Coraggio Consulting
Manassas City Council 6/16/2025

Date: Monday, June 16, 2025
Place: Manassas City Council, Virginia
Length: 2h 36m (video)
Official meeting video (Wistia / RegionalWebTV): https://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/1i4wtmuedp

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] I'm calling the City Council Work Session to order. Mr. Smith, please call the roll. Mayor Davis-Younger. Present. Vice Mayor Wolfe. Council Member Ellis. Here. Council Member Smith. Here. Council Member Osina.

[00:00:15] Here. Council Member Vasquez-Luna. Presente. Council Member Hudson. McCormick's present. Thank you very much. We have quite a bit on this agenda, so we'll go ahead and jump in unless you wanted to say something before we dived in. So the first item on the agenda is the Finance Committee.

[00:00:33] Item 1.1, Resolution R-2025-884, amending the FY 2025 budget by transferring $250,000 from general fund contingency to the Commissioner of the Revenue for real estate data update in the vision system.

[00:00:51] And Mr. Camaria, the current Commissioner of the Revenue, is here to help us with this item. Good evening, sir. Good evening. I've got something written up here, which is odd for me, so we'll see if I can read this without screwing up. From what I've learned, you know, in my three and a half years, our vision software was never right when we got it in 2002.

[00:01:13] When information was imported from our previous system, it never really fit into vision, and they kind of took round information and put it in square holes. From there, it just kept getting worse, where the system never lived up to its potential, and this should have been cleaned up literally decades ago, 10, 15, 20 years ago.

[00:01:36] We've been very successful in our assessments, not just me, but previous assessors, commissioners as well, because of the incredibly experienced and talented assessors that we have. For the past 10 years or so, I'm guessing on that one, all of our assessors have been retired Fairfax County assessors.

[00:01:59] Very experienced, very knowledgeable. Accurate assessments have been the result of the hard, dedicated work of our staff, not the software. software has been a hindrance to it. Considering that all of our assessors are, all of them right now, are eligible for a second retirement. They've already retired from Fairfax County. They are vested in VRS now and they can retire a second time. We have to consider what will it take to replace them. And for what I've learned trying to find experienced assessors that can step right in with this software,

[00:02:37] experienced assessors who are available are few and far between, probably not existent. We need our software to be able to do more of the work so that we can hire less experienced employees that will be able to hit the ground running with less training. To do that, we need vision to work to its highest capabilities.

[00:02:57] If we lose our current assessors right now and they can retire at any time and we don't have vision up to date and clean, we would be in serious trouble. over 92 million dollars in city revenue comes from our real estate department um with our three assessor positions working over eight billion dollars in real estate values in the city i believe it's a sound investment to protect that revenue what i got so so it's software only just

[00:03:31] updating software right and not any equipment it's basically cleaning it up because there's so much bad information in there that we can't get it cleaned up and we can't use all of the functions that it has. It can do so much more of the work it's capable of if it didn't have all of this junk in the way. And every year, more is piled on top. If we were a larger jurisdiction and we had six or seven assessors, I could put one or two on that to clean it up and maybe get

[00:04:07] away with that. We don't have that. I had hired a chief deputy that I thought would be able to help us with that. He was an experienced real estate assessor. And the plan was to try and use him to do that. And he didn't work out very well. And so right now, we just need help to get that done. And we would be okay if our assessors were, you know, not working on their second retirement.

[00:04:40] But if they would leave us and try and do this now with a system that is not working anywhere near its capabilities, we would be in trouble. So when you say, like, assessments have been correct, no problems there, what are the errors, like you're saying, like reduce errors, like, just give me an example.

[00:04:59] It's functionality that they have to do manually that they can't just put into the system because the system's not working. So it's just that much more work on experienced assessors. Council members, a question? Mr. Smith. Thank you. What kind of learning curve would that be?

[00:05:18] I mean, it sounds like it's an absolute must that we have to do. It would be a much less learning curve. The software would actually do a lot more of the work once it's able to do. So we do this. We're not talking an extended time before to be fully functional.

[00:05:34] Oh, no, no. Next year at this time. But that was right away. Yeah, they'll help us with our assessments this year, upcoming. And, you know, I've had questions of, you know, will we get any of this money back by raising the assessments? You know, and I don't think so because our assessments are very close as they are because of our assessors, not because of the software.

[00:05:58] And the learning curve will be much less. They're able to use this system, the positions we've got now, only because of their experience. And putting in information will be so much easier that we would like to be able to hire less experienced assessors in order to do this work.

[00:06:17] And we can find them. And, you know, we've been looking for this position for a while. And there's just nobody that can do the work the way it needs to be done right now that has applied. I think I fully understand your message.

[00:06:37] But I wish there were a better phrase we could use than lesser experience. Yeah, I know you're right. I understand. Yeah, I a hundred percent more available You've made a point of a question being raised about what we gain No, I see this as an investment in quality of service as opposed to trying to make money on lower real estate taxes I would see this as a necessity and I think it's very important in terms of the quality the quality of the service we get out of your offices.

[00:07:16] And the people that have asked me, you know, will we make any of this money back? No, because the taxes are based on the tax rate, not necessarily the assessment. If the assessment goes through the roof, which it won't, we would lower the tax rate.

[00:07:32] So it's not a moneymaker. It's not. It's an efficiency thing, and it should have been done 20 years ago. Thank you. So vision software or government solutions or whatever, I was looking them up here, you've had that.

[00:07:55] That is the system that, as far as you can tell, has been used in the commissioner's office for a long time. Twenty-three, 22, 23 years. And is it safe to say that there are updates that come in?

[00:08:14] Do you have to buy these updates? a part of the license agreement. They come with a license agreement. It's about $20,000 a year. For the license? Right. Okay. Ongoing here and so forth.

[00:08:30] So what you're attempting to do is plan to do. Hope to do. The goal, the desired goal is there's just a lot of stuff that has the stuff that you hope to address, the reason we have that, is it because...

[00:08:50] There was not enough time, not enough staff to do it. Is it, you know, sometimes we get busy and we don't have enough people to do everything along the way, such as if you ever look at my so many emails I got, and I go, yeah, I ought to clean them up and so forth, and I never get around to do it, and then you look, I've got, you know, 50,000 emails.

[00:09:10] Yeah, it's similar to that, but it started from day one, and nobody cleaned it up then, And it just kept compounding, compounding, and compounding. And we do updates to it, and things change and get a little bit better.

[00:09:30] But all of that information that is clogging everything up, and a lot of it is they talk about our neighborhoods, not our subdivisions, but we've got a neighborhood of two homes. And that's the way they put it in at the time.

[00:09:48] We can fix that, but that's just one example of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of problems that need to be solved. And my small staff just does not have the capability of doing that while they're doing the assessments as well.

[00:10:05] They just can't do that. So the updating that vision would do, that this allocation would pay for, they'd be able to do it without disturbing your office's use of the software? They're going to be helping us with the assessments as well.

[00:10:22] You've got to do it all at one time. So it's all going to be one fell swoop to get new assessments done, which I don't see them changing greatly. I just don't, because when I do, and I've told you about my comparisons, I think the last one I did was in 2023 maybe, you know, we're very close to selling prices on our residential lots.

[00:10:49] And so they're not going to go up a whole lot. And the last thing we want to do is over-assess, so we're definitely not going to do that. So they're not going to go through the roof based on the way we're doing the assessment. You know, the market may change, but it seems to be leveling out.

[00:11:08] So I don't see the assessments going up greatly next year. Has Vision given you a timeline of how long it would take them to do all this work? It'll be this time next year. I mean, as we get done with the assessments next year, once they're done with those, you know, the end of January into February, turn it over to our assessors and we're good to go.

[00:11:30] Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. And I think you might have already explained it, but if you had one person, how long it would take. Because I'm just trying to put that for the residents. I don't know.

[00:11:46] But it would take, if we had one person trying to do this while the assessments are going on, it would be almost impossible. Because you have to have the working record being worked on while being cleaned up while you're working on it.

[00:12:06] And I don't think one person could do it. I think we need them to come in and do all of that at the same time. If we had, you know, three or four extra people and you can cut down on the number of assessments each one of them has to do. I mean, like I say that, you know, we have three positions and they do $8 billion in assessments.

[00:12:26] They are busy people. And that's why we just can't do it now. And we may have been able to do it 20 years ago, you know, when it wasn't so bad. But it just, it just, you know, when you've got a bad foundation and you keep piling onto it, it just makes it that much worse.

[00:12:52] Need from us, it nods and... Unless there's any dissension, we'll include this on your 23rd agenda for consideration. Okay, so I need to find everybody good with it moving forward. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you very much.

[00:13:10] All right, next item number two, legislative committee, item 2.1 is Zone 1, Town Hall and Parking District updates. Who's the lucky one that's going to help do this? I'll take the lead on this one. We'll turn to Matt in a few minutes.

[00:13:27] Basically, as we've talked about before, there is an excess of parking permits that the city has historically been issuing because there's been no limitation in the Zone 1. As a result, we have talked with all of the HOA boards regarding the plan to limit the number of permits per dwelling to do to shrink the number of permitted vehicles and to give

[00:14:00] individuals with permit a better chance of actually having space available to them on city streets. One of the other things that came up during that conversation was a request to adjust the time for Zone 1 to match the Zone 2 so that there's no difference between the times.

[00:14:26] One of the issues that came up, Councilman Elcina questioned whether or not the Zone 1 time change would affect GTS, and it will not. However, our Deputy or Assistant Attorney, I can't remember.

[00:14:46] Deputy, thank you. Amelia went through in all of the records regarding the adoption of the GTS zone, and Council had specifically never adopted the times for the GTS. So in front of you there's a revised sheet that the policy where it adjusts the time for Zone 1, but it also designates the time for Georgetown South to remain what it is.

[00:15:15] but then there is some policy that has been established that confirms the time for GTS. So, open to any questions that Council might have. And we would propose this to be effective in January 1 to give everyone time to prepare for it, as well as to allow our Treasurer to adjust any of the software that they need regarding the number of permits that would be issued to any of these town owners.

[00:15:47] Any questions? Ms. Vasquez-Luna. Awesome. recipient of a ticket. I don't agree with the hours, especially changing it to that. I do believe they need more hours, but I think it's excessive. And, you know, I don't know. I don't have kind of support, but I believe, you know, even though all of them are near the business, still APM is a business hour. They can, you know, affect, you know, whatever we are or whatever is

[00:16:20] happening so and then the 8 a.m. you also have a different time for the school which people park in the school and if you want them to move from the school to the other street then you can have different times so I'm maybe thinking too much ahead on my own experience but yes I would like to my recommendation will be if you are going to change it and apply it there is no from a to a to I would like to look for more like a 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.

[00:16:55] And that is something that I could support when it comes to the time and the changes. I worry when we talk about, you know, we have issues too many.

[00:17:12] I would like to request if it's possible without going to all the details, But, you know, how many people might have more than, oh, I'm sorry, how many residents have more than, you know, more than three, more than four.

[00:17:30] Because that will give me a better idea if, you know, it's more specific to one area. Because these changes are going to, you know, have a bigger effect. And I'm worried about making a drastic change without really knowing if we're going to resolve the problem or if we're going to just put the majority of people at a hardship instead of fixing it.

[00:18:04] I get calls, I get some emails, I do understand we're fixing it, we're making it better. I just, at this time, I'm not feeling very comfortable. I can let you know that the townhouse, the townhome HOA members specifically requested the time to match the zone 2 to better coordinate any of the parking issues.

[00:18:34] Staff had no, we're not attached to any of the hours, but we're simply reacting to the request that has come in. In the packet, there is a map that shows the number of available on-street parking spaces versus the number of parking passes that have been issued with the number that exceed.

[00:19:06] And I could check with the treasurer to identify if we have the ability to identify how many properties have three, four, or five. I know we've had a discussion about that before in the past, and there are a number of properties that have excessive number of permits.

[00:19:29] And the intent of the number of on-street parking spaces that we have versus the demand, we will never be able to meet that even at the two permits per property.

[00:19:45] But this will at least give those that have a permit a Stronger sense that they will have a chance to have space on street available to them Your honor so if you that referencing the map from the city manager you can see we've done the calculation Max two passes exceed the five so we've run the math based on this is a point in time a year ago But we've run the math on you'll still exceed Available parking, but you can see the reduction So, as an example, in the Point of Woods area today, with unlimited passes, we are selling 540 more passes and spaces.

[00:20:25] So, that would be reduced at two passes to approximately 346. So, that's one of the reasons we ran the math to kind of show what the impact of the two-pass limit is. And so, there's still going to be more passes and available spaces, as the city manager said, but it will make a reduction if you're going incrementally and making changes to try to reduce the oversupply.

[00:20:47] That's what two passes will get for you. Would it be possible to have the clerk put this chart up on the screen, the map? Thank you. So we can see that. Sorry, put you on the spot, Mr. Smith.

[00:21:05] Just give me a couple seconds. I think it's helpful for us all to be able to look at it. I know we have it on our pads, but also for our residents who may be watching, as well as seeing it afterwards. Well, he's, I'm sorry.

[00:21:25] Go ahead. Are you done, Mr. Osino? No, I'm not done. I'm waiting for it to come up to ask a whole bunch of questions here along the way. You just got a quick comment. And I know everybody knows it. Yeah. I know this body knows it, but some people watching, it's important to remember the Zone 1 all have interior assigned parking as well, and that's one of the things the HOA has talked to us about is they are giving assigned spots outside of the permits that we give

[00:22:01] as well. So while we're waiting for that, maybe I could ask a little bit about some talk. You're done, Mr. Smith. It's okay, but I'll be done shortly, I promise. I'm not going to interrupt.

[00:22:17] Go right ahead. It takes me back to I, you know, I do understand, I hear it, but, you know, to me we're trying to make decisions that will stay And I'd rather to go little by little and do it right than having to go and then come back.

[00:22:33] And I know we did it and we were successful at Georgetown South. So that's why I'm like, maybe if we are a little bit more cautious. But going back to that, maybe this wouldn't be the only thing to fix it because the other complaint is that they don't move the cars.

[00:22:50] If people leave the cars or if they move the cars, they have a car that saves another car. So, you know, if that is still going to be a problem, even if it's just two stickers, it's still not going to have a space available.

[00:23:11] Can I go ahead and answer, Mayor? So one of the things that we've tried to talk through with our HOAs specifically to her concern is right now, as an example, if you're in bristow station you have your assigned parking spot and you also have a city sticker so when you move your on-street car you move your vehicle from your assigned spot out to the street to save your spot and then you reverse them this solution will prevent that from happening

[00:23:50] because they will have to only have two on-street parking passes they will not be able to move that car to the street to reserve a spot that's what you were kind of talking about right putting cars and saving the spot yeah this would prevent that because they only get two passes they could still have four cars now they're going to have to commit two of them interior and two on the street so we kind of talked this through with the hoa we thought this would be helpful to that concern again we won't know good point we won't know until you do it but

[00:24:29] we did walk through it because my my concern is if if there is few people that have i have no infer no information but they have six six you know they shouldn't but if they do then i want to get to those now but i just you know if there's still this room and if this will fix it even i'm i'm interested in three that's really what i'm looking at because of the great uh results in gts and hopefully i mean i know people they don't buy the stickers because they don't need

[00:25:04] them so and then if if people need uh visitors they can they can get it and you know we already talked about but going to my other one is i part of part of the complaints have been the parking enforcement at night is there parking enforcement other than it's just the police right So when they come around, they do parking enforcement as well?

[00:25:31] Yes, ma'am. So we have the automated tag readers that are connected to the treasurer's office. That is the most efficient way for us to do the parking enforcement. So in the off time, remember our parking enforcement is also our crossing guards.

[00:25:49] So during school, they can't. But sometimes in the summertime outside of school, we will let them adjust their hours to come in early and do parking enforcement as well. My last one, I get from experience and, you know, and feedback, I do feel that even within safety, there's still more opportunities for parking in the street, especially in these heavy areas.

[00:26:18] I get it why it's nice the way you have it and it's comfortable. I'm sure there's measurements and many other things. But I believe there is room for more spaces or sometimes that people don't park right. So I don't know if, you know, I don't have enough information for that.

[00:26:39] But I don't know if it will be good to, you know, mark them so people will park better. I know it makes it different. And I, you know, I'm just saying, you know, what I have heard on my ideas. But, yes, especially over Lomond Drive, I'm wondering if there is opportunities, but I don't want to overstep.

[00:27:03] I'm just like, if people see that, it's, you know, what I'm trying to bring to the table. To make a little bit more room for a little bit more space. It might not even be a whole lot more parking, but it could be a safe place. Well, there's winners and losers.

[00:27:25] For the most part, most vehicles today are much smaller than they were 20 or 30 years ago. We don't see as many Crown Vicks on the street. A lot of folks are moving to more fuel-efficient, smaller vehicles. If we were to stripe it on parking spaces, they have to be 20 feet wide.

[00:27:45] Unfortunately, with some of the smaller vehicles, you have the opportunity to compress the parking area. And that's why we, especially in congested areas, we have found that it is more efficient to rely on folks to try and park as close as they can.

[00:28:04] And then they wind up getting in a 100-foot, you might get six vehicles instead of just five. So there is a, there's usually a benefit to not put in the hash marks for the parking spaces. And we've had conversations with the HOA about that as well.

[00:28:21] And I think a lot of them have come to the realization that if we leave it unmarked, yes, there are folks that will abuse it and try to spread out so that they can fit a car. Again, it comes into being a good neighbor versus someone that's trying to save space for their vehicle in the evening.

[00:28:42] And unfortunately, that's just a complicated issue that it's hard to resolve other than just trying to encourage people to do the right thing and park as efficiently as they can. And the last part I didn't hear, if you could, you know, why there's no more room when it looks like it could be safe to have more space for parking over the Lomond Drive.

[00:29:10] There's plenty of opportunities without blocking. Like, we talk about, you know, how if you're making a turn, it might be difficult when you have the bus stop. But to me, it seems like there's more opportunity to have more parking in the street, at least in that one.

[00:29:27] At intersections, VDOT has established site angles that we have to preserve. And I believe that when we go out to mark the spaces, what you have to do is assume a person sitting at a three or three and a half foot, basically the normal height and the site distance.

[00:29:53] and if there's a vehicle in that site distance, you've got to move the parking space outside of that site triangle, looking both directions at an intersection. So that's what typically causes us to move parking spaces what seems to be an excessive amount at intersections.

[00:30:17] And if there's a curve, it further exaggerates the amount of space that we have to provide for a clear line of sight or to reduce the likelihood of an accident and reduce the likelihood of someone that's coming off of the street not being able to see oncoming drafts.

[00:30:36] I will just add to that. There are, at times, though, areas we haven't looked at in a few years. So a good example, Point of Woods East approach just about two years ago on Portner Avenue and said there's some way we can get some of the parking back that was removed when the Liberia area was cleared out for that project.

[00:30:54] So we went back, we worked with Public Works, and we're able to add on-street parking. So if the HOA or someone in the community says this site distance just doesn't look quite right, maybe the public works hasn't looked at it in a year or two, so we can go out and look at those individualized situations.

[00:31:09] You'll get a space, maybe. There's not that many of them because of how you have to do site distance, but if there are opportunities, we're always around looking to see if we can add any space helps, I would say. And the last one, it's more like, you know, I appreciate that, And, you know, for the residents to be able to hear and to have information.

[00:31:29] But also that we are being proactive. So I really thank you for the information. No, we'll go right ahead. Mr. Smith. Just clarification. I'm looking at the map there.

[00:31:46] The Orange Street parking passage, we're talking about a maximum of two. What's the limit now? Nothing. Nothing. Well, there are probably more questions I could ask to get up to Mike. I'll tell you what my concern is.

[00:32:03] Some of these neighborhoods or some of the residents are fairly close to single-family home residents. Are we facilitating those who might have six cars, if you will, to get two over to single-family?

[00:32:26] Can they use those passes outside? No, sir. In order for someone to park in a single-family residence that is an established parking district, they have to have a Zone 2 permit. What this may cause is some of the folks that have more than four vehicles to look in neighborhoods.

[00:32:48] So what we anticipate we may have happen is there may be an increase in the number of requests for Zone 2 parking districts to be established as a result of vehicles being displaced from the Zone 1 areas. And part of what we would do in the next three to four months if Council adopts this change would be to start working not only with the Zone 1 townhomes, but also continuing to educate the neighborhoods that if there is a parking issue, that there is a process to establish a Zone 2 parking district.

[00:33:30] Okay, just my concern is I can give you almost a personal example of what my concern is. There are streets that I'm very familiar with that seem to have, in this particular instance, consistently called Georgetown South parking permits, overnight parking.

[00:33:51] And I'm not accusing Georgetown South for anything like that, but my understanding is that that's to free up some parking spaces in Georgetown South.

[00:34:06] With the car switching. For these other areas, I won't stop because we can't regulate some of the things that are concerned.

[00:34:24] And I'll just, I have no further comment. I will note, if you look on the map, those light blue areas are your existing Zone 2 parking. So you can see in this part of the city, as opposed to Georgetown South, there are actually quite a few established Zone 2 parking areas already. So the immediate adjacent single-family neighborhoods do mostly have Zone 2 parking.

[00:34:45] so you won't you'll still i think you're correct you'll still see some additional spillover but if you look on the kind of that inset map and you can see georgetown south there now in the corner there's not as many zone two districts around georgetown south kind of limiting the oh until clover hill in that area we don't have those districts but in this area we actually have a much more robust zone two parking district system in place so you probably won't see as much as you saw you're seeing some of the overflow from gts it's just that we can't And for whatever reasons, limit the amount of costs for a household, residents' problems, so forth.

[00:35:25] And I'm just concerned, will this policy be, if you will, game the system that the workaround is we can't limit? So we'll work to give you two additional, effectively. And that's part of what the treasurer has worked out when the city implemented the limit in Georgetown South.

[00:35:47] They created a database that they are able to track the number of permits that are issued to every property in Georgetown South. And so what we will be doing is working to expand that software so that their office will be able to confirm how many permits have been issued to any...

[00:36:07] I guess what I'm concerned about is not so much the permits issued. It's the issue and the permits and what they permit, the unissued cars, unticketed permits. cars and go fishing in the pool in the lake.

[00:36:27] You're correct. If you have six vehicles, you'll be looking anywhere and everywhere to park it on the street. And that is a concern that we have as well, that there will be an increase in the number of vehicles that are attempting to park it.

[00:36:45] We issue zones and building permits, and we talk about maximum parking space, minimum parking spaces the developer must have. And then we tend to ignore that when we start talking about parking and lack of parking restrictions.

[00:37:06] I'm done. Thank you. So to your point, I think what you just said, Ralph, why, for instance, in Ashbury, we were very insistent that when they counted the number of parking spaces we were talking about, there's going to be parking in that garage and they can park on the driveway and they were going to be adopting that HOA.

[00:37:32] They're going to be adopting regulations that garages were going to be used for parking, not for, you know, doing all the storage that we sealed, what they've become here. But you're exactly right in terms of what's, you know, sort of catching up.

[00:37:50] But you're right, the force is already out here. So, Matt, so I wanted to talk about two different things. One is the parking and one about the hours with the chief. So, Matt, so if the idea is, so first of all, the idea is that no more than two, well, let me back up.

[00:38:13] So I look at each of these communities and I take, see the number of units there. And just as an example, Point of Woods East, if I add, you know, there are 359 units and you assume two passes, you would need 718 parking spaces there, 359 times two.

[00:38:35] And what I'm seeing in the chart, I don't see 718 getting anywhere close, even with on-street parking and parking passes whatsoever. I'm correct in that, right? Right. This chart does not include any sort of count of how many spaces they have internal, privately owned and maintained by the HOA.

[00:38:56] So that's a separate. So on top of this number, we're only looking at the public spaces here. There's also, so Bristow Station has, you know, a thousand plus parking spaces. are in their private parking courts they're slightly they're parked a little over two per unit internal so the city is essentially providing is use the gts example the third or fourth or fifth parking pass so let's use point of woods east walk me through this so we're so these charts are only showing city spaces on city streets public spaces on public streets that

[00:39:32] And so, as you said, Point of Wood sees 75 on-street parking spaces. And what do we mean by parking passes, Steve? Well, you tell me.

[00:39:48] That's what the treasurer sold in around January of 24. That's how many passes were on the street versus available on-street public spaces. Okay. And then, therefore, so the current policy, third line, current policy exceeds by 161.

[00:40:05] Correct. Correct. All right. If we do the two passes, we'd only exceed by 112, right? So there would still be a shortage. So each one of these charts shows that when it comes to public parking, there's still a shortage.

[00:40:24] The worst being at Point of Woods, Cannon Ridge, New Britain, 346, right? Right. I mean, you know, the discussion we had back at Retrieve was we were taking an incremental approach to addressing an oversupply issue. So is it two or three passes?

[00:40:40] What you're basically doing here is lopping off the homes that have six, seven, and there's a few dozen in each neighborhood. It's not the vast majority, but you're starting to, you know, and I think if I recall, the conversation we had at retreat was we may have to take an additional step next year.

[00:40:58] There's other rules that I'm not as familiar with about how we might want to address if we want to further chip at that surplus once we put this policy in place. And does each of these communities, these three communities, internally has enough spaces for at least one vehicle to have two?

[00:41:20] These are all built, most of them under county regulations, all built in the 60s and 70s. They're all built, designed around two spaces per unit. Some have some that are parking. If we were building these today, they'd all have to be built at two and a half. none of them meet our current council member i think a couple council members at this point none of these neighborhoods are even at our current standard if you were doing a ashbury today so suddenly over two is i think is i would i know for a fact point of woods is right

[00:41:49] at two so so if we said so folks who live in these communities have the opportunity to get at at a minimum up to two spaces correct internally yes i believe so that's the need to the neighbor But they could.

[00:42:11] I mean, the numbers are there. So what we're really talking about is not only city spaces, but this is above and beyond those two spaces, isn't it? That's correct. All right. Can I ask you a question? No. In the middle of your question, that's in terms of using the word shortage.

[00:42:33] In that Potomac, Fort Worth East example, we agree that there's 719 spaces, right? Twice times 359. We won't know if there's a shortage unless we know.

[00:42:48] I mean, you can't look at these numbers and say that means a shortage. There's 718 spaces there. The question is how many cars are owned by those 300. I guess what I'm trying to say, we can't say that the change in city policy creates...

[00:43:09] an automatic shortage there are ample spaces for for the houses that are there and i wouldn't disagree i think i was just concerned about the use of the word shutters we we're not addressing a shortage of parking in a sense we are addressing and excuse the word abuse of the hoa parking restrictions we're trying to accommodate they can't clamp down and say you must have only two and the city won't come down and say you must have only in and out.

[00:43:45] Well, the HOA could go ahead and say no more than two for their internal spaces. And the city could make some ruling. Let's not get into that debate, but I just wanted to make a point that looking at the chart doesn't create an obvious shortage. Oh, it's not. It's actually giving them more.

[00:44:03] You know, again, just saying my neighborhood, you know, we were guaranteed two, and then there's room for a third vehicle, there'll be a lot of people happy along the way. So what I wanted to establish in my own mind, and I guess for everybody else, is there seems to be enough spaces for at least two internally on the privately owned streets of these three communities.

[00:44:37] And so all we're talking about is the adjacent public spaces. Correct, Matt? All right. And there's, number one, there isn't enough space to give everybody automatically a third, the opportunity for a third place, a space.

[00:45:00] So if we went with reducing the number of parking passes, people would not necessarily be guaranteed a space on a public space, but they certainly would have the opportunity to park internally.

[00:45:20] Now, if they had more cars than two, you're right. And so the problem I think we have now is that we've reached a point where the number of cars people are owning keeps growing, but the number of parking spaces that we have available in our city is not growing because you look at the map, where are you going to put them, to be quite honest, unless each of these communities decides to use whatever open green space to create additional parking, which we know in Bristow Station they have done.

[00:45:53] They've taken some of their green space and created more parking internally along that. And so the idea is, just as you do with Georgetown South, tracking the addresses.

[00:46:09] If I came in and I live in Point of Woods East, and I wanted, under this proposed policy, I could walk in and ask for up to two more, no, I shouldn't say two more, two decals for, what do we call it, Zone 1 parking, correct?

[00:46:32] All right, along the way here. All right, and then I think as Matt pointed out, I can see on the map, you can see that at least all three of them have these big blue buffers of the single-family homes that have gone to parking districts along the way here.

[00:46:51] So, yes, there's no question that the people who would lose the opportunity to park a vehicle would be looking around along the way for other spaces where they find them. Who knows? And then we've seen that happen because of Georgetown South, where people own more and then they have gone to other neighborhoods to park to try to find that space.

[00:47:15] On the hours here, Chief, well, I'm going to assume this is you, but if not, what's the justification for changing the townhomes from 8 p.m. in Zone 1, 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.?

[00:47:32] That's what we heard back from the HOAs. And when you say that, their respective boards said that's what they would support? What they wanted to do, they wanted to match the Zone 2 time so that there's no disparity.

[00:47:48] that's adjacent to them and so forth okay i sure hope those residents they they let their residents know i sure hope they let their residents know this is what they said okay and if i may to help if this is adopted we as a city do intend to put out a lot of information both on social media and in our newsletters beginning as soon as we adopt it

[00:48:20] all right gotcha here i think that's that's all i got i if i have another one i'll let you know thank you thank you madam mayor uh i i understand the matching and i truly appreciate it i think it's needed uh a couple of things so uh you know i don't agree with the hours because i think it's There's no reasonable living accommodation, and I'm specific to that area.

[00:48:55] So my big thing is WIMS. You have people that have to move the car to 5 a.m., but they don't have where to go because the other one is at 8 a.m. So that, if we're going to match, that doesn't, you know, I have kids in school.

[00:49:11] I want them protected and I want them safe, but I don't know, you know, the 5 a.m. and then, you know, where is these people going to park in between that time? That's one of the concerns. Then I don't think that there is a, maybe if we go back, I'm asking if you have a record of everybody getting two, because even though you have gave all those stickers, it could be people that have a lot of them, and there's people, I know people that they don't have more than one and they got two spaces. So they don't have more than one car and they have two

[00:49:48] spaces inside. So they don't even need to. So it doesn't mean that we're going to have a shortage or the numbers are still an estimate. So that's, that's where my concern comes from. So those residents that they don't need it, that is a space that is going, we are counting for it. Of course, I understand we have to have it available for them, but they might not need it. And when you do this change is going to disrupt people's lives regardless of how much time you give them or how you do it some you know like like i've heard before you know they are going to have to move

[00:50:24] along and move out because they won't be able to live like that so coming from there you know if we are going to fix it you know i would love to support it i would love to fix it but we need to fix the hours for some livable hours uh and you know going back to my ticket i literally was going to walk at 7 30 a.m so i went there i parked and i wanted to walk and i was you know hoping that i can remember when it was i think it was like two three years ago but it's to me it's no you know

[00:51:00] i shouldn't have to have a parking to go walk when it's you know even if the school buses are gone by it's the the busy life is going on that's why my you know concern you know people need to park overnight and they need those available but i truly you know i have never agreed to the uh eight to eight i think to allow just too much i'm not saying what will be best maybe you know finding out from you know those who live there but definitely the the having a gap in between

[00:51:32] the school when oh that whole road is pc all night for the whims so and then uh we i don't believe you have uh any uh lead way when it comes to the summer time so you know all the time you have to continue to move your card if you were even though you have your sticker to uh to park there so um i will if we're gonna fix it i would like to you know find a more comprehensive way to fix it all together can i ask a question make sure i understand yes are you saying we should change

[00:52:10] or consider changing the hours for the zone two as well because it's eight to eight are you saying that should be backed up to eight to six or whatever i don't know if i will earn council support but i i believe what i'm hearing is that everybody should be the same and i understand that But from the get-go, I can tell you, so many family activities, I've been in that street at 8 o'clock on a Sunday or a Saturday.

[00:52:43] And no, it's no reasonable. It's no livable situation. And it might be once in a year or twice in a year that I do that. But what I'm saying is that I want us to put ourselves in the residence position, these hours like if you have to move your car at 5 a.m and you that's the only place you can find to park which is a whims you know like how where they can move and maybe there's people already left to work because there's people that live at 4 30. so i'm just i don't have the solution i'm just

[00:53:20] advocating for the people that live there for the residents i don't know if i made it more difficult i'm just confused because i'm going by that's what they asked for i mean they asked to match because they want the same level playing field of hours.

[00:53:39] What I'm saying is that the experience that I have and what I have heard is those hours are too much. The hours on one are too excessive. And then if you put the issue with a 5 to 5, then the people have to move the car.

[00:53:54] Even if there is plenty of space, you cannot move it back to anywhere near because you're not allowed until 8 o'clock. So staff should go back and say, what about these hours five or whatever your your suggestion yes that's my suggestion i don't know if i have any you know anybody support but i believe if you were if for me to support if you are looking at it matching is fine but what i'm saying is that those hours were no working you know at least for the experience or the feedback that i got so when sorry no go ahead so when this

[00:54:34] was originally established a zone two which is a single family homes specifically asked for those 8 a.m hours because in their view the exact example that she's giving is what they did not want to occur workers coming in and parking on their street before 8 o'clock so she's the example

[00:55:04] she gave spot on that is exactly it but that is the reason they asked for those hours and when we organized for for zone two it wasn't it was it wasn't an option how many hours but we just had that those hours and and the issue is knowing the day the issue is overnight correct and the other issue is that you know that they're you know we might need more reinforcement on on the parking And then even though we are allocating two for each, it doesn't mean that they will use it.

[00:55:41] So I still feel like unless we have information on everybody else has at least one sticker or two stickers, I still feel like they will be available just like it happened at GTS. The third one, it was, you know, extra.

[00:56:00] It's hard to fix it, and I understand that. I will tell you on the numbers, there are definitely homes that have zero or one parking pass. So this is, again, a point in time. All that number is, is taking the passes that were sold in January 24 to specific addresses and applying a two cap.

[00:56:21] So it's nothing more, it's not meant to be predictive of what's going to happen, but it's just giving you our best idea of how many passes we could potentially sell with the two cap. And part of the concern that the HOA has expressed to us was that they're aware of folks that have too many vehicles.

[00:56:41] And by the city working with them to basically limit it to be four available, that would most likely discourage the folks that have a large number of vehicles. I have a bunch of questions. Maybe it's a recap of what we've been talking about because I've been listening.

[00:57:01] Just to go back to the number of parking passes issues, that was like unlimited like whoever wanted how much were they a piece 25 okay um so the number of passes for zone two the blue are they restricted to two as well or not currently they're they're unlimited as well all right um are they having a problem with the overflow over there like with ticketing is there like an increase in like police issuing tickets from uh parking from zone one going

[00:57:36] into zone two i'm not sure completely under so if you're asking if we issue tickets for people parking in zone two without a pass the answer is yes okay so if they have a zone one pass they still cannot park in zone two that is correct all right so you're not do you is there how many tickets are issued do you even know like in a month for that type of i'm trying to gauge like give you the yearly total but not specifically for each one as i i understand it's a parking

[00:58:13] pass is unlimited but i'm wondering how many are actually being used as a problem you know where they're trying to search for spaces what what we've had so if you look at the light blue areas so those were incremental like they started off closer to the green area and then the residents further out started having the problem so then they would apply for a zone so it just keeps getting pushed further and further out because people with zone one are now have to find parking

[00:58:50] spots further away and they do but then we get the complaints about the excess parking there and the hoa board is they brought this to us correct to come down to we had a couple that brought it to us and then matt met with all the other ones to confirm another thing um i know that in each community they have visitor spaces and i think it's usually five dwellings it depends on the it's an average i think yeah isn't it wouldn't i it just kind of depends on when that neighborhood

[00:59:27] was built and how many spaces so like for example the 175 if if the average is one per five they They do have an extra 35 spaces possibly in there. They do have extra visitor spaces that they can use. It just depends on the neighborhood.

[00:59:43] I'm familiar with them. Like Bristow Station has quite a bit pointed with these. They're all over the place, yeah. Yeah. It depends on the individual HOA's parking policy. Yeah, I think the number of parking passes issues, it's not showing, like, really how many are being used.

[01:00:01] I think that's why we're kind of, and if we try this maximum two passes and it doesn't work if it causes like a real real problem you have to come back and revisit it which that was the intent that's what we did at georgetown south we came back and then corrected uh some of the problems that they brought forward that i don't i guess the best way for me that is kind of by design see what the impact is and then we come back and see what other solutions we can

[01:00:32] put in place. If you remember, you had a few of the surrounding single-family streets that have approached council over the winter complaining about parking. We did our studies, and they did not meet the minimum requirements, so we did not allow them to get the Zone 2 parking. They may after this, which is the intent of the system. You don't have to take up both changes. Remember, can be incremental so the two parking pass was the main request when we met with HOAs they said

[01:01:11] can you also look at the hours so we brought that before you but if council says let's just do the two this year and then we'll come back and then look at the hours we can do that in a different year we can move however many steps council wants to take to see if we make a an impact on the parking? So my ask, I would be willing to support it if it was three for now, three maximum for now, and the hours as it is, so we can at least, you know, come back and see the results, and then,

[01:01:49] you know. But the hours, what they suggested, and do three, is what you're saying? Yeah, well, they just ask him to match what they already have. Yeah, so I'm okay with three and eight to is what you're saying you're okay with. Yeah, I can live with that if we have three.

[01:02:07] My concern is just two is going to be two. And I get it, it still is five. But it's, you know, thinking about our folks or things like that, I truly believe that it still might be.

[01:02:24] We have to, although we came, but I would like to try to see if that fixes it. So what I was saying, no problem. I was going to talk about the time for a moment because my experience over in Georgetown South is the reason I think the 8 a.m., excuse me, the 8 p.m. is important is people want to have a place to park when they get home.

[01:02:56] And I can tell you before and after, before we did anything in Georgetown South in terms of the number of parking passes versus afterwards here. And that happened when I was on city council and we went past 830, definitely nine o'clock.

[01:03:17] I'd be riding around looking for a space, not to say I couldn't walk, you know, along the way, but nonetheless, there was a challenge. And if we went longer or there was another event that I went to and stayed out, you know, on a Saturday evening and got back 11 o'clock, 1130, you might as well be ready to park, in my case, Clover Hill Road, you know, try to find if you were lucky to find something there.

[01:03:45] All that sort of thing. And hence why it's, I think, for those that live there, they want to be sure that within a reasonable amount of time, it's going to be open, even if they stay out late or they got work or things of that sort.

[01:04:01] Or people who work second shift and get home 11, midnight, that sort of thing, and live there, they want to be able to find, know they have a parking space there in the morning here. As for the morning part, I'm not sure that that's as important because generally the vast majority of us are getting up in the morning and getting in a vehicle and leaving.

[01:04:24] But I would caution us, if we ever went down that route, that the 8 p.m. I think is what we really want to be careful we focus on. Because I think for our residents, that's what they would prefer.

[01:04:41] They want to have a place to come to park when they get home along the way, as opposed to in the morning. I mean, wherever you park your car is where you park your car. You're getting in and walking to it in the morning to drive, you know, drive where you have to go.

[01:04:57] So following up on Sonia's request, Matt and Chief. I'll tell them, don't worry. All right. What do you see any downside of trying trying the three three spaces, the three three permits, I should say, not spaces, three passes at this point without all the I mean, I don't have all the numbers in front of me.

[01:05:23] I can I can certainly run it at three passes and tell you what that'll rerun this chart. I don't see any downside. I still think from what I recall from the data here that there's in most of these neighborhoods you were talking about a few dozen homes that are at the five, six, eight, ten.

[01:05:39] level and you'll nip that right off the top if you're talking about an incremental approach three or two i think it's a council policy decision and y'all can provide us guidance we'll date accordingly unless city manager or doug disagree well i would say i can certainly as i you know agree with with three uh along the way of and give that a year as long as we plan to revisit it Theresa, any thoughts to three?

[01:06:14] Three is, you're willing to try three now. Mr. Smith, any input to three? Well, reluctantly, I just, that's fine.

[01:06:31] Just another band-aid. We'll come back and revisit it. Okay. So this, you do your thing, get us what you need, and then we'll move forward. June or July?

[01:06:46] We can do it on the 23rd or plan for the 14th of July. That'll give you enough time. I mean, there's really nothing. I'll give you updated math as soon as Friday, probably. Okay, so we can do it on Monday. The hours are 8 to 8 still?

[01:07:07] Yeah, try the 3 permit and do 8. Okay. And then if I suspect we'll have to come back, we can adjust the hours. We'll either adjust the hours or adjust the number of permits.

[01:07:24] And then as long as we have time to put it out publicly, like we're doing this time, giving them six months, it'd be my input, that would be the appropriate way to do it. Anything else on that? Any other comments? Moving on.

[01:07:42] Item 2.2, city legislative priorities. I just want to, this is the last work session before your legislative breakfast. The four items that staff had identified based on previous discussions with council, was the noise of maintenance monitoring system to identify loved vehicles, bank data center, personal property tax exemption, the General Assembly funding assistance for federal impact to schools and social services, and General Assembly consideration

[01:08:20] of disabled veterans income tax credit for local real estate property. If there are any other items that council would want us to consider. affordable housing me um that's what i was thinking because i know we're all getting hammered by voice um about the in god's backyard in the state allowing churches to use their land build affordable housing that's i know i've spoken to michelle moldonato about it i'm not at great length but i know that if some of y'all aren't getting hit by voice you will be so um

[01:08:58] and vml we have our board of directors meeting on the 27th of june so we've not even gone there yet so i have all that on my agenda to bring forward to them but that for me is something that i do want to address the yes in god's backyard i believe it's called so you had your yeah one one suggestion would also be i i know it's been introduced by senator mcpike the last two years and passed but hasn't been approved by the governor,

[01:09:31] and that is the giving localities the option to hold a referendum to set aside, or not set aside, but to add an additional penny to the sales tax for the purposes of school construction.

[01:09:52] And that would, you know, because we're a Dillon State, the localities have to be given that. There are some localities that already have that, I believe, permission, but not all of them, and this would allow all of them have to do if they so desire to move ahead to have that option and then hold a referendum if they so choose any anything else that is on the 15th of july at museum museum and madam mayor for the record i will not be in attendance i will be out of town and since you're meeting early in the

[01:10:31] morning i will not be able to visit you at early in the morning uh do the work okay any I second that. Are we both going to the same meeting?

[01:10:50] Yes. Anything else? Nothing else on that? Okay. Yes. We can move forward. Item 3, land use, MIFCO and Old Town Inn, redevelopment, RFP, and public-private partnership. We have the draft RFP.

[01:11:07] Yes, ma'am. Council had asked staff to develop a draft RFP to identify the primary goals of redevelopment of the Old Town Inn, the BIFCO, and the city parking lot. As that document has been developed and is available for your review, one of the concerns that came up was trying to expand the developers' ability to offer any sort of plan that they might for consideration by the city, one of those being a public-private partnership.

[01:11:45] That came up specifically because some of the components of this development, specifically the annex and the parking garage, are on property that the city anticipates retaining through the development.

[01:12:01] That would complicate some of how the traditional, we sell the property, they develop it, and there's a back and forth on any of those issues. With the city retaining ownership, it limits a typical proposal because we still have to retain ownership.

[01:12:23] A public-private partnership would allow a developer to present greater flexibility in how they would present a proposal to the city. It does, by the city adopting the guidelines, does not lock in any developer to do that.

[01:12:40] It simply gives them the ability to propose that if it makes financial sense for that development. Our staff have developed the draft guidelines, and per state regulations, the city would have to adopt those guidelines to consider future public-private partnership applications for any development, not only with this lot, but any other development in the city, should there be a future desire.

[01:13:12] So staff are ready to address any questions that council might have about either the guidelines or the draft RFP. We have not issued the RFP yet. The draft guide did not attend the PPP. Yeah, okay.

[01:13:29] He asked about the draft. The draft is actually the PPP, the public-private partnership guideline. Yeah. And of course, Mr. Brown's office. I thought it was well-done document. You guys did this or worked with the staff? I thought it was a well-done document.

[01:13:45] Good staff, yes, ma'am. I'll say that in stereo. It's a well-done document. I had a question. I had written some stuff in my margin. I can't find it. It's a one copy on page. I guess it's 7, but it's 28, 728.

[01:14:02] I don't know. One copy of accepted unsolicited proposals shall be made available for public inspection in accordance with the provisions of blah, blah, blah, blah. How is that made available for public inspection? We would have it here in the building if someone were to come in.

[01:14:19] They would ask to see it, and we would have that available for them to review. It would be in a secure location, probably in our office or in community development. And then we would notify the public when we receive it where they can. And then I wrote qualifications and experience just below that.

[01:14:41] And it may have been mentioned, and I looked a few times, but references on people that are submitting. Because I didn't see that, but maybe I just missed it. um do they have to provide references on work that is that at that point or is that later I don't know well they list like projects or reference do they give that and maybe like I said maybe I just missed it item C would the the name and prior existence so it gives general guidelines it's not specific and if we aren't comfortable with what history they give this is this is just to give

[01:15:20] them a general guideline it's not to lock in they could they they should give us more information but this is just to establish minimum and if if the city isn't comfortable with the proposal we don't have to act on it right right okay that was all i had just kind of jumped out at me okay council members um this question is for our deputy city attorney here so what what process

[01:15:54] do we have right now for for doing development projects under public-private partnership we do not i understand that so how does a project get done now what what is it called now there's usually a proposal if if if we weren't looking at having the annex or the garage be a component of this project if we simply had the old town in and we wanted that developed we would

[01:16:31] accept a proposal I want to build X Y & Z on this property and in order to do that I will pay the city ABC per acre for this property and then there's a back-and-forth of okay like this we don't like that can you modify this there there's a good it's a typical real estate transaction if you were with us specifying what we want in general done on the property and then they they telling us what they can afford to pay us for the property and then do the

[01:17:07] redevelopment and at the end of the day we don't own the property they they purchase the property they develop it in conformance with whatever stipulations are agreed upon in the property sale that's usually what the city has done historically because what we have learned because of the size of the lot for where the old town end unfortunately in order for developers to have a successful financially viable project they are

[01:17:42] not able to build the hotel space in combination with parking space so what we have heard is that in order to facilitate that development, there would need to be off-site parking spaces available.

[01:17:58] Okay. The problem that the city attorney has identified with that is that it's a complicated financial transaction. We could either do a long-term lease or we effectively will set up a condominium for parking spaces in that garage. So there's a few options there, but it becomes complicated. And the public-private partnership would then offer them, the developing community,

[01:18:31] an opportunity to say, okay, within greater ability to talk, we are going to propose a public-private partnership where we've got a long-term relationship with the city for these number of spaces. You sell us this. We still have a share of that. And this simply facilitates a potential discussion. It's not the, it doesn't say they have to do that, but we're hoping that by adopting these guidelines and offering the ability to have that type of

[01:19:03] communication, we will hopefully see a better response to the RFP that's been drafted. So, sorry, I just blanked. Would, is it possible in a public part, public private partnership, since we're using the example of parking garage here, that the private entity that could build or contribute toward the building of that garage?

[01:19:43] Yes, there's a lot of flexibility. So that's the next step. The guidelines establish a framework that then, as ideas are solicited, It can be in combination with the parking garage, with the annex.

[01:20:05] It cannot be solely the hotel on its own. It has to have some public interest, and that would be in the parking garage or the annex. But nothing else. So, for instance, if we decide that we want to put up retail space on, you know, further on this side here, it wouldn't include retail space.

[01:20:34] It would have to be those two items in this particular example. Well, no, if you were saying that they, the developer, could incorporate whatever they wanted to on public property, it does facilitate that. It doesn't exclude any, it allows them, again, it allows them greater flexibility to say, in order to make this project viable for us, we would want to put a movie theater on the top floor of the parking garage.

[01:21:02] And, again, that would require some form of commitment by the city to allow that to happen. I'm not saying that in this day and age I don't think we'll see a movie theater. But, again, the desire on the part of staff is to give the development community greater flexibility in how they can look at this project rather than just the focus of, I buy this property, you tell me what you want to see on it, and then we effectively part ways.

[01:21:34] But it is a two-way street. In other words, it's not a way for a developer to get money out of the city necessarily. The developer might say, you know, I want to do these things, and through this public-private partnership, I'm willing to contribute or to get this movie theater on the top of the garage to make it happen because I really believe this is very important.

[01:22:03] That's a possibility as well. I'm not saying it is going to happen, but it's back and forth along the way. And so part of the guidelines, I mean, part of the consideration is also the benefit to the public good, meaning does this movie theater actually meet a compelling need, for instance, or along the way.

[01:22:26] Is that correct? Correct. All right. And again, with the annex being part of what we're discussing in the RFP, there's really no benefit to the developer for that.

[01:22:41] So by allowing them to say, you know what, you consider this, I can contribute that, it allows us to have a better discussion about possibilities. And if you know, does this make lenders more willing to lend to a private entity, to a business, to do a project?

[01:23:07] Well, does that make it more attractive for them? Because they always want, I mean, businesses need financing and they're always. If you're saying is a triple rated government, triple A bonded government involved in a project, something that a bank would say, okay, developer, if you have a partnership with these guys and they are saying that they will lease back four floors of an annex and two floors of a parking garage that you are building, I would say yes.

[01:23:38] A bank would see that as an assurity of whatever loan they make, that they would get their return. Very good. Thank you, ma'am. Any other questions? Is the main reason we're doing this because the parking garage, the city employees need space to park.

[01:24:05] Well, no, the main reason that we're doing that is because we plan to keep the property where the garage is anticipated to go, but the hotel and most likely the residential commercial on MIFCO will need space in it. And if it is our garage that they would build for us with some partnership of, you know, we build it, we need so many spaces for this development, so many spaces for that development, there is the potential that there would be a public-private partnership to facilitate it.

[01:24:40] It doesn't have to be, but there's a likelihood, and that's why we want to have that opportunity. Because that second garage is in the CIP, right? Yes, ma'am. So we were anticipating funding it. Yes, ma'am. When we weren't certain of the MISCO acquisition, we knew that in order to facilitate the redevelopment of the hotel site, we would need to have some relationship for parking.

[01:25:08] So that's why we were pushing forward with that, because we did not want the hotel site to sit dormant any longer. Okay, I understand. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I truly appreciate this at the table.

[01:25:23] I believe the U.S. Church has been successful with a plan like this. I'm not sure if there are other essentials, but that's what comes to mind right now. For me, the vision is, you know, the old town part is not going to get any bigger.

[01:25:43] We can say future council or future governing body to the same thing that Madam Mayor and this governing body helped us, you know, pull out of, which is, you know, having a suara right in the center instead of, you know, a beautiful, attractive place for visitors and residents to enjoy.

[01:26:05] so my you know i i love the part i'm just no marriages to that because i i truly worry about you know maybe you know 30 40 years from now how that hotel is going to look like and how uh the future council will have to deal with that so i will be open uh to do more i do understand the residential part that will have to be sold and online i get that part but anything else that we can, I mean, it's no different than what we do, even though the laws might be a little different, it's no different than what we already do at the airport, or what the federal

[01:26:42] government does, you know, for like a small amount, you know, they have, they still hold their ownership, but they're able to do this for many, many years, so I will love to hear that, and, you know, I hope that that's the message we're sending, but I'm not just worried about this area. I believe we're going to grow it up. I believe there will be different investments. And yes, we have seen how much we have grown. So my concern is, you know,

[01:27:16] being able to do not only parking here, but also the hotel. I'm not worried about the part after the parking building because, you know, I get it. And then it takes me back to the other part too you know the same part of the reason for the revitalization is you know where the shopping centers are and having a way to impact that and make it better so I know it's no I believe we had conversations before about this part I know it's not something that every

[01:27:52] investor is looking for I know it's not something that they are you know you know knocking on door to do a partnership, but I believe it is an important opportunity, and it is for me as an elected official to make sure that we do what's right and what's best for Manassas.

[01:28:18] And I believe the right people will come along, but I hope the message is not just here, but is also more than possible, understanding that those places that will be sale will be sale. But I would like to be able to give control to future councils of that if that becomes a problem.

[01:28:44] You are correct. There are a number of localities around Manassas and throughout Virginia that have already adopted these guidelines, and we used a number of those localities as the basis for the guidelines that are presented to y'all and right now that's all we're asking for is for council to say that you would consider the adoption and then once we get that then we can refine the the RFP as as as council desires before we issue it but again we're just hoping to have greater flexibility and what types of proposals

[01:29:17] could come back to the city so move forward we'll include that on your 23rd as well use all the tools in the toolbox yes ma'am to get it built and done so okay next item is 3.2 citizen rental policy updates all right so a follow another follow-up from retreat our ongoing discussion of downtown events and impacts uh from our being a victim of our own success to quote the chief so i put a little quick white paper together to kind of show you where we are

[01:29:55] in your packets, and I think can you circulate that? HMI has also been really useful. We've been working closely with HMI to kind of track, especially and we all know this lawn event's primarily where we're hearing a lot of concerns about the impact of these events, so HMI has been using some of their tools to kind of help us out with what we're seeing in terms of what the impacts of lawn events are.

[01:30:16] The position paper, the white paper that I put in, put into your packets is kind of a summary of what we've already done, so as a reminder primarily for folks at home and for the public we've already up until last year the city actually didn't have a lot of restrictions on how often you could rent from the city we made a decision a few years ago to start renting the lawn it's become increasingly popular so for this year this is the really the first year that we even had to place rental restrictions on so that the first two things that we've changed and are in place right now is we implemented the notion of having blackout dates in the downtown

[01:30:52] so just weekends where we're not renting certain city facilities that's both a lot in the pavilion to kind of take some pressure off of city resources and allow downtown businesses to operate without the extra influx of events. And we've also, in this year, for the first time ever, imposed a limit of one rental per month for a facility.

[01:31:11] These changes have had a noticeable impact on the number of events you're seeing downtown. If you think about right now, between the Puerto Rican Day Festival and the next time you'll see an event, there's going to be quite a bit of a gap there as we've imposed some blackout dates and other restrictions.

[01:31:26] So you'll notice some of these renters won't be back for a month, and that's partially as a result of these policies. So I am recommending we keep those in place going into the 26th season. At the Retreat Council, I ask that we continue to increase rental fees so that we're not always the lowest price in town.

[01:31:44] That was adopted as part of your 26th budget. That will go into effect on July 1. So for private rentals, that fee is already going to go up starting July 1. The other recommendation I'm making at this point is that we standardize rentals in the city. So currently, the lawn can actually be rented pretty much from March 1st all the way to the end of the year.

[01:32:04] Harris Pavilion is a little more restricted April 1st to October 30th. I'm recommending we standardize our rentals, again, both for limit the impacts and also it helps with our staff resources. I'm recommending April 1st to October 30th be our standardized rented schedule for both facilities.

[01:32:20] So for the lawn, that will take March rentals and November rentals off the table. So both facilities will be rented approximately April through October 30th. And then the last piece of this document is I just went ahead and I've been talking to downtown businesses, the city manager has, managers of council have, HMI has, and I've tried to capture when we hear a suggestion all the other policy ideas that are out there if council wants to go further to limit how much we're renting.

[01:32:49] And it ranges everything from discontinuing lawn rentals, which is something we've heard, go back to a way we were 10 years ago to everything to further decreasing not renting to for-profits so as an example those craft festivals you see on the lawn that have been here for a few years those are for-profit events and then everything in between and I didn't attempt to rank these or give you my opinions because at this point the further we go with these restrictions quite honestly the folks who are going to get the calls why can't I have my event on the lawn why can't I have my event at the pavilion those are going to go to council and the city manager and myself if

[01:33:24] they're going to go to they're going to go to council so I wanted to make sure that we have a unified guidance from the city council and I'm not constantly having to make administrative adjustments to my park rules every time someone comes in and wants that extra that you know they got to have that wedding or they got to have that event so at this point and then I did provide some numbers to kind of get at what are what the impact of a lawn rental is on the downtown thanks to HMI so the most important thing in here is if you look at the chart that I handed out this is just April May of this year, you can see that when you have an event on the lawn, it does actually result in additional foot traffic in the downtown. So these are folks, so if you take the top line

[01:34:04] for the Thai Festival in April 6th, that event had 4,900 attendees. At the same time, there was 2,000 people in the downtown that's north of the tracks. About 400 of those folks were from the festival. That's just to give you an example. So that's someone who went to the festival and then went on the other side of the tracks and stayed for a minimum of 30 additional minutes on the north side of the downtown so you do have some not huge numbers but you do have some spillover foot traffic on the in the if you want to call it the historic downtown of the downtown traffic as a result of these lawn rentals so how businesses translate that into getting inside HMI is still

[01:34:43] working with business to see if what that looks like versus you know they these events take a lot parking so is that having an impact so uh just a lot of information but really what we're looking for today is of course my recommendation is we kind of continue the rental policies we have in place tighten things up a little bit and then i'm going to look to council for guidance if there's other policy changes you want to implement especially when it applies to the lawn but quite honestly also to the pavilion because we have to be standard in how you know hours that we rent between the two facilities as an example so that's this one more of a comment I'm looking

[01:35:22] for the feedback my concern is that we treat residents and businesses no no businesses but those making the business of renting for profit oh even if it's a non-profit but if they're making profit it's still it's you know some type of revenue being made so in that I'm more do you have any information on any knowledge of making a difference between uh you know a resident and someone who is not a resident uh and i know it will make it a more complicated i'm just asking

[01:36:02] for you know a little bit more information if you have it so we your current fee philosophy is not resident non-resident based it's something i think i want to take a look at we've talked about this with the community center as an example that's a larger thing i want to do as part of our when we update our park master plan your current philosophy is essentially a 50 discount to non-profits to 501c3 so we verify that um versus say again that craft fair is a good example of a a for-profit rental so they pay full fees they pay for everything you need additional um trash or law enforcement they pay for all of that they don't get any discounts from the city whereas if

[01:36:38] you know so on the lawn anything's possible is a good example they were in may that's a non-profit They get a 50% discount on the lawn, and then they also are eligible for some of those event grants that council has set up over the years. Again, that's another good point. For-profits, not eligible for an event grant from the city.

[01:36:56] Okay. I'm sorry. I'm thinking two things. Part of the worries me if people come, but they don't become a spillover business for the all-town part, and then there's no parking, everything is busy, the lawn is also being used and getting tired or, you know, the usage is higher without having greater income for the business, the brick and mortar.

[01:37:35] And, you know, that concerns me. I think for me that the April to October is good, but I'm thinking about a resident with a small, wanting to get married, A small private resident wanted to do it, whether it's at the lawn or at the pavilion.

[01:37:55] And you may never have had it. I'm just, you know, always looking out to make sure that if our residents need it, that they are able to do that. Because that wouldn't hurt, you know, businesses. That wouldn't hurt, you know, the lawn or take up a lot of parking.

[01:38:12] So that and the part that you already explained. And that, you know, the park rule we did this year, which is no more than once a month. So we had the Thai Festival wanted to rent. They started off every weekend and we said absolutely no way. So that's when we realized we needed a rule that said, what's the max rental?

[01:38:28] For staff's perspective, from an administrative point, we settled in at once a month is the most we're going to rent to any one person per facility. And it's partially to your concern. I mean, whether the lawn is just being used as open community space, green space or available to a resident, we knew we had to put some sort of rule in place because you could have someone, you do have people because we're a victim of our own success, that would say they would rent it every Sunday if they could.

[01:38:55] And we knew that would be a non-starter for the community. So that's kind of where we've gotten to the once-per-month rule. And again, we can tighten these things up further. But I do share your concern that absent rules, the lawn and the pavilion as well are very popular spaces for rentals outside of the community and inside the community.

[01:39:18] Well, and on that score, well, I appreciate, and I know there have been weddings that have been held at the Harris Pavilion, for instance, but we do have other options in the city, which we're very fortunate.

[01:39:36] There's Liberia, that perfect place for those kinds of things. Annenberg, we're working toward that sort of, and I think as we think about these things moving forward here, that they're going to be, I think, some places, what's in Old Town is going to be designed more for creating business and those that want a nice place to do whatever.

[01:40:06] I'll use weddings as the occasion that we, Annenberg and Liberia, seem more appropriate to direct them to in that sense. And in fact, probably maybe, I'm not going to say we need a policy on every single thing, But, you know, guiding people who come along and saying, you know, this is going to be, both of them have some parking, you know, have parking, Annabur has on that kind of thing.

[01:40:38] One of the things, I was certainly a proponent of the, what do we call them here, the, thank you, for this year. And yes, I did see how that still didn't do things.

[01:40:57] And I think we need to keep in mind, almost like the parking, you know, we cannot control, just like on the parking, you know, how many vehicles everybody owns. And likewise, I cannot, cannot, you know, make people go to Old Town when they come.

[01:41:24] Part of that is, I think, like with the blackout dates, I haven't seen a lot, but I will admit I'm not walking down on those blackout dates every weekend just checking around with this in mind here. But people want a reason to come, and whether it's a business having a special or whatever, you know, show your love for Old Town weekends and stuff of this sort, that part of running a business is creating that buzz that gets you in, especially when there isn't an event.

[01:42:04] The city can do certain things to kind of create that, but I'm hopeful that when we, you know, pursue this later on with HMI and so forth, that hearing plans of what's going on in that regard, because it is a partnership and these are things we need to be doing.

[01:42:25] And to just arbitrarily say, don't do any of these events, or looking at these numbers, for instance, and using your example, Matt, on April the 6th, where 408 people who were at the event also went downtown, and somebody saying, well, 408 isn't enough, it should have been 1,000, or, you know, I had no expectation of what the numbers would be.

[01:42:52] It's just great that HMI is collecting this data now, and now we can start seeing where we are on those sorts of things. I will note that some of the, since this is April and May, you know, one was Mother's Day, one in May there, one was the Memorial Day weekend here, where, again, yes and no would attendance be up and so forth and so on.

[01:43:21] But of the list of things you've got here, Matt, that you did on your event rental policies here where you have recommendations for 2026 and then others, are there those that you need feedback on or you are doing these things such as increased rental fees?

[01:43:46] Well, we did that in the budget. Are you planning on standardizing rentals? I would recommend we move forward with that. I'd look for councils head nods. You will get calls if someone has a November, they can't get it. I'm just anticipating a call to the mayor or a call to a council member.

[01:44:02] We all have our events that we talk with, so I just want to be – I would like the support to go ahead with that one. The other policy options all have pros and cons. None of them speak to me. I always kind of counsel. We can come back next retreat and say we can keep on working with HMI, working with businesses.

[01:44:22] to Council Member Rossi at this point, let the HMI and their Promotions Committee figure out what to do with these blackout dates. It's only the first year. We're still in the process of communicating to businesses that these are all 25 rules. The city didn't have any restrictions on rentals until 25, so it's a work in progress.

[01:44:40] It's incremental. None of them jumped out at me. I would not want to go so far as to, and this is before my time, but the complaint where we started renting, the lawn was not rented for a long time, the 10 years ago. Don't quote me on that time. What are we doing? Why are we not activating the downtown? There's not enough events. If you go too far, I feel like you'll be back in a position two years from now asking me, can we start renting out? Can we start using the lawn again? So I'm just, you know, incremental and small steps. I will note on the food, we've taken a lot of steps to protect the lawn. We've made some investments. We've had irrigation to the lawn to try to

[01:45:20] keep up with demand. So it's all a work in progress. I would recommend generally that you let me work with HMI, with the PD, or kind of the three groups that do events, and see if we need to make additional changes.

[01:45:35] We basically have to hold this accountable for every fall. We get together as a group, as a staff group, and say what worked, what didn't group work. So we address individual organizations, concerns individual events. So I'd like to keep doing that, and if we need to tighten the rules up further, I'll come back to you and let you know that I think we need to go further.

[01:45:52] So related to that, I do want to note, I thought it was ingenious of HMI to put up a large banner on the parking lot right across from the lawn to remind people that there are a listing of different types of businesses there.

[01:46:10] And with the arrow along the way, you'll probably need a second one. But, I mean, that's a great way to publicize, remind folks along the way. And I believe they're looking, HMI that is, looking to have literature or something like that shared again.

[01:46:29] But let's be honest, people want, just like these events take place and people want to come to them, Our businesses need to understand that their role is to market and they need to encourage people to come see them along the way and let them, you know, get a gander of some sort in that regard.

[01:46:54] So, yes, so you had a suggestion here, limit afternoon rentals to end at 3 p.m. Is there, what's the thinking behind 3 p.m.? Is there something free of parking for the dinner? dinner. Gotcha. Okay. I'm with you there. Okay. Sounds good. I do appreciate it. And I would imagine this sort of get-together with HMI will be taking place that you do in the fall

[01:47:25] before the 2026 rental season gets publicized and is open. It's essentially an internal staff HMI exercise to set the schedule so we try to minimize conflicts not have multiple events going the same weekend it's something again we didn't do two or three years ago trying to spread out the schedule de-conflict give the officers some weekends off. I would tell you the blackout dates and I don't want to speak for it but the folks I talk to in PD you know knowing that they don't have to be on call I don't get the terms

[01:48:04] wrong for Memorial Day weekend because we have it blacked out has been a positive I would say very well received well I I do think that for instance when we have these holidays Memorial Day Labor Day but even you know July 4th you know doing a first Friday and then July 4th on a Saturday which has occurred and that's a lot you know a lot going on here and to to do away with the first Friday and do the July 4th I mean let's focus in on what we can do well and not

[01:48:37] trying to do it all uh and uh same thing with thanksgiving uh i think those are the sorts of things we wanted so very good so uh this is a snapshot here for april may um for june july august did the same two food festivals have each first and second saturday no they're they're more spread out as we get into the peak event season so i don't think one one of the next time we have one of these private renters is, I want to say, July, the end of July at this point.

[01:49:15] They really started to spread out because of some of the other policy changes we've made. Okay. So I do have a question. How do you get the numbers, like 4,900 for the food festival? I see that it's laser AI. Right. Laser AI, to my understanding, is tracking your cell phone pings.

[01:49:32] So it doesn't pick up kids if you don't have a cell phone, but it's giving you a general idea of if a cell phone ping is sitting in the area for 30 minutes or more, it's getting counted so and they see the ping move to right they're able to it's pretty cool technology you know they're able to draw a box around the museum lawn and a box around the downtown north tracks and track how that cell phone signal how long you got to be at the you got to be at the lawn for 30 minutes yeah there's a little big brother there but it does help us get the data to kind of back up our downtown business is there you know the common refrain is no no one goes to the downtown

[01:50:08] so we have some data to show and you know we wanted to make it 30 minutes or more because 15 minutes you might be looking for parking so we wanted to really start to collect the data so council can make informed decisions going forward with your policy is there any data on who is what events are getting turned away because they're booked up i mean we i mean we are we still have some limited rentals get turned away no i think the um the biggest conversation has been with some of these private renters and you're not going to be able to rent from us i think i used the example the um the other food group came in and they were like how do we duplicate the thai festival we want

[01:50:47] every weekend and we said again from a city from a resource perspective from a downtown business perspective that's not something the city can support so that's what we started to realize going back to the victim of your own success we're going to have to have some guard rails otherwise you'll have events saturday and sunday april through october yeah you start to get a lot lot of repetition okay thanks yes uh so the time that you have on the event right now it says five are we uh suggesting that we adopting the three o'clock because i really don't like that that's

[01:51:24] something we've heard from so in that other policy options it's kind of everything i've heard from a business from hmi from members anyone said hey this is an idea you know we've been collecting up people's comments and trying just to have these are all the things that are out there they're doable but i think to your point i mean will it through going to 3 p.m make a difference and that would go across the board it could apply to pavilion events as well i don't know if that would be i don't know if that would have a huge impact versus 5 p.m but it's out there just something that we've heard from the community i'm concerned about the current ongoing

[01:52:01] events that we have i need two months a year but i mean i do want to see a more limited time but I don't think three or five o'clock will be it. I'm thinking more like a six, but I understand we're not adopting it, so I'm good with it.

[01:52:19] It's just a conversation. Yes, so going back to the blackouts, I know I believe in one of the conversations at Gerani's Coffee I was talking about highlighting the small shop local or small businesses. I know I understand our partnership or, you know, how it works, I'm just saying if our staff will continue to see that

[01:52:47] because my concern about HMI is to have a very healthy, productive, main street focus so those businesses do get their highlight.

[01:53:10] If we are blocking out, you know, we still have to make sure that, you know, they are not getting hurt, you know, because it can work both ways. So that, you know, if the staff can, you know, some way continue, I will continue to do my part in trying to highlight that.

[01:53:29] I believe I'm getting a little bit too much in the weeds, but I'm still going to say it. You know, we have heard about one or a couple of businesses when it comes to HMI also having those big businesses or big change, you know, for their events and know the local.

[01:53:54] And I know that we can, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to advise or give guidance. I'm just bringing up the comments that, you know, that is also another way that, you know, I think it could be important that, you know, that they get rise to first refusal, they get a choice, or they get highlighted or percentages accommodated for them because it is still our line.

[01:54:19] It still is our, you know, coming from where the renting place, I would like to see that because it's not different. So it's not different than the food festival that comes to do business and make, you know, make profit than what they do at the 4th of July when, you know, you don't recognize, or you do recognize them because they are like what you find on every big fair, so, you know, within that, I'm sorry, I don't have it crafted the way, you know, it's not easy.

[01:54:57] We will be bringing HMI to talk with you all more about those types of specific items. And the last will be, you know, let's not forget that our farmer's market, Like, we are blocking out to help them. And I know the HMI might don't see the economic value or the economic impact, and they will create it because they will have those blackout times for people to focus on that.

[01:55:21] But I would like to also for them to be able to have rise to first refusal or an opportunity because those are the complaints I have received before. When it comes to the big events, 4th of July, all the things that they are now seeing, And then you have some food that, you know, it might not even be the best or something that we are used to.

[01:55:44] I hope I, I hope it was understood. But please, I'm all about small business, shop local, or the farmer's market, so they can sell before we bring big chains or big hot dog company or big hamburger company when we are going out of our way to make this happen or to accommodate you.

[01:56:08] Thank you. So when do you update the comprehensive plan? We're going to start probably at the end of the year. Yeah, start working on that. It's a big project. Yeah, yeah. That's why I wanted to kind of have it on my mind and start doing that.

[01:56:27] I didn't know. Yeah, towards the end. So once we get through the comprehensive plan, it's one of the recommendations in the comp plan update, but then the Parks and Rec Committee and the Historic Resources Board kind of oversee that it's a pretty comprehensive it's been about 10 years since we did that plan so but yeah fees i've heard from i think all the members of council that looking at different fee structures will be part of what we do as part of that when we say limit food vendors what does that mean uh you know there's been a notion that we should not have any food vendors on the lawn um put them on paved surfaces and everything in between so and i think some of it goes to council

[01:57:04] directed at the lawn yeah and you know competing with downtown brick and mortar i think that's to to Council Member Vasquez-Luna's point. Do we just stop renting, too? Do we just say no food vendors? That's all I had.

[01:57:19] Anybody else? Any questions? Thank you, Matt. Appreciate that. All right. Next is the transportation program update from Chloe. She sets up just to lead you in. So every six months or so, most transportation funding applications need to go to Council for endorsement before we submit them to the state and federal agency that's going to actually give out the money so before we start submitting applications chloe provides you an update every six months or so i always like to say since we started doing this process 83 of submitted funding applications were awarded for a total of 45 million dollars since

[01:57:57] 2018. so this is success an ongoing success and chloe will take you for where we are in our transportation program world yes good good evening um so a table was attached to including in the packet showing all the funding sources and candidates projects and I'll go over the I'll go over the one that highlighted in orange tonight in the presentation which are the upcoming funding applications. So first is the DIN DRI winding project which is an active CIP project

[01:58:32] T39 and this is to apply for additional funding and the project is to widen DIN DRI from the animal shelter to Wellington Road, add curb, gutter, and bike lanes, and include a bicycle paster in connection to the Wellington Trail, which is under construction.

[01:58:49] We're proposing the funding source revenue sharing, which is a state fund for FY29, FY30. And the application is due on September 15.

[01:59:05] Next is the Jackson Avenue Sidewalk, which is a 0.2-mile, 5-foot-wide sidewalk on the east side of Jackson Avenue between Saddle Road and Barnett Street. Again, here we're proposing revenue sharing for FY29 and FY30, and application deadline is the same, September 15.

[01:59:23] This project was presented at the annual Bicycle and Pace Train meeting on May 22, and there is an active public survey on the webpage for feedback. And just before you hit that, just as a reminder, in addition to doing the annual meeting, if your property is adjacent to a sidewalk, you're going to get notified about the city.

[01:59:42] this is the planning phase of the process so before we ever go to full capital project this is literally meeting with the neighborhood making sure that they know that this is something we're thinking about we try to get as much public comment before we start spending money on these projects and all purpose projects come from either active cip or the comprehensive plan next is the center of the sidewalk which is a 0.2 mile sidewalk on sandoval road on the east side of sandoval road between Weir Place and Prim Lane. It would also include side work on Kerch Lane and Reb Yank,

[02:00:17] and a potential pedestrian crossing on 28th. We're looking at two funding sources, the Transportation Alternative Program, which is for FY27-28, and Revenue Sharing for FY29-30, and the deadline again is September 15. This project was also presented at the annual Bicycle and Pedestrian Meeting on May 22nd, and the public survey will be available soon with everyone within 300 feet are contacted with a letter letting them know the project so that's coming up. Next is the Railway Trail for a three-mile multi-jurisdictional trail adjacent to the VRA

[02:00:55] Manassas line between downtown Manassas and the Bull Run Trail in Fairfax County. This project will connect two VRA stations, four localities, the historic downtown Manassas with Park Central in Manassas Park, and then two green spaces and parks such as Blooms Parks or the Bull Run Coquan Trail. The proposed funding source for this project is NVTA 70%, which is for FY 30-31, and the application is due on August 1st. This project was presented at the annual Bicycle Pedestrian meeting on May 22nd, and then there will be an additional public meeting just for

[02:01:33] this project once we have refined the alignment and we can present something to the community before the deadline next to the knoxville trail which is a 0.6 mile sheriff's path on the north side of knoxville road between godwin drive and dean drive it will connect to the godwin drive trail the route 28 trail and the existing dean drive bike lanes we're looking at the original surface transportation program funding known as rstp for fy32 and this is later in the year

[02:02:09] that will be in the winter of 2025, and this project was also presented at the annual Bicycle and Pastron Meeting on May 22nd. And that is it. Happy to answer any questions. I do want to ask, and I'm sorry, so related. When is the part of the Jeanne Dean, the big sidewalk?

[02:02:40] I mean, it looks like almost ready. The Wellington? After the... The Wellington? Yeah, we're waiting. Yeah, the Wellington. The issue with all projects that go across the railroad tracks is the piece between the pieces that are done has to be built by Norfolk Southern.

[02:02:57] And so they have our money. We are waiting for them to build it now. So that's the biggest piece that's left out there. So the part that the city has direct control over is pretty much done. Yeah, and I heard we got the right of entry last week, actually, for building the peace within the railroad track, so it should be in next few months.

[02:03:17] You good? One day, I see a lot of... Since we are railroad, you know, and that's, you know, in our historic heart, I see a lot of kids, young and adults, standing there taking pictures, and I would like for us to find, whether it's a space, a platform, a safer manner for them to be able to do that.

[02:03:46] And I know we're talking about 30-32. That's why I'm really, you know, concerned. And, you know, if there is ever an opportunity, I would like to see that because I think it will enhance our historic side. And then, you know, it attracts a lot of people.

[02:04:04] And all they want to do is take pictures when a train is going by. And I know they can do it here, too, in Old Town. But for some reason, they like that. area because it looks more yeah it looks yeah and it has a grain and everything you can see the length of it we can take a look at that with the existing the existing project and see if there's something we can do now we did a version of that with where the love sign is we did a little pull off area so we can look at that with the project engineer i see people parking there and it's really dangerous and it might not even our our space but they do it so seeing the need and you

[02:04:41] know to me it's that's more like a part uh you know and and you know if there is something possible there i would like for us to you know without you know hurting anything seeing an opportunity in the very uh future to uh uh to build up on it especially being all these trails going by and having genie d right there i think it could be a a good hub for more than

[02:05:07] I have a couple of questions, Chloe, so on the Centerville sidewalk here that's being added, so the red lines there and so forth, there's no existing sidewalk at this particular time, right, in those locations?

[02:05:26] No, that's correct. And what, are we talking about a five-foot wide? Yes, five foot on Centerville, five-foot wide sidewalk to connect to the existing sidewalk, that would be the same, yes. Okay, and I take it it'll be curb and gutter, sidewalk, if you're 5 feet wide.

[02:05:53] That's about as tall as I am, I guess. About, that's right, I'm not that tall. That's okay. Given, and I know where it connects to existing sidewalk, like the one in front of McDonald's, the one in front of Flagship, or, you know, that sort of thing here, and those are 5 feet as well.

[02:06:18] And is that given how traveled that road is, given the fact that there are residential communities behind there, I would suspect there's a fair number of amount of pedestrian people.

[02:06:37] It's five feet wide enough to, you know, my concern is, you know, you've got a busy road and I know the speed limit's 25, but I'll be honest, I go 25 and I got everyone going around me. You know, that kind of stuff. I mean, that's our standard in our DCSM, five foot.

[02:06:57] And that will be connecting to the existing sidewalk again. I understand. And also the intent to limit impact to the right-of-way. There's a lot of businesses and parking space. And if we expand that, we then will have impact on the right-of-way and businesses parking.

[02:07:14] So it's a balance. And again, it's early in the process. We have a heart from the community, so that's what's proposed right now in terms of the concept. That's something that would be interesting to hear from the community.

[02:07:30] As you plan this, even if there's a way to, I don't know, to provide some separation and so forth. I mean, you know, a car moving 25 and you actually slip off or you're passing off. You know what I'm saying. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but I would hope in my limited capacity as a Monday morning quarterback here telling you what this project should look about.

[02:08:01] And the Nokesville Trail here. So there's no sidewalk where this trail is going. And you call it a trail. There is an existing sidewalk. There is an existing. Correct. So you're planning on widening. We're planning on adding a sheriff's path, replacing the existing sidewalk and adding a sheriff's path.

[02:08:23] So the idea is to be used by a pedestrian. Yes, asphalt, pedestrian and bicycle. And it's going to be wider? Yes, correct, 10 feet. But it only goes up a certain distance, doesn't it? Yes, up to Dean Drive. All right. And then at Dean Drive on the other side, if we were headed into Old Town there, is there an existing sidewalk there?

[02:08:46] Yes. On Dean Drive Extended? No, not at, well, sorry, I said the wrong thing, not Dean Drive Extended. Excuse me. So Noakesville Road, and then at the far upper right of the photograph there, there's an intersection, obviously.

[02:09:07] On the other side of that intersection, is there an existing sidewalk? Yeah, I think there's a sidewalk on this one. Right here is where I'm talking about. Right up? Yes. There is an existing sidewalk, but that's not a shared path.

[02:09:24] It's just a sidewalk. The limits of this project are being driven by us. If you look at Dean Drive Extended, where we added sidewalk and bicycle facilities, the idea is Noakesville isn't the most comfortable road to bike on, So it's to get people off of Nokesville Road at some point and take Dean Drive and get down to Wellington that way.

[02:09:43] And that's what your current plan has at least. Sounds good. Thank you. This will come to you over the next couple months as applications come due. We're near the end.

[02:10:04] So next is Innovation District. And we had put out the email that was sent asking for representation from reps. And I personally only heard back from Mark and Ashley. But then Steve said he had gotten some more response. We wanted to put it out to everybody.

[02:10:22] You can go ahead. There are three positions that the GMU is asking council to provide a representative for. The steering committee, the governance and finance model task force, and the branding task force.

[02:10:38] And there are summaries of each of those committees in the packet. so yeah i know mark had he had told me he was not going to be here tonight and i know he's interested in the steering committee i believe and that's just one and then the governance and finance and branding task force um but it's one and a half hour meetings looks like they're going to offer hybrid foreign person on the side tech and then um eight months worth of meetings and

[02:11:16] And it looks like the governance and branding would go through for February? January. January, okay. I saw something in February. We anticipated finalized brand and sustainable governance and finance identified by February.

[02:11:34] So it is a bit of a commitment. And I don't know what time of day these are happening. They didn't give us that. So I don't know if it will be daytime, evening. I have no idea. anybody ms ellis so um we have our office in innovation so i think i'm on this anyway okay um but i can do double duty you know you want if i mean if anybody which one is uh uh the branding

[02:12:07] oh you'd like to be on yeah and so is mark being on steering anybody disagree with that at all everybody okay with him being there i think that would be good he's also because of the airport liaison there this this would help them kind of and these are open meetings anybody can go so it's not like you don't it's just representing the city and then the governance and finance you won't be willing to be on it unless someone else wants and so i like i said ashley was on the one she said if if you need somebody and nobody speaks up then i will fill in i said okay well

[02:12:46] we'll see how it goes and that's just kind of where i left it and she said she'd be fine with everybody take it okay so it sounds like marv for steering theresa for branding tom for governments and finance and i'll be attending them um anyway so just to make sure because that we are partnered with them and we need to stay on what's going on with that innovation because it is going to be for this area so okay so everybody good on that you can get back to

[02:13:17] more like i'll continue to have a concern in regards to this and now the impact they can create to all the town and all the businesses and i don't mean a positive i mean of course we all hope and we all believe that this will be positive and i think it will be great for the future of the big businesses but i'm concerned about the small the food the other services that we provide

[02:13:50] there are no manufacturer and um you know i'm worried that you know we are we are historic and trying to preserve that and want to welcome people uh to that part and that area and rejoice on it but i just hope that our business are not going to something that we're trying to develop as well i don't know if i i am really pleased as my representation for us being there is crucial and so all of these I'm planning to go to because I want to stay on top of that and thankfully I

[02:14:29] have the ability to do it you know and I'm blessed that way so we and I think I mean I'm assuming because I don't know I don't see reports or anything now from Patrick and so I'm hoping with this committee something will start to be sent to us as a council to say this is what was discuss one is maybe this is what they were waiting to do do that because i will be asking for that because we need to make sure everybody's up to date on what's being talked about because i want to be blindsided with something and they did get it 2.8 from gold virginia because you're on

[02:15:08] that you're still on that yeah so any other comments questions we're through what's next Board of Equalization and Board of Amazing Commissions. Our city attorney has determined that the state requires the city to compensate our Board of Equalization.

[02:15:32] And recognizing that there would be some back pay, we're estimating a total of about $750 per member that we would have to make them whole. So there is a resolution that we will include on your next meeting to support reestablishing the required payment for that committee and providing them back pain as required.

[02:15:59] I think it's total. Total. Total $750. Total $750. My only thing is I wanted to, I'm sorry, do you have, go ahead. Well, I was going to elaborate a little bit and lead into other stuff, but go ahead.

[02:16:15] No, my only question, I guess, is we decided to do away with paying all the volunteer boards, and we did that. We sought consult from the attorney's office at that time, or did we not do that?

[02:16:34] How did we get there? Right, so let me elaborate here for everyone's benefit. So you saw several attachments there, including a memo from the deputy city attorney to me, but I wanted to be sure.

[02:16:48] So after we made, you know, at one point, because you'll see what year, previous city council in 2002 decided to provide a stipend to members of the Planning Commission, Board of Zoning Appeals, Utility Commission, and the Airport Commission, the amount of $50 per meeting, not to exceed four meetings per month.

[02:17:20] We see that attachment there. All right. And then in 2024, we adopted, well, not in 2024, it was actually 2023, we adopted a resolution where we decided that no, I'll call them BCCs, boards, committees, and commissions, would receive any stipend whatsoever.

[02:17:47] And after that decision was made, I began, and I think it was primarily because I was serving as the appointments committee chair, started to hear from some residents who served on these BCCs that received a stipend.

[02:18:03] They were concerned because from their standpoint, they believed that there was an area of expertise they brought. The ones that are mentioned there that I just read off are not just average committee, but in some cases require a special level of expertise or knowledge.

[02:18:22] And I asked that if I could look into the possibility of bringing in front of all of you to revisit that decision. And the process of talking to our deputy city attorney, who investigated this, as she does so thoroughly along the way here, we found out that state law requires that the Board of Equalization must be compensated with a stipend.

[02:18:55] Hence, regardless of what we decided, they, by state law, need to receive that, which is what that resolution is in there. So regardless of the rest of our discussion, that is to keep us legal here.

[02:19:10] The BOE has been very, very kind and not make a big issue about it, but they need to be. And so on that, that's the short answer of how we got here. Why you see those other things is I just, again, and to honor requests that had been put to me to bring forward to you to revisit, both the pros and cons of whether we wanted to revisit this issue or not.

[02:19:41] I think Amelia did a good job of the memo that she included there, and you'll see it, where she went into what, you know, as you said, the pros and cons, things to be considered along the way.

[02:20:00] I didn't ask city staff to do a lot of this here, But, you know, other local, we are the city of Manassas, at least as far as I can tell from up here in northern Virginia, an outlier in that we do not.

[02:20:16] Now, our policy is not to provide any stipend. Neighboring jurisdictions do in their various amounts. So if you ask me, you know, what does Prince William do, they have a meal you could tell you a little bit more than I can here.

[02:20:35] But, as I said, our policy is essentially no stipend whatsoever. And, as I said, partly because some residents who serve on these wanted me to bring it up, and then partly in light of the fact that we are the only jurisdiction that I'm aware of, and I won't stake my life on that, but I'm here in Northern Virginia, that doesn't provide any stipend whatsoever, that you should be aware of those kinds of things here in this regard.

[02:21:08] And with that, I'll leave it up to you to ask questions or talk. Amelia can, you know, certainly talk directly to her memo there if you have any questions on that. Thank you. Sure.

[02:21:25] We obviously have to do the Board of Equalization, so the others, but you are, as the appointment's chair, in favor of looking at stipends again. I mean, what are you? Just because you beat them and you talked to them right.

[02:21:44] So I will tell you that I don't want to say I had an epiphany, but, you know, when I first, with the rest of you, I think the decision we made in 2023 was unanimous there. And at the time, we didn't realize that, nor did we really look into what others were, you know, charging or whether we would be the only ones and that sort of thing here.

[02:22:05] I will say that here are my following observations. So, A, and this is not the position of the appointments committee, this has been no, you know, discussion by them whatsoever as a committee here, but rather just my own observations is, first of all, when we do seek to fill certain positions, such as economic development, though that's not one included here, so forget that one.

[02:22:35] Planning Commission, for instance, utilities. There's a level of expertise that we're looking for. Now that I'm the liaison to the Utilities Committee, I'm more appreciative of the folks we have on there because that's a pretty technical language they speak there, and I'm still trying to catch up as an example.

[02:23:00] Planning Commission is another one. ARB is another one. ARB puts a lot of time. We get copies of our agenda, and if you look at all the stuff they have to go through and have to be knowledgeable about. And so I do understand residents who serve on those that have said, you know, the $50 stipend was not a lot of money, but it was a nice recognition that the talent, the time I'm putting forth on this along the way here.

[02:23:33] So I certainly see that, you know, as opposed to how I was at the beginning in 23 where it was everybody should be a volunteer, you know, straight across along the way here. I am also noticing, you know, now that I've served on the appointments committee, this is the fifth year I've served on the appointments committee, that this year is probably the toughest year in terms of getting applicants for our BCCs.

[02:24:05] Does that have, Amelia and I have chatted about that, would having the stipend make that any different? I don't know. I don't know if it's the nature of how volunteerism is, you know, coming to be. We know there are changes, but there have been, we struggle.

[02:24:24] I mean, solid waste is not one that, you know, received a stipend, but there have been for almost two years, three openings on solid waste that have just been there. And I see that in other ones where we're trying to fill along the way here.

[02:24:42] And so, you know, being able to say these committees or commissions, there is a siphon that's included in recognition that you are giving up some of your time and your expertise. And as Amelia mentioned, I think it's on the page three of her memo there near the top.

[02:25:04] She says, is specific expertise required of a BCC member? That's routinely billed at an hourly rate in that profession, you know, as an example. I mean, things to think about. So I think it merits at least our consideration along the way.

[02:25:24] I would certainly feel comfortable with restoring the stipend at least to what we had done previously along the way. But, you know, that's for the rest of you to also decide whether that's of merit along the way.

[02:25:48] one thing that i would throw out for council's consideration uh funding for any sort of stipend was not included in your recently adopted budget so as you have this discussion um please keep that in mind that if you do want to restore anything beyond the board of equalization the staff would request that that discussion be incorporated into your fy 27 budget discussion if possible that's fair i think that's what is that that's how i'm referring so the you're talking about the

[02:26:28] airport planning and utilities they were the they were the three that were paid i think hold on i will tell you planning commission board of zoning appeals utility commission and airport commission the arb was compensated we could never locate the document where council specifically authorized them to receive that stipend. So are they, is, uh, recruitment for volunteers down for those

[02:27:01] four? Um, we, we are just, you know, so as you know, uh, Teresa, we meet monthly along the way here and we try to get these things wrapped up by our June, June meeting because many turned, you know, the terms start July one. Uh, we have had a longstanding, uh, vacancy on the planning commission that we knew about because it was a person who was term limited and rotating off um and we still have that opening at this point i believe we're going to have a candidate

[02:27:35] finally by june but that's an example in the past when you and i were serving together you remember we we had planning commission applicants uh you know much sooner in the year so that's an example there I just I I know that we debated this a lot we changed it and the reason we debated it so much is because you know how do you I understand that they do have certain expertise but it sounds like they're not they're getting people you know it sounds like you are getting maybe a planning

[02:28:10] commission that vacancy but people do want to be on that to lend their expertise then we're going run into the same problem, you know, like why aren't we paying beautification, solid waste, historic resource board, we're experts, you know, I don't, I think it is, I understand people do complain, but I just don't think we're going to be able to please everyone. It's a policy, and I'm not sure about jurisdictions around us localities. I thought we entertained the idea because it was unusual to pay. That's what I thought. That's deferred. So Amelia? Well,

[02:28:46] just using prince william as an example they have a they have a very complex system and a lot of money it's apples to oranges yeah um and so it would be easier in my opinion for for the city to to have an across the board policy and the easiest way to do that was to eliminate so the baseline is to apply state code and that's only in board of equalization you still give training money you still give reimbursement in certain cases. And Prince William, as the example, also does that

[02:29:23] sort of thing. But these are very minimal amounts. And again, with something like planning commissions, some people view that as a secondary job. And if it's putting in a lot of time and resources or missing work in order to do those things, you know, you could set a different sort baseline. I do appreciate the simplicity of illuminating it, but most jurisdictions do have a handful, at least, boards and committees that Councilman Ossina mentioned that do receive

[02:30:00] a minimal stipend or mileage, things like that. Everyone is currently within the city, though, as far as I understand, for appointments, unless they're joint boards with other jurisdictions, so the driving is not as much of a commitment, mileage, and things like that.

[02:30:20] I know we have to move forward to pay what we all want to do, what we're supposed to. I will say even if we were to put everything back, I would be surprised if our staff, our city manager, cannot find ways to allocate.

[02:30:45] I believe we all have budgets. We all have done budgets, and we all can do what we have to do. Because I don't think this is a type of breaking the bank expense. So I do understand the allocation. I do understand that it should have been or it should have been, you know, I'm just, we're just finding out.

[02:31:06] But, you know, I hear the comment, but I believe that, you know, knowing whatever type of budget you have and seeing the big budget that the city has, You know, I mean, like, this is less than the parking fixing.

[02:31:25] And so if we were to fix it, but I, you know, for me, I'm part of the committee. I know we haven't talked about it. Hopefully we can, you know, talk in the future. But I don't, you know, I don't see a lack of applicants for the airport.

[02:31:45] And they used to get four meetings compensation. So I will say if we do get to a place where that will be the only choice to get not only eligible, but a good quality applicant, I think that will be something that we will need to implement.

[02:32:02] But right now, I just feel like we should just be within the law. There is required feedback immediately as it's approved and then move forward. And understanding that, you know, some places we might need to do an extra.

[02:32:23] And I know, and I appreciate it, sir. Our clerk has been trying to get really creative in posting. And our, you know, our chair has been working into making a more, you know, advertising.

[02:32:41] But I will, you know, I wouldn't want to change that at the point of volunteering or giving back to your city. It's more than, you know, just trying to get a second income. I believe that will be a different heart.

[02:32:57] And I don't feel like we, it's harder, but it's no lack of it right now. And hopefully it's the time, hopefully, you know, things get better. but i would like to you know wait a little longer or at least you know to discuss it and the last one sorry it would be like you know if we do get to it i would like to have a full discussion with everybody in person in the meeting do what we have to do right now is that any other comments or

[02:33:33] questions about that we'll we'll do the board the zoning and that's it for right now And then look at the rest of it later.

[02:33:49] I'm with you, Sonia, with the heart of volunteering. It's not about getting paid. That is what volunteering. And so for me, it is, we took it away. We need to stand firm on what we did.

[02:34:05] And then we look at it later. But going back and, oh, no, you know, that to me is just too bushy-washy. So I think that's the right thing is revisit it later. and then look at it then, but fix what we have to fix.

[02:34:21] So, all right. Moving forward, is this the last thing? Creation of Housing Advisory Board. Yes, okay, we're done. As part of your ongoing housing work on expanding housing opportunities in the city, staff is bringing forward the resolution to establish a City Housing Advisory Board.

[02:34:42] Resolution is on your packets that's been drafted by the city attorney to follow this council's rules of procedure for establishing committee at this point i'll just draw attention that it's being proposed to be set up as a a temporary committee with a 365 day approximate existence at which point it can be made permanent it can be extended we've done this in with other when we set up parks and rec as an example we did this same model where you the first year you really let the board work with the staff including our new housing and neighborhood coordinator trinity waldron who just started last week so she will be the lead staffer on this

[02:35:18] um but you know so basically it would be adopt the board appointments committee will need to appoint the members and then we will get to work on um housing advisory board great questions comments i think it's great i i see that you guys met the new person hopefully yeah I mean, that's true to me.

[02:35:41] I was like, I want to meet her. Tom snuck into my office without authorization. I met her the first day. Tell her to come to the council meeting, Matt. She's actually moving closer to the city this week. She'll come to the council meeting on Monday night. We'll have her meet everyone, sir.

[02:35:57] Yes. I didn't want to scare her off. I know, I know. Y'all were scary people. They should have had her present. Oh, yeah. Okay. Anything else? No, ma'am. Thank you all, we adjourned.

[02:36:15] I made it. I've got to get it out. That's a favor for Eric Herzl. Please do. I'm just kidding. Please. I saved it this time. Did it attempt something?

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