Coraggio Consulting
Manassas City Council 3/24/2025

Date: Monday, March 24, 2025
Place: Manassas City Council, Virginia
Length: 2h 54m (video)
Official meeting video (Wistia / RegionalWebTV): https://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/ixc28w1drp

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 2026-10-17. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] of March the 24th to order. Ms. Garcia, please call the roll. Present. Vice Mayor Wolfe. Council Member Ellis. Here. Council Member Smith. Here. Council Member Osina.

[00:00:16] Here. Council Member Vasquez Luna. Presente. Council Member Hudson. Here. A quorum is present. Thank you very much. If you're able to please stand with me for the invocation. Dear God, thank you for another opportunity to gather together as a council to provide service to the residents of the City of Manassas.

[00:00:39] Please continue to protect our staff, our men and women in uniform here and overseas. We thank you for the beautiful spring weather we are having and the chance to enjoy all of the many events that we offer here in the city of Manassas. We remain thankful for all things. Amen.

[00:00:55] We are pleased to have with us tonight Harrison Browning of Troop 670. Harrison is in sixth grade at Marcella Middle School, but attends troop meetings at Grace United Methodist Church right here in the city. He is a second-class scout and will now lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

[00:01:14] Harrison, take it away. Hello. Hello. There you go. Please join me in honor our country by saying the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[00:01:39] Thank you. You may be seated. Thank you, Harrison. Harrison has a very busy schedule so he's scooting out tonight. Thank you so much. There's a lot going on for a sixth grader. As you may recall when I think my second year as being mayor I instituted bringing in scouts that helps them meet their requirements and also gives you all a chance to see them as well. So thank you so much for for that Harrison and I want to acknowledge Dr. Newman is here. Superintendent of the school board and And Ms. Diane Brown is here as well, and she is going.

[00:02:19] We're going to hear from her in just a few as well, school board member. And I don't see anybody else, any other dignitaries here. So I will call on Councilwoman Ellis first for council time. Yeah, Mr. Wolfe's not here yet. I just want to say happy spring to everyone.

[00:02:44] We survived the winter. Things are blooming. I'm really excited about that. And I wanted to thank all of our local gardening clubs and our master gardeners for all the hard work that they have been doing to try to clean up some of the English ivy, which is a problem in our city.

[00:03:03] And we hope to get a bigger group together and the cities are working on giving us a plan for it. But that's really important because ivy can strangle our trees and other things. So let's get out there and start digging and enjoying the weather.

[00:03:20] Thank you. that's it okay councilman smith thank you madam mayor i um just want to say i'm pleased to see so many here with us again again tonight and i hope like me the audience is excited about some of the presentations we we always get a very encouraging inspiring and excellent report from our school system so we have that on the agenda i believe yes dr nilman is here that's right yeah but also Well, the other two presentations, two or three, the one from George Mason and the utility rate clarification, the utility rate report.

[00:04:00] And I think we have, oh, a wonderful library, city library is making a report. Anyway, I'm happy to be here and welcome everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Lucina. Thank you, Mayor. I don't have much to say.

[00:04:15] It's been busy. I know the NASA City Education Foundation had a very happening event this past Saturday. It was sort of the place to be. It had music.

[00:04:32] It had food. Who would have thought doing pancakes at 4 o'clock in the afternoon would bring so many people out? But it did, and I hope that they raised a lot. And I didn't realize that the executive director for the foundation actually was a drummer there in the band that was playing there.

[00:04:54] Carol Hart was playing. So that was kind of cool along the way. And then Councilwoman Hudson and I had the opportunity to cross over to Osborne and meet the softball teams and baseball teams. They had an event going on.

[00:05:09] Their event was not pancakes. It was spaghetti. So we ended up really eating that. You got it. Which meant on Sunday, I was doing what Councilwoman Ellis was just talking about, pulling out ivy and gardening and doing all those sorts of things to burn off calories in that regard here on that.

[00:05:31] For those that may not know, CERV is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. And the Prince William County Chamber of Commerce is having a, I'll call it a reception over there this Thursday from, I think, 5 to 6.30 over there at CERV to celebrate.

[00:05:51] So if you have a chance to pop over there or if you've never been there down Dean Drive, that's a good place to go. Yes, Mr. Naylor, we are meeting. Come on in. That's all right. That's Larry. That's right. Don't want you to miss my remarks.

[00:06:08] And I do want to remind people that we are looking for residents who are willing to serve on our boards, committees, and commissions. We will have several vacancies coming up that can't be filmed by the current office holder because they're term limited.

[00:06:27] And these include some openings among which are on economic development, and the planning commission are two that come to mind. So I encourage you to fill out an application if that is in your wheelhouse.

[00:06:42] Of course, we have other committees along the way and get those in. The appointments committee meets the last either Tuesday or Wednesday. I shouldn't say the last. The fourth Wednesday or Tuesday of the month. So we'll be meeting this Tuesday, Mayor. But we're ready to meet with you if you're so interested in fill out that application.

[00:07:03] Mayor, thank you for the time. Thank you. The serve celebration is Thursday? I thought it was Thursday. Okay, I'm just asking because I did not know about that. I will quickly look. Yes, business after hours from 5 to 6.30 on the 27th. Okay, thank you. That's what I had down.

[00:07:19] Okay, thank you. Sure. Councilman Vasquez. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Good evening, everyone. It's always great to see each one of you here. I will try to keep it short. I'm really thankful of... I know you are.

[00:07:36] I'm thankful of the WE conference 2025. I got invited to the Prince William Chamber of Commerce WE conference, and our mayor was the host. Yes, so it was great.

[00:07:56] I think that we always remember how we have different businesses here, but to see the women in that leadership and to see them coming together And at the end, you know, everybody not only loves the city or the surroundings, but they want to give back and they want to network and help each other.

[00:08:17] So I was blessed to meet many different leaders in different areas. So I'm really thankful for that opportunity. With that, you know, I will say let's continue to, you know, to network. I have different opportunities.

[00:08:32] is if you are a volunteer or if you're thinking of becoming a volunteer, every year there is an annual volunteer reception and dinner, and that will be held in April 29. I know it sounds early, but if you don't get your ticket, you might miss it.

[00:08:51] So that's why I want to make sure that you join us. You know, we have so many volunteers, like our brother. I think we have a great pool of people who walk here and they was pushed to get in and not a long ago, but I'm, you know, really happy that that is happening. I hope all council, I know our mayor will be there and that we can join to thank each one of our volunteers. You still have the opportunity to volunteer to apply to be considered for any of the positions. So, and I believe one of them is the library. So it

[00:09:29] candidates that will get the right candidate, especially for positions. They are in our regional and we only have one vote there. Going further, the annual breakfast is also coming up. If you have a business here in the city, you get one ticket. You have to have a physical business, which makes it a little bit challenging sometimes, but please reach out to the EDA, they'll help you. The breakfast is set up through the Prince William Chamber of Commerce, which is a great partner to us, so make sure that you get the information

[00:10:05] and you don't miss out on that networking opportunity and learning. They always have great speakers, and this year is no different. I attended the BRA monthly meeting. There so much going on after, you know, purchasing the Manassas line. Continue to ask for the Saturday service. I will continue to ask for a week in service and for us to have our accommodations. On Monday, we heard about, you know, things they have not been taken

[00:10:43] care of. All I can say is they will take some time, but they are listening. I take your requests and the feedback to them, and hopefully we get something to be fixed in the near future, but it has been brought up to their attention. Just a reminder, you can use the BRE, you can use the train, the OmniRide, there is also different services, if you are 65 years old or older, you can get a 50% ticket at discount, the bus doesn't charge you anything,

[00:11:16] And your feedback is important, so whether you do it to them or you do it through us, we just want to hear from you so the city can have a better service. And, again, the weather is nicer, so if you can, try to bike to work or just bike to have a good time.

[00:11:34] The city has invested a lot in trying to make sure there is bike routes, and, you know, I'm really proud of what has been done with that. I also attended with, I want to thank Dr. Neumann for his leadership and the school board.

[00:11:51] I was able to attend one of their meetings. It was a reminder that we live in a great city, that everybody has a voice, that we care for everybody. So all I can, you know, I'm not going to talk about the specifics, but I can say, you know, I run for office because I want to make a difference for everybody.

[00:12:11] And I wanted to give a voice and give a vote to those people that sometimes feel unheard, and that's the immigrant community. But when I sit here and make decisions, I make them for everybody, for the betterment of our residents, the business, and, you know, I care for all the people.

[00:12:28] But I really want to make sure that I, you know, thank him, especially you being here in person. Thank you, sir, for what you do, and also, Ms. Brown, I know you are new, and I'm looking forward to working with you in that committee and all the things.

[00:12:46] The last thing, I know some residents have talked about having more ways to reach us. You can call us. You can email us. You can email us all at once. Mayor and Council, we all get the emails, which is a great input.

[00:13:06] You can come here, you get three minutes or you can set up time to talk to us. But I have set up some time with Councilwoman Ashley Hudson.

[00:13:23] I'll be going to be here on Thursday. It's March 27 from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. And we would like for you to come and talk to us. So we just want to talk a little bit about the Women's History Month.

[00:13:38] We're wrapping it up. We know we have the first woman and person of color, which last month was the Black History Month, and this month is the Women's History Month. So for me, really proud to serve with you, and I'll continue to bring that up.

[00:13:56] It's also a majority women. So as we wrap this month, this is our last council meeting for March. I will want to continue to talk about that. And I'm really happy to join with our newest council member to have a conversation with you.

[00:14:15] There is no big agenda. It's more like, let's talk, tell me, ask questions. I know sometimes it's frustrating that we don't have an answer right away, but all I can tell you is that we have a great team, great staff, and we'll take it to them and somebody will get back with you.

[00:14:32] If I'm not able to answer, oh, I'll get back with you. So with that, I hope to see you there. And we still have a lot of work to do in the budget. And don't forget, we have our, I believe it's April 28th, we have our hearing date.

[00:14:49] So join us that day too. From here until then, we want to hear things are changing. And, you know, when I pray that things get better so we can, you know, get our budget done, not only timely, but, you know, accurate like we have done in years prior.

[00:15:05] Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you. Councilwoman Hudson. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes. Hello, everyone. Good evening. Thank you for joining us today. Echoing Councilwoman Luna's comments, we are holding a Q&A session this Thursday that's going to be here in the building over in the conference room here on the first floor.

[00:15:23] So all are welcome to come out. This is kind of an effort to have a casual opportunity to talk to your council people. Of course, we're in the middle of the budget session right now, so I'm happy to listen and really just provide an opportunity for an open forum and just chat casually with you all.

[00:15:40] So I hope to see you there this Thursday. Afterwards, I'll be headed to Fairfax for the Northern Virginia Regional Commission. So at the next meeting, I'll let you all know how that went. And the only other really big thing I want to point out is two Fridays ago we had the ribbon cutting for Dean Park, which has been expanded to now have pickleball fields, baseball fields, all kinds of great parking.

[00:16:05] It is a huge facility. There are paved trails. There's a lot of different activities that can be done out there. So I highly encourage everyone as it's getting warmer outside to go check out Dean Park, spend some time and enjoy the upgraded park and green space that'll soon be right next to our brand new elementary school so that'll be a truly upgraded area very soon which i think is really exciting for our community that is all i have for everyone today so thank you for being here and thank you madam mayor thank you for my time pretty short i just want to make sure to thank everyone for coming out last monday to our town hall our city manager is going to update us on several of

[00:16:45] the issues that were brought to our attention and as ms councilman vasquez luna said we may not have the answers right here and there on the spot but we have a great staff who will research the issues and we always try to get back to you as soon as we can as best we can with everything that's brought to us and council members thank you for always showing up consistently for this community and i am thankful for each one of you and the relationship that we do have and we do work so well together and we get along well and we help each other and that's what it's all about pushing our our community forward into the next level so I want to

[00:17:23] thank everybody who came out for the town hall and then we had a budget work session as well on Wednesday night excuse me and we were brought up to speed by AvePorts our folks that are going to be bringing the commercial airlines to the airport so that was really really great to see some of the how it will look how we think it will look it'll change before it's all finalized but that was a really good work session if you did not if you were not able to attend you can always go back and look at them as we know folks do go back and look at them online so um it was really good to get an um an update from them and and about the commercial flights coming to the city

[00:18:01] this week we have the budget work session with the schools we're looking forward to that this week on the 26th and then i'll close with the farmers markets on thursday we'll be opening up back on april the 10th and the water tower lot right i got that right and then of course as usual the saturday one is over by baldwin so looking forward to the farmer's market in springtime and all the good stuff that we have to offer so with that i'll turn it over to city manager burke thank you thank you ma'am well again with spring coming uh nighttime milling and and paving will begin along liberia avenue so as you're traveling down liberia please be aware of the construction

[00:18:37] activities that is anticipated to continue through the end of April. Work is also continuing at the pond behind Round Elementary School. We will begin vegetation removal to facilitate access to the pond so that we can continue repairs to the pond as well as stream restoration behind the school.

[00:18:59] Stream restoration is also continuing at Liberia House, and the landscaping and tree planting is expected to begin in April. Leveling of the Old Town Inn continues to expand the parking lot. This work is necessary to facilitate redevelopment of the Old Town Inn and MIFCO sites by providing an alternate parking facility when the parking garage would be built on the MIFCO lot and the City Hall parking lot.

[00:19:27] City staff did meet with the Department of Environmental Quality representatives about the petroleum that's located beneath the MIFCO site. DEQ indicated that there is approximately $700,000 available in state funding for removal of contaminated soil to the city.

[00:19:48] In addition, DEQ confirmed that their understanding of the nature of the soil contamination near City Hall, the parking lot, that it can be contained on site through the construction of the parking garage, which would reduce the potential cost of site development.

[00:20:07] and DEQ did recommend removal of any contaminated soil where residential or commercial development was considered. The city is developing our website to serve as a resource to help navigate current and future issues for residents, government employees, active military and veterans, contractors, non-profits, and businesses who might be affected by actions and challenges or disruptions to federal service or employment.

[00:20:34] and we will announce when the website is complete through social media. We want to thank everyone that did come out for the town hall last Monday, March 17th. Staff are working on the following items to address issues raised by residents at the meeting.

[00:20:51] We'll be developing monthly updates for the various long-term economic development projects to inform residents of the status. We'll be reviewing the urban chicken ordinance that had been developed in 2022 to incorporate some of the requirements that were placed or that were provided by residents to be considered by the Planning Commission and Council in the future.

[00:21:12] We are reviewing the City's work on English ivy in parks and natural forested areas, and we will be presenting an arboreal maintenance plan to Council at a future meeting. We are also evaluating the site distance at several locations throughout the City, and those will be considered at a future transportation coordination meeting.

[00:21:37] And then finally, we're developing opportunities for Council's consideration regarding the elimination of the Route 28 bypass project. Spring, in addition to road repairs, also means that our Parks, Culture, and Recreation Division is blooming with activity at our parks and at the Manassas Boys and Girls Club.

[00:21:56] We're excited to announce a number of activities that are planned at the Manassas Community Center, And Matt Arcieri will be providing council and our residents with a quick summary. A very quick summary. Good evening, Your Honor, members of council. I just wanted to take a moment and touch on some of the work that staff has been doing within parks, culture, and recreation.

[00:22:18] As council member Hudson indicated, we've been busy expanding the physical park system. And at the same time, we have been looking at our recreation programming. Recreation programming, the city has been scattered over the last number of years, but With the acquisition of the Marsteller Park property, we've had an opportunity to begin some pilot programming that we're excited to share with council and announce to the community.

[00:22:40] You'll see a lot more of this on social media and through our Parks, Culture, and Rec staff over the next couple of months. But again, what I'm going to cover very briefly is an opportunity to really test fit all of our recreation sites and see what the city can offer in terms of recreation through city services.

[00:22:56] So, as we mentioned and discussed during my annual report back in January, Open Gym is here to stay. That's actually at the Boys and Girls Club. That's something we typically used to do in the fall, but with some of the additional resources Council has provided for recreation, that's going to move to a year-round activity. Obviously, our pool will open up on Memorial Day, and then we have some pilot programs at the Marsteller Community Center facility that we want to test out.

[00:23:20] Really, again, pilots were an opportunity for the community to help us test run the facility, see what the facility can do. Again, very limited program. We're not opening the doors tomorrow, and we don't have the staffing for that yet. But this is an opportunity really for some drop-in programming to help us understand what the facility is capable of doing.

[00:23:40] The biggest one I want to highlight tonight, this will all go up on social media, but the biggest one I wanted to highlight is on April 12th, Saturday, April 12th, We'll be having our next community conversation, and that's an extravaganza, so an activity to kind of celebrate the purchase of the property and talk about everything that we can do in the building.

[00:23:57] So I'm hoping folks will join us on April 12th from 1130 to 3 to check out the Marcellar Park facility, as well as go to manassasva.gov slash recreation and look at some of these pilot opportunities. And excited to keep moving forward on this property and stand ready for any questions.

[00:24:15] Thank you, Matt. Any questions? This is online. It will be up online starting today, or tomorrow, I should say. Okay, thank you. No questions? Oh, Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Sierra. The question about the – I have my questions about the gym.

[00:24:35] That's still going to be at the Boys and Girls Club? Yes. Correct. Yes, sir. And if you just stay publicly, for the record, the sign-up or the process, if you will, for the paddle ball court at the Dean Park. Yeah, we've got a lot.

[00:24:51] That's a great segue. We've got a lot of questions about how pickleball works with our eight new pickleball facilities. It was paddleball when I played it. And you can sign up through manassasva.gov through what's called RecDesk, our software, to rent, reserve any of those pickleball courts.

[00:25:06] But they are absent a rental, first come, first serve. And we are actually looking at, because of the extreme popularity, whether we need to set some of those courts aside as free play at all times. And as a reminder, I know everyone loves Dean Park. We also have five pickleball courts at Stonewall Park.

[00:25:22] So the city has provided a lot of pickleball for the community. So we will continue to monitor the usage and look at if we need to have some free courts first come first serve in addition to the rentals. But you can actually sign up for a dedicated rental time if you're interested.

[00:25:39] And the courts are located at the park where we still have also have courts over at Baldwin. Baldwin, yeah, for pickleball? We have pickleball courts. Stonewall and Dean, yes, sir.

[00:25:58] Ms. Elders? Well, as you know, the pickleball community was well attended at the Dean Park ribbon cutting. What pickleball courts in the city do have nighttime lights? Those would be the courts at Stonewall Park.

[00:26:14] Stonewall, okay. Is there a timeline to get lights at Dean for those courts? So when we built Dean Park, there was conduit in the ground. There was no budget at this time. would be a future conversation with councils a future CIP project but the infrastructure is in the ground to light the pickleball courts the soccer courts we made that provision budget didn't let us actually purchase the lights but that is something we can we can certainly add in the future as we look at future budgets with council yeah I think that's a you know as you know they were there to talk about that and so I think that's a good idea because it was the most used piece of field

[00:26:50] there that day, so thank you. Ms. Vasquez Luna. This is great. I appreciate it. My ask is going to continue to make sure that, you know, the toddlers is great, but we look out for, you know, the other programming. I believe this, the 6 to 15 is also good. But yeah, when I know it's early, I truly appreciate it. I think April 12 reminds me of, you know, Manassas Day, so this, you know,

[00:27:25] this extravaganza will be exciting. You know, just my ask is like, you know, all, whether they're small or young or toddlers or a little older, as long as they're school age, they will look out to have activities, especially in that area, as, you know, as we'll continue to do the program, but this is great.

[00:27:47] Thank you so much to you and the staff and yeah, great work. Mr. Osino. Thank you, Mayor. So looking at this, that item that's going to be posted on the website tomorrow here. So for instance, every Monday, free toddler drop-in.

[00:28:07] Every other Tuesday, the Lego Club. Every other Thursday, the 5x5 pickup games. These are all taking place at the community center, Marcellin? Yeah, these would be opportunities to test the Marsteller facility and see what it can do in terms of programming.

[00:28:23] Again, not opening the doors with set hours, but having a scheduled programming as we discussed during the retreat with council. This is what we can do with the existing facility, with the existing staff position that council added. So again, really trying out the facility, but also again, open gym. What we've learned is that having open gym at the Boys and Girls Club only in the winter made it very difficult both for staff and for the community to know that we have existing open gym opportunities. So we were able to take a look at that schedule with the Boys and Girls Club. We have use of that facility when they're not in there. So we're able to actually expand recreation not just potentially at Marsteller but at the some of our

[00:29:01] existing facilities in the community. So really the first time in over a decade where you're starting to see some comprehensive recreation programming from City Parks and Recreation. Could you briefly describe, give a high-level description of how you how you're staffing all these events so the recreation staff is still very small you basically have two full-time positions and a part-time position you've added in the existing budget I mentioned one full-time rec coordinator that person largely is working at the Marsteller facility and figuring out how to get that building up and running but even with those additional 40 hours if you will we've been able to really retool our

[00:29:39] open gym program again this staff is also overseeing the Harris Pavilion and the Stonewall Park pool. So they have four facilities that they are responsible for in some way, shape, or form. That's with two and a half positions. So quite a bit for them to do, but I think we can manage the pilot schedule that we've put in front of you. And then could you remind me in residence about the, I'll call it the lack of a better title, the athletic playground trailer that when it's not in use, it's parked over in the museum there. They'll see, but how that can be brought

[00:30:17] to a neighborhood or to another park or what residents might do if they they're so interested in using it we call it the heel trailer it's loaded up with a bunch of play equipment it was funded through a grant several years ago it is available by contacting our parks culture recreation department if you're having a neighborhood event and you need a spring and some actual equipment you'll see it set up at play all day june 20th another one to highlight we'll move it around the city and have it set up at the different parks as we do that event but if If there is a neighborhood interested in having some of that play equipment as part of a community activity, contact Parks, Culture, and Recreation, and they can arrange to have that delivered.

[00:30:53] Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Anyone else? Any other comments or questions? For the extravaganza on the 12th, the community conversation, that is going to be set up much like when we just had community conversation, you just have all the other stuff with it.

[00:31:10] So you're looking for input from the residents on what they're seeing, what they like, You know, can you just elaborate a little bit more about so we can get people, encourage people to come out for that? Thank you for that. So if you go online and look at the report out, which we share with Council to retrieve from the first community conversation, there's a lot of ideas, both short-term and much longer-term, as of what the facility could do.

[00:31:33] We have taken some of the ideas, and we're basically going to sit down with it. We'll have another community conversation set up. It won't be a breakout into breakout situation. It'll be an opportunity to look at some of the programming ideas, even some of the stuff that we're showing in a pilot form and get feedback, continuing feedback from the community, what should we do more of, which is to point to what Council Member Vasquez-Luna was bringing up, what else can we do with the facility?

[00:31:58] Again, really trying to gauge interest in different kinds of programming before we go and spin up a whole recreation program and not necessarily have the right attendance. So we're really taking every opportunity, including community events, to gauge the community's interest on recreation programming as we build out our facility.

[00:32:15] Is this being done in conjunction with Manassas Baptist? Parallels. So the Manassas Baptist Church has always done a version of this. Obviously, theirs is a little more religious focus. But it is an opportunity to highlight a really successful partnership with the church, both with the acquisition of the property.

[00:32:31] Obviously, they're still renting from us. So you'll see some activity on the church side and some on the city side. It's really, you can't thank the church enough both for our work on the acquisition of this critical open space and, you know, our ongoing partnership with the existing building. Okay. Thank you.

[00:32:49] Thank you, Matt. Thank you. Is that it for you? Okay. Any questions of city manager? Okay. If not, that moves us forward to item one on the agenda, our presentation portion of the agenda. Item 1.1 is presentation from Mayfield Intermediate.

[00:33:06] And Ms. Diana Brown will come forward and introduce Principal Frischkorn for that presentation. Welcome. Good evening, Madam Mayor. City Council members and City Manager, Mr. Burke.

[00:33:25] It's a pleasure to meet you for the first time. I'm Diana Brown, a newly elected and proud board member of Manassas City Public Schools. This evening, it's my privilege to introduce to you Dr. Donald Frischkorn, who has been serving as the principal of Mayfield Intermediate since July 2018.

[00:33:45] Over the last seven years, Dr. Frischkorn and his team have worked to ensure that students at Mayfield can access grade level material with the help and support of a top tier staff committed to providing students with a safe and caring place to learn.

[00:34:02] If you allow me, I would like to share with you a few points of pride about Mayfield Intermediate. Student success is nurtured through innovative programming and a commitment to the whole child. And under his leadership, Mayfield has developed a program that immerses every student in the following classes, health and physical education, art, STEM, library, and a choice of performing arts, whether it's chorus, orchestra, or band.

[00:34:33] Beyond the classroom, Mayfield offers many different after-school programs, including academic supports and clubs, such as robotics, art club, intramural sports, and cheerleading. Mayfield also has an algebra readiness initiative for sixth graders to get all of them ready for taking the algebra and middle school for taking algebra in middle school and mayfield's bobcat block is a support system where students receive help by name and by need and also our principal here meets with groups of students to stress the

[00:35:10] importance of attendance and i'm proud to announce today that the school has seen measurable results including a 4.5 reduction in chronic absenteeism. The principal is passionate, not just the principal, but the whole staff is passionate about creating opportunities for all learners and ensuring that every Bobcat thrives academically, socially, and emotionally.

[00:35:35] So Mr. Frischkorn, I'm going to take some pictures. Is there a presentation? Yeah. Perfect. Thank you. We make it too easy.

[00:35:51] Well, good evening, City Council. thank you for the opportunity to highlight some of the great things that are going on in our schools. I know every month you get an update from one of the schools and today what I really want to focus on is how our community helps make Mayfield a really special place to be. Right now we're in the middle of a hiring season where we're looking for teachers and one of the first things I that when they ask why choose Mayfield, why choose Manasseh City, and I said it's because of a community that's committed to its education. You're all visible within our school systems. You all support. And that's what makes us special. That's what makes

[00:36:28] us unique. So at Mayfield, we embrace our community and we believe that our community connections help our students grow. Tonight, I want to highlight three important events that we do at Mayfield that, again, were built because of our community. The first one is our Hispanic Heritage and Back to School Night. The second one is our annual Black History Month celebration. And the third one is our career day at Mayfield. So at Mayfield, we do believe that our diversity is our strength.

[00:36:58] We have this posted on our front board. We have this throughout our school. And it starts in September when we have our back to school night. Our back to school night, we combined with Hispanic Heritage Month because it starts on September 15th, right around when we have back to school night. We wanted to bring our families together for a special event. And we wanted to increase our participation in back to school night. So our teachers and our staff came up with an idea to combine Hispanic Heritage Night.

[00:37:26] It's only made possible because of the community that comes to support. We have tables set up with food. We have families teaching our students about the community. We have performers on the stage just sharing their culture and their passion.

[00:37:43] But the biggest thing it does is it brings our families together. They get to come in. They get to see what their students have been doing in school for a month as well as just celebrate with one another. As you see, this picture right here is from our cafeteria. One of the other projects that we've worked on is, if you look up in our cafeteria, we have flags representing every single student's country that is in our school.

[00:38:08] And that's an awesome part of our community that, again, highlights our diversity. And we add to that. As families come in and if they notice that their country is not represented, I'm up on a ladder helping put another flag up. But that's a great thing. And it's just improved every year.

[00:38:26] And we're excited. As soon as this one ended, we talked about how we were going to make next year's even better. Our next event is our annual Black History Month celebration. This is we just had our fourth annual one.

[00:38:41] And again, this celebration is done because of our community. We have people within this room who come and help present and kick off the presentation for our students. It's a great learning experience for our kids. They learn about black history within our community.

[00:38:58] They learn about Manassas, and they celebrate through students participating in song and dance. And again, this is an awesome event that can only be done because our community is committed to helping and supporting our students. And then our third thing I just want to highlight, and this is upcoming, this is our annual career day.

[00:39:24] And we host an annual career day which is amazing for our students. Fifth and sixth grade is such an important stage in a child's educational career. this is when they start building passions for what they might want to do when they get older as they go to Mets and they have so many options or opportunities with their courses at Mets the career day can help spark something in our students that can get them going we are also so fortunate that Manassas has so many unique jobs throughout the city that can come in and support our students and teach our students about this our counselors put this together and it's been growing every year

[00:40:04] and here's where I am making my shameless plug anybody in the community that wants to sign up we will take any business to come in just to share what they do with their students it's a great opportunity for our students to network and to work on their social skills of introducing and meeting people with a handshake and it just leads to awesome times for our kids and I will tell you that everybody that does come to our career fair they leave there telling us how great our students were and how much they enjoyed it and how much they can't wait for next

[00:40:39] year but that concludes today so I just wanted to talk about those three events which again show why it's special to be here in Manassas City why it's so great to work with a city council and a school board that is all committed for our kids in one community so thank you all thank you any questions from Dr. Fish-Colman and Ms. Hudson thank you so much for that presentation and for of their efforts over at Mayfield. I had the pleasure of attending the Hispanic Heritage Back to School Night last year and the energy in the room, the amount of

[00:41:16] people in the room. Everybody was just so happy to share their culture with one another and the fact that you're celebrating that at the school level I think is awesome so thank you for what you're doing. Thank you, Mr. Smith. Thank you sir. I commend you for reporting your efforts. It reminds us that it's It's important that our students and our residents be able to live with passion and pride and purpose.

[00:41:50] And I'm encouraged that you continue that through your three main items because it's important that we establish relationships that are responsive, but are responsible and respectful in order for us to accomplish our educational goals.

[00:42:09] So I commend you and I thank you. Mr. Osina. So I too want to add the accolades I've had. You've been kind enough to let me visit over the past few years, an ESOL class, a special ed class.

[00:42:29] I got to sit in for a half a day, and I don't know whether it was the misfortune or fortune, but to stand out in the rain because of a fire drill, but to see how thoroughly you do look after our children in our community, and not letting the weather keep you from doing your safety protocols and so forth.

[00:42:56] But nonetheless, there, it was an interesting experience. This is a question I've been asking your fellow principals as they've come through, and I'll ask you because I don't want you to feel left out, and that is. So what's keeping you awake right now in relation to education?

[00:43:16] What's keeping me awake right now? I think I started when I said we are out actively recruiting teachers. Everything that's done in our school is because of the people. And we are a people industry, and I need the best teachers in my school. I need the best staff in our school.

[00:43:32] And that's why, with the help of the city council, we've been able to do that at Mayfield. Part of our interview process is to bring people in and just have them walk and meet the other staff that they will be working with and see the passion. So what keeps me up at night is maintaining and making sure that we have the teachers and the staff in place.

[00:43:53] I have a couple of teachers, three who are retiring, and I'm so excited for them. But as soon as they told me that, I was like, oh, we've got to find it. Those are big shoes to fill. So, again, the city makes it easy to sell Manassas being home for these possible teachers. Great, great job.

[00:44:14] Ms. Vasquez-Luna. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for the report. All I have to say is during these difficult times, you know, between the snow and the weather and all the things that are happening, it is great to hear. I think I said the reduction on attendance was 4.5, so congratulations to you and all the staff.

[00:44:37] I know that this is a great change, and I just want to, you know, make sure that I commend you for that. Thank you. Thank you. And that all comes from, again, students feel included in the community when we do these events, and they want to be part of it. Okay, thank you so much for being here.

[00:44:54] Thank you all. You all have a wonderful day. Thanks. All right, moves us forward to item 1.2 is the annual report from the Monassau City Library, Lina Gonzalo-Sperios. Our senior library manager is here for that. Good evening, ma'am. Good evening.

[00:45:12] Good evening, mayor, members of the council, city manager. Thank you for this opportunity to be here. Speak right into the mic. It's a little hard to hear you, so yeah, there you go. that's good good evening everyone thank you for this opportunity I do have slides do you have those okay yeah just okay so there we go thank you okay so I'm excited to be here tonight to introduce myself as the new branch manager of Manassas City Library my name is Lena Gonzalez Berrios and I want to thank you for your warm welcome not only tonight but since I've been at Manassas City since the beginning of January.

[00:45:51] This year, I'm celebrating 30 years in this profession, six of those at Prince William Public Libraries, and the rest in other areas of Virginia and North Carolina. In this new role, I bring experience and passion for lifelong learning, public service, and community engagement.

[00:46:13] There's a lot of new things around the library. In addition to myself, first of all, I want to introduce our new library director who thankfully came to join me tonight, Jennifer Patterson. We also have a new branch coordinator, Michelle Ross, who could not be here tonight.

[00:46:31] But along with Jennifer and Michelle and Deputy Director Rebecca Lowe, our Prince William Public Library leadership team and staff are super focused on our mission to bring people, information, and ideas together in a welcoming and inclusive environment.

[00:46:49] We're currently working on our second year goals for our strategic plan, and I hope that as you visit and interact with staff from Manassas City Library and other branches, that our dedication to this mission will be evident. I look forward to this body and the new Prince William Public Library's leadership team developing an even stronger relationship as we work together to serve our community.

[00:47:16] So in the last year, we have had an almost complete turnover with our staff at Manasseh City Library. And while this has been a challenging year, our newly formed staff and a staff team has brought added strength, skills, and experience.

[00:47:34] We have nine staff members, seven full-time and two part-time. Four of us are bilingual in English and Spanish. We have a tech-savvy senior librarian who was the makerspace librarian over at Central Library and collectively almost 75 years of public library experience.

[00:47:56] So I'd like to give you a little glimpse of our staff in action. This is Horta del Cuento. Fresia, our staff member, is presenting this story time for toddlers and their families.

[00:48:11] Frascia noticed that a lot of families would like to bring older children, so she's adding another program soon that will be for Spanish-speaking families with older children as well. We have a monthly construction club, which is very popular year-round.

[00:48:29] One of the things the kids love to do when they build things is have us come over and take pictures of their creations. This time of year is the time to apply for college financial aid, so we are offering in-person FAFSA. assistance programs. We usually get about 35 to 40 people attend. We have financial aid officers from NOVA that come over and help people walk through that process and help them get the assistance that they need. And as part of our strategic plan, our goal to offer community responsive enrichment, we offer

[00:49:08] opportunities for all ages to learn practical life skills and improve digital literacy. So you see here the Teen Cuisine is a program to help youth learn how to prepare healthy meals. We also have a 3D printer, a MakerBot, that we will use to demonstrate 3D printing and design. So I want to tell you about a special program that I'm directly involved in. In fact, I lead the staff team for Career Online High School and we call it COHS for short. This is one of

[00:49:46] the things that we do to promote educational opportunities for adults. Career Online High School was established at Prince William Public Libraries in 2020. It is a 100% online and self-paced program for adults to complete their high school diploma with a career credential.

[00:50:09] And they have up to 18 months to finish. They work through class by class with support from library staff as well as an academic coach from the school. It is a national private school called Smart Horizons, but Prince William Public Library partners with them.

[00:50:27] So we offer 20 scholarships a year. We currently have 30 students. And we have graduated 32 students from this program since 2020. We have an 85% graduation rate, which is about 20% higher than the national average.

[00:50:45] And we believe that has a lot to do with the student engagement efforts. I looked up, we have 11% of our students and graduates live in the city of Manassas. So funding for this program comes from our Prince William Library Foundation.

[00:51:02] library director's office grants and donations and over time i know firsthand that all of us will benefit from this important investment while this program is small i know that it transforms lives and has a big community impact the cost of a scholarship is 1295 dollars for one student so based on a study from northeastern university the savings roi or lifetime taxpayer savings per

[00:51:34] graduate is $292,000. So we have so far graduated 32 people, which is a tax savings of over $9 million for our area. And we expect 13 more to graduate this year. So that will bring that savings ROI for this program up to over $13 million. That's a big impact. So I want to mention a few of the grant projects that we're currently involved in. And I do serve on the grants committee for Prince William Public Libraries.

[00:52:11] We have partnered with a garden club and the Master Gardeners to expand seed libraries and support seed libraries that are planted, if you will, in our library branches.

[00:52:27] And we will be adding one at Manassas City Library in April. So that's new for us and at no cost for us. We have a LEGO grant to promote STEM programs learning activities and we also have a grant from the library of america's latino poetry places we call home program and so we offered a teen poetry contest in the fall and we will be offering a latino poetry event on april the 12th there's a lot going on in manassas on april the

[00:53:00] 12th but that will be at the museum so i want to give a big shout out for our friends and a few of our council members that are here that joined us on our fourth birthday celebration. The Friends of Manasseh City Library provide tremendous support and advocacy.

[00:53:20] They focus on fundraising, they volunteer, they garner support for us, and they're our biggest fans. This is another scene from our fourth birthday. The Friends really went above and beyond to help and support, and they also connected us with the Manasseh City Women's Club, who made a donation to provide the supplies for activities and sweet treats.

[00:53:46] So I want to take a moment to talk about some statistics and provide a bit of context for our library branch. In your packet, you would have received an overview called By the Numbers for 2024, and that's a document I'll prepare every year for your information.

[00:54:05] But I wanted to kind of break down a few of the statistics. Since we opened in 2021, we have been raising awareness about our location and building community relations, and many of you have helped us with that endeavor.

[00:54:22] We've seen a 20% increase in the number of visitors from 2023 to 2024, and we expect to see continued growth as new people find us and as we reach out in the community. We did see a downturn in our programming statistics.

[00:54:39] Due to our staff shortages, we had to be smart and intentional to offer programs that would reach the maximum number of people. So despite having fewer programs and events, we actually saw a 36 percent increase in attendance for each program.

[00:54:56] So now that we're fully staffed, we are planning a much more robust program line-up. And I wanted to share this analysis really to make two points. One is that we're doing a lot with a small staff, but also numbers are not the only measure of success.

[00:55:13] Like our library director reminds us, the library is a big deal. As we raise awareness of our newest branch, the city's hometown library branch, we will find the sweet spot between growth and capacity while striving to serve all members of our community.

[00:55:33] In 2025, we have specific strategic goals that we're working toward. At Manassas City Library, we're connecting with community partners and residents to offer creative and relevant programs, events, and outreach that will meet needs and provide cultural and educational enrichment.

[00:55:53] We're focusing on quality rather than quantity and making sure that our staff have the training and skills to do their jobs well. We are making our library space and collection of materials more accessible and engaging. We will continue to prioritize early literacy and learning through programs such as Toddler Storytime and 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten because we're growing readers for academic success and supporting parents as their children's first teachers.

[00:56:24] We will foster learning, play, and creativity through DIY activities and scheduled programs with area experts like this Micron volunteer who is teaching kids about binary code while making bracelets.

[00:56:43] We will feature work by local artists. This is the Onyx Art Group exhibit that is over at the library now, so that we can provide more cultural enrichment for our community. We'll continue to cultivate partnerships inside and outside of our building with businesses like Bright Works Brewing Company that hosts our Books on Tap reading group, Manassas City Schools, and neighborhoods like Georgetown South.

[00:57:17] And we'll surround ourselves with friends who support and advocate for us. And again, I want to thank the friends for their support and mention they have an upcoming bingo night, which I understand sold out last year. So it's May 1st. It'll be an after hours event at the library.

[00:57:36] as we look ahead to 2025 we have a few upcoming events we're so excited to have a family night with the round elementary school families we met with the principal and he has a goal to get every student a library card so we're going to start with that family night and then work our way towards that goal we are a partner with the Virginia play all day program that the Parks and Recreation department is organizing. And that's also our summer reading kickoff. So June 20th will

[00:58:11] be a very hectic and fun day at the library. We're also getting ready to launch a do-it-yourself creative area for teens and adults at the library so people can come and relax and have a family game night or whatever, regardless of their schedule. So I did send an invitation to you all and I appreciate the the positive feedback that I've gotten so far. We are hosting an event at the Manassas Museum on April the 12th. It is our culmination of our Latino

[00:58:49] poetry grant and we will be featuring a couple of local poets reading their works. We'll have a poetry discussion and a Latin dance participatory performance with Inspira Dance, Inc. that's led by Angel Ramirez.

[00:59:07] So in the city survey, residents gave the library 71% satisfaction rate, which is 7% above the national average. As we raise awareness of the library and interact with and serve residents, I hope to see the satisfaction rate go even higher.

[00:59:29] We're grateful to enjoy so much support from the city of Manassas. Your advocacy and strong endorsement of our partnership shows our community how much we can accomplish together. to benefit all residents and visitors. Please stop by the library anytime or let me know if we can be of service.

[00:59:48] And thank you for being part of Prince William Public Libraries and for all you do to support the residents of Manassas. So if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them or I can turn it over to the next person. Thank you.

[01:00:03] Thank you so much, Councilmembers. Any questions? Mr. Osina. Oh, okay. Got a full house. All right. Go ahead, Ms. Osuna. So when I was by for the book sale last Friday, I see you had some feathered friends on your registration desk.

[01:00:23] Could you talk a little bit about that and how you incorporated activities, learning activities for particularly kids in connection with that? Yes, and kids of all ages. Well, that too. So 4-H has a program where you can borrow or rent an incubator, and they will provide fertilized chicken eggs for learning and demonstration purposes.

[01:00:51] So myself and the Children's Library in Clea Overstreet went to attend their 4-H training, so we would be a little bit expert on that and take good care of the eggs. So we set up the incubator right on the service desk so that as people were coming and going, they could see it.

[01:01:11] It was a way for us to engage with them. And we put all kinds of information about the process of growth of chicks and their eggs and how that whole thing would happen so that we could anticipate the hatch of the chicks.

[01:01:30] We had a special event called an eggstravaganza. coincidentally and lots of activities a story time that was chicken themed our children's librarian was wearing head-to-toe in a chicken outfit we have an ongoing scavenger hunt to promote literacy but also to hunt for eggs in the library and last Tuesday the chicks hatched we have hatched six and we've been taking care of them in a brooder right there on the service desk so it's

[01:02:08] really hard to get our work done because we just want to sit there and stare and gawk at them they do you know they get a little vocal but kids are not only coming once but families are coming back day after day because they want to see how they've grown and their new feathers and all of that so it's been a wonderful learning experience but also a great way to engage with the community and you know to learn new things and and I would say that that's a perfect example of as you say not only engaging with the community but utilizing the

[01:02:46] resources last summer I had the occasion to be over there during story time toddler story time and it was all about firemen fire women fire personnel fire trucks and the best part at least for me was there's a big fire truck parked outside and you got to actually climb all over it and there we had Chief Mills had several of his his folks there and helped the kids sit in seat and kind of get a feel of what it was really like here. So, you know, doing those kinds of

[01:03:25] things appeals to our kids and their interest and gets them to read and participate and see the library as a fun place to be, which I think is our ultimate goal so that we make lifelong readers out of that I've always been a believer that for for me and libraries have been sort of the pathway for democracy here this is where you can find out so much get so many questions answered be able to be exposed to so

[01:04:00] many different ideas along the way in a very neutral setting and it makes us all better citizens and so I'm very pleased that we do have a library branch in our own city which as you can see is increasingly supported and used along the way and so like you i expect those numbers to go up uh as as time progresses there so thank you for what you and your staff have been doing and i hope you'll come up with other things to do to bring bring kids and adults out definitely thank you so much councilman vasquez luna then councilman smith thank you

[01:04:35] Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for the report. I think while doing some of my research, I found so much information. I think you have a database in what reach for the businesses, where business can learn and do so many things.

[01:04:53] If you want to grow your business, if you want information or data on the market that you're trying to go, So I believe, you know, that wasn't mentioned. We serve in well, you know, other, the residents. And I love that, but I also want to make sure.

[01:05:10] If you can speak about it, I believe there is an online program, and there is another that you have to go in person. But if you can speak about it. So it's called MAGIC. It is a special center that we have at Chin Park Library. And they have regular staff who will work with people who have small businesses.

[01:05:31] They also work with different folks in government agencies to do research, to analyze data. They have specialized digital resources and materials to provide that support in Prince William County, for-profit, non-profit, and governmental.

[01:05:55] It's very interesting that Chin Park will be renovated starting in August, and they are partnering with Prince William Economic Development to have a small business center that will open. So Magic will be kind of paired with the Economic Development Center, and they will actually staff it all the open hours of the library.

[01:06:21] So it's a really wonderful partnership and a way to extend support to small businesses in our community. Thank you. And the other couple on page two, the one where we got provided, it talks about the access.

[01:06:38] You know, there's, I think, for me, my favorite is the hardcover books. I'm going and get it. But audio books, movies, music. I believe you had digital resources like you could check out, like a pad or something.

[01:06:54] Yes, we have launch pads that are like a tablet. They're preloaded with learning software. Most of them are for children. We do have some for teens and adults. We have a new item called a Wazoodle. If you're trying to reduce screen time for a child, it's actually all audio, but it is a learning device.

[01:07:19] and you can borrow that from the library. We also loan out hotspots for Wi-Fi and Chromebooks. So we're really trying to fill that gap where people may not have access to a device or Wi-Fi.

[01:07:35] Thank you. And my last, I think, you know, sometimes for-- whether it's a nonprofit or regular residence or business, they're looking for the space. I think I saw a number of 540 for the room usage.

[01:07:52] I know I have seen different people use it. If you can explain just a little bit how they can go about making a reservation and who can reserve the room, if you know how many people fit. It's just because for me, having that space, you know, it's a key, you know, especially if you have a nonprofit small business with a tight budget, It can make a difference.

[01:08:17] Absolutely. So I believe all of our libraries have a small room with maybe the exception of a couple of our neighborhood libraries that are very small. At Manassas City Library, we have one room that can be reserved.

[01:08:38] So our friends of the library board meets there. And so we kind of squeeze in. We have normally six chairs at the table, but we have extra chairs if need be. There is a smart screen, so if you need to project, you can bring your device and project onto it.

[01:09:00] And so to reserve a room at Manassas City Library or any of our libraries, it's the same process. You go to our website, and I think the easiest way is to click on the menu button and then click on reserve a room. And it's an online form you fill out, you just basically indicate the branch of the library, the date, the time, and if the room is available, it shows you that on your screen.

[01:09:28] You can block out up to two hours at a time, and you can reserve three times a week. And that includes any branch, so if you come to Manassas City one day and another day you want to go to Central, that's two for that week, and you know, you could do a third one.

[01:09:46] and we do have large community rooms at our larger branches. We do not have one at Manassas City, but if you want to reserve a community room, it's a little bit different. It's that same online form, but you do have to be a non-profit or a not-for-profit venture to be able to use those rooms.

[01:10:16] Mr. Smith. Thank you. As a matter of fact, that room is very valuable. I was part of a group that was relative to getting out information about foster care, encouraging foster care.

[01:10:32] We used that room and entertained the author of the book, Forever Family, and had the community members come in. Some were surprised that that asset, if you will, was available in the city, but some were very proud and pleased.

[01:10:50] And I will say it worked quite well. I thank you for this report, specifically for the 2024 by the numbers. For such a young library, there's very impressive numbers.

[01:11:06] And the numbers certainly seem to justify, very confident, the initiatives and the efforts to get the library up and running in the city of Manassas.

[01:11:22] They have great support, and that's certainly justified by the performers and what the staff brings and the friends of Monaster's. I'll give them a toss because I know they are very effective because they actively recruit, and they keep reminding us about activities.

[01:11:41] Everything that's going on over at the library is very impressive and very rewarding and revealing, particularly in terms, like I said, of the satisfaction of the residents, the community engagement that you encourage, and the actual usage of the library.

[01:11:59] If one wishes to, and I do, make high school seniors in our community aware of the assistance you offer for the FAFSA, do they go to the website, or how do they get information about that?

[01:12:17] Well, we do have information on our calendar of events on our website, and it does provide some level of detail of documents that they should probably bring with them or things that they can do ahead of time to prepare. I was very grateful to see that it was announced on the electronic board out in front of our shopping center, so thank you very much for that.

[01:12:41] And I believe, well, I know that it was emailed to all of our high schools, Not only Osborne, but other high schools in the area as well. So we really try to get the word out in multiple ways, whether it's our official kind of publicity channels or word of mouth or connections that we have through partnerships.

[01:13:02] What I had in mind was some local organizations that like to help students and help families. Then I'll just refer them to the website for additional information. And if you'd like to share those with me at any point, then we can make a point in the future to reach out to those organizations directly.

[01:13:20] Thank you very much. Thank you. Again, thank you to the library, to the staff, and welcome to the new staff and so forth. Thank you very much. Thank you, ma'am. Ms. Ellis. Thank you, and it's nice to meet you. You too. Welcome to the city of Manassas. Thank you. I do want to remind our listeners and our visitors here, we have one Manassas City Library, but we are in a library system, And so you have access to the area, all the area libraries in Prince William County.

[01:13:46] So I do have a couple of questions. The numbers, you said 48,230 visitors in 2024. Yes. That's just in the city of Manassas, right? Correct. And that includes anyone that comes in the door, city or county.

[01:14:03] Correct. Okay. The library cards, 1,308. That was just issued for 2024. correct. Okay. I'm glad you're visiting the schools. I think that's really great, you know, that we get that information into the hands of the families so that they can get their library cards. I know as a student, I was, I love the library, and I'm glad to hear you're doing such great things there for all ages. The teen age, it looks like the participation for the young

[01:14:38] adults teens is one of the lowest and I understand you know it's hard to to reach them sometimes they're busy you do have some technology available there which is great you mentioned in the presentation that you do have some steam programs what's like the maximum attended program for that age group do you know at all what was like the biggest impact to them for the for teens or yeah for the teens well one thing that I would say about teen programs in general is that we tend

[01:15:17] not to have huge events we tend to have more focused smaller groups so we really can have a quality interaction with each participant and we also don't have a big room to host big events so with our children's programs we do it right in the children's area and grown-ups bring you know or kids bring their grownups or whatever, they're in family groups, so we can accommodate more people there.

[01:15:47] So we, for teen programs and STEAM programs, we do different kinds of arts and crafts, hands-on kinds of things, like the tween cuisine, where we actually set up hot plates and everything right in that room and cooked a meal, and then they sat and ate it.

[01:16:14] I'm just trying to think of other teen programs. One of the things that we have upcoming for our summer reading program is we reach out and recruit teen volunteers. And so we have teen volunteers that will be starting to help us during the summer, But then in the fall, we are going to start or restart a program called TAG, Teen Advisory Group, so that teens can come month after month and be involved in that program.

[01:16:45] So the TAG group kind of decides what they want to do or what they want to get involved in. But a lot of times they're doing hands-on preparation of, like, craft materials for programs or that kind of thing. I don't know if I've adequately answered your question.

[01:17:03] huge resource for that group and it's there's a lot of walkability for the students in the neighborhoods that are in the area like I'm glad to hear you have a 3d printer like I think that's a great thing for that group you know we're trying to fuel that technology love because we are this is a technology driven area yeah so I hope to see more programs like yes thank you and I just want to add that in our teen area, it's very small and narrow. And so we're working right now on a plan to move some things around, get some new furniture that's really more teen-friendly and

[01:17:41] kind of encourages cooperative, you know, projects and learning and that kind of thing. And we also encourage them to use our room when they have things that they want to work on themselves. Thank you. Any other comments, questions? Thank you very much for that.

[01:18:00] Yes, thank you. Appreciate you being here. Thank you. All right, next on the agenda is the Innovation District presentation from George Mason University. Amy Adams is here for that.

[01:18:15] Thank you so much, Madam Mayor, council members, City Manager Burke. Truly appreciate the opportunity to talk about this project. It's been an incredible journey and one that we have really enjoyed with Patrick Small from the City of Manassas Economic Development, Christina Wynn and Tom Flynn from Prince William and our partner Stiletto who is a Research Park practitioner and just a fun story This is a planning site. I'm going to tell you about you have the concept plans. I won't go deep into that This was funded by go Virginia and one of the feedback that they gave me It was the best final product that they have received from a planning study

[01:18:54] I think that truly is because we've worked hand-in-glove between the county the city and the university To really create this transformative opportunity So first, just a level set. What is an innovation district? I'm sure many of you have heard about research parks.

[01:19:09] So Research Triangle Park being the second one established in the late 50s. Stanford had the first one in the early 50s. But that idea has really evolved to be innovation districts where you're also beginning to think more about the placemaking as well, the housing, affordable housing especially, in addition to the industries and the workforce.

[01:19:31] So what we're looking at is establishing an innovation district anchored by George Mason's SciTech campus in the city of Manassas and Prince William County, which I will share with you today. So why? It's no secret that we are losing our competitiveness to China, and we need to do better, right?

[01:19:52] And we need to do it in a very creative, strategic way to drive growth in the technology sectors. A weakness, and this is really our opportunity, Northern Virginia does not have an established innovation district or research park.

[01:20:09] We will be the very first to do that in Northern Virginia, really being a thought leader in this space. Really an opportunity there too, right? Why haven't we done this? We have the nation's second largest community college system and multiple tier one institutions with George Mason having that largest presence here in Northern Virginia.

[01:20:29] This is really an opportunity. So this is something that has been developed and tested all across the United States. There's over 150 research parks and innovation districts that are driving economic growth. For example, AU Tech Parks in Arizona had a $2 billion economic impact in 2019 and drove more than $54 million in tax revenue.

[01:20:55] So this, again, is models that have already been tested and implemented. I had already mentioned a few of our strengths with Northern Virginia Community College and the University. We also have a regional focus on entrepreneurship and making sure that we have programs for these companies to succeed.

[01:21:12] We have a very high population of veterans in our region that really makes that prime. Also, this timing is really great, right? As you see unemployment rates rise, especially as we see some of the federal government jobs, So, what you tend to see in those moments in time is increases in entrepreneurship.

[01:21:34] So, these individuals, right, as they may not have the current job in the federal government, really looking at opportunities to grow their own businesses. So, how can we make sure that they succeed? So, very quickly, you all know we have business parks here.

[01:21:50] So, we have Innovation Park. We have the business park along Godwin Drive with Micron, Lockheed Martin, VA Systems, et cetera, but what we don't have is an innovation district. And what distinguishes an innovation district from a research park?

[01:22:07] Number one, an innovation district or a research park-- sorry, the difference between a business park and an innovation district or a research park is that they are always anchored by a research institution, either a university or a federal lab, right?

[01:22:22] That is to make sure that we are driving new innovations in collaboration with industry. the programming and the networking assets offered through innovation districts. The focused sector and cluster development is also a distinguishing feature of an innovation district.

[01:22:43] So I just wanted to share how we got started. This all started back in November of '23, where we brought thought leaders from our area. We actually had 30 businesses from around the innovation district, government and academia, to the table said all right here's what an innovation district is we asked them to help us vision it and said you know if we can go after a planning grant are you interested and there was an overwhelming yes we were able to secure the go virginia planning grant began that in may completed the concept plan which you again have the the full report for in december and we just submitted an implementation

[01:23:22] grant last week, which hopefully, if funded, will begin in July of 2025. And so this is the concept plan that was established. And again, I would be happy to have one-on-one conversations with anybody if you'd like to take a deeper dive into this. But we did full analysis of all of our assets from education to our real estate matrix, understanding what we have in the area, the industries that are here in the Innovation District. We created a map of which you'll see in a few minutes, and did a comparative matrix to see how do we stack up against others.

[01:24:00] Through this, it was very, very deep community engagement. Again, this is something that has really impressed Go Virginia, is how many conversations we've had. The concept plan was informed by 722,000 data points and many, many conversations with all of these stakeholders, really making sure that we are building something that the community wants.

[01:24:25] wants and that will really drive transformative growth of this area. And so together with all of our community partners, our concept plan outlined a vision, which I will read, which is the Innovation District will be an interconnected hub of discovery, commerce, and community that is home to world-leading researchers, innovative companies, a highly trained diverse workforce, and thriving residents. Something I've heard the governor say several times is we want to make sure people can flourish through that. And I think that's actually something very special about our community. I'm so happy that we will be the first

[01:25:04] Innovation District in Northern Virginia to launch because I do think that we put people front and center. George Mason University, I've been there for 22 years and at the SciTech campus for 22 years. And one of the things I've loved the most is we are not an ivory tower institution, right? We want to make sure that we are solving problems of our community, working in lockstep and making sure that our residents have opportunities to enter the workforce and gain new skills so again in partnership with all of our partners on this study we have identified some major goals number one is to make sure that we're

[01:25:43] increasing our and strengthening our partnerships between the universities and academia and industry to industry really making sure that we can attract retain and grow businesses here in the region. We want to offer workforce and education training. And this cannot be just relying on two-year, four-year, six-year, eight-year degree programs.

[01:26:05] We have to make sure that we are offering boot camps to re-skill people to enter the workforce quicker, certificate programs, etc. And so that will be working in collaboration with Mason and NOVA to offer those programs. We want to create an environment that enables of ideas between industry to industry and industry to academia. This is what's going to put those new innovations into the marketplace. We also want to make sure that we have the programming and creating the environment, right, that attracts young professionals and creates a place that they want to stay and grow in their careers. We want to establish resources for the the startups, for the

[01:26:44] early-stage companies to come in and to succeed. And so I can share a little bit about that on how we're going to do that in this implementation grant. So where is the innovation district? This is, it's a 30, we've plotted it as a 3,800 acres. A lot of times when people are starting innovation districts, they're starting from scratch. We are not, right? We have global companies. We have medium-sized companies, and we have startups and early stage companies. We also have the Prince William Science Accelerator for life science startups to establish and look to work with the city and the county to do more of that.

[01:27:23] And so in this map, if you look in the center in blue, that's Innovation Park, the George Mason SciTech campus, and the new town center that's under development. If you go to the bottom of the screen, you'll see the Manassas Airport.

[01:27:39] And some really distinguishing features there is all of the aerospace companies and a sector that we see really growing and thriving. so making sure that we have programming to support that. To the right below the blue, you'll see Godwin Drive with Micron BA Systems, General Dynamics Progeny Systems, which actually started as a startup in Prince William County Innovation Park and expanded to also be in City of Manassas.

[01:28:08] When I asked Brian Gollenberg why, it was a talent. It was a collaboration, right? And we want to make sure that more companies can do that. The concept study also identified sectors. I hope none of these surprise you, but also welcome any ideas on anything that we might be missing.

[01:28:28] Again, remembering these are vertical areas and there's lots of horizontals like AI and others. But, you know, we've really worked pretty hard in establishing the life sciences, biotechnology, and forensics. In my role at the university, currently I lead the Institute for Biohealth Innovation, so I've been working on a lot of that programming.

[01:28:46] The county invested in the Prince William Science Accelerator. So we kind of -- we have that as a pilot to know that we can do this and expand across sectors. And also I think the beauty of including other sectors is the convergence, right? The next generation technologies isn't going to happen only in a particular silo.

[01:29:04] So aerospace and defense is another sector in the Innovation District. Cybersecurity and data infrastructure. So data infrastructure, think about these data centers, right? How can we work with them to develop more sustainable solutions for energy, be a hub for people around the world to come and learn how the best practices and data centers is done.

[01:29:25] And again, doing that through collaboration between industry and academia and semiconductors and electronics. With Micron being in our backyard, I'm sure it's no surprise that this would be a significant cluster. And so, like I said, we just submitted a Go Virginia grant.

[01:29:44] With that grant, it was a $2.6 million grant with $1.3 million in match. So for every dollar you have in matching funds, you're able to lock $2 and go Virginia. We actually, from our fundraising, we were able to secure, we've secured so far, a little $1.1 million, and that's from the university.

[01:30:11] Prince William County is committed 250, or is going to vote, the board is going to vote in May to commit hopefully 250,000 in cash match. We have philanthropy, so Micron, ECU Communications, Dead Lake, Employment Enterprises, who have all committed to be founding members if the grant is awarded.

[01:30:35] But through this grant, what we will do is we will, number one, create the structure of the Innovation District and create the plan for sustainability. This cannot be a grant and project that ends in two years, right? We have to create the structure. So this is something that, again, creates a transformational opportunity for our region.

[01:30:52] I feel especially committed to this, knowing that companies are providing their own hard earned money to see this and then really see the value in it. And so I want to make sure that this is something that, again, can transform our region.

[01:31:07] that I would love for this we will have a steering committee we will also have a governance and finance task force really with decision makers from the county the city industry the university to make sure that we are developing a plan for sustainability and would welcome a representative on that as well as a branding task force what we are hearing from our community is they want something that really represents the whole rather rather than individual components. So we want you to help us shape that. The other two aims we have is to create

[01:31:43] a workforce accelerator. So a certificate course in life sciences to make sure that we are able to re-skill and train individuals to go into industry. A capstone course which will touch all of the sectors. The engineering departments at the university have capstone courses. This is something they've always had, but typically only your large global companies are the ones that are contributing the funding for these projects. And these are projects that are typically around $5,000 and have four to five students where a company will come and say, "Here's my challenge," and ask them to go back to the university using the

[01:32:19] resources that we have to develop solutions for them. And so, number one, it creates opportunities for collaboration between our faculty and our students and the companies, but also gives students' access to that company and hopefully future employment with them as well. And then the third aim of the grant is on a workforce accelerator. So it's two parts. Number one is to make sure that we are attracting and bringing in international companies to Northern Virginia.

[01:32:49] And creating the accelerator programming to make sure that they not only come here and succeed. We've actually built in budgets so that they can land in Centerfuse or the Prince William Science Accelerator, as well as funding so that they can take advantage of some of the university's core capabilities, again, to create that stickiness so that it's not a road tour, but it's really something that they want to come and land here.

[01:33:15] We also will have Tech Mentors, which will be here to support our existing companies with one-on-one support as well as programming. And so, for the outcomes, what we are going to be measuring is the number of businesses created, attracted, the number of people trained, the number of patents, right, that's going to lead to the next generation companies.

[01:33:40] And, you know, with any good project, everybody has to win. And so, that's something through the planning grant we really looked at to make sure, right, how are all partners winning in this? Because a three-legged stool that is uneven just doesn't work.

[01:33:55] And so I would love to hear from you how you believe the city benefits in this. But some of the things that we've talked about with Patrick and others, right, is that strategic cluster development, being able to have that greater economic return, being able to support economic development.

[01:34:13] So I would actually work hand-in-glove with Patrick and his team in being able to recruit these companies. This is something I've worked on in the county with the life sciences previously. And, you know, really making sure that we have that, again, that stickiness that creates those opportunities for people to come in a really thriving innovation environment.

[01:34:34] And also workforce development was another. But we do see the historic downtown as being a very important component. It was actually one of the purple areas on the map because this is a place, right, placemaking is critical in innovation districts. And this is a beautiful town with such amazing restaurants and retail and, you know, a place that we want to make sure people have public transportation to get to across the innovation district as well and so with that I will stop and and just say you know another reason I am

[01:35:06] here right so you know would love for the council and to consider a contribution towards the match and I will leave it that for now and see if you have any questions thank you amy appreciate that council members now you too miss vasquez luna and mr smith uh thank you madam mayor i was looking at this is a lot of information great information i still am not sure how much is going to be asked for maybe i shouldn't right don't say it okay

[01:35:43] but my ask is looking at the timeline i mean you're towards the end of the fundraiser how you are doing with that you know since we're being asked about this so we right now have a hundred and eighty thousand left to raise for the planning grant and so we've been in come so we have matching forms from the others and are confident right that we'll be able to get this again because the companies are really seeing this out also as an opportunity for them to grow I think it as this is established if you fast forward 20 years from now it will not look like the

[01:36:19] same place. Imagine the density of companies, making sure that the available land that's here, as well as places that can be redeveloped, have that strategic focus in some of those sectors to make sure that we're creating a diverse economy. And while the Innovation District would not do this, it would certainly work with the county planners and the city planners to make sure that we're also thinking about again those amenities to create this vibrant place.

[01:36:53] Oh I'm sorry. One more and I'm sorry. My ask will be how will if you when we have questions one to one with the residents we have to be able to explain the difference. What will be the difference between you know this coming together and looking at the whole project then what the county has been doing in the area already so i'm just asking for help yeah so the city is such an important component in this right so people people and businesses don't know county and city lines

[01:37:27] and there are such tremendous assets in this 3800 acres that is the university the county and the city and so so i would say that we all have to work together to make this happen if it's just the county, they're going to focus only on the county. I can tell you from speaking with Christina Nguyen, she doesn't see it as a line. It's how can we work together to attract these businesses and we will find the right opportunities for them. And for the programming it wouldn't make sense either. Why would we create programming only for the

[01:38:05] county companies when we can do this and really lock arms to make sure that the companies in the city are succeeding as well. I had mentioned the aerospace cluster, I think that's going to be an area that you're going to see a lot of growth in. We actually have our new life sciences and engineering building and already I'm bringing the companies from around the airport to LSEB to look at the new capabilities that we have, think about opportunities for partnership and knowing their needs for training to make sure that we're integrating that into our classroom experiences too and building new programs. So from a workforce standpoint, I mentioned this cannot

[01:38:41] just be your traditional two-year, four-year programs, six-year, eight-year. We hosted a nano boot camp recently, and one of my favorite stories was a security guard who did not have a GED. He came in, he gained hands-on experience for a week in our Class 1000 clean room on the SciTech campus, alongside others, alongside veterans, alongside PhDs. And following that, he really wanted to do. He came in and he learned about the Micron Nova apprenticeship program.

[01:39:14] And so he has now passed three of his subjects towards his GED, is working on the other with the path of looking to apply for the apprenticeship program this summer. So we need to open doors for everybody. Mr. Smith. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. The Virginia implementation grant that's locked in that's not subject to further general assembly approval or anything of that nature so it's a process so i've been awarded a few go virginia grants um and so what

[01:39:54] we we submitted it last week we know that we still have that match to the delta to be able to raise but in april we'll present to the northern virginia region 7 board and if they approve then that will then go down to the state. In June, we would present to the state board and would know in June if it is approved for funding and it would begin on July 1. What my team is already doing, we've worked very strategically and made sure that we've had deep conversations with Go Virginia and others all along the way.

[01:40:30] I already have my team working on kind of the preliminary pieces, so we hit go in July, and there's no delay. Because I do know we are flying the plane while we're building it. I can tell you I have experience doing that and have delivered on that.

[01:40:45] And because of all the partnerships, the really deep partnerships, confident that will happen if it's approved. So on that, too, right, so if the city said, yes, we want to make a commitment for this grant, it could be contingent on whether the grant is awarded so and that's what we've told everybody i know when doing presentations it's often difficult to find a chart or powerpoint that people will find interesting but in your presentation the the chart regarding innovation

[01:41:21] district business district i think it it was powerful very powerfully made the case about their intersectionality, if you will, and their interconnectivity of the two. That one sort of jumped off the page for me.

[01:41:40] And as a somewhat long-time person in the public, I'm not as adept at it as, say, Dr. Savage, but there's a term about reading the room, and I'm also the Economic Development Council liaison.

[01:41:58] So I was reading the room for our economic development representation that's here. And Patrick is not here right now. Unfortunately, I think he is on travel today. A vice chair, or I think that's the right title, for our economic development authority, has been paying attention and very attentive to what's been going on tonight.

[01:42:23] But after that chart, and when you got to the boundaries, in fact, he's still in that mode. I saw him sit up and went into a thinking mode. You excited him quite a bit. I think he, too, recognizes the potential economic return, the economic development of itself, and workforce development potential for this effort.

[01:42:49] Again, thank you. It was very informative, and I wish you well. Thank you. Ms. Ellis. Thank you, Mayor. It's good to see you here, Amy. Thank you. I've been following the Innovation District from the beginning. Just getting looped into a lot of the, I'm a Mason alum, and I also do a lot of work over there by Mason.

[01:43:11] So I know that I was a part of the marketing advisory group in the beginning, just to see. And what I thought was so great is how focused they were on historic manassas. When you were all trying to achieve, put together your SWOT analysis and your vision, we really do have to partner with this.

[01:43:30] You know, as I was saying about our library, like innovation technology, that is a huge part of our major employers here in the city that are right next door to George Mason. So I know that you have done a lot of networking, presenting all the different types of businesses in the area, and you've done a lot of work.

[01:43:56] So I went to the chamber event as well and some of the call-ins. I know the mayor has been in a few, too. So I do know that Patrick is supporting this, and I hope that we can really look at that to make sure that we continue this, because this is a great advantage for our city to be a part of this future in the region.

[01:44:17] Thank you for being here. Thank you. Mr. Osina. Hi, Ms. Adams. Hello. So help me understand, does one have to be, is it envisioned that one has to be a student at George Mason to take advantage of many of these things that are being offered here in this grant?

[01:44:42] So, no. This is a grant, and this is a project for our community, and that is every single person in our community. So the Capstone course I mentioned, yes, that you would have to be a student, but the Life Science Certificate course, you do not.

[01:45:00] We will also be launching something I didn't mention. We'll be launching a Young Professionals program, but not just with networking, with the programming to make sure that they can succeed, that they can meet peers, you know, with similar interests, et cetera. And this is just a start, right?

[01:45:17] So we had to start with this, but imagine educational programs that there's just several. And we will work in collaboration with NOVA for this and with Mason. And again, really championing to say this cannot just be your, you know, your two-year, four-year, six-year, eight-year degrees.

[01:45:36] This has to be boot camps. We will continue. I couldn't write this into the grant because we're going to continue offering it for my team. The nano boot camp we're offering another session in June. And again, we want to get into the community and make sure we're re-skilling people. And talking to Micra, and they told me that, you know, one of their biggest competitors is Walmart, right?

[01:45:53] So let's make sure that we are talking to the community and sharing. And so that's how you can also help, right? Help us to share the programs that we develop so that we can make sure that we're touching the lives of the people who live here? Well, the reason I ask that is, my concern is that I want to be sure that all our residents who might be interested and might be qualified, regardless of their economic background, their social, whatever, race, all those different things, have that

[01:46:32] opportunity here. And I think at times the people who are in the room making these plans are not the people who are in the community or in our neighborhoods. I'll be even more direct there, making those connections and understanding what it takes to get there along the way here.

[01:46:56] So I'm delighted to hear that you don't have to be a student at George Mason, but I would certainly be very interested. So you've got my name and you've got my email, I hope, That how are you going to get granular and get into that part of it?

[01:47:18] Because otherwise, you're going to get, being very, very generalized, you're going to get a certain strata of people. And I see no benefit to our residents here. And while it's great to have the security guard story to use as an example, What I want is that security guard story to be multiplied by 1,000.

[01:47:46] Agreed. So I would say that comes from leadership, and this is something that I've told the university, so I will be really focusing my attention on this project. I am committed to this community. I've lived in Manassas and the surrounding areas for the last 25 years since I arrived in northern Virginia.

[01:48:05] My grandfather built Georgetown South, and so I want to make a difference in this community. And so, you know, I think it starts with leadership, but it also ensures a governance, right, that's checking that. And so one of the things that they've talked about in the planning study is to create this as a 501c3.

[01:48:24] To have it simply led by the university, you know, the fear could be that you get a different president or people who really want to describe it for value to the university, then you're going to lose that. And so it will likely, we've even built in for that grant, the legal fees, the accounting fees to establish a 501c3 should the governance and finance committee and steering committee decide that that's the best route.

[01:48:51] But that has been the most popular of all. Thank you, Mayor. Well, thank you, Amy. I think since Dr. Washington has come on, he's made it very clear about success.

[01:49:08] No matter what you look like, where you live, all of that, anybody who wants to, we will be there to succeed. And this is just another avenue to do that. And so I think he's absolutely stepped up. And this, I think, is amazing. You simply have to have the city of Manassas.

[01:49:25] You have the big three here in the city. And we have families that will benefit greatly from what's being put forward. So I'm looking forward to what's going to come of it. Was there an event scheduled for the second that I had heard something about?

[01:49:41] So there was one in March with Colum Clark, who was an economist. He wasn't involved in our study, but he studied innovation districts around the United States. And so he presented. That was actually something that created a lot of community interest because it wasn't us talking about ourselves. I was really hearing how these communities of innovation are creating impact around the United States.

[01:50:00] But also on Thursday, we'd love to invite you all to the life sciences and engineering building for our grand opening. This is an amazing facility that will be leveraged for workforce training and also collaboration opportunities with companies. And that's at 2 o'clock on Thursday.

[01:50:16] Yeah, that's what I heard about that. So I wanted to make sure you got that out there. So any other comments or questions? Amy, thank you so much for that information and that report. All right. Next on the agenda is item 1.4, the Utility Rate and Cost of Service Study.

[01:50:32] Waiting patiently. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you, Madam Mayor, City Council Members, City Management and Staff. My name is Scott Burnham. It's a pleasure to be here before you. I'm a partner with NewGen Strategies and Solutions.

[01:50:50] Here we go. And we're going to be talking about our rate study recommendations. I'm joined by Mike Maker. He's a partner with NewGen as well. Before we get started, I do want to thank profusely your staff at the utilities, Anna, Tariq, Jeff, and the remaining staff.

[01:51:10] They were tremendously helpful with this whole project and couldn't have done without them. We have been asked to speed through a little bit through this presentation for giving the time constraints for this evening and your time. So I will be going through this rather quickly.

[01:51:25] Certainly will be available for any questions, have you at the end. We'll talk a little bit about study assumptions, talk about expenses, revenues, some of the cash balances, your existing rates, and then some of the charges, as well as the recommendations for this study.

[01:51:42] Then we'll finish with a sample bill and some bill comparison discussions. When we talk about a rate study, we talk about utility and utility economics. We talk about revenue sufficiency. Obviously, you need to generate sufficient revenue to cover your expected expenses.

[01:51:57] We talk about reserves, make sure that you have balances, cash balances to cover unexpected expenses, as well as reinvestment, investing in the system. Utilities require reinvestment for moving forward, moving and developing capital, and continuing to serve customers.

[01:52:19] So what are the factors affecting the city of Manassas? Well, obviously, operation and maintenance expenses are increasing. That includes labor, that includes services and other types of things, the capital investment in the system continuing to make those investments to make sure that you have the services to provide to your customers.

[01:52:43] Customer changes as well. One of the things we looked at when we looked at your forecast of expenses, you have a small amount of debt on your books right now. For the next period, we're not expected to issue any additional debt.

[01:53:01] So that means that the capital expenses are going to be funded by cash from reserves as well as cash from rates. So that's also driving the need for additional revenue. We also looked at your reserve targets and looking at your reserve balances and the policies around that.

[01:53:18] And that also drives some of the decisions relative to the rate recommendations. When we look at a rate study, we talk about a revenue requirement. And a revenue requirement, quite simply for a utility, is the total amount of annual dollars that you need to operate the utility. Start with operating and maintenance expenses, add debt service, add cash funding for any kind of cash flow projects, any new debt service, again, for the city of Manassas, we're not proposing additional new debt to fund these projects.

[01:53:47] And then contributions to reserves, and we'll talk about that in detail. My focus is going to be on the electric system review, and Mike's going to talk more about the water and wastewater system. For the electric system, we're looking at the key drivers relative to increase cash reserves and, again, cover projected expenses, looking at your systems of that.

[01:54:11] We also looked at the impacts relative to the new data center, and we'll talk a little bit about data centers and kind of what they mean to the utility and to the city. Part of our rate strategy and the rate recommendations is to apply an equal rate increase across all customer classes and, in fact, all rate elements that you have in your rate structures right now.

[01:54:31] And that was a rate strategy designed and worked with the city staff to develop that. When we think about the rate design, you have fixed cost recovery, you have monthly customer charges, you have demand charges for certain customer classes, you have variable energy costs, the energy costs themselves, a power cost adjustment, fuel adjustment charge.

[01:54:53] We're going to talk a little bit about net metering as well. You have a net metering policy. We're making some subtle recommending changes to that policy. The electric system serves approximately 17,000 customers, approximately 400 million kilowatt hours.

[01:55:08] A kilowatt hour is a unit of power in terms of retail sales. The city is fortunate to be a member of VEMA, the Virginia Municipal Energy Electric Association. That is your power supply source. VEMA purchases energy from Dominion and then passes those costs on to you.

[01:55:26] And some of those costs are included directly to customers if you're at a high enough voltage, but the majority of those purchase power costs are within your energy rate. And we'll talk about kind of what that means. Variations, the power market changes daily, it changes hourly.

[01:55:43] There are variations in those costs. Those variations are recovered through what's called a power cost adjustment or fuel adjustment charge. That's common in the industry. That's really a risk management tool that the city uses to manage its expenses. When we look at the electric system, we developed a base case.

[01:56:04] We also developed a couple of alternatives. In the base case, we're looking at operation expenses increasing 5% annually. We're looking at a capital investment of approximately $3 million per year. We're drawing down some unrestricted cash balances and then bringing those back up.

[01:56:20] We'll talk about that. Again, no new debt service. We're also assuming no load growth, so we're making a conservative assumption about future kilowatt-hour sales. We did include the brick plant. The brick plant is a data center that you guys serve now. It's new load as of November of last year.

[01:56:37] And we're also talking about developing or recommending a large power distribution customer class. We'll talk about kind of what that means and how those costs and the risks to the utility are managed. That's in the base case for the alternatives. We looked at a limited data center load growth and then a high data center load growth, meaning various levels of investment in data centers to be served by the city.

[01:56:59] But we'll talk about kind of what that means. This is looking at annual expenses for your electric system capital plan. So you can see we're looking at fiscal year 25, which ends in July. Fiscal year 26 through fiscal year 30, you can see what we're looking at is funding a portion of those capital investments with cash and then a portion of those drawing down your cash reserves.

[01:57:24] So when we draw down the cash reserves, then we'll have to add money back into them, and we'll talk about that in the next slide. slide. When we look at the overall electric system expenses, you can see the power supply is your number one power expense, and that makes sense, right, because that's the power supply, the generation portion. You're buying that and then moving that through and selling it through your distribution system to your customers. Maintaining and operating that distribution system then is in the lighter blue, and you can see that then we've got some current debt service on top of that, a very small amount, as I mentioned, some cash-funded capital projects. Again, another source of financing the investments you're

[01:58:02] going to make in the system. And then the contributions to the reserves. What's driving this contribution – I'm sorry, next slide. In this slide here, we'll show – this is the total revenue requirement. And so we're looking out, again, making a projection of what those projected revenue requirements need to be. That flat line on the orange line at the bottom is if you did nothing to your rates right now, this will show you the shortfall of how much revenue you're going to need in the future and how if you did not make any changes to rates, you would be short then in fiscal year 2030.

[01:58:39] The green line is with the recommendation that we have included in our rate study, which for the electric system is 8.5% increase annually. So every year for the next five years, we're proposing to increase rates at 8.5%.

[01:58:54] We did look at an alternative to that. So you could potentially front load that rate increase and do 10% per year for two years, and then on the back end, narrow it down to about 6.5%. Our recommendation would be to have a flat 8.5% per year for the next five years relative to your rate revenue to meet your expected projected revenue requirements.

[01:59:19] This is a slide I was referring to before, so you can see we have cash funding for your capital improvement. You also are drawing down reserves, so fiscal year 25, that's showing that relative balance there. You can see that that balance is coming down over time because we're drawing that down, and then we're going to bring it back up with those projected rate increases.

[01:59:40] The red line there in the middle is your policy right now. It's 60 days cash on hand, one-year debt service, and 1% of net assets. That's the policy that your city has relative to maintaining a certain level of cash. And so oftentimes you'll see that cities will, in fact, draw down cash reserves, And oftentimes, there will be times for a few years where they're below the recommended policy, and that's fine.

[02:00:05] Because the policy says you have a couple years in terms of getting that back up, as long as you have a plan to get that forward, and that's what's included in our recommendations. I mentioned we did two scenarios relative to data centers.

[02:00:21] Everybody's sort of talking about data centers now in the industry. It is a huge thing across the country, not just here in Northern Virginia. When we're looking at one scenario where we're looking at one of the stated data centers that was projected to come to town, adding approximately 100 megawatts per year, your system right now is about 65 megawatts.

[02:00:42] So that's not quite doubling, but time and a half. If that data center did come in and bought power, and we'll talk about kind of how that structure, how that rate structure might look, The revenue, projected revenue increases could go from 8.5% down to 8% because how the city generates revenue from the data center, most of the costs are a pass-through from Dominion Energy, but there is a 2% adder on top of that for the city management of that account, if you will, sort of an A&G adder, and that equates to approximately $1.3 million at the end of fiscal 2030.

[02:01:19] There are revenues from the data center to the city in terms of tax revenues. Those are not included in our study because those really just go straight to the city. They don't stay within the utility. The second scenario we looked at was even a larger growth in additional data centers coming to the service territory in approximately 260 megawatts.

[02:01:41] So again, really tremendously increasing the amount of load that you would be, in a sense, serving. If that load came, that revenue increase would be about 7%, so down from 8.5% per year to 7%. So they do have an impact, but they're not necessarily a cure-all for the city.

[02:01:57] And our recommendation, and what we've included in the study, is to not rely on this future load growth around data centers, but rather using the load that you have serving right now relative to applying that load to the rates and increasing the rate percentages in the future.

[02:02:19] This is what your current rates look like right now. You've got a customer charge and an energy charge and a demand charge, depending on the size of the customer. This is a pretty standard look, pretty relatively simple rates. And, of course, we see these types of rates across the country where you have a residential service, obviously, at around $0.09.

[02:02:40] That's actually relatively low, in my opinion, in terms of what I've seen across the country relative to residential service. And then that energy rate going down as the demand rate then serves as another source of revenue and cost recovery. So when we look at the projected rate, this is what we're looking at for residential electric rates.

[02:03:01] You can see you have a customer charge of about $15 right now. You have an energy charge of about $0.09, and you've got that power cost adjustment charge. Again, that power cost adjustment is for the variability in your power supply. We know that next year, Vima has said, hey, your power cost adjustment charge is going to go up.

[02:03:20] It's going to go up from 0.8 cents to 1.7 cents. That's a pretty dramatic increase relative percentage-wise. But beyond that, we really don't know what that's going to be because that's really meant to be a cost recovery mechanism for that variation in cost. We can look at it and say we think we know what the energy charge might be, and again, this 8.5% applying to the monthly fixed charge and the 8.5% applied to the energy charge.

[02:03:45] Same thing here for the small general service electric rates, monthly charge, energy charge, and the power cost adjustment charge. When we get into the medium general service, then you're getting into a larger customer, like perhaps a large office area that puts a larger demand on the system.

[02:04:02] They then have a demand rate. So the demand rate, again, is a cost recovery mechanism. It's a rate mechanism to recover costs from the customer. All of those elements, the customer charge, energy charge, and demand charge, then would be applied to that 8.5% per year. We get into large power, large power service primary electric rate.

[02:04:22] So primary service just means they're taking electric voltage at a higher voltage. The rest of the system is on a secondary voltage level and slightly different rate structures around that. But again, applying that 8.5% to each one of the three base rate charges.

[02:04:40] This is large power secondary service. So again, same concept, 8.5% per year. We talked about proposing a new large power distribution rate class. So there are currently two customers right now that are in your large power transmission voltage and large power class.

[02:05:03] That's Lockheed and Brick Plant. What we're proposing is moving those customers into a new class called large power distribution class. And these are customers that are within your service territory, but really they are served by Dominion. They're served by Dominion for all their power supply, their delivery, and their transmission.

[02:05:23] The only thing is that Manassas is the one that's billing for them, and that's that 2% cost recovery that you're getting for that, and essentially that A&G fee that you're providing. I mentioned about a change in net metering currently.

[02:05:39] Your net metering policy, this is for distributed solar, primarily distributed solar, primarily residential, but there are some commercial applications. Net metering, in general, means that, you know, you're basically crediting a customer for electricity that they're generating on site, right, with typically solar panels.

[02:05:58] Net metering is an easily-to-understand concept. It's a concept we see across the country. It's tremendously successful. Solar costs have come down dramatically over the past 10, 15 years, distributed solar costs. The customer right now with the city of Manassas receives a full retail rate.

[02:06:19] So a residential customer has that 9.2 cents for not only for what they're offsetting for, what they're generating on their site, but any energy that they send back to you. And we're proposing is to make a change to that. And we'll talk about kind of what that means. One reason why we're talking about making a change for that is that the way that net metering is set up, it is set up in that the utility has a hard time recovering fixed costs.

[02:06:41] Because in that $0.09, there is a variable piece and a fixed piece. And when you're crediting somebody at $0.09, you're basically losing that fixed cost recovery. You're shifting that cost onto somebody else that doesn't have solar. So there is a burden to non-net metering customers.

[02:07:00] There are also operational issues relative to operating a lot of distributed solar on a system. When you think about net metering, this graphic here shows just a residential customer with perhaps during a solar facility on their site.

[02:07:19] The purple line on the top is perhaps during a cloudy day, so they're generating electricity, and they're offsetting what their usage. The gray is the amount that they would be buying from you had they not have solar. So you can see that trough in the middle there is when the sun comes up and is generating electricity.

[02:07:36] They are then buying less energy from you. The deeper line there, the darker line there, that's when they're sending electricity back to you. And what we're proposing is a change relative to only to that trough there, the deeper trough when they're sending electricity back to you relative to the proposed net metering reform, if you will.

[02:07:58] The question is, what's the value of that electricity? And the value of that electricity that comes back to you should be valued at your avoided cost. You, the utility, in a sense, should be indifferent as to whether or not somebody's generating that electricity or you're buying it from Vima.

[02:08:14] A kilowatt hour is a kilowatt hour. So we looked at two different ways of valuing net metering, voided cost. One way is to look at the Vima variable costs. That's a pretty straightforward way. You get that bill every month from Vima. There are generation costs. There's fuel adjustment. There's credits.

[02:08:30] There's A&G that Vima then applies to that. They're billing you that on a kilowatt hour basis. When we did the analysis for the 2026, fiscal year 26, projected VIMA costs that comes out to about 3.7 cents. Right now, again, you're giving that 9.2 cents in terms of the credit.

[02:08:47] So there is a mismatch between the value of that energy coming back to you and what you're paying for it. We also looked at the market. So the market, the PJM market that you're in, you can look to that as to say, well, that is how you may value this energy. And when we did an analysis of the market value for 2024 with market data that we had available, it came out to about 3.6 cents.

[02:09:10] So not tremendously different than how we might look at VEMA. So our recommendation is to indeed use the VEMA energy credit to adjust that every year because you have that bill coming from VEMA and you have that projection of what you might, you're going to know what that's going to be.

[02:09:27] We're also proposing that you phase in this net metering reform over a five-year period so that customers that have net metering right now aren't necessarily hit with this immediately. It's sort of scaled in at 20% per year, as you can see on that bottom right graphic down in the bottom there.

[02:09:44] So over time, then they would come in line with the revised net metering avoided cost credit. Any new customers that come on your system, they would immediately, we would recommend that they immediately be subject to this avoided cost credit concept.

[02:10:07] With that, I will turn it over to Mike. Scott. So I will quickly walk us through water and sewer. And then we welcome any questions. As the water system, roughly just under 16,000 customers.

[02:10:25] Annual billable usage, about 2.15 billion gallons. And just like with the electric, we reviewed the cost of the system, identified the key factors, discussed needs for additional revenue, and then calculated what those rates need to be. So here we, again, are mitigating the burden on customers by using some of the cash you have on hand.

[02:10:46] So you have a capital project fund. We're using that for our water capital projects. That way we don't have to raise the rates as high as if we didn't have this fund. So here we have the base year, 2025, and then the next five years proposed. So as Scott mentioned for electric, here we have the blue being our operating expenses.

[02:11:05] That's our day-to-day expenses, salaries, benefits, materials. There is a little bit of debt service currently for the water system that's in red. The orange line is what you're bringing in right now. And then our proposed line is that green line sloping up to the right. And that represents an 8.5% increase for three years in a row, 26, 27, and 28.

[02:11:24] And then roughly inflationary increases for the remaining two years. And then how does that impact our cash balance? So, again, here we're showing you have both an unrestricted cash balance in blue, and then you have that green capital fund balance, the one I mentioned before that we're using for capital projects.

[02:11:44] You can see we're using some of that fund to not put it all on the backs of the customers by using some of your existing cash, and you're still maintaining and meeting your target, that three-part target, that red line. This is what current rates look like right now for the water system.

[02:11:59] So, if you're a residential customer, everybody pays that fixed charge of $10.94 per month. If you're a non-residential, your charge varies by meter size. So the larger the meter size, the more demand you can pull from the system, the more cost to maintain your meter and replace your meter, so they pay a higher amount.

[02:12:15] If you're multifamily, you charge per unit at $8.99. And then you have separate charges for a large user, lake water service, and then hydrometers. And that's all the fixed portion, the monthly customer charge. And then we have the flow charges, which are variable and charged per 1,000 gallons. And again, here you have a multi-tier system if you're residential.

[02:12:34] So residential uses 0 to 5,000 is charged 350 per 1,000 gallons. From 5,000 to 12,000 is charged 371. And then it also varies depending on the season, seasonality. So whether it's winter or summer. And then if you are a really excessive user, you're charged a surcharge on top of those seasonal charges.

[02:12:53] There's also different rates for commercial industrial, that raw lake water user, large water user, and hydrant. So simply applying those rate increases, we showed in the previous slide, three years of eight and a half percent and the two years of three percent this is what the rates would look like for residential this is what they look like for commercial and then those other the raw water large water and hydrant moving on to the sewer system so here you have about fifteen thousand and a half customers just under two billion gallons of billable flow and one important

[02:13:27] note is all your wastewater is actually treated by uosa upper occupants service authority again did did the same process, reviewed costs, see what the needs are, and then applied those. Again, looking at the capital project funding, so all of the capital projects for sewer, again, are planned to be funded through existing funds, so not having to put that into rate increases.

[02:13:50] Here, we're looking at smaller rate increases required, so again, the blue being the operating expenses, red being current debt service, and then a slight capital reserve contribution needed in the end there. Orange, you're actually covering your revenues, covering your expenses with revenues that orange line in some years. And so here we're just recommending a inflationary 3% increase each year of the next five years. How does that affect the cash balance? So again, the blue being our unrestricted cash balance, the green being the capital fund. And here you can see you're meeting or exceeding that three-part metric for cash. Current rates here are similar

[02:14:28] to water. Again, you have a fixed charge residential and then a fixed charge that varies by meter size. Majority of their customers are probably, you know, residential, so they are, you know, under a three-quarter inch meter, so maybe 90, 92 percent of your customer base just pays that small fixed charge. And then again, the larger the customer is, commercial pays a higher charge. And then again, the flow charges here again vary by seasonality. And if your usage in the summer is less than your winter quarter average, then you actually don't pay more than 14,000 gallons. But if it's not, then you'd pay an excessive charge there. And then all non-residential

[02:15:07] is just charged that 426. You also have additional charges for UOSA, but that's recovered in a different manner. So we didn't actually have to calculate that charge. So again, just applying the 3% across the board. That's what the 3% increases look like. Same thing for non-residential.

[02:15:25] And so we always say is customers don't really care what their rates are. They wonder what their bill is going to be. So here's a customer, if they receive all three services in the city, this is 5,000 gallons of usage for a monthly customer. So 5,000 gallons for water, 5,000 gallons for sewer, and then 1,000 kilowatt hours for electric. So you can see their current bill in the second column, see a total bill about $162. That would go up to roughly $174, which is a $12.33 increase. And while electric was increasing 8.5%, water 8.5% and sewer 3%, combined it would be about a 7.5% increase, and this excludes the UOSA portion, so the sewer treatment portion.

[02:16:06] This is now comparing to some surrounding utilities, so this is just for electric. The dark red is the city of Manassas, so you can see the bottom there. You're actually currently the lowest of these comparable utilities, and if you do the FY26 increase, you would just bump right above Northern Virginia and still be in the lowest tier of bills, and then because water sewer interrelated we can combine these two for a combined water and sewer bill so water being in blue and then sewer being in green and again the darker colors being the city of manassas right

[02:16:41] now with your fy25 bill you're looking at about 92.66 and this does include the portion from erosa because we want to make it an apples apples or as as most apples apples as possible so a lot of these places have their own treatment we want to make sure we included your portion of treatment and And that's both for Monassas and Prince William Water.

[02:16:59] We used a bill that was calculated using UOSA. So, again, you're roughly in the middle to the lower cost of the pack. And with the FY26 increase, you'd be just about in the middle. And this is not taking into any consideration any increases these other utilities may be implementing, because this is only whatever data is available on their websites at the time.

[02:17:19] So, with that, we'll take any questions. Thank you. Great questions. Ms. Hudson. Thank you for that presentation. On slides four and eight, when you're talking about the assumed growth of power use, on each of those slides, it says that there's assumed no load growth.

[02:17:44] And I think on four, it says something to the effect of no new residents. Here in the city, we have two pretty large neighborhood townhouse complexes being built. So just wanted to check if that's being included or if it was included in this study.

[02:18:06] So we did not assume any low growth relative to the electric sales. And in doing so, we're really taking a conservative approach because we're trying to basically say that you're going to have to collect a certain amount of revenue on the existing sales that you have right now.

[02:18:22] Any additional sales would then obviously increase revenue, right? So when we talk about a five-year plan and the five-year 8.5%, we're looking out at a forecast of what those expenses may be. Obviously, it's your discretion to change those rates and decrease those if need be.

[02:18:39] If sales increase, right, or perhaps your expenses decrease, then certainly, you know, we wouldn't recommend over-collecting because it's all about just collecting the cost, collecting the revenue requirements you have. The problem with trying to project relative sales is, you know, there's a lot of volatility in this tree.

[02:18:56] There's, you know, as we talked about, data centers could come in, data centers may go out. And relative to residential sales, we didn't specifically include any specific developments around what those projected sales may be. Okay.

[02:19:15] Not going to get to solution tonight, but a few questions. Particularly on the electric side, is it possible to provide us the margin in the rate and proposed rates?

[02:19:31] And by margin, I mean the amount of cost to the consumer, the end user, over the cost of the actual electricity, over the cost of the product. By classification, where I'm going with this is on what your proposed very large group is the 2% markup.

[02:19:51] It's cost of Dominion plus 2%. Pretty simple. Obviously, we can create that same factor for a small residential user, a larger residential user, Lockheed, whoever it is. That would be an interesting thing to be able to see.

[02:20:07] So in the point of that, and I appreciate the work you've done, is for the council and the public to look at how we are distributing allocated costs through the system. The second thing is in the whole discussion with regard to the rate increases and sustaining the cash reserves.

[02:20:31] I assume, Mr. Manager, we're going to have a work session and go in depth on that. We're not going to try to solve that tonight. We will have another work session, yes, sir. The third thing I will throw out is with regard to your proposal on solar energy, and I understand it totally.

[02:20:50] There is obviously a societal good or goal that comes from the essentially what you're saying is the overpromotion or overcompensation of solar generation. So I just, you know, throw that out. And do we have a handle on how many solar generation locations we have in the city? How many people are putting up solar? About 200. Okay. Which is for Northern Virginia, probably on the low side is a percentage of usage.

[02:21:23] Okay. That's helpful. There's too much in the brain. I'll shut up there before I say something worse. Thank you. Anyone else? Ms. Vasquez? Oh, Ms. Vasquez. He answered my question. Oh, okay.

[02:21:39] Ms. Vasquez. Thank you. I appreciate the information and the report. When you presented the last bill, and I will say, I don't know if it's because we don't have time, but I felt rushed. I did read it before, but I still felt rushed. So I'm happy about that. But I guess at the later session, I can continue to ask questions to fully understand it.

[02:22:07] Is that for a single home, a townhouse, and a condominium? Because I know my bill goes up to $650, so I'm focused on the bill that comes, you know, like a regular bill, especially a summer bill.

[02:22:22] Because, you know, if you point it like this, it might don't seem expensive, but to me, 8.5 is really high. So I'm just asking, like, the reasoning, you know, behind these, presenting this one.

[02:22:38] Is the average or is it just simple? Yeah, so the 5,000 gallons, that's roughly a single-family home. That's 15,000 a quarter. Some places maybe 3,000 gallons is the average. So a larger family, like you're saying, yeah, if you have multiple kids, it's probably going to be higher than 5,000 gallons.

[02:22:57] So this is kind of a standard maybe two and a half, three people in a household. I can't speak to the electric, but it's 1,000. Yeah, 1,000 kilowatt hours is probably a little bit on the high side for the average, but that's probably a single-family dwelling family of four or five or so, depending, again, on what their usage looks like.

[02:23:18] If you have an EV, that's probably not tremendously out of line, an electric vehicle. But you've got a high air conditioning load, and that could be as well. And, again, this does exclude the sewer treatment that you owe, sir. So if we look at this, so on the one side, I do show an electric.

[02:23:37] So water and sewer, well, most of this is electric, right? So if you're talking about your whole bill, water and sewer, if you add those two, it's maybe a little $60. But if we go here and then you add in the portion that's UOSA, right, that brings that sewer bill a lot higher, right?

[02:23:53] So now we're including the treatment. And so now you're looking at $92. So when you're talking about your bill being larger, it's probably because you're including that too. Sounds good. And I will ask, and then when it comes to the 60-day cash, I know maybe I should leave the question, but I just want to understand, when you're doing this report, I know we set the policy, but I just, is that the average for everybody?

[02:24:19] I just feel, again, my concern is the 8.5, like we're trying to go fast. And then if you look, I think it was more than year 29 that, you know, the red line went above. You know, I'm just trying to be ready for any options that we have that it doesn't, you know, it doesn't include 8.5.

[02:24:44] Right. So this is just showing the sewer as an example. So that is a, that's a city policy, that three-point cash balance target. So it's both looking, it's looking at 60 days, a year of debt service. They're making sure you can at least cover your debt service for one year. And then 1% of your net assets, like all the infrastructure, adding all that up, and what's 1% of that?

[02:25:05] Different utilities have all different spectrums of cash reserves. Rating agencies love to see more cash, so if you were to go to the bond market, if you want to be AAA rated, they might say, hey, you need a year's worth of cash, so you're looking at 60 days. You need 360 days or maybe even more.

[02:25:21] They won't say exactly what you have to have, but they'll say, of your peers who are also AAA rated, this is what they have for cash. So as financial folks, you know, conservative financial, we think it's good to hold some reserves for a rainy day. And if something happens, you know, a main breaks or, you know, a line or something like that.

[02:25:38] So I would say 60 days is probably that portion of it is a bare minimum. I'd say you at least want something like that, that you do have the cushion of also having the year, the one year of debt service and the 1% of that assets. But we also mentioned, you know, that we're using a lot of this capital fund balance.

[02:25:56] So if staff gave us, you know, a recommendation, hey, we don't want our cash to drop at all. We want it to stay, like for sewer, at $15 million, we'd have to put all the rate increases on the backs of the customers, and that 8.5% would be, you know, 20%. So we're trying to do a balance here of using some cash that's existing and then also doing a little bit of rate increases.

[02:26:16] Okay. And one of the ones I was looking at is page 11. I'm sorry, I have to go all the way. You got a fast finger. Electricity. And I just want to point out that part of 29, you know, I'm sure, you know, I'm sure there's just an estimate.

[02:26:33] But, you know, I'm not trying to be, you know, our neighbor here, you know, and getting up to their prices. I'm just trying to make sure that, you know, that we get there. But, you know, how can, and again, maybe I'm too early, but I just, you know, how much will that be, the difference, if you have it?

[02:26:55] And then, you know, again, maybe that could be another way for us to make a potential change. That's basically what I'm trying to understand is so I can make better decisions when we go forward to the other. Right.

[02:27:10] So, you know, you can design the rates and the rate percentage increases, you know, how you see fit. Obviously, what we're looking at is a projection of expenses and, again, that balance between drawing down the cash reserves, not issuing any new debt. and then covering those expenses and futures at a flat rate.

[02:27:30] So the 8.5% is a flat rate that we had recommended for every year just for consistency. So, again, if you get into year three and look two years ahead, you can make a change relative to what that might be, if need be, at that time.

[02:27:45] So, again, where your balances may be or where your expenses may be as well. Thank you. Yeah, I will say one of the nice things of setting a five-year plan is that your customers can help do some planning their own. Your commercial customers can say, okay, I can start building this in now.

[02:28:01] And then, like Scott mentioned, if you find out down the road, eight and a half, we don't actually need that, things turned out better, then you can, you know, you can obviously lower it. Nice, Mayor, you had something. Yeah, I just, this is actually more for staff.

[02:28:18] One of the things I've learned, I constantly tell my wife is to celebrate your victories. Pages 40 and 41 need to be publicized somewhere because the fact that we have been able to have the lowest electric rates anywhere around for an awful long time, along with world-class reliability, absent one bad event, speaks volumes to the management and what people have done over in the utilities for many, many years.

[02:28:51] And I'd also point out with regard to slide 41, the water rate is actually the lowest anywhere around. And the only reason we're anywhere near the middle is because we are a part of UOSA 100%.

[02:29:06] And, again, this is one of the esoteric details most citizens don't know. We're one of, I think, two jurisdictions, us and the park, that are 100% dependent on UOSA. The other jurisdictions, whether it's Fairfax or Loudon or Prince William County, have other much less expensive means for treating their wastewater.

[02:29:28] And UOSA is a wonderful thing, and they do a great job, and they're state of the art. They're pretty much the best in the world, but it's pricey, and that's what we pay for. So we need to let the citizens know because we've done a really darn good job over a lot of years.

[02:29:44] So thank you. Any other questions, comments, council members? Okay. Well, thank you very much. Thank you, Anna, for being here. Appreciate it. Mr. Wolfe. That moves us forward to item two on the agenda, the consent agenda motion.

[02:30:02] I'll call on Vice Mayor Wolfe for that. Madam Mayor, I move the adoption of the consent agenda and dispense with the reading of the ordinances. Second. With a motion by Vice Mayor Wolfe, seconded by Councilman Smith to approve our consent agenda. Any discussion? Hearing and seeing none, Ms. Garcia, please call the roll.

[02:30:20] Vice Mayor Wolf? Yes. Council Member Smith? Yes. Council Member Ellis? Yes. Council Member Osino? Yes. Council Member Vasquez Luna? Yes. And Council Member Hudson? Yes. The motion carries. All right. Thank you. Moving forward to item three on the agenda ordinances and resolutions. Item 3.1 is resolution number R, 2025-655, authorizing the purchase of gas turbine engine. And Anna, is it okay?

[02:30:47] So currently we're renting the gas turbine engine known as the GT, and that lease is coming up.

[02:31:05] The company, it used to be Albin, was bought out by Solcer. They don't want to renew the lease, so we're going to have to do something about it. Well, the engine is up for sale for $600,000. What we're doing is we're trying to go in with Harrisonburg, our sister city, to purchase this engine.

[02:31:27] Why? Well, it's going to help us meet our requirements to cut our peak, and it will pay itself back by the end of 27. PGM, the market right now, we're actually paying one-third of the savings that we're getting from PGM to Salsa.

[02:31:55] So buying the engine is going to be our engine with Harrisonburg. The PGM 2526 auction, it's $13.51 per kW a month.

[02:32:12] And that output on that engine is between 6 and 8 megawatts. So that's quite a bit of money that we're going to be making. And that is saying that we're staying at $1,351. That price could go way up. So Generation will be paying for itself for this engine.

[02:32:31] So we're here to ask permission, approval, to purchase this engine for $300,000, our share of the $600. Is there a motion? I'll jump in.

[02:32:48] I will say, let me ask the question. The jet engine is, shall we say, much more economically, environmentally friendly than our diesel generators. It's definitely larger.

[02:33:04] The normal diesel generator turns out about 1.5 megawatts and burns 150 gallons per hour. The jet will put out about 8,000, 8 megawatts, and it burns about 700, 800 megawatts. it's burning jet a which burns cleaner and then no sir it actually burns diesel the same oh really fuel okay i stand correct all right no it's the same fuel um it has the same fuel that does it does that okay but okay i just go back to having when we've had uh issues with the generators and fire and different things i was i was hoping this would be an improvement upon that um the nice part

[02:33:44] about this is if we have it on our lease for one more year, if the city decides not to buy it, Salter is obligated to run through the 25-26 year, in which case we'll pay Salter our $162,000 from Manassas and $162,000 from Harrisonburg. So if we buy the engine at $600,000, that's over $300,000 of that price right there. And then the next year, not only would we pay off the engine just on the PGM share, but we'd save about another $300,000 on just the transmission

[02:34:20] peaking charges minus the cost of fuel and personnel. With that, I move adoption of Resolution R-2025-655. Second. We have a motion by Vice Mayor Wolf, seconded by Councilwoman Vasquez Luna, approving Resolution R-2025-655.

[02:34:41] Any discussion? Mr. Osina. So how old is the engine? The engine itself, we just got it two years ago. It was rebuilt. The engine itself is in the 1970s, 1980s. I'm not sure of the exact age, but it just came back from a total rebuild.

[02:35:01] And I'm sure there's some anticipated life span. Yes, sir. We also just, as part of this discussion for us to buy it, we had the Seltzer come out with an independent expert, And we did what's called a bore scope, where they run a, basically a, not a wire, but a camera through the engine itself, take a look at everything inside, and everything looks good.

[02:35:27] They expect the engine to be up and running for at least another 10 to 15 years before it needs another rebuild. Based on the number of hours that we put on it, we've only put about 50 to 70 hours a year on the engine. Yeah.

[02:35:43] Okay, thank you very much. Ms. Hudson. For clarification, this gas turbine electric generator is already in the city? Yes, ma'am. The city actually owns, if you look at the diagram, the city owns, with Harrisonburg, owns the power turbine, electric generator, and the step-up transformer.

[02:36:04] What we do not own is the jet engine at this point in time. But yes, ma'am, it sits out there by the Micron Pond. I don't know if you all know where that's at. But there's a generation facility right there that houses this engine. Okay, thank you. But we're leasing that.

[02:36:20] Yes, ma'am. We're currently leasing the Jetta. Yes, ma'am. In terms of maintenance, currently, if something needed repair or whatever the right term would be, how does that handle? Is that on the city now?

[02:36:37] For all routine maintenance, the city of Manassas and the city of Harrisonburg have been doing the maintenance. Harrisonburg has two engines that are very similar to this. So they come down about once a month, once every other month, and help us do routine maintenance.

[02:36:53] They're training our mechanics to do some of the routine maintenance as well. And then, like I said, once a year, it's recommended practice to go ahead and do what they call a bore scope, where they run a camera through it to see what everything looks like, make sure there's nothing the ordinary.

[02:37:09] As part of this contract, Sulzer is going to give us a $50,000 credit towards, I don't want to say an overhaul, but any work that needs to be done in the next two years. But with purchase, we will be taking on a responsibility for repair, replace, et cetera.

[02:37:31] Are there plans for any reserve built up for that, towards that future, or are we just hoping to pray? Like I said, we've done as much due diligence as we can to make sure the engine is in good shape.

[02:37:48] Right now, looking at the forecast, if after two years we should have about $600,000, about $300,000 above, what we've paid for it um like i said we're not anticipating any problems um we won't have a warranty um but like i said this point in time we don't it's just like any other engine we don't anticipate any problems like i just came back from rebuild all right i recognize the savings initial savings by purchase rather than continue to lease but i'm concerned about a 1971 old engine

[02:38:24] in terms of future expected life or if it goes out. And once we purchase it, if it goes out, we'd have to purchase another one, right? Either purchase one or suspend the program.

[02:38:41] Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you, ma'am. Any other discussion? Thank you, Madam Mayor. For me, one of the, you know, eye-opening of my tour a couple of years ago, So it was, you know, how we are leading as Manassas leading when it comes to that shaving and how we are responsible, you know, mainly on making sure that that comes down.

[02:39:10] Because it can affect not only us but the other ones within the closed door, within the program. But looking at, I mean, you know, the two years and working together, I think, you know, it does make an economic sense.

[02:39:27] And that's why I'm in favor, I think. Mr. Burke. Jim, the two additional jet engines that Harrisonburg, do they own them outright or are they leasing them? No, no, they own them outright. And they've owned them outright for at least the 10 years that I know of.

[02:39:43] So getting to your question, Councilman Smith, we do partner with Harrisonburg, and they have owned those two engines for quite a while. So we've got fairly good confidence that by working with them, we can at least get 10 to 15 years out of this jet engine.

[02:40:01] Thank you. Any other, Ms. Ellis? So the $600,000, that's something you have funded already? Oh, it's $300,000. No, we would have to take it out of fund balance. Oh, because it's $300,000. Yeah. You'd have to take out what?

[02:40:17] Out of fund balance. Out of fund balance. Yeah. It won't affect this year's budget. Okay, thank you. Any other discussion points? Ms. Garcia, please call the roll. Vice Smearwolf? Yes. Council Member Vasquez Luna?

[02:40:34] Yes. Council Member Ellis? Yes. Council Member Smith? Yes. Council Member Ocina? Yes. Council Member Hudson? Yes. The motion carries. Thank you very much. Item 3.2, Ordinance Number O-2025-617 R-E-M Investment Group, LLC, 9700 Capital Court.

[02:41:00] Mr. Arcieri is here to help with that. Your honor, members of Council, the ordinance before you approves a city-initiated rezoning request for the existing building at 9700 Capitol Court. This is our ongoing program to update zoning. In this situation, the building was built with industrial zoning and the request is to go to office zoning as it was designed.

[02:41:21] Staff and planning commission recommend approval. Public hearing is closed. Stand ready for any questions. Thank you, Ms. Arcee. Any questions? Ms. Smith, you have a question? You want to make the motion? Move forward, please, sir. I move approval. Thank you.

[02:41:38] Resolution 025-617. I'll second that. Thank you. We have a motion by Councilman Smith, seconded by Councilwoman Vasquez Luna to approve ordinance number 02025-617. Any discussion? Hearing and opens. Ms. Vasquez, Luna. I just have to ask, why was that part, I don't know what it is in the back, that was not included within the subject property?

[02:42:02] It doesn't belong to them? Like, I'm looking at the little map. I guess I... It does not. It's a small utility. structure. At one point it was telecom. I'm not sure what use. It's not owned and included in the property. It's not owned by the current owner. Excuse me. I just want to make it clear. Any other discussion points? Can Ms. Garcia please call the roll. Councilmember Smith? Yes. Councilmember Vasquez-Luna?

[02:42:26] Yes. Vice Mayor Wolfe? Yes. Councilmember Ellis? Yes. Councilmember Osina? Yes. Councilmember Hudson? Yes. The motion carries. Thank you. Item 3.3 on the agenda. Resolution number 2025-657 Remand Special Use Permit number 2025-002 for Pennington Traditional School, 9305 Stonewall Road.

[02:42:50] Mr. Arcieri. Your Honor, Members of Council, this is a follow-up from your March 10, 2025 public hearing on the proposed Special Use Permit. During that public hearing, the school generation rate that was brought up during the public hearing was 640 students, an increase of 20 proposed.

[02:43:07] However, as part of that public hearing, staff learned that that number vastly exceeded some of the initial application materials that were submitted to the city. Specifically, one item included in your packet, the traffic impact analysis, listed the current enrollment of 326 students, so a significant discrepancy.

[02:43:26] At this point, given the incompleteness of the application, staff and Planning Commission that did the review no longer have confidence that the information presented to you is valid and recommend a full remand for re-review by Planning Commission and public hearing again before Planning Commission and staff so that we can hopefully identify and address not so much this discrepancy, although it is significant, but we also can take this opportunity to look at some of the parking, loading, and stacking issues that were raised during your public hearing.

[02:43:53] And with that, we recommend remand. Stand ready for any questions. Thank you, Mr. Arcieri. Any questions? Madam Mayor, for that, I would move to remand this back to staff. Second. We have the motion by Vice Mayor Wolfe, seconded by Councilman Smith to approve resolution number 20.

[02:44:13] No, no, no, to remand. Oh, I'm sorry. To remand resolution, I guess the resolution 2025-657, remanding special use permit 2025-002 for Pennington Traditional School. Any further discussion? Hearing and seeing none, Ms. Garcia, please call the roll.

[02:44:32] Vice Mayor Wolfe? Yes. Council Member Smith? Yes. Council Member Ellis? Yes. Council member Osina. Yes. Council member Vasquez Luna. Yes. Council member Hudson. Yes. The motion carries. All right. Thank you very much, sir. Moving forward to public comment time. The public comment portion of the agenda is set aside for those residents who wish to address the council for less than three minutes each. Residents need not give prior notice to the city to speak during public comment portion of the agenda. Residents may address the council for longer than three minutes if they ask the city manager for a place on the agenda at least four working days before

[02:45:09] the meeting. We don't have anyone signed up but if there's anyone that wishes to address council now is the time to do so. Please come forward. Good evening. I see a lot of my concerns from last week's meeting have been addressed at the beginning of the meeting. The parking lot which was specifically brought up at the meeting the Old Town Inn. Diane Lane asked you specifically

[02:45:43] and you said you'd be more transparent. Tuesday morning on Facebook we see what's going on. A year ago when we started coming to meetings you all weren't happy that facebook was the place that people were talking about things so which is it we're going to talk about it in the meeting we're going to be open and honest and transparent with the citizens or we're going to find it out on facebook um i don't know a lot of money got spent here tonight it was this has been a wild eye

[02:46:17] opening meeting um they go in different buckets it comes from this bucket that bucket the other bucket, but we're the bucket fillers. Whether it's local, state, federal, it comes from all of us. My property value just went up 8%, so that means higher taxes. Utilities are going up 8.5, 8.5, 3%. It's getting too expensive to live in this city. Has it been decided that MIFCO is

[02:46:50] going to be a parking garage? I don't know that that was already decided. It seems like it has been. And, you know, as far as everyone getting along, I would love for you all to get along.

[02:47:07] I am here for the city of Manassas. Whether I voted for you or didn't vote for you, it doesn't matter. This is still my city, too. I'm willing to work. I hate coming in here complaining all the time, but it seems like, you know, we've got leaders there and the little people here. It is not welcoming. It's not welcoming coming to meetings. Last week when we could have had a back and forth, no conversation. And that's what I came for, to have some discussion on some of my

[02:47:43] concerns. That's why I sent my email and said, obviously, then you agreed with what my concerns were. I did hear from Mr. Burke, her Councilwoman Ellis and Councilwoman Luna. I had some interaction with them. But it's not a cohesive combination here of people on the council and the residents of the city. It's just money being spent, money being spent, money being spent. So we might not be able to do some of the little fun things that we want to do now. We've got other things that are

[02:48:18] more important. I might want a new car at home, but if I have my air conditioning that breaks, I might have to do that first. So that's how our money's getting spent here too. We have to do what's important for the people here and they can't afford it. It's getting too expensive to live here. Thank you. Anyone else? Hello, Mayor and Council. Linford Calgaryen, Manassas City resident. I do have a rather long statement tonight so I'm going to try to just speed through

[02:48:56] it. Thank you for your comments and for planning to follow up on the topics of our that our residents raised at the town hall. Our residents will appreciate knowing that their voices have been heard, especially when it comes to pushing for greater transparency and fostering a stronger partnership between the community and leadership. Engaging with residents is essential to the experience of living here. However, all too often, while residents succeed in getting small pieces of the pie, they are left wanting more from those who claim to serve their needs. I've learned that simply being heard is the first step, but having representation that truly works to bring the

[02:49:35] vision of the people to life is what truly matters in this entire process. That said, I want to reiterate my strong support for implementing a chicken program. It can be as structured and strict as necessary to meet our city's housing needs, and I'm confident our staff has already built a solid framework to start from. On another note, I was disappointed that some critical concerns weren't addressed tonight, specifically the roundabout on grant, which continues to be a safety hazard, it did not receive the attention it deserves. It's concerning that this issue might be ignored until a serious incident occurs. While the concerns of one resident were addressed,

[02:50:14] this is a matter that affects the entire town and should not be overlooked. Finally, while I'm excited about the future of Dean Park and the upcoming parks and recreation programs, I must express my growing concern over the lack of attention to GMBL in the review and upgrade process.

[02:50:32] The program is essential to school sports at Mayfield, Metz, and Osborne, and it deserves the same level of investment and support as other programs. If we are truly committed to strengthening school sports and supporting our youth, we must prioritize GMBL. It is frustrating to know that the parkland currently occupied by GMBL was donated by IBM, yet it remains on the CIP list for potential sale.

[02:50:55] This sends the wrong message to our community, particularly when you consider the promise that Dean Park would eventually be the home of GMBL. Unfortunately it seems that promise has faded. I urge you to ensure we follow through on commitments we've made. Our kids are watching and they deserve the opportunity to thrive just as much as anyone else in this community. And I have 30 seconds left so I'll just say I know it's hard to balance all the wants and needs. I've sat where you sit. I've done this dance. What I'm sad to constantly have to say from this purview is that people are hurting. We have a federal

[02:51:32] force that's losing their job. We have many of you that pander political rhetoric, and then when it comes time to represent our people, we say we have to do these things. It's great that we've had lower tax rates than everybody else for a minute, but now we can't gouge people for years and years and years in the interim. So I'm just asking this year, cut some stuff and help the residents. Thank you.

[02:51:58] Thank you. Anyone else that wishes to address council? If not, we will call on Mr. Brown for item 5, authorizing a closed meeting. Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of council.

[02:52:13] You have one item scheduled tonight for discussion in closed session, which is the potential sale of a very small piece of city-owned real property near Marsteller School. That discussion is eligible for a closed session. To convene a closed session, I would recommend council's adoption of resolution number R-2025-663, resolution authorizing a closed meeting of city council.

[02:52:42] Madam Mayor, move adoption of resolution R-2025-663. Second. Okay, the motion by Vice Mayor will be seconded by Councilwoman Ellis to approve resolution number R-2025-663, authorizing a closed meeting. Any discussion? Hearing and seeing none, Ms. Garcia, please call the roll.

[02:53:00] Vice Mayor Wolfe. Yes. Council Member Callas. Council Member Smith. Yes. Council Member Ocina. Yes. Council Member Vasquez Luna. Council Member Hudson. Yes. The motion carries. All right. Thank you so much.

[02:53:30] Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the council. Immediately following the closed session, state law requires that you certify that the only matters discussed in the closed session were those which were identified in the motion convening the closed session and which are lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements under state law.

[02:53:49] That certification is contained in Resolution No. R-2025-662, Resolution certifying a closed meeting of City Council, which I recommend for your adoption. Madam Mayor, move adoption to Resolution 2025-662.

[02:54:07] Second. We have a motion by Vice Mayor Wolfe, seconded by Councilwoman Vasquez-Luner, to approve Resolution No. R 2025-662, certifying our closed meeting. Any discussion? Hearing and seeing none, Ms. Garcia, please call the roll. Vice Mayor Wolfe? Yes. Councilmember Vasquez-Luner?

[02:54:23] Yes. Councilmember Ellis? Yes. Councilmember Smith? Yes. - Council Member Osina? - Yes. - Council Member Hudson? - Yes. - The motion carries. - Thank you. Anything else to come before the council? If not, we are done. Thank you.

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