This is Mike on.

So red is on.

The red is on.

Okay.

Okay, good evening, everyone.

It is six eighteen, and our first order of business is the Alexandria Transit Company Stockholders Meeting.

Mr.

Chair, this is your meeting, and so I'm going to officially turn it over to you.

Well, good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of council.

I call to order the twenty twenty-six annual meeting of the AT Alexander Transit Company Stockholders.

I'm David Kaplan, the chair of the ATC Board of Directors, and it's a pleasure to first time I'm in your new temporary chambers, so pleasure to be with all of you tonight in this new space.

Minutes of the meeting are being taken by the ATC Board Secretary and will be made available on Dashbus.com.

I want to introduce those who are in attendance, both from our board of directors and from the staff.

Our board members in person, we have a Jay Sha Thomas.

We have Jamal Shoby, who you will uh hear more about shortly, uh a nominee to our board.

And I can see on the Zoom, we have Jesse O'Connell.

You're up very big on the on the screen.

Jesse's our vice chair of the board of directors.

Uh staff who are here to my left, Josh Baker, our CEO and General Manager, Raymond Moey, who is our chief infrastructure development officer, and Stevie Matthews, our director of planning and scheduling.

The first order of business for the meeting is the appointment of the board of directors for a slate to serve one year term that expires at the twenty twenty-seven stockholders meeting.

Our board is currently 10 members, seven city residents and dash riders, and three city staff members.

All ten of the incumbents are seeking reappointment.

I thank my colleagues for their dedicated service.

You will see the slate on the screen behind you.

The board has one vacancy for a city resident or dash rider with transportation industry experience.

This is the only resident rider seat that requires a specific skill set as designated in our bylaws.

The board initiated recruitment in November to solicit applications.

The vacancy was posted for eight weeks.

We received applications from nine candidates who self-certified that they met the selective factor.

A board committee consisting of Jesse O'Connell and Matt Harris reviewed applications and interviewed five finalists.

The committee recommended and the board unanimously concurred that Jamal Shoby be added to the board of directors.

And Jamal has already, I had to stand and wave.

I think you've already done that.

You can do that again.

Thank you.

Let me tell you a little bit about Jamal.

He's a two-year resident of Alexandria, residing in the Eisenhower East neighborhood.

He holds a master's in transportation planning and a doctorate in urban planning from Texas Southern University.

His work experience includes project management and task lead roles at three transportation consulting firms where he advised state DOTs, local governments, and transportation agencies on multimodal planning.

Jamal also has work experience at the transit agency that serves Houston, Texas, and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

Jamal is currently employed by the Transportation Research Board, where he manages a portfolio of national research projects centered on transit system planning, operation efficiency, workforce development, new mobility services, and emerging technologies.

You were provided a copy of his full application in the docket materials for tonight's meeting.

I think you'll agree Jamal is well qualified to serve on as a member of the ATC board, and we look forward to having his expertise at our board table.

I will now ask if there's a motion to approve the slate of directors as presented.

Madam Mayor.

Councilman.

Are there any other comments before the vote?

Okay.

Is there a motion?

Well, actually, you're doing my job for this is hard.

This is hard for all of us.

Councilman Gary's recusal is noted.

Um is there a motion to approve the slate?

Moved by Councilman Anuby is there second.

Second by Councilwoman Green.

Any discussion?

If not, all in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Uh Councilman Chapman is voting no.

Any abstentions?

All right.

The slate of directors has been approved.

The next order of business is the appointment of the ATC's outside auditor.

It is the board's recommendation that the external auditor selected by the city also audit ATC's accounts since the audit can be completed without additional cost or duplication.

I will ask if there's a motion to approve the outside auditor.

So moved.

Moved by the mayor is there a second.

Second.

Second by the vice mayor.

Is there a discussion?

Hearing none, all in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

The motion passes.

This concludes the business items of the meeting.

I will now make some remarks about things Dash is celebrating, as well as challenges and opportunities we are working through.

Mr.

Baker, we'll make some time.

We'll make some remarks as time permits, and then we will leave time for your questions as well.

On the success side, our biggest success is that we continue to shatter ridership records.

FY25 was the system's highest annual ridership ever, with 5.7 million rides taken.

This was the third consecutive year that we shattered a previous ridership record.

Our preliminary ridership numbers for FY26 show five monthly ridership records, including January and February.

More on these months in a few minutes.

Our board and staff appreciate the time we spent with you last September at a joint work session focused on securing Dash's future.

The session provided clarity on council's priorities for Dash.

The results of these discussions are shaping the revisions underway to Dash's strategic plan.

Staff recently released a document that compiled all the questions from the session and provided thorough responses.

It was emailed to all of you and is available to members of the public on Dashbus.com.

We welcome the opportunity to engage with you in future joint work sessions.

It gives us the opportunity for dialogue and to work towards alignment outside of the more structured but also abbreviated format of the stockholders meeting.

One work session topic that comes to mind and would love to then hear your thoughts about how we could structure a work session.

We are working to kick off updates to the Alexandria Transit Vision Plan, which was originally created seven years ago.

It guides how we create and allocate Dash service.

A lot of the questions that we've received from you and suggestions have been around our service profile, how we interconnect with other trans transit systems and transportation options, where we need to look at creating new connections, what routes should have the greatest frequency, and the trade-offs involved in all of these decisions that we make.

I think discussing the ATV in its next iteration would get at a lot of things that we have heard that you all are interested in and that you hear about most frequently from the community.

Our staff is happy to facilitate that whenever there's an opening in council's schedule.

I want to also express the ATC board's appreciation to City Manager Peridon for proposing an FY27 budget that maintains all existing Dash bus service and as well as funding the Line 32 pilot for expanded service weekdays between the Alexander Transit Center and the Van Dorn Street Metro Station for an additional year.

Three years ago, I bought to you as stockholders just off the presses results of a bus stop inventory within the city that at the time showed less than half of our Dash and Walmata transit stops meeting ADA accessibility standards.

A lot has changed since then.

Over 75% of stops are now accessible, and that number continues to grow.

Hillary Orr and her team, along with the Dash staff, have had a laser focus of improvement in these areas.

The interactive bus stop dashboard summarizing accessibility and amenities at bus stops is live on the city's website, and the data in this dashboard is helping to guide future investment and establishes accountability for the bus stop improvement program.

Your engagement and interest in this issue has helped tremendously.

And it is in that spirit that I want to speak to you tonight about another challenge we face related to bus stops.

Winter storm fern, Snow Creek.

I know it's on your agenda again for tonight, but we're gonna talk about it too.

It stretched our city's infrastructure and budget to the max.

I I am a resident of the city.

I think the city did well under immensely challenging circumstances.

Um the transit side, prioritation of cleaning streets where transit operates enabled Dash to restore service relatively quickly and to be a lifeline for both community members who need a safe way to travel and to those whose vehicles were stuck in snowbanks.

Uh Dash staff's parking deck was cleared by general services the day after the storm that enabled us to get back to our staff back to work so that we could reopen the facility and start up operations.

Staff told me how responsive in the weeks after the storm the city was in getting heavy equipment where needed to get buses off snow emergency routes and back to regular service.

Where we struggled was giving riders a safe place to wait for buses in pathways to stops that were often sheets of ice and curbs where passengers boarded buses were immovable walls of snow, sleet, and ice.

They provided no safe place to wait for transit except for standing in the roadway.

And on the presentation we're on slide seven, you can see uh just some reminders of of what that uh what that looked like out in the community.

Dash monitored conditions, um uh inventory, excuse me, conditions at bus stops it serves on February 4th.

This was nine days after the storm.

We found at that time that only 20% of Dash stops were fully clear and accessible.

That number would have been lower but for the fact that Wamada, for the first time I can ever remember, um, volunteered crews and equipment to clear bus stops in Alexandria that they weren't responsible for as part of an effort to accelerate regional transit recovery.

Wamada cleared 46 of our transit stops, and we've included some pictures of them at work in the slide deck.

And I know Mr.

Baker went to Wamata headquarters to thank the general manager and the board for that collaboration.

I bring bus stop recovery issue up not to be critical of the city, but to ask for a conversation on how city departments, Dash, and regional partners can all collaborate better to ensure transit is a safe option for all following the next severe weather event.

I'm transit reliant and a resident for 23 years in the city.

Even in more moderate snowstorms, and I've been through many, bus stops are challenging because so much snow is pushed to the curb and then becomes quickly compacted with people stepping over it or through it to get on and off transit vehicles, and then we get you know a little bit of melting when the temperature is in the high thirties and then it refreezes every night, and we just kind of repeat the cycle.

It can take a week or two to make the curb at an untreated bus stop accessible even in some of these more moderate snow events.

This one, of course, being exceptionally challenging.

I know you're talking about winter storm recovery tonight, looking at the city holistically, and I hope this can be part of our conversation going forward.

Finally, tonight I want to acknowledge uh Mayor budget question that you put in uh looking at Dash bus stop maintenance overall.

Um, because in addition to challenges I just articulated regarding winter weather recovery, there's year-round attention to safety and condition at hundreds of the bus stops that the city has that's that's needed.

Your question provides an opportunity to comprehensively look at how this is being handled now and to dig into process improvements all around serving our riders better.

The Dash staff is currently working with OMB on a response.

There's a lot of data that the city has on transit stop maintenance that will have to be examined, likely requiring further study of this issue.

Um I would hope such a study would look at how similar communities uh of you know handle bus stop maintenance.

Many of our Dash staff are alumni of transit systems where bus stop maintenance was that system's responsibility and not the municipality.

Um that could be the right model going forward, but maybe not.

I appreciate this being an area of focus.

Repairing an issue at a bus stop is something that gets done a lot without you know a lot of ceremony.

We don't cut a ribbon when we um repair a shelter that is is rusted or a bench that's failing or remove a fallen tree limb blocking a stop.

Maybe we should.

But it's important to step back and look at the bigger picture for process improvement of some of the very basic services that the city provides.

And I think this is an opportunity for us to do that.

This concludes my remarks.

I want to thank all of you for your service to our city, especially at this time of year.

You are strong supporters of Dash, and it is a pleasure to work with each of you.

Um Mr.

Baker, I know uh if we I'm just looking at the time, had uh had a few remarks uh that he wanted to make, and then we will uh move into your into your questions.

I think we have to share it.

Um, Mr.

Chair.

Um I come to you all this evening just with some additional great updates about what's been going on at Dash.

Uh we have had a very busy last fiscal year, and I wanted to forgive me for stepping back in the slides, just highlight a few elements of the value of Dash and what we've been doing for the community.

We're very proud to be a part of this community and we're proud of the service we provide, and we really, really love working here.

In FY25, as our chair mentioned, we carried 5.7 million riders.

This is the third consecutive year we've broken an all-time ridership record.

Uh over the last fiscal year, we traveled over 2.6 million miles with a greater than 78% on-time performance rate across our entire service portfolio.

We lead the region in on-time performance and data reporting integrity.

I think it's important to highlight that.

We are in a congested area and oftentimes our uh delays are as a result of traffic, and that's the reality of what we deal with, but we're proud of what we're doing there.

We know that we have displaced 3.8 million single occupancy vehicle trips and eliminated over 16,000 tons of CO2 emissions from our community streets.

Dash service supports statewide revenue and uh sales tax revenue.

We know that we are an economic driver and uh someone who helps the community thrive, and so we're thankful for the investment that the city makes in Dash, and we're proud to help support the city and its revenues and the state.

Um we remain a lifeline for our community based on census track data and proximity to high frequency Dash service.

We continue to provide meaningful impacts to our disadvantaged communities serving 3.7 million low-income passengers and 4.2 million minority riders.

Um it's also notable that we provide over two million trips for zero car households uh based on this same data.

Coming back to the bus stop improvements, just wanted to highlight a few important takeaways here.

In FY25, we added six solar powered lights for safety and completed 24 total ADA improvements, including 15 new ADA pads.

I think it's worth highlighting the fact that visibility and safety at bus stops is a priority of ours, and the city has worked very closely and jointly with us in accomplishing that.

We have successfully relocated our permanent uh stop at the West Alexandria Transit Center, phase 1A is complete, and the city is moving towards future phases in that development.

We've also consolidated stops along the King Street corridor to ensure consistent spacing and accessibility for all riders.

Just a real quick look ahead.

Again, this information was included in your packet.

We plan to add 39 more ADA pads and 20 additional solar powered lights and more real-time bus information displays.

We also anticipate 12 interim shelters being installed at the West Alexandria Transit Center.

I want to speak briefly about ridership, as Chair Kaplan mentioned.

When looking at our monthly data fiscal year to date, we are outperforming previous years ridership for five of the eight months so far in this current fiscal year.

Please note, though, that we are in the process of auditing our automated passenger counting systems to ensure data integrity, and we are working with the National Transit Database to certify the numbers and ensure that they meet uh federal requirements.

So the report numbers are reported as preliminary, but we look forward to hopefully celebrating another record-breaking ridership year with you once the fiscal year has wrapped up.

Uh wrapping up here, I want to talk about community engagement.

We focused a lot on that here at Dash.

It was a busy year of public engagement, including 48 community events, participating in world pride, and breaking ground on our facility expansion.

We're excited to launch partnerships, new partnerships with kids first years and the Alexandria Soccer Association.

And 2026 marks five years of fair-free service and the success of the new Dash Network.

We will be celebrating this milestone throughout the year and recognize how it has contributed to the vitality of our community and the use of our transit service.

As we look to the future, as Chair Kaplan mentioned, we plan to revisit and update the Alexandria Transit Vision Plan to ensure that it is aligned with the best strategies for our community and meets the expectations of our stockholders.

We are pushing forward with our facility expansion, which will house the regions which will house all of our on house all of our electric buses and charge them through new and innovative charging technologies.

It will support our 31 newly funded low and no emission buses.

And we also will be installing the region's first on-route opportunity charger.

We look forward to breaking ground with you all with that in the near future.

With that, Mr.

Chair, I will turn it over to you for uh QA.

Thank you.

So we're show of hands of anyone who'd like to uh to speak.

We'll start with the Vice Mayor.

Thank you all for the presentation and congratulations on the success.

Um if we could go back to the ridership slide real quick.

It it's not a major like the I'm curious if we just have any insights for the two months where we didn't exceed the prior year in it looks like October and November.

Like anything to that.

And the reason why I'm asking is like, is that something we could change, fix, respond to?

Government shutdown.

That's all it was.

Oh, interesting.

Okay.

But uh that's also then just like a valuable insight into like who's riding the buses as well.

Like if we can we we can see the delta then of exactly how much is government usage.

Um, I really appreciate that.

Is there um when you say you're doing automated passenger counts?

I assume that's like literally just counting feet like crossing a uh electronic counter or something.

This isn't some of the driver isn't doing those counts.

This is very automated, just capturing feet coming and going.

These are the newest, most innovative automate automated passenger counters or APCs.

Um they are able to differentiate uh human beings versus bags and backpacks and those kinds of items, and they count at every single stop the boardings and the lightings through all the doors of the bus.

So what we found is that the data is actually much more accurate than when the driver does a manual count.

Because we do all door boarding and alighting, the driver often has to estimate the number of people who may have stepped on in what we call a crush load where we have a lot of people boarding simultaneously.

Uh those counters are much more effective at understanding the utilization of the service and allows us to also drill down into the data and understand time of day, uh stop level data and various other uh aspects.

Does it have an ability to capture um wheelchairs or other mobility tools that are like just if we were trying to capture like how are people in wheelchairs or using walkers, anything like that, like accessing the service.

It doesn't differentiate you know the type of riders, but we do have the ability to um detect the wheelchair ramp deployment.

Oh, okay.

Um, but that could be for any mobility.

Strollers, not necessarily the chairs.

Yeah.

No, the strollers is another.

I think what I'm getting at is how are we capturing people who might be a complicated capture if they're used, you know, and like a stroller that's a rider.

There's a child or two in the stroller.

Um, well, I I I think any metric you guys can share about how you capture sort of strollers or wheelchairs or um so we have some sense of that.

I think I had asked a question during our work session about like accessibility and disability access, and so that's really why I'm just following up here.

Um then I guess this might be a question a little bit for the manager, a little bit for the mayor, and for the dashboard.

I I really enjoyed and thought valuable the session we had last fall.

And it sounds like we already have some potential topics for another session like it with the ATV plan and bus stop recovery conversation.

So I guess I'm just expressing support for the concept and maybe putting it out there for a conversation if there needs to be one.

Yeah, I think um as long as there is support from the majority of the council, then we will work with the um with Dash and the leadership on the board to to schedule a date.

And I might add that uh in advance of that, we'll solicit through the city manager's office any questions or topics you all might want to cover.

That's particularly helpful for us to make sure we prepare the information uh and use the time most wisely for you all.

So feel free to let us know.

Excellent.

Uh the mayor.

And then we'll go to Councilwoman Green.

Well, first, I do want to thank you for the presentation.

I will also echo my support for another one of those joint work sessions.

I thought it was very insightful.

I guess I wanted to pick up on Chair Kaplan's remarks, particularly about bus stop maintenance.

And um just say I love the way you framed it because that's exactly the intent I had with submitting the memo.

I really want to understand, not because I think the way we currently do it is wrong.

I'm just curious if there are efficiencies or opportunities we can achieve with Dash sort of taking leadership for the maintenance of their bus systems.

I think I mean bus stops.

I think initially I was really interested in sort of getting a very specific number, especially because we are in the budget conversation.

However, hearing what you mentioned about we might want to study other systems or we might want to use some comparisons.

And if it's not something we're able to address this year, then I would just put forth if we um do a joint work session.

I'd love for that to be a bigger topic.

I think what we did see in the storm is that when you live and breathe this work every single day, and when that's the only thing you have to focus on, the quality of the bus stops that we're taking care of in that instance look very different than when you've got to check in on a list and you just gotta move to the next thing.

So I I'm very curious to see where this conversation goes.

The other thing that I would raise is at the COG Wamada mentioned sort of the work that they did throughout the storm in order to support uh different bus stop maintenance across the region, uh particularly in a winter storm event, and mentioned that they would be interested in working on a regional plan across the system.

So all that to say, I guess maybe there's two conversations, the conversation of like ongoing maintenance and day-to-day upkeep of our bus stops, but then in an emergency, how do we deploy not only our assets but sort of the assets that are available across the region?

Yeah, I think I'll just say to your to your point about the regional conversation.

I mean, we have bus riders who get on in Alexandria who are going to Arlington who are going into DC, and so you've got to have safe points at both both ends.

And it always had, you know, concern Walmata.

Well, Mata had a lot that they're responsible with storms, but it always kind of concerned me that they would say, well, we're responsible for the stops only at the Metro Rail stations because we own that, and even though we serve them, it's the jurisdictions.

And so I think this is really helpful because it was getting people back on their systems, creating goodwill for them as well.

But um kind of how that goes forward in every storm.

Can we depend on that type of support in the in the future?

But um I I think it's uh great that this is being explored at at Council of Governments and that elected officials across the region are engaged um in this in this topic.

It really shows the importance of transit in our region.

Um Councilman Green.

Thank you, Chair Kaplan, and thank you, uh Director Baker and the Dash team.

Thank you for the wonderful work that you do in our city.

Um my question um I raised in our uh budget session um about um potentially any lines with higher ridership.

Is there talk of them potentially going to 24 hour status?

And I didn't really didn't get a definitive answer from that session, so I would love to hear from Mr.

Baker.

Sure.

Thank you for that question.

And uh apologies I wasn't able to be here in person when that was rescheduled.

Um I think the the short answer to that is that is very much what re-looking at the ATV is all about.

Uh the ATV at this point is seven years old, give or take.

And it's really time to take a fresh look at that.

We've been trying to chip away at it.

We've we've known there's been priorities that we've all been trying to accomplish within it, but the community changes over seven years and the needs change.

So it's important that we keep that fresh.

And so that's really I think the intention uh of this and the intention of taking a new look at it, uh dusting off the data, making sure that we do new surveys, we do um checks with our riders to understand what the needs are.

Um but as as it stands right now, the ATV does not have a specific call out for a 24-hour service portfolio.

Um Councilman.

Um Councilman uh Chapman, then Councilman Gere.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um first I wanted to thank you, Mr.

Chair and and Director Baker for your work when we all sat down with ACPS trying to figure out the future of of shared transportation.

I I certainly appreciated that you guys brought data and opportunity uh to the forefront.

Uh it is definitely unfortunate that we did not move forward uh on a proposal, but I think it is something that I I know my colleagues are still interested in and probably will roll out at some point um another opportunity to have that that much broader discussion.

So I certainly appreciate the work that you did trying to inform us and um our colleagues on the school board, but unfortunately it didn't move forward.

Um one of the things that we do have coming up, uh the mayor and I uh sitting on the subcommittee uh with cities and schools.

Uh I believe next month we're supposed to talk about transportation.

Um so I don't know what that that means.

Um one of the things that I'm interested in, I'm sorry we haven't had a chance to connect uh prior to this meeting.

Um but I'm very interested in as you uh were talking about building out the headquarters and kind of capacity for buses, um, particularly down in that section of the city.

Um definitely interested in seeing whatever opportunities there might be to partner with ACPS, um, particularly around any capacity um for storage of buses.

Um whether that's in the short term or or the long term.

I think we are hopefully opening up a conversation, hopefully starting next month, um, about what that looks like for ACPS and what their plans are in the near future and long term.

Um but I would love to make sure um that they are not scared of partnership uh in the same way we saw uh with our earlier conversation.

Uh and so um as we get closer to that meeting, uh I might try to reach out and see if there's any opportunity there to bring you into the discussion with them, not knowing what that might hold.

Uh thank you, Councilman Chapman.

I would I say we want to be a partner in the any way we possibly can, and I thank you for the recognition of the work the team did.

Um we did spend some time putting together a document, which we've now posted on our website that sort of summarizes that work uh in case anybody who is watching hasn't had a chance to understand that work.

Uh the other thing I would want to highlight is that we've been very aggressive over the past couple of years in pursuing other funding mechanisms, federal grants, state grants, uh the State Merit program, and other things that help to enhance Dash.

And there are examples within this country and in Virginia as well, where school transit is assisted in many ways by public transit in ways outside of, for example, just simply transporting the students.

So uh as the general manager, I welcome that conversation.

I'm prepared to be at the table whenever it's suitable and helpful.

So thank you for that question.

And uh Councilman, uh Councilman Gary.

Thank you, Chair Kablin.

Um, most of my questions were already asked, so I guess it's more so comments uh because I was going to bring up the uh automatic counters and making sure that we're keeping up with technology, especially around differentiation, um, because I know we're going to some of the conferences at APTA.

Uh not only is the technology constantly changing, but there was something in the algorithm that wasn't catching something, so hopefully that's you know getting updated.

Um the collaboration with WAMATA, the schools, Dash and the City, I think is needed.

Um also I will um endorse, if you will, um city staff talking with Dash staff specifically around some of the uh upkeeping of the um the bus stops, not just during the storms, but also as we're going through this process of uh improvements.

And um I have to admit that I have to take a uh another look and go back at the transit vision to see kind of where we are uh in the transit vision.

I know we're behind on a few things, but a few things we are actually doing well with.

Um and then the last thing, of course, is what you just mentioned, Director Baker, was which is the white paper uh that was put online to discuss uh options with uh working with with our school system to provide transportation, and I think to Councilman Chapman's point, there there are a lot of synergy points, and I greatly appreciate you being willing to be a good partner.

Um we we just need to get some of our other folks uh in the city to be good partners as well.

Yeah, I'll just um add related to the kind of the progress of the ATV.

We had sent uh a letter, I believe, in the fall that outlined these segments that weren't um remained unfunded.

We had um cost, we had the equity scores that I know we've gotten feedback were were important.

We only prioritize the segments that were in the original constrained ATV and then sort of had uh uh just an inventory of everything that was meant for FY26 through 28, and then uh Councilman Alnuby asked a budget question.

I think also got at the segments that hadn't been funded yet.

So I think that information will be coming back to to you shortly.

It will be forthcoming, and I'm looking forward to it, and thank you for the reminder because I would be remiss if I didn't throw in a quick plug for uh getting the bus down Mount Vernon Avenue, which I know uh plans have have been brought up, but uh now we're looking at funding, and so that will be uh a separate conversation, hopefully that we could get them in the next couple of years.

And Councilman, one thing just about the Mount Vernon Avenue service, and we included this in our letter in the fall um because I just want to be transparent about there is a small capital project that would be required because when the bus comes out of Potomac Yard, right now traffic cannot proceed straight.

Um and uh we would need to be able to proceed straight.

So I think um I don't think the uh uh we haven't scoped out the cost of the project with TNS.

I don't think it's a significant project, but it does um a significant change for that community in terms of traffic flows, and so I think the public outreach and the timing kind of goes beyond the dash.

So I didn't want to sort of just say here's the funding for the bus.

We wanted just to to uh flag that there was were other steps that would be required to implement that service.

Absolutely appreciate that.

Plus we might have to uh talk further too about the upcoming um Wamada proposal for for Braddock because it's uh definitely changing some some aspects as well if it were to go through.

Thank you, Chair Kaplan.

I wanted to quickly just check with my colleagues so we could give you a definitive answer on the work session.

We would like to do another work session, but would want to work uh closely with you on the agenda and kind of just um the tightness of topics that we cover.

So we can work through the manager to identify but um the right time for that conversation and the agenda for that.

So thank you.

Are there further comments or questions from from members of uh the stockholders?

Um if not, well this is I think the first time we haven't sort of been given the hook to get off the well, but um I um I uh we will we will take a motion then to adjourn the stockholders meeting.

But again, I want to just before we do that, thank you for this conversation.

Thank you for your engagement um with all of us um to um provide your priorities um for dash.

Um the community relies heavily on our transit.

It is exciting for me to see our ridership really has has doubled from when I moved here uh in 2003.

And you know, I just in 2003 coming here to the city could never have imagined a Dash system that ran this way, a Dash system that didn't require fares, a Dash system where we were picking up, you know, sometimes 15 people at each stop along uh King Street in in Old Town.

Um and it is uh incredible to see even record-breaking ridership in January and February where we had a snowstorm.

We had time day in January we didn't run any service at all, and yet we still broke through any previous year.

And so um there's a lot of exciting things for Dash.

Um I will uh uh with uh did you have a comment, Councilman Newby?

Yeah, sorry, one more comment.

Um I really appreciate how you how Dash is a results-driven organization.

And every time we have a conversation with Dash, whether it's a work session or we have the stakeholder meeting, uh the numbers don't lie.

And you come prepared with the data and to show us where um how we're really making an impact on the city.

It really makes the conversation very easier, and it makes it very easy to defend the investments that we make in Dash.

And I echo what was said earlier.

I wish all our partners um were um of that mindset approached um our partnerships in that way and approached their mission, like you guys approach it.

Thank you for saying that, Councilman Green.

It has there has been a motion to adjourn the we're getting the hook.

There's been a motion to adjourn the stockholders meeting.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second by the mayor.

All in f any discussion on the motion to adjourn.

If not, all in favor, say aye.

I'm not a shock dash.

I'm with you on that.

Uh all in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Stockholders meeting is adjourned.

Thank you so much.

Molly gang.

For those who are in the chamber waiting for the council meeting, we can't officially start until 7 p.m.

Just so you know the delay.

Good evening, everyone.

It is seven oh four.

We will now call the March twenty-fourth legislative meeting to order.

Madam Clerk, please call a roll.

Councilman Newby.

Okay.

Um, Madam Clerk, next item.

Moment of silence and prelude of allegiance.

It is our custom to begin each meeting with a moment of silence followed by the pledge.

We asked that if you are able, please stand.

Madam Clerk, next item.

Presentation of a proclamation recognizing March as celebrating Senior Nutrition Programs Month.

Okay.

I have asked Vice Mayor Bagley to read this this proclamation.

If you are joining us to recognize Senior Nutrition Month, we ask that you please come to the front at this time.

I don't know.

Oh, do I we're still working so hi?

Hi, everybody.

Awesome.

Okay.

No, no, yeah.

Well, welcome.

Um we've been through this a few times before together, so it's so great to see everybody again.

I'm going to read the proclamation and then perhaps we'll have one or two of you s introduce the group and speak a little bit.

All right, thank you.

All right.

So, whereas Meals on Wheels programs like that of the City of Alexandria, which is managed by Senior Services of Alexandria and the city's Division of Aging and Adult Services provides nutritious home-delivered meals to seniors throughout Alexandria City that help them maintain their health and independence.

And whereas Meals on Wheels programs in the City of Alexandria, Virginia have served our community admirably since 2002.

And whereas volunteers are the backbone of Meals on Wheels program in the City of Alexandria, Virginia, delivering nutritious meals to seniors and individuals with disabilities who are at significant risk of hunger and isolation with caring concern and attention to their welfare.

And whereas Meals on Wheels programs in the City of Alexandria, Virginia offer a powerful opportunity for social connection for hundreds of seniors to help combat the negative health effects and economic consequences of loneliness and isolation.

And whereas the senior population is substantially increasing, nearly 14 million seniors in the United States are still threatened by or experience hunger.

And action is needed now to support local Meals on Wheels programs through federal, state, and local funding, volunteering, donations, and raising awareness to ensure these vital services can continue to be delivered for years to come.

And whereas Meals on Wheels programs from across the country are joining together this March and beyond to celebrate their collective success and to generate the support needed to ensure these critical programs can continue to address food insecurity and malnutrition, combat social isolation and loneliness, enable independence, and improve health outcomes.

Now therefore I, Sarah Bagley, on behalf of Aliah Gaskins, Mayor of the City of Alexandria, Virginia, and on behalf of the Alexandria City Council, do hereby proclaim the month of March 2026 as a month celebrating senior nutrition pro nutrition programs in the City of Alexandria and urge every community member to take this month to honor our senior nutrition programs, the individuals that gets harder to say every time.

Nutrition programs, the individuals they serve and the volunteers who care for them.

We hereby recognize the older Americans Act Nutrition Programs and Meals on Wheels programs for their heroic efforts to help combat senior hunger and isolation in America.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and cause the seal of the city of Alexandria to be affixed this 24th day of March 2026, Mayor Aliah Gaskins.

Congratulations.

And if you could please introduce yourself.

Ashley Johnson, Division of Aging and Adult Services and Long-Term Care Coordinator.

I'm Mary Lee Anderson.

I'm executive director of Senior Services of Alexandria.

I am Marshall Hesby, Director of Nutrition Programs at Senior Services of Alexandria.

Hey, I'm Chris Moore.

I'm the director of the Division of Aging and Adult Services and a Meals on Wheels volunteer as of this morning.

Well, panel over there.

Well, I want to thank you, sir, because you stepped in this morning because my plane was delayed and I missed my shift.

So I appreciate you very much.

So I want to thank you all so much for being here.

And as I referenced, I'm a monthly Meals on Wheels volunteer myself, and but for a delay this morning, thank you so much for stepping up.

Um and I I can attest firsthand to the powerful impact, not just the food, but the moment has that moment when you see people, you ask them how their day is.

You see into their homes.

You often discover things that the program actually has a feedback feature for anybody thinking about volunteering.

The app has a feedback feature where you're asked, is the person's condition unchanged?

You know, are there any notes you want to pass along?

And I know I have passed a long notes to Marshall and to Sidella and others.

So I also just want to take this moment to uh encourage the community to please consider volunteering.

Even if you do it once the whole year, it will stick with you and it will matter.

Um so thank you all very much for what you do.

Um please consider supporting this organization, and if you don't have the time or the ability to drive yourself, you can ride along with someone else.

I love having a co-pilot, it helps me go faster.

Um and with that, Mayor Gaskins, I move the proclamation.

Okay, there has been a motion by Vice Mayor Bagley and a second by Councilman Chapman.

Is there any further discussion?

Well, I will just echo the comments of my colleague, Vice Mayor Bagley.

First, thank you for the important work that you do each and every day.

Um I've had the opportunity to talk with Mary Lee many times about the Meals on Wheels program and to learn that we are a model across this country, the way in which so many members of our community, uh different departments and agencies step in.

I think it's true that during the snowstorm we didn't miss a day and making sure that our seniors had the nutritious meals that they need.

And so excited to be joining my colleagues as champions.

Yes, there are great co-pilots.

I know Mary Lee, my kids, and I will all be in one car trying to get trying to get through it.

But um we're gonna have a really fun time.

So with that, there has been a motion and a second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

The ayes have it, and the proclamation passes.

Is that for you?

Thank you.

Okay, Madam Clerk, next item.

Or report from members of City Council on boards, commissions, and committees.

Okay, we have several to get through.

I'm gonna call them off in batches.

So the first batch is for um Vice Mayor Bagley and Councilman Aguirre, but it's Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, and then Vice Mayor Bagley can go into Virginia Railway Express, the Waterfront Commission, and then um Alexandria campaign on adolescent pregnancy.

Councilman AGary, would you like me to Oh, that's right.

Um on March 5th, 2026, uh the uh MVTC met.

Um we talked at length about the update.

Well, at somewhat length about the General Assembly update, which was unfortunately at the time similar to what it is now, which is sort of a wait and see um posture with regard to the budget and transit funding.

Um I believe the um General Assembly is reconvening in late April to revisit the budget.

We will continue to advocate for the importance of transit funding, sustained operational and capital capital transit funding.

Um we also got updates on um the merit program changes, and this kind of relates back to our dashboard update earlier and any impacts that might change the funding structure of bus systems throughout uh the state.

So we're gonna keep an eye on that and see how it plays out.

Um we also had our first update from the new VRE CEO, Katie Cho, who came to the MVTC meeting, um, and she put it in kind of fascinating perspective.

She said that um 2030 is only 42 board meetings away, which was just a metric I had not heard out loud before, but it sort of stuck with me because the goal for VRE is to double service by 2030.

So that is 42 board meetings away, that goal to double service.

Um she gave a nice presentation on the work uh at hand uh to reach that goal, both infrastructure-wise and um uh in and operationally.

Uh VRE has also added in some meet and greets for the new CEO.

One of them was at Alexandria Station recently, um, and she spoke a bit about that.

Um I will then move into actually VRE meeting proper.

Um, we had a virtual and all virtual meeting on the most recent Friday, which was uh March 20th.

Um, this was an all-virtual meeting.

Um, there was a lengthy um CEO update.

Uh again, I think part of this because we do have a new CEO.

She's doing an overview of the system.

Um, one of the big announcements she made is that she has hired a COO.

That position has been empty for um for years at this point.

Um, and so it was a hire from within, Chris Henry, who has been the director of operations and with the organization since 2011, was promoted to COO.

Um, Chris uh just led the um intense response to storm recovery and is deeply familiar with the system, and so we're all very excited um for him to see him step into that role.

Um there was also a lengthy non-voting um action item conversation related to the first street tunnel.

Um anybody who's been listening to these updates and who's been following along knows that there is significant infrastructure projects happening from the Alexandria station through our King and Commonwealth Bridges, through building a fourth track to building a new bridge over the Potomac uh for trains and passenger uh rail to changes at the Law Enfant station, and then we've got the first street tunnel that everything still has to go through to get to Union Station.

And then we've got the first street tunnel that everything still has to go through to get to Union Station.

And at present, there isn't a project on the docket basically for a first rete tunnel.

And so we had a long conversation about sort of what does that mean for the 2030 plan if all the other pieces have cued up and there's still a bottleneck at the first street tunnel that everything passes through.

So if that's something that interests you, I would you know encourage you to go back and look at that meeting.

Um we are probably going to dock it and have a larger conversation at VRE about what that means for service moving forward.

Um because we now have the seminary yard for midday storage, that presents less of a problem for us moving forward.

VRE is now more in control of sort of the movement of its trains.

Um I'll also mention one kind of fun fact.

VRE announced a new partnership with the Fred Nats.

You guys are aware there is a minor league baseball team just down the road in Fredericksburg, where many of VRE's riders come from.

So VRE is now a sponsor of the Fred Nats, and they're gonna be um participating in sort of a game sponsorship down the road.

After that was Waterfreund.

Waterfront.

Okay.

Um Waterfront Commission met bright and early on the 17th.

Um they did address briefly the feasibility study uh budget question that was asked, I think, by several members.

Um the the um cost was a little higher, I think, than everybody expected it to be.

So there was a little bit of a conversation about that.

Um, something else I'm gonna raise while I see so many members of APD in the audience tonight, um, because it's been a couple conversation now twice that um officer North has addressed, but um concern about 911 calls made along the waterfront and where they end up from a deck perspective.

They're pinging towers, that is layman's terms, but they are pinging towers in PG County and in DC.

If somebody is standing in, you know, Old Town Alexandria potentially.

Um Waterfront Commission has asked for updates on this.

Officer North has come Captain Captain North has come in several times to um look into it, but I just want to kind of flag it maybe for our deck crew who I think is in the back there.

Um, if there's any follow-up we can provide, if there's ways to help with this.

Um it's also motor coach season in um at the waterfront and in old town, so just flagging for everybody.

There are lots of high school and junior high field trips that are coming through, lots of buses and visitors.

This is great.

We are happy to see them, but just be advised there's gonna be a lot of motor coaches parking along North Union, which is one of the locations they're allowed to be.

Um, and the water fountains are turning on in April in all the parks.

Just a heads up on that.

Um then um there was a the bulk of the meeting was honestly taken up with an evaluation of the commission itself.

And the waterfront commission responded to our subcommittee's call for a sundowning in a few years by trying to reflect back on the work that they are doing and how could they make it you know more meaningful potentially and and rethink sort of um their bylaws, their mission statement, their structure.

I was about to say uh I think that's the there was a large I was a budget conversation as well, but those were the large topics at Waterfront.

Okay.

Uh you also have the Alexandria campaign on adolescent pregnancy.

And that's one that I missed, so I would ask my colleague to cover that one.

Councilman.

Okay, we are going to move forward from the Alexandria campaign.

And we'll go right into the next one.

I can say one thing.

Vice Mayor Backley.

One thing I will just note is that May is generally sex ed for all month, and we will be talking about that in the future, and Councilman Aguirre and I will make sure we have a better update next council meeting.

There's also an official proclamation being worked on for you guys.

Okay, the next several are me.

I'm gonna start with the Council of Governments.

The Council of Governments meeting focused on two topics.

The first was on data series, data centers.

Um, the Council of Government is doing a series on the impact of data centers across uh Northern Virginia.

And there were two elements.

The first was looking at sort of the centers themselves.

What do they require in terms of energy, water, land use, zoning, um, sort of all the impacts on our jurisdictions.

And then the second part of the conversation was really on even if you do not have a data center physically present in your jurisdiction, you still um have the impacts in terms of cost, environmental impacts, and so forth.

So each of those different um events are on the COG website.

I think they're doing three and two have been completed already, and then there will be a summary report of all of the discussions.

The second part of the meeting focused on an update on the Potomac Interceptor Collapse.

I want to thank everyone who partnered with us and with DC Water, with Virginia American Water, with the Army Corps of Engineers, with the Alexandria Health Department, with the Virginia Department of Environment and Environmental Quality, and others on a town hall last week.

We had a pretty good turnout.

It was both in-person and hybrid, and it was an opportunity to go through sort of the history of the interceptor, how the collapse happened, the emergency work that was completed to date, and then what will happen next in terms of environmental remediation.

And so I just want to thank COG because it was their partnership that kind of helped us pull that together.

And seeing Mark Baberi and Emily Ebony Fleming in the audience want to just give them a special thanks as well, because I know that was a last-minute event to pull through, and we could not have done it without their participation.

The next commission is the Northern Virginia Transit Authority.

I'm gonna read this one, but it was a very good meeting for the City of Alexandria.

We approved the six-year program, which includes $15 million for Duke Street West Phase 2 and intersection.

It also included $21 million for improvements along the Eisenhower corridor.

We also approved the FY 2032 CMAC and RSTP funding recommendations for the Commonwealth Transportation Board.

If those recommendations are approved by the CTB, it includes $5.2 million for the City of Alexandria for Duke Street, bike share, and safe street studies.

We also improved, approved recommendations to reallocate regional surface transportation program funds.

This is a grant program that we had received previously, and we had some funds that were not spent, and so the commission approved that we could reallocate those funds to the tune of $492,000, which will go towards the intersection redesign at Duke Street and West Taylor Run Parkway, which was identified as a top priority in the city's Vision Zero program.

And then we also approved the FY27 Regional Revenue Fund budget, and the recommended funding for the City of Alexandria in that plan is uh $75 million.

Did I get that right?

Yes.

Sorry, that's a big number.

And that is also for the Duke Street Transit Way.

So it was a great meeting with lots of potential funding approved for our city.

Moving forward, we had the legislative subcommittee.

This is myself and Councilman Chapman.

Uh, we had a final sort of checkout meeting in which we talk through all of our priority bills and where they landed.

Additionally, we talk through any additional bills that are headed to the governor that we might have some concerns.

The main one being related to skill games.

We are continuing to work with other jurisdictions to see if there's any additional, I guess, outreach and advocacy that we want to do as it relates to skill games before that hits the governor's desk.

We also talked a bit about the budget.

I think folks know at this point the General Assembly adjourned without a budget, and so they will reconvene in order to come back and reconcile the budget.

The major things that we are advocating for are uh Wamada funding, some of the UASI funding that we lost related to public safety, as well as funding for Freedom House uh renovations.

Anything about the next one is the ARHA Redevelopment Work Group.

This is myself and Councilman Chapman as well.

I did want to provide an update.

Um, part of what we are trying to do on the work group is really do a deeper dive into how ARHA is putting in new systems of accountability and responding to issues that residents have raised.

And so you can imagine one of the big topics that we focused on at the last meeting was a deep dive into their ledgers and any future processes they're doing to prevent evictions.

So I'm gonna take like a longer second on this just so everybody has the information and it's out there for the public.

But um, the first thing we talked about was sort of the discrepancies that we had heard existed with the ledgers.

How did that happen and where are we now?

Staff presented that starting in February 2024, under the previous leadership, the first challenge was that they transitioned to a new system.

The new system was called YARDI.

When they did that transition, there was an issue with the ways in which they did the labeling.

And so each person's record that was transferred did not actually have the property where they lived attached to it.

And so every single labor, every single ledger that was transferred was transferred over incorrectly.

And so it had names and then addresses and balances, all sort of in different places.

The second challenge that happened was that for anyone who holds a housing choice voucher, so these are folks who ARHA is not their physical landlord, but ARHA administers the voucher program.

When they did the transfer of those ledgers, they were transferred over without the ledger's name.

I mean the landlord's name.

And so all 1,600 of those records did not have a property attached to where payments would go.

And so then when people were coming in for their recertification, they did not have a proper filing.

And then if it was not recertified, then the private landlord does not get a payment.

And if the payment does not go to the landlord, then an eviction process begins.

The third major issue is under past leadership, they decided to change their recertification process.

It used to be that every single person had a caseworker who would then go through each of the files and sort of make sure you had the proper documentation.

They moved it to like a central system where then nobody had a caseworker.

And so at their peak challenge, they were behind on 800 recertifications, which then meant again, all of those people's landlords were not receiving payment.

So this challenge started in February 2024.

The problem was first identified in June 2024.

Where we are now is that they brought in a consultant to go through every single ledger.

At this point, um 100% of ledgers have been reviewed and documentation has been submitted for each.

They have provided training on YARTI for all staff members who are involved in the process.

They've created a ledger cleanup team that was implemented and has started going through with each resident their exact ledger.

They've also now created a landlord outreach team where they're going through property by property, each property that has a housing choice voucher holder to go through with the landlord anywhere where a recertification still needs to be done.

And if ARHA has not made the payment, they are paying all of the things that they need to pay in order to catch that resident up.

They've also then gone back to their past recertification process.

So now every single person will have a caseworker again who can then go through with each of their um with each person.

It's a new housing specialist who will then go through each and every one of the ledgers with each person.

And then some other things moving forward, they've created a landlord liaison.

They've also created their first um, I guess, specific and dedicated property management team, and that team will now have a software that can communicate with the housing specialist.

So if you come in with a rent issue, but you also have a property issue, they'll be able to track the two pieces there as well.

And then they're also implementing a new system where every document that you submit to ARHA will be scanned and uploaded to your file.

Previously, people were having to come in three and four times.

They were submitting, you know, personal information and documentation through, I guess, like a little shoot in the wall.

Um, and so papers were were getting lost.

So all that to say, um, Councilman Chapman and I will continue to stay on this process.

Something we are have asked them to do is to put out a communication to residents about sort of all of these changes and what people can expect, but also like explainer videos or other sort of communications to help people understand who's the point of contact, who you can go to if you're having a challenge, as well as a communication for private landlords so that they know if they have a dispute with ARHA, they need to go directly to ARHA and not to the city.

Lastly, I'll just say as another layer to kind of help and support changes moving forward.

I um announced a partnership where I'm working with different faith leaders to help clear the balances at ARHA.

As part of that, they will be required to do a third-party review and another sort of legal review of every one of their ledgers to make sure that the processes they've implemented are actually being implemented correctly and that things remain up to date.

So that was a lot for that meeting.

Um we plan to go into part two in our next meeting when we'll be talking about data on evictions as well as going through specific property updates.

Yes, Vice Mayor Bagley.

America's thank you for the lengthy uh you know for the detailed review.

I'm curious, are they also using YARDI to track work orders?

Yes, that's gonna be part of their new engagement with the property management.

Okay, appreciate that.

And they have now, I guess, a YARDI specialist who will help them use this.

Okay, next one is the city school board meeting.

Uh, Councilman Chapman and myself met with the members of the school board on Monday.

We received an update on kids' first years and sort of the state of early care and education across our city.

We also received an update on the community health improvement plan and opportunities for our two bodies to collaborate.

Finally, we received an update from ACPS on the Brent Place Patrick Henry Link Club grant uh due to changes in the grant by VDOE.

There is a gap expected for year 2026 to 2027.

And so they spoke through a little bit of what they're going to do to mitigate the gap in funding and their plans for seeking private funding as well as for adjusting the budget.

Next month we will talk about transportation and the summer youth employment program.

Yes, Councilman Gary.

Just a quick comment on the city school subcommittee since it was brought to our attention with the collective bargaining agreement that we are unaware if their agreement is for one year, three years, or something else.

Yes, I do think this is an area we need to get clarity.

I know the manager just sent around some information related to the length of terms, but that is different than what we heard at the public hearing.

So I do think either adding it to the city schools meeting or if there's a way to um I guess do an official memo on the exact timing.

I think I think all of us need that in order to make a decision about the budget.

Thank you.

With that, I think I'm I'm done.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Uh so at the Commission on Aging, we had a very, very insightful presentation from a representative of Wiser, the Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement.

Uh a lot of very interesting stats in terms of caregivers, but I think one of the biggest takeaways is that all of us at one point in our lives, well, the majority of us at some point in our lives will either be caring for another person or receiving care.

And so how do we prepare for that point in our lives?

Um I thought it was very, very appropriate conversation, uh, one that doesn't uh get held enough uh with families um all across uh not just the country, but I'd say the world.

So very engaging.

And then I'm not gonna take any thunder away from what's gonna happen later on tonight, uh, but we did talk a little bit about the age-friendly plan.

But like I said, stick to stay tuned.

We will continue that later on uh this evening.

And next on the list is also Councilman Agary, the Council of Government's Transportation Transportation Planning Board.

COG TPB, lots of acronyms.

All right, Alphabet Soup.

Let's start with the first one.

We approved the UPWP, which is the unified planning work program.

We also approved the CCWP, which is a community connections work program.

Uh we also updated the TRIP, which is the Transportation Resilience Improvement Plan.

And um to give you an idea with that, that was mainly updated.

Uh bridges, stormwater infrastructure, roads and highways, and public transit infrastructure.

So making sure that for natural disasters and other disasters uh that we are resilient in our transportation modes, and we also got an update from Matuk, not Mad Dog, but MATOC, the Metropolitan Area Transportation Operations Coordination.

Um I was saying there's a lot of letters.

Um but basically it it's an organization that works regionally looking at incidents that will impact your commute greater than 30 minutes.

So uh 18-wheeler that gets you know T-boned on 95, a fire that's happening somewhere on 301, uh incidents like that that need coordination uh that will have an impact across the entire region potentially.

So interesting stuff, but that was uh TPB.

Okay, last but not least, the Eisenhower Partnership Board of Directors, Councilwoman Green.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and definitely last but not least.

Um the Eisenhower Partnership met.

Oh, and good evening, everyone in person and online.

Uh the Eisenhower Partnership met this past Friday on March 20th.

Um we should um be receiving some letters soon for the um projects that are coming up on Eisenhower Avenue.

So look out for those, my council colleagues.

The city manager's breakfast was held on third uh on March 18th.

Uh it's one of their biggest fundraisers, and there was over 70 people in attendance at the breakfast.

And uh, Mr.

City Manager, they said you did a wonderful job.

Um our mayor also spoke, and I think others were in attendance as well.

They did ask for more time for question and answer next year.

So just wanted to let you know that.

And their next event will be they're working on an event with Paul Stoddard, our director of planning so that'll be coming up in the fall which should also be a good one.

And then it is coming up on moving um movie nights uh the season for that which the first one will be May 16th for Shrek so the community um always loves packing the house for those movie events.

So there'll be one in May and then one in October as well.

We'll have another meeting in April and I look forward to giving you that update then.

Thank you.

Thank you Councilman Green and I would just echo um you did it was a really great presentation I thought very informative and I will take one on the question and answer because for those who were not there Jim uh was getting grilled and we had to step in and change it.

So with that are there any other oral report?

Okay.

Madam Clerk next item City Council General updates.

Okay.

Councilman and Gary Thank you Madam Mayor so back on the 12th had the opportunity to stop by William Ramsey for Nova RAF's Iftar.

It's always great to be seeing um the any of our rec centers to be utilized but especially utilized uh to create a safe space and welcoming place for our residents to be able to gather and have a good time.

So shout out to Nova Raft for a great Iftar that they had.

On the 13th I had an opportunity to stop by Minnie Howard shout out to Miss Gross in the library for her throwback technology um exhibit that she has up there.

Uh if you don't know what a rotary phone is you can go to the library and see what one is for for for our crowd in the room and folks watching on TV that's probably not a stretch but when you're talking to some some of the folks uh at the high school that are you know 16 and 14 yeah they have no idea what that is they have no idea what a regular camera is and developing film and different things like that so it's actually a lot of fun uh encourage anyone that has an opportunity to stop by uh the Minihoward Library to take a look at that.

Uh on the 15th I was uh in DC for the National League of Cities Congressional City Conference uh because as a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Federal Advocacy Committee uh we were meeting in person taking advantage of that uh to discuss strategy at the federal level and advocating uh to our federal delegation for continued transportation support and infrastructure supports uh on the 17th as part of my duties with the Womata Board uh we did a site visit at the uh RFK stadium site uh because we have a really great opportunity to look at this site holistically and how are we getting people in and out of there as efficiently and safely as possible.

Um and we want to make sure that transit isn't forgotten uh during that whole conversation uh so that was uh very good to be able to go to that uh also on the seventeenth uh shout out to the Boys and Girls Club uh McDonald's Mateos Mickey D's Mateos McDonald's um who got their start here in Alexandria and was hosting uh a McDonald's all American for Darius Bivens who lives here in Alexandria we wish him the best of luck uh March 31st in the McDonald's all American game which was really awesome.

Also shout out to the two APD officers that were there uh joining in the festivities um it was loud in there they couldn't hear anything in the back I couldn't hear anything in the front but it was great uh really good event the mayor was there we okay um yeah the mayor was there and I think some well our state senator was there and uh uh a good friend from the state delegation just south of the border uh so shout out to delegate McGuire.

Um on the 19th I had uh opportunity to stop by the uh act for Alexandria uh promotion for legacy month uh which will be in September uh but gathering the living legends uh was really great to have so many influential Alexandrians in the room at the same time and to hear some of the stories was just uh really exciting and if you love history then uh you would have loved that opportunity as well.

Uh on the 20th uh want to give a shout out to Elofuturo on their 28th anniversary um and also shout out to uh City of Alexander's own Michael Briscoe from the Workforce Development Center.

The team showed up strong and he was uh given an award so it's always great to see our wonderful staff being recognized for all the hard work and dedication uh in Alexandria and beyond uh on the 21st uh there was the opening reception for our eighth waterfront installation uh if you haven't had a chance to go down to the waterfront to check it out please do so it'll be up for eight to nine months something like that.

Um and then you know next year we'll have a ninth.

And uh lastly, I had the opportunity to stop by George Washington Middle School this morning uh for their annual civic engagement fair.

They're working on projects uh that they are impacted by either through the schools or through the city.

Uh some interesting projects, but the one thing that that kept on coming up, which I thought was interesting was uh the bathrooms.

And it's not just from a utilization point, but also from a safety standpoint.

So interesting, you know, interconnection of some of those themes there.

And with that, Madam Mayor, that's my report.

Thank you, Councilman Aguary.

Are there other oral reports?

Vice Mayor Bagley.

I just wanted to um acknowledge and thank um Patrick Henry for hosting me for Career Day.

Um I was able to appear remotely the other morning and got some great questions um from the youth and got to explain some things about how city government works.

But what I found really interesting and excited about it and wanted to uh thank Ms.

Clemens' class uh for their participation.

But um our young people have really good and interesting questions about land use.

I I was asked a lot of very specific land use questions about you know, what are we building here and how will the buses get there and um what if I want to walk places?

And so it was um just a chance to sort of highlight to my colleagues as well that everybody, you know, down to our seventh and eighth graders is very invested in the decisions we're making about what we're building and where we're building it.

And um is uh they have opinions, so I think we need to continue to try to include them in these conversations about the choices we're making on what we build and where we build them.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Bag Councilman Chapman.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um last night I actually had the opportunity uh stop my agenda Alexandria as they talked about uh housing.

Uh their focus was housing in Alexandria.

Are there solutions that we can agree on?

Uh they had folks uh from uh the development community, uh folks from Housing Alexandria, folks from our our own uh housing affordability uh advisory commission uh as well as uh individuals from uh CLI.

Uh and so uh they had a nice panel discussion about um what housing looks like in the next 40 years, frankly, um as we uh continue to look at policy, look at opportunity, uh, look at where housing can go in this area, uh not just in the city, but in the region, uh, as it is a regional discussion.

What does that look like?

Are we as community ready uh to build in the additional infrastructure uh in support of um partnerships, including our schools, uh, as we look at uh housing not only for single adults uh but for families as well.

Um so that was a good conversation.

Uh a lot of information that uh we routinely talk about uh here when it comes to not only uh singular development projects, but uh as we are starting to embark on our housing 2040 plan.

Um and so it was good to have another avenue to hear uh some of the same things that we've been talking about uh for a number of years.

Um stepping back uh earlier in the evening uh we had uh the Hume uh storm drain bypass meeting.

Uh I I bring that up because uh again the work of uh stormwater infrastructure is is not sexy, um, but it is uh continual.

Uh we are continuing to march to a certain drum uh to get projects done.

Uh and uh we are thankful to any of the residents that come out and learn about the work that's being done by uh city staff on some of those projects.

Um with that, oh, one more thing.

Uh the ch I had a chance to pop past uh the the chamber's um General Assembly breakfast.

Uh so it was great to see our delegation kind of talk about their time uh down in Richmond and some of the work uh that they've been working on.

Uh so uh with that, Madam Mayor, I'll turn it back over.

Okay.

Thank you, Councilman Chapman.

I have four quick ones.

First, it is National Reading Month, and so I want to thank the Campania Center for inviting me to read to one of their programs at Cora Kelly Elementary School.

I would encourage all of my colleagues.

This is a month to promote the importance of literacy across our community, and I know that there are also several other events happening in our city and um throughout our library system as well.

Second, I just want to say congratulations to the students at Blessed Sacrament.

Last Thursday and Friday, they did their school play.

I had the opportunity to attend with my family.

I think the official name is Susicle, but it was the Dr.

Seuss um play.

And um it was it was really, really good and standing room only.

So congratulations to all the young people who participated in that play.

I can say my five-year-old sat through the whole thing, my three-year-old not so much.

Um it's an experience.

I also want to give a special thank you for a new partnership between the Alexandria Soccer Association, the uh Department of Parks and Recreation, and Virginia American Water.

Last Saturday, they unveiled a new water bottle filling station at Ben Brennan Park in uh near Cameron Station.

And so it's an opportunity to promote our goals related to sustainability, but also to provide a better player and visitor experience for those attending games at Ben Brendan Park.

And then lastly, just wanted to let everyone know that this Friday is the kickoff to Alexandria Little League season.

And so the opening ceremonies will be at 5 30 at the Frankman Field, and yours truly will be throwing out the first pitch.

All right, I'll be there to watch.

With that, I think that is it for our oral reports.

At this time, I'm gonna ask for a moment of mayoral privilege.

I know that we have a lot of presentations to go into next.

And so recognizing that there are staff here for the items after the presentations, I would entertain a motion to take the roll call consent items out of order so that staff can leave before we go into the presentations.

There's been a motion by uh Councilwoman Green and a second by Councilman Chapman to take items eight through twelve out of order.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right, the ayes have it.

Madam Clerk, next item.

Action docket roll call consent items eight through twelve.

Okay, is there a motion to approve the roll call consent calendar items eight through twelve?

So there has been a motion by Councilman Aguirre and a second by Councilwoman Green.

Is there any discussion?

Madam May.

Vice Mayor Bagley.

I I just wanted to highlight um and I I appreciate you like West relocating the docket and passing the I support these items, but um there's two really exciting pieces here related to the Sansa and the Naja and moving forward, that construction project.

And so I just wanted to actually see members of our housing office just joining us up front here, but I'm only I'm only calling it out just because it's it's exciting and it's sort of um a last and final piece of the financing, and that project continues to move forward.

So I wanted to thank you all for the efforts that you've made to make sure that this project is successful.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Bagley.

Is there any additional discussion?

All right, hearing none, this is a roll call vote.

Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilman Ageary.

Hi.

Councilwoman Green.

Hi.

Vice Mayor Bagley.

Hi.

Councilman Chapman.

Councilman L.

Newby.

Aye.

All right.

The ayes have it.

All items eight through twelve are past.

So I hope it's part of the celebration.

You can get home a little earlier.

Thank you for being here.

Madam Clerk, next item.

City manager's oral reports.

Okay, so we are now going to go to the manager's oral reports.

We have four reports this evening.

We're gonna start with an update on FIFA, then we will go to a presentation from APD on the 2025 crime stats.

Then we will go into an after action report on the 2026 January storm event, Storm Fern, and then we will go into the waterfront flood mitigation update.

And uh for staff who are new to this room, we'll for each update have you just come up to the front and the mic, if you as soon as you push it and it turns red, then it is on.

Thank you.

Uh Mr.

Manager.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

So uh while uh our CEO of uh Visa Alexandria uh Todd O'Leary is joining us, um uh Visa Alexandria was instrumental in securing uh this FIFA uh host city uh opportunity for us and uh Todd's got an update that's uh really what I'll call the introduction of the update because there's a lot more work that's gonna be done and uh a lot of really exciting things.

So I'm gonna turn it over to Todd.

Great, thank you so much.

Uh it's great to be with all of you this evening and give you an update um on the FIFA World Cup that's coming uh to our country uh and to other countries and how Alexandria is gonna play a role in all of that.

Just a bit of a level set on um the the overall event.

So the event is taking place starting in June, running through July.

Um again, three host countries this year.

So the the United States, Canada, and Mexico will all play host to this particular event.

This is expected to be the largest uh World Cup in history, which is really exciting, and it's an expanded format.

48 teams, 104 matches, 16 host or match cities.

Um and you see some of those regional uh cities um here on the East Coast, including Toronto that will play um host to some of the matches that'll take place.

Expected visitation overall, seven million people coming to the three different countries and about 3.7 million here in the United States.

So, how about Alexandria's role in the uh in the World Cup?

You you'll remember that we actually bid on two different pieces of business that brought us to the two different um opportunities.

One last year when we played host to Al Ain FC out of the United Arab Emirates for the 2025 Club World Cup.

That came off so well.

We showed very well, as you all remember, that uh brought us uh the opportunity to host Croatia.

And we were again uh the Croatian team's number one choice uh to be their team base camp here as part of the 2026 World Cup.

So a little bit about that Croatian soccer team.

They are known as the Vatroni.

You can see their uh they truly a world uh superstar as it relates to soccer.

Luka Modric is their team cap captain.

They're currently the Croatian team is ranked number 10 in the entire world.

So that's really notable for us that we are going to be hosting one of the best soccer teams in the entire world here in our community.

Um you see the matches listed there that they're going to be playing in.

So here again, our our city's uh offerings are one thing.

Our proximity to Arlington, Texas, Toronto, and Philadelphia are also key in helping the the Vatrini make the decision to come here to Alexandria.

We've established a number of World Cup goals as part of the event.

First and foremost, we do want to provide that warm welcome to the Croatian team and those who travel with them.

Again, this will be their home away from home for a month.

They're going to be here, they're going to be training and obviously competing at a very high level.

And so we want to make sure that uh we provide that warm welcome and get them the amenities that they need to be successful in their quest for the trophy.

We also want to drive awareness of and demand for Alexandria.

I'll talk a little bit about our marketing efforts in a second.

We also want to showcase the city to sports tourism planners.

We recognize this is a key moment in time to be on the world stage and show how Alexandria is really in that conversation of being able to host events like this.

And so we want to take that opportunity to sort of expose, if you will, the community to other folks who might be planning sports tourism related kinds of events.

We also recognize that there will be a lot of media, um, potentially up to a hundred media per day here in Alexandria of a global nature and a domestic nature too, of course, that we'll be following the team and the FIFA World Cup.

So we want to make sure that we're also taking that opportunity to insert ideas, story ideas specifically about Alexandria and kind of broaden up our opportunities.

Of course, we also want to drive incremental visitor spending that is so important to the community as well.

And so we're going to be working with our local uh business owners to make sure that we are uh doing just that.

So, what's being planned?

This is very top line.

Um, but uh again, as I talked about before, making sure that that team has what they need to operate at a really high level and providing amenities, whether those are cultural food and beverage options, whether those are places of worship, whether those are any things that again help that team be successful are things that we're interested in here in making sure that we're providing those team amenities.

We're going to be marketing Alexandria to those World Cup fans.

So advertising, social media, again, PR playing a very key role in how we do that.

We're developing a World Cup section of our website at Visit Alexandria.com.

So I got my first pass at what the team is uh putting together for that, and it's it's in a good place that is going to be launching here in the next few days.

Developing content, serving up inspiration again about Alexandria and our soccer heritage and how our community in in whole and in part is creating this um you know very welcoming up uh um opportunity for um for this particular event.

We already have a lot of in-language visitor information that we provide.

Uh we have, I think, 18 different languages that some of our key visitor information is um translated into.

Croatian is not at present one of those, but of course, we're we're creating in-language Croatian uh visitor information as well.

Community training session.

This is a going to be a quasi-public event that at this point we're envisioning a lot of uh local youth sports of uh children, school-age children, um, especially those that are involved in soccer programs after school, soccer programs, for instance, that are going to be invited to watch the team play here in Alexandria.

So that is something we're working on probably happening in June.

We're also excited, and the mayor and the city manager and I had the opportunity to meet with the Croatian ambassador to the United States a few weeks ago on a very snowy day in Alexandria.

Uh, we had a great uh meeting with the Croatian ambassador.

I thought it was very productive, very positive.

Um, coming out of that, lots of opportunities for partnerships.

And so there is a literally a laundry list of things that are coming out of that particular partnership that's really developing quite nicely, including events.

So the Croatian Embassy is going to be working with us here in Alexandria to put together cultural events that are meant to educate more folks here about the Croatian culture and celebrate that in the context of the World Cup.

So we're we're excited about that.

More more to come on that as those details come available.

The last two are things I alluded to before, seeding stories about Alexandria to those those media that are going to be in town.

We know, of course, they're going to be covering a sports-centric kind of piece about the World Cup, but where are our opportunities to seed stories about Alexandria in that context to broaden out the that conversation and uh expose, if you will, more of our community to uh to folks who are reading about the the event in general.

And then again, showcasing Alexandria to those sports event planners, as I mentioned before, and so we're looking at some different opportunities to do just that.

So finally, um this is my last slide, business opportunities.

So we're working again with our local um businesses to um it's create ideas, spur ideas within the business community.

Um you see some of the ideas here.

I won't go through all of them, but creating themed activations with obviously a cultural and or soccer flair, um, creating watch parties, other events, and you see we have just started some ideas for some of our specific types of um businesses here in Alexandria to take full advantage of this particular key moment in time for our destination.

Um we're gonna again uh going to be serving all of that content and inspiration up in our marketing and promotional channels.

So with that, and that's that's what I have on FIFA.

Thank you.

Uh yes, Mr.

Manager.

Yeah, and just want to add uh one more thing.

Um so I mentioned how wonderful uh Todd and his team are in leading this effort, but we also had episcopal uh that is uh the Episcopal School has really uh played an instrumental role in the securing of the host city event, but also in the particularly the playing on the community training session, which is really critical.

Uh and then hotel aka in Old Town North has been instrumental as well.

So it's really been a good team effort, and just want to highlight and recognize that team along with Todd and his team as well.

Thank you, Mr.

Manager.

Are there questions for uh Vice Mayor Bagley?

Um, thank you.

Congratulations.

I'm very, very excited.

Um I'm curious, just the phrasing on this slide.

I wasn't sure.

Is there like a kit that you have ready for small businesses who say we'd like to decorate our window?

So yeah, I see you nodding.

I just want to be sure, like, so is this some sort of kit that that businesses who want to opt in can be told things like you know, color choices and products that might be well received.

Yeah, I appreciate that question.

And and we are doing just exactly what you described, Vice Mayor Bagley, uh toolkit uh specific to FIFA.

Uh we also have one, by the way, for America 250 and our new destination marketing campaign.

So those are things that we're doing and to to enable those those um connections to these different opportunities.

That's great.

No, thank you.

And I think maybe it's incumbent upon each of us as well as we interact with businesses, you know, to sort of mention that you know this is coming and that if they'd like to learn more, they can contact Visit Alexandria.

I assume that toolkit is not only available to members of Visit Alexandria, but to members of the business community locally.

It's on our website, and we're happy again with a connection to to email that link out.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

And my understanding is that there will also be a link on the website where you can register your events.

So even if you're not a member, all of the events happening in the city can be promoted.

That's right.

We have a filter on our calendar of events, which is our most high highest trafficked page of the website that will filter FIFA or World Cup specific themed events out, and that'll be part of that webpage that I talked about.

Councilman Green and then Councilman Chapman.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you for the presentation.

This is so exciting.

I'm looking forward to it.

Um just a quick question.

I know you focused on local businesses, which is very important.

Is there any way to capitalize upon national style uh sponsorships with businesses that FIFA has?

I know McDonald's is big on that.

How could we tie that in with McDonald's that are in you know locally here, something along those lines?

Potentially.

FIFA is very buttoned up when it comes to their sponsorships and when we're putting together this community training session, um, those are things that we are expecting to receive some guidance from FIFA on and how we work or maybe are not allowed to work with a McDonald's, for instance, on that.

So more information from FIFA is expected within the next month on that specifically.

Councilman Chapman.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um Todd, I had a quick question on kind of being able to maybe explore more, tell us more about kind of what does it look like in terms of showcasing this might be early, but in terms of showcasing Alexandria to sports event planners, like the the thought there, the vision there.

The leading idea that we have is to bring in sports planners who maybe have considered Alexandria but haven't quite gotten to the point of booking a piece of business here in Alexandria.

So inviting them on a fam or a familiarization tour of Alexandria with this as the sort of you know global spotlight uh opportunity to generate excitement and uh obviously again show our hosting chops of being able to um host this kind of event.

Okay.

So that's kind of the lead.

There's some other ideas too, but that's that's the primary leading um opportunity we're exploring.

Okay.

Yeah.

Perfect.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

And I guess I would just say in closing uh to my colleagues, um this is a huge deal for us.

And when we met with the ambassador, I won't say the name of the other city that we are against, but I was just looking at their website, and they're recognized as one of the best cities in the world.

And so for the team to choose us, um, what the ambassador said is it's because of our top facilities, but it's mostly because of the people and the way we treated them and the way we made Alexandria feel like home.

So this is extremely exciting.

Uh, as Todd mentioned, there are a lot of other events that will be planned.

I know when we spoke with the ambassador, we started focused on one event, and I think he suggested like 12 events.

Um, and then a number of opportunities also for our residents to go to the embassy to experience different cultural events as there as well.

So I would just say to everyone, this is really only the beginning.

There's a lot more work.

So thank you to visit Alexandria.

Thank you to the manager's office and all of the staff that are working on this.

But um it it's really huge for a city of our size to be recognized in this way and for all of the things that we are going to be doing uh to promote this activity.

You think about it, the only city in the entire DMV that is playing a role in the World Cup in general is notable as part of what you're what you're talking about, Mayor.

So I very much appreciate that.

And Councilman Chapman, you should know another fun fact was that um one of their other favorite cities is the city of Pittsburgh, and they will be bringing in buses of people to come here from the Director O'Brien.

Um I can attest to he did say that.

Um so the next item is um our APD 2025 uh crime statistics public safety update.

Um this is uh kind of an annual update.

This is not the large annual update the chief will do later in the season.

Uh this is really related to specifics on some of the data that's been uh get uh ready to be released uh for the 2025 year.

So, Chief.

Good evening.

Uh Madam Mayor, members of City Council.

Uh as you know, I am Tarek McGuire.

I am the Chief of Police of the Alexandria Police Department.

And I'm extremely humbled uh to not only be a member of this community, uh, but to lead the men and women of our organization.

I was appointed by the city manager in November of 2024 and have sat in the seat as chief of police for at least 16 months.

As I've integrated into the department and the Alexandria community, I have witnessed firsthand the work that our officers do on a daily basis.

For example, in May of last year, there were two women that were attacked near Metro stations in our city.

I saw officers quickly respond, assess the situation, utilize technology, and they identified a suspect and made an arrest within 48 hours.

Another example is in October of last year, there was a nine-year-old kid that went missing from one of our elementary schools.

The young man had autism.

Officers quickly responded, located him at a nearby library, and returned him to school.

And maybe a mother said at best one day I was out on foot patrol in a nearby community surrounding Old Town.

Uh, and she walked up to me and she said, Chief, I am a single mother.

I have five sons.

And if it were not for your officers mentoring my sons, I don't know where I would be.

These are a few examples of the message of this oral report as it identifies the rigors of police work and the impact to make our city safer.

With that understanding, I have two goals today.

I want to talk about public safety from a national and regional perspective, and then discuss APD's crime reduction strategy and our crime data.

So when we talk about public safety from a national perspective, as a resource to better understand crime trends, police departments rely upon the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program.

On average, over 16,000 police agencies submit data through the National Incident-Based Reporting System, commonly referred to as NIVERS.

NIBERS captures criminal incidents throughout small annual reporting with detailed characteristics for major crime categories.

With that understanding, there are approximately 18,000 police departments in the United States of America, and an average of 86 percent of those police departments voluntarily report information to the FBI crime data dashboard.

In review of national trends from year 2023 to 2024, violent crime has decreased in American cities an average of 4.5 percent, and property crime decreased an average of 8.1 percent.

Regionally, many counties and cities throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia have experienced similar crime reductions.

As a barometer, many researchers utilize a formula that evaluates increases and decreases in crime per capita or the population density.

This means each person is more likely or less likely to experience crime or be infected by it relative to the population, not just the average numbers.

As you are all aware, the Brookings Institute, a nationally recognized research organization, reported an average reduction of 10 to 14 percent per capita or 100,000 people regionally as it relates to our comparatives here in the DMV.

From November to 2024 to November to 2025, these numbers also represented that the City of Alexandria experienced a 57 percent reduction per capita per 100,000 people.

This is very significant for our community.

And so I'm often asked how are we able to accomplish the crime reduction numbers that we have in this city.

At our core, the department has an emphasis on incorporating evidence-based strategies to address systematic crime issues.

I want to explain what evidence-based policing is.

It's more than a data evaluation.

It is a utilization of implementing police research and science to make operational decisions.

It is a process to recognize policing strategies and responses for all communities should not be the same.

They should be prescriptive and not only address crime but also address the issues that are symptomatic of that crime.

So over this past year, uh I want to give a shout-out to Acting Assistant Chief Dennis Andreas.

I charged him with introducing a weekly crime review meeting to incorporate those evidence-based policing practices.

Not only have we done that, but we have also fully integrated new mapping and data integration technology to help us take a more analytical approach in evaluating crime.

Programming has not only allowed us to evaluate historical crime trends, but it's given our commanders, members of our command staff team the ability to forecast operations, I'm sorry, operations to interdict crime.

For example, over this past year, we repurposed a policing unit and developed the Alexandria Tourism Oriented Policing Unit.

This unit's primary focus was to focus on Potomac Yards and the King Street Corridor in Old Town.

Upon creation, they work to build relationships with area businesses in collaboration with their operations.

More specifically, these retail areas are highly visited by residents and tourists and have historically driven larcenies in our city.

Through the application of building those relationships with businesses and larceny interdiction, they have reduced crime in those micro areas.

Historically, they have contributed to year-over-year increases.

And so I want to be more specific about some of the evaluation of those businesses and operations and the effectiveness of building relationships.

There are times that we have approached businesses and they have not been consistent or open to work with us.

By centering these units and officers in those particular areas, they've been able to not only collaborate with those businesses, they've been also able to identify days and times of the week that these crimes are occurring and not do follow-up but also arrest people in progress as they are committing offenses.

I cannot emphasize the importance of building relationships within the community, especially as residents are informed prior to our police operations.

While a report card for performance is representative of crime data, it is equally important that public safety is co-produced.

In many cases, we stood before the community last year.

We listened to their concerns, we informed them about our actions, and we also told them what we would do to address crime issues while also soliciting their assistance.

Over this past year, APD participated approximately in 180 community events.

And the pinnacle of that celebration of those events was us while our department being recognized by National Light Out as one of the top 15 police departments for community engagement in the country of populations, no more than 300,000 persons.

Lastly, prior to discussing the annual crime numbers, I want to note some of the success uh that our department has achieved has been by the utilization of technology.

Earlier I discussed how technology supports informed decision making through our weekly crime review, and I further want to emphasize how it assists during our investigations.

As you all are aware, a few weeks ago I did a joint press conference with other police leaders throughout the DMV on a suspect who is facing multiple sexual assault allegations.

The origin of that case originated here within our city.

And not only did it originate here within our city, our detectives worked diligently to identify that suspect, and they immediately put the warrant on the system.

Hours after putting that warrant on the system, a license plate recognition reader identified the vehicle traveling through our city.

And because of that, our officers were able to make an immediate stop, take the suspect into custody without further incident to do harm to persons throughout the DMV.

That is the importance of technology in helping us solve crime here within this city.

That same technology helped us establish over 138 leads in criminal cases on last year.

And most importantly, it helped us recover 12 missing persons here within our community.

And so when you look at these numbers that I'm about to talk about, uh technology embodies a significant contribution to us being able to solve crime.

And so what are our crime numbers?

Comparing 2024 to 2025, I am helping to report that crime is down in Alexandria by an average of 30 percent.

Overall violent crime was reduced by an average of 29 percent, a difference of 111 offenses, and overall property crime was down by an average of 30 percent, a difference of over 1,300 offenses.

That is significant, and I want to share that these crime numbers are somewhat subject to change as data comes in and cases are finalized.

So, for example, uh we had three homicides on last year.

There were three that were reported on this year, and I learned today uh that one of those homicides are going to be justified, uh, which is going to result uh in one homicide reduction.

So we are reporting two on last year.

And so these numbers are subject to change a little bit, uh, but I'm very confident that we have had an overall 30 percent reduction in crime and look to provide you more updated information uh when I come before back before you in a few months.

The last thing I want to say is is that you know, every year as we work toward to reducing crime in this city, uh it's not a sprint, it's a marathon.

We will have highs and lows, but what's most important is that we continue to work with members of our community, and that is why over this last year uh we have been listening to members in community meetings, understanding what is important to them.

Uh and as a police department, policing will continue to change, uh, and we need to be ahead of that change, but we also need to be able to adapt.

Uh, and we are working to finalize a five-year public safety plan that I plan to come back before council and and present in a few months.

In that plan, uh it will identify pillars by which we will operate by.

You'll see more additional longitudinal crime data, and you'll also see uh traffic data uh that is incorporated in that.

That is all I have, and I'm subject to any questions.

Thank you, Chief, for the presentation.

Are there questions or comments from the council?

Councilman Agarry.

Chief, thank you for being here and uh congratulations on these numbers.

I think it's a testament, not just to the leadership that we have here in our police department, but also to all the officers.

Um I've always considered our community a very safe one.

Uh and unfortunately, you know, every election cycle that I've gone through, we've had to deal with folks saying that we're not in a safe community.

It's not to say that we're perfect by any means.

Uh do we have pockets at times, whether it's violence or other issues, of course.

Um that's any any place that's our size is gonna deal with that.

Um so I'm hoping that through your department, through the city, through all of us and the rest of the community, we can really help to push that that narrative out to push back against this false narrative that we're having uh an increase in crime and that we are in an unsafe community.

Um that always is is a great frustration of mine.

Um just want to say thank you for all the hard work and then a very, very minor comment, if you don't mind going back two slides.

Um maybe this is just a me thing uh from a visual standpoint.

I almost thought that things had increased just because of of the reading.

Um I just say, you know, if you had to put like a an arrow down or I put the arrow underneath it or something like that.

Very, very minor, just and uh it maybe it's just me, I don't know if anybody else had that, but like just wanted to make the comment for you quickly.

But again, thank you for all of this.

Yes, sir, no problem.

Thank you, Councilman Gary, Vice Mayor Bagley.

Uh thank you all, and for the work and and the reduction noted.

Um it's appreciated.

I I I wanted to take a moment, you know, you you touched on the use of license plate readers and technology and the role that what I'm taking it has played in in some of these reduction figures.

We've obviously had um a lot of speakers and just a lot of interest in the community and statewide about sort of the use and the protection of that kind of data.

And I'm wondering um if you could just share with the public a little bit, and I think like the license plate reader data is is a good you know opportunity to do so.

Um, you know, how is that information accessed, by whom, and when is it no longer available?

Um just to kind of give some broader context, as I think people are concerned about data protection, privacy, and and how the city is using these technology tools.

Well, thank you.

I th I think that is a adequate question for a lot of people, not only in our community but uh but across the nation.

Um I will tell you number one that our police department has always had strong policy.

Uh it has strong policy as related to uh technology before I got here, specifically uh fly cameras have been called to question in the question nationally and the use of license plate readers.

Uh we only utilize uh license plate readers uh for criminal purposes, right?

For crime purposes during the investigation of a crime.

Uh and the Commonwealth of Virginia has enacted legislation uh about retention periods, which is a 21-day retention period, uh, and also the utilization of what that can be used by.

Uh so previously, uh if you, for example, if if someone in Maryland that was a law enforcement agency or if it was Washington, D.C.

and they wanted to access our data that was that was open space as it relates to exchange between other law enforcement agencies.

Uh now uh the legislation requires that a warrant be submitted, uh, but also that retention period has stayed the same, which is 21 days.

If we were to keep any type of data uh beyond that 21 days, it would have to be for an ongoing investigation.

Uh but prior to state legislation, uh our retention period was 21 days.

Uh we also have internal auditing of that data inside the police department uh because we do respect uh privacy rights and uh I think again technology will continue to emerge, but it's most important that we as police departments have good strong policy uh and regulatory authority and how we're fact-checking ourselves in the utilization of technology.

So the last thing I'll say is if you just remember years ago uh when body warrants came out.

Uh it was a it was a it was a significant issue in policing.

Number one, several many officers thought that it was going to track what they were communicating and saying, uh, and then some citizens were not comfortable with them.

When we see the the matriculation of body warrant cameras today, it gives us real-time information about what is going on and costs for service, and I think for a lot of police officers, even when complaints are made against them and they are false, uh, it also provides information to validate that.

So we will continue to see the the uh you know implementation of police technology, especially as force multipliers, uh and as technology evolves, especially artificial intelligence.

Uh but for our organization, number one, I want to be very clear.

Uh we are self-correcting, we are self-assessing, uh, and we have strong model policy.

And the second thing is we're going to follow the law uh which has been set forth through the Commonwealth of Virginia.

If I can ask just to follow, yeah, so just in follow-up and to sort of say this back to you in layman's terms and make sure I understand the policy correctly.

Is that true for any law enforcement agency that to access data that our license plate readers are gathering, you need a warrant or a case number.

It's not generally available.

And that that's I think what I heard you say is to to to access our system, especially outside of our agency, you need to come to us with a warrant.

So if you are outside of the Commonwealth of Virginia, right, it does require a warrant.

If you are inside the Commonwealth of Virginia and you are a local or state law enforcement agency, that data is open and share.

It is not open to federal law enforcement.

Thank you, sir.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Um we don't necessarily need to do a deeper dive on it here, but I I guess do we have, are we confident in our data protection?

I'm thinking more cybersecurity for those unlawful actors who might, you know, want access to this information.

Are we also investing in sort of the cybersecurity and the security-related policies so that somebody who isn't trying to go through those processes also cannot access this information?

Yes, I I say confid confidently, we have had no infractions of uh LPR data where you have saw some infractions or uh associated with private businesses that may not have the level of law enforcement protection.

Uh and as this evolves and these issues evolve, you will also see other vendors uh that have uh maybe stronger frameworks, and so we're consistently evaluating what is out on the market, uh, but we have had no infractions of our data here in the city.

All right, I appreciate that, sir.

And if I could, I just want to take a quick moment to acknowledge um your assistant chief or deputy chief, assistant chief.

Assistant chief.

Assistant chief um as well.

I know you uh you recognized um assistant chief andreas earlier, but um I had the opportunity, I think the mayor and I and others to hear you speak at the women's leadership forum, and I just wanted to publicly acknowledge, I thought what um an impressive presentation you made and how compelling a story you told about your path to law enforcement.

And I think it's a story the rest of Alexandria should hear when they have an opportunity.

And Chief, I just wanted to acknowledge, you know, the the powerful sort of leadership you have, you know, sitting with you tonight and what an impression it made on me, your story that day.

So thank you so much for speaking on that panel and for the work you do in our department.

Uh I have Councilman Chapman next in the queue, and then I will come to Councilman Aguirre.

I'm sorry, Councilman.

I'm sorry, I'm so tired.

Councilman Alnuby.

Um before and then I have Councilman Green.

Before I do, I do just want to pick up on the comments of Vice Mayor Bagley.

Um for anyone who attended the women's leadership forum, I don't think there was a person that left not transformed by your words.

But also I think being mayor and serving in this city, I am always so proud of the staff that we have who represent our community and the way you not only spoke about your journey, but the way you spoke about APD.

I think everyone in there also left very proud of the men and women who serve our community and the work they show up to do every single day.

So I just want to echo that thanks as well.

And that'll turn it to Councilman Chapman.

Well, um I should have been at that event.

Okay.

Um try to find the video.

Talk to the chamber.

Um I wanted to kind of pick up on the Vice Mayor's comments uh, because I am also appreciative of the role that you've used for technology.

Um I've definitely been in support of some of the work that we've done.

I know uh at times when we've APDs wanted to move forward with some kind of uh initiatives we've kind of kind of held back on some of those.

And I think as we look towards a uh five-year plan, I'd be very interested in seeing what additional technology opportunities are out there and be able to really have the conversation within council within the community around uh the role of that technology, how how responsible we can be with that technology.

I think it, you know, I I know a number of community members are are worried about um things going awry uh with technology and people having access to certain data and things of that nature.

But with the position of APD, the messaging, not only the messaging, but the the philosophy and the foundation that you are setting around uh the use of technology and how responsible uh as a as a department and as a city we are being with technology, I think we can hopefully ensure and uh talk to the community about the the need to continue to press further to take advantage of the opportunities out there with technology, um, but also ensure them that we are using it, uh, as you said specifically for uh catching criminals.

You know, I I appreciate you saying that.

Um, you know, we are we are committed to public education and not only that, uh, but you know, prior to coming up here, uh as you all noted, Alexandria is a world-class city, uh, and it attracts uh people that come here all across the country.

And even hosting a Croatian team for FIFA and the tourism that they will bring here to the city.

Uh we have to have force multipliers uh outside of our men and women uh and utilize good use of that technology.

And so, you know, whether whether uh it's mutual aid from cities for um, you know, utilization of drones or or real-time information, uh the city is growing, uh people are coming here, uh, and we also need that technology not just to address the criminal element, uh, but it also serves as a force multiplier to de-escalate situations uh and also to to kind of keep our community safe.

Uh and so, you know, we are committed to that.

Uh we're going to continue to grow this department with support of the manager and mayor council uh because as you said, we we have a lot of excellent officers here that want to do the right thing.

Uh and our goal is to work to make this the safest city in America.

Councilman L.

Neby.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

First of all, congratulations on these terrific numbers.

Appreciate it.

Um thank you to everyone who works every day really hard in APD to keep our community safe.

Um I think it's very, very good to see these numbers and the drop in the crime rates.

I'm going to follow up on the license plate reader conversation a little bit, Chief.

Um said that other law enforcement agencies in Virginia have access to our data, right?

Is there anything in the law to preclude them from sharing that data with Federal agencies or to prevent them from sharing that data with Federal agencies?

Number one, I would say if they are if they share it that information, then they will be in violation of state law.

Uh and so those parameters have been put in place that they cannot share that information.

Uh and if they did, I would say that they would be subject to uh prosecution I hear you.

What worries me is we're dealing with the Federal Administration that does not respect the law that's lawless, especially ICE.

Um I know there are a lot of communities out there in Virginia that don't share our values when it comes to protecting immigrations, uh immigrants, and protecting civil rights.

So while I hear you on the state law piece, it just still gives me worry that that may not be enough guardrails.

So I think that and that's a lot of what I've been hearing from community members.

Um I know, you know, the previous exchange focused on how we are protecting the data, and I respect that, and I I think that's great.

I'm worried about others.

Um that's that's the piece that worries me.

Um I I don't know if there's an answer to it that we here can do, but I think it's a conversation that's worth having.

Um because it comes to federal government, they're they don't respect laws.

And I I mean there's also probably a legal component to it that maybe at one point um a legal uh we'd need the legal opinion on, because there's whole thing with federal law and state law and supremacy clause.

So, you know, the st if if the if the feds claim that they have a law, a federal law that says, you know, we need this data, you have to give us this data, state law doesn't mean anything at that point.

Um so that's that's where I'm coming from, and that's what worries me about, you know, this.

So while I hear you on the guardrails, I it's still I still feel that there are not enough guardrails, and I still worry about where it's being done with our data.

Um I hear the upside of of using, I'm all for using technology, don't get me wrong.

It's just when it comes to the guardrails, are they strong enough to protect um the civil liberties of our citizens?

So uh uh you know, it's a response that uh I you know I empathize with with that comment, I empathize with the search uncertainty.

Uh I can speak to what we do here and and what has been put into law in the Commonwealth of Virginia, which is not consistent with other states uh in America.

Uh as a police chief, uh I would hope that that no executive desires to be criminally prosecuted, nor lose organizational accreditation or their police powers uh for their police agency.

Um, you know, and so I I think that again the law speaks to those strongholds to ensure that there is accountability and the usage of that information.

Uh and you know, I'm not a politician, so I don't want to get into uh just kind of the the political mindset uh but but in my experience and working with other chiefs uh throughout the Commonwealth.

Um have different varying opinions uh, but for the most part uh we follow the law.

And I think that uh no different if if there was a violation of federal law, then there is a risk to be criminally indicted.

Um we follow the state law here in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Okay, Councilwoman Green.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, thank you, Chief, assistant chiefs, captains in the back, thank you all for being here.

Um I feel incredibly safe in this room tonight.

I just want to say that.

Um thank you for all the work that you do in our community.

Um my question is around um Operation Tourism.

Did I make that up?

Is that what you call it?

Okay.

So all right, I named it something else.

Sorry about that, Chief.

Um I remember when it first started and the businesses were very vocal about they wanted to see something happen.

Um I love the fact that I do see how it has been working.

Um, but I would love to see some data around it.

Is that is that data available?

Is the program still in existence?

Has it stopped?

Have we moved on to something else?

I would just love to get like a recap of of the program from when it started to where we are now.

Yes, we can we can get a recap of that.

Um I think that number one, the areas that they have been working in, um, you know, some of those areas we saw a 10 percent crime reduction.

Uh and so there are certain locations within our city that are retail locations that have driven our larcenies for years.

Uh and primarily those areas are where people love to shop and where you can walk into a business location uh and probably grab three to four items and it's a felony larceny because the amount you know exceeds into thousands of dollars.

Uh and so that has been the coordination, right, and interdicting in some of this uh information.

The other thing is visibility.

Now, where we have a greater opportunity, uh, especially over uh the summer months uh in our higher tour season uh is to leverage those units but expand uh our overtime usage to how have higher visibility of officers in those specific areas.

But the intricate point behind this, why we have saw that success is because we've had detailed officers that are in those areas every single day, and they have a mission specific focus to develop relationships with those businesses and through partnership, uh they have allowed us into spaces to historically where we have not been.

And so I'm open to to kind of giving a more uh a detailed report, a deep dive to you on that, uh, and I think we have the data to support that.

Thank you.

All right.

Um, one last quick kudos too, because I did see that uh a satellite office was set up out of Bradley.

Um I think that's long time coming that we've needed there.

So thank you for that.

Yes, sir.

So I had uh three quick questions and a comment.

I'll start with my comment, sort of um picking up where Councilman Green left us.

I think one area where we continue to get questions is related to the old town area, particularly the hundred and two hundred block of king along weekends.

I don't know that we need to cover it now, but when you come back for the longer update, I'd be curious specifically what um is the tourism unit strategy along those blocks on weekends and evenings, and if there's any changes that might go into place as we move into the summer months.

Yes, ma'am.

The other question I had, uh I echo the same comments as my colleagues in terms of congratulations, not only to you but to the entire department and the work that has gone on here.

I can tell you from the Brooking slide when we saw the presentation, there were 20 sides of doom and gloom, and then this was the one bright spot.

I guess my question would be it's great to see that all of the numbers are going down, but recognizing we want to continuously improve.

I guess which one of these areas is probably our greatest challenge in the city of the different categories that we have here.

Well, that's a good question, Mayor.

I think it's a multifaceted question.

Um, you know, going back to the Brookins report, normally what we have saw historically is when you see unemployment rates go south, right, go down, uh then you see crime go up.

Uh and uh I will tell you that uh there is a mirror of of issues of the why.

Uh but when we look at uh some of these categories, I give you this example, right?

Um normally uh robberies, when people look at a robbery category, they think about someone pulling a weapon uh out on someone, right, and then taking something that belongs to them.

Uh but those robberies also could start out as a larceny uh where a lost prevention officer may try to stop someone stealing something, right?

And if that person is assaulted, uh then it becomes a robbery.

Uh and so when you look at all of those crime categories, there are a mirror of issues from from, you know, divestic violence in our aggravated assault category.

Um there is uh youth violence as it relates to a percentage of that.

Um so I would I would say that uh you know it's hard to answer uh that that question specifically.

Um what I will say uh is uh just resource allocation, I I think is important.

Uh and so again, I I emphasize the utilization of technology to to add a broad sweeping uh focus on all crime categories, uh but they all each overlay uh with each other and can um you know shift to to either at any point in time.

Uh but when it comes to violence, right, uh I think that's the biggest issue uh that where there needs to be a significant folks because it equates to to loss of human life.

Uh and so, you know, every time there is a a shooting in our community, um, you know, it could easily be a homicide.

Uh and again, that goes back to technology, where are guns coming from, right?

Uh working with the ATF, identifying cell phone data and all of that equates to technology.

So if I were to ask this council for anything, one consistent theme that you've heard tonight uh for us to continue to work to make this community safe is the exploration and investment in technology because the biggest challenge for police departments is uh especially this time of hiring and attrition and workforce allocation, we cannot be in the same place, but but we can have the effective use of technology to impact these crime categories.

If I could just add on that, I think that there's definitely an interest in hearing more about those opportunities to explore that.

I think one reflection from the past is I think when this conversation has been entered into before, there hasn't been a clear kind of this is the technology we feel is most appropriate for Alexandria.

This is the phasing that we want to do in order to roll that out.

These are the systems that we need in place in order to be able to support that.

I think one example that comes to mind is when we had our first discussion about a potential real-time crime center.

And I think the budget memo was of maybe for 20,000 one time.

And for me, it felt very difficult to engage in that conversation, knowing that any investment in technology can't be one time.

And 20,000 is probably not enough to adequately resource that.

So I guess this would just be an invitation to you and to the team that maybe we do need a dedicated conversation around technology, but a much deeper dive on kind of what are we looking at, how would it work, and what's the cost, so that we could begin planning for that.

Understood.

And then two other quick ones for me.

Um you mentioned that we are implementing several new, I guess, evidence-based strategies.

This may not be an answer for tonight, but again, for your longer presentation.

We currently, in the budget book as well as in the Health and Safety Committee, have a certain, I guess three or four KPIs that we evaluate the police department on.

I would just be curious as you implement new strategies, whether or not we need to change the current evaluation metrics that we have to better align with the strategies you're implementing so that we can measure those over time.

And then I don't know if our citywide dashboard captures this, but some of the calls that we get or the 311s that we've been getting most recently are related to, you know, loud muffler noises and and things like that.

Is there a way to easily capture um how we are addressing some of those, I guess like nuisance and quality of life related issues?

Yes, so I had the privilege of speaking to some of our senior citizens earlier uh at a uh apartment community that you have recently frequent.

Uh and they brought up, you know, muffler noise uh on today.

Uh and so I I think that as it relates to nuisance crime that you know we absolutely can look at that and kind of searching off how we respond to those specific calls.

I think the the biggest challenge is that I'll express to them uh is there are things that we can enforce because it is visible visibly in our presence.

Uh and then there are things that you know we can not take immediate action on because it was not visible in our presence.

Uh but I think we can we can look at how to uh better look at how we respond to those crimes and probably provide some supportive data on that.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Are there any uh Councilman Chapman?

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and uh I appreciate you bringing up the real-time um center.

Uh I would I would definitely be interested in manager.

I don't know if we have any budget stuff here, but I'd love um kind of a memo on what that could look like to the mayor's point.

Um, I appreciated the opportunity to kind of get started with that.

I would love to see if there's a better kind of vision for what that looks like, um, if there are steps uh to kind of get that started and how we go about that.

I think you know, even if we're not able to fund it in this this year's budget, um, given where we are, um I would definitely love to kind of start to understand what it's going to take to get there and you know if there are dedicated revenues that we need to start to commit over some years to build that out.

Thank you, Councilman Chapman.

I guess with that, I would just say thank you again.

This is really great news for our for our community, and we look forward to seeing you guys again in May for a deeper dive.

Thank you, Chief.

And as you all stated, I want to leave this last point.

Uh just of interest.

Um, nationally, there are average of 2% of women uh that are police chief or an executive ranks.

And we're blessing Alexandria to have one sitting next to me.

And so uh I echo your comments about uh Chief Lagona.

Uh she definitely holds the line, and we are lucky to have her here within our city.

So shout out to Chief Ludone.

There you go.

Thank you.

With that, we are going to move right into the after action report for the snowstorm.

Okay.

And we are joined by Deputy City Manager Emily Baker and our emergency manager, Mark Maberry.

Um good evening.

I am Emily Baker, Deputy City Manager and Interim Director of Transportation and Environmental Services.

I am I'm very pleased to be here with you today representing the very large team of staff and partners who responded to this large event that we affectionately call winter storm fern.

Um I'm here to talk to you about our response to that event, um what we learned from that event and what we would like to do going forward.

Um we had a very strong response to this.

We um and we have some things we want to that we that we think we can do better.

Um this event um began on Saturday, January 24th in terms of the snow event.

We of course started working much sooner than that.

It ended on January 25th.

It led to um 24-hour response that occurred.

There's a typo on the slide, but that occurred um through February the 13th, 24 hours a day, two shifts of um 12 hours every day.

We continued responding after that during the day um until March this uh March the second.

Madam Mayor.

Councilman Gary.

I'm sorry, Deputy City Manager Baker, can you say that one more time?

The 24-hour part.

Yeah, we had teams of staff working 24 hours a day from basically January 24th until um February 13th.

This was not our heaviest snowfall, but the conditions of the snow plus the sleet, plus the freezing rain, and then sustained temperatures below freezing created a very complicated situation and a very complicated response.

This event um was of historic nature.

There was not only did the city declare a emergency, but the state and um federal government did as well.

There were widespread disruptions throughout the region to transportation schools and city services.

We had to bring in construction equipment.

This was not an event where you could go out as you everyone in this room experienced, you couldn't get a shovel and clear your sidewalk.

We couldn't use a regular plow and clear the street.

So it was quite a consequential event.

And if you recall, the weather forecast was calling for a wet heavy snow up until the day before the event, when was the first time when that was the first time that we were notified that you know what, we're going to get this sleet and freezing rain.

So we pivoted, we had to pivot very quickly on that.

And we began preparing for this event the week ahead, early in that week.

We pre-treated roadways, we had daily meetings with senior staff and response leads.

We talked to the National Weather Service every day.

We coordinated with state and the neighboring jurisdictions, and we coordinated with ACPS.

We when the storm began, as I mentioned, we were already operating 24 hours a day.

We had in 12 hour shifts.

We focused in the beginning on our primary roadways.

We do that because it's key to keeping our emergency operations operational.

If we need we need, we know if there's an emergency, these are the roads that we need to have clear, and that was our cert our first focus.

And we realized that our existing equipment was not sufficient.

As we talked about, our plows were not able to remove the snow crete.

We brought in contractors from throughout the region and some as far away as Minnesota.

At the same time, all of the our neighbors in the region were also bringing in contractors.

So if you had a dump truck, a skid steer, a bobcat, you were working somewhere in the region during that event.

After the storm ended, we continued working 24 hour shifts.

We had to clear, not we had been work trying to get the roadways open, but now we had to come back and clear the intersections with the piles of ice that were left.

We were clearing sidewalks, bus stops, we were trying working to get the schools cleared, paths and parks, and to this day we're still working.

We are, as you know, we piled snow in very large piles throughout the city, and that snow is continuing to melt and leaving debris and trash in its wake, and so we're out there cleaning that.

Some of the equipment that we had to use is not intended for clearing ice off of roadways, and so we're going back to assess some of the damage that was done to our infrastructure on the roads, curb and gutter and drainage structures are so we're still not quite past this event yet.

This gives you a little bit of a sense of the scale of this.

We had staff working over 9600 hours.

We had there were 8,500 jump truck loads of snow and ice that we piled up, four and a half tons of salt.

Um it's six snow storage sites that we had throughout the city, and some out of the city.

And this was a costly response.

And primarily the largest cost by far was the con were the contractors that we needed to use.

That heavy construction equipment that we needed, we needed the equipment, the operators, the supervisors, um, so that was a very large cost of this expense.

But at the same time, we had our staff working overtime, and we housed and fed them to make sure that they were here and available when we needed them.

When the storm was over, we have done sort of a deep dive and evaluating how did we do and what did we learn from this.

Um there are some things that we did incredibly well.

We have a very we are very prepared for this type of event.

We have a s a snow and ice operations plan.

We have an emergency operations plan, we train, we practice, we have um, and and under Mark's leadership, we prepare, we know we're going to have events like this.

Um we had a very strong response due to the fact that we are prepared for this.

We activated early, we had um we were able to make decisions and had the right people in the room.

We worked very closely across our organization and with our partner agencies, um, and we were able to pivot and scale up and make changes as we needed to do that.

We we identified some areas where we could where we learned and where we can do better, and we will prepare for the next time.

I sort of categorize this in three main categories planning, communications, and technology.

And we've also identified some policy areas, and some of them you all have suggested some of these that we want to do some more work and come back to you with some recommendations.

In the area of planning, we want to we have priorities, and we are very good at following those priorities.

But given the depth and the duration of this event, we needed to identify more priorities.

It took us so long, and the going was slow, removing this ice that not only did we need to prioritize our roadways, but we need to prioritize intersections that we had to come back and clear.

We needed to prioritize sidewalks and business corridors and other areas.

So that's something that we are working on now to include in our in our plan.

And we need to be able to articulate what those priorities are to the community and to you and to the people that are the our staff.

Like here's what we're doing, and here's why we're there.

And we need a deeper bench.

I mean, we we talked about how long we worked on this, and working 12 hour shifts for over three weeks is exhausting.

And we it's not just the operators out in the trucks.

We have staff working in our operations centers and throughout the city.

So we recognize that we need to train more people, and that's something that we're going to be working on.

And the contractors, we were able to acquire the contracts that we needed, but we recognize that we need to make some changes to the contracts that we have in place and our regular partners that we work with.

In communications, we did a lot of messaging, and in the report that we shared, we give you some data on that.

We want to make sure that we are targeting the right messages and they're getting out on the right platforms and to the right people.

And as I mentioned, we want to be messaging what is our prior.

Here's our priority today.

This is our priority, this is not our priority.

Here's when we're going to get to what your priorities are to help the provide transparency to the community so they know we hear you and we know that's an issue.

That's not our priority today.

I think we could do a much better job of doing that.

And sharing with the community when we have setbacks and when we when we're not getting to something we thought we were going to get to, and um and building trust through that transparency.

And we want to leverage the community with an event this this large and this prolonged, we can't do it on our own.

And we have a snow buddies program, which is great.

They can't do it on their own.

We have talked to other communities where this the PTAs and this the parents are out, they want to get their kids to school.

They're out helping clear the sidewalks and getting the school bus stops cleared.

We need to to leverage our community in um in deeper ways when we have this type of an event.

And on technology, we can do a better job of tracking our vehicles, and that's something that we've already begun working on.

We can track the city vehicles, but we can't track the contractor vehicles.

And as you know, we lost control of the snow map during this event because we had so many contractors out there who were not familiar with the city and weren't able to report back accurately of where they were and what roads were cleared.

We recovered from that and we got that back under control, but we can do better there.

And we um the their technology exists, and we're working on acquiring that where we can track every vehicle that's out there, we can show that on the map, the number of passes, and people can see in real time or close to real time what we're doing and um when we're in their neighborhood.

And 311 is a great tool for us.

We can do we've decided uh and identified some improvements that we want to make to 311.

There's a snow category, it's not specific enough.

We want to allow people to have more specific and more detailed categories for snow.

It helps us track them, it helps us prioritize them, and it helps the community with that transparency and response.

And some policy considerations that we have identified with your help, the sidewalk clearing requirements.

This is a type of event that, as we said, you can't go out and shovel, you can't take a shovel and go out and clear your sidewalk.

So we want to have consider some flexibility in the ordinance and some criteria that will help us determine when we want to enact that flexibility and what might be the appropriate time to require sidewalk clearing in what circumstances.

On-street parking restrictions, it's much easier for us to clear the street if there aren't cars parked there.

And we have restrictions on our emergency snow routes.

We want to look at other roads, and um, you know, we did try to encourage people to park in their driveways.

Are do we need requirements that tell people they can only park on one side of the street in advance of an event like this?

How do we maximize um and leverage garages in neighborhoods to get cars off the street before we can before the event occurs so it's easier for us to come out and clear and then people can get their cars out and we're not plowing them in and it and everyone has a better experience.

And reserve parking for essential workers, we know this has come up.

There are schools, some of our schools that don't have enough parking for teachers and essential workers who have to get out.

And that's something we want to evaluate.

Is it appropriate for us to look at requ the ability to have people reserve parking on the street um during these events when parking is very scarce and limited?

So these are policy um ideas that we want to consider.

We're gonna do some more research on these and come back to you in the fall with some recommendations on how we might want to proceed with those.

We are making changes already.

We um we already have contracts that are up for renewal that we are repurposing and um reflecting some of these improvements, and we are acquiring a new vehicle locator system that has pucks that we can put in cars that will allow us to track it, whether it's our vehicle, whether it's a contract vehicle.

So those are things that are already going into effect that we should have in place for next season and working with 311 to identify how do we want to change those categories?

And again, these can be seasonal changes that when we have an event that can become live and and give people opportunities to make those um to submit those requests.

And finally, we just want to sh show you that we um have a time frame and have assigned activities to lead agencies based on the analysis that we have done.

Um many of these things that are way are already underway and things that we do annually.

Um we're also as um you have received a more detailed report with our analysis, and that's gonna be posted and shared publicly on our response.

And I'm happy to answer any questions that you have.

Well, first, uh thank you, Ms.

Baker.

Um, as someone who I think was on the phone with you multiple times a day during this, I just want to um acknowledge your leadership and that at the partnership with um deputy city manager Alethea Perdeau and Jan Lumbert as well.

I think this was an all hands-on-deck effort and really pulled, I think, from almost every department across the city.

So thank you for all of the twists and turns that this threw at us, but all of the different responses we were able to do to keep going.

Uh I have a few questions before I turn it over to my colleagues.

I did just want to emphasize the report that Ms.

Baker mentioned that will be posted on the website.

It has a lot more data in terms of down to even like the number of 311s we receive, the number of sites we had to go through.

But on page eight, there's a really great breakdown between the difference between a routine storm, winter storm Jonas, and this storm in terms of the response, which I think is just helpful to categorize this.

The quick questions I had, you mentioned looking at changes to 311 and and categories.

I'm curious, are we also going to look at any changes to the snow map and how we share that information?

And I asked because there were a lot of people who would write back and say, you know, the website says passable.

My street is not passable.

I think on the one hand that was because of some communication with contractors.

On the other hand, I think each of us has maybe a different idea of what we think passable is.

Like you may still see a lot of snow on the ground and it's passable to the city, but that you know, if you're not used to driving in those conditions, it might not be passable to you.

So I'm curious if there's I don't know, a different type of way of measuring or tracking and communicating to the public what it means when we're on your street.

Yes, and I can tell you, even in the snow operations center, we had debates among ourselves is this passable or not?

Looking at pictures and you know, getting, you know, different people would have different interpretations, even among ourselves.

So, yes, with this new um auto um vehicle location technology that we're looking to implement, we should be able to show that the number of passes and maybe get away from trying to for us to interpret is it passable, is it not passable?

But allow the public to see, wow, a truck's been down my street three times, and um we'll still be monitoring to see whether we need to come back, but at least they'll know, okay, somebody's been here, they know they've been here and they've seen it, they put salt down, um, we'll be able to show that more accurately and um more quickly.

So we're hoping to be able to pivot away from passable, because I I agree with you.

That's very it can be very subjective.

We even we're putting out pictures, here's what passable means.

But even with that, it's um it it can be subjective.

I think the more data-driven we can be, because I I I recall some 311s were like, Oh, I've never seen anyone here.

But if we have the like tracker to be able to show that the truck was here at this time, and this is what we're working on, I think that'd be helpful.

The second question I had was in this storm, we had to use a lot of equipment that we've never used before.

I know that we maintain a certain fleet of equipment.

Does this storm change the type of equipment that we want to keep?

It's not on storage.

I don't know the correct word, but like the type of equipment that we invest in year in year as like our base fleet, does that change based on the storm?

That's something that we're evaluating.

I mean, after every um season where we have a large response like this, we're tr we have to ask ourselves, do we have the right equipment?

You know, as I you know, we had a conversation with the team.

We're not buffalo and we don't want to equip ourselves.

We it wouldn't make sense or be cost effective for us to equip ourselves like a community that gets this type of event on a regular basis.

But we do want to ask ourselves, do we need more um more um dump trucks that would be available for hauling?

And could we be as there are used to have them around the the rest of the year?

I will say that after um after Snow Mageddon in 2010, we purchased it during Snow Mageddon, we purchased some specific equipment just to clear um sidewalks and because we didn't have the right equipment for that.

And we don't use that all the time.

So it's hard to keep them maintained.

And you so we we have to balance that too.

Is it a good investment for us?

If it's something that we can say, yeah, we you know we can incorporate that into our fleet and we can use it year-round or at least multiple seasons, it might make sense.

So those are the types of questions that we're asking ourselves.

And when we're looking at these at updating our contracts, we are trying to make them more flexible so we can add different types of equipment and we don't and give ourselves more flexibility in terms of the amount of time that we need to have them in another way.

So we we've learned some things about that.

So yes, we're absolutely asking ourselves, do we have the right equipment?

And we are weighing that with um, is it a good investment and what's the kind of return for us?

And then the last question I had, it was helpful to see the current amount of resources that have been spent on this storm.

I was also struck you mentioned that a lot of the equipment we had to use also cause greater damage to our roads.

I think all of us feel that, that it's not-I mean, it feels like there are multiple more potholes than there were previously.

Do we have any early estimates on what this might mean for our annual pothole and repaving budget?

And maybe this is a question for Mr.

Manager.

Yeah, I don't know if we have a estimate.

I would tell you that we are going to go over that estimate given the amount of um pothole and damage to our streets, I think again.

This this natural disaster was so unique and so difficult that I it's not just about the equipment, it's just literally it destroyed our streets because of the uh temperatures, the ice, you name it, the the heaviness.

Uh there's a lot of dynamics to that.

So we are going to go over that estimate.

And um I don't think we have a more formal number for you yet, but you know, obviously we need to repair all that damage appropriately.

Um I think you know, we have those those budget dollars in those line items, but I think we will be over those, like for instance, curb repair, things like that.

Um so we'll need to look at that in the end of the year and make adjustments.

I I think this is definitely why we have the the rainy day fund.

Um but I guess what would be helpful is right now we have one number, maybe at the end of the year, once we get through this season, seeing an updated number in this report, because I imagine there are some streets that we're probably gonna do patchwork that patchwork is not going to be enough and they're gonna need a lot more attention.

If I could add, because you made a really important point to tie this to budget questions and discussions, um, the dollars that we'll utilize for this are those one-time dollars that the city puts aside for things exactly like this.

They're not recurring, they're one-time, they're intended uh to address this type of an issue uh without blowing the budgets and causing massive change to how we do things structurally or with programs and services.

So that as much as this is really painful, the city and the council, you adopted a budget over the last couple of years to address this very issue.

So I just want to highlight that.

Uh yes, Councilman Green.

Okay.

Thank you, uh, Mr.

Manager for saying that.

So the $8,350,983 for the contractor services came out of the rainy day fund.

It'll come out of our cash balance.

Cash balance.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh okay.

Everybody now.

Uh Vice Mayor Bagley and then Councilman Alnupi.

I mean, I I I think the manager is being um intentionally delicate with his words, which I appreciate, but I'll just put a finer point on it.

There have been calls during this budget season for us to dip into our cash capital, our cash reserves for other.

No, let's just say for other things.

But I but I think what what this conversation is illuminating is this is why we have the fiscal policies that we have, and this is a good example of having this cash on hand available for one-time uses.

And even if storms are in their own way recurring, storms of this scale, which are a challenge and would be faulty to budget for, are why we have the cash capital reserves that we have.

And I just think it ties back to a very current conversation about our cash capital and our reserve policy.

So I appreciate that.

Councilman Alnubi and then Councilman Chapman.

Given the magnitude of the storm and that it was declared an emergency, are there any opportunities for reimbursement from the State and Federal Government?

I don't think we're going to be very successful there given how they've categorized this storm.

At the state level, we are still working with the State to try to secure any reimbursement possible for this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Chapman.

Yeah, I was trying to get in before to ask that question.

It is on his list.

It's on the list.

But I appreciate the manager as well as the vice mayor for being delicate.

But uh if if for for those folks who have not been paying attention to our conversations, I'll be very direct.

We've had advocates for our school system talk about the the talk about council choosing to use its fund balance.

And again, as council members individually and collaboratively have said, we don't necessarily believe that's the appropriate use for for um closing the gap on funding for ACPS.

Um I think you know, this particular incident and others uh that folks can think of um are part of those reasons.

Um so I certainly appreciate kind of the the opportunity um and the direction that the manager is going in terms of how we how we fund um you know an incident like this.

Um I would also um I did have a kind of question around um our upcoming budget.

As we look at our our snow budget, I believe the managers proposed uh additional money for that.

I think we're talking about the uniqueness of this particular weather incident, but I want to understand from staff's perspective kind of what what is the need to increase the the budget?

As as we've seen historically, we don't necessarily usually get to that level uh of funding uh depending on obviously of Mother Nature and what we do, but I want to kind of understand as we look to increase what are those things that we're trying to capture uh as we increase that budget.

Um we look at trends.

We look at what our past spending has been on um in a regular event, and I think we tend to be around what we have budgeted and sometimes a little more.

And I think that's really what led the manager to decide we needed to increase the snow budget.

Okay.

Um like a modest amount, I would say.

Um not something that would cover obviously an event like this, but just look we look at past trends and and what we spent in the past.

Okay, thank you.

Um one of the other kind of questions I had, um as you talked about primary roads, I I was wondering have there been any changes to kind of levels of roadway?

Uh have we looked at kind of the different roadway that we have and you know, looked at uh roadway that needs to maybe step up to another uh level uh in terms of primary secondary roads or or whatnot.

We do look at that periodically, uh especially as if we have new developments in areas that come online.

We really look at emergency responses with our we work with our um sea response departments, and we look at population densities around the city.

Um so we do look at that when we up we update our uh operations, our snow operations plan every year.

Okay, thank you.

And and I think my last kind of question it seemed during this the initial you know 4872 hours of this response.

Uh it seemed like we hesitated on kind of sidewalk enforcement.

And I think we we have probably that internal conversation every uh snowstorm, uh, and I appreciate that.

But one of the things that we do have on the website is kind of what our policy is.

And so it sometimes seems that we are ducking that policy.

Um and you know, obviously uh you know staff gets those 311s like we do, and you've got you know both sides of the issue.

Hey, you know, why aren't we enforcing our sidewalks?

Hey, why are we still enforcing our sidewalks and the city hasn't done X, Y, and Z.

I think one of the things I would love to see as we we move forward is helping the community understand that uh if you're talking about staff um clearing sidewalks, clearing parks, uh clearing parking lots and ACPS uh sites, whatever that is, that's a lot different than somebody walking outside their door, picking up a shovel or or whatnot and clearing their sidewalk.

Uh a lot different type of manpower, energy or uh opportunity exists.

And so I would love for us to have a policy, stick to that policy and help community understand the difference between me, the individual homeowner going out and clearing my, you know, clearing my area uh and particularly my sidewalk versus a staff member that is first probably clearing streets at that time or staff members having to get up from the hotel that they're staying in and make their way if they can to a uh public or or city-owned sidewalk.

That's a the different level of action.

And I don't think our community always realizes that.

And so I think the pushback on our city-owned property is can be I think we can tell a better story there about how different that is in terms of level of effort and why we're why we are still quote unquote enforcing, um, which I don't know if we've ever um passed out fines for these enforcements, because I don't think we do.

I think it's really about educating people and and hopefully pushing them lightly or a little bit more aggressively to clear space as they can.

Um so I would love for us to be able to have something that we can tell the public, showcase on the website and frankly stick to.

Um because I do think with this particular event, as we waited more, I don't think that helped us in terms of clearing of sidewalks when some of that could have been done uh in the initial you know 72 hours.

Yeah, I think um you're right.

It's a it's a very complicated decision-making process.

And we do in um in previous events, we do enforcement.

We have you know the twenty whether it's 24 hours, 24 hours or 48 hours after the storm, depending on the the level of storm.

We do enforce that in some in typically based on complaints, and then in high traffic areas.

In this case, in this storm, it was complicated, as we know, because it was so difficult to remove to shovel the sidewalks to get the snow the snow creed off of the sidewalks.

And um we plowed under a lot of sidewalks and not just like a foot or two.

We really created in order to get the streets cleared, we blocked a lot of intersections and crosswalks and 88 ramps.

So it was it was a little bit difficult difficult for us in that case, um, we made it difficult for property owners to do that.

We also did enforcement, particularly in um commercial areas.

We made we we we issued tickets in commercial uh to commercial properties and multifamily residential properties where we felt that there's a they have a contractor already.

They uh they have a responsibility, they should be out there doing that.

And we did issue some tickets and we went back and um and people were did respond and do that.

So I think that's one of the reasons we're recommending we evaluate that policy, because if we have a policy we need to follow it.

And this and there could be situations where we want to have some flexibility or we might want to have some different criteria that ultimately will be council's decision.

But we want to look at that and come back to you with some recommendations on that.

Um yeah, I agree.

I think having the policy update will be really helpful.

Just to say to Councilman Chapman, there were so many debates back and forth about enforcement.

Also paying attention to our neighbors.

I think DC suspended theirs and then Arlington did theirs, and then how many times we went out and then um a truck came over again and then trying to figure out where to put the snow.

So I think even I don't know if it's both um the policy, but also the decision criteria for when we shift and adjust the policy so that we can meet our other communication goals of being really transparent with people about what's going on and why are we considering this?

I guess two other just points I had.

One, I wanted to say I agree with the policy considerations that staff has put forth, and I look forward to seeing those come back.

One area that came up a lot during the storm was related to in apartment buildings.

Now I recognize these are private owners, but we got a number of complaints from people saying like nothing is happening at my apartment building.

And I think in checking with the city attorney's office, we're very limited in being able to do anything.

I would be curious if when you guys come back to us, is that something we have to advocate for at the state level or where do we have to go to get authority that when we are in a declared emergency at the federal, state, and local level to be able to have some enforcement power to say that I mean I think it's what I see Director McElvain, like 50 something percent of our residents are renters and living in these buildings.

Like what type of authority do we need to be able to say more than half of our residents cannot leave their homes because of this?

Yes, that's something we can look at.

And we have already started with um Director McIlvain has already and her team put together or they have already uh contact information for property managers in most of our residential um multifamily buildings, and it's sometimes it's rental property, sometimes it's condo properties, and we are um working with that office to help us communicate.

Like part of it is communication.

I know what you're talking about is enforcement, but certainly making sure people understand what the expectations are and um and we can point them to resources and other ways that um that we can do that, and the enforcement in terms of on the public right-of-way side that we that we're sure that they know we're gonna be out there if they haven't done that.

But yes, we can look at that.

Thank you.

And then um, last point for me, I think it was mentioned in here, sort of greater communication with ACPS or coordination, not communication, because there was a lot of communication.

Um I think one thing that happened during this storm is our goal always is to get the schools open as soon as possible.

I think it became very clear within a day or so that the schools were not going to open for many reasons.

There was still a lot of other work to be done with side streets, sidewalks, and so forth.

And so I'm not sure if that requires a specific policy or an MOU or some sort of deeper understanding sort of documentation, but I think the ability to be able to shift that once we know schools are not going to open, we need to reprioritize and try and get all of the other pathways and streets and side areas open as well.

I think we were doing multiple passes and then they were not able to open still, even with all of the team's um hard work.

And so I I just throw that out here as a policy consideration because I'm not sure what specific documentation we would need to achieve that, but I think giving ourselves that flexibility in the future is important.

And I think it's all connected.

That at the end of the day, part of the reasons why ACPS couldn't open is because other places still needed additional passes.

And so if we can shift our resources to do those passes, we might be able to meet the original goal in the first place.

Yes, I I think that's um that's a great suggestion.

We do work very closely with ACPS and they understand because we're constantly reiterating to them, you our priorities are depending on your priorities because as soon as you say you're not opening, we're shifting.

Um, and we I think they they appreciate that, and I appreciate the fact that they are trying to get school open.

That's their priority.

And so it's hard for them to you know, they don't want to make that call until they know.

But you're right, sometimes they know.

And how do we how can we um advance that communication to to help us?

So, yes, that is definitely something that we have identified in the report.

Thank you.

Uh Vice Mayor Bagley.

Um, yeah, and sort of to this point, it's always a housing thing, isn't it?

Because at the end of the day, and I I mean, I'm not gonna miss the chance to point out like if more of the people who worked in our businesses and our schools and our city agencies were able to live in the city and or closer, this would reduce some of these issues.

Um so just shout out to Director Mackelvane and the and the housing department, you know.

I mean, because this is something we heard in all on the you know, the hoteling and then all those costs.

I mean, this again comes back to and with the schools reopening, you know, to put up again a final point on it, it's tied to can the teachers get here less can the students get to their school.

I I saw with my own eyes plenty of schools where that was possible, but the teachers couldn't necessarily you know get in or their kids' schools weren't open.

So these things are all related, and so um, you know, just it's it's interrelated all of our policies.

I wanted to put um as we're talking about policy considerations, um, Councilman Chapman raising sidewalk enforcement.

A piece that I want to make sure gets covered in that analysis is when we decide to uphold the policy, what staff is assigned to either respond to 311s reporting on you know, neighbors and and uncleared, or what staff will be free roaming in areas that we know are connective sidewalks to our schools, you know, to the elementary schools where kids walk.

Um, because I agree we should have you know determined criteria.

This snow did not reach a level that it requires you know suspending the policy, but that means then we need to be able to effectively enforce the policy, and that presents staffing challenges.

So to the extent there are opportunities to repurpose crossing guards to repurpose parking and for I don't know who those people might be or how many new hires there need to be, but I think that has to be part of the analysis, not just when do we enforce or not enforce, but how do we fund and staff that enforcement?

Along those lines, this might be a wild, you know, sort of thing out, you know, idea, but um I know up in New York this time they offered $30 an hour to any and anybody who showed up to be shovelers.

And I think they had like 1,400, $1,500 people sign up and shovel.

Um and it appeared to make a difference.

Um I haven't seen their after action report and what it costs them, but are there opportunities for us to consider in extreme events, hiring people on, come with two forms of ID and you know what I mean?

And uh and assign a waiver and you know, go to work.

Um just it can that be something that we assess and rule out or or rule in.

Um in terms of the comparators, like I I think you guys are going to be doing some research.

I think it would be really valuable in this policy discussion to see real dollars spent in places like Buffalo or you know, my one of my, you know, I just came from Fargo, North Dakota this morning.

You know, but I think it would be valuable data points to not just talk about our nine million dollars, but what does Buffalo spend?

Because I bet it's three figures, you know, or or six figures in the millions.

And so I think like that understanding the uh orders of magnitude.

And also what are those cities' comparator policies on things like private sidewalk enforcement?

Like culturally, what are the expectations in places like that?

Like, do they have to have a sidewalk enforcement policy?

Or does it just happen?

If they have it, how do they staff?

So I get that we're gonna do like regional comparators, but I I think to understand the numbers and what it would take to demonstrably react differently to these every couple of year storms, this is the investment it would take.

And this is how people who have this winter every year, this is what they spend, and this is what their staff is.

So I, you know, picking one or two cities that really do do this differently annually.

And then the last note was just on the apartment conversation.

Um I think one of the things we could try to do on the front end, and maybe we only have this lever in you know the DSUP SUP process, but maybe we add in um proof of contract snow removal services as just a condition, you know, it becomes a standard condition.

Proof, you know, show us who your contract is with and what it's for for snow removal.

Um if we're able to retroactively give kind of coaching and training, because I think the problem in some of these communities is likely just that they literally don't have a contractor on retainer who knows to kick in and come.

So then they're making the call after the snow has fallen and all those contractors are spoken for.

So I'm trying to just think ahead, you know, from the planning and zoning perspective or whatever other code enforcement perspective, can we ask apartment communities to show us their contracts in advance, who they have on retainer.

And if they say we don't have one, maybe we help them with a list of preferred vendors or you know, um, but that's a way to avoid just the penalty, but to actually help these communities be more prepared.

Because I think what happens often what I've experienced in some of my day job work is in an extreme event, you might have a vendor lined up, except your vendor is also seven other communities vendors, and it's taking him twice as long at as each site as it normally would.

So your residents are saying, why haven't you cleared anything?

You know, we're saying I have a contract, he just hasn't gotten here yet.

So to the extent we can help people have a backup contract or have the terms well defined.

Oh, Councilman Gary.

Um it's a little difficult going after you know several people, so I don't want to belabor some of the points.

Um just things that come to mind unless I look through this.

Um Councilman Chamber actually brought this up earlier, and you know, we're always talking about where we can partner with ACPS, and I think about you know, their buses and their buses were snowed in, they couldn't get them out.

Um, we used to have a witter wheeler plan where we were looking at a joint development with ACPS and you could potentially do a covered bus depot, right?

And then you're not digging out buses, and now you're just worrying about digging out the road so that the buses could actually get out.

Um I think it was a really great point.

And you have this on page eight of the more detailed report.

Um, but on the second slide which says 10 days below sustained uh 10 days below sustained freezing temperatures.

I I think that is just uh a really important fact to tell.

And then on page eight uh with the comparison to Jonas, um 20 inches, 22 inches of snowfall followed by six days at or above sixty degrees.

Uh I mean that that is just a I I'm really glad that you guys put that detail in because when I was first looking at this, I was like, what's the comparison to the other storms and how long uh were they below freezing if at all?

So I really appreciate you guys putting that in the more detailed report.

I I think that's something that um you know, for folks that don't really understand this, it's it's one of those stress points to make uh because when when the snow's melting the next day, it helps everybody.

Um again, not to belabor it, uh this is one of the comments that I made uh the one of the first days that we were talking about uh the storm.

I think we might have been virtual or or even potentially here where I had brought up why we don't have some of this equipment, and then we went into clear detail about it.

Um personally, I would like uh a little extra detail for our existing equipment.

Why is it that it doesn't work?

Are the trucks they don't have enough uh horsepower?

Are the uh plows too weak?

Uh do they just roll over the ice?

Are they not strong enough to break the ice?

Um are they not heavy enough?

Will they actually break off of the truck, right?

Um I think some of that helps to tell this story as well.

Uh speaking of equipment that needs to be brought in and procurement and contracts, uh it was not lost on me that we were bringing in equipment from Minnesota.

I think if we try and diversify, um I don't know if that would help us at all with uh with COSP or diversifying to other states as well, whether it's Texas or Colorado, I know distance will create uh issues with with cost, and of course, uh knowing what's going to happen beforehand is very difficult.

But as was noted, we started preparing three to four days before.

So if we know at that point, hey, let's start calling in some stuff from some other states, especially for some of that specialized equipment, uh whether it was the sidewalk clearers or some of the the heavier uh plow type equipment that we might need.

Because maybe it's we have the existing trucks, but we don't have the plow that goes to connect onto it.

So then that's something that we could contract out.

That way the equipment in terms of a truck, well, that we have all the time, but then the specialized plow is something that we could bring in whenever we need it.

Um but I I did appreciate, like I said, the conversation we had around why we don't just have this stuff laying around because then it's just laying around taking up space and not being utilized.

Um I think we touched on this too, but the infrastructure repair, whenever we get a better number on that, um I'd be super curious to know what that's looking like because that's just adding on uh to what we're gonna be paying out of our rainy day fund.

Uh oh, and like you guys were saying too, I I I wanted to put a finer point on it.

When you're saying that we st we hauled the snow to six different storage sites, both inside and outside the city, and some of those sites are still melting.

Um when I was doing my tour at the RFK site, we went into a parking lot, and there's literally a football field of of snow creek still sitting there with trash and debris all over it, and of course, when it snows, what are we doing with the trash and the debris and everything?

So again, telling this story and the magnitude of it, I think is extremely important and really appreciate some of the pictures that you have on here.

Um if we get some pictures also of any of the storage sites that we have now just to show, look, we it's it's almost April, and we still have this stuff sitting in in certain sites, and look how much there is.

I think that again continues to help tell this story.

Um the effective cross-department coordination, again, yeah, I I'm glad that we were able to partner with Wamada.

Um to make sure if anybody has expertise in something that we are including them in the conversations and utilizing that expertise, whether it's folks at Dash that were used to used to helping to clear uh bus sites, uh, because it's one thing to clear the sidewalk.

And this actually happened to me when I was in Richmond uh during one of the lobby days, I was taking the bus to go to catch the train, but to try and catch the bus, I had to jump over, you know, five feet of snow.

Uh so instead of jumping over the five feet of snow, because I didn't want to um you know make a viral video, I actually had to walk in Broad Street through the traffic until I finally found an opening uh where I was able to cut in and then come all the way around.

And then I only had to jump over two feet of snow to then be basically level with a bench uh with the seat of the bench, and the bus driver was nice enough to get close enough so that I didn't have to jump from the snow into the bus, but could actually step gingerly from the snow into the bus.

Uh so it's just uh again, there's just so much uh that happened with this storm.

Um we went over this a little bit too.

Uh really appreciate that Tess has been active with this to get the um the GPS tracking.

I think one of the other things for um for our contractors training, right?

Um when we talk about when we're going back through and we're pushing the snow back onto routes that have been cleared or onto route or onto bus stops or onto uh school routes.

I I think that's something it it's it's difficult, but I think again, through this preparedness and through this learning process, uh we could make some of those finer points that will be helpful in the future.

Uh uh going back to cars being parked on on some of our emergency routes.

I was a little frustrated.

Usually um I live on Howard Street, the hospital's on Howard Street.

This is why it's one of the snow emergency routes.

Typically, it's a pretty good job, but for whatever reason, this year, um there was at least four to five cars on each side of Howard Street, which I was really shocked by knowing that the hospital is there.

But I think this dovetails into the conversation that we were having around apartments.

Fox Chase, one of our very large apartments.

Um on a typical night, not snow related, uh, parking is a huge issue.

There are people that are all over the place with parking.

Um it is one of the apartment complexes that got brought up with being able to clear stuff.

You know, maybe with Fox Chase that it's in a unique position where maybe we could talk to the Fox Chase shopping center, say, hey, because we're having this emergency, can we have some of the apartments uh you know park in the Fox Chase shopping center so that we can make sure we're getting all these people off of the streets?

Otherwise, we we run into this situation where it's just compounding, right?

The car doesn't move, we can't clear the street completely.

Now the street now the cars are literally locked in and cannot move out of that space.

So then now we can't make further improvements.

Um again, like I said, it's just a compounding effect.

Uh and wherever we could find potential uh overlap, that would be great.

And I think uh thank you to my colleagues for bearing with me that that is most of what I have.

No, that was great.

Um when you were started talking about us not being able to do what we need to do.

I think in the parking section, if we can also have a focus on our business corridors.

I think there were several complaints we got from business owners, and we j there's just nothing we could do because we couldn't move the other cars that were there.

And so maybe what's the specific outreach or engagement.

Uh Councilman Gary.

Apologies, Madam Mayor.

I forgot one last thing and be completely remiss to not say this, but again, a huge, huge thank you to everyone involved.

This was a massive undertaking.

So thank you to all the staff involved, all the contractors, and for the patience from our residence as well.

I think that is the perfect way to end this section.

So thank you again and again to all the community.

The report will be posted online, and then we'll work with the manager to get uh future updates related to some of the things that were suggested here.

With that, we have one final oral report, and that is on the waterfront flood mitigation project.

We're gonna bring up uh Mr.

Landis.

Good evening.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Matt Landis with Project Implementation.

We're here this evening to focus on uh several updates with the waterfront flood mitigation project.

We'll focus first on a National Park Service update, uh then address some cost estimate updates on the project.

Uh we'll brief you on the alternate pump station location.

We were asked to evaluate back in September on one prints, an alternative location for the pump station, and then review some options and associated costs and potential next steps.

First and foremost, uh the project team in the city has been transparent uh from early in our planning process uh that we needed a modification of a long-standing deed and settlement agreement uh to proceed with the project as planned with a pump station in Waterfront Park.

Uh that deed modification is required to build the pump station due to its height as a height restriction there, uh, and that we've had long-standing support from the National Park Service.

Uh I want to be clear that uh since the time we're plan was adopted and endorsed back in 2015 and thereafter, uh National Park Service has been working collaboratively with us uh and indicating general support for the project, but they needed additional information, design, and some studies to be conducted before they could modify that deed and conduct a full NEPA process for that federal action.

And so we walked hand in hand with them since 2017 to conduct that process that they laid out for us.

Very recently in February, we received a notification from the National Park Service that not only will they not modify the height restriction on that deed, but they now actually consider the pump station itself an impermissible use.

So I want to stress that this is a major and sudden reversal in their position and perspective and intention regarding this deed modification process.

We were extremely close through the negotiation of that exact deed and had nearly completed the NEPA process itself, which was almost a year long.

And so that's an unfortunate uh change that happened very suddenly.

I'll move to discuss some of the cost updates.

Um very recent updates uh for the cost uh projected for both final design and construction have increased significantly.

Some of the major cost drivers uh associated with this update are just general market price impacts with tariffs and inflation.

We know all things are becoming more expensive at historic rates, and that is certainly true for the construction market.

Um specialized equipment and materials are imported uh for a pump station and controls.

Um the labor incor labor costs are also increasing uh from some of our early estimates.

And then we have incurred several delays uh due to alternative analyses, uh extended uh stakeholder engagement, uh prolonged NEPA process, the federal government shutdown for 40 plus days delayed some of our uh NEPA process as well.

And then finally, we have a greater understanding of the construction risks and the environmental considerations associated with this project, given advanced design and further investigation with our progressive design build team.

So at the end there, you see there's a significant shortfall for our uh technically preferred project uh that's been recommended.

Uh, and so um, unless we're able to have additional funding, we'll have to look at some alternatives.

In September, uh the city council directed staff and the project team to look at the one print street location as an alternative to the location originally proposed for the waterfront park.

Um we worked with uh consultant team to have a complete independent estimate uh separate from the city's initial cost estimate.

Um the first bullet there is our initial cost estimate range for the most probable range from about 25 million to 46 million dollars.

Um we were asked by stakeholders to also look at a second option, not just the full road relocation to one prints, but a split station concept.

Um so we worked with some stakeholders from the Alexandria Waterfront Alliance to look at these different options as well as these draft figures.

Um we are wrapping up uh final report, but uh the figures you see here are a pretty confident draft within these ranges, uh not a significant price difference between the two options, but I do want to be clear that the National Park Service reversal likely precludes that split station concept you see on the right.

So with these constraints in mind, um we had a whole host of options that we've evaluated and the various costs or additional costs.

So as we I walk you through these concepts here, the uh ranges of funding in the parentheses are the additional costs uh that would be needed outside of our current project funding.

The first option we looked at was just simply the project as planned for our 30 percent that was submitted to the BAR and developed for a DSUP process.

That's short by about 60 to 80 million dollars and is now precluded by the National Park Service uh decision in reversal that we cannot have the pump station in the park.

Option one B in blue, um this is the relocation to one prints.

This is the full relocation, not the split option.

That would require an additional significant amount of funding between 100 to 130 million dollars beyond our current project budget.

Option two would be to defer our bulkhead and park improvements, only build the pump station, but again, this is now precluded by this National Park Service decision and could not go in Waterfront Park.

Option three is an enhanced gravity storm sewer system with some uh automated backflow prevention devices.

Um this is anticipated currently to be within our current project funding.

And as a friendly reminder, one of our original uh challenges as we determined how we would implement this project and deliver it, um, we analyzed those uh delivery methods which would allow us to scope to budget.

And so um with the need to scope to budget, we selected the progressive design build model, which has allowed us to look at flexible scope options, and this would be the first of these that are projected to be within that budget.

We would want to advance further design and do a cost validation independently.

Um but this would involve eliminating the pump station entirely and potentially deferring some of the park improvements and infrastructure improvements along the bulkhead to Point Lumley Park with some further investigation.

And then finally, uh minimal infrastructure approach we've evaluated as well.

This would be well within our budget.

This would be simply repairing and placing very limited portions of our existing storm sewer uh to address both our aging infrastructure and some of our sunny day flooding, but would not increase our storm sewer capacity as originally planned, not meet our development standard for that, um, and would not increase the bulkhead elevation along the Potomac River.

So, first I'll give you some highlights of the option that we developed that we believe would be within our existing funding.

I'll work from the right side to the left.

Sure.

Um Councilman Chapman.

Could you go back one slide?

I just want to ask a clarifying question.

Sorry, it's not working backwards.

So I wanted to uh basically the question was um I think option three and four, and you spoke to this on four, um, would defer both option three and four would defer improvements to the bulkhead, right?

We anticipate that both would include a deferral of some improvements.

More improvements would be included in option three, which would still achieve the flood protection elevation.

And I'll cover that in just a moment in the next slide.

Got it.

But yes, sir.

Thank you.

So I'll start with with your question.

Um we need to raise our shoreline in some capacity to a higher elevation to prevent very frequent regular flooding from the tidal influence and from flood events from the Potomac River.

We also have aging infrastructure that is at the end of its useful life and/or in a state of failure.

And so one of the primary segments that we need to address for both of those ends would be the segment between Prince and King Street along Waterfront Park.

And so we would prioritize that section as a as a must do in this option three.

Um then we would deliver as much as we can moving south from Prince Street towards Duke Street.

Um there's varying conditions along that segment.

Some are in better shape than others.

And that area also sits at a much higher elevation already, and so less increase in height is needed in that area to hit our target riverine flood protection goals.

So we will proceed with uh design, including a base option to have new bulkhead for waterfront park, price some alternatives to see how much more we can afford within our project budget against other priorities and constraints that we have.

And so again, the rivering objective will be met with this option.

Uh the storm sewer system would have some very dramatic updates, driving a lot of improvement from our existing condition, greatly increasing our storm sewer capacity, but would still be tidally influenced since we're not delivering the pump station.

Those improvements for the storm sewer include improvements to the unit in Hunter Block of King Street, where we're also proposing some King Street pedestrian improvements which are separately funded, and those would be well integrated under one design process.

Park restoration would be at minimum minimally in kind, and we could develop options beyond that uh if there is additional capacity, but we would certainly restore any impacts into the park to maintain their use uh post-construction.

Uh in the northern section, we know we have the older meaning boat club piers in that facility to remain, and therefore the bulkhead adjacent to those existing facilities would remain as well, and we will raise the promenade up uh slightly to make sure we're hitting our flood protection elevations in that area.

I want to note that one of the options under consideration uh would be the deferral of park improvements specifically to the gravel parking lot area just adjacent to uh Chadwicks or just south of the old image boat club between there and Point Lumley that will certainly be needed to be used for construction laydown area and would need to be restored post-construction, and that would be our base option to evaluate and develop some options and alternative pricing should we be able to afford more than that in terms of restoration.

And those could be delivered at a future phase with additional bequest funding or future project funding as available.

Can I ask a clarifying question?

When you say sort of delaying the restoration or sort of limiting what the restoration would be, does that mean it would potentially return back to a gravel lot?

We'll we'll look at the gravel lot or a paved surface, but we'll we'll restore it to at least its current level.

Okay, thank you.

Some of the other critical infrastructure elements that we would include in this.

Some of the other critical infrastructure elements that we would include in this, we have reduced some impacts to the major thoroughfare on Union Street.

The prior concept included very large uh pipe segments connecting uh north to south to the singular pump station.

And so um one strategy to minimize costs and improvements is to reduce some of those larger pipe segments, but to still make very measurable improvements.

There would be at least two or three locations where we would use flood control gates uh to prevent the river from backing up into our storm sewer.

We presently have very frequent sunny day flooding as the tide comes in, flooding our streets, whether it's raining or not.

And so this system would address 100 percent of that sunny day flooding, which is where we derive that most frequent flood source.

One option we'll consider as well.

Um, this graphic was developed as we worked with a subcommittee of the waterfront commission during our planning phase.

Um we did look at cost-constrained options should we need to rely upon them.

Uh one of them was an alternative shoreline uh within Point Lemley Park, whether we maintain the gravel parking lot or just the trail, um, we'll have to develop a plan and some engineering around how far we extend the bulkhead south versus how much of Point Lumley would be an alternative or hybrid shoreline.

But this is conceptually an option that will be pricing.

So I wanted to walk through and just refresh uh the primary benefits and objectives that we had set out for this project.

Um on the left-hand side there you see eliminating that sunny day flooding, increasing our riverine protection from river uh the Potomac River's flood up to an elevation six from what is currently about a 2.8 to 3 foot elevation today, significantly improving our street flooding and meeting our development standard for stormwater management, as well as eliminating tidal influence on that storm sewer today and preventing impacts from sea level rise with a projected one to two foot elevation change in sea level over time.

So the graph here, the matrix uh summarizes that um both uh our originally proposed option and the one prince alternative met all of those objectives with including the pump station.

If additional funding is not available for the alternative location or otherwise the option three makes measurable improvements uh to our three major objectives, the most frequent types of flooding that we have.

Um, but under some circumstances will not um totally eliminate the tidal influence of the storm sewer uh from the Potomac River and will not deliver the pump station to totally protect us uh during sea level rise impact from climate change.

It could be adaptable in the future with a pump station where that gravity system could easily connect to a pump station in this vicinity and still have um that added benefit in the future.

So nothing we are doing would preclude that.

Um option four, I won't walk through them all, but you can see very limited improvement.

Just um thank you.

Can you go back just I tried to check this myself?

I don't think there's actually a dollar figure.

The slide earlier says within budget option four, but that could be I mean, do you have a rough dollar figure?

Because it does so much less, and I assume it's also significantly less work.

So I'm just curious, do you guys have a ballpark figure on what options for budget would be?

It's basically within our full current funding.

So there would not be a huge cost savings by the same thing.

Oh, I'm sorry, up option four.

I'm sorry, I misheard you.

Option four would be um we project less than half of our current budget.

Okay.

But would have very limited benefit.

Yeah, no, I get that.

I just was curious because all it says is within budget, but that meant a hundred million dollars, you know.

Okay.

So 50 in the in the 50 to 60 million dollar range.

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Thank you very clarifying.

So I wanted to specifically put a point on the tidal influence of the river just for advisement.

Um with these gravity improvements and the backflow prevention, our system will be working dramatically better up until the river hits uh elevation about 1.5.

After the river crests 1.5 upwards to two, um our apologies.

Our system would function much more similar to the way it does today, because our system is basically totally derived.

It's function based on the connectivity to the Potomac River without any backflow prevention.

And so the river informs the function of our storm sewer today and would continue to without the pump station.

But it would be much improved for average conditions, but then when conditions worsen or we have a flood situation, um, we would see still ponding in our streets uh to some degree, but we would recover more quickly than we do today.

This is just a quick snapshot at some of the state of our current bulkhead in terms of this general condition.

And so this is just an element that I want to stress we will be prioritizing along with the storm sewer improvements that this as much as possible will be addressed and/or cleaned up or stabilized as affordable.

We will again hit 100% of the Sunny Day flooding objectives.

This is just some quick quick statistics on what is currently happening versus what will likely happen based on current climate models and just how frequently we would be impacted without making an investment.

And this slide shows the riverine impact so at a six foot flood elevation you can see just how far that comes into our core area of our waterfront and our historic district how impactful that can be with water that is unclean and you can imagine what that would water would carry on an average basis let alone if the interceptor also had a flood associated with it recently so there are health issues and health impacts in addition to inconvenience and major investments on cleanup.

So you can see the dotted blue line is the originally proposed alignment of the bulkhead with the pedestrian connectivity along the waterfront and if we need to look at alternatives for the southern portion we'll continue to do that.

So for our staff recommendation if additional funding is not feasible for this and we are continuing to work within the currently approved funding we believe proceeding with further design advancement for this option three the enhanced gravity system with backflow prevention strategies is our best bet to do that while making very measurable benefits and improvements well along the way to our total objectives and not precluding any future investments that may need to be made in the future.

And so we will continue to develop the gravity system with some further engineering and design to allow us a better cost validation with better confidence in those figures.

This was developed rather rapidly after some major changes that came suddenly and so we would update our project schedule develop a new stakeholder outreach engagement plan and continue to be clear about the benefits derived from this investment.

This would be that workflow that I just highlighted with an anticipation that we would come back with an update to council in the June time frame to report a little bit more about the cost development a schedule update and sort of the general path forward from that point.

Okay.

Could you go back?

I'm sorry thank you, Mr.

Lanisc one more slide back.

Can you just speak to what impact if any a deferral in point Lumley has on the bequest the timing of the bequest is uncertain and so the bequest can still be accommodated with the Point Lumley park area and we can always choose to convert the gravel parking lot to park space thereafter and in conjunction with that bequest becoming available.

So direction we give tonight should it should the council indicate like dire you know this direction to go into option three doesn't preclude terms of the bequest.

Correct.

Okay.

And then the stakeholder outreach and public engagement referenced on here again if if council should indicate tonight its support for moving forward in option three and you're coming back in June this is more of an educational update that that we're envisioning and what I understand the the the question before us tonight is is a directional you know indication from council.

And so the state again stakeholder engagement and outreach is more about educational outreach and updating to the public rather than because I I appreciate so much of what you've been doing is here are the options you know how do you feel about these options?

You know what are your questions about these options?

And so should the council I guess give direction tonight which I think is the goal of what what we're here for I I don't want to have misled you know what I mean and also want to be sure that we're giving you clear guidance about you know what the next public steps are between now and June and what we will be going back to the public with.

So is that your understanding when you have stakeholder outreach and public engagement on there or do you need more clarity from us tonight?

And I'm not I'm not the only one to give it I'm just curious like can you speak more to what that dot means?

No I think you've accurately represented what we anticipate would be able to be completed between now and then and the intention it's informing the public of the constraints and the necessary pivots and some of the key core priorities and the benefits that we would still achieve with that investment.

As you know, the waterfront plan has been around for quite some time and the small area plan before it.

Um so we did just want to highlight a few of the major wins along the way as this plan has guided and shaped the waterfront as we see it today.

Um just for some of the development sites, um, wanted to highlight um Cooper Mill at uh 10 Duke Street in 2025, Robinson Terminal North uh was approved in 2025, um Robinson landing at the UAA site uh 20 uh then 21, Watermark condominiums in 20, and the old Dominion Boat Club and the Hotel Indigo both in 2017, uh as well as the interim park improvements uh that we've been enjoying up to date.

Uh major development con uh uh developer contributions also contribute to open space rehabilitation and improvements of the Southern Pier, uh public art, water quality improvements, bike share stations, and many others.

And so um many strong winds uh through the course of time.

And that concludes the update unless you have any other further questions.

Okay.

Um thank you, Mr.

Landis.

Let me open it up for questions, comments.

Councilman Chapman.

Start off with uh uh a comment, and I appreciate this um that last slide being one of the ones that was up.

Um that one too.

I like that one too.

But the I I think one of the things is we've had a number of people that have moved to the city um since uh the conversations in 2010 about the waterfront plan.

Um and so you know, that that last slide talking about all of the kind of investment in the waterfront, the changes in the waterfront.

I think folks still a number of folks still don't understand the whole conversation and controversy and the path that the city's uh taken.

Uh I've had uh some conversations from newer business owners kind of kind of trying to figure out what the the changes have been down at the waterfront.

And so I think that that last slide that we saw was uh uh a nice little reminder of kind of how things have changed.

But uh, as we look at kind of a recommendation and work, it's fine.

Um in terms of a recommendation and what we still have to do.

I think um that I think it's that middle uh picture is is something that uh is going to hopefully come up from out of the continued work along the waterfront.

Um so that that last uh for folks who are not here uh in the city prior to 2012, uh that last uh bullet point is what most of us know and remember about uh a lot of that waterfront uh that it was vacant warehouses and sites that were were not usable and were not necessarily contributing to uh the public or frankly at that point the business community either.

And so to be able to uh change and see this waterfront change over the last decade and a half has been amazing.

And I think uh as as we continue to talk about the bit to the business community, they want to continue to see you know the city's investment uh in that waterfront.

And so uh as we've had the conversations around what do we do to decrease flooding, um, making sure that the business community has more opportunity uh to keep their businesses open and and profitable uh during uh rain events and and flooding issues, I think it is really key for us to uh um figure out how we continue to invest in the waterfront.

I think the options uh staff has laid out here uh will go to to uh take us to that next step.

But I I am definitely um and I think everybody probably is concerned about the the cost uh as we look at other options as well.

Uh and so I do appreciate staff kind of pointing out what opportunities allow us to stay within kind of the the more reasonable budget uh because yes, this is something we have to invest in, but as we know uh as we go through the budget, there are multiple things that we will have to invest in.

And so uh this is a great way to uh to look at making an investment in the waterfront, uh, respective of some of the other things that we need to do as well.

Thank you, Councilman Chapman.

Other questions, comments?

Councilman Alnubi.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Uh I think first of all, uh I really appreciate the matrix that you have on slide 10.

It's very helpful to see the difference between the options and what each option addresses and does not address.

In terms of the difference between option three and option one B, or the option that would have the pump.

It may have been addressed on a different slide, but I'm still confused.

How many days difference in flooding between the two options?

If we don't do option one B and end up doing option three, how many additional days of flooding does that mean and what is the impact of that on the city on the businesses?

Thank you for the question.

I'll start first with the sunny day flooding.

Uh the sunny day flooding would be no different.

Uh since we're addressing 100 percent of the sunny day flooding with this gravity option, option three, that would be the same performance uh with the other.

Uh so a hundred percent of those events will be eliminated.

In terms of um really significant rainfall events, the the number of days totally depends on the statistical probability of whether those rain events are going to happen at a really high river stage or if it was at mean C sea level or below.

And so uh a statistical number is difficult in that regard.

But there's gonna be very measurable improvements for most of the time until we start seeing that that sea level rise continue to climb up.

Got it.

Um in terms of portable pumps, what is the possibility of using portable pumps if we need to, if we don't end up building a pump station and we have an event where the gravity is not doing what is what we hope it would do?

So I have the stormwater team modeling our our concept uh to be able to show some graphics in our next update to you all uh about how the system will perform uh ex compared to existing, um, and to have any recommendations on whether or not such mobile equipment or just some other other forms of strategies of recovery would be required uh for a riverine flood event.

But that that is a plausible option.

It's a plausible option.

When we first studied it in the planning phase, um it has some headwinds about the feasibility of deployment, the factor of putting human lives uh at risk or uh to intervene with uh significant standing water, um, you know, there's risk elements and factors associated with it.

And so early on, we really prioritized uh passive or automatic solutions that didn't require a response time or the ability to get to the site.

Um and so that was why that was prioritized originally.

But we'll continue to evaluate whether or not with the system that is a recommendation, uh but it certainly is an option.

So if we go with option three um and we have those days that you described where you know we have higher elevations and we have those storm events, would that those be the days where we would look at bringing in portable pumps?

Like w talking about how a portable pumps would work with an option three, for example.

So for example, um on a day on a daily basis the tide fluctuates and at some point it will reach low tide.

And so before we experience a really dramatic one to two foot of sea level rise, um our system will drain uh successfully, even with a gravity system once we hit a lower tide range.

So from mid mid to low tide.

And so um the system would only um, you know, if we had a major debris clog or a failure of a of a stormwater gate or something of that nature, would be the time that we might want to plan for an alternative method to recover than waiting for that system uh to hit low tide.

Got it.

Thank you for that.

Um would probably like to see is I know you you well, let me ask you this.

You said with future with with option three, it does not preclude the option of building a pump station in the future.

Yes, sir.

I think for me to compare apples to apples, to compare option three to option one B, um, how much would that cost?

How much would the pump station cost then, not now?

Because it probably costs more if we build it in future years, right?

I mean, we just saw how much the cost went up by just during the design phase in the you know past few years.

So for me it's um I would like to say how much it would cost.

I mean, it obviously we can't we don't know when we would try to build it or whatever, but to the best extent possible, how much would that cost be?

Because maybe we look at it and it's like probably cost the same as just doing one B right off the bat, right?

So that's how I um I want to look at it.

So that maybe having those numbers would be um helpful for me to see.

Um but I I I think as it stands right now, given all the budget constraints and everything, I'll be leaning towards option three, but I certainly want to hear where my colleagues are as well.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thanks, Mayor Bagley.

Yeah, I mean, and to this point, I I appreciate what Councilman O'Neaby is getting at, but I think the best that we can ask staff to do is what is typical inflation factors and what would, you know, what would it be in five years' time?

What would it be in ten years' time?

But but for the sake of like staff work and the decision we're trying to make here tonight, you know, I I don't, you know, I I wouldn't know exactly how to respond to that question, you know, in terms of what would it cost eventually at some point in the future.

And so I think, you know, to the to the extent there is a follow-up opportunity.

I I think that for for me, all I'd want for staff to do, and I'm not trying to hijack or change the question, but just point out like whatever the reliable standard inflation factors or you know, known you know, factors would be, and then do that at at certain, you know, five point five years out, having said that.

Um, but I I don't think we know.

I mean, we we understood this we understood this building to be permissible for nearly 10 years.

And I say that based on the nearly 10 years of deep engagement and time spent and drafting and the NEPA analysis being allowed to be underway.

So to that question, it would appear to me that there probably is a time in the future where different leadership at NPS and climate change will cause them to say, absolutely, if you want to have a waterfront park anywhere on the East Coast, we're gonna need pump stations to do that.

So I I agree.

I I think at some point in the future this will become a permissible use again.

But asking our staff, I think to anticipate, you know, sort of when that might be and the circumstances that would lead to that, I just think is a very challenging question to pose.

Um I have then two sort of a little uh one question is very tied to the slides and hopefully has a simple answer, which is just under option three, eliminate pump station, defer improvements to point Lumley, that's the primary recommended option.

Under option four, there's a reference to limited pipe upsizing.

I assume the pipe upsizing is also happening to a degree in option three.

That's not a separate action, only an option four.

Correct.

Okay.

Um just wanted to confirm that since it wasn't sort of explicitly said in in that slide.

Um so my last question is is a little bit along the lines of what Councilman Alnubi is also getting at, which is what if we did nothing?

I mean, we know what current sunny day predictions are, and I'd love it if you can back up to that slide.

We're looking at, you know, hot like you know, 300 out of, I mean, 353 events per year of sunny day, 53, almost every day of the year, you know, eighty years from now, we will have sunny day flooding doing nothing.

Um what other impacts would we anticipate in a do-nothing decision?

I I'd address it uh based on each infrastructure type and it and its implication.

Uh so first, from a storm sewer standpoint, we know uh the condition is very poor to failing in several different areas within our proposed area of work.

And so those pipes will continue to age, uh, continue to have problems and continue to flood daily as per the chart.

And so the maintenance costs and eventual failure would would cause a need for an emergency project if we did nothing and it suddenly failed.

And so there's uh uh announcer prevention here uh to consider uh for infrastructure that's at the end of its useful life, which I would say is very similar also to the bulkhead itself.

So option four did not include uh raising the bulkhead.

We could replace bulkhead within that option that wasn't included in the price there.

Um it was assumed that we would want to do all that in tandem.

Um but to raise the bulkhead, we do need to make greater investments in the storm sewer system and in its capacity uh to not cause new flooding in our in our bathtub area.

And so to to do nothing on the bulkhead as well uh would allow the the condition that I shared those images of earlier uh to continue uh to decline for sediment to to spill into the river and uh to cause other potential risks um to those that want to access these areas.

Um we we're so far down the track on these couple of options, but as a um dutiful waterfront commission member, I I'd ask you just to speak very briefly to something else that was exhaustively evaluated 18 months ago, two years ago, which was more of a passive retention approach in locations along the city in various parks.

And so um I I I'm just reintroducing that here as we're sort of at this decision point that there was another column of option much earlier.

And um if you could just you know give a gives just a short statement on sort of that option that wasn't listed here that was thoroughly evaluated, but is not even being listed here because it's already been eliminated.

Thank you.

So I think you're referring to um one of the early options that still included two pump stations with a large amount of underground storage to help reduce the size or the magnitude of the pumps that would be needed and therefore reduce the size of at least one of the pump stations.

Um as we evaluated that, that even then, several years ago, um cost dramatically exceeded our project funding.

Um and that was largely due to extremely large and deep excavations in an area that needed to be dewatered and uh large amounts of contaminated soil to be remediated and cause uh potential risk that needed to be monitored.

And so the cost was a major factor um with the goal originally being to you know scope to budget, uh, but also those other risk factors and the challenges uh for that system to continue to function without being impacted by groundwater.

No, I appreciate that.

And I think for me that sort of brings home what um my colleague, Councilman Chapman was raising, which also serving on the waterfront commission, what I often hear is residents who have lived here even five or six years will express sort of frustration at the pace of development on the waterfront, to which people who have been here the length of Councilman Chapman's tenure, you know, will quickly pipe up and say, actually, you know, the last 12 years have seen substantial development.

And so I I bring that one up because if you're more recent to this issue and to this analysis, you might not be aware that more of a passive design, smaller pump house design has been thoroughly investigated and analyzed.

And that had pump stations not in Waterfront Park, but in sort of two other locations in the city, correct?

I'll I'll just clarify it did include one in waterfront park.

So there's always been one proposed in waterfront park and one also um somewhere near approximately where the Alexandria Seaport Foundation is.

I misspoke a little bit, but you know, two pumps, one in outside the park, one in the park.

So um those were my questions.

And I guess I I want to maybe ask the mayor sort of what the expectation is tonight.

Uh thank you.

The expectation, you do not need to make a motion.

We're simply here to give guidance on sort of where you're leaning and the recommendation that you might um want staff to pursue so that by the time they come back in June, they are able to provide us with the detailed information.

So I think for the sake of time, if if you're leaning a certain way, I I think we already heard from Councilman Alnuby.

It would be great to just kind of go keep going.

I mean, I think if I I wasn't trying to be uh so one and two are not an option.

One A and two are clearly not options.

I'm indicating um I'm I'm not inclined to do nothing.

And for that reason, I'm also not inclined to spend fifty to sixty million dollars on option four, which is you know still a significant amount of money that would not produce significant results.

So I I am inclined for option three.

I am less interested in option one B because the price tag simply does not exist at present.

And option three doesn't foreclose a future pump station that could work in conjunction with option three.

So I prefer much more the option we can currently afford that doesn't preclude a pump station rather than option one B, which we cannot afford, and therefore to me is like not effectively an option.

Thank you.

Uh councilman.

So just to be clear, um I was not getting at that we don't do anything.

I was getting at how do I think about comparing option one B to option three?

Um how how does option three solve the problem?

I mean, clearly we have a problem we need to solve.

So just just to clarify, that's what I was getting at.

I was not getting at doing nothing at all.

Um the second thing is for me, what the reason to ask for that, and again, it doesn't have to be a detailed number coming back in June, you know, if you can come back with the number, come back with the number.

But for me is if we at one point will end up building a pump station in the park and it's gonna cost the same as building it in one prints today, that's what I want to be comparing.

Now, yes, we don't have the money, but what if we were able to figure out a way to fund it, right?

If we're gonna end up spending what was the number, 100 million, 120 million anyways, you know, to put the pump in the park in the future, maybe maybe not, why not just do it now in one prince?

So that's what I was trying to think through by asking for for that number.

Um thank you.

Okay.

Um before I turn down here, uh I already see a three, so I can there.

Three.

Three.

Boom.

Um I'm also a three.

I guess just a few quick things I would just say.

One, um, I am very curious though, when you come back on three, just the tighter cost numbers, especially if there's anything we can get sooner because we are um in budget deliberations, if there's funding in the capital improvement plan that can be shifted around in this budget, the earlier we could know that would be helpful.

Um two, I do think uh Councilman Alnubi raised the point about you know backup systems and portable pipes, not pipes, we can't port the pipes um pumps.

We can't port the pipes, um pumps.

If when you're doing the costs, if we can also just get numbers on what some of those other options might be.

And even um I'm thinking about the snow conversations earlier.

Where do you store those?

Like what does it cost to keep those in operation, I think would be very helpful.

And then lastly, I just wanted to put one point out for the public.

We received some emails around um, well, could we create a new stakeholder group or a task force to further discuss this?

I just wanted to give my two cents.

I feel like we've been discussing this for nearly 20 years, um, even before my time.

I think it's Vice Mayor Bagley alluded to.

A lot of the options, like if people go on the website, things that people would want to suggest in a task force or another work group have been suggested, have been studied.

Additionally, we do have a work group in the waterfront commission.

And I think you have done multiple, multiple meetings with different stakeholder groups.

And so I would just say for me, I would hope that people can see the reason why we're able to pivot the way that we're able to pivot is because we've done a lot of engagement.

And most of these ideas that are here were ones that were suggested previously and now are being sort of um repurposed or or reimagined in this deployment.

And so I feel confident that you know we are able to move forward in this direction.

So I hope that gives you guys the guidance you need from the council to move forward with option three and to begin to do the stakeholder education about what three means and what that would look like.

But appreciate the time.

Thank you.

Okay, Madam Clerk, next item.

Consideration of receipt of the Alexandria Commission on Aging, age-friendly plan 2026 through 2029.

Uh let me just say this as staff is coming up first.

I want to just give a sincere apology for underestimating the length that previous presentations would take.

Um I don't know if it was meant to be this way, but our older adults are always holding us down in this community, and you guys are the ones who are holding us down through this meeting.

Uh so I just I really appreciate your time and engagement and I recognize the late hour and just wanted wanted to apologize.

But sincerely thank you for staying with us.

With that, I will turn it over to Director Garvey.

Thank you so much.

I'm Kate Garvey.

I'm the director of the Department of Community and Human Services.

And I'm so pleased to be joined by the co-chairs of our commission on aging, Michael Schuster and uh D.T.

Oliver.

I'm not gonna remember people's names because I'm sleepy.

And of course, our director of the division on aging and adult services.

And so uh they are gonna uh walk us through the plan, the process, uh some of the accomplishments from the past.

And I do just want to highlight that this approach reflects what the commission um and our division have worked together on for a long time, and that is true collaboration, community engagement, and really looking in the most comprehensive way related to this.

And it's talking about a community that is a really uh welcoming and ready for all ages, not just older adults.

So I'm gonna with that I'm gonna kick it off over to Chris.

Um also want to acknowledge the rest of my staff that's back there tonight, Ashley and Pam.

Um it's been a long day for them as well.

So it as a city manager walked out.

But um definitely want to acknowledge though the work that the commission has done.

It's been a really integrative and collaborative effort um working with the housing 2040 plan as well as the CHIP and um really integrating those things.

So none of us are operating in silos.

Um I'm gonna hand it over to Michael and um DT as they take you through the plan.

Okay.

Um I'm just gonna mention briefly the eight domains.

This is based as uh Chris mentioned, something uh that was developed by the World Health Organization and also ARP.

And uh there are probably uh hundreds of these age-friendly communities throughout the United States.

Um Alexandria has the distinction of being the first um Virginia municipality or locality to have an age-friendly plan.

You know, um the first plan was developed in uh 2019.

I think that I know that Councilmember Chapman was on the council at that time, and uh I believe uh uh Canick uh Councilmember Agiri was um, if not on the council, certainly certainly came on right afterwards.

Uh and we and and we really appreciate uh the work that uh um councilmember Aguirre and also um Del Pepper have done for the commission over the years.

Um I want to mention that um there's two particular domains that are really pertinent, especially today, because you you talked a little bit about housing and transportation, um, but also about uh health.

And if you if you look at the domains carefully, you'll you'll you notice something that's very similar to what you've seen earlier this year with regard to the SHIP plan and also um housing the um housing uh 2040 plan.

And in fact, uh it's a little bit of maybe plagiarism on our part or perhaps um housing 2040.

But uh a lot of the um ideas, a lot of the objectives, a lot of the um goals uh in the housing 2040 plan track very closely the uh age-friendly plan.

Um I'm gonna turn now over to uh DT.

Super Umess for updating the new age-friendly plan.

So it kicked off last January uh with a convening at the Lee Center.

Um then February through April, we hosted a number of convenings at uh either residence buildings or community centers where older adults are, such as LaDre, Claridge Towers, and the Charles Houston Community Center.

Also in February, we uh administered a survey, which uh 300 Alexandrians took, and 95% of the people who took that survey are over the age of 55.

So we were getting some of the um some data from the population we're hoping to have this plan uh impact.

And then early July of last year, a town hall that's sort of dual purpose with the age-friendly plan and the triple Area Agency on Agents uh aging plan under the Older Americans Act.

So those first four bullet points there are speaking to kind of gathering both sort of numerical data from people via that survey that 300 folks took, uh, as well as some narrative feedback from people in person.

Uh after we came back from summer break, um, so there's four uh subcommittees on the commission on aging that's kind of divided and conquered as it relates to our uh goals and objectives under the age-friendly plan.

So those subcommittees got together, talked about the um the goals and objectives that based on the area.

Sorry, the the data uh and then narrative feedback, kind of what's the the impact we want with each of those domains that Michael was referring to.

Um and then here we are today uh seeking approval and then ideally submitting to AARP.

And just to underscore what um some folks have talked about earlier, we have been extremely intentional with being collaborative with housing 2040.

If folks were at the February 28th open house, you'll notice I believe it was goal seven, kind of called out the age-friendly plan.

And so we've done a lot of work to um have their plans inform us and have our plans inform them.

So um whether it be housing 2040, the community health improvement plan, which we also have commissioners who um are joining the citywide mental health coalition as well as those place-based in Arlandria and uh landmark Van Dorn, as well as Vision Zero, so collaborating with the Transportation Commission on ensuring zero deaths, traffic deaths.

Uh and so we'll briefly go over the goals and objectives within each of these domains.

Um before I pass it off to Michael to start us off with housing.

Just want to say that the slides are a very high-level overview.

Within each of these goals, there's objectives within each of those objectives, there's action items and kind of who will collaborate as a commission within each of those.

Um so with that, uh we'll hand it off to Michael to talk about housing.

Yeah, the the slides are uh required overview.

Uh I think the actual plan is about 60 pages.

Um in contrast, uh the Arlington County age-friendly plan is about 30 pages.

So I know you like things very short and concise, but we couldn't help ourselves.

Um the uh the housing is similar to the um housing uh 2440.

The plan has the goals uh um for advocacy for our mixed uh uh income affordable assisted living facility, enhance uh housing and affordability for older Alexandrians, including rent relief, and that's really a major part of uh that that particular goal.

And a third goal deals with the prevention of unnecessary or unwarranted institutionalization of older adults or a focus on strategies for aging in place in a community, uh something uh called naturally occurring retirement uh communities or NORCS for short.

Um in any event, uh uh as uh uh DT mentioned, uh a lot of our goals track very closely to goal seven of the uh proposed uh housing 2040.

Turn it back over to DT.

Super, thank you, Michael.

So the next domain that I'll go over is around civic engagement and economic security goals.

Uh goals one and two both deal uh at a high level with employment.

So goal one is more employment as it relates to our collaborations with city staff, specifically with the workforce development center, which we have a great collaboration with them.

Uh Michael joins uh all of our committee meetings regarding civic engagement and economic security.

So just expanding on um you know making sure that those programs are accessible to older adults in Alexandria.

Uh goal two here is around um expanding employment for older Alexandrians.

So uh Jim, who's here earlier, he leads Shark Tanks, for example, where one of the cohorts is in Alexandria, and I know those are focused on uh entrepreneurship, and three of the members in the Alexandria cohort are um older adults above the age of 55.

So it's expanding awareness to that of options for um ensuring employment for older Alexandrians.

Goal three is focused on uh access to food for older Alexandrians.

So kind of two buckets, I'll say at a high level there are things like public benefits, is one piece of that.

So um the supplemental nutrition assistance program or SNAP, uh, you know, enrolling older adults in SNAP as well as advocating for an increase in that minimum benefit to SNAP, which we've um routinely advocated for.

So continuing that advocacy as well as um I know earlier there was a meeting with Dash, so we've collaborated with Dash on the Commission's been building kind of a view of if older adults are enrolled in SNAP and um you know, let's say when we think about a population that may be prone to limited mobility, um looking at which retailers except SNAP that are in immediate proximity to Dash bus stops.

Uh that's something that uh we've made a log a lot of progress on already.

So just a few examples in that space around public benefits, and then on the other side of food assistance is looking at those safety nets that are in Alexandria, such as food pantries, um, making sure that we're partnering with with organizations to make sure that older adults have access to either knowing when things are open in Alexandria, uh, where those you know 60 plus congregate nutrition programs are and when they're open, as well as delivery programs.

And then goal four is related to uh energy, so um you know advocating for additional resources in case there are potential cuts to things like LIHEAP as well as the Virginia Energy Assistance Program, and then goal five collaborating with organizations such as Senior Services of Alexandria to increase some of those opportunities for civic engagements and socially valuable services for older Alexandrians.

Next, I'll talk about outreach goals.

So our outreach committee.

Um the goals within this are looking at how to uh make sure that we are spreading awareness of different services and inclusion across the city for our older Alexandrians.

So this includes things like taking into account the um you know the number of languages that are spoken in Alexandria and making sure that we know older adults are prone to isolation, so doing everything that we can to make sure that information is getting out to the community in a way that's meaningful to them.

Um as well as goal two is focused on it's kind of something we also had in the last iteration of the age-friendly plan.

Um GBT adults are um especially prone to isolation.

So I know in the past we've done some collaborations with the Arlington Commission on Aging, specifically on uh older adults in the LGBT community, so um keeping that goal as well in this new age-friendly plan.

The outreach goals are more focused on kind of how we uh communicate with the community.

Um our communication and collaboration goals are really focused a lot on one, enrolling more people in the senior ambassador program, as well as uh making sure we continue this high spirit of collaboration uh within the different committees of the commission on aging, as well as the different commissions in the city, as well as continuing some great partnerships we have with different city offices to ensure that we succeed in the goals within the other domains.

And so with that, I will hand it over to Michael to talk about transportation and help.

Okay, pretty much the transportation goals will just continue what's in the current plan.

And I think uh what permeates the age-friendly plan is that there's going to be a lot more advocacy in this plan than in the previous plan.

And I think it it's demonstrated uh with respect to the health goals.

There's three of them.

Uh the one goal is just to monitor what's going on with the Medicaid cuts.

And uh not only are we going to be monitoring that, but we are working in collaboration with the Northern Virginia Aging Network in ARP Virginia and Richmond.

So we've been um in Richmond a few times talking to, for example, the uh the budget staff uh for the bunny committees in the Senate and the House.

We've um through ARP and also and we've talked to a lot of legislators about the Medicaid cuts.

We've testified on uh at one of the regional budget meetings uh here in uh Northern Virginia.

So that's that's gonna be I think a focus uh uh especially in the health care area, trying to deal with uh with all these cuts and working not only you know with the the city staff here in Alexandria, with the city lobbyists, but also with our colleagues in uh ARP and also Northern Virginia Aging Network.

Uh and I think was mentioned earlier, we are going to be working a lot with CHIP.

It's kind of uh unlike the the uh housing um uh master plan uh 2040, where I think uh they're kind of uh towards the end of their process, just like we are.

Uh the um the CHIP plan is still, I think, uh in a um uh beginning process.

And so we're starting to meet with work groups and trying to uh insert in a lot of those uh work group discussions the uh the aging perspective with regard to mental wellness.

Um that pretty much uh concludes uh the the goals and objectives uh for the age-friendly plan.

Well, thank you so much for the presentation.

Let me open it up for questions and discussion from the council.

Councilman Aguirre and then Vice Mayor Bagley.

And then Councilman Green.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um first off, uh just want to say thank you to the Commission on Aging, the staff, um, the Commission members and and uh partners that have stayed this late with us as well.

Um I I've seen firsthand just the number of hours that have been spent in the subcommittees and then coming to the committee and then uh you know, though coming to the council and everything.

Just want to commend everyone on the work.

Uh very, very comprehensive.

Um, you know, I I tell people that the Commission on Aging to me is kind of the gold standard of commissions in the city.

Uh this goes back to before I was on the council and when I had just joined uh the Economic Opportunities Commission, and then when I became chair there, I try to model some of what we did off of the Commission on Aging because I was always so impressed by how organized and efficient the Commission has been, and that uh tradition has been continued.

And um, you know, really appreciate some of the goals here.

Uh I wish uh Councilman McWell, former Councilman McPike was still here.

He'd be really excited about the mixed income affordable.

I that huge, huge deal, very much needed.

I remember uh during one conversation with one of uh the developers, you know, I I jokingly said, you know, the million dollars isn't what you need anymore because if it costs you know $15,000 a month to live somewhere, I mean, who's gonna be able to afford that?

Um so you know, the housing issue has always been prominent here in this area.

And um so thank you guys for that one.

Um goal five under civic engagement on economic security.

Uh love that one because I I I've always uh said, you know, in Alexandria, we're not only a very um prosperous community, we have a lot of resources and we want to connect people with them, but we don't always do the best job.

Um so the more touch points we can create where people can grab on and then connect into into services, the better.

Um appreciate the outreach goals as well.

Uh transportation, I I think you know, as we progress with some of the Alexander Transit Vision, we'll we'll continue that because I think one of the big points on the uh on the transit vision was you know when we were uh servicing uh our our seniors and folks with disabilities.

I mean, we we were we were down there, we were in like the 25 to 35 percent, um, and now we're much higher, closer around like 80, 85 percent.

And uh hopefully that only continued to improve, not just with with your advocacy and um you know pushing some of the transit vision.

And you know, unfortunately, with the times that we're in when it comes to health, uh, you know, these work requirements around Medicaid when a lot of folks I worked on Medicaid for almost 10 years, and it's just a little bit ridiculous, you know, when uh a bulk of Medicaid uh recipients are children that are under the age of 18, so you know we're we're encouraging child labor, like what's going on, and then folks that have retired.

So, what are we telling folks that are retired?

You have to go back to work to be able to get this benefit that you've earned throughout your life.

Um and then there's all the other folks that you know 18 to 65 that are working, right?

And it's just very disrespectful to them.

So I just wanted to make uh a couple of those comments.

Um but again, uh very excited about this.

Um Alexandra leads, you know, as was mentioned, uh, we're first in the Commonwealth with one of these plans um and excited that we are re-upping it and uh continuing uh what we do to serve and be an age-friendly uh community.

And uh Madam Mayor, do we need to uh formally make a motion to approve this?

Yes, we do, and this will be a roll call vote.

And not to cut off any discussion from my colleagues, but I would put a motion on the floor to approve the plan.

There has been a motion by Councilman Ageary and a second by Councilman Chapman.

Any discussion?

Vice Mayor Bagley, Councilman Green.

Um, um thank you for um doubling the work of Arlington and producing a thorough 60-page report.

Um I I appreciate that.

I I have uh what might feel like a hyper-specific question, but I think you're the body to maybe help me answer it.

Um I was in conversation today with actually an elected official from another locality, and we were expressing the shared challenge with the breakdown of sort of print media.

I think a lot of senior citizens have historically gotten their news and their information from print media, whether that was like a hyper-local paper that existed or the Washington Post.

Um that is the you know, I think other generations might be shifting more readily or never really, you know, bought a paper to begin with.

So I'm curious, many of your goals were actually tied in a way to communication, engagement, outreach.

Um and I appreciate the substance that you're trying to get, but I'm wondering if you all have any insights from all of this engagement about the best way to reach seniors in lieu of print media, because I think we could maybe benefit as well in our generalized promotion and information technique sharing.

Um, let me start on that.

Um we also collaborate with ARP, and ARP does have a lot of workshops dealing with technology.

Um previously um we had a a grant uh for uh grand pads um where um through the senior services of Alexandria, they were able to uh do a kind of a pilot project with I think maybe 40 uh grand pads helping people try to negotiate using new technology to communicate with family to make medical appointments and so on.

Um but uh you know, as I think you we had that discussion earlier um with regard to the police department about you know advanced technology.

It is something that we are looking at in terms of uh trying to reach um people uh you know where they feel comfortable.

If if they feel comfortable with with print, then we're gonna be using print, uh flyers or whatever.

Um if they uh are savvy enough to use technology, we'll do that.

But again, we're gonna be working in collaboration with other aging organizations, especially ARP that uh is really trying to uh use more technology, have uh more uh workshops on technology uh with uh older adults.

I know that I'm sorry, no, please, go ahead.

I was gonna say, I think also with um we found that one of the cures to the this current environment right now is is community and really just forming and and um having people to reach out one-to-one and um things like expanding the senior ambassador program speaks exactly to that.

We need more evangelists to let people know about these services that are there.

Um I think from the divisions aspect, so many of the people that we get are the people who if we had reached them five years ago, um maybe their condition wouldn't be quite as dire and things like that.

So I think just really expanding the boots on the ground and getting people to talk to people one-to-one in uh more in groups and everything, and finding the people who are uh for lack of a better term, influencers that can really um spread the word.

I think that's um probably the best remedy for that.

Just um I guess sort of finished that we uh uh T D mentioned uh DT mentioned the uh senior senior ambassador program, and that's where uh in the community we're we're trying to reach people one-on-one, people within their neighborhoods within their housing complex, whatever.

And so that's w another way where we're doing a lot of outreach, and it's uh I I think it's it's very effective.

And I think uh I think we our goal last time was uh uh recruiting a hundred uh senior ambassadors.

I think it's probably over two hundred now.

So it's it's pretty impressive.

Yeah.

No, I think I was fortunate to be present at one of the recent um sort of graduation events for that program.

And I I hear you, because I think seniors more so maybe than other generations are also more open to in-person conversation and and having their door knocked and you know, getting a real phone call.

So I I appreciate the feedback.

It's something we'll continue to wrestle with and try to improve on.

The one other comment I wanted to make, because you guys mentioned so many partnerships, and I really appreciate that.

One I didn't hear that I that maybe you've done.

Um when you talk about energy use and bills and lie heap and things, have you um is there any possibility is can you connect with the Office of Climate Action?

Because many of our seniors are actually living in homes that are paid off, they're staying in those homes, but those homes are highly energy inefficient and they might not be aware of the options available to them in terms of maybe a solar assessment or like a nest, you know, smart thermostat device.

So if I see some nodding heads, I'm not sure if that means you you've already had that contact, or it just it's a reasonable idea.

I've been in meetings with the Office of Climate Action.

Um we haven't um we didn't put it into the plan as of yet, but that is something that we're um definitely working towards and trying to figure out where we can um overlap.

Yeah, I just add energy efficiency as well as if shoring up of spaces, rebuilding together also another partner for us, but in terms of getting we're working with the Department of Health on the Healthy Homes project, so and that encompasses some of these issues.

Thank you all very much.

Thank you.

Councilman Green.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

And uh just a quick question.

Um and thank you uh to the Commission for all the wonderful work you do for the seniors in our community.

It's greatly appreciated.

Under the domain health, um, I know in numerous reports that I've read, um, people of color die sooner in Alexandria than their white counterparts.

I was just wondering, is there any component to this planned where we're updating data or partnering maybe with Alexandria Health Department to figure out how that can be changed and then incorporated into the report?

We do have a great partnership with them, and I think that's certainly feedback.

I think they'd be very open to just iterative conversations on that, and how can we um to my knowledge?

I'm sure I don't want to say I know, but I feel confident it probably exists on sort of what our trends that we see for um you know, older adults, but of different um races, of different backgrounds, and um so I think that's definitely a conversation they'd certainly be open to based on it's conversations.

It's gonna be part of the CHIP process too.

I know that they have some work groups dealing with that and uh the Department of Health or Cha, I guess uh the community health assessment, all these acronyms.

Um has a dashboard that really has some really good information about the demographics in the city and the zip codes and census tracks and it's um you know really informative and it really helps us to know where we can direct our advocacy.

And I I would also say in terms of health disparities, when we think too about our senior centers too, we're very focused related to that, both you know from healthy eating and looking at stroke and other things, um uh heart issues.

So that's absolutely differentiating and really trying to have a broader scope related to health interventions.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well I had two quick questions and a comment.

The first one I think might be for Director Garvey.

But one of the recommendations under health was also related to dental services.

And I know dental services has come up, has came up, has come up in the past two budgets.

I'm curious as when we've when we've done our analysis on potential options to expand dental services.

Have we ever had a specific carve out to really look at access for older adults?

And if not, would it be possible to maybe update some of that past outreach?

I mean, yes.

I don't believe we've had a really a major focus related to older adults and dental, and we certainly could.

And to think too again about the accessibility we having neighborhood health within the within our building for general uh care is wonderful.

But as we've talked about before, it is the more specialized care that we have challenges related to um more intensive needs.

So we can absolutely include that.

That's gonna be one of the areas of advocacy with the current uh General Assembly in the uh former governor's budget, uh there's a uh limitation on Medicaid um uh uh expenditures.

It used to be that it was pretty open-ended if you needed a rook canal or if you need an implant, you could get that now.

Um the limit is gonna be an annual limit of $2,000.

So you can start getting an implant, but maybe you can't finish it until the next year.

So that's just another example of where unfortunately because of the budget cuts, um, we're gonna have to do a lot of advocacy just to maintain the status quo.

I did want to add also related to the Medicaid work requirements, because this is of grave concern for us.

And so this our team has been working with others with Volunteer Alexandria, other partners to think about can we create settings and situations where we can meet the requirement of the work required, you know, that is it is in a setting that is something that's accessible that is more natural for older adults, but where we can really think through that this is a volunteer opportunity or one that is something that's conducive because it's it is not appropriate in many cases for to require this, but how do we do it in such a way where people are respected, their dignity is maintained, and they also have a chance to contribute back.

So I think we're trying to be as creative as possible related to this.

Going back to one of the original comments at the outset of the uh session, uh, Councilmember Geary mentioned the our presentation on caregivers.

One thing that ERP is trying to formulate is some kind of a um I don't know, maybe a rule that would uh make caregiving uh one of the exceptions to the work requirements.

So if you and you know, 30 percent, 40 percent of uh uh probably older adults right now are doing some form of uh carry giving.

So if we can get that carved into the uh one of those exceptions, then that would uh mitigate uh some of the problems with that work requirement.

I'd be curious, um maybe Director Garvey, it's a budget memo recognizing that it doesn't seem like they're gonna delay any of these changes and these requirements are gonna come out much sooner.

Is there anything we need to do in this budget as you're thinking about spaces, programming?

Um I think it would be helpful to have those numbers.

The other question I had is I think we've heard um from some of our survival partners and in previous presentations that we're seeing more older adults come into our homeless shelters.

I'm just curious as you guys engaged in the housing conversation, if there's any specific recommendations related to um older adults experiencing homelessness.

I think one of the things is um really partnering with the assisted livings in the city because so many of the older adults who come into the homeless shelters, they're not appropriate for uh a shelter where they might be um some situations on the floor, they might be on a a cot or something to that effect.

So I think um probably partnering with on the respite um what we use for respite care beds if that could be used for um homeless seniors as well.

Um then expanding the um I'm sorry, the auxiliary grant program, um, and the beds that are available for that to use those for um those type of purposes.

And the office of housing sort of a uh our request is we'll be doing a report dealing with uh bringing services to people who uh uh you know can't afford uh affordable or can't afford housing uh and who might be susceptible to uh being homeless.

So um instead of just looking at shelters, we're looking at how how can you bring services to people who just don't have traditional housing.

Um so that report should be coming out maybe in the next month or so.

But it's it's gonna be part of the I think um housing to 2040, but it'll certainly be implemented uh through uh the age-friendly plan as well.

Thank you.

Um well finally I'll just end with some praise because I know we have a motion and a second, and we can get you out of here and home.

Um, yesterday, Councilman Chapman and I were at the school city school meeting, and we were talking about um with the Department of Health the need to do a crosswalk of different plans and sort of figuring out how we have better coordination.

So I just want to give you guys praise because I think you figured it out, and I think you are setting the model for exactly how we want our boards and commissions to be collaborating and thinking about the intersections between the different policy issues that we're doing.

And then second, I had an opportunity to go to um the mayor's innovation project network meeting a couple months ago, and AARP was presenting and they lifted us up as a model um across the entire country for the work that we're doing and gave a shout out that if anyone is doing this work, they should look at Alexandria.

So I just want to say we are people are taking notice everywhere, and that's a testament to your work, the whole commission's work, staff, senior services, everyone who's with us, and probably online.

But just I thank you for everything you do, but also representing our community so well here and beyond.

Uh with that, there has been a motion by Councilman Age, a second by Councilman Chapman.

Madam Clerk, this is a roll call vote.

Please call the roll.

Councilman Acary.

Aye.

Councilman Chapman, Mayor Gaskins.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Bagley.

Excuse me.

I'm not sure.

Councilman El Nubi.

Councilwoman Green.

Aye.

The eyes have it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Madam Clerk, next item.

Consideration of City Council schedule.

Move to approve.

Okay.

There's been a motion by Vice Mayor Magley and a second by Councilman and Geary.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Uh any opposed?

No.

The ayes have it.

Is there a motion to adjourn?

There's been a motion by Councilwoman Green and a second by Vice Mayor Bagley.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The ayes have it.

We are adjourned at 1050.

Okay, my uh one physics.

Uh uh.

My religion is really important to me because it keeps me happy and it keeps me grounded.

Something that is important to me is helping uh students who don't know English because I know how hard and challenging it is to learn a new language.

Therefore, I am helping but a nonprofit to teach students who don't know English to learn.

Part of the City Hall renovation is the renovation of Market Square, which holds the old town farmers market.

The 100 block of North Royal Street from King Street to Cameron Street, as well as Tavern Square or Yard.

There's no way a customer could miss where the market is going to be located.

Where they're going in the temporary market is directly adjacent to where they are now and have been for the last 270 years.

What they'll see is a different arrangement, but the same vendors.

So vendors may be located in different spaces than they currently are, but they will be there.

We will have parking available at Tavern Square, as well as the courthouse garage, which is directly across the street, as well as on the street.

So Pitt Street, Cameron Street, and all the streets surrounding Tavern Square.

We're really looking out for not only the customers that frequent the farmers market, but the vendors themselves.

We want to make sure that we bring their customers, make sure their customers know where they are so they can continue to thrive and the market can continue to thrive.

Substance abuse negatively impacts the health and safety of my community.

So you in Shant Woman does substance abuse affects my school community by making my peers less focused on their grades and their school work.

Substance use impacts our community by having bad work turned in late.

Substance abuse affects uh my school community because it gives bad habits to school students.

Substance abuse negatively impacts our school and our community because it can lead you down the wrong path and creates unhealthy habits.

The City of Alexandria provides Alex 311 to connect you to more than 175 city services in a variety of convenient ways.

Alex311 connects you to every city department for a variety of service and information requests.

From streets and sidewalks to refuse collection, park maintenance, tree requests, and more.

Have you ever thought about how Alexandria funds services like schools, parks, roads, and public safety?

The answer is through the city's budget.

This allows the city to budget funding to keep city services operating.

The city's budget has two main parts.

The operating budget covers everyday expenses like employees' salaries, supplies, and equipment.

The Capital Improvement Plan focuses on larger, long-term projects like repairing streets, renovating buildings, and improvements to parks and fields.

Every fall, city leaders begin the budget process by forecasting the year ahead at their annual City Council budget retreat.

Here, they project the city's income and expenses, including things like property taxes and personnel costs.

Next, City Council gives guidance to the city manager on what should be prioritized in the budget.

Then, city departments and city leaders work on proposals that align with those priorities.

After this, the city manager releases the proposed budget and capital improvement program, a draft operating budget and ten-year capital improvement program for the city council and the community to consider.

Residents can share their ideas and feedback at public hearings, meetings, and even through emails or social media starting in the spring.

After gathering input, City Council reviews the proposed budget and makes adjustments.

Keeping Alexandria moving forward.gov slash budget.

Respect is treating people how they deserve to be treated.

Not that respect means like you won't be like stick with somebody through thinking thin.

I define respect as acknowledges someone's boundaries and sticking to them.

Respect to me means showing kindness to others.

Respect means to me being kind and fair to everyone in my community.

City Hall was built on this site designated for Market and Town Hall when Alexandria was founded back in 1749.

From the very beginning, the space was designed to be a center of community life.

The original building burned down in 1871, but it paved the way for this beautiful structure you see today, designed by Adolf Cleef.

Over the years, City Hall has evolved.

Market Square remains a vibrant space for residents and visitors alike.

Come to farmers markets, public events, and is a reflection of Alexandria's rich history.

And now City Hall is undergoing another transformation as we make much needed updates to better serve the community for generations to come.

After many years of service, major updates are needed throughout City Hall to repair aging building components, optimize space, and improve security.gov slash city hall, something that is important to me is my family.

My friends are important to me because they're very nice and always uh cool to talk to.

Football is important to me because it brings uh a lot of friendship and a brotherhood to each other.

I can show respect for myself by always maintaining a positive mindset and never um saying bad things to myself.

I can show respect for myself by treating my body like a temple and just always kind of you know treating myself nice.

One thing important to me is sleep coming from an insomnia.

I do like it and what I just can fall asleep like at the right time.

It's a great help, really.

So Pitt Street, Cameron Street, and all the streets surrounding Tavern Square.

We're really looking out for not only the customers that frequent the farmers market, but the vendors themselves.

Substance abuse affects my school community by making my peers less focused on their grades and their schoolwork.

Substance abuse affects our school community by decreasing our school morale.

Substance use impacts our community by having bad work turned in late.

Substance abuse affects uh my school community because it gives bad habits to school students.

Substance abuse negatively impacts our school and our community because it can lead you down the wrong path and creates unhealthy habits.

The City of Alexandria provides Alex 311 to connect you to more than 175 city services in a variety of convenient ways.

And we will be courteous by communicating in a respectful and productive manner at each interaction.

Alex311 connects you to every city department for a variety of service and information requests.

From streets and sidewalks to refuse collection, park maintenance, tree requests, and more.

The person I respect is my grandfather because he came down with nothing, and he showed me how sacrifice can take you a long way.

Something that is important to me is helping uh students who don't know English because I know how hard and challenging it is to learn a new language.

Therefore, I am helping but a nonprofit to teach students who don't know English to learn.

The answer is through the city's budget.

This allows the city to budget funding to keep city services operating.

The city's budget has two main parts.

The operating budget covers everyday expenses like employee salaries, supplies, and equipment.

The Capital Improvement Plan focuses on larger long-term projects like repairing streets, renovating buildings, and improvements to parks and fields.

Every fall, city leaders begin the budget process by forecasting the year ahead of their annual city council budget retreat.

Here, they project the city's income and expenses, including things like property taxes and personnel costs.

Next, City Council gives guidance to the city manager on what should be prioritized in the budget.

Then city departments and city leaders work on proposals that align with those priorities.

After this, the city manager releases the proposed budget and capital improvement program, a draft operating budget, and 10-year capital improvement program for the city council and the community to consider.

After gathering input, City Council reviews the proposed budget and makes adjustments.

The new budget goes into effect on July 1st, keeping Alexandria moving forward.

And that's how Alexandria creates and manages its budget to support the services we rely on every day.

For more information on the city's budget and how you can get involved, visit Alexandria VA.gov slash budget.

Respect is being kind and showing kindness to those who need it the most.

Respect is treating people how they deserve to be treated.

I define respect as treating someone the way you want to be treated and allowing someone to do what they need to do.

I define respect as acknowledging someone's boundaries and sticking to them.

I define respect as taking into consideration others' feelings and emotions.

Respect to me means showing kindness to others.

Respect means to me being kind and fair to everyone in my community.

I define respect as caring for the people and place around you and treating people the way you want to be treated.

Welcome to the heart of the Alexandria, Market Square and City Hall.

I'm Danley, and today I'd like to take you on a journey through the history of this remarkable site.

City Hall was built on this site designated for Market and Town Hall when the Alexandria was founded back in 1749.

From the very beginning, the space was designed to be a center of community life.

The original building burned down in 1871, but it paved the way for this beautiful structure you see today, designed by Adolf Clouth.

The tower you see behind me is a reconstruction of a design by the famous architect, Benjamin H.

Latrobe from 1817.

Over the years, City Hall has evolved.

What's housing everything from a Masonic Lodge to police of fire stations and now serves as the administrative hub for Alexandria's government.

Market Square remains a vibrant space for residents and visitors alike, coming to farmers markets, public events, and is a reflection of Alexandria's rich history.

And now City Hall is undergoing another transformation as we make much needed updates to better serve the community for generations to come.

After many years of service, major updates are needed throughout City Hall to repair aging building components, optimize space, and improve security.gov slash city hall.

Something that is important to me is my family.

My family's important to me because they help me through times when I'm down.

Football is important to me because it brings a lot of friendship and a brotherhood to each other.

I can show respect for myself by always maintaining a positive mindset and never um saying bad things to myself.

I can show respect for myself by treating my body like a temple and just always kind of you know treating myself nice.

One thing important to me is sleep coming from an insomnia.

I do like it and what I just can fall asleep like at the right time.

It's a great help, really.

Therefore, I am helping but a nonprofit to teach students who don't know English to learn.

Part of the City Hall renovation is the renovation of Market Square, which holds the old town farmers market.

The 100 block of North Royal Street from King Street to Cameron Street, as well as Tavern Square or Yard.

There's no way a customer could miss where the market is going to be located.

Where they're going in the temporary market is directly adjacent to where they are now and have been for the last 270 years.

What they'll see is a different arrangement, but the same vendors.

So vendors may be located in different spaces than they currently are, but they will be there.

We will have parking available at Tavern Square, as well as the courthouse garage, which is directly across the street, as well as on the street.

So Pitt Street, Cameron Street, and all the streets surrounding Tavern Square.

We're really looking out for not only the customers that frequent the farmers market but the vendors themselves.

We want to make sure that we bring their customers, make sure their customers know where they are so they can continue to thrive and the market can continue to thrive.

Substance abuse affects my school community by making my peers less focused on their grades and their school work.

Substance abuse affects our school community by decreasing our school morale.

Substance use impacts our community by having bad work turned in late.

Substance abuse affects uh my school community because it gives bad habits to school students.

Substance abuse negatively impacts our school and our community because it can lead you down the wrong path and creates unhealthy habits.

The City of Alexandria provides Alex 311 to connect you to more than 175 city services in a variety of convenient ways.

And we will be courteous by communicating in a respectful and productive manner at each interaction.

Alex311 connects you to every city department for a variety of service and information requests from streets and sidewalks to refuse collection, park maintenance, tree requests, and more.

Because they got my back at all times.

I show respect to my parents because they provide for me.

Help writing a search warrant.

Have you ever thought about how Alexandria funds services like schools, parks, roads, and public safety?

The answer is through the city's budget.

This allows the city to budget funding to keep city services operating.

The city's budget has two main parts.

The operating budget covers everyday expenses like employees' salaries, supplies, and equipment.

The Capital Improvement Plan focuses on larger, long-term projects like repairing streets, renovating buildings, and improvements to parks and fields.

Every fall, city leaders begin the budget process by forecasting the year ahead at their annual City Council budget retreat.

Here, they project the city's income and expenses, including things like property taxes and personnel costs.

Next, City Council gives guidance to the city manager on what should be prioritized in the budget.

Then, city departments and city leaders work on proposals that align with those priorities.

After this, the city manager releases the proposed budget and capital improvement program, a draft operating budget and ten-year capital improvement program for the city council and the community to consider.

The community also plays a big role.

Residents can share their ideas and feedback at public hearings, meetings, and even through emails or social media starting in the spring.

After gathering input, City Council reviews the proposed budget and makes adjustments.gov slash budget.

Respect is treating people how they deserve to be treated.

Nothing respect means like you won't be like stick with somebody through thick and thin.

I define respect as acknowledges someone's boundaries and sticking to them.

Respect to me means showing kindness to others.

Respect means to me being kind and fair to everyone in my community.

Welcome to the heart of the Alexandria, Market Square and City Hall.

I'm Danley, and today I'd like to take you on a journey through the history of this remarkable site.

City Hall was built on this site designated for Market and Town Hall when Alexandria was founded back in 1749.

From the very beginning, the space was designed to be a center of community life.

The original building burned down in 1871, but it paved the way for this beautiful structure you see today, designed by Adolf Cluse.

The tower you see behind me is a reconstruction of a design by the famous architect, Benjamin H.

Latrobe from 1817.

Over the years, City Hall has evolved.

What's housing everything from a Masonic Lodge to police of fire stations and now serves as the administrative hub for Alexandria's government.

Come to farmers markets, public events, and is a reflection of Alexandria's rich history.

And now City Hall is undergoing another transformation as we make much needed updates to better serve the community for generations to come.

After many years of service, major updates are needed throughout City Hall to repair aging building components, optimize space, and improve security.gov slash city hall.

Something that is important to me is my family.

My family's important to me because they help me through times when I'm down.

My friends are important to me because they're very nice and always uh cool to talk to.

Football is important to me because it brings uh a lot of friendship and a brotherhood to each other.

I can show respect for myself by always maintaining a positive mindset and never um saying bad things to myself.

I can show respect for myself by treating my body like a temple and just always kind of you know treating myself nice.

One thing important to me is sleep coming from an insomnia.

I do like it and what I just can fall asleep like at the right time.

It's a great help, really.

Something that is important to me is helping uh students who don't know English because I know how hard and challenging it is to learn a new language.

Therefore, I am helping but a nonprofit to teach students who don't know English to learn.

Part of the City Hall renovation is the renovation of Market Square, which holds the old town farmers market.

The 100 block of North Royal Street from King Street to Cameron Street, as well as Tavern Square or Yard.

There's no way a customer could miss where the market is going to be located.

Where they're going in the temporary market is directly adjacent to where they are now and have been for the last 270 years.

What they'll see is a different arrangement, but the same vendors.

So vendors may be located in different spaces than they currently are, but they will be there.

We will have parking available at Tavern Square, as well as the courthouse garage, which is directly across the street, as well as on the street.

So Pitt Street, Cameron Street, and all the streets surrounding Tavern Square.

We're really looking out for not only the customers that frequent the farmers market, but the vendors themselves.

Substance abuse affects my school community by making my peers less focused on their grades and their schoolwork.

Substance abuse affects our school community by decreasing our school morale.

Substance use impacts our community by having bad work turned in late.

Substance abuse affects my school community because it gives bad habits to school students.

Substance abuse negatively impacts our school and our community because it can lead you down the wrong path and creates unhealthy habits.

The city of Alexandria provides Alex 311 to connect you to more than 175 city services in a variety of convenient ways.

City staff will provide the requested services or information whenever possible, and you will receive email updates along the way.

Once your request is closed, you will be asked to complete a survey to tell us about your experience using Alex311 and how well we fulfilled our commitment to being professional, accountable, responsive, and courteous.

We will be responsive by prioritizing work appropriately and working efficiently to get it right the first time.

And we will be courteous by communicating in a respectful and productive manner at each interaction.

Alex311 connects you to every city department for a variety of service and information requests.

From streets and sidewalks to refuse collection, park maintenance, tree requests, and more.

Alex 311, connecting you to city services, I show respect to people by considering their feelings.

The person I respect is my grandfather because he came down with nothing and he showed me how sacrifice can take you a long way.

Something that is important to me is helping uh students who don't know English because I know how hard and challenging it is to learn a new language.

Therefore, I am helping but a nonprofit to teach students who don't know English to learn.

Substance abuse negatively impacts our school and our community because it can lead you down the wrong path and creates unhealthy habits.

The answer is through the city's budget.

This allows the city to budget funding to keep city services operating.

The city's budget has two main parts.

The operating budget covers everyday expenses like employees salaries, supplies, and equipment.

Here, they project the city's income and expenses, including things like property taxes and personnel costs.

Next, City Council gives guidance to the city manager on what should be prioritized in the budget.

Then city departments and city leaders work on proposals that align with those priorities.

After this, the city manager releases the proposed budget and capital improvement program, a draft operating budget and 10-year capital improvement program for the city council and the community to consider.

Residents can share their ideas and feedback at public hearings, meetings, and even through emails or social media starting in the spring.

After gathering input, City Council reviews the proposed budget and makes adjustments.gov slash budget.

Respect is being kind and showing kindness to those who need it the most.

Respect is treating people how they deserve to be treated.

I define respect as treating someone the way you want to be treated and allowing someone to do what they need to do.

I define respect as acknowledging someone's boundaries and sticking to them.

Respect to me means showing kindness to others.

Respect means to me being kind and fair to everyone in my community.

Welcome to the heart of the Alexandria, Market Square in City Hall.

I'm Dan Lee, and today I'd like to take you on a journey through the history of this remarkable site.

City Hall was built on this site designated for Market and Town Hall when the Alexandria was founded back in 1749.

From the very beginning, the space was designed to be a center of community life.

The original building burned down in 1871, but it paved the way for this beautiful structure you see today, designed by Adolf Clouth.

The tower you see behind me is a reconstruction of a design by the famous architect, Benjamin H.

Latrobe from 1817.

Over the years, City Hall has evolved.

Once housing everything from a Masonic Lodge to the police of fire stations, and now serves as the administrative hub for Alexandria's government.

Coming to farmers markets, public events, and is a reflection of Alexandria's rich history.

And now City Hall is undergoing another transformation as we make much needed updates to better serve the community for generations to come.

After many years of service, major updates are needed throughout City Hall to repair aging building components, optimize space, and improve security.gov slash city hall.

Something that is important to me is my family.

My friends are important to me because they're very nice and always uh cool to talk to.

Football is important to me because it brings a lot of friendship and a brotherhood to each other.

I can show respect for myself by always maintaining a positive mindset and never um saying bad things to myself.

I can show respect for myself by treating my body like a temple and just always kind of you know treating myself nice.

One thing important to me is sleep coming from an insomniac.

I do like it and what I just can fall asleep like at the right time.

It's a great help, really.

The answer is through the city's budget.

This allows the city to budget funding to keep city services operating.

The city's budget has two main parts.

The operating budget covers everyday expenses like employee salaries, supplies, and equipment.

The Capital Improvement Plan focuses on larger long-term projects like repairing streets, renovating buildings, and improvements to parks and fields.

Every fall, city leaders begin the budget process by forecasting the year ahead at their annual city council budget retreat.

Here, they project the city's income and expenses, including things like property taxes and personnel costs.

Next, City Council gives guidance to the city manager on what should be prioritized in the budget.

Then city departments and city leaders work on proposals that align with those priorities.

After this, the city manager releases the proposed budget and capital improvement program, a draft operating budget and ten-year capital improvement program for the city council and the community to consider.

After gathering input, City Council reviews the proposed budget and makes adjustments.

Keeping Alexandria moving forward.gov slash budget.

Respect is treating people how they deserve to be treated.

I define respect as admiration towards someone's qualities.

Respect to me means showing kindness to others.

Respect means to me being kind and fair to everyone in my community.

Welcome to the heart of the Alexandria, Market Square and City Hall.

I'm Dan Lee, and today I'd like to take you on a journey through the history of this remarkable site.

City Hall was built on this site designated for Market and Town Hall when the Alexander was founded back in 1749.

From the very beginning, the space was designed to be a center of community life.

The original building burned down in 1871, but it paved the way for this beautiful structure you see today, designed by Adolf, please.

The tower you see behind me is a reconstruction of a design by the famous architect, Benjamin H.

Latrobe from 1817.

Over the years, City Hall has evolved.

Market Square remains a vibrant space for residents and visitors alike.

Come to farmers markets, public events, and is a reflection of Alexandria's rich history.

And now City Hall is undergoing another transformation as we make much needed updates to better serve the community for generations to come.

After many years of service, major updates are needed throughout City Hall to repair aging building components, optimize space, and improve security.gov slash city hall.

Something that is important to me is my family.

My friends are important to me because they're very nice and always uh cool to talk to.

Football is important to me because it brings uh a lot of friendship and a brotherhood to each other.

I can show respect for myself by always maintaining a positive mindset and never um saying bad things to myself.

I can show respect for myself by treating my body like a temple and just always kind of you know treating myself nice.

One thing important to me is sleep coming from an insomnia.

I do like it and what I just can fall asleep like at the right time.

It's a great help, really.

Um physically, uh my religion is really important to me because it keeps me happy and it keeps me grounded.

Something that is important to me is helping uh students who don't know English because I know how hard and challenging it is to learn a new language.

Therefore, I am helping but a non-profit to teach students who don't know English to learn.

Part of the City Hall renovation is the renovation of Market Square, which holds the old town farmers market.

The 100 block of North Royal Street from King Street to Cameron Street, as well as Tavern Square or Yard.

There's no way a customer could miss where the market is going to be located.

Where they're going in the temporary market is directly adjacent to where they are now and have been for the last 270 years.

What they'll see is a different arrangement, but the same vendors.

So vendors may be located in different spaces than they currently are, but they will be there.

We will have parking available at Tavern Square as well as the courthouse garage, which is directly across the street, as well as on the street.

So Pitt Street, Cameron Street, and all the streets surrounding Tavern Square.

We're really looking out for not only the customers that frequent the farmers market, but the vendors themselves.