Coraggio Consulting Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Special Meeting, Tuesday, September 16, 2025 Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2025 Place: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia Length: 7m (video) Official meeting video (Fairfax County): https://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/player/clip/3895 Official Board of Supervisors page (Fairfax County): https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/boardofsupervisors/ Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting. Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-29. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [00:00:01] Good morning, everyone. And this is a special meeting of the Board of Supervisors of September 16th, 2025. And I'm going to call this meeting to order. Supervisor Alcorn is on travel and not with us. [00:00:16] And I understand Supervisor Palchuk has had some car difficulties this morning, so it may be late. And that's why you're seeing them not at the dais. We're going to begin our meeting, as we do all meetings, with a moment of silence to be followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. [00:00:32] And I would just ask that we keep this really brief. Today, we only have one item on the agenda, and we do have board committees beginning here in approximately 30 minutes. And so, before we rise for a moment of silence, I do just want to acknowledge, and I know all of us are aware of the tragic events that occurred last week, and we keep the Kirk family in our thoughts and prayers, as well as the victims of the Colorado school shooting that also occurred that same day and sadly didn't get the attention that these shootings all too often involve. [00:01:08] And I think I could speak for the entire board and say no life is worth losing over a political disagreement. And I'm very happy here that we have the type of relationships where we understand that. But tragically, in this country, it seems not everyone feels that way. [00:01:25] And so we'll keep the Kirk family, as well as the victims of the Colorado school shooting, in our thoughts and prayers. And with that, if we could all rise for a moment of silence [00:01:34] to be followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. [00:02:09] One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. As board members know, following his election to the US House of Representatives from Virginia's 11th congressional district, Our colleague, James Walkinshaw, resigned from his seat on this board as Braddock District Supervisor, effective 9 a.m. on September 10th, 2025. [00:02:38] Shortly thereafter, I called a special meeting of the board for this morning, and board members, the county executive, the county attorney, the clerk, and the public were properly noticed. The only topic on our agenda, as you can see, is a motion directing the county attorney's office to file a petition requesting the circuit court to schedule a special election for the now vacant Braddock District Supervisor's seat. [00:03:01] Of course, until this seat is filled, I will continue to represent Braddock District residents in my capacity as their elected chairman. To that end, I would like to congratulate Congressman Walkinshaw on his election and share that we will welcome him back to the board at a date to be determined to formally thank him and to share our thoughts with him about his service to the county. [00:03:22] Channel 16 is also working on a video to commemorate his time on the Board of Supervisors as they traditionally do for any member of this board who is leaving the board or who has passed away. That said, and after careful study and consideration, I would also note that a special election date of December 9, 2025 makes the most sense. [00:03:43] It is too late, practically speaking, to have the special election on the same day as our general election this November. Ballots have already been printed for the general election, among other things, and preparations are well underway for early voting, which is set to begin this Friday, believe it or not, this Friday, September 19th. [00:04:02] In addition, the Thanksgiving holiday complicates the scheduling. In short, having the special election on December 9, 2025, is the best option in light of all of these factors that we had to weigh. With that, I'm going to turn the gavel over to Vice Chairman Smith so that I can make the following motion. [00:04:21] Madam Vice Chairman, I move that the Board of Supervisors direct the county attorney's office to file a petition requesting the Fairfax County Circuit Court to issue an order and writ of special election to conduct a special election to fill the vacancy for Braddock District Supervisor. I further move that the board authorize the county attorney to recommend a special election date of December 9, 2025 to the court as part of such petition. So moved. I'll second that motion along with Supervisor Lusk. Any discussion on the motion? I just want to thank our staff, county attorney's office, Office of Election, others who had been consulted. Obviously there's [00:05:00] lot of Virginia code that steers exactly when this election could be had so there's not much subjectivity here but certainly it's in the interest of the residents of Braddock District to hold this election as quickly as possible while acknowledging that there are guardrails and state code that require us to steer towards this particular date. So just wanted to thank staff for their work on that. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Supervisor Harrity. No I just wanted to maybe a minute or two to finish reading what was put in front of us because I I didn't see this until I got to the dais this morning. [00:05:32] Neither did us. Well, I mean, September 9th makes a lot of sense, but... Not September 9th. December. I'm sorry, December 9th. Thank you. December 9th makes all the sense in the world. Are we approving this or just approving the date? We're approving this. [00:05:50] It's two and a quarter sheets long. Yeah, I'm on the last page. Okay, I'm going to call on Supervisor Beerman who raised his name. No, no, I do. Oh, you're good? Okay. Okay, Supervisor Stork. I'm just going to ask the obvious question, and it's not needing an answer today, but I know because we're having elections overlap, we're going to have a special election in addition to the general election, and we have early voting on the special election as well. [00:06:23] So it's really going to be complex for the Braddock District residents, and I recognize that there will be special efforts made to understand when you go vote in the general election, you theoretically won't be able to vote in the special election because you'll be able to early vote in the special election. [00:06:39] So I know it sounds more complicated, and that's why I wanted to just recognize that we have a unique situation here that will be difficult at some level, but ultimately I think we can pull it through. I'm not disagreeing with the day. [00:06:56] I just recognize the complexity involved with that. Clear communication is going to be vital for the process. Yeah, it will be huge, critical. Supervisor Herity, you're good. Thank you for the allowance of time. Okay, thank you. - Okay, seeing no further discussion, all those in favor of the motion say aye. [00:07:12] - Aye. - Anyone opposed, any abstention? That motion carries, Mr. Chairman. - Thank you very much, Madam Vice-Chair. And that brings us to the end of our meeting of special board meeting of September 16th, 2025. And just as a reminder, we have a committee meeting starting at 9:30 up in the conference center. [00:07:30] So we will see everyone again in a moment. Thank you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Coraggio Consulting ยท aguyonx.com