you All right. Good evening. Welcome to the Monday September 9th meeting of the Fulcher City Council. I wanted to call the meeting to order. We start with roll call, please, Madam Clerk. Ms. Conley here. Ms. Flynn here. Ms. Shons, his God here. Mr. Snyder here. Ms. Underhill here. Mayor Hardy here. Thank you, Council. Thank you all. Why don't you join me in the pledge of lesions, please. The United States and America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, individual, with liberty, and justice, for all. Thank you, everyone. Do we have a motion to adopt tonight's meeting agenda please? I move to adopt tonight's meeting agenda. Sergeant. All in favor? Aye. You know already meetings adopted. We have a number of special proclamations and guests with us tonight. Welcome everybody. First up is the proclamation declaring September 17 through 23rd, 2024 as Constitution week in the city of false church. And Mr. Sider will do the honors. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Whereas September 17th, 2024 marks the 237th anniversary of the framing of the Constitution of the United States of America by the Constitutional Convention and whereas the Constitution is a bedrock built upon to make the nation more equal, more just and more prosperous for all people and whereas the Constitution is a bedrock built upon to make the nation more equal, more just, and more prosperous for all people. And whereas the framers of the Constitution understood the extraordinary promise of a democratic system of government, a notion that could be made a more perfect union by each passing generation to come. And whereas in 1952, Congress authorized the president of the United States of America to designate September 17 through 23 each year as Constitution Week and to issue annually a proclamation inviting the people of the United States to observe such week with appropriate ceremonies and activities. Whereas it is fitting and proper to accord official recognition to the anniversary of this exceptional document and to the patriotic celebrations which will commemorate it. And now therefore I, Ledy Hardy, mayer the City of False Church Virginia do hereby proclaim the week of September 17 through 23 as Constitution Week. In the City of False Church and Australos citizens are reaffirmed the ideals the framers of the Constitution had in 1787 by vigilantly protecting the freedoms guaranteed to us through this guardian of our liberties. And I believe we have the daughters of American Revolution here in the audience. To accept the proclamation, why don't you come on up? Thank you for joining us tonight. We don't say if you are in surgery. you Thank you. Up next is our Proclamation declaring September 13 through 22nd as welcoming week in the City of False Church and Vice Mayor Sean Tiscott will read this. Thank you. Whereas the first sentence of the city's vision for the community in the 2040 describes false church as a welcoming and inclusive community. And whereas a welcoming culture can distinguish the city attracting new neighbors, including immigrants and refugees, increasing our sense of belonging, contributing to a sense of purpose at a time of division, and becoming a hallmark of what makes false church a special place in the heart of northern Virginia. And whereas a welcoming environment also enhances the economic dynamism, global competitiveness, and overall prosperity of the city and larger region. And whereas immigrants and refugees are a vital part of our community in reaching our culture, bringing fresh perspectives and new ideas, starting businesses, and fueling the economy, and contributing to the vibrant diversity that our city values. And whereas city residents have been inspired by welcoming America to create welcoming false church, a nonprofit civic organization part of a national movement that encourages hospitality to immigrants and refugees and communities around the country. And whereas welcoming false church has partnered with the false church City Public Schools to launch an adult and family literacy center that teaches English to adults and provides child care with a literary literacy focus in classes at Oak Street Elementary School. And whereas welcoming Falls Church has championed a renting to Refugees initiative and innovated public-private partnership that addresses the shortage of affordable housing in the city, in which with the the support of City Council, has welcomed five refugee families to the city in its pilot phase. And whereas, welcoming false church endeavors to engage all residents of the City of False Church, the additional initiatives designed to build community and encourage a more welcoming environment in the city. And whereas, a participant in welcoming week, the false church community will join over 500 towns, cities and counties around the country that will organize activities related to welcoming in their communities during that week. And whereas the city supports initiatives designed to develop a more welcoming community. Now, therefore, I, Ladi Hardy, mayor of the city of Falls Church, Virginia, do hereby designate the week of September 13 through 22, 2024, I, Ledy Hardy, may or the City of False Church, Virginia, do hereby designate the week of September 13 through 22, 2024 as welcoming week in the City of False Church. Encourage community members to observe this week by participating in activities that make the City of False Church a welcoming and inclusive community, not only during welcome week, but throughout the year. Thank you all. I think we have welcoming false church in the audience to come receive the proclamation. You're also welcome to make some comments if you'd like to. Come on up. There's a lot of welcoming happening. My name is Christine Buckholz and I just wanted to thank the city for its commitment to creating a welcoming and inclusive community here in fall stretch city. And we also want to just acknowledge the Hispanic heritage Month that will be coming up as well. This year for Welcoming Week, one of the anchors of our celebration will be an author visit with Cindy Abonhu. She's a professor at Oregon State University and previously a reporter for the Washington Post in the New York Times. And she's the author of Seeking Fortune Elsewhere, which are eight short stories about the South Asian immigrant experience and their families. She'll be speaking to our students at Meridian High School on Friday in partnership with Meridian High School Club. And we have a couple of representatives here from the school. And then she'll be doing two public events, September 14th, on Saturday morning at 930 at the High School and 2PM at Mary Riley Stiles Library. And it is with the support of the Arts and Humanities Committee as well as False Church City Schools and the Education Foundation that made it possible for us to bring Cindy Abon who here. And so we'd love for you all to join us at one of our public events and we particularly want to thank Kat Abbott who has been instrumental in organizing this event. And then, as we've mentioned before, the Dalton Family Literacy Center is an ongoing way that we welcome immigrants into our community. And as of last week, we've registered 65 students across three levels of English. And if it's anything like last year, we'll have students coming from 17 different countries, Afghanistan, Bolivia, Colombia, China, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Chile, India, Venezuela, Lithuania, Mexico, Ukraine, Morocco, the Dominican Republic, Russia, and Canada. And I want to thank Ann Nidderprim and Maria Marcus, who are here for all of their efforts in leading the Adult and Family Literacy Center. We couldn't do it without the city's ongoing support and you'll see us at Oak Street on Tuesday and Thursday nights from 630 to 830, September 24th through December 17th. I'm going to turn it over now to Samir and Davis who will share a bit more about our welcoming refugees program. Thank you, Christine. Good evening, Madame Mayor, City Council members, and the esteemed community. My name is Samira Davis, and I'm a proud resident of Falls Church. Tonight I stand before you to discuss the welcoming Falls Church refugees initiative. It is a community-driven effort that brings together public and private resources to extend the hospitality and support to immigrants and refugees. I first encountered Welcome in False Church in 2022 at the International Night at the Meridian High School, and I was immediately drawn by its mission. So since then the Refugees Initiative has successfully settled five Afghan families in our community. Each family has three children and bringing a total of 13 children into the FCCPS. All fathers are employed, some are holding multiple jobs to sustain the family. One father works for the district government, two are pursuing certification in HVAC. One works as a paralegal and one works for a trader chose. So this success is a testament to the invaluable public-private partnership, generous private donations, and a tireless dedication of countless volunteers who donated over 3,000 hours to assist with school, with transportation, and with job search, etc. Additionally, several organizations have provided support, including the ECDC, which is the Ethiopian Community Development Council, the Boy Scout, Temple Road F. Shalom, Folls Green, and many others. So I extend my sincere gratitude to the City of Folls Church, our community members, and everyone who has contributed to the success of the Refugees Initiative. However, I must address a significant challenge we can't face which is affordable housing. Thank you for your time and attention and I'll pass on to Paul Wilson. Okay, great. Yeah, thank you and good evening. So as Sumer was mentioning, you know, we have some good news. You've heard a little bit of some of our comments about the way the community is connected with, you know, what's happening. This project and his pilot phase is working. You know, we've resettled five refugee families here and they love the city and their kids love the schools. It's exactly what we'd hope for. People are mobilizing around it. 4,000 plus volunteer hours committed. It's really a lot of things are happening that we were hoping. And the city's been a catalyst. So lots of credit goes to city staff. It's been working with Kaling Marx and others. It's been really a good experience getting deep into housing policy. We're deeper than we'd ever imagined. But you all, it's through a grand of $50,000 of ARPA funds. You know you were a catalyst to this initiative and it was visionary at that point. There are not a lot of of communities around the country that are doing this. That $50,000 has catalyzed $46,000 of private giving of them plus, $20,000 of private giving, plus $20,000 plus of in-kind support of different kinds along with the volunteer time. We have a committed partner in our landlord partner, inside property and falls green. They're with us and deeply with us. But the challenge is the challenge is to get affordable housing. You know, the backdrop is that the supply of affordable housing in the city is very, very limited. So well, the American dream is operating. And we know we are in touch with these families. We know them deeply and it is working. They are making progress. At the same time, we want to consult with you and consult with the community about what we can do to improve the program so that it will work better for these families and will result in more of them residing in the city over time. So with that, we'd like to approach you in the coming weeks and months and request an additional budgetary outlay to improve the program's design and ultimately retain more of the families in this city. There's a couple of elements to this. I want we will go into detail tonight, but we'd like to push the program down towards lower AMI levels in the second year of the program. We'd also like to extend the program to a third year watching how families incomes are increasing. And then importantly, we also have some ideas watching how the families are engaging in life here. We hope that we can bring some policy ideas to the discussion, an important discussion about affordable housing in the city. And think with the community creatively about how to increase the supply of affordable housing. So if you're willing to work with us, and if we together can move into the stew structure, this new chapter of the program, we would also like to get back to work welcoming additional families. We would love to welcome another family to the city, honor around January 1st of next year. So there's more to be said. We look forward to discussions, including, we think at the housing commission meeting on October 8th, that we think we'll probably have an opportunity to talk about in depth there. Also maybe an upcoming H-SAC meeting. So I'll stop for now. And get on to the most important invitation of all, which is to join us in welcoming week activities, including our annual ice cream social on Sunday at Mr. Bounce Park. This will be our fifth ice cream social along the way, interrupted by the pandemic, but from three to five PM on Sunday, Mr. Bounceburg, we hope that everybody can join us and celebrate a welcoming fallsturch. Thank you very much. Thank you, we'd all like to come up to receive a proclamation now. I'm sure some of us have comments after that too. Yeah. Thank you. I'm sure a few of us have comments, but I'll just start off that. I'm certainly grateful to both Christine and Paul as the founders of Wokling Falls Church, volunteers, all the hours that have gone in, both in the program between resettling families as well as the Literary Center. So much heart has gone into the program, so thank you for bringing those to Falls Church, but also creating this kind of community and culture around being welcoming and inclusive. Thank you for leading the conversation on that and holding us to our deals and our values. Debbie? I'd like to echo what Letti said and thank each and every one of you for your engagement. And I can't believe it's the fifth ice cream social. I remember sitting with Paul and Christine in my role at the Fultzer Education Foundation and talking about how do you create a 501C3? How do you get people to donate? How do you get people interested and engaged in looking at all the volunteers and thinking about all the volunteer hours that have been donated and all the private donations. And addition to public support is really just incredible. And in a testament to you both in bringing our community together. And I just want to thank you and everybody who's been engaged with Welcoming Falls Church since its original idea in your minds. And to meet the families at the most recent potluck and to talk to them about what they've learned in false church and their engagement in the schools. It's just really heartwarming and it's the reason that a lot of us are, you know, serve, wanna serve on, say, council and serve on boards and commissions is to make sure that we're doing things like this and supporting folks who are across the board really living out our mission as we've stated in our 2040 vision. So thank you to each and every one of you. Congratulations. I'll add that I also just wanted to congratulate you on your success and sort of being such an inspiring organization here locally. I know my work sort of often I see, unfortunately, jurisdictions that are not, you know, is welcoming to the idea of having refugees or sort of hostile to having refugees, you know, among the local population. And so just, you know, see the success locally of this organization and how openly you model kind of welcoming people in our community and welcoming people in our schools. We do really appreciate all the efforts that go into it because we know that you can resettle kind of refugee populations, but it takes work of the local community to really help those families succeed and link to all the resources that they're gonna need, you know, once they're actually settled somewhere. So thank you. Senator Hillley. In the past year, I have been to many welcoming false church events and they've all been phenomenal from the gift drive to literacy graduation event to the Thanksgiving potluck and it has just been truly inspiring and just to see the vibrancy of the community that you serve and meeting all of the people that are so grateful for the work that you do. So I'm proud to have worked with you guys and I'm proud to see all the programming that you're putting on to continue to involve more people in this community. So thank you so much for all the work that you do. Mr. Sainar. Thanks very much. I know my wife, Eddie, has been an actor and a strong supporter of your work. Please keep it up. That's what I have to say. Please keep it up. Thank you. Great. We look for a die screen month Sunday with you all. Okay. Oh, Ms. Connolly. Hi. Hello. Yeah. Okay. Well, you are up that week. As a third proclamation is declaring September 15th through October 15th as Hispanic Heritage Month in the City of Fall Church in the Connolly. Hispanics have participated throughout the history of the United States in the support and defense that the principles and ideals upon which this country was founded. And Congress has chosen the time period ranging from September 15th to October 15 to celebrate the histories, cultures, and contributions of Hispanic Americans. And Hispanic people constitute a diverse group with origins in 21 different Spanish-speaking countries in the world, whose heritage links them with the North, Central, and South America, the Caribbean Islands, Africa, Asia, and Europe. And whereas the Latin American and Hispanic population makes up approximately 11% of the city of false church's population, and is expected to continue increasing in size. And Hispanic community members contribute to the great diversity and unity of the city of false church with a rich history of different cultures, racial and ethnic backgrounds and ancestry. And as a community and as a government, we are proud of the cultural enrichment brought by the diversity of Hispanic. Now there for I, Letty Hardy, Mayor of the City of Falls Church, Virginia, do hereby proclaim September 15th through October 15th as Hispanic Heritage Month in the City of Falls Church. And are all to join and support the city celebration of the rich heritage of our Hispanic residents. Do we have someone in the audience to receive the proclamation? I don't think they made it. Thank you. And last but not least is proclamation declaring September 9th through 13th, 2024 as disability voting rights week in the city of Falls Church. And this Lynn will do the honors. Thank you. Whereas there are over 61 million people of all ages with disabilities living in communities throughout the United States. And whereas over 38 million Americans with disabilities are eligible voters. And whereas the disability community has a critical interest in policies and decisions made and enacted at local, state, and national levels that directly impact the lives of people with disabilities. And whereas ensuring people with disabilities have access to voting is essential if these policies are to meet the real needs of people with disabilities in our communities. And whereas voting is one way for the disability community to have a say in the people and policies that impact communities. And whereas RevUp, which stands for Register, educate, vote, use your power is a national effort to build the power of the disability community. Now, therefore, I, Ledy Hardy, mayor of the City of Falls Church, Virginia, do hereby proclaim the week of September 9th through 13th, 2024 at Disability Voting Rights Week in the City of Falls Church and urge all the support, the growing involvement of the disability community in the political process. And Jeff Pearson was going to join us tonight. He's one of our volunteer board members, but he was invited to the White House for the anniversary of the ADA. So he senses regrets. I guess the White House compared to City of Falls Church City Hall. Already we saved that from. Thank you all for these. Let's move on to Oath's Office. Is it anyone in the audience here to receive an Oath's Office? Oh, we first have the I voted stick. Thank you. Thank you, the electoral board here. Welcome to Spirky. Hello, Mayor, esteemed council members. I am David Burkey, registrar for the City of Falls Church and with me is two members of the Electoral Board, Secretary Renee Andrews and Chair Allen Wisdom, our Vice Chair, Art DeCelk, cannot make it tonight. On behalf of the City of Falls Church Electoral Board, we are proud to announce the winning design for our first ever I voted sticker contest. I believe you do have a picture to put up. I have some handouts as well. Ryan Miller designated the winner. The winning stick designed, sorry, designed the winning sticker, which is a TAT. You've seen on your screens. The city of Falls church, electoral board is assigned to youth representatives through the youth representative initiative committee of citizens for a better city, CBC. This last school year we were excited to have the service of Megan Carpenter. the Youth Representative Initiative Committee of Citizens for a Better City, CBC. And this year, this last school year, we were excited to have the service of Megan Carpenter and Preston Liu. The electoral board discussed with Megan and Preston running us sticker contest in the schools and they enthusiastically agreed. And after advertising in the school, they received 12 submissions from six middle and high school students, and the electoral board and the youth reps then made a selection of the top five submissions, and sent them out in an election contest for the student body to vote. And out of 150 ballots, Ryan Miller designed one. So we want to thank all of our talented designers, and the electoral board, and I would like to thank Megan and Preston for running a fantastic contest and congratulate Ryan Miller for submitting the winning design. It is expected to be ready for early voting starting on the 20th, Friday the 20th. And we expect to have I voted stickers in our by mail absentee ballots. So up to 25% of the city is expected to vote by mail and they will be able to receive those ballots with I vote as stickers. And if those citizens are paying attention tonight, if you do not have your ballot by October 1st, please contact my office. We understand there can be issues with the USPS. So, we want to make sure that you do get your ballot. So if you have signed up for it, please reach out to us after October 1st. Terrific, thank you. I know Ryan Miller, unfortunately, actually moved away. So she's on the European times. I let her family know that we were honoring her tonight. So if you were watching, Ryan, congratulations to stickers,. I know it's probably like 1 a.m. for you right now. Wish you all could be here. Thank you all to the electoral board for organizing more community involvement in the stickers. I think it's terrific and it's very welcoming of all the different languages we speak in the church. Any other questions or comments for the electoral board and Mr. Birkay? Now we're ready to move on to addos. And we are oaths are all caught up. I would like folks to know that if you're interested in volunteering for a city border commission, you can find the information about it at falsechurchva.gov-bc- sorry. Falsechurchva.gov slash BC. All right thank you thank you let's move on to receive a public comment. I'm quick. Yes would you like me to summarize the written comments? Yes please. Okay. I can do that. These are comments received since the last regular city council meeting. The following written support of accessory dwelling units, John Conroy of 1307 Ellison Street, Julie Conroy, 1307 Ellison Street, Daniel Henderson, 2002 Madison Lane, Timothy P. Roche, 1015 Parker Street, Peter Volano, a false church, Tara Volano of 1,000, nine Parker Street, and James and Liz Weatherly of 305 Buckston Road. Jean Gresco of 120 North Fairfax Street asked for more advertisement of accessory dwelling unit open houses. Christina Ward of 807 Fulton Avenue provided topics to consider when reviewing changes to the accessory dwelling unit code. Regarding the sidewalkies, men at 412 West Broad Street, Jacob Bernaysian attorney for the property owner, asked the city accept the deed of dedication signed by his client. We got some comments about the bike master plan, the following wrote in support of the plan and also suggested some changes. Craig Burry of 800 Villa Ridge Road, Jillian Economo, Joe Gannley, Andrew Olison of 615 Lincoln Avenue, Timothy Roche, 1015 Parker Street, and Frank Williamson. A comments on Greening of Lincoln Avenue Project. The following provided comments and suggestions regarding the project, Mike Curtin and Maureen McDonald, 6.01 Lincoln Avenue, and John Fritch of 6.01 Lincoln Avenue. I think that's not correct, but John Fritch is on Lincoln out. But he's here to speak tonight, so. Rent relief, Debra Z. Roth, member of the Human Services Advisory Council, wrote in support of the proposed amendment to the city code regarding rent relief. We got a few things about the budget. The bike, bike falls church requested that any budget surplus be used for road maintenance, greening of Lincoln, bike and pedestrian improvements, and development of bike master plan routes. The false church climate action network requested that any budget surplus be used to complete implementation of the community energy and government operations energy action plans. In other comments David Hale of 602 Northwest Street wrote about sidewalk access impediments around the city. Fred Thompson for the Broadway Condominium Owners Association provided comments to the planning commission regarding the commission's final review of the Lee Park townhouses and requested that they be forwarded to the city council. Christine atropaldi asked if the city would install flags and planners on utility polls along the residential section of broad street and as far as board review items the planning commission provided the required recommendation regarding the design of a replacement bridge on Cheryl Avenue. Thank you. Thank you. That was a lot. That was a lot. Thank you for those. Let's move on to receipt of live public comment now. Yes. And for the public, I may address the council for a three minute period. And if you are interested in speaking, there are some forms in the back you can bring up. And I will call you. And so first up is Nick Benton, followed by John Fritch. Good evening, Council. I asked the city clerk to give you copies of the book, The Life in Times, The Fall Church, News Press, which is actually holding, I don't have a copy to hold that myself, I think. This was written by Charlie Clark, who was a truly professional journalist who worked on this book for a year and read literally every back issue of the paper going all the way back to 1991 to put together the contents of this which just means that doubles is kind of a history of the city of false church over that period of time too. I hope you will enjoy it. You've already got a copy you can share it with others. I'm just going to read a letter that I sent over to you later this afternoon. Your counsel, it is noted that the city policy decisions are now routinely being made with a very scant inclusion of public input, namely such as the dot voting at the recent public events for prospective, prospective accessory dwelling, and even circulated petitions that are touted as representing a legitimate sentiment, even assigned by only 300 of the city's 15,000 residents. I propose to you that in Zafar as Fall's Church is now the only jurisdiction in the region that has its own weekly newspaper delivered to every address that you take advantage of this unique capability to do a better job of reaching and thereby hearing back from your constituents. So proposal is that the city revived the policy that worked so well for eight years in the earlier part of this century. When it commandeered two full pages in each edition of the news press to communicate directly with the entirety of the city's population. The pages, the brainchild, the late city manager Dan McKeever, were presented as clearly distinct from the news press's proper and under the arrangement there were no misunderstandings among readers about the distinction between the paper and the city pages carried therein. It worked extremely well for eight years. I urge you to direct the city staff to revive this uniquely effective tool. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have John Fritch My name is John Fritch. I live at 603 Lincoln Avenue former architecture advisory board member and chair from O2 to 17. I'm here to comment tonight on the greening of Lincoln Project. I would like to commend the concept plan for the general character of the improvements on the Eastern 400 to 500 blocks. The plan shows parking provided on both sides of the street. Intersections are narrowed to calm traffic and sidewalks are protected by green space and parking spaces. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Western 600 to 900 blocks. While the road is narrow at this end, I do believe it's possible and necessary to create the same character at the west end of the street. This project should be an improvement to the character of this neighborhood. The current plan for the west end of the street has traffic flow shifting from side to side from this 800 to 900 blocks with no parking along the entire north side of the 800 block. Through the 700, six and 700 long sections of no parking, unevenly distributed parking and bring the sidewalk immediately adjacent to the street. There are long no parking sections which create, which could create bottleneck situations for everyday activities like deliveries, moving trucks, trash, et cetera. And these sections could be an eye-sour as multiple parking signs would be needed in order to identify these no parking zones. The plan for these blocks creates an awkward hybrid street that lacks character and makes daily living more difficult and less safe. Because of the time limitations on this project, I have created an alternative plan to show the potential for these blocks. I would ask that you review this plan during your work session with staff and consider adjustments to improve the character and safety of this end of the street. I'd also just like to quickly comment on specifically the parking at the 600 block and at Lincoln Park. Today, there are approximately 25 parking spaces in this area and all but two houses have parking in front of them. The current plan provides 12 parking spaces in this area and only three houses have parking in front of them and half of the parking for the park is lost. The plan provides 50% of parking in this area at one location in front of one house and this parking is not accessible by crosswalk or sidewalk. Thus requiring citizens and parkgoers to using these spaces to walk in the street after parking. The plan moves the crosswalk to the park closer to the crosswalk of the intersection, approximately 60 steps away, and in the process removes four parking spaces. It is my understanding that parking at 603 to 605 has been removed. So as not to disturb retaining wall at 605A, I have measured this location. I believe there is enough room to provide parking here and still maintain over two feet clearance at this retaining wall. The plan appears to provide eight to nine feet clearance at this wall. More needs to be done to provide adequate safe parking for the residents and parkgoers in this area. Having lived at this location for over 18 years, I can tell you with confidence that the concept plan does not provide enough parking to effectively serve this area and it creates more dangerous parking situation for residents and parkors. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Yes, and that's the last person signed up. Thank you. In your right, we do have a work session on September 16th and so some of us probably will have comments about Greening of Lincoln for the city manager shortly. Okay, thank you. We also have the library annual report scheduled as part of tonight's report from the city manager. So we start with that before we get to council requests. Welcome. Mayor Hardy, vice mayor Hiscott and members of council. Hello, I'm Marshall Webster, Acting Library Director, and I'm joined by our Library Board Chair, Elise Stein. I'm pleased this evening to present the Library's F524 annual report, which highlights library accomplishments for the period covering July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024. As the statistics on the back page of the report demonstrate, the library experience another year of steadily increasing engagement with our community, including 450,000 borrowed books, DVDs, magazines, ebooks, and other materials, representing a 4% increase from FY23. 168,000 library visits, an average of almost 14,000 a month, and an increase of 17% from FY23. 2,300 study and conference room reservations, an increase of 7% from FY23. 79,900 public computer station sessions, an increase of 28% from FY23. And 12,400 people attending are expanded programming offerings, which included book discussions, author talks, preschool story times, music concerts, informational lectures on current events, Spanish and German conversation classes, monthly gaming night for adults, and an incredibly popular weekly knitting group. FY24 additionally marked the formal launch of the library's five-year strategic plan with its emphasis on elevating programming, expanding hours and access, expanding outreach, and enhancing community awareness and engagement. Efforts in the first year resulted in implementation of several noteworthy projects including installation of a large-screen ADA compliant catalog station, access to gaming and STEM-related activities in our youth and teen areas, the creation of a pilot memory lab station to help the public digitize their photos and analog mementos, reorganization of our picture book collection to make it browsable by popular high demand subjects, acquisition of new online digital collection platform for the Falls Church history room, and an expansion of weekend hours with an additional expansion just last month, now allowing access to the library from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. Finally, in FY24, the library started a year-long celebration of its 125 years serving the Greater Falls Church community, which was kicked off in January 2024 with the unveiling of a new community that was kicked off in January 2024 with the unveiling of a new New Mary Rally style portrait photo and the launching of a webpage exploring the library's extensive history. And the library received a gold standard recognition by the Virginia Public Library Directors Association for meeting the highest performance benchmarks for standards set by the library of Virginia. We couldn't be more thankful for the incredible support we received from the city and the false church community in FY24 and we look forward to continuing to build on our FY24 accomplishments in FY25. Thanks and I'd like to add one thing to the welcoming false church. In addition to hosting one of the sessions, we've made the ebook and the book available for download without awaiting lists through the talk on Saturday. And it can be found in our Libby app or there's a link in the event in our events calendar. Great, thank you. And I just wanted on behalf of the board to echo what Marshall said about thanking you for your support and allowing us to expand the hours of the library, that's one of our big goals. So thank you. Great, thank you. I'm sure we have questions and comments before we all go. Vice Mayor. Thank you, thank you for this report and for the great visuals that are easy to follow. And I had a couple of comments and then a couple of questions for you all. The first, because I'm glad you mentioned the seeking portion elsewhere, I'm really excited that they're unlimited copies of that, because people like I who are just going to read it this week can actually access it and really actively participate. So I think that is one of many things you all can do to continue to help support things like welcoming folks, church. I'm excited to also try the digitizing photos. I think that's kind of a cool additional program to have at the library and we'll bring more people in who then will learn more about the services you all provide. So I think that's fantastic. Like I said, I really like the visuals and the graphics and it's easy to understand. I'd love to have the last page be the overtime. We can see, because I know we had some interesting challenging data in 2020, where some things were lower or actually our library use was huge because of that's what everybody could do. I'd like to see kind of over time. And I know we used to have a bar graph that showed kind of each of those data points over maybe a 10 year period of time. I just think that's really interesting. And over that period of time, we can see here's where we invested in the library. Here's where the additional programs we could do or how the numbers may or may not have shifted. So I would love to see that longitudinal look as well. I think it complements a lot of the great data that you have there. It's also fun to see that, you know, I've checked out the five top titles myself. So I'm like, oh right, I guess I was reading the same thing everybody else was reading. One of the questions I had on the number of total card holders, you know, it's over 31,000. the city. I mean, obviously there are more than just city residents. I believe we have about 11,000 city resident card holders, which is pretty high percentage compared to other jurisdictions in the area for adoption of cards by the residents, but we have a very high percentage of non-resident cardholders, which is due to the reciprocal agreement, which is a benefit to city residents as well because they're able to use Fairfax County and Harlington and the District of Columbia and many other libraries throughout the region. Yeah, I'd love to see, you know, I don't know if we have access to that data, but how many of the cardholders are foster city residents, and I, I don't know if we have access to that data, but how many of the corridors are a false-truth city residents? And I know we don't ask people when they come in the doors that are you a false-truth city resident? But it would be interesting to get an idea of how many of those visits are people, because that also highlights how walkable it is or bikeable it is. Well, we're not sure about the visits, but when someone registers for a card, and we ask for ID, we do designate them city residents or metro area, we have a few designations, so we can create reports. That would be great. And then, I've been asked a couple times, so like, for instance, you have multiple copies of this book that we're discussing on Saturday. What's the average length of time that you keep either a title on the online or on physically in our library? Because I know there's a great rotation of materials. Well, it depends on the materials in the format. So with eBooks, in this instance, there's actually a service that we can use on an ad hoc basis that lets us buy, essentially pay for a checkout at a low price. So we're basically just allowing people to check it out and incurring a one-time cost. And we sometimes use that in order to reduce hold lists if they get really large. And it's less expensive than buying multiple copies of the books. However, with eBooks, the purchasing model is different than a print book, because usually they're really least for either a period of time or a number of checkouts. So how long something stays in the eBook collection, for instance, there's a lot of turnover because books just expire. And you have to decide whether to buy it or not another time, which is usually based on its previous usage. So we can't always rebuy things after we've had them for a while, because we're also trying to buy new titles. For physical books, we just analyze the usage and try and keep a balanced collection. And that's really just based on whether it's been sitting unused on the shelf for multiple years. But we try and keep an active collection, both just to have breadth, but also to constantly add new titles and make space for the new titles coming in, because we can't keep everything. Chair. All right. But the loan period is three weeks. So if you borrow a seeking fortune elsewhere, even if you borrow it on Friday, which will be the last day we offer it in unlimited checkout, it's for three weeks. Great. Well, thank you again for your work into the library board for all of its support of our city and I look forward to seeing the reports over time too. Thank you. It's fun. Yeah, I'll just quickly thank you and your staff. And of course, the library board and all the volunteers for the work that goes into the library at such a local sort of treasured space, right? And it's a reflection on sort of the care and dedication and commitment that you have not only to the quality of the programming, but kind of constant reflection on what it is that's working or what new things that you can be doing or what needs that you can continue to meet. So thank you and the library board and again the staff. And it's an easy place to support for us because you see these snapshot reports and with increased hours and increased usage and increased borrowing and kind of increased spaces that you've created kind of across this spectrum of how people can interact both in person and online. So I guess what I'll do is maybe two opportunities for you. One is if you could maybe provide like a little known fact or something that you feel like people don't know about the library that maybe you wish that they knew more, right? Here's your opportunity to do so. And also when we recently were talking to a volunteer who had been working with the library, it was such kind of a wonderful and engaging and kind of meaningful experience. So if there are opportunities that you want to kind of pitch for volunteers at the library, maybe you could take this opportunity to do so. Sure. Well, to the first request, I have to limit the number that I could bring up. But one certainly is the false search history room. So I think that's clearly the most unique resource in our library. It really differentiates us from any other library. And not in that they don't have similar collections, but that that collection is unique to this community. So I think sometimes people aren't aware that that resource exists. And even though we've moved it to the upper level, sometimes people don't make it into the back of that floor. So I would encourage people to explore that on our website. And hopefully later this year, we'll have our new digital collection software live. And people will be able to search more and more of the collection from home and utilize it. I would also say that I mentioned this new picture book reorganization that occurred in June, and I think people are still familiarizing themselves with that, but it's basically taken a collection of over close to 6,000 items that were just shelved alphabetically by author, but kids went books on trucks. They went books on airplanes. They went books on this fair detail, where this popular character and our wonderful use services staff created this great system to allow people to browse by different subjects. So I would encourage people to go downstairs and take a look at that new setup. And the second question, well, you'll have to repeat that. Oh, the volunteers. Yes, so we have a link when you're on MRSPL.org on the top of the page. It says support the library. And there's a link to the volunteer page. And it talks about opportunities for adult volunteers and teen volunteers. And they're wonderful. They've helped us with inventories of the collection, processing materials, their scanning of materials. So they're a real driving force and the work we do. So thank you. And some of them have even become employees of the library. Yes. So not coincidentally. Yeah It's got to be Thank you for your report. I Had seen it already because I am the liaison to the library board But it's always nice to see the official version and I really just want to thank both of you for the work that you've done The library word has come a long way in the last few years from advocating just for a new building to now do it right. That was the primary focus of the library word for many years and the staff for many years. And now that we have this new building, you are really building a library into a third place, a community place where people can gather a living room for this community, for people to be together, to learn about the history, to read magazines, and books, and cross repuzzles, and do other puzzles and get together and share in the community. So I think that's very important. I always enjoy coming to library board meetings, so it is my pleasure to be here on, and to learn about the different pieces of the library and what makes a library work. And some things that we don't always appreciate because we aren't the library experts, but there's always something in those library board meetings. Oh, now when you have special events that makes people come to the library and then they come and visit more often. So I think the increase in events has also been really impressive and the partnerships that you've created. And then my last thing is just the 125th anniversary, which has been a wonderful way to celebrate the history of the library. I love the little online things you're putting in, pictures, stories, the book collection, and all of that. So you're doing a great job celebrating that as well. So thank you. Thank you. So I have a few comments as well. So thank you. Thank you. So I have a few comments as well. So first of all, happy 125th birthday. Thank you. That's terrific. Second, I guess I'll preface all my comments by saying it clearly the library is more than books and more than numbers. And so thank you for all the innovation and the creativity that goes into how you guys are evolving, kind of library offerings. I mean and that's terrific. But I will wanna echo Miss Sean Ciccott's request around kind of showing trends over time because some of us have been up here where we remember the bar chart over time that showed circulation and visits. I think obviously some of that changed during COVID but from my recollection and looking at the 2020 numbers and the 2019 numbers, we haven't quite actually rebounded in terms of visits items checked out and that sort of thing. So it would be great to see that trend over time. And then three specific trends and requests that I would love to get a better understanding of. Since we've invested in those additional weekend hours, how are visitors looking during those that extra block of time on weekend that would be great data to have? Second, I think a trend that we talked up before is kind of the online versus physical items, whether you're seeing people shifting usage over time. And then third is self-checkout. And personally, that's been a great innovation. I know my kids love that, especially when they're young, being able to scan at themselves. So I'd love to know what percentage of people, if we know you self-checkout versus using, actually in-person checkout. Anything would be great. In general, I think as we shift from, as Connolly said, advocacy for the community and that we are evolving the needs, evolving with the needs of the community as it changes too. So I think that data over time will be really important. Sure, and that's all data we can provide and I think those are good suggestions for the annual report. I will note that it can be a little difficult simply because in some cases we're using different systems. So for instance we have a different visit system that's much more accurate. I would say that our circulation numbers are approaching pre-COVID finally. So we're close to that. And I think that we just try our best to tell that story better. So great. Thank you. And I would like to make a shout out to Jenny Carroll. She was still the library director for the first three months of FY 24. So she deserves credit for many of the successes. Thank you. Mr. Senator, the final comment. I just wanted to thank you Marshall especially and to all the staff and the board members for a great job. Really fantastic. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Mr. Shields, back to you for the report of the City Manager. Thank you, Mayor Hardy and members of the Council, members of the community. I'd like to tonight, if I could take a little bit of extra time for the City Manager's report. I've got three things that point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. before we turn it over to Mr. Astorga, a few things to update the community on. One relates to the sidewalk easement at 412 West Broad Street in front of the Beatles leatherwork's business. I'm very pleased to inform the council that this evening at 630, just prior to this meeting, we did sign the easements and the the plat and the deeds for a dedicated sidewalk easement in front of that business. I want to thank Steve D'Occlean, the owner of this property for granting this easement to the city at no cost. And I also want to thank our city attorney for helping get this over the finish line. And the city council appreciate your support for this project and laying down a very firm deadline that if this has was not executed by the next meeting IE tonight that the council would authorize condemnation. This is a very important connection for walkability in the city, and we're very pleased to have this easement. So we will keep the community informed about the next steps. We do have contractors lined up to now begin to put that sidewalk in. And so we'll provide everybody an update on that, and of course, we'll work with Mr. Dodoclan just on good communication about when that construction will happen. Secondly, I want to update the community on the Virginia Village project. This is a project where the city is identified in a small area plan for the city center area of trying to find opportunities to preserve affordability at the Virginia Village with the quadplexes there at Shirley Street and Gibson Street. Over the past three years, the city has taken action to provide funding to acquire quadplexes and the EDA has been the city's partner in that. The other squad plexus, five of them are now titled to the EDA. In addition, we have a partnership with Wesley Housing to be the operator of the units as they are acquired, but also to work with the city on possibilities for future redevelopment when that time comes. The thing I wanted to update the community on is that part of our plan of land acquisition and financing, of course we're using Amazon Reach funds to acquire these properties as well as ARPA funds, as well as a city contribution and an EDA contribution. We had been working with Virginia Housing over a number of months for an interim loan so that the EDA could be paid back for its appropriation to this effort. And the City Council also could have the capital reserves paid back. We have been informed after months of working with Virginia Housing that the loan committee is not going to approve that interim loan as we've requested. So we are now going to work with the Council and with the EDA and with Wesley Housing on some alternative strategies for moving forward. We do have a balance of funds within the acquisition strike force sufficient such that if the EDA were to wish to be in reimbursed, the funds are there for that to happen. And if the City Council were to wish that the cap reserves be reimbursed for the funds that the city has put into this, that also could be handled within the balances of grant funds that we have currently available. However, if we take that approach that would slow down or delay our ongoing efforts at acquisition of additional properties there. And so that's a consequence we'll need to think through. We anticipate that in the coming weeks we'll be meeting with the council to discuss this and work session and we'll bring the Housing Commission and the EDA of course into those discussions as well. On one piece of good news, the city put in a grant application with Virginia Housing for assistance in putting together a working group to envision what a future redevelopment on this site could look like in terms of the scale of the density and the nicks of uses that could go in this property and also to do some initial conceptual planning in terms of financing for such a redevelopment. We've received a $36,000 grant to help facilitate the work of that working group. So we're very pleased about that and we'll work with the council to have a pointease to that group and we would recommend that that work get underway this fall and continue on into the winter and spring. So that's the update that I wanted to provide for the community and look forward to working through next steps as we look for the future of the Virginia Village area. So those are two things I wanted to update on. The third thing is just upcoming activities this weekend and I do note that Amy Young's is here in the audience and maybe after Al has given the fellows property we could just talk about some of the highlights of what's coming up this coming weekend with the Falls Church Festival. But unless there are any questions for me, I'll turn it over to Mr. Astorgo to we have just about a five minute presentation on the conceptual plans that have come through the recond-park advisory board for the future of the the fellow's property. It is not called the fellow's park. It's the the fellow's property and we do envision that as part of the planning for this, we'll ultimately have a naming session for this park in the future as well. But Mr. Historget, I'll take it away. Actually, can I make one other introductory comment for this item? The council has appropriated $200,000 for architecture and engineering. And so one decision point for the council is with these concepts, should we proceed with that with an A&E contract to further develop these plans. The city council has not appropriated funds to construct the park, these park improvements. It is listed in the CIP as a total of a $2 million project, but 1.8 million of it has not been appropriated. There's not a source of funding identified at this point. So when we talk about budget matters coming up in September, this will be one of the items for the council's consideration. And so we wanted you to have this information about conceptually what's planned for this park that you can then carry into that future funding discussion. Mr. Storger started interrupting but I wanted to make that point. Is this working now? Great, okay. Let me introduce myself again. My name is Al Storger. I work for DPW. Previously I worked for 30 years for the Department of Parks in Montgomery County. Both as a designer and then later on as a division chief of the maintenance department building and maintaining park facilities. So parks are in my blood. We said the first slide here is just a summary of what I'm going to show you, how we got here, show you the time it has taken for the master plan process, guide you through the approved design concept and discuss the next steps. We've got the next steps. Who's got the clicker? Next, okay. The Master Plan was developed over several years in multiple public services and then followed by the concept plan development. Thanks. The Master Plan set three major objectives for the park, which were incorporated into the design. Preservation and protection, protect nature, environmental education, and passive recreational activities with limited active recreation. In other words, they wanted nature to be the main feature. Next. Let me give you a tour of the proposed park. First, let me start. I'm going to use a pointer if you don't mind. I'm going to start up here. This is where we begin the park facilities are. They are the site development requirements. I'll start with those. Starting at Timber Street to the park where, to the park from here to here, there's a missing link sidewalk. That has to be, that is a part of this design. We need a sidewalk along Parker Avenue from there to Oak and we need to improve the sidewalk along Oak Street. There those those are site development requirements. Now for the park. The park facility this is the entrance to the park right here. And it's the book end of Howard E. Herman Park. The part of Howard E. Herman comes in at Broad Street and it empties out right about there. So this will be the ending of that trail. This rubberized path starts right here and it goes into the park and me and the park in a way that protects these trees, major trees here, which are all either champion trees or major specimens. So the trees were very important to the site. There will be a platform where the old house was and a shelter where the old garage were. This area here is right over here is the Grove, where the community can harvest nuts, fruits, and berries. This right here is a rain garden to provide water quality and control water discharge. And we'll also give the city credits on both of these water issues. And lastly, this area here will be designated as a natural preserve where no activities are planned. Next picture please. This is a picture of the entrance arch with a scavenger hunt plaque located right there. This is the arch and this is the corner where this will all occur. This existing site, and this is what we'd like to put in that site. Next. This is the rubberized path that goes in like this. The material was selected because it was the least invasive to the roots of the system of the trees, easy to maintain flexibility of material to allow root growth. Next slide. This is the grove where we will plant shaggy bark hickory trees. These nuts can be harvested, eaten raw, roasted or made into milk. They are considered the delicacy they're known as the black ruffle of the world. Truffle, black truffle of the world. And that's this area right here is where the Hickory trees would go. The other trees would be pop-up trees. This is the pop-up tree with its fruit. It is a North American tropical fruit. That's what it's described as. It is a mixture of kind of like a mango banana and passion fruit. It is highly sought after. We expect people will be coming from all over to pick these guys up. And this area down at the bottom here will be a berry patch. Next slide. Next one. Okay, thank you. As I mentioned on the entrance there will be this medallion which will be the treasure hunt and throughout the park there will be these native animals which are made out of a play equipment polymer. So these animals are designed to be climbed on and take the enjoyment of kids that any piece of play equipment with experience. Here we have the Trek's platform right here and this is where outdoor classes will be able to be held either by the school which is across the street or an interpretive by interpreters natural interpreters or rec classes can be held such as yoga, tai chi, anything that requires a nice flat surface. And along that we have the shelter right there which is much like the shelter at big chimneys. And this is what designed with the idea that you would have gatherings, picnics, or just an area to get out of the sun. This area here is an area where we will place some specialty benches and I'll use it for arts in the parks. Next, Shelta, next picture. This is a picture of the missing sidewalk along Parker Avenue. As you can see, there's already a trail there, but no sidewalk. There is a sidewalk on the other side, but this area is going to need a sidewalk, possibly a retaining wall depending on how we can grade this and lighting to meet all the ADA requirements. Next slide. Okay. This is where we get good. This is the estimate based on the actual price of all the items as of December 2023. The site included all the items not park related. This site work here. That's the estimate for, like I mentioned earlier, site work. These are not park related items like the sidewalk, ADA ramps, lighting along the street, ADA ramps and repairs and modifications to the existing sidewalk along Oak. This number here, those are the park features, what I described in the previous slides, the shelters, the groves, all of those items. So our total construction cost is this, one million, and seventy nine thousand seven hundred sixty seven dollars We use the contingency of 40% and that is us That is basically an industry standard to use at this point. We are at 15% design stage so before Any further development can occur, the estimate has a 40% contingency included in it. The next is the architectural and engineering and construction inspection costs, which also include city staff time, which brings us to the total of $1,946 and $617. We have currently $200,000 as Y. it mentioned and this is what is unfunded at this point. Next slide please. Depending on what direction you give us tonight, the . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . the construction documents now and shooting for construction to begin in April of 2026. That about covers my presentation. So the goal was to get this information to you and answer any questions you might have about it and then we'll carry this conversation into the budget amendment discussion that will happen that we'll get kicked off at your meeting on September 26th. Great. Well, we have Mr. Al-Sorgher. Let's start with questions on fellows and then we can work backwards on the other updates that we got from Mr. Shields. Who's got questions or comments on fellows? Is under here? Is there grant funding available for a project like this? That's... There are some grants for it. It's not as easy and accessible as we have with transportation. I have been working with Caitlin Sotsby and Ali. I'm golden to see what's out there in terms of straight parks because it's not a regional trail and some of the other transportation associated, it's not as easy to identify. So today or your budget discussion, we won't have an answer, but it is being explored. Okay, thank you. Something that we have been talking about is, you know, we get to have beautiful parks and all sorts of things and then what happens with maintenance. Looking at all of the different things that were part of this proposal, it seems like a fairly low maintenance park. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am, we work with the maintenance folk and that's why we identified the rubberized path, the solar lights, everything that we looked at is very low maintenance. We're looking at we did have we did come up with a maintenance cost but it was very low and very doable. Okay. Are there things like, you know, will there be like grass mowing and other things like that that would be part of it or is it sort of wild? Actually, very little grass mowing. Everything is going to be sort of like grown, big nature area. The biggest maintenance is going to be within the trees while they're growing. That was the one place where we identified. We were going to use, we need to get them growing and while they're maturing, we're going to use the well there as a source of water for irrigation of the trees. So we were looking at making this the least maintenance of all. The final thing I had was I really applaud the use of pop pot trees and the hickory trees that's incredibly creative. I've been looking into this though and it's very hard to find fruit bearing trees in cities. Is there a reason for that? Well, this actually, the idea of the fruit bearing trees came from our arborist Charles and his assistant because of just what you say, the pop-up tree apparently is very, very popular and people drive from miles around to get this fruit. And the hickory knot is also very, very sought after and they're both easy to maintain. That was a nice thing. And they were both native to the area and more importantly, we felt that instead of trying to create the idea of neighborhood gardens, that the neighborhood could sort of use these as an area to use them for their own use. They'll bury the pop papa fruit and the nuts. Okay. Thank you so much, appreciate. Sure. This one. I just had a few quick comments and questions. So I think this is a great park design sort of concept at this stage. I think it's exciting. Thank you to you and the advisory board, and Reckon Parks for the work that's gotten into this so far to kind of see the different features and also the different users that seems sort of just a multi-age, kind of multi-generational park, right? I know we have a son at the age that he's into scavenger hunts or we can keep him engaged and actually walk with us by doing finding things and sketching the medallions to take something home from the park with him. So I appreciate all of those features. Two questions. You mentioned the 15% design. When we talk about the $200,000 investment for architectural and engineering, like where does that bring us from the 15% kind of toward, from kind of a more rudimentary plan to further along in terms of starting to dig, and execute on this or how much of it is like assigned to the construction period. So the breakdown of like that 200,000 and what it accomplishes in bringing this forward. Well, this is this is kind of a new way of doing things instead of sort of like giving the designer a blank piece of paper and say, build this for, tell us what you want to build out there. Staff sat around and we came up with this concept, the REC department, the arborist, everybody, the maintenance folk, everybody got together and we did this design. When we presented it to the A&E firm, they said, well, this is great because this is 15%. We don't have to come up with three or four different concepts. We can go directly to engineering, which is going to cut your costs tremendously. Their big concern has been public meetings. Each public meeting they would want to do, they would attend. They would, as they told us, they would cost us somewhere around $7.5,000. So we've taken all of that out. And we've gotten to the point where they can actually start doing more engineering than anything else. And that has shrunk the cost of our contract for the engine A&E to about $100,000. That's great. And looking sort of at the costs too, it's nice to see that it's nice to see so much of the contingency in like you're building in the cushion, but then it's always frustrating to see so much of it as the contingency because you have to plan out for years and advance and like the costs are escalating in the mean time. So, you know, I appreciate the work that's gone into getting the concepts as far as they are while, you know, recognizing that hopefully this is a property that we can kind of create more park space in in a kind of economical way. And then the only other comment I had was when I looked at the designs or sort of the mock-up you know it shows like the city trash and recycling containers they are just like they're all throughout the city consistent in design and I was wondering for a park like this And having recently come back from a place that does, you know, actual like containers, whether it made sense to have like enclosed Trash and recycling and like a woodland park like this and it may also be an opportunity to do more of our utility What not utility wraps but art wraps so that you could have you know more like an enclosed trash and recycling box with the like sliding doors and whatnot. That's an art wrap that relates to the park rather than like the exposed trash and recycling given that it is an oedling space and there will be kind of whatever other animals and creatures around there. So something to consider. That those amenities are very easy to take care of during the design. What kind of trash can you want? What color or the types of stuff. Yeah, as we proceed we Yeah, I just it was put a pin in it because you know, I won't always remember to raise something Okay later and it's the minutia of looking at the picture and saying oh, let me put it on someone else's list for later date so thank you Is it chance? Thank you, I really am enjoying looking at this design and been following this process interestedly for many years. I had a question if you go back to the cost on the sidewalk. I'm familiar with that Parker app and then of course the Oak app. What percentage of the, I'm looking at the cost. I'm not imagining a lot of it is constructing the sidewalk just based upon or other discussions we've had about how much sidewalk costs around the city. It seems like the bulk of, I'm assuming that a lot of this cost is sidewalk-related. Yes, a huge part of it is we have to go all the way from Timman's street down to Oak. We have to provide ADA ramps and maybe an intermediate crossing, ADA ramps and themselves cost $15,000. They're kind of expensive. Then we have to do a widening in certain areas of Oak Street because there's telephone polls or utility polls right in the middle of the sidewalk. So we have to do little jut outs. We have to do a ADA ramps across crossing Oak Street towards the school. So yes, and possibly the retaining wall that would be a big ticket item. And we were looking at to make this park self-contained or we were looking at solar lights that would have the lighting package and the battery on top so there would be no wires or nothing like that and it'd be self-contained so there's a big there's a lot of big ticket items on this site. You would have guessed it mate. I mean just like half the cost is for the hard-scape side-mom-son parker and the site work cost. Yeah just. I would say. Because the park features are presumably all the the right this rubber eyes and everything else so bulk of that yeah the 490,000 the bulk of that is what I just mentioned it's it's almost all the exterior work on along the side of the park. I'm just thinking and they're kind of two components of this project in my mind, which are, because I would like to see, no matter what happens within the fellow's property project, I'd still like to see that side of Parker and Oak Street having, you know, the compact and complete streets concept, and having ADA access to the number of students who cross over to get to to the school right there. So I'm just thinking out loud about what components are for the sidewalk and ADA compliance versus actually building out the park structure. There might be different ways we can we think about the budget if we separate those components. Just one thought. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed the. And you answered I had like six questions and you answered all of them before. Through your presentation so thank you for that. Theroness I really appreciate your time and your experience and knowing what questions are going to be asked so thank you. Mr. Schneider. Thanks a lot. If you could review from me the public input and that was one of your slides is that right? Sure. I think it's the third slide. There you go. So this plan reflects to the extent that you can, the substance of the public inputs. Yes. Okay, thanks. I wanna follow up on the question of sidewalk because did you tell me that there's already sidewalk on the other side of Parker? On the opposite side of Parker, there is a sidewalk that goes from oak to... So there are large parts of the city where there are no sidewalks at all. And I do wanna follow up on the necessity for that sidewalk across the street, especially when a trigger is a retaining wall and a fairly expensive. And if you tell me it's absolutely required by law, then I guess we have to do it. But I'm really wondering about that. And with regard to Oak Street, if there are places where the utility poles, and again, that's a condition around the city that we address that, that's great. And I think that a convenient way across the street from the schools, convenient and safe is all good. But I wonder if there's any way we can cut some of those, some of those hard infrastructure costs, are they really essential? And would those same dollars be better spent in other parts of the city, literally, where there are no sidewalks at all? So that's a question. And then has all the vegetation been tested for our particular climate? I think we've sort of learned the hard way that not everything grows well here. And so I love the idea of fruit trees, but that they all do well in our climate and is there a good research background to establish that everything we're planted is very likely to do well here considering the kind of summer that we've had, et cetera. So those are just two questions. A third one, finally, was this connected with a trail that we already have? Did I hear that at the beginning? Yes, so I'm going to give Cindy and me some homework to see about if there's some trails potential transportation funding that might be available at some point on this project because maybe we could argue that This is in fact connected to a trail and as part of our trail System so we have a little more homework there But if you could just quickly answer those questions. I know the clock is moving forward. We've got other things to do tonight. But I am excited about moving forward here in glad we are and thanks for your work. Sure. I'll work with the trails and work my way backwards. The trails, the Howard E. Herman trail that starts on Broad Street empties out about a half a block, I guess, north of this park. So it would be a connection if you walk up the sidewalk along the school, you would end up at this park. So there is a connection. That's why the themes of the arch was kind of important to everyone, because you have an arch at entering the Howard E. Herman and you'll have a arch, a tree looking arch at the park. So there is a connection of the trails. The trees, yes. The answer to your question was, these are all native trees. They're all needed to this area to this particular area. The arborists were very excited about getting these trees planted and using the fruit as a community collective place and the blueberries. They were very excited to use those too because people like to pick blueberries. And the idea was that we didn't want to have a fruit bearing tree that people will ignore. If you have too many apples, they end up on the floor and on the ground and they attract bees and they go rotten. We figured or they figured that these fruits will be harvested by the folk, and we won't have that maintenance issue of having to pick up the dead, or the rotting fruit underneath the tree. So we thought about your idea of what we could plant there. And these were easy maintenance and they would be growable around here. As far as the sidewalk is concerned, Oak Street needs to be upgraded because it needs an ADA path around it. That there's only two feet of access from the telephone pole to the there's a little wall Retaining wall so we need to fix that along oak Sidewalk along Parker is a city site development requirement If anybody is going to develop that part or that partial there, they need to meet the site development requirements. And that is the sidewalk and it has to be ADA accessible with the ADA crossings. Plus we have a policy now of joining missing links. I mean, originally we were looking at the sidewalk just doing the sidewalk in front of the park, but the Planning Commission reminded us that there's a missing link between the park where the park ends and where Timothy Street is. So we had to add that to the program. Thank you for this. I have a few comments. So this is actually in my neighborhood and I walk past this part probably about three times a day. So I'm very familiar with the corner, especially for years when I walked my kids to Oak Street. So in general, I love the design and the balancing of all the different components between preserving nature and environment obviously with oak street elementary across the streets I think there's a lot of potential here. I will plus one on the maintenance costs so while I think it sounds like it's very low and doable and that's Thoughtfully incorporating the design. I do want to make sure that we incorporate the maintenance costs in the decision making and so when we Next see this would be great to know what the annual maintenance costs would be as currently designed I next see this would be great to know what the annual maintenance costs would be as currently designed. I understand the sidewalk does go all the way to timber and parker. Timber. Timber. Okay. Yes. Because it is part of the route to school, I wonder whether it would qualify for safe routes to school funding. Currently we have a crossing guard that closes the intersection of parker and timber every morning. And so if we were to add the other sidewalk, I question if our staff is whether we would still need a crossing guard because now there's two safe passages to get to Oak Street and whether that would be some savings on the operating side as well. So question for that. What's the lifespan of this rubberized trail? Is it similar or better than kind of a packed gravel or multi-trail like we have at Howard Herman? Okay, the difference between, the lifespan is pretty long. It's at like 20 years with minimal maintenance. What we liked about it was is that, as opposed to say bricks or pavers or even concrete, it won't buckle because of the tree roots as it will conform to the tree roots. So that helps a lot with the maintenance. Secondly, the gravel and the which of fibers. The problem with those are is that once they get wet, rain, they are impervious, but they are not ADA accessible until they dry. So, and they wash away. the trail ADA accessible then to have a surface that is permanent there. Howard E. Herman gets a dressing of stone every so often in all plate areas. They have to get mulched again on a frequent basis because the mulch deteriorates. Okay, thank you. I guess now that we have experience, I mean the Howard Herman Trail is about a third of a mile long or so when I run on it so if you good to be able to compare the cost of maintaining that trail with what's proposed here, I imagine the rubberized trail is more upfront cost but maybe lower downstream cost. My last comment actually has to do with the pop-offs in the blueberries. I actually have experience with both. We actually have them. My family has them. Pop-offs can be a little messy, so I would just caution against, I know they're very popular. My blueberries, I have eight blueberry bushes. Birds get to all of them unless I actually spend a lot of time netting them. And so while we may have high expectations that the community will be out there, I would just caution and think through that a little bit more that we may not actually be able to harvest enough blueberries because the birds often do get to them faster than the humans can. Yes, as you noticed, it was in a very small area. We figured that the blueberries had to be individual bushes and they had to be spread apart enough so that people can walk through them and pick them. And because of the mess again, we sort of limited that to the smallest area at the bottom of the hill. Yeah. My last comment, because I know that neighborhood had spoken to us when we first acquired the property, was around the fireflies and there was a very special species of fireflies at live and fellows. Do we know how this designed impacts them? Because I know the neighbors are very passionate about them. Yes, the fireflies were that that was the biggest driving issue over creating that natural preserve in the northern part of the park. When we spoke with fireflies like the leaves, the fallen leaves. So with the idea that we would just let that area go and the leaves would just stay there and not be picked up or fireflies should thrive there. Okay. Last comment. So you mentioned pollinators and obviously with the decline of pollinators across the region, an idea that's come up from the community is around passive beekeeping. So something that's more passive than urban agriculture per se, but something could help boost many of our gardens with having some sort of beehive or passive beekeeping out there. But again, there's low intense and I think would fit with kind of the passive part of the park intent. That's a good program. Sorry. Amateur beekeepers. Great. Well, thank you. Hopefully we can. Sorry. Thank you for this. Just a quick question and that is about the stage area and the picnic area. Do we envision those as being things that are rented like the other picnic areas? Or is it just sort of there? Maybe that's for Miss Youngs. I don't know. I don't know that we have an answer for that necessarily, but it's more of a passive park. Okay. So I don't know about that. It didn't seem like a place that would be rented, but then I was thinking about other picnic shelters that we have. And it would be very small. Like, I'll set the size of over at big chimneys where you can really fit like two picnic tables under there. Thanks. Just to let you know we have those scheduled to have electrical outlets so the community could be used for whatever the community would like to have there. Thank you for the work on this and I think to the extent that we can find additional sources of funding that will make the price tag a little more palatable for us. Thank you. Okay, so working backwards on council requests now. Thank you for the update on that. Do we have questions or requests for the city manager. Vice Mayor Thank you. I had one request from a number of citizens and it came up multiple times on the W0D 50th anniversary party and that is that we've had some challenges with since we added the four-way stop signs on the trail in the city we've had cars actually turn on to the trail at West at Spring and at Oak so I my request is and I talked to the chief about this, but to look into, you know, do not turn right here. This is not a road or some kind of whatever the appropriate additional signages, because, you know, we've had the new, this is new stop, you know, it seems obvious, but it's happened and been reported to me in multiple occasions, and we had that conversation on Saturday morning people like oh yeah I've seen that I've seen that so I was definitely startled to hear how many times that have been reported and I'm hopeful that some additional signage could help there and then also from the on the bike trail side ensuring that bicyclists also follow the request to have a four-way stop. That's the intent is that you know bikes and cars are working together to make that a safe intersection and I know I guess the request is to talk about or think about what kind of enforcement we may choose to have on Our segment of the trail to ensure their bikes are stopping and that our cars are not turning right? Thank you We'll certainly follow up on those questions and get some data on driver behavior on the trail as well and if an additional signage is needed. Thank you. Other requests, Mr. Sider? Thanks very much. As the anniversary of 9-11 approaches, I thought it might be appropriate to just give a couple moments of thought to that councilmember Conway and I attended an event in remembrance at the National Memorial Park that was very meaningful, recalled to us that members of our police department, sheriffs, and volunteer fire department and career fire service all were responders to the Pentagon and I recall being in New York City working on emergency room treating world traits in our patients. So I think that it's maybe something we should just take a minute to reflect on. Thank you. And then one other comment that I wanted to make, last Wednesday's agenda meeting, we discussed briefly a note from the city attorney regarding conflict of interest. And in my view that justifies the comments of council member Flynn and I have made on the subject even though we were harshly criticized I'm not sure if you're familiar with the plan and I've made on the subject. Even though we were harshly criticized at the time. My major interest now, however, is that we can that we move forward and I understand that a team of our key employees are moving forward and putting together standards and a training program for city council and boards and commissions. So I hope we'll see that. Implemented very, very soon. Thanks for those comments. Other questions or requests? Okay, I have some. So, couple of transportation related ones. I think we had heard from another citizen that the maple and anodilite might be a little finicky and there's a skip-fazing issue again. You know that we had repaired it once. But if we could look into that, given that's a, actually not, it was maple and broad, not maple and amdil. Given that in our commercial court, are we wanna make sure that's as safe as possible? The East Broad Speed Monitoring sign, the auto one that's facing Eastbound is broken. I think I had flagged that a while ago, and I don't think it's been repaired yet, but residents on east broad had asked for that to be reinstated. I know that we often provide officers to enforce out there, but I think that sign could be very effective. A while back pre-resist, we had talked about North Oak and Lincoln, which was the site of a pedestrian and bike accident. And I think we had requested that be evaluated through the Rapid Response Team. I would love an update on where we are that I know that there's probably a backlog of projects for Rapid Response given resources. But I think that's one in particular that we've talked about for a while because it's not a perfect tea and a squared off intersection. It would be great to get update on that. Parklets. Those seem to be progressing really well. The one on South Maple, I think, is done and the one at the corner of Anondale and Washington, I think, is making really good progress. I think last time we had talked about kicking off kind of a naming process for those parklets. I don't know if that starts with the Planning Commission or with Council, but I wanted to make sure that as those are wrapping up we start that process. Okay. So the council does have an adopted policy on the naming of facilities and we will forward that to council. So you'll, I can't recall exactly what it is myself. So we'll refresh our memory on that process. Somebody has initiated, I don't know if it's us, or if it's, and then we refer at the planning. I think it's generally the city council initiates and then refers it out. Great. And I'm gonna nag a bit about this. We are now post summer, so we'd love to talk about the sidewalk list. Thank you. Okay, any other requests before we get on We'd love to talk about the sidewalk list. Thank you. Okay. Any other requests before we get on to business on the agenda? Okay. Would the council like to get just a quick briefing on the activities coming up this weekend on false church festival? Sure. Thank you. Let me invite Amy to do that. And there is a full weekend that is coming up. Yes, good evening, Council. Thank you for the opportunity to tell you about Falls to your trustable. So we are going to have lots of local restaurants. We have sweet rice, bad pizza, cafe, kindred, the Falls, Marks Pub, Taco, Rock, Open Road, hot and juicy Crawfish, one Taiwanese cafe, Fava Pot, nothing but cakes, clarin' down speech check, Harvey's audacious L works, and Salis Outpost All Participating. So there will be lots of yummy food. So please come try it all. There'll also be bounce houses, pony rides, lots of local vendors, lots of nonprofits in the city showing their community information that everyone can purchase Payton and lots of support. So it's a great time to come out and be with your neighbors, build community and enjoy. So thank you. And we'll also note that at 1015 we'll have the closing ceremonies for the 75th anniversary and also a kickoff for the Visit Falls Church Tourism website. And we also have on the following day on Sunday the Falls Church Education Foundation will be sponsoring the run for the schools. That's at 8 a.m. All the notices to residents about road closures have been mailed out and that's following the same route that I think people are accustomed to now it's been in place for many years so those are some of the events coming up this weekend. Great and if you haven't registered for the council and staff team gentle reminder to do that we usually challenge the school board to erase our ear so you've got the better times. Or participate in numbers. No, no, we don't do that. You may do that. We vote you. The 1015 is at the same location stage kind of backed by the park that we did the kick off a year ago. Actually with the Vance timing, we've been able to move it to the main stage. So we will be next to the Community Center and the tennis courts on the main music stage. But prior to the beer garden opening up, but right there. Okay, main stage 10, 15. Yes, thank you. And if people can arrive by 10 if you're speaking, I would appreciate it. Great. Thank you for all the work. It's a great event every year. Okay, now a business on the agenda. We have a couple of second readings. Madam Clerk, can you call the first item please? Yes, this is our first item on second reading and it is a legally advertised public hearing as well. TO24-12 ordinance to amend chapter 22 housing article three rent relief for low income elderly and or persons permanently and totally disabled of the code of the city of false church to provide rent relief for low income elderly and or persons permanently and totally disabled. And we have Ripple Patel, who's joining us virtually for a quick briefing on this item that's before the Council for Second Reading. The staff recommendation is to vote to approve this. Mr. Patel. Thank you everyone. Good evening. I am here tonight as Dana Jones could have joined us. So here is the request. The staff is requesting the City Council to amend the City Court for Rent Relief Grant Program. The proposed amendment brings the program into compliance with the State Code and amends the method of calculation. This program was originally established by the City in 2002. The program provides rent relief or low income persons who are either elderly or are permanently and totally discipled and helps them remain in the city. The program provides eligible residents a single annual grant. The amount is based on rent paid in the prior calendar year. Under the current calculation, the relief ranges between $700 and $1,700 based on the household income. The new calculation will provide 10% relief of total rent paid during the prior calendar year up to a cap of $2,500. Fist calling impact for this grant 2025 budget, appropriate $26,460 or the program which fully covers the benefit changes proposed in this court amendment. I am requesting City Council to provide their approval for this amendment. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Mr. Patel. Do we have any questions or comments? I know we discussed this earlier in the summer, since it's been a while now but... Okay, there's a motion. Should we hold a public hearing? Yeah. We need to open the public hearing. Yes. Yeah. And anyone in the audience would like to speak to this item. They're seeing none. We're going to close the public hearing. Thank you. I moved to adopt to 24-12 second. It's kind ofling the second. Madam Clerk, can you call roll please? Who was on the second? Ms. Connell. Oh, okay, thank you. Ms. Connelly? Yes. Ms. Flynn? Yes. Ms. Shonshiskan? Yes. Mr. Snyder? Yes. Ms. Underhill? Yes. Mayor Hardy. Yes. Mayor Hardy. Yes. Motion carries 6 to 0. Thank you, Council. Thank you for making these updates, Mr. Patel. Thank you. Thank you all for your support. Thank you, Mr. Patel. And the clerk will read the next item. Yes. Our next item is also a legally advertised public hearing. Teo 24-08 ordinance to amend the text of City Code Chapter 35, stormwater, article 1, stormwater management, to meet the Virginia erosion and stormwater management regulations set by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. And for this Mr. Bahailer Keyflay will give the staff report and again the council staff recommendation is approval of this ordinance on second reading. Our staff presentation tonight will just be very brief to hit some of the four highlights from this code change that I think the council is now very familiar with but for the community's benefits so they know what we're doing. There was a council question from the last work session that we did follow up by email today and we can speak to that as well. Mr. Keflit. Good evening, Mr. Schild, City Council member and Mayor Late Hurtig, good evening. So as we discussed during the last three work sessions in regular meeting. The city staff is proposing four changes to the stormwater called chapter 35. The first one is addition of new restriction against removal of vegetation in the resource protection area. This is a state mandate in this mandatory to update the the station resource protection area. The second one is addition of a new climate change and sea labor right impact assessment for land disturbance within the RPA. This is also the state mandate is mandatory. The third one is change of treatment of single-fibrely health, tilt down a rebuild from new development to re-development under the water quality standard. This is the city's staff-free commendation because the current code is allowed developer engineer to use the new development and with the excess amount of force for us, the QDs allowed us to use it. So we are not getting any benefit out of that other than others and developed residents throwing extra money to buy that treatment, that was for us. The other reason also every year we are going through additional calculation to convert from new development to redevelopment to satisfy the MS4 requirement. So we are asking Council to reconsider or change from the new development to redevelopment. Therefore, one city staff is proposing is to authorize staff to use local information precipitation data, module or forecast developed by or on the BIM on behalf of Commonwealth. So we are proposing to have a flexibility in our code to use other curve, other than NOAA. And we propose the Marie Sac curve, which gave us more water to detail on site. By storm with the management facility, it's probably 14 to 15% of the runoff from a developed site will be hold on the side instead of running to the street and create a flood. So with that, I would love to take any question in the comment you have. In addition, we provide today additional document on the survey chain. So if you have any questions, I would love to answer it. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Keyflay. Questions or comments? I know there was a follow-up sent to us over email as well, comparing the delta between the two calculations on the phosphorus load. And it was, as I recall when I read it, it was pretty minimal. We have questions for staff on that. Mr. Snyder. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So my question is at its core, by making the change for tear downs, I think that's the change we're making, right? So are we shifting any costs from the developers who are making those changes to the public? In other words, the taxpayers are going to have to pick up making certain commitments that developers are now required to make. So under the state's regulatory regime, the answer to your question is a firm no. There's no shifting of costs to the public because the states would not give us any credit for using this higher standard in any event. So those costs would remain the same. In terms of absolute terms and of nutrients that are getting into the Chesapeake Bay, by having the higher standard able to capture an additional 4.9 pounds of phosphorus over the past five years by using that higher standard. That constitutes about 2% of just over 2% of what are required phosphorus reductions are by the year 2028. So I think there's 2.1. We're not going to get there on single family home regulation in any event. And this change of standard is fairly minor in terms of meeting our overall TMDO state mandates, or TMDO reductions that are mandated by the state, where we do make progress on that is on the larger commercial projects. And Mr. Keith, I can give you more progress on that is on the larger commercial projects and Mr. Keith Lakers can give you more detail on that if you have questions or on capital investments. For instance, in the past when we've delighted streams, when we delighted the Herman Stream Valley Park, that gave us a tremendous credit under the state's regulatory regime. So those types of investments provide a very good environmental benefit. That's a summary answer and certainly invite Mr. Kefle if there are things unmistakable or understated. Okay, thank you. You are right, Mr. Schild. So the amount we get from single family house, they are small and as you stated, for the last five years, if we convert from new development to redevelopment, we are only missing 2.8% out of the total requirement by 2028. So most of the requirement came from a big commercial development or the CIP project for the city and we did two streamer restoration back in 2016 on co-branching Pearson branch. We get a significant amount of phosphorus from that streamer restoration, but regarding single-fimary house, they are just smaller than births. Madam Mayor, just to follow up, I think the City Manager has answered my financial question, which is we're not shifting any cost to the taxpayers. And I also like the improvements we may be making, and particularly day lighting streams, which is something I've supported a long time. So I'm glad that the impacts are so positive. Thanks a lot. Other questions or comments? It's fun. So I understand and I'm supportive of the changes staff are requesting for the reasons they've set forth. I just reiterate my request that when we come to CIP planning we talk about that nutrient credit purchase and that in light of the delta even though it's a minimal delta's to the reduced you know phosphorus loads it's a larger delta is to reducing nitrogen loads that we can also take up in conversation, like what other methods, you know, you just mentioned daylighting streams, but maybe available to us to do more on site work or within city work in those areas and sort of cost effectiveness of, you know, certain means of achieving that versus others. Thanks. Other questions? I just would like to say I'm glad that we have an expert on board here because this is really complicated and things that none of the rest of us do in our day job. So I thank you for explaining it and helping us understand it better. And I'm glad that you understand it the best. So thank you. Did know that comment. Thank you, Mr. Huffley. I actually had a comment more broadly about, or question more broadly about the data. So is this 108 single family homes that were torn down? So redeveloped in the past five years? Or are they smaller projects, or are these kind of what we see when we take the small smarter homes and then redevelop them into the bigger homes? So, almost all of the 181 houses are a tiered down in rebuild. So there is already existing house in the tiered down that small house and they probably increase the food sprints of the house and make them big houses. So probably around almost 99% of the houses are teed down in rebuild. So I think anecdotally we've talked about how single family redevelopment impacts a lot of acreage in the city. And so I did my math correctly at a quarter acre. This is 27 acres over five years. I don't think we've touched nearly that much of commercial development in five years. And so seeing these numbers separate from the storm water discussion I think is really stark because when we think about neighborhood flooding, I think where we have the most impacts or projects like these. So I know we're spending a lot of time talking about fostering slows and nutrient credits, but I think actually understanding how neighbors are changing, and that single family redevelopment pace that we largely can't slow down right now. 27 acres over five years is quite remarkable. So I just wanted everyone to have that same aha moment that I did. So if there are no other questions, do I have a motion? Come in. Open the public hearing. Yes, public hearing. Thank you. It's twice now. Let's open the public hearing. Is anyone in the audience that would like to give public comment on this one? Seeing none, I'm going to close the hearing. Okay. Is anyone online? I think I just see staff. Okay. So how about a motion then? I would do a doubt to you 24-08. Second. Ms. Flynn on the second. Ben Clark. Ms. Conley? Yes. Ms. Flynn on the second. Madam Clerk. Ms. Connolly. Yes. Ms. Flynn. Yes. Ms. Shonsiska. Yes. Mr. Snyder. Yes. Ms. Underhill. Yes. And Mayor Hardy. Yes. Motion carries 6 to 0. Thank you, Council. That is it for second readings in public hearings. Yes. Yes. This is up to you for tonight. Okay. Well, let's move on to consent. And we have one item on consent relating to authorization for the city manager, preceded with the contract in the amount of $300,000 with colossal contracting incorporated. And this is related to the HVAC project at the community center. The council for full disclosure approved a larger contract for the actual HVAC work a month ago. This is for some of the interior work that will be associated with that project in addition to that HVAC contract that was approved last month. Does anyone have any questions on this or want to remove this from the consent agenda? It's only one, so we're all just voting on this one. Is there a motion? I motion to adopt the items on the consent agenda. Do we have a motion? I motion adopt the items on the consent agenda. Do we have a second? Second. It's got on the second. Madam Clerk. Ms. Connelly? Yes. Ms. Flynn? Yes. Ms. Shonshiska? Yes. Mr. Snyder? Yes. Ms. Underhill? Yes. And Mayor Hardy? Yes. Motion carries 6der? Yes. Ms. Underhill? Yes. And Mayor Hardy? Yes. Motion carries 6-0. Thank you. Okay. Any business nodding? Not on the agenda or standing regional committee and council liaison reports. It's Connolly. At the last mayor's meeting, I guess we can have go. I offered to council members to have a meeting with Ms. Bawa to fully understand our fiscal policies prior to the presentation. There are at least three council members that weren't on council when we did those fiscal policies. So I just want to put that off right there again to set up a meeting with Ms. Bawa so that you can dig deeply into that. And I have been in touch with her about setting up some dates when we can do that. And we're going to have to notice it then, right? No, individual meetings. It would not have to be noticed. It would be an individual meeting so you can really do a deep dive into what's going on no more than two council members at a time. Got it. OK. Great. If you give some dates that were for her. Yes. Yes, that's what we will do. So that everyone can understand, when we get to the public meeting, everyone has the same background information. And a reminder that all the policies are in the budget book, right? So we should also review the policies before the meeting to kind of go in. Well, it's true. Yes. That would be super helpful as well. But even when you read them, some things are just a mysterious but good point, yes. Oh, the back reading is important. Thank you. That's a good idea. Vice mayor. Thank you. I just wanted to report that Chief Farton, I attended the Arlington Community Criminal Justice Board meeting last Thursday. They were roughly 30 leaders in Arlington County and the two of us who joined to talk about what they're reconstituting this board and they've got a resolution to reestablish this justice board and that includes False Church City and we have on our schedule to have this resolution, I believe it's in October, November, time frame. And there are community members, designated members, and this to talk about the criminal justice system last week's meeting was regarding the unhoused population and talking about trying to do things preventatively before they get into the trial, into the courtroom or into jail, and then have a cycle of recidivism and how it all ties into housing and shortages of beds and shortages of mental health beds for many of our most impacted residents. So it was very interesting. There are five, I believe five judges from Arlington Court there, representatives from the Department of Health and Human Services, Sheriff, Police, NAACP, Community Member, and Elected Officials as well. So there's a year-long plan on strategy about how to start talking about these really difficult topics and I'm glad that false church could be included and look forward to reporting back to you as we move through this process to reconstitute this organization. Thank you for going to that and also to Chief Fard for participating. Other board updates or council member comments. I just had one additional, I guess it's not a board, it's our committees. We have two committee dates that we talked about changing for gov-ops or next gov-ops meeting to be confirmed that. Why? Let me send a note to council just with those dates. Okay. Gov-ops meeting and then the EDC meeting. EDC next EDC meeting just to confirm when we'll have that in the next Govops meeting discussion is surrounding website for those who are interested and all are welcome to join. May I be C.C. on that as well? Yes. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. Well, I think Are you more? I'm sorry. I'm looking back on my notes. Oh, that for that one. I just wanted to extend my thanks to Curt Lawrence and the ESC for the demonstration on Saturday at the Cherry Hill Farmhouse, talking about the five different ways in which they've improved the energy efficiency of Cherry Hill Farmhouse and how those each can be applied to our own homes. And I think there are maybe roughly 40 or some folks. There's a student rap who is touring members of ESC, who are touring people who are interested in coming through, it was really well done. So Kudos to Kurt and the ESC for pulling out together as a great community information session. So thank you. Great. Oh, well, Ron, thanks. The WNOD 50th anniversary, we've been celebrating lots of anniversaries and so was a nice event to thank you to another parks and staff for collaborating on it. It was really good turnout. And then also to the small fall search police team that ran the 5K with me to come over right 9-11 on Arlington on Sunday. So that was really a special event to be able to be a part of. It was my first race there. It was like 1,500 people and people in like full uniforms were running and running with flags. It was really inspiring. So thanks to the chief for getting his teamed out there, too. Very bad. getting his team out there too. Very best you want to comment on Barbara's comments at the WNOD. The woman who's essentially the initiator of the entire WNOD was in 1968, I believe, was when she started the idea when the railroad closed down. She had the idea to turn it into a trail, a trail, a trail to trails. And she turned to 87 this week and spoke, gave the main keynote at the WNOD event on Saturday and was absolutely inspiring and really fantastic and demonstrated what one incredibly dedicated community member could do and to think that there are over three million people on the trails each and every year is really quite incredible and Mary Beth had asked her if we could share her comments. So hopefully we can either add them as a note to our city website and the history section or have them at the history room and false church city and or maybe even print them in the newspaper. They were really great and I think it's important for people to see that and be inspired by How much one person can really do so thank you. That's a great idea her name is Barbara Hilldreff so impressive Okay, we've on to minutes we have a whole batch of minutes I moved to approve the July June a whole batch of minutes. I moved to approve the July, June 28, 2021 minutes. Do we have to do them all individually, right? I don't think so. And I moved to approve all the minutes as presented with this small editorial changes provided to the clerk. A second. Thank you for taking on the second. Yeah, all in favor. Aye. And he knows the eyes have it minutes are approved. And Madam Mayor, the final cleanup from 2021 will happen at the next meeting. We finally got through the COVID era Thank you for your patience. Thank you any other business Now why's we're gonna join before 10 o'clock? That's terrific Okay, we are adjourned good Good night. Thank you, Council. Yeah. you you you you you you