Coraggio Consulting
Manassas City Council 10/20/2025

Date: Monday, October 20, 2025
Place: Manassas City Council, Virginia
Length: 2h 19m (video)
Official meeting video (Wistia / RegionalWebTV): https://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/3pk41z6kpc

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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[00:04:29] all right i'm the kid that used to take the nine votes up

[00:04:32] thank you

[00:05:43] monday october 20th mr smith please call the roll mayor davis younger president vice mayor wolf

[00:06:26] council member ellis here council member osina here council member smith here council member Vasquez Luna councilmember Hudson for this item one discussion items item 1.1 we'll start with resolution number our 2026 - 301 street name assignment Aviator Avenue mr. Burke I guess ma'am the city has been working to realign a

[00:07:00] a portion of observation road to facilitate access to the western portion of our airport that work is nearly complete and as a result the airport commission has requested council's consideration of renaming the new section as well as the existing road that it connects to past the the airport from observation road to aviator avenue and our airport director has provided us with an aerial view of the construction that's going on

[00:07:40] basically just to give you all an idea of what the city had done it used to be that observations drive would dead end at piper lane and then carry over we're now going to be connecting aviator we'd We'd like to connect Aviator Avenue to the midpoint of Observation Road and then along the new road that has been built up so that it is out of the floodplain as well as it creates the additional property adjacent to the airport for future development.

[00:08:16] So this is the portion of the road that they are hoping to have Council agree to rename to Aviator Avenue. Now, the observation line coming up to this new portion will also change the state authorization. Correct. Yeah, it's just that just the new stuff and what it connects to that. Okay, yes other options of names there's a second. Wolf run was

[00:08:48] taken. Wolf way. The Commission went through a whole process of names and I I mean, I think Aviator ended up being the most descriptive but not personalized or obnoxious name.

[00:09:12] So this is what the commission represents, I'll support. Anyway, moving on. That was a strange question. I know that, you know, they name roads, boulevards, avenues.

[00:09:32] usually have like some type of a reason they name them that is that the right name is avenue the right name for that road i think an avenue is like something that goes through like a residential area with houses and medians and i mean very minor i'm just curious well i mean other than courts typically being a dead-end turnaround or a loop not really i mean you can get into the if if you were one of the communities that had been laid out in 90-degree intersections,

[00:10:12] which, because of our age, we're not. Then you get into streets or roads being north, south, or east, west, but avenue is not an uncommon request for this location. In a business industrial area. I think it was just because the alliteration of aviation and avenue, A&A, and just the flow of that, I think that was the whole.

[00:10:37] I was just curious. Yes, Lou. Thank you, Madam Mayor. And, you know, I'm seriously requesting because I do believe, what's the name of the airport? Was that a mayor? It's HGF.

[00:10:53] It's Harry Davis. No, I know. Davis. I know, but the building, this building, my point is we have to find a way, you know, to honor, you know, our first female mayor. And, you know, I believe that, you know, the boards, you know, they are, you know, supporting.

[00:11:13] and maybe this is not the best one, but I'm like, when are we going to do it? She's serving her second term, and I know she wouldn't ask it for herself, but I do believe that we have to find ways. And knowing that the airport is going to make such a historic change, to me, I'll put it to the table for each one of you to think about that.

[00:11:38] I believe it will be more meaningful than aviation. Well, thank you for that. any other comments on that or anything else recognizing councilwoman luna's uh request staff had intended to add this as a consent item unless there's a desire to have further discussion

[00:12:06] about it at the meeting well i'm requesting a full review i mean there is the opportunity or if there are through roads um at the mathis shopping center that possible consideration could be to to those to if there's a cut through cut through street potentially for a new name i don't feel like a cut through is uh worthy of a mayor when it's the first female mayor and uh you know

[00:12:43] i do believe that just like uh the board had an opportunity you know if it's not that if it's not now when you know i i know it takes four so it's up to you but you know i i'm finding ways to um I do really like the idea that Sonia's presented.

[00:13:08] You know, like you said, there's only but so many opportunities that we can have in a term to do something meaningful like that. And while we have many things named after past mayors, I can't think of anything yet that we have named after our great mayor. So I would be good with it.

[00:13:24] I, you know, hadn't put that as much thought into it was just kind of taking an aviator at face value. But I would love to make it more meaningful. Please. I While serving is probably inappropriate and it opens the mayor and council up to some feedback Might not want

[00:13:58] Think we actually have a policy. There is a city naming policy with regard to People's and I believe there is one I don't know It might be, it might be illustrative of what you would want to do.

[00:14:27] I don't disagree. January 2nd, 2029 might be the day to do it. For the street, I don't think so.

[00:14:45] But it's, you know, hopefully if it wasn't the former one, you wouldn't say the same thing. It's just a street. There's no building. We can get to a building when, you know, after service.

[00:15:01] but yeah that was done well after yeah that's that's named you know for the first first the dad yeah I was actually probably mean that name may have been

[00:15:30] changed since i was elected and of course that's a county i would i would tend to to um you know just as we've done with with other naming uh after people here that after they've been out of office to to do so we did that clearly with the edgar roar council chambers as an example here

[00:16:05] to let uh subservient councils once we're finished serving to to decide what kind of recognition and legacy that they might want to establish in the city and in that regard here as opposed to current office holder. I think you've been very gracious about it. But as I said, my outlook is more that once someone is finished serving. Well, thankfully we don't have term

[00:16:42] limits that's right so you could be serving a long time on on that kind of thing as opposed to well we know we don't have to look at mr. wall many people long before me that's right beside he's got a traffic circle my question is aviation is that Prince William County to live and have input on us I believe

[00:17:18] that is for the record I did not ask for that I did not talk to Sonya about naming any road after me she came up with that tonight I want that on record I appreciate the discussion I appreciate you you bringing it up but I that totally came out of the blue at me but thank you for thinking of me in that way and I know that I don't have to have a road named after me for what I've done here but i appreciate it um i know the significance of my seat and um and all the support that i have

[00:17:57] been given i know who does and who doesn't and i don't have to have a road but i appreciate that the gesture is very very nice so if y'all want to consider it for something else i would so up to y'all but thank you so i think we're doing with aviation i i will ask important that not to be part of the consent agenda.

[00:18:19] Okay, you do not want it on the consent agenda? Okay. Any other discussion points on that? We will move forward. Legislative. Legislative priorities, item 1.2, draft 2026, legislative priorities.

[00:18:39] Mr. Burke? Yes, ma'am. Staff have incorporated all of the understood council priorities into the new document. In addition, we did provide it to Dr. Newman and the schools to review the only item that they had modified to the educational attainment was that they added special education to the list of priorities in the first bullet item.

[00:19:06] And we have incorporated the other priorities that council has had previously identified into the other areas. And if there's any questions, this will, again, be on your agenda, 27 for adoption.

[00:19:22] of our legislative priorities okay the one bullet we support divisions in their efforts to provide universal free breakfast and lunch programs what do they mean by divisions I believe that's the various school divisions not not specific just to ours but to statewide so does that

[00:19:55] mean the state will not reconsider funding the breakfast and lunch programs? I believe that's been part of a concern that funding would not be there for both breakfast and lunch. So that will be most likely be brought up at the General Assembly again. We understand that. I had a

[00:20:28] conversation with Senator Rome. She is planning to introduce legislation to close the loophole with regard to data centers, their exemption from property tax for taxes if they are bank or non-profit government use. You might want to include a line to that effect. Is there? Did I miss it?

[00:20:56] It's in there. Okay, never mind. It's on the second floor. Okay, I'll miss it. Never mind. I'll shut up. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think it's back to what we were talking before and we we asked dr. Newman and the school board to come up with something different and and they they were fine

[00:21:35] with that they didn't offer a recommendation to change it yeah so again I mean it's their recommendations our our they do their own right as they do their own but what we wanted to make sure that what the the council was prioritizing fell in line and and did not if there was something that they recommended that we change we wanted that to hear from you as a policy maker and as a council you know I will feel more comfortable if there was another word because attainable it doesn't feel like it's the excellency that we're looking for or the level

[00:22:14] that we're looking for and i don't think it will interfere as the negative priorities and the priorities will not be changed we're just talking about the title of the educational attainment um i can look into what other localities do um but i do believe that you know it is presented to us for us to vote on it and uh it will be more comfortable for me to vote on it if if the title at least it was a little different and i don't think it's going to hurt the schools or their priorities well we already have the sustaining excellence so would you want

[00:22:54] educational success or educational fulfillment yes ended up my recollection was that we hope that

[00:23:27] cool folks with their with their wonderful maybe that's why i don't have yeah i you know i do feel that attainable is continuing and knowing that you know the the level that we are hold accountable for us even though we're no policy makers for the school um but the impact that is caused on their um results have in uh in uh in the city and uh their real estate you know for me this is important

[00:24:02] to i don't have the best words some of them sound you know good but i can get back with unless anybody else I mean accomplishment or achievement perhaps educational accomplishment achievement yeah educational achievement or achievement sounds better than attainment I guess yeah I just like attainment I think we

[00:24:29] need something better but gave men is better than attainment I don't know You know, given the common accepted use of it, we talk about attainment in a lot of areas.

[00:24:50] Right. It may not be that out of place to stay with attainment. It has a meaning to people now. That one is sustainability. I mean, it's just, they know that you're for something.

[00:25:08] Achievement, I think, would make a challenge on that one. Not challenge officially, but what is your intent here? What are you implying? What if there's a word people are more comfortable, I'm fine.

[00:25:30] Even an attainment and for more like excellency or something, you know, like excellence with more teeth

[00:26:14] No, I wrestled with this earlier today, you know, same sort of thing and knowing along the way and nothing really resonated with with me at this point

[00:26:40] to consider changing sustaining excellence to something like a progressive governance that would allow you to put excellence under progressive governance most of the items the items that we have under sustaining excellence basically are just related to how we govern what'd you say progressive governance for sustaining excellence excellence with I don't like that one.

[00:27:12] Aggressive is a loaded term. What if we did educational distinction? Distinguishing education.

[00:27:39] Other words for attainment. Yeah, educational success maybe. Yeah, it's simple. Success is good. We like success. I don't think of success.

[00:27:56] Success is good. There you have it. Educational success. successful education three bullet points against attainment or two bullet points or even one what what was wrong with attainment for me for me it was just too flat like you just get there you attained it okay so what i mean that that that's what i was just wondering how that stacks up if we come up with success and success just it seems it makes more of an exclamation and I'm more, you know, like punch.

[00:28:35] To me, that's success. To me, attainment is sort of just get there. But I would hope, I think, that what we in the schools are about is true excellence for success.

[00:28:51] Yeah. We rise to a higher level. Success is okay.

[00:29:09] I like it. Are you all good with success? Thank you. You'll make that change and then have that on your next agenda for adoption. And leave excellence on sustaining. Excuse me, ma'am. So we all received an e-mail late this afternoon requesting under advancing mobility the word, that's right, be added there.

[00:29:39] It looks like the second bulleted item there, reasoning. Well, everybody can read their e-mail. Well, I have forwarded that to Chloe and Matt.

[00:29:55] to get their recommendation on that. If council's comfortable, if Matt and Chloe are comfortable, we can add that. If there's any concern, have further discussion at your next meeting. But I didn't want to take that forward without staff's consideration.

[00:30:15] That's fine. Anything else on the legislative? Are you talking about the whole document? Are we going through each? No. Okay. Well, I had, I think, a couple other things. But go ahead. If you have other, we're doing the whole document.

[00:30:31] Thank you. The advancing mobility third bullet we support amending Virginia code section 15.2 to the 1901 to authorize use of eminent domain for transportation improvements on property until used to announce but outside the city boundaries I'm just curious why that's on there. I mean, does this have to do with the recent road that was I believe so. Recognizing that

[00:31:06] solutions to 28 may not simply be limited to our boundaries and that if there is a need to or possibility of making improvements that could either redirect traffic off of 28 that those be advanced whenever possible where are we now with that so we don't have any eminent domain no ma'am and unfortunately

[00:31:38] with the the elimination of the bypass as a 28 solution we are working to identify what options there could be both internal to the city but an external to the city to provide alternative locations for the 28 traffic this Prince William County already have this set up I'm going to do me I believe to the extent of the law every locality I think that's what

[00:32:10] the intent is is that we would not want to see further restrictions of eminent domain until we've been able to identify a valid solution for the 20-day traffic. Okay. Just to, since people are listening, eminent domain, people are, their property is in line for a road. Government would take their property and pay them a fair market value. Is that what they're paid, a fair market value yes it typically goes through the court and the court makes the final determination if you

[00:32:48] have to go through okay so they do have a right to go to court oh yes ma'am okay it's not just seized correct just trying to make sure people understand that thank you but we're thinking of this from our perspective flip the equation prince william county wanted to exercise eminent domain into the city. For some project, we were not necessarily supportive of.

[00:33:24] B. Dow, Craig, Brown. Well, I just can go both ways. Good evening, Mayor and Council. There actually is another state code provision. It's not the one referenced in that particular legislative agenda that is restricted to cities above

[00:33:58] 100,000 in population, and it authorizes them to use eminent domain outside the city for transportation projects in the adjoining county, but it has to be approved by the adjoining county's board of supervisors. So that is an alternative approach. Or better. Treat us like Richmond, simply. I don't know if you were even thinking this, but this is something that I've been thinking

[00:34:35] about i know this is referring to transportation only but what happens we have this donut the courthouse and they want to expand into the city how are we protected from that do we have any protection at all i believe eminent domain for development purposes has been fairly restrictive this is specific to transportation only well where are we on the books with that what kind

[00:35:08] protection the city have if the county wanted to expand? I'll defer to the city attorney. It was my understanding that the Supreme Court basically due to some development related eminent domain put some significant restrictions on the use of that beyond the normal government. Are you talking about expanding the courthouse outside of the? I mean you know they could want to expand parking

[00:35:41] the prison or you know there's all kinds of you know they once they once they cross the boundary into the city they are subject to all of our zoning and city code provisions so we would control have control over that well you just mentioned something about a city with over 100,000 population do they have more power that's just for cities over 100,000 and and they're in this and that's restricted to transportation. For example, the city of Manassas right now has

[00:36:19] eminent domain authority in the adjoining county for public utilities. In other words, if we needed to acquire an easement for a water line coming from Lake Manassas, then we would follow the normal procedure of having it assessed, having a formal assessment done. We have to offer the landowner the amount of that assessment or appraisal I should say which is appraised at fair market value the landowner can always say yes or no if they say no we don't accept that

[00:36:55] then it can end up in court yeah I remember the airport we had to lease I think they were leasing land for their utilities I believe it was like a lease or something sure yeah concerned about that but I hope that we're protected give up any more of our 10 square miles but we're okay with wording and just a comment i mean if we see we do have more than

[00:37:32] them that they announced look at the lake and if you are at the airport you know i with you know so but yes i you know when it comes to transportation you know whether it's uh to the mbt or all the places we have to uh work together and and uh and make it a change and i i'm hopeful when we get to our join uh meeting i know it's that's not part of the topics but you know each of us you know it's always um open to reach out to each one of them when it comes to

[00:38:07] you know any issues and i believe uh even uh the work uh manager has always done with uh with the corner part in the county has always been helpful but i i i do understand but at the same time I want to make sure the residents know we have other means to work with them and you know we also have properties on their side as well um do we need to add alternative education in the first bullet under education understand that that's part of what they do now and we mentioned everything but

[00:38:47] that it's my understanding that that would fall under the special education I just had it as a note to ask, so that does that. That's good. If it would have stirred out, I'm sure that Dr. Newman would have added both of them.

[00:39:07] But my understanding is that the special education kind of encompasses. But I can reach out to him and ask. I was thinking it's such a big investment, and it's first around here. So we're doing that, saw that as an opportunity.

[00:39:28] I can ask him to do the level. Okay. And then under one, two, the third bullet, do we need to say English language learners? Or is it just understood we don't need to say language?

[00:39:44] Because we say it pretty much everywhere else. For the last part where it says high percentages of English learners, we need to say language. It doesn't matter. It may not matter. But we say English language learners in a lot of different places.

[00:40:02] So for consistency's sake, there's a reason why I was asking for that. You're asking that as well. Okay. and then council members maybe it's just me but under the community vital no i'm sorry under economic prosperity the very last bullet says we support local flexibility and the promotion of economic development what does that mean because it didn't make it doesn't mean anything to me when

[00:40:34] i read that local flexibility promotion i believe i believe that is intended to allow us at our discretion to be able to not have to work through BDEP at a state level to pursue individual economic development opportunity. I think it's purposely left vague. That's why I said I didn't know. I mean I didn't realize that was the intent. I know that

[00:41:11] typically there's a top-down and they typically identify prospective folks but I believe that that intent is so that we don't have to wait for the state to say First page I got my Kim's up so I guess I put a little fish too. Yeah, it's camels Tom kicking my shin But I don't have really access to my

[00:41:55] Subject in the second bullet on the economic prosperity About the supplement of funding because of the federal reductions I'm glad to see that here And I suggest we do anything more forceful. I'm just open. I'm just curious if VML is even addressing that's the real situation i don't know about the rest of you but i've gotten some calls i got a call yesterday 87 the daughter of an 87 year old gentleman's mother of hers mother's 82 the letters have started to come that i referenced a couple of weeks ago in a couple of meetings um they got

[00:42:33] a letter informing them that they're um 400 274 health insurance policy uh from january it's going $882. And in a nation where people find it funny to have leaders dumping garbage on them, and in a nation where people find it funny not that the government should be involved in health insurance, I invite every one of them to go to media shows of the people that's going to be results of this policy that's coming forward. That's a heartfelt thought for me that we let

[00:43:11] 22-year-olds, much less 82-year-olds, suffer and die because we refuse to do what they claim they pray to a God to do. I'm sorry. Chambers told me to be quiet, so I'm shutting up now.

[00:43:28] But I'm glad to see we have this in here. It's just beyond me that we can care for people selectively, and you got people. Not only did they get a letter from Social Security saying, oh, your benefits are going to stop, and by the way, expect a letter from your health insurance carrier. And there's a couple of states already have stated, I'm not talking which color of the state is, but they've already stated that it's already too late to reverse it, even if they reopen the government tomorrow, that the process is so far along that these people will suffer for the short term.

[00:44:07] That's abominable, and yet we keep dumping on people. Thank you. But you're okay with what we have? I'm okay with what we have. I'm just hoping that it's supplanted by other— I don't count on many Virginia jurisdictions below Fredericksburg to give a damn, and I'm just hoping VML will speak.

[00:44:26] Stuff for you, because I've got that. Yeah, I think I read somewhere of their concern. I also know VML is influenced heavily by the rest of the state. Thank you, sir.

[00:44:49] Under community vitality, third bullet, allowing faith-based organizations increased development of their properties to conform with local zoning and building codes to provide additional affordable housing opportunities. So I'm assuming that they have an excess of land and they want to try to bring in housing.

[00:45:13] They have to have, like, a special use permit or something. They would follow what the underlying zoning would require, yes, ma'am. But it allows them to, if they wanted to, subdivide a portion of their church properties to facilitate housing.

[00:45:34] One of the questions, Councilwoman, is that the challenge church would expect to receive from there being a non-profit and their tax status would be challenged immediately if they were to become it.

[00:45:51] what they would view as a profit-making institution about providing housing and rental housing and so forth. So that's not the only reason those who support it are pushing that. But that's a major one because churches are selectively targeted to having their tax status questioned by administration.

[00:46:13] So they would, like, subdivide and then have a different organization set up for the housing? For example, a church with eight acres next to it may decide to put up some housing like we went to. We have to tour for and operate the, really address the action, the attainable, that's the word attainable again, address the attainable housing, geared toward salary ranges and all those kind of scenarios.

[00:46:41] A big hurdle is that, in fact, there's an acronym out there now. We know about the NIMBY, not in my backyard. There's a new one called YIGBY, yes, in God's backyard. And they just simply want churches to do what they think God is having to do.

[00:46:56] So my common thinking, Madam Mayor, it will be like, you know, if we look at how many will be eligible, it's not like we have a lot of land and a lot of faith organizations.

[00:47:12] They have all that land to be able to build within the city. So, you know, to me, that gives me, you know, a different perspective because it's not like we're going to see a whole lot if it were to happen, you know, tomorrow. That's my way of thinking when it comes to.

[00:47:33] But I'm supportive and I'm thankful that it's there. Have we good on that? Mayor? I just do have one request.

[00:47:49] As Mr. Wolfe mentioned earlier here, having spoken to Senator Rome, if the city could reach out to both our delegate and our state senator to find out what items they have pre-filed, what items they might be pre-filing.

[00:48:07] You know, I want our legislative to breakfast. Let me phrase it this way. I do think previous legislative breakfast, we have been two ships, meaning council slash school board and our legislators, two ships that rather than crossing or even swimming together, have been following two different tacks along the way here.

[00:48:34] And I want these breakfasts to be constructive. And to do that, I want to see where we have similarities and not wait till the event itself to hear what they are, unless that's what happens.

[00:48:49] But secondly, for us to, for the message that I would like to see delivered to our legislative representatives is we spent, look how much time we spent working on this document.

[00:49:06] I would like their reaction, their input, their thoughts of what that document says in terms of what they are willing to do to help. I'm not necessarily looking for them to introduce a bill on every single bulleted item.

[00:49:23] But we do know other legislators do do that. Ideally, I'd like them to be a co-sponsor. Failing that, I'd like them to vote for that. So to me, that's what's of interest along the way. I'm not sure that they're, well, it's always nice to hear and helpful to hear what they what what their priorities are if it's a priority that is not on our list because we've given a lot of thought it's nice to that's a nice to know that is not a have to

[00:49:59] know or spending time talking and i think in the past there have been more than i would have liked to have seen where i'm hearing what these our legislators plan on pursuing or what they spent their time working on. That is nowhere in our document, nowhere in our municipal government concerns or the school board, as a for instance. And I know that's, you know, I don't want to be mean or I don't want to be unneighborly along the way. But for me, this is how do we work together?

[00:50:33] They're the folks that are able to hope, pursue some of our legislative goals. And we can't do they've got the vote along the way. So how can we help them, to me, is a more reasonable thing.

[00:50:54] Now you know these priorities, which ones are you ready to support? Which ones are you willing to sponsor or co-sponsor? Definitely vote for. And how can we help you do those kinds of things along the way? Otherwise, this exercise of putting together our legislative priorities seem somewhat fruitless and just an ending cycle where we pass each other rather than swimming together along the way. That's my observation, and that's where I'd like our breakfast to be,

[00:51:32] because we do have limited time. And in fairness, the school board has technically half of that time as well and their concerns along the way. And I want our legislators to be realistic with us looking at these things. These are things that are going to happen. And some of that I recognize will be, you know what? We're going to have to deal with shortfalls in Medicare, for instance.

[00:51:55] This is going to consume a lot of time. There's not going to be money available, so don't count on more money, as an example. But, you know, the bill about the referendum for the local option on the sales tax, that doesn't cost the state money. That is something they could support and and work toward as an example so that's that's the sorts of things i see as possible trade-offs to educate us but for us to share with them there are things we recognize you know money may not be there may not be sufficient money but there are other things you can do to help us along the way

[00:52:33] that's all okay i hope everyone agrees with that you know the data center yes like that all over that that one she's already got that that's exactly right and there may be others that they're both planning to introduce whoever our elected representatives are well we know senator rome but whoever a delegate is anything else to the legislative next on the agenda is the item 1.3 the draft plans from an asset shopping center so yes ma'am following the joint meeting with

[00:53:13] the eda i just wanted to confirm with council the direction that i understood from that meeting that there is a desire on council's part to get an additional plan that has opportunities for additional amenities, additional facilities, and to find a balance of how dense of a development

[00:53:45] it would take to achieve some of those improvements. And in relation to that, we do understand that That may take a little little more time to develop and that council is comfortable with an extension of the design process so that we get to a option that council is comfortable with along those lines also confirming to the EDA that council is comfortable with

[00:54:25] new leases or lease extensions through 2030 for the the continuation of operations at the Mathis Shopping Center just so that the EDA has the clear direction to proceed with its operation while conducting a parallel plan for redevelopment.

[00:54:48] Can I ask a question? I don't accept the fact that I'm confused, but can you, let me ask you, the process going back to this, the meeting that EDA had, my understanding, well we know for a fact, we We agreed with EDA's intent to seek public health, and we did it two times.

[00:55:17] We're proud and pleased with their attendance and so forth. And this is where I must have gone astray. My understanding was that EDA, working with staff, was going to get a professional outfit, compile, analyze, make a presentation that would be for the benefit of the residents who participated in the community conversations.

[00:55:47] And I expected that they were giving us a courtesy heads up of what that presentation would be. But that presentation would be what the public told them they wanted to see there. I'm concerned that, by the way, I'm concerned about our reaction to what they should put forward.

[00:56:13] I'm not comfortable having them change what the public told us unless we find them blatantly misstating what the public told them. My understanding, the presentation I saw certainly was consistent with my walking around the room in those two meetings.

[00:56:29] And those, they reflected what the public said. I'm uncomfortable at this stage, at this stage, saying, yes, public, this is what you told us, but here's what we think you should have told us. And this is what our view is. It's too soon for that.

[00:56:45] They simply acquiesced, asked, cooperated, everything we asked them, give us a chance to present to the public the chopping center. you tell us what you'd like to see there. We didn't tell them subject to our approval.

[00:57:04] At least, I mean, and I know it is subject to the overall approval that we tend to take, hopefully, public comments for real. But at this stage, I'm not comfortable having, as liaison with EDA, for one thing, and as a council member, I'm not comfortable having her stand up there and say, you told us this, because it sounds like that direction is to intersperse our comments.

[00:57:29] And it just seems to me that we lose a lot of credibility if she stands up and says, public, this is what you're told, but it's a stirred bullet. This is what the council wants. The council didn't do any input of those conversations, I don't think. I don't think any council person sat in on those conversations with the public and offered comment.

[00:57:47] If we did, that's fine, and it's conversational. I don't think at any point the public expected us to prejudge. They don't even know what all of them said yet. We haven't even given them a report. And I just think it's too soon for us to make that kind of presentation.

[00:58:04] And if I'm off-base, I'm off-base. But I just think our credibility in seeking public comment is damaged if we ask them for their comments and we simply say, yeah, this is what you told us. This is what we think you should have told us. And thank you.

[00:58:24] I will agree. I think the miscommunication was, at least from my perspective, blaming anyone.

[00:58:44] But to your point, the process was to get the public's input. And if it would have been more clear to me, on this, that this was bouncing back to the public, reflecting back to the public at large, here's what we heard from you.

[00:59:05] This is what it's going to be. No, nothing like that at all. That would have been one thing. And I didn't go into that meeting, come out of that meeting, quite thinking that. So if that's me, that's me.

[00:59:20] I think staff, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please forgive me, but I think one of the directions from staff was that they were going to try to intersperse the comments from the council and make a presentation that's blending in what the council would like to see there, and that's where I'm having some ought.

[00:59:36] And I can see that, and I think you're right. And I think the, looking at social media, I think the city has done some work in taking the study, putting it out there and inviting further feedback from the public, which is more akin to what you're talking about.

[01:00:01] And, yeah, I think it was probably presented to us, and we've jumped in a little soon on this, Knowing at the end of the day, it's a blended process, just like any other project we've done.

[01:00:21] And the other, so I'm with you there. The other thing I just, Mr. Burke, is if I remember correctly, our MOU with the EDA basically already says leases through whatever in 2030 is okay as part of the understanding.

[01:00:42] But I don't know why there are any more clarification on this, because we've been pretty clear on this all along. And there, I have to apologize, from a staff level, there had been communication to the EDA of a hesitancy about pursuing new leases or lease extensions until we had gotten to this point.

[01:01:03] And now that we are at a point of having an understanding of what the public is seeking out there, just confirmation that there's nothing in where we are at now that would change leasing through 2030.

[01:01:23] There's no accelerate, no desire to accelerate any given location for redevelopment. And this is a little bit of splitting hairs, but again, my recollection of the prior meeting was we were sort of hesitant on new leases.

[01:01:44] But existing leases was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, fine. And I think new leases would be sort of dependent on what they are and what they look like and anything else. We talked about me. I remember there was the idea of pop-up stores, and I think we were all sort of like not thrilled with that concept But so I think that direction is fine That doesn't change, but I think Smith's point maybe just pull back a little bit let that process go on and

[01:02:24] You'll get the feedback and do another round of public comments. It's sort of the iterative process And we'll see what that comes up Thank you. A couple things. I did leave our last meeting kind of confused at the process as well, you know, because I didn't want it to, because I, while we all had feedback on what was presented, I think we're also at a place in this process where we, like we got our, these were our key takeaways, right?

[01:02:57] Like, this is what the consultant gathered from our people and told us as council, this is what people want. And then they drew us a drawing that had this. And to me, I think the only things that we added was just like added density in units, not necessarily in height.

[01:03:18] That was the only real, you know, addition of our notes in my mind, maybe some reconfiguring of their drawings. But what I took away was that we had given them feedback to come up with a third alternative to include, to continue to get public feedback on.

[01:03:42] So like in our, the third alternative, what I was understanding was that we were talking about less through roads, through the property. We talked about a little bit more density on the side of Annaberg. We talked about a wow factor of some sort.

[01:04:01] We talked about continued community space and minimizing the linear parks, hopefully in exchange for a more communal space instead of linear park. I don't think that we were giving something different than what the public wanted.

[01:04:25] I think we were just giving, I think maybe we did all jump the process and giving feedback to the presentation, and maybe that's not fully what the EDA wanted at that moment, because it seems like the bigger question at hand is timeline, is these lease timelines, is when are we going to start this timeline, rather than the details of the development itself.

[01:04:49] But so all that to say, in my mind, while we have a consultant engaged, it's to me, it seems OK for them to put up a option C, not taking away option A or B that are existing in what is being offered to the public.

[01:05:09] But I guess I guess is it I guess when you put things out to the public, do you have like is there not a way to say like we've added more like because you've already put it out and like it's been in the news cycle or whatever. Is that why, like, this process is a process?

[01:05:27] I don't know if I'm asking a question or if I'm just making it deeper. Let me be clear. I'm sorry. Oh, no, I'm saying once you finish this one. Let me be clear about my point. I'm simply saying perhaps it's in our planning that led everybody astray.

[01:05:46] If I take this hat off and become a member of the city of Manassas and I spent my time going to the community center and gave you my input, And I know that the vice president of the EDA stood up after each event, thanking them and telling them clear terms.

[01:06:05] We will come back with a compilation of what you told us you wanted. And let me just add a parenthetical here. Much of what we suggested to change at our last meeting, that's what the public specifically said they didn't want. That's another matter.

[01:06:22] My point is, and not just EDA should be concerned, I think the council first off should be concerned about its credibility. and what we ask and tell the public that we want to do we want to hear from you is what we told them we will put all of your comments together some of you weren't here both meetings so you don't know all that we received we will put all that together and we will make a report back to you now what could have been said and what we could have in the early process is we'll get your input council and staff will analyze it and we'll give you a full-blown report we didn't say that

[01:06:59] I walked in there as a citizen, as a resident, but because I was on the council, I didn't push any specific alternative. I did answer a couple of questions that were just factual. But sitting there with the resident hat on, I would be deeply offended if my council came back to tell me what I should have said.

[01:07:20] I don't mind you. Tell me what I did say and then tell me in a separate process. We receive comments. This is what we do. We set up on our diets and we say we received comments from the public, but we decided to do this. I'm not suggesting that process doesn't work. All I'm suggesting, we promised we would do a report out.

[01:07:39] The EDA told us what the report was going to show, and then it can be analyzed. That stuff that was added, the density came out of the comments. That was their view of what the residents were trying to show in terms of density and walkability and all those things.

[01:07:56] I don't think the public used those specific words as they dressed them up to be. But I'm simply saying, I just think we jumped the gun. And we should be concerned about how the public views us. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

[01:08:13] And I appreciate Councilman Smith's comments. But we are all different and we all have our views. I don't feel that his views are showing the way I presented. So for me, the takeaways on page 11 is something that we have always been looking at, but it was their priorities, which is mixed use.

[01:08:38] I always saw mixed use. I believe that now in this era, we have to have mixed use in order for that to be not only affordable, but also driving, and it is about commodity. And I don't feel like we have to step away from that.

[01:08:55] In the mixed use, it can be part attainable, and I have spoken, You know, I have talked at that meeting, you know, I hope that there are priorities when it comes to attainability because I'm looking at the youth first time looking for housing or our elders because we have to be looking out for them.

[01:09:15] And along with the workforce, and I don't want to go into deep, but I just want to make sure that our residents know, you know, we're not building, you know, the reason why this is before us is because we want to shape how it's going to look and what investments we want to attract.

[01:09:30] We still have, I don't think it's about relocating, but we want to have good dining options and shopping options. We already know that what is there is driving and is making their own business. And I even bring back, you know, I'm sorry for saying it, but the ABC comment that I made over there.

[01:09:51] And, you know, with that, you know, councilman, you know, wow, you know, like I want to see that. And I believe that's part of the changes that we want to see. I don't feel like we are imposing, you know, our own with wanting that to be an attraction of itself.

[01:10:09] Development should be a range of heights. They already stated that they wanted two up to four floors in the takeaways from the presentation. So four floors is no out of the picture. Then improved connectivity. I mean, everything that we're doing, there is no only improved connectivity, but mobility for you to be able to bike and to have closeness if you already bring in the dining and the shopping options.

[01:10:38] And the last one, the number six, was green community space, which I agree with the buffer. I just don't want to call it a park because it's not going to be, you know, if we want a park, you know, we can make a park.

[01:10:54] But I made the point only that, you know, Annaberg is a walkable distance and it can, you know, be used. But also, you know, I was talking about, you know, our 200 years old great acres that we have. And that we, you know, it's our park and we invest on making sure that our residents, you know, have great places for that.

[01:11:17] So I believe, and I'm sorry for making it very long, but I don't want residents to feel like, you know, just like we made time to be there. They made time to be there, and they provided input, including the Economic Development Authority.

[01:11:33] They were there, and they also were part of it. All six of them are being considered and are there. But in order to be attainable and to have what we need there, you know, the four floors shouldn't be out of the picture.

[01:11:49] My biggest question in there is whether we want to do phases or we want, you know, I know it's one development. I just don't know if it's going to be able to, you know, let those businesses run to 2030 or after 2030.

[01:12:10] I, you know, and that's why I was asking again and I'll continue to ask for, and maybe I should be looking on my old papers. But for the, in this picture, whether it's in the four sections or in the two sections, how are the rents, you know, the businesses, how are they looking like?

[01:12:34] Because that can also have an effect on how we're able to put that out there. I hope that we don't take four years just to figure out what we'll be allowed to rezone it for, what we'll be allowed to go there. you know I do believe that you know we being told all the time that we need to stop building but I don't even think we're building this if I'm you know last time I recall we're not building this we are setting the policy set in the future and we have to reason so we're able to get what we want

[01:13:13] councilman Vasquez Luna alluded to what my point was was that still the development with our comments included the six key takeaways that were in the report that contractors made as a summary of the comments we received and that this is still being publicized to our residents to continue to comment on so i'm not sure i guess i just i don't perceive the process in the same way that councilman smith is but i don't think i'm going to be able to make him see it the way i um i doesn't know i'm able to communicate it in the way that it's going to

[01:13:50] get us on the same page so i'm happy to just leave it there i'm not that dense but i'm simply saying we should not have a meritorious conversation based on that report the merit the merits of what this is and analysis that that the council wanted to point out absolutely has to take place i'm simply saying we told the public one thing and we smacked them with our report as a councilman And when I sit out there and when I start campaigning in a couple of months, when I look them out and I say, I will listen to you, I mean it.

[01:14:27] It's not that I'll listen to you, but I'm going to vote the other way before you get a chance to hear my view. But that's what we're doing. We're saying to them, tell us what you want. So I'm simply saying, let's hold this meritorious conversation on the mirrors of what the street through, the levels, the width, the greenness, all of that has to be discussed and vetted.

[01:14:50] I'm simply saying, I don't think it's proper at this point for us to go back and say, here's what you told us, we thank you so much, and here's what we think. And even if we were in agreement, I don't think we should place value or grade what they told us.

[01:15:07] They told us what they told us, and they simply want to hear what did the community say. If we go back with our input, that's not the community talking, that's us. That's all I'm saying. And if I'm too dumb to make it clear, I would not personally engage in any comment on the merits and the effects until after the public has had a chance to see what they want.

[01:15:31] You guys can go forward. We can talk about green space, blue streets, red grass. I would not comment until we have done what we promised the public we would do. So, appreciate your comments and your candor there and so forth.

[01:15:49] So, you know, I'm thinking back to this here. If you could articulate, since you're the liaison to the EDA, the purpose of the joint meeting was for EDA to, through their consultant, just share the comments to city council, right?

[01:16:12] And that was the only purpose of that meeting as far as you think the EDA was looking at that? With regard to that report, they were hoping to come up with some guidance. I think it went astray because they went, I don't, I haven't talked to them, even informed the others.

[01:16:29] I don't think they were anticipating us doing an analysis of what the public told us. What they had was a report from, what's the company called? Roadside. Roadside. EDA has not vetted that.

[01:16:45] They haven't sat around and said, oh my God, that's a crazy idea. None of that. They've done none of that. They simply have asked them to put together what they said and let's make a presentation. When they see it, then the council will react and the comments will be blended in.

[01:17:02] If we 100% do exactly what they don't want, I'm not arguing that at all. I'm simply saying we're speaking to some, we're basically telling them, yeah, we're going to show you these enforcers, but they stink. Your comments, I mean, your comments were of no value. That's what I heard in that room last week.

[01:17:20] This is not what we want from this and that. I just simply thought of it as insulting. I can appreciate that. I think, you know, we all come to council and we're always good checks on one another and what what what takes place here and so i don't i don't think anybody here is when i say disagree uh you know listening to your concern and you did express it at the end of the the joint meeting a little bit but now obviously you know in greater depth now that we have it have it here

[01:17:57] for me until that meeting or in preparation for that meeting i hadn't really given a lot of thought about the development of which what would could should whatever word go there you know i i was like a blank slate wanted to hear what what the comments were um for for where i was coming from

[01:18:32] or looking at here is i wanted to layer on in terms of are we looking at this as a and i didn't say it as well as i can say it now here because you know hindsight is 2020 all the time and that is are we looking at this as a neighborhood so that would be new i mean it's been a commercial district as a neighborhood are we looking at this as a piece of a lot more and it got me to thinking

[01:19:06] about just the the principles of here we're basically creating a new place and for me what did that what does that mean you know in terms of it's along the way now did did i or anyone else get way too specific and and seemingly just disregard um what the citizens had offered in those two sessions that's that's what came across that was certainly not i don't think anyone's intent there but again what we intend and what actually happens or how it's perceived can always

[01:19:43] be, you know, a concern. And so that's why I'm, I'm, I'm, go ahead. Give me, save yourself, save yourself some words. I don't disagree, but anything that you said that night or what everybody's saying now about what has to happen, I simply make a request that we have your kind of discussion and input and everybody, what they think and feel and so forth.

[01:20:14] I think we're going to have five different shopping centers, but whatever. I just simply would like to see it done in a process that I think even the staff thought was the process, and that is we get through the community conversations piece, step one.

[01:20:31] Step two is here's what they told you, counsel. I guess they've given us the courtesy of seeing it in advance. I don't think we should be formally receiving and making any analysis of what the public told us until the public report has been made.

[01:20:50] Right now we have, I went Tuesday and you went the second Tuesday. And then you're talking back, no, no, here's what the two conversations were, here's our report. Counselor, this is what the public said. And then we can start picking at it.

[01:21:06] I just don't think we should be doing this. We have now because we had the meeting and we're doing it even now. I'm just simply asking for a process to come, that stage. Am I incorrect that your staff was really expecting to hear from us after they report to the public?

[01:21:27] The intent was for the EDA to share with where the plan was with counsel to just get general feedback. And not necessarily to drive where the presentation would go.

[01:21:43] That was a little unexpected. In my conversation with staff, that's what I thought. I mean, yes, I have some ideas for the chopping time, but I wasn't going to often make the conversation or definitely at that meeting until the public has had a chance to react.

[01:22:03] Again, I am signing off on that issue. And if I, whoever I've confused or ticked off or think I'm moving too slow, I don't apologize because I think the public expects us to move a little slower than where we are. I will say though, one of the things that EDA has graciously held back is their frustration without having to erupt from the council.

[01:22:27] Thank you. Are you doing well? Teresa and then Sonia. I appreciate your feedback as the liaison with economic development. I do agree. We all kind of came to that joint session and weren't really sure what expectations were that day.

[01:22:46] I know that I had said something about the pardon garage because I remember in community conversations, one of the things that i recall reading was they did not want to see a parking you know so i'm like oh here's a solution you know um the timeline interesting enough i'm looking at the timeline that we have on the report where there's going to be you know a draft master plan documents november 21st and then a final january 30th 2026 but do we have do we actually have input from

[01:23:22] The community conversations as to the timeline that our community expected us to do anything with this I don't this was actually presented this timeline was presented at the the the meetings we had expected to do a November presentation a follow-up presentation To identify what our consultants had heard from the community conversations and how that translated to Concept plans and then the intent was to present those concept plans to the public and hear from them whether it was Yes, that's exactly what we're looking for or no

[01:24:03] We thought it would be this or that or another again trying to get to a point that we had some understanding and commitment from the folks that have been Participating in the process as to this is the general look of what we're hoping to see once math. This is redeveloped And then at that point, that's when it would it would go There would be further discussion with council and the EDA about how to take that and and if there's things that we wanted to do Look at differently looking at what it would take to put in a parking garage looking at what it would take to to do

[01:24:42] Something that would be more attractive to to new folks as a new community within masses so that's The process that that councilman smith was was was outlining was kind of where we have typically followed with our Community conversations is that there's a follow-up meeting to present to the public What we heard and and try and better define what their expectations are so you need

[01:25:16] somebody needs direction about the leases is are you just saying we just wanted to confirm okay um and again if the the way that and and and i do apologize you are correct the mou is very clear 23. um unfortunately we didn't know uh how the master plan would facilitate development there

[01:25:46] There was a thought on staff that if we could possibly shift current leases to one side or the other to facilitate demolition and development of one side or the other, that was something we wanted to hold out for.

[01:26:05] I think with what's come forward, I think where we're at now is that we keep operating the shopping center through 2030, and that allows us the opportunity to refine the vision and to then start working through how we can, if it is possible, to move folks, how that would work out with a redevelopment plan.

[01:26:32] And as it's been discussed, we're not building this. We're simply putting forward the master plan of what the community, the EDA, and council want to see. And then that allows us to start putting it out on the street, similar to what we did once council had purchased the MIFCO site and the Old Town Inn.

[01:26:54] We started putting that out on the street saying, this is our vision. Can you tell us how you can make that a reality? Thankfully, we have received at least one opportunity for that. So hopefully, once we have a group decision on what we want to see out there, that allows our economic development team to start saying, developers, this is what we're looking for.

[01:27:20] Ultimately, what would come back, we hope, will be general compliance, but there might be some tweaking. And there's always the opportunity to make it better, make it different, because, again, we're not in the development field.

[01:27:37] We don't do big development. We have a vision, but when you get into the reality of what it takes, that's where we just have to put it on the street and see what we can find. So instead of the 2030 could be the possible end of the leases for an extension?

[01:27:55] For the majority of them. If we looked at Van Meter, they filed for rezoning apps January 2021, Grand Avenue. It does take probably three to five years to actually get things moving.

[01:28:11] Three years is by it. So I don't think that's unrealistic. That's already in the document. It is. And just getting both council and the communities understanding that you're not going to see full redevelopment out at Mathis in the next two years. It is a multi-year process.

[01:28:32] But while that's going on, we don't want the Mathis Shopping Center as it currently exists to become, yes. So we're trying to, EDA has two tasks, two missions. One, to carry forward the redevelopment master plan project, but maintain Mathis Shopping Center in as high a level of service to the community as we can.

[01:28:56] Thank you, Madam Mayor. And I feel like I'm starting to understand. And if it was like that, it was disrespectful. So for that, I apologize. When I went to the EDA, I went understanding that even though we're not developers and I'm not trying to build, you know, there is a line used that we have to be willing to approve in order for the developers to be willing to look at that and see the, I want

[01:29:35] to say the liability of the project. know that's not the right word but that's coming to mind right now so for that I apologize I came in I think you just said it right now what the community EDA and in council it's really no one to see there we know it's not going to happen in two and the next two years so definitely I mean I wish I wish it wasn't like that but it's it's really no one no reason I was so it will be reasonable to say that you know going to up to 2030 which is five years is something that it can be done so i hope they

[01:30:14] get that big feedback from me um but i when i went there i of course i was impacted by what was presented but i didn't know it was just for me to hear if it had been like that you know we come to council we see a lot of presentations sometimes we just hear it and we take it and then and then we digest that we didn't get that chance so you know even though we were reading it but just when you when somebody else read it for you it just feel different and and it's taking different so for that if we weren't supposed to do that my apologies but I went in that meeting understanding that they want to hear

[01:30:54] direction they want to hear from us they want and I believe the biggest thing me was the density was really low but I'm not trying to change anything of there provided and if that wasn't the time for us to give our feedback tell me when because you know we haven't you know we haven't been able to provide that so but I went into that meeting and leaving the EDA and hearing from the consultant it was going to be able to come to I don't know if it's three or it's four different

[01:31:28] concepts that will be provided but it is at least what I'm trying to say is if it was if it was out of line because that wasn't we would call for it to go there I mean it is in Russia we did all we could to try to make it there everybody you did your best to be there and to be on time and I really thought it was to give our honest feedback on the concept so that can be presented when they go back but it wasn't about changing what the residents of the

[01:32:05] public had provided it was more about giving more and i would say it's positive that we're willing to do a lot more than what was presented because we are not developers we're not building but i believe that's going to attract even more when the concepts get done and then the public will be able to see how much we're willing to develop that line and to see that change but uh now that i understand that you know maybe i went back and looked at the agenda and tried to see you know i was fully understanding the EDA wanted to hear from us after presenting that so

[01:32:41] we could give direction and that's what I did if I overstepped because I misunderstood why I was there for my apologies you know I would know I want the public and I I love that we heard from the public I wish it was more and now we will continue it's still there's time for the public because there's no finalize we're not building we're attracting builders so they can build

[01:33:04] something that we will willing to develop the land for. Thank you. Thank you. So the next public is the 13th, 11th. November 21st. 13th. I'm sorry. I was looking at the next stop. November 13th. And that is the next. But that's the one they said they're going to have. What are they going to have out there?

[01:33:35] They will be presenting there these findings, but what would also came out of the other work session The joint meeting was that they will come present a third option that had With has with with higher density potential for a parking garage in lieu of all of the the ground-based parking Basically taking the the input from council and putting that as a third option and and we'll see what the public has to say about that And their previous sessions that they had those two will also be out there as well

[01:34:13] So it's all of it plus what council said Total of three the two that were based on what that the Received from the public and a third kind of takes it a little further as far as the density to achieve getting more Development side and then that's there's another one in November two or nine But after that, they'll put together documents, and then they'll have follow-ups with the EDA and Council.

[01:34:42] Okay. Any other comments or questions? So the one, so a community conversation in January right now is not scheduled, but may be scheduled? Well, the open house is basically where we'll hope to hear.

[01:35:01] Not necessarily, it's not truly a community conversation, because it's trying to just get feedback from this. Putting it out. out saying is this what you thought and if there's anything different and then they do identify that they are looking to do a meeting with the EDA in December and a follow-up meeting with council in January of you know all of the follow-up and then from there we can work with the EDA to massage and find it and as part of the general thought is that where we're at now there might be a

[01:35:39] shift in priority in the next five years we may see that ban meter projects other development that occurs or impact from the the federal government may want it may throw a shift in how we should see we should look at development five years but this at least gives us a base to start talking with developers about what in general we want to see as far as any possible proposals out there. Thank you

[01:36:18] madam mayor I know that MLK might not be our holiday but I would like for us to be respectful because that is a lot a lot of human rights conferences and many other things so you know I will stand against that day. I think this was done a year in advance and I don't think they were working but we will definitely sure

[01:36:39] Yes, ma'am, unfortunately we've experienced a few three major electric outages in the past week and one of them was beyond our control it was as a result of an issue with the feed to two of our

[01:37:09] substations by Dominion they had issues on their lines which ended the ability to serve those two substations And that that led to about 5,000 customers being without power for about an hour Then we've had two recent ones that were associated with equipment failures on our part one smaller one that was in the downtown and then last night a larger one that

[01:37:45] affected quite a few people so Basically, just wanting to reassure the residents that we do actually have a very effective, proactive maintenance program as far as replacement of all of the older lines that we have, as well as monitoring the equipment that we have at our substations.

[01:38:12] Mr. Ali has actually done an outstanding job of stepping up what we monitor as far as the the line Quality we monitor at our off station. We are constantly receiving information about The status of the electric lines in the city if there is an anomaly alert our crews and It's something that needs immediate attention. They take care of it Otherwise, they do further inspection of it, as well as our substations.

[01:38:46] We're monitoring the temperature of the equipment. We're monitoring the amount of electricity that's going through them. And the two most recent incidents that occurred, there was an underground electric line that failed, and that line had been put in, I think, three years ago.

[01:39:09] And we typically will see anywhere from 20 to 30 years out of the line. So that simply was something that we did not anticipate and could not have anticipated. And then the event that occurred last night occurred at our substation.

[01:39:29] And, again, it's relatively new equipment there that had not indicated a potential failure. But the weather did impact or actually cause the failure of that equipment. It was a bushing that overcharged due to some presence of water on it.

[01:39:48] And so, again, we're doing what we can to minimize the outages. And what I passed out to council was basically a summary of this year. We've had, on average, 11 outages of varying length and number of customers in our community.

[01:40:14] Typically, we will have about 4,000 customers that are impacted each month. With the three incidents that occurred the past week, that impacted approximately 10,000 customers.

[01:40:32] So what we have experienced in the past week is an anomaly as far as disruption to our customers, the biggest one being the failed service to the city from Dominion impacting 5,000 customers.

[01:40:49] And unfortunately, there's nothing that we can do to foresee that type of disruption. We know that once it did occur, our crews came in, and they were in the process of trying to backfeed as many customers as they can. Thankfully, Dominion was able to restore power within an hour.

[01:41:08] And on average, most customers, when we have an outage, it is typically less than an hour. Thankfully, there's a few that just simply have a one-minute to ten-minute blip, but longer ones do occur.

[01:41:25] And our crews make every effort to restore power as quickly as they can to as many customers as they can while they are trying to make the permanent pair to our system so i know that that was a big topic with our our residents as well as council and we wanted to just put out there as much information as we could and i know that like i said mr early has put together a very robust maintenance program and inspection program of our facilities in hopes of minimizing disruptions so it's 11 outages since

[01:42:04] January? On average, per month. Unfortunately, we had a few months where we had 19 outages, one of them in July, and that was predominantly due to lightning. We had six related outages due to lightning in July, and then the majority of the other ones are typically animals. Unfortunately,

[01:42:35] The birds and squirrels tend to try to eat the material that is around the electric lines and birds will land where they shouldn't at our substations.

[01:42:55] And unfortunately, all it takes is touching two hot areas and that bridge causes electricity to go through the animal and fry whatever equipment they were landing on. So, and there are some things we can do to prevent some squirrel activity, but squirrels, if anyone has a bird feeder, they know that squirrels are relentless in trying to get to what they want.

[01:43:24] And unfortunately, there's not a lot we can do to prevent birds from flying into the substations and causing problems. As weather events have seemed to be more frequent and also more intense have you heard other localities having more frequent electrical outages Well, we are not the only locality or Entity or electric provider that has them obviously Dominion had the huge incident that that caused the disruption to the city

[01:44:05] We, Mr. Ali and his crew, regularly work with a number of the other localities to identify opportunities. I think that was part of what allowed Tarek to put in measures that would allow him to better track the substation activities and status of that equipment by hearing what other localities are doing.

[01:44:32] Lightning strikes. Unfortunately, I don't know that we we have arrestors that are placed strategically throughout our substations You plan for the worst and sometimes like lightning like a bird will find Most vulnerable spot in the substation and so I do believe yes We are doing everything we can we are talking with everyone we can and if there is an opportunity to Minimize the risk to our system Terrick and his crew are doing that or pursuing it

[01:45:16] Thank you mayor. So since becoming the liaison to the utility commission, I've learned More about our different different items here. So first a couple of observations and a few questions here Mr. Burke was kind enough to indulge me earlier today to have a far more thorough conversation. So these are thoughts that I've had since then along the way here. And also recognizing our residents who are either in attendance or listening in or will view

[01:45:51] the recording the next day here, sort of to bring these things up here. I know we cannot anticipate when an electric outage is taking place unless it's like a scheduled one and what have you here. But I do think that it's of importance that our public relations folks

[01:46:20] frequently, perhaps not the best word, but often remind our residents that we do have a live outage map to use. And you don't even have to memorize it. You go to the website, put in power outage map and boom you get a link and brings it up and so you know each time just this month these things happen go to manassas connects the app file but i don't have power so because

[01:46:58] that to me is the most important thing not to call but the file so they begin to get a record and i go to the map that's the second thing which you can do through the app or through the website obviously if you don't have electricity at your house you have to use your cell phone as for instance um and uh you know see see what's going on i think in several cases uh it was very clear this was a very large outage so there was a lot going on this was not on on that first of all but um perhaps this is going to be something that's put put on you know rethinking our home pages

[01:47:36] where there is just you know a couple of key key things and that's that's going to be one of them It's like on that to help because I think for a lot of folks, myself included, you want to know how big it is, how long it is, you know, things of this sort.

[01:47:56] And while you can't determine the length, when you see 1.5 thousand listed, you know, it's going to be long. It's going to take a while, though, surprisingly, both of these, the big ones this month, came back within an hour or a little more than an hour in that regard.

[01:48:16] in that case here yeah secondly uh just a reminder to my fellow counselors and then because this is information that's already produced perhaps our public relations folks and in that department can look at a way of sharing this information on a monthly basis you all get a link to the uh to the various committees when they meet and you get one for the utility commission and if you go in there you'll see one report for basically the electrical system

[01:48:51] Still learning this. Vice Mayor Wolfe. Sadie. Knows a lot about that. But first of all, you get a list. They present a list. Derek presents a list of the outages for the preceding month. Pretty detailed. Start time, duration, customers affected, customer minutes being total, not for each customer, but total amount there, which substation was affected, voltage type, cause, and then the device that was affected there. I mean, all this information.

[01:49:23] Now this is after the fact, but you can begin to see this. So this information, this report is produced for the Utility Commission every month. It may warrant having a place where, just like with zoning and development plans and so forth, we share that as well along the way.

[01:49:43] And then the second page is reliability, and you get Sadie and Katie. Sadie is System Average Interruption Duration Index. And what it does, it tells you, gives you a running total for each month of how many minutes the system has been interrupted.

[01:50:05] And then it also gives you, there's an average, there's a goal to be met. The target amount, obviously, is 99.99 year-to-date, and this was a report for June. I just picked the middle of the summer here. Year to date, our our reliability was ninety nine point nine eight nine nine along the way.

[01:50:30] That mean, again, putting things in perspective here. This is what the commission gets. This is clearly what staff looks like. So I invite you to look, look at these here. And Eric would love to talk to you about it if you really want to talk about it.

[01:50:45] But for me, it has helped me understand what's really going on. And because these reports are already produced, this may be. And I'll leave that up, obviously, to you, Mr. City Manager, to decide the best way to. But again, to me, more information is helpful.

[01:51:06] It's up to our residents and our businesses to use it. So those are just two on that score. I do have a couple of kind of thoughts or observations or questions here along the way here. First of all, do we have, are there any, in our system, are there any hot spots, meaning places that have repeatedly been areas of concern?

[01:51:35] I'm sure that there are, and part of the map that you referred to that shows where all of our outages are, we then track that in our GIS system, where it occurred, how frequently, what was the problem.

[01:51:52] Unfortunately, with the substations, it's typically just equipment that has to get repaired or replaced. The line work is typically segments of lines that get replaced. If we are seeing an area where we have multiple locations of failures, that's probably an indication that we need to accelerate replacement of that full section.

[01:52:18] Again, what Tarek does is we have all of our underground facilities mapped. We know when they were put in the ground. And that typically gives us an idea of when we need to be replacing them just based on the average lifespan. But if there was a bad batch of cable, there was a poor installation, we were doing it during a wet season and it caused problems.

[01:52:44] There's a number of things that could occur. So, yes, we are tracking them. I don't specifically know where there's hotspots, but if you were to talk with Tarek or his staff, they do track that, and that is part of the program that gets updated at least annually, but as necessary to identify how we need to prioritize our repair planning.

[01:53:13] And, okay, and is there a way that, so then on substations, You know, probably now three years ago, it was Point of Woods that was the troublesome substation, and we got a backup substation, and now the Prince William one is now also getting affected here.

[01:53:40] Is that because those are older substations? The equipment's older, they've been around longer, or what? Or is there anything that can be identified as the reason why those are the ones?

[01:53:56] Well, the battery heights issue was an actual complete failure of the transformer at that location. And unfortunately, transformers of that size is a long-lead item. So, yes, we do now have a backup transformer in our system that, if needed, we could deploy as necessary.

[01:54:19] What we are doing is we've installed monitors on all of our existing transformers. Again, they measure the temperature of the cooling oil. They measure the amount of resistivity, resistance, through the items to identify if there's, as the resistance increases, that means that there might be a failure of some of the components.

[01:54:46] So the electricity is having a harder time making it through the transformer. And if that occurs, then we need to identify what the problem is. So by doing better monitoring, we are able to identify components within the transformer system that would need to be improved.

[01:55:07] We're not necessarily seeing failure like we did with battery heights. What we're seeing, and I can pass around some of the photos that Tarek provided. The event last night, there was a pushing.

[01:55:23] basically one of the connectors and it got fried with some water accumulated on it the another component again just one of the connectors a lot of what you'll see is just metal but you'll see dark metal that was electrocuted if you will and that's where they wind up having to replace smaller components of our

[01:55:56] our electrical system. So it's not that there's any imminent danger. It's just, you know, there's parts that are failing. I've got 30 to 40 light bulbs in my home, and in any given month, I'm having to replace one to two of them because they burn out. I don't know when they're going to burn out. I know when I put them in, but it's sort of the same thing. A lot of the components that we have failed at substations and unfortunately there's not enough diagnosis or or metrics that

[01:56:31] will say this is going to fail tomorrow so we have to be ready they're just an inherent failure process that we've got to be able to respond to this one well two things number one the battery heights was because of two lightning strikes and fried equipment so this last night we had actually replaced the part a few years ago because we had another the same part from a different brand

[01:57:04] that had apparently reliability concerns the part of the ongoing maintenance they were going through and replaced the part the new better part failed last night at some point i can't do anything about that so let me if i may just one more question here and and that is i think again nobody in the is wishing this on anybody or deliberately going out of the way, nor do I think anyone

[01:57:44] has suggested that along. It is frustrating, all those different things along the way here. I do have a concern about those that might have, I'll call them vulnerable populations.

[01:58:03] They may be seniors having difficulty getting around, medical equipment, they have a disability. Now, I know the city maintains a list when the information is provided where people who are dependent upon electricity, let's say for medical equipment, and we know an outage is going to take place.

[01:58:34] So we're going to have to turn off the power for whatever to this particular area. And they proactively reached out. But that happens when it's planned. My question is about how I'm fearful of folks, just as I said, I gave descriptions and we can all identify and I know we want to do what we can to be of assistance.

[01:59:00] Is there a way that lack of a better way of saying this, reaching out, checking in, finding out when after these outages take place and the power is restored, somebody has, let's say, with a disability that somehow electricity is an important part.

[01:59:19] Or someone who has, let's say, a dialysis machine, using it to breathe, or things of this sort that we're able to, if just as this proactive list about the power outages where the medical information is provided by the doctor to the city to have that list, is there a way we can somehow reach out or be of assistance?

[01:59:49] Because I do worry, as I think we all do, our concern is how do we assist these people through no fault of their own? Maybe some danger along the way. And I don't know to our esteemed legal team over there whether that is something that can actually be done legally.

[02:00:09] I would be hesitant to do that because typically what happens with an electric outage, we bring in the crews necessary to make that repair. Once it's done, depending on the length of time, just because your power comes back on doesn't mean that they are done with whatever the repairs are.

[02:00:29] So there is typically anywhere from one to three more hours of work that they have to do to either complete or, how do I put this, a number of times when they restore power, sometimes if there's another defect down the line, it'll flip off again.

[02:00:53] So there's putting that on to staff to then follow up and check on things, I think, is not something that I think should be placed on staff.

[02:01:14] I think that's where you get into a lot of the know your neighbors. And I know that my neighbor next door has some medical issues and that if there is an incident, go next door and knock on the door. I know that that's not a great answer, but being a good neighbor is probably the best way to address that concern.

[02:01:40] That and being proactive, and if you have essential medical equipment, making sure that you've got a battery backup to make sure that it will be operable for a short duration. And with that, Stella, there's some questions.

[02:01:59] Thank you. Yeah, a couple of things. I remember when I was elected, the first time I was elected, one of the things about the city that we could never dispute was the electric always stayed on.

[02:02:15] The lights are always going to stay on. I remember that. I'm like, we have a great utilities department. And I'm not saying we don't have a great utilities department. I'm not saying that. But this is really unusual, like you said, very unusual for our city.

[02:02:33] the things that i'm concerned i do not i'm not concerned with our staff i know that went to the utility day i know how hard they work but i want to make sure there's a couple things that are red flagged to me number one um the failed service from dominion dominion feed on this where does that fall into the causes does that fall into the equipment or other or unknown that one is actually other in october yeah category of its own okay we can't control that and um because i was on the

[02:03:11] utility commission uh that makes me very nervous because of everything that's going on around us you know you can imagine the public right away dominion is a business they are going to put as much feed out there electric that they possibly can because they make a lot of money on it all these data centers being built they're fine with that but what happens is when we have an outage

[02:03:43] i'm curious as to the priority of who gets cut i'm not saying that feed was cutting because someone else couldn't be do you know the answer to that what is their priority it's my understanding that that work they were doing reconductoring effectively new transmission line work and in order to facilitate that to consolidate what

[02:04:14] effectively consolidate how they were feeding us and that that caused the the problem that occurred it was effectively a minor problem for them but because they had consolidated feed service to the city that affected two of our substations a minor issue for them was a dramatic impact to us because it was the feed to now two of our substations were cut off when they they cut power and that's why we had 5,000 customers without power so I don't believe that

[02:04:53] this was I know that this was not associated with a demand issue on the part of it was an equipment failure yes but if we have a demand issue which you know that's what everybody's fearing um as a city we do have backup as a city we we are fed from many uh all of all of our substations are fed from different locations and so what would when we have a typical problem our crews one of the first things they do is they start trying to figure out

[02:05:29] how to back feed from different substations the areas that are impacted and the airport is the newest correct newest substation the newest substation that's not online there is a new substation that's being constructed on dean drive but yeah that's the newest okay um so you know as a council i think you know what we need to do is make sure that we have the equipment that we need to back up if there is issues with dominion we can't control it that's that but we can solve the problem if we have our equipment our staff where they need to be well we are fed by dominion we

[02:06:09] have some generation ability with our generators so if if we have another catastrophic event like we did that we we encountered again the the problem that we really had was that with the service to two substations being disrupted just due to the way that dominion had their their their lines configured it really hampered how our crews would have been able to respond it's not a normal event typically they're not reconductoring all around us but we've been

[02:06:46] experiencing that for the past year they they've upgraded the transmission lines through the city and now they're working on the periphery of the city and that's what caused that problem um but as we go forward with our future development like mathis avenue this is another reason i'm like give it five years like we have a lot to we have to we have a lot going on you know we have to make sure that we are prepared for growth um so it does give us a little padding wiggle worm there um i am concerned as tom mentioned uh about the medical and health equipment um i'm wondering if

[02:07:19] the hospital or even social services has help for people even to fund you know like backup generators that are battery operated just for, you know, emergencies like that if there is a funding issue.

[02:07:36] Because I know hospitals, they do get money for things like this, you know, where they can find if there's need. I don't know what our hospital has, but I know that other hospitals, my dad's going through this up there in Pennsylvania. You know, they do have grants and things to help people with equipment and some medication.

[02:07:58] So I think it's good to, you know, I'll try to do some follow-up as well, see what I can find out. Yeah, we can't prevent the birds and squirrels, but they weren't a problem, you know, eight years ago.

[02:08:13] I don't know, maybe our lines taste better. I have no idea what's going on there. And we can't do anything to shield it, like put netting. I mean, you can't do anything like that. Unfortunately, just due to the nature of the high power that's coming into it, you can't put netting around yeah and they've always been a problem I think what we're seeing most recently is just and it's probably a testament to terrorists cruise ability what we're seeing is is substation failures with

[02:08:49] equipment due to animals and different things like that and unfortunately that's the number of customers that are impacted by a substation going down versus a line going down the the line that went down on grant that blew it was a hundred customers it was in the grand scheme of things it's not not as significant of an issue we want to restore it as quickly as possible but it's not a five thousand customer issue so I think what you're seeing now is that a lot of the recent events are at a much larger scale of acting a lot more

[02:09:25] people so we're hearing a lot more about it because collectively it's it's not just oh my lights are out but my neighbors are on it's oh this whole neighborhood is out and we're hearing a lot more you know we also have one more thing and then I'll move on our health of our community is priority of course but our some of our small businesses have had some big hits too with like their IT you know just like equipment that we rely on that equipment to work to be able to function it's fried or whatnot that's something they have to deal with, I think, with their insurance. But, you know, that's why we got to make sure we get this

[02:10:05] the best we can, because it does impact in many ways. We don't always hear about or see. Any other questions or comments? Thank you, Madam Mayor. I appreciate it. So first of all, you know, just a reminder for our residents or the customers, whether they are, you know, commercial or non-commercial, to make sure that they have their information up to date. So whether they call in to report it, they are you know requesting specific needs when they reported that they can

[02:10:42] be lined up with the account they have to make it easier reporting and then my looking at the report from the minutes from the utility on the usage for the electric call in September 2025 I don't know if I'm looking at it right but it It's talking about the average serviceability index still is 99.991%.

[02:11:09] And I'm sure because of the amount of customers and the time that it was off, it's going to change. And by no means, you know, I'm being respectful of, you know, of how uncomfortable and how difficult this is, especially for the business.

[02:11:27] I used to hear a lot from the Battery Heights that we were looking out for the businesses more than for them as residents. And I believe that when you look at these reports, I mean, half of them are in the commercial, not just the residents.

[02:11:46] So, you know, that gives me peace of mind. I do worry some of the residents talk about our equipment is failing or their infrastructure might know, You know, they feel like it's no actual part. And here in front of your report today, it sounds like, you know, it's the new parts that are failing us.

[02:12:07] There's no lack of anticipating or trying to do everything you can, whether in the lines or in the temperature or, you know, everything to do with electricity. So I appreciate the feedback we got today. I do see the most difficult one is the one created by Dominion Power, which we have no power over.

[02:12:31] And I do understand a lot of times our customers get the power right, you know, like in a few minutes. It's because it's rerouted. So it doesn't mean that it's fixed, but they're able to get it because they get power from other places.

[02:12:47] I believe that our area is talking a lot about data centers. And I do believe that in the future, if it's possible, that we talk about how, you know, everything that is happening is no cause of that. And, you know, I don't want a lot of input, but I do want the residents and other customers to have their questions, answers.

[02:13:10] And I, you know, I do believe that we don't, you know, all we take responsibility, we don't take it lightly. But at the same time, you know, I, you know, we cannot go ourselves because if we go, we show up to the site, you know, it's unsafe and it's not like we're going to make a difference other than trying to share the information.

[02:13:31] so i echo uh the council members um i have done it before people in need have have called um when i you know for a while so i know that is uh things that can be done you know my ask is you know they have uh people that look out for them that they have the different options and uh you know it is we will do our best and i thank uh the staff for showing up and for doing their best to to make sure that this is as small as possible, that the minors are kept as small.

[02:14:04] But at the same time, I do believe that we are being proactive and there's no human error or something that we couldn't prevent proactively. In the report that you gave us, I see the cost, it says 11.2, the average.

[02:14:24] The equipment is 4.9, which is one of the highest, followed by the animals. know that it got to a point that some customers didn't want to hear it's a squirrel but we cannot make up the the reason the reason is the reason and you know we will try to work on that and the other one the third highest will be the unknown which is i was surprised to see there are sometimes no customers affected but there's no reason why it happened but it was sex at the same time so You know, I hope that information tonight was helpful.

[02:15:01] And like I was, you know, sharing last night, we can share what we have and the updates. And if it's a squirrel, you know, I'm sorry, but I know that it's also causing struggles in houses as well and other places. So I, you know, I do want to thank our staff.

[02:15:20] And, you know, my ask is anything that we can do to care for squirrels, to keep them out. And I, you know, I don't say it. I know you're trying. And part of what sometimes, you know, give me peace of mind is knowing that, you know, because you're coming from the department.

[02:15:40] So I, you know, I have confidence, and I hope our customers remember that. The expertise, and I was talking to someone about how sometimes you have shown up to places that you didn't have to, but you did it, and it shows me who you are. So I know we are in good hands, and my ask is if there's, I know you are, but is there anything else that we can do proactively from other places other localities i really thought it was the rain and i look at it's only one incident when the you know the rain specifically was the issue so um i would like to learn more if possible i know i haven't done a

[02:16:17] tour specific to that um but you know if i if i can learn a little more so i can explain it better I will appreciate that and that is one thing that we have on our list to do is to get y'all touring some of our facilities and then what we also need to do a better job is communicating through our social media and and website of what we are doing proactively we need to get out and do some present information showing folks that we're replacing the lines in the in the ground and and our crews are actually doing inspection and part of what when we do the tour our ops

[02:16:54] facility it is state-of-the-art it they have the ability to monitor and the maps that you see with all of the data they are actually able to say you know my house has power this house doesn't and they are able to assemble that into the map so that we have current data of who's gotten power and who doesn't and most likely typically they do know before councilman Alcena puts it in on on the app that he has no power they already know and they're already dispatching crews so we

[02:17:32] we do have as good a crew and as good a system as as we can and and we are doing a lot to make sure that power is on water is is is flowing and and and the sewer lines are taking everything away no man

[02:18:13] Your treats, let's just go the whole way. That's more like your garage. That's okay. I just, hang on. You're going to work overnight, huh? Just hang for a moment, okay? So we can do it. Anyway.

[02:18:29] One final. I have a, what are you going to do? More aggressive. We can see you someday. Yes, you sure will. I'll be there. Right, can I say yes? Oh, my goodness. I can walk because I can't run that far away.

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