Alexandria City Legislative Subcommittee Meeting - January 13, 2026
STREAMING COPY IN PREPARATION — RECORDING AVAILABLE FROM THE ORIGINAL SOURCE
Alexandria City Legislative Subcommittee Meeting - January 13, 2026
The Alexandria City Legislative Subcommittee met virtually on January 13, 2026, at 5:31 PM to review and align positions on pending Virginia General Assembly legislation. Mayor Gaskins and Councilman McPike led the meeting, with subject matter experts providing recommendations on bills in categories of support, oppose, watch, and no position. The meeting was recorded and posted online.
Consent Calendar
- None noted.
Public Comments & Testimony
- No public comments were made.
Discussion Items
- Review of Supported Bills: Councilman McPike voiced no concerns with the support category, and staff had no flags. The support list was accepted as presented.
- Opposed Bills: Mayor Gaskins questioned HB196 (Virginia Residential Development Infrastructure Fund), noting it could be an additional resource for housing. Paul (staff) explained concerns about undefined infrastructure, potential operating support, and administrative duplication. The proposal was moved to watch with agreement from both members.
- Watched Bills:
- HB10 (Land value tax): Councilman McPike expressed interest in adding Alexandria to eligible localities. Kevin Greenlee (Finance) stated it was local option but not recommended due to administrative issues. Remained on watch.
- HB26 (Marijuana resentencing): Brian Porter (Commonwealth's Attorney) argued few people are incarcerated for marijuana, and those are high-level dealers posing public safety risks. Paul Valenti (Human Rights) noted the bill only requires hearings, not automatic resentencing. Members requested data on the jail population and kept on watch.
- HB5 (Paid sick leave): Both members supported the spirit but staff flagged technical issues (e.g., anti-retaliation language, scope of legal services). Remained on watch for clarification.
- HB18 (Child care assistance pilot): Moved to support after discussion. Mayor Gaskins and Councilman McPike agreed with the principle, with the understanding it would be pulled if it became mandatory.
- No Position Bills:
- HB21 (Gun industry liability): Moved to support based on trust in Delegate Helmer's firearms legislation instincts.
- HB51 (Local election timing): Moved to oppose to maintain consistency with prior city support for November elections.
- HB225 (Marcus Alert system): Staff recommended and members agreed to move to support to strengthen the alert system.
- Late Additions:
- HB163 (Property notification system): Greg Parks (Clerk of Court) expressed strong opposition, citing unnecessary cost and lack of problem in Alexandria. Moved to watch with intent to oppose if not amended.
- HB101 (Concealed handgun applications): Greg Parks requested support to clarify that electronic applications meet statutory requirements. Members requested a side-by-side comparison of the current and proposed statute before deciding.
Key Outcomes
- All recommendations from subject matter experts were accepted, with some bills moved to different categories as noted above.
- No formal presentation will be made to the full council; Mayor Gaskins and Councilman McPike will report orally at the next council meeting.
- The next meeting will address bills not fully analyzed this session (e.g., HB73).
- Members will review the side-by-side text for HB101 before finalizing a position.
Meeting Transcript
It's 5 30. I want to see I want to let everyone know that we are already recording. And this meeting's going to be posted to the website after we're done. And we thank everybody for their participation today. Okay. I can't see is Councilman McPike already on. That's a great question. We'll give Councilman a second. There he is. He's on. Welcome, Councilman. Cool. Well, now that Kirk is here, I'm going to go ahead and officially call the meeting to order at 5 31. Just want to thank everyone. We're trying a new format. I know online. Virtual is not usually the way we'll do this, but we're going to test it out and see how it works. We're also going to try a new format in going through the bills. We're not going to go through them in numerical order. Instead, we're going to go through them and kind of jump based on what we support oppose the ones we have no position on and watch. I hope it'll help the meeting kind of go a little more quickly. And so with that, I am going to turn it over to Wendy to get us started. Thank you so much, Councilman and Mayor Gaskins. So January 14th is the deadline for pre-filing any legislation into the for the General Assembly. And then there's about another week or so after that where there can be more legislation introduced, but we should have the universe of legislation that we know about pretty soon toward the end of January, and then we'll know exactly the number of bills that we're looking at and know where we are moving forward, get our arms around it a little bit more. As a close of business Thursday, like I said, there had been about 400 bills introduced, almost 100 were introduced just today. Around 24 of them aligned with our city priorities directly. Most of those are in housing. So thanks, Mary, for staying on top of that and being an expert in our housing issues. The purpose of tonight's meeting is to walk through these bills that are currently of interest and potential interest of the city and assure alignment on our initial positions that we take before we start the session. Just as a reminder, like I said earlier, this meeting is recorded. It will get posted afterward, and we're really excited to have everyone and your expertise here for the evening. Most bills are uh categorized in one of three categories, which is watch, which is uh we're monitoring the legislation to see uh whether it advances or changes during session. Uh we it doesn't seem to have an immediate impact on the city, but it could evolve over time or something we just want to keep an eye on. We have support, which we uh are things that we are um it's gonna support uh when we were down there, a lot of them will be our priority bills, we hope, and then oppose. These are bills that we will oppose as a city as well moving forward. Um we also have no impact, and that's gonna be for any bill that uh we've just flagging for interest or just to keep tracking, but it doesn't appear to have any direct impact on the city itself. Um let me see the these are all subject matter expert recommendations that we are providing to the legislative subcommittee. So I want to just say that um they are get all the subject matter experts are here for you, councilman and mayor to help you. And if you have further interest or questions about that bill, they're there for you to dig even deeper and learn more about the bill. That said, bills will change as we go through session. So that's this is the bill as introduced, and our recommendations could change over time as the bills change. Um and with that, I'm gonna just hand it back to mayor and councilman so you can walk through the spreadsheet that we provided to you and let us know which bills you uh would like to have questions about or how we end up at the positions that we are on. Okay, that sounds good. Um, Wendy, as we go through the bills, did you want to pull up that spreadsheet or um does everybody on the call already have a copy of it and have the categories? That's a great question. We um do have a spreadsheet to put up online. Uh Emily, can you share that screen? And everyone should also have a spreadsheet to work with in front of them electronically or if they printed it out. Okay.
openpublica.com