of our citizens, and encourage all our ex-enders to work together to ensure that autistic individuals enjoy equal access to vital programs and services, and are also able to share the quality of life we seek for all of our residents. And when this is where I've been to set my hand and call to see it with the City of Alexandria to be a Fixus 26th day of April. And with that, Madam Mayor, like to move the proclamation. It has been emotions for a second. It has been emotions by Councilman Chapman and a second by Councilman El Nubi. Any discussion? OK. Hearing none, all those in favor of approving the proclamation recognize the April as Autism Acceptancement, say aye. And the opposed say aye. The ayes have it. Thank you, Councilor Chaplin. Great, Madam Clerk, next item. Presentation of the proclamation recognizes the National Arab American Heritage Month. I have asked Councilman Ongoving to read this proclamation. If you are joining us to recognize National Arab American Madam Mayor for being the honor to present this So I'm going to do the proclamation that I'll pass the milk element, and I'll you to interest themselves. We're asked for over a century. Arab Americans have been making value contributions to virtually every aspect of American society, including in medicine, law, business, education, technology, government, military service, and culture. And And whereas, Americans have an important presence in the coming of Virginia, and in Alexandria, contributing to the rich diversity of our city and its vibrant culture, businesses, schools, workforce, and civic activities. And whereas, Americans have shared the rich culture and traditions with neighbors and friends throughout our city as public servants and as active community members. And whereas, Arab Americans embody a zillion-family value, strong work, ethnic dedication to education, and diversity in faith and creed, and have added strength to our great democracy. and whereas the celebration of Arab American ancestry and cultural heritage educates our fellow Americans, encounters misconceptions, bigotry, anti-abhate, civil rights, abuses, and harmful storytelling. And whereas Arab Americans join all Americans in the desire to see peaceful and diverse society where every individual is treated equally and feels safe. And whereas the extensive contributions in which heritage of all Americans have helped us build a better nation. Now, therefore, I, adult and women, on behalf of Aliyah Gaskins, we are of CF Alexander Virginia and on behalf of the Alexandria City Council. Do hereby proclaim April 2025 to be National, and National, Arab American Heritage Month in the city of Alexandria. And I call the subservents to the attention of all of our citizens, all all while recognizing and expressing deep gratitude for the contributions that Arab Americans have made to the city of Alexandria and our country. And encourage our citizens to join us in this special observance and recognition. And what is the law of I herein to set my hand in the cause of the city of Alexandria to be affixed on this 26th day of April 202525. I'll pass the mic and you can just introduce yourself. Hi, I'm Kaden. I'm a citizen of Alexandria, Virginia. Wanna go? Hello. I'm here. Some energy, I've passed them in there, and I can not touch you. There's a smile in my soul. You're know you're danger of a Palestinian crime? A Palestinian crime, while I'm returning around such dreams and a gratitude to my state to 1906. Zainan Zainan passed away in the American. Jim Sam's left in his American. It's you the ex-sure in the American. Jim's Judy Aix here in the American. Judy and Katahab, I'm a local resident in Alexandria. Also an employee with a city very, very proud to be employee on Egyptian pastime, and I'm very excited for this. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you so much. And did you like to serve your birds' rookies? OK. Thank you. Can I ask you to hold these? Thank you. Good evening. We're so delighted to be here tonight today to celebrate National Art and American Heritage Month in Alexandria. We thank you, Mayor and the Aguaskans, and the Inter-City Council for this proclamation. As we know, the community members standing here today have heard to show several other countries including Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and Syria. Another information about us, our ancestors started immigrating to the US in the late 19th century from the Alex baking countries of the Middle East and the Africa. It's estimated that there are around 3.7 million Americans of Ad descent, including all the nations, Christians, Jews, Jews, Jews, apiars, and others. I live, live, live, live, the 10th largest enemy in the country. The city of Alexandria is in the 8th condition of the district, which has a second highest number of animals. The state of Virginia is about 145,000. Virginia is the 10th largest enemy in the country. as city of Alexandria is in the eighth condition of the strip, which has a second highest number of American's in the state. Our community has been experiencing a lot of pain and grief as a result of Israel's war in Gaza and the other regions of the U.S. attacks in the occupied place in the territories as well as in Lebanon and Syria. They'll be strapped by the rivers and the military attacks on the river, the civil wars and the civil war and the civil war and the armed conflict in the Black and other countries. They continue to cause our city council to acknowledge our opinion and brief and meaningful ways and to stand aside other communities. I may not speak for anyone, say me with me, and I may not admit that a region of our youth are asking the cause for a ceasefire in Gaza and to be a list for our industries and profitiers. But I just prefer everyone here to say that we're proud of our culture and our identity, our history as our own Americans, and we're grateful to move in the city of Alexandria. This recognition is a welcome recognition and we thank you. And lastly, I have a poem called Out, Out, Out of the American, which I'm happy to give out to those who are interested in any of their some dark-out pictures and some accounts. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you everyone for being here. This is the second year we're doing this proclamation. I think Zena for bringing it forward. Again, last year I was in the receiving end with Zena. I'm very honored to be presenting it as a cancer number this morning as an American. I think my colleagues for hopefully passing this proclamation about the make a motion. To Madam Mayor, with admit that I would like to make a motion to pass the proclamation. There has been a motion and there's a motion by Councilmember Mubi, a second by Councilman Chapman, to approve the proclamation recognizing National and American Heritage Month. Any discussion? I just want to say, first and foremost, thank you Councilman for your speed of heading, and taking the lead and pulling forth the proclamation. Thank you to everyone who has joined us today. I appreciate seeing so much hearing about the diverse culture that is represented here, seeing some of our youngest relevance participate, but also a recognition of the many, many ways that you are contributing and engaging in our community from our employees to the poetry of the arts that is represented. And so I hope that folks will take the time to join some of the activities we have on the community, to engage in celebration, to engage in conversation. But also, I think it's going to have pointed out to recognize history and to learn about other cultures within our community. So without that, there has been emotion and a second. All those in favor say, I, I, and the opposed say no. The eyes have it and the proclamation passes. We will, um, guess what? We can call everyone. OK, just call me. And then if we can have everyone, we'll do a quick picture. And the camera is back there. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I have to do some push. I don do something. I have to do something. I have to do something. I have to do something. I have to do something. I have to do something. I have to do something. I have to do something. I have to do something. I have to do something. I have to do something. I have to do something. I have to do something. I have to do something. of our agenda. For those of you who may be new, the way we do this is the clerk will read the first several names. We will take the first 15 speakers. Everyone will have three minutes. We ask that you use the podiums on both the left and the right side. We ask that you please stay to the three minutes. If not, I will stop you so that we can continue going on with the agenda. With that, Madam Clerk, please call the first two speakers. Jeanne is going to be in Melissa Elbritt. Good morning. I've been coming here for a long time and it started with this box. This box is my evidence. It was ever into the record in the court in the city of Alexandria. We have the Chief Judge Lisa Camelow, Judge Hark not known, Dawkins and Judge Clark sending me all my evidence that was empty properly into the record back to me. Taking another file and a properly in the clerk's office. We have a problem in the city of Alexandria that is throughout the state. But what is the solution to somebody who's been treated like I have? Where through deep draft, my home is being stolen. These are the documents that are fraudulent, that are standing, that are in the clerk's office against my home. This, the people want to jail for it. This one, the bar number, belongs to a judging Florida, all the signatures are forged and or wrote those signers. Which in 2022, the Senate stated very clearly to, in a letter to Diamond, wrote those signings as illegal. It's been illegal forever. So what does someone do when all the judges are corrupt? When you're sitting in attorney, when you're common love attorney, when you're police chiefs, and we've gone through three or four of them through this, are corrupt, and they're are colluded in order for personal financial gain, a personal financial hierarchy, acceptance acceptance. We go to our city manager and we file a risk management claim. If you guys want to protect these people, if you guys want to be good things with them and protect them, and ignore your oath of wrath is to protect the people that you serve, then we have a right to go to the risk management. And one of our found about the risk management in the city of Alexandria and in the state of Virginia. It seems doesn't insurance policy. It seems doesn't insurance company for people who do business is to be in Alexandria. But it's run in the early morning. It's run in the shadows. In the back doors, when you go to make an insurance claim, you're supposed to have someone you can contact and you're supposed to have a give and go. I've done four-year request to find out what's going on with these four-year requests or letters to the governor and everything. What I'm getting back is zilch because there's nothing being done. They take your complaint and they basically just file it in the trash because they do absolutely nothing. That is a scam. That is a criminal activity. It makes the government a mafia style activity. Rico and racketeering right here in the city of Alexandria and who's involved our city attorney and our city manager. You can't get any information about where our money is going. And fine, you want to collude, you want to cover up for these people, for the judges, and for Troutman Pepper Lock. Thank you, Ms. Grenadier. Thank you. Next speaker. I'm here as a first generation American Latina, as a Jew, and and above all as a human. Most of us are familiar with the expression never again. It is about to stay vigilant and prevent historical atrocities like the Holocaust. My grandfather was barely an adult when he escaped the pogroms to South America, leaving behind his sister and parents who were killed in the Holocaust. He carried a lifelong bitter knowledge that the world had allowed this, but despite his deep pain, he survived. He somehow taught himself to read Spanish. He made a life and a home. Persecution and violence wasn't over for my family. Argentina was their homeland, but a brutal regime came to power in the late 70s and waged another genocide. In Spanish, Nungamás, which translates to never again, refers to the Argentine genocide. When my family fled their homes, the military junta was persecuting, abducting, torturing, and disappearing anyone they deemed subversive in the name of eradicating terrorism. The most barbaric treatment was reserved for Jews. Despite these horrors and not without deep wounds my family survived, all of this might sound like some terrible period long ago and far away, but here in the US we are connected to this history more than it seems. The thugs who carried out these crimes against humanity did so with the backing, financing, and training of the United States. The US State Department applauded this unfolding genocide and even as Jews like my family members fled to Tel Aviv, Israel was also providing support to the same savage and anti-Jewish regime they were escaping. Just this past week in a Holocaust commemoration, the White House declared never again is now to defend Israel's war crimes and rationalize repressive domestic policies, including abductions and disappearances of dissidents right here in the US. They are weaponizing the history of genocide, which my family and millions of other family suffered to silence to sent against anyone, including Jews who oppose their ongoing genocide of our Palestinian siblings. Like Israel, they use one unspeakable atrocity to justify another. They say my safety requires someone else's subjugation. These are lies. They say our liberation movement is anti-Semitic. These are lies. They say Palestinian men are dangerous also lies. They say Palestinian women are victims lies. Impresonant children is wrong. Stealing families homes is wrong. Occupation is wrong. A partite is wrong. Genocide is wrong. Investing my tax dollars, including at the municipal level, in all of this is wrong. Do something. Thank you, Miss Albert. Next to speakers, please. Caitlin Kotlin, followed by Cameron White. What we allow to happen in Palestine is not stay in Palestine. The technologies of oppression we allow to flourish in Gaza are coming back to haunt us here at home to be used against our own communities. And nowhere is that clearer that in the rise of militarized artificial intelligence, the weapons, the surveillance systems, and the technologies of control perfected in Gaza are brought back here. Historically, the same drones, tear gas, and military tactics tested on Palestinian civilians are deployed in the streets of Ferguson, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C., against people fighting for justice here at home. American police forces train with the IDF. And we've tried to tell you that the same companies that profit from the occupation of Palestine also profit from the militarization of our police, the building of our prisons and the surveillance of our neighborhoods. Today I thought of another parallel, the use of AI tools to suppress and target human beings. In Gaza, Israel has pioneered the use of AI to generate lists of targets for assassination. Israeli forces use AI-driven systems like Lavender to produce mass databases of Palestinians, labeling thousands for drone strikes with almost no human review. Houses full of civilians, families and children are turned into acceptable collateral damage by an algorithm optimized for death. The Trump administration has already begun using AI tools to monitor social media for signs of dissent, to identify activists and to track immigrants. In many cases, leading to wrongful detention and deportation, but much like Israel accepts Palestinian death as acceptable collateral damage, so too does the Trump administration not care how many lives it destroys by ripping families apart. When we fund violence abroad, we invite violence into our own cities. When we normalize apartheid overseas, we corrode democracy here. We are not good people if we can call out the Trump administration but are silent on even worse human rights abuses committed by Trump's closest allies. We cannot protect our own rights if we turn a blind eye to the trampling of others. Right now, Alexandria's retirement funds, pension plans, and reserve investments are entangled with corporations that profit from the ongoing oppression, displacement and killing of Palestinians and those same companies hurt Americans. You don't think that investment will make a difference, but I think because we normalize the slaughter of Palestinian civilians, we sleepwalk into fascism. Taking a stand is about protecting our rights too. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Cotton. We'll now turn to Mr. White. Good morning, Mayor Gaskin's distinguished council members. Since Israel resumed its hostilities and the Gaza Strip on May 18th, over 1700 people have been killed. A young photographer Fatima Hassuna was the subject of a documentary about life under Israeli bombardment selected to be screened next month at the Cannes Film Festival of the day after that announcement and Israeli air strike killed her along with ten of her members. No food has gotten into Gaza since March 2nd, as a result of Israel's blockade. It's the Gaza Strip. We get updates like this every day now. The complete disregard for human life or international law by Israel should astonish us. But sadly, there are merely a consequence of the continued and unequivocal support that Israel continues to receive from the U.S. for its campaign of genocide against the Palestinian people. It is important to emphasize the role that we play in carrying out this genocide, especially since there are those among us who still cling to the misconception that this is not a local issue. Here in the heart of American capitalism, we have an economy which is immensely centralized and a handful of megacorporations that exert an overwhelming control over it. as it stands now, the Department of Defense is basically a mechanism for handing over 750 billion dollars every year to big weapons manufacturers, such as the ones with illustrious corporate headquarters right here in Northern Virginia. Moreover, state institutions such as the Virginia Israel Advisory Board or Viab are doing the all-important job of helping them in that effort. Taxpayers making sure that the harder and money of taxpayers like all of us go to the interests of Israeli weapons manufacturers and other defense industry conglomerates who have been making absolute killing over the past 18 months over this campaign of genocide. So when we hear pro-Israeli lobbying groups talk about strengthening the economic relationship between Virginia and the genocidal state of Israel, we need to understand just what the main export of Israel is and that is violence. The so-called Israeli economy is purely an engine for taking US resources and using them to murder Palestinians. As we have watched over the past year, as Israel has continued to export this violence to new markets, continuing to lead bombing places like Lebanon and Syria. And as we speak, Israel has renewed its ground offensive into Gaza, and it's not going very well for them. And Israel knows this, so they're going to keep continuing to send more bombs. Like cowards, they're going to keep killing children, aid workers, the elderly, the disabled, and countless innocent civilians with the weapons that we are continuing to pay for. It's the only thing they know how to do. So that's why we're asking the City Council to divest support disbanding the Virginia Israel Advisory Board or Viab. Right now you need to join your fellow community members who are speaking out against it and plan to dismantle Viab, include dismantling Viab in the state legislative package for 2026. I'm also asking that you support the recommendation of the Alexandria Human Rights Council for a divestment resolution, because I stand against the US backed genocide, and so do the people of Alexandria. You can either be with us or against us. Divest now, free Palestine. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Madam Clerk, next to speakers. Glenn Pine, followed by Sommier Najia. I did want to mention, I think one of our speakers who signed up for that they know that we have deferred that item and we'll be hearing that today, but we'll be hearing it next month. Mr. Pine. Good morning. I'm at Jewish Alexandria resident. We're 566 days now into historic, the historic genocide of the Palestinian people. Israel is systematically starving the people who are in the stateuring the Palestinian population while Trump speaks openly now of an ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from Palestine. The situation there is more dire than ever before. City Council has stalled and ignored this genocide for a year and a half despite of a cipherist movement calling on you to take action. Mayor Gaskin's, you've stated that you oppose City Council making a resolution to call for a cease-fire in Gaza. Do you support the genocide of the Palestinian people? Can you say anything in the face of the mass killing and starvation of two million people funded in part by Alexandria tax dollars. Okay. I'm going to let him finish. I'll drop off. If you oppose the genocide mayor, Gaskins, then I'm wondering if in principle, you believe that the city should invest in companies that are getting rich by selling weapons used to blow up tens of thousands of Palestinian children and babies. Do you agree with divestment in principle? Okay, closed door meetings take weeks to schedule and they drag on, and they can drag on for years literally and they haven't dragged on for over a year. But we're really looking for public statements and immediate public action on this. The genocide is a horrific situation that has only gotten worse while this council has stalled and ignored Jews like me who feel like nonpersons in the eyes of the city, as well as Palestinian and Arab residents who are literally just recognized for Arab history month. But they were, I recognize most of them who have been working for over a year now to try to get you to do something about the Palestinian cause. We have a Trump administration that's kidnapping and disappearing people simply for expressing opposition to genocide and incredibly they're doing it in the name of stopping anti-Semitism. I want to be extremely clear as a Jew that opposing anti-Semitism, sorry, that opposing a genocide and criticizing genociders is the most filylo-submitting thing that a person can do. If you wanna do right by the Jews, and obviously if you care at all about the people of the Arab world and the Arab people in your own community, you need to start speaking out loudly and immediately against genocide. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Pine, for your testimony. As has always been the policy of not just my administration, but every past one before me, we do not do back and forth in question and answer from the dias. So you can continue to ask the questions. I will continue and my colleagues will continue to be silent. You can use that as you please, but I just want to be clear for everyone watching that has always been the case and that has always been our response and will continue to be. Next speaker. I want to congratulate the city on recognizing Arab heritage month, especially given that over the last 20 years, this country has spent $3 trillion bombing, mass-crying, starving Arabs in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, elsewhere. So I hope that by recognizing this month as Arab heritage month, that you will do some homework on the Arab people and what your tax dollars have done to them, instead of building your infrastructure and your health systems here in this country. So surely we need to understand who the Arabs are. Well, who are the Arabs? We are 500 million people spread over 22 nations. 10 of them are in Africa. We are Christians, Muslims, and Jewish. And we have Berber blood in us. We have Turkish blood in us. We even have European blood in us. And we have African blood in us. Actually, over 10 million Afro Arabs today live in the Minar region. In Gaza alone, a land mass of, uh, that once held over 2.4 million people, there are over 11,000 Afro Arabs by conservative estimates. And why do I draw attention to this Arab identity? Because it seems like nothing we say will move you. Nothing that we say will move you about the atrocities committed by the United States and Israel with your tax money against the Arab people. So I want to share with you that Gaza has 11,000 Afro-Arabs and that the city's pension plans are killing Afro-Arabs as well. Will you be moved if people who share your DNA are being massacred in this horrific way? They share your humanity as well. Will you be moved if people who share your DNA are being massacred in this horrific way? Mayor Gaskins and they share your humanity as well, not just your race. Will you be moved towards divesting from companies that murder your fellow humans? We tried to appeal to your faith. We told you that Gaza has some of the oldest churches in the world. We told you that Gaza has a Christian community that has been massacred inside their churches. We told you that Palestinian Christian, the Palestinian Christian is an integral identity and part of the Palestinian heritage. We told you, and you should know that Israel has denied Palestinian Christians to go pray in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, this Easter. Pope John Francis would be most disappointed, wouldn't he? May he rest in peace? We try to appeal to your sense of faith, but it seems that faith doesn't mean the same thing to you as it does to us. We try to appeal to your humanity. We talked to you about the five-year-old hindraja who had over 300 bullets sprayed into her car as she would it for the medics. We told you about Shabendalul Al-Dalul, who burnt to death as he lay in hospital bed, while his father watched. We told you about seven-year-old Sidra Hassuna, whose body was shredded into pieces when a missile hit her home, and her legless body was hanging from a wall. We told you about the 20,000 Palestinian Arab women children killed by Israel with your tax dollars. And that did not move you. I hope you have the stomach to watch how many headless Palestinian children your tax dollars. And that did not move you. I hope you have the stomach to watch how many headless Palestinian children your tax dollars are paying for. You cannot even be moved by the current ongoing starvation of two million people, some of them my friends and family. Nothing moves you, nothing. So now I hope you'll be able to talk about the Arab people. And shame on you. Shame on you. For what's that? Thank you for your time. Next two speakers, please. Ronald Threat followed by Amanda Eisenhower. Do we have Ronaldo in the room? Okay, then we will move forward with Amanda Eisenhower. Shailin' Leigh. You can unmute and be good whenever you're ready. Hi everybody. I'm so sorry I can't join anyone in person. I'm actually at a clinic across town helping our immigrant neighbors apply for asylum and protection from deportation. Can you all hear me? Okay. Yes, we can. Perfect, thanks. So I still think it's important for me to be here anyway to advocate for divestment because I feel a moral obligation to do everything in my power, however small, to bring end to the genocide of part time and occupation that Israel wages against the Palestinian people. You may have heard this month from individuals claiming to represent Jewish-Helix Andrians that divesting from Israel's ongoing and part time genocide is poor governance or even antisemitic. Once again, I remind you that as the descendant of Holocaust survivors and Jewish-Helix Andrian myself, this position does not represent all of us. But why have so many emails, speeches, and hours of your time been spent on this talk? Well, divestment is a threat because divestment is meaningful. We already know the divestment was the key tactic in bringing down the apartheid regime in South Africa. So impactful that Alexandria decided it would join in 1985, passing on its own resolution instructing the city manager to divest the city from companies between business in South Africa. When we ask the city to address from apartheid and genocide, we know that it has both material impact and symbolic value for human rights across the globe. Under the new regime, progressive local and state governments are the side of struggle, because we can still have at least some presumption of democracy and interest in human rights as a concept. We come to you to stand up for human rights and against genocide because we still can. Up against the Dylan Rule, a hostile governor, and a fascist federal administration, it can feel like we have no power. But our contracts and investment choices should still be under our control. And as my elected officials, I hope you can use that controlled stand-up for human rights and against apartheid and genocide. Now, we heard from a council member recently that working on on the investment in apartheid and genocide at the city level is not worth his time nor his political capital. Well. heard from a council member recently that working on divestment in apartheid and genocide at the city level is not worth his time nor his political capital. Well, we will continue using all of your time, if only in three minute increments to fight for Palestine, because until we divest, you are using our tax dollars to invest in and do business with the war profiteers facilitating Israel's genocide against the Palestinian people. Thank you so much. Okay, thank you. Next speaker. Sorry, Madam. Next speaker. James Vandermeer, followed by Aaron Irula. And you can also use this one too. All right. Thank you, Mr. VanderMeer. You may begin. Thank you. I have more modest concern than my co-residents here. I have a modest solution as well for you. Alexandria is a dog friendly city. Dogs enrich our communities, provided that we humans attend our responsibilities. Minimally, dog owners should follow the law, and the city should enforce the law. Sadly, the host run playground just northwest of the King Street Metro Station has become an astonishing showcase for shortcomings in both respects. On a daily basis, dogs run off-leash and inside the playground area within feet of signage that plainly prohibits both behaviors. In November of 2022, while eight months pregnant, my wife was chased by an unleashed dog in the sidewalk adjacent to the playground, and last July, I was bitten by a dog within the playground. After that incident, I began correspondence with the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria, Animal Control, as well as the RPCA, Parks and Rec. On September 26th of last year I attended a Parks and Rec Commission meeting to thank them for their efforts and amending some signage in the area. At that meeting they expressed to me that the unleashed dogs were a chronic issue in our parks. Animal Control responded to per their website, 2,959 calls for service in 2024. Though animal control and RPCA manage a multitude of issues and most serious concern with unleashed dogs in public parks is of course the potential for dog attacks. According to the Virginia Department of Health, it's estimated that 4.7 million people are bitten by dogs each year across the country. A 1.4% total population applying that to Alexandria population. We're looking at around 2100 dog bites a year. Of course, there's a compliment we need, which is actually reported dog bites locally. That underreports the overall problem, but of course, it also speaks to the more serious dog bites that are injurious or that people fear will be injurious if the authorities do not intervene. I thought we had this, this data, it's not on any website locally that I could find. It's startling in 2010. We had 96 reported dog bites. By 2015, we were up to 201. By 2017, 305. In 2019, we peaked it 428. Since then, we're still looking at 300 to 350 reported dog bites a year. I'm sorry, I wasn't aware of the three minute time frame, so I'm just trying to do my best to skip forward here. Knowing all of that, how many tickets would you expect that animal control rights for unleashed dogs in our city? Unlawfully unleashed dogs. I foy that as well. Last year was six, 2017, it was sorry, the year before that was seven. I think this is clearly insufficient. On the enforcement side, if animal control staffing level is to, by the way, they're great agencies. I speak with them. I have a great relationship with them. However, on the enforcement side, if animal control staffing level is too low to to address the need perhaps Alexandria police could supplement during high volume periods like evenings or weekends. Additionally, I feel like it's very important to address root causes. Going back to host run for example, there's an actual area designated for off-the-stog exercise in the park. However, it's four-block store with the playground at Oak and Commonwealth. There is no fence around it. You can literally lie with your head in the grass and your feet in the street. That area should be in fence. I appreciate your time. I've submitted this for the record. Thank you, Mr. Vietermeer and Mr. Manager. Can you please follow up with him? I'd love to understand more about the area that's unfit as well as our enforcement efforts and what we can do not only at that park, but I think around the city. Thank you. Next speaker. Good morning. Thank you for hearing me. I have a problem that I really need help with. My neighbor has started the hobby of beekeeping and now she's turning it into a business and she has grown her backyard which is directly attached to mine within feet of my own. She has six hives currently in her yard. I'm sorry, I'm very emotional because my dog's been stung three times in a week and a half. He's 10 pounds. He's now terrified to go outside. I can't enjoy my yard. Jefferson, let me slow down. Jefferson Houston Middle School is directly joining our yard and the Cameron Street poll is also there. There are 20 to 80,000 bees in each hive. She has six of them right now. She recently, after I notified her that I was going to the city, she had brought in for her new business, eight be hives, and after I warned them that I was forced to the city. She had brought in for her new business eight beehives. And after I warned them that I was forced to now go to the city for help, she did within the last three days remove those eight hives, but she is, that's only I think to protect herself. But who knows when she'll bring more to resell them or whatever. But the six remain there to this day. Jefferson Houston Middle School, the children walk there very often. I work from home, so I hear the fire drill go off very often. And the children walk there up that sidewalk. The summertime is coming, the bees get more active in warm weather. My dog, like I said, has been stung. I have personally been stung, but within a week and a half, three times, my dog, I have to watch him suffer. Suffer, this morning he was still limping. He won't step on his foot. He's now scared to go outside. My favorite thing to do is garden. That is how I relax from work, and that's where I find my joy in nature. And I'm terrified to go out into my own yard because of this. And she doesn't care. And oh, there are no laws. There are no laws currently in Alexandria. Can you believe this? There are zero regulations about the number of beehives you can have, or how far away they have to be from another property or anything like that I was astonished to learn that but I know there is a Virginia code But it apparently it doesn't apply to Alexandria city. I don't understand. I'm not an attorney. So but I'm begging you Please help me tell me who else I can talk to. I call the Code of Administration. I'm waiting for a call back from them. I'm hoping that they can help me. I call animal control. They don't deal with insects. So I don't really know if I could get any information after my time is almost up, but after. If I could get any information from anyone here, I'd be so grateful because I truly need help and any of those children. One bee sting can cause someone to die from anaphylactic shock. Enough is enough this has to end up. Please I'm begging you for some help So let's Thank you for coming and raising the issue. I'm this is our city. Please I'm begging you for some help. So let's thank you for coming and raising the issue. This is our city manager. I'm going to have him meet you in the back. Let's get exchange of information and we'll follow up with. I know we do have some regulations as it relates to beekeeping. So let's make sure we are doing the proper enforcement. But we'll make sure before you leave that we're going to and we can follow up on this. Thank you so much. If you just want to meet him in that corner, I think he's going to grab a staff person. So much. If you just wanna meet him in that corner, I think he's gonna grab a staff person. So much. Madam Clark, did we have any additional speakers sign up? That was a final speaker. Okay, so that is the final speaker. I will entertain a motion to close the public discussion period. All right, there has been a motion by Vice Mayor Bagley and a second by Councilwoman Green. Any discussion? All right. All those in favor of closing the public discussion period say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Are the ayes out of it. Madam clerk, next item. Planning Commission, special use permit 2025-007. 4 Mount Vernon Avenue Planning Commission action recommends approval 7-0. This is on our action consent. So I will entertain a motion to approve the action consent calendar if there's one. All right, there has been a motion is there a second? Any discussion? Okay, there's been a motion by Councilman Chapman, a second by Vice Mayor Bagley, to prove the action consent calendar item number four. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. All right, the ayes have it. Madam Clerk, next item. Roll call consent calendar five through eight. I will entertain a motion to approve the roll call consent calendar. All right, we have a motion by Councilman Chapman. Is there a second? There's been a second by Vice Mayor Bagley to close the public hearing and to approve the roll call consent calendar. This is a roll call. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Councilman Chapman. All right. Vice Mayor Bagley. Mayor Gaskins. Aye. Councilman Aguieri. Noobie. Aye. Councilwoman Green. Aye. Councilman McPide. Aye. Aye. Aye. The roll call consent calendar passes. Madam Clerk, please call the next item. Item 10 rezoning 2024-00004. Development Special Use Permit-20. I'm sorry, number 2024-1001717, encroachment, 2024-0008802 and 808 North Washington Street, the Wiley Bay, the Wiley Bay's two planning commission action recommends approval 70. Okay. Do we need a presentation on this one? I don't see any. Okay. We're going to start with the staff presentation and then we have two speakers that we'll go to. Good morning, Madam Mayor and members of the City Council. For the record, my name is Stephanie Sample with the Department of Planning and Zoning. The applicant 808 Washington Street LLC proposes to redevelop a partially constructed hotel project at 802 and 808 North Washington Street into a multi-unit dwelling. This is the site of the former town motel. This agenda shows the slides that will follow. The applicant purchased the 98 room hotel entitlement last year from the prior owner and proposes a major amendment to the previous approval to allow for the conversion to a multi-unit dwelling project with 49 units, including an affordable for sale unit. Because a multi-unit dwelling cannot be constructed at the same density as the hotel in the CDX zone, the applicant requests several approvals. These approvals are required to allow for the new use, even though the site layout, building height and scale and massing, as well as the FAR remain generally the same. The project is in a mixed juice area of Old Town with street furniture on North Washington and Madison streets. The project is located in the Old Town North small area, plain boundaries, but is immediately adjacent to the Braddock Metro neighborhood boundaries, where the Whitley Phase One, which is being developed by the same applicant, is located. The site is also in the Old Nistander district, and therefore subject to review and approval by the Board of Architectural Review. The historic house was originally closer to the center of the site, but was moved to the south as part of the hotel project. As you can see, several portions of the hotel project were constructed prior to the pause, including the underground parking lot, and some sections of the first floor. The two projects will share a private alley with 10 feet on each side to gain access to their underground parking garages. While the height, scale and massing didn't change much, there are several minor changes made by the applicant in order to pivot from a hotel to a condominium and staff sees these as improvements to the earlier plan. They include updated architecture and more building articulation. The prior building layout was more box-like. The removal of a curb cut on Washington Street for an improved street scape with more street trees and a longer planning strip, unit entrances at street level for pedestrian level activation, the applicant was able to relocate the garage entrance from the middle of the alley farther north to allow for more underground parking. Unlike the hotel which had no open space requirement, the residential use requires 25% of the site area in open space, which the applicant is able to achieve through a combination of ground level and above grade private and shared open space. As noted previously, this new residential project requires a rezoning to allow for a multi-unit dwelling, but the same density as the hotel. The request also includes special use permit for an increase in FAR up to 2.5 bonus density for the hotel. The request also includes special use permit for an increase in FAR up to 2.5 bonus density for the provision of affordable housing and a two space parking reduction as well as a 8% ground coverage modification. Finally, the upper balconies and a small portion of the front facade of the historic townhouse require an encroachment. As with all projects, we'd like to highlight certain areas like schools, transportation, and stormwater. The project will generate approximately three students who would be districted for Naomi Brooks Elementary School, George Washington Middle School, and Alexandria City High School. With respect to transportation, the removal of the Washington Street curb cut will significantly improve both vehicular and pedestrian safety on this highly traffic street. There will be a significant reduction in phosphorus from existing conditions as well. There are several project benefits, including more housing and a for sale affordable unit, updated architecture, and improved street scape and the completion of a stalled construction project. Finally, the project is in compliance with the city policies listed here. Since the applicant acquired the property, the project has been subject to three public meetings. A B.A.R. concept review, an applicant hosted community meeting and a meeting with the Alexander Housing Affordability Advisory Committee. Without we recommend approval. Happy to answer any questions. Okay. Do anyone have any questions for staff at this time? Okay, so we're going to go right into our public hearing then. Madam Clerk, can you please call the first speaker on this item? Kenneth Wire. Oh, I thought there was somebody listed before. I have on my list, Dino Drudy. Okay. Yep. Is he here? Dino Drudy? Nope. Oh, he left. Okay. Well, then we'll start with Ken Whir. Who is the applicant for the attorney for the applicant? Oh, I'm sorry. He's online. Okay, so then we're gonna start with Mr. Drudy and then we will go to the attorney. Mr. Drudy, you can begin whenever you're ready. It just needs to unmute. Okay, you just need to unmute. Mr. Drudy, can you hear us, okay? You just need to unmute your microphone. Are we able to unmute him or un? We can ask to unmute him. Okay. No response. Okay. Well then we're going to go to the attorney for the applicant. And if we are able to get him unmuted, we'll come back to him at that time. Mr. Wire. Morning, Madam Mayor. I'm Ken Wire with the law firm Wire Gill. My client, Jerry McCarty, is with me this morning. Staff, you go back to the aerial for a second. I think it tells a very good story. I'd first like to thank staff. This is one of the few projects a client never envisioned doing. He was building the Whitley next door. As you may have seen, it's now topped out and the crane has been removed. You can see the top of the page in Whitley Phase 2. We hope to have the construction they're finished by early 2026, December this year early January. When we looked at his window, he was hoping to see a hotel as we all know of a story. This other project was unable to proceed. I want to thank staff because converting a partially built hotel into a residential project was not easy. We exchanged many, many memos and figured out how to give credits for previously approved fees, working out curb cuts. It's very dry, but figuring out how the utilities work was very complicated. So we're very happy to have this project in front of you. We did have AAC and BAR support. I'm referring to just here to answer any questions, and we look forward to continuing this project that's been installed for many years. Thank you. We did have A-HAC and B-A-R support. I'm referring to just here to answer any questions and we look forward to continuing this project that's been installed for many years. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions for that? Okay. I see that Mr. Drudy has returned. So, Mr. Drudy, we are on item 10. Did you still want to speak? Yes. Okay. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm speaking on behalf of the West Old Town Citizens Association, which extends into the diagonally adjacent block. And so is impacted by the proposed 808 North Washington Street development. The Citizens Association's board meeting coincided with the developer's webinar, which the executive board watched before discussing how appropriately to respond. the Westhold Town Citizens Association, acting through its board, pursuant to input from affected residents, opposes the 808 North Washington Street development as currently proposed, and is troubled by the zoning to suit for particular developments, viewing it as spot zoning. Worse, spot zoning as the project is halfway complete. Already something being built there and now you're changing the zoning. Resoning in response to developer requests. Skips the normal sequence of planning before zoning. In a zoning before planning scenario, the rezoning usurps the usual planning phase, which would proceed to rezoning from the site's historic use as hotel to residential and he viscerates the planning commissions planning prerogative. We're a bona fide process to proceed to rezoning. Studies of the impact in the neighborhood parking, suitability, relative to surrounding properties, appropriate service for historic district impact on infrastructure, et cetera, would have to be considered. One of the issues on which the judge overturned Arlington's missing middle is a rezoning without such studies. the challenge to Alexandria is zoning for housing and compass is a legal challenge and here you are doing the same thing again. For these reasons, as well as concerns about the excessive height density and massing and insufficient setbacks and compatibility with the historic district. The West Old Town Citizens Association recommends that you vote down this project as currently proposed, including the rezoning. Thank you. And I have provided in your package the correspondence. Thank you. Thank you. My understanding is we've had a new speaker sign up. So we're going to go to that speaker. The next speaker is Melissa Cohnin. Is Melissa present? I don't see Melissa. Okay. You said she's not online. Okay. Any additional updates to the lift? Madam Clerk? Okay. So then we have covered all the speakers. Vice Mayor Bagley, I think you're going to say something. It's going to move to close the public hearing. Okay. There's been a motion to close the public hearing. Is there a second? There's been a second by Councilman McGuirey. All those in favor of closing the public discussion. I. I hear you'd say aye. Any opposed? Say nay. The ayes have it. All right, with that are there any questions or comments on this item? Vice very badly. Well, I'd like to say I, any opposed, say nay. The eyes have it. All right, with that, are there any questions or comments on this item? By sorry, Bagley. Well, I'd like to, I guess, kick off the conversation, and I'm gonna go ahead and put a motion on the floor, not knowing where my colleagues are yet, and the interest of getting a conversation going, and given my support of the public of the project, I'd like to, sorry, my screen closed. I'd like to move that, my screen closed. I'd like to move that we, gotta say these things, right? The move that we approve, the development special use permit, the end the encroachment and the rezoning on 802 and 808 north of Washington Street, the Whitley phase two. There has been a motion by Vice Mayor Bagley and a second by Councilwoman Green, Any further discussion? Vice Mayor Bagley. Thank you. So, I want to just acknowledge an element that was touched on by the presentation by the applicant and by the speaker, which is that this isn't a hotel. And this project provides an opportunity, I think, actually, for the community to hear about the challenges facing hotel construction generally in the community right now. We hear a lot of calls for why not put a hotel there? Wouldn't it be great to have a hotel there? And I think what is kind of jarring is there was an entitled infrastructure underway hotel project that could not finish and then could not find somebody to pick up the project and entitled Begun project. I mean not not an empty space not not not a building to turn down a and you know and staff jump in and crack I'm wrong, but a fully entitled you know cranes in the ground project and that person that developer ran out of money And then tried to sell it to another hotel developer. A fully entitled just pick up the pieces and keep going project and could not find that person. And so I think it's just a nice moment as a community for us to pause and see the challenges in the hotel market right now. We're not even something as appealing as a beautiful hotel and the gateway of Alexandria, you know, could find a buyer. And then I want to transition from that as somebody who looks at this hole in the ground basically every day. I appreciate what's happened here with staff and the applicant to step in, find a way to rework what had already been built with a hotel in mind and reinvision it and keep the project going. I was almost sad to hear that the crane has been removed because I would hope it was just going to stay and move over to the other site. But I think this is a good project for the city. It is creating housing. I believe there's an affordable unit as well. Okay. One, but there's an affordable unit coming as well, which is one of our priorities, and on a fairly accelerated timeline. So those are the reasons for my support of the project. And I thought, again, I wanted to take the moment to lift up what this says about the current challenges in the hotel market generally. Thank you. Okay, thank you. So with that, there has been a motion by Vice Mayor, I'm sorry, Councilman Elnube. So just to clarify, I know there was a point brought up during the planning commission meeting about gas stoves versus electric stoves. So are we, what are we approving right now when it comes to that just clarification for the public? Electric stoves. God, thank you. Okay. Any other? Okay. So with that, there has been a motion by Vice Mayor Bagley and a second from Councilwoman Green to approve the rezoning number 2024-000404. The development special use permit number 2024-10017 and the encroachment number 2024-0008. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Say nay. Aye. The aye is having. Thank you. Madam Clerk, next. Development special use permit 2024-10011 encroachment 2024-0007 1900 North Beergarth Street Adams neighborhood planning commission action recommend approval 7-0 Okay, we are going to begin with a staff presentation on this one and then we do have several speakers. Good morning, council. My name is Maggie Cooper and I will be presenting for the Development Division within planning and zoning. All right. So we have here 1900 North for regard for a DSUP and an encouragement. The DSUP is to construct a residential building with 345 new units within CDD-21. Planning commission did recommend approval. And some of the elements we'll talk about today will have to do with the community benefits, the impact analysis and the architecture and the Berger design advisory committees recommendation. So for some site context you can see here that the subject property is directly to the west of the Blake and existing multifamily building and it is south of the townhouse neighborhood, seminary heights and seminary park. Currently the project of the property has a four-story vacant office building and a large surface parking lot. Excuse me. The project is proposing 345 units that will will be used as rental. The site design has a rear setback of 67 feet. In that 67 feet there will be a 30 foot buffer that will be heavily landscape and then a 12 foot bike and 10 foot pedestrian path. Overall the project is providing 18.6% open space. However, with the, which I should mention, exceeds the requirement of the 15% open space for this property. Because the buffer and the rear will eventually be dedicated to the city and because the bike-ped path and the rear is going to be used temporarily as a emergency vehicle easement. They cannot count towards open space, however, if they could, the project would be over 35% open space. And lastly, they are dedicating about 16,000 square feet that you can see in the yellow and the bottom picture. And that will be used by the city to extend the West and Transit Center, excuse me, Transit Way. So they are requesting a DSUP and one of those, the SUP for that is a parking reduction. They're asking for 56 less spaces that are currently required and will provide 387 spaces. They are also requesting a setback modification in the front of the building at the bottom, as you can see with the arrow, there are portions of the building along North Bay regard that are a minimum of five feet from what will eventually be the property line once the area is dedicated for the West and Transit Center and there are portions however that are five feet as opposed to the required ten and lastly they are requesting an encroachment for 35 square feet for a portion of stairs that are used for an entrance of the building staff and planning commission were supportive of this because it is a very small encouragement into a sidewalk and does not impede traffic or pedestrian access. The project's architecture you can see here. The applicant broke it into appearing as three separate buildings that are connected. Building A, as we've been calling it, is the green metal basket weave, the middle building, you can see with the raised dormers, and then that's building B. And then building C at the end is more at the end and wraps the corner is more of an industrial building. And to clarify, they are all connected, but they read kind of as three separate buildings. This architecture was recommended for approval four to three by the Barregard Design Advisory Committee. So some key findings we should mention. This project will have roughly 39 new students that will be distributed across all grade levels. That number is a bit higher than we typically see for a project of this size. However, the reason that number is larger is because this applicant is providing 35 committed on-site affordable units, which is substantially more than the 13 that they are actually required to provide at this location. They are exceeding all of their stormwater requirements and transportation at this project is extensive as they are going to be adjacent to the new transit way and they are adding the paths and the rear as well as a 13-foot path that will be adjacent to North Bay, regardless the transit way is completed. They are also, again, providing a number of streetscape improvements, providing the 16,000 grit right of way dedication, and it does comply with all city policies, the Green Building Policy Public Art, the bike share and transportation management plans. This project went before BDAC five times, four times at a traditional meeting, and one time for a walking tour of the site with BDAC members and the applicant. It also had three separate meetings that the applicant led with the community. It went before the Federation of Civic Associations and went before AHAC as well. And staff and planning commission are recommending approval of both the DSP and the encouragement, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, Ms. Cooper. Are there questions for staff right now? We have several speakers. Councilman Chapman. Can you go back to the renderer of the building? Do we happen to have buildings, any buildings this long? You said these are all connected, right? We have any buildings this this is kind of big with no kind of real separation in them in the city. I guess the rendering struck me because I didn't see it as that big, but Rob Kerns are planning and zoning. I would say that this is definitely on the higher end of the length of buildings. I think that the buildings that I can think of that are this long have a continuous retail base to them, like, you know, some of the buildings in Oakville that were recently opened, right? But this is probably one of the longest residential buildings we have. Okay. I don't want to kind of hold up things here, but I guess going forward, I'd love to kind of understand if we, I know we have a policy around town homes and things of that nature about breaking up. If we see kind of this being kind of the new model or trend for kind of larger developments, particularly on the West End, I would love to understand if we think it's appropriate to have some type of policy around break up, breaking up a building if that's necessary or if that's not an issue. I just kind of love to see that or have some type of discussion about that. Carl Mour, it's a blue story, planning director. I just want to note for council that staff is working on a set of design guidelines. We are in the process of beginning a discussion with the development industry about center draft guidelines, which would include among the factors, length of building and separation when necessary. The exact issue that you have raised. Okay, thank you. Councilman on Newby. Thank you Madam Mayor. Question for staff. Can you tell me a bit more about the logic behind supporting the SCP for the parking reduction? Sure. So the exid the ratio for parking to units is 1.12. So there's 345 units, 387 spaces. And this is a percentage that, a ratio we've seen pretty consistent with a number of other projects in the city. I'm so sorry. The project directly next door, the Blake is, has 1.42 parking spaces per unit. However, they have seen that they've been parked at about a 1.1. And so based on some data that they've provided to us as well as others that we've seen in the city, we're supportive of this. Great. I saw in the staff report that, I think in the planning commission or something, some residents were saying that there's spillover in the neighborhoods and there were concerns about spillover from this project because they're claiming that there's spillover from the Blake. But if that's what's happening, like I wonder what is the disconnect here, does the Blake like charge money for parking? Maybe people are choosing not to pay this money apart in the neighborhoods or do we have a sense of what's happening there? Yes, so the Blake does charge for parking and this building also would charge an additional fee to the monthly rental fee for parking spaces, which again is consistent with most apartment buildings in the city. And we have also heard the same thing from the community saying that there is spillover directly behind. I can go back a couple of slides. So there is a walking connection that is just to the west of 1900 North Bow Regard that connects to Stevens. And so there are, and that is the streets back in that area are public streets. It's worth also noting that the seminary heights and seminary park neighborhoods, they do have different types of parking in those areas. However, those are all private streets. So there's no parking allowed by anyone that isn't a resident of those neighborhoods at any time. However, if there continues to be concerns about overspill and people walking through the Stevens connection, the city is happy to work with residents to kind of analyze what's happening and possibly consider the residential parking program updates. Which is parking permits, right? Is that where people get a permit? And you have to have a permit park on the street? Yes. I think appreciate that. Thanks so much for that clarification. Appreciate it. Sure. Thank you, Madam. Thank you. I guess I would just add on that front. If we are already seeing some spillover, instead of waiting, I wonder, can we be proactive in a, maybe starting with the property management to do some sort of communication to their residents about the parking that exists in that program, but then also going out and kind of beginning some of the analysis that you've already talked about. So that way we're not waiting for a bigger problem, but we're putting in place kind of what we would need to address it proactively. Certainly, and Maya Contreras. And that is something that we look at with all of the projects. There was a period about 10 years ago where residents in new buildings like this would not from getting from being able to park on the street. And then there were questions a fairness raised about if it's a public street, you know, shouldn't the parking be available for everyone? So that is something that we look at on every project. We are working with our colleagues in transportation and environmental services later this year to do an update to the parking issues that we've been looking at. Parking is a very dynamic issue in the city and we are constantly working on it. We appreciate your comments and we'll continue to look at it. Thank you. With that, I'm gonna move us to the public hearing portion. I have on my list, Madame Clerk, four speakers. Is that where we're still at? Okay. The Madame Clerk, do you wanna go ahead and call the first two? The first speaker is Dandos, followed by Mary Dose. Are they online? We will start with Mr. Dose and we're ready whenever you are. Can you hear me? Yes. Wonderful. Thank you very much. Mayor Gaskin and members of the City Council. Thank you for inviting me to speak to you. I am great to continue the parking situation. I have followed the development at 1900 Beauregard since the inception with Miss Cooper quite a while ago. And I've attended the majority of the BDAC meetings. The reason I'm speaking today is the parking. The Councilman El Nubi just discussed it, and I have big concerns. I live on Rayburn Avenue, and you did not discuss Rayburn Avenue. It's right around the corner from 1900 Beauregard Street. There is a fence supposedly between seminary heights and seminary park and apparently there's a gate people can park there but it's controlled parking. Rayburn Avenue, as it consists, is in the Westerga area,burn, Harding, and Siddley Street. We have a major parking problem continually. It's terrible on the weekends. We have the apartment complex across the street. People do not get parking passes, cannot or will not park in their lots. They're vacant a lot of times, but our streets are impossible on the weekends. So what I'm saying, and put torn by the police, and there is restrictions that are not, nightly restrictions that are not enforced by the police. My comment is that issue is the request for the SUP for parking reduction. This is basically a failure on the developers to plan ahead. They could have solved this by increasing the size of the garage or reducing the number of units. The SUP needs to be sent back to the developer to be fixed. They have instead tried to do a maximum profit at the expense of the local residents, particularly Rayburn Avenue, Simley and Harding, to we would invariably see an increase of automobile parking in the neighborhood that has already maxed out. So that needs to be setback, fix the garage, or reduce the number of units. Make the garage bigger. It can be done. I sat through the presentations on the board, our design advisory committee, where the residents of seminary heights complained about the balconies on their side of the building and noise. The people from the seminary park were complained about the noise, the balconies at the blank, and the developer, Mr. Wire, delighted all the balconies on the backside of Orogar and Strait, so similarly high? Thank you, Mr. Does. Thank you. We are now going to move to our next speaker, Mrs. Does. It is Mary Does. Mrs. Does. I think it's the same. Yeah, just two separate. Mary, are you still available? Okay, if you can. Yes, there you go. Thank you. I am just absolutely shocked to see the I am just absolutely shocked to see the extent of these three buildings, these horrendous buildings. We have a neighborhood. The Mark Center is park like the plantings and ponds and flowers. It's an office park with valuable mid-century modern buildings are fully arranged to fit the landscape. These are superior buildings as is the park landscaping. The brick buildings echo other buildings in the former Winker development. Everything works design-wise. The Marks Center should not be destroyed. This area has four schools, very many school speed signs and cameras people crossing the street. Sinter ailes and And trees necessary. Bowry guards should not be a transit way. And the ducks have come back to the pond this year, even though the city sensed off the pond. This is unbelievable to see what is being planned. It's like a nightmare. Again, we've seen in our area near the West End, of Seminary Road and Shirley Highway, near Firehouse, they filled in a ravine and built some questionable townhouses with no apparent parking. It seems to be happening continuously. Kitty, the poor people have to live in this complex. Substantored buildings are not helping anyone in the future. And shockingly bad, slum buildings and over building and jubbles of buildings are not good city planning. Please leave the Bowrigard Street as it is. Do not destroy the Mark Center. Thank you. Thank you. Madam Clerk, next speaker. Our next speaker is Kenneth Wire, followed by Richard Jones. Let's save Kenneth. Oh. Mr. Wire. I never called you Kenneth. Oh, let's save. Through we off. Let's save Mr. Wire to last because he's the attorney for the applicant and let's proceed with Mr. Jones. My name is Richard Jones. I'm the elected president of the homeowners. No, sorry, the unit owners of the San Seminary Heights Condominium Association, which abuts the property. Speaking personally, I look east out my kitchen window at the proposed construction site, where the current building will come down, and the taller building will go up. I will see the sun later in the morning. My days will be shortened. 20 of my neighbors who are even closer to the boundary fence with Monday properties than I. I'm about 20 feet. Others are more like 10 feet from the boundary line. They are going to lose their sight of the sky and their peaceful place in the only backyard they have, which are these attached potiots at the rear of the townhouse directly approaching the new construction. Finally, I'll just say that this proposed looming building, looming over a modest residential neighborhood is too big. Thank you Mr. Jones. We'll now go to Mr. Wire. Madam Mayor, members of City Council Ken Wire with the law firm WireGill. My colleague Megan Repolt and I represent Monday properties. Frank and Craig in the back are clients. It's taken three years to get here. The city actually was the largest tenant of 1900 borrower guard when you all purchased the Del Rey Pepper building, the city vacated and the building's been vacant since March of 2024. As many of us know from last month's hearing or two months ago, the Alexandria West Plan started after we were about a year into this process. So we waited till the Alexandria West Plan to finish. Change is hard. The Alexandria West Plan is pivoting away from an office park that is now empty and will be emptying out over the next decade and plans for high density development next to bus rapid transit, which will be right out the front door of the 1900 building. Small area plan calls for multi-family in this location up to 85 feet tall. We are 67 feet along the rear trying to respect the neighbors. Frank and his team, Mr. Jackson and Mr. Jones have been staunch advocates for their communities since we started this three years ago. We knew back 67 feet. As far as parking, the Blake is a great example. We checked parking yesterday. There are 130 empty parking spaces in the Blake. They're not being used. We're happy to give them away when people lease up the building. We're happy to make them incentives for people to lease the building. They are completely empty, 130 out of the 440 parking spaces. We also have a 20 public parking space garage on the first floor. You can go in and use your park mobile. People need to park there. They're welcome. We hope they use it so that we're actually getting revenue from those public parking spaces that are meant for tenants and residents before the main parking gate. So there are 20 spaces that are accessible to visitors. There's been a lot of discussion about noise. We had plenty of discussion about noise and a little bit of background. The client gives the 24 hour number to Alexandria police and firefighters. It's not just noise-based. There's an emergency in the building. Police and firefighters can come right up far in the building. And I will say provide health and safety services to the building. We also have a program, or Monday has a program where they reserve one unit for a police and firefighter at a discounted rate to stay within the building to be able to provide that sort of health and safety oversight or presence is a better word all the time. And finally, there's a lot to talk about in this site, but I think the 35 affordable units is a strong proposal here for this project. It's 10% of the existing units that we're proposing to have dedicated affordable a mix of one in two bedrooms for 40 years for people project. It's 10% of the existing units that were proposing to have dedicated affordable a mix of one in two bedrooms for 40 years for people making 60% of average median income. I know there's a lot of discussion. We can ramble on about this site, but I'm happy to stop there and answer in your questions. This is the end of the three year process. We comply with all your policies, green building, exceed affordable housing, It's high density transit development and we're dedicating the percentage of staff laid out. So I'm happy to answer any questions and look forward to your discussion this morning. Are there any questions for the applicant? Sorry, I thought I saw a movement. I don't have a question, I had a comment. One of the things I had raised Mr. Wire, both with you and, is because we are seeing potentially more kids on this property. I'd love to explore ways that we have some small creative place spaces or opportunities for young people to recreate in the space, recognize there's probably not enough room for a full playground. But I just would want to see if that's something even your client would be amenable to exploring during the final site plan. Absolutely. It's very fascinating to watch developers. This is not the end of our process. Over the next year or two, we'll meet with actually the brokers and the people in the community figure out what tenant needs are and explore opportunities within the building on the site. We're happy to work with staff and we find an opportunity to make an interior exterior play area. a little bit constrained because the buffer in the back was sort of the key movement on the site to minimize the impact on the neighbors, but we're happy to have that discussion and work with staff in the final site plan process. Thank you, I appreciate that. And I heard a lot and clear. I know the noise concerns. I don't want to look for anything at the buffer. I think that was really important to the residents, I think if there is an opportunity interior towards the front of the building, I think having those spaces for our young people to play is really important to our larger goals as a community. Yes, ma'am. Other questions or comments? Thanks very badly. I just want to return back to the parking for a moment and clarify that to the extent spillover is happening, it's not the result of a insufficient amount of parking spaces. The Blake is not reporting that they don't have enough spaces. Is that correct? That is correct. And the Blake initially had come in with a higher parking ratio. They came back and had some design changes and they also lowered the parking at that point. So they had initially come in with much more parking than they have now. What we're really seeing is this neighborhood transforming and that's some of the consternation you're hearing from the long-term residents. The neighborhood is changing. And part of that is because the vision that has been long planned for this, things like the bus wrap and transit, we don't have that yet, but in July 2021, the bus routes were reconfigured. The area has excellent bus service. A lot of people are going probably not car-free, but car light. And particularly for these market rate units, people are able to choose what they're looking for. And many people, if they're moving to this area, you know, someone might work in downtown DC or the Pentagon or, you know, in the immediate area, and they're choosing to have one car instead of two. Maybe they're going with other options, and so the parking needs are changing. And having said that there is probably a person or two who is choosing to park somewhere else to try to get out of paying for parking. That will always happen, but we are seeing these changes, and it is not that there is no parking. I appreciate that. The point I'm trying to make is requiring more parking in this building will not address the concern being vocalized by the community. What it will do is increase the cost of building the building, which will then be passed on in the rental cost to the tenants. Is that a fair statement, Mr. Wire? Yes, ma'am. So I just want to clarify that for my colleagues who are sort of hearing what we're lowering the parking, but we're hearing parking concerns. I don't dismiss those concerns, but the solution isn't to raise the cost of building this building by building more parking that people will choose not to use. The solution is what the mayor is getting at, which is we need to figure out communications wise, enforcement wise, parking policies how to have people if they choose to have a car in this building to put it in the building. And so, you know, I intend to support, you know, the project with the parking reduction for those reasons because I want to keep the cost of building the building as low as possible, so that the cost of the rent or low as possible. And so those 35 units that will go to our teachers, our frontline workers, our fire fighters, everything that the community says they want will be at a price point more available to them. Councilman Chapman. So I don't necessarily kind of disagree with where my colleague went with that, but I do want to give kind of some context. I think we, I think we, I think we, I think we, I think we, I think we parking when it came to kind of some of the development that we were seeing. And I think that that policy is the reason why we are, where we are, not necessarily because of other kind of reasons. I appreciate what stated. But, you know, us making that definitive policy saying that we're gonna decouple this and allow landowners and developers to separately charge for parking versus have that already being encompassed in what is allowed for these developments is the reason why we have that. It's almost akin to us having town homes that where, you know, we have town homes in the city where folks have a garage or a driveway versus town homes where they have to park on the street. Right? That is the kind of adequate kind of way to look at that because while yes cost of construction and housing would go up, there is no kind of immediate amenity that you already have included with your purchase of that property or your rent. And I think that is why we're seeing people spill over. Because like we said, people don't want to pay for the additional parking. Does that help with the cost of construction? We believe so. I would not necessarily correlate it to lower rents. We generally don't see that, frankly, don't see that correlation. I think the market has pushed the pushed the price of rents. We don't necessarily see that on the consumer end. But I do think we are... I don't think our policy is perfect. I've had issues with it. I think it is a consistent policy that we have across the city. And so I continue on, but I don't want to think that by continuing this policy we're not going to have an effect on our neighborhoods because we are. People are going to continually, consistently find other opportunities. I think the challenge is, and this is what we've come at as a city and I would suggest this for these neighborhoods. We probably need to put in the residential parking program, you know, really work with these community members, work with leaders in the communities and say, let's go ahead and move forward with that. I think we, I don't know if we've ever been as proactive on that, obviously, because it needs the support of the community, but I think we know what the parking future is going to be in this community. There are going to be a number of people that do not want to pay for parking. As you can say, as you've said, they're not going to pay for parking within the building because it is being charged. And so they're going to find other opportunities in the neighborhoods. I think we need to work with our community leaders to say, we know that's probably going to be the case because we have history of that. And work with them on developing these residential parking opportunities or programs, excuse me, prior to these buildings opening, because we know that's going to be an issue. I guess I would just raise, I think, you both are raising really important points, I think Mayor Bagley's point, you know, parking is always the most expensive piece of a project and the more you add, the more expensive it becomes to build these. And so that gets factored into all of the cost of construction, but also that base rent. And I think to Councilman Chapman's point, and I think it's both a conversation for planning and zoning, but I think it's a conversation too for the larger housing master plan discussion that we're in, that even when we have policies that are in attempt to lower the cost, if there are other costs constraints or cost pressures, it still creates a challenge within our housing. And so however, we are communicating back and forth so that we're not having parking policy changes over here and housing changes over here and planning here, but they're all connected I think will be really important. The last question I just had for Mr. Wire, Mr. Wire, can you confirm that the affordable units are spread across the three buildings? Yes ma'am they are indistinguishable we will work with housing staff and it will float as people move in and out of buildings but it will be indistinguishable and spread throughout building. Thank you. So if there are no more questions or comments, oh, Council Member Gary. Thank you Madam Mayor. So a couple of questions. Do you know about how the office building is? It's as old as May, 1974. Okay. Not to say that it doesn't have aesthetic. Mr. Wire, you have aesthetic. But we're talking about an office building and a surface area parking lot. I think it's safe to say that the building isn't lead platinum or gold or silver. I don't even know what the below silver is. So I kind of start there with the building. We are getting a building that is gonna be lead silver. Silver, which I would say is a large upgrade to what the existing space is. I will admit that we are losing a number of mature trees, but it's a bit of a trade-off because we are doing a lot, not just with the building itself, because buildings a lot of times are the main culprits of issues with our climate crisis. I would additionally say that with the building, because of the transit way, we're helping with some of the car traffic. And again, it's a surface area parking lot, which we're now gonna have a building that has water retention and storm water because the surface parking lot doesn't really do a lot of that, does it? No. So the tree canopy, the old office building, and parking lot for the environment versus the new building, which is going to be leads over the stormwater runoff, which is a huge plus. You guys happen to know what dashtrout runs along Borogard? Is a 35. I will tell you that next month we are bringing a project that is just down the block coming in for a parking reduction. It is served by eight different bus routes. I would imagine that similarly we would have this. That is seven will moder routes and one dash route. Just to be a little bit more clear, I kind of, you know, on with this, my apologies. But it's the Route 35 dash line, which for the public, if they're unaware, is the highest frequency route that we have in the city and also the highest performing. So I think that's very important to take into account when we're looking at, and that's not even talking about what we're trying to do with the transit way the West and transit way, which hopefully we can continue to plan and fund as we're moving forward in the next decade or so. And then on the housing thing, I think it's also very important to emphasize a percentage number that we usually get for affordable units. On a typical project, what's a percentage we might get? We strive for 10%. We strive for 2%, but in the past, or excuse me, 10%, but in the past, we usually be getting what, 2 to 4? That is a fair assessment, 2 to 5, I would say. 2 to 5, and I know that up here, my colleague, Mr. Chap assessment, two to five I would say. Two to five. And I know that up here, my colleague, Mr. Chapman, you know, we used to jump for joy when we get five, right, or seven, which is very sad to say out loud. So the fact that we're starting at 10% here is a big deal in my eyes. And it's not just a big deal that we're getting 10%. It's also the fact that I remember before I was on council a lot of times these affordable units were coming in at 80% of the AMI. I'm not saying that there isn't a need for 80%, but 60% is much... Makes me feel a lot better, because there's a higher need in my opinion, 4 or 60% of the area income. Now, I don't want to be unsensitive to the neighbors. It is a big change, especially for those about in the property. I think part of the issue is that it's a long North Borough Garden, which is a major, major transit way. And what we're trying to do is to build density along the major transit ways. Because this is a little counterintuitive, but this actually helps to protect the neighborhoods behind it. Because we're putting in more people on the main road. And so we're not redeveloping and putting more density into the lower density neighborhoods that are behind it. Lastly, going back to the whole parking situation. So, respects for Lee to Mr. Duss talking about Rayburn. I believe Rayburn has a separate situation because their apartment complex is there where they deal with a different situation. Now if we, to the mayor's point and being proactive, if we begin to see issues along Eccles, along Stevens, Rosa, Fairview, Phil Moore, that's where I'll have concern, right? And I think that's, again, to the mayor's point, having that communication and our staff, making sure that we're paying attention to those roads specifically, because as was mentioned, Nikki Centennial Woodmere, which are directly a buddy in the property on the opposite side, those are private streets. So you can't just park there if you're a member of the public, we'll say. So I just wanted to make a couple of those points. And I think that's it. Would you be willing to make a motion of closed public hearing? Wait, never mind. There's more questions. Councilman Chapman. Sue, that's part of it. Sorry, one second. Are your questions for your staff? Yeah. Okay, think we close the public hearing and just go to the staff. Yeah, move to closed public hearing. Okay, there's been a motion and a second to close the public hearing. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. The ayes have it. Okay, Councilman Chapman. Okay. I noted the discussion about what I would consider a RPO unit for our residential police officer or firefighter. Is there any conversation about where that program actually stands right now as a city? And are we going to be able to actually use that for that purpose? And I'd like to direct this one either to the manager of WD City Manager John Lambord. But my understanding is this is coming through a different program than our RPO. Yeah, the current RPO program is the challenge for us right now. That is, I believe separate them what this is about. This is a different understanding. I, from the perspective of an individual, a police officer could go into this under different circumstances. The RPO one is been a challenge for us in terms of the incentive and officer to go into certain multi-family. So there's two different things. It looks like that. Yeah, I just want to make sure, and I'll let you go after this, but I just want to make sure we get the usage of that unit That's really kind of the goal of the question Let's go to deputies that city manager young Lambert and then we'll come up here Yeah, and Mary Gaskins and to councilman Chapman's questions the the department continues to have an RPO program if we have Interest from an officer that we could get to actually place in the unit. We would sort of be able to do that. Rob Kerns, Planning and Zoning, I was just gonna say that the Office of Housing is conditioned to basically manage the list of these affordable units that are in the development projects. So they can dovetail with other city programs as we coordinate between the departments. But the Office of Housing manages the overall list for these units. I think Councilman Chapman's raising a good point. I don't know what the origin about. Something that I'm hearing from this discussion is there are two different programs here and whatever we can do to coordinate across the two because my understanding is ones that come through this program where developers are offering those are often easier to fill. They're higher amenities, they're better connections, and I think if we can take the lessons from that to bring that into some of the units we're trying to do for our RPOs, that might make those more enticing and help us feel those much quicker. Councilman Chapman. Two things on this. First, I want to make sure I understand, is there a limit, time limit on these, on this particular unit, is it for the duration of the project or is it certain of our years? Thank you, Mr. Chapman. This is a developer business practice. It's good business and good policy to have them living in our units. So we are not, this is not a condition. Don't miss it the blade. It's always open. We hope to have someone in there. The only reason we wouldn't is if no one applies and the buildings full. But if the next one comes up, we're always happy to keep rolling it over and have a police officer fire fire live within the building. Any additional questions or comments for staff? Councilman on. Where the applicant. Oh. I just call it a, well, we already close the public hearing. Sorry. I did have one last one for staff. We did receive a letter about sort of the future of BDAC and how they can be included in future decisions. I think the letter actually put for some really specific and good recommendations. I'm just wondering if staff has had a chance to review the letter and if so, you speak to sort of how we can continue that citizen involvement and engagement moving forward in these projects? Sure. Carl Mourn's Planning Director and yes, in fact among the things that the letter pointed out is the importance of early and meaningful engagement with neighborhood when a development project is being proposed. That is a best practice and something that we and we'll absolutely continue. Normally, the time frame of a initial conversation with the community about a proposed project is during the early stage. Usually when the concept of the proposal has been refined to the point where the developer is pretty sure about what they are intending to do. But early enough in the stage where they are not yet doing a lot of detailed construction drawings or even the preliminary plan work. And so we have a practice that we intend to continue where that is a community meeting that is held either virtually or but but focused on or in the community but focused on the folks who are most immediately impacted by the proposed development. Staff attends those meetings. So we are listening to the community members and the concerns that that they have and it is an opportunity for us to launch the discussions that could change that project over time before it gets to public hearing so we intend to address the concerns that were raised in that letter and meet their desire for early and meaningful involvement Thank you If there are no other questions or comments, I'll entertain a motion. I remember one last thing, it's very small, but I think this is actually the only green actual building that we have in the city. Do we have any other green color? It means the color. I mean color, Color. There would be copper, patina, green. The only reason I mentioned that, because I want to make sure, and staff, simply, yes, hopefully, we'll work and we'll move on, that as we look at the different materials we're using on this project and things of that nature. We're still at the high level of quality and things of that nature because I want to make sure this building is 30, 40 years old. We're not looking at it like we have this green-ish rusted building type of thing. I just want to make sure the quality level is still at that same The standard that you have for most buildings on the West End. Rob Currens, we worked extensively with this applicant on the variety of materials as you can see in the architecture as well as the quality to get to the proposal today. And as Mr. Mouritz said earlier, with the design guidelines discussion, we'll be talking about materials as well. Okay. I'll go on forward in the fall. Good. All right with that. Madam Mayor put a motion on the floor. Hey is there a second? Actually you know it let me and Councilman Chapman can you finish the matter? Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Put a motion on the floor to approve the application. To approve development special use permit. Number two, that's it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Put a motion on the floor to approve the application. To approve development special use permit. Number two, that's it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. any other? All right, hearing none. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. The aye is having and the motion carries. Thank you. Madam Clerk, next item. Public hearing and second reading and final passage of the polls changes to the ordinance for the the Independent auditor as well as the independent community policy review board roll call vote. Okay, I think we have several staff members who are here, so let's go ahead and have them come forward. For this item and then we also have several folks signed up for the public hearing. To my colleagues, do you want to go through the presentation? Okay, so I do think at a minimum let let's just go through like what are the proposed changes. I think you guys have a summary slide. Let's go through the proposed changes and then we'll open up the public hearing. And am I turning into Vice Mayor Bagley or staff? Okay, if you have staff, let's get a summary reason. There we go. There we go. Okay. So for the sake of those here to testify today, who might be in the room watching at home or simply watching at home, I'm going to also just set some quick context about how we got here. This, these, there was an ad hoc committee formed last summer and fall with members from the board, from the stakeholder group, from the police department, City Attorney's Office, who came up with a set of proposed revisions to the ordinance designed to get the board up and running. That hot committee brought their proposal to us in the fall to City Council for adoption. We ultimately weren't able to move forward. We chose not to move forward on the recommendations as brought to us at that time. And in January, recommendations from the mayor and Council were to create a subcommittee of Council members who would take a final attempt at coming up with a set of recommendations that they would bring back to this body. That subcommittee was comprised of myself and my colleague, Council Member Guillet, and we met three times for about two hours each, open to the public with members of the stakeholder groups, present and active and participating in those conversations. And what I am presenting here and what we discussed on Tuesday and we'll talk about today are those recommendations that came from the subcommittee. If that's the background, the recommendations are one, there was a question about direction of the auditor's decision making authority with regard to whether or not to pursue an investigation or not. The scenario was envisioned where the board wanted to be able to dictate to the auditor whether or not a investigation should be undertaken or not. in an effort to resolve that desire, that request, the subcommittee recommends that in a situation where the auditor has declined or potentially chosen to pursue an investigation and the board disagrees with their decision. The board will take a vote if a majority of it, you know, whatever a majority agrees if it's in conflict with the auditor, it will come to City Council. And the City Council will determine and direct their employee, the auditor, whether to take or not undertake that investigation. I'm going to use this moment as well to state for everybody the independent auditor is an employee of the City Council. We've gotten a lot of emails over the last few weeks suggesting otherwise, either directly or implicitly. There are four employees that are hired by the city council directly, the city manager, the city attorney, the city clerk, and the auditor. So that person does not work for the police department. They don't work for the city manager even they work for us. The second recommendation is the application and extent of the auditor's subpoena power. The question is should the auditor have the ability to subpoena people and things? There was a lengthy discussion debate, sort of historical background and context given about garrity and what that means for the use of subpoenas with regard to law enforcement, where my colleague and I landed was where the auditor has the ability to subpoena things. And by things, the kind of things you would use in an investigative report, body-worn cameras, ring cameras, photographs, sketches that people have made. If somebody went home and wrote in their diary, I can't believe this thing I saw today. And it describes what happened contemporaneously. It would not allow the auditor to pursue subpoenas of individuals in recognition that a law enforcement-related subpoena would not produce testimony because of the guarantee provisions that basically allow officers to participate in internal investigations but not have to participate in other investigations. Finally, there was a scrivener's error and we have corrected that and I don't think there's much dispute or discussion about correcting that error. Councilmaninarious, anything you wanted to say as the other member of this up committee? No matter mayor, I think the vice mayor covered pretty much everything. I the only other thing I'd say is that you know there was an impasse I would say between the council of a community and and all of. And so we were trying to get to a compromise. And we felt that we got to a really good place. At the end of the last meeting, there were smiles, head nods, handshakes, went around the room. Last hour, everybody was feeling, and everybody said that they were feeling really good. And I left that meeting, feeling the same way. Thank you. So with that, I think we have several speakers. I think my, since I use pen and paper, my list might be a little out of date. So Madam Clerk, if you could please call the first two, and we'll just go off here, let's. Jonathan Crawl followed by Amanda Eisenhower. Mayor of Ice Mayor, members of City Council. I'm Jonathan Crawl. I am a member of grassroots Alexandria and an Alexandria resident of 20 years. I am here to support the police review board and therefore oppose the proposed changes. I understand they wrote to you to oppose the proposed changes. On Tuesday, there was a discussion of Guarantee which is a legal precedent that public officials are not compelled to testify during an investigation. In that discussion, if I understood it correctly, it was suggested that officers would cooperate with an investigation because if they fail to do so, their jobs might be at risk. The problem as I see it is that it would be up to the police department to decide whether or not to hold an officer accountable for not cooperating with an investigation. So in a circumstance where the review board was very much at odds with the police department, then the police department at all levels could just simply not cooperate. Perhaps I'm not understanding this correctly. So that's why I think we should retain the subpoena power. I will say that back in 2018, City Council passed a police data transparency policy and it was never fully implemented by the police department. In this case, if the, I feel like in the case of the police review board, if the police department was enthusiastic about cooperating with City Council and the public as public wishes is expressed by City Council that we would have already have a functioning police review award by now. So they don't have a great record on enthusiastically cooperating with these public ideas. And the last thing I'll say is I prefer not to cave on this point simply to move the ball forward. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Crawl. Councilman Ekerie. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Do I, Mr. Crawl? It's not a question. It's clarifying a couple things that you brought up. So for the data transparency part, I agree. I think we definitely have dropped the ball on that. Part of it has been transitioning through chiefs, but but in conversations with the current chief, we are looking to reestablish that and really get it going. So I just want to have a little bit of reassurance there. I'm trying to, a little bit of reassurance there. In terms of guarantee and whether the police is deciding to work together or not. Um, the Senator, would you mind explaining a little bit of what the chief has in terms of compelling and then I'll take you from there after you're done? Are you referring to the MOU process? So the process of if an officer is saying that they don't want to participate or in an investigation, what the police chief has an option to do. The police chief, he does have the duty to compel all officers to cooperate with my investigation. Should it be a problem for an officer to show up and answer questions? The auditor can also monitor interviews. So we can submit questions, we can sit in on interviews, we can review the report on interviews to sort of get over that hump of garity and the officer's protections And what happens if the police, if the chief compels the officer and the officer chooses not to? The police chief has the option to discipline up to an including termination. So and take police powers. Discipline up to termination and then, so here's a situation that we talked about last year. So, I think it's a good idea to just put the city manager into the city manager. So, I think it's a good idea to just put the city manager into the city manager into the city manager into the city manager. So, I think it's a good idea to just put the city manager into the city manager. So, I think it's a good idea to just put the city manager into the city manager. So the city manager could compel the chief to compel the officer and for whatever reason, the city manager trees is not to, then it comes to the council for us to make that decision. And ultimately, that triggers a whole domino effect of things where potentially we're firing the police chief, we're firing the city manager. And ultimately, you know, the community will be judging the city council for the actions that we take. And then, so that's what I wanted to talk about with compelling and if the police is choosing not to cooperate. Now, timeline, we've gone through this before, but timeline part of the reason that this is taken so long to set up isn't because the police hasn't been cooperative. Would you mind hitting a couple of highlights us to why this is taken so long? Sure. Yes. So the ordinance has passed, or rather, the resolution creating this effort passed in 2020, yes. So the ordinances passed or rather the resolution creating This effort passed in 2020 shortly after George Floyd The board and the auditor's office were created via ordinance in 2021 the auditor After the the ordinances were passed the board Then focused on its bylaws working with legal legal to do training. They also received training from APD, so that went on for about maybe a year and a half. The auditor was hired in December 2022. She started in, I think her official start was January 2023. The auditor, the auditor's staff, I joined the office in June 2024 last year. And that is also when we came to council asking to take a second look at the ordinance because it wasn't working due to quorum issues as well. The board had several meetings where they could not reach quorum and therefore they couldn't do training. They couldn't vote on any review matters or anything else. So. Thank you. And so I just want to be clear for the public that we understand the frustration. This body up here is frustrated. The past council is frustrated. But it has been literally, and I'm going to go through it one more time, just because I think it's important. 2020 put together the resolution. 21, we created the ordinance. We didn't hire the auditor until 2022. So in that span from 2020 to 2022, we literally can't do anything because we don't even have a staff member to even begin with this. 23, we're finally getting trying to set this up. As we said, we had training issues, we had core issues two years. Yeah, and I think this you heard a lot of frustration from this body last year and was it November, December of 24th? The fact that it's taken us two years to even get to this point. So I just, like I said, I wanna make that clear that there's been a lot of issues that have brought us to this point. It hasn't necessarily been a lack on anyone's part. The board, the council, the police department, the city in terms of wanting this to happen. So I have two more questions from colleagues on Mr. Calls testimony. I have one first. I just want to go back through the scenario that my colleague Councilman Aguire outlined about the compelling, the police department's, the chief's ability to compel. It seemed to me that the applicant was, not the applicant, that the speaker was arguing that subpoena power would change that. It would either speed up the process or it would make that not have to happen. Can you explain to me, can you comment on that or explain? Sapena Power would actually prolong the process because once a Sapena is issued, the officer will have the ability to hire an attorney which would be our office. We would file a motion to quash the Sapena. So it'd have to go through the core process. Should the Sapena then be issued and the officer does have to show up, they still wouldn't be able to be compelled to testify or provide any information. So the best way in which to get an officer to provide information during an investigation is through the administrative review, the investigation through the police department. Having the police chief compel the officer to speak during that administrative investigation. Thank you. I'm going to go to Councilman Chapman and then Vice Mayor Bagley. And then we'll go back to our public. Thank you Madam Mayor. No, I want to pick up right where we kind of left off because I want to understand what I'm hearing and then ask a question. And so given the scenario you just laid out, we still haven't. So I want to make sure this is right. So, issued us a PINA, they've, we've tried to quash it. Now we're in trial. And that's, I'm sorry, I'm just, I'm jumping to random parts. But we still haven't gotten to a place where we've actually compelled anything. Or gotten Amy, let's say we're trying to give them to give a statement about their version of events. And that's what we're after. I guess in the very scenarios, I'm not hearing that. As we talked about the scenario where we're trying to compel the officer, right? The chief tries to do it or the chief doesn't do it. And now we're looking at the manager, say the manager doesn't do it. Council fires the manager. We can't fire the chief because we don't fire staff. So we still have a chief and officer who haven't given a statement that we're after, right? So that's, am I hearing that right? With that particular scenario, we're going down a pathway where we still haven't gotten the statement from the officer even though now we've fired our manager and are on to an interim deputy. So if a complaint comes in, the first thing we would go to, Office of Professional Responsibility, and they would try to get the officer to come in. I've yet to see an officer not come in, but it's case scenario. And then the police chief could compel that officer to go in for the investigation. And as exactly as you said, if the officer continues to not want to do that, at that point, their police powers would be suspended. It would be put on administrative leave, pending why they're not compelling. Even if the police chief compels and they're still not, they're not going to have police powers. And it would go to the city manager to compel the individual, the police officer to come for the investigation. He still does, or she still does not want to cooperate with the investigation. Exactly as we've already seen it, it would go to city council to make personal decisions as to the City Manager. If the auditor wants to subpoena the officer, again, like we would go through that whole subpoena process, the officer would, if the court says that officer has to show up, obviously the officer would show up, their attorney would more than likely advise them not to answer questions. So you wouldn't be getting any more information from them and it would be a longer process with a lot of probably evidence and things that would be lost along the way. Can I add something else? I'm going to go to Madam City Attorney. And then I just wanted to add something to that. So in that scenario, the City Attorney's Office would be representing that officer. And then the board and or the auditor would need to get outside council. There would need to be some sort of, you know, funding for that so that they could, I guess, kind of be against the City Attorney's Office in our representation of the officer in trying to get that subpoena quashed. So that's a whole nother kind of aspect to that. OK, I got a lot of hands. So let me go to Vice Mayor Bagley. Then I saw Councilman McGarry's hand. And then I do want to get back to the public discussion. And then we can continue our discussion. So what we're all trying to achieve here is the just and throw investigation. And I hope what my colleagues questions are drawing out is at no point in this process that includes a subpoena with the ends of justice be furthered because it will not produce information from a recalcitrant officer. What will happen is, A, if they are uncooperative at the investigation level, then they can lose their job and be disciplined. Collective bargaining covers that, you know, case law supports it. And we keep talking about like firing the city manager, but also we hired a manager and he hired a police chief reflective of this council's values and the council before it that created this ordinance. So I know we're trying to think out the worst case scenario, but even in the scenario that my colleague has described where we've fired, you know, he's, he won't, the chief has not fired this recalcitrant officer. And the manager won't fire the police chief, because that's really what would happen. It would say, manager would say to police chief, we can't have a uncooperative officer in our ranks. If you're not willing to fire him, I will fire you. And if the manager won't say that to an uncooperative captain, then it's on us to then dismiss the city manager at which stage. Yes, we will name an interim and make it clear to that interim that accepts that role. Your task is to dismiss the police chief at this point. If anybody's are familiar with like watergate and the Saturday and Massacre. I mean, but it's essentially the same thing. I'm going to keep firing people until I get to someone who will do the thing I need you to do, except we're not Nixon, you know, like that was a bad version. But it's important because I think so much of this conversation the community is happening in very extreme hypotheticals. And so I think it's important today that we actually walk them out in the practical. So that's the scenario with subpoena power since it's back to talking about police, which was where I thought the sub committee. that we actually walk them out in the practical. So that's the scenario with subpoena power, since it's back to talking about police, which was where I thought the subcommittee made great progress, is specifically if the community wants it as a tool to get information from officers, it will not do that for us. The best tool we have to get information from officers is the internal investigation process, the auditor process and the collective bargaining agreement that tells them what they bargain for, what their rights are and aren't, and then a good police chief and a good city manager and a civil and a council that supports justice and civil rights. So I think what these questions have hopefully drawn out is this subpoena will neither produce useful information or from the investigation, nor really change the end game, which is the officer cooperates and we have a thorough investigation or he doesn't and he or a bunch of other people lose their jobs. Okay, I'm gonna go to Councilman Aguirre and then I think I think I think I was on the so if she can go ahead and get ready Thank you Madam Mayor So I do want to emphasize with what the vice mayor said we we are going and looking at extreme hypotheticals Which I think is important because we need to take these things into consideration One last informational thing just for the public's knowledge So the city attorney brought up a good point that the board would then need to get their own attorney. So number one, the city attorney can provide a list which the board would then be able to utilize or not utilize. It would be their choice. And secondly, we would provide funding for this lawyer ultimately. So just want to be clear that this isn't some mandate to the board that then the board members would have to come out of their own pocket be able to pay for a lawyer, no, the city would be paying for this legal service. Okay. Brian, do we have missiles in our own line? Right. Miss Eisenhower. We are ready for your testimony. Sorry. Oh, sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry. Like I said, I'm in the middle of an asylum application. I was trying to coordinate the court. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry, sorry, like I said, I'm in the middle of an asylum application. I was trying to coordinate that. So apologies, apologies, I tried to follow all the extemporaneous back and forth, but that I might say things of my testimony that have already been covered. So please forgive that, as obviously we're trying to do things at once once. Really, I'm just trying to replace, to uplift the testimony, the letter given by the independent civilian police review board, as they are the experts. They are the ones who are going to do this, and so they know what they need, and the tools that they need to do their job. So I'll just go with my prepared testimony here, and that I am grateful that the council voted in January to go back to the drawing board on the proposed revisions to the ordinance. But the compromised language reached by some committee still does not live up to the original conception of the board as a meaningful independent vehicle to hold the police accountable for the harm that they do to city residents. So in the letter to the council, that's included in the docket. The board members of themselves have explained in great detail why this draft of the ordinance is inadequate. So first the ICPRB writes in our letter that they oppose the proposed structure which tests the city council with mediating disagreements between the ICPRB and the auditor about one to initiate investigations. This proposal would have compromised the independence of the civilian report. A principle so important that it's directly in its name, right? So the council intentionally created this board to try and delegate the power to investigate or release government to members of the community as an accountability measure. And to roll back this delegation now, breaches the city's commitment to community input and control over our law and forthman agencies. And then second in our letter, the ICPRB opposes the reduction of subpoena powers reading and penit-auditor, which was a fairly hamburger investigative power and effectiveness. I know that this has been discussed at length today, but mainly I think the concern that was articulated in the letter was that reducing the subpoena power to only documents, which can be heavily redacted, will curtail the ability of the board to thoroughly investigate abuses of police power on behalf of the community. So I really am only testifying here to say that we should be listening to the board members that wrote to you and explain what they needed and give them the tools to do their jobs. And the heart of the issue is that has taken over four years to get an MOU signed. And these proposals will change as, don't actually, just close to a financial CPRB. The issue is that, the seal billium oversight has to be a priority for the city. And we have to understand that the dogs in the police department is clearly showed that they're not interested in being reviewed. And so that's why this process is so important. So and again, as always, I'd like to end my testimony where I'm adding everybody that in the time that we were debating this and we were trying to figure out a modified ICP RB, the Alexander police department killed a resident back in August of 2024. And so why are we still trying to undermine civilian oversight oversight before it can actually get started? So... police to remain killed or resident back in August of 2024. And so why are we still trying to undermine civilian oversight before it can actually get started? So again, apologies for not being able to follow all of that. But again, I please echo the sentiments of the ICPRB that is incredibly urgent that we follow what they need, and what they say they need to do their jobs right. Thank you Ms. Eisenhower. Vice Mayor Bagley. Yeah, Ms. Eisenhower, thank you for the work you're doing today. I just wanted to acknowledge that I do appreciate the asylum work and the refugee assistance you're providing and that you're still making time to participate in this community dialogue. With that though, you actually raised two sort of new elements of the conversation today that I want to pause and clarify. I appreciate your sort of reference to they are the experts with the review board. But respectfully, what I want to add to the conversation is they're not the only experts in this space. And we, the subcommittee, were actually guided in part by an organization called NAICOL, which is the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement. Okay. And they also have a perspective and have a membership and a series of studies. And what is the, in what way did NAICOL inform the subcommittees work if I'm wrong, if I can speak to that? Oh, good. Yeah, so NaCl's position is you said it. Sapena Power is just one tool in the toolbox. It's, I think we're certainly at a hammer and screwdriver situation where we have to look at the problem and see whether Sapena is needed or whether we can go through the MOU process. What NACOLE advises is the MOU process is much better, simply because all of the parties are at the table and they agree to the terms that go into the MOU. Should there be an issue, though, with compliance with the agreement between the board and the police department? That is when subpoena powers tend to kick in. That does not eliminate the the guarantee issue. It does not eliminate the fact that you will have to seek outside counsel. But that is the overall position of Nicole is that subpoena power is a tool in the toolbox, but it's not the end of the end of the, you know, it's not the worst case scenario if you don't have subpoena power. And, and, and, Miss Camara, you also participated in sort of the ad hoc process last year, and while I'm not in a position to sort of qualify, I use an expert. I do actually want to ask for you to briefly sort of state your background here as well in the public defender's office as a community organizer with CRJ, working with people in transition out of incarceration. If you could just touch on that briefly and the experience that you bring to your role. Yeah. I have worked all over the criminal justice system truly. When I graduate, well, when I was in law school, my first exposure was in reentry. Working with people who were just released from federal prison up in Rhode Island. I was a program assistant that ran the transitional skills group program. So that talked about financial literacy, it talked about how to keep your family or connections, things like that. I went on to work as a public defender after graduating. And then I became a law clerk, I moved to New Jersey becoming a law clerk at the Superior Court of New Jersey. Sorry, after that I went to join the NYPD team, or the NYPD Monitorship team, which was assigned after a federal judge entered a consent decree with the city to set up a federal monitor to oversee stop and frisk practices. So up there I was on the community side. We did a lot of community organizing together feedback from residents in Brooklyn and the Bronx about their experiences when they when when they, when they're with police, we also train them on how to sort of navigate the different levels of stops. After that, I went to go on to work for a Brooklyn law firm on protecting people's civil rights that were violated by either NYPD or people who are staying at Reckers Island. I appreciate And again, it's just more context. Some of the emails and some of the dialogue in the community has again implied that the auditor is a part of the police department and I just, your particular background, I think speaks to the role you bring to this. The last thing I wanted to touch on was Miss Eyes and Howers reference to redacted comments or the way that materials produced in a redacted format. Miss Roberts, could you speak to when materials are subpoenaed, how are they required to be produced? And then Miss Camara, can you address why when a report becomes public, items might at that point be redacted? So on a subpoena stucisticum is issued, you would receive unredacted documents. So you would receive full documents or would be nothing removed from those documents, which we then go to the auditor. And they might be have, I mean, they might be redacted, but only to protect personal, personally identifiable information. That may be names or the location at which an incident happened. That is just to protect all individuals involved, not the officer, not the complainant, but all individuals involved. When in the board's review, they will get to see the full report. It will not be redacted for the board simply to allow them to you know make a full assessment in reference to some concerns that we've received about the redacted report that's online. That was a report that was given to me from another jurisdiction and it's heavily redacted because it was not yet released to the public in that jurisdiction. That report was requested by the subcommittee just to give an example of where Guarantee would be denoted. And so that is why I provided that. Thank you, Ms. Navarato. I think that. Thank you, Miss Barbara, too. I think that's helpful, because I think there were some misrepresentations that that was a report from our city. I did have a question though in it. Obviously, when you look at it, there might see like, somebody's address can't be that long, or somebody's name can't be that long. What are other types of like identifiable information that might be the reason why some of that would be redacted in our report? There's any descriptions of people. If they're describing a certain corner where it might be, you know, there's a 7-11 or they're describing things that allow you to picture either the person or the place in which the incident took place. Thank you. All right. Madam Clerk, next two speakers. Worrie Hetfield followed by Angers Moran. I know Mr. Hatfield is here. I think Ms. Moran is online. Okay. Thank you Madam Mayor. Thank you City Council. Actually several of my points that I was going to make have I've been addressed in this discussion. And even though I still am in support of the board keeping there's a peanut power, it's not out of any distrust or poor experiences with the I was injured police department. Actually, it's been far from it. Madam Madam Mayor when you were a councilwoman, you directed me to the, I believe was, it ended up being a smuggler who was sitting in Nick Lyon, and I had seen a bunch of white nationals propaganda in my neighborhood, and his intelligence unit helped me, you know, I fed them information, and they helped me take it down. So, quite frankly, I think that there is some goodwill in the police department, and I think that there is some goodwill in the police department and I think that you know I trust that they would try to comply. To be quite frank it's more of a fundamental issue for me. I hope that in the words of Councilman and Lubey that it's just a unused tool in a toolbox to have subpoena power. Should we go to it immediately? No, but fundamentally I just think it should be an option and I think that would help the board have a bit of goodwill and accountability in the community. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. We will now go to Miss Moran. Is she still online? Sure. Miss Moran, you can begin whenever you're ready. Thank you. Good afternoon. Mayor Gaskins, vice mayor, back, and city council members. I'm writing to you as lead organizer of tenants and workers united and on behalf of many community members we represent. I'm also an active board member of the board. I have been a member of the board since 2021. I and others decided to apply to become a board member in order to help represent the voices that are often not heard and not considered. This role in the board is a volunteer position and I have spent countless hours in trainings meetings and write-alongs and more. However, the function of the board has not been fully implemented because of the city's bureaucratic processes. As an organization, we reject the proposed changes to the board's ordinance. The ordinance represents the proposed ordinance represents a significant step backwards because it ignores the concerns and needs of the community members who work for years to enact better accountability for law enforcement. This statement is nothing new because we've been expressing our concerns for quite some time. The reason we supported and even applied to the board as an organization was because of the 2021's original ordinance that was centered on having the voices represented on the board. The board's authority to initiate investigations and the board's ability to obtain information through full subpoena power. However, the city wants to maintain the status quo of having yet another group was only seen to take action, but in reality it is not. Oppose, ordinance fundamentally alters the board's purpose and scope, shifting its focus from investigation to review. More like the current human, the city's human rights commission. I was proud to know that the city was bold to create this entity and to show best practices of what other localities should be doing and lead us by example. Our youth members have worked so hard on police transparency and the calamity for years, beginning with data collection of stops in 2015. And after the death of George Floyd community members banded together and petitioned the city to enact meaningful law enforcement accountability measures. Now the city's weakening the board's ability to investigate addresses to medic issues and the city's jeopardizing the safety and well-being of residents, especially residents of color. We reject any of the changes that strip the community out of what of the gains it has fought hard for years to secure. We're living in times where extreme executive powers becoming the norm and now more than ever our families feel unsafe with all the law enforcement. We need the city to maximize its limited resources and ensure we're truly creating systematic changes for the betterment of our low income communities of color. Please do not ignore the voices of the community. Thank you for your time. Thank you Ms. Moran. Vice Mayor Bagley. Thank you, Ms. Moran, both for your service to the board, your service at CWU and the value you bring to the community. I wanted to just use your testimony because it highlighted for me, again, something else we haven't yet touched on, which was the subcommittee actually moved the needle from where the ad hoc committee was for what that's worth. I know that there's still opposition from the board, but what I do just want to point out is that between my colleague and I, you know, both of our recommendations went from, you know, potentially the board having no opportunity to, you know, overrule the auditor in an investigative decision to, you know, having back more authority under this proposal and being ultimately getting a decision that sides with them rather than the auditor. That was not on the table from the ad hoc version back in November. And then on the subpoena point, the version of the ordinance that came out of first reading ultimately didn't move forward, but out of first reading, had no subpoena power. So to the extent that I understand the opposition remains, again, I think it's valuable for the community and for the subcommittee and for our recommendations to our colleagues to note that it's reflective of work and effort and dialogue and moving the needle back towards the board. Councilor Aguirre. I wanted to touch on a couple things too that were brought up in that. First of all, I would acknowledge what Ms. Moran said with the countless hours. That goes for all the board members past and present. We realize, you know, again, when we think we started picking the board at the end of 21 and the board probably first met in 22. So they've definitely been invested for the last two years and spent many hours, not just for board windians, but also with the various training requirements that we have put in place here. You know, made that this is ignoring accountability, I would disagree with that. First of all, on the premise that we haven't even started yet, we're trying to get to a point where we can stand a board up so that there could be some of this accountability. And when we say that we're weakening the ability again, I would say we haven't even started yet. So how can we weaken something that doesn't even exist at this point. Lastly, in terms of initiating investigations, Ms. Camero, please assist me here. Complaint or inquiry could come in from an individual to the board. It can come directly to the police. It can come to a board member or can come from some other individual to any one of those. Because, sorry, let me start that over. An individual can come to the police directly, to the police board, any board members, or to you, or another individual on behalf of someone can come to any one of those three. Is that? That is correct, yes. Once that inquiry comes in, what happens? AIPA, if it comes into AIPA, we assess the complaint. We do, if it's, let's say, the complainant filed it with both offices, which isn't uncommon. They file it with OPR, they file it with AIPA. I would reach out to OPR, and we would discuss whether or not I need an independent investigation, or if I could monitor APD's investigation. After that, we also look at the, I think the first question is, does this involve a police officer or employee of Alexandria Police Department? Next would be that analysis between who's going to do the investigation. Should I assume a monitoring role, I would receive regular updates from OPR, I do have access to all their systems as well. All their internal investigation systems. I would get to see when evidence is uploaded. Reports are uploaded and things like that. When OPR finishes its report, if I'm monitoring, I would review it. Right my own report. Those would be submitted to the board for their review. For my own independent investigation, I would review it, write my own report, and those would be submitted to the board for their review. For my own independent investigation, I would receive the complaint, reach out to the complainant, do the initial interview. I would then seek out any witnesses if they were listed, as well as get any other outside evidence that I don't already have available to me in the APD system. So it may be surveillance footage from a store. It may be a ring camera or something like that. And going back to the beginning, for whatever reason an inquiry complaint comes in, if APD chooses not to investigate it, how does that impact you? Well, APD is separate. I am an independent body. Should I see that this matter deserves an independent investigation? I will certainly do that. What APD does does not affect my office, not at all. And so this is what I'm going towards in terms of, because I think it was said that the authority around initiating investigations, what I want to make clear is that essentially the investigations gonna happen pretty much any way you put it, whether APD decides to do one or not, because you will be looking at whatever inquiry or complaint comes in and then taking it from there. Now, the whole purpose of the subcommittee and whether we went down with the authority is, for whatever reason, if there is an impasse, say you look at something, APD says, yeah, I don't think we're gonna look into that. And then the auditor looks at it and says, yeah, I don't think I'm gonna get it either. Now, in that situation, the board can disagree, right? So, this idea that we're taking away the authority to initiate investigations, I would slightly disagree with. I would say that we're still moving forward with investigations and for whatever reason, if there is an impasse, we putting in place a mechanism to resolve that and to be clear this mechanism is very very public. It also wouldn't be the only part of investigatory power that has that checks and balances. We're discussing subpoena power as well. subpoena power is an automatic I issue a subpoena to someone and have them show up. It's also checked by a court. It's subject to judicial review for good cause to make sure that it's a legally sound request. Thank you, and I don't know if we have more public speaking. So on my list, there's one more. But I think, I'm clerk, I saw a couple more. She's coming. So we have four more. So if you could call the next two. The next speaker is Christopher Lewis, followed by Muhammad Safedin. And I see both of you in the room. So if we can have each come to the podiums, that way we can continue the public discussion. That'll be great. Mr. Lewis. Good morning. Good morning. I'm Chris Lewis and chair of the Alexandria Independent Community Police Review Board. And I'm here to elaborate on my letter expressing the board's unanimous opposition to the proposed language. It takes away the ability for the board to independently initiate investigation, which is currently in the ordinance, as well as the change from full subpoena power to subpoena juices tech and just to add clarity because I served on the ad hoc committee, the recommendations that initially came to the council were not just they were not all consensus recommendations, some were recommendations that did not have the approval of the board like not having subpoena power. Returning board to power, to initiate investigation back to city council, base question, why have an independent review board? All powers around investigation would be removed, and the only function left is to share an opinion at the stage between the steps of the auditors report and it being shared with city council. I will note that this removal of power around investigations is also while heightening the training requirements and adding rarely used financial public disclosures for board members. Those changes are highly inconsistent. Why does the council want to increase that burden and qualification to unvolunteers while reducing their authority and power? You can question whether someone would want to serve on a board then. When it comes to subpoena power, the auditor highlighted on Tuesday that subpoena power chooses to come, goes within the best practices of NaCl. So is full subpoena power where witnesses can be called and I'm happy to show you NaCl material saying so. The previous City Council included it so the question is why does this city council think differently? Two-sid discussion highlighted the gap in not being able to call non-police witnesses without giving a compelling reason for it. The only reason discussed was a vague unease about subpoenaing average people with all due respect. The unease of a witness coming forward to recount a traumatic event such as an international incident like George Floyd's murder, which started this. It, in no way, outweighs the trauma to a family that has a dead level one, potentially compounded by racially charged policing practices. This was the George Floyd scenario, and the council is leaving a gap that would limit the auditor's ability to get that witness testimony, regular people, not police. I do not believe the trauma of compelling a witness account outweighs the importance of completing an independent investigation and justice being served. Do not put a future council in a position where they have to blame this council to close this gap during a traumatic event. Please do it now and maintain full subpoena power. Thank you for the seriousness, which all of you have taken with this issue and the board remains a resource in trying to correct these issues. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. Councilman Grigory. Mr. Lewis, real fast. I, you brought up financial disclosures. Yes. Board has to do a financial disclosure. Currently we do not have an current ordinance, but in the proposal given to you that was brought forward as a part of the ad hoc committee's consensus views. We added at the request of the police department public financial disclosure, something that as a personally as a member of the review board, I was happy to give to give because we were still assuming that we were going to maintain an investigatory power. Ms. Robert, Ms. Kamara, I don't think we're moving that forward in this proposal. Are we? And if it was removed, my mistake. But it was in... Maggie, bring up a good point. I want to make sure that we clarify that here. So it certainly wasn't an issue before the subcommittee, but just to clarify, financial disclosures were not a request from the police department. It was actually a request from Kim. She saw that we need to put out there for people to see that this board is not going to be subject to any influence. And it's independence. We thought that that would be an important. Is it still in the current proposal? I don't think so. I'm going to get a definitive confirmation. And to my colleagues, I'm with Mr. Lewis. I think this isn't really necessary. But thank you, Consponant Carey. I'm going to go to Vice Mayor Bagley while we work to get. Again, if it's not there, I'm fine with that. But before we sort of jump to agreeing, it shouldn't be. The only thing I just want to point out is Mr. Lewis is arguing at the same time that this set of civilian should have direct control over a city employee. So for what that's worth, we all make financial disclosures in part because we have direct control over city employees and the public sort of has a right to know where our, you know, what, where our decision making. We've all recused in various situations based on what the- We're not an exposure on one second. All right, we got a lot of people who want to speak to Mr. Lewis. I will call on you. Give me one second. Thanks, Mayor Bagley. Have you finished? And then I'm going to come to staff, and then we to come back. I'm curious how I've missed it. Mr. Lewis, because my understanding is the board is saying they don't want council to be able to not, you know, to be a part of the direction of the auditor's choices. the board members, the, the seven, unelected appointed members of the board to have direct control, independent of any overview of whether the auditor does or does not pursue an investigation. Is that a fair statement of the board's position? All my testimony today was interesting, is that there is an inconsistency in taking away the ability to initiate investigations while adding this financial disclosure. If you, I was willing, as a member of the ad hoc committee, to accept it and let the financial disclosure be added when I thought we had the ability to initiate an investigation. So, so do both or don't do either. That's what I'm getting at. If we are going to do this. And it it's just me by the way It's not no no no We're you and I are actually seeing this the same way yeah if the if we end up today with this body giving the board What they've asked for which is no oversight and review of their decision about what the auditor does or doesn't do And I might want to have this conversation but if we don't, I agree with Mr. Lewis that if there is overview of that direction, then perhaps this is all unnecessary. Okay, I want to come to staff. Mr. Lewis, I do have a question for you. Sorry, keep you up here all day. I do have a question for staff to see if we've received confirmation of what is or is not. They are not required under the ordinance to fill out the financial disclosure form. They do have to fill out like a standard of professional conduct. Okay, that has to do with confidentiality and ethics training. Okay, so then let's hold that as we have our future discussion. This really was my question for you. You mentioned that if the board doesn't have these two powers, kind of why have I bored at all? I wonder if you could speak to, I know we focus, this is the bulk of the discussion. I wonder if you could speak to, kind of, there, when I read... the board doesn't have these two powers, kind of why have I board at all? I'm wondering if you could speak to, I know we focus, this is the bulk of the discussion, but I'm wondering if you could speak to, kind of, there are, when I read the ordinance, and when I look at this, there are many other duties and responsibilities of the board. Can you speak to what those are, and are those being done, or are those still of value? There other than reviewing investigations, there's an outreach and community engagement component with There are other than reviewing investigations, there's an outreach and community engagement component, which would still be there. And there is a policy review component, which I believe is still in there. All worthy and important pieces of building trust in the community, which is a reason it was given to creating for creating this board. But I would argue that I think as I heard another witness say, the community outreach component was already and could already be done by the previous structure before this board was created, that was a human rights commission. And policy review also could have been done, but the complaints that happened, if I memory serves correctly, the complaints that happened around that old structure with the human rights commission is that they did not have full access and could not require full access to documents, materials, investigations. It was just limited access. The creation of this new oversight structure with an auditor and with a board, independent of the police, has, under the current ordinance, created those opportunities I think bring greater accountability and oversight. And without those, I think there's a question of why you create an independent board when you can still do policy review, community outreach. If I'm missing some, forgive me, but I'm trying to remember them all off the top of my head. No, I appreciate that. I just, I know we received a number of emails that were like, then why have a board? And I think it's, I read it. These are two really important pieces, which is why I think it has deserved the attention and the discussion we've had here. But I also think there is more to the board than just this. And so I wanted to understand kind of those pieces to meet, particularly the policy review, still has a lot of value. And so what happens to that if we're throwing out the dialogue of just disband or don't have it? So that's what I wanted to understand. Can I add? Yes. Also, in the previous structure before there was a police review board, of course, Council always had the power to request, to create an investigation. That's been delegated through the ordinance to this board. It sounds like council is considering obviously with the recommendation to take that power back and only allow the board to recommend if they disagree with the decision made by the auditor. I think that would take longer. And I think it does bring to question then why have a board if the decision is made by the council because the council could review independent auditor reports and just as good as an independent review board could, but these are all decisions you guys have to make. Thank you. All right, I'm gonna proceed to our, sorry. Okay, now come back. Sorry, well done, Mr. Lewis. Councilor Minnick. Oh, okay, got it. Never mind, thank you, Mr. Lewis. Councilor Minnick, Gary. Say, there's something came up that I wanted to address because if there is an impasse there was concern around how long it would take so if there's an impasse How quickly can the board Call a meeting to take a vote to decide whether or not To bring this to the council under what we're considering right now We've seen the board call an emergency meeting within a week. So. And then to follow up within that week decision, how quickly then can we get this targeted for public care and for the council? I can take that. We can, the council always has the option to call a special meeting or it can go on the next city council meeting. And so I think personally at least, and this isn't future proofing anything right because future councils would decide whatever they want to do, at least for me personally, if this board were to call a special hearing, an emergency meeting, make a decision and throw it to us, I would want to address that as quickly as possible. Hence, I would be looking to call a special meeting as quickly as possible, even if that means going outside of what our regular schedule is. Now, at that special meeting, do we have the public public here at the same time or are we making the decision to then hold the public hearing. When you are calling the special meeting, you're going to have to get some, give some notice for the public here. So there is a brief notice time for the special meeting and I would recommend that we advertise the public hearing to address because the special meeting you can only do whatever the call is for the special meeting for the purpose of holding the public hearing to address. Because the special meeting, you can only do whatever the call is for the special meeting. And by law, how many days do we need for notice? I would have to check for special meeting just to confirm. I don't want to speak off the cuff, so I can check really quick right now. For a regular meeting, was it three days? Three days. Okay, three days. To then we would get to the public hearing, make a decision and then move forward. So I just wanna throw in there that this is a process that can move fairly quickly, right? Again, can't speak for future councils. Personally, I would want to move this as quickly as possible if that were the situation. Okay, thank you, Councilman McGarry. I saw Councilman Chapman, and then I saw Councilman El-Nubi. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Can you clarify for me kind of that the point you raised about Nicole and the point that Mr. Lewis raised as well full subpoena best practice from Nicole. But yeah. As recently as January, I spoke with the president of Nicole about the subpoena issue. And that is what I was saying earlier about, it's a better process to go through the MOU process and rely on the trust that's been built there. It brings all parties to the table, the board members, AIPA and the Chief of Police, to all agree, to access, which Mr. Lewis highlighted in his testimony has been a problem for other boards. This board does not have a problem with that access. So returning to NACO, NACO's recommendation is that effective oversight is not road blocked if subpoena power is not given to the office. there are other things with an organizational structure, such as an MOU that is much more useful to moving the process right along. I had Councilman O'Neubi and then Councilman Green and I do want to get back. We only got two more speakers. Oh, one second. We have a clarifying. We're hopeful. Councilman Green. OK, so a summary on two. From Tuesday's meeting, I had the understanding that you said, juice is tecum, tecum. I've heard it both ways. I'm gonna go with you, Megan. Juice's tecum was a best practice, was in the recommendation for NACOLE. Yes. Correct. be close to peanut power. I stand by that statement. It's the most used most it's the most used It's the most commonly used form of subpoena power used by civilian oversight agencies across the country. So yes Okay, Councilman on Newport Thank you Madam Mayor. A couple of points to my colleague, Councilman Enkiris, point of we always have the power to put this back in if the situation arises. So that's an acknowledgement that, and from the auditor's response to me on Tuesday, we acknowledge there may be situations where we may need a subpoena. And all this to argue that we should include it today. So it's not that we're gonna use it for included day. We have an opportunity to include it today instead of having to go all of this that we just talked about. So if we just have it in today as a backstop, why not? I hear all the arguments against using it, fine. Yes, and it's by the way, it's all going to be the to the otter's discretion. Today we have an opportunity to just include it. Shall the situation arise that we need to have it? And if we don't have it, then we have to go through everything that we just talked about here. Call a meeting call a special meeting, go to a public hearing and all that. all that. So that's just where I'm coming from on this. My other point to former school board member, Chris Lois' point, you may, and I, we've been talking all day about subpoena for police officers, but we didn't talk about subpoena for witnesses, and Mr. Lois brought it up. You may get into a situation where a witness just don't want to come forward. They just don't want to. And that's not an excuse not to subpoena that person. Because I mean, yes, there are so many situations, so many possibilities. Yes, there may be a witness that is, you know, maybe has, as we had some conversations this week, and I appreciate that may have, you know, certain immigration status or worried about coming forward. But there may be witnesses who just don't want to come forward just because, like, they may just a privileged person and doesn't even care about that person of color who got abused. So, I think there may be so many situations and not having a subpoena in that situation would be a weakness and for us to go back and just try to put it in. It just doesn't make sense to me. I saw hands from councilman a gory and then vice mayor bagley and then we still have speakers and the queue. We respect my colleague just for clarity. I wasn't speaking about subpoena anything. I was just talking about the impasse and if there is an impasse, how would that work like? So, just. Helmsman, I'll newbie and then vice-maribut. Same applies for subpoena. If we come to situation, because that was what we were talking about Tuesday, if we come to situation, were we the subpoena? But you spark the thought in my head, so. Okay. So actually, I appreciate that the scenario that Mr. Lewis and now Mr. Alnube has raised, because it why? Why not do full? And I think what I'd like to take a beat and talk about is in the scenarios of why do full. The only example is this sort of unicorn situation where somebody refuses to participate in multiple opportunities voluntarily. And then for invalid reasons, like they're not undocumented, they're not a victim, they're not traumatized, they're not a crew member. None of the reasons that we would understand for their own reasons, they don't want to help this investigation. We then believe that in response to a subpoena, we're going to get productive information from them. So what I pose to you, colleague, is a scenario where, if we give full power, the office has authority to subpoena anybody. And while you guys now are sort of saying, well, she'll only do it to the right people, that's not what full subpoena power is. And so the scenario where there is no other evidence, there's no photos, there's no video, there's no other cooperating witnesses. You're now saying, okay, let's go get the one uncooperative witness to build our case on. Because to your point, that's what you sort of spelled out the other night. You said, well, what if there is no footage? What if there is no other cooperating witness? Okay, so now we have a claim based on no evidence except the case we are going to try to build on an uncooperative subpoenaed witness. So my concern is, I'm glad we've shifted from the police because I think there's a strong legal and now sort of hopefully, you know, publicly discussed reason why subpoenaes to police will not produce information. So now we're talking about private citizens. So there's two scenarios here of who won't cooperate. One of them would be undocumented members of our society who witness something, who are actually more likely to witness something. Because when we look at police brutality and use of force incidents, who were they used against? They're used against communities of colors disproportionately. So who's more likely to witness those incidents? It will be members of communities of color and immigrant communities. So an undocumented person who has chosen not to operate, we're going to demand to show up at a date, time, and location certain in a publicly noticed document and appear. Who else might appear in that moment? Let's discuss it. We're not gonna take comments from the crowd, so let's continue. And then we will call on the... The other kind of people who might not participate, voluntarily, would be a victim. Happens all the time. Cases, you know, the victim does not want to move forward. Who else might not want to participate? I referenced a crew member. Somebody who does not want to be on record speaking about incidents involving their crew or someone else's. And so while I appreciate wholeheartedly, Mr. Lewis's and yours concerned for justice not being served because one recal centric witness hasn't come forward. What I posit is if the whole case hinges on that one person, how strong a case can be built at that point? Whereas if the case has footage, if it has other witnesses, if it has photographs, if it has statements, now how much do we need the recalcitrant witness? And so I hear you, we could go, why not do it all? But then I'm saying now that office has full subpoena power. And it's not just going to be for the one person who is not otherwise afraid, but just doesn't want to participate. And when they do, what will they say? What value will they add? Because at that point, she's subpoenaing in a situation because the case has given her nothing else to work with. So I am more focused in this dialogue today and in this vote on who would be subpoenaed and when. And I appreciated your comment about when would, and the response was, well, I guess if I didn't have cameras and if I didn't have video and if I didn't have statements. But what I've sat with since Tuesday night is, okay, then what does the case look like? You know, what does the case look like at that point? Okay. We're going to turn back to our public hearing. Mr. Selfie. Good afternoon. Madam Mayor, Honorable Council members. or should I say, champions of anti-woteness. Really, just a tremendous day for common sense. Incredible. I just want to say, I am so proud of you. Really, you've finally done it. You've saved Alexandria from the dangers. Dangerous of independent oversight. You crushed it. World governance over the Contabitally, debt, transparency, not on your watch. It is beautiful. You told the public you believed in change. And tonight, you changed it right back. It takes real leadership to do that. It's tremendous leadership. And look, you didn't just kill the real police review ward tonight. No, no, no, no, no. You were too sophisticated for that. You kept it around. You're spending nearly a million dollars a year, a million dollars on a powerless symbolic board and you're calling it progress, masterful, really. We found the perfect excuse for this. We just want to get the board moving. We need compromise. We can let impass hold us back. I mean, it's poetry. The founding fathers would be jealous. George is jealous. Look at him. And let's be honest, what's the point of having a progressive city council? If you can't roll back civil rights, gains all by yourself, right? No need for outside pressure. No need for mega hats. You have handled it right here from the days. You told the people you'd fight for them, and you told them you make things better, and you kept your word. If by better you mean more manageable for the system, for the institutions, for state violence, you've turned the idea of reform into the best magic trick I've seen. Spend millions of bucks to do absolutely or almost nothing, and call it progress and call it democracy. Congratulations. The people will remember who chose comfort over courage. Thank you. Next speaker. Rashi Rostogi in the final speaker is Adrian Fikes. You know, in 2020, after the assassination of George Floyd, this community came together to say that we don't endorse the militarized police state, killing civilians in cold blood without consequence. This city established the framework for one of the most progressive civilian-reuth-led police review boards in the country. And yet, and yet that board never got off the ground. Right? It has been so illuminating to see how many board members have sent you letters and have sent you notes about what they're looking for and what they want, what the community says that it wants, and how little this council has been interested in making that a reality. You know, 1,128 people have been shot and killed by police around the country in the last 12 months. More than any other year in the last decade, not less since 2020. More. We're seeing less accountability for police. We're seeing less consequence for them. In the short time since I've moved to the city, APD has killed four people. You would think that this is the most important time ever to safeguard residents and implement checks and balances to check the unimpeded power of the police. Even as we are witnessing the widespread rollback of civil rights and civil liberties, or legal residents are being snatched off the streets and disappeared by a police state, where civilian services like fire departments are being defunded in favor of militarizing police and communities where crime rights are actually going down. You know, today's public hearing has been so illuminating for me in so many different ways. I've heard city council talk again and again about ways in which they are worried about EPD's cooperation and how to enable that. I hear a city attorney who talks about how she's going to have to defend law enforcement when they conduct misconduct and brutality rather than the ways in which they need to defend the residents against those very same incidences. It's been so extremely performative today to see this City Council congratulate itself for recognizing Arab American month, even as it refuses to acknowledge the genocide of Arabs in Palestine, and even as it endorses and facilitates the rise of an unchecked, oppressive police state, both abroad and at home. And now we see a City Council similarly trying to get political brownie points for an empty and Defing police review board that will accomplish nothing There will be no transparency from these proposed proceedings no accountability for residents Have you guys seen the kind of version of this report that Residents would receive The degree of red action what am I supposed to learn about my thinking for your time meeting for your testimony before it comes from a Gary and then I have a comment. So I just so number one to go after the city attorney doesn't make any sense because by law that's what the city attorney is going to do is they have to have to represent the city's interest and APD is a part of the city. And we also, you've been sitting here, realize that we would get independent council for the board. So just want to clarify that. Also, in terms of police cooperation, this council has been very clear. I mean, we're not trying to do favors for the police. The police has been cooperating. We're trying to move this forward. And in terms of the report that you referenced that was already spoken to by Ms. Camarra. Thank you, Councilman McGarry. And, Councilman McGarry touched on kind of where I wanted to go. For each of our employees, it is spelled out, the ones that we hire, it is spelled out in the code, the duties of their job. For the city attorney specifically, she does not represent residents. The city attorney has never done that. That's not how it works within our municipality and across the state of Virginia. So I just want to be clear, I know we've seen that on some issues whether it's Hot holes or other things in the city that's just not how it's set up in the structure. I do want to proceed to our last speaker. Good afternoon. I've blown up my Saturday to sit here on behalf of the people who would not come down here. And I just, a lot has been said that I absolutely agree with, but what I'm sitting with is who do you represent? Who did you stand on the street corner asking to sign a petition so you could run for office. How is the public supposed to trust you in these compromises when you are defining compromise not by what they asked, by what other people were telling you to do? How are we, you are defining a good compromise, not based on what the public has asked you to do. You are defining a good compromise by what you were able to negotiate. When you were elected, we elected you to represent the people. We elected you to fight for what the people are asking for. And so when we're seeing you compromise and try to explain a way why you are compromising what the people are asking for, when you are trying to explain a way why you are not giving the people the power to have a voice, the ones that need it the most, the ones that will need this are not likely to be able to go higher and expensive lawyer to fight this case. The ones that will need this are not likely to be the ones who are even willing to speak forward. They will both be the ones that don't want to come forward and the ones that need to come forward the most. I have spent 20 years in this city trying to encourage and train people to be active in their civic engagement. And what I can tell you is the city of Alexandria has very low credibility when you get to the inflection point where there is a disagreement between the staff and the public. I cannot think of one time where this council sided with the people and fought for what the people who needed you, that you will be out asking for donations and votes, and when the time comes for you to stand there and be courageous and uphold your responsibility to the people who elected you, you compromise, and then you come back and explain why you compromised. It's not okay. Harold Foster, Chapel Hill, high school students, he said, this town is a liberal place, but they call this town a liberal place, but that is a mirage. Thank you for your testimony. That is our last speaker. Is there a motion to close the public hearing? All right, there has been a motion and a second and a discussion. All right, all those in favor of closing the public hearing. Say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. The ayes have it. All right. Where would we like to counsel in a gear? So just, you know, I want to make a quick comment because of some of the things that were said from the last speaker. The, you know, this is a decision of the council. This was a conversation of the council members around authority. That's, it wasn't a negotiation with staff. It wasn't a negotiation with other people. It it was how does the council feel about their authority for this board? What does this council want to do with our employee, with our appointee? So I just be very clear about that. That's what the discussion was. There's not some outside thing with that. That's what does this body want to do with our appointee? Thank you. Other questions or comments at this time? Councilman Elnubi. Again, a couple of points. One, again, I'm going to reiterate. I really appreciate my colleagues work on this. I know it took a lot of work. And wherever we end up, it's just of work. And it's just philosophical differences. And it's just around the margins. And there's going to be trial and error, I believe, probably. Because this is the first time we're actually going to stand this up and get it up and running. So I hope we keep that in mind as we're having our deliberations. Because I know some of the public comments may have raised the temperature a little bit, but I hope we just continue to keep having this very thoughtful conversation and continue to to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. they put their lives on the line every day. And I don't want this to get lost in this conversation. What mistakes happen? That apples exist. Policies may fail. And this is where some of this effort would change that and fix that and repair that when it happens. So it's not to presume that APDs out to get people, or this board is out to get APD or all of that. There's none of that. And I just wanted to put that out there because I just don't want it to get lost while we're here having a very smart, thoughtful conversation, just trying to get to a decision that we all at the end of the day can sleep with. And then at the end of the day, we're going to move forward. And we have tons of decisions to make after this. Thank you. Other questions or comments? Council in Japan. Yeah, thank you, Madam Mayor. Madam City Attorney, and this is not, I want to be very clear, this is not kind of a direction of any case, just your overall authority. You have the power to, or your office has your power to subpoena people. We, let me, attorneys can subpoena people. Attorneys can apply for subpoenas, and we do. I'm sorry. Thank you. Correct. I think where the reason I asked that question is, you know, I, along with the rest of council, that has a good amount of power but knows when to use that. That would be my full expectation of any employee within the city and what we do and what powers they have including APD. But I also am comfortable in giving a great amount of power to our senior leadership with the full expectation that these professionals know how to use it and when not to use it. I think as I look at this and I appreciate staff's position on this, I do not have a reservation of giving that type of authority to the auditor, because I hire, I expect to hire and expect to work with folks who know when to use their power and use not, when not to. I think a number of examples have been laid out here when it might not be the right opportunity, it might not be necessary to use that authority. So I think my challenge is if this is a possible tool and the professional that wields it knows when to use it or not to. Why not sign on allowing them to have that tool? I think that's where I look at that particular issue. I think folks have laid out what Gary D. Means for officers. I appreciate, Madam Vice Mayor laying out a number of different examples and to the extreme case that we would be at if these items were used. But again, to me, that doesn't negate giving them that opportunity, with that power. I think that's my challenge. I'm going to go to Vice Mayor Bagley. I did just want to comment on this for me. I think as we're all laying out how we're thinking about this. I've been thinking less about this in terms of our professional staff's expertise or not expertise, because it's going to change. I mean, if I reflect on the past year, when we hired Kim, we were so excited because of the expertise that she had. And then unforeseen circumstances, we now have a new auditor who we're excited about. But Amara too may choose a different career or other changes may happen. And so I'm trying to think about it less in terms of, kind of, do we see our staff and their authority that they have? I think it's an important component. But I think for me, the thing that this is coming down to that I have been wrestling with the most is what is our end goal? And I think the end goal is we're trying to get justice. And what are the tools we have that are going to allow us to achieve that and will the different pieces that we've looked at will that result in a case that allows us to bring forth the information we need in order to achieve that justice? So I think for me, I just wanted to put out my, transparently, so my colleagues know where I've been coming from. That's the piece I've been combing with and sitting in the flow charts and trying to figure out if we are faced with one of these horrendous situations. How are we gonna get the information we need in order to make sure that we have a just, a clear a thorough and effective outcome for our residents. So that's the one I'm weighing the most. Vice Mayor Bagley. I appreciate that perspective and join in it in that because it builds off of to the extent that my colleagues want to give full subpoena authority to the auditor because they trust the auditor's judgment and guidance to do the right thing, I don't see how you keep part one. So I would posit that if it is my colleague's intention to give subpoena authority, then you remove the why does the board or council need to be second guessing decisionsessing decisions by the auditor pursue investigations. To me those two things are inconsistent. I thought we had agreement at Tuesday night there didn't seem to be any disagreement about the fact that we should have ultimate say if there's going to be a review process over the auditor and we had good consensus agreement on that at the subcommittee level with everyone in the room and then on the dies Tuesday night. What I'm pointing out here is in the arguments being made about the full faith and guidance and only using this tool in the way it should be used, what you're expressing is we don't need to have oversight and impasse and majority review over their decision making where we're putting that faith in them to use their tools effectively. So help me understand why they aren't equipped to make the proper determinations about whether or not to pursue an investigation, but they are equipped to have full scope of subpoena authority and we trust that they will only use that correctly because we don't have a mechanism, this council to pull back a subpoena that we think is inappropriate. We do have a mechanism as written through the board to pull back an investigation that is or isn't undertaken and our board says that's not the right call. Come. Are there any questions or comments on them? Councilor Chapmins. If the vice-american, can you repeat that last part, the differentiation that you said you heard? So, what the subcommittees' balance of recommendations reflected was essentially a checks and. Councilman Aguirre and I and his background in mind both demonstrate I think a belief in, you know, working towards social justice. And we were trying to get the committee going with an ordinance that also did include a degree of checks and balances. And to the point of why start with any check on two, well, there was a request for a check from the board themselves on one. The board said, we don't want the auditor to have exclusive and final say over what investigation is and isn't undertaken. They were sort of saying, we think we can't fully trust the auditor to make the proper decisions about what to pursue and what not. So the recommendation was our attempt to say, we don't disagree necessarily that there may be a situation where the auditor we hired is not the auditor we get. And we want to have an opportunity to redirect that ship and then ultimately maybe review that that employee. the compromised position here, and I don't even know that I love that word, but the new position presented on the subpoena was equally acknowledging there's always the opportunity. Yes, Councilman Anubi, if we see situations, but it creates a somewhat checked environment as well to the scope without ultimately damaging the final investigations for the reasons I have set deeply with. Because investigations rarely, and the auditor can speak up here, are going to rise and fall exclusively on the one unavailable witness. to the extent it would, it would be a very limited investigation. So I'm pointing out you made a compelling case for I defer to the auditor if I give her full subpoena power for that position to always use it effectively, to not put a victim, a witness, an undocumented person, somebody who doesn't want to appear in that situation. So to that I say, why then do we need to create the impasse process? If we trust in the full and effective application of unbridled subpoena power, why can't we also just allow our auditor to make her own independent decisions about what investigations do or do not move forward? I appreciate that. Thank you for that clarification. I think the reason and the kind of the answer to your point, I guess I don't see, I'll say this, I think with our senior leadership, I think it is our duty to provide oversight regardless of the tools they have or don't have. I think they should come to us for a annual review. I think that review should be, it's every six months. Having gotten that yet, but we're gonna on it. To provide the conversation, the oversight from what the seven members of council want to do, regardless of their powers. City Attorney's Office already has the ability to appeal for subpoenas. We're still gonna see her on a regular basis for our annual review, and it's going to look at a whole scope of work. And so I don't disassociate the auditor from having a seat of subpoena powers from an idea that I now have to just let my hands go off the auditor. I think there's still not only the subpoena powers, but additional work that she does that where I'm going to have a regular, hopefully, bi-handual conversation with senior leadership about what they're doing. And that also is not just going to be the subpoena powers, that's going to be a full scope, just like it is with every other senior person that we have, regardless of the power they have. So I don't know if I'm answering your question, but I guess I'm not gonna say dismiss, but I disagree with the framing of it. I just wanted to say I appreciate your excitement about more of our best reviews. There is a personnel committee that will be coming forward and I heard six months, I heard by annual, I might even say quarterly. So there will be updates coming. Councilman, I'm curious. Oh, I don't know about quarterly. I don't know about that. We'll get there before we throw in. Say, I see where my colleague, Councilman Chapman, is going with this. However, I posit in terms of this oversight, and I hope I'm not, you know, really blunt with this. Frankly, when we talk about oversight of this board and getting it together, frankly, I think we failed, right? When people are here and they say, why is it taken so long? And we list out all these reasons. I mean, part of that is from 22 to 24, we weren't on top of it. And I'll take full responsibility for that. I've been on this council from when this was proposed to where we are now. And I will say that, yes, we have failed in being able to have the appropriate oversight to make sure that this has come along faster. So while I see where my colleague's coming from, I am concerned because it's not to make excuses for us, but there's a lot of things that we oversee, that we try and take care of, and things fall through sometimes. And then at that point, the only people we could all responsible ourselves. So, I can't even say that I oversee every single decision that the Planning Commission makes, right? And if this board, first of all, I don't think this board is gonna have the volume of work that the Planning Commission has. If we do, there's something wrong in our community, we have deeper problems. That being said, you know, if it's four things a year, I don't know, I'm making up a number. Then I would agree with my colleague that we have more of an ability to check in regularly and have some more of that oversight. So I just wanted to mention that. I don't know if I should pause before I go into my other stuff or if someone wants to, okay say, you can keep going. Okay, thank you Madam Mayor. This hasn't been easy and it was interesting, the comment made by the last speaker, talking about the most vulnerable that potentially wouldn't be able to afford a case. And I agree, you know, frankly, I'd be hard pressed to afford a lawyer to represent myself. That being said, part of the reason for even having this board is that that potentially assists with this situation. Not having this board means we're not even doing that. So while some would argue, and I've even said this myself publicly, why even have this board? And some would say with what we're proposing with the authority, which I 100% agree with, I do believe it is our employee, and we will give direction, and if there's a disagreement, we will weigh in on it. I fundamentally believe that. Spina power is a little trickier but I do feel that we came to a good compromise because as was said this is the most utilized use of a type of subpoena. I'm not going to try and say it. And, you know, we're making, we're talking about all these theoreticals, we're talking about extreme hypotheticals and possibilities, but we still don't even have a board. We can't even get to the next step, which is to decide whether or not this board is doing something good, accurate, bad, needs changes, because we don't even have anything. That's not to discredit all the long hours of the existing board, but it's just a fact. We don't have a fully operational board. So we can't even get to some of these situations or talk about any of this stuff without having a board that's functional. And when I was put on this subcommittee with my colleague, the vice mayor, we were tasked with finding some compromise and some middle ground. And I think we got there. I think we got to a place where we still have a board that has subpoena power, albeit not for individuals. The vice mayor put it much more eloquently than I can, but in terms of the impasse, you know, the prior decision was, there is not gonna be an impasse, the board isn't gonna have a say in it. And now we're saying no, the board is gonna have a say in this. They're gonna be able to have a vote. And as we discussed earlier, we can make this go very quickly. Board calls an emergency meeting. Council can do the same for a special session. And we make a decision quickly. On whether or not we agree with the board's decision with asking the auditor to move forward or not. So again, I look at this with, you can't start to have a conversation when there isn't even anything there to talk about. I know we're talking about all the stuff around the edges and we're trying to make this as good as possible. But if we keep on stopping ourselves and making indecisions like we have to make a decision, otherwise it just isn't a board that exists. Is there any additional discussion that needs to be had or is there someone who would like to ask you to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to have the subifying reporting authority with the impass and the council to make the determination. Also to have the subpoena do who gets take them as the power of the move approval on the second reading. Okay, as seconded. There has been a motion to Do you guys want to say to get? Okay. There's been a motion to move approval on the second reading. Is there a second? Second. There has been a second by Councilman Newk Pike. Is there any further discussion? Vice Mayor Bagley. I'm sorry. Councilman Newk Pike, let's go to you first. thank you very much. I'm very happy to second Councilmember Geore's motion on this. We've been discussing this proposal before us as a compromise. And I don't entirely see it as a compromise. I see it as a response to a challenge that we've been facing. I wasn't on the council in 2020 when the process began that led to the creation of this board or on the council in 2021 when the law was passed that created it, but I was very excited when it was approved because I believe we need civilian oversight of instances incidents with our police department, the type that this board would provide. but it hasn't been providing it because we have structural challenges that need to be addressed. And I applaud the efforts of Councilman Aguire and Vice-Morning Bagley on this subcommittee to look at these issues with fresh eyes and to propose revisions to the ordinance that will allow this board to get up and running so that the people in our city who deserve justice for the issues they have faced, who deserve answers to questions they have, have a process of achieving that. So I think that there's been a lot of discussion today. It's really awkward to be remote when dealing with an issue of this importance. I didn't feel like I could really jump in on the discussions with my colleagues during the public hearing, but I really feel that everyone who's spoken today, everyone on the council, we're all coming at this with the same goal. We want to have a functional effective police review board, a functional and effective auditor's office, and I think we have the changes in hand here to achieve that, and I'm very happy to support Councilman Kiire's motion and the proposals of the subcommittee. Okay. Thank you. Vice Mayor Bagley had happened. I want to thank my colleague for his work with me on this item. I want to say to the community that. The work of caring for each other is not done in one vote in one piece of an ordinance. It is done through housing. It is done through bus service. It is done through transit. It is done through reading programs. It is done in, you know, tours about black history in our community. And whether or not the specific details of what we pass today, you know, have full agreement in this body. I do not want it to get lost. That we are passing a independent police review board ordinance. If should it pass? I guess I'm optimistically saying that. But should it pass? That's what we've been talking about. And that's what we've prioritized a committee towards. And that's what we have want to have. And that is a statement of its values, along with our budget, which includes millions of dollars for vital programings to keep people safe and fed and housed. And so I just, this specific item today was worthy of the time and energy and expressions that came with it. But I also don't want our, this councils and each of our individuals work on social justice and civil rights and building an equitable, better city to be lost in it. When the, one of the speakers sort of said, you know, what, what have you ever done to respond to residents and I'll be honest the first thing I wrote down was the lineage and you know everybody appears knows that story but you know that was a fight to create committed affordable housing. This prior council did that so I appreciate the motion my colleague, I intend to support it. I appreciate everyone who came to speak today in furtherance of their First Amendment rights and our very civil orderly process we have here. And but also, you know, we are working in many ways on many days to pursue the goals that this board has. Councilman Elnubi Thank you, Madam Mayor, and I appreciate the comments from my colleagues and I can't agree more with my colleague the vice mayor Just real quick and then like all you also have a few few words. I did struggle a lot with this specific vote that we have right now and I went back and forth and I think again I'm just going to reiterate it to me it's not that I don't think we need to move forward. I think for me it really came down to the answer I got from the other on Tuesday that there may be situations where They may need this tool and I wanted them to have that tool I just didn't want them to get in situation with you don't have that tool I wanted to empower them with it so to me it's like why not that's that's where I'm coming just why not why not have that tool It's going to make you a break it. I don't think so. I mean, are we ever going to need it? I don't know. So this is where I don't think so. I mean, are we ever going to need it? I don't know. So this is where I'm coming from really. I don't think that this, I think we had a great conversation. I don't think where we're undergarp right now is a bad place. I actually think it's still a good place. I do agree that we all share the goal of social justice here. I think to my colleagues' point, I mean, the work that we do every day, the budget was just passed, you guys, the other, or whereabouts to pass, and the ad leads that were up on those screens, really, shower commitment to not just having a progressive city or moving, or enacting progressive policies, but really caring about the most vulnerable in this community. I mean, if you look at, you know, whether it's affordable housing or expanding dash, that's free, but we expanded the line that had the most equity score. Or ACPS, our younger generations, and ACPS is, last I checked, was 60% free-introduced lunch, maybe more. These are the kids that need the most resources. So I really, I think thank you for bringing it up, Vice Mayor, I mean, our work speaks for our values. And even especially today that some of the public comments that were negative, some of us were pointed to either one or several of us, whether it's during the police review board or earlier, just to be frank. Like, some people just don't like that we are not doing what they're asking us to do because they think that's the way to address some things. And I mean, it's okay to agree to this agree. And listen, we put ourselves up here. We chose to run for Alf-Semby elected officials. So So we're open for for attacks. We'll take the attacks. We'll stand by our decisions. At the end of the day, that's what we chose to do. So I think that, and with all that, I still, you know, I appreciate people who come to speak, even if they disagree with us and go into attack us, because that's the right, I mean, I'd rather live in a society where this is allowed in living a society, which I did live in a society where this is not even allowed. These people wouldn't even make it to the door, you know, in some countries. So I really appreciate that I live in a community in a society where this is possible, where we can have these dialogues. And I think this conversation that we had today was really shows the commitment of us to do our due diligence and ask the tough questions and think through several scenarios and hypothetical scenarios just to get to a decision that we think is the right decision and we think and decision that we believe we've put all our thought into at the end of the day. So I appreciate the conversation and I'm just I do again I am where I am. It doesn't mean I don't appreciate everyone's work on this. I'm just gonna be consistent with my boat on Tuesday. Okay. Um, comesman a carry. Two quick things. First of all, I appreciate the comments from my colleagues, the vice mayor and Councilman Al Nubi, specifically around this is one item out of very money that we deal you know When when someone comes up here and says that we're not listening and we're not doing stuff You know I would pause it all of the things Around housing around transit around the rice program, right? But if that's how if that's how someone wants to judge us off a one vote then then so be it. That's their decision to make. And secondly, if this motion does pass, I just want to reiterate to staff that the financial disclosure or not is not on the table at all. So I just want to say this. There has been a motion and a second. I guess a few reflections. There were a number of speakers who spoke about courage and leadership. And I guess what I would just want everyone to know and to my colleagues to know as well. I think that what has been displayed through this discussion, not just through today, but the work of the subcommittee, the community conversations that have happened, I think is leadership. I think there are people who would try and argue that this, I think somebody said, performative or theater. I think we watched people actually display that in their remarks. I don't think we saw that from this body and up here. I think this seriousness with which we approach this is the very seriousness that this issue deserves and that we have to continue to do. I think that as I've been listening and watching, you know, in January, we had no path forward. I think we, none of us were sure kind of how we would vote, how we would take this up, or even how we would reconcile. I mean, would seem like not just two issues, but I think there were many other ones we wanted to have dialogue on. And so I have a deep sense of gratitude and respect for Councilman Ackierire and Vice Mayor Bagley for giving us a path forward. I also think you both have raised that the path doesn't stop here. And I appreciate I think Councilman Aguire, I was looking through my notes earlier, you talked about the accountability we must take as a body and the work that this Council has to do moving forward. And so I think that there is more to do whether that is in the review process, whether that's in figuring out how to participate and engage differently with this board, we to have a role and I think we will take up that role. I think that what we are putting forth here and I do intend to support the motion is I think it is transparent and those who would argue that it's not I just respectfully disagree. I think we're bringing forth a process that allows for not only the board but also more of the public to be a part of this conversation. I think we are putting forth something that allows us to be accountable and use multiple tools in the toolbox while leaving space to explore if we need to add others out of future date And I think it is responsive to what we are hearing from our community And I think what is needed and so with that there has been a motion and a second and is there any other discussion? Consafely out to me Yes, Councilman Chapman can safely out to me where exactly is number two in this ordinance. As I go through it, I want to make sure I'm reading kind of how we are talking about what that scope is. I think I'm looking at it. the auditor's ordinance under 4-1-6-R. We're going to have the right thing. Sorry. It's attachment to. It's attachment to. And it's under. Yeah. to then. the two dash four dash 227 seven section seven Mr. Robert can you just read it out loud I don't think all of us have our computer or paper or the city attorney has it. If after making a good faith effort to obtain voluntarily the production of books, papers and other evidence necessary to perform its duties, the AIPA is unable to obtain production, may apply to the Alexandria Circuit Court for a subpoena, do ses teacum, compelling the production of such books, papers, and other evidence. And the court may have, and how good cause shown causes the penis to be issued. Um. of such books, papers, and other evidence, and the court may have had good cause, shown causes the pina to be issued. For the questions? I'll say a couple words if that's OK. Yes, I'm going to go to you and then Councilwoman Green. OK. You know, I appreciate the work. This has been a process, right? Going back from its inception, where I think not only council, but also community, we're trying to make sure they understood what the goal was and what the details were to recycle. I believe when we first put this forward, I think that was kind of the, probably one of the first opportunities the community had really had to have a discussion of that type. And of course it came off the heels of national movements and conversations as well. But to cut to the chase, I do appreciate that my colleagues have told that they're sleeves to pull out kind of the major recommendations and discussion points. As I told a number of people that asked me, I, for the number first recommendation, I fully agree that council should be involved if there's an impasse. Particularly again, it is our senior, one of our senior leaders within our government organization, one that we hired fire. And so I certainly understand the board wanting to be fully independent, but I guess in my time on council, I've seen pretty much any issue within the bounds of this city fall on the shoulders of council. It could be school items that we talk about, funding issues, could be redistricting. We're gonna get emails, we're gonna have conversations. And so if there is an impasse between any of our bodies that we have put together, I believe that we should have the ability to have a conversation and weigh in. Again, I think with number two, I do appreciate all of the various examples. I think I am challenged by the idea that if something does happen, we are not in a place to make changes midstream. If an incident happens and we feel that we should have full subpoena powers and that would have been something good for that example, we're not going to sit up here. Well, let me say this, it will be looking very bad if we sit up here and change midstream and say now we need to have full subpoena powers or to be able to get to the place that we're going. As I said, and I'll reiterate that I believe giving our folks, I'll probably beat up in the public about this again, but I believe in giving our staff more than what they need. And having them use their judgment to whether or not to use it. I certainly understand the struggle that is in the community and the power that the city has to compel people to cut their grass. But we have a lot of powers within this organization. But we rely on a number of very well-qualified people to use it or not use it. I'll be honest with you in the public. I don't know if there is the support to try to amend this to reflect a difference of opinion on number two, and if we actually have the votes to do that, I will say however, with one of the main goals from a number of us who were there at the very beginning to get this moving, I'm willing to support the motion, But the challenge for me is still number two. So that hasn't, it's not something I'm willing to just dismiss. But I don't know if a no vote signals that we actually get that changed. I don't think we have frankly the support to do so. Councilman Green. Thank you everyone. I am an agreement with Councilman Chapman. On number two, I'm just not fully there. I want to start off by, and I will keep this very brief, but a lot of emotion has gone into this and a lot of passion. It's been hard, but we were elected to make these hard votes. And I just want to say, we've thanked everyone, past councils at our committee. My subcommittee appreciate you so very much for the work you put into it. Councilman Aguieri and Vice Mayor Bagley. But overall, you know, after thinking everyone else, I wanted to thank you, Amaratu, because you have been through so much. Just, you know, when you said June of 2024, when you came on board doing this and what has transpired since then, I just want to fully thank you. And we want to get you and the board up and running. I mean, I think we're close to that point, but I do want to reflect that I do still have issues with number two, and I wanted to put that on a record, but just to thank you for the work that you've put into this. And you've done it with Grace, so thank you. Thank you. Okay, there has been a motion and a second, second and I think we've had sufficient discussion so all those in favor of the motion to approve on second reading. This is a rule I'm sorry it's a rule call that then that I'm clerked. It's called the rule. Councilman Geary. Aye. Councilman McPike. Aye. Mayor Gaskins. Aye. Vice Mayor Bagley. Councilman Chapman. Councilman Elnubi. Nay. Councilwoman Green. Nay. Okay. The ordinance passes five to two. Madam Clerk. Oh, I'm sorry. Councilman Grigory. Apologies, but just since this motion has passed, I results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the results of the members of the council to make sure the report has the relevant data that people are seeking. Okay. Madam clerk, next item. Close session. Okay. Councilman Aguirre. Madam Mayor, I move the City Council convening close executive session, pursuant to Virginia Code Section 2.2-3711A7 consultation with legal counsel pertaining to actual litigation involving an employment matter or such consultation or briefing and open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or litigating posture of the public body. Okay, is there a second? There has been a motion and a second to convene and close executive session. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, Sayne? Aye. All right, we will now go into executive session. It's 120, so I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm sorry. I'm going to go to the next room. 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I'm sorry. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm sorry. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm sorry. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm sorry. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm sorry. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm sorry. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to move to reconvene an open session. Any opposed? Say nay. I's have it. Councilman a Gary. Madam Mayor, move the city council adopted resolution regarding the closed executive session that was previously circulated to the council. Is there a second? All right, there has been a motion and a second to... Yes, there's been a motion and a second by Councilman McGee. This is a roll call vote. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Councilman McGee? Aye. Councilman Elnuby? Mayor Gaskins? Aye. Vice Mayor Bagley? Aye. Councilman Chapman? Councilwoman Green? Aye. Councilman May派. Aye. Okay, is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. Vice Mayor Bagley. Hi. Councilman Chapman. Councilwoman Green. Aye. Councilman May Pryte. Aye. OK, is there a motion to adjourn? So I'll move. Second. There's been a motion by Vice Mayor Bagley. A second by Councilwoman Green. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. All right, meeting adjourned. Thank you. We're hearing stories about their appearance traveling to market with Corson Buggy. We raise on our farm, and that farm has been in our family for 325 years. My family's had a farm in Hampshire County prior to the revolution. Now it's my grandfather's, great grandfather that started that. We also have a great contingency of really need arts and crafts vendors.