Evening everyone, it is 615 and so we will now call the Tuesday March 11th legislative meeting to order. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Gaskins. Present. Vice Mayor Bagley. Councilman McGeeery. Councilman Chapman. Yeah. Councilman Elnuby. Your. Councilwoman Green. Councilman McPike. Your. Okay. Madam Clerk, next item. Consideration of a close executive session to discuss a personnel matter Councilman Chapman, I will now entertain a motion. Madam Mayor, I move that the City Council convene in a close executive session pursuant to the Virginia Code section due to 2.2-3711A7 to consult with legal council pertaining to a probable litigation where such consultation of briefing in an open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or litigating posture of the public body. Okay. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Any discussion? There has been a motion by Councilman Chapman and a second by Councilman Elnubi to convene in closed executive session. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? OK, the ayes have it. We will now go into closed executive session and we will reconvene at 7 p.m. Thank you. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the bathroom. 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I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next Council reconvene in open session. Okay. Sorry, I thought there was more to read. There it there it. There has been a motion and a second any discussion. All right, hearing none, all those in favor of reconvening in open session say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, the eyes have it. Madam Mayor, I move that the City Council adopt the resolution regarding the close executive session that was previously circulated to the Council. Okay, there has been a motion and a second and a discussion. Okay, there was a motion by Councilman Chapman and a second by Councilman Aguirre to approve the resolution that was previously circulated to the Council. This is a roll call vote. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Councillor Chenette. Mayor Gaskins. Mayor Bagley. Councillor Nell Noobie. Councillor Womming. Mayor McPike. Madam Clerk, next item. Today we have a special treat. moment of silence and pledge of allegiance. Okay, we are going to do our traditional moment of silence followed by the pledge. However, today we have a special treat. We are joined for National Girl Scout Day by several local troops. I'm going to call their names and after our moment of silence, they are going to lead us in the pledge. First, we have troop number 6,0085 and troop number 395, led by troop leader Terry Gennarelli. We also have troop 1330, led by troop leader Michael Ferrier. We have troop 995, led by troop leader Melinda Smith. We have troop 699, led by troop leader Lacassa King. We have troop 5223 and troop 1797 led by troop leader, Commissioner Parker. We have troop 60158 led by troop leader, Amber Vincent. We have troop 60283 led by troop leader, Barbara Durham. and we have troop 60283 led by troop leader Barbara Durham and we have troop 60261 led by troop leader Farah and all of these young ladies are clear examples of kindness and community service within our community they have dedicated their time to volunteering to serve others in need within our community but They've dedicated their time to volunteering, to serve others in need within our community, but also to exemplifying the principles and the leadership that comes with the Girl Scouts. And we think Councilwoman Jacenta Green for inviting them here today. So with that, if you are able, please stand. Again, we will start with a moment of silence, and then we'll turn it up. Girls, you may begin. We're the allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. I mean to the Republic for which it stands, on nation, under God, in the physical, with liberty and justice for all. You did amazing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I think we're going to do one big picture. And then you'll. Everybody look at all the cameras. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha in there. Oh, great one, two, and... Thank you you and thank you again. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, job, job. Thank you for that. Great job, thank you. I'm not a mission. Okay. Madam Clerk, next item. and act acting upon the minutes of the following meeting of City Council of the minutes of January 31st, February 1st, February 18th, February 22nd, and February 25th, 2025. Move approval. Okay. There's been a motion and a second. Any discussion? Okay, There's been a motion by Councilman Elnubi and a second by Vice Mayor Bagley to approve the minutes. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. The ayes have it. Madam Clerk, next item. Presentation of a proclamation recognizing national 3-1-1 day. Okay, and this proclamation will be read by Councilman Aguirre. Anyone who's here for our 3-1-1 proclamation, please come to the front. I think we might even have one person online for this proclamation, too. Tunisia, maybe there. Okay, we wanna make sure we get everybody. All right, as we get everybody up here in these lovely matching shirts and of course the button. And it is not lost on me that today is also National Pry 1 1 Day. 311 March 11 311, yeah. So let's jump into this. As soon as I'm done, let everybody introduce themselves and then this Tunisia Wells has anything to say, then we'll let her have a second to speak as well. So, whereas March 11th is recognized as National 311 Day, a day dedicated to raising awareness about the vital role of Alex 311, the City of Alexandria's link to city services and information, and whereas Alex 311 provides residents, visitors, and businesses with easy access to essential city services, enhancing communication and promoting engagement with local government. And whereas by utilizing Alex 311, everyone can report issues, request services, and receive timely information in a variety of ways, including online, social media, and the mobile app, working on smoke signals, not quite there yet. Contributing to a more informed and connected Alexandria community, and whereas Alex311 serves as a vital tool for promoting transparency and accountability throughout the city of Alexandria government, empowering all of Alexandria to become active participants in the decision-making process that impact their lives and community. And whereas the use of Alex V1 encourages a culture of collaboration and innovation as all of Alexandria share their insights and experiences thereby helping the city of Alexandria better understand and address the community's needs and concerns. Now therefore I, Kenne Kegirri, on behalf of the mayor of the city of Alexandria Virginia, and on behalf of the Alexandria City Council, do hereby recognize March 11, 311, 2025 as National 311 Day, and the City of Alexandria encouraging all Alexandria to engage with Alex 311 to benefit from and contribute to our city's services. It witnessed where I have here on two set my hand and caused the seal of the City of Alexandria to be a fix this 11th day of March 2025. So congratulations, see all, it's great. I always push everyone to three one one. It is a great, great tool. And like we said, there are so many different ways to be able to engage. And I believe you guys can also have access with different languages. So if someone brings something in in a different language, it will still get address. So I love it. And now we're going to go ahead and let everybody introduce themselves. Good evening, everyone. My name is Martina Alexander. I'm the Assistant Director of Administration, with the Department of Emergency and Customer Communication. I just want to say that I've been with the city for about 25 years, and it's just great to see how we will when has involved. For folks that's been here for a long time, you will remember citizen assistance, that transitioned into call click connect and now we have this robust system where we can actually have residents contact us very seamlessly. So I just appreciate the staff that's being celebrated here tonight. These individuals are so dedicated to Alex 311, I couldn't pick a better team to work besides. They're on the direction of the wonderful Tunisia Wells, who is the assistant director of 311. But their dedication is infectious within our department. And we just enjoy working for the city. So my name is Melissa, and I'm the supervisor of Alex 311 the call center. My name is Sharon Pitts and I am one of the customer engaged me liaison with 311. I'm Cindy Jenkins. I also wanted to liaison's as well. I'm Jack Wolland Whitley. I'm one of the customer service liaison's as well. My name is Tiffany Fuller and I am the Knowledge Base Coordinator for Alex 311. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Did you want to say anything? No, not much. Again, I'm Tenecia Wells, the Assistant Director of Alex 311. I am so thankful for this team. I am also thankful for the support of council, the city manager's office, and the many departments it takes to actually make 311 work. Although you see this team here who's that quiet voice under the headset, I wanna just really push out to the community. It takes every hand from city employees to different city team members to really make Alex 31 work. And again, although we're recognizing this particular team, shout out to the entire city for making Alex 31 more money to his. So I appreciate all of you and thank you. Thank you, Ms. Wells. And again, if anybody in Alexandria wants to connect with your local government, Alex 311 is the place to do it. And with that, Madam Mayor, I will move the proclamation. Okay, there has been a motion and a second, any discussion? Councilman Onubi. I just want to thank you all about, for all the work that you do. I think it's very, a sharing for a council member to know know that the emails that we get to council that sometimes, you know, should be directed to staff are going to be taking care of direct stuff right away. It really makes it easier. You make my job easier because I know that these emails are going where they're supposed to go so I can just respond to the resident and let them know. It's been routed to the correct staff member and it will be taken care of. And you guys are great at taking care and responding. And I've gotten several feedback from residents about how you guys did a great job. Also, when we sometimes, when things slip through the cracks or taking a disclose before taking care of, you know, assistant director Wells is amazing at fault. When I let her know, amazing at following up and make sure things are corrected and finding out what happened and solving the problem. So really appreciate that pro-activeness and professionalism from you all. Thank you so much for all you do for the city. There they go. No, it's the rain. Okay. Well, I just want to say two things before we've had this proclamation. One, I don't know if somebody is not here, but I'm just going to own it today. It is not lost on me that the powerful team behind 3-1 win is all female teams. So in women's history month, I just want to say thank you. Oh, you do. OK, well, we appreciate his efforts as well. And we're sorry we're sorry he couldn't make it today. But I also want to echo the comments of my colleague. I appreciate, I mean, I know you guys get hundreds of 311s a week. Probably thousands because I know we're getting many, many a day. And I know after reading them every single one is not easy. It is not always a simple solution either on the back end. So I thank you for the creativity you bring to the role, the professionalism, but also the dedication to make sure that everyone gets a response and an answer they need. So I'm glad we could celebrate with you today. And I thank you for making the time to come tonight. With that, there has been a motion by Councilman Aguirre and a second by Councilman Chapman to pass the proclamation, recognizing today as National 311 Day. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Okay, the ayes have it and we're going to do a group photo. Madam clerk, next item. presentation of a proclamation recognized. 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. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Is that the front? Everyone? OK. Woo! Yay! So please come join us at the front. Everyone? OK. Woo! Woo! Yay! Woo! Oh, yeah. All right. All right. Well, thank you all for being up here with me. I'm going gonna read the proclamation and feeling very safe as I do so. And then we'll have everybody introduce themselves. All right, so whereas women have made significant contributions as trailblazers in law enforcement as a profession as well as within the Alexandria Police Department. Challenging traditional norms and proving themselves as leaders, innovators, and agents of change. And whereas recognizing the importance of current and future females to our agency, as well as the unique challenges women face in law enforcement, on August 30, 2022, the Alexandria Police Department made a commitment to the 30 by 30 initiative. And whereas the 30 by 30 initiative was developed in collaboration with police leaders, researchers, and industry experts to improve the representation and experiences of women in sworn position in all ranks through recruitment, retention, and promotion of women. The development of strategies and solutions to create an inclusive and supportive culture within law enforcement for women is the foundation of this initiative. And whereas while the national national average of women in policing is 12%, the Alexandria Police Department continues to exceed the national average with nearly 20% female employees. And whereas, APD is committed to ensuring the well-being of our women professionals by ensuring equitable policies and supportive systems. And whereas Chief of Police, Taric McGuire, affirms his commitment to the current and future women in policing within the Alexandria Police Department. And whereas the Police Department will prioritize the recruitment, retention, and opportunity for professional career growth for women throughout the organization while providing an environment that is inclusive and acknowledges their unique attributes to the agency. And whereas the contributions of women in the Alexandria Police Department, including their resilience, leadership, and advocacy for others within the agency and across the community have not only reshaped the profession but have made lasting impacts. Now, therefore, I, Sarah Bagley, on behalf of Ellie Agascans, Mayor of the City of Alexandria, Virginia, and on behalf of the Alexandria City Council, to hereby proclaim March 11, 2025 as a renewal of commitment to women and law enforcement day. In WitnessWhereup, I have herein to set my hand and cause the seal of the City of Alexandria to be fixed this 11th day of March 2025. Congrats, that's a, I love reading that. That was, it's a lot of great information in there. So I'm gonna pass the microphone to my left and then we'll pass it down to the right. Thank you very much for the proclamation. My name is Tina Lagoon. I'm one of the assistant chiefs with Alexandria PD. And if you give me just one item that I would like to say to the citizens here in the city of Alexandria. to the citizens here in the city of Alexandria. You heard that the national average is only 12% and you hear that we are nearly 20%. One other thing that I am very proud of is those women are not just officers. They are represented in every supervisory rank that we have in the police department. And that is definitely where we are leading in a law enforcement. So that's what makes me happy. Applause. Hi, good evening. My name is Lieutenant Sarah May. I've been with the police department for 25 years. I currently am assigned to the Office of the Chief. And I'm not only an officer here in the city, but I'm also a resident. So I'm dual invested into the city. Good evening. I'm Sergeant Michelle Garcia, and I'm currently the supervisor of Recruitment and Background Investigations. And I've been with the department for five years. Good evening. I'm Sergeant Harvey. I'm currently assigned to Field Operations Bureau Midnight Shift. Good evening. My name's Alexis Songllofak. And I am a sergeant over new police officers and field training and I've been with the department for seven years. I'm Officer Wall. I've been with the department for three years and I am on midnight patrol. I'm Officer Virgo. I am a midnight officer for four years in the in the bureau. Hi, good evening everyone. I'm Mo Magoff and I'm co-founder of the 30 by 30 initiative that was referenced in the proclamation today. I do want to take just two seconds and acknowledge both the chief Tark McGuire and also city council for lifting up this critical issue. You may not be aware but women officers are actually uniquely valuable in achieving our public safety objectives from using less force and excessive force to getting better outcomes for crime victims, to being named in lawsuits less often, to having more trust with communities. Doing this work is not just about gender equity, though that is critically important. It is about improving the services that you as citizens receive. And I think you are under incredible leadership here. I had the distinct honor of spending the day with a lot of women in your agency and I am blown away by the commitment and quality of service that you receive. I'm background investigator Shakita Warren in recruitment and retention unit. And that's all I have. Hello, I'm Alcordina Coynton and I'm Alice Warren, Place Recuder and I've been with the agency for four and I'm also a director of the community. I'm also a director of the community. I'm also a director of the community. I'm also a director of the community. I'm also a director of the community. I'm also a director of the community. I'm also a director of law enforcement agencies. Over 40% of agencies had no women in them. And so it is important that we as a department stay committed to all persons, but also recognize that you need me as of each employee. Because what attracts people is when they see themselves in an agency, when they come to an organization, they can identify with not only people in the tournament but also within the community. And so this is about equity. This is about being a leader nationally. And I am so proud of not only Chief Lagona, but all women in our organization. And I support them fully as I do all of our colleagues. So thank you all for this honor. Thank you, Chief. And I had a chance to speak today at GW Middle with some eighth graders. And in the context of talking about safety and their schools and the teachers, one of the points that was made was how much they wanna see themselves reflected in their teachers, their counselors and in the police and the security. And it was great to know that I and I said back to them how much our department reflects the community that they serve. And just looking at who's gathered here today, I think we see that. And so I want to express my appreciation to all of you who have stepped up to take on this work and to be trailblazers. I've gotten to do ride-alongs with several of the women in our department, and I'm really making an impact. So I genuinely appreciate you. Thank you for the work you've done, and with that, I will move the proclamation. There has been a motion by Vice Mayor Bagley and a second by Councilman McPike to move the proclamation. Is there any discussion? Okay, well I have a comment. I just wanted to echo my thanks and appreciation for your service to the city. I also wanna say to our community who may be watching, if you didn't know, now you know, we have some of the best leaders in eight, not just an APD, but in the field at large. I've gotten to know some of you, and I look forward to continuing to get to know the rest of you more more closely But I just want to say like you really do set the standard and it is clear that every day you show up with heart You show up with passion you show up with a commitment to excellence and you push us to be better as a community So I'm glad we got to do this proclamation and I look forward to finding more ways that we can serve you in the ways that you have served us. So with that, there has been a motion and a second to approve the proclamation. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it. And we will do a picture. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to go to the next item. Madam Clerk, next item. Presentation of a proclamation recognizing March as senior nutrition programs. Okay, I think we have a few more special guests joining us. Councilman McPike is going to read this proclamation. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Oh. Thank you. Can you give this to all of you? Yes. Please come up. Thank you all so much. So thank you for being here today. I have a brief proclamation. Then we'll then let you all say a few words. And we'll see about maybe passing this. Whereas meals on the meals on wheels programs like that of the city of Alexandria, which is managed by senior services of Alexandria and the City's division of aging adult services provides nutritious home delivered meals to seniors throughout Alexandria's city that help them maintain their health and independence. And whereas, meals on wheels programs in Alexandria City, Virginia, have served our community admirable since 2002. And whereas volunteers are the backbone of meals on wheels programs in the city of Alexandria, Virginia delivering nutritious meals to seniors and individuals with disabilities who are at significant risk of hunger and isolation with caring concern and attention to their welfare. And whereas meals on wheels programs in the city of Alexandria, Virginia offer a powerful opportunity for social connection for hundreds of seniors to help combat the negative health effects and economic consequences of loneliness and isolation. And whereas the senior population is substantially increasing and action is needed now to support local meals on meals programs through federal, state and local funding, volunteering donations and raising awareness to ensure these vital services can continue to be delivered for years to come. and whereas, Miele's own Wills programs from across the country are joining together this march and beyond to celebrate their collective success and to generate this support needed to ensure these critical programs can continue to address food insecurity and malnutrition, combat social isolation and loneliness, enable independence and improve health outcomes. Now therefore, I Kirk McPike on behalf of Leah Gaskins, Mayor of the City of Alexandria, Virginia, on behalf of the Alexandria City Council, do you hear by proclaim the month of March as Senior Nutrition Programs Month in the City of Alexandria, and urge every community member to take this month to honor our senior nutrition programs, the individuals they serve, and the volunteers who care for them. We hereby recognize the older Americans' acconatioion program and Meals on Wheels programs for their heroic efforts to help combat senior hunger and isolation in America. In Witness where she is here on Two Set Her Hand and causes the city of Alexandria to be affixed this 11th day of March 2025. Thank you. Thank you all for the work that you do. Meals on Wheels is such a vital part of the fabric of Alexandria's social Safety Net. I've done the program many times and anybody who's watching who hasn't done Meals on Wheels, you should. It is a great deal of fun. You get to go out and help people and learn your way around the city and Meet folks that you know are in need of just a little bit of support, human contact and nutritional support and y'all are indomitable. You had a bit of a crisis before you, you know, a little over years. Yeah, where you lost your meal preparation facility and you didn't miss a beat. You didn't miss a day. And the seniors of Alexandria depend on you. Our city is very to have you and we'd love to have you all have an opportunity to introduce yourselves I'm Mary Lee Anderson. I'm executive director of senior services of Alexandria We have the privilege of managing the delivery portion of the program and as councilman McPike said we could not do it without Over 400 volunteers who are committed to the program who allow us to deliver 365 days a year which is really unique. There's not many programs that have such strong support from the city, from the state, and from the federal government. And we really appreciate having that support. I know this month we ask all of our council members and mayor and the city manager and other elected representatives to deliver meals, Kate Garvey from the division of the Department of Community Human Services is delivering later this month. You are many people on the DSR and that just shows what a great city Alexandria is. And I can't tell you how much it means when I delivered with Mayor Gaskin a couple months ago, along with her children and every time somebody opened the door and saw those little smiling faces and learned that it was their mayor that was delivering to them. It just exemplifies how much the city cares about people in need. So I'm very proud to be an Alexandria resident and to lead the organization. I'm Mary M. Beatty and I also work for senior services. I do communication and education programs, but I deliver meals on wheels. I've been doing it for a very long time, and it's very special and I'm very proud of our city for supporting our older adults. And my name is Pamela Austin and I'm the resource coordinator for the Division of Aging and Adult Services. I have the pleasure of helping to market this wonderful program and my son and I have also delivered for it a few times. But I did know everything that was already said on the proclamation and thank our council for supporting it. Thank you. Well, thank you for all of your work to keep this meal's own wheels program going. Please, everyone out there, take time, volunteer morning, come and see a bit of your city, you may not have seen and helped support this incredible program. And with that, I move adoption of the proclamation. Thank you. There has been a motion and a second, any discussion? Well, I will just say thank you all for your leadership and your commitment to this program and also just your dedication to all of the older adults within our community. Marily, special thank you to you and your patients for what should have taken 45 minutes and took us two hours delivering with my children. And I will just say the manager and I are signed up on Monday. We're ready to go. So anyone else who's not yet signed up, please go ahead. Vice Mayor Bagley's also on Monday. Lots of folks joining us. But this is such a critical program, and we would not be able to meet everyone's nutrition, but also community needs without your support and your leadership and all of the 400 volunteers. So with that, there has been a motion by Councilman McPike and a second by Councilman Chapman to approve the proclamation. All those... and your leadership and all of the 400 volunteers. So with that, there has been a motion by Councilman McPike and a second by Councilman Chapman to approve the proclamation. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it. We'll now take a picture. the on board's commissions and committees in northern Virginia Transportation Commission. Is there a bagley in Council minigurie? Okay, who would like to begin? Okay, we'll start with Vice Mayor Bagley. All right, thank you. PC met on Thursday March 6th. And we got, as usual, a detailed update on Womada. One of the highlights of which was that ridership is up so substantially that they were able to revise the budget by $20 million, which is never a bad thing and will allow them to do more enhanced capital investments. They have also, as of March 3 3rd started the better bus implementation. The official launch will be at the end of June, but you'll start to see new signage. Essentially, they've adopted a signing a bus route naming Nomenclature that will designate by the city it's in. So A's for Alexandria and Arlington F's for Fairfax, that sort of thing. Um, um, Womada has also experienced 46 consecutive months of growth and some stations are even old. F's for Fairfax, that sort of thing. Womada has also experienced 46 consecutive months of growth, and some stations are even over their pre-pandemic numbers. So it's just a fantastic time to give Womada a try again. They continue to evaluate the TAP payment system, and while we're not quite certain yet, we'll have it ready for world pride. They are certainly starting to test it in places and we'll have it ready ideally by the Sesquin. Quintet. By Sesquicentennial. I try, I practice and I still didn't get it out. By Sesquicentennial. So that was the Womata update. And then, before we move on to other items, anything else to add on sort of the one-moda piece? Okay. So to move on, we got two presentations that one was on micromobility, which I was very excited about. And what it was examining is how do people reach transit destinations. Do they, that last mile essentially? And they had some great information about the number of people who, who bike, who scoot, who take a motorized scooter, who walk, who use other methods to access transit, and how that increases essentially and broadens the accessibility of transit in the region. They shared one data point, which is that a VRE has seemed like 100% increase in bikes on the trains. So they've also talked about how connectivity via trails is a vital piece of improving access to transit. And so it was a really great presentation for what it's worth. The video I filmed for Dash on how to put your bike on a bus was actually featured in the report. We also received a report about shared on route charging feasibility. Essentially, how can our regional partners in that space work together to create opportunities for our electric buses to charge while in service, either literally while driving down certain roads or while in stations along the way. And so that's an exciting sort of regional cooperative that's happening. The last thing I'll mention, which was with VRE, the NVTC approved the funding agreement. Essentially, VPRA is buying portions from the rail from Norfolk Southern. We call them a NASA's line. And at this meeting, NVTC approved the funding agreement through which VRE will sort of work with VPRA to complete that purchase. And as was discussed at the meeting, this is a substantial moment sort of for passenger rail in the region because it kind of finishes that separation of freight and passenger rail and will allow for more reliable service, more frequent service ideally and enable regional, very local regional control over the movement of trains through that space rather than as part of a shared space with the freight system. It also will bring all systems moving forward the midday storage to Alexandria. There is a facility in the seminary area that will become a midday storage facility and it's also potentially a revenue generating opportunity for us as other train systems might want opportunities to store their trains there in Alexandria. And that's my report. If Councilman Aguirre had any other? Got it. Subcommittee on Alexandria's Workforce Development Center, Councilman McPike and Councilman El Nuby. Yes, thank you. The subcommittee on the Workforce Development Center met at the very end of February. I've been able to serve in this commission or this committee for three years now and we were welcoming Council Member El Nubey to it and gave him sort of a brief rundown of the program. For those of you who don't know, our local Workforce Development Center serves people of all needs who are looking to improve their work skills You know improve their employment and income or get back into the workforce after a break So far in fiscal year 2025 the workforce development center has served 7,700 individuals coordinated with 330 local businesses in 20 industries and 327 people directly found work through a program of the center. They've also held more than 300 workshops so far in the last nine months. The summer youth employment program, which has been a priority of this council over the last few years, has been a great success. Last year they served 256 young people connecting them with 88 different employers across the city. And they're looking to expand that program beyond the summer and also beyond the age ranges that they have previously been serving, adding younger teenagers into the pool, as opposed to doing, you know, six weeks of work with a place with a local business. they will do four weeks of training like classroom work on business skills, how to work in a professional environment, and then two weeks working somewhere within the city operations. Obviously, the federal workforce challenges that are impacting the entire nation, but this region in particular, are a very front of mind issue for the center. There are 13,000 federal workers in Alexandria as we've heard over and over again the last few weeks. Between the week ending on February 21, just seven days, 52 former federal workers filed unemployment claims in the city of Alexandria, which I think is just the leading edge of what could be a significant challenge for our city. The center coordinated with Dom Byer on the federal workforce job fair that was held this past weekend. They're also going to be setting up transferable skill workshops to help federal workers determine what sort of private sector businesses are looking for people who have the skills that they have. Starting in March, they're going to be working with world systems builders for financial education workshops for folks who are facing unusual or new financial challenges due to the federal workforce issues that we are facing in the country. And they'll be partnering with Arlington on another hiring event for federal workers in April. So if you're a federal worker who's facing job loss due to the probably legal actions of the current administration in Washington, please do connect with the Alexandria Workforce Development Center. We as a city, as a community, are here to support you. And anyone who's looking to increase their job skills, find a new career, or get back to work after a break in employment. So it's a great program. Glad to serve on the subcommittee, and that is the report for this month. Or reports from the city manager update on the 25 general assembly session? Mayor and council tonight we have actually two or a reports the first one is a little bit of a follow up on the general assembly session and we got our team coming on down and then the second one is really just a general update of our housing 2020 assembly session and we got our team coming on down and then the second one is really just a general update of our I was in 20 20 40 master plan and a little bit of discussion about that as well Thank you, mr. Manager Mayor Gaskin's vice mayor Bagley and members of the council good evening. I'mia Prado, a WCD manager and also the interim legislative director. As you are aware, the Virginia General Assembly legislative session ended on February 22nd. And I am joined here today by the city's legislative consultant. Thank you. Sarah Graham Taylor, who will provide us with updates as it relates to our legislative consultant. Thank you. Sarah Graham Taylor who will provide us with updates as it relates to our legislative package and priorities. Good evening Madam Mayor. Members of City Council, Sarah Graham Taylor. Here to update you, I would love to call it a wrap up but it never really feels like a wrap up enrichment but we did finish the legislative of legislative session February 22nd General Assembly gabbled out Sinaii Dai, and I am here to let you know where we're at and where we're going and what happened as far as the city's priorities this session. So we'll discuss 2020-25 session. Legislative actions related to the city review the legislative process and our package and how worked out for the city, and talk about some next steps and key dates on the horizon. So as you know, this was a short session, but it was an extra short session because our 46 days were shortened because of the water crisis enrichment. And while it gave us all a couple extra days to rebuilds, it did sort of accelerate some of the action down there and really cause things to move a lot quicker in Richmond. There were a lot of big issues that were being considered this session, whether it was issues related to data centers or utility skills solar, clean energy in general, casinos and skill games. There were a lot of big issues on the table being discussed in Richmond. And those took up a lot of air space in a lot of the limited time that was available down in Richmond. It was a caboose budget year, meaning that this was a year to amend the current Bineal budget. And city was active in advocating for some specific issues, but also looking for amendments related to key priorities like K12 funding in particular. Federal issues loomed large towards the end of the session with new administration and challenges related to federal funding and federal workforce. And then finally looking at an election year and looking towards a new administration, these all sort of loomed enrichment the session. For the city's key priorities, this is the laundry list that we took to Richmond and it was a well-curated with thoughtful laundry list and it was well received for the most part in Richmond. Even though you might see a couple X's up there, I would note that one of them was to our benefit. So automated traffic enforcement, there was legislation to provide some guard rails, but some expansion of technology when it comes to automated traffic enforcement there was legislation to provide some guardrails but some expansion of technology when it comes to automated traffic enforcement. So no expansion of where we can put them but some additional technology that may be at our disposal. And then the guardrails for the utility were really put in place to lay the foundation for expansion in the future. There is still concern about automated enforcement in Richmond and whether there's those who view it as a money grab or those who view it through the lens of surveillance. These are things that we need to sort of work through and part of working through them is putting up additional guardrails related to how the money's used, transparency about how the programs operate, how the contracts are structured. And so that's the legislation that was able to advance this session. We did, we were successful in legislation to provide local authority to inspect animal boarding facilities. Womada funding was replaced in the amendments that the governor had taken out in his proposed budget. There was no action on skill games, so they are still illegal. And so there was no action to either legalize them or put in a taxation framework or any of that. They, that action did not go through in either legislation in the budget. Legislation to provide localities with right of first refusal on currently affordable housing did pass. There were some changes to it so the patron is hopeful that that will make it more palatable to the governor since he vetoed similar legislation last year. the state investment in the Douglas Cemetery Restoration, there is $500,000 in the caboose budget for the restoration of Douglas Cemetery, which we're super excited about. And everyone who was involved in that, not only our delegation, but others in Richmond, really saw that as a thoughtful investment in the work that's being done in Alexandria on this issue. The one issue that sort of did not catch traction this year was the work group on state local shared employees. I would note that it was generally there were no work groups or studies or things like that included in the budget. So it's not that the issue was not, there wasn't an affinity for the issue or there was opposition to the issue. There just weren't work groups in this budget. So in talking with finance staff, they were very interested in the idea. I think I mentioned before that the materials that were put together as in response to budget question last budget cycle here in Alexandria. Finance staff enrichment really thought it was incredibly well structured, incredibly well thought out and really laid the foundation for some conversation about that moving forward. So I would expect that we should go into 2026 revisiting that issue and figuring out a path to look at it in 2026. Other priorities for 2025 met various levels of success. Nothing on lead flowers, no particular action related to transfer to transportation funding, but some significant legislation did pass related to affordable housing, eviction prevention, gun violence intervention program funding, campaign finance reform, the protection of flood resilience and energy efficiency funding sources, sort of when it comes to state investment and clean energy and energy efficiency, a little bit more money in the budget, but really no concerted focus in that area. In our principles, constitutional amendments move forward and will be on the ballot. K-12 funding did see an increase and not just basic K-12 funding, which we all know sort of goes through the LCI and you know we're at a disadvantage on, but there were things like removing the cap on support staff, additional money for at-risk add-on. Places where that were, especially especially in Alexandria where the LC is not in our favor, but money that doesn't run through the LC I is in our favor because it tends to support our more needy students and that's all kinds of needs whether it's special needs or language needs or ESL needs those funds there were increases in that space as well. Affordable housing and eviction prevention, legislation to establish free school meals or increased snap did not get through this session. We're not included in the budget. Health equity, maternal and child health investment, there was a package of legislation, the session called the mom nabus, which may be my favorite phrase from this session, but there was a whole package of legislation in this space that was really championed by a lot of the, a lot of members of the general assembly, not just women, but really exciting developments in that space. Vision Zero Bike Pud Safety, nothing specific, but I think the advancements when it comes to the laying that foundation for expansion, potentially of the technology use, when it comes to safety on our streets, I think that sort of lays the foundation for more in the future. Childcare Pre-K, Virginia Preschool Initiative, there was additional funding in that space, and not a huge focus this session on issues related to particularly achieving environmental action plan 2040, little incremental steps there, but really not a huge focus this session. Looking at dates moving forward for 2025, March 24th is the deadline for the Governor's Action on legislation. So lots of things in the hopper, if you look at the memo, a lot of things that are sort of awaiting the Governor's action and whether that's legislation related to eviction prevention or the right of our first refusal for local localities to take on affordable housing properties or the city's legislation related to local authority to inspect Pet Boarding those are all still out there for the governor to take action on to date at, at least of this morning, he had not taken action on anything. This administration tends to wait longer in the cycle to take final action on the legislation. But March 24th is that date. So I think we're at 13 days. April 2nd would be the reconvene session, which is when they go back to Richmond to look at vetoes, amendments, other actions by the governor. There is a question about a special session. They did revise the existing call for special session to have it focus on issues related to federal workforce, federal funding issues. There is an expectation that they will go back in at some point, but also it's an election year. So I would expect it to be earlier in the summer than later for reasons related to elections, but also related to the seriousness of the issues related to potentially related to federal funding and the federal workforce issues. July 1st is the effective date for most legislation. So July 1st is when legislation goes into effect. And there are always those things that the city has to look at. Either things that the city is required to do or the optional authority, permissive authority that localities might be granted during session. And so as we come out of the governor signing legislation and move towards that effective date staff will be reviewing legislation to either identify what the city has to do or what authority has been has been granted that you all might want to take advantage of. So I would expect that to be next on your to-do list when it comes to general assembly issues. November 4th is Election Day. And this is an election year for all of the House of Delegates, as well as Governor Lieutenant Governor Attorney General and as well as some of the constitutional officers. So look for lots of election activities this summer. Prefiling for the 2026 regular session begins on November 17th, Marker calendars. And then January 14th will be the first day of the 2026 regular session. So everyone has already started their 2026 file folders. I am sure you have as well. But those dates November 17th and January 14th are sort of the next on those lists. And so to wrap up something that can't entirely be wrapped up until we see what the governor does, City did have pretty solid success with our priority legislation, but just success related to Douglas Cemetery, Womada funding, K-12 funding, still waiting on the governor's actions, but really feel like this was a session of real opportunities for incremental progress to build on for the 2020 succession. Happy to take any questions about anything specific in any of these areas or any other issues y'all might have on your radar. So thank you. Thank you Ms. Taylor. I'm going to go to Vice Mayor Bagley and then Councilman Aguirre. Hi, all. Thanks for being here and for your work this session. I feel like I was really pleased with the effective way that we were able to advocate. As a council this session, I think it really showed and some of the things we accomplished and just some of the effective meetings that we had. So just wanted to express my appreciation for what felt like a very effective season. Two things I wanted to touch on. One is the constitutional amendments. Would you all just mind for the sake of anybody sort of watching, explain when it will first be on the ballot, when it would again be on the ballot and just reiterate for the public when they'll see those items. Absolutely. The Constitution and amendments speak enacted. They must be approved in two consecutive legislative sessions with an intervening election and then ratified by the voters through public referendum. So when the general assembly passed them this time, they would need to be approved again by the next legislature before potentially appearing on a ballot for voter consideration in 2026. So these are not issues that you will see on the ballot this fall. There needs to be an election first with the idea being that there's potentially two very different legislatures that would be endorsing these constitutional amendments for voter consideration in 2026. So that's sort of where we're at in that cycle. It is a two year, two legislature cycle with an election in the middle. Thank you for that. And for those of you who are motivated by these topics for eliminating what is an outdated ban on game marriage in the state and ensuring reproductive rights and the re-enfranchisement of formerly incarcerated individuals. I just wanted to highlight that those items will all need to be re-voted on by the next General Assembly, which does make this year's elections very important. And then, you know, citizens of the Commonwealth would vote on it in the fall of 2026. Should they pass the General Assembly again next year? Is that accurate? Yes. Okay, thank you. Absolutely. I appreciate that. I think these are exciting ideas, and I just wanted to highlight that they were carried all locally by our representatives, which is something else I think to take pride in. The other point I wanted to ask about was on the automated traffic enforcement. I'll admit I was following it until I lost track of it a little. And I just, if you could just clarify, I have a budget question in on this topic. What changes, if any, were made to the uses of the revenue generated by these automated traffic enforcement cameras by the jurisdiction, you know, placing the cameras? Absolutely. Councillor McBagley. The way, so just sort of give you sense of the evolution of this. The original bill took all of the revenue generated in any locality beyond what you paid to whatever your costs were for the program, sent that money back to the state. And localities were like, we actually would like to are effectively investing that money in the things that impact pedestrian safety in our community. And so we were sort of able to prove that to the folks who were working on this. And so now what it is is a locality can keep the funds, but they have to be lock boxed to use a throwback word. That would be lock boxed and used for specific investments related to bike, ped, pedestrian safety projects that would be eligible for funding by the states. Of course, I can't remember the name of the fund, but there's like a, there's a fund in that they were going to send the money to and instead they said, you can use it for funds that, you know, for projects that could be... Yeah, transportation focus, exactly. And so when we looked at it, the good news was the city was already investing far more than we get through our program. So the idea that these programs are a money grab for the city that we're then using to, you know, buy bright nothing to do with safety or transportation, safety in the community. The good news was that we were investing far more than that in these projects. So yes, they do need to be lock boxed and used for these specific uses. Good thing is in Alexandria, you're already investing far more than that in those kinds of projects. And if I may just follow up on one thing, you're, you're not about effective advocacy. I would note that you all, the work that you all did in Richmond during session was extremely well received by members of the General Assembly beyond our delegation to the point that we're already starting to get feedback from folks who sort of worked on things that maybe didn't get across the finish line, especially related to housing and asking for the city to continue to be involved in this. And whether it's, you know, Senator VanValkenberg's work on, you know, housing targets or other work in the areas of like a Viction Prevention and other, you know, affordable housing, either expansion or production, your work there and your willingness to sort of be there and be a part of it was extremely well received. So thankful and wanted you to know that that's the feedback that we've gotten from members far beyond our delegation. Thank you. I'm actually gonna go to Councilman Chapman first because he has a question on automated speed enforcement and we'll go to Councilman Aguirre, and then Councilman Green. So it was automated enforcement, I think delegate coal submitted something on automated noise enforcement. And so I believe if I understand that correctly, that's a pilot, you know, in that we'll open up the ability for other localities to sign on and be a part of that. How would that work if that is successful? Yes, so the noise, camera, legislation, delegate coal, delegate Sullivan, had legislation to give localities in planning district eight and planning district 16 and we're planning district eight. The authority to have basically a two-year pilot, so a locality could say, this is something we wanna do in our locality, and there's some guardrails in the legislation. You could set up these pilots, see how they go, report certain information, and then if they are successful, you would have to obviously revisit it because there would only be a two-year authority in the legislation. But it is the idea that you use these cameras that can measure decibel levels, and that you can put them in places where you have the loud noisy exhaust mufflers. Yes. Macho mufflers as delegate Vivian Watz likes to call them. And you can put those in the community. And again, as a way to, since those noise violations are so difficult for law enforcement to capture sort of in the moment, you can't call and somebody shows up later. And they can measure that decibel level and sort of in the same way that you would measure the speed of a vehicle. And you'd also just simply be capturing the license plates and things like that. It's similar to existing technology, but sort of a different twist on it. And you said we'd be able to have that ability possibly now if it passes because we're in that planning district? Yes, exactly. Yeah, if the governor signs that legislation, that would be one of those permissive authority opportunities where you all would have to decide if that was a policy decision and a budget decision, obviously. And then the other technology that was added to our current authority where we can put automated traffic enforcement is stop sign cameras you would be able to ticket someone for running a stop sign effectively. So right now we can do speed cameras, we can do red light cameras, this would be stop sign cameras. So that was the expansion, was not expansion of where we can put technology, but a new technology that we could implement in the areas where we already have authority to do things. So that would be school zones and work zones. So that was the one expansion, but it was expansion of technology, not expansion of footprint. Councilman and Gary. Just sticking to the theme here a little bit, license plate readers. Yes. You would just give me like a cliff notes version of kind of what happened there. Um, that's an excellent question since it did move a lot. My recollection is that the last bit of legislation which was delegate hearings legislation. It does, so right now there is no, there are no sort of like guardrails there. So it's, there is no expansion of where license plate readers can go. So they they're not going to go on rights of way. One of the questions was where they go on rights of way. It was not the expansion of where they could go, but there were guard rails put in place as far as how long you can keep the data and how the data can be used. But there was no expansion of where they can go. So the question now is sort of where. And I'm happy to go back and sort of give you a more fulsome summary of that because it is one of those things that literally from meeting to meeting change. and I would be happy to go long time since I was in the last year. I was in the last year, I was in the last year, I was in the last year, I was in the last year, I was in the last year, I was in the last year, I was in the last year, I was in the last year, I was in the last year, I was in the last year, I was in the last year, I was in I don't know if I missed it. I know I saw the little red X up on the but skill games. So that give it it down or that move forward. So there was no legislation. It was originally included in one of the budgets, but was not in the final compromise budget amendment. So there is nothing new when it comes to skill games. There's no legalization, there's no taxation structure, there's no local authority to opt in, opt out, referendum, any of that thing. The attorney general's opinion is they are illegal. And that is the- Anyone operating one is operating one illegal. Yes. So we need to make sure that our businesses are very well aware of that. Yes. And that there's no loophole saying, oh, this is a different kind. We're on the unfortunate situation where a local business owner may think that what they're doing is okay, but then they're put in the situation where what they're actually doing is potentially illegal. So there may be some opportunity for education as well as enforcement. Gotcha. Two more quick ones. Campaign finance, Clifton and so on that. What happened with that? Personal use. Finally got through. We'll see where it goes with the governor. I think that was the bulk of it. But I can go back and recheck. OK. Sounds good. Campaign finance stuff. And you mentioned creating our folder for 2026. I'm just going to see it one more time. I think it's a job fruit. Thank you. Councilman Green. Thank you, Madam Mayor and thank you, Ms. Gram Taylor, for all of your hard work. It was a crazy session. I know I'm sure your glad is over for now. My question is around school construction and renovation. You have a check off there as priority. But I haven't seen anything where any budget has been put behind it or you know is there a continuation of that? Who's you know who's bringing that up? So there is some, there is some new money in the compromise budget. There is some new money at the state level. On the challenge with the money that you sort of like apply for is that it rarely, we really meet the threshold for, you know, for being able to apply for that money. What did pass was legislation that would allow localities to add an additional 1% to their sales tax to that would specifically be earmarked for school construction and renovation, new school construction and school renovation. So that did pass. And that's something we've been working on for several years. There were some specific localities that had that authority and instead of continuing to do it, piecemeal one locality at a time, the idea was any locality may do this by, you know, and have a specifically earmarked for that, you know, for that process. So we'll, again, we'll see what the governor, you know, does with that legislation, but that legislation did pass. Thank you. Other questions or comments? Councilional newbie. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for the update. Appreciate it. Good to have you. Just to one quick clarification on the school construction, but any new money that's gonna come our way in Alexandria because we just had a work session last week and we don't get any money for school construction. So is that going to change? My recollection is that the challenge with school construction money that comes from the state is that it is generally your mark to four communities that they have determined are sort of more needy. And so it's sort of like similar to the LCI, you know, the onus tends to be on us to fund that with our own monies. I can go back and look and see if there was anything that changed as far as the application and who is eligible for of the funding, and see if there's anything that could benefit the city. And more needy, I think. I see where more needy could be in terms of how much wealth in the community, but we're also needy in terms of, we have a lot of old schools. There was a slide last week in the meeting with the school board, So I really hope even if that's not there that next year they start looking at Look out is that have really old schools. Absolutely, and that's one of the the the conversation They're one of the the points that we've always made in these discussions is that this we are a community that has not only older schools But has a you know has a growing population and so to whether it's fixing schools that need, you need, that are older or replacing schools, which is a whole other conversation, and especially in an area that is land poor, that it is a real challenge for us. So I think that is one of those issues where reimagining the way we talk about that need, I think would be a really thoughtful way to sort of look at that issue moving forward. I do think it would be helpful if you could circulate if there's any sort of specific resources that might come to us. If not, we might want to update this as a win for others in the state, but it's not a win for us just yet. Something that did make me think about is, I don't know if in the past we've done sort of a report out on kind of like, here's what we have achieved or here's where we are. And with our legislative package, but it may be something we want to think about in the future. Since we do do such an amazing job of putting together the first package and doing sort of communications with our boards and commission, being able to do like update that we have on our website. Here's what we achieved, here's what we're still working on, and even that key dates slide I think would be great. I knew Councilman Chapman has another comment. I still. Oh, I'm sorry. I don't know. I think Councilman Neubi still have more questions. Well, I had two more, but Councilman Aguirre took one of them, campaign finance, great, they continue working on that, can be a faster form. Also school funding operation, there was a $1,000 bonus, that's still in there, right? That back. great hope they continue working on that. Can you pass your form? Also school funding operation. There was a thousand dollar bonus. That's still in there, right? That made it? That's only for SOQ position. I believe so, yes. But it made it so. Yes, it's still there, yes. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Chapman. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think I don't want to show up there. question I know in the past we've talked about kind of strategy for some of these bigger items that we don't get that much traction on just because of how we sit in the state. And I guess what I'd love to kind of have staff think about is how do we start to strategize around that, you know, sitting together, working with legislators subcommittee, and preparing ourselves as a body, knowing that we have relationships with other electeds in the state, in North Virginia, and whatnot to really tackle these, and bring our delegation along with that. I think we, I don't think we do that very well. We go down to Richmond and say, hey, let's talk about these things, but we don't really crack the nut on that, because we just haven't strategized as local bodies. And so I'd love to think about how we do that and work with staff to try to figure out what that looks like if it's a work session, if it's two by two's with legislative committee about what we can do to deal with with LCI and start to have a real conversation about that. State employees, some of those bigger items that I know are gonna be a heavier lift for the state. As we talked about in our joint meeting with the school board, we have to get traction on some of those things. As we have these older buildings, we're not gonna be able to fund them locally. We need some state support. And if streets, state and grand dollars are not available for us, we need to figure out how we change that. So I would love to kind of work between now and 26, especially with new administration coming in and seeing what can move. Happy to do that, Councilman Chapman, and given the key dates and the timing, you can see that there's no time better than the present, no rest. So we will follow up. Councilman on the movie. We'll follow up. The $1000 bonus does not run through the LCI correct. Correct. We don't have to put anything down from correct. Thank you. Well, seeing no additional comments, I just want to say thank you. Ms. Taylor, it's so amazing that we continue to be able to work with you and you support us on this capacity. Ms. Prado, thank you for jumping in to this new process to helping us get organized. Thank you to Berkeley, thank you to Alexis, and also to all of the staff who attended the legislative meetings, I think being a part of the committee with Councilman Mick Pike, seeing just how many different departments touch this package, how much research goes into looking at every single bill, every position. It has really been a significant lift and we appreciate everything that you have done. We would not have been able to have the success we had without your support and helping us be able to go in and advocate for the things we need. So thank you. Thank you. With that, we are going to turn to the manager City Council, my name is Tamar, Yovavich Rathas of Housing. I'm here tonight with our Housing Director, Helen McLevene and our Deputy Director, Eric Keeler. We appreciate the opportunity to provide an update tonight on the housing 2040 master plan process. As part of our presentation, we'll discuss our timeline, our approach to community engagement and phasing of housing 2040 projects. Our priorities for the spring include reviewing community feedback on our draft housing 2040 principles and goals, scheduled to be shared at our March 28th community meeting in open house, as well as working with the community on our phase one projects. The housing 2040 process, the process to update the city's first housing master plan, which was approved in December of 2013, is grounded in over 11 years of implementation, as well as listening and learning about housing related topics and issues. While the city has been implementing the goals of the Housing Master Plan, a number of housing initiatives have also helped to inform city housing policy and investments in our current housing 2040 update. These initiatives include the adoption of the All-Dialogue Exandria Resolution to Advanced Racial and Social Equity Resolution 2876, which reconfirmed the joint commitment between Alexandria redevelopment housing authority in the city to preserve 1100 of 1150 affordably the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of pandemic and recovery through the administration of emergency rental assistance and later through coordinated eviction prevention efforts. Since 2013, the city has also worked on and adopted three small area plans, each of which had a very strong housing component participated in the regional fair housing plan to address impediments to housing access and adopted zoning for housing policy and zoning changes. Housing work continues in FY26 as proposed in the city manager's budget, shown here, while our investment in affordable housing development and preservation typically is in the limelight, this table also summarizes the range of ways in which the city invests in housing. Housing's 2040 public facing work started in the fall last year with the release of our housing quantitative needs analysis at our kickoff meeting. However, the better part of 2024 was spent developing our engagement strategy and researching and coordinating in particular with our city departments that are also doing planning efforts to make sure that we're effectively leveraging our work and community engagement in particular. We've been fortunate to align with the timing of the community health assessment with our colleagues in the Department of Health and we've been building synergies with the age-friendly plan update with our colleagues and the division of aging and adult services. Our two-part kickoff meeting occurred in September, followed by our October education month, which included weekly releases of educational material, webinars, panel discussions, and ultimately culminated in open houses as several of our affordable housing properties. Our timeline takes us to December of 2025, at which point we anticipate bringing our principles and goals, key recommendations and select actions for city council consideration. I will note that select phase two projects will extend through 2026, along with the development of the actual plan document and interactive dashboard. Our engagement strategy is based on a three tiered approach. Our umbrella engagement was designed to broadly share information and engage stakeholders in ways and in places that work best for them. It was complemented by our targeted education efforts last fall, although I will also note that additional education has also been woven into subsequent outreach events. Our third tier involves project specific engagement, which is tailored to the topic at hand. Several of our topics have used the Alexandria Housing Affordability Advisory Committee and the Landlord-Tenner Relations Board meetings as a platform for public discussion. In terms of our community engagement tools, again, we started our process in the fall of last year, and we were fortunate to secure community impact grant from Virginia Housing. This is actually the fifth grant that we've received from them over the last decade. And their funding helped to defray the cost of our postcard mailout. I'll note that it also helped to handle some of our translation and interpretation into Dari and Pashto. The postcard was mailed to approximately 90 to 91,000 addresses in August. It went to every single residential address and every commercial building and that was unintentionally to help expand our outreach to workers in the city. Following our kickoff meeting, we've had approximately three dozen pop-up and listening sessions across the site. A couple of our sites hosted multiple meetings to complement our online engagement. Those sites are highlighted on this map. Our online engagement initially took the form of a comment form. That comment form remains on our website and will until roughly December of this year, But it subsequently ended up growing into our housing survey, which we had printed and available on hard copy at our community engagement events and also was circulated online. It was up for about 10 weeks. As part of this process, I'll also just note that we're really proud of our youth engagement. I'm sorry, my clicker keeps jumping here. We were really proud of our use engagement as well. Several of us had an opportunity to go to Alexandria City High School. We went to four classes. We also had an opportunity to coordinate with Act for Alexandria and recently attended one of their use council meetings. With respect to the housing topics and concerns that have been raised through this process, I did want to note that it was a very, cover to very, very broad range. So what you see here are some of those key areas of concern, but we will be providing more detailed information at our March 18 meeting. So the first issue here, the cost of rental housing and attainability of home ownership. So this issue really underlies pretty much every other issue that we've heard to date. But I will also note that the concern extends beyond just the cost of rent and mortgage payments because it really includes the cost of utilities, the application of new fees by some rental properties, the cost of our condominium fees that are growing as well as the impact of special assessments. I will also note that our housing survey, through our housing survey, we found that renders in particular express are really a cute concern over the cost of homeownership. Lack of housing options across all income groups, tenures, and life stages also was a key concern, including amongst our seniors. Some issues again that the won't come as a surprise were identified're identified by our rental households in particular, they've emphasized the lack of affordable housing at deeper levels of affordability. So at that 40 to 50% area median income range. And that translates to roughly, roughly income about 40 to about $75,000 a year for a household of one to four. Our senior households also shared concerns over the lack of attainable independent living and assisted living options in the city. A fear of displacement and just the inability to stay in the city has been capable through our engagement through the 2020 process, but honestly also through all of our recent small area plan engagement in particular in Alexandria, West, and prior to that and the Arland Ridge, your logago community. And also again, households express concern over the lack of being able to find family size housing and being able to transition to home ownership in the city. Rent and fee increases affect households differently, we know. But what we can say is that citywide averages don't reflect individual experiences. Some properties have modified their approach to building utilities, removing them from all in rent, which increases housing costs. Other properties we've heard, a numerous occasions have introduced considerable new fees such as internet fees, which have increased housing cost burden. Building in unit conditions, both to the interior and exterior, to the buildings continue to be flagged as a major concern and source of health problems for some residents. And also throughout our process, we also wanted to share that many voices have highlighted their concerns over the impacts of density on their quality of life and the adequacy of open space and infrastructure. In addition, they underscored the lack of single family housing in particular more modice single-family housing options in the city. This was a theme that was particularly conveyed in our housing survey. A major milestone in our process was the development of our quantitative housing needed analysis, which was released in September and summarized during our kickoff meeting. And some of those key questions which continue to inform our process are, how do we help to ensure that Alexandria's workers can afford to live here approximately 40% of our workforce or service sector workers? Second question was how do we address high levels of housing cost burden, in particular among our lower income rental households and among middle income earners as well, who aspire to attain home ownership. In terms of some of the data, we have approximately 21,000 renter and home owner households with incomes up to 60% of the area median income that are spending more than 30% of their gross income on housing and housing related costs. How do we effectively address racial equities in home ownership and wealth acquisition? Only 9% of owner occupied housing is occupied by households that identify as being black or African-American. Well, that population comprises about 21% of the city's population as a home. We have a number of aging communities, whether they're condominium or rental communities. We have approximately 13,000 units that are over 40 years old on the common interest community side. How do we support those communities as they deal with deferred maintenance and capital investment issues? The cohort that's experiencing the largest amount of growth in the city are seniors over the age of 65. When we compared our population in 2010 to 2022, they, it went from 9% of the city's population to 12. If those trends continue, they'll comprise about 16% of the city's populations. Again, what kind of housing models might be appropriate to help serve their growing needs. On the opposite end of the spectrum, our young adults, so individuals that are in that 20 to 34-year age are experiencing the greatest production in the city. We somewhat track with Arlington, but I will note that that loss is considerably lower, or sorry, considerably higher than in Laven County, Prince William County and in Fairfax County. So again, some of those questions are, what are those housing typologies or price points that might be able to meet their needs? In addition, other housing trends and conditions continue to pose challenges. Those include the high cost of building units at deeper levels of affordability. Market rate production does not produce new family-sized rental units or really options for first-time home buyers. Since 2020, when we checked about two-thirds of the new rental units that were being delivered through market rate development, or one bedroom or smaller, we constantly track the loss of market affordable housing. So those are units that are naturally affordable up to 60% of the area-mediate income, as well as affordability contracts on our committed affordable housing units. I think we talked a little bit about the age and conditions of our housing stock, but we face limitations in terms of our legislative authority when exploring new housing policy tools and zoning tools and resource constraints. So all of this information is ultimately done a couple of things. It's helped to inform our draft principles and goals. And I noted that those will be shared at our March 18th meeting. They've also helped to shape the projects that we'll be working on through 2025 and 2026. Some of the ones to highlight, so we're looking at financial tools for affordable housing. We're improving our homeowner programs and preservation strategies, looking at partnerships to leverage city resources. And they will note that we're really proud about the Interdepartmental Coordinated effort to address the number of other projects, in particular looking at those synergies between health sustainability and housing, rental resources and rights, which obviously extends far beyond our office, looking at creative ways to address senior housing plus care, and then updates to our affordable housing contribution policies. So again, just for any community members listening tonight, we wanted to encourage them to attend our meeting next Tuesday. It's a 7 PM at Patrick Henry. We will have interpretation in Spanish, I'm Harak, Dari, and Pashto. We'll have dinner as well. We're encouraging registration, but it's obviously not required. For those folks who are not able to join, we will also have an online comment form, which will be posted subsequent to the meeting in that comment form. We'll be up for at least four weeks, and we will have it translated into all five languages. We're also really excited about a housing preservation panel, which will take place on April 29th at Charles Houston in the evening. We'll have a robust conversation with representing a variety of perspectives. And in terms of a timeline for the late spring, early summer, we anticipate releasing our draft recommendations along with revisions to our principles and goals for community feedback and then continuing to work on our housing 2040 projects. And we also wanted to get encouraged the community to attend our upcoming meetings. We are anticipating May and June in particular being really robust conversations at AHEC. And for additional information, folks can visit our website and follow us on social media or sign up for eNews and make sure to select that affordable housing button. And that concludes your presentation tonight. Thank you. I'm now going to open it up for questions and comments. Before I do, I had two of my own. One, just for some forebusters, a lot of engagement that has gone into this work. I think this slide where you provide a snapshot of all of those different tools. I'm wondering if it would be possible to get a chart that shows, here's the activity, here's how many you've done, and then here's the number of people we've reached already. I think that would be extremely helpful, just to continue to show to the public just how many people are coming out and engaging in this process. The other thing I wanted to lift up was I was curious as part of this next phase of our engagement, if there are plans to do any specific or targeted engagement with employers, I think we often hear the dynamic in two ways, one from economic development, and when we're trying to bring in new companies and making sure we have enough housing for their employees. But I think also many of our small businesses, especially our restaurant and hospitality community, have often voiced to us that they're having trouble finding places for their workers to be able to stay and live close. And so I just think it would be really interesting to have some specific dialogue with them and what they're seeing, what they're hearing, but also how that then impacts our business community and our ability to generate revenue. I think Vice Mayor Bagley had our hand up. Thank you, and thanks for all the work that's gone into this. I just would note again, it sounds like a mailer went to every residential address, and some business address in this city. I think I heard 90,000 of them were mailed out. So I appreciate we have taken feedback from the community and turned it around and applied it. I also would love to see a blue sky handle added to our social media. I know the city is on blue sky and a few other places. So it would be great to see that added. There's a pretty lively housing conversation that happens in that space. And then lastly, you know, something that has struck me in the last few weeks is that there are members of our community who are hesitant to attend public events right now. And so as, while I appreciate the extensive engagement listed here and efforts to have public dialogue. I would just ask, like, as you all reflect on what you're planning, are there ways to either invite non-in-person feedback that maybe isn't just a survey, or are there ways to try to have more intentional engagement in certain communities? So I'll answer that. That definitely is something that staff is thinking about. And we had it was part of our interpreter about the discussion. Just trying to figure out knowing that bringing people into one central place can be, you know, trying at that this time, but we're definitely developing extra tools in order to do that. Okay, I appreciate that. And I actually, we don't need to kind of identify the specifics of it here, but to the extent that staff can be conscious of it, and maybe reach out directly to some of the organizations who would be in contact with a lot of the communities directly impacted by housing affordability and the city and accessibility. I'd appreciate that. I think it's an issue that this council's tried to be mindful of. Thank you. Councilman Elnubey. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just one one feedback on the can we go to the map where the dots are where the pop-ups were? So I don't know if these dots are exact locations, but there's on the west end where I live and I know the area well, I think for future purposes, when we do popups, one area that's very lively, very diverse, so much foot traffic on is the intersection of Fandorn and Etsel. There's a big shopping center there so much the first population there. And it is the population that will not come out to public events that are very hard to reach. You can reach there. And across the street, there's another smaller shopping center. But also there's an Afghan market, a lot of middle eastern residents go there. So I think that location would be, would serve us in terms of Outreach So that's that's that's kind of like just one quick feedback on on the on that Thank you I just had one one more question. I know when we had our council retreat one of the things we talked about was Right now we have such a robust pipeline and there are a lot of really good projects in the pipeline. But that every single project is going to need different sources of revenue. And the sources that may work for one may not work for others. And the timing of when those sources happen are all different. And so what would it look like to have a process where we have criteria or the ability to shift projects, where there might be one that comes in sooner, but it is really ripe for a particular new source. And so maybe that needs to move ahead of something that has been in the pipeline for a while, recognizing that that is a very sensitive conversation. I'm just wondering at any point in the list of topics, maybe it's financing tools, is there space for that discussion or development of criteria on how we might shift and adjust to be able to best position ourselves to get resources? Sure, I should introduce myself Eric Keeler, the Deputy Director for the Office of Housing. That is definitely one of the components, especially in the preservation discussion that we're having because that is opportunity driven. And we do look out, I think Councilman Pike actually has a question in about the pipeline in the budget process that we will be responding to that to get more information. But it is the dynamic of opportunity component of the financial tools and trying to lay out the use of the dollars most strategically and having those conversations with our partners truly when they actually need the dollars so that we don't have dollars just sitting there like we did for many, many years but we've kind of changed our model a little bit. But continuing to evolve is definitely part of our overall discussion and something that we will talk to Council about, you know, probably this more of the summer time frame as we're working on targets and other components for projects. Thank you. And then the other question I had, I know there are like 100 sub topics when it comes to housing, so every single one is not going to rise to the top. But we have been getting an increasing number of emails and 3-1-1s related to our unhoused population. And I was just wondering if you could speak a little bit to how homelessness or even topics like permanent supportive housing have come up within current sessions. So it is an ongoing discussion and one of the reasons why with some older partners is the partnership and homelessness. They're part of our discussion, you know, a group that we are talking with. So, and there's also a stabilized housing group that has been talking about these type of issues. You know, we look at the eviction numbers that we're producing with a show and then tracking of that along with entry into shelter and leaving shelter. So those are kind of things that are now being intertwined as part of our discussion of how they're interrelated. So definitely discussions with those groups specifically. And even the healthier health and housing, right? That's a big component that has come up, especially with homelessness components. So it's touching those specific groups may not be in the general community discussions. But why we really are relying on our partners that are dealing with that day-to-day groups to talk about those issues. Yeah, I just wonder, even if it's not coming up in every single community-wide conversation, I wonder if this is one that we just want to keep on our radar and knowing. I think every time we've had a presentation to council, we've been told about the wait list that exists in our current shelters. We've been told about the connections between evictions and homelessness, but also just the challenges shelters are facing now as like more seniors come in, or people who have more complex needs. So I think this might be one where we just might need to figure out as a council, is this a subsection we put forth? But I think it's one that requires a lot of infrastructure, resources and coordination across many different departments. And so making sure we're thinking about what our strategy needs to be as part of our broader housing plan. Councilman Chap. Thank you. I just had two things I just wanted to raise and make sure they were part of what we're looking at. One of the ones that we, I think, have seen some success on in the past is kind of the regional partnership for senior assisted living housing and seeing if there's kind of a new opportunity or a new frankly a new push for if there isn't something going on now, maybe we can be the spark to say to the rest of the region we need to get ahead of this and have some conversation around it is that kind of in kind of the discussion for the plan? It is very much. I think what you see with a few of these topics going into next year really reflects their complexity, their potential cost and implications, but also I think our desire that they be projects that include many partners including regional partners. I think that is a is a key to success but we're looking at lots of different models and that's certainly a great comment about you know where where might there be momentum because we're working regionally We're all sort of solving it again our silos. And I think especially through Cog and some of the work groups we're each on, we're looking at some of those kinds of solutions. And while it may, I think the other one for me, while it may be controversial or seemingly controversial, keeping on our radar the ability or opportunity to use municipal land in various forms whether it be city land, whether it be school land and what that looks like. So I would not want to dissuade us from not keeping that as a future conversation as well. I will say to that fact, the city manager has brought that up to us a number of times to make sure that that stays on our radar as we're looking at everything. Definitely city land and opportunities there. Councilwoman Green. Thank you Madam Mayor and thank you team housing. Wonderful presentation, lots of great information. I was wondering, I also very impressed by the engagement, the community engagement, and I look forward to seeing what the mayor is asking for, with sabasadid, and definitely with the number of survey participants, too. I would love to see that broken down in that one sheet. But I was wondering, the first time home buyer program, is that pushed, or just advertise anywhere, besides the email, the in-news? Do we talk about that in community engagement, pop-ups, or anywhere else that people would become more aware of that program. So the main focus of that, because it's a revolving fund and we're only using it, you know, we kind of compressed it down because of, it was one of the original cuts when the federal government cut our CDPG and home dollars back in 2009. So it's opportunity again that is really on resales and when we get set aside units which is really coming in and we have a bunch. So we focus it's an interesting dichotomy of do you want to give people's hopes up if there's not units available. So it's one of the things that we struggle with about how much we should advertise it. But I think when we did look at it and present it information to the Fort Osweev Electric Committee, the big positive was that we are reaching all the community and proportionally better than some other programs. So it is working, it's just a very small program. And we try to get information out to our partners a lot of it and is really the best way to see if people are truly ready. And it is one of those dichotomies of getting people's hopes up that they can become a home winter in the city when there's so many different factors that come as part of that. And education is a big component of that. So we do try to get everybody to go through the Virginia Housing has online training and a number of trainings before they even come to us. There's lots of opportunities before even a unit becomes available. And House of Alexandria is in the middle of working on their project and doing a lot of education and outreach through that, which can pick you back off of the projects that we have. So there's a lot of intertwining of that. When let's comment from Councilional Neubi. Thank you, Madam Mayor. One thing I'm very interested in understanding and hopefully we look at as we go through this process is the entitlement process. I think there's so many factors that impact housing costs that are not in our control. But that is in our control. How much a project takes to get approved and permitted and all of that, it impacts the final cost and it gets passed on to consumers. So whatever we can do in that area, I would be very interested in seeing. I know I saw something in the inter-departmental work plan we're planning on zoning, we're looking at our permitting process, but I think it certainly has to be part of this conversation. I would also be interested in what other cities have done. I've been hearing a lot lately about Austin and what they've done and made it cheaper to build. I think that's essentially what we want to find out. How can we make it cheaper to build? Because in my opinion, we make it harder to build against costly. So that's the part that we can control in this process. So I hope we look at that. Thank you. Well, thank you again for the presentation and the updates. We look forward to being on the rest of the journey with you and continuing to get additional updates as things move forward. Thank you. Mr. Manager, anything else? No, that's it. Okay. Madam Clerk, next item. Action, docket, regular consent calendar 11 through 19. Okay. I would like to pull 18. Anything else? OK, with that, I will entertain a motion to approve items 11 through 19 with the exception of 18. Can I do that? Like that? So second. OK, there has been a motion and a second. Any discussion? OK, there's been a motion by Councilman McPike and a second by Councilman Chapman to approve the action consent docket items 11 through 19 with the exception of 18. All of them in favor say aye. Any opposed? Right, the ayes have it. With that, Madam Clerk, next item. Introduction and first reading, consideration, passage on first reading of an ordinance to amend and reordained section one, as one, dash 11 of chapter one, of Title one, of the Code of the City of Alexandria, Virginia 1981 as amended to increase inter-departmental enforcement flexibility. Thank you. I want to turn this over to director Morts. I wanted to pull this because I think there's been a lot of misinformation and confusion in the community about what this change actually does. And so I thought it would be helpful to kind of start with how we got here and then what's actually being proposed. Thank you very much, Planning Director Carl Moritz. Happy to be here to talk about Docket Item 18. I am going to just note that there is some functional similarity between docket item 17 and 18 and so I'll talk a little bit about both of them. Both of those proposals came from analysis we did at the departmental level to figure out ways that we could deliver city services a little bit more efficiently. Docket item 17 was about signature authority for grading plans and who signs off on those plans when they are ready to be approved. Recently, we moved the team that works on grading plans from the Department of Transportation Environmental Services to planning and zoning. The same grading plan team is working on grading plans. They're doing the same kind of reviews, but now they're located with the other staff that do development plan review. So it only made sense in that case to have the same person signing off on those reviews. So secondly, with do at item 18, several departments who are charged with responding to citizen complaints and other code violations have been working on ways to remove the silos that the code puts us in. And so we have talked this evening about different ways that the departments work together to solve problems. And in this case, the code has been getting in our way a little bit, creating silos so that we are, in some cases, the code will say that only the Department of Transportation Environmental Services can enforce this section of the code. Whereas another section that's very much related must be enforced by the Department of Planning and Zoning. So an example might be a citizen complaint about parking. Parking might be something that transportation environmental services overseas since they're responsible for the public right away. It might be something that the police department is in charge of. Often though, the complaint is about construction worker parking, which is actually my job to enforce. And so when somebody calls in and we send out an inspector and it turns out that the violation is one kind rather than another, it certainly makes sense for that person that's on the spot to be able to issue the warning and sort of start to work to resolve that problem. An example, two is the Mount Vernon Avenue vendor program that you recently approved. And for that to be a success, we really want to have somebody on site throughout the daytime evenings and weekends. And so we decided we wanted to have an inter-departmental team that would be part of, you know, take slots evenings weekends during the week. Right now, the city code doesn't allow that to happen. We have to send out three people in order to fully staff one slot on that calendar. With this change, we would be able to have an interdepartmental teamwork on it. I wanted to mention specifically why we chose the wording that we did. The wording changes the delegation of authority from a department head into the city manager. This is really just a legal convention that allows interdepartmental teams to work because all of us report to the city manager. And I should point out that every city staff member from somebody at my level down to a frontline worker actually reports to the city manager. And so it's not a sort of a fundamental change except to allow this interdepartmental coordination. Thank you, Mr. Moritz. I want to go to Councilman McPike. So, Director Moritz, last week I emailed you with a question I got from a resident and you responded, oh yes, this is us happy to take a look at it. And then a day later you're going back something else. What was it that you said? I said, oh no, actually, that is the Department of Transportation Environmental Services that's in charge of that particular question. And I've only been here for three and a half years, or three years and two months, but I feel like I have a sense of the city's organization, and I got it wrong on who to reach out to in that. I was so did I. Absolutely. And you've been here a bit longer than I have. Yes. Could you issue instructions to an employee in TNES about what to do in response to my inquiry? Well, that's the goal for me to be able to connect with that person in TNES, with coordinating with, of course, Adriana, and get that addressed directly, rather than indirectly. Since you're not Adriana's boss, it kind of, it goes through the authority above you down to her to in order to coordinate that action. That's right. That's right. And she and I collaborate all the time. So this just makes it a bit easier. And in today's environment, do we have situations where a member of the public has a situation they call in, they get a hold of somebody and somebody comes out and they find they cannot on the spot deal with the problem the resident has. Absolutely, it is a routine issue, yes. And so we're just trying to keep the silos, keep the authorities as they are, but provide the flexibility that our residents need to know that the person who comes from the city is coming from the city and not from a narrowly defined office of the city. Absolutely. And you know, the frontline worker that goes out actually is frustrated if they come across something that they can't get right away. That is the kind of thing we like to resolve soon. Well, I think that finding ways to be flexible and responsive to residents is something that that we've all stressed uh as a council that we want to see staff doing and I appreciate the thought that you all put into this proposal that looks at how we keep our offices and operations that he focused on the work they're supposed to do but creating a mechanism for that cross-pollination colonization of authority, it's not easy word to say, like bicycle centennial which is very easy to say. to allow that cross-pollination. the city of the city. So, I think that's the point of the city of the city. The city of the city of the city is a policy of the city of the city of the city of the city. The city of the city of the city is a policy of the city of the city. The city of the city of the city. The city of the city of the city. The city of the city of the city. The city of the city. The city of the things I feel we get pushed back on the most are, how are you enforcing things? You're passing policies or you're putting things in place, but what does the enforcement look like? And I know, I remember I did a resident walk and when we were having the conversation, she said, you know, I called because the limbs were going over the power lines. should somebody came out to do that, but the same person didn't make no to the fact that the light was actually out. And then that other person didn't make no to the fact that the trash was on the ground. And I now know that would have been three different people in order to do all of those different functions, where we should be at a place like any time and employee season issue, they are empowered to say, my job is to fix all of these issues. and I have the authority to be able to make sure they get to the right place, they get enforced and they get fixed. I want to go with the manager, how to say it, and council member Chapman, and then vice mayor Bagley. I just want to make one additional point. Any employee that goes out to create, do an enforcement action is qualified to do that. I think that's also important. So it's both the flexibility in making sure that we have multiple people that can apply an enforcement or compliance action. The continued relationship that exists with the Rector to the staffs exists today, and it doesn't change under this. But what it does do is make sure that the higher level of responsiveness can happen in a more singular way than having as the mayor and the other council members have talked about. We might have to send 3, 4, 5 different people out to address one singular issue because the way our codes are written, not because we want to do that. And what this change allows it allows for that to happen is the flexibility that that individual goes out can respond in a qualified way to try to achieve compliance. So a couple of questions because I just want to make sure I fully understand and having heard from a number of people may have gotten confused about some parts and pieces of this. And so as we do, as we look to cross-pollinate and look to have this flexibility, how does this is solely within the city managers kind of scope this doesn't necessarily relate to the clerk's scope or the city attorney's scope in terms of that flexibility. Well, there are some, yes, correct. And so there are as you are alluding to some departments enforcing departments that don't report to the city manager. And so this is about the many departments that do. Okay, I just want to make sure that's the case. And as we do that cross-pollingization of enforcement, I want to make sure that we have, I'm assuming a level of training that folks are kind of going through to make sure in the situation the mayor brought up, that folks are trained to look at all those three because I'm assuming we have a workforce right now That is this focused on kind of the one issue versus always looking at the third and I as we hold people accountable to looking at All of the issues. I want to make sure we've got a level of training where they have kind of been brought up to speed on on how to do that And so that's going to be the case as well. Yes. Okay. And I think those were the two main questions that I had. Thank you. Thanks. Before I go to Vice Mayor Bagley, I guess one other clarifying question I would have too is, my understanding of this is that the departments that still have the functions they have, you still maintain that authority to do your designation for your employees. What this allows is if there's another department that you need to be working with and you don't have the ability to say, hey, test, hey, code, hey, people, you need to do this. Now you're able to engage the manager to say, all of us are accountable for this and here's how it will all be. But everyone still. Okay. And I guess along that line, if I were a frontline employee in the Department of Planning and Zoning, how does my reporting structure or does anything get impacted by this proposal for how I currently work and receive my instruction? No, it doesn't. It is only when we are establishing these team efforts that we will be collaborating, but the reporting structure remains the same. Okay. And so all the ways like my performance reviews and evaluations and the duties of my job. Exactly. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, that was what I was asking to speak on is I was going to just take this from the other side which is we've been emphasizing the resident experience and the resident benefits and I just wanted to reiterate I think what the mayor just went over which is from the worker experience. They're not going to perceive a dramatic shift in who they work for and how those instructions are coming down. It's at the higher sort of director level and supervisor level that there'll be more collaboration and opportunity. But I wanted our staff just to be assured that their job essentially remains the same and their supervision remains the same. Yeah, let me take that. The answer to that is absolutely. If you are currently reporting to call Moritz. Call Moritz is going to direct your activities, his team's gonna be the evaluator of your performance, nothing changes whatsoever. I know there was some concern about seed management or a designee, none of the reporting responsibilities would change under this 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. We have a lot of work to do with the supervisors. And I guess I have more, do you have any more questions? Oh, that works. Well, I appreciate you both sort of clarifying that, and with that I would move to, this is just an introduction in first, wait, where are we on 18? So this is just an introduction in first reading, so that we pass this along for Saturday for second reading and adoption of the public hearing. There's been a motion and a second any discussion. I guess I would just say and this is going to be a question but they can just say it. I know there was also some questions about what does this mean for council's role? And I think for the public to know legally we don't have the authority to direct staff to do any of these functions. Most of what we do is we direct the city manager to direct staff or we send and say staff can you look into this and make sure that the right departments are able to address these issues. So there's not a council giving up authority here either. So there has been a motion by Vice Mayor Bagley and a second by Councilman Elnoux in order to approve the ordinance on first reading and schedule it for public hearing and second reading and final passage on Saturday, March 15, 2025. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. The ayes have it. Madam Clerk, next item. Action matters, contested appointments. Okay, so we've got a couple of these. So as I mentioned at our last legislative meeting in February, I'm going to read the names of all those who receive votes on the ballots, and then I will announce the name of the majority vote getter. At the end, I'm going to request a motion to appoint all of the majority vote getters for each board and commission that I have read. Anyone who is interested in sort of the specific ballot tallies, they will be reported in the meeting minutes, which has always been our policy, so that that information is available to the public. So starting with the Budget and Fiscal Affairs Advisory Committee, votes were received by Michael LaGuardia as well as Charlie Loelis, and the majority vote-gitter is Michael LaGuardia. Next, moving to the commission for the arts. We had three applicants, and the majority vote-gitter, well, a unanimous vote, was Marcy Craighill. Moving to the commission on aging, we had two applicants, and William Reader received all seven votes of a council. Moving to the commission on aging, we had two applicants and William Reader received all seven votes of a council. Moving to the commission on information technology, we had six applicants. There were three who received votes. Those include Laurence Atlenberg, Daniel Rodriguez-Mermirez and Tom Van Enthorp. And Tom is the majority vote-gitter. Moving to the Commission on Persons with Disabilities. This is for two citizen members. There were three people who received votes. They include Babette Cooper, Robert Ludkey, and Donna Marie Turnage Spencer, and the two applicants who will be appointed are Bebet Cooper and Robert Luddke. Moving to the Human Rights Commission, there were three applicants. All three did receive votes at the council, so that is Amanda Eisenhower, Maroon Nega, and Kara Pitek. And Kara Pitek is the majority vote-gitter. And last but not least, we have the traffic and parking board. And there were seven applicants and two received votes from the council. Dane Lorzazin and Anne Tucker. And Tucker is the majority vote getter. At this point, I will now entertain a motion to approve the majority vote getters as they have been read into the record. Second. Okay, there has been any discussion. Okay, there has been a motion by Councilman Chapman and a second by Vice Mayor Bagley to approve the majority vote getters as read into the record for appointment for the Budget and Fiscal Affairs Committee, the Commission for the Arts, the Commission on Aging, the Commission on Information Technology, the Commission on Persons with Disabilities, the Human Rights Commission, and the Traffic and Parking Board respectively. This is a roll call Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Councilman Chapman. Aye. I smell baggly. and the traffic and parking board respectively. This is a roll call vote. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Councilman Chapman. Aye. Isomer Bagley. Mayor Gaskins. Aye. Councilman McGuirey. Aye. Councilman Elnuby. Aye. Councilwoman Green. Aye. Councilman McPike. Aye. Congratulations to all of our new appointees. Madam clerk, next item. Consideration of adoption of the repetitive loss area analysis, supporting the city of Alexandria's ongoing participation in the Federal Emergency Management Agency community rating system. Okay, and I think we have a short presentation on this one. Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the council. My name is Jesse mains. I'm the storm water management division chief with transportation environmental services. I'm joined today with Brian Raw. He's a civil engineer for in the division and also the floodplain administrator. We just wanted to talk to you here about the repetitive loss area analysis study and the recommendations of that study just for some context. This is within the city's floodplain management program, which is also under the flood action Alexandria initiative. Thank you, sir. That's all I brought to you. Okay. So tonight we're going to talk about, we're going to have a summary little background. Talk about the analysis itself, some of the specific and general recommendations of the analysis. Some next steps in recommendation. First here, we're gonna talk about just a summary. The request tonight in the City Council action would be to adopt the recommendations of the repetitive loss area analysis and authorize the city manager to execute any necessary documents that would be required. The key elements, the city participates in the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Community Rating System, or CRS. We'll talk a little bit more about it. It's a voluntary program, it's a point-based program. And the city is a class six, which provides up to a 20% reduction in flood insurance premiums. The repetitive loss area analysis are the RLAA has general and specific flood mitigation recommendations for staff to perform to make the city more resilient. So the background, the city participates in this FEMA CRS program and has been since 1992. It's a voluntary program or currently a class six. And what that means, like I said, is residents or property owners can receive up to 20% reduction in their flood insurance premiums. It's a point space, so the more points you have, actually the lower the rating is. Right? So the lower the rating, the more reductions in flood insurance premiums can happen. So local adoption of this RLA can provide additional points to get us toward the next rating. So the RLA is a detailed mitigation plan for the So the RLA is a detailed mitigation plan for the repetitive loss areas in the city. It's not like a citywide plan. It gets really in to look at those repetitive loss properties and come up with those specific and general recommendations. FEMA has two definitions for repetitive loss and also the severe repetitive loss. City has 35 repetitive loss properties. Four of those are severe and there's 14 areas that we'll show you here in a second. If this is adopted, there will be annual reporting to FEMA on the recommendations. So there's some stuff for us to do that we'll be doing and then we'll report annually on that, excuse me. The study has been provisionally approved by FEMA CRS staff, but the full approval of would be a pending council adoption. So this is just a map to show you this 14 repetitive loss areas and in different watersheds and then we'll drill down into those. There we go. So the first repetitive loss area is in the home's Cameron Run watershed. There's one repetitive loss property and one, excuse me, one repetitive repetitive loss area. And the strategies here are for grading and drainage improvements on those private properties. But as you all know, the city can't just go in on a private property and do work on that property. But we do have a flood mitigation grant program that provides up to $5,000 for a $10,000 match. So if a property owner spends $10,000, this is for eligible items, then the city will provide up to $5,000 that match of them spending $10,000. So that's a good way to get that flim mitigation on those private properties. Maintaining storm inlet capacity, that's something that we've accelerated with the flood action Alexandria program to do more frequent maintenance inspections and maintenance of the storm sewer infrastructure. Repeditive loss area and four mile run. There's five repetitive loss areas and 11 repetitive loss properties. Some of the initial strategies are capital improvement projects, and you'll see a list here of completed projects. Some of them are underway, like the Clifford Fulton Manning Storms Tour improvement, and the Noted Being Drive and Old Dominion Boulevard Spot Project. There is one project that we, that was noted in the RLAA, that is not not yet underway and would be a future CIP program or excuse me project Some of the specific strategies for formal run would be for Stormwater mitigation for future development and So the way we're going to tackle that is with our flood resilience plan. It's kicking off here. We just had the project kickoff last week. And it's something that we will be bringing to you all to weigh in on it during draft and final. It was about an 18-month time period for that project, or excuse me, for that plan, for the flood resilience plan. Again, for maintaining formal run, we've done accelerated and more frequent maintenance under the flood action Alexandria program. We also do frequent dredging our sediment removal, if you will, from formal run. We did that a couple of years ago. So every few years we work with Arlington to remove that sediment in formal run. So there's more storm water that can be in the channel and not jump out of the channel right. So it's a flood way and it keeps that conveyance where it should be to convey those flood waters. The last thing here is grading and drainage improvements on private property. And again, that's these cities flood mitigation grant program. Some of the general recommendations for all our LAAs is to improve communications and engagement. We have enhanced those communications under flood action Alexandria, and we continue those efforts. Also to elevate structures or dry flood proofing, and again, this is our flood mitigation grant program. I also wanted to note from dry flood proofing, We've recently included dry flood proofing and again this is our flood mitigation grant program. I also wanted to note from dry flood proofing we've recently included dry flood proofing in eligible practices for the stormwater utility credit program. So you can actually get a grant to do these types of things and you can also get some reduction in your flood and excuse me in your stormwater utility fee from that credit program. So, our next... And also get some reduction in your flood and your stormwater utility fee from that credit program. So our next steps if the council adopts the RLAA would be to provide documentation of that adoption to FEMA CRS staff. It will provide us additional points, it could be up to 140 points. and we're just awaiting feedback currently on our class rating with our FEMA CRS coordinator. So we should still be at that six, but we need to get the feedback from our coordinator for us to say, yes, we're currently there, but what's our next one? We're probably going to be at six, but we want to continue to do these activities, not only to make the city more resilient, but to provide for reduced flood insurance premiums for property owners. So the recommendation would be that council adopt the recommendations of the RLA of the study and which includes the recommended actions that we just discussed for staff to carry out. And then authorize the city manager to execute any of the necessary documents that may be required. Thank you, Councilman Chapman. Thank you Madam Mayor. Thank you for this presentation and I wanted to ask, as properties change hands, and particularly in these areas, is there any way that a new owner finds out that they have one of these properties that has severe repetitive loss? Yeah, I can answer that for you. I'm Brian Rollins, civil engineering, civil environment management division and transportation environment at the services department. Most of the cities of the Flintland administrator. Generally that information is private, considered private by the federal government, so it doesn't transfer with the purchase of a property. We'll say that the, Jesse Maines, I will say that the General Assembly is looking at bill that will require that notification for the new property owner that there's been flooding on that property. If it's within one of our floodplains. That would be, I think that would be good to kind of put on our radar for our maybe future legislative packet because I do think that notification is necessary. Obviously we're not not talking about a ton of properties here, but if anything, changes with some of these areas and there are more properties that are affected, especially as it goes back, I think, to 1970. Most of these folks that are taking over properties now or buying them now are not going to be looking that far back or not even are going to understand the city's history that far back and so I think that would be transparent frankly to make sure folks know. I'm not trying to deal with the sale or whatnot but I think it is something people should know. Vice Mayor Bagley. Thank you and I appreciate the question from my colleague and I was curious if whether a property has received a flood mitigation grant. Now that we have that program, is that the kind of information that would be available if somebody was doing research on a home or, and I appreciate like the private nature of home ownership and sort of buyer beware state that we are. But I was just curious. I want people to use this program. want want them to benefit from it. But is that information that because it's receiving funding from the city creates an opportunity for people to have access to that history? For them to have access to that history, they would have to afford you. Yeah, because it's not something that we put online. If there are no additional questions, is there a motion? I do have one additional question. In previous conversations about severe flooding areas, I know, and I know this is a controversial thing, so I'm going to preface it by that. There has been notions limited discussions about you know what level do you get to before there's considered I don't know if the proper term is a taking or something like that if you have a property that is consistently in being flooded and needs to go to that level. I think it's been a number of years since we've talked about any property being in an area that might qualify for something like that. And I was kind of curious why that's not a part of any kind of discussion. Or do we not have areas that have, because of the work we've done, would no longer kind of be considered for any type of action like that? There's only a few properties that have risen to the level where FEMA will actually move their policy to a provisional policy. Okay. I think the last building that was brought up for discussion that was having these frequent flooding was the old Dominion Bo Club many years ago. Yeah, there really aren't that many in that situation right now. Okay, perfect. Madam Mayor with that, I'll go ahead and put a motion on the floor to adopt the recommendations of the RLL, excuse me RLA study that includes recommended actions aimed at reducing flood risk in the identified areas and authorize the city manager to execute the necessary documents that may be required. Okay. There has been a motion and a second. Any discussion? Okay. Hearing none. There's an motion by Councilman Chapman and a second by Councilman Green to adopt the recommendations of the RLA study.ize the city manager to execute the necessary documents that may be required. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Say nay. The aides have it. Thank you. Madam Clerk, next item. Consideration of a request to approve the submission of the flood insurance assessment to the federal emergency management agency. Okay. Madam Mayor. Yes, Councilman Chapman. I put a motion on the floor to approve the submission of the attack or of the flood assured flood insurance assessment technical memo and authorized the city manager manager to execute the necessary documents that may be required. Okay, so you're second. Okay. There has been a motion by Councilman Chapman and a second by Councilwoman Green. Any discussion? All right, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Say nay. The ayes have it. Thank you again. Madam Clerk, next item. Introduction and first reading. Consideration, passage on first reading of an ordinance. The proposed real and personal property tax rates and proposed effective tax rate increase for calendar year 2025, fiscal year 2026. Give our budget team a few minutes to get up here. Good evening, Madam Mayor and Council. I'm Kendall Taylor. I'm your Director of Finance and Amanda Hamm is with me. She's the Assistant Budget Director. And what you have in front of you tonight is the proposed real estate tax rate ordinance. What you are asked to do tonight is to set the rate that you would like to advertise. It's not the rate necessarily that you're adopting, but it is the rate above which you cannot adopt. We have prepared for you just a little bit of information to remind you. The proposed general general fund budget is about $950 million. It's a 3.2% increase above last year. The capital improvement program is about $205 million decrease over 2025. And then just some history. You know, recommended increase in the managers proposed budget. Last year there was a 2.5% tax rate increase. And we are just recognizing that assessments went up in 2025. So people are experiencing an increase in their real estate taxes. And then there is some flexibility for the future in the manager's proposed budget. And then finally, just some history to give you context over the past few years. Point, I will open it up to questions or comments. Okay, Councilmember McPike. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Mr. Manager, could you describe sort of why this year you offered a budget but you did not offer a second option of the budget that would have involved a tax increase. Sure, so this year, given the uncertainty of some of the federal government decisions, particularly as it relates to workforce with 13,000 federal workers and another probably double-led contractors, that rely on the federal government and they uncertainty around their employment and that means their income household incomes. The second piece of that was concern over some recessionary indications towards the end of this year, this calendar year. And then really the challenges that are facing our residents regarding inflation and some of the impacts on the tariff actions and the fact that over the past year, the taxes have increased for many of our residents. That couple with the fact that we were able to find ways to do some difficult things in our budget. It doesn't mean that there aren't things that we need to do in the future. But given all that package, I didn't feel like this was the time to raise the tax rate. But it does leave some needs on the table for Council to consider in the future. And in building the budget this year, you were situationally aware of the situation in Washington and you included some not contingencies, but fund reserves, correct? Correct. We put in a fund amount for particularly of significant grants and then another set aside for very, very serious emergencies. And when we're considering impacts of federal actions on our budget, nothing the federal government is going to do this year is going to impact our real estate tax Revenue because those that rate is set tonight or set in April, but the values upon which that rate is as applied I've already been established correct What it would I mean from oh, yeah, it does not change so I appreciate that. And I thank you for the very brief presentation. It's been a really long meeting. A lot of things we've dealt with here tonight. But also for all the work that you, in the finance office, in the folks in the budget management office, do throughout the year to prepare us for this moment, and for the next few weeks, keeping it close- eye on the dollars and cents that are moving in and out of our city. This is always an incredibly important decision that we have to make here in this process. And it's even more so this year because residents of our city are very much on edge. The Trump administration represents a unique and severe threat to Alexandria and many of the people who live here. And across our city, thousands of our residents are worried about their economic future, whether they'll have a job in a few months, whether they'll like the job that they have in a few months with new orders coming down from Unhigh, whether they'll be able to afford to stay in this city and in the home that they're living in, and the foundations of their lives feel unmoored and unreliable at this time. I think it is very incumbent upon the city to be a source of stability and calm at this critical moment. Last year, as you showed, we raised our tax rate for the first time in seven years, and we raised this significantly by two and a half cents. Next year, because of the impacts of the things that Trump is doing, we may see a hit on our property values, which would require us to seriously consider raising the rate again in order to avoid deep cuts in programs that people in our city rely upon. And we won't know the scale of such an increase what it would be until we get there next year. And if we were to try to guess this year, it would be just that, an unstable, potentially very frightening guess. So this year, the manager avoided cuts in our budget while preserving and maintaining our flat tax rate. And we were fortunate to have that option before us. Many of our fellow localities in Northern Virginia are facing deficits that they feel and necessitate a tax rate increase. The careful work done by our manager, our staff, to hold our expenses in line means that we have the ability to proceed with a budget that maintains the core functions of our government for our residents at this time of instability without increasing the tax rate because it's a chance to be a real rock of stability that our residents need and to avoid raising the cost of staying in our city a little bit more because the tax rate that we set if it goes higher that's more money that comes out of people's pockets from a job they may not have in six months whether they own their home or they rent it and that tax rate increase gets bundled into the rent that they pay each month. And so for that reason and in order to provide a framework for the discussion that I think we're going to be having for the rest of the more of this meeting, I would like to put a motion on the floor that we advertise a maximum real property tax rate of $1.13.5 cents, which would keep the tax rate flat and also maintain the existing personal property tax rate. Okay, there has been a motion, is there a second? Second. Okay, there has been a motion by Councilmember Pike and a second by Vice Mayor Bagley, any additional discussion. Councilman Chapman. Thank you Madam Mayor. As we go back to the screen that talks about tax rate history, I would be remiss to talk about the fact that I always recommend or have to discuss advertising higher than kind of what our focus expectation is. I think it's obviously my colleague has already spoken. And I think in talking to a number of my colleagues, I think the focus of this council, like in the past, has been to remain at the same level with no tax rate increase. Obviously, staff knows and as committee knows, we have some time and a number of meetings to work through what that looks like for priorities for initiatives for additional potential cuts and changes to how we operate. But I do think it is trying to pick my words wisely here. I think it is smart for any organization to advertise higher than what you are focused on trying to do. And so looking at a half a penny tax rate increase advertising that would be in line with what Council has done in the past and talked about in the past as was stated this is an important discussion and we discuss what that means in terms of how do we operate but also So how do we message to the community? In the past, we have advertised a higher rate than the manager has come out with, but also messaged the fact that it is council's full intention not to go above what the manager has, but for making sure that we have, because we don't have a crystal ball, making sure that we have every tool in the toolbox, as we are working through our budget, we have set in the past a slightly higher tax rate. I'm still very interested in that, but we'll love to hear kind of my colleagues thoughts on that, because that is, as we all know, that is the back and forth between this conversation. Yeah, so I'm going to go to Vice Mayor Bagley next. I think my comments, there's two words you mentioned that I think are why I am leaning towards and not advertising a higher rate. One is very much that message. I think when you put out a message of a higher rate, you invite the community to say, okay, here are all the things that are possible to be filled within that space. And even though it doesn't mean we have to approve those things, I think it sets up a different type of conversation when we are in a space where we actually need to be pretty cautious and conservative. And if we were to put additional money aside, If it's being set aside for risk planning or contingencies, but then all of a sudden the community wants to commit it to many different programs that we'd only be able to do for one year, or only for a short time, I worry that that's not fair and puts us in a more difficult situation in the following years, when we wouldn't be able to continue some of those things. I also think that in the past three years years where I've been a part of this dialogue, I think for me part of what led me to want to advertise higher is because there were things it felt like we were all in alignment that were not in the manager's budget or that we felt had to be done. I think last year some of the school construction conversations we were having in some additional pieces it felt like we needed more tools to figure those out. I think for me, in this case, I think we have a budget where staff has put forth. A lot of those things have been figured out for us. There's been a lot of cuts made and strategic moves to make sure that we're not impacting any services. We're still able to do the things we need while also putting forth contingencies so that we could move and adjust depending on what those priorities are. I also think that even as we go through these conversations and let's say they're just... while also putting forth contingencies so that we could move and adjust depending on what those priorities are. I also think that even as we go through these conversations and let's say there are additional changes that come up, I think we've also been given some other tools within our budget that we still have room to shift and adjust and there were things that were presented that are on the table that also give us additional resources. So that's my two cents on why I would really like us to think long and hard about advertising a higher rate and why I think we are in a very lucky position compared to many of our peers to be able to have this conversation. I'm sorry, Bagley. I, so the procedural point, I think I wanted to raise in response to Council Member Chapman's I think I'm very fair point that that the advertising does create space for the conversation what I would encourage the community and what and my current mindset which is which is more aligned I think with Council Member McPikes and and the mayors is you know our budget question process our advocacy process still allows for people to come in and say to us, I mean, people are coming in and saying to us, we'd like you to fund the universal basic income program. I know Councilman McGear and I have asked the question yet again, what would it cost to fund that program? We have people coming to us saying, you know, we'd like to double service on Dashline 32, what would that cost? And so I appreciate completely what the opportunity for discussion that a higher advertised rate discussed, you know, allows for. And I've been a part of that. I want to encourage the community that should be tonight, you know, not advertise any potential increased rate. It doesn't foreclose the opportunity for you to come to us and advocate for the programming you'd like to see potentially even advanced in this session in the context of addressing other programs. We're having a work session tomorrow night where we'll be talking about public health services. And you can, you know, we can still receive that advocacy, we can still have public hearings, we will still have an ad-delete process, all of which can potentially address items within the budget. But I think what, you know, so there is still that opportunity for new ideas, for advocacy. I've received even this evening advocacy about funding the libraries and things like that. So regardless of an advertised addition, which I think in this year, very few of us are keen to do for all the reasons my colleague indicated, I want to assure the community that it doesn't foreclose the opportunity to continue to advocate for what might be possible. Hopefully if these recessionary trends do not arise or if we see real commercial activity bump, we're having our summit, we're investing in ADP, if we get some exciting new catalytic activity that boosts our economic revenue, and we come into next year in a different position, we will have had that conversation. So I just wanted to, and I hope that's, it's not seen as a disagreement, with where my colleague is coming from, but more an opportunity to still debate and discuss new and different ideas to fund. Are there comments? Councilman Chapman. I appreciate the comments from my colleagues. I would suggest there is a little bit of a disagreement there because I do see many of the conversations I have with folks that are coming about a new initiative about something that we should do. I usually challenge folks and say, what would you cut? What would you take out of the budget? And I think that is so much tougher for our community. And I do find that as we work through our budget memos, we're usually not coming to staff to say, hey, what can we cut? It's really about kind of what can we reprioritize or what can we add? And so, you know, as if we are gonna embark down this road, I think we need to be very honest with the community. If you come to us with something new, the expectation should be, or there should be another discussion around what would you cut. I don't think it's fair to the community to say, hey, what would you like to add if we have no intention by advertising no additional tax rate? We have no intention of adding any type of new money. That's a very unfair conversation to the community and kind of sets them in the wrong direction. I think as we, as the mayor said, as we look at, I guess I do feel I want our community to come to us with everything that's possible and frankly leave it to us and our staff to rework how we set this organization up. I don't like to, I give people grace when they don't have an answer for me about what they want to cut because we look at the priorities. We consistently talk to staff about what's going on and where we're putting it. And so having that tool out there for people to say, well, we always get, frankly, some of the PTA parents that will come up and say, hey, raise my taxes because I want to fund schools to a certain level. Instead of having them come and do that, now I guess we're going to say, hey, what would you cut? What would you cut in order to reprioritize school funding? And if that's what we are, we're planning to do in these discussions and be a realistic and transparent with our community, I'll certainly accept that. But if that's not what the intention is of this body, I think that sets our community on the wrong kind of frame of mind. And lastly, I'll make another point, I think, to, again, I don't think we have a crystal ball. I think last year was another example of that. We got into, I think, almost close to the deadline for as-and-deletes where we got into a conversation about staffing shortages and what needed to happen there. And so setting ourselves up to be able to have a late breaking piece of information come out and say, well, I don't think we're gonna cut X amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars for staff shortages to rework that kind of sets us up in a bad form. But if that's the intention of this group, I think we need to be very aware that we get information as quickly as possible if it is going to have that type of effect. Those are the only things I would add to the conversation. I think those are really important conversations. I think they are okay for us to have as a community. The conversation about what we cut and what are those trade-offs, they're difficult and they're not great conversations, but I think we should be inviting that conversation every year because the reality is we've put in some really awesome programs that we have not thought about the future funding for and now they're being forced to be cut because we didn't have that conversation about trade-off. I also think that when I would I have reviewed, and I know I have four pages to go through in my budget book, I think that what I understand is not only are there the contingencies that the manager has put in specifically related to grants and emergencies, but there also seems to be some other leg. If we get a late breaking emergency, if we have another chance, here are certain positions that we might be like here are certain vacancy savings that we didn't touch but we could touch. Or here, Director Taylor would have to probably explain this to me better, but there are certain fiscal targets we have for what we put away in reserves that we exceed with those are. And so we still have some flexibility within those brackets. So I guess all that I'm saying is I don't think any of the conversations that you're raising that we need to have or that Vice Mayor Bagley said we need to have as well. I don't think what we set tonight limits us from having it. I think it brings us to a community where we're going to have some really tough years ahead. Let's start having those conversations now before we're forced to have them. And then let's also know that that should something come up. We also have the ability and the flexibility to shift and adjust how we may need to have them. And then let's also know that should something come up, we also have the ability and the flexibility to shift and adjust how we may need to to meet those things. I think that's where I'm coming from. I did see some hands over here that I didn't look this way. I'm gonna go to Councilman Olmnubi and then Councilman McPike. I really appreciate the conversation. Very, very helpful and insightful, especially for me going through the first time. I think there's so many valid points here and I certainly agree with the point that Council Member Michael was making earlier. It is a tough year and I think I applaud the city manager for bringing us a budget that doesn't have a tax increase. To me, a tax increase should be the last resort after we go through the exercise of trying to find efficiencies and try to have these kind of tough conversations with residents of what would you cut? Or if this is your priority, what else you think may take a back seat, right? However, with all of that, I also would say, I think in my opinion, I see we're still very early in the budget process. And I said raising taxes should be the last option, but it should be an option. And I don't know if I personally have enough information right now to be able to say, I want to take this option off the table. Do I want to resort to it? Absolutely not. But we're still early in the budget process. We've only had one or two work sessions if you count the one with a school board. And we're just getting our questions in and about start receiving some answers, start receiving some answers but still more. So I just would be hesitant to box myself in right now and say I would not advertise any tax increase. Just again, just to leave it as an option but not that I would be intending to use. So I think that's where my thought process is right now. Just want to chime in on the conversation but I really appreciate the conversation all the thoughtful comments from my colleagues. Council member Peck. Yes, thank you. I really appreciate the conversation. All the thoughtful comments from my colleagues. Councillor Perripec. Yes, thank you. I really appreciate Councillor M. Chapman's comments. We've been up here for the fourth time. Up here together. And you've been here a couple more times. That's like two, three. Doesn't. And in previous years, we have advertised tax increases, but we're doing that in a different backdrop in one where we hadn't just raised the tax rate so significantly the year before. And not facing what we face today, which is real uncertainty about what that real estate property value is gonna be next next year. Where we know that every program we put in place in the city, it costs more next year to offer it than it will cost this year. And anything that we add that's like ongoing and substantive this year is going to make it that much harder for us to achieve a balanced budget next year. And at a time when we just did a large tax increase, which was of a scale to which we felt the need to expand our senior and disabled low income tax abatement program to offset sort of the weight that that tax increase put on people who's placed in the city is fairly tenuous and could be you know put a sunder by a tax rate increase That in that having done that last year and with the uncertainty that so many people are facing regarding their own paychecks going forward I do think it is important for us to do what I did last year Which is when I had an ad that I wanted to add to the budget. So I proposed a cut for it. I looked at the manager's list of cuts considered but not taken and I found one. And at the end of the day we had another project that was on the ad delete board that didn't go forward and we were able to use that money to avoid taking that cut. But that is an option to us. We have programs that the manager consider cutting that he didn't we We're going to have that list. That's a question that I put in. I think Councilman Chapman also put that one in. We're going to have some sort of information with the revenue restimates mo, which may give us some more dollars to work with or not. We don't know at this point. And we do have fund balances and things that nature that are in the budget where we have moved money around in the contingencies and before in order to do things without raising that tax rate. So, you know, I think a lot of us are pretty good at this at this point and we can find ways to do the things that we really feel need to be done within the constraints that we are in now in terms of our tax revenue so that we can do the work that we need to do. Put that anxiety, put that work on us to do to find the way to achieve the things we want to do in the budget. Let's not add to the anxiety that people in our city are feeling right now about their own personal financial future is why you know, feel, as though we should go with the flat advertisement. Oh, my mic went out. Um, additional comments. Okay, so as of right now, there is a motion and a second on the floor. Um, hearing no additional discussion, then, um, there has been a motion by Councilman McPike and a second by Vice Mayor Bagley. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. So we have, is that three nays? Okay. So then the motion carries four, two, three, two. I know there's like several pieces of this. Let me refine all the language that needs to be read. To essentially adopt the ordinance that has been proposed by staff with the manager's recommendation for the flat tax rate. Madam clerk next item. More reports and oral presentations by members of City Council. Okay are there any oral reports and accounts miniguried? Thank you Madam Mayor. So what are stuff start off with giving a shout out to the Latinos Unitos group at ACHS to invited me to come speak with them about volunteer opportunities and some other ways that they could be involved in the city. So thank you for the invitation and keep up the great work over at ACHS. Additionally, wanted to mention, yeah, well, we talked about it a lot, but let're saying it again. Virginia Tech opened. Finally. And then immediately after the opening on Saturday, which some of the folks might not know is that there was actually Virginia Tech STEM fair, which brought together over 300 families, over 30 vendors. And they were able to experience a lot of different things, connect with each other. And I think this is, you know, there's already been some activity going on, but this is the first kind of official partnership happening directly at Virginia Tech. So really excited for that. Thank you for your time in the partnership. And hopefully all the families had a great time there. Want to give a shout out to Islamic Relief USA for their seventh annual City of Alexandria if tar. It is a wonderful, wonderful event. It was great to be able to be there, to break bread for Ramadan. And for Umada, we had our Metro Awards. So congratulations to all the award winners for Metro Awards. It is an exciting event every year looking forward to it next year as well. And I want to give a big thank you to Congressman Byer for helping to organize the resource fair, where of course Fairfax County, or Alenton County, city of Falls Church and ourselves, city of Alexandria were there to be able to provide resources. It's, you know, frankly disgraceful that we even have to have this resource fair, but I think the silver lining shows how committed our local government and local jurisdictions are to our federal workers and showing that our community has their back and that our community is going to come together to make sure that we support each other in these uncertain times. I did not get a chance to go to empty bowls so if anybody did go, please give a quick thing on it. One of my favorite events of the year, but I had a conflict. And lastly, just a shout out to Visit Alexandria for their presentation this morning. And that's it. Councilman McPike. So I want to say empty bulls, so I will take Councilman McGee-Rays prompt and thank everyone who attended and everyone who was involved with putting on the event this year. It's the annual fundraiser that brings money into alive our incredible food bank that supports the nutritional needs of people across our city. It's an annual event, so if you were not at the empty bowls of this past weekend, you should come next year because it's fantastic. And I think it was also sold out. So if you hadn't bought a ticket in advance, you couldn't have come anyways. But maybe next year we'll have a higher capacity. Also, I would like to thank everyone who was involved with the Office of Historic Alexandria and our schools in the unveiling of the marker for the integration of many Howard School. This past Saturday, it was a wonderful ceremony that I really appreciate being a part of. And it's very important as we hear issues of civil rights and inclusion and diversity. Bubble up again at the federal level in a way that I think makes many people in our stand comfortable to recognize that at this event honoring the integration of many Howard School, someone who was one of the students who integrated it was there to speak because it was that recently in our history. We fought long and hard as a community and as a country to come to good places on these issues of diversity, inclusion and equity and we should not allow them, the progress we've made to slip away, you know, so quickly. Vice-Mayer Bagley. I missed empty bowls because I was at the performance of the Alexandria Coral Society. So it was a big night in Alexandria. I think everybody was at an event, and I just wanted to acknowledge, kind of they did a Washington women performed theme performance that was also all the songs were themed around democracy and participation and citizenship. And I learned a really great fact, which is that choral participants have basically higher rates of engagement. They vote at higher rates, they volunteer at higher rates, there are great citizens all around. And so I wanted to just take a moment to acknowledge them and congratulate them on their performance and their website actually, oxandyourcorrossociety.org, has videos of their performances. So treat yourself to some quality music streaming on your streaming devices. Counts moving green. Thank you Madam Mayor and I wanted to say thank you to Ms. Rubles class at Mount Vernon Elementary. I had a wonderful visit with them this week and I told them that I would shout them out from the day and I tell you I had some of the best questions I've ever had asked to me including, you know, favorite superhero and things of that nature. So it was a good time being with them and I appreciate the hospitality given to me from the wonderful Mount Vernon community school. Thank you. Well, I'll just lift up two or three. One last Friday was the Douglas MacArthur career day. It was really excited to be able to participate, but what I think was probably the most exciting is when I pulled up, there were our firefighters, there were staff from APD, there were, I think the trolley was parked out front, there was test staff, so I think every single department in the city was represented in some way to talk not just about the work they do, but also why young people should consider a job in the future working for the city of Alexandria. I also wanted to lift up the other event that was the same night as empty bowls in the Coral Society, which was the Arlington Lynx Monte Carlo night. The Arlington Alexandria Lynx have provided numerous hours of community service to our community, as well as a number of scholarships to help support our young people. And then lastly, I just wanted to echo something that Councilman Aguirre said, which was the city's partnership in the resource fair for federal workers. I think many people don't know that our staff had really like a week to help participate and put that together. And it really was a multi-departmental effort with a ton of our staff represented on site from 12 to 5 to make sure that we were able to let everyone know about the resources here in our community. And I think all together we heard that over a thousand people showed up and over 400 people came to the Alexandria resource tables So I think that is a huge impact and as my colleagues said it's a shame We even have to have this type of fare, but I think it is amazing that we are thinking about resources We can mobilize and use to support any other or reports Councilman a Gary a politics. I forgot one item It is that time of the year. It is time to do your taxes. And every year, the City of Alexandria offers free tax preparation if you qualify. Entonces, nada más quiero acordarle al público. Si usted califica, la ciudad va a ser sus impuestos completamente gratuito. Entonces, por favor, toma ventaja de este servicio que ofrecemos. Gracias. Okay, carrying no other oral reports. Madam Clark next item. Consideration of city council schedule. Okay. Vice Mayor Bagley. I notice that our town hall doesn't appear on the calendar. It has been at my notes say that we added three events. We added the field completion ceremony on March 18th at one, the town hall on the 29th at one. It should show up as a new one and the economic summit was just added as well. Am I looking at the wrong thing? So on the document that was attached, it does have the correct dates. On the, I found like 100 years on the internet. It's so different one. They're not showing the same information. Okay. So let's make sure whatever we're pulling from is showing the correct information. Okay. It sounds like we're covered. We just need to sync up the attachments perhaps. Thank you. Other comments on this schedule? Is there anything we need to say specifically to make sure we capture? Okay. Thank you, Claire. All right. Is there a motion? But before I make the motion, I would just note that there is a town hall on March 29th. I think I don't know that the promotion has started, but it'll be at the Dell Peppers Center. Is that at one o'clock? One to three. It's one to three on March 29th at the Dell Peppers Center, formerly the Mark Center. And with that, I would move to adopt the City Council Calendar. All right, there has been a motion and a second. Any discussion? There has been a motion by by smare bagley and a second by councilman Chapman to approve the city council schedule. All those in favour say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. The ayes have it and the city council schedule is approved. I will now take a motion to adjourn. There right. There has been a motion and a second to adjourn. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favour say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The I and have it. We are adjourned. I got softer. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm sorry. Thank you.