Coraggio Consulting
Manassas City Council Meeting, Monday, June 15, 2026

Date: Monday, June 15, 2026
Place: Manassas City Council, Virginia
Length: 0h 30m (video)
Official meeting video (Wistia / RegionalWebTV): https://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/lcf8ajyos0

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-17. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] Our social services is within 4% or 5%, which is below the 6% threshold requiring reimbursement. So we're hoping that our representatives of the General Assembly will recognize that there shouldn't be a penalty to localities that are doing what they should as far as making sure that all of the SNAP benefits are appropriate, are legitimate, and are ready for reimbursement.

[00:00:31] Then one of the final items would be updating the franchise agreements as they relate to city and towns. We believe this is a more significant effort because it's not legislative. It's part of the Commonwealth's charter.

[00:00:50] I believe there was an amendment some time ago. Effectively, for franchise agreements, for our utilities, towns and cities are required to go a number of steps beyond a county. We have to, as we received at that last meeting, someone has to submit one to the city.

[00:01:08] We have to open it at a public meeting. We then have to review it. We then have to schedule a public hearing for it and then a vote. So it's a process that takes typically anywhere from six to eight weeks, whereas a county, all you have to do is submit it to the county.

[00:01:25] They staff open it, review it, and put it on an agenda with a public hearing. This comes primarily from our airport director because a lot of what they do is under a franchise agreement.

[00:01:43] It would be beneficial to them to expedite the process or minimize the delay in the process. So those were the four items that we would like to talk about. Item 2.3 is UOSA.

[00:01:59] We have some questions. This is actually going to be another item that we would hope that you would be able to discuss. Oh, okay.

[00:02:08] With delegates and part of the problem just a couple of days ago the Fairfax Board of Supervisors passed a resolution basically trying to continue the limitation of use of UOSA discharge, make it specifically usable for Fairfax and Fairfax water.

[00:02:40] Effectively, everything that is flushed from Manassas becomes drinking water in Fairfax. And so rather than allowing localities that other localities have the ability to talk through about using discharge from wastewater plants for reclaimed water or typically an industrial use to supplement their potable water effectively, if an industry can use water treated to a lesser degree, then it would free up potable water for our residents.

[00:03:17] So we have been in talk with UOSA about in the future being able to utilize some of their discharge for reclaimed water to some of our industry. However, Fairfax is pursuing and already introduced legislation in the last General Assembly that thankfully was tabled. I can't recall the exact nature of how it was postponed, but they, the General Assembly postponed action on it, thankfully. But we want to continue to express to our representatives and the General

[00:03:56] Assembly that the freedom to utilize discharge from UOSA is beneficial and absolutely necessary for the long-term viability of the city's water system. And I apologize, but I wanted to get that out.

[00:04:14] There's a total of five items that we're hoping that we'll be able to discuss at the July legislative meeting. I would imagine it's covered, but under the bank data center exception, are we developing?

[00:04:38] Well, as we speak right now, there's a technical town hall going on about taxes and data centers. I'm sad that we're not able to be sitting on that tonight because we're here. But will our consideration of this, when we make a presentation, will we be making one broad enough to weigh in on whichever way they seem to be going with taxes on data center?

[00:05:04] Because right now they're to the extreme basically eliminate or broaden the exemptions or not. Well, yeah, my understanding is that that discussion is to remove the state tax exemption for these types of equipment so that the state could collect that revenue.

[00:05:26] And what we're looking to, and it actually is in our current 2026 legislative priorities, it's basically a similar thing. Right now, banks are excluded from paying for it, and so we're simply asking that that be removed as well. So if the state does go forward with, or since the state is considering removing a tax exemption from a data center, we would hope that they would carry that forward to the next level of the bank exemption for localities.

[00:05:56] And I would clear that hope a little further. I want them to clearly understand where we would stand, because I know what they say, but when choices have to be made as to who gets the exemption, we don't have two votes in Richmond right now.

[00:06:14] So my only point is I think we need to weigh in on the broader, yes, the bank exemption, but we need to, I think, dig in a little deeper and see what the exemption discussion is about, if we can.

[00:06:32] Commissioner's at that meeting. I'm sorry. Commissioner is at that meeting. Good. That's good. You're talking about when Louise's coming. He's there. And I would assume by the time, I would hope by the time that we have our legislative breakfast in July that the Commonwealth has adopted a budget and there might be some resolution to that discussion so that we can build from that.

[00:07:02] Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Breakfast in July sounds fine. I'm not making a motion, but Christmas in July would be extra great. I'm hearing 7-1 for budget. fingers crossed okay two weeks before the one or is it a breakfast or lunch in this time since this is the one that the school is this is they're still we're still discussing that okay yes I'll have an answer for you shortly I have down 8 a.m. legislative breakfast on July the 14th

[00:07:40] I do but you know that so I first of all I want to reiterate what councilman smith is saying first of all because you know when we uh attended uh the vml conference and then we sat in just happened the actual senate hearing about the uh the bank exemption and for data centers and all that sort of thing you remember senator deeds uh from charlottesville brought up he he was saying it needs to be studied some more and it was just kicking the can down further here so to the point where uh i know that the state senate

[00:08:20] uh senator lucas is interested in removing the tax exemption there uh but i can see easily that our our little piece doesn't get it would sound like it's a logical thing to include but unless we we get our senator rome to help make that connection and figure out way maybe officially sending a letter and looking for any other allies along the way legislatively to to remind them if

[00:08:50] If you're going to do this, then by logic, this means this ought to be taking place as opposed to what they said, that hearing, where we're just going to study it along the way here.

[00:09:00] On the unclaimed water, I, you know, what was it, back in May when Micron announced the completion of the $2 billion expansion, and it's, you know, here in Manassas here, is manufacturing this 1-alpha-1A DRAM chip, which is the most advanced memory technology ever produced on U.S. soil, and the current administration is very big on.

[00:09:35] chips that are produced in the United States as opposed to foreign ones and so forth. I think this business about the unclaimed water and, you know, Micron being a beneficiary, quite possibly, of what we're suggesting here, among others, that we need to tie this to this expansion. This is a national priority, even to the point of saying even maybe a national security kind of situation because we want chips produced in the United States.

[00:10:13] We've got to support those industries along the way here. And so the Fairfax resolution does that kind of puts that in is counterproductive and those sorts of things in that regard. And then I would just want to point out, I think other things that I want to be sure that we include is, and that was, and that's why I asked to see your list here, but I'm going to say this incorrectly. Ah, here it is. Well, we support enabling municipalities to utilize

[00:10:47] cameras linked to microphones to capture video records, vehicles conducting noise violations. I think we want to continue pushing that, you know, getting the authority to do that sort of thing. Our residents have made it, I think, very clear that that is a quality of life issue, and we don't want, I don't think we want to let that slip through the cracks there along the way. And

[00:11:10] The other thing I wanted to know is, did the, and I think it would have been Senator McPike's bill that would provide localities the option of having a referendum to decide if they wanted to increase the sales tax by a penny and that penny raised would go, if approved in the referendum, would go to school construction.

[00:11:34] Do we know if that passed, if it did not? I hadn't heard that it passed, but I don't know that it's part of the items that would be linked to the budget or not. I don't believe it has passed yet. Here it is. We request reconsideration of the bill that would allow municipalities to adopt a 1% sales tax for school construction if voters approve the tax in a referendum.

[00:11:57] So if you could put that down, I think that should be, in my opinion, on the list. That's very important. I want our voters... 100% or 1%? 1%. One percent of sales taxes. That's right. That we would be able to at least have the, you know, the authority to have it in a referendum and let our voters decide whether indeed they want to do that or not.

[00:12:21] I think is a very fair way to answer that question here. Thank you. That's all I had. Maybe this is a good question for you as our liaison to the Housing Advisory Committee. I know there was a lot of legislation that passed regarding housing this past session.

[00:12:37] Is there any concern from Manassas that we've heard from the folks in that department? What I understand is that actually staff in the planning department is looking at them. There's a bill, for instance, that permits modular housing trailers to be put on lots, for instance, and things of this sort.

[00:13:00] And so they're looking at the impact and where we might be lacking at this point. I would figure that you'll probably see some of this percolating through housing advisory and, more importantly, the planning commission along the way where we have these sorts of things along the way.

[00:13:21] When we had that discussion, I thought we tabled it or went all the way this way. You talk about turning two shares into housing. That's a rough way of saying it, but that's what. No, this was a bill that passed, I believe.

[00:13:40] And while others are talking, I'm going to see what I can find. I think there are a number of bills that would usurp local governance and force us to do certain things. I think the ADUs was one of them.

[00:13:55] I also think that the smaller portable homes, I think they mesh together. But, yes, we are trying to get a handle on what is coming out of it.

[00:14:07] I know what's happening as we speak, that people are converting to a resolution.

[00:16:32] where if there's going to be any deviation from discharge to the aquaquant, that the city of Fairfax has first right of refusal effectively through UOSA.

[00:16:50] That is actually what the legislation that they had put forward in the General Assembly this year. What are they concerned about, that there's water going into aquaquant that's unhealthy? No, it's effectively they just want to ensure that every drop of water that we produce from Lake Manassas is conveyed to them for their use, regardless of whether or not we have industry here that would benefit from using reclaimed water rather than fresh water from the lake.

[00:17:27] So they're effectively taking away our right of the water that we produce. How can they do that if we own Lake Manassas? Well, they were trying to do it legislatively through the General Assembly. UOSA is a permitted facility in the compound, so they are trying to leverage their influence to dictate how discharge from their plant is effective.

[00:18:01] I'm just curious where this is coming from. Why are they bringing this up? Why are they making this up? Because they are, like every locality, water will become critical in the future. And so if they can lock in, effectively what it does is if the city identifies a new water source, it becomes a water source for Fairfax.

[00:18:29] Any water that we... centers and fairfax water spoke and so forth is that they have customers so where you know where uosa is plant is located and so it's along the aquapon and what have you and they have customers on the fairfax side that are below there that they they supply water to and they how they get

[00:19:07] that water is the water that comes down they have like like us they have reservoirs further up but they don't have reservoirs below UOSA so what they have been doing is the water that we send to get cleaned they've been using that water to promote to maintain promote their growth along the way industry you know residences subdivisions you know all that sort of stuff and their concern is is that now when we want to get we want our water back so to speak and you heard not not as

[00:19:46] cleaned as, as, as much as, as it would be for drinking water, but to use for industrial purposes, because again, it's a, it's a commodity. And so if we can, you know, get water back that we're sending down there and, and, and use for industry, uh, such as Micron or others that, that, that could use that, then, uh, we're, we're at loggerheads and Fairfax water is drawing a line in the sand last year as you know with bill that we were we were trying to oppose there so my

[00:20:20] understanding is is that that's their justification that we've been getting this water it's it takes care of our customers below the uosa plant so to speak are they trying to uh impact the large capacity gastro use is this their way of trying to i don't i don't think that their intent is to impact Manassas development. I think what they're, well, right now our water plant can produce about

[00:20:53] 13, 14 million gallons a day. We are making improvements to the water plant to bring that up to eventually 18 million gallons a day. If and when we make those improvements, if and when we're able to produce 18 million gallons, that's 4 million gallons of water that Fairfax did not have to secure from other locations. It's just we spend the money to make it, they get the benefit. And that's what they're trying to lock in. So the General Assembly has a last saying on this.

[00:21:27] Potentially. UOSA is trying to UOSA is looking into it as well. But there are members of the UOSA, the localities that have been influenced by Fairfax Water to oppose any consideration at the UOSA level and in order to further secure their water demand, they are going to the General Assembly.

[00:22:02] We recently signed with UOSA. That was our new agreement a couple of months ago. We toured the facilities and then they came back and presented us with signs. I'm just not recalling what that was.

[00:22:18] Part of that was we the city had to work with UOSA to construct a facility, part of their plant that was more specific to some of our industry to reduce that so that they, UOSA, would be able to produce, to treat water to the level that it could be discharged.

[00:22:41] Thanks for having our recall. So this potentially won't have much impact on those discussions? No, but it's similar that money that we invested to allow UOSA to treat water directly benefits Fairfax.

[00:22:59] And they don't have to put any money into any of those improvements. So they're effectively getting free water. And I think that's their primary goal, is to ensure that they have a water source from everyone upstream.

[00:23:19] All right. Let me check some of you. Yeah, go over it. Ms. Vasquez Luna, did you have any questions or comments? Thank you, Madam Mayor. No, I mean, I echo the sentiment. I mean, we'll have to continue to fight to make sure that we have, you know, the water right that we need, and then that doesn't change.

[00:23:41] I believe we have been talking about this for a little long. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I was looking at my notes from Ms. Ellis. I was looking at my notes from that session that I shared with the Utility Commission afterwards, and the note I had down when Fairfax Water spoke at that conference there that I attended about data centers.

[00:24:05] Fairfax Water says their opinion is water reuse is a tool. It's not a one-size-fits-all. Their reservoir, Occoquan Reservoir, supplies 40% of all the water Fairfax County uses.

[00:24:22] Freshwater states there's not enough capacity on the Occoquan River to do reclaim water and still have capacity for its residential customers. When it's not available for downstream consumption, Fairfax water can't meet customer demand. What that translates to is that by laying claim to our water, Fairfax does not have to find another water source, well, some other source. So it It effectively saves them money by not having to secure water from any other location

[00:25:08] Any other questions or comments on that? Okay, and then so city manager's time We are still investigating the outage over at our We have not identified a cause of that outage.

[00:25:34] We have distributed service to other substations within the city, and we are continuing to investigate that. I know that our electric crews are trying to determine what the cause was so that we can prevent that in the future. And it will probably be a while before we restore service to that substation until we can definitively identify what the cause was so that we don't have a repeat of that outage.

[00:26:02] So that's repeated at that station? Yes, sir. We had an outage a month or two ago that was related to that substation. May 20th. We had it inspected and determined that. So, we effectively, we haven't identified what the cause was, but we will continue to look at that until we're able to make sure that it is a stable location to restore power.

[00:26:36] So, we are using our backup substation? No, no, no. So, Prince William is online still? No, Prince William is offline. Everyone is being fed from the other substations in the city. We've backfed so that we have isolated that substation until we can identify where the failure point was so that if we bring it back on, that failure point won't be, won't reoccur.

[00:27:01] And the backup substation that we have could be used as well, could it not? The backup transformer could be moved. Yes, sir. That is an option. We would hope that we could identify a cause with our current equipment.

[00:27:21] But yes, sir, we are in a good position that we have another transformer that could be brought online should we not identify the issues. Very good, because that was two years ago, I believe.

[00:27:39] That was the reason for holding on to it, making the purchase there, so it could serve that purpose along the way. Okay, very good. So going underground, the amount of wiring that's underground, if it was increased, that still would not have happened at that substation, even if we had a great amount of percentage of our wiring underground?

[00:28:04] Yes, sir. The fault was at the substation. It was not in any above ground or underground wiring. We're making progress on that, but that still would not have eliminated. That's still the weak point, and we have not identified where that failure originated.

[00:28:22] I'm going to go to the closed session if I can get someone to make a motion or want to read a resolution for that.

[00:28:39] Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of council, you have one item. Welcome. No, you're good. Oh, I'm sorry. It's been a long day for you, I know. Yes, I'm very happy with you here.

[00:28:56] Thank you. So your resolution, you were moving forward, so keep your momentum going. You have one item scheduled for a closed session. That item involves the discussion or consideration of the investment of public funds where competition or bargaining is involved, where if made public initially, the central interest of the city would be adversely affected.

[00:29:18] In accordance with Virginia Code Section 2.2-3711A6, This item is eligible for discussion at a duly convened closed meeting of City Council. To convene a closed session, I recommend for your adoption resolution R-2026-1077, resolution authorizing a closed meeting of City Council.

[00:29:45] Madam Mayor, so moved. Second. I have a motion by Councilman Osina, seconded by Councilman Smith to approve resolution number R-2026-1077. Mr. Smith, please call the roll.

[00:30:03] Councilman Osina? Yes. Councilman Smith? Yes. Councilman Hudson? Yes. Councilman Vasquez-Luna? Yes. The motion carried. All right, thank you. Councilman Ellis, I apologize. I was focusing on this. I normally suggest we move, but this phone system, I don't know if it can reconnect, but I'll

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