Welcome to the Monday May 12th meeting of the Falls Church City Council. I wanted to call this meeting to order. Let's start with roll call, please, Madam Clerk. Yes, Ms. Conley? Here. Ms. Downs? Here. Ms. Flynn? Here. Ms. Shonsfiskod? Here. Mr. Snyder? Here. Ms. Underhill? Here. And Mayor Hardy? Here. Thank you, Council. Great. us in a pleasure of the legions, please? The legions are to the flag of the United States, the mayor and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, may I have a motion to adopt the meeting agenda? I move to adopt tonight's meeting agenda. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any assumptions or no's? Meeting agenda is adopted. We have a number of special proclamations that kick us off tonight. We've got five in fact. So we're gonna start with the first, which is a proclamation declaring May 2025 as Jewish-American Heritage Month in the City of Falls Church and Miss Underhill will do the honors. Whereas Jewish-American Heritage Month was first observed in May of 2006 by President of the Dental Proclamation in recognition of the 350 plus years of Jewish history in America that began with the 1654 arrival of Jewish refugees at the port of modern-day New York City. And whereas, Jewish American Heritage Month encourages the community to raise awareness and understanding of Jewish American history, heritage, and culture both past and president. And whereas, during this month communities across the United States will celebrate the contributions of Jewish Americans, a diverse group of people representing many races, ethnicities, and Jewish movements, and whereas Jewish Americans have contributed significantly to cultural, social, and political fields, helping shape American sports, entertainment, arts, medicine, cuisine, science, government, and business, and whereas the city wishes to honor the impact Jewish Americans have had on our country through their advocacy for religious and cultural freedom for themselves and others, and whereas the city also wishes to honor the many contributions that Jewish Americans have made and continue to make in our community. Now therefore I, Ledy Hardy, mayor of the City of Falls Church, Virginia, do hereby proclaim the month of May 2025 as Jewish American Heritage Month in the City of Falls Church and call on all of our community members to observe this month with appropriate programs, ceremonies and activities. Yes and Renee Andrews would like to say a few words. Terrific, welcome, Asandreus. Thank you, Renee Andrews, 105 founders Avenue. I just briefly wanna say, Mayor Hardy, City Council and Cindy Mester, thank you for inviting me and thank you for this recognition. It's especially in this day of age, especially in this day of age when there is anti-Semitism in some places, it is wonderful to be in our welcoming city so thank you so much. Great thank you would you like to come up and help receive the proclamation? Please invite others who would like to join us. Brittany? Brittany do you all want to come? Nope. Okay, next up we have a proclamation declaring May 2025 as Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and Vice Mayor Sean Tiscott. We'll do the honors. Thank you for the honor. Whereas Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders make up an important part of the city, bringing valuable cultural experiences, ideas, and practices that enrich and strengthen the fabric of our community. And whereas the City of False Church is proud to be home to people of many cultures and countries that Asian-American and Pacific Islander populations have ties to, including China, India, Japan, Laos, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam, among many other nations. And whereas the varying experiences of Asian Americans remind us of the opportunities and resources the city has to offer, as well as the issues we can improve on, from first generation immigrants and asylum seekers who have worked to create a home in a new land to establish generations that seek to improve the quality of life and advocate for a better community. And whereas Asian-American and Pacific Islander community members are some of the most active advocates of cultural preservation in the city, with Asian-American community members leading the charge to support and maintain important local businesses, community spaces, and cultural touchstones in the region. And whereas businesses and organizations led by Asian community members line the heart of the city's downtown and comprise the Eden Center, one of the region's most popular commercial centers, drawing visitors to the city from across state and country borders. And whereas many of the contributions of the Asian community and false church reflect the values the city holds, including resiliency and creativity seen in flourishing businesses, regional distinction demonstrated by popular annual events, and small town character stemming from strong connections and a welcoming environment. And whereas Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month celebrates the culture, history, and contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Now therefore, I, Ledy Hardy, mayor of the City of False Church, Virginia. Do you hear by proclaim the month of May 2025 as Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in the City of False Church? And call upon all to recognize the many contributions and achievements of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans and to support and visit the abundant variety of Asian owned businesses and restaurants in the community. Can we move anyone in the audience? Who's coming to help accept the proclamation? Sounds like... Okay, we're happy to take a picture anyway because that's what. And while we've got everyone's attention in celebration of AAPI month in May, I think the Eden Center is actually unveiling a new mural in the community this Friday at two o'clock and everyone's invited to see it. So, okay, third up is a proclamation declaring May 18 to 24 as 2025 as public works week in false church and as Flynn will do the honors. Whereas the staff of the Department of Public Works manage infrastructure facilities and services that are vital importance to a sustainable community and to the high quality of life and well-being of the people of the city of Falls Church. And whereas the city's infrastructure could not function without the sustained efforts of DPW professionals who are collectively responsible for our city's transportation system, public buildings, solid waste and recycling collections, and sanitary sewer and store-moder systems. And whereas these dynamic services are dependent upon DPW employees whose vision is working together to sustain and enhance our communities infrastructure and provide a safe green and clean environment. And whereas 2025 marks the 65th annual National Public Works Week sponsored by the American Public Works Association and the Canadian Public Works Association. And whereas this year's theme for National Public Works Week is People Purpose Presence and highlights three cornerstone ideals that motivate public works professionals to serve in their communities every day. And whereas the public is invited to knowledge the quiet dedication and achievements of the city's department of public works. Now, therefore, I, let me hearty mayor the city of Falls Church, Virginia, do hereby proclaim the week of May 18th to 24th, 2025 as public works week in the city of Falls Church. And urge citizens to join in recognizing the substantial contributions with the city's public work staff makes in maintaining our quality of life. And I see our new public work director, Amanda Stout-Brain and other members of public works here. Thank you for joining us. You really are unsung heroes across the city. So thank you for making life so great here. Welcome to your first council meeting. Thank you so much. It's a good one to be at. Thank you. Did we start off gently? Great. I love that. With the words and the script. Great. Yeah. Thank you all for being here. Thank you all for being here. Thank you. And Amanda, I don't, was anyone going to speak to the open house just to invite everybody to the open house on Wednesday next week? 21st. Yes, on Wednesday, May 21st, in the afternoon from 3 to 6 pm is a public open house over at the property yard. Aimed at children and families, but everyone is welcome. It was a big hit last year. I think there were, you know, things to play in the sand and touch a truck, but a lot more than that and an opportunity to learn from our great DPW men and women who work for the team. So that's three to six PM. The public is welcome on May 21st. Thank you again. Great, thank you. The touch of truck was really popular with my kids. Hopefully there's no like age limit. We can still go as adults. Okay, for that we have a proclamation declaring May 11th through 17th as police week and May 15th as peace officers Memorial Day and Mr. Cider will do the honors. Thank you, Mayor. Whereas in 1962, President John F Kennedy signed the first proclamation of recognizing May 15th as peace officers Memorial Day and the week in which it falls as National Police Week. And whereas last year, 147 federal state, county, municipal, military, tribal, and campus officers died in the line of duty, a 25% increase over the previous year, with a leading cause of deaths for police officers being by gunfire, and the largest increase resulting from traffic-related incidents, both underscoring the growing risk faced by law enforcement officers. And whereas last year there were three line of duty enforcement deaths in the Commonwealth of Virginia, Smith County Sheriff's Office Deputy Hunter Reedy shot and killed on August 9, 2024, during a traffic stop. police detective Maurice Moe Joseph died as a result of 9-11 related illnesses. And Charles City County Sheriff Sergeant Floyd Miles Jr., who died of a heart attack while struggling with a suspect. And whereas the community values the courage, devotion, and integrity with which law enforcement officers maintain peace and security, and the officers and deputies of the Falls Church Police Department and Sheriff's Office are meeting the daily challenge of protecting our city and our families with bravery and hard work. And whereas police week and peace officers Memorial Day are opportunities to honor officers and deputies who have died in the line of duty and recognize the sacrifices made by the families of those officers and the sacrifices made by families of those who continue to protect and serve our communities. Now therefore I, Ledy Hardy, mayor the City of Falls, Church, Virginia, do here proclaim May 11th through 17th, 2025 as police week. And I further proclaim May 15th, 2025 as peace officers memorial day in the City of Falls Church and call these observances to the attention of all. It looks like we have members of our public safety staff here. Want to invite them to come up. One, two, three. Thank you. Okay, last but not least, we have a commendation tonight recognizing John Moe Jr. for his service to the City of Falls Church and his career in law enforcement and misdowns. We'll do the honors. Thank you, Mayor. We're as in recognition of police officer John Moe Jr., who in April 1978 became the city's first black police officer. And whereas officer John Moy Jr.'s groundbreaking service was with distinction, courage, and dedication while paving the way for future generations. And whereas John Moy Jr. did much to bring the department into the computer age. And whereas he was voted police officer of the year in 1989. And whereas John Moe Jr. served with the department as a patrolman, community services officer, and as an investigator. And whereas he served on the city's retirement board and the accident review committee. And whereas he became a police sergeant in October 1994, and whereas after 21 years of service, Mr. Moe retired from the City of Falls Church's Police Department in September 1999. Now therefore, I, Ledy Hardy, mayor the City of Falls Church, Virginia. On behalf of the City Council of the City of Falls Church, do hereby honor, commend, and recognize John Boyd, Jr. for his outstanding service and legacy of positive change in the City of Falls Church, and recognize his groundbreaking role in successfully integrating the City of Falls Church's police department. Thank you, Chief, for joining us. I think you met him there and the city council members. Mr. Moe could not make it tonight, but I do want to just say he is watching live your YouTube channel. He sends you regrets for not being able to make it. He's not feeling well. I've had multiple conversations with him about a service. I've found a lot of great articles going back to late 70s, 80s and 90s. He was really involved with the community. National Night Out in 1992. A whole lot of different community events. He was a very beloved member of this community. So while he's watching I just wanted to thank him for his service at a community and Thank you for recognizing him with this commendation. Thank you. Thank you Okay, with that I think we are done for proclamations and special presentations tonight Madam clerk, do we have any oaths of office for new board and commission members and an audience? We do. We have Elise Thinksen for the Arts and Humanities Council. First up. Great. Welcome. Thank you. Do you solemnly swear that you will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia, that you will faithfully and impartially just charge of the form all the duties and come up on you as a member of the Arts and Humanities Council of Balls Church according to the best of your ability, so hope you're God. All right, well. Thank you, and you're were sworn in. And we also have our VIP, O'Tour, for Arts and Humanities Council. Thank you. Thank you. Do you solemnly swear that you will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia and that you will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties and comment upon you as a member of the Arts and Humanities Council of False Church according to the best of your ability so I'll be back. I will. Thank you and would you all like to have a photo with your council? I'm too mad. I'll do it. I'm going to go to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. Is that it for O's of office? Yeah. Okay. Well, let's move on to receipt a public comment. Can you start with the summary of written comments before we take live comments? I will and this is the summary of written comments since your last regular meeting regarding the budget. Heather and Patrick Brady wrote in support of a 2.5 cent tax cut along with budget cuts to the city government and school budgets. Heather Henry wrote in support of a real estate tax cut. And Angie Jacobson, 120 South Cherry Street wrote in opposition to a real estate tax rate increase to $1.21. Bob Lajnese wrote in opposition to funding any additional contingency funds and requested that the city use more debt financing, Peter Sites of 701 Round off Street wrote in opposition to increasing the personal property tax, the Washington area bicyclists association wrote in favor of funding bicycle infrastructure, maintenance and engineering and project management staff. Regarding the budget in schools, the following requested that the school budget request be fully funded. Jennifer Chen, Elizabeth Troye, 135 West Annondale Road, Brendan Devineine 116 North Fairfax Street Jamie Eigelhart 807 Villa Ridge Road Josephine A. Lewis Karnaath 407 Little Falls Street Deborah Shushan Alexandra and Kevin Tillman 1205 B. Lincoln Avenue Austin Todd Vishwas Bill Walton PhD Liz weatherly 305 B. Lincoln Avenue, Austin Todd, Vishwas, Bill Walton, PhD, Liz Weatherly, 305 Buckston Road, regarding the solid waste collection fee, Gina Bruzzi, asked for more discussion regarding the fee. On other topics, Sean Daken, 410 Southmeable Avenue, wrote regarding the lack of ADA parking in front of Mason's lobster. Courtney and Phil Newbold of 212 South Least Street wrote in opposition to a rezoning application for 106 to 108 South Least Street. The planning commission forwarded a request for an increase to their compensation. And Peter Sites of 701 Randolph Street complemented the police department for their May 2 response to fallen tree limbs on Madison Lane and Randolph Street. Great. Thank you for that summary. Let's move on to receipt a public comment, either live and person or virtual. Yes. Yes. First, we have Tom Yazgherty followed by Robert Lajnese. Welcome. Oh right there. Madam Mayor and council members so I'm writing an opposition to the development at 106108 Southley and full disclosure I'm directly impacted by this proposed development because my wife, four-year-old daughter, and I live go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. family homes to a crowded, noisier, more expensive, more stressful place to live. I do see problems with congestion, parking, storm, water, sewer management. And on this last point, I spoke with the developer and he said that he would leave it no worse, but no better than it is now. And it's not good now, and I think it likely get worse. And I know that there will be promises made by the developer to make sure everything is fine, but I'm not all that convinced that it will be. My child will soon attend public school. And I worry about the fact of this rampant development on our schools and the teacher to student ratio. We have some of the best schools in the country. US News and World Report says that, but this could be put at risk, not only with this development, but the other development that we see all around in North Lee and North Oak. I'm also concerned to be framed because I want the city council to give more prayer, not to give so much priority to developers, and I see it as kind of over the interest and well-being of residents. Look, I'll be on a some retiring in September after 34 years in the Foreign Service. I have served two years, two tours in Iraq, one in Baghdad and one in Kira Cook, another tour in Kabul, Afghanistan. I've experienced many rocket attacks and been involved in an IED attack. And I say that all this because my wife and I have put our life savings into buying our dream house house a few years ago here in Falls Church City Now I'm afraid it will not be the same I also note that my own property is an is an eligible T1 zoning area And I had no idea until I was told that by the developer so my own property could contribute to what I see as this over development So I asked that this proposed development at least be delayed until proper study is done to gauge its effects and implications. From what I gather, this has not been the case, at least not the extent that I would like. I worry that we may see higher property taxes already among the highest in Virginia to deal with the effects of this overcrouting. I would close by saying let's not be known henceforth as the crowded overdeveloped little city. Let's keep it just the little city. Thank you very much. Thank you next we have Robert Lajanes. Good evening. I want to start with two compliments. First is the covered bike rack that's out front. I've used it on two occasions and look forward to a dry seat this evening. The second is for the mayor's weekly communication. Absent that I'm not sure how I would stay a prize of the evolution of the budget. And from what I understand of the budget, it again creates a false sense of security, which is a bit ironic when many of us are starting to learn about abundance and we can't build that into our budgets is concerning. It also hits needlessly throws stakeholders into competition for resources and it destroys economic activity and deference to Wall Street. The city has extremely conservative fiscal posture for years. We sold the water system and we did that mostly on short term financing with two thirds of our debt having a duration of less than 10 years when taxpayers don't have the luxury of a 10 year mortgage. And then in the last two years our unassigned fund balance has doubled and doubled our target rate and that money has largely gone to offset other borrowing needs. The reason I mentioned this recent history is to ask the question after scrolling away this money for years and anticipation of our rainy day, will we finally be able to benefit from it? And the answer seems to be no because at the first sight of clouds, we want to create not only a second, but a third contingency fund. Why not a fourth or fifth? Where is the limit on this saving, I mean, taxing and saving? Instead, what we should be doing is waiting for an actual budget shortfall, and then allow your professional finance manager. You have a finance manager in a finance department they can go out and negotiate a line of credit or some other credit Vehicle that's what businesses and individuals have to do when there's an anticipated shortfall And so I just generally want to ask why are we so afraid of debt and eager to celebrate paying off the middle school bond, for example? We should be mourning that loss when we kicked off this budget conversation. It was suggested we should celebrate paying off the MEH bond. But that was probably a very low interest rate bond. So as one of the individuals who is facing severance from the federal government and possibly losing my job, the worst thing you could do now is tax me and save that money. The second worst thing you can do is tax me and spend it. The best thing you can do is bottle that money and spend it and stimulate the economy so that I may have a job and other financial resources available to me. So I plead that you eliminate those extra contingency funds and do something with that tax rate that's above our regional neighbors. The Q&A answers are very helpful and they underscore that at 12,000 median tax we're 30% higher than the next first next jurisdiction and double some of those other jurisdictions. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have others? We don't. Okay. Well given that we're going to have public hearing if you have if you'd like to give public comment as we get further in the agenda, you're welcome to do that as well. Are you ready to move on to report of the city manager? Thank you, Mayor Hardy. Members of council, members of the community. Just a few things to report on tonight. I was going to start off my report tonight with some comments about our finance director, Kiran Bawa, who has announced that she'll be leaving the city in July. But she has the tendency to show up right on time when her agenda is called. So we'll make those comments when she gets here for the budget item. And so a couple of things for Porton. One, we have been putting out word through the city web page and through social media about road work that will be happening on Broad Street. This is work that is being done on Broad Street to basically repave but also rebuild the sort of the substructure of the road in front of Modera Falls Church. This is work that is part of the voluntary concessions by the developer to rebuild that roadway and it's the last phase of the public improvements that are associated with that project. So the work will be managed by no creek and they'll be taking down each of the lanes of the road of broad Street and then regrading them and then repaving them. This work is extensive because it gets into the subsurface of the road. So we anticipate all in that this is going to be a month long project. And for those single lane closures, will be-hour closures. We are doing everything we can to make this work go as quickly as possible, but we do acknowledge that it is going to be disruptive possibly for up to a month as this work is being done. The kind of the heavy part of it is slated to begin tomorrow. Now tomorrow is supposed to be a really rainy day, so if weather is not permitting, it may be put off until the weather clears. But I wanted to sort of emphasize the public messaging we're having about those road disruptions. Now, we have, and Milk Creek has put up message boards well in advance of this project to encourage travelers to take alternate routes and avoid some of the congestion that will be associated with this project. Mr. Shields, before you go on, we appreciate all the public messaging, but I think that people would benefit from understanding the why, because it looked like the streetscape would reopen, we were nearly done with the project, and so have it all torn up, and everything restarted again. I think people are quite frustrated that the end really wasn't near. Right so what the issue is is making sure that the storm water flows properly around the project and so the final grade of the intersection which was noted in the site plan we've had a fair amount of back and forth with the developer about that scope of work, but we have reached agreement that the developer will do this work, and that's why it's happening now at the sort of the tail end of the project. The sidewalk itself, particularly at the intersection, that work was built at the wrong grade, and so with the city's inspections, the developer had to go back out take that work out and then reconstructed at the correct finish grades. So that's that's that's some of the background with the work that's happening out there right now. Okay well thank you to our staff for catching it. I think we certainly wanted to get it right and so appreciate everyone patience through the disruption, but clearly it's something that's important to get done before we fully open. Thank you. Second thing to report, we do have bike to work day coming up this week. So on Thursday, May 15th, encourage everyone to bike to work. There'll be a pit stop in the city at Little Falls and the W-no-D trail. All are welcome to stop by that. Hopefully the weather will have cleared by Thursday. Also we'll have bike to market day on Saturday and Victorian day at the Cherry Hill Farmhouse, also Saturday morning, which will feature early bicycles that will be, early bicycle models that will be on display. I want to give a note about Memorial Day. So this is our last meeting before Memorial Day. So I just wanted to put a note out to welcome everybody to join the city and our observance of our men and women of the armed services. So given their lives and service to this country, we'll do that through one of the greatest, the biggest celebrations in the city that we hold each year. It'll start, we'll have rides and vendors all day right here at the City Hall campus, the 9 AM Fun Run, and at 11 AM, we'll have the Memorial Day Observance at our Veterans Memorial right in front of the Community Center. And at 2 PM, we'll have a parade down Park Avenue with the Grand Marshall Bain Browns Hardware Store. So the employees of Browns Hardware will be leading our parade this year. I do wanna note, you may have seen that the Community Center HVAC project is advancing along the work where the seven geothermal wells were put in in front of the Community Center. That has been, there's a new finished paving on that in time for Memorial Day events that will be coming up at the end of this month. We do anticipate that that the community center will be back open to the public in early June as that project is on schedule and aligned with line with the original schedule for it. And so those are the things I wanted to report on tonight and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Great thanks. Do we have questions or council requests for Mr. Shields? In short, over here, Ms. Downs. Thank you Madam Mayor and thank you Mr. Shields. A couple of quick questions. When you were talking about the construction, it pinged in my head. Do we have a timeline for when the lane will be returned on HACAC going towards seven? It's sort of a back way. A lot of people used to get to Meridian, and it was closed for a long time while Meridian was being, I'm sorry, while West Falls was being built. And now that hits, headquarters is being built. It looks like it's closed again. So is that just indefinitely gonna be closed? The traffic backs up as you can imagine a lot during the evening parents are trying to race their kids to practices and things like that. So just wondering if you knew it's an act of time for John the Spot or anything. Well so in terms of hey, I parents are trying to race their kids to practices and things like that. So just wondering if you knew it's an odd time to put you on the spot or anything. Well so in terms of HECOQ road from Mustang Alley to the intersection that work, we do anticipate that that's in its final stages and that should have final paving on it and the final signals installed etc. by late May early June. And so that's what we're anticipating will be happening then. And then that should be the end of construction for that section of HACOC. Of course, then follow up in the county section, that's that frontage is going to be impacted by the construction for three years to come. Right, right. Okay, thank you. And a couple of the things, the, I did receive a question from a neighbor who had followed our discussions about where we were gonna cut some money for the budget and specifically about the New Year's Eve celebration. And she had asked, you know, if we were to cut it, would there be, she is the mom of four young children. And I think, you know, I think a lot of the community hasn't really gotten wind of this yet that this may be going away. And I think for, I'm not trying to, you know, I'm just putting this out there. I don't think a lot of younger families know about this yet. And I think they do utilize it, you know, as something to do when you have younger kids. And so her question was, is there any way that we could do fundraising or corporate sponsorships or anything that, you know, and I was thinking, could we do a scaled down version? I know that Mayor Hardy's worked a lot within our economic development office. you know, maybe there's some kind of punch card thing that we could do, you know, to, you know, there's some some, you know, you have the ice cream store there. You have toy net. economic development office, you know, maybe there's some kind of punch card thing that we could do, you know, to, you know, there's some some, you know, you have the ice cream store there, you have Toy Nest, you have Doodle Hopper, you have Clay Cafe, you know, I'm just wondering if we could try to, if that does go away, if we could maybe put our thinking caps on and try to think of some, some kind of alternative, because they do think our younger families are gonna miss that so just to throw that out there. So I guess that was more of a comment than a question. But then my other, I guess, this is a request. We miss Hiscock, and I did hear from a city resident who lives at 319 Lincoln. And in front of her house sits back, and there's sort of like a gravel access road. And I think there's a little patch of land, which they call Trolley Car Park. And so it's, you know, I think as the spring goes on in the summer, it gets really full of weeds and overgrown. And because it's right in front of her house, it's an eye sore. And she does acknowledge that the city will calm everyone so I'll remove the weeds and then they just go back. So I didn't know if that was something that we could look at once the Lincoln Project starts. I didn't know if that was anything that we could just take a look at. But this is, I think, something that she's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. So once the Lincoln project starts, I didn't know if that was anything that we could just take a look at. But she's this is I think something that she's been over the years. Been, you know, in touch with the city about because it's just not maintained. And I guess it's technically a park. So it is I guess the city's responsibility. So I would just throw that out. We did bring that up one other time probably by year, two years ago. And there should be a formal comment on the request line as well on that, hopefully, reaches the city to comment. So just to maybe briefly comment on both. So first with respect to watch night, I would encourage people to think about in terms of public events as how we evolve as a community and trying to have events that are going to have lots of participation and are kind of the most kind of inclusive celebrations that we can have for the city. And New Year's Eve has been a difficult night for us to kind of get that critical mass of participation. Some years we've had pretty good participation but then bad weather and then you know you go through a lot of work and a fair amount of expense and so that's why we put that forward as a thought of let me let's think about this differently as we go forward and not do it the way we've been doing it. What the budget reduction for watch nights specifically is, is for the expense of closing down Route 7, and then the kind of the sound system and the entertainment and the rides and the inflatables. And so that would be taken out of the budget, and if the council does do that, then you know, we would not plan to do that work. And speaking with the Little City Catch Foundation they have been applying for a grant through the City's arts programs that funds some of the events for the for families. It is my what I've been told is they think that they would like to still apply for that grant and probably have a different type of event might be lower, smaller scale with churches or other organizations. So they are thinking that way, maybe more information to come between now and then. But what the budget reduction would stand for is sort of the larger elements of the event would not be funded. Right, and I'm not advocating to change. I completely understand the putting the work and the money into it, and then it's a terrible weather night and no one shows up. I completely get that. So I think just as the council and other city organizations, maybe just sort of rethinking it and seeing if there's different things we can do that night that don't cost the city so much time and money. So thank you. And with respect to Lincoln Avenue, I'll get back with our staff on that. I know that that is an area that we struggle with. It's a pretty large area and it is overgrown. And I think it's just not on our list of things that we provide a high level of service for like we do other streetscapes. But I'll circle back with staff just to confirm that. And we can talk about what we do differently on that in the future, but currently, we've not given it a lot of attention. Thank you. Appreciate it. This one? I just had one comment, and it might be that Ms. Advesien could comment on it when the grocery store comes up, but there was a public comment about accessible parking spots at the West Falls Church development, and I'd think, you know, Huffman for responding to that and pointing out the two parking garages. I haven't looked at this in any sort of depth, but my understanding was always that parking facilities are sort of treated differently. So if you have a lot, for example, and you have a parking garage that you look at the parking calculations for accessible spots differently for the lot versus the garage. And so I was a little bit surprised in that, like, we have that middle, you know, the drive aisles and that they're parking, or even if they're short-term parking in those drive aisles that are surface lots, that if anyone who needs accessible parking would still get, like, funneled to the parking garages and that there won't be any designated accessible spots within the surface parking facilities and so I would just ask the staff and the developer to take a look at whether that's actually in compliance or whether there might be something we can do to accommodate more short-term parking and more shorter accessible groups to those whatever they're called courtyard. I'll call them the courtyard, the middle facing businesses. So the accessibility of the site is something that's studied very closely through the design review process at Site Plan. And so we did get the complaint just about that space. What I believe is the case is that the spaces were put in per site plan and through that design process which is done with the kind of the code book in hand in terms of making sure that the site layout meets all of the standards that we require developers to comply with. We will circle back just to confirm that, but that's my understanding of the situation. Okay. Other questions or council requests? Okay, I'm not seeing any, so I have two. You think Ms. Flynn covered my one about accessibility. While we have actually our South Lee neighbors here, Mr. Shields, can you talk about the process for the rezoning application that's in front of us for South Lee? Because I don't think it's actually even on our counsel's schedule until June if that's correct. But I think it would be helpful for members of the public to understand where we are in the process. We have yet to have a public discussion about it. And so I would say that we were very early on, but I would like Mr. Shields to kind of share more about how rezoning applications like that work so the neighborhood at least understands the process, we have yet to have a public discussion about it. And so I would say that we were very early on, but I would like Mr. Shields to kind of share more about how rezoning applications like that works so the neighborhood at least understands the process ahead. So, and we can try to provide more information about this in writing as well. But the June second work session is when this project is as docketed to come before the City Council for the Council to get briefed on what is being asked for by the developer. The land is currently zoned R1A and the future land use map there is a designation that it could be, that a rezoning to T could be supported, but there's kind of a whole analysis that has to happen where staff will give some recommendations and do that sort of analysis against policy and present that to the city council. The developer also would be at that June June second meeting to state their case. But that's what would happen at that initial or accession from there we would get direction from council and from there it would be you know depending on what that direction is we would we would schedule from there. Okay. Just one more thought to that when it comes to us can Can you also give the history? There are mentions of requests for sidewalks and neighborhood traffic calming on that, the dog leg that is earthly street. If you could just bring us information on the history of what's been asked for, what we've considered for that whole area as part of that as well. I'd appreciate it. Thank you. Mayor, one other request I'd make because it's scheduled for a work session and traditionally we don't allow the public to speak during a work session but if the developers allow the speak during the work session it seems the public ought to be able to speak as well and raise their concerns. So I think we need to really examine the issues that are our citizens brought to us tonight and previously in letters and hopefully we're going to go through and address each and every one of their questions and concerns. And finally lay out in more detail what the process is and also the impact of approving this project and its potential precedent setting effect on other similar requests to convert R1A or R1B into T1 to allow greater more dense development. So those are the requests I would make about both the work session and how we move forward. We'd be glad to hear from members of the public during our two regular meetings a month. We also take obviously written public comment and we received a number of them from the South Lean neighborhood. You also should know that council holds office hours. I hold them personally. We also hold group ones the first Wednesday of every month at 9 AM. So we would be glad to engage with you all and share more about your comments. So we have your contact information. We'll reach out. We'd love to continue the dialogue. But I think we'd like to keep it probably in those regular meetings to keep our work sessions tight. So my second request, Mr. Shield, going back to my list, is are the two properties we acquired for open space acquisitions on Cheryl and Cameron? Do we have a date on when we might demo those? And then if not, I wanna make sure it's on the city's maintenance plan, because it is quite overgrown. I ran past them earlier. I need to go down. That was on Debbie's being a card, I guess. Right. We'll follow up with that with that information and the work that needs to be done. Great. Thank you. Um go ahead. Mr. Lajan, I don't know if you're able to stay through the budget, but when Karen's in here, perhaps she can further address the contingencies and the way she's explained it, you know, previously to counsel about why we have them and maybe we can have a continued dialogue on that as well. I appreciate that. Thank you for coming in. Okay with that I think we're ready to move on to business on the agenda. Madam Clerk can you call the first item please? Yes our first item is the public hearing on tier 25-09 resolution to amend the voluntary concessions, community benefits terms and conditions associated with the West Falls economic development West Falls project. Special exception entitlement SEE approved by resolution 2021-23 day of August 9, 2021 to reduce the minimum size of the grocery store component from 39,200 square feet to 32,900 square feet. Thank you. And so we have Henry Zhang, who is our lead planner for this case, and he'll give a staff report on this. This is now before Council for Final Consideration and we also have Mary Beth Afadizian who's also participating virtually. She's representing the developer, Hoffman Associates. So Mr. Zhang, why don't we turn it over to you first? Thank you, Mr. Shiro. Good evening, Madame Mayor and members of the council. My name is Henry Zan, Plainy PUC for the West Falls Project. Council is requested to take action on a proposed amendment to the volunteer concession. Associated with the West Falls Project, this amendment would reduce the minimum size of the grocery space for 39,200, 12 feet to 32,912 feet. The change to the technical staff report since the council's public hearing on April 14 highlighted in gray, started in in line 18 to 21. Also in line 18 to 21, also in line 180, 180, excuse me, all to 180. The Planning Commission held a public hearing on May 7, and unanimously recommend approval of TR-25-09 to the City Council for tonight's hearing. Staff recommends adoption of TR-25-08. This concludes staff presentation. I'm available to answer any questions. Thank you. All right. Do any council questions or comments? Is that real? I just wanna clarify for anybody listening, who might not have seen the presentation before. There would be no net loss to the city in terms of revenue from the grocery store by reducing the square footage, is that correct? That's correct. Because of the reduction of the applicant slash developer here is a Hoffman Association, they provide the calculation in the statement of justification. The city will have the same amount of the revenue from this grocery store, excuse me. And then in addition, there is a surplus of 3300, 12 feet. That will be attracting additional tenants and then this will create additional revenue for the city. Thank you. It's good to confirm what else. Okay, I don't think we're required to hold the public hearing tonight but for the fee members of the audience we... This is actually a public hearing. Okay, so we are. Okay, so I'm going to open the public hearing and any members of the audience are welcome to comment. Okay. Seeing none, I'm going to close the public hearing. Any final comments or may have a motion? Move to adopt tier 25-09. All right, looks like Ms. Connelly did have a question. I think you were done. Do you have a second? Oh second. Because it's underhill in the second. Go ahead, Ms. Connelly. Before we pass this one, I know Ms. Avedition is here and I have a couple of questions for her related to how the commercial development is interacting with the school development. One of the things that we have talked about a lot is surge parking. I know someone asked Ms. Hardy about it recently and the MOU talks about 15 days that the school division can have two hours of free parking and those days should be worked out between the schools and the parking vendor. In dealing with the parking vendor, the schools have come up against a requirement to purchase very expensive equipment in order to be able to take advantage of the surge parking. And I'm just wondering, is there a way we can work this out such that the schools don't have to purchase their expensive parking equipment. Is there a way to just use a QR code that could be shared with staff? And I know you're not the parking vendor, but it is, it's just one of these things that is nagging and we all know that it was part of the comprehensive agreement, but the the making it happen has a lot more steps than what we expected. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. and Associate Senior Vice President and the principal project director for the West Falls Project. And thank you for this opportunity to speak with you tonight. Back to the subject of the parking, we certainly are planning to honor the MOU that permits the school to use the parking garages free of charge for two hours on 15 event nights per year. Implementing a process by which that can happen is pretty simple. What I've been told, there are two ways. One, you just describe purchasing an expensive piece of equipment that will allow people one at a time to validate their parking ticket and wait in line to do that. Alternatively, there's a zero cost process that the vendor explained to me that he will assign a log in address for the schools and that can be used on an iPad, a laptop, a phone, a smartphone. You might designate a number of volunteers to have access to that portal at any event. Let's say a football game, for instance, instead of there being one person, one machine to swipe your card or to stamp your card, you could have four to six or however many you would like to designate volunteers. As you approach the and they can do a loudspeaker announcement They will type in the number on the person's card into the portal. It'll automatically validate it They can go on their way and leave the the event without having to pay for two hours of parking It doesn't cost anybody and I think actually it a little more flexible than having only one expensive piece of equipment that everyone would have to stand in line to punch a card. It's also a higher tech and probably more in keeping with the way the world is going to be ultimately anyway more digital oriented. So there are options and I think to the extent we need to explore those outside of this meeting, we're certainly open to chatting more with you about it. Yeah, I think we need to discuss it further. The problem with the option you describe, which sounds like a good option, is logistically, we're going to have the schools will have people coming from different events. That's why we would need search parking. And the logistics of getting volunteers to do that job or staff members to do that job makes it, you know, parking is fully automated coming out of the garage, but then the schools would have to add a human interaction there that just seems to be an extra unnecessary step. I'm just wondering if there's a third option, and neither you nor I are the parking vendor, but would love to go further down that with you in the future. So let's plan to do that. And then my other question, we got this from a community member. She emailed several of us this weekend about trash that's blowing out of trash cans that are on the West Falls development. There were crows and birds and spreading it around. And I'm just wondering about the trash pickup schedule and how that works. Just to get that under control, my apologies that that has happened. It happens between trash cans and then we still have construction going on and construction workers taking their lunches and leaving things. It's something we have to constantly stay on top of. I apologize that we've had that get a little bit away from us in that instance. Thank you. And then the last question is just about signage. There have been a couple of instances where there's signage from the commercial development that has ended up on the school's property to Levine School of Music. There was a sign for the alder that was sort of blocking the visual coming out of Maryland Hunter's in middle school. And I'm wondering if that's another thing that could be conveyed to all the tenants that all of their signage and this should be remained on their site, not on the school site, as well as all their parking. Yes, we have conveyed that message. Hopefully that has stopped happening. But yes, we apologize that a few people, you know, people do things without letting us know. And as soon as we as soon as it's brought to our attention, we address it and have dealt with it. And unfortunately, when you have a few rogue tenants to try to do their own thing, we have signage plan for the site. It got a little bit behind schedule for us. So it won't be going in until somewhere in July that will give people better directions to the schools, to the parking garages, to the hotels and things of that sort. So that would circumvent the need for any of that sign. But we understand completely that that tenantage that's West Falls oriented should not be on the school properties and we'll deal with it and one each occasion and hopefully you all should feel free to call us when you notice things like that and we can jump on it right away. That's great thank you very much. Great to welcome. Thank you Miss Avad and we appreciate the partnership with the schools on this. Madam Mayor. Just to let her go. I'm willing to support this because there's no loss and revenue to the city. But I've seen prior changes where there was a loss of revenue to the city that I opposed. So I'm willing to support this one. Thank you. OK, we have a motion in the second on the table. Any final comments before we call roll? OK, please go ahead. I'm clerk. Are you good? OK. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Conley. Yes. Ms. Downes. Yes. Ms. Flynn. Yes. Ms. Sean's Fiskog. Yes. Mr. Snyder. Yes. Ms. Underhill. Yes. And Mayor Hardy. Yes. Motion carries 7 to 0. Thank you, Council. Thank you. Gratz and thank you. We look forward to that grocery store building out and opening. Okay, let's move on to the second item. Yes, the budget. Yes, our first budget public caring is TO25-02. Ordinance fixing and determining the budget of expenditures and revenues and appropriating funds for the fiscal year 2026 general fund sewer fund stormwater fund cable access fund affordable housing fund school operating fund school community service fund school food service fund community development authority and capital improvement program funds and to adopt the FY 26 to FY31, capital improvements program. Great, Mr. Shields. All right, well thank you Mayor Hardy, members of council. So we have tonight a few slides that we'd like to walk through that will communicate with the public about what's before the council tonight for final action. But before we launch into that, I did want to just note this Kieran Bawa has since the last council meeting Kieran Bawa has announced publicly that she plans to leave the city in early July and join the city of Piedmont, California, which she left actually eight years ago to come and join us. And Karen has been a tremendous member of our team. When she came to the city, we were right in the midst of planning for a bond referendum to finance the high school. Karen put together a plan of finance that we used to help explain to the public how we plan to pay for the high school and we followed that plan with great success. The city achieved AAA bond ratings under Curens stewardship working with the city council and picking up the reins from prior councils who did a lot of hard things to build the city's financial conditions with prior finance director Richard LeCondre. Kierren worked with our school colleagues to craft a revenue sharing agreement that we have followed for the past seven years, and it's brought a sense of regularity and predictability that has helped, I think, both the school board and the city council navigate budgets. It certainly has helped staff navigate budgets over the past seven years. And she's done all this with good humor, patience and wisdom to address issues big and small, and she's been a very value member of our team. So with that, Kieran Adler will make you give the presentation tonight if you'd like to. Karen puts together all the slides every time. And actually before you, let's kind of say what we want to say about Ms. Bollow, but I know that Ms. Connelly also needs to read her disclosure before we start talking more about budget. So Curena we're sad that this is your last budget with us. You really have led the city during a really remarkable time during all the things that Mr. Shields talked about. I think the fact that we were just talking about West Falls and architecting that kind of plan on paying for $120 million high school, the city hall, and the library at all at the same time, which kept me up at night for about two years. I'm so grateful for your wisdom and your steady hand through that. So thank you. Thank you, if I may say that I'm deeply grateful for this opportunity and really appreciate the support and the collaboration and friendships that I've enjoyed over the eight years. Obviously, it's not, nothing is possible with one person. So I appreciate the direction from council, Mr. O'Sheill's leadership and then support from my staff and my peers, all the directors here. Extremely grateful. Thank you. Great. So before we get to the slides, we'll read the disclosure. And I'll just echo what Miss Hardy said, too. You have really raised the bar for us as far as the understanding of the budget and brought all of us along to learn from you because you're an expert on this. So thank you so much. And now I will say, the Fulcet City Council is discussing the FY26 budget. I am an employee of the Fulcet City School Board, which may be affected by the proposed fiscal policies. As a result, I'm in a group of three or more people who may realize, and reasonably foresee, a bull-director and direct benefit from the proposed ordinance. After consideration, I'm electing to participate this transaction because I'm confident in my ability to participate fairly objectively and in the public interest. Thank you. Okay, put that in Mr. Shields, please proceed. So I have just a few slides that will really for the public's benefit to kind of walk through the changes that we've gone through and what's remained in the budget. This remains a very strong and very full budget to meet the city's needs as a growing community. But also acknowledges the fact that the National Capital Region is going through a lot of disruption right now. A lot of employees being, federal employees being laid off, or contractors being impacted by changes to the federal government. And we're working through all that together, and we had to make some adjustments to the budget in light of that. And I'm pressed for there, maybe this button will do. I'm not sure why this is not going. Let me try it one more way. I'm going to go to the bathroom. So when I have it on teams it won't advance slides, so That's a problem. So what we will do is I'll just verbally go through the material. I think the council is familiar with it. The key thing to note is that the budget ordinances and the tax ordinances are now before the Council for Final Consideration. We presented the budget on March 24th. And since that time, we've had a number of town hall meetings and work sessions. We have a revenue revision of $1.2 million of reduction in local tax revenues. And to address the shortfall, the revised real estate tax rate that's before the city council is $1.20 per $100 of assess value, which is a one cent reduction from the current rate, and that accompanies about 261,000 dollars of spending reductions on the general government side and $145,000 in spending reductions on the school or reduction to the school transfer. There's some adjustments to the CIP as well, including adding funding for the Rorah House to add rooftop solar and removing funding for playground equipment at Crossman Cavalier Trail Parks. I will note that with the CIP we we have some under spending of other wrecking parks projects. And so we will still even with the reduction in the budget for the playground equipment. We will proceed with the Cavalier Trail Park project. It's about $375,000 and we'll be using unspentensed the IP dollars to advance that project that would come back to the council for for a contract approval but that's what we would plan to do. So with these changes. Why don't I just note I'm able to share it now. Very good. Cindy. Appreciate it. We should always have you drive the slides as opposed to me. I think that's probably the best policy. So the general government with the reductions in spending that I just described will still be growing at 6.3%. So again, this is a growing community, and this is a budget that reflects that growth. The school transfer will grow by 5.3%. We are setting aside funds for a revenue contingency in light of the economic difficulties that we're anticipating. Dead service is going down. The pay as you go and use of cap reserves is also going down. Tax relief and incentives. This is unchanged since the original presentation, but we're putting $763,000 towards senior tax relief based on existing policy for tax relief for people that are eligible for those programs. So all with all together, then, a 3.2% decrease in the budget from year to year. The general government expenditure reductions include eliminating the director position for the Department of Community Planning and Economic Development. Eliminating watch night, which we discussed earlier tonight. There's some HR software, Neo Gov, HR suite, which we will be canceling. Renewable energy credits will reduce that by 13,000. Now we're also investing in solar with the Aurora House project to offset that. And there's an increase to emergency assistance. So for a total of $25,000 is in the budget for emergency assistance for rent relief, utility bills that for people who come in seeking that through our department of human services. So an overall reduction of 261,000. A tax rate of $1.20 is a one penny reduction from the current rate, with rising assessed values for homes in the city, for median home. That would result in just over $550 increase in the annual tax bill. There are no changes proposed for the personal property tax rate and utility fees will have some small adjustments to reflect inflation. So the sanitary sewer that will have about a $14 impact for your average household over the course of the coming year. That's the total annual impact. And then for stormwater, a $10 annual impact. In terms of new items that are in the budget. Compensation is a very important part of this budget of $2.1 million of new spending for our city workforce. Inter jurisdictional contracts also has been a big expense in this year's budget just under $1 million going to increases to our Fairfax County and to our Arlington County contracts. We've discussed the fire services contract which it alone is an increase of $500,000 in the coming budget. One of the main initiatives in this year's budget is increasing our street maintenance budget and we'll talk about that in just a little bit more detail shortly. Some investments in IT and financial systems and then the $535,000 of the revenue contingency. That is, it's a short list of new initiatives that are in this year's budget. Some of the key investments I just mentioned are workforce investment, a 5% merit increase and a police cola and stuff. It's the equivalent of a 5% increase is a key part of this year's budget. Investments in our city IT systems so that we can provide technology systems that will serve our residents well with accounts payable or tax billing, as well as our permitting function to continue our investments in those areas. Affordable housing or sustaining our funding there in the amount of $500,000. That's the same as last year. And emergency rent is increasing to $25,000. In the areas of advancing safety, we have investments in our body worn and in-car camera refresh, neighborhood traffic calming, our ongoing fire hydrant installing new fire hydrants in the cities where we're underserved, moving the city's professional standards manager, the position forward, and the Arlington Fire Contract increase that I mentioned just a moment ago. Investments in our core infrastructure, some the key one there is an overall $2.2 million for roadway maintenance. That's a $700,000 increase over the current year, and there's a a breakout of how we'll use that money, but we will be able to pay for more streets next year is the bottom line. Also the investment in the Aurora House, which we noted earlier. The CIP remains kind of the main way that we're investing in our roadways and transportation safety, nine million investments in FY26, $1.1 million in investments in our public buildings, $14 million investment in our sanitary sewer system. One of the main projects there is the peak flow equalization basin that is part of our per with one of the main projects there is the peak flow equalization basin that is part of our purchase agreement with Fairfax County, and then other smaller investments through our CIP. So a CIP in total of 25.8 million dollars. We are not planning to issue debt. There will be supported by general taxes in the coming year. But we do have debt that's planned for the sanitary sewer fund in the coming year. We have $46 million in grant funds that were anticipating coming to the city over the six-year period of the budget of the CIP, as well as a nine and a half million dollars use of our capital reserves over the six year period. For solid waste, we are moving forward with a solid waste task force that will be working over the next two months to flesh out some of the ideas that we've been discussing with city council about how we can move away from having solid waste services embedded in the tax rate and and and replaced with a solid waste fee. We anticipate that that task force will get underway very soon. We'll have recommendations to the council in early August. And if the council then desires to take action on those, there could be first reading on both and change to the tax rate and to create this new solid waste fee action on those could be in August with second reading in September. And if that is done, it could then show up in the 2025 real estate tax bill, which is mail that November and due in December. So we'll be working hard on that. I've asked Andy Young to be our staff lead for this task force. I've reached out to community members to solicit participation in this task force and I think we'll be able to hit the ground running very shortly. So appreciate people's interest in this interest and their participation in it. And then the last thing I'll note, the future outlook we are anticipating that the National Capital Region will be going through some economic disruption and to prepare for that. And when we think back to the Great Recession, we are in a stronger position today than we were when we went into the great recession. We have a revenue contingency built into this budget as well as an expenditure contingency that expenditure contingency is comprised of essentially the delta between the $261,000 general government reductions in spending and the $127,000 that was required with a penny, with a change in the tax rate. Emergency assistance, that is, you know, we currently, we use, we have funded emergency assistance in the past with ARPA money, but we, for the first time, I have some local money to help households that might be experiencing financial difficulty over the coming year. And we also are going into the difficulties with very strong capital reserves, and our The Fund of Fund Balance is at policy and we have high credit ratings if we have to access the capital markets to meet city needs. So with that, I wanna thank everybody and the members of the public who've shown up at the many town hall meetings that we've had and the public hearings that we've had. And hopefully the budget that's before the council tonight reflects listening that we've had through that process. And I'll turn it out of her now to the council for your questions, comments, and an ultimate action. Great, thank you. Thank you for the past six weeks of budget work. We know that there was a bump in the road and we appreciate staff's work to come up with options for us. Okay. Do we have questions or comments for Mr. Shield or Ms. Bawa? Stounce. Thank you, Madam Mayor and thank you, Mr. Shields and Ms. Bauer. Are you sure you want to leave? I get, come on. No, on a serious, serious no. This is a more formal setting. So I just want to thank you for all of your work. And you and I didn't get to work that close, but I also worked with you when I was on school board. And you've done so much for the city, and you're really going to be deeply, deeply missed. So thank you very much. and best wishes to you. Mr. Shields, two quick things. One, I know we had public comment earlier this evening about the contingencies funds. And I also know with the unassigned balance, that's part of the reason why we have such a high credit rating, is that correct? That we have that policy to put money into an unassigned fund balance. It is, and it's also because of the fact that by, you know, all of our metrics in terms of the amount of debt that the city has, in terms of debt per capita debt, as compared to value of assessed value, we're at the top of all of local governments and our peer group, because we have taken on such really significant investments in our infrastructure over the past seven years. And because we have so much debt is why it is necessary to manage our reserves very wisely and make sure that we can. When you have a lot of debt, you have less flexibility, have mandatory costs that must be met. And so it's appropriate to have some cushion to deal with contingencies. Thank you. And this isn't for to change anything for this budget we're considering tonight. But to talk about the traffic calming, I know that we had talked about it. I can't remember the meetings all blend together, but we were talking about more of it from a process perspective. And I know Mayor Hardy talked about, maybe sometimes we have to go top down, because it's a very cumbersome process, right? And it takes a lot of time on behalf of the staff. That's one piece. But I guess my question is, is $200,000 enough for, again, not for this budget we're talking about tonight, but for future budgets is $200,000 enough? Like, do we go through that money or is it because the process is so cumbersome? We don't go through, like if we had a bar streamline process, maybe we could use three, you know, blow through 300,000. I just feel like there are so many neighborhoods including one right block away from me that are very interested in having these traffic homie measures. So, um, do we, I guess the question is, do we typically use that $200,000? Do we go through all that? And if not, is that more because, again, that it's hard to get because the process is pretty cumbersome that maybe that's the reason that we don't use that whole $200,000? Well, you know, there's, you know, my here's got a my take on the process. The process is not cumbersome for the sake of being cumbersome. The process is cumbersome because people have very strong opinions about their street and we are committed to working through differences of opinion to try to arrive at consensus on what changes should be made. And that's for the neighborhood traffic calming program. But remember that are kind of our most of our transportation program is driven by policy and driven by city staff working with council and keep boards and commissions. That's the nine million in transportation projects that are in the CIP for the coming fiscal year. That's the 2.2 million for sidewalk and pavement maintenance. That's kind of the mainstream and NTC is a way when things that aren't being, you know, handled through the normal process. Neighbors can come together and say, we'd like your attention to address an issue here. But then, you know, once you have that conversation, others might not want those changes and we just have to work through that. So we do typically spend it, I think, and I will acknowledge that it is slower than when the neighbors who want these changes, they would like it faster, but the process is because some of the neighbors might have different opinions. And I wanted to apologize. I was not implying that the process is cumbersome because of the staff. I'm sorry if that I know I understand because in fact the project that's going on is blocked for me has a neighbor who's not thrilled with the proposal that's out there. So I don't, I didn't mean to imply that it was anything with the staff. I know that part of making sure that everyone's voices are heard makes it a longer process. So I understand that. I think, you know, Mayor Hardy, I think her points came for you was that, you know, maybe at some point the council has to say, okay, we're going to just move ahead with ABRC project. But so that was the crux of my question was the 200. So that may be at some point, you know, in another budget, you know, next year or the year after maybe boosting that up a little bit. I just throw that out there. But thank you, thank you, fall of your work and Ms. Balla, thank you, fall of your work. Other questions or comments? I didn't want to plus one of those down's comments. I think not a change we need to make in this budget cycle, but I think in general, I think you've heard from council that transportation and street safety is like the number one thing we hear from the community and wanting to see a more efficient and more throughput through that process. I think we're willing to take on more of that top-down role if we find that we actually have data that says these streets are dangerous. We're seeing crashes here and that is an unpopular thing for some of our neighborhoods, but I think given how we want to be responsive to that issue. I think the signal you're hearing from a council is let's let's move more in that direction rather than wait for everything to be bottoms up Other questions or comments? Mrs. Scott. I just have one to start. And it's a quick one on the request from planning commission to increase salaries. Can you just talk to the, if we agree to do that, the timetable of that I presume is it like city council raises where you have to go through multiple, okay, I see you shaking your head, would you walk me through that process and when that decision point would need to be triggered? Have you looked into it? So I don't think it requires the process that the City Council's any changes to the City Council compensation is. And so we'll schedule that for a work session in the future. But the Council I think has the ability to make adjustments to Board and Commission pay, and that's within your discretion. Thank you. Thank you. Other? That's one. We'll just make a quick comment, and I wanted to thank you for your public comment and federal service. I think that all of us have really struggled with what to do with the tax burden. I think we very much recognize, you know, that our residents or tax burden didn't again saw this with this year's community survey as an area of top concern and are particularly sort of, want to be attentive and responsive to it at this point in time. I do think that we've struggled in the reason that the contingency sort of line items emerged in this budget is because we wanted to make deeper cuts than our partners in the schools felt like they were able to make or that they were able to publicly have comment on this point in time. And so we didn't want to spend, you know, that money that wouldn't be matched. we were trying to make a $285,000 reduction and the general government on its side came back to us and found much of that $285,000. But because the schools really were only able to match $145,000 or so of that $285,000 we wanted to reach to give the one and a half sent reduction. We then created those contingency funds in order to respond to sort of the safety net concerns that we envision, right, that more people in the community may be facing. So I don't think that it's necessarily the ideal outcome or what maybe the majority even had wanted kind of coming out of this budget cycle, but again, was really born out. I think of our trying to do our work on our side of the budget while also remaining responsive to our partners in the schools and what the school community was saying. It needed for the upcoming year given the growth that it was encountering as well as the conversations and the work that the schools would need to do in order to respond to our request to find for their funding or reduce the expansion so to speak to find that tax cut for residents. Senator Hill. Would you be able to talk a little bit about the park and the wrecking parks additional budget that $600,000 where that came from? Could you go into a little bit more detail about that? Yeah, so with capital improvements programs, they have a three-year lifespan. When the council makes an appropriation through the CIP, that money has a three-year term. Unlike the operating budget, where you have a one-year term, and if it doesn't get spent, it gets spec to unassign fund balance. So over the past three years the Reckon Park's budget we've come in under spending or had alternative financing to pay for things. And so I've sent out to council what that list looks like but it comes everything from sort of fixing some of the trails in our parks that came, you know, we had different ways of financing that work. We ended up doing it in-house at a much lower cost than originally budgeted. That's one example. One which lights the schools is that we were going to do a 50-50 cost share on the lights of the tennis court at Meridian High School. We ended up being billed less than 50% by the schools and so we had some cost savings there. In total over three years, that accumulated to $670,000. And so in looking at that, we said don't use capital reserves then for the playground equipment. We can use this under-spending of prior projects as a way particularly for the Cavalier Trail Park improvements that are planned. One other thing that I think we'll be discussed at a future date is the schools are trying to work through options on the baseball field for the fence or the screen and it is possible that the schools are going to ask for some money for that. And if so, this could be one way possibly to have a conversation about if that need is there, it could be met. But that's a conversation I think there would be for May 19th because that would be part of the budget amendment for the current fiscal year. That's a bit of context for that number. And thank you for that. And actually maybe this is something where I need to sit with Karen or your Wyatt. But would I, would looking through the CIP, would one have been able to tell that that additional money was in the park or rec and parks budget. No, I don't think not looking through the CIP you really needed to see you know inside the city's general ledger essentially and because CIP dollars have a three-year term they also weren't part of a carry forward. They just accumulated there. So that's why that money was not as visible as a situation like this typically would be. But Ms. Bawa might be able to answer the question more clearly than I just did. So is there a snakey on your edge? There's a project sheet for every step of the project. But there is a... Ms. Paoa is your mic on. Sorry. So in the CIP folder, there is a project sheet for every single project, and it kind of shows the prior year appropriation. It doesn't separate it out, which year it was appropriated the three years but there is a prior year number so it gives some idea. But I think when we present the quarterly capital updates we're talking some budget numbers there but maybe it does not totally fleshed out any one place. And maybe that's something we should do when we do a quarterly update that we present what the project budget is estimated costs and any projected understanding or reprogramming. I'm gonna jump in there and say, I think that would be great because my next question is like, what other areas that I, maybe I missed that we have 600 cases in place? Like that's the next logical question, right? Is if we didn't see it there, are there other areas that we may choose to spend on different projects? Or there might be some flexibility, you all recommend. So it would be great to see that moving forward. Well, and I'll triple that one. Yeah, agree. Yeah, I agree. Because I think the same reaction or it was sort of like, you know, having raised the playground equipment and whether it made sense to spend capital reserve money on it in this sort of going into next year's economy, right, or the current economy potentially getting worse and kind of where taxpayer money is best spent. I was somewhat surprised, right, that then the CIP money was there is under spending. And so I know that the operating budget, you know, is different than the CIP and whatever else. But when we do things like create the $535,000 revenue contingency, in my mind, like the other pots of money, so to speak, aren't necessarily there with the amount of understanding that may be in them. And so I do think some of the insight in terms of trying to respond to the tax burdens that we're hearing about would be helpful going forward to try to address those concerns. So just to clarify a little bit more, I get what all of you are saying. We do a six year picture, but we appropriate one year's money. Whatever was appropriated last year is your mark for those projects that was appropriated for. If we move, if we have to move between projects or if we are running a shortfall and we have to transfer some other money, it all comes to council as part of the budget amendments. And if it's in the larger project, like park implementation plan, and how we want to re-prioritize if it's any different than what it was projected at the time of budget, when we award the contracts, if there are more than 100,000 that will also come to Council. So there are avenues when that expenditure definitely shows up or the award of contract shows up to Council. Okay, if I can try to understand some rise. So one, it's good that we have some projects come in under budget and we are judicious with taxpayer dollars. I think the Requestion Council is we would like better insight into that before we start spending capital reserves or CIP projects so we can make a more holistic decision sounds like there's some process things we can work out I do want to rewind though because I think Mr. Shields you talked about a potential request from the schools to support their 800,000 dollar baseball net issue and I think Mr. Snyder's actually talked about this in the past where you know We're approving one budget now and then to turn around a week later and talk about a budget amendment for the previous budget and we're deciding make spending decisions then when we were trying really hard to scrub the budget just previously feels a little incongruous. So I do think it is relevant to talk about some of that now, especially because we were looking at making some park cuts in the CIP. And so if we are thinking of funding some of the baseball net issue, I do think that is relevant to discuss now and not save it all for next week or whenever the budget amendment is. I know you sent us an email with a little more background on it, but I guess. So the public has a benefit understanding. I think the one idea is that we could use some of the park CIP under spending that we've been talking about to help contribute to the $800,000 issue. Is that correct? That's right. Do we have line of sight and how else the schools are going to plug that issue? I do not. I think they're still figuring it out themselves. And I think they plan to talk about it with the school board tomorrow night, and then we'll have a conversation about it together next week. But the number that I think they're working through is in that $800,000 range for the fence. That's the problem they're trying to solve. Okay. It's down. I agree with what everyone said this evening about the pots of money in a better understanding where this money may be sitting but just specifically about the $300,000 or so. I would say that, you know, if I remember correctly, when I was on school board and we didn't put in any lights at the tennis courts because we were over budget, we were starting to become over budget on the Meridian build. what happened was that Danny Schlet came in and and we were starting to become over budget on the Meridian build. What happened was that Danny Schlett came in and I guess you said it's not quite 50-50, but came in and said to the schools, you know, if I help you put in the lights and I can charge for pickleball, which if you all know, they're playing pickleball until like midnight there with those lights. So I do think that, you know, there's another piece of this whole that we need to talk about. But specifically about this 300,000, I do think that, you know, part of the reason why, when I was on school bar, I advocated for a true field was that it can be used 365 days a year. It can be rented to all kinds of different people. Meridian never rented that baseball field really much before because it was a grass field and it got torn up so easily. So there is a way that I would envision that Danny Schlick can recoup that money. Oh, I mean, it'll take a little time, obviously. But for those, you don't know, travel baseball is, it is just ridiculously, there are so many travel teams looking for fields. And so I do in the fall, too, not just the spring and all that. So, and then I'll also, of course, summer camps and all that. So I think eventually he could recoup that money. I mean, it's going to take a little while, but I think the idea is there is that's specifically why we had that turf field in is that so parks and rec could rent that field out so hopefully that money would come back eventually. Okay other thoughts while we're on CIP. Could we bring that CIP slide back up please? as well. Let's try that maybe a hard to ask, given our issues with the slides. And while we're doing that, I'll just note that there's a lot of partnership at the Meridian campus, where Reckon Parks uses those facilities throughout the summer for camps, for flag football. And so that's a really important relationship. And I think Danny tries to be a good steward of that relationship because it works for the whole community. Oh, that's good. Sorry, can we go back to the previous slide? So what will the Sikas, I guess, in the budget amendment is that in the CIP, besides adding a rural house, but through a budget budget amendment, not through FY26 through 31 CIP is helping with TBD amount on the baseball field net issue. That's what's on the table for us to discuss in a couple weeks. Our next week, actually. We try. Do people have thoughts on other things on the VIP? I think we're still are we still fine adding a row house and then taking out the two parks. Just to be clear, taking out those two parks, the cavalier trail parks will be taken care of with part of the understanding and the reckon parks. And what we're saying is that we would not use the balance of that understanding and reckon parks to support crossmen. That's an area that we're looking to save on because there's an Arlington County Park across the street that is pretty well developed. But we did talk about the desire to even if it's not public playground equipment for young kids to develop that park land that we own rather than just having some dilapidated equipment there. So I guess I'd be curious that we flushed that out to just what that potential spend would be, you know, the benefit, the pros and cons of using that one way or the other. Other thoughts? I guess we'll have a May 19th budget event and we'll talk about another budget amendment for the year end when we close at FY25. Do we have line of sight to? So the things that, you know, here's I think what staff will advocate for is that we do move ahead with Cavalier Trail. I think we would take a little bit of time to assess crossmen in terms of what is the best thing that could happen for crossmen and that might be a CIP item a year from now. I think that's the way we would envision that going. And then with respect to the baseball field, I think there's going to be more facts that will be forthcoming that will help inform the council's ultimate decision on that. OK. Again, while we're not making that decision tonight, do you think that it's important for all of us to keep in mind that technically we're talking about FY26 and beyond CIP, but we are going to be facing another capital decision just through a budget amendment. So OK. I guess if it does come back to us to be going to be going to be a lot of things that are going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be a lot of things that are going to be going to be going to be a going to be a lot of things going to be going to be a lot of things that are going to be going to be a lot of things going to be a lot of things questions as well. Do we blind a site to what their fund balance is going to be? It's provided as part of the budget Q&A so their fund balance as of June 30th was 2.4 million and they have not requested any of it to be? It's provided as part of the budget Q&A. So their fund balance as of June 30th was 2.4 million and they have not requested any of it to be programmed in this fiscal year so far. I do understand there'll be a request for additional funding 600,000 and above maybe a little bit for more for the concession stand and they do normally program about 452, 500,000 in their next year's budget. So I'm assuming part of the 2.4 is for that as well. And then I do not know what the rest of it is for. That's the discussion they're going to have tomorrow and then we're going to have next Monday. It's a possible to bring that up. Sorry, my screen's really slow. I know it was last Q&A. There it goes. I think it was question 48. Yep. Yeah, that's the one. Sorry, it's a little tiny. Font, boys. So the far right hand column is what they end the fiscal year with the past eight years. Correct. I will say that I mean when I was usually they use urine balance for purchase of school buses they purchase one to two every year and the electric buses I think are close to close to $400,000 a piece the electric buses. So that might be one thing. And then the field too I think that was 2.2 million. Right. That was another big one. But that was last year. That was yeah. Yeah. 2.2. 23. Yeah. So that 3.8 to one roughly 2.2 of it was used for the baseball. Facebook, Facebook, 2.2 for. I went to 23. Yeah. So that 3.8 to 1, roughly 2.2 of it was used for the baseball. Baseball field and buses from the 3.8 million they ended the year with. And then what I heard Ms. Balasay is that 2.4 yet has not been appropriated? Correct. Except for what they have programmed in the next years budget. The 400,000 that get to carry over a year to year. And is that by policy? No, they normally try to. And policy says they can have up to 2% of their expenditures as a fund balance. And if it's anymore, they draw it down or. OK. Ms. help? Just to wrap up some of my remaining questions. Can we go back to the budget rather than see if you okay? So I do want to follow up on some of the comments that Mr. Lajnus made. I am very cognizant of wanting to make sure that we a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. they were only able to reduce their costs by so much. So in terms of the contingency funds that we do have right now, I imagine that there might be cases where the economy continues to go down. Our meals revenue is not great. And we have holes that we need to plug. I can also imagine that tariffs are an issue and some of our projects come in over budget. But let's say that by September or I don't know. Later on in the year, it turns out that $500 or $600,000 is not needed. What, at what point would we look back at that money and decide what to do. I know that we have major gaps in some projects like Greening of Lincoln. I know that we have major gaps in funding of our road paving program. Would that potentially be money that could be put to use in terms of road paving and maintenance that we have been previously underfunding. And at what point would we be able to deploy that money or decide that we could do that? Well, the council could deploy it at any time that you wanted to over the course of the fiscal year. That's the bottom line. The, I think staff recommendation would be to wait at least until the second quarter financial report is in, and then we'd have a better read in terms of our situation. And then, I guess at that point, we could have a meeting to see how much we've dipped into that or if we have, and if it looks like we'd run through it or not, and then appropriately deploy it as needed as we see fit. That's right. And we won't dip into it. The only way that it can be dipped into is through an appropriation for the City Council. And so really over the course this fiscal year, it would be deployed in the event that we're having revenue shortfalls and then the Council says, OK, we can start to use it and it would be appropriated. Okay, it's something that I am, it's difficult because we definitely have projects or things that we are, especially like our road paving program that absolutely need more capital investment. And so it does as Ms. Flynn said, it does feel bad to sit on money, but I think also, in this case, given that we don't have a clear picture as to, and there's a lot of turmoil going on at the federal level, and we don't know what's going to happen, so maybe some of our grants or funding that I it's a tough decision but I do see that this is a reasonable path forward. So thank you. And just to be clear, my view on it is that if it's that if the school isn't matching our reduction and we're and we're not giving tax relief because of that inability to meet what we wanted to do as a tax rate reduction that that money is staying in contingency so to speak that's really a safety net contingency, a safety net expenditures in order to meet the needs of our resident population at this particular point in time and then also the revenue contingency and so I don't view view it like previewing my own views on it is that I don't view it as a potential place to dip into or to reallocate like that that money was there for in my mind reason. And it should stay there and we shouldn't be previewing potentially like, you know, deploying it for spending needs apart from sort of safety net needs or increasing the safety net given potential emergency assistance people may need like in the fall is there continuing to bridge severance payments and whatever else with with new jobs. Just to put the timeline perspective, second quarter will probably come to you like mid-February. And then that's the time we are preparing the next year's budget. So this could become a larger conversation at that time. And it is to remember it is ongoing funding. This is not one time funding. So we'll see how the year goes. And if it remains ongoing or not, we'll figure it out by the end of by the time we do the second quarter. I did want to also briefly talk about the contingency. I think everyone probably saw the news that DC lost their triple abon rating. I think in general, I think the creditors are scrutinizing the DC metropolitan area. And so I was curious whether Ms. Bawa, you had any perspective on whether our financial advisors have advice on how to not, I mean, while we're not taking out general fund debt, clearly, I think we worked really hard at achieving our triple line bond rating, which helps us borrow money at a lower rate, right? It means we're doing a good job with taking all that debt. So is that something that our financial advisors are giving us an aid vice on? Because I'm inclined to listen to them if they tell us you should not touch your unass signed fund balance and you should be prepared for storms ahead. So I've not had a chance to have any detailed conversation about the contingency with them. But what I understand is earlier on in the last few months, each of the rating agencies has come up with a little bit more strict way of looking at our metrics, every jurisdictions metrics, and evaluating based on that and it's not just fund balance, that's like the available fund balance, that's looked at. It's our debt per capita and it's our other ratios like we have the debt service to expenditure payout ratios. So we are on the borderline on a couple of those and that per capita is much larger than some of our neighboring jurisdictions. They have other demographic metrics that they look at, which are not so much favorable for false church, because we are not so big on diversification diversity and how the debt is distributed. So for that reason, I feel that we should make every effort that we can, especially until we've issued the following debts, like 30 or 40 million that we need in the next two or three years to make sure that we're doing our due diligence and preserving our reserves, contingencies and our reserves in the neat fashion needed. But I will talk to them, our advisors, and report back. I think I would be helpful to have their perspective, especially again, I think there's a lot of scrutiny in our region. Mr. Snyder. Thank you very much Madam Mayor. So the University of Virginia, well-in-coupers, I wish you to report predicting a general economic downturn in Virginia as a whole. One would expect that the downturn would affect northern Virginia more than the state. The current unemployment rate is 3.2 percent. Well and Cooper estimates that that will go up to 3.9 percent this year and up to 4.7 percent by the following year. So by every reasonable expert predictions, we have some very serious and difficult years ahead. And I think this budget is our first effort to try to get ahead of that, if you can, in two ways. First of all, by providing the one cent return and there's no question that we'd all like to do more. But everybody's importantly, providing for the contingency that may be the difference between our government continuing to function and one having the difficulty of providing even basic services or support for education. And then the additional contingency of $115,000 for potential expenditures that may be needed as we did during the pandemic to support our citizens that are in particularly un-predicted and difficult circumstances. I will make one other point and I think the city manager has said this, but I want to emphasize that growth does bring costs. For the past few years, we've heard discussions only about the upside, which of course are increased property values as a result of new construction. What we're now dealing with very directly is the costs of that growth in terms of increased enrollment in the schools and while the school buildings may be large enough to contain more students, the fact of the matter is, you have to hire teachers and support professionals to teach them fully. And then the CIP contains $14 million for sewer upgrades, many of which are required as a result of the increased demands on the sewer system by the increased building that we've done. All this is to say that simply this. We've grown, we may continue to grow but there are costs with that. And this budget is the first major clear challenge to do that. And that we meeting that challenge with with our projections. So I think as we said the other night we're balancing the requirements for the general government, the circumstances of our tax payers and of course the schools which are so fundamental to our community. And I think this budget does a pretty good job of balancing all of those under trying circumstances. And all I can say is that based upon all the predictions, things are gonna get worse rather than better. And so I think the discipline that we've shown this year is a good example of much more of this kind of discipline that we'll have to show in the future. And having gone through the terrorist attacks, the great recession, other challenges to the city, I believe that we're being responsible in the budget approach that we're taking here. We can't predict the future, but we can do our best to learn and to understand what are reasonable predictions for the future. And so I think this budget does the very best job we can at this point of doing that. Thank you. I actually had a question before we get more comments. So I think building off of what Mr. Siner said that, you know, we can't predict the future. And clearly there's a lot of uncertainty. And I think this budget tries to manage through that. And I've kind of said in the past that we're going to need to be more nimble because I think the environment is going to continue to change. Can you do your best on when we might have more information on either economic indicators? When we're going to touch the budget again, sounds like we're going to have an FY24 budget amendment next week. We're going to have FY25 year end amendment in September. Mr. Shield said February 2026 we'll be looking at Q2 FY 26 data. So those were three points where we're talking money in the city and have more data like are there other times because I think it's important for us to kind of keep in mind that just because we adopt the budget tonight like they're going to be other times where actually budget's going to continue and we're going to have more data each time and I want to make sure that our school partners understand that as we get more information we may have have to be flexible and adjust as needed and make different decisions because it is all like frankly taxpayer money. Like whether we call it FY24 amendment or FY25 year end reconciliation or look at data again halfway through 2026, like it's all taxpayer money and I think we need to be responsive to what the changing environment might look like. So could you help talk through maybe, again, We don't know what information we'll get those three times or if they're other times, but when those timelines might be, so we can keep that in mind. Sure, so the next upcoming thing is the year end. Well, this year's budget amendment that we bring to you and we're not gonna be asking for any new monies like a preparation of any fund balance, but we would ask for reprogramming at the very most from one program to the other, or making any department that is overspent, hold by using, understanding from another department. Plus the school's baseball field issue. We'll be part of that FY 24 amendment. Schools will be requesting a preparation of new funds. Okay. The general government will probably not. And your end September, the week is when we bring for you the your end results report for the city. And immediately following that, typically has been a budget amendment because we have seen larger like 2 to 3% urine one-time funds and we have brought to council to address some one-time needs or to place that in the cap reserve. So depending on what we discussed at the third quarter we will have some urine based on the interest income and the violations and tickets funding. So there There is going to be some revenue over, but we still don't know the extent of how much the tax revenues are going to be below. And if that's going to offset. And I think if we're continuing at the rate of what we've done in the first eight months, nine months, we should end with a balance on the revenues. After that budget amendment, I think the next thing we bring to you is a first quarter which is quite preliminary, one or two months of sales meals. And personal property is what that first quarter port addresses. At this time when we bring you the first quarter, the assessor's office is working on looking at what the region, the growth market growth is for residential across the region, and of course our properties, and then we bring you preliminary revenue forecasts on the first week of December. So that's another point of discussion on on funds and then following that is the second quarter of the fourth which is mid to late February and mid February we also give the exact revenue the assessment figures at that time. So what the growth has been as of January one date. And then comes the city manager's budget proposal in March. Okay, so I'm heard May 19th for the budget amendment on FY 24 September 2025 for FY 25 year end. December 2025 when you have Q1 data and then mid February 2026 when we have Q2 data and we start kind of our part of the budget process. Do you have anything over the summer? Like, can I just say, don't forget the trash fee. That would be August. We're going to reopen it as well in August of 2025. Although I think the manager of recommendation has said, not touch the rest of the budget if possible then. But I don't want to take words out of your mouth. There's a really nice chart that we've made in budget and finance about what months we're looking at what things. And we refer to that. And it's super helpful to be able to say, this now we're looking at the current budget, now we're looking at last year's budget, now we're looking at next year's budget and a month by month thing. if we can find that one, Ms. Bawa. Sure, I'll share it at the next budget finance. So what we plan to do now since we saw down or maybe flattening of the revenues, I want to say the local categories, we will be looking at monthly, like what the March collections are, what the April and May and each ones. So that's what we're going to be monitoring, but what the summer months for finances, working on the year end and working on the FCR CAFER, originally called CAFER, but looking at how we're ending the year and based on that is when we bring you the year end. So we essentially have two extra months till the end of August that we receive all the revenues that are accorded for fiscal year 25 and then we're wrapping up all the expenditures and voices and things. So that's what happens in summer. We go full on the year end starting after this budget amendment. I'm just paying attention to the summer and fall in particular. In the past, we talked about how many federal employees may be paid through September or so. And given the lagging and unemployment data we heard about, I guess, six weeks ago, I just don't think we're going to see the full impacts. The staffs at Mr. Sider presented, which is not going to see all that immediately. So I think paying attention on a monthly basis, I guess to the extent that the Budget and Finance Committee would like to keep an eye on that over the summer, I think that attention on a monthly basis, I guess to the extent that the Budget and Finance Committee would like to keep an eye on that over the summer, I think that would be helpful rather than say, we're done with the budget, we're gonna take a couple months off. I do think that this is a different environment where I do think that we need extra eyes on it. And I do also want to see the impact of the new businesses. And are we panning out on those revenues that we have projected, even though it's in a restricted economy, kind of a situation? But. the new businesses. And are we panning out on those revenues that we have projected, even though it's in, you know, a restricted economy kind of a situation, but are we a little better than what we would have been if we had not had that growth. So you need to monitor that. Agreed. Thank you. Sure. Final questions or comments? Okay, so right now we have T O 25-02. So I'm going to open the public hearing for any comments from the public. And this is for the budget and CIP and then we'll get to the ordinance for tax rate and storm water and other utilities. Any members of the public wish to comment on TO25-02? Okay, seeing none, I'm going to close the public hearing. Any final comments from council? Okay, if not, I will have some comments. So as I reflect on kind of the past six weeks and the conversation we just had about how budgets not really quite done, even though hopefully we adopted tonight, I guess two main takeaways from me. One, this is a budget that does actually a lot of good. I think one of the earlier slides, even with the tax rate cut, the budgets are going 6% to 7%. That is actually quite remarkable when you look you look at again in the budget Q&A dock what our regional partners are seeing so I think one we should pause that we have that revenue growth because of economic development over the past 10 years we have seen some of that pay dividends and we've also seen increased property values where we have become a desirable place. I think that's one thing I want to put out there. I think with, as we all acknowledge this kind of first bump in the road, maybe a lot more uncertainty ahead. I think we are trying to prepare for that. As I read through all the rounds of public comments, it seemed obvious to me, I think the fact that I haven't personally stated it has created probably more consternation, I guess. And so one, I guess I personally start every budget season with the desire to frankly lower the tax burden and reduce the tax rate because of economic development that we've invested in over the years and because of the burden of what our high taxes mean for our homeowners. I think in the past when I talked about affordability, it's not only affordable homes and the attainable homes, but it's also the bills that you pay. And so for me, that's always been personally important. And I think more so that is important in uncertain times like we're approaching. And I think a second part of that is just because you have the money doesn't that doesn't mean you should spend it. That's just court how I approach money. And I've also said that it's not normal to have revenue growth of 68%. And so if we were expecting years of 2-3% revenue growth, it is far easier in my opinion to start trimming your budgets to prepare for harder times. Probably have some different opinions in the audience about that. And then third point on kind of my budget philosophy is that it's our specific responsibility up here to set the tax rate and decide how to balance the needs across the entire city. At the beginning of every council when we're seated we decide our priorities. We decide to invest in things like transportation, climate, housing. I think schools are one part of that and clearly an important part of the community I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I do think that that has worked well in good times. We've also said very clearly that revenue share is for good times. And so if we are entering a period of economic disruption and tough times, I think how we partner a lot in the coming year matters a lot. So I would ask that not for the audience who's not here, but for people who may be watching, that we all really try to turn down their rhetoric on budget. I think trust that the seven of us are trying to do our best balancing all those needs that we talked about. Second, as we talked about through the timing part of it, in a changing environment, it's going to be volatile. And I think we need to be a lot more nimble, and we need to be more prepared for the times ahead. And so through this budget cycle, you've heard me talk about, I want a list of levers for revenues and expenditures. So should we decide, you know, come September, the data doesn't look good, we're going to need to do more trimming. The revenue contingency we said aside was not enough. Are we prepared to do that? And so I want us to have that discipline through the budget process. and I think we got some good information and good options from Mr. Shields and I would look to our school partners to do the same. I think the community expects us to be responsive and thoughtful and collaborative. And I hope that we can keep that in mind as we continue through the next several months certainly over the summer in the coming year. So. Okay, I'll take a motion unless I see other comments. Uh-huh. Go ahead, Ms. Connolly. Just following up on what you said, Mayor, and I think it is really important to think about what your own philosophy of doing this is and when you first get up here, you don't have a philosophy of how to do this and it takes a while and. And it takes a lot of learning from the staff who helped us a long way. One of the things I think is very important is the idea of stewardship that we are stewarding the public's money and also reflecting what the public's demands are. So there's a high tax burden and there's a high demand for what people want from the city of Falls Church. And we need to make sure those two are balancing each other out. So one thing I want to make sure is that the seven people up here and the staff and the seven school board members and school staff, people put so much time and effort into this. And in the end, this is my 12th year of doing this. And we always come down to like a penny or two pennies that we're trying to figure out the right way to really worry ourselves through what's the right way to steward this money. And we could have done it differently this year. We could have done what Mr. Lajna suggested and cut all contingencies out of the budget and that would have been a penny. But we decided that because of the volatility we're not going to take that path this year. That doesn't mean it's a bad path, it just isn't the way we're headed this year. So I think that's super important to remember is just what is our responsibility as the stewards of this money that comes from the taxpayer to serve the taxpayer. One of the things I say when I do my disclaimer every meeting is that I can do this fairly objectively and in the public interest and I think all of us try to do that. Sometimes it can feel much more personal and emotional and how do you, and we've had speakers come who are very emotional and we really try to do this fairly objectively and always in the public interest. As far as the revenue share agreement goes, I do think we need to reopen that for next year, partly with the calendar in mind because it had been working so well that we were pushing back our budget so that the city council will adopt the budget tonight and then the school board will adopt the budget tomorrow night. And several years ago it was working so well the school board didn't need any extra time to rethink their budget because everything was falling into place. And now we're in a different, much more volatile time and everything is not falling into place and what we thought, life is going to look like in December and January and even February is not what it looks like now because of that larger federal picture. So I think maybe at, you know, next year we're not going to have Ms. Bawa, we're not going to have Kristen Michael who was the school COO and the two of you worked so hard on that revenue sharing agreement. So I do think we need to kind to look at the calendar a little bit so that there's a way to make sure that we're really hitting all those the points and the marks so that people understand what's happening if we're going to have to keep reopening as we go. And then also to look at this in as stewards, but also over many years, this isn't just a we're not just doing 12 months of budgeting, The CIP is six years. This budget plays into next year's budget. We're basing a lot of this on last year's budget. So it's really an ongoing organism. And we need to think about it that way, not just as what's the tax rate, and then we move on to the next thing. So I do agree it was hardy that we need to keep this front and center continuing. So I am going to support this budget. I think I wish we did not have to go back on what we thought we were going to be able to do when the school board approved their budget. But given what we've heard from Ms. Bawa and what the expectations are in the region, it makes sense to be able to pull back a little bit. So I will support this budget. Vice mayor. Thank you. I think we all have talked multiple times about striking the right balance and that as our job to find the right balance and to respect all members of the community. And hopefully this is, we've made, I'll made some compromises and we're giving some back to the taxpayer. We're providing a really solid budget for both general government and schools, which really focuses on our people. And we've been able to maintain raises to value those who are here. We haven't cut any jobs like many of our other jurisdictions have on either the general government or the school side. Sure, if you follow any of the local news, it's not such a great picture and many of our other jurisdictions have on either the general government or the school side. Sure, if you follow any of the local news, it's not such a great picture and many of our just neighboring jurisdictions and either side. So I think there's a lot to be proud of and I think a lot of it ties back to focusing on our economic development and that economic development a lot of obviously to have this major high school. And I don't want us to lose track of the fact that that wherever our budgets are, we wouldn't have a brand new high school if we didn't have 10 acres of development. It's just a are we wouldn't have a brand new high school if we didn't have 10 acres of development it's just a that wouldn't happen so everybody support our local businesses and that'll continue to support our schools and our ability to pay our bonds we clearly have made decision as a community to highly value our schools and put this investment in our community and And it is a community asset. Both for students and those of us who no longer have students in school. That said, I also thinking about ongoing. I also want to make sure like one of my roles is to focus on affordable housing and also on the environment. And we are definitely making investments in those this year, but if we're looking at ongoing, you know, they're gonna be tough decisions to make as we may or may not be able to make our 20, 40 carbon emissions reduction goals, or are affordable housing unit goals. And so really is a difficult juggling task to try to identify these priorities in the community and fund all of them at a rate that each one of them has positive impact on our community. So I do think that these conversations need to continue happening immediately, you know, that we continue to talk about what those potential scenarios are for FY27. And you know, the city manager mentioned a number of the other week that has been haunting me, which was a potential $4 million gap in the next budget year, as a high end of things. And these discussions we're having over, $145,000 versus a $4 million gap next year are gonna have to be handled delicately. And with with great thought and data and care and then they can't just happen in you know April or May of 2027 so I appreciate all the work that incredible amount of work that finance staff and all of our general government and school staff and boards go in to the budget process thinking about and planning for in advance and I think next year be more, so more important than ever to do that and to work collaboratively. So I will be supporting this budget even though I was really hopeful we could get to our two and a half cent tax rate that we discussed and put out to the community in December. And received several email messages to the effect that there are people who aren't coming and speaking publicly who are appreciative of our efforts to balance that out and to include a tax rate reduction. So thank you to everybody who has come, spoken to Council, written Council, come to our budget meetings. We've had a tremendous amount of feedback. And I think I know I speak for all seven up here that we listen and read and think and engage with intent and with purpose to to provide that balance for everybody. So thank you. What's down? Yeah, I just have a quote. I mean, you all have so eloquently stated why I think we all support this with this budget. And you know, one of the things that occurs to me, it is really important that we lower this tax burden. When I look at our surrounding jurisdictions, we're always at the top with our tax rate. And it's also important that we keep our staff, their staff salaries high so that we can attract the best talent. And so I think one of those things that we're never going to be in a position, why know we were maybe a couple of years ago where there was a huge tax cut. But from here on out, we probably are not going to have that opportunity. And just like we would never have an opportunity to vastly increase staff salaries. So I think every year we just have to keep chip chipping away at the bus that we can. Penny is better than nothing. And so I'm glad that we got there. The schools did, the community turned out, and the schools did find that penny. So it took a little bit, but they did. And so just every year making sure that we keep those salaries competitive, we keep trying to cut back that tax rate. Even if it's half of a penny, that's better than nothing. So I'm proud that we did this and thank you to Ms. Bawa and Mr. Shields for really coming to us. As soon as you saw those revenues were not coming in, when you saw those meals, taxes, and the sales taxes, those leading indicators, you all were on top of it. And it was obviously bad news, but thank goodness we were on top of it. And so I think that's a very responsible budget. We know things are not looking so great. And I think we'd rather be a little conservative and make sure that we're on strong footing, you know, in the upcoming year. So I do support this budget and thank my colleagues and also the school board for getting down, getting to that penny. Thanks. Okay, do we have a motion? Man,, I move to adult TO 25-0-2 as revised. Second. I'll second. It's underhill in the second. Call roll please. Ms. Conley? Yes. Ms. Downs? Yes. Ms. Flynn? Yes. Ms. Shons-Hiscott? Yes. Mr. Snyder. Yes. Ms. Downs. Yes. Ms. Flynn. Yes. Ms. Shons-Hisscott. Yes. Mr. Snyder. Yes. Ms. Underhill. Yes. Ms. Mayor Hardy. Yes. Motion carries 7-0. Thank you, Council. Can I call the next item, please, for the tax rate? Yes, we're on to TO25-03 ordinance, setting the rate of tax levy on real estate for a TechSphere 2026 and on personal property, machinery and tools and all other... the . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I need discussion on this. For me, their council or staff. Hey, we're. Vice mayor. I just wanted to say one other thing that I forgot in my last. My last comments, which is just that I'm also glad that we are adding to our HHS health and human services. Funding because I think that might be incredibly important in the next year or so. So thank you for working on that stuff. Just related back to general comments. And just like we're going to monitor revenues, if we can kind of keep an eye on how the drawdown of our safety nets going, should we need to make them bid year adjustment? I think again, keeping a close eye on what the needs of the community are that could be really good indicator. Sorry I have one question. Right this is T O 25-03 just in re re reading the heading now. Should the last line of that be for tax year 2026? Karen. Sorry for the phone. Great. No, no, no, no. No, no, no. You need to explain this every year. No, sorry. No, no. So it's tax. The tax year is 2025, but when it's collected, it's fiscal year 2025. 2026, sorry. So it public hearing earlier was not for everything. We need to do a separate public hearing on each item. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry. Okay. Is there a motion? Madam Mayor, should we do just through the public hearing on this before we go? Okay. So that public hearing earlier was not for everything. We need to do a separate public hearing on each item. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, let's open the public hearing. Any members of the public wish to comment on TO25-03? Anybody online? No. I don't think we actually have any members of the public anymore, so I'm gonna close the public hearing. Okay, I think we're ready for a motion then. Move to adopt to your 25-03 with a real estate tax rate of $1.20. Third second. Second. It's Connolly, home second. Call roll please. Ms. Connolly? Yes, Ms. Downs. Yes, Ms. Flynn. Yes, Miss Sean's his cock. Yes, Mr. Snyder. Yes, Ms. Underhill. Yes, and Mayor Hardy. Yes, motion carry 7 to 0. Thank you Next are you ready for the next yes, we are To 25 dash 0 4 ordinance to set the stormwater utility billing unit rate in accordance with chapter 42, article seven of the Code of the City of Falls Church, Virginia, as of July 1, 2025. Any questions or comments from Council? Are we open up the public hearing for this one? Okay. Any members of the public wish the comment on Tio 25-04? It's confirming no one's online. No. Okay. I'm going to close the public hearing. We have a motion. Motion to adopt Tio 25-04. Second. So, blend on the second, sounds on the motion. Call roll please. This... to adopt T.O. 25-04. Second. Let's flint on the second. Sounds on the motion. Call roll please. Ms. Conley? Yes. Ms. Downs? Yes. Ms. Lynn? Yes. Ms. Shons has got. Yes. Mr. Snyder? Yes. Ms. Underhill? Yes. Mayor Hardy? Yes. Motion carries 7-0. Thank you. Are we ready for the final? Yes, please. Okay. Tio 25-05. Ordnance to amend, reenact, and recodify chapter 42. Utilities to revise sewer, race, and fees as of July 1, 2025. I don't see any thing. Staff or Council wants to comment on any members of the public wish to comment on t o 25 dash 0 5. Okay, we're going to close the public hearing. May I have a motion please? Move to adopt t o 25 dash 0 5. It's. All right, second. It's under Hill on the second. Coral. Ms. Conley? Yes. Ms. Downs? Yes. Ms. Flynn? Yes. Ms. Sean's Hiscog? Yes. Mr. Snyder? Yes. Ms. Underhill? Yes, and Mayor Hardy. Yes, motion carries 7 to 0. Thank you Congrats, and thank you For now we're done for now Till next month. Until next week till Monday. Until next week. We're back with the budget amendment Okay, thank very much, staff. We appreciate the work on this one, as with every budget cycle, but this one is, especially it's health one, when you went in with expectations, thinking it would be an easy one, and I know that, that is hard to do mid-cycle, so we appreciate that work. Okay, we only have one more item at the end, even though we're nearing 10 o'clock, so I suggest we just, get through the consent items? Is that okay? Yes. Okay. So on consent, we have a resolution to amend council assignments and then CIP for security upgrades. People have questions or comments or want to remove things from consent. No, okay, I move to adopt the consent agenda. There's second. Second. His got on the second. Call roll please. Miss Conley. Yes, Miss Downes. Yes, Miss Flynn. Yes, Miss Shantz. His God. Yes, Mr. Snyder? Yes. Ms. Underhill? Yes. And Mayor Hardy? Yes. Motion carries seven to zero. Thank you. Is there appetite to get through schedule tonight and then not meet 8 30 on Wednesday? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. I think of offices meeting at 9. So it's not like we get to sleep in. All right, so we will probably pull the add-on nurse if... Okay, it's coming session on the 19th, we would have the Maple and Anondale Special exception application. We'll have our briefing on the 19th, we would have the Maple and Anondale special exception application. We'll have a briefing on the Affordable Living Policy Complan amendment. We'll discuss crosswalk and sidewalk design standards, and we'll discuss the spring budget amendment that we've talked about referenced tonight. Council salary and benefits, and then three franchise agreements for Cox Verizon and RCN. It is there, I think we have noted here that we would invite some additional board and commission members for those discussions, particularly the first two, the Maple and Anadale Project and the Affordable Living Project. And then the third, the Crosswalk and Sidewalk Standards, then also CACT and EDA and Planning Commission. Can we add Planning Commission salaries to the Council's sorry benefit conversation? If that's the council's desire, I would probably recommend having them on different days just to sort of keep those two decisions separate. And given one is sort of procedurally complex, you might think about keeping the separate for that reason as well. If there's interest from a majority of council we can just add it to the 2b scheduled items that we don't forget about it. I'm looking at I think there's nods from a majority of council so if we could. Yes. Okay. So let's add it to the 2b scheduled so we don't least track that one. Okay we'll plug that in. Thank you. I'll note it's already on the schedule. Thank you, Mayor. I think we, okay, so we put it in for a later date. 102 be scheduled. Yeah, but it's a manager and we'll get scheduling it sometime. Very good. We'll plug it in. So on the 27th, we'll have the youth representatives on our boards and commissions. They'll be recognized for their service. We'll be joined by the Royal House Board for its annual report. We'll have an update on CIP and strategic priorities. We'll have a post briefing for the 2025 General Assembly session. and we'll ask for a council action on the love sculpture design and then a vote on resolution on the new design standard for brick crosswalks and sidewalks, spring budget amendment first reading, the three franchise agreements, first reading on the ordinance for council salaries, and authorization for the Arlington County Fire Services Agreement. Debbie has a question. Yeah. On our street scape, does our street scape include trash bin styles? I think it does. It has a standard for all the street furniture. We had comments or actually maybe just went to Mary Beth at me this morning about the Arlington style that has, you know, like it's almost like a lid on top of that and it seems to reduce the number of birds that get into trash. Since I'm a Fault Search One Way and Arlington the other way I use both and I hadn't really thought about that a lot so I I wanted to discuss Trashbin options not to replace everything but moving forward maybe that's a A good option too. So I I didn't really add to that discussion, but It was an interesting one to have And I'll and I'll note that I too enjoy the mayors enjoyment and visiting other cities and seeing the wraps on their trash bins, which can be very stylish. It sounds like there's interest revisit other things about three escape standards, but given how long we've talked about just trying to address brick, I guess I would ask, whether we can put a pin in those items and try to solve the brick sidewalk and crosswalks first and then schedule when we want to talk about other standards Mostly I'm looking at Mary Bath because I know how long we've done. Yes, that's fine. Let's focus Look focus on bricks first Great, thank you, but the trash can is an issue, you know. Because we've gotten feedback about how the little insert sometimes doesn't go back in. So I know the Arlington South doesn't have that little circular donut thing inside. And we don't even talk about it now. But I guess it sounds like at some point we maybe as part of AB is looking at design standards, we can just roll in like broader streetscape standards as part of... Actually, I do have a question about trash real fast that it relates to the Solid Waste Committee. Those trash cans are on the street that Mrs. Gus is talking about. Does our trash vendor do those or do we have staff that take care of those? No, our vendor does that and that is paid out of the tax rate and will remain being paid out of the tax rate because everyone in the community benefits from that. Okay, but it only say only get empty once a week. There are certain places in the city where it's more frequent along the commercial corridor. Is that something that solid waste committee could look at? So I think we're going to focus on the curbside service given the short time frame that's there in tennis to focus on curbside. If there are other questions just about other solid waste programs we could sort of handle those through the normal process. Okay thanks. Since we're all in trash. Can we talk about South Washington and and Dale trashash? Like we've spent two council kind of service day projects picking up trash there and I've made our suggestion of like, we just need some public bins on the 7-11 side of the corner because I'm convinced that if we actually just had trash bins there, people would throw their trash in. So on South Washington and is it Andale? the Anandale and the Fairway. Yeah, do recall earlier correspondence on that topic. And I think there was no public right of way. Or maybe our vendor doesn't go down Anandale. There was some issue. But again, every time I run past, there's just a lot of trash. Well, I walked down Washington today and there was a lot of trash and all the trash cans. So that's, I wonder once a week is enough and a lot of those areas too, yeah. Okay, sorry little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit too. Yeah. So I'm wondering if we should move the CBC youth reps to the prior, is it the 19th is in the work session, right? So the 19th is a work session. Oh, it was a work session. I wonder if we could do it on the, do you think they'd be able to do it on June 16th or everyone is gone by then? That was a specific request from the group and it is the new euthreps for next year. It's not a. Oh, I thought it was. Oh, it's a new one. Okay. I thought it was thanking the ones that are done. No, it's appointing the new. Oh, okay. That would be fine then. Okay. Thanks. Thanks for that clarification. Okay, then looking at the June 2nd work session, we'll be joined by the Smart Cities program for an update on a presentation on that. We'll have the 106 and 108 Least Street Resonant Application, Broad Washington easement vacation, and several items on consent, some contract approvals. We will be discussing the subdivision of site plan approval process under the new state code provisions, and then a closed session for annual performance evaluations. Can we pause on that? I know that Gary had shared with the Planning Commission some early thinking from you, Sally, about that. Is that one, I guess, when is it final? I guess we definitely have to be final by July 1st, right? Yes, the changes need to be implemented by July 1st. And so the conversation will center around what those changes look like to the process with subdivision ordinance remaining being able to remain at the planning commission, but site plans not subdivision ordinance, subdivision plots being able to remain at the planning commission, but site plans being approved administratively. And you looked into the charter confirming that that wasn't something that the charter would protect against. That's right. The charter does not regulate site plan approval. I'm sure we have thoughts on that. But at least it will be a change for the planning commission. I know that I had, maybe I didn't, I don't know, which planning commission meeting it was. It may have been not the most immediate meeting that just passed if they had one last week. But the earlier one, when they initially raised this, and I know that passed one there. Okay, well, I think they might have talked about it one point earlier, unless I watched anyway, whatever. But they had raised whether, even if they don't have a vote on site plans, whether staff, you know, could confer with the planning commission to get the benefit of planning commission's thoughts, even though staff is ultimately responsible for that ministerial review of site plan. And I do think that, you know, there could be some benefit to that process, and especially just public visibility into site plan review after so much public comment takes place during SE approvals. And so I just didn't know if that had made a that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good come to me and I'm happy to take the question and bring back an answer. Thank you. Okay. Just wanted to add as the Govops chair that the full council will see draft of employee reviews before that meeting a week before that work session where we're giving employee reviews. So everyone, all seven members of Council will have an opportunity to review and revise and before they're delivered and approved. Thanks. All right. So for the June 16th meeting, I would be joined by the CACT for its annual report. Affordable living policy referred to the planning commission, so that's a vote to refer. The spring budget amendment, second reading. the three franchise agreements. And then consent, I mean, a second reading on the council salary and benefits. Those are the highlights of that meeting. June 23, we are hopeful that the employee review board appointees are going through the process and that we can Have the employee review board Do its work for our employee of the year Selection if that happens then on June 23rd will have a reception and recognition of our 2024 employee of the year We'll also be joined by the EDA for its annual report. Action on Council appointees, compensation for the coming year. And I think those are the items for June 23rd, July 27th work session.. I'm going to start with the next day. I'm going to start with the next day. I'm going to start with the next day. I'm going to start with the next day. I'm going to start with the about or has an invite or at least alerted through your staff liaison that will be discussed in the work session. That'd be great. OK. On the 14th of the Broad Washington easements, that would be the final action on that. And then an initiating resolution for the Utilities Comp Plan chapter. Delegates Simon is looking to come to the council for the resolutions that he had this year. I think he might be coming twice for those Sunday. Is that right or is it just once? Once for the majority and I'm working on one day for the honoring the life of. Okay. Then August 4th, and maybe this will be the last sort of cycle that we'll discuss. We would have the Affordable Living Policy Compland Amendment Final Work Session. We'd have the report from the Solid Waste Task Force and then a real estate tax rate ordinance in a Solid Waste fee resolution. And then on the 11th, final action on the Affordable Living Policy will have then first reading potentially on the real estate tax rate ordinance and solid waste fee resolution We would also at that August meeting have the report out on CIP and strategic priorities To people have any vacations or remote Participation things to note while we're in the summer months So we can plan a project mine there on here. Okay I'm begun at the July 28 meeting TBD whether I'll call in or not. Oh, that's so. Oh, I will be as well. I'll become the 14th and the 21st. I think her Debbie was out for the 20 which one's our. It's on there on that's right. 28th July 28th and September 8th. They're both on there. Thank you. I can't see the column, but I think I'm on there for June 16th, right? Yeah. Thanks. Yep. Yes. Yeah. Thanks. Yup. Yep. Yes. Yes. You are on that. Oh, and I'll be back. So I'm listed as electronic for the 23rd, but I'll actually be in back in person. For June. Okay. I think we have that quorum issue with June 9th. So that we've resolved that. Do we have any quorum issues with July, based on? July 28th. Is it me and Debbie, you're gone? July 28th? Yep. I think that's it then unless there's other things to note on the schedule or to be actually did one have one thing. I think West Falls had we also wanted to do a walk into a West Falls when they're done with all the streetscape. I think Marybeth Avidese thought early June. It's before all the vacations start. We can maybe pencil that in once we hear back from West Falls. I thought it was helpful to see the theater and founders too today. I said, thank you for everyone who joined that. I think that's it. Any business not on the agenda? Committee or regional body reports? Because people don't want to talk any longer. Council comments? Okay, well I guess we can finish the meeting. Thanks for adjourned, good night all. Thank you, Council, good night. Thank you, Steph.