Date: November 28, 2023
Time: Work Session at 5:00 p.m.; Regular Meeting at 6:30 p.m.
Location: City Hall Council Chamber, 306 Cedar Road, Chesapeake, VA
The Chesapeake City Council held a combined work session and regular meeting on November 28, 2023. The work session (5:00–6:04 p.m.) included discussions on the FY24 legislative package and a rural planning update. The regular meeting (6:30 p.m.–10:33 p.m.) featured special recognitions, a statement condemning antisemitism, public hearings on nine planning items, and several administrative actions. Key decisions included approval of battery storage zoning amendments, several rezoning and use permit approvals, revocation of a conditional use permit for a wood debris mulching facility, and direction to staff to initiate an ordinance closing the agricultural subdivision loophole.
Want to welcome everyone to our November 28, 2023 council work session. Mr. Manager Royal Rural Planning and Legislative Very exciting subjects today. They're very exciting. First up, uh we'll do our legislative uh update uh with uh Mr. Westcott. Second, we'll do a rural preservation uh rural planning update uh with uh uh Mr. McNamara, both timely topics, but uh particularly given this time of year, we we always do our our uh getting ready for the General Assembly session, and we are in the capable hands of uh our legislative affairs director, Mr. David Westcott. I'll turn it over to David. Well, I think this is probably the most uh important presentation that we'll get tonight, other than well than what Jimmy's gonna present tonight uh because everything is dependent on uh the General Assembly as a Dillon Rule state. But uh Mayor West, uh Vice Mayor D. And members of council, I'm really honored to be before you today to celebrate the collective success we have achieved over the past three years, in addition to presenting to you all the FY24 legislative package. Together, our commitment to our legislative priorities has yielded tremendous results through our dedicated efforts. We have not only secured close to $33 million in federal and state funding in the past three years, but have also accomplished nearly all of our top legislative priorities in those years. These combined victories have empowered us to continue making meaningful improvements to the fabric of our community, but also helping us seek new opportunities. As we look at our accomplishments, we must also turn our gaze to the horizon in acknowledging the changes that loom in the upcoming General Assembly session. With the introduction of 18 new Senate members and 34 House members, which will be 52 total new members in the General Assembly of 140, the landscape is evolving very quickly. This presents both a both challenge and opportunity for us to extend our hand in friendship and cooperation with the sessions to come. We will embrace this transition as a chance to forge new relationships, cultivate friendships with the incoming members. In the spirit of unity, we will work closely with these new members, emphasizing the importance of local government and the invaluable role it plays in serving our community together as one cohesive unit. Together we can transcend political boundaries, focusing on the shared goals of advancing the well-being and prosperity of the City of Chesapeake. Moving on to uh the overview of session, what does that look like as far as dates? Some of the key dates that us legislative liaisons, and there's 13 of us throughout the entire state of Virginia, including Northern Virginia. Um, we look at the governor's introduced budget, which is December 20th. And that kind of is going to give us the lay of the land as to what uh monetary things we'll see in the budget and what things are getting fun more funding, what things are not getting more funding, but certainly that is a date that is very important to us as well as the city. The first day of session uh is gonna be January 10th. Crossover, since this is a long session, crossover will probably be about the first week of February, if not maybe the second week. And really, it all depends on how many bills are gonna be filed through this session. On typical session, I mean we could probably see well over uh upwards of probably 2,500 bills introduced. So that's a lot of bills uh that we'll have to you know scan through. But the day I like to look forward to is probably as well as citizens throughout the Commonwealth is the last day of session, which is March 9th. So the say the date, I've always had this because this is just to give y'all a reference as to what I look at and what other lobbyists throughout the Commonwealth look at as far as getting legislation filed. Uh pre-file has already begun, and what pre-file is is uh really delegates and senators have an unlimited amount of bills that up to a certain reason. Um I think that number is about 40. Uh we have two members, not in our delegation, but in other delegation that already has 34 bills pre-filed. But um they can submit as many bills as they want up to the pre-file deadline, which is gonna be the deadline is gonna be this uh this coming uh week. No, it should be this week, November 30th. And so any legislation that is uh submitted to Division of Legislative Services after that counts towards your total of five bills that you're allowed to carry or introduce after the November 30th deadline. And that deadline to introduce all legislation is January 10th, which is a date that all of us in the General Assembly look forward to because we know there's no more bills coming before us that we're gonna probably have to review. Um as always, uh the end of session, since it's a long year, is probably gonna be around March 9th, depending on if we can get finished in time. So there's a we've have a couple of new members since the la of council since the last time I presented this legislative package to you all uh last November. But how do we really formulate our legislative package? First, um we form it by seeking input of council in the May-June time frame where we send out an email saying, hey, is there anybody that would like to uh talk about legislative items that for the package? Is there anybody that would like to submit legislative requests to be in the package uh for this year? We also work with our city department managers as well as staff in those departments. And quite honestly, that you know, it really starts in May, but it really starts at the end of March once I get back from session here to Chesapeake. We already start formulating the package and what it's gonna look like. Um but probably most importantly is the commissions and the meetings that I attend and other liaisons attend throughout the Commonwealth throughout the year. That could, you know, there's I think a total of like 27 or 20 between 27 and 32 different committees and commissions that meet throughout the year when the General Assembly is not in session.