I'm going to have to say that I'm not going to be. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Gaskins. President. Vice Mayor Bagley. Councilman McGee. Councilman Chapman. Councilman Elnubi. Here. Councilwoman Green. Here. Councilman McPike. Here. OK. Madam Clerk, next item. Public discussion period. OK, so we are now going to begin our public discussion period. A few things to note. One, the clerk will call everyone's name. she'll call two to three at a time. You can use either the left or the right side. If you are next, go ahead. We don't want to line. One, the clerk will call everyone's name. She'll call two to three at a time. You can use either the left or the right side. If you are next, go ahead. We don't want to line, but if you see an empty one, go ahead and come line up. Everyone has three minutes, unless you are representing a civic association or a recognized organization of the council. We ask that you do not clap or cheer. We recognize there's a lot of support for the different issues. So if you want to stand, if you want to raise signs, whatever that looks like to signal that support, great. But when we clap, we cheer. It's harder to do the transition, and it's also harder to hear. So with that, we are going to go ahead and get started. Also, I think we have 13 as of right now, But if we get to 15, we'll do the first 15, we'll pause, go into Council business, and then we will resume the public hearing. Madam Clerk, first three speakers. Melissa Elbert, Jane Nunn, and Carrie Ann Swartz. Do we have Melissa if you want to come up, and then if we want to have Jane Nunn come over here on this side. Okay, we'll go ahead and get started. Okay. More than a human-camber, Israel's systematic use of sexual, reproductive, and other forms of gender-based violence since October 2023. This is the title of a report from the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commission that was published March 13, 2025. That's this week, in case you're in doubt. On this website, the UN goes on to say, Israel has increasingly employed sexual, reproductive, and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians as part of a broader effort to undermine their right to self-determination and carried out genocidal acts through the systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive health care facilities, according to the new report issue today. Here are some quotes from verified testimonies found in this report. I was lying on the floor completely naked. The soldiers demanded that I kiss the Israeli flag, but I refused so they beat me severely and kicked me on the genitals. I vomited as a result. I was in pain and my testicles were swollen and bruised from the bleeding. I lost consciousness for a short period of time and woke up again to realize they were still beating me. Here's another quote. They ordered all of us men and women to take off our clothes and to continue walking, ordering us to only look forward. I was walking naked between the tanks, not even wearing underwear. And Israeli soldier spit in my face. I forced myself to not react as I knew they would break every bone in my body if I did. Together with 50 other detainees, we were ordered to walk barefoot and in underwear to the end of the road. One female soldier instructed two boys to dance while in their underwear. She recorded a video of them and they all laughed. Finally, this one has violent language. You sons of bitches, we came here to fuck you and your mothers, you bitches, you ugly Arabs, we will burn you, alive, you dogs. These were writings left by the Israeli military in a women's shelter in Gaza. I won't go on. So, this is what our investments are supporting. This is what our contracts are perpetrating. This is what every single one of us is guilty of upholding with our tax dollars. We must bid our best. Thank you. We will now have Jane. Michelle, line. Then we will move forward. Can you call the next two, please? for the last two weeks. Israel has prevented the delivery of food and humanitarian aid in Tegaza. This comes after 16 months of relentless bombardment and targeting of civilians with full U.S. funding and support. We are asking the City Council to divest from as early and US companies that are complicit in these crimes. How can you say that this is only an international issue? Our tax dollars fund the weapons and technology that enforce this cruelty. Where is the jurisdiction for humanity? How can you say that divestment won't have an impact or is merely symbolic? And so what if it is merely symbolic? If that is the case, what does our council represent? Divestment from apartheid South Africa was morally right and contributed to the democratic transition in that country. Divestment from Israel is morally right and politically necessary to shift the power in this situation. Your constituents have Palestinian family and friends. Your constituents have loved ones in Gaza. Our government is complicit in a genocide. You are our representatives. We are asking you to stand for humanity. We are talking about the intentional observation of a civilian population. If these were your families and your children, wouldn't you do anything in your power to stop this? You have power. Use it. Thank you. We'll now have Alton. Good morning. We've been talking to you about this for over a year now. And I have to be honest, I am really starting to doubt your capacity to stand up for our communities. I really am. I saw you all at the end of February at the ribbon cutting for Virginia Tech event standing up next to the CEO of Boeing, one of the largest weapons suppliers in this genocide, and next to Governor Youngkin. The same day he signed an executive order saying that he would compel state police to work with ICE. It is going to take tremendous courage to push back in this moment. We are seeing a rising tide of fascism, one which your community warned you about, and said that when you make genocide acceptable, when you ignore it, like you're ignoring me now, like you've ignored us for a year, then fascism follows suit because it becomes acceptable to dehumanize people, to ignore their tragic, horrific deaths with our money. How are we supposed to believe that you will protect our community members from ICE if you will stand next to Governor Youngkin and give tacky smiles for our roomful cameras? How are we supposed to believe you will protect our trans community members or even our federal workers? How are we supposed to believe that? I have lost so much trust in you and this is a moment where we need you. You ran to be our representatives and maybe you didn't wanna be our representatives in a historic moment, but you made a choice. We're depending on you. If you think it's hard to stand up for Palestinian rights, the things that will be demanded of you now with more immediate pressure from the federal government will be harder. If you can't stand against genocide, what do you stand for? I'm really at a loss. And I hope that you will reflect on the fact that your community has warned you about things that are happening like this. The only person I saw say anything about Mahmoud Khalil was actually Council Member Mip Kaik which shocked me. I'm glad you care. But you need to do more. There is a consistent demand for this. And we will keep showing up, but where are you? Will you show up for us? Thank you Madam Clerk, next two speakers. Glen Pine, John Rebstock, Jonathan Crawl. Thank you. Good morning. I'm a Jewish Alexandria resident and I'm calling for the City to divest from the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people. We're 525 days now into a genocide so brutal and vicious that it ranks among the most horrific crimes against humanity in world history. A horror paid for with our tax dollars. So for nearly that entire time, Alexandria has seen the most vibrant and active grassroots campaign in its recent history calling on city council on you all to take some kind of action. Make a resolution for cease fire to invest from companies doing genocide. Literally do anything to oppose the genocide. But so far after 525 days, the council has said and done nothing. So now the Trump administration is rounding up legal residents for deportation if they criticize Israel. So what will it take for you all to do something on this? I want to know that I want you to know that every single day that you do nothing, the council is showing that you're no better than the people who did nothing during the Nazi Holocaust. They killed my ancestors, that you're no better than those who stood silent during apartheid South Africa, bushes Iraq invasion invasion, or Jim Crow. Behind closed doors, I've heard defenses that range from it's not a local issue to I don't want to spend my political capital to I don't want a vote that's not unanimous. But I mean, I don't know what is, I don't know how we like you don't see how that looks at this point. The last month, Alexandria's own Human Rights Commission voted to recommend that you all figure out how to divest from apartheid and genocide. Will you do it? A couple of weeks later, according to public records, the Council rejected two very well-written applications to join the Human Rights Commission, one from a pro-Palestinian Princeton graduate in African-American studies, who had previously attended nearly a dozen meetings there, and another from a literal human rights lawyer, both rejected in favor of someone whose full statement in the application was, quote, I'm interested in serving on Alexandria's Human Rights Commission with no period. But that person is a Democratic Party insider and electoral candidate presumably presumably looking to pat the resume So I have no words. Please be better. Please. I vest from genocide. Thank you next speaker I'm John Rebsdock. I've lived on Fort Williams Markway for about 23 years with my wife and 18 year old son. I'm a 61 year old white trash, deplorable. I'm a fascist and a misogynist racist who like the other 77 million Americans voted for Donald J. Trump about four months ago. I spent last weekend about 72 hours from noon to Friday to about noon on Monday and car straight at the Alexandria Detention Center where there's sheriffs for violating a court order. Not for breaking a law but for violating a court order, which is a class one misdemeanor just like littering is. And how are your Alexandria Detention Center's mismanaged by contractors and unelected bureaucrats is truly disgracefully inhumane. It's definitely not run or managed by the sheriff's at the sheriff's department, but that's a story for another day. I attended the gas power leaf blowing band meeting at Patrick Henry Rec Center on Thursday night over on Taney Lane. There was a white privilege to Alexandria employee named Bill that tried unsuccessfully to run that meeting. He told me that Alexandria plans to use local police and the sheriffs to jail, violators of this potential ban and get local judges to serve summons and subpoenas to enforce this gas power electric or gas power leaf blower ban that apparently is going to be a city ordinance to harass landscaping companies and tax-pigging citizens. I think our local cops and judges and sheriffs would have more important things to do than to do to address this thing. Help out this city. Our new city manager and our new police chief and the superintendent of schools have all made it crystal clear that they have made it, crystal clear they have no intention of deporting illegal undocumented immigrants providing in this city. And I'm not sure what we're calling them newcomers now, or we just calling them residents. I've seen several quotes by the mayor. Quote all residents, or we support all residents, support and respect and value them. Tom Hommett is apparently fomenting, quote unquote, fear confusion and concern by enforcing federal election laws. Another quote was we take great pride in the fact that we are a community that cares about one another, even if they can't work here and don't work here paying income taxes. Another quote was we will govern based on our values and facts and uphold these values. I thought we were governing based on state laws and federal laws. I don't know who died and made you the morality police or these valued judgments and virtue salient signals are just truly pathetic. When Tom, thank you for your time. If anyone's curious to learn more about ordinance on gas power leaf blowers? You can find that on our website. If anyone has any questions about my statements and the exact words I use, you can find those on our website. Good morning. Mayor vice mayor. First thank you for the kind words you said about our residents. We should protect them. I'm here to talk about Alexandria communities that are touched by humanitarian crises. Here in Alexandria, where many speak the Amara language of Ethiopia and the Arabic language of the Middle East and North Africa, many families were and are touched by ethnic cleansing campaigns in Tigray, Darfur, and Palestine. In the case of Palestine, we have an opportunity to contribute to an international movement to divest from Israeli apartheid. I worry that politically convenient blind spots enable Americans to ignore humanitarian crises, and that these blind spots are making families feel in hurt. The, we can do better as a nation and we can do better here in Alexandria. Specifically, we can pass a resolution today, vest from businesses to support Israeli apartheid. If we did so, we would stand in solidarity with many other communities across the country and in Virginia. We would be living up to our own ideals as we expressed in the 1985 Alexandria Resolution to invest from South Africa apartheid. A resolution this year in 2025 would give not only Palestinians, but all people who are presently affected by genocide or ethnic cleansing hope. Too many of our immigrant communities are crying out for help, especially with the defunding of USAID and the food that they bring to those regions. Two few of those cries have been answered. We have the opportunity working together to act for a better future. And I know we in grassroots Alexandria have talked to all of you. I know that you said that you would work on something and we're happy to continue to work with you and we hope we will make progress. Thank you. Thank you. We have a question by Samar Bagley. Yeah. I'm Mr. Carl. What countries would you want us to seek to divest beyond Israel when you reference the human rights violations worldwide and you also reference several particular countries that residents of our community hail from where they've been impacted by genocide, by you know civil war. So what other countries should we, if we're going to do this work, be evaluating? The reason I divestment resolution about it is, you know, it makes sense, is because there is a worldwide effort to add our voice to. We add another point of light to the map. So we don't address abuses elsewhere in this work. We take the opportunity to do something effective. When we have the opportunity to do something effective, and it gives the rest of everybody else hope that when other opportunities do something effective arise, we will do so. Understood. Thank you. One thing you could do is have a statement about supporting USAID on behalf of those communities. Thank you for your time. Madam Clerk, please call the next three so we can go ahead and get folks lined up. Janice Grenadier, Eric Lipscomb, and Nunu Ali. Okay, if we have Janice Grenadier, please come on up. And if we have Eric, if you could come on up. Good morning, thank you. The one thing I never hear about is anybody supporting Christianity. I don't hear anybody supporting me as a Catholic when there was a hate crime against me. I think if we're going to talk about divesting in anything, we also have to look at how Christianity is being treated across the world and the number of Christians that are killed. But more importantly, we all need to learn how to respect each other's religions. I am the victim of a hate crime by Jewish lawyer, Alona Granadir, Hackman, that this city, the police, the city attorneys, the city itself, all of its employees, including and not limited to a police board that is supposed to be independent all supporting. So when we talk about this, it's important, but it's also important to talk about respect for each other and understanding that we can't just go out and divest in things, but we need to talk about the differences and we need to learn how to respect each others. And if we're going to, we need to look at our own house and our own community and how we handle it here. And we're not handling it here. We're ignoring it. And we're trying to make the person that it happens to feel even worse. To the point where the city of Alexandria police officers send an email, not during your all's tenders, but back in 2015 saying, oh, ignore her, she's an emotionally disturbed person. I only learned that a few years ago with the FOIA request. Everything is tolling. People may not like Trump, but Trump doesn't look at your skin color. He doesn't look at your religion. He looks at bringing peace. And that's what we all need to look at, bringing peace to the country. We may not like the way he's doing it. We may not like the way it comes across with the jobs being terminated. But the waste, the fraud, and the abuse of power by government employees, we have several coming out and saying, well we know about all this, you know, the way these people are being treated and the housing fraud, but they didn't do anything about it while they had their jobs. They ignored it. I'm not saying they're getting what they deserve. What I'm saying is if you have a government job and you do your job, it's to serve the people. It's not to serve yourself and to get your salary. It's to serve the people and to make our community better. And our community becomes better when we respect each other and we follow the laws that we're supposed to and the hate crimes within our identity. Thank you. Is Eric online? And he's not in here. Okay. Madam Clerk, please call the next two. New New Oli, Nora Barudy, and Catherine O'Connell. Is New New Online? Okay, is Noor here? Okay. Okay, can we call the next two please? Catherine O'Connell and Cassandra Nules last speaker. Okay, do we have Catherine online? Okay, do we have Cassandra? Okay. She's right here. Good morning, everyone. Mayor Gaskin, City Council. My name is Cassandra Newell. I'm here today to speak to you as a longtime resident of Alexandria. And a proud member of Alexandria's Jewish community. I love the diversity and warmth of this city. And I thank you all for representing the best of our local community. Unfortunately, I'm saddened and alarmed by the behavior that really doesn't represent the best of Alexandria. I welcome free speech and open civil dialogue, but the relentlessly divisive rhetoric of those demanding divestment from companies connected to the Jewish state of Israel leaves me concerned about the safety of Jews in Alexandria and frankly anyone who disagrees with the protesters or supporters of the Jewish State. I seen the physical attacks on Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn, New York, in Los Angeles, California and even in Washington, D.C. in places where city council sided with the loud protesters. The rhetoric is getting hotter and closer to home. That being said, I only have one request that you please continue to to consider the opinions and the concerns of all Alexandrians on both sides of this divestment debate. As a Jew, I'm concerned for my community safety and as a homeowner, I'm concerned that the city could mismanage its resources and valuable investments. Thank you for your time. Okay, Cassandra Nuel is the last speaker. I will now entertain a motion to close the public discussion. Second. Okay. Any discussion? All right, there has been a motion by Vice Mayor Bagley and a second by Councilwoman Green to close the public discussion. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Say nay. All right, the ayes have it. The public discussion is closed. Madam Clerk, please call the next item. Action consent calendar, planning commission, four through six. I will entertain a motion to approve the action consent calendar, items four through six. Okay. Any discussion? All right. There has been a motion by Councilman McPike and a second by Vice Mayor Bagley to approve the action consent calendar items four through six. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed, say nay. The ayes have it. The action consent calendar is approved. Madam Clerk, next item. Roll call consent calendar seven through 10. Okay, I will entertain a motion to approve the roll call consent calendar item 7 through 10. Okay. I will entertain a motion to approve the roll call consent calendar item 7 through 10. Okay. We've got any discussion. All right. There has been a motion by Councilman Eguiri and a second by vice mayor Bagley to close the public to close the public hearing and approve the roll call consent calendar. This is a, I missed something did I need to do? Did you want to take those individually for roll call for the individual ordinances? Or did you want to do them all together if? Do you guys want to pull? Okay. Yep, we're going to do it, we're going to do it as a block. So this is a roll call madam clerk. Please call the roll councilman a gering. I like smell badly Mayor gaskins. I councilman Chapman. I councilman El Nubi. I councilwoman green. I Consumamic Pike I Okay, madam clerk next item Public hearing second reading and five it I'm sorry. Public hearing on the city managers proposed annual operating budget for FY 2026 including schools and the proposed city capital improvement program for FY 2026 to FY 2030 including school CIP and proposed tax rate recommendations. Okay, so we're now going to begin our public hearing on the budget. Same rules as before, the clerk will call the first three, so we ask that if you are here, you go ahead and come up. Everyone will have three minutes unless you're representing a civic association or another recognized organization. Our first, do you want to go ahead and call our first three? Mara Perez, including translation. Natalia Zalaya and Cindy Carbella Garcia. Okay, if we can have Mara go ahead and come up. And we'll have our interpreter join her as well. And then if Natalia is here, if you want to come to the side. Thank you. So Buenos días Alcaldeza vice Alcaldeza and member of the Consejal. My name is Maura. I live in the city of Alexandria 18. I am currently working as a co-founder in a restaurant and I have a son who is in High School mil dólares cosa que you already know. a lot of them. I mean, you know, you know, the you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, to these great increases, the rent and to the few to the no sub in al mismo ritmo que están subiendo las rentas y debido a estos grandes incrementos la renta y a los pocos salarios a veces me he visto en situaciones donde tengo que prestar dinero para poder pagar la renta ya que las horas en el trabajo baja pero el precio de los Los Alquileres no. Por este motivo les pido No. No. No. No. No. to continue the $500 program. Adarles, oportuno. hoy más que nunca necesitamos recursos, necesitamos que pongan fondos locales para seguir el programa de los 500 dólares, a darles oportunidades a nuestras familias que beneficien, ya que este programa crea más estabilidad en nuestros hogares. Gracias. Good morning, Major, Vice Major and City Council Members. I'm Jaime Spani's interpreter for Mora. My name is Mora, and I have lived in Alexandria for 18 years and currently work as a cook in a restaurant. I also have a son that is currently attending Alexandria City Schools. I am here today like many of my neighbors and friends who have shown up for several years to write to a once again how the city residents continue to be affected by the high cost of rent and the lack of affordable housing. This situation, especially impacts families like mine, whose annual income is less than 50,000, You already know this from the many times you have come to our community to hear our stories. Weiss are enraging at the same rate as rents arising and due to these large rent increases and low wages, I have sometimes found myself in situations where I have to borrow money to pay the rent since my work hours are going down but the rent isn't. For this reason, I ask you all as a representative, not to leave us out of this city priorities. As working people, we deserve to be heard and be taken into consideration. Now more than ever, we need resources. We need local funding to continue the arise program and provide opportunities for new families to benefit of this program creates more stability in our homes. Thank you. Thank you, Maura. Thank you. Good. Thank you, Maura. Next speaker. Good morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor and Council Members. My name is Natalie Salaya. I'm a community organizer with tenants and workers United. For almost 40 years, TWAU has been dedicated to working with communities of color, immigrants, women, youth, and low wage workers. Our mission is to empower individuals with these communities to improve their quality of life in the city of Alexandria. We are here today as we have been for the past five years. To emphasize, that our community continues to be neglected in the city's priorities. Over the past five years, we have held numerous meetings providing you with the opportunities to hear directly from community members about the struggles they are facing due to the lack of affordable housing in the city. Many of you supported housing and affordability in your last political campaigns, including those that attended or city hall council candidate forum back in 2021. Some of you have shared that you have lived in Alexandria for many years and are renters yourselves. However, the renters experience is not universal. Our families are at the lowest income levels and paying their rent has become increasingly impossible for them. Please support these families who simply want to continue living in the city. Our families are advocating for a budget that includes families to expand a rise guarantee income pilot program for two more years and hope 600 new families who earn 50% of the area in income and and. I rise to set to end in June of this year's, but our families need this program. Ten million to create a locally founded voucher program to support families who earn 40% of the median income and below. Funding to expand the city's current Pile of Rental Assisted Subsidy Program which supports the economic economic stabilization of working class families. Even though the city is proposing $30 million for housing in the budget 2026, this funding will not benefit families at the lowest income level at this moment. And that leaves our community behind. Why aren't there no increases in housing programs and only for development? We need stronger actions in housing as outlined previously. According to the Princeton eviction lab, Alexandria has the highest eviction rate compared to Firfax and Arlington. Don't keep ignoring more families that have lived here many years. Housing is a human right, and they also deserve to be a priority. The 2026 budget should reflect that. Thank you. Thank you. Madam Clerk, next three speakers please. Cindy Carbella Garcia, Melissa Albert, Alison O'Connell. Good morning, Mayor Gaskins, Vice Mayor Bagley and Members of City Council. My name is Cindy. I'm the youth organizer with tenants and workers United. Our youth chapter, Alexander United Teens, has been actively advocating for over two decades in issues that relate to the education system, in areas that directly impact them, such as housing, immigration, and healthcare accessibility. Our youth group is composed of Alexandra Youth ages 12 through 18, the 10 Alexandra City Public Schools. As youth attend school most of their day, their experts on what occurs daily, what resources are available and what their needs are. Youth have had the opportunity to share their concerns and stories with school board leaders, superintendent and staff are not heard and the needs are not directly prioritized. I'm here today along with some of our youth members who emphasize our message of our current school system. The outcomes of graduation rates, as so of passing rates, suspensions, arrests, and referrals where students of color are under and overrepresented show significant concerns. ACPS continues to add little to no funding to programming like restorative practices, academic and career plans, college and career readiness, school-based counselors, psychologists, school social workers, and caring adults. We continue to see the trends in disproportionate numbers due to ACPS lack of investment, implementation of programming, lack of accountability and data collection. We know that the city funds the majority of ACPS budget and we need you to reflect on what is actually happening with the student outcomes. It is also city council's responsibility to oversee the final results ACPS funding is bringing towards all students. We hope city council steps up its leadership to make sure all students are served, and that the funds are best utilized with fidelity to make sure all students succeed in our public schools. We are also attaching a separate sheet. That's a one-pager with data in regards to the outcomes of students and ACPS for you to review, And we thank you for your time to listen to it. Thank you. And if you want to bring a copy of the one-page rep here, we can make sure we get that passed out. Thank you. All right, we're now going to go to Melissa. Hi, again. I'm here to ask you, City Council, to end your contracts with the company Amazon. Here's why. The first reason is workers. Amazon exploits and uses coercive tactics to prevent organized labor. Amazon employees suffer injuries at rates much higher than the national average for the warehouse industry. They use surveillance on their workers to drive productivity up at any cost. Amazon's business model designs its operations to foster high turnover and views its workers as disposable. You can imagine how that impacts communities. Amazon uses many unethical and illegal union-busting tactics like bathroom-posted signs, obligatory captive audience meetings, and even text messages where workers are warned against unionizing. Amazon spends millions on consultants to advise their executive staff on how to further prevent labor organizing. Mayor Gaskins, you've described yourself as a tenacious fighter for families, communities, and health equity. If this is the case, what I've just described should be of grave concern. The second reason, the environment. Amazon's impact on the planet is alarming. Its annual carbon emissions have grown by 34.5% since 2019. Amazon emits more carbon pollution than 71 of the lowest emitting countries combined. Amazon is responsible for around 32.5 million pounds of microplastics flowing into the ocean from its clothing every year. In 2019, the Alexandria City Council adopted a resolution declaring a climate emergency. If this resolution was passed with any seriousness, Alexandria must reconsider its contracts with Amazon. Third, human rights abuses. Amazon is a defense contractor. Not only that, Amazon is complicit in war crimes and crimes against humanity, particularly in the West Bank, Gaza, and across the occupied territories. AI surveillance and targeting tools produced by Amazon have been used by the Israeli military to rapidly target Palestinians in Gaza with little human oversight, resulting in mass murder. An estimated 70% of the deaths in Gaza since October 2023 have been women and children. This technology also facilitates the expansion of Israel's illegal settlements on Palestinian land. The International Court of Justice has found Israel guilty of the crime of apartheid, and that it is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza. Amazon has been a key tool to facilitate both heinous crimes. Alexandria passed its first human rights code in 1975. In 1985, you approved a resolution condemning apartheid, and in 2021, you adopted a resolution condemning hate. If all of this work and the name of human rights is to be honored, Alexandria must end its contracts with Amazon. Thank you for your time, next speaker. So I'm going to speak a little bit about the logistics of divestment. And to answer Vice Mayor Bagley's prior question, I think we would all really welcome divestment from all weapons manufacturers. We would welcome something more inclusive and there are ethical investment funds that divest from both fossil fuels and weapons manufacturers. What we would not welcome is a watered-down resolution that only vaguely refers to human rights, which does not reference the genocide in Palestine or the involvement, action involvement is not accurate, that the Israeli state is carrying it out. But I think we would welcome something that divest our city from atrocities overall. In terms of how divestment could work, there are four ways that we can divest from a part side and genocide. The most easily within our control are the city's contracts, which we may not be able to break at this time, but we can choose not to renew. They include contracts with Amazon, Motorola, which enables the occupation through providing surveillance technology to the IDF, HP, which is integral to maintaining Israel's apartheid system, and Siemens which outfits the Israeli prison service with technology that it uses to detain thousands of Palestinian adult and children. The next, which is slightly less within your control as a city council council but still something that you can make an impact on are our city's supplemental retirement plans and investments which are currently invested in lucky Martin and general electric amongst others that are responsible for the drones and bombs that slaughter Palestinians each day. The city appoints half of the board members responsible for managing those funds and can make a statement about what contributions we would like to go where. In the bigger picture, you can speak out about how the local government investment pool, which is invested in companies like Caterpillar, Cisco, and Toyota, and the Virginia retirement system, which is invested in Israeli bonds and over-air dozen weapons manufacturers use their money. You are one voice in a large state, but that's what you're here to do. It's to use your voices to raise the concerns of your constituents. It's not an impossible ask. The city has divested before, and there are many ways that you can approach this. I really hope that you will consider that this is not outside of your scope. This is something that you can do and you must do. Because the United States is uniquely involved in this genocide and that we fund it with our tax dollars and we send bombs to Israel. Thank you. Madam Clerk, please call the next two speakers. Jonathan Crawl and Colin O'Brien. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Mayor, Vice Mayor, City. Members of City Council. I'm Jonathan Crawl. I have been living in Alexandria for 20 years. I'm a member of grassroots Alexandria. I am speaking in favor of continuing the Eurized Guaranteed Income Program. The four housing supports and four support of the Dash bus system. In all cases these are investments in our community. For the Uri's program I know that studies show that money given to poor people supports housing stability and local spending. In the case of housing studies show that housing first programs are very cost effective. Housing instability is expensive. In America, our housing of last resort is our very expensive prison system. To the degree that we can rebalance investments away from prisons and towards housing, we come out ahead economically. In the case of the Dash bus, a study by the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission found that Alexandria's public transit system supports 37,000 jobs and generates $180 million each year in personal income sales tax revenues, of which 64 million of this tax revenue is attributable to Dash. Not all of that $64 million comes back to Alexandria, but it's much more than $35 million that we spend in the Dash operating budget. So these are ways of pumping up our economy at a time, when perhaps we need to do that. Finally, I'll mention that every study everywhere shows that even more so than the bus, bike lanes generate net revenue. They're very inexpensive and they generate economic activity. If we ever built an actual working connected bike network in some portion of our city, we could realize those benefits. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker. Hi, my name is Colin O'Brien, and I'm a classification counselor with the Alexandria Sheriff's Office. Today I want to highlight the crucial role that we play in our community and express my concerns regarding the proposed budget cuts that threaten our effectiveness. As classification counselors, we determine custody levels and placements within the jail. Conduct needs and risk assessments and assist inmates in transitioning back to the community. Daily our team screens inmates for various risks, including suicide, mental health concerns and victimization. We manage a diverse population, including vulnerable groups like the disabled, elderly, unhoused, LGBTQ, as well as gang members, murderers, rapists, and terrorists. Also more high profile cases that can have significant implications for local and national security. While I won't list all of these individuals for time, say, you can do a quick Google search if interested. From September 2024 through February 2025, our team accomplish remarkable work, completing 610 initial intakes, conducting 280 assessments under the Prison Rape Elimination Act, and providing over 8,100 face-to-face follow-ups. They provide coverage Monday through Saturday and we're able to provide in-person coverage in the jail throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. This proposed budget calls for the elimination of two of these positions, one-fourth of our priorities. Councillors assist in meet with the re-entry services to include housing, and the city council has a lot of work to do with the community. We have a lot of work to do with the community. We have a lot of work to do with the community. We have a lot of work to do with the community. We have a lot of work to do with the community. priorities. Counselors assist inmates with re-entry services to include housing, shelter, transportation, education, job readiness, vital records assistant, and mental health support that are crucial for reducing recidivism and enhancing public safety. These community connections are essential for addressing systemic disparities. Without these roles addressing housing, community connections and eliminating community disparities will take a backseat to immediate security concerns. Corrections professionals are at a 39% higher risk factor for suicide than that of the general population and double that of police officers. The average life expectancy is 59 years old compared to a national average of 75. Eliminating these positions won't crease burnout and have a negative mental health impact on an already stressful job, which could lead to employees leaving at a higher turnover rate. Finally, ensuring employability through job training programs is essential for economic street. Without these skills, inmates may struggle fine. at the same time. The first thing we have to do is try to get the right to the for economic street. Without these skills, inmates may struggle to find stable employment, lead into greater reliance on public assistance and a higher risk of reoffending. With businesses across the nation shuddering doors per perceived hive crime, this is essential for attracting long-term business investments in the city. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. O'Brien. I do have a quick follow-up question. I was curious. What? This is essential for attracting long-term business investments in the city. Thank you. Thank you mr. Brian I do have a quick follow-up question. I was curious. What is the average caseload per classification counselor now? It can change depending on our housing units we have for example the units I have I have about 24 and one unit I have about 40 and another And then I'm assisting covering other units right now that I'm not typically assigned to. Some of my colleagues who stand behind me with the larger housing units right now have about 70 inmates and then another 12 or 13. And then there are units that we're not don't have someone assigned so we're all kind of helping out in that aspect. Okay, and is there like an industry best practice for a number of cases per staff person? I don't have that information on me right now, but I'd be glad to get it to you. If you could, that would just be helpful. So we get a sense of the scale. And then the last question I had, you specifically mentioned that one of the effects of this proposal could be challenges on Saturdays. Can you just help us understand, like, compared to the rest of the week is Saturday? Yeah, just help me understand that. Sure, so we only have this proposal would cut us down to six individuals. Like I said, we cover the jail Monday through Saturday. So between six individuals, we have to cover that. Right now, we cover the times from about 6.30 in the morning to 7.00 pm. Cutting those two positions, we might have to decrease the amount of staff working on Saturdays from two to possibly one. Right now, we're using overtime to supplement. You know, some of that time already. So it would severely drop it down. Also, we dropping down to one individual. We may have to reduce some of our like daily duties that we would do like seeing people in booking and making sure that everyone is okay and doing that kind of check and things like that. So it will have implications on Saturdays. Okay. Thank you. And I think Councilman Green, that's a question. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Mr. Arbain, was there any portion of your statement that you wanted to finish? I just kind of at the end, ensuring employability through training programs is essential for economic strength. Just with businesses across the nation, such as San Francisco and DC, businesses are, you know, closing their doors to places that are perceived high crime and homelessness areas. I know it's one of the cities is trying to increase commercial revenue. And I think that if inmates are released without these assistance, may lead to possible long-term effects of businesses investing or wanting to open their doors within the city. Thank you. And would you please make sure that you submit a copy of your statement to us? Yes, we'll do. I sent it in an email yesterday, but I can reset. Thank you. Yes. And I think Councilman Chap has a question. Not necessarily a question for you, I think, for staff. Are these two vacant positions or are these actual risks or? They're vacant. They're vacant. And how long have they been vacant? They've been vacant since September 2024. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Madam Clerk. speakers. Thank you. Thank you. Madam Clerk, next three speakers. Thank you. Madam Clerk, next three speakers. Thank you. Madam Clerk, next three speakers. Thank you. Madam Clerk, next three speakers. of the Parks and Recreation Commission here in the City of Alexandria. We're in 11 minutes. I'm here to talk about parks and recreation. I'm the chair of the parks and recreation commission here in the city of Alexandria. We're an 11 member advisory body established by the city council many years ago, one of the oldest in 1970 to advise on parkland matters, recreation culture, and essentially just provide feedback really to the council on various issues. for many in the city, our parks and open spaces and the services provided by the department are probably their strongest connection with the city. Continued investments here are critical. They make our community greener, more livable and attractive for those currently living and considering to live or move into the city. So we need to continue those investments. We also need to find ways to work with our neighborhoods so that people take a stake in the areas around them. There's more that we can do. This is something we talk about at the commission to create and support very local partnerships to help us care for the places that they live in. They walk through on their way to work, play pickleball, skate, various number of things. I'll note that in particular on the parks issue, on the local ownership, it's one of the things we recommended in our November letter last year was updating the citywide parks improvement plans and maybe that's an opportunity to look for better ways that we can engage the community to get some help in supporting these very local areas. We also expect a new director of RCPA to be announced soon. We're looking forward to that. And I think that gives the department some new opportunities to address these issues. So three very quick points. One, the commission has received a number of updates from the department over the last year and provided feedback including the George Mason Elementary School modernization, stormwater management and the proposed pump station, numerous conversations about the pump station, which is very important in the city, and the Alexandria West Small Area Plan, so all those you all have copies of those letters. Number two, the commission, the reason why I'm here today is the commission appreciates the investments that were made in the manager's budget. And generally the priorities we laid out, the six priority we laid out last November are still the same. I wanna highlight a few additions and reallocations that we thought were particularly important. Number one was funding to plan for the new Alexandria West Recreation Center. There really isn't one in that area. And that came out. Number two is reallocation of funds for Chinkampan and supporting our old town pool. And number three, I noticed there was supplemental leaf blowers to enable this department to try to make that transition, so we think that's good. Last thing, number three, I invite the council to join an upcoming commission meeting. We actually invite the public as well to join, so they can help us get feedback to you, but also invite you to come so that you can help give us some guidance. We believe there's been some discussions in the council on how to best do this, so we encourage those and thank you. Thank you so much for your time. Let's see, is Sarah here or she? I made it. I have come today to ask the city of Alexandria to investigate and end its relationships with companies that have profit from and are complicit in the ethnic cleansing and genocide in Palestine. In 2022, the city of Alexandria had a limitless contract with HP for computer hardware and devices. It's unclear whether the city maintains this contract in 2025. I asked the city to provide a transparent answer on whether it still maintains a contract with HP. And if so, I asked Alexandria to boycott further business with HP as the company profits off Israel's oppression of Palestinians by providing software and tech services for Israel uses to maintain apartheid. Through its fully owned Israeli subsidiary, Hewlett-Packard is real limited, HP provides server software and services to the Israeli police and Israel prison service. The IPS is primarily responsible for holding administrative detainees. IPS is currently holding thousands of Palestinians in administrative detention, where they're held without trial and without having committed a crime, with Israel asserting they can plan to break the law in the future. Human rights groups have reported on the abuse that Palestinian detainees have experienced in prison, including daily and physical and mental violence, humiliation, sleep deprivation, and salvation. As of January 7th of this year, at least 54 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli prisons since October 7th, 2023, according to prisoners affairs groups. This is all made possible with HP's technology. HP has been providing service, data storage, and data security services for the Israel Prison Service since 2015. If our city believes in upholding international law and supporting human rights, it must ensure that we boycott further business with HP. HP is the sole supplier of servers for the Israeli population immigration and borders authority and the operation of the Israel population registry, which contains information on Palestinians living in the occupied territory. Through this registry, Israel has control over Palestinians freedom of movement for work, for travel, for medical needs. As a disability advocate, the fact that Israel controls Palestinians' ability to travel for medical needs is particularly concerning. In a 2004 study of the impact of the construction of Israel's border wall on Palestinian healthcare, it was found that only 39 percent of Palestinian patients who required hospitalization from the Palestinian municipality of Izzaria could gain access to Jerusalem area hospitals. In the average ambulance transport time was an hour and 52 minutes as opposed to 5 to 10 minutes prior to the construction of the wall. The systematic blockage of movement powered by HP servers can mean life or death for Palestinian patients and increased health disparities. Again, I ask the city to provide transparent answer on whether it holds an act of contract in business with HP. And if so, to end, it's a contract and boycott further business with HP. Thank you for your time. Thank you. I think we have Glenn next. Regarding the city budget, Alexandria has a limitless contract with Motorola for public safety communications technology. So this is a five-year contract that began in 2022. I'm here today to ask the city of Alexandria to end its contract with Motorola and here's why. As you know, Israel has been carrying out a genocide against the Palestinian people. As of 2023, Motorola's solutions is the sole supplier of 4G cellular network for the Israeli military. They are also the developer and supplier of Israeli smartphone devices. So Motorola is involved in the Israeli ministry of defenses Zramim System, which is a smart card system used for goods transports in Israeli checkpoints. So these checkpoints, some of which I've seen and actually walked through myself in the West Bank, are designed to fragment the contiguity of the Palestinian land and demoralize disempower, humiliate inconvenience, and psychologically brutalize the Palestinians. So fittingly, while Motorola is breaking the contiguity of Palestinian land through these checkpoints, they're also helping create contiguity between the illegal Israeli settlements. So in 2022, Motorola was contracted to provide the security cameras and entrance control for the Jerusalem light rail green line, which connects large settlements from Gilo West to Mount Scopus University, easing illegal settlement movement on both sides of the green line. Motorola Solutions, Israel, has the Israeli military with wide area surveillance system, known as Moto Eagle, since 2005. The radar detectors system was installed in dozens of Israeli settlements and outposts in the West Bank. In some cases, the radar stations were erected on private Palestinian land, preventing Palestinian movement. And Motorola solutions is the sole supplier for the Israeli police national communication system called Needson. Last year, when Israel committed its terrorist atrocity in which they maimed 4,000 Lebanese civilians with exploding pagers, many accused Motorola of being behind it. That was false, but you can see why people would point to them. I want Alexandria to be a city that cares about humanity and truly condemns hate. So therefore, Alexandria must end his contract with the War Profitier Motorola. Thank you. Thank you. Madam Clerk, next three, please. Lar, Zier, Sildan, Nakhaca, and Bettefega. Right. I have a Larissa in here. Thank you, Mayor Gaskins and members of the City Council. My name is Larissa Zair. I'm a housing attorney for Legal Aid Justice Center. Thank you for the opportunity to comment. Today I'm here because for years I've worked alongside Alexandria's immigrant communities, especially undocumented residents in the fight for housing justice. Our immigrant neighbors are currently facing extreme hardship because of devastating increases in immigration enforcement and the shockwaves from federal government collapse. To me, this looks like people being separated from and unable to economically support their families or forced to stay home from work because of ongoing ICE enforcement. These ongoing attacks make plain the urgent action needed to rectify the exclusion and racial targeting our neighbors are facing across all sectors. We applaud as LHAC city councils continued efforts to create a more equitable housing system. The federal government is dismantling of the fair housing enforcement infrastructure, as just one example, makes clear how essential local government action is and will be to creating housing justice. And no matter their race, class, or neighborhood, Alexandria's tenants deserve to bend it from long-term housing opportunities that the city is creating. Today I'm commenting to urge the city council to allocate more funding in support of three essential programs that respond to the acute hardship that low-income immigrant families face. Extending and expanding the guaranteed income program arise, dedicating funding for a local housing voucher program and expanding the city's current pilot rental subsidy program. These programs help the most vulnerable Alexandria and stay in their homes while more affordable housing comes online. Even before this moment, immigrant families are more likely to be severely rent burdened and excluded from public assistance programs. Each of these programs can reduce rent burden and importantly, they can benefit all residents regardless of immigration status. An opportunity that's unavailable for some federally funded programs and other state and local funded programs. And two of these programs are already in effect and helping stabilize Alexandria residents. After just one year, Arise participants reported improved mental wellbeing and financial stability. And some participants were able to work fewer hours and focus on other needs. If the city does not allocate additional funding to arise, the current 170 participants will lose their $500 benefit in June 2025. And the pilot rental subsidy program already ensures that around 37 very low income households can pay rent that is calibrated to their income and stay in Alexandria and housing they can afford, expanding this benefit would be transformative for other families. We urge the council to increase funding to prevent displacement and reduce extreme rent burden, especially for immigrant families. These programs will help Alexandria's low income immigrant renters whether this moment and secure a stable future in the city. Thank you very much. Thank you, and we do have a question or comment from Councilman Chapman. Thank you Madam Mayor. I think one of the things is folks come and talk about opportunities for increasing resources in particular areas. I want to make it clear that the council has already voted to make sure that we're not going to do a tax increase and so personal property tax is not going to be avenue for that. And so what we're going to have to look at is either other increases in fees or something of that nature or looking at cuts. And I know as I have a committee meeting with voice and TWU, I want to chat with you about what you think some of the reprioritization or cuts should be. Because that's going to be the conversation that we have to have if we're not going to increase personal property taxes or residential property taxes, excuse me. And so I just want to be very transparent in that conversation as you get up. If there is something that you think the city needs to reprioritize or take a better look at, please feel free to include that in your comments. Obviously the burden's not on you to do that and do that work, but if there is something that sticks out to you, please share that. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Marin, Councilman Chapman. Thank you very much. And Director Rout, would it be possible to get a budget memo on how many families are currently served by the pilot rental subsidy program? What's the cost per family? And then maybe what would an extension look like in the cost to potentially double that program? Yes, we can do that. Thank you. Madam Mara, if I may comment, I do believe that currently 37 families are served by that program. And what it does is it will, for 10% of certain low income housing tax credit buildings, it will lower the rents for families that are earning around 30% area median income so that they can pay rents that are calculated based on their income. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Do we have Silda in the room or on Zoom? Yes. Silda, you can begin whenever you're ready. Ron, thank you for listening to my comments. I am here today because I'm a parent at one of the public schools, you know, specifically Lyle's Crouch. Lyle's Crouch last March had so many walk-in with a loaded gun and, you know, it was completely shocking for everyone that had a child who Lyle's Crouch in the wider community. Ever since, group of moms and a large contingent of the loud crowd community has been going to the city, the school board meetings requesting that something is done relating to the issue of securing our schools and making sure that our kids are able to learn in a safe environment. I'm here today because after much, much effort over a year of meetings, the city actually, the school board decided to provide the schools, every elementary school, every school in ACBS with a security personnel. The reason why I'm here is because I think this is money well spent and would enable our kids to live and live their lives, mostly their lives in a securing environment for the many hours that they actually spend at school. I also think that it's very important for a school personnel not to divert their efforts and their energy away from teaching and their normal duties towards making sure that you know the school to basically convert them to security officers. I just don't think that that's like a good use of resources and it's not an effective use of resources. as a result I'm here today because I saw the city's money that is going to this school. Political environment with potential cuts coming from the Department of Education, USDA, and the federal government. You seem to be cutting in and out a little bit. Oh, I'm sorry. I think the last word was the federal government. So I just want to make sure that this program continues to be fund. Is a program that is ultimately funded. And it's a line item that the city actually includes in its conditions to be able to fund the city schools, largely because of the significant security concern that guns present in our schools and in our community at large. So I'm here to speak on that behalf. I'm concerned for other reasons on like how the budgeting has been done for the school. But my primary concern is making sure that our kids can go to school in a gun-free environment where they are feeling that they don't have to divert their energy or focus away from learning because they're not scared and they're not concerned that somebody's gonna walk in at school with a gun. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. I did want to I guess say a couple things I think we too want to make sure that all of our children are going to school in a safe environment. I know for the particular case that you mentioned at the beginning, one of the things that ACPS had put out that it wasn't just someone who came into the schools, but it was a young child who came in. And I think there was an official statement that explained not only what happened, but what was the follow-up. I also want to be clear, I know you mentioned the conditions we put on ACPS. So we're pretty limited in sort of specific line items or ways we can tell them to use or not use their budget. With that being said, we do have many conversations and work sessions with them, trying to figure out the greatest use of resources and how we support all of these various needs. I think Councilman Mayor Chapman had a hand on this one. Yeah, first I wanted to ask a question. Seeing as you support this inclusion, What do you expect these security officers to do in terms of ensuring that there is safe elementary schools? Are they doing random bag checks? Are they stopping kids at the door talking to me about what you expect to see from these folks if they're added to the budget? No, so that's a really good question and thank you for asking my question. Mr. Chapman, that is not the point. We actually don't want to militarize. We don't want to turn our schools into like military operations or jails. I don't think like our children need to be searched. I think in many ways that could be unconstitutional to do that. So I think a security person could make sure that like our schools, most parents are concerned that somebody is going to walk into the school with an AR and actually take aim at a large swath of kids and personnel at the school. There's a lot of hardening that can happen where doors are checked, every door has a door stop. You know, doors are there's no what people can safely bearcaid in the in the classrooms because there's no way for for like somebody to see room. So I think a lot of the work that I see a security officer is checking the security of the school, making sure that the security plan which every school has to have is implemented, making sure that these types of investments that primarily focus on hardening the schools are taking place. So I don't see a security officer as somebody that's like searching through kids stuff. Certainly, we would expect somebody like this to respond if an event were to happen again, you know, to sort of dissipate conflict and so on and so forth. But I don't even think that like these security officers should be carrying a firearm on them. I think most of their focus is creating good relationship with the school, making sure that like any points of entry for somebody that could come into the school and create an incident like this don't happen. So I don't think it's correct. I, it would be wrong for us actually have these officers search our children. I just don't, don't think that's a good use of our time. I think it's a engaging with the community type of thing. Thank you for that question. No, I certainly appreciate your response to it. And I think one of the things that maybe we need to work to kind of better do is let the community know what's already happening. And so in the you talked about a couple things that are already going on. The ACPS has had an initiative for a number of years of hardening our schools. They have asked council and councils voted to support money for, I believe they're security vestibules and things of that nature where you have to go through certain protocols, certain doors, certain entrances to be able to get into a school. And so we have done that. I think we continue to do that with the building of each of our buildings and building that in so that there is a hardening of the school from outside. Another thing that you mentioned, in terms of kind of understanding the security layout for each of these schools, some of the challenges, some of the issues, I do believe APD has, they have officers that have a relationship with each of those schools, and I can, we can investigate and see where those security professionals, law enforcement professionals would be able to give guidance and advice to the facilities folks with ACPS in order to complete that same task. I frankly, I would rather them have to, them have that, them do that work versus an outside third party security firm. I don't think that's in our best interest when we have law enforcement and security professionals already within the city that are doing that work. I'm not necessarily super supportive of this, not because, frankly because of the conversation we've had, I don't believe, I believe we can get the outcomes that you're looking for with a better, kind of more streamlined understanding of the relationship APD has with ACPS. We've been doing some of this work for decades to work to harden our issue. But I'll be honest with you, the core issue to the situation that you brought up is really about adults and their handling of weapons in and around kids and families. For those who don't know the details of this, this was an incident where a child brought someone else mistakenly brought someone else's backpack to school. That backpack was an adult backpack that had a handgun. This was not the intention of that child to bring a gun to school. That was seen and investigated and I believe that information was put out. And so I think we need to understand with some of these situations where they are an actual incident where somebody is intentionally trying to harm our kids and their peers versus these accidents where adults are being very free unfortunately with handguns in and around where kids are going to operate with them. And so I think as we still discuss these issues as a community, I think there needs to be a level of expectation around adults in our community that handle firearms. If you have that, how do you keep that safe? How do you keep that away from kids, and so forth? And so I appreciate the conversation and the opportunity to have that conversation with you. Thank you, Councilman Chapman. There is a question or comment from Vice Mayor Bagley. I just, I appreciate where my colleagues sort of ended that. And I want to use it to uplift all the efforts in our city to emphasize safe storage of guns. I want to highlight the fact that if anybody wants resources or actual gun locks and trigger locks, you can get them from our sheriff. You can get them at APD on Wheeler app and you can get them from the city clerk's office right here on King Street in the courthouse. They're available, they're free and they come with information and I see our sheriff sitting there in the back who has given them Street in the courthouse. They're available, they're free, and they come with information, and I see our sheriff sitting there in the back who has given them out in the community and spoken about how to use them. So thank you for raising that piece that we all share as responsible adults to our children in the community. Okay, Madam Clerk, next three speakers. Petty Faga, Gabriel Oaks, and James Durham. Good morning, Mayor Gaskins and Council members. I'm Betsy Faga and I'm speaking as a resident of Alexandria to the subject of housing affordability in the budget. I care about housing because I get some glimpses and volunteer work that I do. As a member of the Episcopal Church of Resurrection, I was integrally involved in building, helping get the Spire built, which is a workforce housing on our church property. I'm a member of the Alexandria's Housing Affordability Advisory, Committee representing the faith community, which gives me an insight to our housing needs and How many projects we have that are unable to be funded? I'm a volunteer with the Christ Church financial ministry helping residents with their rent and utilities And I'm a member of voice for unions who organize for interfaith community engagement advocating for housing for all. I know each of you cares deeply about housing and we've had conversations and you're well aware of the shortfall in the city and around the nation. But like AAC, I am not standing here today asking for dollars, but asking that we look together at some very bold initiatives and some new resources for funding. On that list, there are things that we've talked about and you're aware of, but we want to continue the conversation. The ability to use tax abatement, a new dedicated revenue stream, probably not this year, but in the future use of the city's bonding authority, allowing the city to use the state adopted code that would permit the, waving the building permit costs and local fees associated with construction. And then finally, some of our newest conversations and we've been very pleased with the discussions we've had with the Department of Planning and Zoning and with the Office of Housing about yes and God's backyard, faith and housing, various names of things where faith institutions could use a streamlined process in building on their property. So there's lots to talk about. We think there are ways without specific dollars at least this year that we could move some projects forward or the whole subject of housing availability. So I look forward to these conversations with you and thank you very much. Thank you. Do we have Gabriel here? Good morning, Mayor Gaskin, City Council and City staff. My name is Gabriel Oaks and I'm a leader with voice. Virginians organized for Interfaith community engagement, which is a network of Faith and community organizations across northern Virginia and I live and go to school at Virginia theological seminary I'm lucky enough to be on a scholarship at BTS that allows me to live on the campus for free Without this scholarship, there's no way that my wife and I would be able to afford to live in Alexandria. I support affordable housing because I want this community and this city to be affordable to everyone who works and goes to school and worships here and right now that's not the case. I'm so grateful to live in this area but I know that many of the staff on the VTS campus and food service and our grounds crew and our janitorial staff aren't able to afford to live in the same city they work in because of the ever rising costs of living and renting in the city. I want the opportunity to live near where you work to be available to all, not just to those who have the means to afford it. There are too many Alexandria families who are being priced out of and leaving Alexandria, including city employees and teachers and immigrant workers. I'm joining with voice in calling on the Alexandria City government to take action to remove barriers for faith communities and nonprofits who want to build affordable housing on their land to be able to do so, to continue to fund the arise basic income program, and to increase funding for affordable housing with dedicated revenue streams and with bond measures. In taking these actions, Alexandria can be a leader in showing what it looks like to care for our neighbors in real and practical ways. In this specific moment when national political choices are working against the values that we share as a city of Justice and equity taking action on the local level and housing and justice using the tools that are available to us Can allow our city to care for the growing number of residents who are facing job loss and fear of immigration raids and harm from the federal government Through alleviating the burden of housing and rent insecurity on everyday working people. My faith leads me to action on behalf of those who are pushed to the margins of society, and I hope that the city will take action on affordable housing that engages with this call to care for those who are cast out. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Good morning Mayor guys getting spice fair bag Lee Members counsel my name is Jim Durham. I live in Alexandria for Williams Park, right? And this member of grassroots Alex Andrea Here to support greater access to Alexandria's dash bus system particularly for people living with low income But also for the economic health and traffic safety benefits for all Alex Adrian's tax-and-reance tax-and-reance tax-and-reance tax-and-reance tax-and-reance tax-and-reance tax-and-reance tax-and-reance tax-and-reance tax-and-reance tax-and-reance tax-and-reance tax-and-reance tax-and-reance tax-and-reance tax-and-reance tax-and-reance tax-and-reance tax-and-reance tax-and-reance tax-and-reance tax critically important mobility option for Alexandrians and a necessary investment in Alexandria's economic health. Recent study cited earlier showed a 160% return on investment for every dollar invested in northern Virginia transit, 160% return on investment. For greater access to Dash, I'd like to speak and fight your attention to line 32. Where off-peak and weekend dash service is once per hour. That is once per hour from the landmark transit center, the high rise apartments, along the Homesworn Parkway, businesses of the Long South Pickett Street. To the Vandorn Metro Station, and to inform the residences in the growing development in the Eisenhower Valley, to the Eisenhower Metro Station. Once per hour, every 60 minutes, that's not a very useful service I know from experience, because I, about I, I'm close to, it's only once an hour, not useful. But line 32 was designed to serve high density, residential and job areas, with high frequency, that's every 15 minutes high frequency, all day service, to enable people to choose taking the bus as the preferred option. And in many cases, they're only option. The section of line 32 between landmark mall and van door metro station serves a population with a 33% greater percentage of people living with low income than the Alexandria average. Investing in bus service is also investing in traffic safety. Public transportation, studies have shown, public transportation is 10 times safer per mile than traveling by car with less than a 10th, the per mile injury or death rates as automobile travel. In closing, the 2019 Alexandria TransadA vision set an expectation of frequent, that's 15 minutes, all day service for live 32 by 2022, three years ago. If that can be achieved to the current budget cycle, that's great. I'm being fabulous. But if not, at least provide funds to increase frequency of light 32 from every 60 minutes to 30 minutes off peak and weekends. For the equity benefits and for the economic, public health, and traffic safety benefits for all, I'll say, Andrea, just thank you. And the councilman Chapman's coming earlier happy to talk offline about where funds might come from. Thank Thank you. Thank you. Oh, one second. I think we have a question or comment. Councilman Elnubi. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Mr. Durham, you mentioned if funds are not available to make it every 15 minutes, maybe look at 30 minutes. But how about the funds are also not available to look at maybe just a section of the 32? I'm thinking between, and I submit a budget question about that maybe between landmark and van Doren because that's the most dense part of that line and that's the most social economic disadvantage part of that line. How would that sound? The Alexandria Trans Company Board in November provided options to the city manager for funding both the full line 32 for the 30-minute service as well as two options for lesser investments from the grassroots equity perspective I'm proposing at a minimum funding that landmark to Van Dorn section Because the higher density of people living with low income and also the higher density of minority per people. I know if that answers your question. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I do. I know we have a stakeholder meeting coming up in a couple of weeks where we'll be going even deeper into the work and partnership with Dash. Madam Clerk, next three speakers. Stephanie Porta, Jennifer Eccccle and Jennifer Hilton Good morning, Merrick askins members of city council and city staff My name is Stephanie Porta and I'm a leader with voice from a Piscobal Church of the resurrection I care deeply about housing because I've seen what happens when elected leaders failed to act. Back in Florida where I'm from, my community was pushed out by rising cost in an action. Seniors became more isolated, families and their support networks, students struggled in school and local businesses couldn't keep workers and our friends were further and further and further away. The fabric of our community unraveled. That's part of why my family moved here and bought a home in Strawberry Hill almost two years ago. And I love my neighborhood. I love Alexandria. And that's why I'm here. Right now too many of my neighbors are at risk of being priced out. Teachers, city workers, seniors, students, parents, children, immigrants. We cannot afford to ignore these crises if we want to keep our community strong. We don't have all the answers yet. We still have work to do on issues like holding private equity landlords accountable at Southern Towers, but we do know three things that we can do right now. An Alexandria must use every tool available. Number one, make it easier for faith communities and nonprofits to build affordable housing. This is common sense. We need affordable housing and churches and nonprofit organizations want to provide it. Right now it's taken years and way too much money for folks at my church to navigate the system. Lack of predictability and long wait times are disincentive for other mission-driven organizations to build the kind of housing we desperately need. Let's make this easier. Alexandria can lead Virginia and even the nation by removing these barriers locally. Number two, continue funding the ORI's basic income pilot. This program has been a lifeline for my neighbors facing financial hardship. Let's not remove one of the tools that's working to keep people housed in a time of increased vulnerability. Number three, especially in times like these, when the need for affordable housing skyrockets, we need the city to increase dedicated funding for affordable housing. The city's 11 million annual commitment isn't enough. Approved projects are stuck until 2030 with a $40 million funding gap. We need new dedicated revenue streams, like a modest increase to the meal tax and other solutions like Airbnb or hotel tax. The city must also use its bonding authority to move already approved projects forward. Housing is not just an economic issue, it's a moral one, it's a community one. Alexandria must act now to protect our community because it's in our power and it's the moral and human thing to do. You have the power to act, please don't wait. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, we have a, nope, it's for staff. Thank you. Council'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. now it's already in its implementation phase. Okay, perfect, thank you. I also had a staff question. I don't know maybe this is a budget memo, but I know we've heard a lot about kind of the potential to use our bonds, our bonding authority. And several weeks ago when Director Taylor presented, she talked about some of the current threats to the municipal bond market, which would be possible to get an update on kind of where current legislation is, what federal Administration changes are being proposed and how that might impact us. We can do that. Okay. Thank you. Okay next speaker Equal or oh, I'm sorry. That's my fault. We are at Jennifer echo Thank you. Good morning mayor Gaskins members of city City Council and City staff. My name is Jennifer Eccle and I am a leader with voice from Grace Piscopal Church. I'm here deeply about housing. I've seen firsthand how Alexandria's policies shape our community. When my husband and I moved here in the early 1980s, we had neither home nor car. Oh. shape our community. When my husband and I moved here in the early 1980s, we had neither home nor car. Over time, we've built our lives in this city and raised four ACPS graduates. Today, too many families, especially immigrant families, and lower income workers struggle to remain in suitable homes. Housing costs push out the very people who keep this city running, teachers, janitors, house cleaners, and most importantly, the barista who makes sure coffee. Even city employees, with an inadequate housing pool, working families are outbid and then displaced. Last spring, I heard you all commit to addressing Alexandria's affordable housing crisis. Since then, the need has only grown. The scarcity of affordable housing only deeper. That's why I'm here today and on behalf of Voice urging you to keep take three key actions. Continue the funding the arise basic income pilot beyond June. A rise has been a lifeline for only 170 very low income families, many of whom would not have it made it through financial hardships without this support. Now is the time, now is not the time to cut this lifeline. Programs like a rise provide stability and prevent homelessness before it starts. Today in these dark times, more and more families are at risk of eviction. Two, let the faith and nonprofit owned land be used for affordable housing. Faith communities like Fairlington, Presbyterian, Church of the Resurrection step up to build affordable housing before they can even break ground and get people into homes they face years of red tape and costly approval processes. Alexandria must fix outdated zoning rules and streamline the approval process. Let's build these desperately needed homes and faster and more affordable ways. Let us replace scarcity with abundance. Our citizens need housing and I Thank the city to organize and fix this problems. Thank you. Thank you. We will now turn to Jennifer Hilton. Good morning. My name is Jennifer Hilton. I serve as the classification manager at Alexandria Sheriff's Office. I have 20 years experience in the correctional setting, both in the civilian and sworn positions. I do know, my extensive history, I do know what a critical role the classification counselors play in the safety and security and the operations of our facility. Deeply concerned about losing to our classification positions, the work is both mentally and emotionally demanding, requiring staff to navigate high stress interactions while maintaining fairness, professionalism, and security. The emotional toll infity that comes with this role cannot be overstated. Staff are continuously exposed to individuals experiencing extreme distress, anger, hopelessness, and while making decisions that directly impact the safety within the facility. Beyond the toll on staff, misclassifications of inmates and mishousing them can lead to a risky business. It can cause, due to the staff limitations and incomplete assessments or procedural gaps, it can lead to conflicts, increased violence, threats to both inmates and staff. Furthermore, classification can hinder access to critical reentry needs and long-term effects, including recidivism. Our urge councils to closely and carefully consider the long-term impact these positions will create. Retaining these classification council roles is not a staffing issue. It's a matter of public safety. These professionals ensure proper inmate management reduce incidents of violence, enhance overall jail security, ultimately protecting correctional staff and the inmates and the community at large. I appreciate the time and consideration of this request and would welcome anyone that needs more information or would like me to answer further questions how we can support the safety of the facility and continue the effective operations of our jail. Here we go. Ms. Hilton, given your long tenure of 20 years, what's the maximum number of folks that you've had at one time that you can recall? I have been with Alexandria for eight years, and the maximum was in the 300s. I'm sorry for the position for your consultation positions. Oh, the max staffing? Yes, staffing. I'm publicist. Hey, Councillors. And has that been consistent over the years or has it been? No, it hasn't. OK. Am I at? We did go for a period of time during the COVID. We were down to positions. Our count of inmates was low. The amount of programming and our duties were reduced because of that. So we did not need those two positions at the time. But since then our caseloads have increased. Our numbers might not be there, but our caseload, our standards for accreditation has increased. So it is a lot more work on us, but I can provide figures if you need that. Thank you. Councillor Chenle. Thank you Madam Mayor. If staff, if staff, I'm working with you, if we could get more information about accreditation, I think that's a particular point that you raise. I think we obviously would not want to risk that. And so I want to understand what that means. Also, if staff can get me some information around how easy or hard it is to fill those positions, I think one of the core things that I look at when I look at the budgets is frankly vacancies that we have that are lasting longer than a year. And so I want to understand how quickly or hard it is to fill some of these positions that we might have vacant if we just have had vacant for a couple of months or is that going to be a longer term thing. Thank you. Thank you. And just to follow up, Director Rout on where Councilman Chapman was taking us, I think this is what I was trying to get out at with the question that I asked to the earlier speaker about industry standards. Like I know if we were thinking about firefighters, like there's a certain number of professionals that need to be per truck. Like are there a certain number, like whether it's for accreditation or just best practice that we need to understand about the load that our classification counselors are handling. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Madam Clerk, next speaker. Andrea Hancock, Latanya Irvin, Nathaniel Cartagena. Good morning. My name is Andrea Hancock. And I'm a third generation Alexanderan. And I've had 25 years of dedicated service to the Alexandria Shares office serving as both a deputy sheriff and a classification counselor. Over the years, I've witnessed the evolution of this role with increasing responsibilities that are essential to maintaining the safety and well-being of inmates. As a community, we share a collective goal of ensuring that individuals returning to Alexandria are in better position than they were when they entered the system. The classification position, the classification counselor position plays a critical role in achieving this objective. Eliminating or leaving this position vacant poses a significant risk not only to the reentry efforts of incarcerated individuals but also to the overall security and liability of our facility. Public service is more than just a job. It is a commitment to the city in which I was born and raised. The work we do is both important and necessary. I strongly urge City Council to take immediate action to revise the proposal budget to fill these vacancies to ensure that continued effectiveness and safety of our staff and in the within the WMGC's Truesdale Adult Detention Center. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Good morning, council. My name is Latonya Irwin. I'm the director of M.A. Services with the Sheriff's Office with my team here today to discuss the budget and have funding those two positions. I do have a prepared statement, but I think I would like to use my time to kind of maybe address some of the questions that you guys just mentioned. So in regards to industry standards, all of a hand, I cannot think of one American Correctional Association standard or Department of Correction standard Standard that addresses the image to classification counselor ratio. However, like Miss Hilton, I've worked in corrections over 25 years and as a former counselor and classification manager, working at three different facilities, I've worked housing units on average of one to 96 with administrative segregation with disciplinary segregation as usually one to 24. Our current facility, the Alexandria Sheriff's Office, our capacity, our rated capacity is 340. So our large housing units have 48 sales, but when the jail is overcrowded, these case managers can't manage up to 96 inmates. That's overcrowded. The building was designed for single selling. So when Mr. O'Brien mentioned that right now, those larger units are managing maybe 75 people. That's because we're operating above the capacity, even though the jail numbers are low. So historically, you would think the jail runs like 450 people normally at the COVID. We also a great decline in that. Coming back, just I guess because of how the world is today. But I do like to just press upon you guys that while the jail numbers are down, the responsibilities according to the standards have increased. So according to the American Correctional Association, the Prison RAPE Limination Act and the Virginia Department of Corrections, these guys are required to do initial and reclassifications, risk assessments, pre-assessments, and pre-reassessments, all attached to standards, all attached to a time frame. So you have to do these things within a set time. The initial just off-hand has to be done within 72 hours. We have reoccurring 30-day reviews. And I feel like I've digressed, and I'm off this paper, but I just kind of wanted to address some of those things since you guys ex. but I'm here in support of my team. I'm willing to have further conversations with you guys. I appreciate you hearing from this staff. I do believe that funding those positions is essential. These guys need manageable case loads, adequate resources, professional development, and investing in us, because I'm a part of this team. It's an investment into equity, it's an investment into this city and the safety and security of this facility, and I'll leave you guys with that. And thank you again for hearing this wonderful team. Thank you, and thank you for taking time to address some of my questions. Vice Mayor Bagley. I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you all that have come and to speak on this topic today. I think it's been really informative and also you've really like served your department well. I think the data points that you've come with and the way with which you speak about your positions. I just wanted to express my appreciation, not just for the work that you do and have done for decades. It sounds like many of you. But in the way you've come here and kind of given us information to work with, one of the things that I'd like either your office perhaps or the staff office, as we're answering these questions, is there data that you can provide about the relationship between recidivism and the programs offered at the jail and some of the work that you'll do in the classification that connects people to those programs. I know I've seen some maybe national statistics, but if there's a way to filter that into their response, the relationship between classification, programming, and recidivism, I see some gentle nods in the back, so hopefully that's something y'all can speak to and provide. I think we can give some, just to be transparent, I've been to Health and Safety Committee, and we talk about recidivism in this city, but I just want to be clear that our response will be about our local jail. So it makes leaving our facility are not attached to the jail. They may be attached to local probation or state probation, but our facility does not have adequate ways to track people leaving our jail and getting rear arrested and fair effects and things like that. We do, we can provide you guys with our 2024 program completion report, which details the number and types of programs that the inmates have taken that help address recidivism. No, I appreciate that. I mean, whatever date is available, that would be useful. And the points about the needs that are coming in, just like we're seeing increased mental health needs in our department of community you know, community and human services. The same, you know, the same increase in those factors. I'm sure it's reflected in the work that you do. So I would expect to see that in your, you know, sober programs, your mental health programs. That's everything. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I do want to give Jim a chance to comment. I did want to say, and maybe staff can recirculate at the Health and Safety Committee. We did a deep dive on recidivism and the different definitions between the state, our local programs, APD, some of the other. So it was really helpful to kind of break through like the challenges we have and how we're tracking at a different levels. But we should circulate that and we should also circulate the most recent presentation on the state of in the mental health and just how complex the needs are becoming. You just, the answer for I was gonna respond. Oh, okay, go ahead. Thanks. All right, thank you, Facilitonia. I think we had two more signup more, three more. Okay, Madam Clerk. Nathaniel Cartagena, Jose Habedezaya, and in Jose Tessfe. Do we have Nathaniel here? Nathaniel, we're ready whenever you are. Good morning, City Council. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. My name is Nathaniel Cartagena, and I'm the chair of the Dash Advisory Committee. This is an independent advisory committee of bus riders who advocate for Dash from a riders perspective. We prepared and sent a letter to city manager earlier in February to provide input on the fiscal year 2026 budget fellow member of the deck Not in that capacity mentioned that we did get that Get some good news. I would like to share however some of the other priorities for our. We believe that the dash bus system was a crucial component of Alexandria's infrastructure enhancing livability for all residents and contributing to Alexandria's economic health. We strongly advocate for maintaining current service levels and free fares while implementing improvements to dash lines 32, 34 and 31 that have been deferred for three consecutive years To achieve the goal of having the entire core network operating on 30-minute or better headways all day seven days a week We urge the city to allocate necessary funding for the improvements to lines 32 and 34 This will enhance service quality and accessibility for writers additionally investing in line in line 31 will improve off-peak connectivity between the Bull regards street corridor, Bradley Shopping Center, Alexandria City High School, and Old Town. The necessary funding is essential to maintain the existing service levels. And again, there was some comments earlier about that, which looks pretty good so far. but I would also like to address and make sure that we're dealing with the worsening issues with reliability and overcrowding. This funding will help ensure that dash remains a reliable transportation option for all residents. I was covered also earlier by another speaker, but we do expect positive economic return that Northern Virginia Transportation Commission mentioned 37,000 jobs that this impacts $180 million each year in personal income and sales tax against 64 million attributed to dash. So we urge the city to prioritize funding for the dash at fiscal year 26 to ensure a reliable, accessible, inefficient transit system for all residents. And I just wanted to thank you for the consideration on this matter. Thank you. Thank you. Is Jose here? Or is Jose online? Okay, okay, Yes, sir. Yes. Good morning. My name is Moussieh A. Haptazian. I'm working as parking at the town for city Alexandria contracted USB company. We were serving the company during the pandemic season. I hope you understand how it was difficult. The reason I'm here is to inform you that the USP parking in plain, we didn't get any wage increase since 2018. That means for more than six years. As you know, with a higher inflation and rising cost, it is very difficult for us to support our family. So finally, what I want to say for this matter, could you please take our case into consideration? Thank you very much. Thank you. And I wanna apologize. I don't have the new signups in front of me, so I apologize for the I pronounce your name Okay, I got a couple so I'm gonna go to councilman a Gary gonna go to councilman Chapman and then councilman O'Neubi Director out I do believe I have a budget memo in there you do okay, and this is specifically addressing The graduate employees what what their current rate is and what will cost for a rate increase. But if I could ask both Mr. and Egoo-C here, Mr. Mose, do you have a proposed number that you guys are thinking about? It's really difficult to say how much would be the money to add on top. that there are contractors working under the city council here, I mean the city. And they have been waste to the level of 17 to 20. But I'm not sure. I cannot give you the definite amount. But there are also private parking companies here here not included in the city's contract they are paying better than us this is what we know. Thank you. Thank you and I appreciate my colleagues and budget member on this I wanted to ask if you cut it. I think I saw the question but I wanted to see if you could expand it in a couple of areas. One being kind of what the process is, and the answer, what the process is to, I'm assuming, go to the company that we have a contract with and increase that. Also, if there can be a comparison around other kind of private companies or other institutions doing parking, particularly within Old Town and the Old Town area. And then lastly, I think the question asked to go maybe to 16 or 17 an hour, but if we could add 18, just to understand what each of those levels will cost in terms of total cost. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Onubi and then Councilman McPike. Thank you Madam Mayor. And my question was going to be along the same lines. It sounds like there is a budget memo, but I wonder if we can also include when the last time the contract was renewed, when is it up for renewal, how does prevailing wage play in this situation? That would be helpful. Actually, the contractors' term been renewed to two years or three years ago after the pandemic for the number of years to come. But as regards to the wage whatever incentives we are demanding is not yet in their mind because they say the city does not have the budget. Each time every year we see a memo coming to us which is very frustrating that that the city will not happen this year from this to this. Every notice coming after what you call this, the pandemic is that, that's what you know, what we know. But the thing is, I am very much touched touched by the notice coming to me. I mean, my colleague also shared this idea because we are not even tongue for the service we provided during that pandemic serving the community. Let me tell you one good story, very short. I know I have one customer coming each time to park there. She is a very nice woman. One day she came to me. Thank you for your service. Take this envelope. I saw that in the middle after she left. When I opened that envelope, it says thank you for your service. Your name is at tough time. And this is your tip, 20 bucks. But I have never, never got any of a thank you coming from the city or from my employer. So this is really very my touch enough. So this help us. Other information are all because I live here in the city. Yes. I'm a voter. I have the right to ask, of course, but everything has been said very well. I thank you for those. We thank you for your story, Air Time. And I think there's a couple of things we'll look at in this memo, both from the current contract, the history increases, the living wage ordinance. I think there's a couple different pieces that we'll touch on. Councilman McPike. Yes, thank you. Councillor Neill Newbase sort of touched on some of what I was concerned about. But I would really like us to check all of our contracts across the city. I mean, since 2018, there's been 27% inflation. We would never, in the city, allow any of our employees to have their wage decay by 27% without taking any steps to address that with raises and increases. And I know that we often contract out for positions because we don't wanna be employing people who work in every single element of the city, but the people who work for the contractors that provide services in our city are still part of our city and part of the people that keep Alexandria running. And we need to be very thoughtful in how we renew and consider these contracts to ensure that we don't have situations like this occurring. Because I don't think anyone here was fully aware of the challenge that you were facing. And had we have been, I think you would have seen action earlier. Thank you. It sounds to me like then maybe there's two memos, one specific queue. I think that would be a separate one. And then another contract set large. I think that might be a longer term. Yes. Thank you both for your testimony. I'm now going I believe this is the last speaker. It's Libby Bacom. Hi, thank you. I'm sort of a late ad so I appreciate the opportunity with the last few minutes in public comment to Mayor Gaskins and to Vice Mayor Bagley, City Council, my fellow Alexandria Board and member, Kineke Geary, and Mr. Paragion, thank you for continuing to support Alexandria Library, the way you were doing through the budget year. I'm not here to ask you for anything this year. Thank you so much. Thank you for continuing to find the mobile hotspots, which is so important. You know, something that we see in the City of Alexandria is we're're in this transitional time Where we want to make sure the libraries are safe spaces for our community and for our residents We want to make sure that libraries continue to provide important resources Especially for people who are in a position where they've been laid off Where they've lost their jobs or they need to find new resources in order to be able to stay here in Alexandria. Something that we continue to think about, not for this budget year because we understand it's really tight this budget year. We appreciate all the work that you've been doing, but we do have continued concerns about staff salaries for Alexandria Library. There was a wonderful study that was happened recently where staff salaries were increased to competitive levels in December of 2023. We thank you so much for doing that competitive review because we continue to lose librarians to neighboring jurisdiction, jurisdiction, things like that. But we want to make sure that that doesn't creep back into lower levels of salary going forward. So what we would like to continue to look for in fiscal year 27, 28, is looking for ways to continue to make sure that those staff salaries are competitive, that they are something that keeps our librarians and staff in Alexandria, that they're able to live in Alexandria among the the people that they serve in the communities. And so we just continue your, your, we want to appreciate that you continue to look at that, that you continue to do research studies on competitive reviews, on staff salaries in the area. And just thank you so much for your support of the library. Very important resource in our community. Thank you so much. Thank you. Councillorman Chapman. Good question. I apologize because I'm having my colleague this and it just came into my mind in terms of the board, the library board. Do you guys have any type of thread of revenue that goes to kind of support staff salaries or staff professional development or anything like that, coming directly from the library company board. So there's a few different things. There's the Alexandria Library Board, which is the governing board, of course, that works with the city on city appropriations. There's the Alexandria Library Foundation, which is the charitable fundraising part, and that raises money for the library. There's also the Alexandria Library Company, which feeds board members into the library board in addition to city appointees. Their other fundraising sources are the friends groups among the different branches. And so there are Beatley Burke, Barrett, and Duncan Friends, who raised money. And then there's some other sources of revenue. There's like a little bit of state aid that comes in. And then there are some foundations, bequests, things like that that come in as well. Those things don't go towards salary. The only thing that's going towards salary is the city appropriation. The things that the foundation, the friends, and those groups raise money for are going toward programs, books, materials, services, things like that. And like last year, I'm doing like the napkin math in my head. Those are about $200,000 coming in for those things from the foundation and the friends. But those things can't go toward staffs' orders. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I believe that,, come on, some in a hurry. Um, and I just want to make a quick comment. Um, Ms. Boncope, thank you for your comments today. Um, just wanted to add that we are committed to making sure that, uh, cyclically, we're looking at all positions, so it won't just be library positions or be other positions of the city. And, uh, this council has made a, um, substantial investment in doing so. So I just want to assure you that we're going to be consistently looking at that. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Thank you. Okay. I believe Libby is our last speaker. With that, I will entertain a motion to close the public hearing. Okay. There has been a motion and a second. Any discussion? Okay. There. Oh wait. I heard some whispers down there. There has been a motion by Councilman Chapman, a second by Vice Mayor Bagley to close the public hearing, all those in favor say aye. Any opposed, say nay? Okay, the ayes have it, Madam Clerk, next item. Sony, text amendment 2025-00002, coordinated development district concept plan, 2023-00003, CDV number 21 amendment. Planning Commission Action Recommended Approval 7-0. Okay, I believe we have a brief staff presentation first and then we will go. I don't know that we have any speakers but I think we will have some words from the applicant. So that I will turn it over to staff. morning. For the record, my name is Jared Alves with the Department of Planning and Zoning. I'll summarize the case and provide background on the planning and previous approvals for CDD-21 before discussing the amendment, the benefits and our recommendation. The application would amend CDD-21 to align the conditions with the Alex West small area plan and would update the concept plan for the Adam's neighborhood within the CDD. We're asking that the council approve the CDD-21 amendment and related text amendment to the zoning ordinance. In June 2012, the city council adopted the Beauregard Small Area Plan and established the CDD-21 zoning district following that following April. The CDD-COTS plan established and specified infrastructure design and open space requirements for six neighborhoods. Since adopting CDD-21, the Blake a multi-unit residential building a 2000 North Borough Guard and the Adams neighborhood has been constructed, the applicants have obtained approval for townhouses and a new park in the Uppland Park neighborhood. In December 2024, the City Council adopted the Alex West Spall Area plan, which replaced the Borough Guard plan. The current application would amend the general conditions for most of cd21 to align the Alex West plan and because the property owner is ready to move forward with the plan the neighborhood specific conditions and concept plan for the Adams neighborhood. Future DSUP applications will address the neighborhood specific conditions and concept plans for the crossroads, garden, district, greenway, and upland park neighborhoods when their respective property owners are ready to pursue new development. Since the upland park property owner is preparing to submit an extension request for their townhouse approval, they have asked to withdraw their participation in today's application and will resummit later this year to amend their CDD conditions too. As part of this process to operationalize the OxWest plan, the Boregar Design Advisory Committee, BDAQ, will also be retired. BDAQ was created as part of the Boregar Plan to interpret the associate design standards and guidelines. The OxWest plan has now replaced the Boregar Plan, and more streamlined guidelines are anticipated to come before the City Council later this year, so BDAQ will be retired. The primary benefit of this application is to implement the the Alex West plan and to enable the property owners to pursue development that complies with its vision, goals and recommendations. In particular, the revised conditions will update the open space, contributions, infrastructure requirements, stream-like conditions to be consistent with current city standards and reference current city policies. This slide shows the revised concept for the Adams neighborhood, which is consistent with the Alex West plan. The primary update is to increase the flexibility of uses for the plan with additional changes to the block sizes and road network Staff have documented the development specialties permit for 1900 north for regard the second gray block from the right for the April planning commission hearing Staff and the planning commission recommend approval the zoning text amendment and CD amendment are available for any questions Are there any questions for staff at this time? Councilman Chapman can you can you walk me through? Understand that you said B.Dac is kind of going away Talk to me about what that what that transition is why and kind of comparable things. I think we still have a, well, I'll let you go from there. Absolutely. So the way that the zoning ordinance is written today, it specifies this board of our design advisory committee to implement the design guidelines of the board of our small area plan. But as of last December, there is no such board of our small area plan. There is a Alex West small area plan. And so the way this learning ordinance is written right now, there is no function for that group. But that being said, we have through the adoption of the Alex West small area plan encompassed a greater area. And that was just the borrower guard piece. And beyond that, we are envisioning having much more streamlined, tighter design guidelines. in a way that it was not the case with the Beauregard design guidelines, which you looked at it, are over 100 pages long. It requires a benefit to have another group looking at it. And then separate from that, you know, that in planning and zoning, we're working forward to have more opportunities for public comment and public engagement on projects before they make it to the City Council. Because that is something that we heard as part of the BDAC process in the past, that the community was looking for more opportunities, not just to comment on design as one element of a project, but to comment more broadly on the project. And BDAC was not really a forum that allowed for that. It was specific to design. And so that's something that as a department that I know that we are working on. And so given that was not B-Dacks kind of scope, how did staff accommodate those requests for additional public engagement? Was it additional meetings or something in that nature or did it just left undone? Maya, Contreras, planning and zoning. We would depend on the project and what the issues were. In some instances, we would have, the developer would have additional meetings. In some instances, staff would have meetings. Over the last 18 months, the Alex West's small area plan has been going on. And so in some ways, that served as a little bit of a duel for him. Okay. I'll stop right there. Okay. Are there other questions from the council comments?ments? Okay. With that, I know we don't have speak, but we do have the applicant. So I'm going to go ahead and invite the applicant to speak. What they're representative. You know, the wire, Megan, repult, and Matthew, all men. Okay. Good morning, Madam Mayor. Members of the City Council, Ken Weyer with Weyer-Gill. Staff, we go back to page seven per second. I didn't want to take a moment when you have a quiet hearing. It took three years to get here for Monday properties. So a ton of work went into this from our clients' perspective. The drawing looks simple, but it is engineered to the foot. We are looking forward to coming back to you next week. I'm sorry, next month, excuse me, a little bit too ambitious, but there's a two-acre park that you see up here that's a later phase, but what you're proving now, I think for people watching this hearing, not a single square foot of development is getting approved. You were setting the regulatory framework that everybody will walk through. We're happy to say that next month Monday properties is looks forward to bringing forward 1,900 bovregard. But it's been three years to bring that project forward. The building's been vacant for over a year, and obviously this zoning is a precursor to that development approval next week. Next month, I said it again. And then finally for a Chimian, playing staff can speak for themselves. I don't think we have a philosophical disagreement on that case, but we have a very odd technical one. Jared mentioned Jared mentioned, we'll be coming back later in the year to align that CDD concept plan for up on park. So when I ask him for any amendments today, we think the CDD is right size and fitting Alexandria West plan. For those of us who live through Beauregard, we overshot the mark. It was too technical, too specific, too many guidelines, and very little development happened at all in Beauregard. Now I think with the community's input, we have clear open space, clear affordable housing, and clear road networks and a simpler framework than we have these community meetings in the future. People can understand what rules you set and how we achieved it. So thank you for your time, and I look forward to coming back next month. Thank you. Are there any questions for Ken Wire? Councilman Chapman. Yeah, can we go back to that picture? And staff refresh me on this. I thought we talked about where it says minimum of this kind of small 0.3 acreage. Is that a road or is that a trail? I thought, help me remember that conversation. So the, when the Blake, which is the building on the corner came forward simultaneously, there was originally a rear road that ran along the rear property line and that would be a vehicular road. That vehicular road was changed into a bike pad trail. And so what you are seeing back here is a green buffer and then a bike pad trail and it will also be loaded for emergency vehicles to provide additional fire safety for the building. But it would be strictly bike pad. I appreciate you raising that Councilman Chapman. One of the questions I had was given that that's strictly bike pad. As we think about the other larger park area, how do we make sure we achieve some of the other goals in the plan, like a playground, a gathering space, and just making sure we're still able to achieve the overall vision. With that, I do wanna go, we have another attorney, and sorry, my phone locked, Megan, repolt. Good morning, or good afternoon, I'm just tour what time it is right now, but I'm Megan Raupold with a law firm of wire gale. We represent CIM that owns Southern Towers in the Alex West plan. It's called the Crossroads and I'm wondering if you could put on side five. You'll see Southern Towers in CDD 21 today is only only partially zone to CDD 21. When we come forward with a plan, we will then rezone the entirety of southern towers to CDD 21. So the conditions you're approving today will apply to that development as we move forward. One condition I wanted to bring to your attention is 24 C and I think we previewed this with some of you. There's a requirement now for 25% open space on top of the five acres that's already planned for Southern Towers. Southern Towers is going to have a complete reboot with Alex West and CIM has been supportive the entire time of that. There's a lot to go into that plan however, there's a big green space in the middle of it. There's a BRT station. There's a road network. The other thing they'll have to do is replace the surface parking that's there now and find some place for the residents to park. So we just wanted to preview foreshadow for you all. We'll be coming forward probably asking for a modification of this 25% requirement that's in condition 24C of the conditions that you're approving today. And we'll ask for your support and staffs as we move forward. So just simply that's our sort of statement today. And thank you very much. Hold on one second, Councilman Chapman. Oh, it's not a sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. and for five ten years. If we have changed city policy, if we've changed affordability levels, if we've changed any of that, if the for redevelopment for five ten years. If we have changed city policy, if we've changed affordability levels, if we've changed any of that, if they're asking to be a part of the previous CDD, they would then revert back to previous policy levels, correct? One of the reasons why we are not adjusting neighborhood specific conditions beyond the Adams neighborhood with this application is to acknowledge that when these neighborhoods that are not the Adams neighborhood come forward such as across roads neighborhood circumstances may have changed in a way that we just want to avoid having to revise those conditions twice. So we have not adjusted the crossroads neighbors conditions today. I guess to that point why would it not be advisable then to do if they're doing a whole property CDD? Or I guess leaving them their property out of the CDD 21, having them come when it's time for redevelopment and do their own CDD, is it too small? Is it not advisable to take that up as its own CDD? If they're going to do ascale property redevelopment? So, I mean, ultimately, the Alex West plan does envision that that area would be part of the same CDD, same CDD 21. The, at the time when CDD 21 was adopted in 2013, the previous property owner of Southern Towers only had an interest in redeveloping the grand building. There was also, at the time, the envisioned project for the ellipse at that intersection. So there was need for city land to come from southern towers property at that point, circumstances have changed since then. So there's greater interest as you just heard for them to ultimately come forward the proposal. And at that time, when they request for that rezoning comes forward, they will have to make the case that it is appropriate per the smaller airplane to extend that zoning district to encompass their area. Vice Mayor Bagley. Could you just provide an overview of how the community will comment on design moving forward, having sort of disbanded for obvious reasons that BDAC, I know that's envisioned in sort of the new way forward, but I just want to clarify that there is still sort of a design feedback process. It's just going to look a little different. Rob Kerns planning is zoning. Yes, we're looking, we talked a number of times here about sort of streamlining, simplifying, having a very clear standards going forward. So part of that shift will be this back and forth with the community. And instead of having the design, strictly designed focus conversations, and we found that many times at that board, people wanted to talk about parking. They wanted to talk about stormwater. They wanted to talk about really a lot of non-design related items. So it really said to us that there needed to be more community conversation forums. And we're looking forward to rolling out in the next coming months. It's not been determined that the schedule yet, but a citywide online introduction of projects and explaining to people who basically log into that forum and we'll be able to take public comment and listen and hear I think in a more convenient way as we've seen for people to be able to really touch base with us on these projects. In addition to the city having more enhanced outreach, the development community will continue to have their meetings for each project actually in the communities. And so there's going to be sort of two different levels of feedback occurring going forward. Do we anticipate this new approach being used with 1900 Beauregard if it's coming in April and then we'll roll from there will that sort of be the first opportunity to apply this revised process? 1900, we're going to be doing that that following April. So 1900 will not be part of this this outreach process, but it's already had a very robust process of multiple community meetings and also B-DAC meetings. So there's been a fair amount of community conversation with 1900 and we're confident that we have listened and heard the issues as you'll hear in April. No, I appreciate you clarifying that because for what it's worth and the applicant's sort of alluded to this. There were significant design changes to that building as a result of the BDAC and other meetings. The road change that was mentioned, some structural changes on the exterior of the building. So I appreciate you clarifying that. I just was thinking like, oh, this might be the next opportunity, but I see what you're saying. Like beyond that building, the next one that sort of comes forward within here will have this new process. Thanks. I had a clarifying question just going back to where Pills, remember Chapman took us just so I'm tracking. So for the crossroads neighborhood, this is not automatically approved the rezoning or what they're seeking to do. They have to come back and go through a very specific process and any pieces that they feel they cannot meet whether that's open space or affordable housing, they would have to request those modifications and then at that time we would do an official review of each of those pieces. That's correct, the only piece that is subject to this amendment today is the area around the grand building and then ultimately there are always two opportunities to look at what the requirements are. So the CDD is establishing those overall requirements, but then of course for the individual DSUPs that come forward, that's really where we start to think about whether modifications are appropriate because you're actually looking at a building and you're seeing is this providing superior design is the open space that they're providing of superior quality where the quality is more important than just to share quantity of open space. And those kind of conversations start to happen when you're talking about the individual building at that DSU-P level. Thank you. I'm gonna go to councilman Chapman and then I know we have one more attorney to also speak on behalf. So I'm gonna think. I just wanted to tag on to kind of what the conversation is going because I think in my experience, one of the challenges I see, especially when we're talking about what CIM might be wanting to do in terms of adding in to the CDD is when things change, policy changes here in the city, there is usually a conversation about reverting back to what has already been suggested in the CDD. And so I'm very cautious about expanding a CDD or allowing somebody to later tap into that same CDED at a different time when things may have changed. Policy shifts may have happened here on the council. Additionally, I don't necessarily, I certainly understand some of the challenges around having some of the advisory groups, but I'm wary of getting rid of them for a frankly unknown process. We have a specific process, but we don't know what that is. And so, you know, to sign up for a process, which I don't know what that looks like, I don't know how effective it is, especially if it's kind of citywide and folks are kind of going through a portal for pretty much anything in the city. I would rather have neighbors in that area be able to weigh in on, frankly, various things within that area, right? I think it helps us when we have a firm understanding or a street level understanding of design challenges or how something plays, also open space and if it's working, if it's enough, if it's high level and I think staff is good about saying, hey, this is not the level that the community expects, the city expects, but I believe it also helps to have organized neighbors that are with staff, frankly, on some of those talking to the development community. So it's not just staff saying, hey, parking might be interesting here, or you might need to be a little bit more creative in this area, or open space might be enough. Right? I don't think the road issue is an issue without the community being involved, and those neighbors being involved. So I am not necessarily excited about retiring a citizen advisory group regardless of the scope. I think there's an opportunity if we wanted to look at having one but with a different scope for what this area is going to be. But that's just trying to my suggestion to them. If I may, just for a moment, Carmore, it's a planning director. I just wanted to underline that part of the reason why this is discussed in the staff report, you're not acting on it today, is to tee up exactly this kind of conversation. And it'll be a future discussion also, but getting your early comments is very welcome. Yeah. And I just want to note one point about the policies. One thing that we were very deliberate about when we updated these conditions was to try and future-proof them. So you'll notice, for example, condition 35, speak about the Green Building Policy, says the Green Building Policy, current at the time of DSUP or DSP submission. Similarly, condition 38 talks about consistency with the affordable housing policies at DSUP or DSP submission. So those will always be updating as each project comes forward because they're now locked in at that CDD to say, it's whatever the current city policy is at that time. So we did that. And I apologize for not being clear when I kind of made those statements. We've had CDDs in the past that have not been future proof. And I think that's what I'm recalling, not necessarily this one, but I want to make sure that's top of mind for us as we continue to hear about the ways we transition these neighborhoods. Thank you. And I think just to emphasize that point because I know everyone who listening here, and I know I've said this in my briefings, and also with the applicant, you know, when we think about all of the work that has gone into Alex West and the many, many meetings and the many conversations, well, there were a lot of issues that were raised, I think, to that continue to come to the top or related to open space and affordable housing. And so just making sure that we are all operating with the same set of understanding that these are top priorities that are going to come up every time we discuss a DSUP or part of this project. And so starting from the same set of expectations about what I think Jerry's, what superior parks look like or what quality affordable housing looks like that meets the needs of folks who have families. I think those are all and are at a deeper affordability level. I think are all things we just want to make sure continue to be emphasized. With that, I do want to bring up Matthew Alman, who is the last attorney to speak on behalf of the applicant. Good morning, Madam Mayor and members of Oregon. My name is Matt Almond. I'm the land use attorney with Bennibal. I represent Morgan properties. Morgan is the owner of the garden and green way neighborhoods in Alex West and one of the co-applicants for this package of CDD amendments. At the moment, Morgan does not have a project that they are imminently ready to file and to file and pursue. So our interest in the CDD amendment says a little more future oriented. Our main goals in this process were to make sure that the guidance of the Alex West small area plan were codified in a manner that was reasonably flexible and predictable and also to pick up on the theme of morning future proofs so that they can have viability well into the future as market conditions change and that we don't have to come back asking for lots and lots of revisions or modifications if projects kick off years from now. Overall, I think we've had a good outcome on both of these aspects. I think that the conditions are sufficiently future-proofed and clear and I want to take a moment to acknowledge staff and all of their hard work and getting us to this point and for the very productive manner in which they help to organize this amendment process. Thank you. Councilman Chapman. I'm sorry. I'll wrap up quickly, I promise. So the one remaining area of concern, which you've heard, some of the other applicants speak of is the 25% open space requirement. We too anticipate that this could be a pain point. And the Oregon site, particularly areas where the plan calls for a lot of public open space or Dedications towards roads and other infrastructure. So we want to daylight this concern Let you know we're thinking about it as well and that we anticipate Potentially needing some flexibility on that point during preliminary plan review if projects do come forward But overall in conclusion, you know again, we're very supportive of the Alex West plan and thankful for the good outcome on the codification and encourage your favorable vote. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Chapman. I think you can repeat the concern you had. I didn't get that as a note. Sure. Sure. The condition requiring a 25% open space requirement that's over and above land dedicated for public open space. It could be on a project where you're balancing a lot of different priorities. It could be difficult to meet that target. So I do want to be germane to the conversation, but I do want to also express some, and I apologize if this is not necessarily the proper form, but this is for me, the first time, I've seen some folks that are representative from two properties that I think we have had staff, particularly in the housing area, kind of working to deal with some issues. And I'll be very honest, if I can, we have a had the best communication around dealing with some of those issues. And I probably can have staff connect with you after this to talk through some of that, but in the recent past, whether it's, I don't want to get into the whole thing, but I think hopefully you and your clients know that. And so I'm looking at this CDD a little differently. I'll be honest with you because we haven't had the greatest communication relationship with you, trying to get some stuff done for constituents and people within our city. And so coming in day lighting things you're concerned about when our concerns have not been heard or met is an issue for me. I'll be honest with you. I'm partly kind of interested in saying, hold this, let's make sure our issues are taken care of before we make a text amendment to something that then is going to be able to move your client's efforts forward. I do think the city and particularly in my position I do have a responsibility to make sure that we are all working together for the benefit of those who live in the city and there are some disconnects that need to be connected as we start talking about improvements to this particular neighborhood And how we make sure folks have quality living here Here in the city, and I know that's what you want and your clients want for the folks that are within their properties Vice mayor Bagley And just to and again not to recognize what's on the table today But how it fits into kind of the larger communication, larger issues in the community. This open space dialogue was not simply about sort of parks. It was also about like climate change and heat impacts. It is 20 degrees warmer some days in the west end of our city than it is on the east side. And one of the ways that we can address that moving forward is with more consciousness to green space and shade and open space. And so I just wanted to join in. I appreciate what's on the table today, but what's on the table today is tied back to a recognition of housing needs, is tied back to a recognition that the city identifies the climate emergency and also identifies the disparities in how the climate emergency is impacting residents on the west end versus the east end of the city. And so, you know, I sort of join my colleagues' comments not to call it any particular applicant or parcel, but just to reiterate, I think this council's support for the community feedback that resulted in the Alexander West elements. And I think what both of your comments are reflective of is this is actually the exact dialogue that was happening through all of the Alex West discussions. At any time, we went to talk about land use. It was very clear that these are not just land use discussions, but that we have issues of housing quality. Concerns about displacement, concerns about preservation. And so I think that's why they're always going to come up in every conversation. And I think being very clear that we wanna figure out whatever our relationship and conversations look like moving forward that we are just as comprehensive in looking at these needs as the plan attempts to do. So I know Councilwoman Green also had a question. Just really quickly met him. I mean, thank you. And I guess, Mr. Alman, I just want further clarity. When you say the 25% above what is already provided in open space, is there like specifics that you could give? You say it may be difficult, but I was just wondering, are there actual specifics on why? It may be difficult, and will that come back to us? Or next time we talk about this? So I don't have a specific example to cite for you because we don't have a project designed and ready to file. I can say during the Alex West plan, we were doing just some very basic conceptual modeling to see if we dedicate all of the public open space that the plan calls for and we build the road network what's left, and what fits. And we were starting to see that achievement might be a little more challenging than we thought. So it'll be further clarified. Yeah, more of a future exercise. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any additional questions for the applicants? If not, we can close the public hearing, and we can still have more discussion. Okay, there's been a motion by Councilman Alnubi. Is there a second? Okay, any discussion? Okay, there's been a motion by Councilman Alnubi and a second by Councilman McPike to close the public hearing. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, the ayes have it and the public hearing is closed. Any additional questions, comments on the matter at hand? Vice Mayor Bagley. I would, I'm not trying to stifle further conversation, but I did want to put a motion on the table to, and I want to approve the text amendments to CD, the 21 as proposed by staff and approved by planning commission. There's motion and a second, any discussion? Councilman Chapman. Just to ask, when do you think we'll or the applicants as well? When do you think we'll see the next thing kind of come forward from the CDD? I know some CDDs, once we approve them, there's a lot of activity very quickly. Some take a little bit of time. We have the 1900 application that you've heard about for next month. We don't have any immediate applications lined up after that. We have a project that is in Alexandria, West, but not in CDD 21 that we anticipate would be the next one coming before you. Appreciate it. Thank you. There has been a motion by Vice Mayor Bagley and a second by Councilman El Nubi to approve the staff and planning commission recommendation. Hearing no additional discussion. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. So we have one abstention and six in favor the motion carries. Thank you Madam Clerk next item zoning tax amendment 2024-0010 Planting Commission action recommended approval 5 to 0 Okay, I do think we have a brief presentation on this one. Do folks want that? It seems like we do not need the presentation, but I think you for your time. With that, I would take a motion to close the public hearing. And if there is a motion already for this item, we can move to that. There's been a motion and a second. Any discussion? Madam Mayor May I clarify the motion? Sorry. Thank you. Yes, hold on. provisions is that what your motion is? Okay. Thank you for accepting. Okay. Councilor McGregor, are you still comfortable with that second? Yes. Okay. There has been a motion and a second to approve with the SUP provisions, any discussion? And the closing of public hearing, yes. Sorry about that. No further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay? Okay, the ayes have it and the motion carries. There are two more items on the docket, but I think these are just for information only. And that, oh no, yes. And that is items 14 and 15. So with that, I will take a motion to adjourn. So moved. Okay, there has been a motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none, there's been a motion by Vice Mayor Bagley, a second by Councilwoman Green to adjourn. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Nay. Oh, I don't mean nay. Sorry. There's no nay. There's no nay. The eyes have it, and the meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.