The Chesapeake City Council held a regular meeting on June 25, 2024 at 6:30 p.m. in the City Hall Council Chamber, preceded by a work session at 5:15 p.m. on budget amendments and Dominion Energy projects. The meeting included presentations, public hearings, a consent agenda, multiple budget amendments, zoning changes, citizen comments, board appointments, and a contested reconsideration vote on the accelerated proffer modification for The Commons development. The meeting adjourned into closed session at 7:55 p.m.
On Public Hearing Items: No speakers.
On Agenda Items Only:
Non-Agenda Citizen Comments:
I want to welcome everyone to our January 25th, 2024 work session for council. Mr. Manager, please. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Two items this evening. The first is uh as you recall, every year when we adopt the budget, and then we don't have complete information. So state budget's not totally finalized. Um we have uh information from funding partners that is still out there. Um school's budget is not completely finalized based on a state budget, so we have a lot of uh amendments we need to immediately turn around and do so. Um budget director Jonathan Hobbs will give an overview of the items for consideration this evening, and then second, our friends from Dominion Energy are here to provide some updates on projects going on in the city, and so uh we'll we'll get to hear from them as well. So I'll turn it over to Mr. Hobbs. Thank you, Chris. I don't need that microphone. Yeah, hey Chris. It's the voice of God calling. All right, is that better? Yes, okay. Sorry about that, everybody. I I guess we tested it earlier, and it wasn't like that, I promise. Good evening. Uh as Chris mentioned, tonight I'm gonna be walking you through the final budget amendments and technical corrections for the FY25 operating budget and CIP for your consideration later this evening in your formal meeting. Uh we're going to start off with the school operating budget amendments, then we'll move to the CIP amendments. Uh, then we'll move to the city operating budget amendments, and we will conclude uh this presentation with some technical corrections. So as we go to the first slide, which is our two school amendments. I wanted to show everyone that there is a uh number and a letter beside each of these items that corresponds to the memo that you received in your packet. So there is additional information obviously in your packet uh regarding some of these items, but just wanted you to have that uh corresponding number and letter designation uh for future reference. So the first amendment is the five million dollar increase to the school athletic fund. This was a part of the original May 14 uh budget, and there was some uh request for additional information from city council. That information uh was provided by the schools, and we discussed this item at the June 10th uh retreat, and council requested that this item be brought back forward, so it is here tonight for your consideration. Next is about a uh $11.9 million dollar increase in the school budget. Uh this is associated or a result of the recently adopted state budget. The state is providing additional funding uh to the schools, and this funding will be used for a number of initiatives uh to include the at-risk program, the hiring of some additional English learner uh teachers, infrastructure improvements to fund increasing utility and maintenance costs, uh adding additional elementary school uh school resource officer deputy, uh, an additional high school security officer, some security officer training, and finally an ISS coordinator position. Moving to the CIP, we have several new projects. These are a result of recent awards that we received from VDOT and the Federal Rail Administration. The first two projects here that we are asking to be established in the CIP are both related to or aligned with City Council's desired outcome of connectivity, specifically uh physical connectivity. Uh one is for a sidewalk connection along Great Bridge Boulevard, and the second is a multi-use path connection along Gum Road. Both of these projects are programmed over the first three years of the CIP. The vast majority of funding for both of these projects is from V DOT, and there is a small local match associated with both of these projects, and we are recommending that this match be funded through the high priority one-time account. Again, two more projects also related to connectivity. Both of these are along CEDA Road. One is a sidewalk conversion to a multi-use path, and the second one is a sidewalk connection along CETA Road. Same story as the previous two projects. These are programmed over the first three years of the CIP. The majority of the funding is from VDOT, and there is a local match that we are again recommending be funded by the high priority one-time account. The final new project that we are requesting or recommending be established in the CIP is the Portlock Rail Road Railroad Overpass Bridge project. This project is more of a preliminary project to look at alternatives for a future project. This project is funded by the federal high excuse me, federal railway administration. There is a small state contribution to the project and a local match that we are recommending be funded from the South Morfolk TIFF as this project is within the TIFF district.