Hello, okay.

Um we need to have everyone to please take a seat due to fire code.

I'm gonna ask that if you're standing it on the side, please find a seat.

If you are able, please join us for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Now, when this council was originally sworn in, it was January second, twenty twenty-five.

And if you were that that installation ceremony, I'm sure you remember that all of us were swilled with smiles and excitement.

We were ready to tackle the world.

So excited to be sworn in as a new team and ready to hit the ground running.

It seems as if almost every single day there has been another unprecedented or unexpected challenge.

The first, we saw the swearing in of a new president who brought with him the destruction of many jobs and federal workers.

Oops, okay.

Wasn't expecting that.

Um, threats to our immigrant workforce and to our immigrant neighbors, tariffs, wars, and so many other things that have caused complete chaos in the lives of many Alexandrians.

Within a week after that, many of us were shaken by the horrific plane crash that happened at DCA, and we mourned the loss of friends and co-workers and neighbors.

As time went on, we faced other battles like the January 2026 snowstorm, something that I don't think any of us would be able to weather.

I tried to throw in a joke for Kirk McPyte, because I'm not the funny one on the council.

But over 14 days and more than 500 staff members were mobilized to help see us through that response.

And if those challenges were not enough, I'm sure you saw the announcements of the cases of measles and the rabbit raccoons that came throughout our community.

It seemed as if it was just challenge after challenge.

But the thing I'm probably most proud of is that as a council, we have been able to find ways to persevere and to keep going.

And despite our ability to keep going, we've been doing it a member short.

We have not been operating at our full strength.

And so part of the historic nature of tonight and the opportunity that is before us is we get to welcome a new team member.

We are going to be swearing in councilwoman elect Sandy Marks.

And as I think about Miss Marks, her leadership could not come at a more important time.

Because the challenges that our community is facing need new problem solving, new partnerships, new optimism, and new ways of thinking.

Whether we're talking about climate change or housing affordability or how we continue to fund our schools and make sure that every young person and every person in our community has what they need to thrive.

We've been a community where women have stepped up not for the title, not for the recognition, but out of a deep commitment to service and an understanding that public service has the opportunity to truly change lives and to benefit our community.

Out of a recognition that at the end of the day, the status quo is not benefiting all of us.

And out of a recognition that at the end of the day, the best way we can move forward is to never lose hope on what else is possible.

And so tonight's swearing in of Miss Marks represents something that I'm sure many thought were never possible.

And that is for the first time in our history, we have a majority female city council.

We continue to be a community that is breaking barriers and shattering glass ceilings.

And so it is my honor to begin tonight's ceremony.

And I hope that we begin so in a way with a recognition that it does not matter the challenges that we face.

What matters is that each of us never loses hope in what is possible.

And as you look at your new council, you are looking at a team, a team that is ready to tackle anything, a team that will be refute that refuses to be defeated, a team that knows that no matter what lies ahead, we represent the power of new ideas.

We represent the power of optimism.

We represent a joy that cannot be shaken no matter what else is happening around this world.

And we represent a deep commitment to serve you with an unwavering spirit to make sure that we never stop working until your needs are met.

And so with that, I'm going to begin with our first order of business, which is the presentation of the certificate of election from our secretary Jack Powers.

Thank you, Lee.

Good evening.

My name is Jack Powers, and I am the secretary of the Alexandria Electoral Board.

It's my pleasure to be here tonight.

On behalf of my two colleagues on the bipartisan board, Bruce Brown and Sarissa Cafaso, it is my honor to present the certificate of election to Sandy Marks, the candidate who was elected to the city, Alexandria City Council by the voters in the April 21st, 2026 special election.

The certificate reads, and here's the certificate.

Very nice.

To all to whom these presents shall come, greeting.

This is to certify that at the meeting of the electoral board of the city of Alexandria, held on April 27th, 2026, on an examination of the official records deposited in the office of the clerk of the circuit court.

It was ascertained and determined that at the special election held on April 21st, 2026, Sandy O.

Marks was duly elected for an unexpired term to end December 31st, 2027, witness the following official signature and seal of the board and Jack Powers Secretary signed.

Thank you.

At this time, I will now bring forth our clerk of the court, Greg Parks, to do the administration of the oath as well as the administration of the ethics pledge.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um good evening, everybody.

Um as I always say at these things, I count off how many duties I have.

And I'm a politician, I want to talk a little bit.

She's very eager.

And believe it or not, of the 120 circuit court clerks, I'm not the funny one either.

But I always count how many duties I have.

Um and normally when I started my term, I had 860.

It's up to 869 now.

And our new delegate, Mr.

McPike over here, has said that he's kind of gone trying to get it to a thousand before his first term is up.

Anyway, I bring that up just because I always say that this is one of my absolute favorite duties of all of those duties.

And the reason for that is because I get to be part of an exciting new happening.

And that's especially fun for me when it is somebody who is as accomplished and amazing as Sandy Marks, a person who I have known for years, has been a friend and a colleague, and who I am just really, really, really excited to be able to do this tonight.

I also talk about a little bit about the meaning of the oath when I give this oath.

So as public officials, we all take the oath that you are about to take.

And that they would not bring disgrace to the city.

I don't think we have any problems with Ms.

Marks in these worlds.

In 330 BC, the Athenian statesman Lithurgist said, of that oath, the oath is what holds together the democracy.

Now that practice has endured so long because it performs two important functions.

The first function is to confer upon the public official the actual authority of your office.

The Declaration of Independence notes that the governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

This is especially true in a democracy.

And by taking the oath, we acknowledge that our oath, that our authority comes from the people, and this is especially true, like I said, in democracy.

It's been said that the Declaration of Independence was the promise, and the Constitution was the fulfillment of that promise.

The second function of our oath is that we promise as public officials to the people of Alexandria that we will abide by and uphold our laws and our constitutions, our constitution, and further that we will do our duty faithfully and impartially.

Are you ready to take the oath?

Please raise your right hand and repeat after me.

Wait for the photographers.

Do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States.

And the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

And that I will faithfully and impartially discharge all the duties incumbent upon me as a member of the City Council for the City of Alexandria, Virginia.

According to the best of my ability.

Congratulations.

Now, in addition to the oath of office, members of the city council uh take a ethics pledge, which I have not resided, I have not memorized this one, so I'm going to have to read it to you, but you will please raise your right hand and repeat after me.

I understand that as a city representative, city representative.

I am entrusted with protecting and preserving the integrity of the government of the city.

The integrity of the government of the city.

By putting the public interest first.

By conducting myself at all times in a manner that brings credit to the city.

By serving with integrity, impartiality and transparency, by serving with integrity, impartiality and transparency.

By fostering an ethical culture, by fostering an ethical, and by taking no action that will result in or create the appearance of personal gain or conflict of interest.

Thank you.

Congratulations again.

Okay, at this time, it is my honor to present to you for the first time as councilwoman.

Councilwoman Dandy Marks.

Alexandria.

Until a few moments ago, in the 276 years since Alexandria's historic birth, just 16 women have had the privilege to govern.

A small and inconsistent minority.

We began to serve this city in recent memory in 1973, having all of us only received complete enfranchisement in 1965.

It is my honor and distinct privilege to be the 17th Alexandria City Councilwoman sworn into office.

Because of the events of this evening, because of the will of the citizens of Alexandria, Virginia, the first female-led governing majority was just born.

We know that when women lead, people's needs are met, economies grow, infrastructure connects neighbors, children are educated, seniors are honored, communities are healthier, and families are fed.

On this night, at the very beginning of something, when everything is possible, I predict that Alexandria will be an exemplar.

The fiscal brutality and cruel social policy inflicted on our city and on everyone by the federal government will continue to test our strength, our creativity, our limits, and our resolve.

We know this.

We've already felt it.

But the struggle presents us with a choice.

We can allow our rational fear and anxiety to turn us away from each other.

Or we can turn toward each other with intention.

Here in Alexandria, I think we will choose to see the space between what is and what could be, not as a gulf, but as an opportunity.

One we will span together.

And not in timid steps either, but in leaps emboldened by each other and by the needs of our parents, of our children, and of ourselves.

When women lead, government works.

Our challenge is to model that right here.

In connecting our infrastructure to prioritize our safety and rectify community disparity disparities in ways that are long overdue.

In the essential act of sheltering our people safely, affordably and equitably, and in continuing our community conversation about public education, a critical value that we all remain committed to.

Reject the exhaustion brought on by acrimony and step into unity.

Before we close tonight, indulge me.

Will you say their names with me?

Here we go, ready.

Lois Walker, Claire Eberwine, Joyce Woodson, Alicia Hughes, Alison Silberberg, Elizabeth Bennett Parker, Amy Jackson, Alia Gaskins, Sarah Bagley, Jacinta Green.

What an honor it is to join them.

With all my heart, with all my soul, with all my might, I pledge to you that I will carry their work forward together with my respected team of colleagues for and in conversation with you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilwoman Marks.

I know our team is ready for you to serve.

Our community is ready for you to get to work, and we're excited about the business that we will do together, starting in just a little bit.

With that, I want to say thank you first and foremost to all of the staff that helped make tonight's um ceremony possible and give a special shout out to Coco.

Um, this was something that she was able to put together, coordinate all of the logistics, and so if we could give her a round of applause, I don't see her in here.

We are going to have a reception, and so I'd love to invite all of you to meet our new councilwoman and to celebrate her in the cafe, and then we will begin our regular business meeting at seven.

So with that, I will ask: is there a motion to adjourn?

Or actually, I'm supposed to say recess.

Is there a motion to recess until 7 p.m.?

All right.

There has been a motion.

I'm going to give it to the women in light of tonight.

Uh, there has been a motion by councilwoman Green and a second by Vice Mayor Bagley to recess until 7 p.m.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

The ayes have it.

Thank you, everyone.

Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Mayor Gaskins.

Here.

Vice Mayor Baglingar.

Councilman Geary.

Councilman Chapman.

Councilman L.

Newby.

Here.

Councilwoman Green.

Here.

Councilwoman Marks.

All right.

Madam Clerk, next item.

Why do I have this bad?

Moment of silence and pledge of allegiance.

Okay.

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

If you are able to stand, we ask that you please do so at this time.

All right, Madam Clerk, next item.

Four reports from members of City Council and Boards Commissions and Committees Health and Safety Coordinating Committee, Mayor Gaskins.

And Councilwoman Green.

Okay.

Councilman Green, would you like to kick us off on this one?

Madam Mayor, okay.

Let me think back.

I know um we, of course, uh meet once every other month, and this was our last meeting until September for um the Health and Safety Committee.

Uh we uh went over extensively um focused, we're very focused on evictions um that are happening in the city and the process around that, and also did a deep dive into our um our data and um the specifics that are happening in the city around crime that is potentially rising and looking at a different format potentially um starting in September where we dive even deeper into a specific um issue or problem that we might have it in the city to see how we might resolve it.

So those are the things that we were looking at and working on, and we look forward to meeting back up in September.

Thank you, Councilwoman Green.

Um, one thing I just wanted to highlight in light of the budget that we just passed and the additional assistance that we put forth for rental assistance.

Um we talked a little bit about just some of the numbers.

So over the past quarter, one thousand two hundred and sixty-four summons were filed.

DCHS is seeing about two hundred and forty-five appointments per quarter.

And um, we were able over nine hundred and seventy-eight families sought assistance for rental assistance in FY25, and we were able to assist about two hundred and forty-five of those families.

And the average wait time is three to four weeks.

And so the ad that we were able to put in, Director Garvey's talked about how helpful that is going to be in reducing wait times, but also giving staff a little more flexibility in terms of the amounts that we're able to support and the criteria we're able to use as we're making those decisions to help households stay in their home.

The next report is the Northern Virginia Regional Commission and this is Councilman Chapman and Councilwoman Green.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Two quick things for my colleagues that are kind of interrelated.

The commission will be doing if you recall the commission has a new executive director or newish executive director, Mr.

Craig Pfeiffer.

And he has been directed to do a strategic planning session with the commission.

I will say during my time on the commission we have new a number of new commissioners but now we have some new staff members and so it's a perfect time for us to do that work.

As part of that strategic plan that we're going to start the work on this next monthly meeting at the end of the month there has been a request put forward by the executive director to each of the localities for some additional funding for what we're calling the strategic initiatives that MVRC takes on.

Over the years we've started to transition not only to more environmental justice and environmental issues but also some housing and transportation limited transportation issues as a regional commission.

And so the executive director has sat down with most of us on the commission to talk about the need for a strategic initiatives fund that we can that staff can utilize as we start to craft a new strategic plan for the commission as part of that he is reaching out and has, I believe he's met with senior leadership from each of the localities and put a request to the commissioners to take back to our locality the timing of such did not necessarily work out with how we were moving quickly through the budget.

So I do personally apologize to not alerting of you learning alerting you of this earlier but with the finalization of our budget and having a little bit of additional money we are going to myself and Councilwoman Green are going to put a memo to council just explaining that and talking about what Alexandra's quote unquote portion would be it's about $20,000.

And so I do want to bring that to your attention and make sure you have information on that you'll be getting that memo from us tomorrow but we did want to mention it today.

So as we do continue to allocate the the remaining money hopefully this can be something that's discussed as well.

Thank you, Councilman Chapman.

Councilman Green, did you have additional comment um well we look forward to seeing the memo I think one area that I'm curious about is just the participation that you're starting to see from the other jurisdictions.

And that that is included.

Thank you.

Our next two reports are actually our next three are Vice Mayor Bagley so we're going to do the Virginia Railway Express, the Waterfront Commission and then the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission.

Thank you.

The BRE actually does not meet until this Friday but I wanted to take the opportunity there's been a change to their construction schedule at King and Commonwealth.

And so I wanted to make note of that for the community there was supposed to be a closure coming up this Friday the 15th to the 18th I assume you're you know what I'm talking about here.

Okay.

And so due to some construction challenges that were experienced during the first weekend of work on May 1st through the 4th they sort of stepped back reassessed and have um rescheduled what would have been the King Commonwealth bridge work for this weekend.

It will now be May 28th through June 1st.

So spread the word they did complete the goals of the first weekend's work it just took a little longer um I learned a lot about sort of geology and and soil content um as I was educated on that.

So just wanted to give a heads up to the community that May 28th through June 1st is the next closure planned.

Then Waterfront Commission I actually missed the last waterfront commission meeting but since had had a chance to get briefed and I wanted to just highlight a few things for my colleagues and for the community that were discussed at the meeting.

One of them is we were visited by Gretchen Bulova the Office of Historic Alexandria talking about the sale 250 plans coming forward and June 12 through the 14th there's going to be a host of sailing events that we are doing in partnership with our CPA and Historic Alexandria there will be free time tickets, jazz fest performances and fireworks along with mobile our mobile art station and food vendors and some restrooms which transitions into something else I just want to continue to highlight for my colleagues from the waterfront commission which is the need for more restrooms at the waterfront.

And so I just think whenever we have a development opportunity or an investment opportunity, we just need to be mindful of how we can expand access to public restrooms.

There's an increasing reliance on private businesses and restaurants supporting that.

And then I also want to highlight to my colleagues that in response to the recommendations from the subcommittee on boards and commissions that was adopted by this body, proposing to sunset the waterfront commission itself, 29 or 30, sort of at the conclusion of club mitigation work.

The Waterfront Commission has responded to that really by trying to look at their mandate and look at their membership and look at their bylaws.

And so I believe there is a letter that was delivered to each of us.

And I just want to lift it up and I'll make sure our new colleague gets a copy of it.

Just so that we're mindful that they're doing that work and trying to evaluate their mission.

The last thing I'd mention is that the waterfront taco factory is moving forward down where big wheel bikes used to be.

So we got a little bit of update on that.

And so keep your eyes open.

You can never have enough tacos and pizza in Alexandria.

That's right.

And then I'll do the last time.

Yes, before we go to NBTC, though, I did want to go back and just Mr.

Manager for VRE on the website.

We still have the old information on the front page.

So if we can update that.

Thank you.

And Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, Vice Fair Bagley and Councilman Gary.

Yeah, I'll kick that off.

So Northern Virginia Transportation Commission just met last Thursday.

There was a lengthy presentation from the new director of the Department of Rail and Passenger Transportation.

I'm Maria and Zimmerman.

One of the things that I'm really excited about, and I want to sort of call to the attention of my colleagues as well, is that Ms.

Zimmerman brings with her a mixed background in both transportation and transit-oriented development and housing.

She worked with HUD as well.

And I think as far as our focus in developing around Braddock Road and other transit-oriented possibilities, I'm excited about the possibilities of partnering with the RPT and funding opportunities that we should be mindful of because I think the direction that she's trying to bring is a very transit-oriented focus that is also talking about housing.

After that, we had a WMATA presentation.

Wamada recently passed their FY27 budget.

I think one of the big takeaways is no increase in fares requested at this time.

They are seeing ongoing increased ridership, which is resulting in ongoing increases in revenue, which is all a good thing.

However, we should expect a fair proposal increase in the future.

We also talked about the ongoing need for action in the General Assembly in terms of WAMATA funding.

While it's good news that ridership is up and revenue is up and the gap is sort of smaller than it might have otherwise been.

There is another, nevertheless, a gap.

And if we don't fill it, we might find ourselves back in a capital challenge space and a state of good repair space.

Wamada actually is not legislatively able to have a reserve fund.

And Councilman Gira, I hope I've said that right.

But essentially WAMATA does not have a reserve fund and their design does not allow them to not spend the money budgeted.

And so there's an ongoing conversation, a little bit at MBTC and certainly at the WAMATA level about whether we might want to think about that and allow them to have a reserve fund for situations where, say, the restriction can't meet its balance in a given year where there were emergencies.

We also had a brief presentation on the campaign on the value of transit.

It got over 100,000 impressions during General Assembly session.

And then we talked about the commuter choice program, which has is celebrating 10 years.

This year, there are 14 projects with 60 million dollars in funding, which is the largest funding round ever.

I'll just highlight commuter choice is essentially toll payer funds that are used in ways to benefit those toll payers for projects that help either move people through the corridor or get to the corridor.

And one of the great things about that program is um the slate of projects that we approved Thursday night will get their money in like two months and will be up and running before the end of the year.

So there's gonna be a new bus line, the F2X, I believe is the bus line that will have some Alexandria coverage.

And so it's very quick money and it goes right into play, and you can use it for operating costs.

And so that was um NBTC, unless I've missed anything, Councilman Gary.

Councilman Gary.

Just uh to add for community choice corridors are both the 395 corridor and the uh I-66 corridor.

Um, because if you're not along one of those corridors, then you uh would not be eligible for funding uh to touch back on the reserve fund just a little bit more as an example.

You know, the city, we have a reserve fund, and this is what helps us with our our bond rating.

And so it's the same thing for Wamada to be able to qualify for a higher bond rating, they would need uh a reserve fund.

And hence this has been part of the conversation.

Uh of course, this would involve uh having to open the compact and opening the compact is always a little tricky.

Uh so that's why there's a little bit of reservation there.

Uh and lastly, I would say that we uh said goodbye to and welcomed uh a couple of uh new commissioners.

Uh we say goodbye to Darion Flowers, who was the Commonwealth appointee to Wamada and welcomed uh Miss Kate Burns.

We also welcomed our former colleague, now delegate Kirkman Pike uh to MBTC, and I believe uh Senator Son of Wassen and was there anyone else?

Oh and Director Zimmerman was sworn in uh as an alternate to the Commonwealth appointee.

Uh so when the Commonwealth appointee isn't there, that's when Director Zimmerman is eligible to vote.

Um not that folks really wanted to have that level of detail, but just for fun.

Thank you, Councilman Ageary.

We had a request to add the environmental policy commission, uh, Councilman O'Neubi.

Yeah, it's the local emergency planning committee, L E P C Sorry about that.

Okay, I just had a lot of effort.

I give you an acronym, so thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, so the uh LEPC met last week.

Um we received reports from several agencies from the fire department, from the health department, uh, from the Virginia Department of Uh Emergency Management, um, as well as from some regional um peers like the Fairfax Bar Department and Loudon.

Um, two two topics that that came up that are subject of discussion.

One is lithium ion batteries and the proper disposal of that.

So that was a little bit of the discussion, and there is a proposal to keep talking about this and see what we can do there, maybe some sort of awareness campaign of the proper disposal of these, because most of the reports um there, the common theme there was the proper disposal and the danger um that the lithium ion batteries um pose.

Um, the other topic was a regional meeting.

We're trying to schedule a regional meeting where we go um or attend a meeting with one of our uh the region uh one of the other jurisdictions around us.

Um we talked about that last time.

We're still working on scheduling that.

Um, and that is thank you.

Okay, thank you, Councilman Alnubi.

Um, Councilman Chapman.

Just another just to kind of uh tag on to what my colleague was talking about.

I just want to make it really clear how serious this can be in terms of batteries.

Um about uh two weeks ago, my next door neighbor.

Um they had a um an electric scooter uh overpower and blow up in their uh basement.

Um it is a serious issue.

Uh and so um I certainly appreciate uh that staff and uh my colleagues are working on it because it is devastating for folks.

Um there's a family of five that are now displaced for multiple months uh because of that.

And so uh it is uh a real issue, uh, something that we need to be aware of and I appreciate the city kind of pushing out the awareness of that.

Thank you, Councilman Chapman.

Madam Clerk, next item.

City council general updates.

Okay, are there general updates?

I see councilman Green and Vice Mayor Bagley and Councilman Gary.

Thank you, madam mayor.

Um today, uh or good evening, everyone.

Uh today was um a really really good day.

I um I have the pleasure of hosting two senior experienced students from Alexandria City High School.

They actually started yesterday, but today they just really um really got to work on tasks that have been given to them and just they're doing it so joyfully.

And it's just a pleasure to have them and the other senior experienced um students in our office.

They bring great energy.

Um, so I wanted to introduce um Isa Idris and Jamila Solano, if they could please stay in.

Yeah.

They are my two senior experienced students.

They're very creative, very intelligent, and they are working on a project that is going to be very useful to Alexandria, along with a couple of the other senior experienced students.

They are analyzing and dissecting the local composite index for school funding in the state of Virginia.

So we look forward to their findings because we're always looking for ways that potentially Alexandria can get more school funding.

So thank you, ladies.

And it is a pleasure having you with me.

And I'll look forward to the next two weeks.

Also, um I'd like to talk about uh today we had uh Delta Sigma Theta Day.

They call it Delta Day at Capitol Hill.

I mean, I'm sorry, not Capitol Hill.

They do a Delta Day at Capitol Hill, but this is Delta Day in Alexandria City Hall or Tavern Square or whatever.

But the Delta Um Sigma Theta organization comes through to talk about how they can partner um with the city of Alexandria.

They all already do great work for our city, but they always want to do more.

And that is um one of the wonderful things about um the organization.

And they met with most of us um from city council and the mayor today.

So we always look forward to them coming each day.

I mean, each year to um to meet with us.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilwoman Green, Vice Mayor Bagley.

Thank you.

I just want to invite everybody to participate in Bike to Work Day on Friday.

Um, hopefully it will be a beautiful day.

It always is a beautiful day in Alexandria.

But um, May 15th, this Friday is Bike to Work Day.

There are so many pit stops, but I wanted to let people know where ours will be.

There's a great one in Carlisle Square.

Um, there's one in Del Ray, Ferrington Center, Mark Center, our current location, um, National Landing and APTA in the afternoon, and then Old Town at City Hall, which is not quite City Hall, but around the corner.

Um so if you register, you get a free t-shirt.

If you show up, there's always raffle prizes, but it's a really nice time.

Um, it's a nice way to meet other riders, see vendors.

Um, and I will be um, I think riding to two or three stops in both Alexandria and Arlington with um Clark Mercer from COG.

So keep your eyes on social media and you can see us riding our bikes around.

But come out and join us, whether you have to be at work or not on Friday morning.

Um, come out and have a ride and um it's a great time.

So we'll see people then.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Bagley.

Councilman Gary.

Excuse me.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, I will echo the sentiments of the vice mayor.

Uh bike to work day is a lot of fun, even if, like she said, if you're going to work or not, go there, go for a raffle, go for some cool swag, uh really good time.

Uh going back to, I believe April 29th, I had the opportunity to go to the Northern Virginia Association Realtor's office for a um intimate conversation with the Secretary of Transportation, Nick Donahue, uh, to kind of see not only what his vision is, but the administration overall for transportation in the Commonwealth.

And I think one of the biggest takeaways was um what's working, what's missing, and let us know.

Uh, so I think that's a good takeaway for us as Alexandria, since we're so focused on transportation and have so many different modes here.

Trying to see, you know, what has been working for us, what can we try and excel more in, what's something that might be missing.

Uh, the one thing that came to my mind was our waterway and the water taxi.

I would love to see that get more usage.

Uh, but very nice conversation with uh Secretary Donahue and appreciate uh the Northern Virginia Transit Alliance putting that together.

Um later on that week, May 1st, I believe, want to give a shout out to Code Administration for their building safety uh kickoff.

Uh it was a really fun time down by the waterfront.

Uh lots of prizes, lots of swag, uh, lots of really good information, how to stay safe, most importantly.

Safety is number one.

Um also want to give a shout out to Northern Virginia Family Services for their yearly uh event that they have over at Wolf Trap.

Uh really good time.

Uh and MVFS, of course, started here in Alexandria and is a little over 100 years old.

So very proud of MVFS, one of the premier nonprofits in all of Northern Virginia.

Uh, then that's Saturday.

I was able to stop by Patrick Henry for wreckfest.

Um if you have young ones, little ones, or even if you don't, even if you want to just go get a workout in, go to wreckfest.

It's a lot of fun.

You also find out all the different things that our rec centers uh offer.

So guess some more swag.

Absolutely.

Um, but fun for all ages.

Um, additionally, uh that Saturday, uh, several of us were able to stop by the environmental um policy commission, the EPC, uh, for their retreat to be able to uh share or share our thoughts with them and for them to share their thoughts with us.

Very great conversation.

Uh, and then fast forwarding into May 4th.

Um the mayor and I had the opportunity uh to celebrate with the uh ambassador from Croatia for their exhibit on their postage stamps.

Um for the younger folks, some folks maybe have never used stamps, but for those of us that no, I know folks that have never sent an envelope through the mail.

They've never used uh a stamp.

I was I was shocked, but I you know I still pay my my stuff with checks through the mail and envelopes, which is probably TMI, but um anyway.

I used to collect stamps when I was little, and uh the Croatian stamps have actually won international awards uh for their beauty, for their collaboration with other countries and trying to show cultural heritage, um, historical facts and um nature and fauna.

So very, very impressive stamps.

Uh was very cool uh and enjoyed the opportunity to be able to see that.

Um and then on Cinco de Mayo, as one of the very few, not just Latino elected officials in the DMV region, but also one of the few Mexican elected officials in the region.

Uh, I was uh able to go to the Mexican Cultural Institute to celebrate with some of the consular staff as long as with the ambassador from Mexico uh to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, which just as a reminder is not Mexican Independence Day, is um when the Mexican Army was able to push back what is what was arguably at the time the strongest land army in the world, which was the French Army.

Um then on May 6th, uh while a solemn day, a very important day.

Uh the vice mayor was giving remarks at uh the police department for the annual wreath laying for those officers, uh end of watch uh and the remembrance of their um their families and knowing that they are still a part of uh the APD community and the closeness of the police department, and we are grateful for those who have served and given the ultimate sacrifice in that position.

On May 8th, I had the opportunity to stop by Mount Vernon Community School in collaboration with the Alexandria Soccer Association, the Virginia Soccer Association, and the U.S.

Soccer Federation for the activities that they've been doing uh in Alexandria, and we are even being copied our model here in Alexandria to be a model for the entire state of Maryland.

So uh as usual, Alexandria leads, we punched above our weight, and um our model for others around us in the DMV.

And on the 9th, uh had a great time.

Several of us were there, uh, Councilman Chapman, Councilwoman Green, Vice Mayor Bagley, uh, Mayor Gaskins, and myself.

Uh, we were all down at Four Mile Run uh for the ribbon cutting slash I was trying to mix in a joke there, but it wasn't working out for me.

Uh the kayak launching, the launch of the launch of the kayaks.

Um Vice Mayor Bagley and myself both got in the water.

It was a little scary at first, but it was actually really, really cool.

Um the big deal about it, it's a great example of public-private partnerships uh and accessibility, right?

Uh it's one thing to talk about accessibility, it's another thing to be intentional about it.

And with the ramp that was created, um, folks of all abilities are able to utilize this kayak launch.

So really, really proud of that.

Um, a lot of fun and looking forward to going back.

Uh and uh former mayor Justin Wilson starting his kayak rental there.

Uh and then also, as um Councilwoman Green mentioned, wanted to give a shout out shout out to the Deltas.

Uh, thank you for their advocacy, uh, not just at the federal and state level, but now for the last three years, they're Delta Days at the local level.

So thank you, ladies, for your advocacy.

Um, and then the last shout-out I want to give is to the Commission on Aging and all the awardees today at the excellence of aging awards.

With that, Madam Mayor, that is my report.

Thank you, Councilman Aguirre.

Councilman Alnubi.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

I would also like to welcome an ACHS senior who is uh doing senior experience with my office.

Um, not to put her on the spot, Ariana Spirito, um Ariana High, she's here.

And we're looking forward to all the great work you'll do with us in the next two weeks.

Thank you, Councilman Alnuby.

Madam Mayor.

Uh, Councilman Gary.

Sorry, I was uh remiss.

I I was I wasn't gonna do it this uh this meeting, I was gonna do it at a future meeting.

But since everyone is acknowledging their uh senior experience seniors, I do want to acknowledge uh that in the audience we do have Darwin Flores.

And and I have two others, but they're not here, so they don't get much into the state.

I did not tell mine to come tonight, so I feel like I missed the memo.

But I do want to say um we are just so grateful.

I think anybody who comes into the office for the next few weeks, I think all together there might be 12 or 13 different interns, the majority from ACHF, um, but also from other high schools around the city.

And so thank you for choosing to serve with us and to join us on this journey.

We hope that it's a great experience and that you have the opportunity to learn um to learn a lot.

I have uh three quick ones.

Councilman Aguirre already mentioned Building Safety Month, but I really just wanted to give another shout out to Greg Fields and the amazing team uh that we have in code enforcement.

Uh specifically, we had representatives there from the state, but we also had representatives from other departments in Fairfax and Arlington.

And one of the things I took away was that in every conversation, they repeatedly said that Alexandria sets the model for building safety.

And our state is now recognized as I think the number one on the East Coast.

And the state official who spoke said that that is in large part solely due to Alexandria.

So just want to recognize our staff who keep our building safe and go above and beyond to set the standard for the entire commonwealth.

Last Saturday I held my youth forum.

And so just wanted to give a thank you to the 25 young people who showed up last week, but also a special thank you to ARHA to Young'ins in Progress, Shelter Care, and Cornerstone Craftsmen who also helped to provide transportation and bring young people to the meeting.

I think as you can see from this council, it's really important that we engage youth voice.

And I think the forum has been an opportunity to make sure we're really intentional about getting young people who may not always have had the opportunity to serve on a board and commission.

And with that, the final announcement I wanted to give is tomorrow, May 13th.

Shelter Care is doing a car wash.

The car wash will be at 3 p.m.

at 200 South Whiting.

And the theme is wash away stigma.

It is put together by all of our young people at Shelter Care and will focus on providing education around youth mental health and resources for teens across our community.

Madam Clerk, next item.

City manager report, state of the economy.

Mr.

Manager.

Great.

Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and City Council members.

So since September of last year, we've been on a monthly basis providing an update of the state of the economy, both locally but uh also a little bit on the national side because it certainly influences uh our ability to function locally.

So we've got a short presentation tonight, uh, again, national economic indicators and then some local indicators.

You've seen this theme before.

We continue to see a really rapidly changing global economic and policy environment.

And we recognize that those continues conditions still remain fluid.

What that essentially translates to is it's very difficult for people, whether you're in your own households trying to make decisions on things such as a large purchase or what you want to save or how you might want to look at another job opportunity or things like that, uh, to the risk of uh uh on the national level, the rising costs of going to the grocery store and those types of things.

Uh all those uncertainties mean that we're having less investment on a national and global basis that helps generate more interest, more opportunities in the economy, as well as entrepreneurship is down given that the reality is most people are trying to determine when they can actually um jump into that opportunity or not.

So, with really the fluidness of our economy right now is really problematic.

Our unemployment rate uh remained uh unchanged since uh last uh since April, uh, but 4.3 percent is still rather high for us.

Um overall, the labor market has been in a holding pattern for most of the last year, uh, really with employers somewhat reluctant to add uh more to their payrolls, but also a little hesitant to do significant cuts.

Um, the early months of 2026 paying a real mixed picture.

Uh, we've had some solid gains in January, followed by significant cuts in February, uh rebound in March and April.

And I think that uncertainty and that up and down in the economy makes it really difficult for any type of long-term investment uh in our economy, which really are those big investments that really generate significant uh revenue growth for localities like ours.

Um you'll also notice that inflation has risen uh to 3.8 percent in April.

That's up uh from 3.3% in March.

This is the highest level in three years since May of 2023.

Highest level in three years.

Uh, and the spike is is primarily due to the surging energy costs caused by the war in Iran with Iran.

In terms of unemployment, as you can see, this just dives down into a little bit deeper.

That's at that 4.3% uh from March to April.

Uh, what you'll notice, uh, it's not on the slide, but I want to highlight um most of our uh surrounding jurisdictions have experienced increased uh job loss.

Uh Fairfax, uh their jobless rate uh rate uh rose from three points uh from three percent to about 3.7 percent over the year.

Arlington uh went from 2.8 up to 3.2, and Falls Church is up to 4.4%, uh which really means that we're we are a regional functioning economy, obviously, and uh all of us in the region are feeling the pain of some of the decisions that are being made at the federal level.

In terms of jobs, uh there the economy gained about 115,000 jobs in April.

Um most of the job gains were in health care, transportation and warehousing and retail trade, um, whereas the federal government employment continues to decline, lost 9,000 jobs, and the increases and decreases were also seen in tech-related jobs at 13,000 and manufacturing at 2,000.

Uh, even as the April job numbers are somewhat positive at the 115,000 uh new jobs, the job growth over the past year has been very flat uh with really low hire and really some limited uh movement in terms of the job market.

Uh it's one of the poorest job markets we've seen in years.

Again, just a little more diving down into the inflation.

Um, you know, I think it's pretty clear what's happening here with the war.

Um, the higher energy costs increased uh 17.9% uh in April, up from 12.5% in April.

Those are large jumps, and we all rely on uh some of the energy costs.

Mostly gasoline was 28% uh increase in the fuel oil at 54%.

Um that's all really due to uh what's happening in the conflict uh in the Middle East.

And I think this we've all experienced this as well.

The national average gas price as of May 7th was $4.55 per gallon, which is up $1.40 from this time a year ago.

$1.40 from this time ago.

Um, and it's reached the highest level since 2022.

And uh while crude crude oil prices did dip below 100 dollars per per barrel amid some of the negotiations, um, those are facing upward pressure again uh due to um you know the continuing uh conflict.

On the local side, it's it's again mixed.

You've heard this before.

Uh what it really points to here is that we have a we have a strong local residential market.

Um and as you can see on the slide, um, the multiple listings um they were up slightly from last year.

Uh so there's movement in the market.

Um, the average active listings um are up about 5.5% over last year's number.

Uh the average fixed uh 30-year fixed mortgage rate has edged up a little bit more as well, uh, which that has a has the potential to temper some of the movement in terms of the residential market.

The average days on the market increased to 30 days compared to 16 days, um, but but actually 58% of our homes sell within the first 10 days.

Again, it's pointing out that we have a very strong local market.

And if the national economy picks up and inflation drops, uh, we have all the correct principles for a really strong local economy.

And then looking ahead, um, again, home prices are still rising, but at a slower pace.

Um, we have a little bit more of the inventory, so there's some more options for buyers, uh, and that uh the 2026 mortgage rates are slightly better than 2025, but we need to watch that very closely.

You know, again, the global conflict has a material impact on everything that we do locally, including what we buy and uh some of our costs, particularly in terms of our capital improvement projects that some of them have started and some of them are yet to start, uh, and that will be affected by that.

So on the consumption taxes, we watch this closely every month.

Uh these this is really sales tax, meals tax, and transit lodging.

Um if you'll notice, you know, from 25 to 26, it's somewhat stable, but there's no real movement upward.

In fact, it's a slight movement downward.

Um, those are concerning to us.

Uh, those those are portions of our budget that uh we rely on people's disposable income uh to participate.

We also look at uh in terms of transit lodging, you know, the business travel is down, um, international travel is down.

Um, and those are the types of opportunities that really drive um some of our revenue to help pay for some of our city services.

So we're watching that very closely.

You know, I would say, you know, it's it's still early in the year.

Um, and when you know, we're expecting we have a tremendous amount going on in terms of the World Cup in terms of uh Sale 2050, as well as all the amazing events that we have in the fall and in the winter months.

So we're hopeful and optimistic that those numbers will uh go back to some of their historical patterns.

So with that, um, I know that's fairly quick.

I wish I had better news.

I think my message would be that again, it's it's very similar to what we've been talking about for the almost the last year.

You know, the uncertainty pauses people's opportunities to generate growth and income, which has a material effect on the slowing of our both national and local economy.

Thank you, Mr.

Manager.

I had two quick questions.

The first, uh, picking up where you left off around the summer events that we have coming up.

I'm curious how quickly we get the data back from that.

And if we do get it back quickly, is that something where at our July state of the economy, we can get a snapshot of kind of the economic impact of I'm thinking sale 250, the JAZFES, um, FIFA.

So Kevin Greenleaf is our finance director, and he tracks this, I'd say daily.

Um unfortunately, there is a built-in lag time, particularly for sales tax.

It's a two-month lag time.

So sales that occur in say June, we're not going to see till September.

Um, and that's just simply because it goes through Richmond.

For uh meals tax and for transit lodging taxes, it's a little bit shorter.

It's um we we'd have it the following month, basically.

Thank you.

But towards the end of the month when when depending upon when the returns come in.

Okay.

Thank you for um outlining the timing, Director Greenleaf.

Then maybe um it's when we come back in the fall.

I think it'd be great to have a snapshot of just maybe it's our summer series of economic development.

What are we seeing?

What do these events generate as a review?

The other question I had, um, thank you, Director Greenleaf.

This I don't know if this one's for you as well either.

So we might want to wait.

Given what we're seeing in terms of rising gas prices, I'm mindful of, I'm thinking about our city fleet and our police cars, our fire trucks.

I guess um, how do we internally monitor not monitor monitor sort of changes and trends within our spending as it relates to the fuel for the vehicles we have?

So the Department of Management budget is is actively monitoring that.

We're working with them in finance for our final supplemental appropriation ordinance that'll come before council in June.

If someone was really um hurt by that, we might see it in that.

But um, as a as a general rule, I'd say that the departments are doing pretty well on their expenditures on the budget.

Um so we expect finishing the year globally in pretty good shape on that count.

We we also um, and this is I think somewhat unique to Alexandria.

Um, we've really tried to um um diversify our fleet.

Um so you'll you'll find in our fleet there's there's more uh hybrid and and uh electric vehicles than there are in other places.

Um so uh we're pretty careful with that as well as we do some bulk purchasing of our fuel, which helps us on the pricing.

Um, but we we can get you a little more detail.

I can send a memo to the council if you'd like with a little more detail on some of that.

Yeah, thank you.

I see several heads nodding.

So that would be great.

Thank you.

Are there other uh questions or comments for the manager on the state of the economy?

Thanks, Mary Bagley.

Um, I I think I appreciate these.

As we're thinking about maybe when you talk about fall topics or focuses.

I know initially last year and at the beginning of the year, we were monitoring things like food insecurity and the rates of usage at the um food bank.

We were um I know we were doing a lot of work in um job fairs and and sort of direct.

And I'm just curious, like not tonight, but if we can maybe circle back to some of those figures and get a live to give us some updates on what they're seeing in terms of food and security.

And I don't I don't know where exactly we check in on um local job, you know, support, but if there's any way to understand and maybe to reach out to Don Byers' office, because I know he was a partner in those efforts too, um, just to get a sense of um the local unemployment movement.

Yeah, we can go ahead and in one of the next two state of the economy.

We've kind of keeping this pattern, but I think you're right.

We're now early on, we were talking about more specific impacts in a couple programmatic areas, and we can bring that back.

Thank you.

Um, seeing no additional comments, we will move to the second item in the manager's oral reports, which is an uptown update on downtown parking.

So mayor and council, I just want to uh introduce uh Leah Riley.

She is our uh transportation and environmental services director, yay.

Um, I introduced her last time, but she's actually going to be part of the presentation tonight.

And then uh Katie North is our division chief with mobility services, and she's brought along her quality staff uh tonight.

And this is really uh an update about um you know with the loss of parking at uh Market Square and some of the things that we are looking at and have looked at, and this is the expert team that can uh speak to that management of that entire program.

Great first time.

Thank you.

Uh again, Leah Riley and the Director of Transportation and Environmental Services.

Um, so uh nice to be here tonight.

So, uh, Mayor Gaskins, Vice Mayor Bagley, members of the council.

Um parking in Old Town, as you know, requires very careful balance.

Uh, we need to balance the needs of businesses, residents, visitors, and our employees.

And uh Old Town is one of the most vibrant destinations in the city, and that means that the demand for curb space is growing in Old Town, and it's incumbent upon us to manage that demand thoughtfully, and we need to maintain accessibility, but also think about supporting our economic vitality while doing that.

So, this summer, as you all have already talked about a little bit, there's going to be significant activity in Old Town and uh the historic uh renovation of City Hall will be continuing.

This will be um in partnership or at the same time as lots of festivals, waterfront programming, and community events that are supporting our local businesses and strengthening our economy.

And that means more residents and visitors are going to be coming to Old Town to shop.

They're gonna be coming there to dine, they're gonna come to participate in these events and that means the city has an opportunity to enhance how parking and curbside access can be managed to support those events, accessibilities, and support our visitor experience.

And we need to think about these things both for the near term and for the future.

So tonight, staff is going to provide you an update on the current conditions in Old Town, and they're gonna walk you through several actions that we have already taken, and they're gonna highlight some near-term improvements, including operational changes.

Those are intended to improve turnover access and the customer experience, especially during our peak season this summer.

And staff is also going to discuss discuss some longer-term strategies that the city is exploring to prepare for the future of mobility.

And these efforts are focused on creating a more flexible, efficient and sustainable curb management system.

Um we appreciate the council's continued partnership as we work through both the immediate summer, the restoration of City Hall, and the broader long-term opportunities to strengthen parking and curbside management in ONTAL.

And with that, I will turn it over to Max if you'd like to introduce yourself.

Thank you, Director Riley.

Uh, Max Seville's parking curbicide management.

Um, so as she said, we know parking is a huge challenge in our in our dense neighborhoods here in Alexandria.

Um, we are preparing for the future mobility by shifting our focus from long-term vehicular storage to access for all.

Um, as you all know, the typical historic road building in Old Town has no off-street parking and is 20 feet wide, which is the same length as a legal parking space.

So on-street parking has never been and cannot be the only solution to improving access to Old Town.

Um, in 2024, the traffic and parking board approved the criteria heavy uh administrative procedure for installing pickup drop-off or PUTO signage, accompanied by uh an annual review process uh to ensure the zones are being used as intended.

Several Pluto zones have been removed and added since the pandemic to adapt to the changing demands along the curb.

Uh, these zones help to accommodate all kinds of quick curbside errands, mitigating double parking.

Only nine metered spaces have been replaced with zoodot zones uh east of Washington Street since 2020.

Despite the high visibility of our scooter corrals, for example, no legal parking spaces were removed to install these east of Washington Street.

And the corrals are helpful to physically prevent drivers from obstructing crosswalks and legally require dockless mobility operators to deploy their devices in the parking lane rather than on the sidewalks.

And finally, our curb space prioritization framework in the Alexandria Mobility Plan approved by council helps guide our work as we continuously fine-tune our curbs to meet the demands of the adjacent land uses and the ever changing business landscape.

We understand the parking challenges we face.

The core challenge is that we are managing a limited public resource, the curb.

There's competing demand for short and long-term parking, loading unloading, pickup and drop-off, bus stops, ADA compliant access, micro mobility, outdoor dining, and much, much more.

We're not just managing parking, we're managing access and safety for all.

There's still enough parking available.

What's really happening right now is that we are facing very visible, yet temporary reduction in supply as parking demand surges due to Alexandria's success.

The available parking is simply not where people want it, which is typically on the street directly in front of their destination.

It's important to note that there are still 12 publicly accessible off-street parking garages and lots east of Washington Street.

However, here are some helpful solutions our team will be rolling out or has recently rolled out to address parking concerns.

Recently, we identified several locations where on-street parking could be added, starting with 19 new spaces on Duke Street approved in April, and more than 30 spaces for the traffic and parking board to consider in June.

Staff has also worked closely with APD in improving parking enforcement to compel turnover in valuable on-street spaces.

APD hired a parking enforcement contractor to address various concerns from businesses and residents, and they are now working to expand that contract per council's recommendations to include nights and weekends.

Tests also have uh transportation environmental services also help to procure license plate readers for APD to speed up enforcement.

The most effective way to influence parking behaviors is through pricing.

For several years, our team has used pricing strategies to compel high turnover on commercial blocks and incentivize long-term parking off-street.

Staff worked with Park Mobile to develop the residential pay-by-phone program in 2019 on several residential blocks of Old Town, which staff took a step further in 2022 by increasing the rate to $3 per hour on blocks with high demand.

That same year, staff also got council's approval to lower the rates in city-owned parking facilities to encourage drivers to use those off-peak.

Most recently, staff worked with council to increase the general on-street meter rate and the parking-related citation amount to further compel turnover and encourage parking long-term off-street.

The city has wayfinding signage for various off-street parking facilities.

And in late 2024, staff procured real-time parking availability signage for city-owned garages and also implemented park mobile in those garages to make it easier and quicker to park there.

Staff continue to update the where to park in Old Town web page and map and share it with businesses and visit Alexandria.

The discount parking program for Old Town businesses has been in place for several years, but we are in the midst of revamping it.

Employees of these businesses can park in the courthouse garage for a total of just one dollar after 4 p.m.

on weekdays and all day weekends and holidays.

We are working to make this easier to administer through the use of a preloaded access card, and then we'll heavily advertise the program to further encourage employees to park off street.

Max, before you go forward, for the old town discount business, the old town business parking program, is this only at the courthouse garage?

And if so, how many spaces can be utilized?

Currently, yes, it's only at the courthouse garage.

It was formerly administered in the Market Square Garage.

And after looking at the parking occupancy in earlier months of this year compared to the months prior of the of the year prior, we found that we could accommodate up to 90 spaces after 4 p.m.

on weekdays.

Okay.

And for most of our boutiques in Old Town that are just open from 10 to 5 on weekdays.

What sort of, I guess, changes might we make to the parking program in order to accommodate their employees?

Well, the issue is that our city-owned facilities, which we only own six of in Old Town, are heavily utilized during the day.

So we'd have to look at that further.

Have we explored for the garages that we do not own?

Have we explored any type of similar partnership?

I will let Sheila.

Onto the next slide, Max.

Um, so these are some of the potential actions we've looked at, and we've had a lot of suggestions in addition to the items that were mentioned on the previous slide.

One of which is exactly what you're speaking to, uh, Mayor Gaskins.

Um, so we continue to explore other options and ideas that are put forward, including the ones I'm just fine, the one you mentioned just now.

Um at this time, we've been focusing on the efforts that Max just talked about.

Um, due to staff time and resources and short-term improvements.

And um, I'm gonna also talk about some long-term improvements, but that being said, we can um take direction as needed.

Next slide.

And just so I'm clear.

So for what I was raising, that's bullet two that we'd be looking at.

And it would be for the 10 to 5 range, or would still be for the same hours of after five.

So these these potential actions are actions we have not begun working on at these times.

We've been focusing on the efforts on the previous slide.

Um, so we haven't looked at anything in specific.

Madam Mayor.

Um, Councilman Gary and then Councilman Chapman.

Um, I just want to I'm assuming maybe we're getting to another slide coming up at some point.

Uh where is this the last one?

There's there's a couple more slides.

Okay.

Um, so first of all, I just want to share that I would be opposed to subsidizing business as parking.

I have no issue with introducing a business to a private garage so that they can work out a deal themselves.

But for the city to be subsidizing in a private garage that isn't city owned, I would be highly against that.

So I just want to put that out there uh for the public and for everybody.

Um, but like I said, I have no issue with helping to connect to groups or businesses.

Um we have definitely gotten some 311s and some emails from some folks concerned about it.

I did a quick search and without any um, you know, partnership between businesses and garages, they could get a monthly rate for about 100.

Um, sure, it's not right next to their business, but they'd be able to leave their car there for the whole day.

Um, it's not our job to do that research for them.

We can point them in the right direction.

Uh so I think some folks that are employees, they need to be taking a better look at what their options are.

And I'm not saying that you can't drive because a lot of folks are coming from outside of the region to work here, but there are spaces available and there are garages available and there are rates that are available to them.

Um so if we need to do a better job marketing some of that or just pointing them in that direction, then that's what we need to do.

But again, not going to subsidize parking in private garages for businesses.

Councilman Chapman.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, so for my questions, um staff said that we have kind of the automated signs on spots left.

Um, that fourth one uh for our garages.

Is has there been any conversation with private garages about similar um signage so that they have something as well or anything like that?

Have they kind of said no to that?

Um has there been any conversation around that?

Um Katie North, um, we haven't had any direct conversations with those garages.

They, I mean, we'd be happy to share the plans that we use to create this sign um with new developments that are adding garages.

We have been adding requirements that they add city standard wayfinding signs, um, but we haven't been um actively reaching out to those garages at this point in time.

Um is there to dive more into that.

Is there any reason why not?

I think I think we've seen um with the limited usage that we've had of this, that it's it's something that works.

And I think um there are probably other jurisdictions that can attest to the fact that it does work.

Obviously, there's um some differences between what we own and what private industry does, but you know, any suggestions about um, I would assume suggestions to private industry to say, hey, this might be a little bit more useful and probably make your money back uh if you did this um might be helpful.

We can certainly reach out to the garages and offer to share the plans that we that we had and help them with that process if they're interested.

Um this might not work for what we're specifically talking about in terms of um non-employees, but I I know years ago there was conversation about proposals to partner with uh National Park Service, maybe at Jones Point, um, has that something that the door has been closed on?

I'm assuming.

Sure.

Uh Council uh Min Chapman, yes, I have been in contact with superintendent Medello, she's the end superintendent for George Washington Memorial Parkway region, um, and have requested if we could park at Jones Point, and they are not willing to consider that at this time.

Yeah, I think in the in the past they've always raised kind of security issues around that.

So I assume that that's not something that's been changed, but I just wanted to ask the question.

Um I think those are my questions at this point.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think um, just as we're going through when I think about the opportunity for us as I the private garages, I I think what I'm trying to get at is it seems to me like there is more than enough parking.

And we're to Max's point, we're never gonna create many more spaces on the street.

And so whether that is marketing, whether that's facilitating a connection, I'm just trying to figure out how we get people, particularly employees who are there for multiple hours and can't turn over their cars during the day.

How do we get them to other garages that even if they're not right next door, they're a few blocks away or somewhere to kind of help free up the limited amount of spots that we have.

And I think we'll only be able to do so much with our infrastructure.

And so this is where the private garages will will be really important.

Um thanks, Mayor Bagley.

I was sort of biting my tongue on this, but you you've um given me sort of an opportunity.

I I think to Councilman Agary's point about us sort of subsidized parking and to your point about we're not going to go around building a lot more parking.

I think maybe the opportunity that I'm curious if staff is considering is like some sort of almost airport shuttle style, you know, that that moves around during the day.

I know one of the things that has been expressed is if um there are servers who are leaving restaurants with cash and they're not, you know, they are physically able and willing to park five blocks away, except they don't want to make that journey with you know a couple hundred dollars in cash on them at 11 o'clock at night.

Um, alternatively, um, you know, if some if if a family's coming down and to go to restaurant, but you know, grandma can't make the five-block walk, but they can drop off and then park five blocks away, and you know, son, grandson can walk back or can pick up the shuttle.

Um, I'm curious, and we don't have to, you know, it doesn't mean included tonight, um, but maybe that's a gap bridging, you know, we can't pay for the parking and we can't necessarily build it.

But is there an opportunity for us to use, you know, uh a shuttle or and I know we already have the circulator, and I know we have, I mean, when you sit on King Street, the volume of buses is phenomenal, you know, but with the trolleys and the buses.

But um, so I just wanted to throw that that out there.

I don't know.

I know this is very focused on curb management, but is there a way to pair curb management with some sort of you know, employee or resident-driven shuttle or you know, something that literally just loops around um between known lots?

Um just just a thought, because uh there I I live in North Old Town where I see lots of of parking availability, um, and trying to figure out how do we induce people, or I was also thinking on the west end.

The other question I had that I was kind of biding my time on is I appreciate this feels very focused on east of Washington, at least the slides so far had been, but I think that there are a few garages by the metro.

Um, and I don't know honestly what their capacity is, but I imagine there is some, but I don't know.

Yeah.

And so is that an environment where if we can get tourists or even employees who are willing to make that walk or hop on a shuttle, how do we induce people into those garages?

And maybe I just haven't gotten to that slide yet, but just all of the above kind of approach.

I I should have like I was trying to land with a question, but it was really just more it was more just like a reaction to you know, where if you're looking for feedback, you know what I mean, and it's kind of the where where my head is at.

I agree with Councilman Aguirre's concern about sort of subsidizing the parking itself, but but partnering it, you know what I mean, giving it companions feels like a better fit for our role.

Yeah.

And I think your point about west of Washington, but also Old Town North and other areas that like it's what's the whole radius that we want to capture.

Um I saw Councilman Chapman and then Councilman Gary.

I could go back to that.

Um staff could go back to the slide with the um parking lots or garages.

Um I think one of the the tools maybe uh to the vice mayor's point uh that we probably need to have a conversation with Visit Alexandria and others, and then I think Dash is about the use of the trolley.

Um there's nothing that says we can't change the the route of the trolley.

Um yes, we we wanted to go up and down King Street, but it doesn't mean that it can't go a couple more blocks this way.

I think we've already seen that with the construction and the work that we've done there.

And so maybe there's an opportunity, particularly as we go into these major events where we use a trolley for that that reason, that purpose as well.

Umor some of I don't I think it's probably a lot harder with the Dash bus routes, but uh I don't think it's maybe not as hard with the trolley given you know we control what that route is and probably don't have to do some of the juggling we would have to do with um with Dash buses, but on the dash bus piece, maybe there's um an opportunity to kind of either better educate or better communicate um some of these uh garages as potential stops um where people can get on or off at.

And or uh some of I don't I I think it's probably a lot harder with the Dash bus routes, but I don't think it's maybe not as hard with the trolley given you know we control what that route is and probably don't have to do some of the juggling we would have to do with um with Dash buses, but on the dash bus piece, maybe there's um an opportunity to kind of either better educate or better communicate um some of these uh garages as potential stops um where people can get on or off at um and maybe that could be helpful uh to visitors or even regular residents being able to know uh if they park at this garage they can get on this bus to go uh to to downtown and come back and get off there as well Councilman Gary.

Thank you, Madam Mayor and uh now Councilman Chapman kind of took some of the words right out of my mouth I think one of the things that we need to try and advertise and promote is uh what dashed lines do go next to some of these garages because the garage that I was actually thinking about that's uh at about a hundred dollars a month for a monthly fee is further up north Fairfax um which the 34 and the 31 go by so it would be easy uh to get on to a safe type of shuttle late at night that's still running uh because I believe the 30 is still running that late at least um that you could then you're not walking five blocks or maybe walking one block um additionally with uh some of the parking directly across the street from the metro I think about uh I think it's the embassy suites and the parking rods that they have there I mean there's some businesses surrounding there that even offer you know two hour validation if you go get lunch or something there.

So I think there's a lot of opportunity uh in terms of of advertising and just partnering with some of the garages uh or partnering with AEDP or visit Alexandria or partnering with these businesses to uh facilitate some of this conversation and some of this knowledge um and and I do like Councilman Chapman's idea around the trolley because the trolley already is diverting.

So if it were to turn on say Pitt and then I don't know if we can make that turn on Queen Street but if we were to go all the way to Queen Street and then come back up Fairfax then it's hitting uh number 16, which I'm assuming is a garage I'm hoping just because it's numbered um but that covers you know 16, 5, 14 two um as opposed to having a longer walk you're now just a block away if you're getting off at a stop at say Queen and Fairfax somewhere in that area.

And of course the buses are already coming down Fairfax for um you know their regular routes anyway.

So it seems like a kind of a natural detour if you will um that we could probably explore with with uh with the trolley not so much the other dash lines because they've you know have fixed service routes but the trolley I think is something that we could definitely um work with.

So yeah this yeah no question there just comments thank you councilman Gary yes um so did want to talk about how one of our longer term projects um and hopefully it can get some of this because one of the pieces it does capture is occupancy even in some of the private garages.

So maybe that can be an eventual um helpful piece to some of the comments you guys um have made so as part of the current parking and curb side management work plan we have been working on using technology to prepare for the future of mobility utilizing grant funds we have started a project with the open mobility foundation to complete a citywide digital curb inventory using CDS.

CDS or the curb data specification is a digital tool that helps cities pilot and scale dynamic curb zones.

CDS provides a mechanism for expressing static and dynamic regulations, measuring activity at the curb and developing policies that create more accessible useful curbs.

Through our CDS tool we will also have access to on-street occupancy numbers that help us make decisions, tweak pricing and target enforcement efforts.

CDS is also part of an autonomous vehicle readiness strategy that will allow the city to communicate with connected vehicles in the near term loading zones represent an opportunity to develop tools that can deliver meaningful change.

These high demand curb spaces provide a targeted area to advance shared goals like safety, sustainability and accessibility using CDS, we are working towards an initial project focusing on loading and pickup and drop off zones and we are laying the groundwork to extend CDS to more curb use cases in the future um so as we kind of just summarizing some of what we've been talking about parking in old town has long been a challenge in the summer those pressures will continue to be noticeable due to the temporary loss of parking associated with the city hall renovation project along with the increased activity and attendance at seasonal events.

We have been actively working on both managing our parking supply and demand and access based on our curb space prioritization framework.

So short and long term projects including supply adjustments partnering with parking enforcement adjusting parking pricing and implementing technology solutions we recognize the importance of balancing the many competing demands for limited curb space and continue working to support residents, businesses and visitors through a range of parking management program policies and operational strategies.

Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation.

I do think there are a few more comments and questions.

I'm going to start with uh Councilman Chapman.

So going back to the CDS, I understand it right.

What is, and I know this is future, quote unquote future.

Any potential timeline on kind of when something like this might be implemented?

I know staff said they're going kind of after a grant to kind of get this kicked off.

Um, but what is this?

We actually have grant funds and we're actually implementing it.

So it's currently we're in the initial phases of mapping all of our curbs using this tool.

So this is actually a screenshot from it.

Um so we're actually in the midst of working on it.

So this is coming soon.

I think that council member, the the inventory we're currently working on with grant funding, but in order to actually use it as an enforcement tool, we're gonna have to work through legislative issues in terms of our ability to issue fines or tickets from the system.

Um yeah, very interesting.

Um, I know I've seen it at a couple of um NLC um conferences about some other localities kind of moving forward with this type of technology.

Um very interested in kind of where, particularly in old town with loading zones and um how interesting those have become, probably uh might be the word.

I don't know.

Um, you know, I've seen uh a couple of recent posts about some challenges down there.

I know with changes that the city has made, including the pedestrian blocks and obviously now with City Hall.

Um I know folks are still kind of going through challenges down there.

Um, but I'm very interested to see where this can how this can be helpful.

Um, you know, to me, I think the one of the other remaining questions is how engaged has the business community kind of been with what we're doing in terms of parking outside of kind of employee parking.

Obviously, they have uh constituents, customers, et cetera, that want to um they want to make sure still have access, like staff is talking about.

Have we been able to uh open opportunities to hear from them and kind of take input?

I think that is one of the challenges we are facing because we don't have a single point of contact.

We have hundreds of different businesses up and down King Street.

So while we do hear from businesses and try to respond to them through 311s or through direct emails or through working with some of the key stakeholders that we have worked with in the past.

Um we don't have a centralized location where we can sort of share ideas about maybe the parking garage sign is as an option or the discount parking program.

So I think we're trying to work through as many advocates as we have so that we can spread the word as as best as we can.

Can I ask a follow-up on maybe the managers getting at this?

But I was gonna say, I know a few months ago we heard a presentation from the Office of Climate Action that they're going door to door with businesses to put out their green business program.

We also heard a similar update from AEDP saying that they're also doing some door-to-door.

I just wonder if we already have staff going out business to business, if there's a way to kind of leverage um that outreach.

Yeah, I you hit part of what I was gonna say.

Um, the other part is uh we've started uh businessy news that that really is a conduit to uh utilize that platform.

Um, along with, as you said, there's I think three or four initiatives ongoing right now that are reaching into those to those business that that business community at different levels.

Um I think the combining of that effort could make it much easier for us to get coherent feedback, uh, comprehensive feedback on multiple pieces, and uh, I think that's something that we can work on.

Uh I did want to highlight um just to kind of summarize a couple of the things that I think we hear um facilitation of what we already have on the private side with um basically our our small businesses along that corridor.

That is something meshing that together, I think is represents a great opportunity.

Um, and I think that's something I think that the staff has already been doing some of that, but we can really ramp that up in a more significant way, particularly as it relates to the garages.

And that also links to what I think many of you talked about was okay, once that happens, the later in the evening and how to make sure that there's public transit that serves that.

Those are the two, I think specific takeaways that we had, as well as certainly making the private garage entities aware of some of the technology that we've used that have been very effective, such as the digital size or uh the park mobile that you guys have been able to put in garages, as well as as perhaps uh availability of digital information about what's going on and how how to find opportunities for parking.

Because I I think the end of the day, I think there is significant parking.

As everyone's highlighted, it's really about the management of that.

So does that capture three of the key areas of the council?

Because I think from here, what we would want to do is um do some of that research, come back with you with some more detailed recommendations.

I will say some of the recommendations that the staff has, um they're ready to bring that forward to I think some of this has to go to the traffic and parking board, particularly as related to the 30 or so spaces, I think that are really loading areas and other areas on street that the staff has looked at the usage, looked at the observation of how they function and tighten those up a little bit to pick up some more spaces.

I guess the only two that I would add, um, there was conversation around looking at the trolley route and um dash and particularly for the trolley, are there um opportunities for alternative routes?

And then I think there was also a conversation about expanding the radius that we're looking at all the way up to New King Street uh metro.

Yes, and Old Town North.

And I guess that's part of that.

I would just um be curious.

We can't do everything at once, but given our first big test is going to be sale 250, and I think we're expecting thousands of people to come.

You know, is at a minimum, could we get out within the next week?

The the map um or partner with Visit Alexandria on pushing people so that we can test and see if some of these things work.

Um, another thing that I'm thinking about too with the inventory is even just like where are the Uber and Lyft drop-off point where where are they at?

How do we get that stuff out as soon as possible so that whenever we're putting out communications about that big event, we are already testing this and we can see like did it lead to the result we we were seeking?

I have um Councilman Chapman still, then Councilman Green, and then Vice Mayor Bagley.

Just to add on to what the mayor's talking about, I think another opportunity to kind of do tests, because I do like using some of these events to do that.

One that we have every year is going to be the city's birthday party.

We know there's a ton of people that go to that specific place or places along the waterfront.

Um, and so testing trolley routes um as we put out kind of dedicated communication for that event could be something that could be useful.

Um, a couple of years ago, I yeah, several years ago, um, I think a number of us on council talked about, well, I think a number of us maybe just me, um, talked about trying to have what was quote unquote uh uh parkings are.

Um, because I think one of the things that we have realized is not just only an old town or North Old Town or Southeast Quadrant.

Um these relationships with private industry are kind of essential to um the culture and what we build there.

We're starting to see that more and more on the West End as well.

Um and so being able to have I don't know if it's a czar, but just some capacity to create those relationships.

I think um would go pretty far in making sure we bring private industry along with us as you know, we are making uh technological advances um in curb management, but also uh signage, signage for the city was a long conversation.

I know a number of you probably gotten a history lesson on wayfinding signage in old town.

Um, but um being able to have some capacity to do that um or even build that out um in future budget years if we need additional staff for that, um, I think would go a long way as we start to see more people go into Del Ray and need options for parking um West End uh as well as Old Town and particularly around some of the events we do and um where uh private industry uh has not always uh adjusted.

So thank you.

Councilwoman Green.

Thank you, madam mayor.

Um, would it be possible that I could get the um and I don't need it now, but have it sent to me the other city-owned garages.

And out of those six garages, why was the courthouse one picked for the 4 p.m.

discounted parking?

I don't know the other locations, so that might be the most centrally located location, but just wondered why that one was selected.

We look at our occupancy rates, we have that and um courthouse is high occupancy during the day, but low um evenings and weekends.

So I'm sorry, wouldn't that pretty much be the same with all the garages though?

All right, um garage on North Union Street has high occupancy on the the weekends um and not during the day and not as high.

It's it's still used, but not as high.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, Vice Mayor Bagley.

Um this is probably falls outside of y'all's expertise, but I think I I wanted to highlight maybe for the city manager and and maybe um I I don't know where this lands actually, but how can we find out the extent to which people arriving by car are the people we are seeing in our shops and in our restaurants and um because I I think there is um understandably some natural bias towards assuming the people in the restaurants parked in front of the restaurant or the people um because the cars are there, you know.

It's just I and and um but I don't know.

And so I don't know if that's a tool that you know people in your field, you know, uh have available, but and I I don't know exactly you know if if that's going back to the businesses themselves, but I think it could be really useful to helping us determine what to invest in if we understood better.

Where are the customers, how are the customers arriving, generally speaking?

Because even if they are mostly arriving by car, but mostly parking in garages, you know, and and not so much the streets.

Well, maybe that tells us something about you know our our willingness to build a 20 million dollar garage, you know, at some point.

But I I would really like to know that because if what we learned is plenty of them are arriving by metro, plenty of them are arriving by Uber, you know, plenty of them are you know, a capital bike shares, scooters.

I think that just a it lends support to create creating more space for those things.

Um, but but maybe they aren't.

And I I don't know what the answer is, but I would love it if we could research some tools that could help us understand where how people are arriving into this grid.

I feel like Miss Riley might have an answer, but or I mean, uh yeah, I don't know if we use these tools or not, but in my prior role, you know, I collected all this data for downtown.

Um it's whether you can use placer data.

I don't know if we have a subscription for placer.

It's very difficult through point of sale.

The credit card companies will not give you that granular level of uh sale data because of privacy concerns, but you can get a larger area to try to understand uh spending habits and length of stay and how people we can get uh gate entries and departures from our metro stops, alighting on our trolleys and our buses.

Um and then when you cut like you stitch these pieces of data together, you can get it what you're trying to decide.

But I just don't know if we have the subscriptions in the city.

All right, I have um councilman marks and then councilman marks.

Along the lines of Vice Mayor Bagley, I would be interested too to understand how long people are staying.

So people, you know, with our appointments.

We have lots of you know, salons, uh, people who are out to dinner brunch for long periods of time that are over two hours.

I'd be interested to understand if they're parking in garages, if they're coming by Uber or if they're parking in two hour spaces and we're ticketing them or not.

Seeing no additional comments, I want to thank you all for the presentation.

It sounds like we'll be seeing you guys again.

Um, but I guess uh Mr.

Manager, we can follow up to talk about kind of the best if this is a memo or what?

And then um, I do think there were a couple ideas for some things we might be able to pilot and test quickly, or some data that we might be able to get back um strategically.

So maybe in a future oral report before our summaries thought we can get a summary on that.

But thank you all for the presentation and the options for us to consider.

Madam Clerk, next item.

Action docket world conference sent items nine through 19.

Okay, is there a motion?

Second.

Um one second.

There's been a request to pull 18.

So if I can have um, I guess Vice Mayor Bagley, would you be open to changing your amendment to moving items nine through 17 and then 19?

And there's been a second by councilwoman Green.

Madam Clerk, this is a roll call vote, please call the rule.

Vice Mayor Bagley.

Councilwoman Green.

Hi.

Councilwoman Age, Councilman Chat, Councilman Al Nuby.

Councilwoman Marks.

I all right.

The eyes have it.

Madam Clerk, item 18.

Introduction and first reading consideration passage on first reading of an ordinance.

So many sections 5-2-16 place the merchandise on or otherwise obstructing sidewalks and other public rights avoiding.

Okay.

Councilman Chapman, did you want a presentation or no?

I was able to read the docket item, so I just uh I can go straight to the questions.

I think um because if I'm if I'm understanding the timeline, we would do the first reading today, second reading and final passage on Saturday.

And so with that kind of pretty quick timeline, I just wanted to understand what communication we've had with the business community, because this would be the if I'm correct, this would be the first time we're actually applying financial fines.

Uh and so I want to kind of understand how aware folks are um of what they're doing.

And I also want to make sure that we are covering ourselves as well if we're starting to find businesses for signs in the right of way that we don't have signs in the right of way, because I think we have a sign in the right of way as we have a temporary city hall, and so on King Street, you have here's city hall, but that is in the right of way.

So while signs are technically an encroachment, this is more geared towards encroachments like walls, physical objects that are out in in the right of way.

Um, and then also vendor street vendors selling things in the right of way.

Um so let me give you um an example.

Uh I think for years now, um, the gentleman uh the the comfort one shoes uh uh down on King Street, maybe 200 blocks, maybe um, have had racks of shoes on the street.

Is that something that would now be um getting a fine?

And and the reason I'm asking that is because uh if somebody like that has been operating in that manner for a certain amount of time, how much understanding do they have that this is now not only a problem, but a problem they're gonna see a significant fine for?

Yeah, so that would technically be an encroachment, but there are options for them to get permits to sell from the right of way.

Uh in terms of actual outreach to the businesses, we have not done that.

So I would recommend that we figure out a way to do that um before we implement this.

If we get to Saturday and I I would recommend to my colleagues, we look at probably a short-term deferral to have some type of communication with the business community.

I'm not necessarily against this.

I certainly see staff's point of view and being able to actually regulate this.

Um, but I do think um, with the way we've seemingly normalized some of the businesses, um uh like the comfort shoes to be able to do that.

I think there definitely needs to be some communication with them about maybe it if it's if it's illegal and if it's gonna be illegal, how much that fine is going to cost, but also what that path to permitting is to make sure folks are aware of that.

Madam Mayor.

Councilman, I just wanted to say that our approach is going to be first is to educate, right?

To go out and educate all the businesses, and then when there are um violations, warnings will go out first.

Like we're not gonna move to find people immediately.

It'll be education more than enforcement.

So there'll be a clear path, understand.

Okay, Madam Mayor.

Councilman Agarry.

Um, I I would be uh completely in agreement with councilman Chapman and and also push it in further this because if there hasn't been any outreach, then this shouldn't be done.

Period.

Um I hear what you're saying with education, education needs to happen beforehand, not after it's already passed.

Um yeah, I do find it.

I I guess um I was just saying the vice mayor, I do find it concerning that we didn't do any previous outreach here.

What's coming to mind for me is things like um you know sidewalk sale and other things, where of course you'll have a permit, but understanding like that's not the way we've done it before.

And so given in our last presentation, we just heard capacity is limited to go out and do business engagement, does concern me that we haven't done that on the front end, and then we would probably still have limited capacity to do the education to do the other outreach and so forth.

Um, so I think you know, maybe it's just to the manager.

I would hope that anything that does come before us in advance, we have a clear understanding of how that outreach has taken place.

I I may be mistaken, but I I think this it's already illegal to do this was the action that I think we being requested is there is no ability for us to enforce the action the the efforts already are already illegal by our ordinance.

It was just we had no mechanism to do any type of enforcement.

That's what this was about.

I hear what you're saying, and you know, certainly we can take whatever time is necessary to explain what what would the enforcement look like.

I think that's you know, but this I I if I recall correctly, this has come because we've had some specific issues, right?

Madam Mayor Councilman Agary I mean I still regardless of what the law is and the education used to happen beforehand even if we are going to put some type of enforcement behind it and a fine on top of that we should be given a presentation on this and where it's happening and what the purpose is so I mean to just kind of do this um although we're disappointed that this is what where we are counseling Chapman.

So if to the manager's point if and staff if if there are specific um entities that we know are kind of those ones that we're particularly targeting um I think I would I don't want to have kind of publicly embarrassed people but I would kind of want to understand you know how how broad are we talking about the the the issue is um are we talking about a couple of like like the comfort one just to put them out there are they uh this is folks that most likely have probably normalized this opportunity to have raxious shoes on there uh and I've bought some um some shoes on uh encroachment I did not know it was I should have sort of checked the city code a little bit better on that one um but um you know they've kind of normalize this as a way they're doing business um and to to the mayor's point do we have if if it's a list of 200 businesses that are doing this versus a list of 20, you know, I I wanna understand what that um what that looks like um because I I certainly appreciate my colleague's point but how broad is the education that needs to be done like it it do most businesses already know this and are are abiding by the law but we have a couple uh like the ones mentioned that are doing this and you know there is a quick opportunity to uh have basic education about hey you already know this is legal we've probably sent you something in the past um but we're going to start finding it um I would be open to uh I think what is concerning for me is the the timeline in in terms of how quickly we do this um I would be open to a quicker timeline if we can say hey we've got you know X number of businesses we need to reach out to them so and we are moving forward with an opportunity to make sure you understand that this is really law and we're really going to enforce it.

But I do want to kind of see uh how quickly we can do that.

Um because if we don't have the capability to do that I would be concerned about the timeline enforcement or for this part of policy.

Thanks very bagley um I just to just to posit the other side here I mean what I took when I read this memo is this behavior is currently prohibited and and staff has talked about that with these locations.

The problem is and the amendment they're seeking is monetary fines.

So what what this struck me as when I read it is what what went on on Wheeler Avenue with the trucks you know three or four years ago they weren't allowed to be parking there the way that they were but it was a cost of doing business ticket you know it was all right whatever I'll pay 50 bucks a week to park here even though I know I'm not allowed to park here overnight or you know and so what we did is we didn't create a new prohibition we ratchet up the fines to a level that finally made a disincentive for I don't know if you worked on that on that piece but of what I'm referencing.

And so that was I think one of my first years on council you know we we tried to figure out how high do these fines have to go for this behavior to eventually not make sense from a business perspective.

So that was a prohibited behavior being you know chosen.

And so that's how I read this this is a already prohibited action um that is through discussion and non-monetary enforcement not stopping and this amendment to this this portion of the code was designed to to finally give staff teeth that they'd have if other methods of what was referenced which was education warnings um you know explanations um failed so I I don't have the same degree of concern because it's what what I'm in I I invite staff to correct me if I'm wrong here but um the businesses who would begin receiving these fines at some potential point in the future are aware that they are currently violating our existing ordinance.

Is that a true statement?

Madam Mayor, if I may Emily Baker, um deputy manager, having been the interim test director at the time that we were pulling all this together.

Um I just want to say what the vice mayor is saying is correct.

This is something that's um, and as the manager said, this is something that is already illegal, and we do have vendors that are violating this who staff have where we have received complaints and um where staff have been trying to enforce, however, there are no teeth in the current ordinance.

And um, and that's what's before you today would be to give staff a opportunity to be able to say, okay, if you're not um removing your items from the right-of-way, here's a here's something that we can do to try to enforce it.

So there the vendors who are the ones that we're trying to um target with this have been, we have had communication with them.

We have not had broad citywide communication with vendors, primarily because we're not really targeting citywide.

Certainly, if we were to receive complaints or if it's something that we found was a nuisance in the right-of-way, it could be applied citywide, but the intent is um to deal with vendors that have become a nuisance, then that we have no other way to really enforce at this time.

Um I have mayor Bagney had a follow-up question on her um on the question she just asked, and then I I want to get staff and then I'll get to council may care.

So a question I have for the city attorney, and just in terms of my colleagues expressing a preference for education or deferral is is I'm curious what flexibility do we have in terms of an implementation date?

Because that would go ahead and give, you know, if we if we could pass this with an implementation date of September one, you know, three months out.

And I just I'll stop there.

Is that is that an option?

That is an option is to add a delayed start date.

So that would be something that council could ask us to discuss internally after if you choose to pass it on first reading, and it could be added as an amendment at the second reading and final adoption.

Oh, or you could add it tonight.

Um, councilman Gary.

So the targeted thing is what I'm concerned about.

Who exactly are we targeting, right?

And in what part of the city are we targeting them, uh, regardless of whether conversations have been had and you know, ultimately sometimes things are clear and sometimes they're not.

Uh so I have a lot of concern around what exactly we're trying to do with finding people who may not have money to begin with.

Um I understand what we're saying here that it's uh staff law, but you know, people are still trying to survive.

So it it is it's not the same as you know, Wheeler Avenue.

It's actually very different.

So I would like to have further conversation around this.

Um, and so I'm not in agreement with this just moving forward uh coming on Saturday, regardless, even if we could uh put a delayed date of September in action or whatever it might be.

Um thank you, Councilman Gary.

And I I would just say too something around the targeting that I guess um I just like to lift up.

I I hear that there are particular problems that we want to address.

But one thing that does concern me is if something is against the law in one place, then it's against the law across the whole city.

And if we're picking and choosing where we are enforcing that, I think that creates a much bigger issue.

And I think the businesses that we see pop up in different ways, especially I mean, um, of West Center.

I think we've also had a couple um things we've heard about the right-of-way in Arlandria.

Uh in it and that we continue to get a 311 over.

I don't think we want to put ourselves in a situation where whatever we do with this ordinance, we're not implementing consistently.

And if that implementation is then gonna have um, what is it?

Um is going to disproportionately affect certain businesses.

I think we have a larger uh concern.

Councilman, um, El Nebi.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um I thought it was I read it this morning, but I can't remember if you can remind me.

Is it going to be citation on first defense or is it going to be a warning first?

Because I don't look gonna go up, but do we start with a citation?

We do not start with a citation.

You start with a warning.

We always try to have a conversation.

We want to resolve things without uh issuing the fine.

Okay, so that means if this goes into effect, whenever it does, we're not gonna start citing people right away.

We're going to warn people, even some of those business that were brought up, correct?

Yes.

And I mean, we'll so in a way, people will get to know that this is now going into effect.

Okay.

And I mean, we generally give it a few times.

We'll have a few conversations before we escalate anything.

We we generally want people to follow the law, you know, by conversation.

I mean, we're not trying to issue that.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that point.

And I think I my colleague the vice mayor brings up a pretty good point.

going to warn people even some of those business that were brought up correct yes and i mean we'll so in a way people will get to know that this is now going into effect okay and i i mean we generally give it a few times we'll have a few conversations before we escalate anything we we generally want people to follow the law you know by conversation we we're not trying to issue one yeah no i appreciate that point and i think i my colleague the vice mayor brings up a pretty good point i i would be in agreement to maybe delay the uh delay the the implementation of it um if that's the but i i have no problem passing this today on first on first reading um i think well given everything that was said um i can i raise a point of information um if we madam mayor yes if we look at the docket item it says the establishment of graduated civil penalty structure um 200 for the first violation that's not a warning what am what am i missing here what i'm saying is when when we come and we address somebody that has an encroachment in the right of way yeah we will have a conversation with them let them know that it's a violation of 5229 okay and we will issue we'll we'll give them a a notice of violation without a fine so it's it's a conversation and we we say hey this is this is the um ordinance that you are um violating can you please come into compliance okay i'm it's not disagreeing with staff i i appreciate that i just maybe i'm not reading it's um i i think it's not in the code that we would that we would issue a warning but that's the practice staff okay thank you okay um let me ask this then um where do my colleagues want to go with this and is there someone who'd like to make a motion on how we move on this item madam mayor yes councilman so just to move things forward i'll make a motion to pass this on first reading with the deferment date of september okay is there a second um madam city attorney sorry when you say deferment date to delayed implementation of september first we just have to be September first exactly okay there has been a motion to move this forward on first reading with an amendment for a delayed implementation date of September 1st is there a second process wise i haven't I I want to request if I can have like a an amendment to the motion but but before I second it but I don't know if you can you offer that before there's been a second okay second it and then we can do a friendly amendment.

Okay.

Yeah so I'd like I'm gonna second the motion so it's the motion on the floor and then I I do want to ask the city attorney though if I can um I I prefer I threw out September I appreciate sort of the I threw out September 1st I mean to just to have a date to discuss but um I I don't know that that's the right date and so what I'm curious about is um is there a version of us passing it on first reading with a request for it to return on second reading with a proposal you know with a proposed implementation date after discussion with staff or yes that is absolutely possible you pass it on first reading to your point and then you come back on the second reading and you can ask staff for additional information come back on second reading and you can amend it at the at that time the amendment does not change radically change the the ordinance itself so it is possible to do that.

Okay so in light of that though I'm the the the second you know can I request my colleague to amend his motion to uh eliminate the the implementation date but the motion includes a request to staff to be prepared to speak to an implementation date in the future and so that amendment has been accepted so there is a new motion on that has received um a second my mic that has received a second from vice mayor bagley is there any further discussion councilman chapman madam mayor i would like to put in a substitute motion um to um approve on first reading but and um move the second reading and final passage uh not to the May public hearing but to the June public hearing okay um wait give me one second let me I just want to finish capturing this it is to approve really one second okay to approve a substitute motion to pass on first reading um sorry including a delayed implementation date or just passing on first just to go ahead and clear the the clear the first um public the excuse me the first reading um move that second reading and final passage to the June public hearing um and when we get to discussion I can definitely speak to I okay and um councilman green were you clear on that motion and eight second yes I did there has been a motion and a second for a substitute motion as stated by councilman chapman is there any further discussion on the substitute um councilman chapman thank you madam mayor i i appreciate the the work of my colleagues uh i think the what i'm trying to get at is uh i do think to uh the vice mayor's point to kind of keep it moving the challenge i have is frankly with the docket that we are going to have on saturday adding this as an additional that's what they said that's what they say we've well we have a a good number of public speakers um but uh this being an opportunity uh to the vice mayor's point to have additional discussion uh i would want us to do that and i don't i don't know if we would be in the right mindset to do that on saturday um with everything else

I think the what I'm trying to get at is I do think to uh the vice mayor's point to kind of keep it moving.

The challenge I have is frankly with the docket that we are going to have on Saturday, adding this as an additional that's what they said.

That's what they say.

We've well, we have a good number of public speakers.

Um, but uh this being an opportunity uh to the vice mayor's point to have additional discussion, uh, I would want us to do that.

And I don't I don't know if we would be in the right mindset to do that on Saturday um with everything else.

Uh and so it might be prudent to put this in the June public hearing and then have that discussion allow also for additional conversation with staff as well.

Um, and so hopefully we can get to a place where we move forward.

Okay, are there any additional comments on the substitute?

Uh Vice Mayor Bagley.

So one thing I'd ask, I think is there's clearly some more background and context here that I admittedly don't feel fully privy to.

Um, in my mind, I was picturing, you know, like the two scenario and certain old town scenarios, but I I'm well aware of what's going on in Orlandria.

There's also, you know, West End strip malls and other other scenarios.

So what I would just ask is and what I appreciate and why I will vote for the motion, as well as if we are able, we don't generally get like test briefings before public hearings, but if perhaps you'd be willing to offer those to those of us who might be interested before the June public hearing to get a little more context on this so we can come in a little more prepared on the background because admittedly, I thought as I said tonight, I thought I understood sort of the context of what this was intended to do, and I'd like to understand it better before June.

Okay, any additional comment on the substitute?

Um, Councilman Alnubi.

Yeah, uh thank you for putting that on the floor.

I'd also be in support.

Appreciate that.

Um good point.

Um, Councilman Ship.

Okay.

Um, I guess I'll just give my two cents.

I'm gonna support the substitute in terms of moving it to June.

However, I do want to be clear with my colleagues, uh, and I think the vice mayor brought this up without that additional background on how this plays out citywide and the potential unintended consequences.

I'm not prepared to support it in June.

So hopefully we can have that information and be prepared for a deeper presentation.

So this time we need to vote on the substitute motion.

And yes, I don't.

Um, and so this there was a substitute motion by councilman Chapman, and it was seconded by um councilwoman Green.

This is a roll call vote.

Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilman, excuse me.

Councilman Chapman.

All right, councilwoman Green, Mayor Gaskin.

Aye, Vice Mayor Bagley.

Aye, Councilman Gary, Councilman El Newby.

Aye.

Councilwoman Marks.

Aye.

Okay.

The ayes have it.

And so the substitute motion is now the main motion.

Um, there has been, well, I'm not gonna resay it, but that motion has been stated by councilman Chapman and seconded by Councilwoman Green.

Is there any additional discussion now on this main motion?

Seeing that councilman Gary.

Just um, I'm not opposed to uh what councilman Chapman and Councilman Green brought forward.

I appreciate them.

Uh, but as a currently stands, I'll be voting against this.

Thank you, Councilman Acarry.

Um seeing no additional discussion, Madam Clerk.

This is a roll hall vote, please call roll.

Councilman Chapman.

Councilwoman Green.

Aye.

Mayor Gaskins.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Bagley.

Aye.

Councilman Geary.

Councilman Newby.

Aye.

Councilwoman Marks.

Aye.

All right.

The ayes have it.

Thank you.

Um, Madam Clerk, next item.

Receipt and referral the proposals to grant an agreement for the lease management and operation of the Torpedo Arts Torpedo Factory Art Center located at 105 Union Street.

Okay, this is item 20.

Um, since we are receiving proposals, I have a statement that I need to read.

As of April 27th, 2026, city staff received a timely response to ordinance number 5025 from Scout Urban LLC.

This bidder has submitted a proposed franchise for review and evaluation by city staff.

At this time, I need to ask if there are any companies in the audience or online who at this time wish to submit a bid in response to the ordinance.

Okay, seeing no one who wishes to submit a bid, I will then ask if there is a motion by a member of council to receive the submitted proposal and to refer the city manager for evaluation, review, and consideration in the manner prescribed by the law, including the selection of and the negotiation of an agreement with a responsive bidder.

So moved.

Second.

All right.

There has been a motion by Vice Mayor Bagley and a second by Councilman Chapman.

Madam Clerk, this is a roll call vote.

Madam Mayor, is there discussion?

Yes, I might apologize.

Any discussion, Councilman Gary.

Uh say I I'm concerned that there is only one proposal breached within this time.

I mean, was it not enough time?

Or there's just not any existing groups.

I mean, what brought us to the situation where we only have one one group coming forward.

Um Madam Mayor and members of council, we put this out there following an RFI request for information that we put out for um and the interested parties.

We received a very small response at that time.

Scout was one of the parties who did respond to the RFI.

Um, as council will recall, we um staff was directed to um to develop a different alternative governance structure for the torpedo factory as instead of staff operating the torpedo factory um as we currently do.

There was a question um as to whether there would be an entity out there.

Um, and so I don't know that we're entirely surprised that there was only one that we received, because if we hadn't received any, then we would um so basically there's no entities except for this one.

Is that then have expressed interest in wanting to step forward and operate the torpedo factory?

The um the solicitation was very clear that we're under no obligation to uh um to award it.

So if um once we receive the um proposal from Scout, if that is council's direction, then we would evaluate it and see what we think it is worth um bringing forward and we could negotiate with them and then come back to council with a recommendation either to um move forward or not to move forward.

So um there we were under no obligation, but I don't know that we're entirely surprised that there was one on that there was only one entity.

We'd hoped that there would be more.

Um, but that um that is the only one that came forward.

So is this due to the complications of the torpedo factory?

Is it due to what we put in the proposal and the request for information?

Can you elaborate a little bit more as to why we're in this situation, other than just there's only one group in the country that could do this, apparently?

Um I think it's because of the nature of the torpedo factory art center and um the fact that there are very few similar entities around the country.

And as you may recall, when we had the um stakeholder task force, we had um a consultant that came on at that time and looked around the country at different models, and there are a handful of other models around the country that were studied.

Um they all have somewhat different structures, but there wasn't um anybody, and we did reach out to all those entities and others.

Um we did market this fairly widely to try to see if there was some entity out there that we were not interested that that maybe we didn't know of that could that could have been interested.

Um, but we did not receive any interest other than the one from Scout.

I don't know if you want anything that my colleague would like to add.

Julian Gonzalez, Tragic Project S and P3 Director.

We did have a couple of entities that came for the site, was it?

Uh they asked questions, they walked through the site.

We had two entities that let us know by the deadline to ask questions that they were not going to submit a proposal based on what are the requirements.

Uh, we were very clear.

I think we had a stakeholder task force that said these are uh wish uh vision council was very clear in terms of what they would want from the facility, that it just remains an art center.

So I think we the RFP represented what the task force and the city council wanted in terms of an operator.

And once that came out, there were as uh as uh deputy city manager Emily Baker mentioned that during the RFI process.

Also, we got a few other entities who responded to the RFI.

But I think once they saw all of this, two said that they would not submit a proposal to other entities came for site visits and we did not see any questions.

Uh so I think it's just reflecting we we mentioned what our requirements were, and there were entities that responded to RFI, came for site visits, saw the RFP, but then decided they'd not submit a response.

And Madam Mayor, I you know, the whole reason that I bring this up is that this is what the public needs to know, right?

Because unless they're digging into our docket and looking at this, their first question would be well, why the heck is it only one group, right?

And we need to be able to specify it's one group because number one, the torpedo factory is very unique.

Number two, you guys did your due diligence.

You went looked at entities across the entire country, right?

So that needs to be part of what's out there publicly because otherwise we're gonna get scrutinized for well, they just picked one group and uh just went forward.

Um, and you know, that's the last thing we know we need, considering you know what's happening across the river in DC and the reflecting pool being given a no-bid contract for several hundred million dollars just to paint the reflecting pool a color that will not reflect and defuse the purpose of calling it a reflecting pool.

Sorry, just kind of sticking that in there real fast.

Um thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Aguirre.

And if I recall, um, maybe on the webpage where we put out this proposal, there's a chance to put up like a little update on exactly what you just outlined about the process that we went through, summary, the the tours, everything.

So then there's just a quick summary of bullets um so people can see that um in case they're not watching tonight's meeting or don't go back and watch it.

Councilman Chapman.

Just really quickly, uh, I appreciate my colleague kind of teasing that out, and I appreciate uh deputy city manager Baker kind of laying that out as well for the public because uh as we had back and forths, uh I think it's not just how unique uh the torpedo factory it is, it is about kind of the elevated level of work that I think the community wanted to see from whoever uh this entity might be.

Um the only request that I would have when uh staff does come back with um a recommendation to to say yes or no.

Um, it's being able to give some context to council on kind of what a no means and what that route now means if we're starting over, starting from scratch, if we're what whatever that is, uh being able to kind of uh tell us kind of the full picture of hey, you have this entity now running the torpedo factory, or we're back at square one or whatever that is.

Um I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Okay, Vice Mayor Bagley.

Yeah, and I mean, to that end, I think, and I appreciate what Councilman Aguirre sort of walked us through here.

Is the point is a little bit we put out an RFP that was a Christmas tree of ornaments, you know, and we hung everything, including a boat, you know, from it.

Um and that's I think what the market is showing us is it's not just an art center, it's an archaeology building, it's a wedding event space, it's uh you know, it's a classroom, it's the art league.

I mean, it's so much more than an art center.

And we made sure that our RFP included that, and we did that, having listened to the community and stakeholders who said, but you know, what about archaeology?

But what about the boat?

But you know, so uh to second uh councilman Chapman's point, I think once you all have had a chance to evaluate you know the the proposal we did get and give us a recommendation on it.

I I agree very much.

I'll be interested in it's sort of this recommendation versus what's the alternative, you know, what's the alternative?

And I I recognize we don't have much leverage with those that didn't submit a proposal, but to the extent any of those entities that took the time to visit and ask questions or not ask questions.

If we are able to do any kind of exit interview, you know, any kind of you know, short, we'd really appreciate you know, an hour of your time debrief to say, was there an element of this RFP that you know finally made you say I'm not interested?

Or was there an element of the building, or was there a piece that we really emphasize that didn't fit your business model?

Because the reality is, you know, if if we don't go with this proposal for some reason, we are gonna have you know tough choices to make about how to build our governance, you know, and our our our um business plan moving forward, and it would be useful if these entities that toured or considered would be willing to share with us a little bit of their feedback about what was the stumbling block or what what did they see as the core financial challenge or the core um marketing challenge to the space?

Um, because to my colleagues' point, the community has deep strong feelings.

We have studied and studied, we have stakeholdered, and now we have marketed nationally and um you know we we need stakeholder, yeah.

Did I make a new word?

Uh yeah, so um I I hope that this one way or the other is uh is a real sort of um I don't want to say come to Jesus, but um yeah, um you know, but it's it's uh it's what's that reality check.

Um you know, for for how we move forward um, you know, in in the building.

Um so so thank you for for the effort and for hearing us and incorporating everything.

And I guess I look forward to what is the time frame.

I know there's is there's a rules-based time frame and when they deserve a response, the proposal.

Right now, you just have to review the proposal, uh, evaluated, negotiate an agreement if we believe that there's a path forward and then come back to council.

So I think that will take us over the summer, and so we are looking at coming back in fall.

Okay, all right, thank you very much.

Okay, is there any additional discussion?

Is it the penny?

Okay, yep.

There has been a motion and a second.

Madam Clerk, this is a roll call vote.

Please call the roll.

Vice Mayor Bagley.

Hi, Councilman Chapman.

We are gas games.

Hi.

Councilman McGuire.

Hi.

Councilman L Newby.

All right.

Councilwoman Green.

Hi.

Councilwoman Mark.

Hi.

Okay.

Um, the eyes have it, and I have one more thing to read into the record at this time.

Accordingly, at this time, the bid is referred to the city manager to be reviewed and further evaluated by the city staff.

The city manager is to return with the proposal recommended franchise agreement for approval by the city council as soon as feasible.

Madam Clerk, next item.

Good evening, ladies.

Where are we beginning?

All right, Deputy City Manager Purdue.

The floor is yours.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Bagley and members of the city council.

I'm Alethea Perdeau, Deputy City Manager, and I'm joined tonight by my legislative colleagues, legislative director.

She'll introduce herself shortly, as well as our legislative consultant Sarah Taylor with Capital Square Strategies and our very close partners throughout the entire General Assembly session, the city attorney's office.

We also have behind us some colleagues from or in the other room, some colleagues from the other departments in the event that we need additional information.

With that, I'll hand it over to the legislative director.

Good evening.

Talk about what happened for the 2026 General Assembly session.

I really thank you for this opportunity.

And as you may recall, the last legislative actions for the 2026 general assembly session were the reconvened session on April 22nd and the budget special session on April 23rd.

The state budget remains pending at this time, which is something that I'll talk about a little bit more later in the presentation.

Tonight's presentation is intended to provide council with a timely overview of legislative actions taken during the general general assembly session.

Specifically, tonight's presentation includes highlights on the status of bills the city tracked during the General Assembly session, information regarding a few of the new laws that mandate city action, including action that may be required of city council, and information on some of the new permissive authorities that are now available to the city.

City staff are continuing to review enacted legislation across departments and agencies and will return to council in a timely manner with recommendations related to implementation and any actions required of the city.

The legislation highlighted tonight largely falls into one of three categories.

First, some legislation is mandatory and may require amendments to the city code or other formal council action before implementation.

The faith in housing legislation is one example of a legislation in this category.

Second, some legislation is permissive and may require ordinance changes, policy decisions, or administrative actions depending on council direction and operational considerations.

Legislative uh legislation related to the use of automated safety technologies is one example.

And then third, some legislation highlighted is of importance to the city, but may not require direct city action.

Legislation related to consideration of formal federal employee status and state hiring practice is one example of a bill in that category.

Staff review of enacted legislation is ongoing and based on statutory deadlines and implementation timelines.

We will continue to bring forward recommendations and any required code changes for council consideration in the coming weeks and months.

At tonight's meeting, there is not formal action required of the city council, but we seek your input on the information you need and want the city's analysis of available new authorities to help us move forward with our internal deliberations prior to bringing the city's recommendations before you.

With that, I'm gonna start the presentation.

Here's our agenda.

We're gonna go through the legislative priorities, session uh session summary, legislative actions, pending state budget, and then the mandatory permissive authorities led by um the deputy city attorney.

If you'll recall, and I want to take a moment and just thank all the people who contributed to these legislative priorities, and that includes all of our boards and commissions, all of our department heads, our legislative subcommittee, and the full council.

Just thank you for everyone for contributing to this.

This is the seven legislative priorities that comprise our legislative package for 2026.

Um, I'm not going to go into each of them individually right now because they're gonna form the structure of the presentation as we move forward.

Just for some context for what we had during the 2026 General Assembly session, three key points.

One was a new administration, we had a newly elected governor, a lieutenant governor, an attorney general.

As you know, in uh the state, uh the Commonwealth of Virginia, there are read biannually budgets, so it's two year budgets.

This was the long session, the 60 day session where they're planning the two year budget from the start.

And then federal funding and budget pressures were a constant theme throughout this entire session.

And in this 2026 General Assembly session, we had 2,448 General Assembly session bills that were introduced.

You can see 1,208 of them passed, 716 of them failed.

Some of them were carried over into the next session, which means they will return likely next year, sometimes in a different form, but they're likely to come back in some way or shape or form.

And uh 86 of those bills were consolidated into other bills that were moving or which either passed or failed.

Now for the city of Alexandria, we tracked 607 bills.

And I want to take a moment to let you know how we come up with that 607, which is that we read every single bill that gets introduced, and we think about whether it aligns with our priorities and or whether it is something that the city should pay attention to because it's a vital interest to the city and would have an effect on the city and its constituencies.

So we read all of the bills.

We are tracking six, we're tracking 607 of them.

And you can see in the chart below that the dispensation of each of those bills.

303 of the bills that we were tracking, for example, were signed into law, 236 of those were supported, eight were opposed, and we were watching 59 of them.

And I'm happy to go into what each of those items means as well.

So as for legislative activity, these are some of the outcomes that are there.

Although, again, I'm gonna flag that some of these outcomes are still pending.

Um, the first pillar that I'm gonna go to was address the impacts of federal workforce and funding reductions.

And the first bill that I'm gonna talk about there is from our own delegate led Lopez from the Alexandria delegation.

Um, that bill allows the city to extend deadlines on personal property taxes for federal employees during a shutdown.

It actually codifies an existing practice of the city and makes it uniform and easier to administer.

I'm gonna okay.

That authority is permissive and requires the adoption of an ordinance if we wanted to employ it.

Um, two other bills that were uh passed this session in this uh in this priority area are um one bill that facilitates pastor alignment of workforce programs to meet um urgent needs and urgent circumstances, and another one that gives federal employees consider status of consideration when applying for employment with the Commonwealth.

Those two provisions, neither one requires any city action.

They will just go into effect come July 1.

There is legislation pending and in the budget language and the budget bill for SNAP and Medicaid backfilling, which I'm happy to go into more as you're aware, HR1 on the federal level, um, it requires additional reporting requirements in the Medicaid circumstance.

It actually puts more um responsibilities in paying for the operations and the costs of SNAP benefits for the state and local levels.

Um, and there are there is legislative, there is legislative language pending in the bill that would backfill a lot of these obligations and needs for the um the state and the city.

Okay, next and the advanced housing affordability and economic opportunity pillar.

There's gonna be several pages of this because there were many successes in this area.

The first bill is HB4 from our own uh she started as a delegate, she introduced us as a delegate, but now is our senator, Elizabeth Bennett Parker, uh, formal councilwoman, uh, provides localities the right of first refusal to preserve affordable housing when properties are sold.

So this is a permissive of quality, it requires the adoption of an ordinance.

Um, and staff are already working on a way to get that before council with a proposal.

Um, HB 14 authorizes localities to enforce tenant protections in certain circumstances, also permissive.

Um, and then HB 15.

This one makes it so that you can't move to uh remove someone from their housing uh at five days.

You have to wait till 14 days if you want to remove them from their housing, giving them a little bit more time to catch up on the rent.

There would be no city action required for this that would go into effect on July 1.

Uh legislation pending in this area is another Senator Bennett Parker bill that requires qualifying landlords to offer payment plans to tenants who owe a less than one month of rent.

Uh one bill that the city worked really hard on this General Assembly session was the Faith in Housing Bill, which allows buyright residential development on land owned by certain qualifying religious and nonprofit organizations.

Do you want to talk a little bit about this one, Bonnie?

Sure.

Um, so this bill requires a new process for us, which will be a buy right administrative site plan approval process for qualifying projects.

And in order to qualify, at least 60% of the project's housing units have to be affordable at 80% or below AMI for rental units.

Um also the property uh on which the development is proposed has to have been owned by a qualifying religious or nonprofit organization for the last five years.

And there are certain other requirements in the bill that basically say what the maximum and minimum height, density, and other dimensional characteristics of the development can be.

It does not apply within historic districts and it's effective January 1 of next year.

Consumer, I can hear that in the consumer affordability component of this same uh priority area.

I'm gonna director Ginsberg, I apologize.

Let me um pause for a second.

We'll go back and I'm gonna take questions just because I know you have a number of slides.

So if it's okay, I'll do happy about that and we'll come back.

So I have a question from councilman Marks.

Yes.

HB 1279 and SB 388.

Yeah.

Um you said that the units need to be 80% or lower AMI.

Can we lower that number?

So we can't require it be lower that we would have to allow 80%.

But we actually, one of the things that we worked on was allowing lower than 80%.

The original language said at 80.

And we wanted to be able to accept projects that were lower, but we cannot mandate lower.

Okay.

I have a question from Councilman Green.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, I do not know the bill number, but it is the delay in property taxes with the government shutdown.

I was wondering.

And maybe a director Greenless, if you come up, I wonder what is possible already in the city when there's job loss and delay property taxes.

Can you hear me?

Um we have great flexibility in working with people on payment plans.

Um if it's due to lack of uh economic affordability, lost your job or something.

We can work with you.

Um those generally do entail interest um still accruing.

Um this bill really is tailored towards the federal shutdown.

Um I don't see this as an impacting our ability to do payment plans on other things.

This just really kind of lays out some structure for the the federal.

Great.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Bagley.

And yeah, and my question was actually back on the Yigby bill.

Um, the yeah, this um so what I wanted to confirm is I I assume the property, if it was used for this purpose goes back on the tax rolls.

It does.

That's specifically in the bill.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay, so I just wanted to clarify I know there were various concerns about like bills of this type.

So it goes back on the tax roles and it from a construction management and sort of like building.

The mayor alluded to this, but just to give people, you know, when you say by right, I I think it it gets people attention, but that by right is still bound by NAR setback, you know, height.

Um, this bill doesn't change what is our local zoning over a parcel in that would apply under this provision.

It does.

There are limitations, um, including density, and it explicitly says we can't require like additional FAR requirements or minimum lot sizes.

There are caps on height, density, and other things in the bill, which I can send you.

Um so it it would supersede our zoning ordinance to the extent our zoning ordinance is more restrictive than the bill.

We would have to allow the minimums in the bill.

Okay.

Um I think when the a potential adoption of the ordinance comes forward, I think that would be a useful, you know, slide, certainly, is to spell out um exactly where the language in the bill aligns with our various zones.

And because in some zones, it's probably more permissive, and in other zones, it's probably less and thus relevant.

And so it would be helpful to right, it would be helpful to understand that as we consider adoption of this ordinance locally.

I don't know if tonight, I don't I don't think we're really speaking more specifically than just getting the information.

But for me, I think as we talk about adopting it, I'd want to understand what's what's left of our local zoning code um and what would supersede.

Yes.

And I would say um, Vice Mayor, I should have said this at the outset.

Part of this presentation is to give that feedback.

There's a number of things that staff will be bringing back.

And so I think just to everyone, we have the opportunity to share.

Maybe there are some things that are permissive that we don't want to take advantage of and we don't need them to come back.

Um and then there are other things where as they do come before us, we can give um information just like you just gave on what do we want to see or what would be helpful at the time of making a decision.

I'll note for city council that in the docket memo, you're given all of the 40 bills that have permissive authorities allowed.

We are only offering highlights tonight.

So we're not going through all of them.

And as you know, um, you can reach out to us anytime with that kind of feedback or those types of questions.

Yeah.

Oh, that's the wrong way.

All right.

We did, I'm gonna go into consumer free, which is where we left off.

This also remains in the advanced housing affordability and economic opportunity priority pillar for the city.

Uh, I'm gonna highlight two bills from uh the delegation's own majority leader, Charnell Herring.

The first bill allows water and wastewater utilities to offer income-based rates for households for 80% of our area median income or AMI and 200% or 200% of the federal poverty level.

Um, the other one increases eligibility, just opens sort of the um the aperture on who can qualify for assistance programs for energy uh for lower lower income families.

For both of those bills, no city action is required, and they will go into effect on July 1.

Moving on to the address mental health, public health, and community well-being um pillar.

Uh, we're gonna I this this slide talks specifically about new authorities related to temporary detention orders.

There were three bills, uh, two different provisions, but three bills.

Uh the first one authorizes employment of retired law enforcement officers for emergency custody and temperate and intemporary detention orders, and the second one expands the use of alternative transportation providers uh for those who are experiencing a mental health crisis and under a temporary detention order.

Both of those authorities are permissive.

Um, I just want to give a quick comment.

I raised this during the budget.

I think this is one that we heard over and over from APD.

Um, that would be a huge help to our staffing levels.

I know this one probably is not just an ordinance change, but does have a budget implication.

So the sooner we can get that before council, I'd support that.

We are working internally on that.

There are likely some upfront budget implications, um, but it also could help us move our uh public safety officers onto uh work that actually allows people who might be better suited to address those in a mental health crisis during their TDOs as well.

So not only financial, but downstream um benefits, uh, also public safety benefits and mental health benefits.

Yeah, I think as we think about um the budget memo on this, it's it's weighing both of those costs, like you know, the officer who's sitting at the hospital for hours on end versus on the street, and then the different types of mental health providers that might be available and their costs.

I think to see that analysis would be really helpful.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Also in the address mental health, public health, and community well-being pillar, uh, there were actually 10 bills passed on traffic and pedestrian safety enforcement technology.

They're uh largely permissive, but a lot of them expand the time that we can use uh cameras outside of schools.

Uh, we can install new technologies at pedestrian crossings and stop signs.

There's a new authority for uh use of these technologies and what are called safety red zones, and we're working with transportation and environmental services to figure out where those zones can be located, are located, what legally qualifies there.

And then there's authority uh similar to the TDOs to hire justices of the peace and retired uh police officers to help with camera administration.

Now, along with these new expansive authorities, there's new reporting responsibilities and some scoping on the funding limitations, how the how we can the city can spend the funding that comes in from these technologies.

Um, but we worked uh the city worked really hard during the General Assembly session to make sure that that scoping allowed us to continue to execute on our mission for vision zero.

So it's a broad expanse of what vision zero could be, including investment in transit.

Councilman O'Nuby.

For the stole new technologies, the pedestrian crossings and stop signs.

Are there any limitations on those?

Do they have to be certain level of crashes or whatever, or is it yes?

Um the bill on that particular item is SB84.

Um authorized to use the technology to monitor pedestrian crossings and stop signs only in school crossing zones and in highway work zones.

So not and those are defined terms within the act within the statute.

So it's not citywide.

Okay, thank you.

Another uh set of provisions that were uh successes for the city on the address mental health, public health, and community well-being is gun safety.

Now, there were a lot of gun safety bills that passed during the General Assembly.

I'm gonna highlight two that come out of our delegation specifically.

Um, there were a number of bills, including uh Senator Bennett Parker's bill that put firearm restriction of possession restrictions on those who are convicted of domestic violence offenses.

And then um, Senator Avan uh Senator Evan also had a bill uh to ban untraceable ghost guns.

There is legislation pending in this area.

There is a bill that prohibits the sale of assault weapons and high capacity magazines.

Um, it has gone back to the governor for her consideration where she can um she can veto the bill, she can sign the bill into law, or she can do nothing where it would go into, it would have the force of law.

Um, so we're waiting to see what happens with that final gun bill as well.

Uh in the category of advancing opportunity for all Alexandrians, I want to point out the city's great work um in the skill games arena.

The legislation, the city opposed skill games and the use of skill games in the jurisdiction of the city.

And uh there was a bill from Senator Rouse that sought to authorize and regulate the use of skill games across the commonwealth.

Uh it allowed for an opt-out referendum.

So city, the city could hold a referendum and prevent these machines from coming in with an opt-out referendum.

Uh, again, we were hard opposed on this uh bill.

It was vetoed by the governor.

And we are keeping an eye on this though, because the provisions of this bill could end up coming back into the budget.

So we were watching closely the budget negotiations to make sure that that doesn't re-emerge.

Also in the advanced opportunity for all Alexandrians, uh, there's the immigration enforcement, which we know is a high priority for city council and for the community.

Uh legislation that passed came from our own delegate Lopez that restricts state and local law enforcement from entering into partnerships with immigration enforcement.

That is mandatory.

It is effective July 1.

Legislation that is pending back with the governor are two of the other bills that are really in this bouquet of of um immigration enforcement bills.

One is um it was actually originally also a delegate Lopez bill that got rolled into uh delegate Calson's bill.

It prevents immigration enforcement in certain sensitive locations.

And by sensitive locations, we're talking about courthouses, we're talking about health facilities, we're talking about schools, we're talking about polling places.

Um, the other bill prohibits any law enforcement officer from wearing a facial covering while engaged in their duties.

There are some exceptions, and again, the city played a critical role in the negotiations on scoping what those exceptions would be.

Uh, two of the exceptions that I will highlight is somebody who is undercover.

Um, and the second one would be just making sure that um our officers can wear sunglasses in the line of duty, all toward an eye, making sure that they could perform their public safety um responsibilities.

Uh I have a question for M Councilman Green.

Yeah.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Uh HB 1441.

Uh, can you define restricts, like what are the restrictions?

Yes.

Um, so 1441 is primarily about the so-called 287G agreements, which we are we do not have an Alexandria, but it basically says if you want to enter into a 287G agreement, there's an enumerated list of like 10 requirements that the agreement would have to include that are um, you know, pretty pretty uh high-level requirements.

So I could name that or read them off to you, but it's a long bill and it it effectively really narrows the kinds of uh permitted agreements that we could enter into if we ever wanted to.

Yeah.

Also in the pillar of advanced opportunity for all Alexandrians, I want to point out the constitutional amendments that passed um this General Assembly session.

Um HJ1, which was championed by um Majority Leader Herring from our delegation, provides a fundamental right to reproductive freedom.

And HJ3 uh that was championed by our Senator Ebben removes current uh removes current constitutional definition of marriage and affirmatively requires the Commonwealth to recognize any lawful marriage between two adults, regardless of sex, gender, or race.

These measures are going to be on the November 3rd ballot.

Moving on to the pillar about promoting civic engagement and election integrity, two more constitutional amendments.

One is HJ4, which provided provided explicit authority to the General Assembly to modify congressional districts outside of the decentennial cycle, decennial cycle, I can say it.

Uh it the redistrict referendum, as you know, was held on the 21st.

The Supreme Court of Virginia overturned the referendum.

Uh, the other constitutional amendment, HJ2, again championed by uh Senator Bennett Parker, provides that anyone convicted of a felony upon release shall have their civil rights, including voting rights restored.

That is going to also be on the November 3rd ballot.

Before I hand it off to Bonnie, there are a few bills that don't quite fit into the city's priority buckets but are worth pointing out because they remain pending and they're consequential to the city.

The first is the collective bargaining bill that would um grant state authority to require collective bargaining across all localities in the commonwealth.

Um, the city already has collective bargaining.

Uh the cannabis retail market bill, which would establish uh the right to sell uh cannabis outside of medical cannabis and and regulations uh that would uh control that sale.

And then there is a paid sick leave bill that got sent back to the governor for her consideration.

I I know that the city already has really comprehensive sick leave.

This doesn't change that sick leave very much.

It's the nuance, we have really good benefits for the city.

Yeah.

Okay.

Sorry, real fast on the cannabis retail market.

Don't have to answer right now.

If you guys can come back to us with some more information in terms of what is the percentage that it's going to be taxed and what each one of those percents are going to go towards.

You know, when we were first talking about legalizing cannabis uh several years back, I remember one of the conversations we were having was not just access to capital, but also having minority-owned businesses in this uh specific market.

Um we can take a look at that.

I don't know why I I have like a I had a whole chart on this and I didn't bring it with me, but I can send it to you as soon as I get back to it.

Uh oh, I'm gonna hand it to Bonnie.

Okay.

Um, so as we mentioned, there were approximately 40 bills this session that provided optional new authority for localities, all of which are summarized in your docket materials.

Um, many of which Wendy has already highlighted.

The bill span a number of subject areas.

I've just put a couple of topics on the slide, um, including housing and land use, public safety, taxation, finance procurement.

Some examples include new authority related to requiring EV infrastructure requirements as part of our subdivision ordinance, some financing tools for affordable housing, um, the ability to impose different tax rates for electric landscaping equipment.

Um, so at this stage, staff is continuing to review implementation impacts and implications associated with the bills, and we anticipate returning to the council with recommendations for potential implementation in the in the coming months.

And of course, we would welcome your input at any time regarding um any one of these that might be a priority for you for further evaluation.

Councilman Gare looked it up.

It's between 1% and 3.5% in its sliding, and the locality would have some uh autonomy to figure that out as well.

Madam Mayor.

Uh the sliding part is kind of what I'm interested in as well.

I'm um very excited about some of that.

Noted if we will make sure that that's in consideration when we bring this back before council.

Um all right.

Uh next slide is uh moving into the state budget.

I wanna uh spoil a little alert, we don't have a budget, uh, but if you'll uh you will recall we talked about the biannual budget, the budget that's being considered by the General Assembly still is uh the FY27 2028 budget.

Um we had many budget priorities for the city.

I'm just going to talk about five of them uh really quickly here, and I'm gonna go into two of them a little bit deeper.

We had transit, which is WAMATA and VRE, Freedom House Museum, the Urban Area Security Initiative, which was federal funding we lost in national security area, uh schools, uh mostly for construction purposes, but also just funding our schools with the needs that need to be met, and then pass through dollars for local SNAP operations so that we can administer SNAP outside because of the changes that I mentioned earlier by HR one.

Uh quickly, uh the rebuild critical school infrastructure.

There was legislation that did not advance that would have authorized a 1% sales and use tax for school construction.

Um that the similar provision is included in the Senate budget currently.

The provision that is currently in the Senate budget does not allow to pay down debt service.

Um we are working with our peer communities to make sure that our uh preference is clear that we can use that funding if we the referendum went into effect to pay down debt service, which would be essential to the city.

Uh, the other provision worth pointing out in this area is funding for the joint subcommittee on elementary and secondary education funding.

Both the House and Senate provide funding toward this initiative, which is um important because it's one of the it is the entity at the uh the General Assembly level that is looking into implementing the JLARC recommendations about what the school funding formula can and should look like.

The next slide is on strengthening transit infrastructure and clean energy transition.

This is Wamata and VRE funding.

We had four bills that were looking to uh create new regional, statewide and permanent funding mechanisms for WAMATA and other funding or other transportation uh across the Commonwealth.

It did not, those bills did not advance.

Uh the house bid the house budget bill provides 150 million over the biennium for operating assistance and expenses for Wamata.

It doesn't have VRE funding or capital costs.

The Senate budget uh wants to use revenues that are actually the linchpin for what's holding up the budget negotiations.

This is the removal of the data center exemption for taxes on what they purchase qualifying data centers can have that tax exemption for things that they purchase within the data center.

That money would be provide 100, like you can see the hundred point, 190.4 million in capital costs for Mamada over the biennium.

The Senate bill also includes funding for Wamada opera, like minimal funding for Womana operations, minimal funding for VRE and $90 million for statewide transit systems.

Neither the House nor Senate bill is ideal for the city.

We are again working with our regional partners and our peer communities to convey what uh the city's budget priorities would be are remain in this area.

I have a question from Councilman China.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

And I apologize.

And I know we've talked uh a couple of times, but um can you going back to that last slide about the 1%?

Kind of what was the what was in terms of your thoughts and about why that didn't um that didn't advance.

I didn't advance.

Um I it's a hard one.

I I think one reason it's in advance is because it was a budget item from the outset.

I'm I can look, Sarah, do you have thoughts on why that might not have advanced or what prohibited that bill from going forward other than I know there was a discussion about affordability and you know, did that get aligned and that I'm new here, I don't know how to turn on the mic.

Apologies.

Um that one has always been sort of a fraught issue from year.

I mean, this has been a perennial issue.

And the idea of you know, a single percent of your own sales tax going to fund your own school construction.

It is it is a uh it's been a struggle over the years.

I think to some degree there is some uh concern that it because it in a lot of places it wouldn't raise that much revenue.

It it gives people a sense that this is solving a problem.

Um, that this is a magic bullet that is going to solve a problem.

Where in some localities, this would not generate very much revenue, but some revenue is better than no revenue, particularly in an area where a lot of localities don't have access to a lot of the revenue or the the grants and the the money that that's out there to do um school construction.

So I would say that I think this is just one of those things that gets caught up in a lot of things.

It gets caught up in budget, shenanigans, it gets caught up in the idea of letting not letting uh do we uh look for the perfect thing or do we let perfect be the enemy of good.

Um, it is something that we're gonna, I think we got closer this year than we did have in a lot of years.

Um and it's still in um it's still part of the ongoing budget negotiations.

Um, and I know uh so it's still sort of out there for consideration.

Um, and I'm sure it will be back next year if it doesn't show up in the budget.

Um, but yeah, this one's kind of a uh a strange thing.

I think what it does point to is the need for there to be more options on the table for discussion about how do we fund school construction and renovation, especially in localities like Alexandria, where we are growing, but we are also older and our facilities have different needs.

Um, and we have limited, if any, access to the existing uh uh projects and programs that in some places allow for uh grants and you know, uh and loans and things when it comes to school construction that Alexander just doesn't have that access to.

So again, I think long game, it sort of points to the need for more tools in this toolbox.

No, I appreciate that.

I think one of the things that we will probably uh I think this would be an opportunity to bring legislators up to Alexandria to have them look at our uh roughest looking school.

Um I think you know, recently ACPS um hosted um the Department of Education uh for a couple of meetings, um, but they took them in Mini Howard.

Um and frankly, no offense to anyone, that those aren't the places folks need to go to understand our concern.

Um, they need to go to some of our older schools that have a little bit of leakage, and maybe there's an interesting little smell when you walk on the door.

Um, just to understand that yes, we have needs, we have needs that need to be supported by state dollars.

And so, you know, uh I think as we look at kind of opportunities and strategy, maybe that is one that we partner with ACPS to have uh a different sort of uh meet and greet or um tour about our spaces.

Thanks.

Thank you, councilman.

I swear I'm almost finished.

Um, the important remaining general assembly dates, uh, May 22nd is the last day for the governor to consider legislation that is still pending with her.

Uh, we know there's going to be a special session reconvene for the budget, but we don't know when, but we're um pretty hopefully certain that it's before July 1, because as you'll see on July 1, that's the start of the fiscal year and the effective date for legislation, unless that's legislation specifically indicates uh there's an a different effective date.

And I am gonna end there and see if y'all have any additional questions.

Uh thank you, Director Ginsburg for the presentation and team.

Are there any additional questions?

Okay.

Seeing none, we'll look forward to uh the different updates we get when you come back uh with our new permissive authorities.

Thank you all.

Madam Clerk, next item.

Contested appointments.

Okay, as is our practice.

I will read the names of those who received votes, and then I will ask for a motion at the end to um move all of the majority vote getters.

Our first item is the Alexandria Housing Affordability Advisory Committee.

Melissa Saith um received all seven votes of the council and is appointed.

Well, well, you guys will.

Next is the commission on employment.

This is for one representative from a recognized business area, including minority owned and small businesses.

Paloma Martinez received all seven votes of the council.

The next is for uh commission on persons with disabilities, and it is for one citizen member.

Federic Kewenda received two votes, that of Chapman and Green.

Jonathan McCall received five votes, that of El Nubi, Bagley, Gaskins, Agire, and Marks.

Next is the community criminal justice board.

This is for two citizen members.

Stacey M.

Harris received all seven votes of the council, and Elisha Nightingale received all seven votes of the council.

The next one is for the Public Records Advisory Commission, and this is for one citizen member.

Stephanie Bowers received two votes, that of Green and Aguirre, and James McKean received five votes.

Al Nubi, Chapman, Gaskins, Bagley, and Marks.

Finally, we have the Independent Community Policing Review Board and Alex.

This is for one citizen member, Alexis Stackhouse received all seven votes of the council.

Is there a motion at this time?

Motion to approve the majority vote patterns.

All right.

There has been a motion by Vice Mayor Bagley and a second by Councilwoman Green.

Madam Clerk, this is a roll call vote.

Please call the roll.

Councilman Green.

Aye.

Aye.

Councilman Gary.

Councilman Chapman.

Councilman Al Newby.

Aye.

Councilwoman Morris.

Aye.

Okay.

The ayes have it.

Congratulations to all of our new appointees.

Madam Clerk, next item.

Consideration of city council schedule.

Hi, Mayor.

All right, Vice Mayor Bagley.

Motion to approve the city council schedule at docketed.

Second.

It's been a motion by Vice Mayor Bagley and a second by Councilman Green to approve the city council schedule.

Is there any discussion?

Hearing none, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

The ayes have it.

Madam Mayor, motion to adjourn.

There's been a motion by Vice Mayor Jagley to adjourn and a second by Councilwoman Green.

Any further discussion?

All right.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The ayes have it, and we are adjourned.