Test the audio.

Yeah, yeah.

Don't do all give me one minute.

Oh just to get one.

No, I don't know.

Can someone get on Zoom and I will say that means about someone to another one and test the audio.

Okay.

Oh, no.

I'm gonna go.

I can hear you.

Can you hear me?

I can hear you loud in clear.

Okay, thank you.

Can you turn the camera on for me real quick?

Sure, sure.

Okay, I can see you and you can hear me.

I can hear you.

I can I can I can hear you.

I can't see all right.

You can come back in.

What do you put in there?

I'll come from for you.

Uh the mayor's uh the vice mayor be soon.

Does media support Zoom?

Yeah.

Yeah, okay.

You got it?

Yes.

Can you can you hear me?

Vice Mayor.

I'll never stop.

Um can we hear her?

No, we can't hear you.

Can you hear me?

Are you muted, ma'am?

I don't know.

Can we have this one?

Everything is not yet.

Oh, oh, okay.

But there's there's an editor.

Um good afternoon, ma'am.

Can you hear us?

Vice Mayor.

Yeah, she is an authentic.

Can you hear us, ma'am?

Um, can you hear us?

Yeah, one of the three.

Thank you, Paul.

Oh, I have heard it.

I give me a problem to third.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm just thinking through the thing today because I have staffing today.

Saying we have this placement.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

I got how we get okay.

There's just a lot of people.

I think we have to do that.

So right now it's a time.

That was just a mission.

It's always budget season.

Never end it.

Yeah, we did.

But yeah, it's about the it's about to be a fair.

Can you guys can you check to see if you can hear Sarah?

Yes, yes, sir.

We're testing right now.

Can we hear her?

I think the word is good there.

Yeah.

Can you hear us?

And also it's the helpful.

Yeah.

It's pretty much depending on oral for the sheet.

All right.

Good evening, everyone.

It's 5 30.

We are now gonna call the February first uh legislative meeting to order.

Madam Clerk, please call the rule.

Mayor Gaskins.

Present.

Vice Mayor Bagley.

Councilman Ageary.

Here.

Councilman Chapman.

Councilman El Nuby.

Here.

Councilwoman Green.

Here.

Okay, Madam Clerk.

Next item.

Closed session.

Discussion and consideration of the investment of public funds where competition of bar bargaining is involved.

I have the um electronic participation resolution.

Oh I'm sorry.

That's okay.

I'm I'm sorry.

Approval like electronic participation of approval.

Okay, there has been a motion by Councilman Aguirre and a second by Councilwoman Green to move approval of the electronic participation resolution.

Um so that Vice Mayor Bagley is able to participate remote.

Madam Clerk, this is a roll call vote.

Please call the roll.

Councilman Ageary.

I councilwoman Green.

Aye.

Mayor Gaskins.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Bagley.

Councilman Chapman.

Councilman El Newby.

Aye.

Okay, Madam Clerk, next item.

Closed session.

Discussion and consideration of the investment of public funds where competition of bargaining is involved.

Okay.

Councilman Ageary.

Madam Mayor, I move the city council convene and closed executive session pursuant to Virginia Code of Section 2.2-3711A6 and 8.

And consultation with legal counsel employed or retained by public body regarding specific legal matters concerning the housing policy and budget authority, which require the provision of legal advice by such council.

Aye.

Vice Mayor, can you hear us?

Yep.

Thank you.

We are officially going to resume our meeting and come back into open session.

Councilman Aguirre.

There has been a motion by Councilman Aguirre and a second by Councilman Chapman to reconvene in open session.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

The eyes have it.

Uh, Councilman Aguirre.

Madam Mayor, move the City Council adopt the resolution regarding the closed executive session that was previously circulated to the council.

All right.

There has been a motion by Councilman Ageary and a second by Councilwoman Green to approve the resolution that was previously circulated to the council.

Councilman Gary.

Councilman Chapman.

Councilman L.

Newby.

And to the Republic, for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Madam Clerk, uh, next item.

Presentation of a proclamation declaring February.

It's George Washington birthday celebration month.

Okay.

I have asked Councilman John Taylor Chapman to read this proclamation.

I think I see some of our guests in the audience, particularly Sue and members of the committee.

Um, if you are here for the proclamation, what we'll ask is if you please stand right here.

Um, Councilman Chapman will then come right there and we'll do a picture and official presentation.

And I think also hear about the upcoming parade.

Yes, that's right.

Uh there should be a handheld mic.

So is this the right place to stand doing this?

I don't know.

All right, so I'm gonna go ahead and read the proclamation, then I'll turn it over to you, Sue, and you can uh introduce uh anybody that's here or comes in and talk a little bit about the parade weekend.

All right.

So whereas George Washington considered Alexandria to be his adopted hometown since it was founded in 1749, and whereas George Washington assisted in surveying Alexandria's original streets at the age of 17, owned property and build a house in the town, attended church at Christchurch and Pohick Church, conducted business in Alexandria establishments, dined at and attended events in Alexandria taverns, served as his town trustee, represented Fairfax County, including Alexandria in the Virginia House of Burgesses.

Excuse me, Burgess, and marched out of Alexandria in the first military campaign of the French and Indian War.

And whereas George Washington helped mobilize Virginia in resistance to British policies before the Revolutionary War, chairing a committee that drafted the 1774 Fairfax Resolves establishing the fundamental rights of colonialists that served as the basis for the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the United States Bill of Rights, which was approved at the Alexandria Courthouse on Market Square.

And whereas George Washington is known as a father of our country because of his exemplary contributions as commander in chief of our armed forces in the American Revolution as president at the Constitutional Convention, and as first president of the United States of America.

And whereas George Washington Birthday Celebration Committee was established in 1976 by the Alexandria City Council to plan and carry out the annual George Washington Birthday Parade and celebration of the life of Washington and his adopted hometown.

And whereas the theme of two the 2026 George Washington Birthday Parade is Virginia's son, Americans Found America's founding father, in honor of Washington's leading role in the founding of our country during its 250th anniversary year.

And the parade grand marshals are Jeannie Sebastian.

Okay.

And Michael Elliston, uh Esquire, President General, the National Society for the Sons of the American Revolution.

And whereas the George Washington Birthday Parade Celebration Committee will organize or support other events throughout the month of February, including the Restaurant Cherry Challenge, George Washington's uh Alexandra walking tours, a wreath laying ceremony honoring the unknown soldier of the American Revolutionary War, the Friendship Veterans Fire Engine Association's annual breakfast, the George Washington Birthday Banquet at the George Washington National Masonic Memorial, and the Hunt for Washington, in which families and individuals search for clues about Washington and Old Town Alexandria.

Whereas these events and others may be enjoyed by all of our citizens and visitors to our city.

Now, therefore, I, John Taylor Chapman, on behalf of Aliyah Gaskins, Mayor of the City of Alexandria, Virginia, and on behalf of the entire city council, do hereby proclaim the month of February to be George Washington Washington birthday celebration month in honor of the 294th birthday of our country's first president who was born on February 22nd, 1732.

Further, I hereby welcome all visitors to our city and urge everyone to attend and enjoy these unique activities offered during the month of February.

And witness whereof I've hereunto set my hand and cause the seal of the city of Alexandria to be a fixed this 10th day of February 2026.

Now you said it all.

Well, I'm Sue Johnson, and I'm chair of the George Washington Birthday Celebration Committee.

And with me uh next to me is uh Peter Duggan, who is a member of our committee and also a member of the uh first Virginia Regiment of the Continental Line, which will be marching in the parade and in our audience.

If you could raise your hand, Steve.

This is Steve Kanya, another member of the uh committee.

Uh as uh uh councilman uh uh Chapman said uh the theme of this uh of this birthday parade is uh Virginia's son, America's founding father in honor of Washington's leading role in founding our country during its 250th anniversary.

The parade will be this Saturday, February 14th from 2 to 4 p.m.

Uh it happens to uh that happens to be Valentine's Day.

It uh the parade happens to fall on this uh uh uh on the set.

Well, it always falls on the Saturday before the George Washington birthday uh uh city holiday on Monday, and uh and the Saturday before that happens to fall on Valentine's Day this year.

Uh and our grand marshals, as uh uh the councilman said, are uh the national presidents general of the daughters of the American Revolution and the Sons of the American Revolution.

Uh we have almost 60 parade units marching this year, uh, besides our normal very diverse group of participants.

We have uh the U.S.

Army Old Guard five five syndrums.

Uh and also this year we have the Washington Commanders Marching Band marching with us.

Um Abe Lincoln will be joining us.

It's his birthday too.

And uh also General Lafayette, who has marched uh uh in our previous parades.

Uh, I'm sure he will be uh he and uh General Washington will have be having a reunion at the parade review stand.

Um of course George and Martha Washington will be there in their horse and carriage.

Other events are uh being held this month to celebrate Washington's legacy in Alexandria are first of all the restaurant cherry challenge uh featuring cherry dishes offered by I believe this year it was 30 restaurants.

Uh it uh in fact I believe it just closed uh yesterday, and so the winners will be announced shortly.

We also have a wreathling ceremony at the tomb of the unknown revolutionary war soldier on parade day.

We have uh a hunt for Washington in which uh individuals and families can search for clues about Washington at the time and date of their choosing throughout February.

Uh there's a George Washington birthnight dinner at Gadsby's Tavern uh after the parade, and finally there's uh a friendship bar house annual breakfast on uh Monday morning.

Uh so we all hope that you can come, and we're all wishing for good weather this year.

So thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Okay.

Madam Mayor, with that, I'll approve uh or motion uh the approval of the proclamation.

There has been a motion by Councilman Chapman and a second by councilwoman Green to approve the proclamation, recognizing February as George Washington's birthday celebration month.

Um, is there any discussion?

I'll just quickly say um I last night uh many of us were at the Office of Historic Alexandria and official kickoff to the nation's 250th celebration here and the ways in which we're going to celebrate in Alexandria.

And so I just want to commemorate, um, congratulate Sue and the committee because these are our first events to really kick off our participation in recognition and celebration of the country's 250th.

And so there are a lot of things.

There's something for everyone to engage in, just starting with the parade.

That's only the beginning.

So we really hope you'll come out.

We hope you'll experience some of the history and that you will eat, laugh, drink, and have fun um all throughout our shops, our streets, um, and just really really enjoy what is a very special weekend here in our city.

Seeing no additional discussion, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right, the ayes have it, and the proclamation passes.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, next item.

Or reports from members of city council and boards, commissions, and committees.

Okay, the first one is the legislative subcommittee, and that's me.

And I'm not gonna give a report because we have an official presentation uh later on in the docket.

Next item is the Council of Governments, Climate, Energy, and Environmental Policy Committee.

And that is Vice Mayor Bagley.

Yes, good evening.

Hold on.

My notes are upside down.

Sorry, sorry.

Okay.

What we did was we um it was a new year, new chair.

Um, and we started off by talking about some performance metrics and indicators that we're going to be tracking in the year ahead in the space of greenhouse gas emissions, clean energy, zero energy buildings, EV ports and ownership, vehicle miles traveled, waste diversion, and tree canopy.

So there's lots of things being measured.

Um, and we sort of talked about what the metrics are for the year ahead, what's being studied, and we poked some questions too about um what isn't being studied as well, and what we could consider for the future.

Um it was noted that Alexandria is a leader in waste diversion.

So I wanted to pass along those kudos to um everybody in the city.

Um I also asked a few questions that had been raised to me by constituents about how we measure tree canopy in the region.

Um there was some concerns expressed at a forum I was at about whether the use of LIDAR, which is sort of a radar technique, can mask what is healthy uh developed canopy versus invasive species or other immature canopy.

Um and what the answer I got back at the meeting was that there is a challenge to that, and it can't necessarily distinguish at this point in the technology, but that um groundwork is as a piece of that essentially.

We don't rely exclusively on LIDAR, we have to go out and visualize the trees directly.

Um and in Alexandria, you know, we we do a lot of that.

But I mean it was a good it was a good, it was a good dialogue about sort of how are we measuring um tree canopy.

I also raised an additional question and data point asking about um transit-oriented development and transit-oriented housing being tracked with supply um as a climate change uh technique, something to combat climate change.

Um, and so they took some feedback on that, and they're gonna see what they can do about tracking that kind of housing supply near transit.

Um, secondly, there was um the environmental justice toolkit 2.0 was previewed and discussed, and I would encourage anybody who has interest in that issue to visit the COG CPC website and see the updates to the environmental justice toolkit.

Um and then finally, there was um a legislative committee update with various relevant bills um passing through both the Maryland and Virginia legislature and the Virginia side.

I think we're all very excited to see action being taken um to rejoin Reggie, and um there's some bills moving through.

Maybe it'll be in our legislative update.

So I'll I'll leave that there.

But that was um Cogsee.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Bagley.

And um, there may not be anything we can do about it, but I'm told that the volume is all the way up in the room, but it's still a little hard to hear you.

So I don't know if there's any way you can get closer to the screen.

We'll we'll see what we can do.

Um, but you have the next one, the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, uh, Vice Mayor Bagley and Councilman Gary.

Okay, I'll just give a short.

Is that any better volume?

Not really.

We'll we'll just go with it.

Okay.

Uh well, short update.

Um, NVTC did not actually meet in February.

Instead, we held a legislative reception down in Richmond where we had an opportunity to chat with lawmakers.

This is obviously a very important general assembly session, which is pursuing some long-term stability and funding for transit projects for the throughout the Commonwealth.

Um, I wish I had more to report, like at as of this meeting, but hopefully before this General Assembly session concludes, we'll have some updates on um the ways in which we're going to fund Metro, VRE, and our bus transit systems in the state moving forward.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Bagley.

Councilman Agarrie, did you want to add anything?

No, nothing to add since we didn't meet.

Uh, but like the Vice Mayor said, we did have um we uh METC was done in Richmond for advocacy.

Okay.

Um that it concludes oral reports.

Um item number six.

Uh Madam Clerk, next item.

City Council and board, um, City Council General Reports.

Okay.

Um are there any general councilman and Gary.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, one moment, I'm gonna pull it up.

Um, start off with a shout out to uh Porch City Brewery.

They are celebrating their 15th year.

Um they also are the same, they started the same year that I came to the city, so it's always fun for me to stop by uh when they're having their anniversary, so that I remember how many years I've been in the city.

Um also wanted to say give a shout out to the mayor uh for the George Washington tea reception uh that we had over the weekend, and I know some of the folks in the audience were also there.

Uh so I think there's a very nice, nice event.

Happy to be there and join.

Um right before going to that.

I had the opportunity to stop by PatCon.

Um enjoys sci-fi fantasy, anime, manga, cartoons, that type of stuff.

Uh PACCON was a lot of fun.

This is the second year, it's growing.

Held in Patrick Henry, uh, wide variety of things.

If you were interested in storyboarding, they had that, cosplay, they had that.

Um, just uh figurines, um, engravings, uh, some some food options, very, very fun time.

Um, you know, there's always something to do in Alexandria.

And it's one of the things that I really love.

So uh looking forward to going to PACCON next year as well.

Um Thursday last week, we had our VML lobby day.

Uh so I think the entire council was basically down in Richmond, uh, doing a lot of what the vice mayor was talking about earlier, advocating for different uh bills that would benefit the city.

And uh I also signed up to testify for a couple of things on Friday.

The mayor was successful in getting on and made a uh a panelist during uh the conversation.

I unfortunately was not able to get on.

And then for the second bill that I wanted to speak on, they said, hey, we ran out of time, we're not taking any online speakers.

So better luck next time to me.

Maybe I'll have to be there in person uh to make sure that I could speak, but did want to register that I I did sign up and uh wanted to advocate for a couple of bills down in Richmond.

Uh also wanted to give a shout out to our HR department for putting on the Black History Month um uh not just panel, but also performances.

Uh very good time, very appreciative of the HR department putting that together and then also uh having some some food, some history and uh, you know, some gathering and socializing for for our departments across the city.

So I thought that was a very nice event uh hosted at uh at Nanny Lee.

Also very excited.

Uh if you've not been to the Charles Houston Rex Center, please go.

Uh about a week ago we had our Dr.

Mart Martin Luther King Jr.

student art exhibition.

Uh the mayor and I had the opportunity to be there uh to take a look at all the artwork, celebrate the kids from across the city uh in our public schools and uh all the different artwork that they did responding to uh parts of Dr.

MLK's uh dream.

Also uh I know the the mayor was able to attend as well, but honoring uh the 67 lives that we lost from the American Airlines flight.

Uh, I know that there's uh some work going on.

I'll let the mayor mention that uh to be able to honor those uh that were lost.

Um it was also mentioned uh America 250.

We're having our kickoff.

Uh it the official kickoff for Alexandria was last night.

Uh, very informative with what we're gonna be doing, tall ships coming through to the city, lots of fun activities and also extremely important that you know George Washington.

This is his second home in Alexandria.

Yes, he was born in Mount Vernon, but he came.

He charted out the city and was a trustee and also a part of the House of Burgesses.

Uh so we're just walking in history every single day here in Alexandria.

So very honored to be able to celebrate part of America 250.

Uh also wanted to give a shout out to the uh ACPS staff at George Washington Middle School.

They had a bilingual fair where they brought students from not just GW, but also from Francis E.

Hammond.

And they brought in uh professionals who have bilingual, multilingual skills uh and sharing their journeys through professional life and what it is meant to be bilingual or multilingual, how that's helped them through the professional careers or any barriers that are faced.

Uh it's always great to be able to be with our youth.

Uh, they are our future and giving them some tips and how to succeed in that future.

Uh and then last two items.

Uh yesterday uh we were able to join uh the monks on their peace walk.

I I think it's it's hard to put into words uh what it kind of means and the milestone that kind of is, you know, the number of people that were waiting out in the cold, literally for hours, right?

And in freezing temperatures, uh waiting to see the monks, waiting to hear the message of of peace, of unity, of hope.

Uh so I just want to say uh thank you to Christchurch for hosting.

Uh thank you to all the departments that were involved, you know, our emergency responders, the sheriff's office, uh Alexandria Police Department, uh for NEMS, but also RPCA, uh Department of Virgin Emergency Management, uh, Transportation and Environmental Services, OCCE, of course, to help get all the communication out, the city manager's office for helping to organize some of it, uh, Dash for being a warming center, because again, people were waiting in frigid temperatures for hours.

All the volunteers, uh, our audio visual group uh that always shows up.

Um, you know, I I know that the stage had to get set up at like six or seven in the morning.

And so they were out there working in the cold and everything.

So just uh a huge endeavor and the coordination is is very impressive in what we're able to do uh as a city uh to not only invite and host, but uh show what we are here in Alexandria to a group like the monks that came through.

So very exciting uh and kudos all around to everyone that was able to help put that together, um, especially in these turbulent times when what we really need is is that message of of unity of love and being able to move forward.

And uh I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this last one.

And I don't mean to sound funny, but um the Super Bowl uh on Sunday with the halftime show uh by Bad Bunny was uh very impactful.

Um the symbolism that he uses throughout his music uh culturally and how it cuts across the entire globe, uh, I think was was very poignant.

Um the symbolism was also a message of of unity and love and be perseverance and how to uh move forward.

Uh if you did not get a chance to see it, I would definitely recommend seeing the halftime show and then checking out uh some information afterwards about all the different symbolism that was utilized uh throughout the performance.

And with that, madam mayor, uh, that is my oral report.

Thank you, Councilman Aguirre.

I always love when you go first, because then it makes mine much shorter.

But I I do just picking up where you left off, I think this week from Sunday to yesterday has been a really powerful reminder of the importance of unity, connection, community, and hopefully a little more peace and joy in all of our lives.

I'll go quickly um because there were some events that Councilman Aguirre already touched on.

I just wanted to add a few things.

The first um was the honoring the 67 and the unsung heroes.

I had the opportunity to attend this event with Congressman Bayer.

Um it was an event that was planned by the family members of the 67 who lost their lives in the horrific um accident at DCA on January 29th.

One of the things that I announced was that the city will be working with the families as well as our congressmen to um prepare a memorial at Rivergate Park.

And I got a number of emails with people, just the way our community always does.

They want to donate, they want to help, they want to be a part of it.

And so more to come.

Just wanted to let folks know that staff is working on maybe a page or something where we can really direct people to ways that they might be able to contribute or volunteer.

Um, so we hope to have something up in the coming weeks, and we'll send out an e-news or something when that is available.

The other thing I wanted to let folks know is the Alexandria Warehouse sale was last Saturday and Sunday.

It's one of the biggest sale weekends for our boutiques in Old Town.

Unfortunately, with the cold temperatures, um, it wasn't as successful as it's been in previous years.

And so the sale has been extended to President's Day.

So it just encourage you if you're already in Old Town for the parade, stay a little longer, visit our boutiques, and really um help them uh rebound from what has been, I think, a tough winter and year overall.

Wanted to share today.

I had um my first meeting of the year of our in my interfaith um council.

It was a really great opportunity to talk a little bit about some of the work we're doing in the city.

I want to thank Director Garvey for providing us with an overview of all of the different programs that we have in the department of community and human services, as well as opportunities for us to better collaborate with community members.

And I want to thank um Alfred Street Baptist Church for hosting the meeting.

And then finally, I just want to give a shout out to Pillar Wealth Partners.

I was able to squeeze in their ribbon cutting right before getting to this meeting.

Really exciting story.

Um, and Alexandrian, who graduated from our high school, has come back home and um launched his first business here.

And so it was great to see his family, but also all of his neighbors from the street that he grew up on was there uh really supporting and welcoming this new business into our community.

And I think, oh, and then lastly, I just want to say I know later we're gonna have an update on the snow response, but I think many people, you may think it's over.

It's not.

We still have a lot of work that we're doing on the snow response, and that means there's a lot of staff that continue to dedicate countless hours to that response and to making this work happen.

And so I just want to make sure that every chance we get, we continue to say thank you.

We continue to say we appreciate you.

I see um be city manager Emily Baker, who I know has been coordinating a large piece of this response.

W city manager um Alethea Perdeaux.

I see many of our other staff and team, and then I know the city manager as well.

Um, we'll talk a bit uh later.

But just thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

We can't say it enough, and just appreciate all of the countless hours you've put into this response.

Are there other oral reports?

Mary Askin.

Yes, thanks, Mayor Bagley.

I hope you can hear me.

If I'll get closer.

Um so I just um two quick things.

One, I did I honestly I'm I'm so pleased that actually Councilman Aguirre uh raised uh the halftime show because I just wanted to share that one of the joys I've had since then is watching people reaction to hearing their country called out.

And it like it's just it was an incredibly inclusive and beautiful performance.

And and I just wanted to second um his comments on that because I've gotten a lot of joy watching that since.

Um on a more serious, not or on a different note, I don't want to say more serious on a different note.

Um, I wanted to ask if the city manager and or perhaps Emily Baker um might be able to um help with an issue that I'm raising here, partially because it's time sensitive.

Um it has to do with the Duke Street Taylor Run project, intersection project.

And I've been contacted by a few residents who are trying to comply with um a VDOT process for a public hearing to ask questions and have questions answered.

And I understand there's a deadline approaching for them to properly lodge that request.

Um, and I know there's been signs and letters um, and I've seen some of them.

But I think just what I wanted to highlight here and ask perhaps if the city manager or um deputy city manager can follow up with me, or perhaps with a member of the Taylor Run civic association to make sure that the process to formally request that public hearing is is happening.

Um I know our staff plays a role in it, but I will admit that I don't know exactly what role they play and what role VDOT plays.

And so um, in the interest of time, because there is a deadline approaching, I wanted to just raise it here and um help those residents uh see that process through and to the extent of public hearing um is necessary and can be arranged that we do what we can to facilitate that.

And I'll pause there because I actually can't see you guys when I'm talking.

Okay, so we'll go ahead and follow up and make sure that that uh we're clear on how to approach getting the public hearing set.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Okay.

Are there any other oral reports?

Uh, Councilman Chapman.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

And now I'll pick up where uh the vice mayor left off because um there is a West Taylor Run meeting tomorrow, and I believe city staff is going to come and uh I believe have that conversation with uh with the folks from Taylor Run.

Um I can't remember which staff member is going to be present, but I believe they had uh secured somebody.

Uh and so I know uh for a number of my neighbors, they are very, very much interested, as the vice mayor said, and kind of understanding that process, especially how it's separate from whatever we do.

Um, and so I appreciate certainly appreciate that.

Uh I I did have the chance um this afternoon to speak out uh on one of the House bills uh that was in subcommittee on skilled gaming um and uh do some testimony there.

Uh and so in joining my colleagues in lobbying, uh, I know a number of us have spoken out on a number of uh different things.

Um I wanted to um also offer some thank yous to uh our volunteer uh election officials.

Um I had the opportunity to to vote, of course, today.

Uh and uh the chief uh election officer at um at MacArthur had a special visitor when I walked in.

Her son had stopped by to check on her and talk about uh we had the opportunity to talk about her volunteer service uh to the city.

And so um a number of individuals give up a day of of work to make sure that we have the opportunity to vote um here in the city.

And so we are certainly appreciative of them.

Uh and then uh I wanted to uh especially since I'm the old man on council, um uh bring to folks' attention um uh something that uh if they if you did not see it on um posted on Facebook a number of days ago by our local uh firefighter union um was uh a remembrance on um emt uh Joshua Wiseman um who who was the last person who died in the line of duty in the city.

Um and I think for uh a number of uh elected officials uh and folks in the fire service and folks in the public um public safety communities uh here in the city during that time and uh since and even before uh you know it is uh I think a number of us and in the community take it for granted uh people putting their lives on the line uh and the fact that things can go wrong in the field.

Uh and so even though it has been 14 years uh since he passed away uh in the line of duty, uh it is not something that uh goes without uh being thought about uh by folks in the profession, uh folks in the city.

Uh and so just remembering that um that happened, uh, making sure those folks who have uh died in their service in the city have are not forgotten.

Uh and so I just wanted to continue to bring that to people's attention.

Uh and then lastly, um unfortunately uh those of us who knew um Judge Newman, uh a judge in Arlington County, uh, one of the first African Americans to be on uh the Arlington County board.

Uh it was announced today that he passed away as well.

Uh and so sending condolences to his family in the Arlington community.

Uh thank you, Councilman Chapman, especially for making sure that we never forget and continue to remember those who have served our city and served our region and the impact that they have made um on all of us and some so many in our in our city.

Are there other oral reports?

Okay.

Madam Clerk, next item.

City manager manager's oral report, state of the economy.

Okay.

Um, Mr.

Manager, I'm gonna turn this over to you.

And I think the manager actually has several updates that he's gonna provide um and the state of economy is one.

The other will be on our snow response, and then also on um some highlights from DCHS's annual report.

So great.

Well, thank you, Mayor and Council.

Uh yes, I have actually four things.

One's gonna be very short, but the other others may be a little bit longer.

Um, I I do want to start with uh a little bit on the snow report.

Um, I think the mayor said it uh well earlier.

Um we are not uh complete with our recovery.

Um we this was the equivalent of a natural disaster uh where um this did has not occurred since the mid-1990s, where it wasn't the snow itself, it was the snow and then the several hours of freezing rain and sleet after approximately the seven inches of snow.

Um that really created a solid block of ice that um in traditional sense, what that means is that we can't use normal equipment.

We have to use very very significant levels of equipment to uh be able and specialized equipment to be able to operate, which requires a lot of manual work, um, and it's much slower than the normal snow removal process.

Um we did uh and on January 27th, we did a little bit of an update um just to remind our community.

We maintained 600 lane miles of roads along with a miles and miles of sidewalks, trails, and parking areas.

Uh and I think we're making great progress uh in getting those areas uh back to full recovery.

As I said in the very beginning, we are still in the middle of uh the recovery.

We are not at the end of end of it, and we're not at the beginning of it.

We're making great progress.

Uh so what have we done?

Uh I think there's some helpful uh pieces of data.

Uh we've we've hauled over 9,000 tons of ice.

Over 9,000 tons of ice.

We filled nine or filled six dump sites filled with ice and freezing snow.

We've operated uh and created over 1,000 dump dump truck loads just pure of ice and snow.

Um so when we talk about this event and you see though that information, well, it in it in its own con without context, that just sounds like a bunch of numbers.

But in a traditional snow event, we're not hauling snow out of the area.

We're not having to use backloaders and specialized equipments like skid steers.

We're using traditional blades that can move snow.

In our case, instead of moving snow, we actually have to pick it up, break it, pick it up, and then haul it away.

That is that is why I I would reference this as really a natural disaster and not a typical snowstorm.

It's also the reason that it it's taken us a significant amount of time, as well as our regional uh our other regional communities to take a long time to be able to clear this.

Um this also has not helped us in regard to we've had some of the coldest weather.

Um, so nature is not helping us melt the snow or melt the ice at this stage.

Uh hopefully in the next couple days, we'll have some warm weather that will really help us.

Um in terms of staffing, we had over 500 city staff across 11 departments uh working in this event during the rec during the event as well as during the recovery.

Eight private contractors with over 200 contracted staff.

Um they all worked uh really around the clock, extended shifts, uh, multiple passes to keep roads passable with conditions and temperatures that were really at extreme levels.

I do want to make one comment and again uh to the community, uh, because we have such specialized equipment and limited resources in that regard, we must be able to have to work uh at night, which means that there is some inconvenience to people and hearing the beeps and uh maybe disruption of sleep.

And and while we apologize for that, it's necessary in order to get to a faster recovery.

So uh when we look ahead over the next couple weeks, uh and hopefully the weather stays warm and and we uh can have Mother Nature melt a lot of this.

Uh we'll continue to focus on uh lane clean uh lane cleaning, opening up lanes, including one I drove on tonight where it's really a lane and a half.

We need that's really intended to be two lanes or four lanes, uh working on some of that, working on our intersections where we can continue to widen them, but not just widen them, but clean them to a point where our pedestrians have visibility and can see better.

There's still significant intersections that we need to do that with, as well as curb ramps on secondary and residential roads as well.

Uh we continue to clear hard and soft trails and block sidewalks over the next couple of weeks.

Uh we're gonna continue to make sure that our school zones and transit corridors are well cleaned and and perhaps widened a little bit.

Um very important, we have uh focused pretty heavily on some of our drainage features so that we avoid flooding in case we have significant melt and then significant rain.

Uh so a lot of those inlets uh and what that means is we can't do it in a traditional way.

That's where you'll see heavy manual work uh trying to break the ice in order to uh allow for the inlets to work properly.

Uh we also uh are doing uh a strong, strong encouragement uh for sidewalk clearance clearance requirements, as the community knows.

Uh we we ask our residents and businesses to clear sidewalks in front of their their properties.

Um many people have been very cooperative and really helped despite how difficult this this work is has been.

Um, and we continue to have great volunteers from you know, Volunteer Alexandria uh uh helping us, uh but we need more work in that regard.

Uh so uh some of our enforcement efforts will start to ramp up a little bit.

Uh we've done a considerable amount of warnings and things like that, as well as some citations primarily around uh commercial properties.

I think uh there's been three or four, just give me a second here, uh, three citations, but we've issued 110 warnings.

A big portion of those have been to commercial properties that have frankly more capacity to be able to clear along their frontage.

And we'll continue to do that.

Uh, and we're in the process of reinspecting many of those properties now, including some of the commercial areas again.

Uh we continue to remain prepared for cold weather and high winds and snow events.

Uh, a couple key areas that we're working on right now, including tonight would be uh Mount Vernon Avenue.

Uh uh tomorrow morning we'll be at uh Van Dorn and Etzel clearing some of that.

Uh there's other multiple streets in the area that we still have work to do.

Um as far as uh 311 requests, we have, as you can imagine, significant 311 requests.

We had over 800 uh requests uh from 311 related to snow.

We've cleared about 60 percent of those uh and uh about 26 percent are on hold, uh, really working with the resident to try to better understand the concern.

And we really have about 15 percent uh still remaining open and needing further review.

So that represents over a hundred requests that we're still working towards.

Um I did want to highlight I I there will be a uh significant after action report that will come to you once we've fully recovered.

That will include everything from really what do we think we worked quite well.

What do we think did not work as well as it should, and where we might make some recommendations for the future.

But I did want to take a couple minutes to highlight a couple initial lessons that I think I wanted to highlight for the council and the community.

So I I do think this is really a combination of feedback from a lot of our staff that worked in this this space over the last two weeks.

Making sure that our reporting and accuracy to the community is stronger and stronger than it's been.

If you recall, we struggled those first couple of days, uh, maybe even a little bit longer than that, related to how to make sure that the accuracy, particularly with the the significant use of, I think eight or nine contractors in addition to our staff, um really to support the ice removal and how to better coordinate that.

Um we had we ended up having to do what's called scout clearing and removal activities to validate that reporting.

And there are probably better ways to for us to approach that.

Um a second lesson is uh more improved initial communication with the community on the preparations to support snow and ice removal.

You know, even small things like asking if if you have the ability to remove cars from on street parking to the extent possible, uh maximizing the use of your driveways, some of the parking lots and garages that that can really help facilitate uh the removal of snow, but particularly the ice situation that we had.

Uh and then uh the third initial lesson is really to strengthen some of our route clarity and integration of our contractors under really a single model, unified model.

Um frankly, one or two, three contractors in a normal snowstorm, this is relatively straightforward, eight or nine contractors where we're talking about you know, two weeks of effort.

Um, that does require a different level of coordination.

Um then finally, I think our communication to the public, uh, particularly on uh what they can expect, what are we working on, uh, what do we need to uh focus attention on and the process and the priority of how we've set.

I think we did some of that, but there's a there's areas of focus and improvement in that.

Those are a couple initial things that I think we've we've identified.

Um I I would be remiss and certainly want to make this as probably one of the most important things, and I appreciate the council referencing this.

Um I really do want to commend our staff and our contractors.

I think you know that this is these are these are uh significant uh people who have worked 24 hours a day, 12 hour shifts away from their families and friends working day and night in conditions that most of us would dread, uh certainly, uh, really to ensure that we get uh as fast a speedy recovery as possible.

Um and I think uh they're deserving of our recognition.

This was a this is a very difficult thing.

I would leave the council with we are not finished.

We have a lot of work still to do.

You know, if you drove from roughly the city hall area uh to the west end, you probably passed several areas where you can point to need to click clear some curbs, some of our sidewalks still need to be improved, some of our trail systems uh still need some work, and particularly on it widening out some of the extra lanes so that uh more traffic can move forward uh safely and efficiently.

So uh mayor, that's that's item number one.

Um why don't I just stop there for a second?

Yes.

Let's uh pause here and see if there are any questions for the manager on the snow report.

Uh Councilman Chapman.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um Mr.

Manager, I I certainly appreciate the support uh the report and definitely look forward to kind of the end report.

Um couple of things that I'm I'm wanted to raise.

I don't know if they're necessarily questions, but um things that folks in the community have kind of brought to me as we talked about, or you talked about um parking, uh particularly in old town, uh, you know, at the I guess maybe for the last report and kind of future possibilities, um kind of what that best use of our garages might be for uh residents in old town and other neighborhoods that have um or are near city property um or parking opportunities if there's ways to kind of take advantage of those in an emergency basis.

I think one of the ones that uh a couple of folks have have talked to me about, and it might sound funny, um, but for a number of folks in um some of the townhome communities or in field development that don't have uh their own parking garages or driveways um that have to rely on street parking, uh there are a couple of jurisdictions, mainly to the north that have looked at uh the ability for uh people to temporarily um save or preserve parking.

Um I think all of us have probably seen those individuals that stick a trash can or a chair.

Uh for me it's a chair.

Uh for my wife, it's a trash can.

Um in the parking space.

Um I think it as I as a couple of people approached me about it, I thought it was you know just a joke as first at first because people do it and it's just natural.

But one of the things that if we wanted to, there are a couple of jurisdictions that actually do this as a temporary measure, particularly for those individuals who are essential workers, right?

Let's think about the fact that somebody who's an essential worker or even one of the business owners that we want to have clean their sidewalks in a certain amount of time are going to have to shovel out their space um and then travel in uh after right after a storm, go shovel out their business area and then uh have no expectation that their the work they've done even close to their home is uh at all um sacred.

Uh I think that is an issue if uh I'm not saying we do this as a uh a long-standing permanent policy.

I think we we look at how we implement this in with the so snow emergency um uh declaration that we already have.

Um you know, I I did talk to a couple of folks who are doctors and and nurses um about some of this and if there is any ability by this by the city to allow it.

Um obviously we don't want to take enforcement time or or opportunity in watching this, but uh I think there are some lucky neighborhoods where people respect that.

There are other neighborhoods where that's not the issue.

But again, I I would love to have uh a better conversation about that um as a way to uh implement or allow uh some policy that could work for folks.

Um I know Mr.

Chafton also often hates on the black and gold in the great city of Pittsburgh, but in case you didn't know, in the Steel Cities Code, putting a chair out is a legal, um, it's like a legal recognized thing.

Director Garvey knows it, it is codified in the city's code about how you protect your spot.

I'm not saying that's the way to go.

I'm just saying that sometimes there are lessons from other cities.

Um other questions from Mayor Haskins?

Yes, Vice Mayor Bagley.

Um I'm getting a terrible echo.

You are muted in our room, but I mean we hear you, but I don't know if that's the reason for the echo.

Um you still hear me?

Yes.

Okay.

So um one thing I just wanted to ask the manager to highlight.

I'm sure you and the manager and staff are already on top of this, but I just wanted to second it is that um if the actor action report can also just do an analysis on the um cessation of enforcement of clearing of neighborhood sidewalks.

I know that you know, we made that decision in light of the seriousness and the particular challenges of this storm, then we at some point, you know, return to that policy.

And I think what I'd appreciate for when the next time this happens is for the after action report to have some clear lessons learned on on that policy and how we could in future scenarios either keep the enforcement policy in place, but think about who are the networks we could activate to actually enforce it.

Um, you know, if crossing guards aren't being used because school is closed, I don't know, can we empower crossing guards?

I was trying to think about who are the people that weren't doing their jobs because their jobs weren't available in those first two or three days.

Um and maybe crossing guards is not a good example.

It was just one that came to mind.

But um I I'd love us to have thought about that for next time is what are the circumstances and communicate to the public as best we can that we will suspend enforcement, or conversely, how can we prepare next time to not suspend enforcement so that the expectation to clear your you know sidewalk is mismaintained, but we know that we actually have the capacity to enforce.

Um I can't see or hear myself anymore.

So I'm just gonna pause there and wait for the mayor to say something to me.

Yeah.

And I I will say just um for council's reference, something that the manager and I have talked about is actually like formalizing the after action review.

I think because there's been so many questions about it and even members of the public sending in ideas that you know we'll have that process, but then maybe the March report will actually have a report or something we can all react to that shows kind of what happened before, what happened during, what happened after, and potential policies we might want to consider, especially since some of those policies um in working with the city attorney's office might require a specific ordinance or review um change.

So really kind of formalizing the process.

So yes, an ordinance change so that we could um be really intentional about how we move forward with the lessons learned.

I had I know you have more, so I just had two quick questions.

Um we got an email today just asking about what residents can expect along the route for the George Washington birthday parade.

And typically people would sit along the sidewalks, but there's still snow.

Just any update on how we're preparing um for the visitor experience.

I'm gonna ask our snow leader, uh deputy city manager Emily Baker to help me on this question.

Yes.

Um, Madam Mayor, we have been in contact with the um special events team about this.

You know, I think we are monitoring the weather to see um how things naturally evolve and um and looking to see what resources we may need to put in place.

I I'm not sure that um we will be able to have every single sidewalk cleared if it's not cleared already, but we're definitely going to see what we can do to help support the parade.

It might be helpful as we I know we just talked about communications as we um get closer.

If things are not melting as quickly, maybe there are particular areas we push people to watching the parade.

Um so then they're standing there, we know it's clear, we know it's a safe experience.

Um the other question we've received a lot is for many of our residents who live in apartment buildings.

Um, they have experience either the sidewalks not being cleared, but worse, the um parking lots not being cleared.

I know we have limitations to what we can and cannot enforce, but um, is there anything you can expand on for those who are in apartment communities and still have not had any snow cleared?

What I don't know, maybe what their rights are, who they can contact, or what might be possible.

Yes, we can certainly work with our landlord tenant staff, and um if people reach out to us or to the Office of Housing on those concerns, we can work with them and sort of make those connections to the property um to the management companies.

Okay, uh Councilman Gary has a follow-up on this.

Fox Chase.

Yes, and that's an area where we have been um focusing on around these public sidewalks, but we can certainly speak to them and encourage them on their in if it's something internal to the property.

I Madam Mayor, if I may.

So I guess um how do we define where the public sidewalk is versus the private sidewalk?

Because to me, especially with Fox Chase, their property is a budding all of the sidewalk along Howard Street.

But is that considered the public sidewalk, even though it's leading up to both their gym and their leasing office?

I think um we would have to look and see if it's in the public right-of-way, then um then we consider that to be public sidewalk and the city code um allows us to enforce the clearing of that.

If it's on private property, then we do not have authority to enforce that.

But certainly we can reach out to the property management and encourage them to make that um a priority if it's not been done.

And one final follow-up.

Um do we have a map of the sidewalk so that we know which are private and which are public?

Yes, we do an RGIS system.

I'm not sure what um is publicly available, but probably it, I believe that system is that our maps are available on the website.

Okay, thank you.

Um, just to follow up on the um, I mean, I'm just struck by the fact that like 57% of our community are renters.

Um, in working with the landlord and tenant um division, if if there's anything we can put out, I mean, again, like if there's a statement of rights or a statement who you can contact, or the best way to report to us if your complex is not taking care of these issues, I'd love to be able to empower people with like here's a concrete way that we can support you or help you, or here's a very specific way you can let us know so that we can follow up with those companies much quicker.

I think particularly on the West End, where I think what is it now, the majority of the council lives.

There's a lot of buildings we're passing every day.

And it is just, I mean, it's barely a lane, like for folks to get through their property.

Yes, we'll put some thought into that and we'll put together some um sort of some guidance that we can share.

Thank you.

All right.

Um, well, then we'll be back uh for the next phase of this conversation, hopefully saying we're through it.

Uh, Mr.

Manager, the next part of your presentation.

So while I ask uh Kate Garvey, the director of community and human services to come up to talk a little bit about the community impact report.

Well, she's doing that.

I want to cover the second item.

So uh we continue as a community to celebrate Black History Month.

Uh, in fact, I think there is there is an event uh in this building tomorrow morning, I believe.

Um I did want to highlight that, and I would ask people to put this on their calendars.

Uh we will have a Juneteenth celebration on June 19th, which is Friday.

It'll be a community-wide series of celebrations throughout the day uh culminating into I think a really great event in the evening.

I just would like you to, as a community keep keep uh Juneteenth uh June 19th, that Friday uh available to you because uh that will be uh a significant uh community uh series of events for us and just wanted the public to know that.

Um so the the third item um again is our uh esteemed colleague uh Kate Garvey.

She's gonna talk about her annual community impact report.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for the opportunity.

Um my name is Kate Garvey, and I'm the director of the Department of Community and Human Services.

Uh in this community impact report is something that is really a great opportunity for us as a department to shine the light on the work that's taking place by our wonderful staff as well as our great partners, um, and really to sort of hope that we can share with folks what we're what we're trying to work on together.

And I realize I don't have a clicker.

Oh, beautiful, thank you.

Thanks.

As I said, you know, we as a department, we are focused on a vision of this community where everyone, all of residents do have an opportunity to feel safe, uh sense of well-being and self-sufficiency.

And the way we work toward realizing that vision is uh really an amazing committed staff, almost 700 staff.

Um, the amazing resilience strength and vision of the individuals who come for the services.

We are sometimes meeting people uh at on their most difficult day, and they are really coming to move forward in in a lot of different ways.

So their ability to do that is remarkable.

Also, providers and partners who provide you know critical services, nonprofit, the faith community, others who are really contributing significantly.

Uh also we're benefiting so much.

The building that we're sitting in is one of the most symbolic and powerful pieces that we have is a unified department under one roof, being able to offer uh a comprehensive service approach.

And then being within this community, where truthfully the focus on kindness and generosity are the norm.

That this is an expectation that people are really being part of the system.

And so within this uh year, more than 40,000 Alexandrians receive services through this approach.

And so we're gonna with the report, we really organize it around the each of the centers and our organization is four centers.

So the first one we'll talk about is our economic support center and some of the highlights there uh within our community shelter, more than 230 people were uh sheltered.

The winter shelter, almost 450 people sheltered, and that's been critical for us this year uh in the willingness to be able to keep that open 24-7 during these cold snaps.

Also, this is one of the most powerful uh details that we point out to folks that with our benefits program, more than 42,000 Alexandrians are receiving benefits, either SNAP, Medicaid, or TANF.

And so I think oftentimes people do not know how many of their mayors, not mayors of their neighbors are receiving benefits.

And so that's a critical piece of our work in this building.

That's where you will see the most volume on our fifth floor for individuals coming in to receive uh benefits.

Next, our food distribution uh more than uh 132,000 people, and this is a very close collaboration with Alive and the Pantry Network, the faith community, others contributing to this, but the necessity for concrete food distribution remains very high.

And then for us, the number of people calling in for our customer relations call center, close to 70,000 phone calls in a year last year.

Oh, and I only did not talk about the in the picture.

Great picture.

We see two of the members here, or three of the members here.

Our summer youth employment program where we were able to serve 171 youth in 63 work sites, 10 city departments.

And this program is it's something that's really important.

You all have supported tremendously, but we really do feel that, and what the staff the the tagline is not just a summer job.

This really is trying to look at the career development and advancement of our youth.

Next for some of the highlights from the Center for Children and Families.

The youth needs assessment has been a remarkable process for us where we have, and this was in the past year we've had more youth spoken to since this time.

But over 1,100 youth really talking back to us about what is what is their experience.

What's the Alexandria that they live in now?

What's the Alexandria they dream about, and what are the things that they need?

And one of the another powerful element of this is it's other it's youth actually doing this interviewing.

This is in uh civics classes.

The ACPS teachers have enabled us to come into those settings to be able to interview the youth and hear directly.

And it will be this information that is going to drive the decision making and the prioritization for our next children and youth community plan.

Um I'm not gonna read through everything because I know we're we got tight timeline, but just a couple highlights.

Again, we have the council members' uh picture here too that the work of the LGBTQIA plus task force uh is sometimes I'm not sure that everyone knows about this work, but doing training with service providers, nonprofits to ensure that they are creating a safe and inclusive uh environment for people who are coming for services.

So and also to point out too, with the um with our sexual assault line, almost over 1,200 people calling into that line.

Uh finally, in terms of the fourth uh the third service center, um, we something called same-day access, and this has been a priority to be able to give individuals who need uh behavioral health services rapid access.

We were also able to unify the same-day access area to both children and adults, and so there's a single place for people to come.

Uh, also with our emergency services, and that is an individual facing a mental health crisis.

We had more than 10,000 contacts, uh, just under a thousand clients.

And I do want to also point out um adult protective services.

This is a you know, a service that is so important up, and our staff is extremely focused.

Uh, and we'll say uh 430 reports, you know, 230 individuals in our community, older adults who it was demonstrated that exploitation or abuse was taking place, and so really important to have that focus and response.

And then just finally, uh, in terms of we also have the center for operations that is very critical for us to delivering the managing our finances, our IT, our facilities, our HR, and in this regard, so the budget of over uh 111 million dollars from you know, certainly the investment of the city, uh, but also the state and federal grants and the management.

We have a couple of our staff uh from uh the finance here with us tonight uh who do a great job and have deal with a lot of complicated grants and reporting um pieces, and then our fund for human services, which we're very excited about the the grants process that's taking place now, but they're more than 30,000 people served uh through multiple nonprofits, skilled nonprofits focusing from early childhood to to older adults, and then finally just some of the comments made by our clients and the things that I think are really important to us is that we are meeting people where they are.

The the demonstration of youth voice driving our decision making, that should be the model for everything that we do do that individuals who are receiving the services are telling us this is how this should be done, this is how you could serve me best, and those are the things that we're trying to work on as a whole organization, um, and then also really being as accessible as possible.

So I think I took too much time already, but that's those are just some of the highlights, and we'll be sharing uh the concrete report out this week with everybody.

Thank you, Director Garvey.

Are there any questions or comments?

Okay, well, I just oh councilman Green.

Just really quickly, thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, Director Garvey, just um on the numbers for the shelter.

I just wanted to make sure everyone that needed a space was accommodated.

Absolutely.

Okay, we and with the winter shelter, we will not turn anyone away.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um, I just want to say thank you to you and the team.

I think few people know just how many different programs um and initiatives fall under the Department of Community Human Services.

And I think the ways in which we've been able to take such a comprehensive approach to meet people across their entire lifespan is one of the things that makes our community such an amazing place to live.

So I know this work is not easy, and I know oftentimes you're meeting people in the worst moments in their lives, but just thank you to your leadership and to everyone on the team and the department's leadership, and just really being sort of a welcoming and responsive support.

Thank you, Dorinton.

And we are so thankful and grateful for this support that we get from all of you all the time.

So and that's another piece of this to say thank you to the whole community and certainly to the city manager's office and our other partners.

That's we cannot do the work without everyone else.

So thank you.

Thank you.

And Councilman Chapman, if you sense the theme.

Director Garvey is a Pittsburger as well.

That I'll turn it back over to the manager.

One is uh a fairly brief uh state of the economy.

You know, we're gonna be moving into the budget, and I want to just highlight a couple of things and then uh we'll go go forward.

So here we go.

So just want to talk very briefly about the budget calendar.

Um, this is obviously a really critical uh time for us.

And uh what you're about to hear is the uh Alexandria Economic Development Partnership, uh their mid-year uh market report, which is very relevant to uh the context around uh how we deal with our budget.

And just to highlight, you know, as we have good positive redevelopment or development growth, uh strong opportunities for retaining of jobs and employment, those all all are critically important to the uh the fiscal position of the city.

So kind of want to give that as a little bit of context that uh a community like ours that is, you know, it's not a hundred square miles or there's lots to build.

We require uh redevelopment, we require opportunities for densification and things like that that really do generate uh some of the property value that allows for some of the many of the city services to be provided at the level that even Kate just described some of those services, they all cost dollars and development and redevelopment really generates uh the help for that.

Um I know this is a busy slide, but I think it's important.

This is the combined ACPS uh school budget calendar with the city calendar, and you can see it's it's sequential, it makes sense.

Um and we're right about to get into February 24th, which is when we'd be presenting the budget.

And then this just represents the calendar.

The point here isn't necessarily to read everything, but to see the volume of work that the council will do once you receive the budget working with the community.

I think there's 10 or 11 uh public sessions uh on a weekly basis leading into the opportunity to adopt the budget at the end of uh April.

Uh with that, um, I'm gonna turn it over to Christina Mindrup, who is the vice president of real estate.

She's online right now.

Uh and she's gonna highlight a little bit about uh Alexandria's market report.

Um they do this uh twice uh annually, and tonight she's gonna go over a covering from June to December of 2025, and the report covers office and retail markets, employment and development trends.

And the last report was shared by with the council in September of 2025.

And the full report can be found on AEDP's website, Alexandria econ.org.

And so I would ask uh Christina, I'll try to help control the clicker slides if you need to.

I would appreciate it.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Christina Mendruff, vice president of real estate with ADP.

I just want to check to make sure that people can hear me, or if I need to speak louder.

Can you speak louder and into the mic a little bit more?

Okay, I'll move it a little bit closer.

How about now?

More.

Can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Okay, good.

All right, then I will proceed.

Thank you.

Um since our last reporting period in September, our office vacancy has dropped two and a half percent, primarily because of our collective work to convert obsolete office buildings and retain and attract businesses.

Notable to this reduction in vacancy is the following.

First of all, the removal of 5001 Eisenhower Avenue from our inventory.

Region wide focus folks are celebrating the removal of Victory Center after 20 years vacant, thanks to our city's participation.

The second is the big driver as a result of AEDP's efforts to retain and add more than 4,000 jobs, which translates into 4% of Alexandria's total job base.

Please note this figure does not include the National Science Foundation, which I will explain later in the presentation.

But this does include the HUD headquarters move, which is underway, adding 2,700 new jobs to the city.

Unemployment is up slightly from 3.4% in May to 3.8%, largely due to the ripple effect of the government shutdown and job cuts.

Alexandria is faring better than the region, which posted 4.5 in this past November.

As for the development pipeline, 16 projects were entitled last year, which remains consistent from the previous year.

These approvals were predominantly ground up residential projects, and several were extension of prior development approvals that had not yet broken ground.

Over the last two years, roughly 4,000 units have been approved, 411 of which are affordable.

Lastly, over the span of the entire year, we've added 72 new and growing restaurants and retail businesses to our pipeline.

Next slide, please.

So the office vacance rate across the entire city, as I said, is down to 2.7%, but has remained steady in every one of our key submarkets.

Again, the major driver in vacancy reduction has been the removal of 5,001 Eisenhower Avenue.

Old Town is slightly up from 14.3%, which could be the realization of the vacancy from the International Association of Chiefs of Police from Old Town moving to Potomac Yard.

Carlisle is down from 29.1%, with only 21,000 square feet of moderate positive absorption.

Potomac Yard is 0%, and which represents the removal of 35,000 square feet, reflecting that lease I mentioned earlier with International Association of the Chiefs of Police and a small vacancy on the first floor of NIB.

So obviously, this 0% vacancy signals a need for new construction of office in this market.

West End is up slightly from 18.6%.

And we noted that some of the movement might be attributable to several older medical office buildings that could have caused this.

Overall, there has been a moderate uptick in tour activity, especially towards year end, which could point to a renewed confidence in the market.

Many of the active tenants in the market are contemplating renewal options or are those who are soon to be displaced by recently approved office conversions.

In either case, we are seeking to write size and upgraded office footprints with a trend towards improving the quality of space.

As per vacancy in Northern Virginia, we remained relatively unchanged, if not up slightly to 21%.

Conversions and demolitions of older functionally obsolete buildings have stabilized the vacancy rate.

Even with over 750,000 square feet of negative net absorption realized for the year, the vacancy rate has remained constant because it was offset by the removal of product from the inventory.

So from the previous question on how we stack up to our neighbors, Arlington County is reporting a 23.8% vacancy with an inventory of 44 million square feet.

Fairfax County is reporting a 23% vacancy with an inventory of 110 million square feet, and Alexandria is at 18.9 with an inventory now of 18.2 million square feet.

Next slide, please.

So despite 2025 being a very challenging year with federal job shedding and impacts, Alexandria saw success in our federal and federal adjacent portfolio.

We both retained and grew jobs through the retention and expansion of systems planning analysis on the West End and attracted the HUD headquarters to the Carlow neighborhood.

Announcement of HUD to the market will add 2,700 new jobs.

Systems planning and analysis has been a long-term business in Alexandria, and with their purchase of their building, they will be maintaining Alexandria as the location of its headquarters on the West E, retaining 600 employees and adding 500 new high-paying jobs over the next several years.

National Science Foundation recently announced the lease and relocation to one of the formerly occupied PTO buildings, which will retain 1,600 jobs in the city.

Next slide.

And we want to remind you the importance of the NSF retention.

HUD's move to Alexandria was announced in June.

And NSF's announcement to remain in Alexandria was not made until December, with a lease starting in January, which will be recognized as 386,000 square feet of positive absorption in our next reporting period.

If all other things remain constant in the market, this absorption could represent close to 2.5% reduction in our city's vacancy and a six percent percent reduction in Carlisle alone.

The National Science Foundation's retention wasn't a foregone conclusion.

Due to strong relationships with the brokerage and business community, ADP was quickly able to address the need and help facilitate the transaction between the parties.

In short, the National Science Foundation retention was an important and successful call to action in light of the HUD announcement.

Next slide.

Moving on to retail openings, we were asked to provide an update on citywide retail vacancy numbers.

Alexandria retail and restaurant vacancy was 4.6% at year end 2025, up slightly from last year at 4.5%.

This is actually a healthy vacancy rate by industry standards, even a bit on the low side.

Also note here that the announcements and openings are concentrated along our crescent curve where most of our densely development is located, but also spread throughout our various corridors and nodes of Alexandria.

In response to the question in September, how do we stack up to our neighbors?

Arlington is around 4.7% as well.

Fairfax is 3.9%.

It's important to note that in the last six months, about half of the new businesses are independently owned.

The other half are national tenants.

What is not contained here, but interesting to mention is the newly announced first commercial lease for Folger Pratt's West End development.

Tierra Encantada, a Spanish, excuse me, daycare, will be taking 16,000 square feet in one of the first developments.

Also of note is in Carlisle Crossing, one of our newer developments that is anchored by Wegman's, the following announcements were made this past few months.

The Club Studio Fitness, Honeymoon Chicken, TNR Cafe, and Matory Coffee.

Upcoming from the year and fiscal year, we will report back to you with updated vacancy numbers for King Street.

Next slide, please.

Given the numbers I've just shared, most measures are showing positive movement, but we still have a lot of work ahead of us.

The reason we are seeing this growth trend is because the city and AEDP are encouraging investments in these ways.

The adoption of the Alex Forward Plan that provides a strategic citywide framework for economic growth, the city's one-start program, which allows each project to come forward with staff's pro-business nature to continuously find ways to improve and streamline the approval process, proactively promoting the use of our IDA as a lever and our toolkit for advancing projects and streamlining the process for allowing conversions to happen in order for reinvestment to occur in our existing buildings.

So with that, I thank you, and I'm happy to take any questions.

So I know there's a lot of data, but I think the point is our retail market is strong.

Over 4,000 new jobs have been either retained or recruited over in a single year period.

I think those are really positive things.

You know, we still have to watch the uncertainty in some of the office markets and things like that.

But uh I think I think there's positive signs that we've got a blueprint with the uh Alex Ford to really help us move forward in the next couple of years.

Um, questions or comments from the council.

Councilman Chapman.

Thank you.

Uh, and thank you for your presentation.

Um, one of the questions I had was on the slide where you had the vacancy numbers by I think uh neighborhood around kind of Carlisle that number about how much of that is um kind of the PTO or wrapped up in PTO NSF movement that that will probably chain for that media report.

Um so next quarter, the um NSF acquisition of the 386,000 square feet will actually reduce the bank vacancy further.

But it is recognized as significant amount of vacancy.

If you recall, it was like 29.1 to 27.9.

So it's not really including the PTO, but other transactions that either been renewed renewals within the area andor expansion or new spaces taken.

So the PTO is not going to be recognized until next quarter.

Okay.

The other thing that I did notice, and I don't know if this is uh necessarily a question, but you know, something for our consideration as we start to implement uh some of our uh strategic framework and and growth.

I think one of the things that I noticed uh when we had the map of retail and restaurant businesses that were coming in is that we don't have, we didn't have a whole lot of action on the western end of the city.

And I don't know if that is something that as we look at our growth, maybe we need to look at um uh additional activity centers that we can kind of build out.

Um, I know in some of the earlier uh thinkers groups meetings that we've had with ADP that's been bought up, but that might I think that that signaled kind of almost a red flag to me.

I know we've got landmark, you know, growing and moving, but uh other parts of the West End don't seem to have the action that we have, obviously in old town and North Old Town and whatnot.

And I know there's there's obviously some differences there, but uh I would think you know, we still have a majority of our community that lives in in those sections of the of town.

And so figuring out how we um add or or try to plan uh additional activity to be out where the people are um might be um helpful, I think to our our strategic growth.

Um I think just to build on what Councilman Chapman left us, um, both how do we add activity, but also there are so many amazing businesses on the West E that have reached out of questions about like what types of retention strategies do we have?

How can we help people stay in business?

And so I I do think as we continue this conversation and even as we prepare to go into the budget, really thinking about um for the businesses we do have have how do we keep them here and and and what does what does that look like and how can we be intentional, especially in areas um where we're not seeing as much new activity?

Councilwoman Green.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and to tag on um to that a little bit and and thank you for the presentation.

This uh information is very helpful.

I look forward to it every year.

Um I was wondering for businesses that come in, um, retail and restaurant.

Do we track from as we talk about retention?

Do we track how long they stay in business?

Like if we were to let's say a business came in um in 2025 and they're gone in 2026.

Do we track it by the years that um they are you know open and operating in the city?

I um it could be from one for one reason or another.

Amazon fresh, um the grocery store opened in 2025, they're closed in 2026.

You know, that's you know, um, nothing to do with us, but they're changing their model.

But you know, just I would love to see across the board um, you know, how long restaurants and retail stay in business in the city.

Is that information?

Marian, I think wants to.

I have my video on on my camera.

Thank you, Councilwoman Green.

Uh, Marion Marquez with Alexandria Economic Development Partnership.

And just um to weigh in on the question you just asked.

We do not have a way of tracking closures unless it's something that we learn about through press release or we have a relationship with a business, in which case we are tracking those in our CRM.

Um, and when we do targeted outreach in particular neighborhoods, um, we are also collecting a lot of that information, but it's much easier to track the openings than the closings.

Um, but that is something I'm actually meeting tomorrow with Christina Amaruso um on our team to talk about retention strategies.

So the earlier comments about having specific retail and retention strategy for the West End.

Um, I will take that uh and raise it with her as we think about implementing Alexandria uh forward um and what that looks like from a retail perspective.

And I can also talk about um if you're interested in any kind of reporting on closings that we learn of or sort of updates that we could provide on a more regular basis.

Um we are certainly happy to do that too and can follow up.

Yes, that'd be great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um I just had one last comment.

On the, I guess fourth wheel around the conversion process.

I fully recognize that you know, our ability to do conversions quickly and to be a leader is what is really kind of stabilizing our economy right now.

I also recognize that not every building can be converted, and there are probably some buildings we don't want to convert, like we want to maintain some office.

I know council's been asking for this for a while, and maybe it's just more difficult to pull, but it it would be helpful to get some sort of map or some sort of understanding of like where are those nodes where we want to keep office and incentivize those to stay there, or maybe where are those properties that are just stuck that can't convert to housing, but that we should be thinking of some other use, um, just so we can have a better sense of where those opportunities are across the city.

So with that, um thank you both for for the presentation.

Um, Mr.

Manager, any closing thoughts on your oral report?

Uh no.

Thank you very much.

All right, thank you so much for the updates.

I'm gonna move us, Madam Clerk.

Next item.

Action docket roll call consent items nine through 24.

Okay.

Is there a motion?

There's second been a motion by councilman Chapman um to and seconded by councilwoman Green to move approval of roll call consent items nine through 24.

Is there any discussion?

Uh seeing none, Madam Clerk.

This is a roll call vote.

Please call the roll.

Councilman Chapman.

All right.

Councilwoman Green.

Aye.

Mayor Gaskins.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Bagley.

Aye.

Councilman Aguirre.

Councilman El Newby.

Aye.

Okay, Madam Clerk.

Next item.

Update on the 2026 Virginia General Assembly session.

Okay.

And I believe I know we have Deputy City Manager Lithia Perdeau in the room.

And then I think online, we have our legislative director um Wendy Ginsburg as well as our legislative consultant, Sarah Taylor.

I think.

All right.

So I'm gonna kick it over to uh Dr.

Ginsberg.

Good evening, Mayor, uh, Mayor Gaskins, Vice Mayor Bagley, and members of city council.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide a mid-session update as we approach crossover when the bills that are in the House go to the Senate, and those that pass the Senate move to the House.

That is happening next week.

The General Assembly is now four weeks into its 60-day session and committees, subcommittees, and floor calendars are moving at a very rapid pace.

The city is currently tracking 585 bills out of the 2,704 bills and resolutions filed this session.

Of these, a little more than about a hundred pieces of legislation are in direct alignment with the city's legislative priorities or carry notable or fiscal impacts or opportunities for the city.

That said, uh the city staff continue to monitor and engage on legislation that falls within the seven priorities adopted in the city's 2026 legislative package.

The city also has uh three budget amendments in play that would provide funding for accessibility improvements to the Freedom House Museum, the Urban Area Security Initiative, and establish a work group to examine the impacts and localities for subsidizing vital state positions.

The list of bills that you have before you is full build, it's a full bill tracking report, and staff will continue to update this report as legislation advances.

Again, crossover happens on February 18th, followed by budget Sunday on February 22nd, subsequent budget deadlines for other budget action, and then sketch uh session is scheduled to adjourn Sineadai on March 14th, with then the governor's review period, and then a reconvening session to follow.

We expect significant movement between now and crossover, and staff will continue to adjust our strategy in real time to protect and advocate for Alexandria's interests.

I'm gonna stop there, and I'm happy to take any questions you have about uh the bills or what's happening in the General Assembly.

Okay.

Um are there questions?

Uh Councilman O'Nuby.

Thank you for that, uh, Dr.

Ginsberg.

Uh in general, the bills that have been uh introduced to want to say limit the authority of ice operations in the Commonwealth.

How are those um looking like they've actually been moving?

And uh I would say uh Mayor Mayor Gaskins actually testified on a host of them.

Uh three of the major ones in the House were introduced by our own delegate Lopez.

They uh would restrict uh places where ICE uh immigration enforcement could happen in places like schools and courts and around places where voting occurs.

And then there's another bill that would um attempt to codify an executive directive that uh Governor Spanberger put out last week, which would remove any interaction between state and local law enforcement and federal immigration enforcement.

So they are still very much alive and they are um moving through the legislative process.

What about the one about um not allowing us to wear masks?

Oh, so the mask bill, there is a there's a Senate and House cognate in that, and we actually worked really closely with Senator Celine, who had the Senate version of that bill to make sure that it worked for APD.

So undercover officers could continue to wear masks uh for those purposes.

That bill is also continuing to move through this uh the system and it they uh we really collaborated with the the sponsor the patrons of that bill to get it to a place that worked for the community and also um worked for the APD.

That's great to hear.

That's great to hear.

Thank you.

Appreciate that update.

All right, thank you, Minimar.

Other questions or comments.

All right, seeing none, I know this is technically listed as a roll call item, but I believe it was just an update, correct?

True.

Uh so is it okay if I just move forward or okay.

Um well then we thank you for the update.

We thank you for all the hard work that continues to uh to go on in Richmond, and we know we'll be seeing you in just a few days uh for an additional update.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, next item.

Resolution certifying the existence of a vacancy on the city council and authorizing the city attorney to petition the circuit court of the city of Alexander for a writ of election.

Madam Mayor.

Yes, Councilman Chapman.

All right.

There has been a motion by Councilman Chapman and a second by Councilwoman Green to approve docket item 26.

Uh any discussion?

All right.

Seeing none, Madam Clerk, this is a roll call vote.

Please call the roll.

Councilman Chapman.

All right.

Councilwoman Green.

Aye.

Mayor Gaskins.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Bagley.

Aye.

Councilman Gary.

Councilman L.

Newby.

Aye.

Okay, Madam Clerk, next item.

Consideration of a request to release FY2026 contingent reserve funds for the Office of Climate Action.

Okay.

I believe there is a brief presentation on this one.

We have uh director Fried from the Office of Climate Action.

Uh Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor Bagley, and members of council, I'm Ryan Freed, the Climate Action Officer.

Um thank you for the opportunity.

Give me a moment to breathe.

We'll wait for the presentation to come up.

Do they have you in one of our many overcome?

Just can't breathe today.

Uh fortunately we have a couple more items on the docket.

Okay, well, while while they're getting the presentation up, I can go ahead and start.

Um when council approved the fiscal 2026 budget, they placed 200,000 of the Office of Climate Action's budget into content reserve, um, asking council, asking not council, asking the climate action office to come back and indicate that we have not only made progress in spending in the 400,000 that had remained of that uh $600,000 budget, but also that we had a firm plan of how to spend that $200,000 um placed in contingent reserve.

Um so here tonight to talk about where that is.

Um I'll start with uh laying out kind of how it started.

Um so in the 400,000 dollars that was uh uh given to the count given to the climate action office to spend this year.

We also brought forward about 134,000 in encumbrances from the previous fiscal year for a total of about 5354,000 um to start this fiscal year with.

There we go.

Um we have uh thus far spent 460,500, spent or encumbered 460,000,500, um, leaving a remaining balance of about 73,400 um with the contingent reserve.

That would give us 270, about 274,000.

I'm gonna round numbers as I go through this.

Um year to date, uh the 460,500 that we have encumbered or spent um is on these projects here.

Um the significant projects that are listed here would include the city facility and heat pump water heater projects.

Um we worked with the Department of General Services to make some facility improvements, including building controls and other projects that brought direct savings to the city to reduce our operating budget for capital cost for for um operating expenses for our utility budget and the installation of two um cutting edge heat pump water heaters at Lee Center and Chinkapen.

Um these will bring extremely high efficiency um hot water to both of those recreation centers.

Um this is a new uh new-ish technology.

It's not widely adopted yet.

Um so this is a great opportunity for us to showcase what the value of that is and where the savings are on this.

Um I'll point out on this project that the Department of General Services did an excellent job designing these projects and in the process of doing so identified some previously um messed up portions of the um plumbing that increased our savings dramatically from just putting the e-pump water heater in.

Um so the work of the team at DGS has been excellent in um putting these in and making that work.

Uh we also had a couple of projects with um some of our nonprofit partners, including installing um about 50 thermostats, programmable thermostats at Chatham Square, some ARH properties, and uh we are currently distributing some energy efficiency kits uh that will be a part of our EcoCity Homes initiative.

So people who sign up for EcoCity Homes Initiative will be eligible for either programmable thermostats or a collection of energy efficiency items.

We had a 40,000 leaf blower exchange at the beginning of this fiscal year that we partnered with Clean Air Partners.

And then we spent funds on our development of our green building plan, some consultants where you saw their good work when we approved that plan last year last month.

So of the um the remainder that would be here would be 273,400.

For that, we have identified, and you'll notice that this number is considerably higher than that.

We've we've identified several projects here.

The first three would be funded through the general fund, so through the money that you're potentially releasing today.

So the first is EcoCity Champs.

This is a multifamily project.

Champs stands for climate and health advancements in multifamily properties.

The idea is to identify those projects that have both climate, environmental benefits, and health benefits in affordable multifamily housing.

We'd put up to 205,000 in there, partnering with our health department and the Healthy Homes Initiative and a connection they made with us with the National Center for Healthy Homes, a national nonprofit who would help us with making the investments and identifying long-term how we can do capital improvements in multifamily properties with what are the incentives available and what are the what are the financing schemes that can be used to make these investments cheaper and easier for multifamily properties.

The other here is Stay Cool Alexandria, a heat mitigation project.

Extreme heat is a major problem in Alexandria in some parts of Alexandria, like North Potomac Yard and the West End.

It is 30 degrees hotter on uh than it is on the waterfront.

Um so that is a major health concern for Alexandria.

It's also a major concern for our for our um power conditions, how we have to turn up our heat, our cooling in the summer.

Um, so this program is partnering with Virginia Tech.

They would provide us some work with their students to identify heat mitigation um solutions.

Um, we're working on an interdepartmental team across the city.

We're actually having a meeting on it tomorrow.

Um, part of our ecocity coordinating group is coming together to talk about this program where we would identify some immediate actions that we can do this summer to mitigate heat, and then some short and long-term actions.

Um, everything from green walls and green roofs to changing the paving systems and materials that we use to find ways to mitigate the heat island effect in Alexandria.

The third one here is community choice aggregation, which we've talked about a couple of times.

But as a reminder, uh Dominion is not meeting its clean energy requirements under the Virginia Clean Economy Act.

Um, in order for us to meet our climate goals, we either need Dominion to step up and meet those goals, or we have to look at an alternative source of energy.

Um, that would be community choice aggregation.

And this money would be used for the first step of that, which is a feasibility study that would be done to identify what expected rates we would get from this, how we would and how we would anticipate putting rates together, what the overall costs would be to move to a community choice aggregation, setting us up for the application that we would need to make to the State Corporation Commission.

The next few slides are just some examples of um what we've done with some of this so far this year.

Um, Alexandria and Arlington launched the EcoAmbassadors program, where we trained folks in both Alexandria and Arlington on climate initiatives.

Um we installed 50 thermostats at Chatham Square, and we have the citywide launch of a programmable thermostat giveaway.

Our Clean Air Partners project gave away over 100 uh electric pieces of electric lawn equipment, and that's saving us over 20 metric tons of CO2 a year.

And then we had 12 multifamily properties that participated in our plug in Alexandria program, providing technical assistance uh to for EV charging installations, and we spec'd at least 12 of those to make installations on those.

You'll hear more about our EV charging on a couple of items later today.

Um we also had, as I talked about, what we are doing with DGS and OCA together.

Um we had an investment grade audit agreement that was signed in December.

So we're kicking off that project where we'll be in uh auditing facilities across the city for energy efficiency items that are paid for themselves through the operational expenses to reduce capital expenditures.

Um we have a Durant Solar Project that was recently approved by the BAR, and that will be being installed soon.

And then we had the heat pump water heaters at Chinkepan and Lee Center.

You might be familiar with the green building plan that was recently passed by council.

Um it was on the consent agenda tonight as well for its implementation.

Um we added a new chapter there and incorporated the key components.

Um upcoming projects, as we talked about, the Champs program, partnering with the national nonprofit and selecting properties.

Um in this, we would also be making an investment directly into affordable housing, and we've partnered with ARHA to identify a couple of properties.

We went um our green building manager and I toured some of the Tansell Hopkins properties, the townhouses there, and looked at the possibility.

There's a couple of projects that we could do there.

Um it's likely an electrification of four or five of the townhouses to give us a kind of a baseline of what electrification looks like, what its practical practicality is and how much savings we can see for the residents.

Um we have the heat mitigation and the community choice aggregation that I already discussed.

These are other projects that aren't necessarily having a high budget impact, but they may, um, depending on how we spend money on outside attorneys.

Um we are currently active in the dominion, or that this is currently being litigated by the or just it's currently being considered by the state corporation commission.

We already did the litigation portion of this um for the Dominion Net metering.

Um we intervened in that.

We were the only jurisdiction to do so.

Um the Virginia American water rate case is coming up.

As you know, this represents a 260% increase in our rates since 2022.

So we'll we we will be aggressively participating in that proceeding.

Um past participation in these proceedings has brought attention from other jurisdictions.

We believe we may be able to partner with another jurisdiction to reduce our costs on this one, which would be excellent.

Um, but we're we are hoping to bring together lots of partners in the future for some of these other proceedings.

Um the Dominion Demand Side Management one, this is a a fresh proceeding.

It came out in early December, um, and we need to make a decision to intervene by March.

Um, we will be putting a recommendation in front of council on this, but spoiler, um, it's an important one.

This is what sets the majority of Dominion's energy efficiency programs for the coming years.

Um, and this is our opportunity to really push Dominion to make strong investments.

This ties in to our uh total environmental justice approach with multifamily properties because Dominion is supposed to be required to invest in energy efficiency for multifamily properties, particularly in low-income properties.

And they haven't been doing that in Alexandria, or we don't believe very many places at all.

Um, so this is our opportunity to really push big on why we should be investing directly in those properties and showcase that we have we have examples of where we can make that investment, and it's a good project and use that when we go to the state corporation commission for these demand side management proceedings.

There's also Washington gas rate case, and we have uh pending franchise agreements with Dominion and Washington Gas as well.

Other projects, again with limited budget impact.

We are working on a solar power purchase agreement this month.

Um, we're hoping to launch this where we would put solar panels on city facilities.

Uh, this would have no capital costs, it would be paid for through your utility budget.

Um we have right-of-way charging that's coming tonight.

So you'll see that in two items from now.

Um, our public charging franchise, you'll hear a little bit about that tonight as well.

Um, but we're hoping to continue that, uh, move it to the next phase in this quarter.

Um, we'll launch our second EcoCity Academy in June.

And then, as I talked about, our EcoCity Advocates program.

That's a $30,000 grant program for community-based organizations to really get into frontline communities and get people signed up for Dominion state programs, Washington gas programs that are targeted toward low-income populations.

Alexandria has a very low participation rate for all of those programs.

So we're trying to get people in the communities from the communities to get large numbers of signups for those programs so we can increase the participation in Alexandria.

And that is it.

So happy to answer any questions.

Okay.

Um, are there any questions for my colleagues?

Um, I just had a quick comment.

I guess as it relates to the different utility costs that I just want to reiterate, I know I've shared this with Mr.

Freed, but um to my colleagues as well.

I think it's really important for us to be as aggressive as possible on these.

I think everything is just becoming way too expensive.

And if our residents are being hit with costs that are rising in utility bills and water bills and everything all at the same time, people aren't going to be able to make it.

So whatever we need to do, and if there are opportunities to partner with other jurisdictions, I think we should be all in for that.

Um councilwoman Green.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, Director Fried.

Um looks like some wonderful work is being done and is going to be done.

I also want to thank you for um, you know, calling out what you're doing amongst um the ARHA housing, the public housing.

I think there's huge opportunity for energy efficiency in those buildings, um, especially being that they um won't be renovated or or you know, anything torn down and rebuilt for quite some time, probably.

So I would love to hear um You said that you're you may be in talks with them.

I know the thermostat program is being being done.

I think you do some work with healthy homes um with the um ARHA housing, but in this, in this, you know, what you presented, you're saying that you you're talking to them.

You know, is there anything solidified, maybe with EcoCity that actually has a component that will be directed mainly for ARHA or public housing.

Yeah, so that the the champs program investment, the multifamily investments that we intend to make, those would be directed toward ARHA if the money is released from contingency.

So we haven't made any firm commitments to them because we can't commit money that we don't have the authority to spend.

But we did, like I said, we toured, we've been talking with a couple of folks over there, including Sarah Mohammed, who's uh we've has been the main contact.

Um, she gave us a tour of a couple of properties at Tansell Hopkins.

Um, we looked at what the possibility was of doing those projects.

Um, I I assume it's well known that those projects are the those properties are well insulated.

That is the good news.

Um, but they're all using gas um in all of their systems.

So uh it's a good opportunity for us to electrify those.

Um their HVAC right now, they have gas furnaces and um uh central air conditioning.

Um, the air conditioners are really old, 20 something years old.

Um, so they're in need of replacement.

So we're looking if if we can make that investment and what it would cost.

Um our HOD does the installations themselves, which saves us a little bit of money.

So um if this contingency is released, then we would work with them on identifying exactly how many properties we can get to um at either that location or they identified two other locations that we could look at as well.

Thank you.

Councilman Chapman.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um thank you for the presentation.

And going back to I guess page three and four.

One of the things, and frankly, one of the reasons why we're here when I was looking at last year's budget, kind of seeing how money was spent, when money was spent.

Um, and I look at what we've spent and encumbered now and what we have going forward.

One of the questions I have in terms of what you've laid out here is uh these different projects that we have.

What what percentage of them are kind of one-time projects versus things that are going to be ongoing from year to year in the in the next year's budget?

So the projects that I think will be the most ongoing would be our champs program.

So the program that we plan to move forward with affordable housing in some format, right?

So making long-term investments, large investments is likely for this fiscal year and next fiscal year, but looking for ways that we can reduce that investment by leveraging those dollars, either through interest rate buy downs or other financing ways we can work with Virginia Pace or others.

We are we're in conversations with a couple of financing institutions that could help us do that.

Um so we're looking at ways to leverage our funds there and expand that out.

But those would be that would be the biggest one.

The plug and Alexandria program has been really popular as well.

Um, and so we're looking at that.

We recently offered technical assistance for our eco city business participants, um, and we've had a lot of um churches reach out and ask for that as well.

Um, so we're looking at the possibility of extending a grant program there in future fiscal years um to help us hit those EV charging um goals.

But I think the majority of our investments are likely to be um into that the trying to focus more in the existing multifamily properties because that helps us hit our overall goals.

Um, the the energy and climate change action plan calls for 53,000 homes by 2030 to be energy efficient.

Um that's 53,000 out of 70 something thousand households in Alexandria.

Um, it's that's a that's a large percentage of households, and we can't do that without hitting multifamily properties.

Um so hitting the council's environmental justice lens, um, we need to hit the you know, affordable and market rate affordable projects as much as we can.

So that'll be the biggest focus of us in future fiscal years.

Okay.

Um, if there are no other comments or questions, is there a motion on this?

Okay, second.

There has been a motion by Councilman El Nubi and a second by Councilwoman Green to approve item number 27.

Is there any further discussion?

Seeing none, Madam Clerk, this is a roll call vote.

Please call the role.

Councilman El Newby.

Uh councilwoman Green.

Hi.

Mayor Gaskins.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Bagley.

Aye.

Councilman Agiri.

Councilman Chapman.

All right.

All right, Madam Clerk, next item.

Introduction and first reading, consideration and passage on first reading of an ordinance to initiate and establish the process to grant an agreement for the lease management and operation of the torpedo factory art center.

Okay.

Um, I don't think we need a presentation, but maybe Ms.

Baker, if you just want to highlight the two changes that were made and we can go forward.

Yes.

Um, thank you, Madam Mayor.

We um were before you last month with this um request to approve a franchise solicitation for management on operations of the Torpedo Factory R Center.

Um, and um uh with your guidance, we have gone back, made a couple of changes just to highlight those, um, really were around the um archaeology office and the and identifying in the solicitation that we do have this great artifact ship that's going to be coming back that the Hotel Indigo ship, and we want the respondents to know that that is available to be included in their proposals if that is um of interest to them.

So we have made a change specifically to identify that um to clarify that the Archie Alexandria Archaeology Museum is part of the historic uh Office of Historic Alexandria, and that where's an expectation for the marketing plan for the facility that would include the um archaeology museum.

nego ship and we want the respondents to know that that is available to be included in their proposals if that is um of interest to them so we have made a change specifically to identify that um to clarify that the alexandria archaeology museum is part of the historic uh office of historic alexandria and that we're an expectation for the marketing plan for the facility that would include the um archaeology museum we also included um the background information regarding the ship the um the dimensions we included information and links to information about all of the art of the historic artifacts that are also available to be included if someone were interested in doing that um in this and allow the agreement um allows for them to um include their in interest in provide in in including the ship in their proposal if they so choose are there any uh questions or comments for Ms.

Baker uh councilman chapman um Ms.

Baker in terms of uh kind of what you said what you said is there preference or priority given to uh organizations or or respondents that that are able to deal with the ship versus those that are not um councilman chapman the way that it's written is um we're really trying to keep this as flexible as possible because we want to know what entities are out there who might be interested and also capable of operating the torpedo factory because you know we've been given direction from council to find um a new government structure here so we have made this very flexible there aren't um specific um pref there's not a specific preference in the way that it's written now for entities who may want to include the ship um and the reason we haven't included that is because we want we don't want to limit who might be interested in this we want to see what the vision is and and who is interested out there um and whether they see this as an opportunity that um would make it more viable for them or not um and and we will evaluate that when we get the proposals there's nothing in here that um and it's very clear we're not obligated to award this to anybody staff will evaluate all of the proposals that come in and we need to come back to council before we can award any type of um of agreement for that okay other questions comment all right is there a motion on this item approval okay okay there's been a motion by councilwoman green and a second by councilman el newbie to move approval of item 28 any discussion seeing none all the oh no sorry madam clerk this is a roll call vote please call the roll councilwoman green aye councilman el newbie aye mayor gaskins aye vice mayor bagley aye councilman agire councilman chapman okay um madam clerk next item introduction and first reading consideration passage on first reading of an ordinance to amend sections three two dash eighty two and three two eighty five to allow public publicly accessible electrical electrical vehicle charging equipment encroachments into public rights delay okay I believe uh we have a brief presentation on this one I'm gonna turn over um asking Spice Mayor Bagley members of the council I'm Amy Posner electric vehicle planner I'm here with Ryan Freed uh Climate Action Officer and Bonnie Brown Deputy City Attorney this presentation is um on the proposed curbside electric vehicle charging program addresses both docket items 29 and 30 um which will require three total actions um so as I know um you're aware there are several foundational documents the city has that set goals for greenhouse gas emission reductions and um electric vehicle adoption so by 2030 um we have a goal of 50% of car sales are electric and by 2050 100% of car sales are electric and our um EV readiness strategy establishes a roadmap with different recommendations for how we can meet those goals and encourage EV adoption and meet those charging needs for the community now and into the future um one of those recommendations is to uh create a pathway for curbside charging for the community but we also have um there are also several EV programs that we're working on to advance charging access and EV adoption in the community um for example we have our new plug in Alexandria program um that we launched last spring that that provides technical and financial incentives to multifamily communities to help them install EV charging um so we are working with 12 multifamily communities in our first round of the program with six of those actively requesting bids or having hired contractors to install 20 plus chargers.

Our public charging franchise is also in the evaluation and negotiations phase this franchise would allow a vendor to install publicly accessible chargers in our city parking lots, you know, parks, rec centers, libraries, our parking garages at no cost to the city and to support our fleet electrification efforts, we have installed 50 charging ports across the city with our recently finalized fleet transition plan guiding future charging installations.

So the curbside charging program will complement those already ongoing programs.

Some key features are that these would all be publicly accessible chargers in the right of way.

They would be deployed by qualified vendors at no cost to the city or property owners.

They would have a minimalistic design to fit in with the existing streetscape and to be acceptable in the historic districts.

Each charger would have a five-year license, and vendors would be able to request an EV charging only parking space adjacent to the charger.

That is related to item 30 on the docket that increased that ordinance to adopt the Virginia code into the city code.

Under the program, a vendor can reserve one EV charging only parking space per charging port.

The enforcement mechanism there is that the vehicle must have a charging cable plugged into it.

And the spaces will be marked with signs similar to how we do our ADA spaces.

And the maximum fine is for that is set by Virginia Code, and it'll be $25.

This program also includes an update to the encroachment ordinance to add electric vehicle chargers as an allowable encroachment.

That is one of the that's the ordinance in item number 29.

And we'll set the fees through a fee resolution, also in item 29.

Um and those annual fees for the encroachment are modeled after the public parklet fee.

So $1.50 per square foot of occupied sidewalk by the charger and 140 per EV charging only parking space.

Within the program, we have a few different siding restrictions to make sure the chargers are not all concentrated in one area and um to you know where they will be most needed.

So the streets on in red here and shown on the slide, chargers cannot be installed on those roads for the first iteration of the program.

We are also we're allowing vendors to install up to two charging ports per block, uh, but chargers cannot be located within a quarter of a mile as the crow flies of other curbside chargers.

So looking at the image on the on the screen, um, each of those green circles is has a radius of a quarter mile.

So within each of those, you could have two chargers, um, true charging ports.

And then within the area of the full four um green circles, there could be a total of eight charging ports or eight um EV only parking spaces in that area.

Um with this program, we have a minimum of four and a maximum of 20 charging ports that each vendor could install with a total of 60 installed in our first iteration.

This is a proposed timeline for for this program.

So we we plan to issue five year licenses for for the next two years.

Um at that time, you know, that's that's where we can meet that 60 chargers total to up to 20 uh per vendor.

And then at that point, we will pause issuing licenses to collect data on the utilization, get feedback from the community on city staff, how the program has been implemented and is being adopted, and then we'll make a recommendation for um how to continue the program.

So with that, I'll take any questions that you have.

Thank you, Ms.

Posner for the presentation.

I just had a quick question in terms of sort of once we approve a license, what does our relationship with the vendor look like after that?

And I'm particularly interested in maybe like our oversight or authority, let's say all of a sudden a port's not working or um there continues to be issues.

How can we, I guess, enforce their maintenance or um care of their product in our city?

That's a great question.

So the the license agreement has um different requirements for for responding to maintenance issues for availability.

So and if the vendors are not meeting those requirements, then there are you know termination clauses for for default, um, and there's you know remedies we can take with respect to that.

Thank you.

Are there other questions or comments on this item?

Uh I see uh two councilman and Gary and then councilman Alnuby.

Uh just a quick comment because this is something we talked about when we first brought this forward.

Um the kind of standardization or trying to keep the chargers from looking crazy.

Um, so I just want to say thank you for for the work on that.

Um I know it's hard because the different EV vehicles are having different plugins and where they're located and all this other stuff.

But the more we could try and standardize, hopefully, the industry will try and do the same because it doesn't make sense if we have a 15-foot charger and a five-foot charger and everything in between, right?

So uh just wanted to point that one out.

Uh you may have touched on this, but what is the purpose behind a maximum for each vendor?

Wouldn't allow vendors to do more may have a may make it cheaper for us.

Um if you're buying more from one vendor, we get better price.

Sure.

Well, the the vendors are installing the chargers at no cost to the city.

So they're if they're financing, owning and operating the chargers.

Um, and so we we set a limit just to kind of since our first kind of foray into the curbside charging, we wanted to um kind of set a goal that would kind of still meet the needs of our public charging goals, but give us an opportunity to kind of see how the program is going and allow us time to kind of make any changes if we need to.

So that's why we have the maximum there.

Okay, that makes sense.

Are we um evaluating the vendors or on any sort of criteria to see which ones are performing better and maybe in the future considering giving some of them a waiver on the cap if they're like really doing a good job versus others?

Yeah, so in after we um we'll issue those licenses for two years.

And so in that period where we're pausing, um issuing the licenses, we'll be collecting data.

All the vendors are required to submit um submit data.

I think it's quarterly on their utilization and things like average charging session time, number of unique users, any error messages that these chargers are getting.

So we'll be able to evaluate the utilization of the chargers and in kind of in each different location and you know, be able to evaluate how well the vendors are doing with response to maintenance requests.

So that we'll we'll kind of do all that evaluation in that period where we're pausing the licenses, and then yeah, at that time we'll we can make a determination recommendation to y'all if we open up the program to more to more chargers or you know, take a different approach.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Appreciate the work on this.

I'm certainly excited to see this move forward.

Appreciate it.

Would you uh like to make a motion?

I'm looking to approve this item.

All right, is there a second?

There's been a motion by councilman Al Nubi and a second by Councilman Chapman to approve docket item number 29.

Seeing no additional discussion, Madam Clerk, this is a roll call vote.

Please call the roll.

Councilman L Newby.

Aye.

Councilman Chapman.

Hi.

Mayor Gaskins.

Hi.

Vice Mayor Bagley.

Hi.

Councilman Ageary.

Why?

Councilwoman Green.

Aye.

All right.

The ayes have it.

Madam Clerk, next item.

Introduction and first reading consideration, passage on first reading of an ordinance to adopt section 10-4-28 parking and spaces reserved for charging, plugging, electric motor vehicles.

Councilman Alnuby.

Madam Mayor, move approval of this item.

All right.

There's been a motion and a second to move approval of docket item number 30.

Um, seeing no additional discussion, Madam Clerk, this is a roll call vote.

Please call the roll.

Councilman Al Newby.

Aye.

Councilman Chapman.

Mayor Gaskins.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Bagley.

Aye.

Councilman Aguirre.

Aye.

Councilwoman Green.

Aye.

We really are excited.

I mean, the I the I this feels a little low, but I I guess we are excited.

Thank you for the great work on Madam Clerk.

Next item.

Duke Street land use plan update.

All right.

Mr.

Farner's going to bring all the energy to the staff presentation on this.

And yeah.

Thank you.

To make sure we're heading in the right direction.

And so tonight, I think we're going to give you an update of things we've heard.

Uh some recommendations that are in the plan, uh, or excuse me, in the sort of the draft context for the plan, and then talk a little bit about next steps.

Um and so, Carrie, let's go ahead and jump to the next slide.

Um, so one of the questions we had early on in this process, and I think is exactly the right question uh when we start a planning process is why are we planning and what's the importance of this plan now?

And this graphic really shows two ends of the corridor, uh, which is the landmark mall site in Oldtown.

And both of those are going to be or are putting pressure on the Duke Street uh corridor from purposes of housing affordability, potential redevelopment.

And so one of the conversations we've been having with the community is making sure we get in front of that.

And so we community, we city have a vision for redevelopment rather than responding to individual projects, and also making sure that uh we have a really clear vision on things like housing affordability uh along the corridor, and that's something we're gonna talk to tonight.

We're also working with our housing colleagues as part of the housing master plan.

So that's really the why.

And so I'm going to turn it over to Carrie, and she's going to talk about some of the things that we've heard.

And also, I think the context of the site is really important in terms of scale.

One of the really interesting things as we think about, and I'm going to have Carrie talk about the details, but we talk about Potomac Yard and Potomac Yard redevelopment a lot.

And in terms of Duke Street, all of Potomac Yard is from Quaker to Callahan, which is about a third of this entire corridor.

So this is a really important geographic area for the city.

Great.

Thank you.

So in addition to the scale of the corridor that we're talking about, which is really about 15% of our city's population.

It also has some unique characteristics that we want to share with you.

It has a very high proportion of the city's affordable market affordable housing.

And that's both rental and ownership.

A hundred percent of the rental in the area is affordable, up to 80% AMI.

And we have also a lot of homeownership there too, that's on the more affordable end with condos and uh sort of uh some of the duplexes out there.

We have a high proportion of small businesses in the corridor, a lot of unique and and different small businesses.

Um we have a city campus here, so we have about 55 acres of city-owned land that is both sort of office oriented, but also back of house functional stuff.

It's where all the snow work was probably getting started.

Um, we have some other civic uses out there, a library, a fire station, um, and some uh school uses.

Um we have some really significant park resources in the Duke Street area, um, and from Ben Brennan to the two the homes run trail and the Taylor Run, um, Witterfield, and a lot of smaller parks, which are a huge resource in terms of how people enjoy the corridor, also in terms of tree canopy.

Um, it really adds to the the uh the work that the um environmental benefits of tree canopy there.

In terms of the population, about 35% of um the population there is foreign-born.

Um, so that also um contributes to how we have been managing the plan and in terms of languages and in terms of the cultural um needs.

Um there's also a high degree of impervious surface.

So while we have a lot of tree canopy and and park natural spaces, we also have a lot of impervious services.

So a lot of um different things to manage in the corridor.

Um just a quick overview of the schedule.

I'm sure most of you are familiar, but uh we essentially launched this um informally, it launched this back in um December of last year, and the purpose of that was really to get an understanding of who our stakeholders are, what the ish issues are, what the existing needs are.

Um we launched in June, uh really pushed hard to get uh do a lot of a variety of um engagement events to gather feedback on what people saw as the um the assets and the issues in the corridor.

Um most recently we held a few workshops and open houses on the um the themes that Jeff is gonna talk about in a minute or two, and upcoming this spring is really the kind of the meat and potatoes of the plan.

This is where we're gonna um start really putting pen to paper and talking to the community about um the framework of the plan.

We hope we'll have a kind of the the bulk of that done by June-ish time frame and have a draft plan for the public to review around September, um, and then hopefully a plan for public hearing in December or um January.

So about a year from now.

Very quickly, I don't want to spend too much time on this.

Um, and in fact, we put together a slide back in December.

So we've done even more of uh more engagement since then, but um we've we've we've really um uh beat the bushes in terms of engagement because we knew we had a lot of um uh uh different communities out here.

We have small businesses, we've been going door to door, we have uh large rental communities, we've been going um hosting events on site or piggybacking on events they already had or community events that we already had.

Um we've been uh letting all of the civic associations and condo associations in the area know.

Do you want us to come?

We'll come.

Just call us, we'll be there.

And we've we've gone to many, many of those um different organizations so far.

Um and pop-ups, pop-ups throughout the uh the corridor.

Um in terms of feedback we've been hearing, um, probably you know, these are these are pretty general in terms of what you would expect in this corridor.

Folks are concerned about traffic and safety issues, how to get around easily, conveniently, and safely in different modes, in their car, on transit, on their bike.

Lots of comments about housing affordability.

Many people like all of the small businesses in the area and would like to see more, love their parks, would like to see more.

And would like to see, we've heard lots of different things about different amenities folks would like to see in the corridor.

So all of that initial feedback led to uh drafting our guiding principles, which really serve as they'll they'll be the things that they guide the intent of the plan over the course of the process.

So that's going to be what is our sort of guiding light for the framework that we're about to develop with the community and each recommendation going forward.

Is it consistent with the guiding principles?

And that's based on all of the community feedback I just talked about, but also planning best practices, working with our colleagues in other departments from housing to our PCA to TNES, understanding what plans are already in process and making sure that we're following along with those, um, working with ACPS, all of the different AEDP, all of the different agencies and departments that have a role to play in long range planning.

We've been working with them.

And uh so in the fall, uh we drafted these plan principles with the community that really summarize, as I mentioned, uh the intent of the plan across these different topic areas.

These this is a summarized version of them.

I didn't want you to have to go through all uh probably 10 slides of them, but uh it's a it's along these five categories and and above all making sure that within those uh five categories, all ages, abilities, backgrounds, and needs are welcomed, included, and we're thinking about community health and well-being.

And with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Jeff for how we began to put it all together.

So I I think a couple things I I would maybe add to some things we heard from the community as well is I I think we've been talking to lots of businesses, lots of community folks, and and one of the things that's been really clear to me is the pride of community out here.

Um I really care about my community.

I really love the businesses, but I want to address these things.

And I think Carrie pointed out some of those things.

I think the other thing we heard, and I think this is a very fair comment from most of the community members.

Um, it doesn't feel planned, it doesn't feel connected.

We have lots of great things along the corridor, but how do we stitch it together?

Uh, how do we make it feel like a corridor and make it feel coordinated and planned, but also having the diversity of what I think makes our city great, which is as you're moving through different neighborhoods, you actually feel those neighborhoods.

Old town feels different than Old Town North, which feels different than Braddock, which feels different than Rosemont, which feels different than Cameron Station.

All of those to me, unique neighborhoods are sort of the collection of neighborhoods make our city.

And so we started with a diagram of how do we stitch it together.

So, what's the consistency?

So the consistency is probably the streetscape, the street trees, how we handle the corridor, and then the unique neighborhoods are how we begin to stitch this together.

And so this was sort of an early diagram that we had that looked at what's out there today.

Uh Carrie alluded to this.

We have a lot of great civic uses along this corridor.

Um city.

We also have the Masonic Temple.

So we have a lot of great civic uses, and how do they begin shaping the corridor?

How do things like topography?

Um we do not have topography in most parts of our city.

This area we do, particularly east of Quaker.

Um Carrie alluded to the small businesses in I've had a lot of conversations with small businesses, and uh many of them have said this is probably one of the few places I can operate a business in our city because of affordability.

Um have said I started online or I started in a food truck and then I moved to brick and mortar, and I moved there because of affordability.

So those are things that we've heard, and that uh really prompted this diagram of how do we begin organizing this plan.

Uh we shared this with the community early on.

You can see this is sort of uh an idea of potentially where does redevelopment happen, which we were calling the opportunity sites, and then also how do we think about housing preservation and how do we merge those two?

And that led to the diagram to this diagram, which to me is sort of foundational in this plan, uh, which is why I think having this conversation with council right now is so important.

Um really this is identifying a couple different areas.

So the blue areas are essentially areas that we think to achieve both the pre principles of the plan and goals we've heard from council, like housing production, um, increasing housing supply, keeping retail in the community.

Um the community has been very clear about trying to keep the two grocery stores that are out there, uh which we agree with.

Um so those are things that we've heard and built into those opportunity areas.

The other um interesting thing along the way in the opportunity areas, they are all commercial sites today.

So if they develop, we are not displacing housing.

We are not displacing existing housing stock.

Um, and just to put the blue areas in some perspective, that's about nine 90 acres of land.

Um, in comparison, um North Potomac Yard, all of North Potomac Yard, the area near our Metro Station is about 70.

Um, so pretty large opportunity for us to grow, change, add housing stock, add retail, add amenities.

Um the other um category here is um sort of the gold color, which is affordability and growth.

Um Carrie alluded to this, um, all of the rental stock is 80% AMI or less, all of it.

And so we have two really important uh housing resources out there.

One is uh Fox Chase, uh sort of right in the middle of the plan area, it's a little over 2,000 units.

Uh the other is Mason at Van Dorn, it's about 400 units.

So huge housing resources.

So, how do we how do we um intervene from a land use perspective and make sure we can protect some of that housing stock that's out there today?

Um, some of that's probably gonna be some tools that uh you're gonna be talking about in the housing master plan.

The others will probably be more specific interventions we do as part of this land use plan.

Uh the red area is small business.

Um we identified uh where are the areas where it's more affordable for folks to be today?

Uh those are in red.

They are $25 a square foot or less.

Um so if you think of where most of our rents are in our city, I think you were all very familiar with that.

This is one of the very few areas in the city uh where that price point uh is available for for entrepreneurial folks.

Um the other important area is um our city campus, and Carrie alluded to this.

This is this is really a unique opportunity for us as a city to take a 55-acre site and be comprehensive and intentional about what's there.

Um we need some functional things to operate as a city.

Um, you know, the manager talked about snow removal, we need to have some functional things there.

But then there's also an opportunity, perhaps um on the western side to think about opportunities.

Um this is a long-term plan.

I think one of the questions we've had from the community is once this is approved, how can how quickly will some of these things happen?

So, one of the things we do in our plan is to think about short, mid, and long term.

But overall, this this plan is probably gonna be 20 years.

Um, so I think it's important for us as a city to be really intentional about where what do we have today and where do we want to go?

Um, and this is the vision to do that.

Um, so that is sort of high level where we are with themes.

I think the other thing I would just say very quickly, um, we've had a lot of questions of from the community of are you integrating your planning with the work that's being done by tests?

And the the very short answer to that is yes.

One of the things that you see in the sort of the turquoise color are the transit stops.

Um, so a lot almost all the opportunity sites are near a transit stop to take advantage of the planning and direction by city council on transit.

So we are integrating both from a land use perspective and the right-of-way that was recommended by council.

So, next slide.

Um can I just ask a quick clarifying question on the colors if we can go back a slide.

So I just want to make sure I'm tracking.

So, one of the things that really intrigued me is you talked about sort of the civic um area at the bottom in the city campus.

But that that's also an area of opportunity.

So, are we supposed to I guess it's the best way to interpret this is that even though there are specific colors here, in many ways, more areas can be blue as well.

I I think what we were thinking about for the city campus is that corner at Duke and Wheeler is a real opportunity site.

And I think as as we think as we think about what that is and what that looks like moving forward, um, I think getting some additional guidance from council as we think about what that is and what it could be.

Um, but it is an opportunity.

And again, that's why the time frame of this plan is really important is 20 years.

Um so there are things there today, but um there could be other things in the future uh as well.

And so this is that long-term, long-term plan.

Okay, and along those lines, I know you mentioned one of the goals people um on the the wish list had was um additional green space.

Yes.

Um how are you guys?

And maybe this is a later iteration, but how are you guys identifying potential opportunities for green space along with the case?

Yeah.

So one of the things uh we're not there yet, but one of the things that, and it's actually pretty clear on this diagram.

One of the things we heard from the community is there's a lot of parkland near Cameron Station and Homes Run and also in the eastern part of the corridor, but not in the middle.

So one of the things we are really focusing on in these opportunity sites is to make sure when redevelopment happens, we're getting new parks.

Um the other thing we heard to mitigate the impact.

So all of those blue areas we think are the opportunity sites are opportunities to get additional parkland.

Um the other thing we've heard from the community is can we improve uh access to the existing parks, but also the new parks, they they don't want to just access an individual park.

They want it to feel more of a community and have connections between the parks.

So those are things we're also working with our park staff to figure out how we can integrate those with development.

Um and then just last reflection from me in the earlier conversation we had um with AEDP on the market report.

One of the things Councilman Chapman pointed out was just sort of the lack of retail opportunities in some areas in our community.

I look at this um graft and I'm really excited about all the small business opportunities in the middle, but then I also see towards the um, I guess my left side, that there continues to be a gap.

So for the opportunity sites that are there, I'd be curious as the plan moves forward.

How do we think about more retail and like I think that's part of our overall goal of a walkable community as well, like just destinations for people to go to that aren't just you know the shopping center.

So I I'll just share one of the things that I think the community's been really clear about at every single meeting is we can't lose our grocery stores.

Um and I think um so two things we've been thinking about at Alexandria Commons and Fox Chase.

So Landmark Mall is going to be sort of a regional retail destination and keeping Fox Chase and Alexandria Commons, even if they redevelop to be neighborhood serving.

So it's grocery stores, it's inline retail, it's other other things.

And then uh on the eastern portion, we have sort of King Street in Old Town.

So having two really clear nodes and in previous plans, we've had optional retail.

So if someone comes in with a good idea, have the flexibility to do that, but then also having required retail.

So having probably two nodes and Fox Chase and Alexandria Commons or certainly makes sense, but but TBD.

Um, Councilman Chapman.

Thank you.

Um, you know, I'm having lived along the corridor for much of my life, I love it.

And I'm super excited about what we have planned there.

I think my first question as I look at kind of the opportunities, uh, I gotta go back to that wheeler, uh, Duke Street um area.

And I've got two different questions there.

One, what are you planning to do with my McDonald's?

Because I see that under the opportunity section.

Um but no, um I just noted that.

I was like, uh oh.

Um, because I do think we have for for folks that stay out late at night, uh, limited food options along the corridor.

Um, you know, I I've seen I've seen some other uh no, honestly, we've we've seen uh fast food chains change hands uh here in the city.

If you're familiar with Wendy's, most of the Windy's went out and became PNC banks.

Um and that was that was actually a big deal along the corridor because that was uh a close place that people had something other than McDonald's if they didn't want that option.

Or, you know, we've had our conversations and fights about Taco Bell in different places.

Um and so I I think for folks having those choices and having options as we look at um different neighborhood serving uses uh along the corridor, I think is is valuable.

I I did um appreciate and I it wasn't wasn't pulled out on uh my version of the the presentation, but it's very much called out here, and I'll uh I want to elevate this and uh been talking to my colleagues and others about it as much as I can the potential and the opportunity that we do have with uh ACPS's bus barn, that site.

And I'll uh I want to elevate this and uh been talking to my colleagues and others about it as much as I can the potential and the opportunity that we do have with uh ACPS's bus barn, that site.

Um that is a kind of a site that along the corridor, I think really could have some opportunity for for us as a city, as an overall city, um, to look to redevelop the site and see how best we can bring that up to best and highest use, but also uh still see what type of partnership and maybe even a P3 model uh can happen where there is a delivered uh modernized facility for uh ACPS and its uh its buses or some version of its its bus system.

Um and so I know I've started to talk to school board members about that uh to be blunt, um, because I know I was at a meeting yesterday with school board member, and he was talking about needing um it was almost 40 million dollars for for a facility.

I'm not very interested in funding that.

I would rather uh explore opportunities, and so hopefully uh we can continue to have conversations with our colleagues on school board uh about the need to look at this as a real opportunity and hopefully take the bull by the horns and make this uh make this happen.

Um I would say I appreciate um staff talking about kind of the alignment with some of the the traffic planning uh along this corridor.

I think that's gonna be essential to unlock uh this you know Alexandra Commons section, as we know.

Um that's a you know, the the BRT there is something that we hope to have running through that particular portion, but a lot of that is going to right now rest on redevelopment of of what that looks like in that area.

And so talking about it with the community, seeing what the opportunities are and the options are, uh I think um would be great.

I I do worry um as we potentially look at redevelopment of that corridor, as you mentioned, you know, it has some of the lowest rents, and so how does that change?

How do we potentially try to keep that affordable for some of those um neighborhoods serving uses?

I think that's gonna um possibly be a concern.

Uh and I um I I would love for us to uh as part of this, I I don't know where does the city's planning of the witter area fit within this plan?

Because I I get the sense that this is outward facing to the public, but I also kind of see the witter planning as kind of internal to the city and what we need to do.

And you know, is that something we're going out to the community with as much as uh some of the other parts of this plan?

Um so I I do kind of want to understand that a little bit more.

Um then uh one of the other areas that um I think we could I would love to hear kind of staff's dialogue and thoughts on this about additional opportunity is uh at one point we said we might have further communications with Virginia American Water and their property.

What does that look like?

Um I know we have a historic um water container, and it you know, is there um anything that allows us to encapsulate that and and do kind of what we've done with the um Alex for Newfield and be able to build on top of that.

Um I I don't know.

Um, but I think that could could open up some opportunities for redevelopment uh in that section uh as well.

Um and then lastly, uh, you know, I do while, yes, this is not the the traffic plan, uh I do want us to make sure that we are particularly in the eastern sections, uh, you know, the Alexandria Commons section all the way to the the wonderful uh telegraph roads section, really understanding or at least for the community, if we can talk very openly and transparently about how do we plan to deal with traffic and congestion.

It is something that is on top of everybody's mind in that corridor, particularly in that section.

And I have not been impressed by the level of uh priority that we give that.

Obviously, there aren't a billion in one solutions to plan uh away congestion, right?

But I think we have to be honest with the residents that are there and those that hopefully intend to be there in the businesses that are there about what we can do and our willingness to do so.

Uh, I don't think it's um a coincidence that rents, uh commercial rents are that low in that area because in certain times of the day, you would not stop there.

Uh people come through there to move on to other places and won't stop at a certain you know business, whether it be holy cow barbecue or or something on the south side on the um south side of Duke Street, mainly because of congestion.

And so, you know, speaking to that, trying to deal with that uh and planning for that, I think is essential uh as part of this plan.

Thank you, Councilman Chapman.

I think um if I recall you guys have maybe two more.

I I think we have a little bit.

Um let's just jump in, Carrie.

Um so these are really just talking through my description of each of these, which is opportunities, really are redevelopment sites.

Uh we haven't yet talked about the affordability and growth areas.

I think those are really, really important.

And I think the benefit of doing the housing master plan concurrently with this is we're sharing information and sharing tools.

Uh, and then the next slide is really about um uh small business, which we discussed, and then the city and civic campus.

And I I would say, you know, one of the things um in terms of small business that that other jurisdictions have done is maybe in terms of keeping them affordable, maybe there's not additional density that's granted for some of those sites uh to keep them more affordable versus higher density.

Um and also the question of like city campus, like what are some tools?

Like there are things that I think we probably need more flexibility from a zoning perspective to do the things we need to do to operate in our city campus.

So that could be a recommendation that comes out of this plan as well.

And then the next slide is just um uh really process and Carrie sort of touched on this.

I I think really the uh important one now is we're really gonna be heading into a lot of sort of working meetings and process uh and the sort of framework of the plan.

Um, and then uh hopefully in May, uh updating the planning commission and council if that's uh appropriate for you uh in a way that makes sense.

And then as Carrie said, um uh hopefully by December bringing something on a document back uh and a docket item back to you.

So uh that's really sort of high level.

Uh a lot of work's been has gone in uh and credit to the community and our staff candidly for reaching out.

I'm very proud.

I mean, they've done most of the work, but hearing from small business, uh, I think is something probably pretty unique to this plan.

I think we've talked to more business owners in this plan than I think by far than we have probably in any other plan.

Um so anyway, with that, happy to answer any additional questions or comments.

Uh Councilman Chapman.

So I I have one that's that's particular, and I apologize because I I want to understand and get staff's thoughts on how this operates.

So in the map, we and I mentioned this already in the map, the that um that bus barn site, you know, if we are interested in doing a P3 there, and the city is interested in doing a P3 P3 there.

I'm assuming separating out that from this process is probably the best way to go and kind of what does that look like?

I'd love to have um something from staff that says, hey, if we wanted to do X, Y, and Z on this site.

We're doing the the larger corridor planning, but what does conversations about that look like?

What is a possible timeline?

What is you know that look like?

I I say that because I've talked with recent, I've talked with a couple members of school board, and and we know that we're gonna need to come to staff to find out what that looks like, right?

We're gonna need staff to coordinate what that looks like.

And I I would think anything in that corridor that we want to do that is uh a public uh public-private partnership or take advantage of one of the taking advantage of one of those opportunities, not only for this site, but for any of those sites, I think development community is going to need to know what to do and how to how to initiate that.

They usually do, but I think for some of the city opportunities, how do we get that started?

How do we start talking about that?

Are there funds that we need to put aside for that, et cetera?

I think that'd be good to know.

Happy to talk more on that.

I think the other thing from a lane use perspective to sort of unlock that conversation is adding FAR and height.

Uh I think one of the things is you're probably all aware is our city campus is pretty constrained with FAR and height.

So we really don't have flexibility to do probably the things we need to do.

So that's probably step one.

And then there are other layers of, I think Councilman Chapman that you're alluding to as well.

Um, other questions, Councilman Gary.

I don't know if I really have too many questions.

Well, there's probably a question somewhere in here.

Um first of all, I did want to thank you guys for all the work on this.

I mean, the amount of outreach that was done with the door-to-door, with the pop-ups, with talking to the business owners.

I mean, it's not easy and it takes a long time.

So really want to commend you guys for that.

I I would echo the comments from Councilman Chapman.

Um I too from time to time uh I'm out a bit late as you know, these meetings go late.

So that would be the reason for that.

Um the the other thing with um was brought up with with Wheeler, you know, I remember back in 2019, we had the Witter Wheeler plan, and I just feel that you know dropped off.

And when we're talking about the transportation bay for ACPS and even looking at the Dash facility, I just feel it was a really missed opportunity where we can somehow, some way have um joined forces to build a unique joint uh space for for both of us.

And in my mind saved money because as opposed to creating one facility for ACPS and a separate facility for ourselves, then we're with the joint facility, we can uh create I don't know if anybody does this, but if we had like a two or three story garage for all the buses, right?

I know there was a big issue of being able to get the buses out because of the snow.

If we have had a cover space, and that wouldn't have been an issue.

Uh, but just trying to maximize the space there for the utility, um, even the washing of buses, uh mechanic garage space and how the buses are fixed.

I mean, I, you know, it's it's been eight years and I still think about that all the time and how I think we really missed that opportunity.

And uh as councilman Chapman had mentioned, you know, it's 40 million dollars for this facility, but uh for what?

Um we could have done so much more.

Uh so yeah, I that that weighs on me, uh, but I'll kind of leave that alone.

Um with with the green spaces, uh I would agree it's it's interesting because you look at parts of uh the East End and you have a lot of pocket parks.

And I think wherever we could create some of those opportunities, um, there's nothing against because I mean we have some of the largest green spaces in the city are in the West End.

Um and I acknowledge that, but sometimes it's only if you can make it to those green spaces.

So definitely echo some of those sentiments of wanting to have some of those pocket space pocket parks so that you don't I'm not saying that people were going to be unwilling because once we have our BRT, they're gonna hop on and be able to get to you know Ben Brennan and some of these other larger uh park spaces, but it's always nice to have uh some of those smaller recreational areas uh to to enjoy.

Um but maybe there wasn't a question on there, maybe just commentary.

But thank you.

Thank you.

Um I I do echo the sentiments of just like thankfulness for the work.

I didn't mean to leave you out, Carrie, in terms of bringing the energy.

Um, so thank you for the presentation.

I guess just a couple of thoughts.

One, I I really appreciated the intentionality with which you talked about how we're connecting with the transit planning.

I am curious just how we make sure we're also connecting with other plans that are going on.

Like I was thinking next to Ewald Park, we have this entire park plan that's happening there.

But then we also, if I'm correct, I think that triangle is like the 7-Even in that area.

And I think it would be such a missed opportunity if we're thinking about what we can do with the park, and then we don't get to think about what we're doing with that space for like another several years.

And so if there's a way to be connected um or to align some of those timelines together, I think there's a couple other areas where that's also happening along the the corridor.

I guess um the other thing I would just lift up.

I think something that was I found extremely helpful with the Alex West plan is while I recognize planning and zoning only focuses on the specific elements of the land use plan.

I thought the collaboration with like AEDP and other departments on what else we might need to do from a policy perspective was really helpful.

And just hearing about the number of small businesses and the amount of businesses we want to retain, that's gonna require some really specific policies, both in the land use side, but also I don't know, different types of um supports to keep people in business as the corridor changes.

And so the sooner we can know about those policies, I think that that would be um really helpful.

And then lastly, you mentioned on the timeline sort of coming before uh council and planning commission.

I'm just curious, were you guys thinking of like a joint work session like we did with zoning and housing, or is that just other additional presentations?

Probably either a two-on-two update or a work session.

It's your discretion, but I think what's really helpful for us along the way is here's where we are.

Did we get it right?

And then hearing all of these comments so we can incorporate it in the next draft.

Um, so really helpful for us.

Yeah, I I think it definitely makes sense to have more check-ins.

Um I I like the idea of a work session because then we can do dialogue.

We'll put it earlier in the agenda and we'll have some more.

But um, yeah, I'm open to the recommendation of staff on what would be most helpful to you.

Other questions or comments.

Uh Councilman Alnubi.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, I certainly agree with keeping the grocery stores.

I'm glad residents said that, so I agree with that for sure.

Um also someone who drove that corridor up and down for the last year, especially late at night after our meetings going home, uh, having lived on the West E all my life, all my Alexander life here.

Um certainly I I can relate to that.

Um this Alexandria.

Um I also uh uh I usually, you know, I mean my colleagues already said it, but I think it's a very important point to also state where I am on this.

I I certainly echo what they talked about when it comes to the transportation facility and um finding ways to maximize that, but also what my colleague Councilman Aguirre said, um, coordinating with Dash, finding if finding out if we have opportunities there for efficiency uh for consolidating properties and consolidating services.

I met with the Dash General Manager a few weeks ago, and I brought that up to him and asked him and just you know, put that thought, you know, um out there about if Dash can coordinate with ACPS when it comes to maintaining their buses and storing their buses.

Um, I think it's a conversation that's very important for us to have, and maybe during the budget it'll be uh the opportunity will be there to have that conversation.

Uh I I so from what you were saying, I mean I mean that this these are my comments.

My my quick question from what you were saying, and I should know this, but the city owns the transportation facility that HPS is using right now.

Is that city-owned land?

Uh that's my understanding.

It is okay.

Okay, good to know that.

All right.

Well, that's these are all my comments.

Um, and that's my question.

Thank you, by the way.

Okay.

Um, we do not need to do a vote on this.

This is just an update.

So um, we thank you.

We look forward to seeing you again in a c in a couple months.

Madam Clerk, next item.

Contested appointments.

All right, everyone's favorite part of the evening.

I will go as fast as I can.

Um, so our practice, just a reminder for the public, is to read um every name that received a vote, and then I will announce the majority vote getter.

Um, so folks know the votes are based on the majority in terms of six people.

So the first commission is the Alexandria Cone Sister City Committee.

Laura Evans received four votes of the council.

Mark Lucas received one vote, and Briley Unger received one vote.

And Laura Evans is the majority vote getter and will be appointed to the commission.

The Board of Zoning Appeals, Paul Liu received um all six votes of the council.

Children, youth, and families collaborative commission, um, Esperanza Sequero Oranzo received two votes of the council, and Haya Yasen received four votes of the council.

Haya Yasen will be appointed to the commission.

Commission of aging, Michael Schuster received all six votes of the council.

The historic restoration and preservation commission, Tamiya Lowe received four votes, and Daniel Straub received two.

Tamia Lowe will be appointed to the commission.

The public health advisory commission, Anita McClendon received all six votes of the council.

The public records advisory commission, Stephanie Bowers received one vote, and Christine Labba received five votes of the council.

Christine Lava will be appointed to the commission.

The traffic and parking board, Chris Kirsten Phelps received all six votes of the council.

The waterfront commission, this has two different appointments.

Um one is for a citizen representative who resides east of Washington Street and north of Pendleton Street.

Anyz Artemal received all six votes of the council.

The other is for a citizen representative from Park Planning District One and Louise Rosemont received all um six votes of the council.

If you are interested, all of the um appointments will be posted with the minute.

At this time, I will entertain a motion to approve the majority vote getters as read into the record.

So moved.

There's been a motion by councilwoman Green and a second by Council um Men Alnubi to approve the majority vote getters for Alexandria Conn Sister City Committee, the Board of Zoning Appeals, the Children, Youth and Families Collaborative Commission, the Commission on Aging, the Historic Restoration and Preservation Commission, the Public Health Advisory Commission, the Public Records Advisory Commission, the Traffic and Parking Board, and the Waterfront Commission.

Madam Clerk, this is a roll call vote.

Please call the roll.

Councilwoman Green.

Aye.

Councilman Al Nubi.

Aye.

Mayor Gaskins.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Bagley.

Aye.

Councilman Aguirre.

Aye.

Councilman Chapman.

All right.

The ayes have it.

And we thank everyone who applied.

If you were not appointed this time, we hope that you'll continue to apply and um look for ways to engage with the city.

At this time.

Uh oh, there's one other thing.

Madam Clerk McSiber.

Consideration of City Council schedule.

Madam Mayor.

Yes.

Council approval of the city council schedule.

All right.

There's been a motion by Councilwoman Green.

Is there a second?

Second.

And a second by Councilman Alnubi to approve the city council schedule.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

The ayes have it.

Is there a motion to adjourn?

Second.

There's a motion by Councilman Alnuby and a second that Councilwoman Green should adjourn tonight's meeting.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The ayes have it.

Meeting adjourned.