Coraggio Consulting
Manassas City Council 10/5/2026

Date: Monday, October 5, 2026
Place: Manassas City Council, Virginia
Length: 0h 15m (video)
Official meeting video (Wistia / RegionalWebTV): https://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/h5ha9dqnn1

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 2026-10-16. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] Special meeting of the city council will come to order. Mr. Clerk, if you'd call the roll. Vice Mayor Wolfe. Here. Council Member Hulks. Here. Council Member Smith. Here. Council Member Hulcina. Here. Council Member Vasquez-Lona. Present. Council Member Hudson.

[00:00:17] Here. Form is present. If everyone would join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance. To the Pledge of Allegiance. To the Pledge of Allegiance. On the United States of America. And to the Republic of which it stands. One Nation.

[00:00:33] Under God. Indivisible. with liberty and justice for all thank you so obviously the point of this meeting is to start the process for filling the office of mayor on an active basis and our city attorney mr dawson will now lead us through the process good evening vice mayor members of council so on august the 21st 2026 former mayor michelle parks submitted her written letter of resignation to the city manager

[00:01:11] Announcing her decision to vacate the office of mayor effective September 30th, 2026 in accordance with section 24.2 - 228 of the code of Virginia The council within 45 days of the office of mayor becoming vacant may appoint a qualified voter to fill the vacancy In accordance with chapter 2 section 9 of the Manassas City Charter in the event of the resignation of the mayor the council shall choose a member of the council or some other qualified voter of the city of

[00:01:47] Manassas to serve as mayor until the next seceding municipal election, at which time a successor shall be elected by the voters of the city to fill the office of mayor for the remainder of the unexplored term. Should a member of the council be chosen to serve as interim mayor until the next municipal election, such council members shall be deemed to have surrendered his or her office as council member.

[00:02:16] Finally, until an interim mayor has been appointed, the vice mayor shall perform the duties of mayor. So what does this mean? It means the council has until November 14, 2026, to appoint a member of the council or some other qualified voter of the city to serve as mayor until the next succeeding municipal election, which is November 2nd, 2027.

[00:02:40] Whichever council member has chosen to serve as interim mayor, that council member will have to surrender his office as council member upon becoming the interim mayor. In the event no appointment is made, which would be a violation of the charter, the circuit court of Prince William County may make an interim appointment.

[00:03:03] Are there any questions? Very good. Very good. So if it would go to The courts is it up to the courts how they decide to choose the interim mayor?

[00:03:20] Like is there a process for that or there's no process listed in the state code? It's probably a highly unusual thing for the court to appoint an attorney a mayor or councilmember So it would be up to the court. Okay. Anyone else?

[00:03:39] Thank you, Mr. Dawson. With that, we have three council members who have expressed an interest in the interim appointment. At this point, the clerk, each of those three council members will be allotted up to five minutes to address the council and the public.

[00:03:55] At this point, the clerk has drawn lots as to the order or will draw lots. So it's up to you, Mr. Smith. I do need to announce the candidates for interim appointment to the office of mayor. I do need to announce the candidates for interim appointment to the office of mayor.

[00:04:14] They are listed as Mark D. Wolfe, Ralph J. Smith, and Tom Osina. The first candidate to provide their statement will be Councilmember Smith. Did you say Osina or Smith?

[00:04:29] Smith's statement, Smith. We have a Tom Smith Osina on the agenda. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, everyone, fellow Councilmembers. Let me first start with acknowledging the number of people both within these walls and outside who have asked me, who approached me about seeking this position of interim mayor.

[00:05:00] And I'm very grateful. And by continuing to speak, you will see that I have decided to accept your challenge or your request, honor your request. I'm deeply honored that for all those, there was many people who have called or saw me on the street or even sent messages through Ms. Loretta that I should consider this.

[00:05:24] So I am considerate. I've always strived to be respectful and treat people fairly and impartially throughout my years of public service.

[00:05:42] My promise to you, fellow council members and to the public, is that I would bring that philosophy with me into the mayor's office. same Ralph, just a new location. I am humbled by this opportunity to potentially become the interim mayor for the city of Manassas, and I welcome all of you to join with me on this journey.

[00:06:11] As we move forward, my initial focus would be in guiding the city, my initial focus will be would be to huddle with the executive team for the appropriate discussions about day-to-day operations and the continuous continuation towards the completion of some of our significant major projects that Mayor Parks and the council would have been working on. The important thing to me right now is to keep the momentum going that the city is experiencing and during my first few

[00:06:51] weeks in office I would intend, I do intend to reach out to continue some conversations to start some new conversations and anything to foster inclusivity it's important for me to renew some old relationships and begin to make new ones so that we can face issues the issues some very serious in our community and we can face them together my approach typically generally is to double down of situations like this or moving to change is to double down on who

[00:07:31] we are, in this case, who we are as a city, focus on our mission, our core values, identify and restate our commitments, and then work diligently to continue our efforts to improve everything else that we need to address in this city.

[00:07:53] The groundwork has already been laid by administration and the council, and I will work very hard to make sure that Manassas continues to have the resources, tools, and infrastructure needed and that we will continue to prioritize our communications to ensure our residents are kept updated.

[00:08:15] In the upcoming year, during that year, I would plan to focus on promoting a smooth onboarding slash transition in recognition that there will be incoming council members and welcoming them to adjoining this great body that we have and continuing our efforts in caring for the health and safety of our city and its residents.

[00:08:41] Again, I want to thank everyone who's prayed with and for me, who have encouraged me to consider this journey, and who walked beside me throughout this process thus far. Your love, your words have strengthened me even more than you'll ever know.

[00:08:59] Thank you. The next candidate to make a statement is Councilmember Osina. So, members of council and residents of the City of Manassas, I'm submitting my name for consideration to serve as interim mayor of the City of Manassas.

[00:09:24] If selected, my goals would be very straightforward. Provide continuity, keep the council focused on the work before us, make city government accessible and understandable, and provide residents with clear, timely information about what their city government is doing and why.

[00:09:43] I've had the privilege of serving on City Council for six years, working with all of you and with prior fellow council members, with city managers and staff, the school board, businesses, nonprofits, area governments, and most importantly, the residents of the city of Manassas.

[00:10:04] Being accessible to residents has always been important to me. I've spent Saturday mornings walking through Manassas neighborhoods, talking with residents at their doors and hearing directly what is working, what needs attention, and what they want from their city government.

[00:10:20] These conversations have become an important part of how I approach my work on council and have helped shape my votes. My commitment to Manassas also extends beyond elected office. Before joining council, I served on city committees. I was the treasurer of my neighborhood community association. I've served as an officer and co-founder of Equality Prince William. I'm a graduate of the City of Manassas Leadership Academy and have remained active in civic and community organizations.

[00:10:53] I always believe that serving this city means bringing experience, a passion for people, and an ability to understand what folks are experiencing. I'd be honored to be able to continue that work during this transition, to listen, to lead with purpose, and to serve the city that I love.

[00:11:18] Thank you. Thank you. This is hard. And this is hard because this isn't necessarily a competitive process.

[00:11:33] And when you're competing against people that are your peers and your colleagues and, more importantly, your friends, it's painful at best. But all politicians at heart have a level of narcissism, and I'm not going to claim to be any different because you, by definition, to be willing to put yourself to be sitting up here, you have to believe you are willing, you have something special to offer to the community.

[00:11:59] I have that for myself, and it's not that anyone's less talented or anything, but obviously you have to believe in yourself. I've done this job as council for 18 years. There have been a lot of good times and some really, really bad times.

[00:12:16] And I will submit that even in the worst of times, I have shown up and I have continued to always work for the betterment of the people in the city of Manassas. I break the job of mayor down to three pieces. Number one is sort of the nuts and bolts, presiding, running these meetings.

[00:12:36] I think, if nothing else, the events that we saw at the end of last month show that I can certainly handle that role. The second piece is representing the city. So the mayor is very important in representing the city in the region and at the state level.

[00:12:55] I will be very honest. 18 years of doing this, I have a level of contacts and a depth of contacts that, frankly, I respectfully no one else up here has. And the ability to get things done through those contacts. but more importantly is the job of mayor is is smoothing the road to get things done on my social media I had a person make a comment and they were doing it and they as a negative comment but it was actually I thought a very backhanded compliment they talked about the fact that Mark Wolf always

[00:13:33] seems to get everything he wants on the city council well those that sit up here know that's not true and we have our issues and disagreements and we work through things but through all through my council service and particularly in the two years I've been privileged to serve as vice mayor I have worked very very hard to bring people together to achieve consensus to read the room to see what is possible and what's maybe it's not time and to help guide things through that were important to the city and important to this council in any appropriate time and manner

[00:14:11] so that we accomplish things we move things forward and I think we have done that job as a group exceptionally well. I think the council members up here would hopefully would say that as vice mayor, I have communicated and worked with the group more so than maybe anyone that has gone before me. That's why I would bring as mayor, because the mayor at the end of the day is the person that doesn't have a vote, but does have influence and has the ability to work with

[00:14:45] people, create that consensus, lead us in the direction we need to go. Not that everyone's going to agree. Never is going to happen. But the consensus of the community in this council is that this is where we need to go. This is what we need to do. That's what a mayor is about. And to be very honest, that's what I'm about. And that's why at the end of the day, I will hope that this council will select me as the interim mayor. With the full intention, I will be very honest. I intend to run for the office. So this is not just a one-year appointment. It's a one-year appointment, but it's with my full intention that I would be running to be the ongoing mayor.

[00:15:24] With that, thank you so very much. Appreciate your time. And having said that, is there any other questions from the council? Mr. Dawson, I believe our business is done. I move to adjourn.

[00:15:41] Thank you very much. Do we need a second for that motion? Nope. Okay.

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