Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Legislative Committee, Friday, January 30, 2026

Date: Friday, January 30, 2026
Place: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 1h 27m (video)
Official meeting video (Fairfax County): https://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/player/clip/4026
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 2026-10-28. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:05] Good afternoon and welcome to the January 30th meeting of the Legislative Committee. I know many of us spent part of the week digging out from under the snow. I know I did and I am still digging out. And I want to take a moment to recognize what the snow showed us about collaboration and clear communication among local and state partners.

[00:00:22] The aftermath of a snowstorm is never easy to navigate, as we all know too well in this week demonstrated how effective we can be as a county when we work together. I want to make sure I thank every department and office for their participation and support, FCDOT, FCPS, the Park Authority, and so many others for their continued commitment to serving our residents. I'd now like to begin today's meeting by, again, extending a warm welcome back to our legislative staff. I'm glad everyone was able to make it back from Richmond safe.

[00:00:54] Today's meeting will look similar to last week's meeting. First, we're going to review specific issues of budget amendments, transit, and housing. Then we're going to move to bills for discussion, bills with recommended positions, and bills with updates. Opportunities to comment will be after the general housing update, after each individual bill for discussion, and finally an open discussion before we adjourn as we did last week. Any additional comments or questions can be directed to myself or Jennifer, who I will now pass it off to for today's updates. Hello, Jennifer Vanney,

[00:01:34] legislative director. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was saying driving back up here, there's a lot more snow here, but I think the ice is actually slicker down there. So hope everyone's staying safe. So diving into it, I want to give a quick update about initiatives. So two of them haven't been docketed yet, the Park Authority one or the muffler one. But there's been a lot of action around the urban-public-private partnership this week in the Senate. It got passed out of committee but then it was um in finance due to a small fisc it was turned into a section one study

[00:02:12] so it's still alive uh we still have hope that we'll be able to move forward even if it's just a study to look at how to best implement the work um so that's the updates there that leads us right into budget amendments so um if you look at the budget amendment page is it says budget amendments at the top. You'll see at the top, the first section is our initiatives. So the first two have to do with the urban public, I need to stop trying to say this word, urban public private partnership

[00:02:47] fund. And then you'll see that there's another one. The top one's actually about the local directors of finance, then the two on UPPF, and then the two we did for K-12. You'll see the way the rest of the page. It's quite a long document. We won't go through it all. But we organized it first by positions, then priorities, and then support positions, and then some general updates to call out just because we called them out with the budget chart. On the first page at the bottom,

[00:03:22] you'll see item 271. You'll see three separate things. This has to do with the CSA rate change and the cap they put in place. So this is removing what the governor did. We'll definitely to be advocating that this gets included in the conference budget. But that's what those are.

[00:03:40] If you go to page two, you'll see that there's a section on federal changes for the safety net. So these budget amendments mostly have to do with funding for VDSS to deal with the SNAP and Medicaid changes. There are two great next in the housing. The first two have to do with the Housing Trust Fund and increasing it to hit that $200 million goal. It's been talked about a lot, especially by local government partners, that this is what's really going to be helpful to move forward when we're really talking about housing. The next thing I wanted to just call

[00:04:19] out quick is... Can we get one clarification? These numbers that you have on here, these are state budget numbers, not the numbers in terms of revenue that would come to the county. Correct. I just want to make sure people are understanding that because $1 million spread throughout the entire Commonwealth of Virginia is very different than $1 million coming to Fairfax County.

[00:04:42] So I think we're talking about numbers here that are statewide numbers. Okay. Yep, these are all statewide. You'll see in K-12 there's some great things in here. One, the first one from Senator Favola is to further help the joint subcommittee they set up to study the JLARC, implementing the JLARC recommendations.

[00:05:04] They didn't do a ton of work this year. They focused a lot on looking at federal impacts. So we're hopeful that's included and they continue that great work. And the second one has to do with the K-12 funding bill we talked about last week. And, again, it's including $435,000,000 to do at-risk English language learners and special ed add-ons.

[00:05:31] So the budget number originally included was $370,000. this is 435 so we'll see which one where we end up on that um i am going to quick hit something on um actually no noel you want to go on the transportation ones mr chairman noel dominguez with department of transportation at the bottom of three and continuing on to page four we have a couple of transportation board budget amendments we wanted to mention uh delegate krizak and Senator Survelle both offered an amendment to provide $10 million in general funds to make

[00:06:09] renovations to the Huntington Metro Station as part of the BRT project. And then Delegate Kriesick has an amendment that would provide $20 million to support the demolition of the parking garage at the Huntington Metro Rail Station. And Senator Survelle has an amendment to provide $25 million for our BRT project. All right, just a couple more. Because this has been a long-term priority, on the bottom of page four, item 301, Senator Carol Foy put in their money specifically for the Fairfax Falls Church City Community Service Board for support coordination. This is to help

[00:06:49] make sure that not only the people have the way, they did a lot of funding last year to do get people off the wait list for waivers. This makes sure we have enough support staff to be able to serve those people so they can actually use the waiver. One thing I wanted to point out on page five in the environment section, item 109 from Delegate Herring is $5 million in FY27 to set up a solar interconnect grant program. She also has a bill about this. We know that it's been a top of conversation for the board. How do we get the desire to do solar, but that interconnect fee

[00:07:28] causing barriers. So I wanted to highlight that one for you. If you move to page six, you'll see a lot on human services. Item 291, there was several, several members around the state putting in budget amendments around rates for Medicaid waiver services to be increased. So just like we were talking about needing staff to make sure people had services, we also need to make sure providers are providing the services. And one of the things that providers will talk about is that the rates aren't high enough. So that's an important one as well. Right after that, you'll

[00:08:04] see that Delegate Watts put in two amendments to help support Region 2, which is our behavioral health region, to be doing crisis receiving centers and some prevention work. And then on page 7, I'm going to turn it over to one while in a second, but in the rest of the document, You'll also see a heading called Local Support at the bottom of 7.

[00:08:26] These are projects that different members have put in that affect our district. These aren't necessarily associated with the county, but we did want to highlight those for you that we were able to find in the budget amendment. So now I'm going to turn it over to Noelle for transportation. Mr. Chairman, on page 9, just want to call out a couple.

[00:08:44] Under the opposed section, we did want to reference there is a bill, and it's actually later in the agenda. There are a couple of bills that would remove or get rid of the high-efficiency vehicle fee that is proposed, and these budget amendments relate to that.

[00:09:03] The budget amendment, per the language, would take out about $50 million each year from the Transportation Trust Fund, which is where that fuel-efficient vehicle funding goes. So we do recommend opposing that because, as we all know, right now we need more transportation funding, not less.

[00:09:18] There are also a couple of bills related to or a couple of budget amendments related to bills we talked about last week, specifically the bus operations, which is also listed in oppose. And then we have other other amendments related to Northern Virginia transit below that.

[00:09:37] On page seven, there is a couple others just to point out under transportation that talks directly about what what is some other transportation things. So just wanted to highlight that just since we skipped right over that section.

[00:09:53] um so next we're gonna i'm gonna turn it back to noel to talk about the walkthrough and you have in your packet it's called the transportation funding legislation general assembly 26 and this is the side-by-side of the different transit funding bills uh mr chairman members of the board a bit of a precursor this is how the bills were introduced we have heard that there are going to be changes to the bills. We've also had a couple of different versions. There is a fiscal impact

[00:10:27] out. There are stakeholder numbers out. They don't always match up. So we did not include any revenue projections in the side-by-side, just I think as things are getting figured out. But this is just talking a summary of provisions. But I'm going to start first with the revenue changes and how So the bills do differ. So HB900 and SB730, which we're calling the big bill, and then HB1179 and SB638, which is the SJ28 bill, you'll see a lot of some where they reference where they might be similar. But they both establish a highway use fee at the regional level for electric and fuel efficient vehicles. As we just mentioned a bit ago, there is a statewide electric vehicle fee

[00:11:07] and a high efficiency vehicle fee, just like there is a gas tax. However, when these were put in place. We have a regional gas tax. We do not have the regional fees that would technically be similar. So this would impose them similar to how we have a regional gas tax. The quote-unquote big bill reduces the statewide sales tax to 4%, but now includes certain services.

[00:11:34] The HB 1179 and SB 638, the SJ28 bill, they keep the sales tax at 4.3 percent, and they also implement the use of a sales tax on transportation network companies, that is Uber, Lyft.

[00:11:52] That's a technical code in the term for ride shares. The big bill increases the regional sales tax for NBTC and PRTC transportation districts. Actually, they both do, but they do it a little bit differently. The big bill gives 0.385% for NVTC jurisdictions and 0.2% for PRTC, whereas the SJ28 bill is 0.2% for both.

[00:12:15] The big bill establishes a $0.20 retail delivery fee. So that's when you buy from Amazon, there will be a fee imposed on that. It does not include food and personal hygiene products. And if you buy once and it comes in three or four boxes, you're charged once.

[00:12:34] You're not charged per box, just because I think that has come up, because sometimes your delivery is broken up. The SJ-28 bill also has the fee with the same general provisions, except that is a 50-cent retail delivery fee. And then, sorry, I missed one up here.

[00:12:51] HB-978 is Delegate Watts, so when I was talking about the sales tax, her bill also expands the existing statewide sales tax to certain services. And that is the same. Hers is similar to theirs. Going back down to the bottom of page one, the SJ28 bill also establishes a 10% sales tax on commercial parking in the NBTC district, excluding WMATA garages and residential parking facilities. So on to page two, there are some contingencies in the bills, specifically.

[00:13:28] They're contingent on enactment of similar provisions provided by Metro and or DC and Maryland. And yeah, it's one of the provisions specifically says that we'll give our funding if Maryland gives a certain level and DC gives a certain level. And those provisions are similar in both the big bill and the SJ-28 bill.

[00:13:47] Now, where is this funding going? So it is complicated, but the two bills are similar. Delegate Watts' bill is a bit different. So for 2027, an amount not to exceed $154.5 million will be going to WMATA for capital purposes.

[00:14:08] In FY28, $136 million will be deposited in the WMATA Capital Fund, and then for thereafter, that amount would increase by, or it would be 103% from the preceding year. So they're increasing it by 3%, similar to we currently have a 3% increase in WMATA services, or in WMATA bills.

[00:14:30] At the PRTC level, similar, a total of $9.1 million will be deposited for the Commuter Rail Operating Fund, And then it will also increase by that 3%. And that Commuter Rail Operating and Capital Fund is CROC. That is the VRE fund that was created several years back.

[00:14:49] Any revenue above what goes into the WMATA Capital Fund and the Commuter Rail and Operating Capital Fund will be held in trust at NVTC for our local bus services. So it does those two, and then we get our percentage back based on where the revenues were generated.

[00:15:07] So that's where funding will come back for the connector, for DASH, for all of our local service. And that's similar for both the big bill and the SJ28 bill. Delegate Watts does it a bit differently. How she does is the revenue generated from the imposition of the tax on delivery services and NVTC will be distributed to Amada, and all of the revenues will be generated, all of the revenues generated by this tax will be distributed to the Commonwealth Transportation Fund. For other revenues generated to the sales and use tax, 60% will be distributed to localities on the basis of school age population and the balance will be distributed to localities on the basis of high needs student populations.

[00:15:49] That's page two. So continuing on to page three, I'm just going to be blunt. There are a heck of a lot of changes. I apologize. There are a lot of changes in the statewide allocation formulas. The big bill makes changes between the Highway Maintenance and Operations Fund and the Transportation Trust Fund and how each is sub-allocated. There are changes proposed for those. At the end of the day, the intent is that no fund will receive less revenues than it did

[00:16:24] prior to this bill, but the percentages would change. For instance, right now, Highway Maintenance and Operations Fund gets 51% of the Commonwealth Transportation Fund, whereas Capital gets 49%. It switches that a bit. And then all of the sub-funds, mass transit, aviation, all of those would get a differing percentage. The SJ-28 bill doesn't touch the Transportation Trust Fund as a whole, but it does make changes within the mass transit fund. So a certain percentage goes to metro. That's going to change. A certain percentage goes to statewide operating. That's going to

[00:17:01] change. There were way too many to include in here, but at the end of the day, the intent is that no, none of these individual funds or programs would receive less than they currently received. And then the summary for Delegate Watts' bill is similar to what I mentioned on the previous page, because hers is kind of combined between the regional and the statewide.

[00:17:23] Continuing on, there is a redefinition of the 3% cap on the WMATA annual operating funds, and it essentially has WMATA redevelop or develop a new methodology for calculating the 3% cap that aligns with localities, bills, and services.

[00:17:43] It does retain the language that if they go over 3%, then the state will withhold 35% of their funding. I will say that was put in in 2018. This bill doesn't change that, but that is still in there. And then WMATA was required to update a strategic plan every three years.

[00:17:59] This changes it to five years, which is about, I think, what a lot of systems do. And then finally on page four, it does change some WMATA, NBTC oversight and WMATA reporting requirements.

[00:18:17] There are technical edits because there's some duplicative reporting requirements within the Virginia Code, and that's kind of the same on both. The SJ28 bill does also remove the Washington Transit Reform Commission.

[00:18:32] That was included in the 2018 WMATA Funding Bill. I don't believe the commission's ever met, so they figured this might be a time. And the reports that it's supposed to put out, they're being put out just but not by this commission. With all the other reporting WMATA is doing, they figured they can take this out and still get the same information back.

[00:18:51] And then the last provision, it talks a little bit about where the money is going to go, where it's going to sit at NBTC and PRTC. And essentially, the money will go sit at NBTC, similar to how our gas taxes and our state aid goes there now, but then it goes to WMATA, to VRE, to the localities.

[00:19:09] And NBTC does get a small percentage off the top for some of its studies and whatnot. So that is it in summary. Again, I've heard there's going to be substantial changes in the next couple of weeks. So this is just the baseline. And that's, I'm going to say that's it, but that's kind of a lot.

[00:19:29] Well, thank you so much, Noel, and thank you to the team for putting this together. I think it's very helpful for us to be able to look at the different changes as they happen, and obviously and clearly there's more changes to come. We're going to take the first round of questions, so I want to pass it over to Chairman McKay.

[00:19:48] We're going to start right at the end. If anyone wants to comment or have a question, now is the time. Seeing none, hearing none, yes, Supervisor Palachuk, and then we'll move down the road this way. Thank you. Thank you, sir. I was trying to find my notes. Going back, not for Noelle, environment page 5.

[00:20:08] I was just wondering if we have more information on item 88, Delegate Shin's bill on the invasive species grant program. No, that's a lovely thing. I was going to say, Chairman, Supervisor, I apologize. That's the lovely thing about budget amendments. They tend to be one or two sentences.

[00:20:26] There are several bills, and we haven't called them out, but if you look at the updated section, the bills with recommended position, there are several invasive species, both to either give us a little bit more power or to do a statewide solution that we've included positions on in the packet. So definitely take a look there. I can point your way if you want to discuss, but unfortunately, the budget amendments don't give you more information than that.

[00:20:49] Thank you. Thank you. Please go ahead, supervisor. Thank you. I appreciate it. On the HHS and On the development of disability support coordination, it talks about item 301, $3 million to increase resources to the CSB Board, and then on the support coordination, item 291, raising funding to rates for Medicaid waiver services, both of which are great needs.

[00:21:14] Do you know if in either one of these are talking about raising the rates for the support coordination agencies that support the community waivers? They're having trouble getting support coordinators because of the rates as well, which is different than the ones who provide the direct services. They're the ones in between the agency.

[00:21:32] So when you don't pick agency-directed waiver services, you pick, I think it's community-directed waiver services where the families select their own support providers. There is an agency in between. The Moms Demand Action is one example of one that provides support coordination services, but they've had trouble keeping people employed because of the rates that they are getting as well.

[00:21:54] So I didn't know if those budget amendments included that group as well? That's a great question. I will check and get back to you on that. And I'm happy to talk offline if you have more questions. Thank you. Is there anyone else at this time? All right. We're going to pass it back over to Jennifer. Thank you. All right. So last week we talked a little bit about housing strategies and I told you the great number of bills. The bill number has both expanded and decreased at the same time as all final bills are now officially out. We have seen some killed off this week. We've seen some rolled over. We've

[00:22:29] seen some combined. But overall, they're still a very, very large number. So I took kind of snapshot just to show you what it would look like. We can work on trying to get the full tracker to you guys. But right now, it's still in process of discussion between staff or ratings and stuff.

[00:22:45] So I wanted to give you guys some examples of each category. Again, just want to thank the staff. there. It's been such amazing and intense staff effort on this. And so just, I want to give props to them because I'm the one speaking, but they're all doing a lot of work. So you'll see the green section. HB4 is listed there. Supervisor Lesk, that's one you had asked about. That's definitely one that we've chatted with folks about. So those are ones that we just would support, as we talked about last week. The yellow is, as you'll see there, it's called oppose may be amended, and then

[00:23:21] it might work. And so these are a little bit trickier. You'll see HB 946 Franklin at the bottom of that section, HB 946. And this is, it's supposed to help with rental affordability. Delegate Franklin represents the Blacksburg area. And what they're finding is college students are finding it hard to find apartments to rent, and so trying to get at that issue. We did approach her about trying to maybe improve the bill and adding in a little bit of a definition about what does

[00:23:54] affordability mean. And she did share with me yesterday when I did that that it does sound like it's going to become a Southwest Virginia or her specific planning district one, but that, again, doesn't mean we wouldn't support it. It's a great tool that other people might have.

[00:24:13] The orange section is a new one that we didn't talk about last week that came up as staff has been discussing. These are bills that are both, they could be viewed as yellow, they could be viewed as red. And what it really comes down to is policy decisions.

[00:24:30] So staffs can give you the pros and cons, but it really would be a change in the way the board has been doing something or viewing something. And so those are the orange categories. One example on that would be HB 594.

[00:24:48] So if you flip it over, it's the bottom one right above the red line. And this has to do with affordable housing developments and expedited approvals. So I know it's something the task force has been discussing for a while, of how do we help affordable units come online quicker.

[00:25:04] This specific approach is taking what is considered a legislative function, which is zoning approvals or different approvals that go through the board and taking some of that away and putting it with county staff. And staff aren't necessarily comfortable with it or think that maybe is the good way. So we have options. We could say, no, we're going to keep our current position that that stays at and oppose the bill. Or we could try to amend it and have them insert a board ordinance step into it so that the board still gets their say and provide some guidance.

[00:25:40] And so, again, you'll see some of this is a little bit in the gray zone that we need your guidance on. So that's the orange category. Then the red is, as we've traditionally had in our packages in the past, these are the bills that touch a local authority, try to change it, try to override it, try to decide things for us.

[00:25:59] The two most, I would say we're calling them, actually, we're calling them the big bads, the three big bads. That's HB 801 slash SB 488, so it's the second one under the red, HB 816, SB 454, and then at the very bottom, it's a series of three different bills, but that's the HB 804, SB

[00:26:26] SB488. That's a statewide target bill that was out there last year. The HB816, SB454. That's a zoning by right and multi-development. And then the HB1279, SB367, and SB388. Those are the faith and housing bills. And so those are ones that obviously localities are having a lot of concern about. What I will say about this red category is that some of these have legs and are likely to

[00:27:02] pass, even those governments have been opposing. I would, so HB 888, which is second bottom of the page right above the faith and housing bill, that is Delegate Shin's bill. It isn't as bad as the other parking bills, if I might be frank, that just abolish any ability to require parking.

[00:27:27] That bill in the House, at least, has gotten rolled over into HB 8-8, which is Delegate Shens. This is setting, overriding our local authority to decide parking, but doing it in a less, no one can do it anywhere at any time way is the best way I can put it in really short.

[00:27:47] What I will say, and I forgot to include it on the sheet, there is a Senate version carried by Senator Salim that gets rid of parking, minimums or maximums statewide, and it is moving in the Senate.

[00:28:05] So, as you can see, there's been a lot of movement on these, and given the appetite in the House and the general conversations we've had as we've gone and talked with members, it is likely that at least some combination of these will pass. Yeah, thank you so much for that, Jennifer.

[00:28:24] You know, it seems to me the General Assembly is moving forward with some of these different bills, even despite local opposition. What I propose and what I think we need to do is we need to change up our strategy. We can't continue to do the same thing over and over and expect a different outcome, right?

[00:28:40] So, you know, I'd like to see and make sure that Fairfax County has a seat at the table. I want to make sure that we're part of those discussions and not just automatically remove ourselves and our voice from some of these housing discussions that are happening in Richmond. Chairman, do you have anything to add?

[00:28:58] Yeah, first, I appreciate the way this is presented because it is complicated. and obviously not all the words of every bill are in here and the devil's in the details. I would just say that, you know, for some of the things that we already do, even if they're not a good idea in terms of an imposition, if it looks like they're going to pass, we might want to lay down on those a little bit if they're things we already do because I do think that there are some bad actors in Virginia that don't do some of the things we do.

[00:29:31] Like, for example, I was looking specifically at Senate Bill 717, just in the description that you've given us, which is providing robust development opportunities around our transit stations and activity centers. I mean, obviously, we do that. And so the devil's in the details.

[00:29:47] I would just say, you know, for the ones that already mimic what we do, we might want to think about, you know, a strategy around potentially maybe supporting those, because I think we need to understand that affordable housing is not going to be solved by one jurisdiction. And part of the reason why we have the challenge we have now is because frankly, there are other parts of the state that could use some of these impositions that, you know, that may not be the best policy per se, but can move the needle on housing. And so I do think this is the right, the right way to look at these. And, and, and, you know, for the ones that aren't going anywhere, let's not waste our time on, let's spend our time on the ones that are moving. And if we can get amendments to

[00:30:26] some of them to make them more palatable. I think that that is smart. It's not lost on me that a majority of the sponsors of these bills have never presided over a land use application. And so, you know, they haven't sat in an auditorium full of people who are opposed to a development because there's not enough parking in it. And they're worried about all those people parking in their neighborhood. And so I am a little bit concerned here that you have people without experience getting into highly technical things they're going to need our professional hey

[00:31:03] you might want to amend this or think about this a little bit differently in a in a collaborative format and so and i think that's in alignment with what uh what andre what supervisor menes was just saying and i know what we're doing so i think we're going to want updates on these but let's focus on the ones that have the biggest impacts on us and then focus on the ones that we Think actually have legs and are going to go somewhere. Thank you. Mr. Chairman supervisors. Thank you We are in an interesting place this year I remember talking with Karen keys tomorrow and we had our joint meeting and she was trying to give us a heads-up that

[00:31:40] These things are going to go somewhere and I talked with her afterwards and she said make sure you have a seat at the table I was also talking with a number of met another member of the General Assembly who said that when we just opposed stuff It's like red meat to them. They want to go after it and And so I appreciated the chairman's comments about, we know what happens with people when they don't have enough parking, right?

[00:32:03] And so as we go through with them, maybe some real life examples, because they don't have the real life examples. I presented to the Sully District Council Wednesday, and that's the area where Franklin Farm, the church, wants to put in affordable housing. And the community is really upset that their voice would come out of the process.

[00:32:22] And so we do have to have a seat at a table and talk about these things. I think it's probably different with some of these bills that we know are really not going to be workable. But be able to have a seat at the table, talk about this, and provide some of the real-life experience.

[00:32:40] The danger for us to sit here with the constituents who call us even about VDOT things, right, is that we can't totally push them out. But we are working hard to get something. So if there's a way for us to find a balance there, but not just be the red flags up and, you know, we won't talk to you.

[00:32:58] Thank you. Absolutely. Supervisor Alcott. Yeah, thank you. Just to build on that, I completely agree with what you just said. And I think two suggestions. One, if we could have another column in here that actually states what the bill is going to do, I think that may have gotten left out inadvertently perhaps.

[00:33:19] I don't know. But the commentary is great. The subject is great. Yeah, I was trying to keep it on one width. The tracker will definitely have it. All right. Definitely. And the online version, just so you know, but we'll get, I'll update it and send it around this weekend.

[00:33:35] Okay, great. The online version are hyperlinked to the bills. Okay. So, but I'll make sure to send an update with that. That'd be great. And I guess my request, and you'll have to think about this because it might take a little bit of time, But frankly, to maybe have our DPD and LDS folks here for our next meeting and talk through those few bills that looks like they might pass, because I think we as a board need to be aware, because some of these are doing some things that I think a lot of us don't realize.

[00:34:10] And I'd love to hear sort of, you know, some real-time staff feedback as we look at this next week. Absolutely. Something to look into. Thank you, Supervisor Alcorn. Supervisor Stork. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have to admit, I don't really understand what they mean by get rid of parking. Does that mean they're going to require us to not, if we want to approve a development that has no parking, that we have no choice or we can decide to approve it or not approve it?

[00:34:40] And that's, I mean, because so much of what we do for proffers is people can require stuff or not, but we don't have to approve the development either. So is there some understanding that i should have about what the intent behind that is so chairman supervisor stork um yes we would have an up or down vote but we wouldn't be allowed to ask for like um and and i might have to call on staff here i don't know what our current process for that is i'll let our expert talk to that uh thank you tracy strunk director of department planning and development on that bill

[00:35:16] i believe the way we've read it and of course depending on what gets approved we would certainly or make whatever arguments are in our favor. But the way at least the one I'm thinking of reads, there would be no parking requirements in the zoning ordinance, and it also specifically said that you could not recommend denial of an application because it didn't provide parking.

[00:35:39] So it may limit staff, but the board automatically will have a choice of whether or not we think this development is appropriate or not for the community. Well, no. Not based on parking. not based on other things yes but a lot of other reasons why we may not support that etc i realize it makes it harder but but we still have discretion at some level and the second thing that i'm that i i see this terminology used a lot and and i know maybe i'm being more picky about it than i should be but i know we speak about and we have all the conversation we've had about manufactured housing and typically we talk about manufactured housing as formerly what we call

[00:36:18] mobile home parks and and but yet manufactured housing is a much broader issue than that i mean there's modular housing gets put together that's manufactured housing is are these definitions in some way or other clarifying what those restrictions or limitations are chairman supervisor stork some of the bills are some of the bills aren't um i believe hud has standards and that's what they refer to a lot um one of the benefits of and i believe it's i believe it's

[00:36:50] HB 374, but I'll follow up to make sure, is the other benefit of that bill is that it's turning a manufactured home from considered a personal, I believe, personal property as far as tax purposes to actually just like what you would have on a home.

[00:37:09] So families can start to build wealth by owning it as a way you would own a home versus other personal property. So it's at least busy land leases versus misses and then how that ties into the housing itself. Okay. Thank you Thank you so much Supervisor Stork Supervisor Lusk, and then we're going to close this second off with Supervisor Smith Making a final comment. Thank you. No, thank you very much. I'll go very quickly I appreciate the inclusion of the the manufactured housing bills and particularly

[00:37:40] HB 375. I'll say I think in the last year it came up, it required a review through a committee, and it was a pretty tough meeting. I got the opportunity to be a part of that and saw how hard it was for this to move out of that committee. So I don't know what the expectation is as of right now, but I guess as we continue to track this, can you let me know kind of what's happening

[00:38:12] with regard to it possibly being sent back to a specific, I want to say, I said committee, but work group to look at the feasibility of this being enacted?

[00:38:28] Because I think that's going to make it a lot harder if it has to go back to that channel. So thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Luskin. We're going to close it out with Supervisor Smith. I think that one of the things that's different here this year, I just wanted to say it this way, is that staff works hard to meet our expectations, the policies we put in place and what we say.

[00:38:52] And it's typically been anything that touches local control, hard no. And I think we're at the point now where we need to say we need to have a seat at the table, so we need to look and see what we can do and just not be hard no. And I think that's the message that we need to send to our staff. Thank you.

[00:39:08] Absolutely. Thank you, Supervisor Smith. Yes, Supervisor Sizemore Heiser. Quick question. I don't know if the manufactured homes definition has been updated, but I'm curious if it includes 3D homes, because there's a whole neighborhood of 3D homes that are being built that are much more energy efficient and faster in other parts of the country.

[00:39:27] So I'm just curious if that's been a conversation around, you know, increasing homes, availability and building and energy efficiency and using 3D homes, 3D printed, I should say. Definitely look into it. All right. just so everyone knows where we're at, so we are following along. We have now finished the specific issues part. We will now go to bills to discuss, which everyone will have an opportunity to comment on if you so choose, followed by bills with recommended positions. We are going to go

[00:40:00] through that whole part, and then we will open it up for questions, followed by open comments from the board, anything you all would like us to look at more specifically, or if you have any questions, and then we will close this meeting. So, moving to bills to discuss. Jennifer, I'm passing it back to you. Definitely. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So, bills to discuss, we got them on one page this time. So, the first topic is under Health and Human Services. There's two bills you'll

[00:40:32] see. One's a pair. So, HB 624, HB 1301, SB 122. So, those all deal with the same subject. And this is around how we care for children in schools who are diagnosed with diabetes. It's been a big topic. A bill was sent to study last year. So the bills basically in general, what they both do in some way, requires each school board to develop, amend as necessary, and implement a division-wide plan for care at each public elementary and secondary school where a child is diagnosed

[00:41:10] with diabetes in the entire school division during regular school hours. And then it would be effective starting 2027-2028 school year. So that's the goal. That's the broad thing. So HB 624, it includes language that was worked through in the off session. So like I said, they talked about it last year. They brought it to an off session work group, the School Health Services Committee. And both our health staff and the school staff had the ability to participate that and get some feedback. So this bill is coming out of an agreement in that. And as it currently

[00:41:45] stands, it doesn't raise significant concerns as it largely aligns with current practice. The other two bills, HB 1301 and SB 22, come at the issue very differently and raise more significant concerns regarding potential impacts to both the provision of the services and staff training. They are largely the same bills that were brought up last year. So what we're recommending is to monitor both of these. I think as stating that our staff was able to at least provide input

[00:42:19] in the making of it, the HB 62 is what is the ones that people prefer, but that is what's going on right now with that. And I wanted to bring that to your attention since Fairfax has the unique blend of school health nurses being employed by the county and not by the schools. And so those are those bills. And so I would recommend monitor on those.

[00:42:43] Thank you. And we're going to open it up for questions. Chairman, okay. Just a question. I think I know the answer to this, but just want to verify. There is no funding attached for any of these, correct? So this is a, I mean, it's a worthy endeavor, but it is in fact an unfunded mandate the way it's written. Is that right?

[00:43:00] Yes, we have not seen any budget amendments around it. Thank you, Chairman. Supervisor Smith, then Supervisor Storkin. So I'm in a unique position to be able to talk about this bill. One of my kids, when he was in second grade, halfway through the year, got diabetes.

[00:43:17] It was more than disturbing how the school really wasn't prepared to handle him. I had to be the advocate to go in, especially after I saw him come home from a field trip. I happened to be in the school, and he was ashen because they hadn't made sure he ate and his blood sugar was low.

[00:43:36] There need to be procedures in place, which I think is important, and I would assume by this time those were there. So I do think it's something we should follow. I don't know that there would be much of a cost with what they would do if it's just training. But kids' lives are on the line with this, and so if any questions come up, this is something I've dealt with in my personal life, if I can help at all.

[00:43:59] Thank you. Thank you so much, Supervisor Smith. Supervisor Stork. Thank you. Do we know where FCPS stands in this? Similar posture. We've been working similar posture. We've been working with Michael Malloy, who is their lobbyist, very closely on this.

[00:44:14] I mean, I would think that we already have standards for these things with how we have to handle and work with handicapped children and particular diagnosis and all that. So is this, I mean, my question is this somewhat redundant, but I would like to... I'm going to actually turn to our excellent school staff to answer that question.

[00:44:30] And then I have another question related to that, which is, does it apply to both public and private schools, or is this restricted in some way?

[00:44:44] Good afternoon, everyone. Mr. Chairman and members of the board, my name is Brian Hochstrasser. I am the Assistant Division Director for the School Health Program here. And so, to your point, Supervisor, we do have many protocols and procedures in place, which we follow the Diabetes Medical Management Plan.

[00:45:01] And so our protocols remain the same. bill reiterate some of those division-wide plan implementation of the diabetes care for students within the school system yes again I really appreciate the need for this requirement I coming just coming off the school board the question I guess I have is how does this interact with 504 and IEP plans if you have a student with diabetes would they be eligible for an IEP in 504 so why would we need to do I mean while we need division my plan for this as

[00:45:40] as opposed to severe allergies or anything else that would also be covered under IEPs and 504s. So how does this interact with that? Well, so the IEPs and 504s would be geared toward the academic accommodations, so individuals could access their needs.

[00:45:56] But we can implement some of the diabetic procedures and processes related to their diabetic medical management plan with this. With all due respect, IEPs and 504s are to allow access to the educational environment. So it goes beyond academic accommodations to anything that's required to access the academic environment, including health.

[00:46:17] And there's many children who receive IEPs and 504s for medical reasons. So that's why it almost seems like it could potentially be counter to the federal requirements under the Rehabilitation Act, Section 504 and IDEA, because those very much emphasize the individual nature of accommodations.

[00:46:38] And if you have a division-wide plan, would that then incentivize schools to not allow for individual accommodations because they can point to a division-wide plan, which would then contradict the ADA and 504. So, I mean, ADA, excuse me, and IDEA. So I would have that concern around the, you know, federal law should be, you know, trumping over state law.

[00:46:59] So I would have that concern about the interrelation between the individual requirements, especially in IDEA. Just my two cents. I love having another lawyer on the board. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Did you have some comments? Just the only other question I was going to ask is I think most people don't realize our school health nurses are county employees.

[00:47:19] They're not FCPS employees. And so I'm also still processing in my own mind when I see things like this, how the FCPS policies marry up with these types of mandates that come to us as Fairfax County as we are the employer of the school health nurses.

[00:47:39] And the conversation about how the academic piece links up with the health piece, you know, I don't need a long explanation of that here, but does something like this potentially further complicate that? Or from your professional standpoint, is something like this particularly helpful in dealing with that?

[00:47:58] That's a great question. I think, you know, from a health perspective, from our nursing perspective, we want to follow the physician's orders, right, the provider's orders that are outlined in the diabetic medical management. plan. And so as our public health nurses implement those orders, we want their health to be the priority in this process. And so to complicate things, I think it does, in a sense, because we don't want, we want to support those students from a health perspective and really defer to the

[00:48:37] the expertise of the physician or the provider for those um for those diabetic plans or protocols i should say okay and and i only bring that up because normally when i would see something like this i would say this is a school's issue and for people watching who may not know the way these things are structured the reason why we're paying so much attention to this is because school health nurses are county employees employed by fairfax county not by fcps and so you know that's just an added wrinkle sometimes that we deal with when we see things like this. Otherwise, we would be just straight up deferring to schools on this. Thank you. Supervisor Stark, did you have one

[00:49:13] final comment? Just the public-private. I know we saw smiles, but I just want to be sure I understood what that meant, which it does or doesn't apply to all schools, public and private. I don't. I will get back to you. From my perspective, it says public right here, but I don't have the build text in front of me to confirm that. So I'll follow up. But as far as in the summary, it says public. And I'm just, if we're going to have any advocacy, we ought to make sure that it applies. I mean, if this is that important, it ought to apply to all students, even though I think we internally don't need it because we have procedures that can't address this sufficiently.

[00:49:53] It looks like we've got a new expert to join. All right. Chairman asked, Previsor Stork, Dana Robinson from the County Attorney's Office. Not an expert in this area, But when you read the statute, it directs the local school board to come up with these plans.

[00:50:08] So I think it would just be for the public schools. Well, thank you so much, Supervisor Stork, for bringing that up. Okay, Jennifer, on to the next. I'm going to turn this one over to our trusted transportation team. Mr. Chairman, HB 1010 deals with school crossing zones.

[00:50:28] It's something a bit different and specifically related to the county, so we wanted to bring it to you all. Delgitran has a bill that would expand school zones only in planning district eight to include large children's sports complexes. Um, I, what she's trying to get at as I think to help with students and the athletes around the St. James, where you have a lot of kids all around and it's on a, you know, on a street that's in an industrial area. Um, so what it does is it literally says schools, in the school crossing zone section, it says schools means an elementary or secondary

[00:51:07] school. However, in Plenty District 8, schools includes large children's sports complexes. And I think while the goal is admirable and we understand where she's coming from, you have a lot of, again, you have a lot of students around there when events are occurring. Staff did see some implementation issues. For instance, the way it's defined, it says primarily designed for youth sports and has more than 150 children or students enrolled in their program. So that could lead to more than just a St. James situation. It could be a dojo or a swim school. So we're not

[00:51:45] sure how that would all work in all of the school crossing zone requirements. Also, with school zones, as you all know, there's generally a set schedule. You know, they're in from 8 to 3 or whatever it may be for that specific school, these facilities might be a little bit different.

[00:52:01] So how that would all work and how that would be coordinated with VEDA, I think there are still some questions there. So while the goal is admirable, we're not sure if more things have to be worked out. So I think that is why we're recommending a monitor. Thank you so much.

[00:52:17] And again, I'll just reiterate, you know, we are not approving or opposing, we're monitoring this. So thank you for that. Does anyone have any questions going down the line, but starting with the chairman? Jennifer, back to you. All right.

[00:52:33] So now we flip the page, and on page two starts the bills with recommended positions. Again, we're happy to take comments on the bills from there on out, but just going to highlight a couple of them for you. So on the bottom of page three and the top of page four are four bills.

[00:52:51] Starts at H, it says child welfare and HB 76, HB 266, sorry, not HB 76. That one is about luggage. which we like. We want to make sure our kids are not leaving with trash bags. So HB 266, HB 1366, HB 1490, and SB 640. So background on all four of these bills really quick. So this summer, there was a presentation to a general assembly committee from the children's omnibus about kind

[00:53:30] of the work that they've been doing looking around some of the concerns in child welfare. Um, what was presented was a little bit startling and unheard before about tying screen out rates and bad outcomes. And it's really started this conversation, um, about information we have around the differing rates of screen outs. So when you get a call to the hotline, you sometimes either get screened in, screened out. If they're screened in, that starts the investigation process.

[00:54:01] So this is like the first level. And around the state, it differs a lot. And at the same time, we've had issues for a long time, to be frank, around child welfare. Are kids having good outcomes?

[00:54:17] Are we helping foster parents? Are we making sure kids are safe, protected, fed, nourished, all the things, all the goals that we have? And in presenting them together, there seems to be a little bit of thinking because we're screening things out. we have bad outcomes. So it's tying together these two kind of talking points at the same time.

[00:54:37] And so that's been a conversation that Director Michael Buckets and I have been having with the delegation off and on since then. In October, they had commissioned, the General Assembly had commissioned a report by McKinsey, and it was supposed to be released. We did get a summary of the report in December by the governor. As of this time, we have still not seen the report or the data. So these bills are basically coming out of the recommendations of that report. And so there's three basic things in these bills. The first is increased authority for VDSS,

[00:55:17] Virginia Department of Social Services, to be able to step in and either support, work with local departments, but also then implement corrective action plans, CAPS, to make sure this is happening and making sure that if there is something that's not right, that the state has some authority to step in and help.

[00:55:37] The second is increasing the time frame. So if the report is about a child two and under, zero to two, we have 24 hours to respond. They want to expand that to zero to three. These are good ideas.

[00:55:53] We have no problem with these ideas. The third recommendation is where we have a little concerns, and that's they want to centralize all of the hotline into VDSS. As you know, all of our social services in Virginia, we're a state, a locally administered state.

[00:56:09] And so I think there are concerns about how will this look? Why are we going to that step right away? And again, in the context of this conversation about screen out rates, when you deal in human services, you're dealing with human beings.

[00:56:27] And data is very helpful, but often the qualitative part of it is also really, really important to understand. And so Director Michael Beckett and his staff have done some incredible work of breaking out what our call rates look like, why our call – we do have a pretty significant screen out rate, which is kind of being held up as a problem.

[00:56:53] In general, not in so many words, but kind of being held up as a problem. and I think the concern we have with that is we feel like the data isn't telling the story and so he has him and his staff have done some great visuals we've walked around we've talked about it but that's our general concern is this idea of centralizing in the state and doing it fairly quickly without a lot of without seeing the report and not a lot of conversations with locals about

[00:57:24] maybe what they needed to help or to better understand this data. And so the bills, HB 266 is a bill introduced by delegate, I always say her last name wrong, so I'm not going to say it, TATTA. And she has just put this in on her own volition. The other two bills are administration bills in the sense that they came out of this report and this is being the recommendations.

[00:57:56] And that's HB 1366 and HB 1490. So former Delegate Sickles, now Secretary Sickles, was going to carry this. And we'd been having lots of conversations with him about it. When he got the honor of being secretary, they had to find a new patron.

[00:58:16] And so it ended up getting split. So HB 1366 by Delegate Coulson has the cap part of it, so the increased authority for the state. And then HB 1490 has the other two sections, the centralization and the zero to three sections, and that's being carried by Delegate Tran.

[00:58:34] We've had some conversations with our staff giving the background that we had given to now Secretary Sickles around our screen out rates. And not only just trying to explain that, but also explaining that we do some really cool, well, I think it's cool, very innovative work in our screen outs with preventing doing prevention services and just people call who just need general help and and raising that question of like what will happen then at the state level um and then also bringing up the fact that if you're going to set a number a goal of like we're screening in this many um what does that look like then investigation wise

[00:59:13] for both for staffing but from a family perspective too of are we going into places we don't need to intrude. And so we've expressed those concerns. That's why we are recommending amend. Again, for HB 1366, we could really either monitor or support that. That's just the cap part. That's not a part that we have a lot of heartburn around, but we just kept it all the same just to avoid confusion today. This morning in the Senate, they heard SB 640 and a substitute was offered.

[00:59:49] um staff have been able to scan it and it's taken a lot of our concerns into account and so it's implementing more of a pilot study approach a phased in approach um we have not gotten to look at it in detail at first glance it seems like either the right way either good or at least better um and so i'm actually it says amend in here i would actually recommend we monitor until we can fully view it and have Steph fully vet it and then probably we'd get to a place of support as our preferred method, our preferred approach to this subject. So I just wanted to provide that

[01:00:28] update and then I'm going to turn it back to Trustee Transportation for two more updates on their bills. Page 18, HB 649, the right-of-way. Good afternoon, Christine Frentis, Government Relations for Department of Transportation. This week, there was a bill that was heard in subcommittee and then passed in full committee that I wanted to tell you about because it was

[01:01:01] a little odd. And I was originally going to monitor it because it said that it was going to bar localities from having volunteers remove signs from the VDOT right-of-way.

[01:01:16] And then during committee, because of the testimony of the patron and a constituent, the subcommittee decided to add contractors to the legislation to bar this statewide.

[01:01:45] And obviously that created a level of concern for us because we already have a code section that allows us to enter an agreement with VDOT to utilize a contracting service. service. Even though the language was more general and not specific, we checked with the county attorney's office and with code compliance to verify what this would potentially do for us.

[01:02:20] Out of an abundance of caution, we put together a packet for the patron showing that we have a program that is content neutral, that is publicized, and that includes people running for office who may put their signs in the right-of-way, who may potentially in other jurisdictions experience viewpoint suppression that is not experienced here. During the testimony in subcommittee, some of the committee members did mention, you know, look, this doesn't happen in our jurisdiction.

[01:03:00] However, it came out of subcommittee with the language, including contractors. I visited with the patron, showed them all everything that we had to show that we run a clean program and offered them some language. In addition to my work, another delegate said, look, man, you probably shouldn't do this statewide and limit to your own planning district.

[01:03:24] So there was a substitute language subsequently entered on Thursday in the full committee, and it's come out that it is just Planning District 23. We are going to continue to monitor this because there was a concern raised by a good number of people on at least the subcommittee about First Amendment rights.

[01:03:47] So I don't know what's going to happen next, but we're going to pay attention to it. The patron, at least, was convinced that because we have 99 roads that are included in our program, that we are a little different.

[01:04:03] And they did agree that we were running a clean program, so I have that packet ready to go if anybody else has any questions. Thank you very much. And, Mr. Chairman, on page 20, HB 1205 and 1281, this just goes back to the budget amendment I mentioned earlier.

[01:04:22] These bills would remove the existing fuel-efficient vehicle fee, and because of the impact to the Transportation Trust Fund, we're recommending oppose. Well, thank you so much for those updates, and we look obviously forward to seeing where some of these bills will go or not go.

[01:04:42] With that being said, we are going to come to the question comments from board members part of our committee, and I want to pass it over to Mr. Chairman to kick us off. Yeah, just very briefly, I just want to go back for one moment. We had a good, long discussion about the child welfare issues that are here.

[01:05:01] And, you know, I know that I met with some folks, this has been many months ago now, but so many folks who were the impetus behind the study that was done, particularly focused on the piece of it that deals specifically with foster care. And I will just say that Virginia is really bad in this area.

[01:05:23] And in fact, they came to meet with me because they were from an area outside of northern Virginia and said, frankly, we're trying to get somewhere within the vicinity of where you are in terms of how you deal with these issues. And so I'm only saying that because we don't, you know, we want to maintain our local autonomy.

[01:05:41] You know, we don't want to, as a good actor, be blamed. And so I get that point of what you were saying, but I do think we need to be careful about acknowledging that if you're outside of northern Virginia, our system is really bad by every measure and every statistic they share with us.

[01:05:59] So this is a proud moment for us and the way we deal with stuff, and we don't want to be penalized, but don't penalize the bad actors. But I think it is important for us to acknowledge that Virginia as a whole has left a lot of room for improvement in this area, and the folks who were behind the study that was done feel very strongly about this.

[01:06:17] and want to see some things happen. And so I think we just need to be mindful of that when we have these conversations. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And before I kick it off with Supervisor Bierman, I just want to point out that at the beginning of this meeting, a handout with three immigration bills were handed out to each of you.

[01:06:36] All three of those bills were from Senator Saddam Salim. And with that being said, Supervisor Bierman, the floor is yours. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I would like to talk briefly about the bills being introduced by Saddam Salim, Senator from Fairfax County.

[01:06:53] He has the unique distinction of having a district that overlaps with six different supervisor districts. So we have a lot of overlap here. But he has introduced three bills. You just characterized them as immigration bills.

[01:07:09] I think he would actually maybe characterize them as bills targeting potential abuses by ICE and CBP that we've seen in other areas. And I was wondering if someone on that side of the table could simply summarize SB 351, SB 352, and SB 783 for us and let us know where they are in the process.

[01:07:37] Happy to do that real quick. So SB 783, and I'm just doing it from this sheet as we've not been super involved in these bills. Law enforcement agencies and localities, this is about, there's actually a substantial substitute that has this, and it's around how ICE can, I would summarize it as how ICE can operate in Virginia, should they come and interact with other members. SB 352 is around

[01:08:10] restrictions on face coverings and penalties for wearing them. And SB 351 covers about how they are able to function in courthouses. Okay. Thank you. And we've been sort of monitoring these bills, but not doing a ton of work on them. Am I correct?

[01:08:30] Just as we read all the legislation and have staff review. Okay. So in that case, I'll potentially editorialize a little more than I might have otherwise. I'll try to remain restrained, but I think these are very, very important. I think what we've seen from ICE and CBP lately raises extreme concerns, not just the murders of Alex Preddy or Renee Good, the situation that was highlighted by Congressman Walkinshaw with little Liam Ramos,

[01:09:08] a five-year-old kid, the tactics that have been used by ICE, the fact that Judge Patrick Schiltz of the District of Minnesota in an order on Wednesday said that he believed that ICE had violated more court orders in the month of January than some federal agencies had violated in their entire existence. So I see three bills that have come from one of our senators. 351, about certain civil arrests prohibited in the courthouses, I think actually fits very, potentially fits very much with our own trust policy. It's about trying to not have ICE officers

[01:09:45] who are simply roving around courthouses who could potentially arrest someone who arrived to be a witness in a case. And I know that there are still some aspects of this bill that need to be worked out. I believe we need to talk to the Virginia Sheriffs Association. I think we need to talk to Sheriff Kincaid's office about this bill, making sure that the way it is operationalized actually works. But I think we should definitely be a part of that conversation.

[01:10:15] SB 352 talks about restrictions on wearing facial coverings and other aspects of how law enforcement is conducted in the Commonwealth. We've seen those tactics used in other areas of the country simply put to intimidate people. And frankly, we've seen them used in our area of the country as well. So I support efforts to try and make sure that the tactics used and that we don't have officers trying to operate solely with anonymity. Our police officers wear badges. They have names.

[01:10:49] They are entrusted with the public trust, and that means we do know who they are. And finally, SB 783, I actually am going to somewhat quote a statement earlier made by Vice Chair Smith, who said that often when it comes to issues of local control, we are a hard no. But I do think that bills that do discuss and deal with the ways in which law enforcement in the Commonwealth of Virginia works with these agencies and tries to lay down markers for what

[01:11:24] is or isn't acceptable, even if that may in some degree impinge on local control, are very, very important. And they're especially important in our region where we have certain localities that border us that have made different choices than we have made. I think that trying to monitor and be a part of these conversations and ultimately hopefully get to a point where we can support these bills is not only consistent with our one Fairfax policy, but it puts us in line with our

[01:11:58] members of Congress, Congressman Walkinshaw, Congressman Beyer. It puts us in line with our representatives down in Richmond. All three of these bills have made it out of their first committee. I'm not going to say that we know yet whether everyone is perfect. There may still be work to be done. But I would really like us to play a role in this. And I will simply end and close by saying that, and I tried to, I'm trying to be calm here, but there is real fear in our

[01:12:33] community about what's going on. It's not just watching the news about Minneapolis. It's understanding things that have already happened in our community. I've talked to principals about what's going on with their students. I've talked to members within our own social services about what they're seeing. And I just want to make sure that we are on the right side of this issue.

[01:12:59] So with that, I will close. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Bierman, for not only bringing this sheet and these bills to our attention, we're obviously monitoring and will continue to do so. We will make sure that you have, you and the board have updates on this.

[01:13:15] But again, thank you for reaching out to us. Thank you for bringing this important issue up for the board. Supervisor Chairman McKay and then Supervisor Luskin. Yeah, I'm just going to be very brief. I appreciate that as well. I would just say one thing that Supervisor Beerman said that's so true is the fear and concern that a lot of people in our community have.

[01:13:38] And so I think it's also really important for all of us, and I know we've been doing this, but for us to continue to reiterate something that I reiterate to our community constantly, which is what our trust policy is. The tactics that are used here are so far outside of the realm of what our public safety officials do or any professional local public safety organization does. Our police officers are not trained like what people are seeing on TV. Our police officers are not wearing face masks.

[01:14:12] We were actually complimented for making sure that our police say Fairfax County police because unfortunately now ICE police are walking around with coats on that say police on purpose to try to trick people into not understanding what the difference between an ICE agent and a local police officer is. And so regardless of what happens with these bills, and I think there's a reasonable conversation to be had about whether or not we or the Commonwealth of Virginia even has jurisdiction to impose some of these things on the federal government, regardless of those things,

[01:14:48] we need to be reassuring our community that the tactics that are used here are not the tactics that our Fairfax County public safety agencies use and to make sure that the people in our community who are living in real fear understand what that differentiation is, especially when it seems to be the objective of federal officials to blur those lines as much as they can.

[01:15:14] We have to make sure that we're not blurring those lines in what we say and what we do. And so I appreciate these coming forward. Again, I don't, you know, I'm not sure that the Commonwealth has the legal position to be able to impose some of these restrictions on federal agencies.

[01:15:31] I think that's something that we can punt to a legal conversation in closed session, not for here, but I think is a real thing that we should probably discuss as these proceed. But I would just say for all of us, we need to make sure we're reiterating these things to our community about how different what they're seeing happening at the federal level is from what our officers are trained and our professionals in the community are doing.

[01:15:57] Well, thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Supervisor Lusk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll say I appreciate the comments of my colleagues, and I'll double down on this point about the fear in the community. In my community, I have two mobile home parks.

[01:16:16] Both parks have been under review, I'll use that word, by ICE. And it has caused a bit of concern and fear and consternation for those residents, and that is unfortunate.

[01:16:34] It's not right. Secondly, I've noted in two of my other communities, one an apartment complex just off of Richmond Highway, They've also done the same, and then last in a residential community less than a mile from my own home, they have gone in and knocked on doors and tried to get people to open them.

[01:16:58] So this is important that we do monitor this. So I'll thank you, Jimmy, for, excuse me, Supervisor Beerman for bringing this forward. I know. And I'll say we do want to monitor it, But if we can do anything to address the points that these bills are trying to do, we should be focused on that.

[01:17:28] And I just appreciate that we are looking at it and in the interest of those residents who, and I apologize, I don't mean to go long here, but I think of the word suffering, and I feel that suffering when people call and say, you know, they're in my community and they don't know what to do.

[01:17:50] So this is serious and this is important. And, again, thank you for bringing these forward. I'm going to go in the order. I saw Hans, Supervisor Alcorn, Supervisor Palachuk. Yeah, I appreciate also the comments of my colleagues, and I support the approach laid out by Supervisor Bierman.

[01:18:05] Bierman, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, you know, I would say following on what we've heard, I think separate from legislative, there is so much that we do control and so much that we do do.

[01:18:23] I know there's a lot of work that's happening, that's being done by our community partners, by the county, by nonprofits. And so especially now, if we haven't already, I just think it's a good opportunity for us. I know with the county executives team and I see deputy county executive here to make sure if there's more we can do to help share the resources.

[01:18:44] I was heartened to see in these times that Governor Spanberger rescinded executive order 47 on day one in office. And so knowing where we do have control and what we are able to do at the local level with support from the state level that we continue to do that.

[01:19:02] Everything isn't done via legislation. And so while we continue on the legislative path, I think continuing to work and with our equity teams and equity offices, we're a large county. And sometimes it's just neighborhood by neighborhood. I know on my Facebook groups and other groups, people are doing on WhatsApp supporting each other.

[01:19:21] So I think we need to be aware that our community is bonded together, is working together, and is supporting each other, not just them, but also our public safety teams are focused on safety. So thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Palachuk. We will now move on.

[01:19:39] If anyone at this time has anything you would like to bring up, any questions you didn't get to ask, some questions you want answered by the next meeting, now is the time. I'm looking down the row. Mr. Bierman, I'm going all the way down to Supervisor Alcorn.

[01:19:55] Yeah, just very quickly, I appreciate your consideration for the next one on the housing issues. And, yeah, I think it's important for us to have a little more detail on those for discussion. And I know I'll try to do my homework and read up ahead of time. But anything you could do to help us be ready for that would be great.

[01:20:12] Yeah, and I'm sure our excellent team will be, as they mentioned at the beginning, There's just so much in flux right now, so much change from a day-to-day that we're all just trying to keep up. But we will make sure to try to update that as much as possible for the next meeting. Thank you. Supervisor Sizemore-Heiser?

[01:20:32] Just a quick question on House Bill 816 from 816. Sorry, it's not on, I don't, yeah, it's just one that I found on my own. I don't know if it may be in here, but it's the zoning by right for multifamily residential development in areas zoned for commercial.

[01:20:53] Yeah, the one question I had is, does that bill, has anyone talked about exempting areas that have industrial space from that? Because I know Fairfax has a lot of limited industrial space. Excellent question, Chairman, Supervisor Seismar Heiser.

[01:21:11] It is on the list. It is in the – I believe it is in the red section. Oh, thank you. So there are several different issues here just from a – just a general standpoint of the fact that there's, I believe, either 138 or 148 localities in the Commonwealth, and each defines a zoning district their own way and their own – if they have a zoning ordinance.

[01:21:42] And so there's an issue with calling out a specific type of zoning. there's some just fundamental issues on that, I think. The other issue, and we've got some great staff here if you want to have a more in-depth conversation on it, but I think that is the opposite of the point, is they want housing everywhere by right that they can, because a lot of the bills actually in this red category are being talked about housing supply, that we don't have enough housing supply and changing land zoning and what they would say is red tape to

[01:22:17] get more housing. And so I think the point is to not exclude it, if I can be frank. I think it is also interesting that they've also passed bills out of committees that also require us to consider environmental justice in our zoning ordinance. And then also saying we have to allow people to build in industrial, and in Fairfax County, industrial means truly industrial. So I'm going to turn it over to the experts. I don't know if there's been any, Jen can answer if there's been any questions or discussion about limiting that. There are certainly some of these bills that say

[01:22:56] things like we need to allow multifamily housing in 75% of the commercial and business, which in Fairfax County would include industrial zones. So if it is defined by a zone, then that would not limit limit that there are some other there are some bills that we've seen that talk about not once a multifamily has been put in there not then changing the use of the commercial property next to it which would then also really the concern there is obviously what that does to our commercial and industrial base you know getting housing we have a lot of mixed use districts in Fairfax County obviously those are all of our generally

[01:23:35] RP districts which are planned districts which come through the legislative process and we look at if those are appropriate places for housing and have amenities and mitigate their impacts and those sorts of things. Supervisor Palachuk? Thank you. I would just be curious as we're going through these, if any of them include carrots or state investments and infrastructure and helping alleviate some of the costs that might come to the localities with some of these bills?

[01:24:05] There have been. A lot of them are structured around tax and tax breaks for different people, different reasons, things like that. I would say there's a large number of tax breaks. But I do think that there are some setting up of different funds. There is a bill, and I don't know how – there's the intent and the desire.

[01:24:27] This specific fund that I'm thinking of from Delegate Thomas would help pay for the infrastructure that this requires, which is a huge part of what slows down housing or things like that. The problem is, in the money committees, and I meant to mention this with the budget amendments, is the money committees have made it very clear, especially by the number of bills that they are killing when they get to their committees, that they are not confident that there will be any future revenue growth, and therefore very hesitant to commit money to things.

[01:25:02] So inversely, are any of these sort of incentivizing, right, goals and state transportation or education funding or other to localities that show an improvement and a growth in their total housing supply? I have not seen a direct link. I would say there are efforts by the bills around transit funding and there are general tax reform things out there, but it's not tying it to if you do good in housing, then you get more money. Thank you. Well, thank you so much to everyone.

[01:25:38] Thank you for the late nights that our legislative team has put in. And thank you all for reaching out ahead of time with any questions that you had that we could cover today uh bako local government days next thursday february 5th and our next legislative committee meeting will be on friday february 13th as a reminder we're hosting a general assembly reception on february 19th at 5 30 and with that being said no no just one second sorry i i meant to say this before you started um uh two of our delegation members are going to carry a resolution for claudia and they are going to speak on the floor and they're going to do it the day of our reception.

[01:26:17] So the family is going to be present. If the board members would like to be present, we wanted to let you know about that opportunity. I just have an administrative item. It's hard to have an administrative item following that that I do think what would be helpful for us on that day is we know a little bit better some time and where to go so that we can attend that for those of us who are going to be down there.

[01:26:41] The second thing I wanted to mention, and the chairman just mentioned it indirectly, I just want to be direct about it, We have VACO next week, so as a result of that, we do not have a committee meeting Friday, the day after local government day traditionally, but staff does send out updated materials for us on what transpired during that week.

[01:27:01] And so as was mentioned earlier and as the chairman mentioned, if you have individual concerns, questions about those bills, do your homework. Just because we're not meeting Friday doesn't mean that we're not going to get a progress report and doesn't mean that we shouldn't take advantage of that opportunity to communicate with staff.

[01:27:16] And so we will, those who are down there next week, will get the full update on everything that has transpired throughout the week. But for those who aren't there in particular, be looking for that update from staff. Well, thank you for those two announcements. Very important.

[01:27:32] And with that, we are adjourned.

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