Coraggio Consulting Manassas City Council 3/23/2026 Date: Monday, March 23, 2026 Place: Manassas City Council, Virginia Length: 0h 56m (video) Official meeting video (Wistia / RegionalWebTV): https://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/g5wrzj038p 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [00:00:03] Please call the roll. Mayor Davis-Younger. Present. Vice Mayor Wolfe. Here. Council Member Ellis. Council Member Smith. Here. Council Member Osina. Here. Council Member Vasquez-Luna. Present. Council Member Hudson. Here. McCormick. Thank you very much. [00:00:19] If you're able to please stand with me for the moment of silence and our Pledge of Allegiance. In recognition of the 13 American service members who have died in Iran since February 28th, I'd like to take a moment of silence to recognize them. [00:00:49] you this evening we are fortunate to have two young leaders to lead us in the pledge of allegiance for this evening first we have first class scout and dragons patrol leader bentley tadlock who is a student at marstella middle school and is in troop 670 and attends troop meetings at grace united methodist church in the city of manassas and we also have staff sergeant lizabeth cruz vasquez from the Manassas Young Marines if you both want to come forward and lead us in the Pledge of [00:01:24] Allegiance. Thank you very much. Seated. Thank you so much. Okay. Good evening, everyone. Thanks [00:02:11] for coming out tonight. For those of you who have made it out here in person, we're so glad to see you here in chambers. And for those who are taking the time to look at us on TV and social media, we welcome you to the meeting as well. We have glad to see school board member Diana Brown. I we'll hear from you in just a few moments with the introduction and also our Superintendent Kevin Newman is here as well so thank you thank you both for being here I don't see any other elected so thank you all so much for being here tonight we have a pretty light agenda this evening with a closed session so I won't prolong it any further we'll move forward with council time and I'll call [00:02:50] on Councilwoman Sonia Vasquez Luna who has a special recognition she'd like to do so Councilwoman in Vasquez Luna. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for those here and also the ones watching now or the recording. It's a beautiful day. Spring has come. And with that, I'm happy to see more, whether it's visitors or residents in Old Town and other places. It is important that we don't forget during the winter times. It's the most difficult time for our small [00:03:25] businesses and for other businesses because people don't shop that much. So please, I ask you to shop and to remember to do that here in our beautiful city. I have a special reclamation today and I learned these, you might have heard about it in the news, I have been following them online on social media and I'm so proud that we have the honor to have [00:03:58] here the unit commander the Manassas young marines. It's a group of hard workers young marines and their ages are from 14 to 18. I will leave you with the names at the end. They have been doing a lot of hours they have been recognized as the number one you can also enjoy the pictures thank you mr. Smith for your support I think today more than ever it [00:04:31] is important that we recognize what our what our veterans our active duty and also our young Marines are doing I believe manassas something for everyone and they are putting our name out there and and and you can enjoy some of the things they have done to highlight the volunteerism. We talk about the auto volunteer community hours, they had 366 hours. The young morning's hours it [00:05:06] was 620 hours and they have even a lot more that they have done and they have participated in different events. So I want to welcome each one of you and if you can please stand up I'm just gonna read your names. We have young marine Staff Sergeant Lisbeth Cruz Vazquez. We have Young Marine Corporal Miguel Ramos. We have Young Marine Private First Class Alexa Ramos. We have Young Marine Private Kayden Bishop Vazquez. We [00:05:39] have Recruit Ugor Vakish and we have Unit Commander Daisy Vazquez and Female Staff Gloria Ramos. So I want to ask Manassas to please recognize each one of them. We're thankful that you are choosing Manassas, volunteering here, and representing Manassas across. And for me, it's a special moment. [00:06:04] So thank you for being here. I truly appreciate it. You can take a seat. Thank you so much. I do have a couple of remarks. I will keep it short. I believe a lot of people is working outside now. Just a reminder, I seen a couple of neighbors, don't forget that you have to use the paper bags. You have to make sure that you use the right containers. If not, that is not going to be [00:06:35] taken. It will remain there until you change it. There is a lot of updates in our bill for the future. If you're wondering about when your street will be paved or when the changes are coming close to your neighborhood it has been posted on the march 20 26 update update for uh for you to know about sidewalks or other projects that are going on around our city there is also the brick [00:07:09] to brick i believe it has been said before it's posted and you can find it here or you can find it online and that is for you to be up to date with with the projects and with what's going on know what's changing in case there's road closures I believe a few people is worried about the Harris pavilion I'm happy to say between the parade day and now it has changed a lot they have poured the concrete and I believe it's gonna be open on time I'm looking forward for the for our for our market [00:07:48] So please know that, you know, the market will be going on on time and it will be ready. Don't forget in our website, there is different jobs posted and the new ones are for the team for the Stonewall Park Pool. [00:08:07] So if you have a teenager or if you have someone that will be interested in working at the pool as a head lifeguard or a pool attendant, now is the time. Please be looking into our website for those opportunities. [00:08:25] I will leave you with a couple of other things. The city of Manassas is planning, I call it Manassas birthday or Manassas anniversary. It's going to be on April the 2nd, and to me, the celebration that is called 2026 Spring Extravaganza is going to be on April the 4th, 2026, 11.30 to 3 p.m. at the community center. [00:08:51] There's a lot of events going on at the community center, so please visit the website or visit the social media where everything is being posted, whether you want to do yoga or you want to do Zumba on Mondays. I believe they're there right now so please join if that is of your interest it's for the whole community. Last thing I want to close with reminding this is the history month I have said it before you know I'm really proud to be able to serve with a women majority council here and at the last [00:09:24] meeting we had all the living council members former and current council members so it is a great honor to continue to serve with our first female mayor and also with each one of you council members. I believe the Prince William Living had their influential woman at least coming out. So as we continue to celebrate, continue to learn about how much women have influenced our beautiful city and we cannot close speaking about the history month without talking about [00:10:03] Ginny Dean and what she did for our city and for our region and our country so please if you get a chance before the month end try to stop by one of our to Ginny Dean to Ginny Dean or learn more in our website so thank you madam mayor that was my remarks thank you Vice Mayor Wolfe Thank you, Mayor. [00:10:26] Councilwoman Teresa Cotellis. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, a couple things, actually. We have an event coming up May 2nd to 3rd, which is a new event called the Great Manassas Campout. [00:10:43] And that event will be hosted by Friends of the Manassas Bee Festival, which is a nonprofit here in the city. That's going to be held May 2nd to May 3rd. It's an overnight campout right at our historic Liberia house. and grounds the historic home will be open early in the day on Saturday for tours there will be that's also preservation week and we are lining with Virginia 250 who has made this an official event and it can be found on their website as well we also are working with the National Wildlife [00:11:22] Federation who has the great American camp out a great America camp out every year for 20 years. So we decided to make one of our own here in Manassas. So, you know, get to pitch a tent, you know, make some moors, have a fire, enjoy the outdoors, unplug. And we're really hoping to have a good turnout. So if you go on manassasbeefestival.com, you can sign up and please come out and join us. Front row, you can all come. We also had a meeting. Well, actually [00:11:56] was not a meeting, it was a gathering called Save Old Bennett School that was initiated and organized by a local Old Town resident, Colin Turner, who's here today. And we had the pleasure of having this gathering at Meredith House, who hosted, and that is a really amazing example of preservation of history in our Old Town Manassas, right here, right up the street. We had a great turnout. We had mayor there, council members, very happy to see [00:12:28] them there as we listened to people from the county the city outside of the area and historians preservationists artists students we had people just are interested in saving old bennett school so gathered a lot of information and planning on having another larger community conversation Hopefully we'll get more involvement there April 16th, so mark that calendar And look at SaveOldBennettSchool.com for more information [00:13:05] I did attend the History Symposium at Manassas Museum on Saturday Which was another group of very, very passionate people The mayor was there as well And heard about all different eras Staying in the America 250 theme all the many different areas of history in Virginia. [00:13:28] It was very interesting. But to me, one of the standout, which was a little bit outside of preservation, but definitely history, was the discussion on the D.C. sniper. We had Chief Dean, I believe, as well as a prosecutor in that discussion and another attorney. [00:13:50] And I think it is going to be, hopefully, on our Manassas Museum website or some kind of website that we can show that to everyone because it's very interesting i'll i'll make sure i share the link when i see it on my facebook page so really good information it was an era 2002 where we all lived in terror i know some of you weren't here yet but um it does remind you of how important it is to have a very very well uh supported public safety department so that's all i have thank you [00:14:25] thank you councilman smith thank you nothing okay councilman osina thank you mayor uh just a few things uh first of all we have st patrick's day parade uh and that uh i thought went along remarkably well no incidents great weather and everybody i think had a good time it's nice to kind of kick off uh the new year with uh with that parade there and i hope many of you got a chance See it in person or it is recorded and you can watch it online. [00:15:01] I did have the opportunity to sit on the very same session, Councilwoman Ellis mentioned about old men at school. Learned a lot. It was nice to see a much larger group starting to get involved. And I'm sure we'll hear more about some of those activities later today here. [00:15:22] Had lunch with the Easter Bunny this past Saturday. That's put on by the Manassas Volunteer Fire Company. That was a nice activity there. A lot of families, a lot of kids were there. And I didn't get a picture with him, so he put up with me for a little bit. [00:15:42] Let's see. Also got to see a production put on by Prince William Little Theater called Head Over Heels over at the Hilton Performing Arts Center over this past weekend. Very, very fun afternoon there, and they also had evening performances last weekend and this past weekend here, along the way here. [00:16:05] I will be representing the city this Wednesday at the 100th anniversary of COG's Climate, Energy, and Environment Committee. We'll be meeting at the National Press Club, and so you'll see some information about that after that takes place. [00:16:24] April 9 and 11, there will be the ribbon-cutting ceremonies for the farmer's market. That's a Thursday and a Saturday. April 9th is bingo. If you like bingo, have missed bingo, wonder where to play bingo, the Friends of the Manassas City Library are doing their annual fundraiser of bingo, and that does sell out, so I recommend you get your tickets early. [00:16:50] They have some great prizes, and it takes place at the library, So it's a lot of fun in that regard there. And then lastly, on April the 12th, American Legion Post 10 is having their barbecue cookout. [00:17:08] So again, we know warmer weather is coming when there are parades and there are cookouts like this. And the farmer's market is opening up. So I hope you'll take advantage of all that Manassas has to offer. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Councilman Hudson. Thank you, Madam Mayor. [00:17:25] - As the liaison to the Parks and Rec Committee, I would like to inform Manassas residents that the 10-Year Parks Master Plan is now underway, and the Parks and Rec Committee and staff are seeking community involvement. There will be five meetings and four events where anyone in the community can provide feedback. [00:17:42] I won't recite all of the events because there will be more meetings between now and then, but please do note the extravaganza on April 4th at the Community Center. There will be a table of Parks and Rec representatives there collecting information and as well on April 11th at six o'clock at the museum the committee and staff and myself as the liaison will be hosting an event to collect feedback on the parks master plan from what I can tell what was set out as goals ten years ago has overwhelmingly been achieved so it's time to set a new set of goals so please come out and share your thoughts secondly the Northern Virginia Regional Commission will meet this Thursday and [00:18:21] has a pretty light agenda. But interestingly, NVRC will be applying for a $500,000 grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to support a large-scale freshwater mussel introduction project in Prince William County. [00:18:37] So if that is granted, that will be interesting to watch nearby. And that is all I have, Madam Mayor, thank you. - Thank you. I think everybody covered what I had for my remarks. We do have the midday with the mayor and city manager coming up this Friday. and we also have the VIN etching for the, with the Monasta City Police Department coming up at the Monasta Shopping Center on April the 11th. [00:18:59] I wanna thank the schools for having us back out to see the progress on Jenny Dean. We got to do a tour on, I think, the worst weather day ever created, and all that snow. We had all four seasons in one day, but we still made it out there, waded through the water to do that, but they're progressing very well, We're so excited to see that opening, hopefully August I think is when we have the ribbon cutting set for that. [00:19:23] So thank you all for helping us get that set up and allowing us to do that tour. Like I said, I think you guys had covered, we have the town hall this week and budget is the topic. And we have the joint meeting with the school board before that at 530 and then the town hall at 7. [00:19:41] And I want to wish everyone a happy Easter on April the 5th. So with that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Burke for city manager, Tom. - Thank you, Madam Mayor. Along with the budget discussion at the town hall, we would also invite the public to provide comments on the renaming of Manassas Regional Airport. [00:19:59] Our public affairs department is putting together a survey that will be on our website and we will be releasing that Wednesday to get input. If you can't attend the meeting, we're interested to hear what everyone has to say about the renaming. The first Friday will be happening Friday, April 3rd downtown manassas friday the 10th will be the deadline for you to apply for absentee mail-in ballots for the april 21st special election for the proposed constitutional amendment you can visit the general registrar's office or her website for more information you can also sign up to participate [00:20:36] in a paranormal investigation at annaberg mansion on saturday april 11th at the city's parks website there is a 25 fee for that event and then the city will be hosting our business appreciation breakfast on thursday may 7th please contact the economic development department or visit choosemanassas.org for information and that's all that i have any questions for mr work miss vasca ruma thank you madam mayor i believe if you can tell me a little bit about the business [00:21:11] because it has been confusing if there is a change for the business breakfast the the uh brick and mortar or those that have uh an office space are the ones that can apply for the ticket i just want to make sure that it's clear um yes ma'am it basically any business license holder with for a business within the city um there's a few exceptions folks that are working from home those those businesses aren't intended to be part of it but our economic development department is actually going to be mailing out they have worked with the Commissioner of [00:21:50] Revenue to get a list of all the business license holders so they will be sending out a card and if you have any questions if you think if you've not been invited before or not attended before please reach out to the community development yeah economic development department and we'd be happy to add you to the list thank you and then the last one the was that I I still see the cards and the advertising? [00:22:19] Is that going to come back because I only have seen one update in the whole year. We are trying to work that into the program. We are in the process of adding another person to the Public Affairs Department. And so that is intended to resume once we get them up to full staffing. [00:22:37] Yes, ma'am. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next on the agenda, we have presentations. Item 1.1 is Proclamation for American Red Cross Month. And Ms. Ellis is going to help us with that. We have Mr. Juan Garcia, the executive director of North Virginia Red Cross here to receive that. [00:22:56] Come on in. [00:23:42] I have worked with the Red Cross, the local chapter, for years. I was on the board. We brought forth many blood drives during the pandemic. [00:24:00] I worked on the many different drives that are going on, and they still need blood. There's still a severe need for blood. I did have the advantage to visit Teresa and her team at the Manassas Volunteer Fire Department on Thursday to give blood. [00:24:20] And so easy to get in and out, very, very important. So if you can, please give blood. Let's read the proclamation, 21 years. [00:24:36] Whereas, during American Red Cross Month in March, the city of Manassas proudly celebrates the spirit of humanitarianism and reaffirms its dedication to ensuring that no one faces a crisis alone. [00:24:54] And whereas, the heart of our community is reflected in the compassion of Manassas residents whose acts of kindness through the Red Cross bring hope and assistance to those in need. [00:25:09] Continuing the life-saving mission of Clara Barton, who founded the organization over 140 years ago to prevent and alleviate human suffering. [00:25:21] And whereas every day, ordinary individuals make an extraordinary impact by providing emergency shelter, food, comfort to families affected by disasters, donating life-saving blood for patients, battling serious health conditions, supporting military members, veterans, and their families through the challenges of service, [00:25:49] Applying critical skills like first aid, CPR, saving lives, delivering humanitarian aid worldwide, reuniting loved ones separated by crisis. And whereas the generosity, volunteerism, and support of these selfish individuals strengthen the resilience of our community. [00:26:16] In recognition of their dedication, we honor this March as American Red Cross Month and encourage all to uphold Clara Barton's guiding words, You must never think of anything except the need and how to meet it. [00:26:34] Now, therefore, our mayor, Michelle Davis-Younger, of the city of Manassas, on behalf of the Manassas City Council, proclaims march 2026 as american red cross month and encourages all citizens of the city to actively support and participate in its vital humanitarian mission thank you i'd like to say something be very brief um hi everyone my name is juan garcia i'm the executive [00:27:13] director for the northern virginia chapter of america red cross uh one thing i enjoy about this work is that everyone has a red cross story whether it is through their service in the military it is maybe they know about the america red cross through blood collection at their high school or maybe you've donated blood or maybe the red cross helped in a time of disaster whether that was a home fire a hurricane a tornado speaking of tornadoes we had an emergency earlier right last week where we were scared there was going to be a tornado happening so if i can leave you with anything, just please download the America Red Cross emergency app to be ready for any kind of [00:27:53] disaster that may happen. But also think about the America Red Cross when you're thinking about CPR training, babysitter training, lifeguard training, anything safety and prevention. And also, I just want to give a thank you to our amazing volunteers and folks who support the America Red Cross. [00:28:10] She just said, 21 years running a blood drive, and we really can't do our mission and service without you. So I want to thank you so much for just everything you do and for the partnership that you give our organization. Teresa, you want to say something? [00:28:28] Ron is also here with Teresa and Chief Mills. Do you want to say something? Good evening. I'm Teresa Thompson. I have been hosting the blood drive since April of 2005. [00:28:46] We meet every other month, the third Thursday. We welcome all to come. Walk-ins are accepted. You do not have to have an appointment. Good evening. [00:29:08] We appreciate everything that Teresa does for the Rescue Squad Auxiliary and for the Red Cross also. That's her major thing. She's given a lot of her time, and we really appreciate everything she does. [00:29:29] And she's done it all by herself for the past 21 years. Thank you, Teresa. so you've heard give blood several times i'm going to say it again give blood one of the things that we do here in city manassas is we provide whole blood to patients in need and the blood that you give may save someone in your community because they provide us the blood and it's a vital part [00:30:03] of what we do when we have critical patients whether it's a medical emergency a major trauma event, we have been able to provide blood to numerous citizens, and it's allowed us to get them to a critical care facility while still sustaining life. And to this day, everyone that we've given it to has been able to be discharged from the hospital. So it's very important to continue to do that. I also can't say enough about how comforting it is to be able to make a request [00:30:39] anytime, night or day, because of an incident that we have where families become displaced And we just say it's for a family of 10. The gracious staff from the Red Cross show up prepared to provide whatever needs, human needs, financial need, housing. [00:31:05] They take care of it for each one of our citizens in need, including their pets. So please, if you can't give blood, I know there's a lot of reasons people can't, but also donate to the Red Cross. And if you have it in your heart, volunteer with the Red Cross. [00:31:27] Well, keep it short, and I'm also going to do it in Spanish. So, no, thank you to each one of you. It was important in El Salvador, super important, and it's super important here that we continue, that we help, and Manasas continue to make a difference. [00:31:45] And I just want to say thank you for reaching out and also for trying, you know, to work, to work closer and how much can we do together. So I appreciate it. Y para las familias que están viendo, pues, gracias a la Cruz Roja por todo el apoyo. [00:32:03] No olviden que pueden donar, es importante, la sangre es muy importante. Necesitamos la ayuda de ustedes para continuar siendo una comunidad fuerte y para continuar trabajando juntos. La Cruz Roja le ayuda, puede bajar la aplicación, que es… Cruz Roja.org y la app de emergencia. [00:32:23] Okay, la aplicación de emergencia o vayan al website que es cruerroja.org. Muchas gracias. Thank you, ma'am. [00:32:29] Thank you so much for that. [00:33:29] That moves us forward to item 1.2 on the agenda of the Monasta City Public Schools school presentation for Round Elementary. We have a school board member, Diana Brown, here to introduce us to the principal, who will then do her presentation. Good evening, ma'am. [00:33:49] Good evening, Madam Mayor and Vice Mayor. Good evening, City Council. I'm Diana Brown, current school board member. for the city of Manassas. Thank you for having me here tonight. I'm here because I have the great privilege to introduce to you one of our hardest working principals. [00:34:06] Ms. Janita Boatwright is the proud principal of George Carr Round Elementary School. She was appointed to the role in 2025. She brings a strong background in instructional leadership and a clear student-centered approach to education. [00:34:23] She is known for her energy, her vision, and her commitment to student learning. Ms. Boatwright focuses on fostering a very positive school culture and supporting staff development and ensuring all students have access to high quality educational opportunities. [00:34:41] This is her first time speaking here to this council, but I'm sure you will be very impressed as she shares the great things happening around. So please welcome her, thank you. - Thank you very much, hopefully I can live up to that. [00:35:00] All right, so Janita Boatwright, thank you, Madam Mayor and Vice Mayor for City Council for having me here. I'll go through. I am proud principal at Round, as she said. I'm going to talk to you for a few minutes about engaging our community. One event at a time. [00:35:17] One of the big things that we did this year when I came in as principal was we talked about making sure that we were engaging our community, and we'll talk a little bit about that. So our school at a glance, we have a little over 540 students, over 95 staff members. [00:35:33] We have 18 student home languages spoken, and Spanish is actually more prevalent than English. The number of students served by our support programs, we have 232 ESAU students and 74 special education students. Our commitment to our village, often you'll hear me say, this is our village. [00:35:53] I thoroughly believe that it takes a village to raise a child, and that's what we strive to do and make sure that we do at our school. Our school believes that strong schools build strong communities. So internal and external partnerships, we have family engagement, student service, and we work to support not only our students, but the families and neighborhoods that we serve. [00:36:14] We've worked on creating a welcoming environment in our school. We want people to feel like school is a place where they belong. We have different events and open communication that we've done this year to help strengthen the trust and bring our community into our school and make sure that they feel like they're comfortable when they come. [00:36:35] community engagement implemented this year we have lots of different clubs art dance soccer running game club math club Lego club and broadcast some are in school somewhere after school before school we've had kindness fairs at least on a Friday we've had some of the high school kids come and help us with that career fair skip first Friday so I'll come back career fair where we've had some of the community members and parents come in and talk about their careers and engage our students. We'll go back to First Fridays. So First [00:37:11] Fridays is our staff in school and it's an opportunity for us to get together because you know the third grade teacher may not see the kindergarten teacher in their daily life but on First Fridays we get together and share breakfast just to get together and encourage each other. Watchdogs we've invited our male parents and guardians into our school watchdogs as dads of great students and so we have parents volunteer they're vetted you know they come in they do the rig of a role to make sure they can come and be with our students and so they come in on different days and they spend time in [00:37:49] different classrooms trying to help sometimes be a mentor just to be there and lend a hand we have pet as our partners parents educational partners and so we've had those meetings third Thursdays third Thursdays every month we have our third Thursdays is not quite the same that someone else is mentioning but our third Thursdays is for our community to come and have a time that they know that we'll have something at school and we try to make sure it's done by 7:00 so the kids can get back home and be ready for school the next day but we have it on Thursdays staff committees we've had staff committees this year to allow our staff to be a part of the planning [00:38:28] and leadership in our school. Guest speakers, authors we've had come through and we have a therapy dog named Shakespeare. Giving back some of the Manassas folks here, thank you very much. We've had some food drives and we have a food pantry. [00:38:45] We had a coat drive, we had a clothing drive for Jamaica. We have two participate teachers from Jamaica in our schools this year, in our school this year. And we did some things to get some clothes and such to send on to them. And then we have a patrol program, which is where our students are patrols and help out both in the hallways, on the buses. [00:39:07] And they do a very good job making sure we're doing what we have to do. Career and Kindness Fairs, I have some pictures here just to share with you guys so you can see some of the things that we're doing. So the Career and Kindness Fairs, we had, like I said, the folks from the community. Osborne Eagle came out. [00:39:24] Our clubs here broadcast, we have a chorus club, and so they come and they sing at different events like our Veterans Day and at Hilton. So we have our robotics club. These are a couple pictures from our pet meetings. [00:39:41] We actually had more parents come out this year than we've had in the last few years, and I think it's part of trying to make sure people feel like they're included. And I have some Spanish, and so I do some of the announcements both in English and in Spanish. So don't worry, I have to get it translated, but my translator makes sure I'm saying the right thing. [00:39:58] But I do it, and so they're hearing me say some of the things too, so I think that's important for our community. This is our third Thursday, some of the events that we've had. We had a band one time at our, it's a local band, while the students were doing the bike rodeo and riding around, bringing their own bikes out. [00:40:16] We had a sing-along in wintertime, our Thanksgiving time, sorry, Halloween time, We had the fall fest and game night. Game night was last week, it was a very big success. Celebrations and spirit days. [00:40:31] We've had celebrations, one of our bookkeeper retired and I wasn't there for all of her years but she's an awesome person and we celebrated her and she just went out with a big old smile and was walking all around the school. And both the kids and the staff, you could see the love and support that we have for each other. [00:40:48] The celebration spirit days with the students dressing up and trying to be like what they wanted to be, their career when they get older. And we had one of our local stars, Madam Mayor, in one of our pictures up here 'cause she came and read to our students. [00:41:04] And you could tell we had some fun dressing up like cowboys in one of our pictures. So thank you for your time and support to help our village survive. Once again, like I said, it does take a village to raise a child, and I believe that all of us working together, you guys help us in lots of different ways, and we're doing what we can the school side to make sure our community stays together back from what is not thank you very much for the presentation um lots of good information and i love the the storytelling through pictures getting to see the smiles and the kids look like they're enjoying school which is um always a good [00:41:42] thing council members any questions for principal vote right mr osina well i don't want you to come all this this this distance here without having a little bit of uh questioning along the way here so okay first thing is so what are your truancy statistics truancy statistics coming into the year we actually doing pretty well so we didn't have as many students truant so we were I want to say was about 80 some percent so we were doing pretty pretty well one of the things with building a community was trying to make it better and stronger something that I've done this year is [00:42:22] we've done a lot of publications of not you know making sure parents know when our breaks are so their kids are in school so most of our students do end up coming we've also had a few who decided they would come this year but they're coming more and there's a few who leave early but they're at least they're coming for part of the day and how does that compare to the previous year well from what I was told that there are more of the students that are there I'm sorry the your your Quincy percentage here you're saying it's 80% is that what I'm [00:42:57] hearing in the past year when I came on it was 80 some percent I don't have the exact number okay and it is now the year that you're there it is we were if I remember correctly it was still around there we were just looking at last week it was still around the same amount that we had before any any thing that you do or things that you the staff teachers are doing differently to get students to attend so our teachers are reaching out when the students are absent for three [00:43:36] days and then we have a process starting at starting at three days and five days we also have been working on when students are out trying to figure out and make sure that we are calling those parents there are some parents that when the students are out my front office tells me and I have had plenty of conversations with different parents whether it's a phone call or having them come in and talk about uh education and how important it is so yes there are some things we're doing a little differently um but i can't say everything i did last year because i wasn't [00:44:09] there thank you mayor thank you for coming vice mayor yeah i just want to clarify something you said the truancy rate's 80 percent it was no sorry i don't say sorry that's the correct i think attendance attendance attendance yes sorry we kind of interpreted for you thank you thank you Thank you, yes. [00:44:32] Any other questions or comments for Principal Boatwright? Thank you so much for the presentation and for being here. Thank you. All right, that moves us forward to item two, public comment time. At this time, we welcome residents and community members who wish to speak about services, policies, and affairs of the city of Manassas. [00:44:48] Anyone who has not requested additional time four days prior to this meeting from the city manager, we have a timer, and your comments will be limited to three minutes. We appreciate the time you have taken to be here. reminder that council does not engage in back and forth conversation with speakers during this time the lack of an immediate response to your comments should not be taken as a lack of interest or concern as we have staff present taking notes and we will respond to your concern in a timely manner when you approach the podium give us your name and we would appreciate it if you would state if you are a city resident and you may provide your address if you so desire we ask that you please be respectful when presenting your comments to not only council members but to those residents and community members who are [00:45:27] also present with that I have the signup sheet no one has signed up but we will not miss anyone two papers here um if anyone wishes to address the council at this time please come forward good evening Colin Turner Manassas City resident good evening mayor and council I just wanted to share an update on the community efforts to preserve the old Bennett school and thank you for your continued support and engagement on this issue this past week we hosted a community [00:46:05] gathering that brought together residents and local leaders who care deeply about the building and its future the room included members of this council leaders from the architectural review board the historic resources board the prince william county historical commission along with historic historic manassas inc the prince william county bar association the osborne alumni association and others committed to preservation we also heard from mr curtis porter who shared his families connection to school integration in our community it was a powerful reminder that this building is not just a structure it holds real [00:46:40] history there was a clear shared energy in the room people are engaged and your support has helped reinforce that preservation is being taken seriously in just two and a half weeks the petition has grown to nearly 750 signatures from residents and local businesses who want to see that conversation continue we're building on that momentum with a larger community meeting planned for April 16th to expand participation and keep the conversation moving forward thank you again for your leadership and helping keep this conversation open thank you colin how many signatures did you say seven [00:47:16] almost 750. oh okay thank you anyone else that wishes to come forward come on in please don't hold that against me because it's fantastic to come here we're actually i believe unincorporated in my city sterling so it's nice to come here and and see how organized and fantastic this is So when I was in my undergraduate, I was afraid of public speaking. [00:47:50] And then when I was in grad school doing my MBA, I finally realized that everyone was forced to listen to me. So it was actually really nice to be able to have a captive audience. So I am the new executive director of the Manassas Battlefield Trust. So that's the philanthropic partner to the Manassas Battlefield that is on your border there. [00:48:09] And I'm not sure if that qualifies me actually to attend the breakfast, because that did sound really wonderful. but I don't believe we have a business license because we're over on the federal property but anyhow I do have my business cards if I would be permitted to approach and give each of you a business card to your city clerk thank you ma'am and to anyone else law enforcement anyone else that would be interested so I will be hanging out in the back of the city council meetings and hopefully you'll be seeing me at events and things like that if anyone is interested in meeting with me please let me know very excited to have a full-time representative over in the [00:48:45] area there and available to connect thank you so much and thanks for what you're doing and what was your name I'm sorry I didn't hear you say it so my name is Cherie Johnston and I'm actually originally from California however my family was here during the Civil War the Johnston family I'm a daughter of the American Revolution so I have deep roots in this area and I ran with my son who founded a non-profit in 2010. Excuse me, I'm a little sick. Military children's charity for 16 years. So we actually have been in the non-profit space. In addition, I was working in [00:49:20] aerospace for the past decade plus. So I had been kind of recruited because I was a community partner also to the U.S. Army. So I have deep connections in the military network and community. So kind of how I got recruited to do this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Madam Mayor. [00:49:36] appreciate it. Anyone else wishes to address council? If not, Vice Mayor, I move the adoption of the consent agenda and dispense with the reading of the ordinances. Second. With a motion by Vice Mayor, we'll second by Councilman Smith to approve our consent agenda. Any discussion? [00:49:58] Hearing and seeing none, Mr. Smith, please call the roll. Vice Mayor Wolfe? Yes. Councilmember Smith? Yes. Councilmember Ellis? Councilmember Elcina? Yes. Councilmember Vasquez Luna? Yes. council member hudson yes the motion carries thank you so much for that item four on the agenda ordinances and resolutions item 4.1 is resolution number r 2026-825 authorizing the related revenues and expenditures to close the merchant museum fund mr arcieri is here to help with that good evening your honor members of council in 1998 their merchant museum fund was [00:50:34] established the merchant museum fund was established as a separate fund in order to accept the generous donation from mave merchant and her family that donation was specifically for the expansion of the manassas museum which was completed in 2023 and her name is on made merchant hall in the new museum um that was a specific request of the family as part of that donation with the completion of the project the fund can be closed there's about 49 000 left [00:51:11] in the fund so this resolution if adopted would also allow that money to be transferred into a dedicated account of the general fund per the wishes of the estate that money will be available in the future when it becomes time to renovate the gallery again that money will be available in lieu of tax dollars so we'll have a nice little pot of money to do some upgrades when the time comes and with that staff does recommend adoption of uh r-26-825 thank you any questions from council is there a motion madam mayor i move to uh approve the motion uh resolution number r-2026-825 [00:51:48] second there the motion by councilwoman vasquez luna seconded by councilwoman hudson to approve resolution number r 2026-825 any discussion hearing and seeing none mr smith please call the roll council member vasquez luna yes council member hudson yes vice mayor wolf yes council member ellis yes council member smith yes council member osina yes the motion carries thank you so much for that item 4.2 on the agenda resolution number r 2026-826 amending the fiscal year 2026 budget by budgeting and appropriating $468,498 of state revenue to repaid Route 28 from [00:52:28] Cockrell Road to Church Street. Mr. Arcieri. Your Honor, members of the council, the state of good repair program is administered by VDOT. It's a program that allows the city to apply for state and federal grants to pave our busier arterial and collector connector streets. Last summer we were fortunate to be awarded funding for paving of Route 28 from Cockrell Road to Church Street the funding at the time was only for one direction the northbound lanes and as VDOT is known to do after they awarded the grants they came back to the city and said they had identified additional funding so that the southbound lanes could also be paved [00:53:03] in lieu of using local tax dollars so this resolution would appropriate that state funding and staff recommend adoption of our 26826 stand ready for any questions thank you for starting any questions motion the resolution our 2026 826 second the motion by councilman Vasquez Luna seconded by councilwoman Hudson to approve resolution number our 2026-826 any discussion hearing and seeing none mr. Smith please call the roll council member Vasquez Luna yes council member Hudson yes vice mayor Wolf yes [00:53:39] council member Ellis council member Smith yes council member Alcina yes the motion carries okay thank you so much for that next time on the agenda is our authorizing a closed meeting i'll call on amelia for that evening madam mayor and council the next item on your agenda is a closed meeting there's one item for discussion it's the qualifications of candidates for appointment to the position of city attorney this item may take place in a closed meeting under virginia code section 2.2 3711 a1 convene a closed meeting i'd recommend for your adoption resolution number [00:54:17] r 2026 829 resolution authorizing a closed meeting of city council so moved we have a motion by councilman osina seconded by councilman vasquez luna to approve resolution number r 2026-829 authorizing a closed meeting any discussion hearing and seeing none mr smith please call the roll council member osina yes council member vasquez luna yes vice mayor wolf yes council member ellis council member smith yes council member hudson yes motion carried okay [00:54:52] thank you so much okay amelia madam mayor and council immediately following a closed session of city council of virginia freedom of information act requires a certification by city council that such closed meeting was conducted in the manner required by law council must certify that to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements under the Freedom of Information Act and only such public [00:55:31] business matters as were identified in the motion by which the closed meeting was convened or heard discussed or considered in the meeting by the City Council in order to certify the closed meeting this evening I recommend for your adoption resolution number R 2026 830 resolutions certifying a closed meeting of City Council so move we had a motion by Councilman Lucina seconded by Councilwoman Vasquez Luna approving resolution number R 2026 - 830 certifying a closed meeting any discussion hearing and seeing none mr. [00:56:03] Smith please call the roll councilmember Elcina yes councilmember Vasquez Luna yes vice mayor wolf yes councilmember Ellis councilmember Smith councilmember Hudson yes motion carried thank you very much is there anything else to come before the council for the good of the residents if not we are adjourned thank you ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Coraggio Consulting · aguyonx.com