you Okay, good afternoon everyone. Thank you so much for coming to the first Council Town Hall of 2025. A few things to note, we're going to do the Town Hall with the same format that we started with the previous council, which is I have received a bunch of note cards and all different categories as well as some questions were submitted online. I'm just going to go through the categories and roll them out to the council. If other questions come up, there are several staff people around who, Deputy City Manager, John Lamberts right there, and there's a few other in the corner who can also take your questions. A few things to note, I'm gonna try and get to as many of these as possible. I was just doing a quick skim. Some of these are very long questions. So I might summarize, so if I don't read it word for word, please know that I'm still trying to get the gist, but I just want to make sure I think we've got something like 50 questions already and I'm sure there are more in the room. To my colleagues, I'll ask you to get the gist, but I just want to make sure I think we've got something like 50 questions already, and I'm sure there are more in the room. To my colleagues, I'll ask you to keep your answers brief so that we can get to as many as possible. But if more than one folks want to weigh in on a question, just let me know and raise your hand. And the categories that I've received so far, just so everyone in the public knows, it's infrastructure, public safety, budget and economic development, schools, zoning and other. All right? That, we're going to start with infrastructure. First question. And this one is from Fran. Recently I read an article in Alex Now about the consideration of using dash buses for high school students. If the state requires a side-arm camera on school buses, will dash need to comply? And if that is a state requirement, perhaps the use of dash buses should be tabled. Where also where would these funds come from to support such a change? And I'm going to start with Vice Mayor Bagley. Thank you for following this topic. topic. So a couple things. There was a good session on the Joint City Schools Committee on Monday that is recorded and available on our website where specifically this element of this proposal was discussed at length. And there was presentations from both ACPS and Dash about sort of safety and how it's handled and on the buses. So I would encourage anybody interested in this topic to watch that portion of the meeting. There are already youth riding our Dash buses. So I just, you know, generally speaking, I got a figure which maybe I shouldn't quote just yet, but I asked this during our stockholder meeting the other night, how many youth do we have on the bus? And so I have a figure it is not zero, I can promise you. And so youth are already getting on and off our buses. With regard to it being a particular state requirement of a school bus, I'm not going to speak to that. That's part of what the Joint City Schools Committee is doing, but recognize to the extent we're not turning dash buses into school buses. What we are proposing is, would it be an economic gain? Would it be an efficiency? Would it be a reliable efficiency? Are there efficiencies and improvements to be gained by having high school age students only using dash in lieu of high school specific yellow bus routes. So this is about first examining and to the point of the person asking the question, are there economic efficiencies to be gained here? The point is not to spend more money. The driving impetus for this on many ways is we have an excellent, robust, successful bus network in our our city, which many youth already use. Can we get more of them onto those buses and in doing so, eliminate duplicity in our network and potentially reallocate funds that ACPS uses for buses into other educational purposes. I'll pause there just with a nod to try and keep answers short. And if that's responsive. Sure. And what I will just say on this is the city schools committee is examining this issue as a result of a memo that was put forth by the vice mayor and councilman El Nubi. There have been two presentations to date. The first presentation focused on the current state of transportation in our city for young people. The second one was on safety. The third will focus on operations and cost. We are also collecting questions. I know we've received questions from all members of the council, a few members of school board, from PTAQ as well as from the high school PTA. At the end of May, recommendations will be presented to both bodies. Any decision about how we move forward would then also need to go through a community engagement process. All right, next topic, public safety. What, and this question is from Kylie, what is going to be done about rising homelessness issue and crime? Both of these issues are related and threatened the safety of tax-playing citizens who live in Alexandria. But additionally, they threaten tourism and our economic development. And I'm going to turn this over to Councilman Chapman. So the city's gonna need to do a number of things, just like any locality that is facing some of these issues. One of the things that we continue to make sure that we're building affordable housing but also transitional housing. Partnering with a number of nonprofit developers, we are going to have to have opportunities for that. I think we are also calling on the state and a number ofities are as well to help provide the funding for additional transitional housing, especially in the economy that we are seeing, knowing that we are probably going to have more people that are losing job opportunities and thereby having some housing insecurity. Not only our jurisdiction, but neighboring jurisdictions are going to need to do that type of work. Let me see the rest of the question. I know there was another piece to it. So I think one of the other issues that was raised here in terms of the kind of the effect on tourism in a way. I think one of the things that we are going to have to do is frankly try to find what those solutions are to house people and provide that opportunity for them. I know that's a challenging thing and I know that with the economy being what it is, it's going to be tough, but I think that is the push for all these localities. Whether or not we're able to do it, obviously, is the issue, but that has to be the goal. Thank you. We're going to go to budget and economic development. This question is from Alex. Every week, Council hears requests from small businesses and home builders who can't complete their projects without exceptions to our expensive parking mandates. Several other Virginia cities have removed their mandates in an effort to build more homes and support local businesses. Newport News, Richmond, Roanoke and Charlottesville has Alexandria considered this. And I'm going to go to Councilman McPike and Councilman Chapman makes a good point. Some of these are long, so I'll pass you your question too. No, I appreciate. All right, great. I appreciate the question. This is a topic. It came up to a degree in our zoning for housing discussions as we talked about reducing required parking spaces for housing being built in our transit opportunity zones, like our high volume transit zones. And we decided to do that as a city. We took that step. We haven't taken the step that Richmond and other localities around Virginia have of sort of setting aside the notion of parking requirements altogether. If you look at the cities that have done this, it's not that new developments, new buildings, new storefronts don't include parking. Is that they include the parking that their analysis of the market of the customers that they are going to attract if they're business of the people they expect to live there, if they are a housing facility, are going to want and going to need. And I do think there's a lot of value to letting the market determine what sort of parking allocation is needed at each building, depending upon its location, its type. We proved last month that the Council meeting some new housing on King Street, which is right there at the heart of our transit system with multiple dash lines and easy access to Metro. and that housing was approved without a requirement that it provide specific off-street parking for the residents who will live there because we didn't that the kind of housing that they're building they come to us and they say this is going to be housing is going to attract a sort of customer that's going to want that more urban less car dependent less parking requiring kind of customer. So I do think that this is a conversation we should be having as a city. It's not something we should do lightly. I actually had conversations with some other members of the council about bringing for this topic to be considered by our staff with recommendations come back to us. I think you'll see us having this discussion on the council but also with the public in the coming months about what Do we really need and are we inhibiting our ability to build the housing we desperately need in this housing crisis of Providing the housing that we need for people who want to live a greener more transit oriented style of life in our city I think that we can do more and I look forward to having that conversation in the months to come. Councilman Chapman. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I also look forward to that conversation and I think for me it's really if we go down that road we need to be able to show you the residents kind of what that replacement replacement value is. When we've made adjustments to parking minimums we haven't been able to do that. We haven't shown that this particular housing is affordable, now because they've been able to decrease, or there's an increase in public art, or an increase in public infrastructure, or things like that. And so I think we need to be able to speak directly to that. So folks can see that we're not just kind of, as people like to say, giving something to the developer, we're actually getting something for the benefit of the public as we do that. All right, next category is schools and a question about what is being done about the lack of safety and security at ACPS, particularly the King Street High School. And I'm gonna send this question to Councilwoman Green. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Of course you know, we have, you know, our school is overcrowded, our high school is overcrowded. They are looking for ways at all to ACPS and the city are looking for ways at all times to work together to make sure that our kids are as safe as possible in our schools and as well working with APD APD and also with the school resource officers that are within the school. It is critical that we keep safety should be a priority, but right up there with them getting the education they need, it is important that they are safe. I know ACPS is looking at various security companies each and every year to make sure and evaluating the security companies that they have. They do keep us updated through our city schools, subcommittee, and moving forward, it's going to always be our priority that we maintain that. They are looking at, you know, which has become a safety issue this year with the two campuses, with the kids walking back and forth and making sure that kids remain on one campus versus going back and forth and potentially being in a traffic accident. So all of these things are looked at on a consistent basis and will be continued to do that. Councilman Chattano. Thank you, Madam Mayor. In their budget this year, they've added, actually last year they added additional staff, security staff to ACHS and they're looking to keep that same level as well. We believe and I think we just got the numbers back from the last maybe quarter number two. That incidence of decrease at the high school so for that quarter. So I think there's something there and so hopefully keeping the same level of support helps. And I will, I'm sorry I got a bit more think. And they did ask for additional security guards this year that in the budget as well, that is still being looked at through the budget process. Thank you. I'm going to go to Councilmanal Noobie. I do want to keep people mindful. We're only on like five questions and there's a lot more to go and there's more coming in. So Councilmanal Noobie. I'll be brief, but also there's we need to have a conversation about being proactive. Understanding why these events are happening at our schools. What are we doing to address the root cause of these behaviors, whether inside the schools or outside the schools. From a council perspective, the programs that we put together that we have in this year's budget, that we worked really hard not to cut in this year's budget, the address housing insecurity, the address food insecurity. These are important things to think about as we see this kind of violence and to make sure that we're funding and we're looking at how we solve these problems in a proactive way, not just being reactive. Of course, there's a reactive piece to it, which is the security piece, but that piece, the proactive piece, also very important. Also addressing mental health, so I call this and the schools but also from the city side, meant to have in the community. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, next bucket, zoning. This question is from Scott. Why is it a good use of limited financial resources for us to use taxpayer dollars for an outside law firm to issue subpoenas for citizens? 10th Amendment right to, oh, first, one is the first amendment right to free speech. So I assume this is related to zoning for housing, given that this is active litigation, I don't think it's appropriate for the council to comment. I do, however, not just wanna leave this here. So typically we don't phone a friend, but if the city attorney wants to come up and, yeah, we can give you one of these mics you want to come up and just speak to anything that you're able to share about how we do litigation or subpoenas. Thank you very much for the question. Generally speaking the city is not going to comment on pending litigation. However, because of the, whether it's a misunderstanding or mischaracterization of what the city is doing right now as it's engaged in the zoning for housing litigation, I do want to address it. We are a litigant, just like any other litigant. We are entitled to seek discovery. We are entitled to avail ourselves of the discovery process. in that there are instances where it is we are entitled to seek discovery. We are entitled to avail ourselves of the discovery process. And in that, there are instances where it is, we are entitled to subpoena non-parties to the case. And so in this particular instance, the parties that have been subpoenaed were identified as third-party witnesses under oath by the plaintiffs. And so therefore, that is why we've issued the subpoenas and we are proceeding with the case and we will have no further comment. Thank you. Next bucket is other. This question comes from Cedar. What are you doing to protect Alexandria from the administration in the White House? Many federal workers are fired, contracts were cut, and the federal government is withdrawing up to millions of dollars in grant funding for several COVID-related programs operated by the Virginia Department of Health so much so quickly is threatening every part of our lives What is your plan and I'm going to send this to councilman o'gary So in my opinion, I feel that the city has positioned itself well to try and adapt and pivot given what's going on with these circumstances. Conversation started back in November. You know, I'm not going to express everything that was being said because we don't want to put our game plan out there the way 2025 project 2025 was put out there. conversations with our nonprofits, conversations internally with the city knowing where federal dollars are coming from. Of course, we can't replace federal money. You know, the vast amount is just too high. And when it comes to our federal workers, we have been very supportive. We have our website up, inviting folks to be able to take a look, not just for jobs, but also as a federal worker, you might never have thought of the safety net, you know, that the city provides. And so making sure that folks are aware for food security, for rental assistance, for health needs, right? We have a great, federally qualified health clinic. Yes, I know federal is in the name of it, and it does receive federal dollars, but while they're still active, we have a robust safety net system set up up to support our federal workers. Other programs that are going to be impacted, we're going to try and replace that with some city services or city staff as much as possible. Again, only so much can be done at the local level. This is why the state elections are so important this year. We need the state to be able to support us in what we're doing. Currently, the state also has a subcommittee that's looking at funding for what's potentially coming down the pike because if people have savings in the next three to six months that savings might be completely taken out. So we are doing everything that we can within our power and authority to make sure that we're supporting not just our federal workers but also our nonprofits and our immigrant community because there's a lot of fear that is being put out there that we are pushing, not only pushing back on, but also making sure that individuals know what their civil liberties and their civil rights are. Okay, thank you. We're back around to the, oh, sorry, Councilor McPack. I just wanted to add to that answer that if you go to AlexandriaVA.gov slash federal workers, there's, that's sort of the clearinghouse for all the efforts that we're putting in place to help federal workers that Councilman McGee Ray mentioned. I read Madam Mayor. Councilman McGee Ray. I forgot one super important thing too. The city along with Fairfax County, Arlington, and Faw's Church helped to joint host a federal resource fair with Congressman Don Byer in the eighth district. It was held High School in Arlington just up the street from King Street and You know there was over what 800 people showed up or something And we were trying to make sure that we were connecting them with as many services as possible So we are actively out there trying to do things to connect people with the services that they may need Thank you and just to just to give you, I think it's for the audience of sense of scale, our understanding is that almost 900 people showed up to that event. 400 of them went directly to the Alexandria table seeking resources for jobs, food assistance, and housing assistance as well. There will be, I think, Congressman Bios trying to do another one on May 3rd and the goal is to try and have that one here in Alexandria. So we're working with ACPS on a location. All right, we're back around to infrastructure. This one's from James. Is there a plan for information to be made available to the public concerning the development of the complex where the landmark mall used to be, as well as the development of the large complex nearby on Stevenson Street. We have heard rumors of a hospital complex with a helicopter pad to be planned at Landmark site, but where can we get information? I'm going to send this one to Abdel. Sorry, Councilman on Newby. Thank you for the question. So I am looking at our website right now and there are usually we have pages for developments like these where you can get information about what's happening and what stage we're in and usually when there are big developments that happen in big projects the city would put out press releases and things like that. If you have specific questions about specific things, feel free to reach out to us via the 311 system and you're always going to get an answer whether from a city staff member or from us as council members. The Landmark development is a pretty exciting development. It's really going revitalize the West End, and I live not too far from there. I'm excited about it. The other development on Stevenson, I personally don't know much about it. That was approved about three years ago. I will yield to some of my colleagues to talk about the plans for that. I'm going to send a device for your bag. I thought you were going to say yes, there is a hospital. I mean, I think it was within his answer, but I do just want to, if there's any confusion, there is absolutely going to be a hospital. It's going to be a world-class hospital with a helicopter pad. And if you're particularly interested in the hospital piece, hospital piece and Nova not that we don't have our own pages but ANOVA.org slash landmark has a really great breakdown. And it actually includes the CDD, the DSU piece, so they're doing a thorough analysis from their side as well. So the extent the question is, what's going there? Half of the parcel through a long partnership and effort with the city will be the ANOVA hospital. The other half will be primarily housing with retail and commercial spaces and a significant green space. I want to emphasize that even though I know it's not the thrust of the question, but we get a lot of questions and interactions about green space in the city and loss of space. We are getting back acres of green space and tree canopy because landmark mall it was a concrete wasteland essentially of buildings and parking and it will have park space, green space when it's redeveloped. In terms of Stevenson, what I'd like to do, thank you for having your name on the question. If the mayor can pass it to me, Abdel and I will follow up with you with a link to the project. Yeah, Councilman Aguiri. I was just going to add I don't typically push the search engine on the website because it's not always great but I punched in landmark on the search sign. If you go to the fifth item down that's the link directly to the project page. Thank right, public safety. This question is from Paul. Why does the city allow homeless individuals to beg on the streets of Alexandria? And I'm going to go to Councilman Ingari. There isn't really a lot to say that you can't. The long Virginia is basically that you have to keep moving. I'm going to phone a friend. It comes with McPike looks like he's got a hand up. So I think this question is regarding change that we made a couple of years ago. We had some laws on our books that said that you couldn't be within certain distances of ATM machines or certain locations and ask people for money. And the issue that we had there was that is a law that says that if you're standing in a certain place and you're talking to passers-by asking them what the weather is, asking them what the score is and the Nats game, that's fine but if you're asking them for money, that is not. That is content-based language rules. And that is a risk of running a foul of the First Amendment. And so we adjusted our laws to reflect the fact that people have a First Amendment right if they can legally be in a place to talk about things. You can't make content based screenings. It's the same as when the city wanted to get rid of, or many councils wanted to address commercial signs and meetings or political signs and meetings, they couldn't just say only this kind of sign can't be there. Only this kind of sign can't be there. They had to say no signs can be in the meetings because you cannot base these rules on the content of the speech that is occurring. Regarding harassing behavior, behavior that is threatening or creates a sense of unease or unsafety, those are still things that can be actionable by the police. You can seek help for that. Nobody can harass you. But simply saying, hey, can I have five bucks rather than, hey, can you tell me what the score is if the NAS game? That gets into content-based areas that we can't really be policing. So the behavior is what we can address. It's not the actual content of the language. OK, and I just wanted to know for the public, so we get new questions, I'm just putting them at the bottom out of fairness. I think that we had those from online, those in the room who were here first, and then so I'm just kind of getting to them, but I just want you to know I'm not mixing them up, I'm just putting them right at the bottom, and we will keep going through. Next category, budget and economic development, this question's from Jana. What is Council's process for soliciting meaningful public comment on its annual budget, including taking to account the needs of its diverse, says jurisdictions, but I would also maybe diverse people. Councilwoman Green. I think we are all actively meeting with people on the budget. There is our monthly budget meeting. You can always put in questions directly to us or 3-1-1. But we are always actively soliciting anyone that wants to comment on the budget. There's many active ways that you can do that, specifically on our website and at each of our meetings. Yeah, and you can come to any of our public hearings. We have another public hearing coming up on the, our ad delete public hearings. That's one, we have a budget comment page on the website too, that you can submit it's submitted any time. Yes, I saw two hands, so Councilman McPike and then Councilman Agarri. And when you come to our budget public hearings, that we had one for comments about the budget specifically, a while a few weeks ago, we have one coming up about ad deletes and the tax rate. Translation services are available at those events so that we can hear from folks who may not otherwise speak English because we want to hear for the voices of everybody in Alexandria. Also, one of the reasons we're having a town hall this month and on this part of the city is to have an opportunity for people to ask us questions about the budget and to hear from folks who may not make it all the way over to Old Town on a Saturday morning to talk to us at our normal public hearings. So just to tack on to that, there's a wide array of ways to be able to engage. You can come in person, like we said, for public hearing, you can actually come in person to City Hall to the clerk's office. You can call the clerk's office and leave a message or talk directly with someone. They will write it down, pass it on to the council. You can send a physical letter. You can send an email. you could send a tweet, you know, Alex 3-1-1 and our staff is monitoring social media so we can take those in. The city managers has had pop-ups across the city. So there's a wide variety of ways and as Councilman McPike mentioned, we have language capabilities as well so it doesn't matter what language you speak we'll be able to interact with you and the last thing I'd mention is that I just lost it. Go ahead Councilman Green, do you still want to get back in there? Okay, and I will just say I don't mean to put her on the spot, but if our city clerk could just do a little wave in the back That's Gloria and she's a great person to speak to if you have questions about how to sign up for an upcoming meeting. All right, moving to schools. This question is from Allen. What actions are going to improve coordination and collaboration between the city council and the school board? And I'm gonna go to councilman Elnupi. So, I think what really can improve how we work together is working together on joint initiatives, like the Dashbuss Initiative that was mentioned earlier, like a new middle school that's a huge challenge and no one body can solve it on its own because each body has information and tools and expertise that the other body doesn't have. And once we start doing that and gaining small wins, we can then gain big wins. But we need to see that we're capable of doing that. We're capable of working together and solving problems together. So if we do that, I think that will improve. Of course, communication, obviously we have to communicate that very important. We have the City Schools subcommittee. It meets all the time. So the mayor actually started something new this year which the subcommittee takes on a topic every few months and works on it. And like we said, the dash was the first one they took on to try to work on it together and then take another issue and work on it. Take another issue and work on it. So it's not just a committee where they meet and just talk, they're actually solving issues and then both bodies are informed and up to date on what's happening. I'll add one thing on the dash issue that was mentioned earlier, the dash exploration. ACPS already does not provide transportation to high school students who live within a mile and a half radius from the school unless they don't have a safe walking route to school. So there are already high school students that don't have a school bus and their only option may be to take dash. So students are already taking dash safely. Dash was free for students before it was free for the public. So what we're talking about here is exploring, expanding that, exploring more students' writing Dash and not having a school bus option. Let's say if they live right next to a Dash bus route that can take them to school right away. And we're not also, the Vice Mayor mentioned, we're not talking about using dash exclusively for student. No, we're just talking about students writing dash more and less school buses. Imagine how less school buses can benefit our environment, benefit our street, improve traffic, the wear and tear on our roads. So that's where this idea is going from. That's what this idea is about. Great. Thank you Madam Erin. Alan, it's a that's a great question. And when working with two complex bodies, both sides have to be open to doing that. And we are making strides in making sure that happened. We both met for a retreat earlier a couple months ago. And you know, we're we're We're putting forth the best effort to make sure that going forward that we can collaborate better thank you okay I'm gonna move okay councilman Pike councilman Aguirre I just want to put the the bus conversation in kind of broader context as we look at the fact that we are you know very physically stra in the city, we have a lot of demands upon our resources. The council is hoping that we can work with the school board to find areas of overlap. Services that we're both providing, services that might be plug-in play between our two entities so that the city can take on more of that work, like having students writing dash buses instead of school buses, to free up resources that the schools can instead put directly into the classroom, put it into teacher pay, and their other educationally focused priorities. So, I think the position that we're coming to this conversation with from is what are things that the city is doing and the schools are doing that we can do more efficiently if we combine them so that the schools can take the budget that they're given every year and put it most effectively to work in the classrooms. Brief. Sharing answering questions and sharing information and slash data in a timely fashion. Okay, zoning. I'm going to try and find the question, but it just gives you the context. And I'm going to send this to you, Councilmember McPike. It's from Julie. It says, given your approval of new zoning rules, how do you preserve a 70-year-old neighborhood when you've allowed short-term rentals with owners who are not required to live at least part-time the houses or two buildings FAR larger than existing houses with more people and less land. Increasing values are pushing seniors out who would like to age at home. I've attended your senior in Eco City educational programs. I also want you to expound on the city's goals for mixed growth. So I think it's both a question around short-term rentals, but then aging in place and larger around growth and development. Can I give you a card? Oh, yeah, sorry. Can I give you a card? Can I give you a card? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Thank you very much. Regarding short-term rentals, until, well, today, Alexandria has been the Wild West for short-term rentals. Unlike most of our neighboring and comparator jurisdictions, we did not have rules that applied to these uses of housing, which are legitimate and legal under state law, if you own your house or you have a mortgage on the on the house you can rent out a room you can use it as an Airbnb What we've done recently in the council is that we put in place some regulations regarding that We've said that if You are offering an Airbnb in Alexandria that you're going to have to provide your guests information about our noise ordinances Our quiet hours our trash pick up information like that. You're gonna have to have an agent on call who can respond to neighborhood concerns regarding that facility, including one hour responses on things like noise complaints or safety issues. You're going to have to put in place systems for handling these things. You're going to be limited in terms of the parking, number of cars you can have, we've capped the number of residents you can have, and you can't have parties in our residential zones. You can't create a party house in the middle of one of our neighborhoods. These are sort of steps that we've taken as a council to try to recognize that Airbnb's are an important part of how people come and visit Alexandria. But there are also things that exist in our neighborhoods in many cases, in commercial districts and others, and we want to make sure that the impact of them is not outweighing the benefit of the city at large gathers from them. In terms of large houses or houses with ADUs, if you have a home with an ADU, you can have the ADU be an Airbnb and the home be an Airbnb, but not at the same time. You cannot rent them out at the same time under our new ordinance, which goes to effect. ADUs and auxiliary dwelling unit, it's a small building added to a lot, Sometimes they're called granny flats, little apartment or residence on the back of your house that your in-laws or someone else can live in. When I grew up as a kid in Texas, my best friend's house had an apartment above the garage and a member of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra actually lived there. It's actually very nice hearing him play the Viola. So let's see here regarding seniors and increasing home values. Last year we expanded a program that we have in the city which allows seniors on fixed incomes with limited resources to be exempted from certain percentages of their property tax all the way up to 100% of the property tax being forgiven. And beyond that, there's a program for seniors who meet slightly looser criteria to have the property taxes deferred until there's a point where the senior does not need the house anymore and is being transferred and those taxes can then be paid. Details of that are available on our city's tax website. I think this is a program that we allowed to sort of stay set in stone for too long and I was really happy. Details of that are available on our city's tax website. I think this is a program that we allowed to sort of Stay set in stone for too long and I was really happy to help lead my colleagues in expanding that tax forgiveness for seniors on fixed and lower incomes Last year and it's something that I think we need to keep an eye on because housing prices as our housing values Do continue to increase in the city and we don't want that fact to push people who want to stay in Alexandria to not be able to. I would say that since this question touched on zoning, one of the reasons that we made some of the changes in the zoning for housing package a year and a half ago was to create a wider variety of housing options in our city. But that if you are someone who is aging in Alexandria, loves your community, but your house is becoming unaffordable or unmanageable because of the size because you don't have kids living at home anymore. There should be housing options of a size and scale that you could move into if you'd like to that keep you in your community, keep you in your neighborhood and allow you to continue to Be a part of this wonderful community we call Alexandria Vice mayor Bagley. I just want to add two quick data points If you're new to sort of observing this we had a long public hearing on our February 25th Docket if anybody again wants to go back and watch that but two quick data points short-term rentals Represent less than 1% of our housing stock in the city. It was 0.8 of our 80,000 housing units. While at the same time, it represented 19% of our transit occupancy tax. So what we collect from sort of that hotel type stay. So just to put a little context on that, there are communities around the country who absolutely are seeing significant portions of their stock going to this, but we are not yet. Okay, we're back to other. This question's from Frank. When do you plan to remove the LGBT crosswalk in front of City Hall and put it back to its original form or paint American flags there to help celebrate the 250th anniversary of America? After the past six years, it's time to unite the community instead of dividing it. Councilman Chapman. Yeah, we don't have any plans to change what we've done. To the person's question, in celebration of the 250th, there are a whole host of activities and events that are going to happen. For those who are familiar with rolling through Old Town, you know that usually, probably around this time, there's a big giant American flag sitting on the front of the face of the building. And so we traditionally have kind of the patriotic symbolism that folks might be looking for on the city hall building. But the latest additions that crosswalk in particular that we've added helps us remember that there are all types of people that have helped to build our city. Some folks, maybe this person, but other folks as well in our nation, are starting to forget that. And so as we do different things to showcase, highlight, or talk about different communities, different types of people that are contributing to the the growth of this country. I don't see why we should go backwards in that. There's nothing wrong with highlighting various people that have helped contribute to the history of this country. Yeah, so to be very clear, we're not removing the crosswalk. The next question, so we're back to infrastructure, and this question is from Betsy. What is going to happen to the torpedo factory? Why are there so many studios that have been turned into events, spaces, and offices, and is the new governing entity going to do anything about artists not keeping their hours? Vice Mayor Bagley. There's three. Thank you for the question and for your support of the Torpedo Factory. So the current, I'm always kind of a little hesitant to speak to the absolute specifics of the number of studios. But what I can tell you is that we have remained consistent in the number of studios through our jarring process over the last three years. We have remained consistent in our commitment to sort of keeping that in artist focused space. And I hope I'm not out of school and Jim start waving your hands wildly if I mention something about the leases. Okay, we have recently agreed and announced that we're going to extend the leases a year to all the current artists in the building because we don't want to be juring and to be changing things while we are in the middle of pursuing our new governing entity. So that has been shared with the artist. So what that means is that nobody's lease ends this year. The earliest anybody's lease will end is next September, 2026, and to address the back part of the question about the new governing entity. We aren't even waiting for the new government entity to address hours being kept. Our city staff is actively working on that. I mean, I want to, something I hear from sort of both sides on this is there are artists who feel very strongly that they should not be checking in and checking out in sort of in a monitoring way. And there are artists who feel very strongly that, you know, everybody needs to check in and check out and be present. So we're balancing that, but I think I have expressed, and I think staff is working towards a solution that does attempt to monitor hours. I think there is a growing sense of a renewed sort of spirit in the factory for what it's worth between old artist and new and a renewed commitment that we all do need to be there and part of that might be a checking in or a fobbing system or something. So I'm certainly committed to that. I don't want to speak to my colleagues, but I think that should be in place even before the new governing entity. I'm going to do two more infrastructure just because this is a very big category. And I don't know if we're going to get to all of them. I'm also going to try and re- I'll pass you all of the context, but I'm going to just try and do the question. what will the city do both on its own or through its influence of regional organizations like the COG to ensure that bike infrastructure is reliable and usable? And I'm gonna send this to Councilman Elnouby. I know. You're supposed to do that. I'm sorry to give it to you. You have a tattoo of a bike on your arm. You're supposed to give it to somebody else. You should spread the back. So what could happen is one, first thing that comes to mind is make sure our bike trails and bike lanes are connected with our jurisdictions around us. So that's what we can do collectively. Look for funding opportunities to increase bike lanes and increase street safety in general wherever there is opportunities for grants or whatever we can do together to think about creative solutions where we can save money so we can find me to find those bike lanes and those efforts. So that's what comes to mind right away. And then someone's talking about iced over the bike lanes and whatnot. So we also need to make sure that, you know, ice over ice over the bike lanes and whatnot. So we also need to make sure that you know we are addressing safety issues directly right away. So but here's the thing, especially when I don't know when this happened, the ice that the ice that is being mentioned here. mentioned here, but we had a couple of big snowstorms, three probably. And there is a system that we have that we start addressing by categories. So we start addressing main routes first, and then we start addressing like sidewalks and then like areas around schools, because we want to get life back to normal right away. So I know, and I know I received some emails from residents about some bike lanes and some curb cuts that were not cleaned right away, because usually like I said, there's a delay, there's like a 4872 hour delay to do that. But when we received those reports, we tried to address them right away. And honestly, staff has been amazing when I forwarded those emails to them. They took care of them, but also encouraged us to let that resident snow to report these spots that may have gotten missed. So. Thank you. And I will say, I think this came up hearing ice. That makes me think about our snow removal. Plans and processes. I know Vice Mayor Bagley raised this when we were doing a debrief. And one of the things we are looking at is how do we have an intentional plan for our bike lanes, recognizing we still need to do the primary and secondary streets first. But this is critical infrastructure that we've invested in and it can't be used if we're just pushing all of the snow into the bike lane. Councilman Aguire, this one's coming to you. How difficult would it be to build a teen wellness center and recreation center at E-Wald Park? Oh, wow, that's a great question. Say, I actually put in a budget memo specifically around E-Wald Park and what would it take to create a small structure? Now, when you're talking about a teen wellness center, there's very specific specifications, specific specifications that the building would need. So I don't know if that's something that we could achieve on the first go-around. Personally, I would like to see the investment made to be able to put a small building there and then potentially grow it as we have more money freed up in the future, whether in the CIP or if we can get grant money to do it. I'm all in for that. I love that idea. Ewell Park is located off of the Route 30, which is the second highest used dash route in the city. It is in a good location. We are looking to change the park overall to make it more welcoming. We've had some issues with the Vagrancy and Crime because, and frankly, I've had some students tell me at one of the pop-ups, they don't feel safe playing basketball there. They don't feel safe using the rest of the park so we want to make sure that we change that. We want to activate this location and we need places for our teenagers to be able to just hang out and be teenagers. And if we could create a safe space for that, I'm on for it. Hans, that's why I put in that budget memo and hopefully I can convince my colleagues to put a little bit of investment. It's only $3 million for the CIP. It doesn't have to happen right now, but over time I think we might be able to make that happen. Okay, next question. I'm going to come to you, Councilwoman Green. City Council continues to say that it will grow the business revenue, but that is not happening. Isn't it time to recognize that the effort to find a major business contributor is not working? Well, I think we should never say never. It is always important to make sure that we are looking at every avenue to bring in additional business revenue. Quite frankly, we're going to be in a very serious situation if we don't figure this out, which is why we're doing the economic development summit on May 8th. We hope that you all will contribute by taking the survey and participating on that with us. There are things that are coming down the pipeline that we are currently looking at and we'll always be looking at in the future. It's important to protect and provide resources for the businesses that we do have so they can continue to survive and thrive. But we have to continue to look at ways to diversify our tax base in order to basically make sure that we're doing what is right for the future and for future Alexandrian. So no, I don't think we should give up looking for something that is big. I think we should look at all things to always be able to continue to have ways to increase our business revenue. This one, I'm gonna send to Councilman McPike. There's, I'm just gonna say the question, but there is a lot of other contexts here. But can council increase the school's allocation so that the schools can be better staff while still being able to provide an increase in salary that is being offered to all Alexandria City employees? I'll give you a second. Thank you for the question. The schools is the largest part of the Alexandria City budget. It's over $300 million and hundreds of millions of dollars of CIP spending over the next 10 years as well. This year in our budget sort of guidance the city manager was trying to cap overall spending increases across the city at 2% while also asking every department to identify 1% in cuts and actually sort of held the line in our parks department and our police department and our fire department. Where we went above that in terms of the rate of growth was in the city managers recommended budget for the schools. The operating expenses for the schools is rising at a higher rate in the managers proposed budget than it is for any other department or agency in the city because we recognize that this is an important and essential area of investment. It's also when you factor in all the other services the city provides to young people are out of school time programs are health programs. a lot of our nutritional health supports go to young people in our city the city is investing very deeply in our young people because we do want to give them everything they need to go out into the world and have the best future possible. We are in the process of the budget right now. The budget is in the council's hands. We are looking at the document backwards and forwards, having weekly meetings about it. As a council, we are talking about things we want to change or not change. And there is always a desire to do more for the young people in our city. We are facing a really difficult fiscal situation in Alexandria right now. If you watched our last council meeting, and I'm sure everyone spends two hours every other Tuesday watching the live streams of the council meetings, because they're such scintillating entertainment. We had an update from the Metropolitan Council of Governments and in that update it was detailed what the proposed personnel cuts by the Trump administration could do to our local economy. Restaurant tours in this region, 40% of them think they're going to be closed within a year if the cuts that Trump and Musk are talking about occur to federal workforce Alexandria's unemployment rate will be around 10% This is a year where we as a council realized that there's a lot of chaos and uncertainty and malevolence impacting people who live here in our community coming from the federal government with no help from the state government so we need to be a rock stability, continue to provide the services that people rely upon so we are constraining ourselves in terms of things like tax increases this year to be that rock stability. That gives us less flexibility when it comes to things like education but I you know that again, that, again, the manager went beyond on the school's budget, what he did on the other departmental budgets. And we as a council are looking at other options right now. We haven't told Thursday to figure out what amendments we want to put in until the budget. So this is obviously an issue that we're talking to the voters a lot about. We're hearing from folks. And we're talking to each other about it. Thank you. So I'm going to stay on schools for a second. Actually the five that just came in were all on the same topic. I think Councilmember Pike has given a sense of kind of the overall budget, but I'm just going to throw these out there and then any councilperson who wants to respond can. The first one is there are 13, There are 1300 plus students receiving special education services at ACPS. Will you commit to funding at least one of the new special education teachers in the budget? Another is will you commit to any fund save from using dash buses? Will it commit that it goes to ACPS? Another is teachers in neighboring jurisdictions are getting up to 8% MRA in other places. How can we attract the best teachers to Alexandria when even their 1% isn't guaranteed? And ACPS requested funding increases in security guards and it's currently not allocated. Will the ACPS allocation be increased? And then the last one, can you confirm if there's an $80 million fund balance in the city, and if so, can these be used for the school board? So essentially, and I'm happy to pass these out, but I think while we're on the school budget, we should just take all the school budget. Councilman Onibi. Thank you, Ray. Thank you. So the comment I was going to make on the question before, but slightly related to this, so our teacher's, their salary is very competitive right now. Even if we're not able to do this, collective bargaining, which is coming down and is gonna be a large financial lift for the city is gonna make them even more competitive. So salary, even if we don't aren't able to do the increase this year, we will still be competitive and we will continue to be competitive once we get collective bargaining done. When it comes to the security guards, I'm not in favor of putting the security guards in the elementary schools. I've always said that we've needed more security guards at the high school. Thank you, and I think I passed them out. So we're going to go Councilman Chapman, Vice Mayor Bagley, Councilman Gopeyk, Councilman on Newby. Sure. with Councilman Gire around the security guards and elementary schools. I think one of the things that we used to have was a kind of a liaison program with APD for our elementary schools, particularly our teachers and our administrators so that they had somebody that they could reach out to around kind of safety concerns. And so improving that communication, I think, could help. From an overall kind of budgeting perspective, one of the things I would want folks to mention, and you'll see this conversation and grow, hopefully, over the next year, is really leaning on the state government to step up to the plate around educational funding, especially teacher pay. We do not rank as a state in a very good place as it relates to teacher pay. And so that means not just Alexandria, but the rest of the state is struggling to retain quality teachers. And it's not necessarily losing them to other neighboring states. Of course, we have different competition in the Metro DC region, but it's actually losing people from the industry and that altogether, because they don't feel that they're being paid well. And so we need the state to step up. The state came out last year with a billion dollar plus surplus. And a less than appropriate amount from that surplus ended up going back into education. That says something. That says that the folks at the state are not prioritizing the challenges around education and the way that they need to. As many of you know, Alexandria pulls a lot less state funding for education and we have similar problems than other as well as other jurisdictions in the state. And so teacher pay being one of them is one of the issues that needs to change. I think there's going to continue to be challenges to what we can do locally, but we need a partner in the state level that's gonna be able to adequately, especially when they have extra dollars give that money to education across the state. I think my colleague has already addressed the pay issue and we do have collected bargaining coming up and I think we're sort of positioning our budget to absorb what is what we've already seen through police, fire and technical administrative are significant impacts to our overall budget and to dedicating parts of our budget. I apologize. What I've been sitting here trying to flip through is within our budget was a list of positions that the city side, you know, that various departments said this would be a useful position, but it is not being funded in this budget. The only two I could come up with off the top of my head, I know that there were two within tests, and one of which involved, you know, a signage and route coordination and some of the conversations about safety. What's that? Sheriff's Department. Good example. There are two positions that are being, you know, not funded in the Sheriff's Department. So I'm not, you know, belittling or diminishing at all the current positions that are potentially not funded from the superintendent or the school board's budget. But for the general public, I want to express this is not a line only being held to the schools. This is a city wide. We cut over $6 million from this budget. We've cut over $30 million over the last five budgets. And so that's that city wide. So so there is some recognition that there are departments everywhere that are seeing either new positions not created or the sheriff examples positions that are existing that are being eliminated. So I grabbed the question regarding the fund balance. It is true the city has a fund balance balance. Every locality in Virginia is required to have a fund balance. And these are dollars that collect over time. And it's important to understand what these dollars do. First of all, we have a policy that a certain percentage of the city's revenue will be represented in a fund balance. Do you think about it? It's like the emergency latch stitch rainy day fund. It's a fund balance that allows us to be liquid at times when we might be moving money around. But also, it's just money that's sitting in an account in some ways or in a series of accounts. So it can't be used except for a one-time expense. You can't pay a salary out of fund balance because those fund balance dollars don't regenerate the next year the way that revenue off of a tax rate does. You also can't you know start new programs with the with fund balance dollars because you won't have dollars there to continue them into the future. More importantly, the city of Alexandria has a triple A bond rating, AAA, slash AAA, from the rating agencies that assess us and determine how much we pay when we borrow money. And over the next 10 years, we are scheduled to borrow over $2 billion in money to build things, including a lot of school facilities that we have decided we we need as a city. When they assess our credit worthiness, they look at a lot of our policies and more importantly, they look at our adherence to our policies. So when we say we have a fund balance that we're going to maintain to a certain level and even if there's money above that that aren't encumbered by a certain use that has been defined, we're not going to use them except in an absolute emergency. We have to stay to those policies. Otherwise, our credit rating gets hit. It's the same as if we were to overspend on the CIP, which is effectively the city's credit card. If we overspend too much, our credit rating will be hit. And just taking our credit rating down one notch from AAA to AA would cost the city $32 million over the next 10 years triple from triple a to double a would cost the city $32 million over the next 10 years in increased interest payments on the debts that we have to take out to build the things that we as a city of desire we need to build. So it's not a cookie jar of money that we can break open and use, even if we think what we wanna use it on is incredibly important. We have to have the discipline to say, this money is for the purposes, it's in comfort for, Or it's there because we have to show that we're going to maintain our fiscal house in order to have the discipline to say this money is for the purposes it's in comfort for or it's there because we have to show that we're going to maintain our fiscal house in order to get the credit rating we need to be able to do the things as a city that we want to do. Councilman on Newby. on the pay issue. I think ACPS, so note school board, they have a job to ask for what they need. I totally believe that. I said it when I was a school board member, I'm still going to say they have every responsibility to ask for what they need as a school board. What they think the level of funding is that they need to run the school system properly. However, that doesn't mean that council can always meet that need. And once we approve a budget and send it back to them, they have a responsibility to find efficiencies and be able to do more with less, just like every city department is doing more with less this year, unfortunately. Now, last year, the city raised taxes specifically for the schools to pay teachers more, to increase teachers pay. We increased taxes by two and a half cents, right? Two and a half cents. Superity of that went to the schools, but understanding that cannot be done every year, unfortunately. Last year, others' restrictions, some of them did not raise taxes and did not give as big as other raise as we did. So all these proposed budgets that school boards are sending to their localities, they don't always all get funded. Last year, several other localities didn't get their budgets funded, so their teachers didn't get as high as our teachers got last year. So this year, maybe the opposite, is going to be cyclical. It's going to be up and down. One year we're on top, other years, other jurisdictions are on top. Next year, as was mentioned, something I worked on a lot when I was on the school board school board is collective bargaining, making sure our teachers have the right to collectively bargain. We gave them that right when I was in the school board and now they're going to get to the negotiation. So next year, if things go well over there on that side, we are going to have to fund that as a city, which may require a tax increase. So we have to be mindful of all these, of the big picture, and be thinking about the future as well as we look at this year's budget because this year's re-type budget, and as was mentioned, so many other departments made so many cuts in their budgets for things that were important, but not everything can be important when you only have so much money to spend. On the question about any funds saved from the dash proposal and from not needing the amount of school buses that they need now for high school students, if we can find savings there, I mean, that's the whole point of thinking about this proposal, but thinking about other shirt services that we can find deficiencies, because every saved is a dollar for Alexandria Every dollar saved from the school board budget is a dollar This I said she gonna go back to them because the schools every year they get an increase in their budget The schools the schools budget increased about 50 million dollars over the last five years So they're always gonna get an increase every year. So every dollar saved is just going to help us do more with this money. But that's why we need to look at other shared services. Where is what staff can we share? Like there's on the environmental side, we had that question come up in the work session a couple of weeks ago about ACPS used to have a position that helps them find grants for like environmental things and do sustainability better. They don't have that position anymore, but they're contracting that out. That's one thing I'm interested in seeing. Well, we know, and I asked our staff, they have the capacity to help ACPS with that if ACPS is willing. ACPS needs to be willing to work with us. And we have the capacity. That's an area where we can save money and eventually without money it's going to go back to them. Health insurance, we talked about health insurance, they have thousands of employees, we have thousands of employees. That's huge purchasing power, we're in the market, purchasing insurance for your employees. If we do it together, maybe that will save us some money. That's how we should be approaching these conversations about the budget without Pernsett at ACPS. But again, it takes willingness from both sides to have that conversation and it takes sharing, like Councilman McGeeer mentioned earlier, it takes sharing data and sharing information. So when we're asking for data and information, we need to get that so we're able to make those decisions. I guess the last thing I appreciate my colleagues for all they shared on this, the last thing I would just lift up is I think sometimes when we talk about the budget, it is framed as, is either ACPS's positions or it's the city's positions. It's one or the other and it always has to be a very tense and difficult conversation. I think the reality is the at the end of the day that Council is responsible for looking at the fiscal health of the whole city. And in doing that, there are a number of things we are trying to balance. It is not that we don't want to be able to fund every single ask that comes. But in this situation right now we are dealing with a lot of uncertainty and we're really dealing with a lot of things that we just don't know how to plan for right now. I think putting context, I know different numbers have been thrown out, but when I look at our budget between ACPS and the city, almost $51 million comes directly from the federal government. Those are grant programs that we don't know if they will still exist. If they go away, where does that money come from? come from. We have over 29 departments that all submitted things that they feel are essential to meet the needs and services of our city. Those totaled over $12 million and most of those we had to say no. We put in almost $6 million worth of cuts this year and we're still continuing to look for cuts. I know in conversations I've had here there are folks who are looking at deletes next week. We're trying to put in contingencies because what happens if we have an economic downturn? We are daily getting emails from residents who are saying, I have lost my job, or I'm at risk of losing my job, or my spouse has lost their job. That all impacts whether or not they can pay their property taxes, but what happens if they no longer decide to live here? and they move away. This all has ripple effects in implications. We're hearing from businesses who are saying, you know what, I'm a baker. You know what I use in my baking eggs. It costs money. We're hearing from people who are saying, I, you know, I'm worried about the tariffs and the impact on their industry. So I think we are trying to put forth a budget that has minimal impact to the services people need and want, but also recognizes this is a year where we need to be pretty cautious. I would also say to you what we pass now, there's no guarantee that we're not going to have to revisit this in October or later on to just figure out how we respond. So I just, I hope folks know that I don't think this has to be a conversation of an either or. This isn't a conversation of that position is an important or so we don't shouldn't do that I think it's a conversation of in the moment we're in now how do we provide for as many needs as we can how do we do so in a way that is fiscally responsible and then how do we work together across both bodies and the whole community to figure out what's the plan for the long term in a context where resources we used to depend on, we may not have the ability to anymore. Councilman Chapman. Okay, the super brief. So it's basically a math equation. The city is growing at a certain rate and certain departments, certain entities, certain organizations are looking to grow at a different rate. Much higher than that. So over the course of time that I've been on council, we've talked about what that growth rate of the city is versus some of these other agencies, whether it be ACPS, whether it be Womada, whoever it is. We get to a place where it is tough for the city to grow past that rate and fund past that rate. And so if our growth rate, a revenue growth is 2%, and someone's asking for a 7 or 8, that's going to be a challenge after a certain time. And so we have that issue. One thing that I'll lift up is we used to call it a shared service, but it's not. You've probably seen either the ACPS, white cars or the city white cars with the emblem on them, whether they're on the street or some parking lot. To me, it doesn't make sense that both entities have these cars. I think we need to decrease the number of cars by working together. Staffs from both entities can use those cars, see what we get in terms of savings from maintenance and purchase of those cars and use that money for something else, most likely ACPS. That's an easy thing, but I think one of the challenges is going to be having these entities work together on this issue. As we've talked about, there are some communication issues and challenges, and so I'm putting in a request to see, and I got to talk to a couple of city staff, if we can use some of that money to incentivize this working together. I'm going to take a couple of these because they came directly to me. One, the mayor said that there is a task force on Mason, Bandoor, and apartments. What is being done and why are emails and concerns not being addressed or answered? So any resident who has reached out as well as any reporter who has reached out, we have provided an update on what is going on for those who are interested in more information and we are happy to share this out. A couple things have happened since the story was released. First, there was an interdepartmental workgroup that was put together, that includes code enforcement, housing, the police department, DCHS, and some representatives from ACPS. There was a couple specific things that have been addressed immediately. There were three complaints of no heat. Both of those were, all three of those were investigated and resolved. There was a report of bathroom leaks and mold. All of those have been, have violations have been issued and have been resolved. There have been, APD has conducted a review of all calls over several month period. They have increased officer engagement on site, including regular meetings with Nova Raff, with attendance group on site. They also have foot patrols, vehicle checks, and they're even doing roll calls on site. There was another meeting with housing and several tenants and they're going to be putting together a Know Your Rights session as well as working with them on how to report violations directly to staff so that we can get out there. There's a lot more here. There were several rodent complaints that have all been reported, investigated, violations issued, and then follow up gone out to make sure that those have been addressed as well as some things related to trash. So the work group meets I think every few weeks. I'm happy to get you the timeline, but they also provide a report to council because we believe this is unacceptable and we want to continue checking it, so we're happy to share that out as that comes. Another question was directly to the mayor and we're not gonna be able to answer this one in this forum, but it is someone who was a federal employee and was fired and they wanna know which laws apply to them. If you could just find us afterwards, I don't know that we have specific advice on that, but we will be able to figure out maybe where is the right agency or group that you can go to for that question. Another one is the mayor said in a May 2024 Washington Post interview that you oppose a ceasefire resolution in Gaza, and the question is, do I still oppose AC's fire resolution? What I will say is my position remains the same. I have, however, been engaging in conversations with grassroots Alexandria, as well as the human rights coalition related to some of the calls that have been around disinvestment. And so I know that there are some conversations we're having there and some things that we are looking on pursuing. Another question is how is the mayor making sure that citizens are involved with the governing process? I can't take credit for the town halls because that was an idea of Councilman McPike. But a couple things that I will say that I'm adding specifically to that. This morning had my first mayoral youth forum. We had over 25 young people. This will be every other month with young people coming directly to the mayor and other elected officials at multiple levels of government to share their issues and concerns. I've also brought back previous mayor's interfaith and clergy council. And so that is meeting quarterly. We had our first meeting on that as well. And then hosting what I call resident round tables in order to be able to provide another space where it's less of us talking and more of you talking and those will be every other month as well. I also do a newsletter. I've been very clear with people. This does not look like the previous mayor's newsletter but it is it is a newsletter if you are seeking information in a short bulleted fashion and then I know a number of my colleagues also have their own sort of newsletter's podcast and engagements they're doing as well. And then last one was another one to the mayor, a related to concerns about a pothole they got, and wants to, once compensation. So we'll talk to you about this over here, and I will get you directed to the right city department. All right, back to our regular scheduled programming. What is going on with the Duke Street ramp at Van Doren Street? Vice mayor Bagley. Oh. Oh. I just took like six that all directly called me out. Are you straight? Is there's not that I don't want to answer, but honestly, I mean, if I'm also wearing this hand off, I'm really happy to, like, yeah. I just start, because I engaged with the resident about the changes that are happening all the time over there, because there's the question earlier, the landmark development, there's a hospital being built built there So there are a lot of changes to the traffic pattern That they are all temporary and the city puts out communications about it But sometimes people don't get the communication and they don't understand why you know You're shutting down a lane or you're shutting down a loriter or a left or a ramp. Yes, there is a ramp That's close to its big close for a while because of that a development that's happening and's heavy construction there. We're building multi million or 100 million of dollars a hospital there. So it's big development. If you have any concerns or don't know what's happening, have questions. Just feel free to reach out. Again, our staff has been very, they sent out like really detailed emails that I've seen to the residents who ask questions about that specific intersection over there. Because yes, it could create a choke point at points and disrupt traffic. Just to... Yeah, thank you. I mean, it's... I'm sorry, the reason I kind of went... Oof is because I know. I mean, it's a challenging process, and that was what my Oof was a reaction to. But I can give something a little more concrete in terms of like a verbalized answer. So yes, starting in December and carrying through August, there is a rotating set of closures involving the ramp and the street, at Vandorn and Duke. And this is directly related to really what is now the infrastructure work happening at that area. That's why you're not really seeing up development happen yet, but there's a lot of down development happening. Is that the very lay person way to put it? So the closures are going to continue through August. One of the best sources actually, I want to shout out to Vernon. There's a good ALX now story that breaks down. This phase will involve this way closed. This phase will involve that way of closed. So if you Google, you know, Vandorn, Duke Street, ALX now, Vernon's article will come up from December. But, you know, I appreciate everyone's patience. We will continue to strive to communicate, you know. There are likely e-news blasts that you can sign up related to that parcel that will update you directly. I know I'm on the e-news blast for anything that happens at the power plant and things in my neighborhood, but do expect sort of significant delays and plan accordingly there. But it really is for an exciting kind of future, not just the hospital, not just the housing, but there's going to be a significant transit center there as well, a real hub for buses moving through the city. So hopefully it will be worth it. I mean, we are asking for your patience and we understand the inconvenience, but it's worth it. Okay. So all that's left is a big stack of other infrastructure zoning and like two more budget questions. I'd... That's okay. That's OK. That's OK. We're going to get to everybody. OK. We got public safety budget budget. OK. School's. OK. I did want to correct one thing on the town halls. I forgot to give credit to Councilman Aguirri, because this is something know he has been working on since 2018. So collective effort to try and find more ways to engage with the public. So next question, and I'm going to try and guys only have like 30 minutes, so let's shorter answers. Councilman Chapman, this one's coming to you. Should residents expect a increase this year in their property taxes? No. It is, but I guess technically due to, yeah, there's no tax increase, but some people will see increased payments because of the appreciation on their home. Okay. one is specifically about fences and that the rules are draconian. Let me see if there's a question. Is council willing to undertake a comprehensive review of the city's residential building regulations with an eye towards streamlining and simplifying requirements to allow homeowners to make improvements on their private property. I'm going to have to find some air bags. So we did just do some changes on our sign ordinance, which is mostly related to business, but I lift that up because it was a recognition from like last couple of councils of like, this is too complicated, this is causing businesses money to have to come in before us. We also just made some changes with regard to fences actually between homes that are, that are but businesses. So where like there's two different rules that applied one on the business side and one on the residential side. So we have addressed that. There's also been several council actions in the last few meetings on something called the One-Star? One-Star? Did I just... Yes. Yeah. It sounded funny when I said it alone. One-Star. One-Star. Yeah. So, One-Star is a streamlining of our permitting and our development process that is underway. So as for the specifics of the question, and I can see that it was very long and double-sided, I don't want to commit, but what I can say is this Council and the prior Council before it are very actively working on ways to streamline and simplify and make things faster and easier to reduce the legal fees, the permitting fees, and just the time that goes into things. Because those do end up actually in your housing costs. I mean, for better or worse, you know, in whether you're renter or you're an owner, they all raise the cost of your housing. Okay. I'm going to gas power leaf blowers. Councilwoman Green, this one's coming to you. Will you support a short phase in period of a ban on these machines of no more than one year? Okay. in period of a ban on these machines of no more than one year. So I like to tell the story that on the campaign trail, like one of the top three issues that I heard knocking doors was about Gas Leaf Blowers. And we have heard you loudly, very clearly, and we... Maybe we haven't heard you. I was making a leaf-flower joke, so I was like... Oh, okay. Yes, we haven't heard you because of the leaf-flower noise. But yes, so we're in the process of that. I actually do support it being more streamlined and not taking as long of a process. So I do support that. But I think we have already voted to move forward with the process that it is now and it's correct me for more than I think it's 24 months. So we don't have an ordinance before us just yet but it will be coming in May and we yet we have discussed the two years I know that was discussed as well as maybe moving it faster but yes yes, I do support that. Thank you. Councilman Aguirre, is it safe in Alexandria to voice an opinion differing from the city council and the city government? Absolutely, happens all the time. And even with this council, we've had issues, well, not issues. We've had disagreements where it might be a six one vote. It might be a four three vote, it might be a five two vote. So yes, you absolutely can make your voice heard if you don't agree with something. Councilman McPike, the timing of our local elections that we do not have staggered voting for council members and that we are a rare example of a fully at large voting all result in a political system in Alexandria that seems increasingly undemocratic. Even if this is not your personal political self-interest, are you willing to study this system and are you open to changes? If citizens and civic groups believe those changes will improve how representative our government really is. So I am actually very open to considering changes such as term lengths in our city. We are the only jurisdiction in this area that has three yearyear terms, which means that our elections float amongst the various different elections that you have in Virginia and you have highly variable turnout from cycle to cycle. And if we were to extend the terms, I do think that looking at staggered terms would be something that is worth considering having the mayor and three council members up. One year and two years later, three council members up. I'm sort of having some conversations with folks about that. Oftentimes we hear questions about wards and I do not support wards because I think wards have proven very detrimental to the operation of some of our neighboring jurisdictions. But more importantly, they prove very detrimental to the operating of the city of Alexandria. If you look back to our city's history, when Delray was admitted into the city, a ward system was created. And Alexandria, we excelled everything, including maximizing all the negativities that you can have from a ward system as fast as humanly possible. We had a situation of all where the city was wildly over budget, where awards became fiefdoms, where each individual council member basically had the full run of the show, where the city budget became very, very difficult for the city manager to handle. And it was Armistead Booth, whom we have a park named after in our city, who was Alexandria's progressive, heroic, anti-bird machine representative to the House of delegates who filed the charter amendments to move us out of the ward system and back to what we have today. Today you have a city council where if you are a person who lives in Delray and you care about the businesses along Mount Vernon, you care about schools, you care about flooding that is impacting your neighborhood, you have seven people in the city council who you can reach out to. You aren't restricted to simply the person that represents you and if the person who represents you doesn't particularly care about your issue, you're going to have a hard time getting any traction on it. We're a city that is small, but often has big issues. And if we look at the flooding that affects certain parts of Alexandria, we're spending over a billion dollars over the course of a decade to address that. And if we had a ward system, the only two people that would vote to spend a billion dollars over the decade to fix flooding in a certain area of the city would maybe be the mayor and the person who represents that specific neighborhood. but because we all represent the entirety of the city, we had to stand up and say we cannot let the residents we represent deal with this hardship. So I think that the ward system is not a good fit for Alexandria and the challenges that we face. I think that our current system has elected some of the most diverse geographically, racially, in the history of our city and we should be very proud of that. But in terms of terms, in terms of other adjustments we can make to our election system, I am very open to that and I'm happy to have those conversations. Okay. It seems the councilman on Newbie, I'm going to send this to you. It seems the relationship between the community and council has become strained. A company by complaints that the council is not open to community input and that you've already made up your mind. Assuming you recognize the validity of this perception, what will the new council do to ameliorate it? I don't necessarily agree with that. I would love to hear about specific situation and how your experience went. And happy to talk about it. I just can't tell you like this council and from what I've seen from my colleagues and based on my previous experience, like things here are very open to conversation. People here are very willing. Let me tell you something. I'm going to speak from the heart. Seriously. Since I came to council, I really, the kind of commitment that I've seen from our city staff is just amazing. It has been really for me a breath of fresh air. Our staff are really committed to making the city work for you. This is the kind of government that I ran for office to see and to want to see it happen it does happen. I'll say that's why we have a great quality of life in our city Whether it's filling pot holes or graffiti every time I reach out to our staff to ask them to look into something or to talk to a resident about something They engage in good faith the answer questions. They solve the problem in a timely matter. They stay after it. I just honestly, I can't ask for a better staff that we have that supports us. They care a lot about council making the right decision and about council engaging with the public. They bring us the information that helps us make the right decision. They're not trying to drive us to make towards making a certain decision. They actually care about us making the right decision, that we think is the right decision, not what they think is the right decision. All the caribou has given us the correct information to make these decisions. Because that's how governments are supposed to work. We work for you. You hold us accountable. Staff works for us. We hold them accountable. and I'm telling you, it's been refreshing being here on Council and seeing that actually happened in your city. And I think every one of our residents should be proud that this is our city. Government is functioning. In terms of engagement, again, we have, you know, town halls, and if you have any ideas, I think we're open to listening to ideas. How can we engage better if there's a certain, again, I would like to hear about certain situation where you think, because listen, we, everyone makes mistakes. So maybe there's a situation where you may not, you may not have been satisfied about how the public engagement went on it. But for example, like the leafblower example that just, we just talked about, when it came to council We told staff go engage with the community go engage with the small businesses Find out what are the unintended consequences of such decision and if we thought about all of it We thought about the big picture and come back to us Right if they come back to us to make a decision We don't think we have enough information information. We push them We send them back to bring us more information We don't get any pushback, they happily do it because again, they care about us making the right decision for you. I'm happy to talk more offline, but more details if anyone is interested. But again, if you have any suggestions of how we can do engagement better, please come talk to us and tell us and we're always happy to listen. And again, from what I've seen from my colleague, they really value public input, really value people's opinion. We can agree to disagree, but we're never going to yell at anyone or have issues with anyone because this is how our government is supposed to work and someone who on a personal note grew up in a dictatorship where you can't even do that. You know, you can't even have signs that go against, you know, the opinion of people in power or any of that. I'm very proud to live in this city. Madam Mayor. Councilman Aguirre. Thank you Madam Mayor. So I agree with my colleague and I even, you know, went to highlight that the city really has changed is a way that it does engagement. Doing pop-ups at Longing Mats, at Buzz Stops, at grocery stores, we never used to highlight that the city really has changed the way that it does engagement. You know, doing pop-ups at Longing Mats, at bus stops, at grocery stores. We never used to do that type of stuff before. We are engaging different populations within our city that we honestly didn't engage before. Short anecdote. I don't know how many people know about the co-op that we have. We only have one co-op. At one point was the largest on the East Coast. The Arlandia Treaty Law Housing Cooperative. I went there in 2018 when I ran for the first time and I asked them, when's the last time somebody from council or a candidate has come to see you? They looked around the room, they said, we can't remember. It probably wasn't since the co-op was first formed. So that's one example. Another example, African communities together, which is right across the street from here at Southern Towers. Another group that wasn't engaged before were engaged. the co-op was first formed. So that's one example. Another example, African communities together, which is right across the street from here at Southern Towers. Another group that wasn't engaged before were engaged with them. Nova Raft were steals with Afghan refugees. They came together, we've been engaging them, we've been making things happen. This council takes this very seriously when we talk about engagement. And we've been doing just that. We've been putting our money where our mouth is. We've increased the size of our office of community and Gade. very seriously when we talk about engagement. And we've been doing just that. We've been putting where our money, where our mouth is. We've increased the size of our office of community engagement. We've increased the positions specifically for engagement. We have folks in the health department that are doing similar things. We are doing these town halls. We are getting out into the public all across the city. Is it just a follow up on that? We did receive a comment that said, would you consider allowing constituents to verbalize their own questions and having a real discussion with them rather than picking up and choosing which questions get answered? The current format does not allow people to speak and it's not really a town hall. So there there's a couple things. One, we are going to get to every single question that is asked. We only have about 10 more, so it's not a picking and choosing. Second, the reason why this format was suggested was because we want to be able to get to as many as possible. I can tell you, some of these note cards are not just double-sided, but they're multiple note cards for one question. We would still, so I just say that in good faith and that it's not from a sensor. There's a lot of people in our city with a lot of different opinions. multiple node cards for one question. We would still, so I just say that in good faith and that it's not from a sensor, it's, there's a lot of people in our city with a lot of different opinions and we're trying to get through as many as possible. I'd also say to Councilman McGurie's point, this isn't the only engagement. So there are other ones, like I mentioned, are round tables or other things where it is a two-way dialogue where we want to be problem solving. So we're open to feedback, but I just also lift up that every engagement is not structured the same way. And so if you're looking for one. dialogue where we want to be problem solving. So we're open to feedback, but I just also lift up that every engagement is not structured the same way. And so if you're looking for one that is more of a back and forth, then let's figure out how we structure that and how we do that. But in this case, the goal was people want to ask questions, we want to get through them. But we're going to get through all of them, so we will keep going. next question, I think I answered this, but I will open it up for the whole council. Alexandria's Human Rights Commission sent a formal recommendation to the City Council in March of 2024, calling on council to pass a resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza. They then sent a follow-up letter on January 2025. And then in March 2025, they sent another recommendation, calling for the City Council to divest from companies enabling Israel's genocide. What is the City Council's position on both issues? Councilman Aguirre. First of all, jumping back to the last question really fast. Every single one of us are willing to meet one-on-one. So if anybody wants to have a meeting with one-on-one, just contact us. We're willing to do that. Specifically to this question, all of our boards and commissions are advisory. Nothing is binding. It is up to the council to decide whether to take something out or not on advisement from any of our boards and commissions. Anybody up? Okay. Yeah, I mean, I just said, I'm sorry. Oh good. Yeah, I mean I would just add I have talked directly to our Human Rights Commission chair on this topic. I have also met with representatives. There are various coalitions on this issue, but I have met with, I know, Representative from Grafist, or Alexander, and some of their other partners. So, it is not that the issue is not being discussed, examined, considered. It's just like Gas leaf blowers, just like a bunch of other issues. It's when it's timely, when there is something towards consensus, when there is direction for staff to give. Will the City Council be able to stop the sheriff from holding undocumented individuals for an extra eight hours to allow ICE to detain them by smare bagley. I mean the short answer on this is the sheriff is an independent elected office and so and that's not a dodge that's that's the reality so we can express ourselves individually or as a body to the sheriff but that's not a policy we can dictate. Sheriff Casey is running for office right now. He is available publicly all over town all the time. I would encourage you to express, you know, if you have concerns in this area to express them to him, he is ready and informed to address this topic. I hope that's a responsive. Yeah. Councilman Chapman, if unions cost the city so much money and create budget challenges, why did you vote for unions and collective bargaining? Because I think for, if we look at pay and whether it be school pay, whether it be employee compensation, we are always going to be in a fight with those jurisdictions for people and for pay quality. Shall we say? I think one of the ways to best work to get not just quality pay, but an expected understanding of what pay is going to be is to look at collective bargaining because you're setting up a contract for a number of years and so you understand at the beginning of that contract where that pay is going for the duration of that contract. And so the city is going to know as it does those contracts with different employee groups, how much it's going to cost. And within our negotiating and bargaining, there are situations where if a package is too much for the city to actually be able to handle and the city can show that, there is an opportunity for a renegotiation and that is the structure of our collective bargaining. And so that's an opportunity as well. I'm going to have Councilman McPike, Councilman on Newby, and then I have a comment on this one too. Yeah, I appreciate John's comments. He's exactly right. Collective bargaining provides a structure and a sort of look ahead. It also, we talked earlier about whether the things were investing in, do we see the return on them? and we've seen the return on these collective bargaining agreements. They've been very good for our city. We're about to be at full strength with our fire department. We have a police department where morale has improved and turnover has decreased. We are seeing, you know, good things come from this, but fundamentally, I think what we're seeing is our city is operating in a way that reflects the fact that we believe that workers have a right to organize and to bargain collectively. And if that is the right that they have, that is the right that they should have here in this city as they work and bargain with us as an entity. So collective bargaining is a way to give workers, because we care about workers, please, I care. I know this council cares about workers and that collective bargaining speaks for that, because we should care about our working people. Our workers are part of our community and we want them to have essay, collective bargaining gives them essay, gives them a little bit of leverage. SA in their pay, in their benefits, and in their working conditions. Because we also want to attract the best to our city. So that enables us to have that. We don't want to be paying starvation wages. Because at the end of the day, one, we're not going to be able to attract good talent. But two, you're going to pay for it either way. If we're paying starvation wages, there we're going to have to pay for aid and for other in other sorts of government assistance. So that's why collective bargaining is important and is critical and helpful to our health of our workforce. I was just gonna say for me, I think I've been very clear with everyone and local to knew to be that a strong value of mine, and I think for our city and many of the residents I talk to is supporting working families. I think at the end of the day, that's not something to be ashamed of, or it shouldn't be something to fight over. I can tell you when I first joined the City Council, I wasn't really aware of all the things that come in a collective bargaining agreement. What I was aware of is that I heard from our police, our firefighters, our trades, our administrative professionals, our teachers, that they have not received the paying compensation they need, that they want to be able to stay and work in Alexandria, but it's becoming increasingly harder to do so. And just like everyone else, they wanna have a voice in the conditions where they work. And so to me, it's critical to be able to do that. I also think we have a fiscal responsibility to make sure that the projects we're building and the things we're doing, that they are built right, they are built with high quality, and they benefit more our Alexandrians. And part of that is making sure we have jobs that pay good wages to do that. So for me, I think this is really important. I also think that is why. I don't think the frame that it's costing us so much money. I think it's one component of the many different budget things that we have to look at. But I think investing in people should never be something we shortchange. Councilional Aguirre. I agree with everything that my colleagues have said absolutely and I also fundamentally believe that workers deserve a voice in the workplace. You know that's full stop right there. Secondly it has been a huge retention thing having collected bargaining. If you were to go to ask any of the firefighters or police officers if they would be willing to get rid of collective bargaining. I almost guarantee you, or getting rid of their union. I almost guarantee you they will 100% say no. And lastly, just on a personal note, my mother was a teacher back home in LA. She was part of UTLA, United Teachers of Los Angeles, which was a union, the teachers union there. And I know that because of that, we were able to buy a car, we were able to buy a home, and I was able to go to school. So there are three here that I think we answered earlier and I will direct them back to the city attorney, but there is a question about why did the city hire McGuire Woods law firm on taxpayer dollars? And this is a response to zoning for housing. There was another one about how and why is the city demanding and this is in reference to the sub Pina. Citizens correspondence and if that consistent with our values. And then there was another one around are the city sub Pina's of citizens emails a form of intimidation and retribution. As I mentioned council's not going to comment on this but we did we our city attorney is back there if you have further questions or comments that need clarified. Happy to point you in that direction. Last week a couple miles north in Rosalind. Ice unlawfully detained. Better. Consuri for expressing salt, sorry. Solidarity with the Palestinian people. What is the city doing to resist the Trump administration's attack on human rights? And will this include divesting city funds from Israel's apartheid and genocide? Councilmember Pike. So the freedom of speech is fundamental in this country. Every single person, whether you are a citizen, you know, a permanent resident, a tourist in this city, in this country, you have a right to free speech, you have a right to do process, and this current administration's actions fly in complete face of that. It is a complete abrogation of the responsibility of these federal officials to uphold the United States Constitution for them to persecute anyone based upon the content of their speech. The city has put together resources to help folks who are potentially subject to detainment or deportation. A lot of things that we're not going to go into detail about in a public forum, but there are resources on our site. There are resources that the city is funding through legal aid services. If you are a person in Alexandria, you are a part of our community. And you are concerned that these federal actions may impact you or your family directly. Please be in touch with folks who can give you the guidance that you need to ensure that you are secure and safe in your place in our city. Regarding divestment, I believe that the mayor spoke to that. It is not something that I am personally in favor of because I think that our city's fiscal position puts us in a place that we need to be sure that we are handling our money in the most you know, Fisically responsible way and in terms of free speech a lot of the investments we have in the city are Our employee driven and I'm not going to support a policy that tells employees where they can and cannot invest their own retirement funds Just while we're on this I just want to open it up if anyone wants to comment because there are three more of the exact same question which are around sort of your response to the Human Rights Commission, your position on cease-fire and divestment. So just to folks now. Vice Mayor Bagley. So I, for the sake of those who, just so they can be repeated often, one of the ways that we are sort of resisting or not cooperating as, you know, our police department is not a part of deportation actions or, you know, into people's homes, into people's community. So I want the community here and anybody watching to know that, you know, if you are concerned about being the victim of a crime, if you need to contact the police, please do so. We got a separate question on the sheriff and that is a very separate issue about what is going on in terms of what somebody arrives at the jail. But in terms of our local police, this council and our police and our values is, you know, our police are here to support our citizens, to create a safe environment for our citizens. I understand that it can be confusing to tell the difference sometimes between an ICE officer, between a police officer, between a sheriff. So please reach out and those respective offices are Alexandria police and sheriff will come to communities. You know, if I'm looking over it, our liaison on the back there, but they will come into a community. They will talk about this is what our, this is what our uniform looks like. These are things you will not see us doing. So to me, that is part of sort of free speech. The other thing I'll say is there are people here with signs right now expressing themselves freely and openly, nobody's pushing them out of the room. The same thing happens at our council meeting. We have people come to our meetings and express themselves in opposition. right now expressing themselves freely and openly. Nobody's pushing them out of the room. The same thing happens at our council meeting. We have people come to our meetings and express themselves in opposition to many of the point of use we've expressed today. So please come in. We are trying to model what open free speech looks like as much as possible in our town halls by being here today in our city council chambers. And we want to keep doing so. But I didn't want to let pass the idea that you can't rely on the police if you need them right now in our city. Councilman Elnouxy had a hand up. There's 10 minutes and eight questions. So I want to get to everybody. So on the investment and the cease fire, want to see a ceasefire in Gaza. Of course I want to see a ceasefire. I don't think I want to see more of kids being killed. But do I think if City Council passes these fires going to make a difference? Probably not. Would I vote for it, but on the floor? Yes. Am I going to spend my time working on it? No. Because I'd rather spend my time trying to find funds for housing for school, trying to show our value as a community in how we've helped the most vulnerable among us in the community. But also make sure free speech is protected, which it is. I welcome free speech. I welcome you to oppose us and to bring your views. because look, I mean, you believe in an issue. I invite you to speak up for it and keep speaking up for it because it's an important issue for you and we all have our role to play. But for me, right now, I want to be spending my time. You got to tell you, look, this shop takes, this is a part-time job for us, but it takes so much more than part time. And I'm personally trying to be as effective as I can for the local issues that I ran on, that I want to fix, that I have control over. I mean, if we pass a ceasefire as a rule, it's Trump really going to listen to us. Our congressman already called for ceasefire. So I don't know if that's going to even like change our congressman's views. But yes, I do certainly want to see it. But that's not why I ran for local office to do and to try to make a difference in an issue like that over there. Because it's just bigger than a city council. Okay. If the city is trying to be fiscally conservative, why give a 3% increase to city staff, but give ACPS 1%? Councilman Chapman. So I appreciate the question, but the framework of how a locality like ours gives the school's money is an alumsum. We do not designate how much money we can give for any part of their budget. We have to give that an alumsum and what that what school board does with that lump sum is their choice. And so if schools want to school board the elected school board members that you've chosen want to give their staff a 1% MRA versus a 2 that means they have chosen to prioritize that versus try to find funding within that lump sum. I think the question of can council give more of a lump sum so that they can make that that easier decision is probably the right question there. But in terms of us giving them a 1% MRA, that's not what we do. We focus on what our staff and legally we can't do that. So yeah, let me. Okay. I think. Question of the next question. Vice Mayor Bagley. Just so page 10.1. And our FY26 proposed budget is a nice one-page snapshot on how we're handling salary adjustments. And recognizing time limitation, I would love to point people to that, but there's a proposed 1% citywide cost of living adjustment to non collectively bargain pay scales. So there's some great facts on that one page about what's happening on the city side, and I think my colleagues done a really great job of explaining what control we have over the specifics on the ACPS side. Okay, couple more. I had one that was about my previous employer, the Melville Charitable Trust. It asks how many funds were received from HHS, HUD, DOJ, or DHS, and the answer is zero. It's a foundation, so the money comes from its endowment. And I also don't work there anymore. The next question, why can't the Homes Run Trail be restored before the end of 2025? Oh, well, sorry. Doing sure thanks very badly. Did I, don't want to jump on people? Time. There. time. But I just would remind everybody, original wash out plans to fix it bigger wash out, begun plans to fix it, COVID happened. Nobody was doing any work in building things. We are currently building. There are literally pile driving happening out on the trail. And portions of the trail, there's a great dedicated page on the city website. I am cautiously optimistic that it will reopen this year in significant portions, if not all of it. And maybe I should just stop there. But yeah, I think that's correct. But we do are committed to getting this back open. We recognize it's been long and frustrating. Councilman Greene, positions in the city are not equivalent to teaching positions. With enrollment going up, what does council recommend then to keep ACPS class sizes manageable, given our large multi-linguistic high-need population. I think our class sizes, our class sizes, we actually, it's set at a certain level at ACPS. They would have to change that within, you know, within their policies in order to have class sizes smaller. It is hard right now and I served on the school board for six years. So I have two terms. I have heard all of the comment, you know, met with many people and we have heard loudly that we need to do something and do something very quickly about our classes. It is very important that this will be looking at that at all times. If there is any room for, if there is any reserved positions, potentially if a grade level is higher than another grade level, it's always looked at, potentially with reserved positions as well. So there are always things that can be done and be looked at to manage that school by school, principal by principal and as central office works with them. Councilor McPike, what evidence is there that increasing multifamily buildings in Alexandria yields, it just says yield rents and sales prices. So Alexandria is not the only city in the country facing a housing crisis. It's a challenge is not occurring everywhere in America, but it is one that is very common. And if you were to look at the policies in place, just writ large across the country, the places where it is easier to build housing are seeing lower housing costs, lower rent increases across the board. It is also true that we only have limited effects on the market. We can't subsidize everyone's rent enough to make housing affordable. We can't build enough public housing to provide a home for everyone who needs one in the city. So we have to work within the market. And we've seen in other places, Austin, Texas is an excellent example where they unlocked their housing market. They removed a lot of the restrictions they had on the type of housing that could be built, the scale of housing that could be built. And they have actually seen not only a slowing of rents increases, they've seen a drop in rents in the city of Austin, Texas, a city that its population continues to grow rapidly. It is a supply and demand challenge. The demand is there. The demand is overwhelming in this area and in other parts of the country. Four housing people want to live in Alexandria and in this region for the jobs that we have, for the culture that we have, for the community that we have built. And if we don't build housing at a rate that accommodates the pressure of demand that exists, the people who want to live here who have more more money, and the people who live here already are going to push rents up, outbid people for housing and displace members of our community, whom we value, whom we rely upon, whom we do not want to see leave. The tools that we have are limited, but they can be powerful. If we unlock the ability to create housing, if we meet the market demand with supply, as Austin has done, as you've seen happen in Minneapolis, as you've seen happen in many states that didn't restrict housing as aggressively, as frankly, most blue states did in this country, we know that this can work. Now, we want to do it carefully, and we want to do it thoughtfully. That's why it was zoning for housing. We took some limited steps to address this. And we want to measure how those steps affect our housing market before we go forward blindly into other things. We want to handle this in a way that fits the best Alexandria traditions of engagement and involvement of public input. We want to do this in a way that reflects the character of our city and our desired to protect things like our old town historic district. But we need to do it because so many of our neighbors are clinging to their place in this city by their fingertips. They know that that next rent increase could be the one that drives them out of their home, their kids out of the only school they've ever been to. And if we want to live out our values as a city, we need to be looking at our laws and ask ourselves, what are we doing that has made it so hard to build housing in the city that we are losing people that we care about and how do we fix that? Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Aguirre, Capitol Bike Share has designated parts of the West End around the Nature Center, for example as they're out of service area. What can be done so that the city can encourage bike share to serve all residents equally. I think it's having a conversation with capital bike share making sure that we're committed to equity in the city. As the city has doubled down on that, we're not afraid to say it, we're not afraid to implement it and to work on it. You know, when we were talking about scooters in the city, Councilman Saifledin and I, we're the major pushers to make sure that there were equity emphasis areas in the city where we would make sure that last mile options for other means of travel were available and we did that successfully because when we started putting some of the scooters in Chitila while in the West End, there was high usage of them. So it's similar with capital bike share. We've definitely been trying to expand it. There is some financial stuff behind it that we need to be aware of. But we will continue to look to where we can place capital bike share stalls because the other thing that it helps with too is visibility for pedestrians because that's certain intersections that help us to open it up so that you could actually see vehicles that are coming and pedestrians that are trying to cross. Good example of that is right on Taney and Howard Street where I actually advocated to put a capital bike share for several years to help with that intersection. Okay. A few more. So there was two here again related to fully funding ACPS and staffing. I think we've covered that in a couple of different ways. I just will leave one other piece. When the manager does his budget, they kind of start with like, let me back up. One, if you look at any of our budgets, we actually do multi-year budgeting. So if you ever, if somebody ever says, well, how do we predict or how do we look at the next year, there's an entire section in the front that maps out multiple years. to help us understand what are the things we're committed to and kind of what of our projections coming in. Based on that, the manager starts with kind of what are the core services we have to provide and how do we fund those. and what are the things we're committed to and kind of what are our projections coming in. Based on that, the manager starts with kind of what are the core services we have to provide and how do we fund those. Then we look at is there any new money coming in? In this year's budget, there was about $30 million of quote unquote new money. We started right off the top and said about $10 million of that we're sending to ACPS. So I just want to start there because I want people to know this again. This isn't an either or our residents our children are not like extra residents they are residents of the city and we start with them as a priority. Then from there they look at sort of what else are we fully committed to that we have to pay and if we continue to pay we'll help position the city in a better place moving forward. So then they took about another $10 million and put that to our cash capital and our debt service. We can't do new projects if we're not paying down the projects we already have. And so then we're left with, okay, what are the other agreements that we have? So our collective bargaining, what are things that have increased cost prices? So for example, the state has now mandated that our firefighters can no longer receive medications from ANOVA, we have to build pharmacies. That costs money to do that. So we have to pay for some of those things. After that, there was about $4 million left. So I just want to say, as we're thinking about this puzzle, we are starting with ACPS. I know people have answered these questions in many different ways, but I think what I have heard is what we are committed to is our transfer and that transfer is an increase and it is higher than I think we initially anticipated when you look at that multi-year budgeting and we have tried to put as much as we can to that. We'll see what happens and add the elites, but I think that's kind of just the fiscal state we're in. There was another question related to dash. Several of these were covered earlier, but it think that's kind of just the fiscal state we're in. There was another question related to Dash. Several of these were covered earlier, but it was, how do you implement safety using Dash bus for our students? How do you protect our students? Is there any training to Dash bus drivers? And are there policy updates? So a couple things I will say, just again, the overall process. All of the presentations can be found on the website last month's presentation was just on safety and it walked through what is the training that dash bus drivers receive compared to ACPS bus drivers something I thought was interesting dash bus drivers actually received training in youth de-escalation They also received training related to many other components of how to deal with young people. There were questions about cameras. There are more cameras on a dash bus than there are on a city bus. So there were a lot of sort of breakdown on that. So I would encourage anybody to go through those presentations. There will be more. We're also cataloging every question that we've received when it was answered and the PowerPoint that it were in so that you can see in a transparent way how that's being considered. And lastly, I would just say on the safety piece and it's sitting with me, I had my first youth forum this morning and we did a breakout group and there was one that focused on transportation. And there was Ron Jr. and he said, I've been riding the bus for a long time. Nobody ever asked me if I was safe. And I don't understand why now they are. And I think that is an important part of the conversation too, that we actually have to get to our young people and understand their experiences. When we did the safety presentations, there were less incidents involving youth on a dash bus than there has been on the school bus. So this is all, it meant to be a data and information and a learning journey. There's no decision being made right now, but that's the type of information we need in order to figure this out. And what I've said to people too is it doesn't have to be based on the current system. If there's a type of training we would want our bus drivers to have, then the question we should be asking is what is the training we want them to have and how do you implement that effectively? So I would just say more to come, all the city school meetings are open. Eventually I think part of what we said was it has to be presented to both bodies so there will also be a work session and there will be community engagement on that as well. last question. I'm gonna send, I feel like I was trying to keep tallies but the last time it didn't work and So I'm gonna send it to Councilman on Newby because I feel like I haven't heard you in a while. So this one is, what is the city doing to prepare for a downturn in revenue? Other jurisdictions are actively examining and adjusting for unexpected harm to the economy, aka less grant money, etc. Which services and projects would be cut here? What is the city doing to ensure FY26, which starts in three months, isn't a financial disaster? And does the city have a process for a mid-year course correction or spending reduction? So, I know that's three questions in the last question, but that was all yours. So we have an inner departmental work group composed of staff. They're monitoring the situation on the federal level and always trying to adapt. That's one. The other thing, we set aside emergency funds in this budget in anticipation of any downturn. Like, it may not be enough because at the end of the day, our money's finite in the city. We also made lots of cuts in this budget. I believe it was in the tune of seven million. Six million. Six million. So we made a lot of cuts in the current budget that we have in also anticipation to that. So we don't have to raise taxes, which we're not doing. So we don't have to burden our residents in times of uncertainty. So this budget that you see already has a lot of cuts to it. So we can anticipate it. So in this time, uncertainty, we're not overspending. We, again, there's their resources for federal workers that we have a whole website and there were events that were put together. So we're just our staff for every day monitoring the situation as it evolves right now. Then we'll see what happens. Unfortunately, again, I don't want to over-promise. I mean, we receive $51 million from the federal government. If all of them go away, I don't think we can plug a hold that big. So I also want to mention, I expect expectations. So to kind of put everything in context, if we are on the darkest timeline and horrible things like ahead, the way this would hit the city would kind of be in three phases in terms of our revenues. The first would be the pulling of federal grants, the cancellation of grants. We're seeing that happen, the Virginia Health Department, some of the money that they were promised through the COVID programs is being pulled away or clawed back. We may see that and the manager has put money in the budget, as Councilman El Nubey said, to be a cushion against that. The second impact we might see is on our use taxes. Our sales taxes, our meals taxes. If people in our community are losing their jobs or cutting back because they're not certain about their long-term financial stability, that's where we're going to see it is in decreased sales at our retail stores, restaurants, places like that. There is money in the budget to be an emergency cushion. In the case of that, we start to see a shortfall there. Again, it's limited, but it does exist. The bulk of the city's revenue come from our real estate property taxes. And we know today, right now, what that budget will be for fiscal year 2026, because the property values were determined on January 1. And the tax rate is going to be flat flat because we did not advertise an increase. So we know what those revenues are going to be. So in terms of this year's budget, that is not money that we are having to dramatically, you know, claw back or assume we'll fall back as we make our plans. But next year could be a very different story. Next year will be the year that we see what's happened to our local real estate market. Are people losing their jobs and leaving the city causing a glut of housing to come onto the market, lowering sales prices which could lower assessments or just flat line our assessments. And that could be a real challenge. Even flat assessments would be a real challenge for the city because to provide the same services that we are providing this year will cost more next year because of inflation, because of increases in costs, because of tariffs that are being applied and unapplied within hours at the federal level it seems. So there's a lot of uncertainty in the fiscal year 2027 budget about that huge portion of our revenues. If we do see a shortfall that is beyond what the manager has prepared for and he and the staff have done a lot of work to prepare thoughtfully for that, we can reopen the budget at a certain point in time and make adjustments to it. We very much hope that we will not have to do that because the B will not be finding a magic pot of gold and coming back and opening up the budget to increase spending on things that we care about like our schools, our housing, public safety. But we do have that authority if we need it and we hope we do not have to use it. Okay. So we thank you for coming out this Saturday. I hope that it was informative. We did get through everyone's questions, but I'm sure there are also many more. As was mentioned on 3-1-1, you can email all of us. You can reach out set up meetings. I think some of us may even stay a little bit after. But thank you for your time.